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The articles linked in the two following sections are posted on Whitman College's student-run newspaper and in the worker-owned newsroom RANGE Media. 

Government & Accountability

Whitman Wire •

WCWU Withdraws Request for Recognition

On Friday, March 13, Whitman College Workers United (WCWU) withdrew a previous request for recognition from Whitman College administration. Their statement was attached to a March 13 email obtained by The Wire and sent to the Whitman Faculty Conversations Listserv by the WCWU Organizing Committee.
The email communicates WCWU’s dissatisfaction with administrative decisions to initiate an election process through the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB).
“Rather than listen to their employees, th...
Whitman Wire •

BOT Votes To Reduce Employee Benefits Amid “Rock-Bottom” Faculty Morale

On March 19, Professor of Art History Matthew Reynolds, Professor and Chair of Politics Aaron Strain and Associate Professor and Chair of Chemistry Jonathan Collins sent a list of signatures and document titled “The High Cost of Cuts” to a faculty Listserv. The document describes low morale among faculty as a result of ongoing financial changes and urges administrators to collaborate with faculty on financial decisions. Originally signed by 84 faculty members, the letter now has 91 signatures as...
Whitman Wire •

Whitman College Will Not Voluntarily Recognize WCWU

FEB. 19 2026 – Students, staff and faculty rallied outside Cleveland Commons in support of a newly proposed staff union — Whitman College Workers United (WCWU). The rally marched to Memorial Hall, where Peter Schultz delivered a letter to President Sarah Bolton, requesting that the college recognizes the new staff union without an election hosted by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB). 
WCWU received enough signed union authorization cards to forgo the NLRB election process if the college...
Whitman Wire •

President Bolton Discourages WCWU Formation

UPDATE – March 13, 2026. 1:00 p.m. – During the March 10 meeting, a faculty vote on the “Faculty Motion Calling for Voluntary Recognition of Whitman College Workers United” took place. 86 faculty members voted “yes,” two voted “no” and three abstained from voting. A co-sponsor of the motion confirmed the outcome of the vote.
On March 11, Whitman College President Sarah Bolton issued an official statement in an email to the Staff and Faculty Listservs with a number of concerns about the recent fo...
Whitman Wire •

Task Force Pilots Free Expression Area

On Jan. 5, Assistant Vice President of Student Life Juli Dunn emailed a campus announcement introducing new areas for free expression on campus. The two sites referenced in the email will act as pilot locations to test alternate areas for posting fliers and artwork to the fence located on the southwest side of the tennis courts. Dean of Students Kazi Joshua and a student task force proposed new locations for free expression in the spring of 2025 based on foot traffic around the tennis courts. 
F...
Whitman Wire •

BREAKING: Stegner Hall Follows Suit, Move-in Delays Continue After Robart Hall

The Whitman Wire has been able to independently verify that Stegner Hall, one of the three residence halls in College Creek, is experiencing move-in delays. This follows shortly after the news that students living in Robart Hall, another College Creek residence hall, would be having their move-in day delayed until October of this year. In the meantime, a majority of affected Stegner residents will be moved to North Hall, which was officially closed in 2018 and was briefly re-opened as emergency...
Whitman Wire •

Harvey Hall Opens, Yet Not Fully Finished

On Thursday, September 25th, Director of Residence Life, Andrew Johnson, sent a campus-wide email confirming Sunday, September 28th as the initial move-in date for Harvey Hall. Following a series of delays to all three residential halls in August, Harvey Hall was the last to announce move-in delays from its original opening date of August 29th and the first to open for student residence. Students moved into Harvey Hall on September 28th, October 4th and October 5th. 
Stegner and Robart Halls are...
Whitman Wire •

Trump Reduces Weight Loss Drug Costs

On Thursday, Nov. 6 President Donald Trump announced that the administration had collaborated with pharmaceutical companies Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk to lower the cost of GLP-1 drugs using Medicare and Medicaid coverage, along with the prospective implementation of the President’s pharmaceutical platform set to become operational in 2026, TrumpRX.
Trump’s collaboration with the pharmaceutical giants aims to lower costs for both pill and injectable forms of semaglutide, or GLP-1s, which regulate...
RANGE Media •

Who gets to fire SCRAPS director Jesse Ferrari? – RANGE Media

Volunteers, employees and concerned residents were the first to raise concerns in 2023 about suspected unethical euthanasia at the Spokane County Regional Animal Protection Service (SCRAPS). SCRAPS is a public service that operates under contracts with several cities in Spokane County and the county itself to maintain good relationships between pet animals and humans. It licenses pets, maintains a pet food bank, retrieves lost pets and rehomes abandoned pets from a facility on Trent Avenue. The...
RANGE Media •

Budget talks for libraries and another potential camping ban in Spokane – RANGE Media

Welcome to CIVICS, where we break down the week’s municipal meetings throughout the Inland Northwest, so you can get involved and speak out about the issues you care about.  


It seems like it’s shaking up to be a less-spicy-than-usual-week, but here are some of the items that stick out to us: 


Important meetings this week:


It’s time for the fourth annual Tacos y Tequila Festival! This weekend will feature two days of tasty food and tequila, live music, craft vendors and entertainment, w...
RANGE Media •

CVSD board down to the wire on budget vote – RANGE Media

In less than a month, the Central Valley School District (CVSD) is scheduled to start classes. But as of now, it’s uncertain whether there will be money to buy gas for the school buses to run or to pay teachers to greet their new classes because the board has not passed its budget for the year.


Though the approval of the budget has been scheduled for August in the past, this year the vote was scheduled for a July meeting after an informational presentation in late June. Instead of approving i...
RANGE Media •

Spokane takes clear steps to wave goodbye to the Trent Shelter – RANGE Media

Welcome to CIVICS, where we break down the week’s municipal meetings throughout the Inland Northwest, so you can get involved and speak out about the issues you care about.  


Some things that stick out to us this week include: 


Important meetings this week:


🌶️🌶️🌶️🫑/5 peppers


For those of you who have been following the saga of the Trent Shelter, there could be reason to rejoice in the cards for tonight’s meeting: the city is taking its first big step toward moving away from warehousi...
RANGE Media •

It’s primary time. Get your vote in! – RANGE Media

Welcome to CIVICS, where we break down the week’s municipal meetings throughout the Inland Northwest, so you can get involved and speak out about the issues you care about.  


RANGE is back from our summer break, but it’s a light week in CIVICS with most councils and boards still on their summer breaks. So Liberty Lake is getting a lot of attention from us! Some things that stick out to us this week include: 





Important meetings this week:


With all the big national election news, it m...
RANGE Media •

Spokane Valley is prepping to fine homeless people for camping – RANGE Media

Welcome to CIVICS, where we break down the week’s municipal meetings throughout the Inland Northwest, so you can get involved and speak out about the issues you care about.  


Some things that stick out to us this week include: 





Important meetings this week:


Mujeres in Action, Health Equity Circle at Washington State University’s College of Medicine and Asians for Collective Liberation are hosting a candidate forum for the community to meet and engage with candidates who are running...
RANGE Media •

What happens if you touch fentanyl? Here’s the facts and fiction – RANGE Media

Gracie Lou, a Bernadoodle who lives in Spokane, was out for a walk on May 22nd when she spotted a fast food bag on her way home from the downtown post office. Like any pooch who breathes air, she nibbled at the bag. Neither Gracie Lou nor her owner, Bettie Kibala, expected its contents to be laced with fentanyl, an opioid that has become a fixture on the streets of Spokane. 


Bettie Kibala, her owner, didn’t suspect the illicit drug either, and the two walked toward their West Central home....
RANGE Media •

Sean Feucht is back in Spokane – RANGE Media

The traveling Christian bard Sean Feucht — who’s made a name for himself over the past several years defying COVID mandates for Jesus, sparking violence at street protests and raking in millions from MAGA-aligned followers — is back in Spokane today. He is holding a night of worship at Matt Shea’s church On Fire Ministries, which Shea has been touting for weeks as one in a spring series of Christian nationalist organizing events from Coeur d’Alene to Olympia. With that in mind, we thought we’d e...

Arts & Culture Coverage

Whitman Wire •

Día de los Muertos Festivities Commence in Walla Walla

Leaves fall to the ground in vibrant flurries of red, yellow and orange as October comes to a close. Fall festivities, however, are just getting started as various groups on and off campus prepare for Día de Los Muertos, or Day of the Dead, on Nov. 2nd.
Sophia Bianco, the Resident Assistant for the Casa Hispana interest house, collaborated with the Whitman Events Board (WEB) to create a Día de Los Muertos event for anyone interested in remembering their loved ones. For Bianco and her residents,...
Whitman Wire •

Madeline Miller Talks Literary Witches in Classics Lecture

On March 5, students, faculty and community members gathered in person at Kimball Theater and online via a Zoom video chat for a lecture on witches in Classical literature by author Madeline Miller. Miller, whose works include “The Song of Achilles” and “Circe,” is known for her retellings of Classical Greek myths with character-building and insight into characters like Achilles, Patroclus and Circe. In her lecture, Miller presented her process and personal research in writing “Circe,” with a fo...
Whitman Wire •

Students Get Their Groove on with Drip Drop Dance Troupe

On Monday and Thursday evenings from six to seven, the dance studio rings with music and shuffling feet as the Drip Drop Dance troupe gathers students with all levels of experience to learn choreography and get onto the dance floor to move their bodies. Run by Caspian Pimpan, Clarisse Yee and Katherine Harris, the club has become a safe space for the three co-captains and the students they open the dance studio’s doors for.
“[The club] is super low-stakes and about creating joy in movement toget...
Whitman Wire •

Students Join the King’s Court for Renaissance Faire’s Winter Ball

Shimmering tulle skirts and Renaissance-style YouTube covers of “Toxic,” “Poker Face” and traditional European folk music filled the Reid Ballroom on Jan. 26 at the Renaissance Faire’s second annual Winter Ball. The Renaissance Faire Planning Committee presented six dances taught before and during the ball. Efforts like these and others are at the forefront of the Renaissance Faire Planning Committee’s focus when organizing school-wide events. 
The Committee’s lessons for all six dances meant th...
Whitman Wire •

Tracking History: Last Chance Road becomes a Historic Site

Last Saturday, historians, railroad enthusiasts and Whitman alumni gathered for a dedication ceremony at Last Chance Road. This is where Walla Walla 2020, a local organization, unveiled a new sign designating a portion of the original railroad as a historic site. Former Whitman Professor Clark Colahan, who published his book “Walla Walla’s Blue Mountain Railroad in 1879” about the railroad, Daniel Clark ’65, and others spoke before the dedication. The presentation focused on an unfinished portio...
Whitman Wire •

Perilous Times: The Center for Global Studies Prompts Political Engagement with M. Gessen’s Talk

On Jan. 30, members of the Walla Walla community and Whitman College students funneled into the Maxey Auditorium for a talk delivered by New York Times journalist M. Gessen. A Russian-American war reporter, Gessen has published pieces on the war in Ukraine and genocide in Gaza. The second event in a year-long series titled The Press in Times of Peril, the talk focused on adjusting to — and questioning— a ‘new normal’ in the United States’ ever-changing political landscape. The previous event for...
Whitman Wire •

Timber Culture Exhibit Showcases Black History in the PNW

Timber Culture, a traveling exhibit from the Maxville Heritage and Interpretive Center (MHIC) in Joseph, Oregon, is currently on display in the Maxey Museum. The exhibit features historic photographs of African American loggers in the Maxville work camp, abandoned today but revived by Executive Director of the MHIC, Gwendolyn Trice. For Trice, Timber Culture represents a personal history as well as a local history. Trice’s father and grandfather traveled in a boxcar amidst the cross-continental...
Whitman Wire •

Oral History in Walla Walla: Documentation as Empowerment

Walla Walla is alive with stories, which some local and campus-based projects are recording for public record. For some, storytelling might look like listening in rapt attention. For others, it’s collecting source after source for personal or academic research. Across the board, storytelling means giving a voice to people or places with stories to tell.
The Listener’s Project: Queremos Escucharte is one such organization working to record and remember forgotten or ignored stories in Walla Walla....
RANGE Media •

Spokane's rainbow history – RANGE Media

“When I moved up here to Spokane, I had never been exposed to transgender women or people, at all,” Crystal Marché says, telling a bit of her own story of moving to Spokane in the early 2000s as we survey hundreds of years of local queer history. 


“We were really poor, and five drag queens slept in one house. So we would go to Molly’s, and Molly’s was really inexpensive to eat at at the time,” she says. That relative poverty was a bit of fate for Marché and her friends, because it was there t...