Tuesday, March 29, 2022

By Noah Leavitt, director of the Career and Community Engagement Center

 

The 2022 workplace is changing in many extraordinary ways that I have discussed in previous Thinking About Working articles. The more students understand these changes the more they can use that knowledge to make decisions about the kinds of workplaces they want to join and how they can best participate in those workplaces once they arrive.

 

This topic of changing workplace cultures came to my attention a couple months ago in a post on the Whitman LinkedIn community page in a comment by Chris Meabe ’18. In response to a question about what students need to be attentive to as the economy and employment trends continue to shift, Meabe said that new employees, especially in hybrid and remote workplaces, need to learn how to make the most of employee engagement programs. He noted, “A lot of companies are trying new programs to build remote culture, but many people don’t take advantage of what they can offer.”

 

These employer-driven initiatives intentionally give workers opportunities to learn how the specific norms and current workplace practices may be different or have shifted in recent times, thus allowing all workers to gain the knowledge of how to fully and authentically participate in their professional community. (If you want to learn more about why companies offer these kinds of resources to their workforces, this piece is a helpful starting point).

 

In the Career and Community Engagement Center, my colleagues and I have been closely tracking these changes. 

 

Read more.

Employee Transitions

In the past month, the following employees have moved to new positions at the college:

• Scott Ellman, rental fleet and landscape assistant and Johnston Wilderness Area caretaker

• Nicole Redman, Financial Aid counselor

• Ramon Romero, custodian for academic/administrative buildings

• John Sargent, custodian academic/administrative buildings

The Student Life Committee says thank you to the Whitman community for participating in the external review of Greek Life that took place last month. The reviewers have delivered their summary and report to the Student Life Committee.

 

In their report, the reviewers noted that through the review process they met an impressive student body of well rounded, involved and passionate students committed to the ideas of inclusion and intellectual curiosity, as well as alumni and volunteers who share similar values. Through these discussions, they identified some key areas of concern and provided several recommendations to help Whitman's Greek Life system become a thriving, healthy and welcoming intellectual community. Some of these recommendations include: hiring a dedicated Greek Life Advisor; overhauling risk management procedures; providing a wider variety of leadership, sexual violence prevention and bias incident training opportunities; and moving to a spring recruitment model so potential new members are not eligible to join Greek Life until spring of their first year.

 

The full report is available on the Greek Life External Review page of our website; note that you must be logged in to Google with your whitman.edu account in order to access the full report. The Student Life Committee will now discuss the report in committee and with faculty and the Dean of Students before sharing an official response with the Whitman community. Faculty and the Dean of Students are the constituents who will accept or reject the Student Life Committee's recommendations.

Positive COVID-19 cases in our campus community are noted in Whitman Today in compliance with state regulations. We also update the data in our COVID-19 Dashboard every Monday.

 

In accordance with Washington state Labor & Industries employer requirements, we are notifying the campus community that in the past 24 hours, four people with Whitman access were confirmed positive for COVID-19. These people are now in isolation in accordance with our campus and CDC guidelines. Though the likelihood of transmission is low due to our campus COVID-19 protocols, it is possible that others may have been exposed to COVID-19. There is nothing you need to do at this time aside from following our campus COVID-19 protocols. Anyone identified through the contact tracing process as a close contact (within 6 ft. for at least 15 minutes over 24 hours) will be personally notified. 

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“Whitman Today” is produced by the Office of Communications and is emailed Monday through Friday to Whitman College staff, faculty and students. All times are listed in Pacific Daylight Time. 

 

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