Welcome to Semester in the West

Whitman College Semester in the West is an interdisciplinary field program in environmental studies, focusing public lands conservation in the interior American West. Our objective is to come to know the West in its many dimensions, including its diverse ecosystems, its social and political communities, and the many ways these ecosystems and communities find their expression in regional environmental writing and public policy. Every other autumn since 2002, a select group of 21 Whitman College students ventures out into the interior West for field meetings with a wide variety of leading figures in conservation, ecology, environmental writing, and social justice. During the course of the semester, we have typically have the opportunity to visit with sixty or seventy such leaders.

Our goal is to explore the complexity of environmental issues in the West, while at the same time locating pathways toward meaningful individual and collective action to conserve and enhance the West’s natural and human communities.

Each year our studies are focused around key themes that circumscribe environmental issues in the West, including water, public lands, climate change, restoration, social justice, energy, the urban/rural divide, and conservation.

Semester in the West is made possible with the generous support of Whitman College, its alumni, parents, and friends. The program’s founding Director is Phil Brick, Miles C. Moore Professor of Politics, who launched the program in 2002 with a grant from the Andrew Mellon Foundation.

Semester in the West is a program for Whitman College students only; sophomore status or higher is required to participate. The program will next be offered Fall 2010 (see application information here).


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