Whittier College

Whittier College
Former name
 Whittier Academy (1887–1901)
Motto Latin: Lux, Poesis, Veritas, Pax, Amor Eruditionis
Motto in English
 Light, Poetry, Truth, Peace, and Love of Knowledge
Type Private liberal arts college
Established 1887
Religious affiliation
 Secular (historically Quaker[1])
Endowment $97.3 million (2015)[2]
President Linda Oubré
Academic staff
 113
Students 2,259 (Fall 2016)
Undergraduates 1,670 (Fall 2017)[3]
Postgraduates 73 (Fall 2017)[3]
Location Whittier, California, U.S.
Campus Suburban, 75 acres (30 ha)
Colors          Purple & Gold
Athletics NCAA Division III – SCIAC
Nickname The Poets
Affiliations Annapolis Group
Oberlin Group
CLAC
Mascot Johnny Poet
Website www.whittier.edu
Whittier College in 1912
Hoover Hall and Library

Whittier College is a private liberal arts college in Whittier, California, United States. As of fall 2015, the college has approximately 1,725 enrolled (undergraduate and graduate) students.[3]

Overview

Whittier College is a residential four-year liberal arts institution. About one-third of Whittier's student body is Latino, and approximately 25 percent of the professors are minorities or are from foreign countries.[3] A majority of the student body hails from California, Hawaii, and the Pacific Northwest, but the college also draws students from the East Coast and the Midwest and overseas students. As of 2017, there are students from at least 27 states and 14 countries.[3]

Whittier offers over 30 majors and 30 minors in 23 disciplines, and claims emphasis on interdisciplinary learning. Students may also apply for entry into the Whittier Scholars Program, in which each student, under the guidance of a faculty member, designs their own major and course of study based on individual interests and career goals. Professional internships and service projects are required or recommended as part of many academic programs. Study abroad is offered in semester- or year-long affiliated programs. There is also an optional January interim session, which is a four-week intensive "mini-semester" that typically involves fieldwork and faculty-led international travel.

Whittier College hosts a Faculty Masters Program, which is modeled after similar programs at Oxford and Cambridge Universities. In this program, faculty are selected as faculty-in-residence for a multi-year term, live in houses located on-campus, and create and host in their homes educational and social programs around a specific theme, such as health and society, writers and writing, alumni connections, and Spanish culture.

Additionally, the college’s graduate program in education offers both credential and Master of Arts in education degree programs. Broadoaks Children's School – a private, non-profit demonstration school on the Whittier campus – serves as a learning laboratory for Whittier faculty and students, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

Whittier College has approximately 90 registered, student-run organizations. The College also has Societies similar to fraternities and sororities. There are 11 societies: the Franklin Society (male), the Lancer Society (male), the Orthogonian Society (male), the William Penn Society (male), Palmer Society (female), the Ionian Society (female), the Metaphonian Society (female), the Thalian Society (female), the Athenian Society (female), the Sachsen Society (coed), and the Paragonian Society (gender neutral). Most of these societies began as literary societies.

Other campus groups include student publications, the Quaker Campus newspaper and television; the student-run radio station, KPOET Radio; Video Productions Studios; and the Whittier College Sports Network.

Alumni include: Former U.S. President Richard Nixon; actress Andrea Barber, known from the television comedy Full House and Fuller House; social media entrepreneur Cassey Ho; actor Geoff Stults; author Jessamyn West; and Susan Herrman, who was one of two white female "student Freedom Riders" who sought to desegregate interstate bus travel in the South in 1961.

History

The liberal arts university was founded in 1887 as the Whittier Academy by members of the Religious Society of Friends, sponsored by local business leaders Washington Hadley and Aubrey Wardman. It was named after Quaker poet John Greenleaf Whittier.[4] Student athletes at Whittier College are still known as the "Poets" in his honor. Whittier College grew from the academy and was chartered by the State of California in 1901 with a student body of 25.

Although no longer affiliated with the Society of Friends, the College remains committed to Quaker values. Its newspaper, published since 1914, is known as the Quaker Campus.[5] In 2002 an electronic bugging device was found in the office of the Quaker Campus. The discovery was noted on the Drudge Report website, the Student Press Law Center and other media outlets.

In the 1940s, World War II and the call to enlist caused the college-bound and college-enrolled male population to sharply decline; so much so that Whittier College agreed to absorb the entire student body of neighboring Chapman University. This began a prosperous time for the College, and a construction boom soon followed. Most of the major buildings on campus have been built since the late 1940s, five since 1990. The lCampus Center was completed in 2008, while the Graham Athletic Center and Lillian Slade Aquatics Center completed a major renovation and expansion project at the start of 2012.

Rankings

University rankings
National
Forbes[6] 344 (2016)
Liberal arts colleges
U.S. News & World Report[7] 127
Washington Monthly[8] 83

Both The Princeton Review and U.S. News & World Report have featured Whittier in its “Best Liberal Arts Colleges” listings, and U.S. News & World Report has consistently ranked Whittier among the top liberal arts colleges for “Ethnic Diversity.”

Athletics

Southwest Quadrant

The Whittier College Poets compete in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) of NCAA Division III. The school has fielded sports teams for over 100 years. Its current teams include football, men’s and women’s basketball, cross country, soccer, swimming and diving, tennis, track and field, lacrosse and water polo, women’s softball and volleyball, and men’s baseball and golf.

The history of the Whittier College football program began in 1907, and since the inception of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference in 1915, the Poets have captured 26 conference titles. From 1957–1964, Whittier won eight straight SCIAC titles under the direction of legendary coaches George Allen (1951–56, 32-22-5), Don Coryell (1957–59), and John Godfrey (1960–1979). Their most recent championships came back-to-back in 1997 and 1998. Twenty-three Poets have earned All-American honors, the most recent coming in 2007. The football program plays out of Newman Memorial Field, which seats 7,000. Whittier maintains a century-long football rivalry with the Tigers of Occidental College; the two schools play for the shoes of 1939 All-American Myron Claxton.

The Whittier Lacrosse Program was established in 1980. That year, the Poets became a member of the Western Collegiate Lacrosse League (WCLL). From 1980 to 1999, Whittier won ten championships. As a result of their success, Whittier decided to become the first and only NCAA lacrosse program on the west coast. In 1990, they were recognized by the NCAA, but continued to compete in the WCLL. The Poets were the team to beat throughout the 1990s and it was not until 2000 when Whittier made the decision to make their mark on the national scene by leaving the WCLL and focus on being selected for the NCAA tournament. The lacrosse team has been a national contender every year since 2000 in the NCAA, as a quarter-finalist in 2003, and a semi-finalist in 2004.

The Whittier College men's water polo team has gone number 1 in the Collegiate Water Polo Association Polls (CWPA) in Division III no fewer than four times. Starting in 2004, another time in 2009, and two years in a row starting in 2013 and 2014. On the season the Poets finished 23-10 and ranked No. 1 in the country among Division III programs. Whittier shared the top honor with Redlands and was ranked No. 18 in the Men’s National Collegiate Top 20 Poll – a poll that ranks all divisions of collegiate water polo.

The Whittier Cross Country team made its mark in 2016. For the first time in program history, the Whittier College Men's Cross-Country team earned a national ranking announced by the United States Track and Field and Cross Country Coaches Association. The Purple & Gold ranked #32 out of 400 teams. T

The Whittier College Men's & Women's Swimming & Diving teams earned Academic All-American status – the women for the fourth straight year and the men for the first time, after the College Swimming Coaches Association of America (CSCAA) announced the programs who achieved this honor for the 2015 Fall Semester. Five hundred forty-seven swimming and diving teams representing 354 colleges and universities have been named College Swimming Coaches Association of America (CSCAA) Scholar All-American Teams. The awards are in recognition of teams that achieved a grade point average of 3.0 or higher during the 2015 fall semester. That is up 40 teams from the previous fall semester. The women's team finished with a 3.35 overall G.P.A. and the men had a 3.00 G.P.A.

Whittier Law School

Whittier Law School, located on a satellite campus in Costa Mesa, California,[9] started in the Hancock Park section of Los Angeles in 1966 as Beverly Law School. In 1975, Beverly College joined Whittier with the law school moving to Costa Mesa in 1997. Whittier Law School has 4,500 alumni, practicing in 48 states and 14 countries. The school has been accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA) since 1978 and has been a member of the Association of American Law Schools (AALS) since 1987.[10]

On April 19, 2017, the Law School announced that it would stop admitting students and begin the process of shutting down.[11]

Notable alumni

Government
Arts
Business
Medicine
Health and fitness
Religion
Academia
Sports

Notable people

Coaches
Faculty

References

  1. ↑ http://www.whittier.edu/about/facts
  2. ↑ As of June 30, 2015. "U.S. and Canadian Institutions Listed by Fiscal Year (FY) 2015 Endowment Market Value and Change in Endowment Market Value from FY 2014 to FY 2015" (PDF). National Association of College and University Business Officers and Commonfund Institute. 2016.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 "Whittier College Welcomes New Poets". Whittier College. Retrieved November 8, 2017.
  4. ↑ "John Greenleaf Whittier Society". Whittier College. Retrieved 28 February 2018.
  5. ↑ "Special Collections & Archives: Whittier College Archives". Wardman Library. Retrieved 28 February 2018.
  6. ↑ "America's Top Colleges". Forbes. July 5, 2016.
  7. ↑ "Best Colleges 2017: National Liberal Arts Colleges Rankings". U.S. News & World Report. September 12, 2016.
  8. ↑ "2016 Rankings - National Universities - Liberal Arts". Washington Monthly. Retrieved September 6, 2016.
  9. ↑ Whittier website
  10. ↑ Whittier Law School website
  11. ↑ "Whittier Law School Won't Enroll New Students". Inside Higher Ed. April 20, 2017.
  12. ↑ "100 Notable Books of 2008". The New York Times. November 26, 2008.
  13. ↑ "Betty Miller Unterberger: Curriculum Vitae" (PDF). Texas A&M University. Retrieved October 23, 2010.

Coordinates: 33°58′41″N 118°01′47″W / 33.97809°N 118.02960°W / 33.97809; -118.02960

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