Thursday, March 17, 2022

It may be Spring Break, but many Whitman seniors will spend at least some portion of this time working on their thesis.

 

More than two-thirds of academic departments at Whitman require seniors to complete thesis projects. Some, like history, require the thesis only of honors students while other history students complete a shorter paper that serves as a capstone. Students typically take a thesis-oriented course or independent study, where they get support for the process from faculty and other students.

 

Beyond the written thesis, senior projects can vary markedly by major. For instance, seniors in the sciences typically expand on research they’ve done with a Whitman professor or as part of a summer research internship at another institution. Music performance majors participate in a senior recital. Computer science majors work as a team to design and implement an integrative project. Art majors create a work to be presented in the Sheehan Gallery Senior Thesis Art Exhibition. A thesis isn’t required for English majors; those who choose to write one might elect to write an analytic study of literary work or craft a work of poetry, fiction or creative nonfiction. Many majors require oral and/or written exams as part of or instead of the thesis.

 

But no matter the student’s major, one thing everyone agrees on is the thesis is a challenging endeavor. Even faculty are awed by how much students accomplish in a short period of time.

 

Read more.

Photo: Moorhouse, Lee Major, photographer. "Colville Indians, Nespalem, Wash." circa 1900. Retrieved from the Plateau Peoples' Web Project.

 

The Long Tent invites us to think in new ways about the world we inhabit. Regardless of whether the topic is architecture or religion or science or morality or foodways or identity, the Long Tent opens new doors of understanding and disrupts ingrained habits of thought.

 

This is also true when it comes to thinking about gender.

 

The Whitman and Walla Walla communities are invited to explore this topic on Wednesday, March 30 when we have the opportunity to learn from Marjorie Waheneka (Et-twaii-lish), of Cayuse, Palouse, Umatilla and Warm Springs descent. Waheneka is our next special guest as part of this semester's programming and will be speaking at 6 p.m. in Olin to share reflections on growing up with traditional elders (such as her mother, Emily Waheneka) and practicing traditional lifeways. In addition she will teach about issues revolving around harvest of traditional cultural plants, past and present, and will address how gender is in play in these systems.

 

Waheneka is the first-ever U.S. Park Ranger (in the Interpretation program) of Native American background to work at Whitman Mission National Historic Site. She is also a professional cultural researcher at Tamastslikt Cultural Institute. We hope you are able to invest an hour later this month to learn from this extraordinary teacher.

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