Of the possible ways to spend summer vacation, staying in Walla Walla is a strange choice to some Whitties. Most recipients of the 2009 Louis B. Perry Research Awards, however, will be doing just that. Named for Louis B. Perry, eighth president of Whitman from 1959-1967, the Perry Summer Research Awards are grants of up to $8,000 given to student-faculty research teams at Whitman. This year there are 23 teams, most of them consisting of one student and one Whitman faculty member, although some teams are made up of one faculty member and two students. Compared to previous years, the number of teams for 2009 is a substantial increase. In 2005 only 12 teams conducted research, and that number has risen steadily ever since.

On Monday, April 13, President George Bridges announced the appointment of Timothy Kaufman-Osborn to the position of Provost and Dean of Faculty. The announcement, which was made to the faculty via e-mail, comes in response to the upcoming departure of current Provost and Dean of Faculty Lori Bettison-Varga. Bettison-Varga has accepted the position of President at Scripps College. Pending confirmation by the Board of Trustees, Kaufman-Osborn will officially assume the position on July 1. He currently holds the positions of the Baker Ferguson Chair of Politics and Leadership and Chair of the Faculty, and served as Interim Dean of Faculty in the 2006-2007 academic year.

The United Nations first established Earth Day as an annual celebration during the March equinox. In the 1970s, a U.S. senator chose April 22 as its official date. Leave it to Whitman students to expand the festivities into an entire week of environmental service projects and activities. According to Sustainability Coordinator, senior Karlis Rokpelnis, the increasing scope of the celebration and number of activities scheduled for Earth Week are the primary changes from last year's event. “Earth Day is a long standing tradition at Whitman," Rokpelnis said. “But there is a particular focus this year on cooperation between the campus environmental groups and other organizations."

A shaky economy and rising tuition costs have students questioning whether they can afford to attend Whitman next year, but officials at the financial aid office say they are committed to helping students...

The college application saga came to an end on April 1 for most high school seniors. But for a record number of Whitman applicants this year, the response to their application was being neither admitted...

Third-term Republican congresswoman Cathy McMorris Rodgers, who received a “0" on the League of Conservation Voters' 2008 National Environmental Scorecard, met with students on Tues. April 7 for a short forum on climate change, a discussion organized by Campus Climate Challenge. Climate change itself, however, wasn't directly discussed. When asked by senior Jesse Phillips whether she believes climate change is real, Rodgers replied, “I agree that we should be taking steps to reduce our carbon emissions and I think that's where we can find common ground." Last year The News Tribune, a Tacoma, Wash. newspaper, reported on a talk Rodgers gave that included a list of her top 10 reasons it's good to be a Republican in 2008. “We believe Al Gore deserves an ‘F' in science and an ‘A' in creative writing" was third on her list. CCC first met Rodgers last month in D.C. for Power Shift's clean energy advocacy conference, and invited her to visit campus for their April 16 Focus the Nation event. Rodgers agreed instead to meet with students during her tour through Walla Walla.

Two days ago, Whitman cancelled classes to celebrate the accomplishments of its students. Comprised of four lecture sessions and one poster session, the 2009 Undergraduate Conference boasted 184 student presenters featured in six different venues. This year's Undergraduate Conference, the eleventh in Whitman's history, signaled a connection between under and upperclassmen. “There were very few first-year and sophomore presenters, so it allowed us [underclassmen] to meet the upper-classmen through their interests and presentations," said first-year Elizabeth Fleming. For upperclassmen, many seniors were just glad to see the work of their classmates. “It was nice to be able to see friends' thesis work, because I didn't really have a chance to talk to them about it during the year," said senior Jared Burns.

Ever want to instant message in your Whitman e-mail or use it for online documents? You may not be able to, but the class of 2013 will. Next year's incoming first-years will use Gmail for their Whitman email using a special login page, gmail.whitman.edu, and their Whitman IDs and passwords. Gmail, launched in 2004, is a free e-mail service from Google offering users 7.14 gigabytes of storage, as well as audio and video chat features. Whitman's current Unix-based system, in place for over 10 years, offers 25 megabytes. That's one three-hundredth of the capacity for Gmail. “Gmail is much more user friendly," said Whitman Developer of Emerging Technology Kyle Singer. “[It] offers services that are not sustainable on a campus-based system—seven gigabytes of storage, for example." The reason for the switch is simply that Gmail offers a good product for Whitman students. “WCTS has been evaluating various alternatives for quite some time, but had not seen a good solution up to now," said Singer. “We recently determined that Gmail would serve our students well."