“Getting local restaurants to accept swipes as many other colleges do would be fantastic.”

“Sophomores should not have to be on a meal plan, or there should at least be the option of them having fewer meals per semester.”

“The meal plans should reinstate the ability to swipe other people in using meals rather than guest swipes.”

“I appreciate that Bon Appétit always has local healthy food available, I just wish there was more flexibility in preparing my own meals. Later hours for dinner would be appreciated too.”

“The kitchens in dorms would need to be improved a little.”

“Guest swipe policy is ridiculous as is–people should be allowed to use the meals that they pay for however they choose.”

Residential Life

“I think some sort of drug and alcohol free living option should be available to students living on campus.”

“Residential Life after freshman year has few activities, and if you are not greek you may still want some that are more than study breaks.”

“I think the RAs could be better chosen… There have been a lot of potentially great RAs and a share of not such great RA people who have become RAs.”

The Health Center

“It’s well known that the health center’s great for drunk people or those who need a bed to lie in because of the flu but they really can’t help with anything beyond that.”

“Better mental health services.”

“I also think that the health center needs to be more sensitive about women’s health; I was guilt tripped about birth control, avoided when I wanted to get a pap smear, and am now generally very discouraged from using their services at all.”

“Health Center should provide more services, more often.”

Registration

“There should be more ‘non-major’ humanities classes and more alternative voices classes offered: there’s a wide selection, but most of them aren’t offered every semester. Also, more should be offered during morning lecture times.”

“The school should attempt to release a two-year academic catalogue to help students plan ahead.”

“Registration needs to be changed to allow for long-term planning.”

“Trimesters would be great at a liberal arts school to give us more opportunity to take various classes.”

“I think there should be a few more specific distribution requirements; for example, a student can currently complete their requirements without ever taking a history or philosophy course.” “Perhaps there should be a bit more guidance in planning classes that give a truly broad and inclusive liberal arts experience.”

“Also, I think there should be a way to balance out registration times each semester: I’ve consistently gotten late ones, and it has affected the classes I was able to take here in a potentially negative way.”

“Whitman is assuredly a liberal arts college, but there should be more classes on at least a few essential life skills, such as how to invest and balance your finances, etc.”

Academics

“Take classes in your major that are recommended to you and that you’re interested in, but also ask your academic advisors about classes in other disciplines that you can enjoy.”

“The fact we need six credits in fine arts has been absolutely devastating…for instance, people that aren’t good in quantitative analysis are only required to take one class and they can take something that doesn’t have involve too many numbers… Even though a lot of people have Math-phobia, the beginning classes in the math department are very simple. They take the easiest math concepts from the part of math and make it even easier. So people should challenge themselves, before giving up and jumping ship.”

“I feel like from my perspective the biggest problem is even though we’re a liberal arts institution we still don’t facilitate enough inter-disciplinary studies: like in the end you end up majoring in one thing. You learn the principals of that department and everything you learn is based on that department. The departments themselves don’t interact and sometimes they are antagonists.”

“They should have cool bio classes like ‘animal behavior’ be open to bio majors. They have all these ‘non-major’ classes so non-science people can get distribution that are way cool and I’m stuck studying the protein coat on vesicles in the Golgi body when the only reason I’m a bio major is that I’m interested in animal behavior! I mean come on!”

“I’d also rather be on a quarter system rather than a semester system with three classes at a time so that there aren’t so many conflicting deadlines/tests all at once. This would help reduce stress and allow students to really focus on each project at hand. And students could also take more classes since you’d have 12 per year instead of 8, which would be exciting for Whitman students who have so many different interests.”

“It would be great if we could get the math and physics departments to collaborate. For example for differential equations, you’re learning the concrete examples of how to do the differentials in respect to some concrete physics problem and the physics goes into the derivations of what the math is. I think if the two departments collaborated it would be a great way to improve both, but mostly physics.”

Programming & Clubs

“It would be great to have an ‘art club’ of sorts where all students could come and use the art building and supplies, not solely those enrolled in art classes.”

“I feel like there needs to be more funds available for groups of students that aren’t formal clubs under the umbrella of ASWC. Harvey Mudd has an awesome system.”

“I find it frustrating to be denied access to the art building simply because I cannot afford to pay the fine arts fees on top of tuition.”

“More concerts.”

“Whitman lacks committed spiritual resources beyond ‘everybody of faith get along.’ There is little exploration of the real depth in traditions.”

“We need Bed Races (strapping one’s bed frame and mattress to wheels and racing others around campus) and Tye-Dye Watergun/Waterballoon Fights!”

What needs changing?