Southwest Quadrant

Whittier College in 1912

Hoover Hall and Library

Whittier College is a private liberal arts college in Whittier, California. As of 2003, the college has 1,535 enrolled students.

The liberal arts university was founded in 1887 by members of the Religious Society of Friends, who named it after Friends (Quaker) poet John Greenleaf Whittier. Student athletes at Whittier College are known today as the Poets in his honor. The college is no longer affiliated with the Friends, though it does retain some of their ceremonial traditions.

Whittier College is one of the more diverse liberal arts colleges in the country, serving students not only of different ethnic and geographic backgrounds, but also of a wide range of socio-economic backgrounds. Minority and international students make up nearly half (49%) of the student body.^{[citation needed]}

Whittier College has over sixty student-run organizations and clubs, the college also has four local fraternities (called "societies"): The Franklin Society, The Lancer Society, The Orthogonian Society (founded by Richard Nixon when he was a student), and the William Penn Society; as well as five local sororities: The Palmer Society, The Ionian Society, The Metaphonian Society, The Thalian Society, and The Athenian Society; and one coed society, the Sachsen Society. Other long-standing campus groups include the Artorian Order of the Knights of Pendragon (A.O.K.P.). Former President of the United States Richard Nixon remains the college's most well-known and controversial alumnus. That a U. S. President graduated from Whittier is mentioned in many of the college's advertising documents--but that President's name is usually carefully omitted, until recently. ^{[citation needed]}

An event reminiscent of their famous alumnus occurred at Whittier College in 2002 when an electronic bugging device was found in the office of the college newspaper, the Quaker Campus. The discovery quickly made headlines on the Drudge Report, the Student Press Law Center and other media outlets due to the similarity to the bugging of the Democratic National Convention in 1972 that brought down Nixon's presidency in the Watergate scandal. The source of the QC wiretap was never conclusively proven, but one strong theory suggested that disgruntled members of the student government planted the bug to spy on student journalists during the early 1990s, when ongoing tensions between the faculty and the Orthogonian Society were reported in the newspaper.^{[citation needed]}

Athletics

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 storied 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-two Poets have earned All-American honors, the most recent coming in 1998. The football program plays out of Newman Memorial Field, which seats 7,000.

The Whittier Lacrosse Program was established in 1980. In 1980, 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 90’s 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 LAX 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.

Whittier Law School

Whittier College maintains a satellite campus for law studies in Costa Mesa, CA. Whittier Law School was founded in the Hancock Park Section of Los Angeles in 1966 as Beverly Law School. It became Whittier Law School in 1975 and moved to Costa Mesa in 1997. Whittier Law School now boasts a network of 4,000 alumni practicing in 48 states and 14 countries. Whittier Law 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. However, at its meeting on August 4-5, 2005, the ABA placed Whittier Law School's accreditation under a two-year probation, effective August 9, 2005.^[1]

Whittier College Budget

The annual endowment for Whittier College is approximately $40,000,000 USD. The job of deciding the way that the money is spent falls upon VP of Finance and Administration Jan Lagoza and other top administrators of the college, such as Dean of Students Jeanne Ortiz, Chair of the Faculty Mike McBride, Director of Athletics Rob Coleman, senior staff and the chairs of the Faculty Affairs Committee and the Faculty Executive Committee. The Budget Committee meets in the fall to set the colleges budget for the next fiscal year. The budget encompasses all monies appropriated for departments, facilities, Professors salaries and the salaries of staff. The Budget Committee also has far reaching power and has the authority to set goals for departments, such as how it sets the enrollment goal for incoming first-year students for the Admissions Department. “The Committee considers many things in setting the budget including enrollment targets, the cost of a Whittier education, the compensation offered to faculty and staff, inflation, special initiatives, etc.,” said VP of Finance and Administration and Chair of the Budget Committee Jan Lagoza. The college sets the budget according to a plan that looks at Whittier College and what the college wants to accomplish by a certain date, that date as of now is 2010. “First, the College's Strategic Plan serves as the basis for thinking about the College's budget. The Plan presents a vision of Whittier College in 2010 and indicates strategies to get there,” said Lagoza. “The plan calls for us to develop a more distinctive and attractive academic program, improve our reputation and thus attract a larger body of well-qualified applicants who will matriculate as strong and committed Whittier College students.” According to Lagoza the strategic plan of the college has three major goals which are excellence and distinctiveness in the academic program, a strong campus culture, and financial strength. “Obviously, these goals are very broad and encompass so much of what we do. So the College's Budget Group identifies annual budget priorities consistent with these over-arching goals in an effort to make progress toward achieving them,” said Lagoza. After the a budget is suggested by the Budget Committee then it goes to the President of the College Sharon Herzberger who then presents the budget to the Board of Trustees for final approval for the next fiscal year which begins in July. Along with being responsible for the Colleges 40 million dollar budget, President Herzberger is in charge of the 15 million Law School Budget. The Law School uses a similar process with the Faculty Governance Committee taking a leadership role in its development. “As you would expect, it can be challenging not to look at the budget and focus attention just on one or more allocation line and to really understand the whole context or the dynamics of distributing limited resource,” said Lagoza.. The Budget Committee tries to establish a responsible budget that will serve the Whittier College communities needs as best as possible, but still trying to maintain financial responsibility with limited resources.

Notable alumni

• Russ Purnell, NFL coach
• Fred D. Anderson, former CFO of Apple Computer
• Andrea Barber, actress
• Ila Borders, first female pitcher to start in a professional baseball game.
• Robert D. Durham, Justice, Oregon Supreme Court
• Richard Nixon, former U.S. President
• Marc San Pedro, CEO Digitron Software
• Jessamyn West, author
• Roger Lodge, Television Host
• Jim Colborn, former Major League Baseball pitcher

References

External links

• Official website
• Associated Students of Whittier College
• KPOETradio student radio station

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