Community Events & Involvement

Thursday, Sept. 17, 2026 from 4:30–6:30 p.m.
Reid Campus Center Side Lawn

Join LGBTQIA+ Student Services for our annual welcome back event. Connect with our staff and other members of the campus and Walla Walla community, play games, get creative and enjoy good food. It’s so good to be back together again!

Monday, Nov. 9, 2026
Time and location TBD

Transgender Day of Remembrance (TDOR) was first started by Gwendolyn Ann Smith in 1999 as a vigil to honor the memory of her friend Rita Hester, a transgender woman who was killed in 1998. The day has since evolved and is observed around the world to honor the lives and memories of the trans siblings we’ve lost to anti-trans violence each year, who are overwhelmingly Black trans women and femmes. In 2016, the organization Forward Together re-imagined TDOR as Transgender Day of Resilience, an art project and “annual love offering to trans people of color everywhere” that both calls on our communities to remember our trans kin, while also recommitting ourselves to those who are still living, and celebrating the resilience of trans community. It is in this spirit that we gather each year to both grieve, and imagine together through art and conversation, a future where trans people are thriving. 

The David Nord Award is presented annually to support LGBTQIA+ focused projects on campus. This award encourages the Whitman community to engage critical issues facing LGBTQIA+ communities through a variety of creative and scholarly mediums. Recipients will receive a cash award along with financial support to complete the project if the project requires it.

Eligibility

Current Whitman College students, faculty members, staff members and student/faculty/staff teams are eligible to apply. Preference is given to student proposals that directly impact the community through an interactive project.

Projects may include:

• Creating an art exhibit.
• Producing a video documentary.
• Conducting quantitative or qualitative research projects.
• Developing a collection of poems.
• Writing a play.
• Choreographing a dance performance.
• Other appropriate options will be considered.

Timeline

Applications are accepted during fall semester. Additional details will be announced.

How to apply

Proposals will be submitted by email to lgbtqia@whitman.edu.

The application requires the following information:

• Detailed description of the nature and scope of the project and how it will benefit Whitman and/or Walla Walla’s LGBTQIA+ community.
• A project timeline.
• An estimated project budget and equipment/materials needed to complete the project.
• For Student Projects: a letter of recommendation and a staff/faculty advisor who can assist in overseeing the project.

What is the David Nord Award? 

The David Nord award is presented to current Whitman College students, faculty members, staff members and student/staff/faculty teams to complete projects that address critical issues facing queer communities through a variety of creative and scholarly mediums.

David Nord graduated from Whitman college in 1983 with honors in political science. An active member of Phi Delta Theta, he was elected president of ASWC. Recipient of the Truman Scholarship and the U.S. Senate Leadership Award, he worked as an intern with U.S. Senator Henry M. Jackson and served as a delegate to the 1996 Democratic Party Convention.

David earned his Master’s degree in psychology from Antioch University and had a psychotherapy practice before becoming a full-time researcher and writer. He is author of “Multiple Aids-Related Loss: A Handbook for Understanding and Surviving a Perpetual Fall”. In November 1999, David died of AIDS.

David wrote in a 1996 letter to Dean of Students, Chuck Cleveland: 

“I wish I could say that my college memories were mainly pleasant but they were decidedly not. I always felt the need to hide and obviously displaced a lot of my frustration and fear into outward directed energies with mixed results.

I wish that I could have been self aware and confident enough to seek some help while at Whitman. Instead, I remained hidden for many years that were painful beyond description. Therefore, I have a strongly motivated desire to help make things better for the generations which follow. I can hardly tell you how happy I am to hear that the environment is so much better at Whitman. I would like to help make it better in a continuing way.”

A generous and thoughtful alum, he established the endowment for this annual award prior to his death and attended the first presentation in 1996. The award celebrates the LGBTQIA+ community and pays tribute to the memory of David Nord.

Tuesday, May 4, 2027, from 5–7 p.m.
Reid Campus Center, Young Ballroom

At the conclusion of each academic year, we celebrate our graduating students at our Lavender Graduation ceremony and reception. Participating students receive a special lavender stole that they can wear with their regalia at commencement, and a certificate signed by the President of Whitman College and the Vice President of Inclusive Excellence. Lavender Graduation is intended to be an event where students are celebrated for all of who they are and all they have accomplished in their time at Whitman College. Invite family, friends, instructors and mentors to cheer you on. Registration typically opens in March.