The 21 Whitman students in the fifth generation of Semester in the West (SITW) returned to Whitman’s Johnston Wilderness Center, located 25 miles southeast of campus, late Friday Nov. 19. The 12,000 mile expedition through ten states in the American West provided a semester full of experiences, ideas and motivations for change.
Whitman’s Semester in the West program provides students the opportunity to experience the environmental studies major, allowing students to explore the ecological, social and aesthetic aspects of the American West. Led by Phil Brick, the Miles C. Moore professor of political science, students engaged in exploratory learning and met with guests including ranchers, energy experts and p0licymakers.
Unlike off-campus study programs that allow students to integrate themselves into a different culture and language while attending classes, SITW focuses on the relationship between society and nature while integrating students to the surrounding land.
“Semester in the West has given me an incredibly valuable perspective on the political, social and environmental issues of the American West, experiences that can’t be found in a classroom,” said sophomore Natalie Jamerson. “Each day gave us a new perspective on how these lands are being used, politically and environmentally, and we were able to form our own opinions about the best direction for the future of public lands.”
During the trip, students met with Auden Schendler, the vice president of sustainability of the Aspen Ski Company. Unlike most climate change experts who focus on how to completely stop global warming, Schendler emphasized the inevitability of the carbon footprint we will leave behind, but talked about how to make it less severe.
“In some ways it was liberating to hear that we’re going to fail because no one has ever been that blunt,” sophomore Dave McGaughey said. “Wherever you are in life, you need to speak about climate change; everyone needs to be addressing it at any position. It was empowering.”
Students also talked with ranchers and entrepreneurs about how current efforts to preserve the environment have affected them. While some entrepreneurs such as Diana Hunter, owner of the Barking Mad Bed and Breakfast in Enterprise, Ore., have benefited from the tourist appeal of wolves in Oregon, ranchers have suffered a less positive fate.
“There are two sides to the story, and it was special to learn about,” McGaughey said.
Despite the lack of formal classes, SITW is an academically rigorous program. In addition to papers and exams, students wrote and presented both a short and a long epiphany of their experiences at the Western Epiphanies presentations on Tuesday, Nov. 30 and Wednesday, Dec. 1. They are also tasked with preparing a podcast as a final project. Students receive eight credits of environmental studies and four of each biology and politics.
“It’s a pretty rigorous academic program, it’s not easy, but it felt different academically,” sophomore Lisa Beneman said.
Students also had life-changing experiences ranging from windstorms to river rafting on the Green River to hiking in the Chihuahuan Desert amongst yucca and agave plants.
“There was an unbelievable windstorm and everything was just flying. Afterward we were glad that it happened because it was such an experience to remember, but it was wild,” Beneman said.
For many, SITW is more than just a unique one-semester academic endeavor. It can be a life-altering project that inspires alumni to change the world around them.
For Beneman, who particularly enjoyed working with the Weed Warrior program with Tamara Nauman and Peter Williams of Dinosaur National Monument, volunteering to pull and dig up tamarisk weeds–which have overtaken the monument and Green River area–was a way to give back.
McGaughey echoes these sentiments of giving back and now feels more prepared and capable of doing so after SITW.
“I’m more mature, prepared and directed now,” he said. “I know I want to make a difference.”
