From the President - The Whitman College Report Card 1998-1999

The academic and fiscal year just ended was excellent. We graduated 320 seniors. The academic program was strengthened in many ways. The College remains firmly committed to the values of a liberal arts education, so aptly discussed in the Commencement weekend talks, which you will find which you will find in the Features section.

You would doubtless have been impressed if you had been here as our students presented their work at the first annual Whitman Undergraduate Conference or to watch our 10th annual student One Act Play Writing Contest presentations, our student classical composition concert, or our second annual student film-making contest. I wish also you could read the best-ever student-produced Blue Moon.

Visitors in 1998-1999 included poet Seamus Heaney, geneticist David Suzuki, author James McBride, Dartmouth College president emeritus James Freedman, biologist Lynn Margulis, governor Gary Locke, poet Tess Gallagher, University of Oregon president David Frohnmayer, and many others.

It was, in short, a record year:

• Record number of admission applications.
• Record fund-raising year.
• National debate team champions.
• U.S. Collegiate Ski Association combined Alpine and Nordic champions.
• National leader in winning Thomas J. Watson fellowships for graduating seniors, 1995-1999.
• Lacrosse men's team division champions, 1999.
• Acquired 27-acre wilderness campus up Mill Creek, and 18 acres of athletic fields three blocks from campus.
• Completely renovated Old Music Conservatory — and currently expanding, renovating, and overhauling Penrose Memorial Library.
• Ranked in top 10 coed national liberal arts colleges for "academic excellence" (Princeton Review Guide to Best Colleges, 1999).
• Among top 12 "best wired" liberal arts colleges in America (Yahoo Internet Magazine, 1999).
• One of top three national liberal arts colleges on the West Coast (U.S. News and World Report).