Friday, December 5, 2025

By the Career and Community Engagement Center

Female small-business owners graduating from the Jua Financial Literacy Program designed and led by N’dungu with a Projects for Peace award.

Senior Maryanne Ndung’u ’26 grew up in an entrepreneurial community in Nairobi, Kenya, which sparked an interest in how economic systems shape livelihoods. 

She began a very focused degree in Economics and Finance on a Kenyan government scholarship. However, she quickly realized that she was seeking a more intersectional approach to her questions on how capital, gender and access to information shape entrepreneurship. She shifted her plans to seek out a liberal arts education through the Zawadi Africa Education Fund, which led her to start at Whitman College in the fall of 2022.

In her first year at Whitman, courses with Associate Professor of Philosophy Rebecca Hanrahan and a reproductive justice class with Associate Professor of Politics Susanne Beechey pushed Ndung’u to examine her own identities, helping her to understand who she was in this new setting and redefine herself as an emerging adult. While her interests remain the same, this exploration allowed for a focus more deeply rooted in financial inclusion, entrepreneurial ecosystems and how data and economic development support women entrepreneurs.

With guidance from her academic advisors and programs accessed through the Career and Community Engagement Center, Ndung’u pursued opportunities that initially felt slightly out of reach. The summer after her first year, an internship at Platinum Credit in Kenya exposed her to microfinance in a very hands-on setting, working on emergency loans for clients who often didn’t fully understand the loan terms. That gap in financial literacy pushed her to pursue and receive a Projects for Peace Award to support the design and delivery of financial literacy workshops for women traders in the market in which she grew up, experimenting with tools that built on existing practices in the community.

Read more to see a visual timeline of Ndung’u’s Whitman journey to date.

After a short content freeze for our website update, we are excited to share that the Whitman website is back up and running on a completely rebuilt foundation. We’ve moved from an aging Bootstrap code base to a modern Tailwind framework, giving us faster load times, stronger accessibility, improved stability and a flexible structure that sets us up well for future updates.

Most of the site should feel familiar and still reflect Whitman’s brand, but there are refreshed content components and small improvements across the website. Rebuilding the site from the ground up makes it much easier for our team to update pages, address issues more quickly and keep improving the overall experience.

There’s still more to come, but this launch is a big step toward a website that is faster, more accessible and ready to grow with the needs of our community. If you spot anything that seems off or needs attention, try clearing your browser cache, and if that doesn’t fix it, please let us know at whitman.edu/webrequest.

The Outdoor Program will hold its annual new and used gear sale on Friday, Dec. 5, from noon–5 p.m. in the Reid Campus Center Young Ballroom. Used items will include kayaks, tents, life jackets and more. All new merchandise will be on sale for 15% off. Payments may be made with cash, credit card or as a charge to your Whitman student account. (Flyer attached.)

The Music Department will host a variety of events this weekend:

All events are free and open to the public. Attendees to the Feast of Carols concert are encouraged to bring donations of nonperishable food items for Blue Mountain Action Council.

The Career and Community Engagement Center is participating in the Walla Walla Family Gift Drive to provide presents and gift cards for local families who would benefit from some extra support during the holiday season. The deadline to sign up to participate has been extended to Friday, Dec. 5. Gifts should be purchased and delivered to the Reid Campus Center Young Ballroom on Friday, Dec. 12, between 10 a.m. and 6 p.m. Interested? Email communityprojects@whitman.edu to learn more. (Flyer attached.)

Sherwood Athletic Center will close early on Saturday, Dec. 6, at 2 p.m. to accommodate the men’s basketball home game against Belhaven University, which starts at 5 p.m.

At last month’s Living Data: Sonification Concert co-organized by Assistant Professor of Computer Science Jordan Wirfs-Brock, several performers—including “musical chemist” Walker Smith (pictured)—presented data to the audience using sound. See more photos on Instagram.

11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.

First Foods Station

Cleveland Commons

Noon–5 p.m.

Outdoor Program New & Used Gear Sale

Reid Campus Center, Young Ballroom

12:10–12:50 p.m.

Movement That Matters: Yoga

Sherwood Athletic Center, Room 114

2:30–3:45 p.m.

Classics Club Meeting

Baker Center

2:30–4 p.m.

Accessible Rock Climbing

Climbing Center

4–8 p.m.

Dance-a-Thon

Cordiner Hall, Foyer

5–7 p.m.

First Foods Station

Cleveland Commons

7–8 p.m.

Jazz Ensembles Fall Concert

Hall of Music, Chism Recital Hall

7–8:30 p.m.

Hui o Moananuiākea Karaoke Night

Third Space Center

9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Outdoor Program Day Trip: Winter Wonderland

Umatilla National Forest

3 p.m.

Senior Recital: Shantényka Thompson ’25

Hall of Music, Chism Recital Hall

5 p.m.

Whitman Men’s Basketball vs. Belhaven University

Sherwood Athletic Center

5:30–8:30 p.m.

Autumn Ball

Reid Campus Center, Young Ballroom

7 p.m.

Junior Recital: Aili Ryan-Smith ’27 (violin)

Hall of Music, Chism Recital Hall

7–9 p.m.

Wintertime Gaming Session

Reid Campus Center, Coffeehouse

1–5 p.m.

Intramural Basketball Tournament (3v3)

Sherwood Athletic Center, Multipurpose Gym

3–4 p.m.

Feast of Carols

Cordiner Hall

Would you like to share an event with campus? Submit the information to the Events Calendar.

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