Circuit Issue 11 - The 2014 Grad Issue by Whitman College Wire

THE CIRCUIT 2014 GRADUATION ISSUE a publication of the whitman pioneer

Reflections, Advice from 2013 Alumni pg. 7

Senior Profiles pg. 14

Class of 2014 Survey pg. 20

Maintaining Family Legacy pg. 33

T EDITOR’S LETTER

he morning I left for college is still a vivid memory to me. I woke up at 5 a.m. to catch my flight and hurriedly said goodbye to my mother, upset that she wasn’t able to come to the airport to drop me off. Yet, despite how clear this memory is to me today, it’s almost surreal how different I’ve become in a short four-year time period. Now, as I prepare to say goodbye to Whitman, I reluctantly leave the community that has defined me and that I’ve come to love enough to call home. I traveled nearly 596 miles to attend Whitman, but in some sense, this number doesn’t sum up exactly how much distance and growth I’ve gained at Whitman, as I suspect is also the case with many of my peers. My predecessors on The Pioneer, who created such large footprints to fill, have written about how much The Pioneer has profoundly impacted their Whitman experience, and as I sit here today, I can definitively say in agreement that who I am today is largely a result of my time here. For The Pioneer, I’ve interviewed Whitman students, professors, staff and Walla Walla community members with diverse backgrounds and ample knowledge to share. Each of these interviews is a lesson in itself and I’m humbled to have heard and interpreted these stories for the past several years. At the same time, I’ve been privileged to work with staff members who have made staying up until 3 a.m. on Wednesday production nights thrilling and who have given me greater confidence in my writing and leadership abilities. Though Whitman is well-known for its academics and classroom experiences, some of my most memorable moments of growth have occurred outside of the classroom. Valuable memories of talking to professors in office hours about the definition of cultural capital, baking my first apple pie with homemade dough surrounded by friends and counting stars in the middle of Ankeny Field with my first-year section all mark a period of maturity for me. Although I’m almost certain that I’ll never become a professional journalist, a baker or even a professor, these moments in time have all been an essential part of my journey to adulthood. As I prepare to enter post-graduate life, a full-time job and the possibility of graduate school, I take with me the creativity and confidence that I’ve developed at Whitman. Who I am today would not have been the same without the home I’ve found for myself at the paper and within the larger Whitman and Walla Walla communities. In just a few days, my fellow seniors and I will officially no longer be associated with the college as students. Instead, we graduate into an entirely different league: alumni. We’ll be pressured to define success in different ways, whether that be in terms of how much we have in our bank accounts or how well networked we are. For me, though, I already feel like I’m entering this mysterious arena with a large reserve of success. For success is in the journey of growth, and each and every one of us has certainly grown in some way or another at Whitman. It has been an honor and privilege to have matured in this community and to have called my fellow Whitties family. Thank you. Love, Shelly

EDITORIAL PRODUCTION Editor-in-Chief

Production Manager

Managing Editor

Production Associates

Shelly Le

Pam London

Editors

Hannah Bartman Sarah Cornett Emily Lin-Jones Quin Nelson Dylan Tull

Photography Editor Catie Bergman

Illustration Editor Luke Hampton

Web Editor Ben Schaefer

2 | TheCircuit

Sean McNulty

Jess Faunt Molly Johanson Marianne Kellogg Haley Larson Jesse Moneyhunn Abby Seethoff

Chief Copy Editor Karah Kemmerly

Copy Editors Natalie Berg Lauren Sewell Flora Sheppard

The Circuit is a publication of the Whitman Pioneer.

THE CIRCUIT

The Pioneer is an entirely student-run publication published under the auspices of the Associated Students of Whitman College. Questions and letters to the editor can be submitted to editors@ whitmanpioneer.com. All submissions must be attributed and may be edited for concision and fluency.

The Pioneer operates under the guidelines of its code of ethics, a document that is reviewed at least once per semester. To access the complete code of ethics of The Pioneer, please visit whitmanpioneer.com/about. For information about subscriptions or advertising, please contact business@ whitmanpioneer.com.

TheCircuit | 3

FAVORITE MEMORY MATRICULATION LIST SENIOR PROFILES THE BOOK REBORN OFF THE COURT

THESIS PROCESS

7 1114202632

One Year Out: CLASS OF

Reflections from the

2013 by Sarah Cornett

ollowing graduation, there is a great spectrum of plans: some students may be on their way to graduate school. Others may have a job or internship lined up. Some may return home and others may spend time traveling, liberated from the confines of an academic schedule. For members of the class of 2013, many of whom have been in school consistently for almost twenty years, the post-grad experience brings with it many emotions: excitement, indecision, sentimentality and challenged or exceeded expectations. Alumna Marie von Hafften ‘13, like many other recent alumni, has struggled with the seemingly wide open space following graduation. The stressful nature of a typical senior year at Whitman often means that many students have little time to think about their post-grad plans and decide what kinds of things they want to do following Whitman. “We were really focused on our senior year, our thesis, and then it happens—you’re suddenly out of the school system and go through this searching process to figure out what’s next,” she said. Having the freedom to move from place to place and not be re-

4 | TheCircuit

stricted by a schedule or academic expectations challenged von Hafften. After being in school for so long, it was difficult to adjust to the lack of restrictions, but this difficulty manifested itself in a positive way. “I felt like there was a lot of momentum at Whitman—every year built on the next one. Now, I know that I don’t want to go to grad school yet. It’s liberating and it’s scary. One big thing is that there’s no external person now, no academic adviser or anything like that. You have to rely on your own judgment, and surround yourself by mentors and peers who are going through the same process.” von Hafften has done just that, spending the first months after graduation in Romania doing arche-

ological digs, then traveling around eastern Europe. After a year of traveling and spending time at home in Alaska, she is now living in Portland and working as a blogger. Alumnus Alex Brott ‘13, too, has had to wrestle with the freedom afforded by graduation. He has taken it in stride, and also spent time traveling and at home before moving to Seattle, where he currently is working as a political organizer. “It’s really freeing. Whitman is such a tight knit community and there’s so much going on, that I felt pressured to do a lot all the time— be very social, and make the most of the limited time and opportunities that we had,” he said. Now, Brott sets his own schedule and doesn’t feel as bogged down

by the stress of the active and hectic Whitman lifestyle. “I can take my same drive and still be doing things I enjoy. I’m doing all these things that I want to be doing, but without the same grind, without the same pressure to do so. There’s no fear of missing out anymore. I can’t even tell you how liberating it’s been. To be in an environment that’s just calmer. No social pressure.” Still, he misses Whitman’s culture of mindfulness. “A Whitman education is at this caliber that we take for granted while we’re at Whitman, and when we take that same work ethic and intelligence and creativity outside of Whitman -I think it blows people away.”

“A Whitman education is at this caliber that we take for granted while we’re at Whitman, and when we take that same work ethic and intelligence and creativity outside of Whitman--I think it blows people away.” Alumnus Alex Brott ‘13 Brott found a job almost immediately when he moved to Seattle in the fall of last year, after spending the summer working in Israel with Lian Caspi ‘13 through a Davis Project for Peace grant and hiking the John Muir Trail in California. He now works as an organizer for Fuse Washington, the biggest political progressive group in the state, organizing campaigns and advocacy work in Seattle. Brott said that he expected the year following graduation to be unorganized and challenging, but has been lucky to find a job in the field he wanted to go into and to live in a place where he’s among friends in the form of Whitman grads. “I heard this sentiment from a number of grads – this idea of the lost year, spending one year between [age] 22 and 26 searching [for a way to define yourself that’s not ‘student’]. I was expecting this year to be that for me, having a hard time getting a job.

But I found work in the field I wanted to work in almost immediately.” While Brott and von Hafften have settled in big cities, some members of the class of 2013 have chosen to return to Walla Walla. Ryan Nesbit ‘13 moved back to Walla Walla at the beginning of this year after living in Portland, leading outdoor trips in Oregon, traveling across North America and trying his hand at winemaking and kombucha brewing. “Compared to my expectations, I have been pleasantly surprised with the number of times my path has crossed with other Whitties, in the middle of the wilderness or for a brief hour at an airport, but also challenged by the difficulty of finding work,” he said. Nesbit now works as an AVID tutor at Walla Walla High School and is trying to learn more about the local wine industry. He says his post-grad experience has been rewarding in allowing him time to pursue non-academic hobbies and interests. “I’ve definitely enjoyed the freedom to learn about what I want to learn about and have more time to spend reading and pursuing extraacademic passions.” All three graduates still find themselves connected to Whitman’s pervasive social network. Five Whitman grads work in Brott’s Seattle office building, Nesbit regularly encounters students and al-

ums in Walla Walla and von Hafften keeps in touch with Whitman friends in Portland. The academic and transformative experience of four years at Whitman has stuck with them, and can be evidenced in the work they’re choosing to do now. “I took a Politics class with Shampa Biswas, and at the end of the class she told all of us, ‘I hope your experience at Whitman will make it so that you can’t sleep at night,’” said van Hofften. “I think she meant that she hopes we gain a critical framework of the world that in a good and challenging way keeps you from being comfortable. That’s really stayed with me, and I’m doing that in my job now, writing about international development. It’s weird what sticks with you.”

TheCircuit | 5

ADVERTISEMENTS

Whitman HUB Building connections for your career and beyond

PORTLAND

Will you be in a Whitman Hub this summer? For more information about the Hubs and what they have to offer, visit here:

www.whitman.edu/hubs

SEATTLE

Join us this summer for Hub Launch events details can be found on the website

SAN FRANCISCO

Congratulations Whitman Investment Company for another successful year! Advisors:

Eli Lewis, CEO Lee Sanning

Phil Chircu, CFO Pete Parcells

Back: Lee Sanning, Bill Landefeld, Phil Chircu, Noah Jensen, Michael Axelson, Willem Rasmussen, Keenan Durham Front: Spencer Corwin, Allison Kelly, Nick Prevot, Tabor Martinsen, Rob Dalton, Eli Lewis 6 | TheCircuit Not Pictured: Zoe Buck, Clara Merlino, Tim Reed Allison Kelly, COO

Harry Potter

Off the Court: Alindogan and Anderegg reflect on their journey to the NCAA Final Four by SARAH ANDEREGG & MARAH ALINDOGAN This semester, seniors Marah Alindogan and Sarah Anderegg juggled the positions of being Pio sports reporters while also playing on the Whitman women’s basketball team—national runners-up and one of the most successful teams in school history. Alindogan and Anderegg reflected on their journeys as Whitman basketball players from being lowly underclassmen to taking the court at the national championship game. Being Underclassmen Sarah Anderegg: Initially, I wasn’t completely thrilled about the idea of going to Whitman. I was looking at bigger schools with bigger programs, hoping that all the time and energy I spent on basketball would earn me a scholarship. If it wasn’t for [Head Women’s Basketball] Coach Michelle Ferenz, it is doubtful that I would be here today. The college recruiting process can be very dehumanizing, and many coaches recruit players by treating them like commodities. It is a business, and they don’t care if you are a ‘good’ person, as long as you have a killer step-back jumper or can nail a deep three. Out of all the coaches that I talked to, Coach Ferenz was the only one that made me feel like a person, like she genuinely cared. Although I was reluctant, I believe I made one of the best decisions of my life when I accepted my admittance at Whitman. It was difficult adjusting to the speed and intensity of college basketball. I spent most of my first two years just trying to stay afloat, balancing the transition from high school to college both athletically and academically. I came to Whitman having never lifted weights, and I quickly learned the hard way that I was behind the pack. Hitting the floor for the first time at open gym was a brutal wake up call and welcome to the team. Although

that was not the first (or last) time I fell, I was greeted with the hands of teammates waiting to pick me up, reassuring me that I was not alone. I will never forget the tough love given to me by [alumna] Anna Forge ‘12, and even though I had to fight off the urge to punch her most days, I can honestly say that she made me a better player every single day. I might not have appreciated it then, but she made me a stronger person, both mentally and physically. If I even tried to hit her four years ago, she is so strong that I am confident she would have broken my twig arm, but today, I think the fight might be a bit more even. The roller coaster of freshman and sophomore year taught me that life is full of challenges, but it doesn’t matter how many times you fall down, just how many times you stand back up. Marah Alindogan: Why Whitman? My campus visit during my senior year solidified Whitman as my school of choice. Let me just say that Head Coach Michelle Ferenz is an amazing recruiter. By the end of one conversation, you are convinced that Whitman is the school for you. The sense of family that Ferenz’s program prides itself on was exactly what I was looking for. Even to this day, I can see Ferenz’s motherly tendencies. She will call me “honey” or asks questions about my life because she cares about my well-being. She is not only a coach in the game of basketball, but in life as well. I remember the first day I met my teammates like it was yesterday. We all went to captain’s practice to get a few scrimmages in and all the freshmen coincidentally arrived at the Sherwood Center at the same time. “I’m so nervous,” I remember saying. I still remember my first shot I ever made as a collegiate basketball player. I launched a jump shot on the left corner [and] to my surprise—swish—it went in.

TheCircuit | 7

Sex Column

Freshman and sophomore years proved to be extremely difficult for me. The adjustment to the collegiate game, especially in a high-caliber program, was mentally and physically exhausting. One upperclassman in particular, Jenn Keyes ‘12, pushed me through my times of struggle. To this day, it is the thought of Keyes’s unconditional kindness that prevents me from giving up. Junior Year SA: After coming out of the sophomore slump and having two years under my belt, I had finally adjusted to the high intensity of the game. We started the year off with few expectations, only with the understanding that we had the potential to have a decent season. Little did we know, our season would far exceed our expectations. The style of our game transitioned from just simply playing basketball to really understanding each other and how our skills worked together. There was a rhythmic flow to our game; it was almost like poetry on the court. We won some big games, even landing a spot in the national rankings, giving us hope for postseason play. After losing in the NWC playoffs, we thought our season was over. It would be an understatement to say we were surprised and incredibly honored when we heard that we received a bid to the national tournament. This second chance inspired us to make the most of the experience and reminded us not to take any practice or game for granted, for you never know when your season could end. MA: This season was a defining moment for the program’s history. We always knew that our team could compete on a national level, but for some reason, the pieces did not align until now. Throughout the season, we went in and out of the national rankings, won some crucial games, lost some close ones—but it was enough

8 | TheCircuit

to get us a bid to the national tournament for the first time in our program’s history. Yet, in the midst of all our team’s success, I suffered an ACL injury. The funny thing about injuries is that you, as an observer, can always sympathize, but you cannot truly understand until you have experienced it. All my life, I considered basketball to be the core of my identity and to have it taken away in a blink of an eye came as a shock to me. Though I would have given anything to play, I could not have been any prouder of our team’s elite eight finish. It was our exit in the elite eight and my ACL injury that motivated me to come back stronger and better the following season. The Big Finish: Senior Year SA: With the success from last year, we were hungry to situate ourselves with the opportunity to get back to the tournament. Determined to prove that our run in the elite eight was not a fluke and that we deserved to be there, our work ethic and focus increased. People would often ask what makes the team so successful. It is not just the fact that we give 110-percent effort every day and will do anything to improve, but the fact that we are always having fun. In between running lines [and] scrimmages that feel like they will never end, you can always hear our laughter rattling through Sherwood. Whether it is senior Meghan White’s (not so) hilarious jokes or dance parties in the weight room, when we are together as a team we are always having the time of our lives. That is what made losing in the national championship so difficult. It wasn’t so much the fact that we let the championship slip through our fingers, but more so the realization that our time together as a team finally came to an end. As a senior, this thought was especially sobering. Regardless of the outcome of the game, win or lose, my career in basketball was going to end that day.

And for anyone who has spent over half their life playing basketball, that’s a hard pill to swallow. As the tears rolled down my cheeks, I had to remind myself not to dwell on just one loss, but look back at the success of the season as a whole: an undefeated regular season, Northwest Conference regular season championship, hosting sectionals, making it all the way to the national championship and all the memories in between. There is something to be so incredibly proud of. With the season that we had, even though we didn’t win the national championship, I can’t help but still feel like a winner. MA: I am so glad that we never know what is to come in life—my senior season was filled with one surprise after another. We began the season ranked 11th in the nation and eventually became first after beating other nationally ranked opponents, we had a 25-0 regular season and we won a Northwest Conference regular season championship. When you are a senior, post-season is a very stressful time because any game can be your last. I was so lucky to be part of a team that shared the same sense of urgency. I had so much trust in my teammates that I secretly knew reaching the national championship game would be no problem. However, once we lost the national championship game, I could not stop crying. I cried not because we lost, but because my journey was over. Coming in as a first-year, little did I know that my basketball career would end with me crying as confetti blew into the air at the national championship game. Though I wonder ”what if” sometimes, I still would not change a thing.

The

Whitman College Bookstore

Congratulates our graduating seniors! Zoë Erb Rose Haag Hanne Jensen Ben Menzies Bailey Richards Nandini Rathi Brittany Stockton Laura West Graduation weekend hours: 9am-5:30pm Saturday and Sunday

We will miss you at Penrose Library!

Congratulations to our senior assistants: Diana Alma Taya Stefanie Barrera Aguila Jane Carmody Ann Chen

Will Gregg Matty Jullamon John Lee Beth Levin

Jake Lindsay Frannie Nunn Benjamin Roberson Alexandra RostonTheCircuit | 9

Photo Essay

A look into

the class of 2014 of the 420 students

In the last 10 years

48%

of alumni have completed another degree or are currently enrolled.

56% & 44%

are female

are male

Number of Students by Major

50+ Biology

20-30

31.2%

s... e e r Of those deg

Academic Masters

27.3%

Professional Masters

14.3% Law

Congratulations, Whitman Class of 2014!

English, Econonomics, BBMB, Philosophy, Politics, Psychology, Sociology

10-19 Art History, Asian Studies, Astronomy, BioGeo, Chem-Geo, Classics, ES-Econ, Econ-Math, French, Film & Media, German, Gender, Music, Natural & Mathematical Sci, Physics-Astro, Physics, ES-Politics, Race & Ethnic, Religion, Rhetoric, ES-Sociology, Spanish, Theatre

10 | TheCircuit

Anthropology, Mathematics, Studio Art, Chemisry, Geology, History

1-9

Treasure your Whitman ties! Sincerely, George S. Bridges President

The

Book Reborn

Is Print Actually Dead? By Ben Caldwell

ou’ve heard it before, you’ll hear it again: the last 15 years have given rise to technologies that have changed almost every aspect of our daily lives. Cell phones and mobile computers of every shape, size and customizable color have ascended to the status of sacred objects that we insist on having on us at all times, while home phones have become increasingly redundant. For most Americans born in the last 30 years, sending letters is almost laughable. The email is a faster, cheaper and more flexible means of communication. And now even the email is being gradually edged out by texting. This evolution isn’t just true of phones and other means of communication. In fact, there is another battle for survival that most have written off as a forgone conclusion. It’s one that has even larger implications about how we record and access our history, our science, our culture and our imagination. It’s one of the greatest inventions of all time, one still being used today in roughly the same form it was thousands of years ago. The book. Every few months for the last six or seven years, some pundit, critic, writer or skeptic has reminded us that print is dead or dying. Or at the very least attached to a breathing machine in some nursing home in Arizona, waiting for its nephew to pull the plug. Or, well … not. Despite the sheer number of times technology has put its knife through the heart of the book with a new generation of ebook eReader, be it Kindle, iPad, Sony knock-off or Nook, the old-fashioned, paperand-ink book is still kicking. In 2013, the ebook’s recent domination of the marketplace faltered. Up until that point, the ebook’s trend in sales growth had been an almost exponential rise over the preceding years, a stark contrast to the steady decline in paper book sales. According to the Association of American Publishers, in the first

eight months of 2013, hardcover book sales increased over 10 percent, doubling the increase in adult ebook sales of 4.8 percent and crushing the total sale of ebooks in America, which was down 5 percent. This is a surprising turn of events considering the trends of 2010, the year many tech-pundits considered a turning point in the history of publishing because Amazon sold three times as many Kindle books in the first six months than it did in the first half of 2009. Four years later we are still waiting for the last gasp. Even with authors like Jonathan Franzen moaning about the tragic state of current affairs in which “the physical book goes on the endangeredspecies list ... responsible book reviewers go extinct ... independent bookstores disappear,” contemporary readers still see books all around them on a daily basis. This is not the first technological revolution that has raised fears about the extinction of human tradition and culture, not even close. Over two millennia ago, Plato worried that dangerous practices like reading and writing would weaken our ability to remember things. To some degree he was right, but by the time of the Renaissance the great thinkers were so attached to written word that they were afraid that the printing press cheapened it by making it too easy to publish, republish and mass produce literature. As Filipo di Strata, a Venetian magistrate in the 15th century complained, “The pen is a virgin, the printing press is a whore.” Today people are terrified we will lose something essential and romantic about the book if we lose the bind-

ing, paper and ink, yet several hundred years ago the philosophers and priests of Europe were concerned about the consequences of reading silently alone in one’s home as it replaced the communal act of reading illuminated manuscripts aloud. But the book didn’t kill the church or the cathedral any more than the newspaper brought about the end of the book, as Théophile Gautier suggested it would in his 1835 novel “Mademoiselle de Maupin.” Now, in the 21st century, we can see that these aren’t the kinds of technology that ever entirely replace one another. Television did not entirely supersede radio, and although we have all heard the argument that the mindless and addictive invention of film has pushed literature out of the picture, it has never done so entirely. In 1966 Marshal McLuhan wrote in “Life” magazine that “clotheslines, seams in stockings, books and jobs—all are obsolete.” But all of these ostensible antiques have survived, because for one reason or another, some portion of the population still finds them useful or appealing. In October of last year, Voxburner, a British marketing research agency, conducted a survey which revealed that 62 percent of people between the ages of 16 and 24 prefer printed books to electronic ones. Despite all the sensationalists who insist on writing its obituaries, print is not dead. Not yet.

TheCircuit | 11

The Circuit guide to

Walla Walla

wineries

9 12 12

S College Ave.

Old H

wy 12

3 4

Amavi Cellars 3796 Peppers Bridge Rd. Walla Walla, WA 99362 (509) 525-3541

Woodward Canyon Winery 11920 W. Hwy. 12 Lowden, WA 99360 (509) 525-4129

Open daily 10 a.m. - 4 p.m.

Our Reserve House restaurant will be serving lunches Thursday-Sunday, 11:30 a.m. - 3:00 p.m. beginning May 8.

Lâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Ecole 41 Lowden School Rd. Lowden, WA 99360 (509) 525-0940

Long Shadows Vintners 1604 Frenchtown Rd. Walla Walla, WA 99362 (425) 454-3918 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. BY APPOINTMENT

Friends of Whitman College may present map in tasting room to waive $10 tasting fee for you and one guest

This weekend Whitman parents enjoy complimentary wine tastingâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;with this ad.

Three Rivers Winery 5641 Old Hwy. 12 Walla Walla, WA 99362 (509) 526-9463 ext. 1 Open daily 10 a.m. - 5 p.m. Offering exclusive case specials as low as $65 per case over the weekend.

Dusted Valley Vintners 1248 Old Milton Hwy. Walla Walla, WA 99362 (509)-525-1337 Thursday-Monday noon - 5 p.m.

Open daily 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.

12 | TheCircuit

ek Rd.

Mill Cre

7 125

Open daily 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.

East

s Av Isaac

125

Walla Walla Area Wineries TO

t eS

Ro 12

Gifford Hirlinger 1450 Stateline Rd. Walla Walla, WA 99362 (509) 301-9229 Friday-Sunday 11 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Buty Winery 535 Cessna Ave. Walla Walla, WA 99362 (509) 527-0901 Friday-Saturday 11 a.m.- 4 p.m. This weekend Whitman parents enjoy complimentary wine tasting. Please present this ad. Buty is Whitman alumna owned.

St. Ro se

Tu c

. ve dA

N 3rd e. Av

St.

ve. Boyer A

Downtown Wineries

St.

ane

St.

st We

St.

in Ma

st We

se Ro

lou

ain M

Ea st

To u

S t.

Ea st

Bergevin Lane Vineyards 1215 W. Poplar St. Walla Walla, WA 99362 (509) 526-4300

Open daily 11 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Open daily 11 a.m. - 4:30 p.m.

No tasting fees for Whitman parents, 15% off case purchases for Whitman parents and 20% off when you join the wine club. Just let us know youâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;re a Whitman parent!

Come visit us and enjoy a complimentary wine tasting just by mentioning this ad!

Otis Kenyon 23 E. Main St. Walla Walla, WA 99362 (509) 525-3505

Spring Valley Vineyard 18 N. 2nd Ave. Walla Walla, WA 99362 (509) 525-1506

Thursday-Monday 11 a.m. - 5 p.m.

Open Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Monday 10:00am to 4:30pm. Sunday 11:00am to 4:30pm

Our 2011 Carmenere has been released and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s tasting great!

Adamant Cellars 525 E. Cessna Ave. Walla Walla, WA 99362 (509) 529-4161

Complimentary tasting fee when bringing in the map. 100% Estate Grown.

Charles Smith & K Vintners 35 S. Spokane St. Walla Walla, WA 99362 (509) 526-5230 Open daily 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.

Tero Estates, Flying Trout Wines, and Waters Winery 6 W. Rose St. Suite 103 (in the Marcus Whitman) Walla Walla, WA 99362 (541) 203-0020 Sunday-Thursday 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. Saturday 10 a.m. - 6 p.m.

TheCircuit | 13

SENIOR PROFILES A

s a small school, Whitman is a tight-knit community with students who have like-minded beliefs and interests. Yet, every now and then we run into an unfamiliar face whose diverse range of academic passions and interests around campus inspire and astound us. The Pioneer sat down with several graduating seniors who have been involved with myriad activities and academic subjects at Whitman to discuss both their interests and achievements and their plans for life beyond Whitman. Ethan Parrish, Rachel Geiter and Elaine Whaley reflect on their athletic accomplishments at Whitman; Annie Watters, Colin Strong and Marie Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Grady give us a glimpse into their thesis research this year; Katie Gorman, Sam Halgren and Erika Zinser Staines share how their creative passions at Whitman have grown into possible careers post-Whitman; Hanne Jensen, McCaulay Singer-Milnes, Genny Jones and Keiler Beers offer their perspective on how they hope to connect with other cultures and individuals with fellowships they have been awarded; and Jeremy Schofield, Tristan Gavin and Julia Stone tell us about their cross-country post-Whitman plans.

Class of 2014

14 | TheCircuit

“

STUDENT ATHLETES

I started playing ultimate in high school. I absolutely loved it. I was actually recruited to play baseball at Whitman, and I played on the team freshman year before I hurt my elbow and needed Tommy John’s surgery. Two weeks after baseball season ended, I went to regionals for Ultimate and that year we made it to Division I nationals. That was my introduction to college ultimate frisbee, which was awesome ... One of the coolest things about ultimate, especially at Whitman is that it is completely our own prerogative. Everything that we do, all the success that we have or all the hours we put in is by choice. I think that the love of the sport, the intrinsic pleasure of the sport drives us to these ends. That speaks to how special ultimate frisbee is in my life ... I like to tell myself that I don’t want to let ultimate frisbee dictate where I end up after college. I’ve had friends in Portland offer to help me get housing or jobs so I can play for the Portland Ultimate team, Portland Rhinos. So there’s a potential I will play after college. At this point, I am not making it a central focus in my post-grad plans. Ultimate Frisbee

ELAINE WHALEY Varsity Golf

“

ETHAN PARRISH

I really got interested in golf because of my dad. My dad was in a men’s group when I was six years old, so he would always take me to the golf course and I would walk the course while he and his friends played. I would always be so amazed at how far he would hit the ball. Now, of course, I always beat him ... Senior year has made me realize that my relationship with golf will shift a little bit. I know I am going to play golf for the rest of my life, but so much of my Whitman life has been about golf and about the girls on the team. It is something that I will always cherish and look back on with such joy ... I am starting law school at Seattle University in the summer. I am also looking into playing in this tour called the Golf Channel Amateur tour ... It is not that hard to get in and you get to play in awesome courses. It allows you the ability to compete. The opportunity I have to compete is something that I never want to give up.

RACHEL GEITER Cycling

I saw the picture of the cycling team on the admissions catalog when I was going to [come to] Whitman ... At the very beginning of freshman year I went on a bike ride with all guys and it was really hard. One of the guys, Ben, who is a professional now, was really encouraging and told me I had a lot of potential to do really well in cycling. That was really encouraging for me to have someone say that ... Things that are painful or are uncomfortable may not be bad for you. Things that are hard may be really good for you and maybe really worthwhile. Often, things that are the most painful are the most worthwhile. For me, I am most happy when I do my best in a race and I push myself harder than I think I can go ... I will be working at Allegro Cycling this summer. Hopefully, I would like to get more into mountain bike racing. I am going to France this next year to teach high school English and I am hoping to do some cyclo-cross there, which is mountain biking and road biking combined.

TheCircuit | 15

“

FELLOWSHIP RECIPIENTS

“

McCAULAY SINGER-MILNES

[I will be studying in] a program in Jaipur to study Hindi. It’s a language intensive program. They say you study a year’s worth of language in two months. It’s run through the State Department ... I wanted to go back to India. I’ve been scheming ... a way to get back to India since I returned [after studying abroad there last spring]. I felt like my journey wasn’t done there ... [India] was new and exciting. I loved all the people that I met ... Now as I go back and want to gain that next level of cultural immersion, I feel like language is the way to do that ... I think I’ll be staying with a host family ... I like the idea of merging my interest in language with my interest in literature. My hope this that I’m able to read the books I’ve been studying in Hindi ... I hope to go to grad school and be able to use Hindi ... whether that’s pursuing South Asian Studies or comparative literature.

Critical Language Scholarship in Jaipur, India

HANNE JENSEN

Fulbright English Teaching Assistant in Germany I will be teaching English in a high school ... in Teterow in MecklenburgVorpommer, which is in the far northeast of Germany ... I got to go exactly where I wanted to go ... I’m going to be in a really small town; it’s only 8,000 people. I’m excited about getting to meet people who haven’t spent a lot of time around Americans, or who I could actually get to know on a first-name basis ... but of all the places to go in Germany, this is probably going to be the biggest culture shock ... I’m almost certainly going to be the only American in my town ... I’m interested in oral histories of daily life, so that’s what I’ll be doing in my free time ... interviewing people about their lives in the German Democratic Republic ... The way language works in how we get to know each other and know our world has been really interesting to me ... I’m really interested in listening to people’s stories and accounts of what they’re life has been ... [which is] not necessarily what you read in the textbooks.

16 | TheCircuit

Davis Projects for Peace in Tucson, Arizona Jones: The spring of our sophomore we spent a week with an organization called No More Deaths [in Tucson, Ariz.], learning about the border... Our project is titled ‘Peace through the Preservation of Life’... We decided to ask organizations like No More Deaths what kinds of projects they would like help with. No More Deaths responded that they [wanted help with] a harm reduction kit distribution program. Beers: The kits ... include clorox bleach, antibiotic ointment for blister treatments and moleskin. Things that could actually help people when they’re actually crossing the border ... Most of the work done on the border is ... meant to help people once they’ve crossed. We’ll be visiting shelters on the Mexico side ... so they can be distributed to people before they cross ... We’re not eliminating harm. We can’t reduce the temperature of the desert, we can’t put more water out there than there already is. But we can hope to reduce the amount of harm they go through. Jones: It’s been a struggle coming from Whitman ... where we’re trying to look at root causes, trying to look at macro forces, to then a project that is very small ... but in all honesty, could save lives.

“

GENEVIEVE JONES AND KEILER BEERS

“

FUTURE PLANS

TRISTAN GAVIN

“

JEREMY SCHOFIELD

“

I’ll be going to Yale University and attending their biological and biomedical sciences Ph.D. program. It’s a five-to-six-year program, and it focuses on research, which is sort of my goal from here on out—to do research with biochemistry [and] molecular biology ... in the academic setting ... I’ve always been very passionate about science, and I’ve pretty much known since I got to Whitman that I wanted to do a science major. [After college], a lot of people either go to med school or a graduate school research program. For me, research was really what I was passionate about ... [it was] a natural progression for me to go to grad school. And my goals of staying in academia sort of warranted needing a Ph.D. It was pretty much the step I had to take in order to go where I wanted to go ... I applied to ten different programs, and it just felt like the one that I was most excited about ... I’ve always really enjoyed research quite a bit ... and so this is giving me the perfect opportunity ... because they let you do a wide variety of different research while you’re there. Yale’s specialty is sort of RNA structure and catalysis and stuff like that, so that’ll probably be what I end up getting involved in.

I’m doing Teach for America in New York City, so I’ll be teaching at a firstgrade school in ... Brooklyn. I applied early decision to Teach for America as a junior and got accepted, so I’ve known in kind of an abstract sense that I would be teaching ... [I] got hired by the Success Charter Network ... a charter school network in New York City ... strangely enough, [it’s] principaled by a Whitman graduate ... I’m really fortunate enough to be in an assistant teacher role, where I will be working with a full-time teacher ... and getting that experience for a year before I start running my own classroom. So New York and its charter schools offered to me, at least, an opportunity to get a lot of teaching experience in a very, very focused academic setting where they’re kind of questioning the way that we gauge education ... I had a pretty cool realization a couple of weeks ago that there’s a class of kindergartners out there right now that are going to be my kids next year. It’s cool to think of it in a really concrete meaning like that.

JULIA STONE

By the end of the summer I’m going to be moving down temporarily with [senior] Sean McNulty to Guatemala. We’re planning on pursuing a project recounting kind of this history of struggle for land reclamation in Guatemala ... Sean and I first went down in 2011 for a summer Whitman Direct Action (WDA) project ... We worked closely with Semilla Nueva—a group of Whitman grads that started a nonprofit doing sustainable agriculture down there. So they connected us with the community and key people, and we made a lot of friends ... It’s kind of a weird thing to be graduating ... most of my peers are applying for jobs or have fellowships or are going to grad school, but what I’m doing has no real time limit. So we’re hoping to be down there for a few months and then ... be in a place where we can apply for a more official grant and funding, and find secure donors, file a 501C3, kind of a non-profit status to latch on to ... Eventually I would like to come back and continue doing policy research in the U.S. somewhere about immigration issues.

TheCircuit | 17

“

THESIS RESEARCH

History Water and Power: A History of Large Dam Construction in Yunnan, China 1980-2010

“

ANNIE WATTERS Sociology

[INSERT YOUR DEFINITION OF HAPPINESS HERE]: A Sociological Investigation of the Individual, Interactional and Cultural Construction of Happiness in the United States and Ghana I studied abroad in Ghana ... [where] I did [a] research [project] on happiness. I ... took that research back here and continued it for my senior thesis ... Basically I broke it up into individual, interactional and cultural understandings of happiness. In Ghana, I did interviews and got a whole bunch of people to basically define [happiness] and tell me how they understand it, [and] then here I did a survey [of] Whitman students ... There’s a lot of research ... about how emotions can develop differently between societies that are focused more on the individual compared to the community. In an individualistic society, there are certain things that are valued more or will develop differently ... The big cultural distinction that came out of this [was that] in the United States we pursue happiness ... we’re always actively working towards happiness, and that was reflected ... in what I was finding. In Ghana, that wasn’t necessarily there ... happiness just kind of was—a state of mind or a state of being that didn’t have a lot of emphasis. What I found [at Whitman] was that 81 percent of students thought there was a difference between daily and lifelong happiness, and in Ghana, that distinction didn’t exist.

MARIE O’GRADY

18 | TheCircuit

“

COLIN STRONG

My thesis is on the history of large dam construction in contemporary China. Specifically, I’m looking at large dam construction in one province called Yunnan ... Basically I’m using dams to look at the history of the hydropower industry there, and how China’s economic development relates to dam construction ... Junior year, I had a class called Global Water Scarcity that was taught by a visiting lecturer, and [that class] got me really interested in water politics ... While I was in China [studying abroad], I took an environmental studies class ... One of the problems we talked about was dams. We talked about them as international problems because the Chinese are damming international rivers, like the Mekong River ... As history theses go, I think mine is very applicable to contemporary life and politics. Dam construction is tied up in China’s burgeoning green movement ... [and] the fact that there’s such contention over managing these trans-boundary rivers is something we’re going to see more and more in the 21st century, because the environment doesn’t care about politics ... I’m going to Oxford [after graduation] and studying water science, management and policy ... History as a subject doesn’t really ever limit you.

Biology Iron-Induced Corallimorph Phase Shift on Palmyra Atoll I worked with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service [in Honolulu] over the summer, and while I was there I came across a really interesting project ... There’s a shipwreck on Palmyra Atoll, one of the refuges they’re in charge of. In the area surrounding the wreck, there has been a dramatic increase in the population of corallimorphs ... due to iron leaching from the wreck. I was able to get some water samples from Palmyra and bring them back here, and with the help of [Chemistry] Professor Dunnivant, I was able to measure iron concentrations in those samples ... I definitely didn’t see myself doing research before starting this project. But once I got into it and started doing research and data analysis, I definitely saw that I maybe did have some sort of interest in research later on ... I got to work with a lot of different people [during my research] ... I got a lot of help from my thesis advisers [Professors Cooley and Molitor]. Even though I didn’t prove my particular hypothesis ... with the results that I got, if someone were to continue doing research on the black reefs, it could help guide their research.

“

CREATIVE PURSUITS [The Sitka Center of Art and Ecology is] an art center in Oregon that hosts residents in the off-season, but in the summer provides workshops for adults to come and take ecologically-based nature-centric art classes. There’s dyeing textiles with natural materials or painting landscapes. The center is in a beautiful part of Oregon so it’s a very beautiful natural setting ... I’ll be generally helping ... then the workshop coordinator will be taking some time off, so I’ll fill in for her while she’s gone. So that entails making sure that the coming artists are comfortable and provided for and making sure that students who come to the center have everything they need and have a great time ... Since coming to Whitman, I’ve been more involved in outdoor activities like backpacking and such. Also, I’m an art major, so the two sets of interests sort of collide in this job. I heard about it through the internships listserv that the Student Engagement Center puts out ... I’d like to travel and try working at art centers around the United States or even abroad. If that doesn’t work out, I at least see the experience I get from working there. Environmental Art

KATIE GORMAN

“

SAM HALGREN Theatre

The most exciting part about moving to New York for theatre is that you don’t really know what you’re going to do. Step one is finding a place to live, step two is finding a job, probably not in theatre, and then step three is just going to a lot of auditions with the knowledge that I’m probably not going to be [cast] for a year or two. I’ll be moving out there with two theatre majors here ... All my life I’ve tried to get away from theatre because it’s such a silly profession to pursue if you actually want to make money. I tried being a lot of different things ... but nothing resonated with me like theatre did. In sophomore year I applied to go abroad in London ... and as soon as I did that, I declared a theatre major. Whitman’s theatre department was surprisingly fantastic for theatre majors: you learn so many different aspects ... All you can ask for is to have work, even if it’s very little money or no money at all. I would really like to form a theatre company in some way or be a part of a regional theatre. If you can get that consistency in some way, that’s ideal. Teaching theatre ... would also be a blast.

ERIKA ZINSER

I got two job offers. I stalked my boss, basically, to get me an internship [at Disney]. I went down to LA and found out it would be impossible to get into the Disney studios development compound, so I researched Dis- Drawing/Animation ney-producing companies outside the compound. I found one and met with the CEO, and after a really long talk of telling me my dreams could not be done, I kept my ground. I worked for him ... and because I did such a good job, he got me as a production assistant at Disney studios. There, I met with all the Disney people, and they offered me a job as a background designer. When I told this to my former boss [from the internship], he told me ‘That’s great, but I have a job offer as well.’ I had the offer from Disney, but I think I’m going to take [the other] offer because then I’ll be working with Dreamworks and Universal while working at Disney at the same time ... I didn’t know I wanted to be an artist when I applied to Whitman ... but taking art classes here, I realized that what I was doing in ... my free time, drawing, was what I actually wanted to do ... I have a specific life plan ... the ultimate goal is to win an Oscar in animated film ... and it will happen. But first I need to get involved in the animation industry and business. I see myself as John Lasseter in 50 years. TheCircuit | 19

CLASS OF

2014

Before heading off to pursue graduate school, jobs, internships and other adventures, the Whitman class of 2014 will meet together one final time to don their blue robes and walk across the commencement stage on the steps of Memorial Building on Sunday, May 25. Before members of the class separate to pursue their diverse interests, we wanted to take the time to allow others to see where their fellow classmates envision themselves heading. In our senior survey, we asked the class of 2014 the following questions: What’s in your future? and Where are you headed after graduation? Here are their responses, printed with each senior’s name and major. The pages following the list are a collection of responses about graduates’ time at Whitman. Matthew Atkins History Mozambique

“Teaching Biology with the Peace Corps.”

Luís Alba-Sánchez Religion Walla Walla, WA

“Saving up money to move to San Francisco and return to my Latin@s.”

Tobias Alden English Dobuita, Japan

“Do you know of any bars where sailors hang out?”

Marah Alindogan

years of Spanish class into practice. And I’ll hopefully be using my liberal arts education to fight oppression and injustice, of course.”

Kaity Arango Art

Geneva Bahrke

Alexandra Arneson

Mathematics, English Portland, OR

Psychology

Shunei Asao Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology

Taylor Aschenbrenner Gender Studies Dayton, WA

Politics

“Pursuing a nursing degree at WWCC and working at Spring Valley Vineyards in Walla Walla .”

Diana Alma Taya

Mares Asfaha

Anthropology

Nilce Alvarez Carreño Biology

“World traveling, a mix of social entrepreneurship and science and a breakthrough in politics—as President of Ecuador I will reestablish La Gran Colombia.”

Christina Alves History

Sarah Anderegg Sociology

“I plan to spend the next year in Europe, either teaching English in Madrid, Spain or playing professional basketball.”

Emily Anderson Anthropology Seattle, WA

“I will be living with some friends in Seattle and teaching in the independent schools. ”

Economics

Atanas Atanasov Theatre “Reminiscing about the past .”

Joshua Augustin Independently Designed Major: Natural Mathematics and Sciences - Computer Science New York City, NY “I’m continuing my 3-2 program at Columbia University, working on a computer science degree here,with an emphasis in computer vision and graphics.”

Michael Axelson

Lydia Bailey Biology - Environmental Studies Estes Park, CO “Hopefully botany and field biology.”

English Portland, OR

Maggie Ayau “Next year I’ll be working full-time in a

Asian Studies Boise, ID

“Something that combines my curiosity for science and passion for art.”

“More sleep, lots of Japanese food, art and less homework.”

“Consulting.”

Faith Bernstein

Tanner Bowersox

Craig Barstow

Environmental Humanities Swan Valley, MT

Maura Barstead Psychology Seattle, WA

Geology

Olivia Bates

History, Spanish Walla Walla, WA

“So much happiness, family, friends, traveling and learning.”

“I am staying an extra semester after commencement to finish my degree and to use my last year of athletic eligibility to play for the Whitman College men’s varsity soccer team. After that, I plan to join the Peace Corps and spend two years in a different country helping people. At some point, I also hope to move back to my hometown of Eugene, Ore. and spend some time there living and working. I also hope to continue being involved with soccer at a high level, ideally by playing in the United Soccer Leagues Premier Development League. I also want to continue my education as a soccer coach by taking the required courses to receive a D license. I am not sure if graduate school is in my future, but I have not ruled out furthering my education at a higher level after I finish my time in the Peace Corps.”

Keiler Beers

Ellen Banks Anthropology New York City, NY “I’ll be moving to New York City to teach sixth grade at the Cornelia Connelly Center, and hopefully doing some traveling.”

Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology

“Exploring unfamiliar places, where I will hopefully learn new skills, like how to bake bread, make friends with non-Whitties, budget responsibly and finally put all those

MaryAnne Bowen

Biology Houston, TX

Alexander Baker

Marin Axtell Biology, Spanish Boise, ID

Caitlin Bergman

“Happiness :) I will be taking a year off to work. Afterward, I hope to attend graduate school to study architecture.”

Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology Seattle, WA

Jay Barlow

Helen Angell

20 | TheCircuit

“Laughter.”

Economics

“Possibilities.”

Politics - Environmental Studies

school, volunteering, falling more in love with Portland and finally getting to all the books I’ve acquired over the past four years that I haven’t had time to read yet.”

Kathryn Baron Biology

Stefanie Barrera Aguila Art History & Visual Culture Studies Seattle, WA

Politics Tucson, AZ “I still can’t decide between yes and no.”

Kayvon Behroozian Politics Syracuse, NY “Kayvon 4 Prez!”

Colleen Bell Biology Minneapolis, MN “Pursing my dream of becoming an Olympic hockey player!!!”

Madeleine Bell

“Environmental documentary filmmaking? Graduate school? ”

Mariah Billey Economics Seattle, WA “After a relaxing summer at home, I hope to begin a couple months of travel in September. I may spend time visiting U.S. National Parks, or maybe I’ll go overseas ... And then on to a big-girl job in the real world! ”

Kyle Bloomster Biology, Philosophy Steamboat Springs, CO “Working at BookTrails (literacy and outdoor education non-profit in Colorado Springs, Colo.) for a couple of months, then hopefully to Alaska to work as a technician for an aquaculture company.”

Emily Blum Biology Los Angeles, CA “Saving the ocean.”

Dylan Bodet

Economics

“I have not a clue at the moment. Hoping to use my economics major in some way, but since I want to be a writer, this will be quite an interesting task.”

Allison Bolgiano

Katherine Benjamin Psychology

Kalen Bergado Psychology San Francsico, CA “Working in radio (NPR) and riding cargo ships around the world.”

Politics Ashland, OR “Enjoying life, noticing its beauty, and helping others do the same. Eventually, I hope to earn a PhD in geography.”

Matt Booth Geology

Geology Houston, TX “This summer I will be attending Indiana University’s field camp for 6 weeks to complete my geology degree. Afterward, by the good graces of TBS accepting the application of myself and a few fellow geology grads, I will be moving to Houston, TX to work in big oil and star in a reality TV show entitled “Oil Slick Boys,” where our group of liberal arts geology graduates will make our way finding black gold in the nation’s epicenter of fossil fuel exploration.”

Kemper Brightman Geology Houston, TX “Putting it all on the line in the hopes of striking black gold with some fellow Whitman grads. A big thanks goes out to TBS for making this crazy dream a reality (show) and setting us up with a sweet pad in Houston. Filming starts January 2015! Look for ‘Oil Slick Boys’ on TBS in the fall of 2016! ”

Jordan Brown Anthropology

Meghan Browne French San Francisco, CA “I’ll be looking for my first full-time job!”

Kyle Buckham Biology Bellingham, WA “Gaining experience in the field of physical therapy before going to graduate school. ”

Nicholas Budak Asian Studies Portland, OR “Teaching English in Asia for one or several years. ”

Signe Burke Economics Seattle, WA

“I’d love to do management consulting or marketing analytics in Seattle while living with the wonderful ladies Chelsea Darlington and Claudia Sanchez. I am also hoping to travel to Spain before starting work to visit my host family and practice speaking Spanish.”

Sugarsuren Byambasuren Economics Seattle, WA

“In the long term, I aspire to work for the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and implement monetary policy.”

Dalton Calvert Psychology

Ryan Calvert

Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology West Lafayette, IN “Pursuing my PhD at Pudue in nutrition science.”

Claire Collins

Ethan Dederick Physics - Astronomy Las Cruces, NM

William Ekstrom

Rita Ferri

Alyssa Goard

English South Bend, IN “I will be getting my Masters of Education with Notre Dame University’s ACE program. In the fall, I will be teaching middle school language arts in South Central Los Angeles.”

“I will be attending New Mexico State University to pursue a doctoral degree in theoretical astrophysics along with a possible Masters in Aerospace Engineering as well. From there I will pursue a career in either academia or research in the private sector. Most excitedly, however, is that I am currently a candidate for the Mars One mission to establish a colony on Mars in 2025, and if all goes well that is where I will be living and conducting research for the rest of my life after the mandatory 6-7 years of training here on Earth.”

“Applying for graduate schools.”

Patrick Finnegan

Alexandra Gold

“A long and happy life.”

Lauren Goldman

Lydia Collins Race and Ethnic Studies Madison, WI “After I graduate, I plan to obtain a job in a law office or non-profit organization that works on social justice issues related to race and gender. I’m considering applying to law school, but I’d like to have some experience in an office to see if it’s the right fit for me.”

Dana Coppock-Pector Sociology Portland, OR “I am considering my options professionally and looking forward to exploring a new city.”

Chelsea Cordell Biology, Anthropology Ketchikan, AK “So much adventure.”

Jasmine Campbell

Spencer Corwin

Psychology, Philosophy Los Angeles, CA

Economics Austin, TX

“‘You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.’ - Steve Jobs. I trust that my drive, passion and grit will take me to places I both want and need to be.”

“A lot.”

Jane Carmody Politics

Jenna Carr Mathematics West Coast

“More math, a puppy or two and getting involved in the Rocky Horror Picture Show in whatever city I end up in.”

Paul Cathcart French Amiens, France “La jouissance.”

Cynthia Chang Biology Portland, OR

“I’ll be working for a year and then heading to law school!”

Xialing Ann Chen Film and Media Studies San Francisco, CA

“Medical scribe for a year and then post-bac premed program.”

Crystal Chi Sociology

Brian Choe Economics Beaverton, OR

“Entering the working world.”

Rachel Cline Psychology

Benjamin Cohen-Stead Physics

Aaron Cohen Geology Montana

“I’m going to participate in the Indiana University field camp for six weeks and then try to find some work in the geology field for a mining company.”

Andrés Crane Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology, Music Palo Alto, CA “I hope to go to graduate school in neurobiology.”

Geoffrey Cushman Physics - Astronomy

Robert Dalton Economics Seattle, WA “I hope to be employed full-time by August of this year.”

Jennifer Dardis Asian Studies Japan “I will be teaching English in Japan through the JET program for at least one year and will either go to Korea or return home following that.”

Chelsea Darlington Economics Seattle, WA “I will be working at RBC Wealth Management with a group that advises companies’ 401k and 403b plans, as well as individual clients.”

Nicholas Davies Biology Seattle, WA

Cristela DelgadoDaniel Sociology Seattle, WA

“I plan on taking a year off, learning Finnish and finding a job before eventually applying to law school.”

Ysabel Diaz

“To do what makes me happy, be with someone who makes me smile, laugh as much as I breathe and love as long as I live.”

English

Jordan Dickson Economics - Mathematics

Aaron Do

Astronomy, Physics Honolulu, HI “Probably science or something. I don’t know.”

Jennifer Doering Environmental Humanities San Diego, CA

Geology

Daniel Ellis

Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology Seattle, WA “Possibly working in Seattle.”

Susannah Ellis Theatre Seattle, WA

Philosophy Seattle, WA

“Good stuff.”

Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology

Louise Fix Biology Washington, D.C.

“Participating in a year of direct service and then probably pursuing a career in public health.”

David Fleming Music, Psychology Palmer, Antarctica

“Spending time with penguins, re-enacting and narrating ‘March of the Penguins,’ and founding a world-renowned university dedicated to providing penguins with a liberal arts education, so they can find jobs after they graduate.”

Michelle Flores Gender Studies

Elizabeth Fones

Biology - Environmental Studies

Gabriel Friedman

Forrest Epstein

“To pursue a career in law.”

Chemistry

Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology Seattle, WA “Working as an epidemiologist chasing deadly diseases around the world before applying to medical school.”

Zoë Erb

Xiaotong Duan

Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology Gresham , OR

Amalya Dubrovsky Politics

“This summer I’m going to be taking an MCAT class while also working as a medical scribe in the Portland area. My plan right now is to start medical school in two years.”

Benjamin Duchin

Yonatan Evans

Natural & Mathematical Sciences

Biology

Tristan Endreo

“I’d like to gain experience in oral history and storytelling through the medium of radio, potentially trying my hand at documentary filmmaking. Someday in the not-so-far-off future, I want to publish a creative nonfiction book of personal essays, possibly dealing with memory, words, writing and the relation between self and universe.”

Classics Seattle, WA

“The pursuit of happiness.”

Kayla Erspamer

Politics Portland, OR

Angeline Fugere

Sociology - Environmental Studies Portland, OR “I’m looking to work with an environmental non-profit or agency, but no concrete plans yet ... ask me again later in the summer!”

Mitchell Fujimoto English

Anne Gaskins French France

“I will be drinking wine, eating cheese, seducing Frenchmen and other worldtraveler things.”

Jacob Gavin Physics - Astronomy Seattle, WA

Economics Seattle, WA

Art Bisbee, AZ

“Working as a full-stack web developer during the week. Kayaking and skiing on the weekend.”

“Success.”

“Devoting myself to the creation of an artistic intentional-community, located somwhere in the ...”

Tristan Gavin

Joshua Duckworth English

Austin Easter Geology Houston, TX

Biology Portland, OR

“Applying for genetic counseling graduate schools.”

James Edison Mathematics Salem/Corvallis, OR

Silene DeCiucies

“In the future I plan on working as a software engineer, either continuing my employment with Hewlett-Packard, or finding a career with another company.”

Geology Ithaca, NY

Benjamin Eisenhardt

“Fine wine and fine clay loam.”

Katherine Elkind

Logan Emlet

Janae Edelson

Biology El Paso, TX

“Whitman in China in Kunming.”

Philip Dickinson

Biology Portland, OR

Jillian Davis

French Kunming, China

“I’ll be headed to Seattle for a bit, then off to New York.”

Emily Davis “I plan on taking a year off to work in emergency medicine before round two: physician’s assistant school.”

Lauren Elgee

Biology - Environmental Studies

“Headed to Houston! Time to go make it big in the oil industry with the OSBs (‘Oil Slick Boys’). With our recent contract from TBS to work on this new hit reality show, it should be a wild ride!”

“Life. Wherever and whatever that may be.”

Music Eugene, OR

Economics

Film & Media Studies, Politics

Biology

Biology Bellingham/Seattle, WA

“Hopefully success and happiness!”

Jenny Gonyer

Biology - Environmental Studies Salmon, ID “After graduation I hope to explore the Northwest more through my work experience. I will start by exploring more of Idaho and the Continental Divide Trail with my job in Salmon, Idaho. After that I hope to find a job in Wash. or Oregon and explore the national forests in these states. I would love to find a job that leads into a career of working outdoors and researching animals, such as salamanders, lynx or pikas. I plan to hike the PCT and CDT while in these regions. I don’t have exact plans because I love the adventure of finding opportunities in the least expected places.”

Katherine Gorman Art Otis, OR

“I’ll be spending the summer working at an Art and Ecology Center on the Oregon Coast that I interned at a few summers ago. Beyond that is still a mystery! I’ve applied to teach English in Spain, so hopefully that works out. If not I may head to Portland or back to Walla Walla to plan my next move.”

Rebecca Gotz Art Seattle, WA

“Unknown.”

Sara Graham Mathematics Seattle, WA

“Working in recruiting.”

Hayley Grandine Biology

Satchel Grant Chemistry Seattle, WA

“The past .... TIME TRAVEL.”

Will Gregg Classics Denver, CO

Biology

“Spending years trying to cope with the traumatic ‘How I Met Your Mother’ finale.”

“In the immediate future I will be working full-time to get a sense of what sort of work I do or do not find fulfilling. I want to have some time to cultivate personal interests while I secure some sort of position working abroad. I will be enjoying time with friends and the excitement of living in a new place.”

Nelson Falkenburg

Rachel Geiter

Harper Grimes

Biology Paris, France

Psychology Seattle, WA

“‘I’m driving to Alaska.’ It all started as a flippant response at cocktail parties to catch middle-aged friends-of-family off guard. It was just something to say. But sometimes, when you say things enough, they take on meaning. And then—surprise!—opportunities arise out of meaning. After graduation I’m taking the Alcane highway to the final frontier, the land of midnight sun.”

“Working at Allegro this summer and bike racing, then I’m headed off to France to teach English at the Académie de Créteil, an area outside of Paris.”

“Nursing school.”

Erik Feldman

“I’m doing a training program at Emory University in biostatistics. After that hopefully I’ll be doing data analysis in Seattle.”

Hannah Fadenrecht Environmental Humanities Alaska

Music Seattle, WA

“Graduate school, then working my way into the entertainment industry to score film, video games and television.”

Allison Felt Art

“My future involves traveling and seeing the world, going on adventures, living spontaneously and eating lots of chocolate.”

English Brooklyn, NY

Thomas Gibson Economics - Mathematics Atlanta, GA

Kendell Gilmore

Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology “Working hard at finding happiness. Then probably giving up, becoming a suburban soccer mom and caring overly much about the athletic and academic performance of my heinously privileged children. ”

Sean Glascock History

Ryan Guisness Sociology

Rose Haag

Economics, Sociology Flagstaff, AZ “I’ll be spending the summer in Europe and at home in Flagstaff working in a boutique part-time, volunteering and looking for jobs for after the summer. What comes after that is still uncertain—hopefully I’ll find myself in a new place! After a year or two off, I’m thinking of going to school for public policy so that I can work in the field of economic development in the future.”

Satinderjit Haer Rhetoric Studies Seattle, WA

“I’ll be starting work full-time with a Bellevue based startup called popforms that

TheCircuit | 21

I began working for during this academic year. The company went from being worth nothing to $1 million in just six months and is exponentially growing. I will be working directly with the CEO and Chief Operations Officer to slowly take on a key administrative role in addition to working on further content development. I will also be involved with a speech & debate foundation that is hopefully going to be launched over the summer or next fall in the Seattle area. Eventually I will attend law school or pursue a degree that fits my interests and career at the time.”

Samuel Halgren Theatre New York City, NY

“Hopefully some sort of acting.”

Taia Handlin Gender Studies Portland, OR

“Riches, fame and glory.”

Sophia Hannaford Biology Seattle, WA

“I am going home to Seattle to take my MCATs, then going to get a job in SanFrancisco in biomedical science.”

Catherine Hannan

Keenan Hilton

Politics - Environmental Studies San Juan, Puerto Rico “I will tread lightly, like an ancient, light-footed dinosaur of old; I will reach out, timid fingers, big palms; I will put the DVD in the DVD player and watch ‘The Desolation of Smaug.’ Booyah!”

Madeline Hogg Biology Minneapolis, MN

“This summer I will do clinical research for the University of Minnesota Veterinary School of Medicine, studying a neurologic disease in horses. My plan is to apply to veterinary medical schools within the next year.”

Phoebe Horvath Biology Walla Walla, WA “Science!”

MacKenzie Hughes

Independently Designed Major: Childhood Studies Durham, NC “I want to become a Montessori guide and teach in Montessori schools. Maybe a PhD. in developmental or clinical psychology. I’m also assistant program director for a children’s camp in Bahama, N.C.”

Jacob Harwood Politics

Brendan Haug

“This summer I will be working as an instructor for the Northwest Outward Bound School in central Oregon. I then hope to find a job in conservation/wildlife biology. (Wish me luck!)”

Tia Herdman Anthropology Sitka, AK

“Lots of baking. And all the adventures that come with living the island life in Alaska.”

Riley Hernandez

English, Philosophy Seattle, WA

“Nothing definite, but hopefully joining the fire department or writing in some capacity.”

Emily Hyatt Geology Walla Walla, WA

“Uncertainty and lots of laughter.”

Benjamin Ishibashi Environmental Humanities

Kaitlynn Ivory Biology

Lindsey Jacobs Biology Walla Walla, WA

Mathematics

Sebastian Jay

Economics - Mathematics Walla Walla, WA “My current (tentative) plan is to save up money by working full-time for two years or so in a job related to my major. Then I would like to pursue a full-time music career until I achieve a sustainable financial state. If that turns out to be unfeasible and/or undesirable, then I will likely seek a degree in mechanical or acoustical engineering or in music (performance, education or business).”

“Probably some chocolate. And a lot more dancing.”

Michael Jorgensen

Christopher Konolige Psychology

Meredith Kretzler

Psychology New York City, NY

“Going to Columbia University to study cognitive psychology.”

Katherine Kamm Psychology Toppenish, WA

“Graduating from physician assistant school and entering a practice.”

Nayomi Kanz Psychology San Francisco, CA

“Time off, then grad school. My long-term goal is to earn enough money to afford my avocado addiction.”

Gabriela Kaus

Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology San Francisco, CA “Adventures!”

Kaylee Kautz Biology San Juan Islands, WA

“Eventually, graduate school in marine biology.”

Karah Kemmerly

German Studies Schleswig-Holstein, Germany “Adventures.”

Skhumbuzo Khamanga Politics Johannesburg, South Africa

“Multiple-championship-winning coach.”

Nicholas Khor

“Sustainable design according to a coherent philosophical practice.”

History Shoreline, WA

“Journalism and media, hopefully sports.”

Chantell Lopez Music

Marika Lou Biology Salem, OR

“I’ll be attending my little sister’s high school graduation, then working a summer internship in Colorado—beyond that, who knows?”

Laurel Low

Biology - Environmental Studies Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest , NH “I am going to Hubbard Brook Experimental Forest to do research on salamanders within the area this summer. I am also hoping to do a short course at a cooking school.”

Sebastian Lowe Philosophy Okayama, Japan

“I hope to spend a year at a Zen monastery.”

Amanda Lu

Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology

“I will be working in Los Angeles as a business analyst for a healthcare consulting company.”

English

Economics

Tao Large

Gabriel Lewis Economics

Chemistry Richland, WA

“Off to the Pacific Northwest National Labratory for the rest of the year, then onwards to China in the last few months before graduate school.”

Jonathan Lari History

Haley Larson English New York City, NY

“After graduating from Whitman, I will be attending NYU’s Summer Publishing Institute. After that, I hope to get a job in book publishing in New York, but we’ll see where the wind takes me!”

Walker Larson Physics Orlando, FL

“PhD. Optics.”

Hannah Florence Le Bas

Molly Johanson

Philosophy Walla Walla, WA

English Walla Walla, WA

Pamela London

“Next August I will be working for the Wash. AIDS Partnership in D.C. as a member of the AIDS United team. A few years down the road I hope to attend nursing school to become a nurse-midwife.”

Biology Washington, D.C.

Politics

Alexander Johnson

Sociology Albany, NY

Philosophy

Eli Lewis

Marten King

Politics Charlotte, NC

Samuel Kirsch

“Working in education and finding more time for baking and photography. Hopefully, I’ll be pursing a masters in a couple of years.”

“I’m going to be doing a couple of years of seasonal work, upgrading my sex appeal and financial position as a wildland firefighter during the summer and then spending my winters roaming the world as a super-crunchy hobo, living with my parents, learning magic and living with my parents. Then, who knows?”

Ornella Leukou Nzoutchoum

Eric Lombardo

Michaela Lambert

Shelly Le

“Taking a six-week intensive course in publishing through NYU and reading lots of comics.”

Mathematics

Elizabeth Levin

Psychology Dayton, WA

“Work and graduate school.”

Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology Rio Grande National Forest, CO

Brett Leroux

Brett Lambert

“Next year I’ll be kicking it in Germany, teaching English to high-schoolers. After that, TBD.”

Sociology

“Meh.”

Economics

Winnie Kiche

English, Philosophy Teterow, Germany

Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology Shantou, People’s Republic of China

“I am not certain what the future has in store for me. However, my long-term goals involve becoming a public health practitioner working at an international health organization, where I will be able to develop more effective programs that help provide for children and help them make better decisions about their health and lifestyle generally.”

“I am headed to New York this fall with a couple friends to pursue my interest in directing and theater education.”

Hanne Jensen

Edward Hill

22 | TheCircuit

Politics

Theatre New York City, NY

Religion New York City, NY

“Undecided.”

Genevieve Jones

“That is always the question. More of the same. Writing things, reading other things, drawing things, yoga teaching and running around in remote places. And when that doesn’t work, I’ll probably bike for a while. And carpentry, probably some of that too.”

English

English, Philosophy

Biology, Philosophy

“Law school!”

Elizabeth Leong

Environmental Humanities Walla Walla, WA

Andrew La Cava

Anna Hawkins

Biology - Environmental Studies Portland, OR

Rhetoric Studies Boise , ID

Independently Designed Major: Global Health Denver, CO

Cathryn Klusmeier

Mathurada Jullamon

Economics Issaquah, WA

Paivand Jalalian

Molly Hayes

Paige Joki

Paul Lemieux

“Working as an EMT, then med school eventually.”

Melina Hughes

“Ponderosa pines and sunshine.”

“Church pews, intentional community, theology and beer (God & Guiness), subversion, disappointment, Sundays becoming a long busy day of work rather than a day of rest and hopefully a lot of beautiful.”

“Selling wine for Dusted Valley.”

myself, a professional industry and the world around me.”

“Taking a year off to work and travel through South America!”

“Finishing that knitting project I started freshman year.”

Anthropology

Religion Nashville, TN

Philosophy, Rhetoric Studies Seattle , WA

Sociology - Environmental Studies Bailey, CO

“Teaching at the Community School in Sun Valley, Idaho.”

William Huskey

Benjamin Harris

Zachary Johnston

Sara Kleinkopf

Sociology - Environmental Studies Asheville, NC

“I will work as an occupational therapy aide/ intern in Seattle, Wash. as I prepare to apply to OT graduate school.”

“1. Writing fantasy novels for tweens. / 2. Performance art and a lot of it. / 3. Delta blues parody album.”

“A political career or a life as a wandering starving artist.”

Mathematics

Mathematics - Physics, Art Sun Valley, ID

“‘The future came and went in the mildly discouraging way that futures do.’ —Neil Gaiman”

Anthropology

Politics New York City, NY or Washington, D.C.

Evan Kleiner

Psychology

Sociology Seattle, WA

Rosemary Hanson

Claire Johnson

John Lee, Jr.

Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology

Katherine Lee English, Music

“Exploration, community, music, reading, writing, travel and lots of learning about

Economics Los Angeles, CA

Beverly Li Psychology Berlin, Germany

“I was awarded the Humanity in Action Fellowship and will be in Europe for the summer!”

Chaoyu Li

Art Beijing, People’s Republic of China “I will find some internship related to my major or start to proceed projects as a fine art photographer.”

Nathan Liechty

Riley Lynn James Madden, V Connor Madden History Seattle, WA

“I plan to take a year off and apply to law school.”

Lauriene Madrigal

Art History & Visual Culture Studies

Ramiro Magallanes Natural & Mathematical Sciences

Aleksander Maricq Mathematics, Physics Salt Lake City, UT

Geology

“Grad school and then who knows.”

“Becoming a dolphin.”

Andrew Martin

Alecia Lindsay Art Big Lake, AK

“After my graduation, I will be moving back home to Alaska to be with my husband and pursue a career in photography.”

Sociology

Chase Martin Chemistry - Geology Grand Junction, CO

Jake Lindsay Theatre

“I will work as the technical manager for Whitman’s 2014 Semester in the West program, after which I hope to live near tall, snow-covered skiable mountains.”

Thabo Liphoto

Livingston Martin

Economics

Biology

“A lot of social entrepreneurship, creative start-ups and devotion to humanity.”

Jadelyn Martinez

Angela Loftus

Psychology New York City, NY

“Poverty.”

“Next year I will be starting graduate school at Columbia Universtiy pursuing a masters in psychological counseling. Then hopefully going on to earn my P.h.D and continue on in the field of psychology.”

Biology - Environmental Studies Denver, CO

Amber Lombard Biology Palo Alto, CA

“Not really sure.”

Claire Martini Geology Bluff City, UT

“May the road open before me!”

John Masla History Hitsville, MI

“I plan on spending the next few years working on my rap album, Big J In the A.”

Stephen Matherly Philosophy, Psychology

Eli Mathieu

Natural & Mathematical Sciences

Joseph Mayo, IV Sociology Yorba Linda, CA

“I am taking a year off to prepare for graduate school. I am either going to apply to physical therapy, physician assistant or medical school. I will be taking a few summer courses and the GRE. I am still debating whether or not to take the MCAT. When this is done, I will be sending applications to various programs across the country.”

Casey Minnick Philosophy

Jesse Mirman Art

Leah Mohtes-Chan Biology Davis, WA

“I plan on going to graduate school for physical therapy in the future.”

McKenzie Momany

Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology Santiago, Chile “I plan to move to Santiago, Chile in November to work with a doctor who teaches at the Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile on a cancer prevention public health research study.”

Blythe Monoian Chemistry Toppenish, WA

“Enjoying time with family and friends and finding a job close to my hometown.”

Kaitlyn McCraw

Alexandra Montague

Sean McNulty

Genderzon Montejo

Music, Religion

Religion Willywoods, Guatemala “Julia Stone and I are going to be recording an oral history of an 1986 land-rights march in Guatemala. 16,000 Maya displaced by the Guatemalan genocide were organized by Catholic priests and successfully petitioned the government for land. We want to create an online archive of this untold story in the coastal communities where they now live.”

Riley Mebus Politics

Sara Mecca Psychology Seattle, WA

“Exploring ways to use what I’m good at in a meaningful job, being in service to others and tons of trial and error!”

Fernando Medina Corey Philosophy, Politics Walla Walla, WA

“New and larger circles.”

Sandra Medina Corey Philosophy Walla Walla, WA

“I’ll be staying in Walla Walla over the next few years in order to work with some of the architects and designers in the area. I’m hoping to finally have the time to put together a substantive portfolio, apply for post-graduate grants and maybe even read a few books for fun.”

Melanie Medina Anthropology West Coast

“A break from academia! I want to live life, pay off loans and be a real adult.”

Claire Meints

Politics - Environmental Studies Corvallis, OR “I will be traveling through time and space in a mysterious blue box.”

Joshua Melander

Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology

Benjamin Menzies Religion Seattle, WA

“Burning down the system.”

Politics - Environmental Studies

Physics - Astronomy

Alida Moore

Race and Ethnic Studies Minneapolis, MN “All of the things. Really, though, all of them.”

Jack Morgan Chemistry

Jameson Moriarty Theatre

James Morris-Lent Politics Seattle, WA

“Recuperation, reading, learning, maybe working.”

Hannah Mosenthal Economics Madrid, Spain

“I am moving to Madrid in September to be an au pair for nine months. While there I would like to get my TEFL and look for a job teaching English.”

Kyle Moyes Economics

Carter Muenchau Mathematics

Sean Mulloy Politics Washington, D.C.

“I plan to work as a paralegal for the U.S. Justice Department with the intent of eventually going to law school.”

Megan Murayama Art Kanonji, Japan

“This August I’ll be going to the town of Kanonji in Shikoku, Japan to teach English!”

Alexandra Murray Environmental Humanities

Kira Murray

Geology - Environmental Studies “Hopefully cows.”

Rania Mussa History Seattle, WA

“I am taking a year off, trying the adult thing (work), applying to law schools.”

Taylor Nelson Chemistry Palo Alto, CA

“Environmental engineering.”

Alyssa Nilles Biology Medical Lake, WA

“I’m applying to veterinary school in the fall.”

Melanie Notari Politics

“I plan on taking a year off to work (here in the wine industry for part of it). I also plan on spending some time traveling during my year off and then attending law school or graduate school.”

Frances Nunn English New York City, NY

“Starting on June 2, I’m going to be participating in a six-week program with NYU, called the Summer Publishing Institute. The point of the program is to explore and examine the publishing industry and to hopefully acquire as many industry contacts as possible. I actually only bought a one-way plane ticket to New York, so my goal is to get a job in New York City (or any city that will take me, for that matter) with a publishing company.”

Molly O’Brien Art Seattle , WA

Certification. This is a one-year program after which I hope to be teaching elementary education at a low-income, high-risk school. I then hope to move into the administrative side of education and work as a principal at a Title I school for a few years. My big dream is to someday work for the Department of Education and get into education policy. Aside from my career aspirations, I hope to continue my work with the nonprofit Rural Health Education—a nonprofit that reaches out to rural, under-served communities in Washington and provides quality health care information via health fairs and seminars. It is our eventual goal to have a mobile clinic so that we can provide actual treatment to patients in these areas. It is my hope that with our mobile clinic we can also donate books—particularly bilingual books—to these rural families to help increase literacy rates. ”

Hannah Palkowitz

Sociology - Environmental Studies San Diego, CA “I hope to enter the field of corperate sustainability, working for large corporations in order to improve the environmental progressiveness of their supply chain management.”

Yessica Palmer Psychology Lakewood , CO

“Figuring out if I even lift.”

“Race bikes competitively with the Audi Cycling Team in the Seattle area while preparing to apply to medical school.”

Genta Ohgushi Asian Studies

Andrew “Grady” Olson Geology Kirkland, WA

“Geologic field camp this summer in the Rocky Mountains.”

Noah Orgish English Santa Rosa, CA

“Who knows? Travel. Grad school.”

Colin Orr Chemistry Seattle, WA

“Perhaps graduate school eventually, but for now I am taking some time off.”

Annelise Osterberg

Sociology - Environmental Studies Seattle, WA “Traveling and working abroad.”

Lukas Owens Mathematics

Stefani Paladino Sociology Kent, WA

“I will be attending Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash. to earn my Master of Arts in Education with Teaching Residency

Maikor Pereira Azuaje Anthropology Walla Walla, WA

“I am here for a ninth semester of glory. I will be writing my thesis and officially graduating in December. I am not joining the French Foreign Legion. I plan to apply for the optional practical training that foreign students can opt for and stay until my time is due to leave the United States. During that time I intend to continue exploring the fields of men and masculinities and GLBTQ activism. I plan to go to Brazil or Argentina to complete my geology degree there. At some time, I shall run away with a dance collective.”

Christopher Perkins

“Leading trips for Adventures Cross Country, a company that provides 2-4 week language immersion, multisport and community service trips around the world for high school students.”

Ethan Parrish Geology Golden, CO

Nina Pascucci

Biology Seattle, WA

“I will be moving to Houston, Texas with fellow Whitman geology majors to begin work in Houston’s world-famous petroleum industry. Recently we contacted TBS and proposed a new reality TV show titled ‘Oil Slick Boys,’ which to our surprise was actually picked up by the network! I hope you all tune in to your local TBS station to watch ‘Oil Slick Boys’ in the fall of 2016.”

“Many days on the river!”

Biology Ashland, OR

“An ES-related job in Honolulu this coming year and then graduate school!”

Herbert Ogden

Geology Houston, TX

Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology Mill Valley, CA

Biology - Environmental Studies Honolulu, HI

Cathleen O’Grady

Cameron Penner-Ash

Katherine Parker

“After finishing up my degree by completing field camp this summer, the plan was to move to Houston with some fellow geology grads to pursue work in the oil industry. As a joke we proposed our plan as a reality show to TBS, who actually thought it was a great idea! Long story short, we start filming ‘Oil Slick Boys’ next January in anticipation of a fall 2016 premiere!”

“Traveling!”

searching, studying, job hunting, furthering my education.”

Art History & Visual Culture Studies

Andrew Patel Geology

Cara Patten English Rouen, France

“Teaching English at the secondary level.”

Riley Patterson Anthropology

Kari Paustian

Geology - Environmental Studies Sitka, AK “In the near future, I’ll be working trail crew for the U.S. Forest Service in Sitka. Then the plan is to head down to Leavenworth, Wash. and drink/pour wine. After that, I’m open to suggestions. I’ll be adopting a dog somewhere along the line.”

Emily Pavela

Art History & Visual Culture Studies Walla Walla, WA

Rebecca PetersonPerry Environmental Humanities Portland, OR

“This summer I’ll be traveling and also doing an internship for an environmental non-profit. After that, it’s anyone’s guess where I’ll be and what I’ll be doing!”

Mykhanh Pham

Biology Beijing, People’s Republic of China “I will be in China for a year, working as an RA at IES Beijing as well as traveling and improving my Chinese. After that, I will be applying to graduate schools to become a health care practitioner!”

Janaki Phillips Anthropology Colorado

“Taking a year or two off before applying to grad school to pursue a career in anthropology.”

Teaghan Phillips Environmental Humanities

Politics - Environmental Studies Oakland , CA “I will move to Oakland where I will be interning with the Center for Environmental Health as their public policy intern!”

Molly Presson Politics

“Money, cash.”

Sarah Primack Biology

Alan Pugh

Psychology Seattle, WA/San Francisco, CA “I plan on doing AmeriCorps for one year in either Seattle or San Francisco and then a PhD/PsyD program in counseling/ clinical psychology. I would like to become a couples’/family therapist.”

Nathan Radakovich

Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology Bethesda, MD “Working at the National Institutes of Health near D.C. If that falls through, playing music and supplementing tip jar revenues with whatever Craigslist has to offer.”

Brian Raftrey Biology Stanford, CA

“I will be pursuing a Ph.D. in biology at Stanford University.”

Lucas Ramadan Chemistry San Francisco, CA

“Hoping to work in the energy storage industry, in an attempt to address a problem with renewable energy sources. I am specifically interested in working for Tesla.”

Cynthia Ramos Orozco Sociology

Zoe Randol English, Theatre

“Work and graduate school and a lot of traveling.”

Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology

Madelyn Player

Economics - Environmental Studuies Eastsound, WA “Working for a kayaking company in Mexico.”

Nicholas Pellatz

Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology Portland, OR

Aviva Prager

Corinne Pingul

“I have been offered a business partnership in a horse training program south of Portland, my home town, which I plan to accept within the next year or so. My work would entail both training clients’ horses and teaching lessons in tandem with a trainer who has already been in the horse industry for the last 25 years. I am blessed to have such strong connections in this community and the ability to pursue a passion as a career!”

Carol Pengshung

“I plan to spend a few months at home in Iowa attending weddings and seeing my family before moving to D.C. where I will intern with my congressman. If I decide I hate D.C. and politics I will probably run away abroad, and if I love it and get a job that pays real money I will probably stay for a year or two. Ultimately I hope to attend graduate school in ... something.”

Nandini Rathi

Natalie Pond

“I’m moving to Boulder and attending graduate school there.”

Politics Washington, D.C.

“Space lawyership.”

“I hope to continue my lifelong passions of playing the violin and creating artwork and am about to embark on a journey to find a career in which I am extremely passionate. The joy is in the journey!”

Physics Boulder, CO

Drew Powell

English Portland, OR

Film and Media Studies, Politics

Maxwell Reikosky Philosophy

Isaac Reister Physics

Rachel Rice Theatre Atlanta, GA

“I will be working hard this summer and saving up money. I will be looking for theater opportunities in my area and seeing lots of theater.”

Bailey Richards

Sociology - Environmental Studies Homer, AK “For the first time ever, I’m not sure! I would love to travel and I know that I’ll go to graduate school at some point, so I’ve been looking at master’s programs in Europe. Whatever I end up doing, I just hope that I feel fulfilled by it.”

“Typical post-graduation plans: soul-

TheCircuit | 23

Andrew Riggs Economics Palo Alto, CA

“First I will travel and play tennis with pro tennis player Collin Altamirano as a hitting partner. We will likely travel all over the United States and Europe. I will do this until next January, when I start a commercial banking job at Silicon Valley Bank in Palo Alto, Calif.”

Hadley Scherer Psychology

Maren Schiffer English

Daniel Smith Physics - Astronomy Portland, OR

“Graduate school in astronomy.”

Lauren Smith

Noah Teller Biology Aspen, CO

Bridget Tescher

Lyla Wadia

Sabrina Wise

Psychology

English Portland, OR

Morgan Walker Psychology Ellensburg, WA

Jeremy Schofield

Economics - Mathematics

Geology Salt Lake City, UT

Minseon Song

“Pursuing early childhood education and graduate school.”

“I will be attending the school psychology graduate program at Central Washington University.”

Benjamin Roberson

Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology New Haven, CT

Taylor Thomas

Gemma Wallace

“Law school at the University of Iowa.”

“I will be beginning a PhD program in biological and biomedical sciences at Yale University.”

Margaret Robinson

Cooper Schumacher

Religion Iowa City, IA

Biology

Luke Rodriguez

English Seattle, WA

Anna Rogers Politics Washington, D.C.

Martha Sebald

Trudy Soriano

Sophia Titterton

Biology Seattle, WA

English

“Next fall I will be finishing up at Whitman. In the spring I hope to travel in Central and South America. I will be applying for a conservation/educational internship in Alaska for the summer of 2015.”

Joel Senecal

Russell Sperberg

Matthew Sellick Asian Studies Kunming, People’s Republic of China

Theatre New York City, NY

“Next year I’ll be in Kunming teaching English. ”

“I’m moving to New York with friends, and I’m going to make theatre with friends.”

William Seymour

Sterling Spilinek

English

Biology

“Excited to see where my career path leads me. First stop: Washington D.C.”

Nicholas Shariat

Jonathan Standen

Alexandra Roston

Chemistry, Philosophy

Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology

Steven Roston History CA

“Seeing the world under a new perspective.”

Talia Rudee

Sociology - Environmental Studies “Unknown. I might be an AVODAH Corps member in New Orleans or Washington, D.C. for a year or I might be working in or near Seattle.”

Katherine Runkel Biology Helena, MT

“Immediately after graduation I plan to take some time off and work on my primary and secondary medical school applications. Once I have finished my applications, I expect to apply for a full-time job, either within the medical field or something completely unrelated to my career path.”

Claudia Sanchez-Ayala Psychology Seattle, WA

Reid Shaw Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology

Cameron Shishido Chemistry Seattle, WA “I will be going to graduate school at the University of Washington, studying materials chemistry.”

Leah Siegel Sociology Portland, OR “Ask me again in 10 years.”

Monica Simmons Environmental Humanities Ushuaia, Argentina “Trekking about the mountains, talking with some mystics and learning tango.”

Molly Simonson Biology - Environmental Studies Walla Walla, WA “Sunshine, fresh fruit, homemade soda.”

“Taking time to work before heading to grad school.”

Joseph Sims

Nathan Sany

Politics

Anthropology Portland, OR

“Brazil? The Pacific Crest Trail with Chris Perkins? Living with my parents once more? Only time will tell.”

Benjamin Schaefer Philosophy Denver, CO

“Hopefully a job!”

Alexandra Schaffer English Walla Walla, WA

“My future hopefully includes a lot of good books, good food and good friends.”

24 | TheCircuit

Wyatt Thomas LuQuam Thompson

“Travelling to Scotland to see friends graduate, and then off to the Baltics, Ukraine, and Balkans before they are reabsorbed into the NewSSR.”

Kelsey Roehner

“Pretending to be a grown-up.”

“I am joining Teach for America Colorado Corps. I am teaching seventh grade science at DSST Byers Middle School in Denver.”

“Lots of llamas, potentially with a goat or two thrown in to help meet my frolicking needs.”

“Achieving my dreams.”

Sara Sonnenblick

Politics

Sociology Denver, CO

Economics Warsaw, Poland

Biology Avery, ID

“Work in IT industry for a year or two and go back to graduate school for a degree in computer science.”

Mathematics

Mathematics, Physics Richland, WA

Sabrina Rodriguez

Mathematics, Music

McCaulay SingerMilnes English

Economics - Mathematics Las Vegas, NV

“Professional poker player for 2 years. In 2-3 years, I want to go business school and get a job in finance.”

Jeffrey Tolman

“All that’s clear is that I plan on teaching English in Southeast Asia until I have enough money to bike around the world to raise money/awareness for climate change issues. The long run is still unclear, but I’ll probably end up in some combination of medicine and biomedical research or public health work.”

Philosophy

Annie Watters

Brittany Torrence

Sociology Jackson Hole, WY

History Seattle, WA

“I don’t know, but it is bright, so I am investing in sunglasses.”

“I am going to law school in the fall to study international and corporate law.”

Catelyn Webber

Tiffani Traver Mathematics Las Vegas, NV

“I am joining Teach For America. I have been assigned to teach high school mathematics in the Las Vegas region for the next two years. Following that, I am not sure where I will be, but I do plan to continue teaching and plan to coach basketball at the same time.”

Junpei Tsuji

Psychology

Jeanette Weber Economics Carbondale, IL “Hopefully a PhD in economics.”

Andrew Welch Economics - Mathematics Los Angeles, CA

Dylan Tull

Laura West

English Seattle, WA

Geology - Environmental Studies San Francisco, CA

“That’s a scary question. I think I’ll figure it out after I finish this essay. And after I drink this beer.”

“Hopefully a job in the environmental field!”

History Walla Walla , WA

Stephen Uramoto

History Seattle, WA

“Law School? Graduate school? Traveling the world!! Enjoying life!!”

“Who knows?”

Natalie Stevens Art Seattle, WA

“Sleeping, eating and maybe delivering babies.”

Brittany Stockton

Julia Stone Politics Walla Walla , WA

“Working, traveling, working some more.”

Zack Strater Chemistry

Kerry Streiff Biology - Geology Ecuador “Dental school.”

Ahren Stroming

Politics - Environmental Studies “Several years working in environmental policy and advocacy, followed by graduate school in public affairs or policy.”

Colin Strong

Biology Boston, MA

“Studying water science and policy at Oxford University after traveling the West Coast and Europe.”

English

Art

Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology, Spanish Jishou, People’s Republic of China

“I am pursuing a career in medicine.”

History Oxford, United Kingdom

Erin Slomski-Pritz

Art, Sociology

Forrest Watkins

Art

Abigail Sloan “I will be starting my PhD in biostatistics at Harvard this fall.”

Philosophy

Biology

Economics

Kirsten Valaas Asian Studies

“Travel. Graduate school. Hopefully more travel. Ideally I’ll finally have time to read all of those books I’ve been wanting to read, but honestly, my future is rather up in the air at this moment.”

Celine Valentin

Biology - Environmental Studies Bozeman, MT “Graduate school in sports medicine.”

Mariana Vasquez-Crede Biology Salcedo, Dominican Republic

“I will be helping start up an organic farm for a STEM magnet school in the Dominican Republic.”

Loretta Velaochaga Klugger

“I will be attending law school this fall at Seattle University and will be going to lots and lots of Seahawks games!!!”

Meghan White Biology - Geology San Jose, CA “First, I am going to be a member of the National D-III basketball team’s Brazil Tour at the end of July and then go on to be a Teach for America high school biology teacher and basketball coach in San Jose, Calif. After teaching for two years in San Jose, I plan to either continue teaching or enter into graduate school with a focus centered on coral reef biology.”

Kristen Whittington Economics Austin, TX

David Wright Biology

Jacob Wright Sociology “International travel, graduate work.”

Ian Wyant English

Yifan Yang Economics Shanghai, People’s Republic of China “Find a job after graduation, work for 3-5 years then go back to school for graduate school.”

Cameron Young Sociology

Edward Younie Biology

Daniel Zajic Biology Walla Walla, WA “I plan on continuing my research in Walla Walla with Professor Paul Yancey in hopes to get a publication out of it. While working in the lab, I hope to have a part-time job in the Walla Walla community. Following the summer, I hope to find a job within my field of study, working in a lab as a lab technician or find some internship/research opportunities for a year. Taking this gap year will allow me to gain more experience in the field of biology, but will also serve as a nice break before applying and going to graduate school to pursue a PhD in marine physiology.”

Kathryn Zajicek Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology Corvallis, OR “This summer I will be traveling to Thailand as a GlobeMed intern and working with Burma Humanitarian Mission to aid rural health programs. After traveling, I will return home to study for and take the MCAT. I hope to receive a medical research internship or participate in a post-baccelorate program before attending medical school. ”

Isabel Zarate Psychology “I’m not sure ... can’t wait to find out!”

Erika Zinser Staines “I was offered a job as an animation artist with a studio whose biggest commission clients are Disney, Dreamworks, Paramount, Universal and many other studios. I will be designing many things for them, such as posters for feature films and animation designs. I had a chance to work for them during the summer, they gave me access to the animation industry by working on their Disney projects in many instances. I will also be illustrating a series of children’s books. I illustrated the first book (publishing in May), and I was offered to be the artistic director of the series. In my free time (hardly believe it will happen), I am working as a freelance artist, since I have a list of commission requests. I am really excited and I can’t wait!”

“I plan on doing something I love/ makes me happy and hopefully making a positive impact on people.”

“Hiking the Appalachian Trail.”

“Finishing a double major in electrical and computer engineering in addition to my Whitman major.”

Alice Willson

Ivana Vukovic

“I applied to University of Oregon’s graduate school of biochemistry and to a lot of job postings in my field of study in Eugene as well. I still don’t know what exactly am I going to be doing after graduation.”

Independently Designed Major: Electrical Engineering & Computer Engineering Saint Louis, MO

Art Los Angeles, CA

Sociology

Hallie Swan

Daniel Witherspoon

“I plan to work and take classes to return to school to become a dietitian.”

Biology - Environmental Studies Walla Walla, WA

Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology Eugene, OR

Biochemistry, Biophysics & Molecular Biology Seattle, WA

Elaine Whaley

“Portland and poems and a job with College Possible, helping low-income high school students on their paths to college.”

Hannah Wilson Geology - Environmental Studies Juneau, AK “No idea! Adventures!”

What will you miss about Whitman?

Living in such close proximity to my friends.

Fountain jumping, picnics in the wheat fields, friends.

Fresh-baked cookies that people bring around the library during finals

Friendly Smiles

Belonging

My friends, the light, the electric energy that seems to pulse across Ankeny, learning everyday...

All of the incredibly climbable trees

Passionate people

TheCircuit | 25

Memorable classes at whitman Early American Literature Chris Leise That man changed how I think about literature.

Rhetoric of Hip Hop Heather Hayes

Ancient Theater Elizabeth Vandiver

Political Ecology

Deservingness in U.S. Social Policy Susanne Beechey

Social Stratification

Aaron Bobrow-Strain This class, more than any other, has profoundly influenced the way I perceive and react to environmental issues.

Film and Media Studies Theory

Gilbert Mireles It gave me ammunition to think about my position within western society.

America in Vietnam

Advanced General Chemistry

Geology of the Pacific Northwest

Pat Spencer Pat showed me right away that Whitman faculty truly care about you.

Annie Peterson

Allison Calhoun I remember walking out of that class every day with my mind just blown, and viewing Syntax and Grammar the world in a different fashion Dana Burgess than before the lecture. The grammar book we used had something to do with vamMarine Biology pires, and was utterly bizarre Paul Yancey and wonderful. Dana also He rekindled my curiosity in bounces a lot in class, which biology made it entertaining.

David Schmitz

Literature of Nature

Don Snow Life-changingly awesome.

Introduction to Sociology Michelle Janning She was perhaps the most influential professor I ever had, and I am so thankful and blessed to call her my mentor.

Wine Economics Pete Sanning

Any Regrets? • I definitely wish I had the time and/or motivation to attend more lectures or tips or random events that Whitman offered. I think a lot of the growth and learning we do at college comes outside of the classroom, and so I think I could have benefitted from taking the time to do so most consistently. • I wish I had taken more history classes. Or more politics classes. Or an art history class, or religion.

26 | TheCircuit

More math maybe. Basically, I wish I could have majored in like five other fields. • All the time I spent worrying about if people liked me during first and second year. • Getting overwhelmed by schoolwork. School is just one part of life; sometimes I let it take over. • I should have used and abused the Writing Center and my professors’ office hours.

• I wish I had gone to more Coffeehouses and plays. • I wish I had done more with the Outdoor Program. I loved my Scramble and never did anything after that. • I wish I had been an English major, but that’s what college is for: finding out what you really want to do. • Continuing to do things, even though they stopped being fun. Life is too short, and Whitman is even shorter.

Seniors’ Favorite Whitman Memories • Beer Mile painting parties! • Coming back sophomore year and reuniting with friends after the longest summer of my life. • Climbing the Harper Joy Theatre. • Breaking the printing press freshman year. • Creating an ice rink on Ankeny. • Each year the Speech & Debate team would have a holiday party at Jim Hanson’s house. He would give us these huge stockings (like 3 foot tall stockings) filled with candy, toys and furry friends (dollar store stuffed animals). There was always good food, lots of laughter, and it felt like a family get together. • Freshman year, the first sunny day, everyone ran out to Ankeny and spent the whole day lounging and throwing frisbees and soaking up the sun. • Having the world’s worst

•

• •

•

radio show freshman year! Gosh that was good fun! In my first semester at Whitman, some of my section mates (who are now my best friends) and I caught the microwave on fire in Anderson. Our section was without a microwave for weeks! Laying on Ankeny under the stars with one of my best friends at 1 in the morning. Living in the IHC was one of the best years I had at Whitman. My house formed a close community. My freshman section (FroWest!) discussion after “Voices of Whitman.” It was extremely powerful and was the basis of strong friendships throughout the years. One night, some of my friends from the Whitman Christian Fellowship knocked on my door freshman year and asked if I wanted to dress up as s superhero and play Ultimate Cabbage (which is Ultimate

•

• •

•

Frisbee with a cabbage). There were bits of cabbage strewn around Ankeny for weeks after that. Realizing on my freshman rafting Scramble that the next four years were going to be a crazy ride. Some of my favorite memories are witnessing season changes: the absolutely gorgeous and rich blossoming of fall, the joy of waking up to a beautiful blue Walla Walla sky, the glow all of campus acquires around May. Spontaneous musical performances in the library. Walking through the music building one evening and hearing a good friend of mine practicing a piece of music that I had written. I don’t really have one specific memory, but thinking about my freshman year section, and all the shenanigans we got ourselves into, always makes me smile.

What’s on your whitman bucket list? • Find one of those silly little rubber duckies they hide around campus every year. Still haven’t got one. • Eating my fill of the Walla Walla Sweet Onions. • Bring my dog to class. • Find my favorite flavor of milkshake at Iceberg. • Tell every guy I ever considered attractive and had a crush on...I had a crush on them. • Watching the sunrise in the wheat fields and

• • • •

completing the Clarette’s challenge. Sing “Bye Bye Bye” (full volume) in Prentiss Dining Hall at rush hour Sneak mini ninja turtle figurines into the Biology Department aquariums. Play with the planets in the planetarium! I STILL haven’t been to a frat party (shocking, I know), so I’d like to at least make an appearance at one before I graduate.

• Get my bum out of bed at 6 a.m. to go get fresh doughnuts at Popular. • Eat/drink at the Green. • Tell everyone how much they meant to me and how much they helped me grow. • Greekend Hot Dog Eating Contest. • I still have not jumped in the fountain. • Put a bra on the naked Venus statue outside of Douglas. TheCircuit | 27

WHITMAN FOSTERS POWER OF BEAUTY by ALLISON BOLGIANO ‘14

he spring of my junior year, I had two evening seminars in Maxey Hall. Later in the semester, when I caught sunsets on my walks across Ankeny, I’d savor the golden light that turned Lyman’s bricks merlot red and made green, glowing candles out of the leaves on the big trees. Even on evenings when I was fatigued from staying up late the previous night writing a short paper about Karl Polanyi’s false commodities or perfecting the dialogue in a nature essay, a feeling of contentment verging toward awe filled me as I looked at that light on my way to class. On those nights, I thought back to a piece of wisdom I’d picked up six months earlier. Under the crystalline autumn sun of northern New Mexico, surrounded by cottonwoods dropping bright yellow leaves, environmental writer Bill DeBuys responded to a question from one of my fellow 2012 Semester in the West students about nature writing. For Bill, nature writing should document beauty and inspire its preservation. In a voice tinged with sorrow but emerging from a reserved smile, he tells us, “It’s a high calling for all of us to involve ourselves in the defense of the beauty of our planet. There is beauty all around us all the time, and we are called upon to do our best to preserve it.” Now a year and a half after sitting

28 | TheCircuit

in Bill’s pasture, a sticky note above my desk reminds me that beauty is all around us all of the time. The Whitman education usually isn’t about distilling concepts down until they fit on a 2-inch-by-2-inch sticky note, but as I prepare to graduate, I’ve realized that Bill’s quote is one of the greatest lessons I will take away from my four years here. Noticing and appreciating beauty has enriched my time at Whitman. Both on campus and beyond the Whitman bubble, beauty has the ability to inspire commitment, compassion and action. My experience at Whitman has contributed to my belief in the power of beauty. Beauty crops up in unexpected and poignant ways here. During an Encounters discussion about “Maus,” I was humbled when tears bloomed out of the corners of Professor [of General Studies Jennifer] Mouat’s eyes as she imagined stepping into the shoes of Artie’s aunt, who poisons herself, her children and her nephew to escape the Gestapo. To see my professor’s love of her children blend with her interpretation of the text helped me finally define “a great work,” one that artfully and empathetically captures part of the human experience. Sophomore year, after helping advertise a lecture by Mexican social activist Luz Rivera, I sat in a crowded Kimball Auditorium listening to Luz speak about organizing prostitutes and corn growers in Tlaxcala, Mexico to assert their right to legal protection and economic justice. Around me, people chuckled along with Luz and grimaced when she described the government surveillance she endured. Watching her message of collective, from-the-bottom action resonate with my peers was a beautiful moment for me. Whitman’s beauty isn’t reserved for serious moments. It manifests in waking up with tight calves and sore thighs after dancing for four hours straight, taking a portrait of a friend that captures her radiance, watching scramblers lose their “cool cards” and form strong

friendships, walking under a canopy of blooming cherry trees on Valencia Street and feeling simultaneously exhausted and exhilarated during early morning kitchen conversations with friends about the future—that nebulous thing we find ourselves hurtling toward. My faith in Bill’s philosophy is strong not just because beauty has made my time at Whitman magical, but also because I believe that noticing beauty and acting from it has power for life beyond the bubble. All of us will face challenges. Some will be personal. We will endure loneliness. We will lose loved ones. We will be unsure of how to pay the bills. We will have our hearts broken. We will be disrespected and doubted. Other challenges will be societal. Global warming, massive inequality, racism and endemic diseases will demand our attention. Our most beloved places will be transformed by climate change. Our favorite neighborhoods might be bulldozed or gentrified. Our sense of justice will be challenged by intolerance and entrenched inequality. Yet, beauty will persist, although in forms different and new. The attitude that beauty surrounds us constantly allows for resiliency and optimism. Out of those will blossom the motivation to take action to defend the beauty of our planet and its people. The liberal arts education we’ve received at Whitman has made us a group of people with attuned senses of awe, wonderment and beauty. As we go on to become teachers, doctors, executives, farmers, scientists, writers, artists, parents and partners, a resilient appreciation for beauty and the willingness to take its call to action will make Whitties a group of people who face life’s challenges with grace. I plan to keep pausing to notice the golden light of sunset and the gleam in a friend’s eyes when he speaks about social justice, because in those moments of beauty, I find hope and energy for creating the future I want to see.

CALLING THE WHITMAN BUBBLE HOME by JILLIAN DAVIS ‘14

e’ve completed the Clarette’s challenge or failed at an attempt to do so. Pulled all-nighters or completed the quiet room challenge, seen many spontaneous naked laps, whether around Ankeny or through the library. (Maybe we even partook in a few.) We’ve fallen in love, made mistakes, but through it all, we’ve learned so much about ourselves. I look back at the first couple years of Whitman and it seemed like we were tentative about getting our feet wet, unsure of this new place, circling the pool, being mindful not to splash others upon entering. We were just learning what it meant to be out on our own, living somewhere where our parents couldn’t dictate when to study or when to come home. But as time went by, we grew ever surer of ourselves, taking on the responsibility of who we become. This past year especially, I’ve cannon-balled into the water, and I’ve learned that what has made me the happiest throughout my college career isn’t getting an A on a

test (although that’s an added bonus), but the adventure of getting to know myself through the people I surround myself with. Some of us came into college with a set goal in mind. Others, like me, have explored options and interests and still have more exploration to do. I was lucky enough to be a college athlete, on a team full of people with a range of interests and personalities but united under a love of sport, bonded through sweat, smiles and the occasional tears. It was when we were together both on and off the court, during the times of pure exhaustion that tested our strength, times of failure that tested our determination and during times of so much laughter (to the point I peed a little) that stretched our ability to feel happiness, that taught me it’s not what I have but who I have in my life that counts. It was first my team, but it has been the range of people that I’ve bonded with, from roommates to classmates to professors to community members that have made my time at a small liberal arts school, 1,500 miles away from my home town, the fullest experience I could have hoped for. This community of people has taught me that it isn’t the material things in life that will make me happy, but rather what I divest and learn from each relationship formed, measured in a magnitude of compassion, honesty and laughter. Anaïs Nin once wrote, “Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibly not born until they arrive, and it is only by this meeting that a new world is born.” I’ve made friendships that have helped me find myself. The people here have taught me many things and have opened my eyes and heart to a world of possibilities. They also taught me that I still have a lot

of learning left to do. Ten years from now it won’t be the grades, but rather the nights that turned into mornings (with impromptu sleepovers) and the friends and teammates that turned into family that I will remember. So as our adventures at Whitman are about to end, for the last 30 days, I encourage the class of 2014 to immerse themselves in the Whittie culture: meet more people, play more games and go on more adventures. Like many other seniors, I am coming to the realization that the bubble I have played and laughed and grown in is about to pop, leaving me to the next chapter in my life. Although I am excited at the prospects my future holds, I am also ter-

Although I am excited at the prospects that my future holds, I am also terrified: embarking into uncharted territory, faced with difficult decisions that could define my life. rified: embarking into uncharted territory, faced with difficult decisions that could define my life. From the words of a childhood favorite, “life is an awfully big adventure,” and it is my hope for each of us that we are able to find joy in the adventure called life: from our job to where we live, but most importantly in our relationships. Not to judge our choices based on others’ expectations, but based on our own happiness. And when we go our separate ways and leave Styx in the rear-view mirror, I will remember that Whitman is a place where friendships were built, lessons were learned and laughs were shared. A place I will forever call home.

TheCircuit | 29

STUDENTS MUST ENGAGE WITH LIFE OUTSIDE BUBBLE by JANE CARMODY ‘14

efore I arrived in Walla Walla, it was always a struggle to describe to those in my hometown where exactly I was going to be spending my undergraduate days. Walla Walla sounded like a fairytale, something unreal and too good to be true, but coming from Albuquerque, I guess I was destined for places with unique names. My freshman year was the classic scenario: the ‘80s dance, college cabin, soaking in the sun on Ankeny Field, eating Taqueria burritos in the wheat fields and dreading Encounters papers. However, as time went on, I struggled to find those moments of happiness again at Whitman. I became frustrated with the smallness, and about halfway through my jun-

30 | TheCircuit

ior year I felt absolutely trapped. I decided to make a drastic change and spend about 10 months away in Philadelphia and Washington D.C. During those 10 months I was able to gain a grasp on who I was again, but I realized I was only able to do this through the support system I had created for myself, here, at Whitman. The friends I made through Residence Life as a resident assistant at Whitman reeled me back in when I felt lost and disconnected from Whitman and Walla Walla. Now, in my last year, I have a different struggle. I have fallen in love again with not only Whitman, but with the Walla Walla community. I can only attribute this to my ability to step outside the Whitman bubble, the bubble that made me feel so trapped before. Now, don’t get me wrong, it has been extremely hard balancing a thirty-hour work week at my off-campus job and being a senior politics major, but honestly, I wouldn’t trade the things I have learned from my part-time job for anything else. I do, however, think that there is a strong disconnect between Whitman and the larger Walla Walla community. Many students never make it past Bright’s Candies on Main Street. It makes me sad to think that some Whitman students are missing out on what Walla Walla has to offer. Whitman is a campus bursting with intellectual curiosity. We need to take advantage of not only the knowledge we have on campus, but how our campus interacts with the community of Walla Walla. As a politics major, I can see how our community is rich with complex examples of social hierarchies of power. We are one of the nation’s largest wine-producing communities, but yet we are also home to the Washington State Penitentiary. Why does the community continue to vote down improvements for Walla Walla High School’s science building

renovation? Take a moment. Think about how these issues affect Walla Walla, and how possibly these three communities interact with one another. When you take a second to really think about Walla Walla, you will come to find that it is a unique community. There isn’t a whole lot of discussion among the student body about the Walla Walla community and what it means to them. I urge current Whitman students to step beyond the Whitman bubble. Volunteer at the STEP Women’s Shelter or at the Blue Mountain Humane Society. Ride your bike to the movie theater. Take a trip to a local farm. I think there is a collective vibe among Whitman students that Walla Walla is boring and stagnant. I would strongly disagree with these sentiments. It’s important to take what we learn from Whitman and understand how our knowledge can impact the world around us. We will all have to leave the Whitman community eventually, but I think it is important that once we leave, we remember how we felt about the community that fostered our intellectual exploration. Because we all have fond memories of Walla Walla: admiring the sunsets, eating that veggie torta at Graze, going crazy when the Patisserie sold lavender chip gelato and walking to the farmer’s market. It’s easy to remain within the safety of the bubble, but I wouldn’t trade my experience for anything less. My co-workers at my part-time job have become great and long-lasting friends. The locals who come into the shop and ask me how my thesis writing is going make me feel empowered and connected. The tourists stopping by for some local flair always have fantastic life stories. I feel more connected to Whitman now than I ever have before, and I attribute this to my connection with Walla Walla.

OPPORTUNITIES ABOUND IF YOU KNOW WHERE TO LOOK

by Pam London ‘14

hen my mom picked me up after my first semester at Whitman College, she asked me, “Are you sad that you only have seven semesters left?” At the time, I knew the answer: definitively yes. I was a varsity soccer player and English major-to-be living in Jewett Hall and the best section ever (3-West, for those of you who are wondering.) I had a great roommate and was making friends all across campus. I was a sports writer for The Pioneer. I couldn’t imagine being anywhere else and was looking forward to relishing every second I had left on campus. When I was applying to college, I only looked at one other school, but not that seriously. I applied early decision and accepted straight away. In my mind, I had a path all mapped out, and by the end of my first semester I was making strides down that path. Everything was falling into place. People joke about the “Whitman bubble,” but it’s real. Even though downtown Walla Walla is less than a mile down Boyer Street, it’s easy to just stay on campus. I never thought I would feel trapped by the bubble: I was always supposed to come to a school like Whitman and love living on a small campus where I know everybody and everybody knows me. I was supposed to be on this path, nowhere else. Take that question from my mom and flash-forward almost exactly 12 months: this time, my answer was different. Sure I was sad that I only had five semesters left at Whitman, but I was starting to question the path that I had been so sure of for so long. On the outside, things looked good: I was still playing soccer, I still had great friends and I was still writing for the newspaper. But I started to want more. Grad-

ually, the routine that I spent so much time crafting did not seem to make as much sense. Why was I struggling in English classes? Why did I feel like I was losing connections with people? Why did I feel stuck? Suddenly the Whitman bubble, which used to make me feel safe, felt like it was getting smaller. But it wasn’t Whitman that was confining me, forcing me down the path; that was all my doing. When I was a first-year, everything fit. But less than a year later, I found myself questioning not just my academics, but also choices I had been making that led to this moment. During first-year orientation, I asked my pre-major adviser for help choosing a fourth class, and he suggested history. In high school I always liked social studies, but I was supposed to study English. So I chose a history class that fit in my schedule, not quite randomly but without the depth of consideration I gave to other choices. That first week of classes I found myself sitting in History 218, Africa to 1885 with Professor Woodfork. And in May 2012, just weeks before the end of my sophomore year, I declared a history major. This was the first step toward a new path, one that was not clearly defined yet, but one I knew I would want to continue on. Whitman challenged me to not only take that first step but also to want to take it in the first place. I didn’t know I wanted to deviate from the plan, but Whitman showed me that I did. Whitman challenged me to want to study abroad, and spring of my junior year I spent four months in Scotland at the University of St. Andrews, where I saw more of the world than I thought possible and met some of

the most amazing people in my life. I didn’t know I wanted all that, but Whitman showed me that I did. Whitman challenged me to want a new persona, something all my own. I thought I wanted to be the “soccer girl,” someone I had been my whole life and the mold I was so sure I wanted to fill while at Whitman. I continued to play but I didn’t let being a soccer player define me. I didn’t know I wanted to be something, someone, else but Whitman showed me that I did. I don’t know if I have a new plan, but I know what I do have: a new path. Whitman has taught me, pushed me, questioned me and challenged me in more directions than I thought possible for myself. I always thought I knew what I wanted, but being a Whittie has made me rethink things. I set that path rife with expectations, and I can be the one to change it, even leave it entirely. I can want more. And that’s okay. That question from my mom seems like forever ago. I’m sad that I only have days left. But if I still had seven semesters, I would not have learned the things, had the experiences or been challenged in the ways that have made me into a person who is—finally—ready to be a college graduate. I think I now understand what my dad means when he says, “If you don’t ask, the answer is always ‘no.’” I want to ask. I want to want more. And I’m ready to do those things because I am (almost) a Whitman College graduate.

TheCircuit | 31

32 | TheCircuit

‘Blue’: by ALECIA LINDSAY

A SENIOR ART THESIS

lue was an idea that I came up with last semester. I was walking home from the Fouts Center for Visual Arts when an idea struck me. I immediately turned around and went straight back to the art building. I needed to talk to someone about this idea, and I found just the person—my ever-supportive advisor Senior Adjunct Assistant Professor of Art Charly Bloomquist. Each year, studio art majors are to make a culminating piece to display at the Senior Art Thesis Exhibition, which is held from April 25 to May 25. The only problem is, the sky is the limit. This leaves many of my fellow peers at a loss for what they should make. When anything and everything is an option, it becomes difficult to narrow down the ideas. In my experience, the process is about learning what you like to do and having the courage to actually do it. At some point you have to pick something and just go with it. For my studio art major senior thesis, I had a vision of an ethereal woman underwater in a flowing gown. In the beginning, it seemed ridiculous, but that made me love it even more. The completion of the idea seemed nearly impossible at the time, but I was driven to see my vision through. To push the idea even further, I was insistent that the image needed to be life-size or bigger. This meant that I had to find a printer capable of doing something on such a large scale. Charly gave me the advice that he always gives me. “Try it and see what happens.” It always happens to be the best advice. After about 20 minutes of contemplation following my meeting with Charly, I decided to dive in headfirst and make my project a reality. This was going to be my thesis, for better or worse. I didn’t know the weight of obstacles that were ahead, but I had hope and determination. Where do you begin in a project like this? I didn’t have an underwater camera, or an underwater camera case—let alone a camera that would have a high-enough resolution to print the final image in life-size. I had to find a model who was strong enough not to drown while being weighed down by a water-logged wedding dress and also find a cheap gown that fit her. After a few weeks of investigating, I had a camera, an underwater case, a body of water to take photos in, lifeguards to standby and a good idea of how I would be able to take the photos underwater. I didn’t have the funds to obtain a scuba tank, so I was left to take photos underwater the old fashioned way—by holding my breath. Sounds easy, right? The pool is about 6.5 feet deep, so it wasn’t that far down. However, women tend to have a higher percent of body fat than men. This means it’s more difficult for me to sink than the average human man to sink, and it actually takes a lot

of effort to stay on the bottom of the pool. While that might not sound like that big of an obstacle, the timing was one of the hardest parts. My model, senior Rachel Geiter had to go underwater and hold her breath while holding poses for me. She had water going up her nose while sinking down and remaining very still. I had to make sure I took the shot at the right moment before we were both out of breath. You might think to yourself, “I wonder if a really long snorkel would work.” I tried. It didn’t. Obstacles aside, why I made this image is more than its aesthetic qualities. It struck a chord in me. This image was made to express the struggles I had with ideas of beauty and femininity. About a year ago, I started taking portraits, and I quickly fell in love with it. Specifically, I enjoyed capturing the female form in beautiful ways. But as I came to realize, I was using the same conventions of beauty that have harmed so many people. Although I was not intending to perpetuate these oppressive standards, it had become a part of my visual vocabulary. I had been programmed to see that skinny people are beautiful and cellulite was not. It seemed inescapable: how would I undo 21 years of seeing? I realized I was part of the problem, not the solution. “Blue” helped me address the struggles I had with the topics of beauty and femininity. The image was carefully curated and took months of planning and editing. This process further fed into the meaning of “Blue.” All of the photoshopping, stitching of photos together and coloring individual pixels one at a time speaks to how manipulated media’s projected ideas of beauty can be. In many ways, beauty has become something that is so processed, it is no longer in its raw state. But the scope of the project goes further than the ideas of beauty and femininity. Everyone deals with the oppression of stereotypes. The image speaks to the suffocation and constriction of needing to be something you aren’t. Completing “Blue” wasn’t just about a senior thesis project or creating something to display on a wall so I could graduate. It was about the process of learning how to get from the beginning to the end, and appreciating all the steps in between. In doing so, I identified struggles that I have been facing, and did more problem solving than I ever thought I was capable of. I learned to dream bigger dreams. So often, I realize I am not living intentionally, that I’m just floating with the current. Sometimes I feel like I have been living in the mindset of “what if” without giving my ideas a chance at fruition. But ideas are magical to me, like a seed that can be nurtured into something beautiful. I tried doing something I thought was impossible and succeeded. Something incredible happens when you realize that you can dream bigger dreams. So why not try it and see what happens? TheCircuit | 33

Whitman Students Maintain Family Legacy by Natalie Berg

enior Jacob Wright always wanted to come to Whitman College. Not only did his parents, Kevin Wright ’87 and Debra Wright ’89, both graduate from Whitman, they both work here today: Kevin Wright is the custodial supervisor and Debra Wright works in the Business Office. “I’d say I always wanted to go to Whitman. My parents played it up since I was a little kid,” he said. But he didn’t just grow up hearing about Whitman. Jacob’s father Kevin Wright married Debra Wright and got a job at Whitman right after he graduated. The two of them were living in the Baker Faculty Center when Jacob was born, and they continued to live there for the first two years of his life. “Apparently, there’s many, many

34 | TheCircuit

stories of me in one of those baby carts scooting up and down the hallways,” said Wright. Wright is one of Whitman’s many legacy students: students with family members who went here as well. Typically, Whitties are drawn to the college because of its small size and personal nature, and it is these same qualities that have inspired some families to join the Whitman community across generations. Having quite literally grown up at Whitman, enrolling here seemed like the clear choice for Wright. However, the choice is not so obvious for other children of Whitman alumni, like senior Lauren Elgee, who grew up hoping to attend Whitman, but changed her mind during high school.

“I thought I did not want to come here because there are already so many Elgees at Whitman,” she said. Indeed, there have been many Elgees at Whitman. Both of Lauren’s parents, Steve Elgee ’82 and Sara Elgee ’83, along with two of Lauren’s aunts, one of her uncles and two of her cousins attended Whitman. While few students have had this many relatives at Whitman, many legacy students have questioned whether or not they want to attend a school with family history. This was certainly a consideration for senior Sophia Titterton, whose mother, Heather (Hallenbeck) Titterton ’86, is an enthusiastic Whitman alumna.

“I’d never thought about applying to it because it was her alma mater,” said Titterton. “I applied to Whitman very last-minute, sort of thinking ‘My mom had a great time here. Why not apply and see how it all works out?’” This mindset worked out well for Titterton. She didn’t visit Whitman until she was admitted but was excited to enroll, particularly after her mother’s thesis adviser, Peterson Endowed Chair of Social Sciences Keith Farrington, offered to be her pre-major adviser. Though Elgee had also hesitated about applying to her parents’ alma mater, her visit convinced her to come to Whitman. “I came back [from Whitman] the happiest of all of my college visits. I decided that not going here because I knew a lot of people who had gone here and enjoyed it was kind of a silly reason,” said Elgee. For senior Grady Olson, it was his family members’ positive experiences at Whitman that sold him on the school: his father Tim Olson attended Whitman for two years before transferring due to financial reasons. Grady’s sister Liesl Olson ‘11 went here as well. Now that he is

graduating, Grady Olson looks back fondly on the opportunities he had to visit his sister while she was a student. “Being able to come here a couple of times and see Whitman on the realm of what Whitman presents and [also] to live in the dorms with her and see what really happens and what it’s really like here—I think that was really beneficial,” said Grady Olson. When he arrived as a student at Whitman, Grady Olson began working with his sister in the Office of Annual Giving. He also chose to major in geology, much like his sister who studied geology-environmental studies. For Grady Olson, having such close contact with an older sibling definitely helped him transition to college life. “[Liesl and I] have a really good, close-knit relationship, so I think that just continued here in college,” he said. “We’d hang out a lot. I’d ask favors of her, she’d ask favors of me, and that still continues to this day.” Senior Paul Cathcart visited Whitman with his parents, Kevin Cathcart ’87 and Lori (Simard) Cathcart ’88, many times while growing up. It was financial aid and

personal fit, rather than family history, that convinced him to enroll, but even so, Cathcart’s childhood visits to Whitman were certainly memorable. “One of my earliest childhood memories was being in a backpack, one of those for children, in the [Tau Kappa Epsilon] house ... and I remember very distinctly seeing a mural on the wall there and being really frightened by it,” he said. That image stuck with Cathcart throughout his childhood, but he didn’t actually know where the memory came from until he enrolled at Whitman and joined TKE like his father once did. It’s fairly common for Whitman families to truly create a legacy by participating in the same activities. Though both of her parents, Doug Pauly ’81 and Katie (Kavanaugh) Pauly ’83 attended Whitman, junior Skye Pauly’s family history didn’t necessarily influence her choice to enroll here, though it has connected to her choice of activities now that she is on campus. Pauly works with the outdoor program, like her father once did. She also runs cross country with her sister, junior Chelan Pauly.

TheCircuit | 35

“It’s really fun to be together [with Chelan] and do some of the same things and do some different things [from our parents],” said Skye Pauly. Like the Pauly sisters, most legacy students branch out from their parents’ or siblings’ activities at Whitman. For example, although both of Elgee’s parents were involved in Greek life while at Whitman, she chose to remain independent. Titterton, whose mother was a member of Kappa Kappa Gamma, chose to pledge Delta Gamma instead. “I sort of joined the [Greek] system because of my mom, but a different group,” said Titterton. “When one of my mom’s really close friends, a sorority sister, found out I’d gone DG she was sort of like, ‘So when are you going to be disowning her?’” Although she chose a different women’s fraternity, Titterton’s experience with Greek life at her mother’s alma mater allowed them to bond over their common experiences, which culminated when Heather Tit-

36 | TheCircuit

terton visited for her twenty-fifth reunion. “That was a really funny sort of dual thing to be a part of,” said Sophia Titterton. “My mom was here with all her buddies who she graduated with, while also visiting me at Whitman. I got to meet her friends and seeing them sort of in their element at Whitman, getting to meet some of the DGs she was friends with at Whitman ... I’m friends with all the Kappas. My mom will always be like, ‘Sophia, you can’t watch!’ and do the handshake with them.”

“That was a really funny sort of dual thing to be part of. My mom was here with all her buddies who she graduated with, while also visiting me at Whitman.” Sophia Titterton ‘14

The convergence of parents’ and students’ experiences at Whitman has been very positive for many legacy students, who often

enjoy some family connections. For example, before she came to Whitman, Pauly had already met Grace Farnsworth Phillips Professor of Geology & Environmental Studies Bob Carson and Associate Dean of Students Clare Carson. When Wright enrolled, he already knew countless staff and faculty members, including Dean of Admission & Financial Aid Tony Cabasco, who graduated with his mother. Legacy students don’t usually feel restricted by their family history at Whitman. While they sometimes interact with people at Whitman who know their family members, these associations are typically a joy rather than an annoyance. “Seeing that the friends [my dad] made here even in the two years are still really good friends— he still sees them, he still does stuff with them,” said Olson. “I think that just proves the point that even if you’re here for just a short amount of time, there’s something special about this place and you’ll make lifelong friends, and that’s exactly what I wanted out of college.”

Davidson Moves On English Professor Ready for New Challenges By Hannah Bartman

rofessor of English Roberta Davidson will bring her 26-year career at Whitman to an end at the end of this year in order to move to southern California to write fiction. This year, Davidson has been the most senior faculty member in the English department, but she acknowledges that her passion to pursue other creative pursuits draws her away from Walla Walla. “[Writing fiction] is a very timeconsuming and creatively demanding activity, and so is teaching, and I don’t want to do anything but my absolute best in the classroom,” she said. “I like to leave things while I’m on top of my game as opposed to on the decline.” Davidson has carved out a role for herself at Whitman as a respected and innovative mentor to both faculty and students. Her presence in the classroom and as a part of the English department community has left its mark in ways that current students may not even recognize. “Roberta’s legacy at Whitman is the degree to which she really modeled the faculty’s commitment to doing what’s needed, that is, finding a gap, finding something that’s not there and working to make it come true,” said Gregory M. Cowan Professor of English Language & Literature Theresa DiPasquale. Students also comment on Davidson’s ability to fill gaps in class to create a relaxed and inclusive teaching style, which precipitates class discussion and communication. “There’s some chatter when you’re going into classroom and some professors will sit there in the silence, but Davidson will engage in what the students are talking about and it relaxes the atmosphere,” said senior English major Philip Dickinson. Davidson was the only full-time woman professor in the English department and the eighth woman hired as a full-time professor when she was hired in 1988. She describes the department as being full of “wonderful teachers,” but nonetheless it felt like she was surrounded by “tall, greyhaired trees.”

“I was hired to be diversity at Whitman. They wanted a woman and someone to do feminist criticism. There was a little bit of a sense of isolation in that respect, but the two other Medievalists completely took me under their wing,” she said. One of her first additions to Whitman was her creation of the gender studies minor in 1993. “We junior faculty, as we started to gather in numbers, brought a

lot of new kinds of programs,” she said. “Gender Studies, Asian Studies, really anything with ‘studies’ at the end of it, we were ones who brought that from our own graduate school interest.” Despite her specialty in medieval studies, Davidson has taught various classes ranging from Shakespeare, Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters, narratives of masculinity and magicians as creative artists. Being able to teach these classes within the liberal arts setting is what brought her to become a professor.

“I find over the years that I’ve learned as much about the texts that I teach from in conversations that I’ve had with them. Particularly because Whitman has let me teach various things in areas out of my area of specializing, so it’s been a growing experience for me,” she said. In addition to teaching here at Whitman, Davidson has learned a lot about education through her involvement with the Walla Walla Penitentiary. For seven years in the 1990s, Davidson taught classes such as Shakespeare, American literature, gender studies and classes on the family. She co-authored a book with her now husband entitled “Macbeth for Murderers” in 2005, commenting on her experience and lessons she learned from the offenders she taught. “To this day I draw on some of the things [my students at the penitentiary] told me about Shakespeare’s characters, and the way those characters related to their own lives,” she said. “They were older for the most part, had a lot of life experience, but often had a seventh grade educational reading level. Murder crosses education lines.” Her involvement with the penitentiary was cut off when she became department chair and her plate became too full with on-campus tasks. Davidson also became involved in the I Have a Dream program, an organization that offers inner-city high school kids to come to Whitman in the summer to experience the college lifestyle. From her involvement in this program, she took part in creating a documentary about the kids, “Dreamers,” which was featured on PBS. Through her involvement in the community and engagement with students, Davidson has found a teaching style that she shares with her fellow colleagues and that will imprint her influence into Whitman’s English department even after her departure. “A big part of teaching is listening. Bring your authenticity, bring you passion. Be honest, be respectful and that’s generally what you’ll get in return,” she said.

TheCircuit | 37

What will I miss most? 38 | TheCircuit

credits Front and back cover: Photo by Alecia Lindsay Pg. 2: Photo of Shelly Le by Alyssa Goard Pg. 3: Photo of Michelle Ferenz by Halley McCormick, Illustration by Sophie Cooper-Ellis, photo of Julie Stone by Marra Clay, photo of graduation caps by Halley McCormick, photo of Olin Hall by Luke Hampton, photo of Rachel Geiter by Alecia Lindsay. Pg. 4, 5: Photos contributed by Marie

von Haften and Alex Brott. Photo of Ryan Nesbitt by Emily Volpert Pg. 7: Photo by Halley McCormick Pg. 8: Photo contributed by Marah Alindogan Pg.10: Inforgaphic by Julie Peterson Pg. 11: Illustration by Sophie Cooper-Ellis Pg. 14-19: Photos by Marra Clay Pg. 20: Photo by Halley McCormick Pg. 25-27: Photos by Luke Hampton Pg. 34-36: Photos by Allie Felt Pg. 38: Full-page comic by MaryAnne Bowen