News
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March
Latino Students Thriving at Whittier Despite National Graduation Trend
03.18.10 With a 63 percent graduation rate, Whittier College's Latino students are outperforming their peers on a national level.
According to a new study of national college graduation data by the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), across the country, only 51 percent of Latino students who start college complete a bachelor's degree in six years, compared to 59 percent of white students. That disparity holds true no matter the ability of the students or the reputation of the schools.
"These data show quite clearly that colleges and universities cannot place all of the blame on students for failing to graduate," said Andrew P. Kelly of the AEI. "Colleges struggling to graduate their Hispanic students should learn from the successes of leaders like Whittier College, which has successfully closed the gap between its Hispanic and white students."
The authors found that graduation rates improve with an increased institutional focus on graduating all students, better consumer information, and reformed government funding that focuses on performance instead of enrollment.
"Schools that say 'we just don't have the resources' aren't trying hard enough," said Whittier President Sharon Herzberger. "If we can achieve the outcomes we do with our modest endowment, so can many others."
The report comes at a time when the Latino population in the United States is rapidly growing, and their academic achievements have important implications for America's future. Click here to see the full report. More »
Doug Booth '71 Names Entrepreneur of the Year
03.15.10 Nevada businessman and Whittier graduate Doug Booth was named the Reno Gazette-Journal's 2010 Entrepreneur of the Year.
Booth is the co-owner of Buckbean Brewing Co. based in Reno.
Buckbean, established in 2008, is a microbrewery that distributes its goods to stores, restaurants and bars, with a distribution presence in three states and more than 300 retail outlets.
Booth told the Gazette-Journal that the idea for opening a brewery's came to him two decades before the business launched, when he attended the Oregon Beer Festival.
"I thought to myself, 'That would be the coolest thing in the world, to make a really good quality beer,'" he said. "People are happy when they choose to buy a good beer, as opposed to having to buy insurance or get a root canal. I wanted to be part of making people happy."
Booth has distinguished himself as a business development "guru." In 2009 he launched the successful CANFEST, a first-of-its-kind beer festival featuring 33 canned beer brewers.
More »
Academic Calendar Modified; Sparks Discussion
03.12.10 In a letter sent March 10 from President Herzberger, the Whittier College campus community was updated on a variety of news items, including the implementation of a modified academic calendar for the 2010-2011 and 2011-2012 school years. In short, this new schedule will decrease the January Interim Session (Janterm) by three days and consolidate the calendar by eliminating some of the "dead time" between the end of Janterm and the beginning of the spring semester. With this new calendar, Whittier will conclude the school year in mid-May. The change has sparked some discussion on campus regarding the impact on courses and required coursework, as well as the Society pledging process, which has typically taken place across almost four weeks in January.
Read the full story by clicking here.
On Wednesday of this week, the Inter Society Council, comprising all Society presidents, met with Deans Ortiz and Coleman to begin discussions on a revised pledging calendar, and a meeting with Society alumni advisors and other interested alumni has been set for this evening, Friday, March 12, at 7p.m. in Hoover 100.
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Poets Meet With State Legislators for Advocate for Cal Grants
03.10.10 Whittier students Brownie Sibrian '10 and Kourtney Zilbert '11 traveled to Sacramento with Dave Carnevale '97, director of financial aid, as part of the 2010 Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities (AICCU) Cal Grant Student Lobby Day. The students met with state legislators to stress the the importance of maintaining funding for Cal Grants.
"The overall message of the day was that we were there to say 'thank you' to our legislators and to give them an opportunity to connect with students directly impacted by Cal Grant funding," said Carnevale. "The students did an amazing job of engaging the policy makers with their stories and asking intelligent, well-thought questions."
The Whittier contingent met with Senator Carol Liu, Assemblyman Charles Calderon, as well as staffers from the offices of Senator Tony Strickland '91, Senator Alex Padilla, and Senator Ron Calderon.
"I told them that had I not been given a Cal Grant I would not be attending Whittier College," said Zilbert. "Coming from a family of five kids there is no way I could afford it otherwise."
Whittier was joined by more than 30 AICCU member schools.
American Novelist Tim O'Brien to Keynote Whittier College's 107th Commencement Ceremony
03.03.10 Tim O'Brien—award-winning author of The Things They Carried—will give the keynote address and Keith Jackson, lauded sports announcer, will be a special guest at Whittier College's 107th Commencement Ceremony on Friday, May 28, 9 a.m. in Memorial Stadium on the Whittier College campus. During the event, at which approximately 340 undergraduate and graduate students are expected to receive their degrees, O'Brien and Jackson will also each receive an honorary degree from Whittier: a doctorate of humane letters (L.H.D.).
In 2006, all entering Whittier students read O'Brien's book, The Things They Carried. As such, the commencement address will be a meaningful way to "bookend" the graduating class' Whittier experience.
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February
Miguel Santana '91 Takes on City Hall
02.22.10 City Administrative Officer and Whittier alumnus Miguel Santana is profiled in the Los Angeles Times.
Less than a year into the post as the highest ranking, non-elected official for the city, Santana has had a significant impact in helping the mayor and city council address Los Angeles' herculean deficit.
Santana was on campus last fall participating in a career preparation workshop for Whittier students, "What Can I Do With a Major in...the Social Sciences?," as part of the Backpack-To-Briefcase series.
To read a profile of Santana that will appear in the upcoming issue of The Rock click here.
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Wanberg Hall First To Go Green
02.22.10 Sociology professor sal johnston will be the new Hartley House faculty master for fall 2010. As part of his new post, johnston, who also coordinates the environmental studies program, is leading the charge of converting Wanberg resident hall—situated next to Hartley House—into a green living environment.
"How do you take an existing dorm, with a structure that wasn't built to be particularly sustainable, particularly efficient, and make it more so?" asked johnston in an interview with Whittier College's QCTV. "There are some interesting things we can do, heating and cooling [techniques], strategic placement of trees. There are some really, really low cost, low tech [strategies] that have been implemented other places."
This project is one of several "green" projects initiated by johnston at Whittier. Beginning in 2008, johnston's environmental students class worked to reduce the amount of food waste produced by students in the Campus Inn. According to research, food waste produces carbon gases that negatively impact the environment. The educational campaign led by the class, coupled with the elimination of trays in the dining hall, helped reduce food waste from 7.4 ounces per person in the fall to 2.7 ounces in the spring.
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Professor Joseph Price Explores the Spiritual Side of the Secular
02.22.10 As the Christian lenten season begins, professor of religious studies Joseph Price reflects on how non-religious films and other forms of popular culture can offer a spiritual message.
"There's actually quite a bit of spiritual in the secular," said Price in article for the Columbus Dispatch.
According to Price, films that people have seen for fun and that don't seem preachy have a lot of power to evangelize.
"It meets the people in the pew where they live their lives," he said. "It's not an ancient text that's being resuscitated." More »
2010 Feinberg Lecture: Performance Artist Claudia Stevens Presents an Evening With Madame F
02.19.10 Nationally recognized performance artist, playwright, and musician Claudia Stevens gave a talk and presented her solo production, An Evening with Madame F, a play about women musicians at Auschwitz, for the 2010 Feinberg Lecture.
Stevens' original musical drama, An Evening with Madame F, stands among a handful of Holocaust-related theatrical pieces that give artistic expression to a catastrophe that defies comprehension. While drawing on several first-hand accounts by women musicians who survived the Holocaust, the story of Madame F primarily chronicles Fanja Fenelson, who, as a youth, performed in the women's orchestra at Auschwitz.
The show's haunting musical score incorporates songs once performed by concentration camp inmates.
In her performance, Stevens meditates on issues of survival, guilt, and resistance. For instance, the character of Fanja Fenelson recounts how, despite the dire situation they found themselves in, the women's orchestra at Auschwitz secretly incorporated banned music into their arrangements.
The daughter of Holocaust survivors, Stevens' was originally advised by her family not to touch the subject.
"When I was growing up the holocaust was off limits — if you went there you paid the price. Twenty years ago, when I began the piece it lead into the unknown. The first time I performed the play I literally fell off the stage at the end," she told the audience.
Since 1990, this one-woman show has been presented at more than 100 venues across the country and produced for public television.
Established nearly two decades ago by former Whittier College Trustee Sheldon Feinberg and his wife, Betty, the Feinberg Lecture Series was created to invite major scholars to the college to discuss the broad historic, religious and political issues encompassed by Judaism and its role in a changing world.
More Transfer Students Choose Whittier College
02.18.10 Whittier College has seen an increase in transfer student enrollment for the 2009-10 academic year. With about 120 new transfer students on campus, it more than doubles the transfer enrollment from last year.
Admissions counselor Gabriel Chabran '07, who has worked closely with the transfer student population, explains that the economy and cutbacks at public institutions are two reasons that more transfer students are opting for a private liberal arts college. But Chabran adds that the lure of small campus with a small student to faculty radio is a major attraction.
"At community college it was difficult to make connections," said Chabran, who transferred to Whittier from a community college himself. "Once I transferred to Whittier, the school helped me focus on my studies, especially in my writing intensified courses. In addition Whittier faculty and staff gave me a lot of personal and academic attention."
Recently Whittier was featured in the transfer newsletter for East Los Angeles Community College — read more by clicking here.
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Private Colleges Display Diversity
02.18.10 According to the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities, private colleges enroll and retain a more diverse student population than the University of California.
For its part, Whittier College proudly boasts that no one ethnic group on campus has the majority. About a quarter of the campus population is Latino and 10 percent is of Asian and Pacific Islander descent. Moreover, nearly 40 percent of faculty are people of color.
"The diversity on campus provides a welcoming and supportive learning environment," said Brownie Sibrian '10 who is the first in his family to attend a four-year college.
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Tina Merlino '11 Nabs SCIAC Athlete of the Week Honors
02.02.10 Junior forward Tina Merlino became the eighth Whittier student-athlete of the year to earn Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference Athlete of the Week honors when she recorded a pair of double-doubles for the week ending January 20.
Merlino currently leads the Poets in points per game (11.4) and rebounds per game (8.5) and is shooting a conference best 60 percent from the field.
Read more about the women Poets basketball team in the Whittier Daily News by clicking here.
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Whittier Students Speak Up for Love and Justice During Annual MLK Jr. Speech Contest
2.1.10 Quaker Campus editor Josh Wood '10 was the first place winner of the 9th Annual Martin Luther King Jr. Celebration and Oratorical Contest at Whittier College. The annual event honors the life and legacy of Dr. King and seeks to inspire students to imagine how they can play a role in the continuing struggle for civil rights and social justice in the U.S. and around the world.
"...in order to make change possible at all, every person must start the change within him or herself. On this night, in memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I urge you to start with yourself by opening your heart to love. Without love, none of his hopes for equality, progression, or acceptance would have taken root," said Wood during his speech.
Each of the winning speeches echoed the night's theme—"It's Your Time"—motivating fellow classmates to take action to eliminate racial prejudice, poverty, and hatred.
The competition was organized by Director of residential life Delaphine Hudson and the residential life staff.
Click here to view a slide show of the evening.
Click here to view a video on YouTube.
Read the winning speeches here: Josh Wood '10 , Adrian Gonzalez '12 (second place), and Mario Obando '13 (third place).
Whittier Staffer Shares Personal Connection to Haiti Disaster
2.1.10 For residential life staff member Andel Fils-Aime the news of a magnitude-7 earthquake in Haiti had a personal association. Fils-Aime, the U.S.-born son of Haitian immigrants, lost one cousin—a 23 year-old medical student residing in Port-au-Prince—in the January 12 earthquake. Other relatives made it through with their lives but remain homeless.
In a Whittier Daily News article Fils-Aime shared that he plans to make a trip to Haiti as soon as commercial flights are more available.
The Whittier College community has responded to the great need in Haiti with a blood and clothing drive, as well fundraising efforts during Poet basketball games.
"I would like to encourage the Whittier campus community to continue to support Haiti through this crisis in any way that we can," said Fils-Aime. "In the long-term we can use our education as a primary means to assist Haiti in this time of rebuilding. As the education and literacy rates begin to rise in Haiti, the poverty and illiteracy will slowly be eradicated internally." More »
Former Nixon Lawyer Geoff Shepard '66 Speaks about Domestic Policy on C-SPAN
2.1.10 Author and lawyer Geoff Shepard participated in the first of a series of Legacy Forums at the Richard M. Nixon Presidential Library. The panel, entitled
Domestic Policy Initiatives of the Nixon Years: Bringing Innovation and Progress to the American People,
included former Domestic Council members responsible for spearheading policy initiatives during the Nixon administration.
Shepard was an attorney on Nixon's White House staff for five years, and helped in his Watergate defense.
The Richard Nixon Legacy Forums are co-sponsored by the Nixon Foundation and Nixon Presidential Library.
View the panel on C-SPAN by clicking here.
More »
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January
Former Poet Lacrosse Player Selected by Outlaws in MLL Player Pool
1.29.10 Former Whittier goalie Ben Brown '09 received an invitation to try out for Major League Lacrosse's Denver Outlaws for the upcoming 2010 season. Brown was selected in the player pool last Friday afternoon.
In his final season with the purple and gold, Brown played and started all 12 games for Whittier and finished the year ranked in the Top 20 in the country in saves percentage. He totaled 143 saves and ended the year with a .598 saves percentage. Brown concluded his senior season with an 8.53 goals against average in over 700 minutes in the cage. Denver finished last season 9-3 with the best regular season record.
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Professor Eric Lindgren Comments on Proposed Spending Freeze
1.27.10 In anticipation of the State of the Union address, political science professor Eric Lindgren comments on President Barack Obama's proposed three-year federal spending freeze for the Spanish-language daily La Opinion.
"In reality it does not sound like a good idea; freezing spending is not something you should do in a recession. Government spending helps reactivate the economy and I believe that it has helped the country, in particular minority communities." More »
Whittier Receives Grant from W.M. Keck Foundation to Launch Centers for Cross Disciplinary Learning
1.29.10 The W.M. Keck Foundation has awarded Whittier College a grant for $250,000 to launch two interdisciplinary learning centers: the Center for Science, Health, and Policy (CSHP), and the Center for Collaborations with the Arts (CCA). The funding from the Keck Foundation will primarily support cross-discipline course development and student fellowships. Theatre professor Jennifer Holmes will serve as CCA's inaugural director, and biology professor Dave Bourgaize will serve as the inaugural director for the CSHP.
"Support from the Keck Foundation to launch the Centers affirms Whittier's approach to education—that we are educating students to see the world from multiple perspectives—and applauds Whittier faculty for their excellent commitment to interdisciplinary teaching. The Keck Foundation award also will further enable us to recruit talented students who can make significant contributions to these fields in the future," said President Sharon Herzberger. More »
Whittier Sophomore Makes Half-court Shot at Clippers Game
1.22.10 Poet football player Brett Dunham '12 inadvertently made it to center court while attending the Clippers-Bulls game on Wednesday night at Staples Center.
During half-time, as part of a Clippers promotion, Dunham was invited to make a half-court shot between the end of the third quarter and the beginning of the fourth. The successful basket earned Dunham a year's worth of free travel on JetBlue Airlines.
To see footage of the shot on YouTube.com click here. More »
Beloved Theatre Professor Robert Treser Dead at 83
1.12.10 Professor Emeritus Robert Treser, 83, passed away on January 7. Treser joined the Whittier faculty full-time in 1965 as a theatre professor and served as department chair for 18 years. During his three decades at Whittier he directed countless number of plays and regularly taught his notoriously rigorous theater history course.
He also served for a period of time as director of the Copenhagen Program through the Danish Institute for Study Abroad. As noted by his former student, "What a great man and teacher. He saw things in people that they hadn't found yet in themselves. All of our lives are richer for having known him."
Treser graduated from Lehigh University
an earned an MFA from the University of Oklahoma and a Ph.D. in theatre arts from Tulane University. He is survived by his daughter Nancy and son David. The family asks that, in lieu of flowers, contributions can be made to Whittier College in honor of their father's memory.
A specific designation for memorial gifts will be determined by the family at a later date. A memorial service will be held on Saturday, March 13 at 1:00 pm at the La Habra United Methodist Church, 631 N. Euclid Street, La Habra, CA. There will be a reception after the service.
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