Whitman Fighting Missionaries

Whitman College

Motto	per ardua surgo (Latin)
Motto in English	Through adversities I rise
Type	Private liberal arts college
Established	December 20, 1859
Religious affiliation	Non-sectarian
Endowment	$477.8 million (2016)
President	Kathleen M. Murray
Academic staff	200
Undergraduates	1,470
Location	Walla Walla, Washington, United States 46°04′14″N 118°19′44″W / 46.0706922°N 118.3288535°W / 46.0706922; -118.3288535
Campus	117 acres (0.47 km2)
Colors	Navy Blue and Maize
Athletics	NCAA Division III – NWC
Nickname	Blues
Affiliations	Annapolis Group Oberlin Group CLAC Colleges That Change Lives
Sports	15 varsity teams
Website	www.whitman.edu

Whitman College is a private liberal arts college located in Walla Walla, Washington. Initially founded as a seminary by a territorial legislative charter in 1859, the school became a four-year degree-granting institution in 1882. Whitman College is accredited by the Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges and competes athletically in the NCAA Division III Northwest Conference. The school offers 48 majors and 33 minors in the liberal arts and sciences, and has a student to faculty ratio of 9:1. Whitman was the first college in the Pacific Northwest to install a Phi Beta Kappa chapter, and the first school in the United States to require comprehensive exams for graduation. Whitman was ranked tied for 41st in the nation in the 2017 U.S. News & World Report list of Best Liberal Arts Colleges. Whitman's acceptance rate for 2015 was 41%.

In 1859, soon after the United States military declared that the land east of the Cascade Mountains was open for settlement by American pioneers, Cushing Eells traveled from the Willamette Valley to Waiilatpu, near present-day Walla Walla, where 12 years earlier, Christian missionaries Dr. Marcus Whitman and Narcissa Whitman, along with 12 others were killed by a group of Cayuse Indians during the Whitman Massacre. While at the site, Eells became determined to establish a "monument" to his former missionary colleagues in the form of a school for pioneer boys and girls. Eells obtained a charter for Whitman Seminary, a pre-collegiate school, from the territorial legislature. From the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, he acquired the Whitman mission site. Eells soon moved to the site with his family and began working to establish Whitman Seminary.