nowhere else - Whitman College

intimate learningworldly experienceBelow: Students on Whitman’sSemester in the West programdiscuss renewable energy sourcesand climate change at SnowmassFalls Ranch, Aspen, Colorado.Right: The collection at PenroseLibrary, open 24/7 during theacademic year, is enhanced byWhitman’s membership in theORBIS/Cascade Alliance.Through study abroad,students gain exposure toother cultures. In their junioryear, about 50 percent ofWhitman students immersethemselves in the life andlanguage of another culture.For such study, Whitmanstudents earn academiccredit in programs partneredwith or approved by theCollege. More important,they gain a perspective—consistent with the goals ofthe liberal arts—that freesthem from narrowness,enhances their leadershipcapabilities, and increasestheir understanding of otherpoints of view.Whitman’s innovative teachingand learning programsgive students valuable fieldexperience. From WhitmanCollege Semester in theWest—an interdisciplinaryfield program in which studentsconfront some of themost pressing issues facingthe American West; toWhitman in the Wallowas—asummer program in whichstudents investigate the naturaland human ecologies ofWallowa County, Oregon;to the Klamath Field StudyProgram, in which studentsgain understanding of issuesfaced by Native people in theKlamath Mountain region—Whitman exposes students tothe world’s complexity.Domestic off-campus programscombine academic seminarswith internships. Studentswho want to experience contemporaryurban Americafirsthand can study in one ofthree semester-long programs:the Chicago Urban StudiesProgram, the PhiladelphiaCenter, and the WashingtonSemester in the nation’s capital.Internships on Capitol Hillor with a nongovernmentalorganization enrich the experiencefor students.Penrose Library forms theheart of academic life.A wooden canoe hanging inthe library’s lobby invitesstudents to explore the manytributaries of knowledgewithin: more than 400,000books, 120 online databases,and access to an additional25 million books through theORBIS/Cascade Alliance.One of only a handful in thenation open to students 24/7during the academic year,Penrose Library includesa reading room with afireplace, wireless connectionsthroughout, computerstations, a café, and plentyof couches and tables toaccommodate study sessions.The College’s Hall ofScience brings people andresources together.Whitman students who enterthe Hall’s light-filled atriumdiscover walls of limestoneembedded with fossils, walkpast display cases of naturaltreasures, and climb a locustwoodstaircase (milled fromtrees that grew at the building’ssite) before reachingthe state-of-the-art labs andadvanced instrumentationabove. State-of-the-art equipmentavailable for studentresearch includes a BrukerAvance III 400 MHz UltrashieldPlus Spectrometer Systemand an Oxford DiffractionXcalibur Nova X-rayCrystallography System.10 Academic Excellence: Liberating Perspectives Academic Excellence: Liberating Perspectives 11