What Makes Whitman
Students Great ?

"Open hearts as well as open minds"

Whitman students (Whitties) are smart and creative. They make teaching fun because they can handle complicated material, and they take it somewhere. For the most part, they are motivated — they realize they are getting an extravagantly expensive education, and they take it seriously. And they are invariably kind. They have open hearts as well as open minds.

I used to think I would like a more radical bunch. Whitties can be a little suburban, a little too satisfied with their comfortable, if not elite, paths in life. Sometimes they can be a little spoiled. But more and more I’m appreciating how many of them are eager to question the social structures that put them here, and how those structures disadvantage other people who have fewer opportunities, less wealth, less privilege. I am proud of the many students who explicitly take on so many different social justice issues, be it civil rights, environmental health, globalization, or whatever. Whitties are increasingly awake to the world, and with their anxieties about their futures, they ask really good questions about what it should be like.

Whitties teach me everyday. I learn about my subject matter, where it speaks loudly, where it is arcane, where it is useful, where it is trivial. I learn about learning from my students, when and why learning is painful, or fulfilling, or tedious, or unsettling, or empowering. Whitties often model for me what I most want to learn myself: patience and open-mindedness. When they don’t model what I want, they challenge me to think about new strategies for stimulating it. The academic year has an important rhythm. We all enjoy freshness in September, we suffer fatigue in November, we celebrate accomplishment in May. As students and faculty, we continuously learn together and from each other, and I can’t imagine a better community to do so in.