Wearing masks made from locally-grown hemp fibers, members of the Whitman Campus Climate Challenge stormed the administrative offices in Memorial Hall yesterday, defenestrating President Jorge Ponts and...
It is easy to declare what I will never do. It is harder to face the potential that I could murder or rape or abuse power, but that confrontation is the only reliable way to keep evil at bay.
Divestment has started answering this with another question: Why can’t our finances reflect our values and moral mission? The shift toward corporatization of our college has subsequently prioritized business interests before realization of institutional values.
The administration promises they will be taking student concerns into account in their next meetings in November and February, yet there is no accompanying promise of transparency, no means for students or faculty to hold trustees accountable to a meaningful change in policy
In an era where politicians still treat the economy as though it’s one blow from caving in, why would you prevent a capable person from entering the workforce? Isn’t the idea that felony changes the nature of a human, dare I say it, a bit of a self-fulfilling prophecy?
It won't come as a surprise to anybody if I say that Whitman students tend to follow a certain political aesthetic. That's a generalization, and you will certainly find people on campus who don't agree...
Anybody who’s seen Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery might remember the scene in which Dr. Evil outlines his sinister plan to release toxic pollutants into the atmosphere and create a hole in the ozone layer. After an awkward silence, an underling must tell him that this has already happened.
The most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is no different, and frankly, I’d be suspicious if it was. It offers numbers—parts per million (still over 400, still climbing), temperatures in Celsius, things that will happen by 2030 and 2050—keeping them as simple as possible in order to avoid spin. This time, however, something was different: both the report itself and the media surrounding it seemed to have placed a greater emphasis on hope.
A few weeks ago, a friend forwarded me a blog post about something called the Huron Mountain Club in the upper peninsula of Michigan. This regional secret society is exclusive to the ultra-rich, completely disavows its own existence and made Henry Ford wait in line for ten years until a member died to open a spot for him. The mission of the club, in which they enjoy the full cooperation of local law enforcement, is to protect an old-growth wood by any means necessary.
For those of you who don’t know, the situation for Whitman College’s fossil fuel divestment campaign has taken a sharp turn. Until now, the members of the 350 council have focused on changing the minds on the Board of Trustees, who just released a statement some might think puts the issue to bed.
If you have been reading these pages since May 2013, you may recall the last time my name appeared here at the head of a sign-off column in which I questioned the hopes of the environmentalist movement, my own commitment to it and the progress of mankind. I concluded that there is no purpose to the movement as it is, that fossil-fuel masterminds have already doomed us to an unrecognizable future and that the role of an environmentalist in the modern age is to undertake a personal contemplation of their place in that future.
Environmental issues are a prominent concern amongst Whitman activists, yet many claim that their youthful idealism dies out once faced with the 'real world.' Here, the Circuit catches up with four environmentally-minded alumnae to see how post-grad life has affected their environmental vision.
