On a cool, gray morning in September 2024, a group of Whitman College students glided through the Snake River Canyon on a jet boat with Nez Perce tribal tourism leaders and storytellers. The community partners shared geological and cultural history, traditional stories, and personal memories as they passed towering hills and craggy cliffs, stopping for the students to visit ancient rock art and swim in the cold water.
The trip was part of Semester in the West, Whitman’s signature interdisciplinary field program where students spend 14 weeks over the fall semester on the road learning about the interior American West.
The program—founded and led for 20 years by Professor of Politics Phil Brick—has entered a new era since Brick’s retirement.
A team of faculty co-directors will now rotate responsibilities for planning and leading the trip. The Fall 2024 program, the first under the new model, was co-led by Lyman Persico, Associate Professor of Geology and Environmental Studies (pictured, right), and Stan Thayne, Senior Lecturer of Anthropology, Environmental Studies and Religion (pictured, left), with Aaron Strain, the Baker Ferguson Chair of Politics and Leadership, as the Environmental Humanities field-intensive faculty.
The moment on the Snake exemplified the program’s 2024 theme, “Water in the West,” and illustrated the layers of experience and education students gain when they become Westies as well as Whitties.
“The students really loved it, in part because it was a day out on the river and they were able to see this beautiful space and experience it in their bodies—but also because of the people we were with,” Thayne says. “The Nez Perce storytellers and leaders who were sharing helped students see the river not just as a recreational space, but as the Nez Perce homeland.”
After an epic semester of academic adventure, filled with experiences like that meaningful day on the Snake, Persico and Thayne are excited to continue building on Brick’s legacy while guiding Semester in the West’s evolution.
Read the full story in the Spring issue of Whitman Magazine.
