Whitman Pioneer Spring 2012 Issue 10

SPECIAL SECTION INSIDE: Winery guide p. 9 E WH TH

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ISSUE 10 | April 12, 2012 | Whitman news since 1896

MEGHAN McCAIN COMES TO CAMPUS

FEATURE

by RACHEL ALEXANDER Senior Reporter

M

Beresan Winery, originally founded as a farm homestead in 1916, made the shift to growing grapes in 2003 to take advantage of the profitable wine industry. Photo by Bergman

HARVESTING PROFITS Wine, onions foster local economy centered on specialty products

by MOLLY EMMETT & TALIA RUDEE Staff Reporters

F

or more than 100 years, wheat has been a staple crop in Walla Walla and the surrounding valley.

The dry land and expanse of open spaces in the area are wellsuited for grain-growing, and the region has gained a reputation for its wheat production. Indeed, one of the images commonly associated with Walla Walla is the rolling wheat fields.

In recent years, however, the introduction of grapes and the success of the wine industry has

diversified Walla Walla agriculture. In contrast to wheat, which must be harvested and replanted every year, grapes are perennial; as long as proper care is taken, the same vines will yield fruit for many years. The long life of grapevines is only one factor in its recent success.

Walla Walla Community College performed a study in 2006, and again in 2011, on the local impact of the Walla Walla wine industry. Since the first Walla Walla winery, Leonetti Cellar, opened in 1978, more than 80 wineries have found the area to be fruitful for their land and their pockets.

The WWCC study shows

that from 1997 to 2007, the “wine cluster”—vineyards, wineries, wine-tasting rooms, places that provide machinery and even lodging, stores and restaurants associated with wine—was responsible for an annual 25 percent of Walla Walla’s economic growth.

According to Whitman Professor Emeritus of Economics, Jim Shepherd, the positive effects of wine-cluster-growth in recent decades have been apparent in the city.

“In the 1980s, downtown was dead,” said Shepherd. “Now, places that were once empty storefronts are tasting-rooms.

You see all these tourists walking around, visiting them all.”

The tourists that now populate downtown Walla Walla not only visit the tasting-rooms, but they also bring business to the hotels and restaurants that make up part of the wine cluster. It is obvious that the wine industry has brought plenty of tourism to the small town, but there are various opinions as to the reason this crop has done so well economically.

Dean and Sheri Derby own a vineyard and winery called Spring Valley about halfway between Walla Walla and Waitsburg. When they opened Spring Valley in 1993, there were only six other wineries in the area. see ECONOMY, page 7

eghan McCain, a selfdescribed “black sheep of the Republican Party,” addressed a group of several hundred Whitman community members on the evening of Wednesday, April 11.

McCain spoke about the challenges of being a socially liberal, fiscally conservative woman in today’s Republican Party.

“I’m pro-marriage equality, I believe in women’s rights and that’s what has set me apart from the rest of the party,” she said.

Instead of a lecture, the event was presented as a conversation.

Assistant Professor of History Jaqueline Woodfork interviewed McCain for the first half of the event. The floor was then opened for questions from the audience.

Junior Hannah Holleran, the Whitman Events Board Co-Sponsorship chair, said the format of the event was designed to encourage a more open sharing of ideas.

“It’ll be more inviting for dialogue,” she said.

McCain’s statements drew a wide spectrum of reactions from the audience. Her comment that Mitt Romney needed to start reaching out to female voters drew murmurs and snaps of agreement. However, when she stated that she was opposed to universal health care, the atmosphere grew noticeably more tense.

Still, McCain kept things light with a combination of self-deprecating humor and frankness about the current state of the Republican Party.

Senior Kel Peyton, who identifies as a moderate Republican, said she appreciated McCain’s openness about her struggles as a social liberal within the party.

“I was really inspired by what she had to say because she’s someone else who’s negotiating that space,” said Peyton.

see McCAIN, page 2

CLASS OF 2015

3,198 APPLIED 53.7% ACCEPTED

CLASS OF 2016

2,851 APPLIED 47.8% ACCEPTED .08% DECLINE IN APPLICATIONS 5.9% DECLINE IN ADMISSIONS GRAPHIC BY BERFIELD

Officers Tim Bennett and Danny Lackey discuss a report in their new location. After receiving funding from a bond approved in 2009, the Walla Walla Police Department moved to a larger, newly constructed building at 54 E. Moore St. Photo by beck

Walla Walla Police Department sees change in leadership, upgraded facilities

by EMILY LIN-JONES Staff Reporter

T

he Walla Walla police department has seen some big changes over the last few months, foremost among them a newly constructed station and a newly hired chief of police.

In 2009 local voters approved a bond allotting $11.5 million to the construction of a new police station at 54 E. Moore St. At 29,000 square feet, the station is over triple the size of the old police offices in City Hall. The department began moving into the station in February, and opened it officially for business on Friday, March 9.

The new facility has a host of new features, including several rooms designated specifically for interviewing subjects, kennels for the department’s K-9 unit, a locker room for securing evidence and a forensics lab.

“It’s already positively helped out,” said Police Officer Dan Lackey on the expansion.

“We’ve been here for a little over a month and we’ve already used each interview room several times.”

At the old police headquarters, Lackey said, interviews occasional-

ly had to be held in the lobby for lack of a better alternative, and the department’s sergeants all shared a single office. Now the department has enough space to host trainings and set aside offices for community outreach and volunteer programs like Crime Free Rental Housing. According to many in the department, the move has been long overdue.

“The old police department had been in service since 1908 . . . They were packed in to the hilt. The facility just didn’t work for the department anymore,” said recently hired Chief of Police Scott Bieber about the move.

Bieber, formerly a commander with the police department of Vancouver, Wash., was selected in February by City Manager Nabiel Shawa out of a pool of 70 applicants as a finalist for the soon-to-be-vacant position of police chief. After undergoing a rigorous interviewing and screening process with both city officials and community panels, Bieber was announced in February as the next Chief of Police.

“It was really a pretty easy selection,” said Shawa. “Mr. Bieber stood out in every [interview]. It made the hiring process quite a snap.”

Bieber assumed the role on Monday, March 26, working in conjunction with former Chief of Police Chuck Fulton to ensure a smooth transition. Fulton retired on Saturday March 31, bringing an end to his 42 years of service with the department. “[Chuck Fulton] wanted to see the building project completed; he was instrumental in it. This was a dream of his,” said Shawa on the retired chief’s involvement. The official move into the new station coincided with the switch from one chief to another, resulting in a dramatic change for the department—but a smooth one, according to Shawa.

“It all worked out. The building came in on time, it’s going to be under budget . . . The timing of the new chief of police worked out perfectly. It all came together,” he said.

As for future plans for the department, Bieber is looking to keep his options open.

“I don’t have any big plans right off the bat. I’m coming into an extremely well-operated police department . . . I’m going to be keeping my mind open and looking for opportunities to improve the things we do here,” he said.

Low acceptance rate, fewer applicants for Class of 2016

by AMY HASSON Staff Reporter

I

n addition to handing out the lowest number of acceptances since 2006, Whitman College experienced a significant dip in applications. This year, 2,851 students applied for spots in the Whitman College Class of 2016, down 347 applicants from last year.

The eight percent decline in applications follows one percent and three percent declines in applications in 2010 and 2011, after a record year for applications in 2009.

Director of Admissions Kevin Dyerly attributes the decline in applications to the economy, cost and location, as well as demographics.

According to Dyerly, many areas across the United States, particularly the Midwest and Northeast, are experiencing declines in the number of high school graduates.

“We’re right in the middle of a six- or seven-year stretch where the demographics [of graduating high school seniors] are on a downward slope and that’s really correlated pretty well with our applicant pool,” said Dyerly.

Dyerly noted that the threeyear downward trend in applications is not unique to Whitman.

“We’ve gotten numbers from a lot of small liberal arts colleges

across the country and it seems to be a pretty typical trend,” said Dyerly.

One notable difference in this application cycle is the number of applicants from specific geographic regions. In the past two years, the number of applicants from the West has been pretty flat, but that was not the case this year.

“This year we saw a little bit more than a modest decline [in applicants] from Washington, Oregon and even California,” said Dyerly. Dyerly noted that this decrease in the Northwest, a region that represents over 60 percent of applications, contributed greatly to the eight percent drop in applications.

While these declines are not sustainable, Dyerly says that the Office of Admissions is currently engaged in conversations regarding how to prevent further erosion in the applicant pool.

“We are really focused in on some strategies to make sure we switch around that trend, specifically here in the Northwest,” said Dyerly.

Although the downward trend in applications is of some concern, Dyerly says the school is still in a very good position. Despite being down eight percent in applications, the acceptance rate this year was 47.8 percent, which was lower than last year’s admit rate of 53.7 percent. see CLASS OF 2016, page 2

NEWS

Apr

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KONY 2012 DEBATE COMES TO CAMPUS

by RACHEL ALEXANDER Senior Reporter

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n the evening of Friday, April 20, Whitman students will take part in Cover the Night, an international day of action which hopes to raise awareness about the crimes committed

by Ugandan warlord Joseph Kony.

The Whitman Kony 2012 campaign will include a screening of the film “Kony 2012,” made by the nonprofit group Invisible Children, on the evening of April 18. First-year cade beck is organizing the event, and said that the purpose of the Kony 2012 campaign is to educate people about the atrocities Joseph Kony has committed in Uganda and a number of other central African countries.

“The point of Kony 2012 is to make Kony a household name,” she said.

To accomplish this, beck is organizing a group to cover campus with posters about Kony on the evening of April 20. She hoped that making people aware of Kony’s actions will motivate them to demand action from the U.S. government and other international institutions. Ultimately, the goal of the campaign is to put pressure on governments to stop Kony from kidnapping children, murdering their families and using them as soldiers.

“The Kony 2012 campaign is just asking the government to do something, whether it’s military intervention or something else,” she said.

The international Kony 2012

campaign organized by Invisible Children has sparked controversy from people who see it as an oversimplification of a complex political problem. Critics have charged the group with misrepresenting the extent to which Kony is responsible for the problems in Central Africa, as well as perpetuating a “white savior industrial complex” which portrays Americans as compassionate actors able to help “save” Uganda from its own problems.

Invisible Children has countered these accusations by saying that the campaign raises awareness of the larger Ugandan conflict, as well as Kony’s kidnapping and use of child soldiers as a systemic tactic of war. Still, Whitman students are divided on the extent to which Kony 2012 is a useful way to educate people about the problems facing Uganda.

“The narrative that [the campaign] sets up about the African story is not a positive one,” said firstyear Mcebo Maziya, an international student from South Africa who is the Educational Executive Director for the Black Student Union. He believes that the Kony campaign has oversimplified the extent to which one man is responsible for the conflict in Ugan-

da and other neighboring countries.

“I don’t think Kony is a problem as much as the social and economic situation surrounding Kony,” he said, adding that a history of colonialism and oppression is more to blame for Uganda’s problems than the actions of a single man.

Associate Professor of Politics Bruce Magnusson agreed that the campaign has tended to consolidate a quarter-century long conflict into a focus on a single individual.

“The Kony 2012 phenomenon makes clear why it is so crucial for students and the population at large to be able to carefully and critically assess media sources, information, and what passes for analysis. These have both the ability to spread faster than clear thought and the capacieither ILLUSTRATION BY PETERSON ty to make most of the world’s horrors invisible or to choose which horrors obtain temporary attention and which ones do not,” he said in an email.

Senior Nan Mukungu, who is a first-generation UgandanAmerican, believes that awareness around the Kony issue is not enough to create meaningful change.

“I don’t know how that’s going to help anybody,” she said.

NUMBERS

IN THE NEWS

Mukungu thinks that students who are concerned about the issues raised by the Kony 2012 campaign should approach activism from a position of recognizing their own privilege.

“Remembering that people [in Uganda] have agency is crucial,” she said. “Otherwise, it turns into a civilizing mission, which is really imperialistic.”

Sophomore Rania Mussa, who was born in Ethiopia and grew up in Uganda, acknowledged that the conflict between the Ugandan government and Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army was complicated, but believed that Kony’s arrest would be an important step in resolving it.

“There are bigger issues, but at the same time, you have to start somewhere,” she said.

Mussa said that she will be helping beck organize the campaign. beck acknowledged that the Kony 2012 campaign wouldn’t captivate every student at Whitman, but said that engaging in some type of activism is important.

“Find an issue that you care about. If this isn’t it, that’s okay,” she said. beck also encouraged students who are skeptical of the campaign to come to the Kony 2012 screening and participate in dialogue around the issues it raises.

“We want to discuss what’s going on and hear everybody’s opinions,” she said. “We urge you to come and learn.”

by SHELLY LE News Editor

185,285,196

Number of combined YouTube and Vimeo views of “Kony 2012” video as of Wednesday, April 11, 2012. The video was posted on Monday, March 5, 2012.

4.5

Average number of months it has taken popular YouTube videos to surpass 50 million views in the past.

5,975,618

Number of Kony 2012 YouTube video views from within Facebook.

2005

Year that a warrant of arrest was issued for Joseph Kony.

151

Number of civilians Kony and his army have killed in the past year.

100

Average number of people Syrian President Bashar alAssad kills per day.

11.5 million Number of Tweets using the #Kony hashtag in the seven days following the posting of the Kony 2012 video.

College Place bond to fund new high school

by EMILY LIN-JONES Staff Reporter

O

n April 17, College Place voters will have the opportunity to approve or reject a $38 million bond proposal to update the College Place School District, renovating the district’s elementary and middle schools and adding a new high school.

Most high-school-age College Place students currently attend Walla Walla High School.

College Place property owners are therefore required to contribute toward levies and bonds approved by Walla Walla voters for the Walla Walla Public Schools.

“This has been on the horizon for years,” WWPS Superintendent Mick Miller said of the proposal, citing College Place’s need for a renovated elementary school and the possibility of state assistance as among the reasons for the bond’s appearance on the ballot.

College Place Public Schools Superintendent Tim Payne confirmed that he believes the time is right for the issue to be put to voters.

“We have this opportunity to offer this to the voters of College Place. It’s a very rare opportunity,” he said.

CPPS does not currently owe bond payments to WWPS. According to Payne, the district is hoping to

create a new high school and remove students from Walla Walla High before WWPS passes its own bond for the renovation of its facilities.

The College Place Public Schools project will cost the district approximately $49 million, of which $38 million will be footed by taxpayers and $10 million by the state of Washington. The bond requires a 60 percent majority vote to pass. If passed, the new high school would be projected to open its doors in 2015.

As far as the bond’s effect on Walla Walla schools if passed, Miller says the impact could be both positive and negative.

“It would help make the cam-

6.6 million

pus less crowded, without question.

The part that would be hard would be that when you lose students, you lose staff members. That’s the biggest concern for me,” he said. Miller estimates that about 350 students would leave Walla Walla High’s student population of 1,800, along with about 15 staff members.

“Right now we can offer a ton of stuff at Wa-Hi, but if the bond were to pass, we’d have to cut back a little bit,” he said, adding that despite this, WWPS supports the College Place district’s endorsement of the bond.

“We are in support of the College Place school district.

If they can make this work for them, we are in support of it.”

Number of Tweets using the #Syria hashtag in the months of January, February and March 2012.

SOURCES: THE TELEGRAPH, CBS NEWS, FOREIGN POLICY MAGAZINE, LRA CRISIS TRACKER.

Correction to Issue 9 The column “WDA’s funding reminds Whitties of easily accessible campus resources” should have cited junior Anna Murveit as the author with sophomore Sean McNulty as a contributor.

McCain urges Republican evolution More students waitlisted from McCAIN, page 1

Peyton said that as a Republican, she often feels left out of dialogue on the Whitman campus, where a liberal political stance is usually taken for granted.

“Not a lot of people know I’m a Republican. I don’t really feel comfortable on this campus a lot of the time,” she said.

She hoped that McCain’s more moderate views enabled her to reach members of the Whitman community who might otherwise

dismiss Republican views.

“I felt like she had some positive reactions and people really listened to what she had to say,” said Peyton. “There was a dialogue going on.”

Senior Geni Venable, who also attended a dinner with McCain, appreciated her recognition that Republicans need to be more progressive on social and women’s issues.

“She hit it right on the head when she said the way the Republican Party is address-

ing women’s issues and social issues, they’re not going to win elections,” said Venable.

McCain said that her political viewpoints often draw her criticism from others in her party, though she feels strongly that she’s on the right side of history.

Ultimately, she believes the Republican Party needs to undergo a fundamental shift to stay relevant, especially to young voters.

“Times are changing.

The party’s going to evolve or it’s going to die,” she said.

from CLASS OF 2016, page 1

Dyerly cited many reasons for this lower admit rate, including a class enrollment goal of 400 new students, higher enrollment rates in early decision, and the need to accommodate up to 27 students who deferred admission in 2011.

The quality of the applicant pool this year was every bit as strong as prior incoming classes. The first-year admitted student class profile is strikingly similar to last year’s; both classes have a median high school G.P.A of 3.87, ADVERTISEMENT

ASWC MINUTES FINANCE MINUTES 4/6/2012 REQUEST OF $495 FROM TRAVEL & STUDENT DEVELOPMENT FUND TO PRINT BREAK GROUND MAGAZINE REQUEST GRANTED Y 4 N 0 A 1 REQUEST OF $296 FROM TRAVEL & STUDENT DEVELOPMENT FUND TO SEND PHILOSOPHY CLUB MEMBERS TO PORTLAND FLOAT CENTER REQUEST GRANTED Y 5 N 0 A 0 REQUEST OF $265 FROM CONTINGENCY FUND TO BUY PAT BENDER (ASWC ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT) A NEW PRINTER REQUEST GRANTED Y 5 N 0 A 0 SENATE MINUTES 4/4/2012 REQUEST OF $7,965 FROM TRAVEL & STUDENT DEVELOPMENT FUND TO SEND WDA MEMBERS TO WATER ASSESSMENT AND CHARCOAL PROJECT INITIATIVE IN GUATEMALA REQUEST GRANTED Y 14 N 2 A 2 BY-LAW REVISION: CONTINGENCY FUND CHANGED TO TWO SEPARATE FUNDS: GENERAL CONTINGENCY AND ORGANIZATIONAL CONTINGENCY

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a median SAT score of 1370 and an ACT composition score of 31.

The lower number of applicants did not make admissions decisions any easier this cycle. The depth and quality of the applicant pool, in combination with a smaller number of available slots, made spots in the class of 2016 hard to come by.

“There are quite a few students on the waitlist that we would have loved to have taken and in another year might have been able to admit if we had more space, ” said Dyerly.

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The Whitman College Pioneer is a weekly student-run newspaper published under the auspices of the Associated Students of Whitman College. The purpose of The Pioneer is to provide pertinent, timely news and commentary for Whitman students, alumni, faculty, staff and parents, as well as the Walla Walla community. The Pioneer is dedicated to expanding open discussion on campus about the issues with which students are most concerned. We provide coverage of Whitman-related news as well as featured local and regional events, and strive to maintain a standard of utmost fairness, quality, and journalistic integrity while promoting freedom of the press. In addition, The Pioneer strives to be a learning tool for students who are interested in journalism. The Pioneer welcomes all feedback and publishes weekly Letters to the Editor in print and online.

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The

NEWS

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3 ‘Queering,’ ‘Break Ground’ print inaugural issues 12 2012

by KARAH KEMMERLY News Editor

W

hitman will soon see two new publications on campus that give students the opportunity to explore complicated issues.

Seniors Ellie Newell, Mehera Nori and Alice Minor, who are all members of Feminists Advocating Change and Empowerment, have conceived a zine, titled “Break Ground,” which will focus on issues of sexual assault. Whitman students of all genders and orientations are encouraged to submit, and submissions can range from thoughts to rants to visual artworks.

“Break Ground” is being funded by the ASWC Travel and Student Development Fund.

Nori said that she, Newell and Minor wanted to create a place for students to take part in the discussion about sexual assault that had already been generated on campus.

“We weren’t sure of what we wanted to put together, but we wanted to create a space where people could talk about their personal experiences so that people could see that sexual assault is not a random and isolated topic that doesn’t affect this community,” she said.

Nori also wants to provide a community of support for survivors of sexual assault.

“Some will have personal experiences and not consider them harassment or assault because they didn’t think it counted. What would have to happen before it counts? Many don’t know what to do to make their

experiences valid. We want to break that assumption,” she said.

Newell described how the title illustrated these goals.

“We chose the name ‘Break Ground’ because we want this zine to do that—to break the ground so that we can start to build a conversation about how we, the Whitman Community, think about sexual violence and gender inequality. We were attracted to the powerful verb ‘break’—breaking the silence, taking an empowered stand against the acts of violence committed against so many people here at Whitman,” she said.

Minor’s personal experiences with assault were part of what drew her to the concept of a publication, but she emphasizes a need to hear stories from a variety of people.

“I have a personal motive, but this zine is a place for all comers to tell their stories . . . There isn’t one political message. We need to hear a diversity of experiences.”

Though the publication originated from the personal stake these women had in this issue and in the Whitman community and not from the club itself, it is possible that students will continue to publish a similar zine in years to come.

“Hopefully it has momentum for younger generations of students.

I would love that,” said Minor.

Minor, Nori and Newell plan to publish the new zine on April 19, which will coincide with Take Back the Night.

Similarly, junior Madelyn Peterson was inspired by queer publications she had read online over winter break and wanted to create a publication that would spark discussion about GLBTQ issues.

“I was excited by how they challenged my ideas of gender and sexuality and I wanted to try a similar publication.”

The title of the new zine, “Queering,” reflects her goals.

“Many of us grew up with the term ‘queer’ as a negative term, like I did, so it might put them off, but when I got here I met more people who identified as queer. The word is being reclaimed as a more inclusive term. I hope to explore the idea of queer and queering and to break down the boundaries we’ve grown up with,” said Peterson.

“Queering” finished accept-

ing submissions at midnight on Saturday, March 31. A “coming out party” was held for the publication on Wednesday, April 11 in the Grover Alston Center.

First-year Evan Griffis, who became involved with the production of “Queering” after having received Peterson’s emails on the GLBTQ listserv, is excited to see how the publication will affect campus culture.

“I’d like to see it push dialogue about issues. People here are so comfortable ‘tolerating’ but they aren’t always engaged with issues not relevant to them. I hope it opens the dialogue wider.”

Griffis is optimistic that “Queering” has a future on campus.

“In the first issue’s submissions, various topics keep developing, and after they read the first issue, there will be even more ideas. I really think it will be a selfsustaining publication on campus.”

GLBTQ has offered to fund the first publication, and Griffis hopes to seek funding from ASWC for future publications.

Peterson looks forward to the future of the magazine.

“I hope this becomes a campus project. I don’t want it to be just mine.”

Hillel-Shalom Seder marks beginning of Passover

On Saturday, April 7, sophomores Jordan Brown, Beth Levin, Luis Alba-Sanchez, Hannah Fadenrecht, Emma Snyder, campus visitor Annie Gocke and sophomore Aviva Prager celebrate Passover at a student-run Seder. Photo by Bergman

Q&A with EVERETT MAROON and AARON BOBROW-STRAIN ure out what to do about it. For a long time I didn’t get that it was a gender identity issue. It took me until 2003 to figure out, “Oh, that’s what’s really going on with me.”

I realized, “Gosh, what I need to do is talk to a therapist who will be unbiased, who can reflect back to me what some of my options may be, and help me work through what may be a really destabilizing realization at the same time that it’s really exciting.” Once you have an explanation for what you’re feeling, there’s a lot that’s really positive about that, but when the explanation is “Well, you may need to turn your whole world upside down and transition to some other gender that you currently aren’t”—that’s an overwhelming prospect.

Photo by Li

by ALLISON BOLGIANO Staff Reporter

The Pioneer recently sat down with local author Everett Maroon, whose book “Bumbling into Body Hair: A Transsexual’s Memoir” was published in March. It tells the story of Maroon’s transition candidly and humorously.

“Bumbling into Body Hair” was a finalist in the Pacific Northwest Writer’s Association’s 2010 literary contest for memoir. Maroon blogs about writing, relocating to Walla Walla from Washington, D.C., and raising a baby son at trans/plant/portation. He has written for Bitch Magazine; GayYA.org; “I Fry Mine in Butter,” a blog about popular culture; RH RealityCheck and Remedy Quarterly.

The Pioneer: Describe your life prior to transitioning. How did you identify in the years prior to transitioning?

Everett Maroon: There were 33 of them. I’ll start with year one. Laughs. As I said the other night, I see myself as having a pretty typical middle-class childhood in the seventies and eighties. I did note at a pretty early age, around third grade or something, in primary school, that I felt different. On the one hand, I was a pretty happy person for most of my growing-up years. I did have to deal with the odd bully here or there, but everyone does pretty much. I did note, though, that there was some sort of alienation that I felt from my same-age peers growing up, and as I got older [I tried] harder to identify what those things were.

I did identify as queer for a while, like 15 years, then I figured out that it wasn’t an orientation issue; it was a gender issue, a gender identity issue. I was in school, and then I went on to college and straight to graduate school because I was afraid of what the real world would present. Then I found myself in a career that was somewhat interesting and stressful and rewarding. It was only when I picked up my head up in the middle of being a very busy 30-something that I had this string of . . . first it was a sense that something still wasn’t falling into place for me, and then it became a series of realizations.

“I did identify as queer for a while . . . then I figured out that it wasn’t an orientation issue; it was a gender issue, a gender identity issue.”

Everett Maroon

Pio: Why did you decide to transition, and why did you decide to begin the process when you did?

EM: Again, going back to people when they’re growing up, it’s easy to identify “Gosh, I feel different,” but it’s very difficult, or it’s a very different process, to identify what the difference is and then fig-

Pio: On your blog you describe gender as “ludicrous, impoverished and problematic.” Can you elaborate on that?

EM: Again, if someone doesn’t know my status, and they walk up to me and say something like “women are all so ‘x,’” you know, whatever it is—to me that’s a ludicrous moment related to gender. They are saying this to me as if these gender categories are pure, essential, natural, normal, etc., and they’re saying it to some trans guy. If I were to reveal to them, “you know, well I must be pretty stupid then too, because I come from planet ‘X,’” then that’s to me a ludicrous moment.

[Among] other things that I’ve experienced [is] this idea that men have to communicate in certain ways when they’re speaking with other men. Whereas I have all this history of being able to say whatever is on my mind, let’s just say at work or something, so I know that people can converse in a different way than just to talk about the weather, or sports, or cars.

When I was working at Social Security, there was a while there when I would come home and just be like, “I love football, but I can’t have another conversation about football.” It was just clearly like a placeholder for an actual conversation, so if someone seemed frustrated about the day at work what they would do is talk about sports as a vent for their frustration as opposed to saying, as many women are capable of saying, “God, I’m really frustrated.” That to me seemed pretty ludicrous. We are all capable of different kinds of communication, and we should all be supported in communicating in the most honest and direct way possible as opposed to these strange, oozy side conversations.

Pio: Why did you choose to use humor so extensively in “Bumbling into Body Hair”?

EM: The reason there is so much humor in there is because a) it’s one of my number one coping mechanisms for life in general, but b) there really aren’t a lot of funny stories about transgender or transsexual people out there in which the transsexual person isn’t the butt of the joke. What I really try to do in the book is turn that on its head, and say, “No, no. It’s not the people who are doing something very unorthodox with their gender presentation who are so funny; it’s the entire system of gender presentation that is funny.”

Just moving through it just gave me a lot of moments when I can just say, “Isn’t that hysterical, isn’t that hilarious, here’s another thing that makes no sense but we’re all doing it.” I kind of wanted to work against the standard device of making the minority position the punch line. The other thing is there are some books out there about transgender people, and they’re often very angsty and depressing. They highlight the struggle over and above the happiness of the characters, or the nuances of the characters even.

Transsexual just becomes two-dimensional or equated with discomfort, and I wanted to play against that too, because people need to know that we are capable of living full lives and being happy people and being self-actualized and contributing to society and culture.

*

Read more about gender and humor online at www.whitmanpioneer.com/news

question of, “How do we help those unprivileged people get access to what we consider to be good food?” It’s all about access.

I think that we need to reconceive food justice as more than just getting access to good food. [It’s] really about questions of wages and social inequality. Why is it that people don’t have the money to buy good food? Those are much harder questions, less immediately pleasurable and fun for food activists to ask, but important if we want to get at the root cause.

Photo by Felt

by RACHEL ALEXANDER Senior Reporter

After five years of work, Associate Professor of Politics Aaron Bobrow-Strain has published a book entitled “White Bread: A Social History of the Store-Bought Loaf.” Published on March 6, 2012, the book has been selected as one of Amazon.com’s “Best Books” for March 2012, and was featured on NPR. It’s currently available in the Whitman Bookstore.

Bobrow-Strain spoke with The Pioneer about the book and the current alternative food movement in the United States.

The Pioneer: Can you summarize what your book is about?

Aaron Bobrow-Strain: Half of it is a kind of fun, sort of fluffy history of America’s most iconic industrial food, and half of it is a more serious exploration of how people have gone about trying to change the food system in the United States.

“I think that we need to reconceive food justice as more than just getting access to good food. [It’s] really about questions of wages and social inequality.”

Aaron Bobrow-Strain Associate Professor of Politics

There are a lot of really exciting books out there about food politics right now that are telling us all the different ways in which our food system is broken, and then they offer a few simplistic solutions. There aren’t really any books out there that look at how people have tried to change the food system in the past: what people have done, the traps reformers have fallen into, what they’ve done well.

It turns out that industrial white bread is a great, kind of fun way to get at those types of heavy questions, because it’s our most fought-over food. So in a lot of ways, even though the book started as a book about bread, it turned into a book about food reformers and diet gurus and health experts who thought that if we could just get people to eat the right type of bread, they would somehow save the world.

Pio: You’ve gotten a lot of praise for the book. Do you think there are things in the current food movement that are making people pay attention to it in a way they wouldn’t have a few years ago?

ABS: I think that there’s an increasing willingness to think about questions of food justice and elitism within the food movement. Right now, when we speak about food justice in the food movement, it’s really a

Pio: To what extent do you see these problems playing out in the Whitman food scene?

ABS: I think the place where I see it most in my classes is in questions of farm-worker rights and farm-worker justice. I’ve been really excited to see how students are really able to reconceive food politics as a question of farm-worker rights and farm-worker justice in a way that isn’t just all about the question of, “What should I eat?” I see that as a really exciting place where people are pushing the meaning of food politics.

Pio: Do you have any thoughts on where the food movement is going or should go?

ABS: One thing I really learned is that when food reformers really focus on the question of individual food choice, they end up doing two things usually. The first is they tend to miss the root causes of what’s going on. The second is that even the most well-meaning food reformers end up reinforcing boundaries between a virtuous “us” who does make the right choices about food, and the scary, maybe threatening, in-need-of-help “them” who can’t seem to make the good and right choices about food.

My favorite story of that is from the 1830s, and it’s of Sylvester Graham, whom you might call one of the Michael Pollans of the mid-19th century. He was an early proponent of vegetarianism in the United States, he has some early ideas about the importance of eating local food, but he made his mark as a food reformer in the 1830s when he went to New York and a massive cholera epidemic that was sweeping up and down the East Coast. He gave this series of lectures on why the poor were getting cholera.

And his point was that the poor didn’t have the moral backbone to make the right choices about food. They were eating too much white bread, drinking too much alcohol, et cetera.

His solution to the cholera epidemic was to give the poor more moral fiber by giving them more dietary fiber. He prescribed whole wheat bread, pure water and locally grown vegetables. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with his food recommendations, especially in a day and age when people were eating a lot of white bread and boiled vegetables and drinking a lot of alcohol, you know, that’s a fairly good list of recommendations. But because he was so fixated on his idea that if the poor could make the right decisions about food it would lower the cholera problem, he completely missed the root causes about why there was a cholera epidemic, which were the corrupt government that was unable to provide sanitation infrastructure, the fact that the poor were working long, grueling unpaid hours in factories and also profiteering by vendors of pure water.

I think that if you substitute obesity for cholera today we really haven’t come that far. I would say as a food historian, when we look back in about 50 years at our current obesity epidemic, we’ll realize that we didn’t have a problem with people making the right choices about food and that leading to obesity, we had a problem with growing social inequality, stagnant or declining average low wages, foreclosure of opportunity in large segments of the population. Obesity is really just the manifestation or the symptom of that much deeper social problem.

*

Read more about food politics online at www.whitmanpioneer.com/news

OPINION

Apr

12 2012

WHITMAN REFLECTIONS

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Whitman must provide ample pre-professional opportunities ALEX BROTT Junior

D ILLUSTRATION BY PETERSON

Under Pressure Social pressures to overcommit affect students’ emotional well-being JULIA STONE Sophomore

I

came to Whitman two years ago as the model Whitman student. I had many interests and quickly sought to join clubs; I committed myself to student organizations, academics, friendships, community service, sports and music. I lived “hard,” and rarely had a spare minute where I could be considered to be doing “nothing.”

While I seemed to be excelling in life, had a wide social circle, was going out every weekend, studied hard and got top grades on exams, I found myself being ever defeated by my depression and anxiety. I felt the pressure exerted by the Whitman culture that values involvement and student engagement in all areas of life and sought to fill the feeling of emptiness, disconnectedness and apathy with more activities, more friends and more schoolwork.

The result? In truth, the more of myself I put out, the more I felt disconnected, unhappy and overwhelmed. At the end of the day, I was uncomfortable being alone, still and unable to relax.

In short, overextending myself did not fix my emotional self— rather, it exacerbated the feelings I had been struggling with.

This is a common story that I know many Whitman students experience. I was shocked to find that the percentage of women seeking

counseling support was the highest among seniors, perhaps suggesting that females feel more psychological stress as their college years progress. According to the report issued by the counseling center, depression, anxiety, stress, poor self-conception, feeling overwhelmed, and eating disorders were the top reasons why students were seeking counseling services.

It is ironic to me that Whitman is considered one of the happiest campuses in the country. When you begin to dissect the collective identity we as a student body have developed, the emerging ideal “Whittie” is at once seamlessly academic, social, athletic, socially and politically aware and active, and involved. There is the academic pressure (we are in college, after all) to take the hardest classes; get acknowledged by professors; be on top of career development, internship and research opportunities; and be ready to spend Friday nights in the quiet room.

But the Whittie must also be a social butterfly; the pressure to maintain friendships in a social environment where you seem to know everybody is challenging. Likewise, physical health in terms of physical fitness is a commonly held value among Whitties, and if you are not on one of the many sports teams, it is assumed you will be in the gym or on the rock wall. Creativity is also highly valued, and most Whitties pursue their artistic tendencies in the many musical ensembles, art classes or literary publications. And that is excluding all of the other broad involvements—the activism, clubs, community service, social networking and leadership opportunities developed and heav-

ily promoted to the student body.

Don’t get me wrong—I am forever grateful to be surrounded by inspired, driven, passionate and engaged people, who care enough to put so much intention and energy into all facets of their lives. But I do think that the expectation to be involved and successful in all areas of academic, social and political life can breed a certain peer pressure that can lead to unhealthy lifestyles. While this is ideal is perfect for some, I have seen that for others this expectation to be involved and engaged to such an extent can lead to overextension and overcommitment. This can leave students feeling exhausted, and, ironically, emotionally undernourished and overwhelmed.

While there is the pressure and expectation to be happy, excited and carefree when interacting with the rest of the student body, many students end up masking greater problems of depression, anxiety and self-destructive activities in striving to present themselves to the public as the perfect, carefree and cheery Whittie. It can also alienate those who are not innately apt to get involved in clubs, activities, sports or other social groups. It is not a coincidence that nearly a quarter of the student body (23 percent) sought therapy from the counseling center for mental illnesses like depression, anxiety and eating disorders.

Beating against the pressure to overextend and overcommit can be difficult, but if resisted, I have found that Whitties tend to be more satisfied when they pursue activities that truly make them happy. Perhaps all it takes is some self-reflection and self-evaluation to gauge the degree to which your current lifestyle fulfills you.

Culture of complaint encourages us to seek meaningful changes on campus SAM CHAPMAN First-year

problem than it is often made out to be—as I once heard it put, “sometimes ‘person who ranks a six on the man scale’ doesn’t cut

W

e at Whitman have it very, very good. Our studies are fascinating, our friends are many and varied, our faculty is ridiculously capable, and our campus is so beautiful that, were it a woman and not an abstractly defined area of land, I would make sweet love to it. We live the way life is meant to be lived, with no two days in a row the same.

And yet, we complain. When I had this idea, the first thing I thought of was, naturally, Bon Appétit. Whitties raise complaining about B.A. to the level of a sport: The napkins are too large, the dressing selection too small, the chefs are unable to conceive of a vegetarian dish that does not involve tofu. Compared to some other colleges and universities at which I’ve dined, we eat like kings; yet the aforementioned are legitimate concerns (minus perhaps the salad dressing).

Political correctness is, of course, an issue as well, with the “gender binary” in particular being a popular target of derision.

While I consider myself a feminist, I feel like this is less of a

it” when describing somebody.

Certain other problems are far more pressing with regard to the progress of feminism. Yet this too is based on valid gender issues—society has a habit of leaning too far in the other direction, which leads to some individu-

als falling through the cracks.

The list goes on and on: People I spoke to described everything from a lack of decent cof-

opposite. The act of complaining is what makes us human. Furthermore, complaints about little things remain important in the face of larger issues.

Picture that some of the complaining I mentioned above may lead to necessary and permanent change. If we were wired to accept what we have and not to take issue, our upward mobility as a species would stagnate. Our contentedness with the small things would leave us too sated to take on anything larger. If we didn’t chafe at B.A.’s lack of vegetarian options, we’d be far less motivated to do something about the wastefully large napkins. If we weren’t set off by the use of gender-specific pronouns, it might never reach our consciousness that persistent labeling harms the LGBTQ community.

We have evolved to complain about everything (salad bars, odors) because things that matter (feminism, paper waste) get caught ILLUSTRATION BY BAILEY up in the net. Therefee to a persistent clique men- fore, even at a paradise like tality to an abundance of myste- Whitman, we must grouse, or rious smells. As this very page we will not grow. So complain proves, we Whitties are masters about whatever you want—exof finding fault. Why do we com- cept the culture of complaint— plain? Is it simply an ever-pre- and make sure the energy of sent flaw of our race that we will your rage is eventually directed never be satisfied? I say just the somewhere it can be put to use.

uring a recent networking trip to New York City to meet Whitman alumni in finance, law, media and other highly professional careers, I was struck by a duality on the Whitman campus. On one hand, Whitties are fun, free-spirited, and—broadly—critical of American standards of material success. However, Whitties are highly intelligent, capable, involved, and, I argue, have a strong urge to forge personal success in whatever form it might take.

These two mindsets are not mutually exclusive, but Whitman as an institution tends to favor the former while overlooking the latter. That is, there are ample avenues to promote highly professional career opportunities that the Student Engagement Center and Whitman as a whole would be wise to capitalize on.

Students seem to agree that there is a general dearth of such opportunities. A lack of pre-med or pre-law opportunities are the most commonly cited examples, but I would take that argument one further. Whitman students lack not only access to, but information about more professionally oriented careers in business that they may be deeply interested in.

Whitman should work hard to gain soon-to-be graduates access to as wide a variety of career options as possible, including corporate work. Silicon Valley tech firms— Google, Apple, Facebook, etc.— crawl over themselves to recruit from high-profile California colleges, so why shouldn’t Starbucks, Microsoft and Boeing (to name a few) be crawling over themselves to recruit Whitties for summer internships and post-grad employment?

I value the liberal arts education model and the experience Whitman has provided me thus far. I think the policy of not transferring vocational credits is sound.

Yet, I encourage decision-making parties to consider the negative effects of going too far in discouraging a pre-professional mindset for three main reasons: student interest, students’ job prospects and the long-term success of the college.

Many students are interested in pre-professional experience. I personally have been able to take advantage of resources set aside specifically to support environmental studies majors in environmental career development, but why should my interest in environmental studies be privileged?

For what we pay to attend Whitman, I do not believe that students’ interest in professional career opportunities should go overlooked.

Second, Whitman should encourage the development of marketable skills and experience in what is a difficult job climate.

Many Whitman students get excited about opportunities with Teach For America, the Peace Corps or fellowships, but will likely find their way into more traditional careers at some point. As such, the building of marketable experience is paramount in terms of preparing Whitties to be successful.

Lastly, and in a cynical and pragmatic way, it behooves the administration to produce alumni who will be successful and wealthy, and can thus donate back to the college and improve the caliber and quality of a Whitman education.

This is something that will benefit Whitman’s reputation and countless students for years to come.

Undoubtedly, many Whitman students are not interested in the life of a corporate stiff; I understand that we are not at Whitman because we want to make as much money as possible. But I contend that there are many students who are deeply interested in some sort of career offered by the types of companies listed above, and that these companies can offer students much more than just a large paycheck.

I appreciate the variety of resources Whitman provides, the diversity of lifestyles it supports and the level of involvement that is possible here. However—be it support for internships and recruiting efforts from regional Fortune-500 companies, better advertisement of networking workshops or similar opportunities for younger students, organizing meetings and academic-year internships with local business leaders, or any number of creative ideas—Whitman must do what it can to support pre-professional development among the many students who have such interests.

OPINION

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12 2012

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ASWC must improve spaces for engagement BLAIR FRANK Junior

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ssociated Students of Whitman College faces a crisis of engagement. The Executive Council forum last week was attended by no more than 20 people (myself included). Given that members of the EC will sit on key college committees and can affect Whitman’s direction for years to come, it was appalling to me to see so few people show up.

It’s easy to fault those who aren’t engaging with ASWC’s goings-on for their lack of engagement, but I think to do so is to ignore the underlying problems behind that lack of engagement. If ASWC was a product I was designing, and the vast majority of the userbase failed to engage with core aspects of the product, I wouldn’t consider that a failure of the users, but a failure of the product.

To that end, I see three major issues with the way ASWC is currently set up that perpetuate a lack of engagement. First and foremost, while

representative democracy is well suited to the United States’ needs (a vast geographic area with complicated political dealings that require the creation of a political elite), it tends to privilege a fire-and-forget approach to political engagement. You vote for a candidate, send them to the larger legislative body, and then let them do their thing for a term before deciding whether or not to vote for them again. In a national context, this works, but at Whitman, the system helps separate students from the operation of their student government. The ASWC offices in Reid are not magically removed from the rest of campus, but people act like they are. That has to change in order to drive greater engagement.

ASWC also does a really lousy job providing students with concrete, accessible feedback about proposals working their way through the ASWC system. ASWC’s messaging has been inconsistent, poorly designed and far too wordy for any sort of straightforward reading. While I understand that political issues can be deep and complicated, the current approach of writing an essay cataloguing ASWC’s work in a given period of time punishes people who feel they don’t have the time to engage deeply with ASWC’s content. Good newspaper articles front-load important informa-

Political Cartoon by Kelly Douglas

tion so that it’s easy to pick up what you need to know. ASWC should do the same: provide headlines for those people who just want a quick news flash, and then allow people to drill down to greater detail.

Third, ASWC must promote greater student engagement beyond superficial awareness-raising programs. Telling students how to engage with systems that don’t encourage that engagement is simply papering over the greater problem of the system being uninteresting. Instead of encouraging growth within an existing framework, ASWC ought to consider throwing out the framework. As I mentioned earlier, students have the most obvious impact when they vote for representation in ASWC. There’s a

fairly clear one-to-one correlation between action and result. The more ASWC can do that allows for those same interactions, the better.

To address these problems, ASWC can start by taking a simple first step: Make Town Hall meetings mean something. They’re held every semester, and the questionand-answer environment is useful, to be sure, but no concrete action comes out of the meetings themselves. If Town Halls had the express purpose of creating actionable proposals for ASWC to work on, students could see exactly how their actions directly affected important outcomes in student government.

The next step is to move ASWC’s messaging and governing online in a meaningful manner. Ideal-

Donating to Senior Fund offers ideal way to give back to Whitman

by ALYSSA BREETWOR ‘12 Guest Columnist

P

hilanthropy is the conscious effort made to financially support a cause about which one is truly passionate. It is a way of saying thank you and of giving back, and is, importantly, extremely personal. There are plenty of deserving causes, and as individuals we have the choice about which organizations we want to support.

Each and every donor should feel proud of his/her contribution— no matter how big or how small.

With graduation not too far away, I have reflected deeply about my college experience. Attending Whitman has been one of the best decisions that I have ever made. I am thankful for the opportunities to collaborate with profes-

sors, travel abroad and meet people with varying passions and dreams. While my four years as a student are coming to a close, my years as a proud Whitman alumna are just about to begin. I know that Whitman will be a nexus point for me throughout my entire life.

Considering the benefits I have accrued as a Whitman student, I now feel obliged to pay them forward, by means of giving to the Senior Fund. The Senior Class Scholarship Fund is a campaign organized by graduating seniors, and it marks the beginning of a lifetime involvement with Whitman College. I encourage your first act as a soon-to-be alumnus to be donating to this fund, to begin as soon as possible the process of giving back.

Over the course of the semester, I have had the pleasure of inter-

‘You only live once’ motto sounds silly, rings true with graduation approaching NATHAN ORD Senior

I

f you haven’t heard a “YOLO” or two lately you’ve been living under a rock or in the bowels of the quiet room. Like some sort of disease, the YOLOing seems to spread on contact; you hear one YOLO and soon it sounds like a flock of seagulls: “YOLO-bro, YOLO-ya know, screw it—YOLO . . .” And while I feel slimy letting this slippery piece of pop culture slide from my lips, I’m caught up as well.

Because a) it’s catchy, and b) it’s actually an appealing way to live.

I’m a sucker for acronyms.

Maybe that’s why I’m a BBMB major. But there is something appealing about the way YOLO just rolls off the tongue like liquid nitrogen on a countertop, or “social construct” for you Maxey folk.

It’s smooth, it’s silky, it’s sexy, but

it’s also a bit of a guilty pleasure.

While different forms of YOLO have been around for a long time, Drake coined this particular moniker in his song “The Motto.” Now I don’t associate with anything that comes out of Drake’s mouth. I’m not in the practice of “shutting shit down in the mall,” nor “telling every girl she’s the one for me.” But he may have actually been onto something when he said “You Only Live Once, that’s the motto, ni**a YOLO.” Unfortunately, like anything good to ever come out of pop culture, YOLO is almost certainly going to be as over-used as Jenna Jameson and become as insufferable as “SWAG.” But before YOLO becomes a capital offense, we might as well enjoy the ride. Because ya’ know, YOLO. I spend too much time doing nothing. I’ve wasted countless hours “studying” on Facebook, and I hate it. Because every time I spend an hour watching online Starcraft (super guilty pleasure), it’s an hour that could have been spent doing something I might actually remember and add real substance to my college experi-

ence. And especially now, as a senior, and as leaves are bursting from the trees, and spring is on the lips of the birds and the bees, the opportunity cost of time wasted is gruesome. But it’s still too easy to write off a little time here or there and lose sight of the present by planning for the future.

There really is “never enough time to do all the nothing you want.” But there is enough time for doing it now. And instead of being like, “naw man, I’ll ask her to lunch later when I grow a pair,” you could be like, “YOLObro, Imma ask her now.” Instead of saying, “I’m kind of tired, I guess I’ll go watch a sunset on Pike’s peak some other time,” you could say, “I’m tired, but F-it, YOLO, lets go.” And you’d be a more interesting person.

You Only Live Once, unless you’re Jesus or Hindu or the Dalai Lama, so why not live the heck out of every moment? I’m not saying blow off studying, I’m saying that when you study, study like your test is tomorrow. Living YOLO is living in the moment.

When you tan, tan like skin cancer is impossible; when you work, work like John Henry (not the

Voices from the Community WOODROW JACOBSON

MAREN SCHIFFER

First-year

Sophomore

“What stresses me out is writing papers.

When I’m stressed, going to exercise helps me focus on my work and relax a little.

Rock climbing, running, going to the gym or playing soccer are all ways I relieve stress.”

ILLUSTRATION BY LOOS-DIALLO

ly, I’d like to see students be able to bring proposals, whether for funding or legislation, to the attention of ASWC in a wholly digital manner, and then for the entire Whitman community to be able to track those proposals through the legislative cycle through the same online portal.

Sure, some physical meetings will still be necessary, but the ability to have free and open access to up-tothe-minute feedback on a proposal’s progress will do wonders for students understanding what it is ASWC does.

Making effective changes to the way ASWC handles student engagement will be difficult and will take time. But they will do wonders for improving the health of student government, and the Whitman community, in the long run.

“It’s relaxing that everyone is off-beat or strange in their own way . . . leading to people letting their guard down in social situations. It’s stressful that Whitman students aspire to be impossibly well-rounded people.”

TKE, but the bad-ass steel-driver of old); and when you party, party like a dinosaur astronomer.

Spring is in the air, and everything thaws in the spring. It’s time to shake the frost from our feet and start stepping with the beat. We’ve spent the last few months hurrying to class under heaps of clothing and hiding under Gore-tex from freezing fog. And now that the sun has popped, there is a measly 40 or so days left before graduation. Facebook can wait, YOLO.

If

acting with countless alumni. Every alumnus has shared with me how invaluable his or her Whitman education has been—explaining the myriad of ways in which Whitman is woven into their lives.

Alumna Kate Prael Asgari ‘87, currently working at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, shared her observations with me: “An encounter with Whitman College has a curious way of enchanting [people] . . . Wherever your endeavors may lead beyond this atoll, you will discover the influence of Whitman in your curiosity, advocacy, inquiry, service, community and adventures. Your gift to the College, in any amount, continues this narrative. Pay it forward.”

Kate’s message is simple: Whitman changes and shapes lives; a Whitman experience is a lifetime experience.

Alumnus Chris Garratt ‘00, a Whitman graduate who is now the Director of the Providence St. Mary Medical Center Foundation, echoed her sentiments: “My Whitman education has prepared me for a variety of professional endeavors, many of which I could not have predicted when I was given my diploma . . . Putting it simply: I give to Whitman because it continues to give back to me long after I graduated.”

This is exactly why I am choosing to give to Whitman’s Senior Fund. It is the first step for many of us in the transition from students to dedicated alumni. By making donations, we demonstrate to our peers the importance of philanthropy—the importance of giving back to a place that will continue to support us as we take on new endeavors in life.

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we understood what hegemony meant,

we wouldn’t be making sandwiches.

a place for food

Text your order to the drive thru 509-540-1261 Monday-Friday 7a-3:30p

What do you find the most stressful here at Whitman, and what do you find most relaxing?

Poll by Felt

KAITY CURRY Sophomore

KATHY NGUYEN Junior

“Writing papers stresses me out the most and working on art lets me unwind.”

“The fact that everyone is on top of everything and is super perfect and you feel like you have to compare yourself stresses me out. It relaxes me to know that my friends are always there for me.”

Apr

12 2012

SPORTS

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WHIT WOMEN HANG ON TO SECOND

by SYLVIE LUITEN Staff Reporter

A

recent loss against topranked Linfield women’s tennis team has put a dark cloud over the Whitman team’s goal of winning the conference championships this year and ensuring a berth at Nationals.

“This is definitely our most competitive season and the best that we’ve ever done in the conference. We have three players ranked in the west region, and it’s definitely a challenge having a bigger team, but it’s the best the team has been since I’ve been here,” said senior Charlotte Scott.

The women have won 13 of their 17 matches this season and are 8-2 in the Northwest Conference. Whitman is currently ranked second in the NWC after their loss to Linfield last Friday. While this does not take them out of the running for Nationals, the Whitman ladies will need to beat Linfield at the conference championships in order to get an automatic entry to Nationals. Even if they place second at the NWC championships they could receive an invitation based on regional rankings.

One essential contribution this year is the large class of firstyears. “Every year is different, this year from the last few years, we’re definitely deeper, and we’ve done a lot better in doubles, and that comes from both the players that have been here improving their singles and doubles, and we have a big class of five freshman, which is not unusual, but on the larger side for a tennis team,” said coach John Hein.

With such a big team, uni-

ty becomes more of a challenge.

“We’ve had pretty good team unity; we have all traveled together for almost all of our matches, and we all practice together, which is really good, because you get to know each other and have fun. Lineups are important, but since there are so many of us that aren’t necessarily playing anyway we keep together really well” said Scott.

“Tennis is a sport that, as we get better, it puts more pressure internally on the team to be really unified moving forward, and we just have such great individuals that work well together. They’re hard on themselves, and they push themselves, but it makes us better, and there’s a lot of support,” said Hein.

Part of the team’s success is the support they receive from family. “One thing about the families on our team is that they take really good care of the entire team, so if you’re ever around a tennis player’s house, you’ll get dinner,” said Scott. During their training trip to Texas, where the women won four of their five matches, the team also had dinner at the home of the Lawless family.

“Its just such a great team and a great group of girls; it’s enhanced her experience and it’s a little family. She’s had the opportunity to travel and meet kids she wouldn’t have met, and it’s really added to her experience at Whitman,” said Mary and Layne Rolston of their daughter’s experience with tennis.

Winning the Northwest Conference championships is the best chance the women’s tennis team has of advancing to Nationals. The women’s next match is against George Fox on Friday, April 13.

The women’s tennis team earned its eighth Northwest Conference win in a match against Willamette last Friday, April 7, after its second Conference loss to Linfield. If the women win both their matches this coming weekend, they will secure a second-place regular season finish going into the NWC Championships on April 21 and 22. Photos by Bernstein

Fly fishing avids seek club revival

by KYLE HOWE Staff Reporter

W

hitman is a college that is well known for its outdoorsy atmosphere, ranging from an excellent Outdoors Program to various clubs that have strong connections to the outdoors. It would seem a fly fishing club would fit well within the Whitman environment, yet over the years, it has struggled to stay afloat. The club has been started a few times by a group of proactive students, only to fall apart after their graduation.

There are a number of current Whitman students who enjoy fly fishing and would like to teach others. However, there is the problem of communication on a larger scale between these fishers.

Whitman’s fly fishing club can be traced back to 1994 when it was run by alumnus Brandon Truhler ’96. When Truhler was a junior, the group was thriving with over 58 members ranging from experienced fishers, to beginners. They took advantage of the geographic location of Walla Walla, where there are plenty of small streams and creeks which are perfect for fly fishing. Unfortunately, after such a promising start, the club fell apart a few years later as the leaders graduated, and newer students failed to keep the group alive.

“When it first started, there were three or four guys who were really gung-ho about it— they did fly casting clinics, and at one time, they actually had some equipment in the outing program that people could rent out. And when those couple students graduated, it just went by the wayside,” said Jeff North-

am, head men’s varsity tennis coach and former fly fishing club adviser.

Northam himself is a fly fisher and still the teacher of a fly fishing class. He knows his way around the streams and creeks of the surrounding area.

“I have done a fair amount of fly fishing around this area.

My class is a beginning class; my class would feed people into the club. I still teach the class every fall—it is full,” said Northam.

When the club was in its prime,

quite a bit more rewarding. You need to be able to present the fly correctly on the water, then you have to be able to mimic the right fly that you want. You’re active all the time, a lot more play,” said Northam.

Though the club may have faded at Whitman, there is still ongoing interest on the part of a few individuals on campus.

First-year Brian Lewis, an avid fly fisher since the age of 12, is one of those individuals.

“Coming here, I didn’t know anyone who also fly fished, and I don’t know how to reach out to them,” said Lewis. “I love it; I do it whenever I go camping. It is just a great way for me to relax and become a part of nature. It is time for me to go outside and hike through beautiful country, and see wonderful places, and be part of nature, and still have an activity,” said Lewis.

For the students who are interested in fly fishing, and who have knowledge ILLUSTRATION BY HWANG of it, Northam recomthere were a number of students mends that they restart the club. who actively engaged with the club.

“If people are interested, they “There were a dozen who were should reform the group and get goactive in it, and there were prob- ing. At one time, they had a little bit ably three or four that were lead- of a budget to do things, and I asing it and were really active. They sume that it wouldn’t be that much would go out and explore the local work for ASWC to refund that and areas on their own,” said Northam. get it going again. All it takes, I While the term “fly fish- think, is three students to get it going. ing” may sound no differ- Should be an easy start if someone ent to some than the classic sed- wanted to go again,” said Northam. entary bait fishing, the sport reThe only thing stopping Lewquires skill, practice and finesse. is from following this recommen“You have to know how to dation is a lack of fellow fishers. cast. You don’t just throw it out “I would help start it, but I would in the middle of the pool and wait need to know other people who are for a fish to bite; it is a lot more ac- interested. I don’t think I could start tive than bait fishing. Fly fishing is it on my own; I would like to have quite a bit more challenging, and friends or more people,” said Lewis.

Waivers give injured athletes extra year

by PAMELA LONDON Staff Reporter

F

or many Division III student-athletes, finishing up four years of college represents the end of an era: the end of long road trips and the day-to-day grind of being a serious athlete. But what happens when injury strikes and takes one of those years away?

How would you feel about the end?

At an academically minded school like Whitman, the vast majority of students graduate in four years. However, that is not to say that the college will not help studentathletes who were denied a year of competing in what they love: sports.

All collegiate athletes enter college with four years of eligibility to compete in a varsity sport. A student-athlete who suffers a season-ending injury or illness—thus losing one of those four years—can either sit out a year or apply for a waiver from the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). If the waiver is granted, that studentathlete will essentially get that year back and can play another year.

Fifth-year senior basketball player Anna Forge is one such ath-

lete. During Forge’s junior year (2009-10), she tore her ACL and MCL and severed the lateral meniscus in her left knee. Because the team was only eight games into the season, she qualified for a Hardship Waiver. According to Forge, the decision was “a no-brainer.”

“Every conversation I had with my coach [Michelle Ferenz] after the official diagnosis was figured out included the phrase ‘redshirt,’” said Forge. “As a DIII athlete, not much is available for us after we graduate . . . I wanted to make sure that I used my full eligibility, because this level of competition might be the highest I ever get to experience, so why waste it?”

While redshirting is normal procedure following an injury at DI and even DII schools, student-athletes at DIII programs like Whitman do not take Hardship Waivers at nearly the same rate. One reason is academics: DIII colleges are much smaller than their DI and DII counter-parts and do not usually have graduate-level studies available.

Nevertheless, unless they are virtually done with all graduation requirements at the time of injury, Whitman student-athletes cer-

tainly have the option to apply for a waiver should they get hurt.

“The only time we would not pursue a Hardship Waiver would be if the student-athlete would be completing their degree requirements at the end of their eight semesters. The student-athlete must have courses they need to complete for graduation to receive any extension beyond their eight semesters,” said Whitman’s NCAA compliance officer Scott Shields.

*

Read the extended article online www.whitmanpioneer.com/sports

Sports facts of the week

Senior tennis player Conor Holton-Burke won the NWC Player of the Week award for April 2-8. This is Holton-Burke’s third honor of the season and fifth in the last two years.

Senior basketball player David Michaels plays his first game of the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament this evening. Follow online at www.portsmouth‌­invitational.com.

Whittie athletes weigh in on NCAA scholarships

by PETER CLARK Staff Reporter

I

NCAA BY THE

NUMBERS 1281

n a recent Pioneer survey, varsity athletes at Whitman were asked what they think about scholarships and additional cash payments for athletes at both the Division I and Division III level. The results provide a peek into what Whitman athletes think about money and college athletics.

The overwhelming majority of Whitman athletes think that Division I college athletes were well-deserving of scholarships, and a strong 60 percent of Whitman athletes thought that Division III athletes deserved athletic scholarships. While Division III schools are not currently allowed to give athletic scholarships, Division I incorporate athletic scholarships not only because they need to in order to compete, but the NCAA requires them to do so.

For football, the NCAA requires Division I-A teams to have exactly 85 players on athletic scholarships. Most roster sizes include roughly 120 players, which means that a few Division I-A college football players are not on athletic scholarships. In order to attract a full roster, coaches figure out which players they think can still get into school by way of academic scholarships or other need-based aid, and which players they have no choice but to offer an athletic scholarship. When it’s all said and done, most Division I football players are getting their education paid for.

Whitman athletes were also asked whether or not they think Division I and Division III athletes deserve to be “paid to play”— to earn money on top of scholarships. Only about 25 percent of Whitman athletes think that Division I athletes deserve additional payment for their athletic services, and a mere 13 percent think so for Division III athletes.

While a small portion of Whitman athletes showed that they think Division I athletes should receive a salary, the majority asserted that a scholarship should be the most an athlete receives in college. In a recent NCAA report, a scant 12 percent of Division I-A programs reported making money this past year. The schools making money are only the powerhouses like Florida, Ohio State and Texas. The rest of the teams end the

year in the red, and are consistently losing money, despite projecting an image of affluence in athletics. Football and basketball are the only two sports that have reported making any profits in Division I. While it may appear on television that collegiate athletics is a huge money maker for schools around the country, the majority of sports that don’t get as much media exposure are struggling to make a profit.

SCOREBOARD

UPCOMING

BASEBALL

GOLF

TENNIS

BASEBALL

v. Pacific University April 6: L 5-0, L 9-2 v. Pacific University April 7: L 6-5

Men’s v. Linfield College April 8: W 9-0 v. Willamette University April 8: W 9-0 Women’s v. Linfield College April 6: L 5-4 v. Willamette University April 7: W 8-1

Number of institutions associated with the NCAA.

138,00

Approximate number of scholarships available to Divison I and Division II, nationwide.

$111

Millions of dollars awarded to Division I schools to supplement athletic scholarships.

$10.5

Billions of dollars spent by the NCAA on college athletics programs, collectively.

7

Total percentage of NCAA expenses distributed to Division II and Division III schools.

12

Percentage of Whitties who think that Division III college athletes should be “paid to play.”

60

Percentage of Whittie athletes who agree that Division III college athletes deserve athletic scholarships to pay for school.

92

Percentage of Whittie athletes who agree that Division I college athletes deserve athletic scholarships to pay for school.

SOURCES: NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION, PIONEER SURVEY OF 86 VARSITY ATHLETES

Men’s & Women’s Whitman Spring Preview April 14: AWAY

v. Willamette University April 14, 12 p.m. HOME v. Willamette University April 15, 12 p.m. HOME

TENNIS

Men’s v. Lewis & Clark College April 14, 10 a.m. HOME v. Lewis-Clark State University April 14 AWAY Women’s v. George Fox University April 13: AWAY v. Lewis & Clark College April 14 AWAY

Apr

12 2012

FEATURE

PAGE

7

WINE BUZZ SUSTAINS VALLEY ECONOMY

FROM PAGE 1

Wheat has been a staple crop in the Walla Walla Valley for more than 100 years. The Sweet Onion and the burgeoning wine industry, however, are two of Walla Walla’s most visible agricultural commodities because they draw tourism to the region. The impact of these industries is multilayered: sustaining a diverse economy, reinvigorating the community and remaining a source of pride for locals. Photo by Bergman

tries to show off Walla Walla’s ex- lot of money at risk,” Locati said. severe and succeed, with more going Broda even managed to conThe land where their vineyard ceptional onions by delivering an The risk lies in the strenuous for it than other onions. People seem vert her Vidalia onion loving sister is located was part of the ex- entire box of Walla Walla sweet work and time put into these on- to still appreciate the unique, amaz- and her husband from Southern Carpansive wheat farm that had be- onions to each newly admitted stu- ions, as the farmers of the Wal- ing taste of a Walla Walla sweet on- olina to Walla Walla Sweets lovers. longed to Sheri’s family for over dent who will be attending Whit- la Walla sweet onions do every- ion, and therefore still may choose “They tell others about them, 100 years. When the Derbys no- man in the following academic year. thing by hand. In contrast, other them over a common yellow onion. and since they can’t get them in ticed that the other few winer“In addition to being a nice wel- large farming corporations that proAndy Broda from Southern Southern Carolina, they just have ies were doing well, they decid- come gift and gesture, it was a way vide for grocery stores may use pes- California has specifically sought to listen to my sister rave about the ed to turn 127 acres of their exten- to highlight Walla Walla and cel- ticides to aid the onions in a quick- out the sweet Walla Walla onions sweetness of them,” said Broda. sive wheat fields into a vineyard. ebrate the famous sweet onion,” er growing process and use ma- since 1970 when she was introduced In contrast to the long-lasting “Wheat is a onion, a few crops commodity crop— have left the Walyou can’t say ‘this la Walla Valley, inwheat makes good itially putting strain pasta.’ Grapes are on the economy. a specialty crop,” Across from said Dean Derby. the current WalShepherd la Walla Farmagrees with Derer’s Co-Op used by’s opinion that to be a cannery. wine is more vendThey processed asible than grain. paragus and spin“The monach locally accordey is really in the ing to the Co-Op’s winery, in a good Agronomy managname and marketer, Stacy Beckman. ing your wine,” “It has taken Shepherd said. a lot of that market However, away from us here .

Derby would ar. . but we have been gue that the wine able to rebound speaks for itself. from that and put in “Tourism has different crops that increased primarcan fill that void,” ily because of the said Beckman. premium wines beBeckman mening produced here,” tioned that other he said. “The tastcrops such as soying-rooms have beans, safflowjust made it more er and many othconven ient.” er types of beans In order to eshave been helped tablish a winery in sustain the market. the area, however, Walla Walone must be able to la is capable of suspay for water rights. taining its economy Vineyards must be through a diverse irrigated, but there array of crops, so is not enough wathat even with small ter in the area to be setbacks, the sweet shared freely. This onion has proven to necessity immedibe a large asset to ately sets up an ecothe economy. Ulnomic barrier for timately, it is well aspiring vintners. worth the farm“Water is beers’, like Locati, lacoming scarcer and bor and brain powscarcer,” said Sheper that goes into herd. “If there isn’t constantly makenough water to go ing the onion better. around, someone Although tourisn’t going to get it.” ism does seem Additionally, to spike from harvesting grapes wine in the Walis very labor intenla Walla valley, sive. And accord- Many farms in the area convert wheat land to vineyards in order to take advantage of lucerative opportunities in the growing wine industry. Beresan Winery, owned the onion has been ing to Derby, there by the Waliser Family, is an Estate Winery in the Walla Walla Valley appellation. Today, wheat and wine co-exist within the complex Valley economy. Photo by Bergman known to hold its is not enough local labor to fill the said Dean of Admission and Fi- chinery for packing. These prac- to them by a co-worker from Seattle. own, and is an ever-present dedemand, so workers are brought in. nancial Aid Tony Cabasco. “Peo- tices provide onions that are much “I was impressed and hooked fining characteristic of our town.

When asked if this introduction of ple really enjoy receiving it, and cheaper, and therefore more ac- on them once I had some,” said Bro“You can talk to people across more low income laborers affect- our office receives many thank cessible, to many Americans. da. “I have Walla Wallas shipped the state and they’ll travel to Walla ed economic stratification in Wal- you notes each summer,” he said.

Locati, however, still believes to me every year since then. Walla to pick up their bag of Walla la Walla, Derby explained the sitThese onions are provided by the Walla Walla sweet onion can per- Wouldn’t have it any other way.” Walla Sweet onions,” said Beckman. uation in the terms of capitalism. Locati Farms, a local family farm ADVERTISEMENT “The key to all successful that has worked hard to create these things is a free market,” said Der- exceptional onions since the onion’s by. “If a crop is doing well, but seed first came to the Walla Walyou need more people, you im- la Valley in 1905. But since then, port them. That’s the way things the onions have come a long way. go in this country. There’s always “Back 25 years ago, onsocial problems in that because ions were just onions; sweet onthey’re not local and don’t have the ions never really had a categosame values, but it’s needed. If the ry in the retail market place, and economy wants to stay stagnant, now, they are a category,” said Mithen we won’t bring people in.” chael Locati of Locati Farms.

And so it goes for many laLocati Farms works hard to bor-intensive crops all over the bring in innovative techniques country. Not only is wine a source that most onion farmers and packof discussion for its tourism ben- ers do not use. This has develefits, but also for its possible ef- oped an entirely new kind of onion. fects on social class and economLocati Farm was the first farm ic status in the city. Whether or not to integrate farming and packing the industry is seen as good or bad rather than having the packers sepoverall, it is agreed upon that it has arate from the farmers. This ennot eclipsed the wheat industry. sures that the onions are packed in Said Shepherd, “Wine gets a the ideal conditions to produce more lot of attention, but I don’t think sugars and the unique sweetness it’s displaced wheat culture.” of the Walla Walla sweet onions.

Like wheat, onions have been There is a colossal amount a defining crop of Walla Walla for of work that goes into growover 100 years since the first on- ing and producing Walla Walion seeds were introduced to the la sweet onions in order to make area; however, the quality of onions these onions an economically viain Walla Walla have come a long ble commodity in today’s economy. way and now make Walla Walla “I just don’t know where it’s sweet onions truly a specialty item. going to go. It’s a tough business Whitman College Admissions to be in. Economically, there’s a from ECONOMY, page 1

FEATURE

Apr

PAGE

8 Phuong Pham ’12 gains appreciation for wine industry, incites more student involvement 12 2012

by SAM ADLER Staff Reporter

F

or senior economics major Phuong Pham, Washington wine country doesn’t just serve as a backdrop to her liberal arts education; it has also served her an opportunity for work while pursuing her own interest in wine.

Pham currently works at the tasting room for Charles Smith Wines (35 S Spokane St).

“I never paid attention to wine before my [freshman] year,” she said.

“In fact, Carlo Rossi was actually my first wine, but I started to branch out because I was interested in it and started researching, and drinking more wines. Then, last year, I had a housemate who was really into wine, and she introduced me to a lot of the Walla Walla wines here in town.”

Then, at the end of last July, Charles Smith Wines hired Pham, thanks, in part, to a bit of serendipity.

“I had an internship in Canada that didn’t go so well, so I decided to come back to Walla Walla and try to find a job . . . and I got involved with Charles [of Charles Smith Wines] through some contacts I had developed as an advertising associate for the Pio,” she said.

Through her work, Pham has been able to cultivate a sense of the local wine community.

“The stereotypical ideas of wine people being snobbish— I don’t think it’s like that at all in Walla Walla . . . We are all very connected to all of the restaurants and the events that come through town, and I’ve learned that everyone knows everyone. There really is no animosity between businesses. It’s more about [wineries] focusing on their own brand, while at the same time coming together to make Walla Walla wine more prominent.”

“It’s where you will meet so many different types of people from every part of the world,” she said speaking about her work in the tasting room.

“More often than not, these people are the ones who love wine and the ones who love talking about wine. You have to love people in order to work in the wine industry.”

Pham’s experience of working with customers also speaks to the vitality of Walla Walla’s wine scene.

“It amazes me every single day I work in the tasting room,” she said, “and I find people from Scandinavia and Latin America, and here we are in a tiny little town in the middle of nowhere.”

Yet while the wine industry is a boom to Walla Walla’s economy, it can also be beneficial to Whitman students.

“Within the Whitman community, the wine industry helps expose us to Walla Walla, and it creates a lot of part-time jobs for students. I know a lot of Whitman graduates who still work in the wine industry because they got a part-time job [at a winery] in college,” she said.

And in regards to students trying to pursue an interest in wine on a non-professional basis, Pham also had some advice.

“Wine is just booze— just drink it! Don’t think that you have to smell a certain smell or anything, because when you first start out, you probably can’t smell anything [but the alcohol] . . . Wine is an acquired taste, and it will take you a while to actually smell anything, but in the meantime, just think of it as booze and nothing out of the ordinary,” said Pham, partially quoting one of Charles Smith Wines’ slogans.

At the end of a follow-up email interview, Pham shared what she’s currently sipping on.

“I am a cab-girl [meaning Cabernet Sauvignon],” she wrote, “and Charles made a killer Shield 2008 Cabernet Sauvignon. As for white, my favorite for this past year has been Cadaretta’s 2008 Cabernet Blanc/Semillon Blend. [And] for the sweet tooth and more affordable wine, [I would recommend] Long Shadow 2010 ‘Leap Poet’ Riesling.”

Walla Walla local Phuong Pham ‘12, never paid attention to wine before her first year at Whitman College. Since working at Charles Smith Wines she has developed a love of Cabernet Sauvignon and local wine culture. Photo by Bergman

Beyond grapes: L’Ecole No 41 extends influence to community

Walla Walla Stat Sheet

Data courtesy of WA Employment Security Dept.

AGRICULTURE FORESTRY, HUNTING & FISHING AVERAGE

13%

OF WALLA WALLA EMPLOYMENT.

AGRICULTURE REPRESENTS LESS THAN

10% OF WALLA WALLA EMPLOYMENT. (IN SUMMER THIS RISES TO 17%)

POVERTY RATES 10.6%

WA STATE

UNITED STATES

WALLA WALLA COUNTY

Feature Editor

Founded in 1983, L’Ecole No 41 is one of the oldest wineries in the Walla Walla Valley. The familyowned winery is located in the historic Frenchtown School in Lowden.

Next year will be the 30th anniversary of L’Ecole. Marty and Megan Clubb, the current owners of L’Ecole, have built on what Megan’s parents, Jean and Baker Ferguson, set in place. Jean Ferguson was L’Ecole’s first winemaker, while Baker’s primary role was the varietal selection, marketing and sales.

L’Ecole has a strong connection to Whitman. Baker Ferguson was a student, faculty member, a longtime governing board member and Chairman of the Board of Trustees.

Megan also attended Whitman, as did she and Marty’s son Riley who graduated in 2009. L’Ecole even released L’Erudite, or the scholar; a special 2008 release of a wine honoring family connections to Whitman and with the profits going directly to the Whitman Institute for Scholastic Enrichment.

N

IN WINTER,

15.1%

by ALYSSA FAIRBANKS

12.4% INFOGRAPHIC BY BERFIELD

amed one of Wine Spirits Magazine’s top 100 wineries 10 years in a row, L’Ecole has truly become a unique Walla Walla Valley destination.

“When people come to visit, people stop on the way in and they stop on the way out,” said Marty Clubb, Owner and Managing Winemaker. “We really built our name—built a destination.”

Yet, L’Ecole winery is much more than just rave reviews in wine magazines. As one of the pioneering wineries in the region, it has helped build the wine industry, while promoting community and sustainability.

The job description of a winery owner encompasses a wide array of tasks.

“Every day is different,” said Clubb. “We grow grapes. So in some sense, we’re a farmer. . . but of something that ultimately turns into a bottle of wine.”

Clubb is also a winemaker, which entails everything that goes into production, making sure the wines are stable, balanced and will have longevity. He is also a marketer and a purveyor of wine.

“You’re building a brand,” said Clubb. “You’re building an identity for your winery, and that comes with patience, perseverance and consistency.”

The work depends on the day and the season—slower in the winter, and busy during the spring, following not only the life cycle of the wines, but also the life cycle of the barrel and the bottling.

Beyond this, Clubb and his team have created an artisan winery that promotes environmental sustainability.

As a brick and mortar winery, L’Ecole is considered traditionalist in that they grow all their own fruit and produce and bottle and sell all their own wine. Clubb notes that in today’s increasing complex economy, their approach is also more complex but ultimately important.

“When we say brick and mortar, what me mean is come see us,” he said.

“Because we’re engaged in growing our fruit, we grow for the quality we want to make. When you control every aspect of what ultimately lands in the bottle, you become the artist.”

L’Ecole competes in the national market because it comes from a unique valley with a distinct cultural identity, which produces family-owned artisan brands.

This control extends towards efforts to farm and make wine sustainable. The climate of eastern Washington is distinctive because it’s relatively dry, has low rainfall and has harder winters. This climate reduces both mildew problems and pest pressures.

Because of this there has been an effort in the wine industry to farm organically and bio-dynamically.

Clubb notes that L’Ecole uses organic practices and composts in the vineyards to create a healthier environment for the vines that result in less human input. Sustainability also expands to the winery itself with recycling programs.

L’Ecole is part of Vinea, the wine growers’ sustainable trust, which includes 75 percent of the vineyards in Walla Walla, and most of the key wineries.

“I won’t even say that we’re at the forefront of this,” said Clubb.

“There are others such as JeanFrancois at Pepper Bridge that really push [sustainability.] But we are an advocate for the program.”

L’Ecole’s Walla Walla wines now highlight their sustainable efforts on the label.

“We are a collective part of a group of passionate, committed viticulturists and winemakers that are trying to encourage growth and sustainable practices,” said Clubb.

Clubb also emphasized the importance of community in the wine industry, and the relationship between the industry and the Walla Walla community.

One example of this, is Clubb’s

participation in creating the Center for Enology and Viticulture at Walla Walla Community College. The vision to create a teaching winery began in around 2000 as a collaboration between the Community College Foundation Board and the College’s President, Steven VanAusdle.

“When I say a teaching winery, it’s more than just creating a teaching program,” said Clubb.

“It’s a facility that would really teach classic, commercial wine making.

They actually make wine there.”

Clubb emphasized the need for education and research to support the growing wine industry in Walla Walla.

“Without a work force to funnel into that industry we are crippled,” he said.

Clubb argues that because Washington State has such a unique climate and faces such specific viticultural issues, the need for Washington specific programs is of the utmost importance.

“The people that have come out of this program are now in the industry in some form or fashion, whether it be in Walla Walla, or Woodinville; they are supporting Washington State winemaking,” said Clubb. “This is a really important program to nurture our expertise and to train people to really help us build a world class industry.”

This growing world class industry has shaped the Walla Walla community in important ways. Clubb notes that in 1990, downtown was dead.

“A synergy of a growing wine community brought tourists to town, [along with] a commitment of the business to reinvigorate downtown,” said Clubb.

This, along with a burgeoning art and education culture, worked to create what is today the unique destination of Walla Walla.

There has been a noticeable increase in the number of hotels, restaurants and bed and breakfasts.

While this is not due solely to the arrival of the wine industry, viticulture has had its impact in the region.

“The wine industry has had a significant impact on that because it created the energy to build tourism off of,” said Clubb. “I mean Walla Walla is still a cool town, but what would people have been coming to see?”

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WINERY MAP

Apr

12 2011

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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

The Pioneer guide to

Walla Walla

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3 4 12

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Walla Walla Area Wineries 1 Waterbrook Winery 10518 W Hwy 12

(509) 522-1262 ronw@waterbrook.com Fri & Sat 10 a.m.-7 p.m., SunThurs 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

Serving fresh made-to-order tacos from noon to close every Friday and Saturday.

2 Long Shadow Vinters 1604 Frenchtown Road

(509) 526-0905 tracim@thelibrarywines.com

5 Amavi Cellars

3796 Peppers Bridge Rd. (509) 525-3541 Open daily 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

6 Waters Winery

1825 JB George Road

(509) 525-1590 Thurs–Mon 11 a.m.–5 p.m.

Outdoor seating for picnic

Thurs-Mon 11 a.m.–5 p.m.

3 Reininger Winery 5858 W Hwy 12 Walla Walla Valley Winery

(509) 522-1994

7 Pepper Bridge Winery

(509) 525-6502 Open daily 1704 J.B. George Road 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

Open daily 10 a.m.-6 p.m.

4 Three Rivers Winery 5641 Old Hwy 12 (509) 526-9463 Open daily 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Bring in this advertisement for a 15 percent discount on any wine purchase April 13-15

8 Northstar Winery

1736 J.B. George Road (509) 525-6100 Mon-Sat 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Sun 11 a.m.-4 p.m.

WINERY MAP

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SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION

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Downtown Wineries 13

Rotie Cellars

31 E Main St., Suite 216

9 Dusted Valley Vintners

1248 Old Milton Highway

(509) 525-1337 info@dustedvalley.com Sat & Sun Noon-5 p.m.

(253) 312-5991 sean@rotiecellars.com

14 Sweet Valley Wines 12 N 2nd Avenue

(509) 526-0002 Fri-Sat 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

New releases come out May 3

10 Buty Winery

535 E Cessna Ave. (509) 527-0901 Mon-Sat 10 a.m.-4 p.m., Sunday 11 a.m.-4 p.m.

11 Tamarack Cellars 700 C St.

(509) 526-3533 Thurs-Fri Noon-4 p.m., Sat-Sun 10 a.m.-4 p.m.

15 Otis Kenyon Winery 23 E Main St.

(509) 525-3505 Thurs-Mon 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

16 Trio Vintners

102 S Second Ave. (509) 529-8746

Thurs-Sun 11 a.m.-5 p.m.

Lowden

12 K-Vintners / Charles Smith Wines 820 Mill Creek Rd. (509) 526-5230 Friday Noon-5 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

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Woodward Canyon Winery

A special pour will be available in addition to the current release line-up for April 13th-15th

11920 W Hwy 12, Open daily 10 a.m.-5 p.m.

Lowden, WA 99360 (last tasting of the day starts at 4:30 p.m.)

A&E

Apr

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The cast of ‘The Birthday Party’ rehearses in the Freimann Studio Theatre (above). The play, directed by Associate Professor of Theatre Chris Petit, utilizes absurdist themes and off-kilter humor. Photos by Felt

Harper Joy throws wild ‘Birthday Party’

by MALLORY MARTIN Staff Reporter

R

unning through Sunday, April 15, Harold Pinter’s “The Birthday Party” brings a mix of humor, menace, mayhem and student originality to Harper Joy Theater.

Written in 1958, and considered a classic piece of Absurdist theatre, “The Birthday Party” tells the story of an odd group of individuals who fall into violent and chaotic behavior during a surprise birthday party.

The play was chosen by direc-

‘American Reunion’: Levy not dry, good old boys regrettably so

by NATHAN FISHER Staff Reporter

T

he pickings were slim, and I mean slim, at the movie theater this weekend.

“American Reunion” got the nod because of my raunchy memories of the “American Pie” franchise. When “American Pie” first hit the big screen, it shocked many with teenage masturbation jokes and a plot centered around a group of high school buddies and their goal to lose their virginity. Well, the guys return back to their Michigan roots for their thirteen-year class reunion, and we get “American Reunion”— same characters, same jokes, same actors, same movie, and, thankfully, same Eugene Levy.

“American Reunion” continues the chronicle of five guys who have long lost their virginities, but now we witness their “grown up” problems and sexual issues. Jim (Jason Biggs) is attempting to keep his sex life alive with his wife while trying to fight off an 18-year-old girl he used to babysit. Oz (Chris Kline) is a famous sportscaster who competed on a celebrity dance off. Kevin (Thomas Nicholas) misses his wife, even though she makes him watch “girly” T.V. Finch (Eddie Thomas) is busy traveling the world and being “The Most Interesting Man In The World.” And Stifler . . . well, he remains Stifler. Rude, obnoxious and still the all-time partier. Fear not, Stifler’s mom is still alive and well as a hot cougar!

The boys are back in town and up to their old shenanigans, but they just are not as funny the second-plus time around.

The guys are now has-beens in their late 30’s, the sex jokes are more—adultish—which takes away from the ridiculousness of the old teenage comedy. Thankfully, the movie does give some laughs from Jim’s dad (Eugene Levy). Levy has been a staple in all of the “American Pie” flicks and continues to be the funniest person in the movie. Although the movie itself was disappointing, Levy’s performance made me belt out a couple belly laughs.

Stay through the credits to see Levy and Stifler’s mom on a date!

All-in-all, “American Reunion” relies too heavily on nostalgia and jokes from the original “American Pie” movie. That being said, I did laugh at the rehashed jokes, and if you feel like losing a few brain cells over the weekend, don’t hesitate to see it.

KWCW SHOW OF THE WEEK

GRAPHIC BY ALDEN

‘You Can’t Stop The Beat’ Frannie and Mykhanh bring you a wide range of showtunes and musings on musicals. From “West Side Story,” to “Glee,” to “Phantom of the Opera”—put some theater into your radio experience!

Wednesdays, 5 p.m. - 7 p.m. On the dial at 90.5 FM Walla Walla and streaming live at www.kwcw.net. For requests, call (509) 527-5283.

tor and Associate Professor of Theatre Chris Petit for it’s illogicality, confusion and variation from previous Harper Joy selections.

“I love its mix of the real and the absurd. In many ways, we never really know what’s going on in the play, but at the same time, it’s all very familiar,” Petit said.

“The language is riddled with clichés and common turns of phrase, but the characters are constantly contradicting themselves, and you can never really trust that what they say is the truth . . . it reveals something about our nature that is perhaps not pleasant, but certain-

ly worth taking a look at. Also, a big draw for me was the humor. I find this play to be very funny.”

These themes were utilized by sophomore Caleb Turner, who was asked by Petit to compose an original score for the performances.

“This is actually my first time doing any sort of design work for a show as well as my first shot at scoring anything,” said Turner. “My primary inspiration was the play text itself, which has this really surreal and subtly dark quality to it—a vibe I tried to emphasize without overpowering the on-stage action.

The show has come together in a re-

ally nice way. The cast is absolutely superb, and I have a lot of respect for all the hard work they’ve put in.”

The play stars senior theater major Michail-Deyan Georgiv, along with One-Act winner and senior English major Michaela Gianotti, junior theatre majors Atanas Atanasov and Jeremy Howell, senior theater major Thomas Knook and first-year Anastasia Greeley.

For Greeley, a Pinter fan, it’s been a great learning experience, and a fun introduction to the Harper Joy Theater. “’Birthday Party’ is certainly rather bizarre in many respects,

but it has some very funny moments and is a truly fantastic work of art,” she said. “I have learned so much from my fellow actors. They set such a high bar that it’s been intimidating, but they’ve been so welcoming that I can’t help but love going to rehearsal every night.”

“The Birthday Party” runs from Wednesday, April 11 through Sunday, April 15. Tickets can be bought at the box office, or at the door. For information about upcoming performances and the rest of the theater season, check out the Harper Joy website at http://www.whitman.edu/hjt.

Visiting Writers Reading Series brings pair of celebrated poets to Whitman

by ALEX HAGEN Staff Reporter

O

n Thursday, April 12, the next installment of Whitman’s Visiting Writers Reading Series will take place at 7:00 p.m. in Kimball Auditorium. The event will feature readings from Suzanne Buffam and Srikanth Reddy, both of whom teach at the University of Chicago in addition to writing and publishing poetry and other works.

Buffam, winner of the Canadian Literary Award for Poetry in 1998, has authored two poetry collections. At the reading, she plans to read from her latest, “The Irrationalist,” as well as excerpts from a new manuscript still in progress.

“It is probably safe to say that

my work is pretty accessible to a wide range of audiences,” Buffam said, noting the simple grammatical structure she tends to use.

Buffam also discussed the humorous aspect of her writing.

“To call one’s own work ‘funny’ seems to me a bit like calling one’s own face pretty, but I will say that I find myself increasingly drawn to the more absurd aspects of experience,” she said.

When asked about the major themes in her writing, Buffam remained charmingly unassuming.

“No major themes. My themes are all minor,” she said.

Buffam went on to reveal that she is “inspired by the knowledge of my own eventual demise.”

Meanwhile Reddy, the author of two books of poetry, plans

to read from a work in progress entitled “Readings in World Literature,” which he described as “a series of prose poems about teaching.”

Reddy’s primary inspiration comes from other writers, such as Franz Kafka, Jorge Luis Borges, John Keats, Emily Dickinson and Kazuo Ishiguro, as well as readers.

“I write for readers—of course, every writer does—but I write for people who really feel like they live most vibrantly when they are dwelling inside books,” said Reddy.

Reddy also discussed his interest in the ethics of poetry.

“I’m fascinated by the relationship between poetry and ethics, or ethical judgment. Poems don’t tell us what to do, but they can help us to think about how we should live in the world,” he said.

Add zest to basic pancake stack

ILLUSTRATION BY HWANG

by ELLIE NEWELL Food Writer

I

think sometimes the pancake is the unsung hero of breakfast. As ubiquitous as the greasy spoon, to non-dairy creamer and weak coffee, I think many people bypass the short stack of buttermilk flapjacks in lieu of her fancier cousins, french toast and Belgian waffles. “You can get pancakes any old place,” we think, and then order two

pounds of mediocre hash browns.

But pancakes are more than the bumpkin of breakfast. Your everyday basic pancake, drizzled with maple syrup, is never going to disappoint. And that’s not taking into account all the delicious pancake variations. They can be filled with banana slices and chopped pecans, pumpkin purée and cinnamon, diced apples or blueberries, or slathered with warm applesauce. And then there are the tidy stacks of silver dollars, or the great lumbering things, extending beyond the borders of the plate (I’m currently rethinking my vegetable-laden dinner plans just thinking about it).

Here’s a recipe for Strawberry Orange Pancakes that I’ve adopted from the 1981 “Better Homes and Gardens” cookbook. You’ll want to wash your oranges really well before zesting them, otherwise you can end up with a waxy chemical fla-

vor. At the end, you’ll have oranges simply pleading to be made into fresh-squeezed juice—the perfect compliment to this yummy recipe!

Mix one and a half cups flour, a spoonful of white sugar, and two tablespoons baking powder in a large mixing bowl. In a separate bowl, combine one egg, one cup milk, and a spoonful of canola oil. Zest one or two oranges—depending on how orangey you are feeling—dice about five strawberries, and add the fruit to the liquid mixture. Make a depression in your dry ingredients and add the wet ingredients, mixing well to avoid flour pockets. Heat a frying pan on medium, adding a dab of butter when the pan is hot. Drop spoonfuls of batter on your pan, and flip when medium sized bubbles form in the center of the pancake. You’ll probably need to re-butter your pan after every batch or so. Serve hot with maple syrup. ¡Buen provecho!

Meteoric rise of Bravo ‘reality’ shows promotes stereotypes

by CLARA BARTLETT Staff Reporter

W

hen my brain feels like dying in the happy, vapid abyss that is reality television, Bravo is the immediate destination of my retreat. But thinking back, I cannot really say when I started watching Bravo, or when it became a facet of popular TV culture.

Today, Bravo, owned by NBC Universal, provides nearly 17 original shows, nearly all of which are reality television programs with an emphasis on housewives, fashion, food and design.

But Bravo was not always a part of mainstream cable entertainment. According to Patrick Parsons’ book, “Blue Skies: A History of Cable Television,” Bravo was originally launched as a premium channel available only two days a week, sharing a spot with a soft-core porn channel, “Escapade.”

But in December 2002, when Bravo was bought by NBC, it underwent a huge makeover, ultimately resulting in the launch of “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” a reality television show in which five gay men, or “The Fab Five,” make-over a straight male in desperate need of a style intervention in relation to home, wardrobe and personal hygiene. The show was an overnight success.

Since then, Bravo has produced shows including cable cash cows like “The Real Housewives” franchise, as well as hit shows like

“Top Chef,” “Million Dollar Listing,” “The Millionaire Matchmaker,” and “Make Me A Supermodel.”

But in examining the shows that have made Bravo a cable force to be reckoned with in the world of media networks, I cannot help but realize that Bravo’s success is founded upon the continual presentation and reinforcement of stereotypes.

While I openly admit to a love of reality housewife shows, the impression of women being reinforced is obvious. Following the lives of the super-wealthy American housewives, the viewer receives a very slanted stereotype of women, consisting of an over-concern for appearance, a constant need to spend and shop, and a never-ending desire to cause “drama” over trivial matters and ruffled feathers.

Additionally, shows like “Millionaire Matchmaker” and “Million Dollar Listing” reinforce the hackneyed and stereotypical American ideal that “money is key.”

Especially important to revisit is the source of Bravo’s turnaround, “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy,” a show that while challenging the status quo of typical American entertainment, also reinforced the stereotype that gay men are innately skilled in matters exclusively related to fashion and style.

So next time you tune into Bravo, remember that despite the label of reality television, you may not be tuning into the real world at all, and stay critical.

Katrina Roberts, Whitman’s Schwabacher Professor of English and Creative Writing and director of the series, hopes that many members of the Whitman community will attend the event.

“There’s much to be learned from writers bringing their own words to life off the page; we’re so fortunate to have the support to bring writers to interact with community members in this way,” said Roberts.

“April is National Poetry Month, and our dual reading promises to be a wealth of literary richness,” she said, describing Buffam and Reddy as “two wonderful, much-lauded writers doing fascinating and original work both [of whom] bring fierce intelligence to bear in their poems.”

PIO PICKS Each Thursday, The Pioneer highlights several events happening on campus or in Walla Walla during the weekend.

Here are this week’s picks: Visiting Artist Talk The Whitman Art Department and the Sheehan Gallery present an artist talk by Brian Jones, followed by a curator talk by Visiting Assistant Professor of Art, Joe Page. The presentations will be held in Olin, with a reception in Sheehan to follow.

Thursday, April 12, 5:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m. Olin 130, Sheehan Gallery.

Equality is “Tres” Sexy FACE and WEB present Equality is “Tres” Sexy, the third annual open-mic coffeehouse promoting the discussion of equality, followed by a performance from acclaimed poet and activist Sonya Renee.

Friday, April 13, 8 p.m. - 10 p.m.

Reid Campus Center.

Coffeehouse Comedy WEB and Coffeehouse present New Yorker stand-up comedian Hari Kondabolu.

Tuesday, April 17, 7:30 p.m. - 9:00 p.m. Reid Campus Center.

“KONY 2012” and “The Rescue” WEB presents a screening of “KONY 2012” and “The Rescue” in cooperation with Students for Genocide Intervention and Awareness.

Wednesday, April 18, 7 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. Olin 130.

Mackenzie Gerringer ‘12 (above) takes a moment to reflect on her personal fashion philosophy. Photos by beck

STYLE SPOTLIGHT Every week, The Pioneer searches out Whitties who bring an extra splash of fashion consciousness and sartorial daring to campus.

This week’s Style Spotlight: senior German and biology major Mackenzie Gerringer.

Style Soundbites “My bracelet was made for me by one of my best friends as a Christmas present. I’ve been wearing it every day for about four years. The pants were actually part of a cos-

tume that my sister wore for a hiphop recital—I reclaimed them.”

“I like to look somewhat put-together. I think there’s a lot of fun in fashion: finding things that you wouldn’t expect go together, mixing themes, layering. Somewhere in my years of choir and band concerts and working in theatre, I’ve picked up an affinity for black. Most of my favorite stuff comes from H&M.” “I usually start an outfit by finding one thing I think feels right for the day, then building a look around that. I think people should enjoy clothes. I wear what I like on any given day.”

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CHARIOT

RACING

5:00-6:15 p.m.

ALL UP IN HERE

Reliving Tradition

After spending most of my natural life as a music nerd, I’m excited to learn more about and support the sports played here at Whitman.

I’m coming to understand that I have more in common with jocks than ancestors in central Africa.

My only qualm with the athletic program here is that it seems to be missing a few crucial sports. Let me lay them down for you:

Olin Hall 423 Toan E. Tabasco, moderator

Siam Said Eggy | Traditional Basket Making, 5 p.m.

The Lummi Nation traditionally submerged cedar bark underwater to create a pliable material that would later harden after being dried in the sun. The bark was woven into sturdy, durable baskets that could hold water without any leakages. In this presentation, audience members will get the chance to perform the same tradition that Native Americans have done for hundreds of years: weaving baskets underwater.

Canadian Literary RACING Olin HallCHARIOT 157 When did this die out? I don’t understand. After moderator watching “BenPatricia Vanderbilt,

Hur,” I couldn’t think of anything else besides getting my hands on a chariot and a hot-blooded steed.

Just picture a fleet of chariots with the blue and yellow WC painted on the side. Just. Imagine it.

Marshal D. S. Mehya | Mole Hunting, 5:15 p.m.

For many indigenous cultures, moles were pests, much as they are today. In order to deal with these pesky mammals, they were hunted, killed and eaten, often with the sauce that has come to bear their name. Due to their rather ugly appearance, hunters found conventional weapons (such as knives, spears and arrows) to be largely ineffective. Strangely enough, large wooden mallets seemed to be the only tools that were able to kill these tunneling monstrosities. This is one of the few opportunities that will allow people over 10 to be able to hit a mole with a large hammer without being embarrassed at playing a children’s game.

THE BALLOON GAME

Played with an air-filled balloon and no net, this game is typically an unspoken but nationally accepted birthday party tradition.

The only rule: Don’t, under any circumstances, real or imagined, dire or peachy keen, let the balloon touch the ground. Heads will roll.

Kay Vaughan Brujian | Songbird Musical Duets 5:30 p.m.

In the 12th century, European musicians discovered a way to manipulate the beautiful songs of the many birds that sung unbidden throughout the land. First off, two birds were captured and their feet were affixed to a small, moveable platform, usually made from wood. They were then prompted to sing by their captor; the most preferred method was to hit them with a large rock. In this manner, the birds sang in rapid succession, or as one, at the direction of their human conductor. Shamefully, this tradition was lost, but was recently discovered by a Whitman anthropology major. In an effort to breathe life into this dead art form, a live demonstration has been prepared with real songbirds; though, due to the blunt force trauma delivered to their frail bodies, they will most likely die as a result of the demonstration. To reiterate, two birds will be killed with one stone.

BIATHLON

Did anyone see this at the Olympics?? Cross-country skiing with periodical shooting stints? Ridiculously cool, and good practice for those Whitties who choose to try their hand at surviving in the Arctic Tundra after graduating (which, statistics show, is somewhere around 83 percent).

DON’T STEP IN THE LAVA!

Another derivation of a childhood game, this traveling team sport has practical applications rather like biathlon. The members could have meets at active volcanic sites and move through dangerous and life-threatening obstacle courses (what fun!). International finals are always held in Pompeii, where everyone feels really quite awkward about it.

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alternative

SCHOLARSHIPS

Some might be happy (or disgusted) to hear that Whitman has implemented a myriad of scholarships so that each student will have a decent shot at an “award.”

Here some of the more reasonable of the available scholarships: The Golf Caddie Scholarship: Ever felt that you excelled in lugging a bag full of metal around a grass course while giving moral support to someone who only addresses you as “Slave person”? Then Whitman has the perfect scholarship for you.

Are you one of the students who has always seemed to have that natural talent for mimicking the mating call of the decrepit-looking Shoebill bird? (Look it up. It’s worth your time.) Then you might just be lucky enough to win Whitman’s prestigious Shoebill Bird Mimic Award!

Tired of people assuming you’re a Mormon based on your fair complexion, lack of facial hair and socially unaccepted style of clothing?

Take a crack at Whitman’s increasingly popular I Look Like A Mormon But Am Not Scholarship.

Cartoon by Ruth Hwang

alternative

SCHOLARSHIPS

Occasionally there’s a student out there with the ability to make a green apple appear out of thin air. If you are one of these lucky students, take a chance at winning the esteemed Apple Conjurer Scholarship.

Some might be happy (or disgusted) to hear that Whitman has implemented a myriad of scholarships so that each student will have a decent shot at an “award.”

Here some of the more reasonable of the available scholarships:

Do you posses the elusive but much sought-after ability to correctly predict people’s futures based on the subtle movement of their hips? Then try collecting the highly competitive but rarely awarded Hip Reader Scholarship.

The Golf Caddie Scholarship: Ever felt that you excelled in lugging a bag full of metal around a grass course while giving moral support to someone who only addresses you as “Slave person?” Then Whitman has the perfect scholarship for you.

This obscure but charming award is for those lucky few who have obtained the ability to accurately define a tree’s height to within an inch upon first glance.

Good luck achieving the Tree Whisperer Scholarship.

Are you one of the students who has always seemed to have that natural talent for mimicking the mating call of the decrepit-looking Shoebill bird? (Look it up. It’s worth your time.) Then you might just be lucky enough

ADVERTISEMENT

to win Whitman’s prestigious Shoebill Bird Mimic Award!

Tired of people assuming you’re a Mormon based on your fair complexion, lack of facial hair and socially unaccepted style of clothing?

Take a crack at Whitman’s increasingly popular I Look Like A Mormon But Am Not Scholarship.

Occasionally there’s a student out there with the ability to make a green apple appear out of thin air. If you are one of these lucky students, take a chance at winning the esteemed Apple Conjurer Scholarship.

Do you posses the elusive but much sought after ability to correctly predict people’s futures based on the subtle movement of their hips? Then try collecting the highly competitive but rarely awarded Hip Reader Scholarship.

This obscure but charming award is for those lucky few who have obtained the ability to accurately define a tree’s height to within an inch upon first glance.

FIND MY FRIENDS

CREEPER STYLE Find My Friends is an iPhone app that allows you to view the approximate locations of certain friends who also have the app. Accused by some as creepy, it is very convenient for meeting up with your homies. What happens when this app is used on the tiny campus of Whitman?

• When the app tells you your friend is in the west wing of Jewett, you search through every floor before finding them behind it in the parking lot, damn accuracy.

• You see your friend is in Reid, and begin walking over there.

However, by the time you arrive, she’s already halfway back to Lyman, stupid quick-ass walks across campus.

• You wonder where your crush is while at a party. Oh, there, 10 feet away from you, perhaps should’ve checked your own eyes before your iPhone, get your cool on, yo!

• You see your friend is at Safeway. Aw yeah, can you pick me up some cheese man?

• You can check what off-campus house a friend left their phone at the night before. Aw yeah now that’s convenience!

• You wanna know what time to go down to dinner, you look for when all the dots move to the same place, score!