History

Young George Whitworth was a man of restless energy, little like the stern-looking man whose portrait resides in the university archives. Trained as a harness maker, a lawyer and a minister, he was an optimist who didn't allow disappointment to deter him.

In 1852, as a young minister in the Ohio Valley, he wrote in his journal of his dream – a colony of Presbyterians on Puget Sound with "a good parochial school" offering "a good English education and a thorough religious training."

Fifty families signed up for his mission trek across the plains to the Northwest. Then they began to back out and drop off. When he arrived in Portland in 1853, only his own family was with him. His dream deferred, he spent the next 30 years becoming a leading citizen of the Puget Sound region.

He farmed, practiced law, served in government and pioneered in education. He founded 15 churches and served two terms as president of the Territorial University, later renamed the University of Washington.

In 1883, in the village of Sumner, southeast of Tacoma, he revived the dream and founded Sumner Academy. Seven years later, on Feb. 20, 1890, the school was incorporated as Whitworth College. The Rev. Amos T. Fox, principal of the academy, became its first president. The Rev. Calvin W. Stewart, who remained until 1898, succeeded him that same year. By 1899, the college had outgrown the rural community of Sumner and moved into town – Tacoma.

The following year, 84-year-old George Whitworth, still president of the Whitworth Board of Trustees, appeared before the annual meeting of Synod and outlined the standards of the college. Though the style and form are old-fashioned, the principles, after 90 years, remain central to the life of Whitworth University.

He called for "adequate buildings to accommodate students and make possible those higher values sought by a Christian college; scholarly teachers in sufficient number, chosen for their personal qualities as much as their scholarship – Godly men and women who love teaching as a field of enduring usefulness; conditions favorable to students receiving the personal attention of teachers in and out of the classroom."

He stressed the need for special attention to the physical well-being of students "with definite instruction and exercise in physical development; marked and delicate attention to the social life of students; the careful nurture of moral and religious life, without being obtrusive, to make it easy and natural for young people to respond to the spiritual influences of the classroom, personal contact and religious instruction of church and school; and insisting upon the old-fashioned idea of college for all-around culture, leaving specialization and broad electives to the university."

When support in Tacoma began to decline, the trustees cast about for an opportunity to move. Spokane real estate developer Jay P. Graves had long held a dream of a college on Spokane's north side. He offered 640 acres in his Country Home Estates, and in September 1914, Whitworth College opened its doors in Spokane, its new and permanent home.

Two dormitories, a president's home, an athletic field, tennis courts and utilities were completed by January 1915. Later, the three buildings were named McMillan Hall, Ballard Hall and MacKay Hall.

High turnover of faculty and administrators marked the early Spokane years, and the college survived a one-year closure because of World War I, several threats of consolidation, frequent financial crises and a fire that destroyed Ballard Hall in 1927.

The 1930s finally brought stability. Academic standings improved, more faculty members came and stayed, and more students completed all four years of their education at Whitworth. After years of short-term presidencies, President Ward Sullivan's nine-year administration, 1929-38, became the longest in the college's 48-year history.

But his successor was to stay even longer. The Rev. Frank F. Warren, after turning the job down once, became the president in 1940. In his 23 years, the college of three buildings occupying only three acres grew to include 25 major buildings spread over one hundred acres. Its assets grew from $225,000 to $26,000,000, and enrollment multiplied from 223 to 1,800.

Warren led the college until his death in 1963. His successor was the Rev. Mark Koehler, Whitworth's first alumnus president. Koehler weathered the storms of students' protest in the mid-sixties and presided over celebration of Whitworth's Diamond Jubilee and the addition of the Eric Johnston Science Center and Stewart Hall. He resigned in the spring of 1969.

In February 1970, Edward B. Lindaman became Whitworth's 14th president. His appointment was a radical departure. Neither a professional educator nor a cleric, Lindaman brought the viewpoint and style of the aerospace industry to the college. During his tenure, undergraduate enrollment stabilized at the 1,200 level, 11 new buildings were added, and bold new programs were begun in academics, student life and college development. He resigned in 1980.

Under the leadership of Robert Mounce from 1981-87, the college remained dedicated to George Whitworth's vision. The financial stability of the college improved. A new $1.7 million aquatics center was dedicated in 1985. A $7 million tax-exempt bond issue was approved in 1986 to upgrade and improve campus facilities.

Arthur J. De Jong was named president in 1988. A veteran of 10 years as president at Muskingum College, New Concord, Ohio, he emphasized long-range planning and faculty expansion and development. During his tenure the college conducted a $15 million Centennial Capital Campaign for a library addition, a new student union building, improvements in athletic facilities as well as increased endowment funds. Construction of the library addition, more than doubling the available space of the original structure, began during the summer of 1991 and was completed in time for the 1992 Fall Term. De Jong resigned in the summer of 1992.

In the summer of 1993, William P. Robinson became the 17th president of Whitworth College and he served until he was named president emeritus in 2010. His tenure was the second longest of any Whitworth president. During Robinson's tenure, Whitworth enjoyed record levels of student enrollment, retention, selectivity and graduation rates; the financial position and facilities were greatly strengthened; and Whitworth's external visibility and reputation grew markedly. However, many would argue that Robinson's greatest contribution was his ability to articulate and energize support for Whitworth's unique educational mission focused on both rigorous intellectual inquiry and the integration of Christian faith and learning. A clear and unwavering commitment to the mission provided a foundation for the name change, in 2007, to Whitworth University.

Beck A. Taylor became the 18th president of Whitworth University in 2010, after serving as dean and professor of economics at the Brock School of Business at Samford University in Birmingham, Ala. He served as president for 11 years, until 2021. During his tenure, Taylor spearheaded Whitworth's ambitious 10-year vision and strategic plan, Whitworth 2021: Courage at the Crossroads, which detailed plans to continue to elevate Whitworth among the leading Christian universities in the country. Under Taylor's leadership, Whitworth renewed its emphasis on community involvement and heightened its efforts to enhance academic programs and quality, including the creation of the College of Arts & Sciences, the School of Continuing Studies, an honors program and enhanced graduate programs, including Whitworth's first professional doctoral programs. More than $110 million in campus infrastructure improvements were made. Taylor also led the university's largest comprehensive fundraising campaign. During Taylor's tenure, Whitworth more than doubled the number of its international students and students from underrepresented racial and ethnic populations.

Scott McQuilkin became Whitworth's interim president in 2021 and was appointed as Whitworth's 19th president in 2022. Having devoted his entire career to the university, serving in various faculty, coaching and administrative roles, McQuilkin is regarded as an exceptional and visionary leader. Before becoming president, he served for 12 years as vice president for institutional advancement. During his tenure, institutional advancement carried out its most successful fundraising campaign in the university's history. McQuilkin is an alumnus of Whitworth; he holds both his undergraduate degree and master's degree in education from the university.

Founded by Presbyterians in 1890 and continuously affiliated with the Presbyterian church, Whitworth University is anchored in the Reformed tradition within Protestant Christianity. Since its earliest history, however, its faculty and staff have included Christians from a variety of denominations. The university's heritage also includes an evangelical current, flowing through both the Reformed and ecumenical streams, that emphasizes the importance of personal relationship to Jesus Christ. Although these Reformed, ecumenical and evangelical influences are sometimes in tension, we believe that, in the context of a Christian academic institution, they are not essentially in conflict but are, in fact, mutually enriching.

Whitworth's identity as a university rooted in these various theological streams is reflected in its mission: Providing an education of mind and heart by a community of Christian scholars. George Whitworth's original vision was centered on making Whitworth "an institution of learning of the highest grade" which would produce the finished scholar, a person of high moral character and erudition. Despite forces of secularization, particularly prominent during the late 20th century, in which students were encouraged to define their own ends and institutions were reluctant to define matters of character, Whitworth University remains committed to scholarship and education informed by theological values.

From this convergence of traditions, and in continuing dialogue with Scripture and human experience, we draw the commitments that shape and define our life as a Christian academic community. Among these, the following would command a broad consensus if not complete unanimity among Whitworth's trustees, administration, staff and faculty:

• We are committed to intellectual rigor and to the vigorous and unfettered pursuit of knowledge and truth in which all areas of inquiry are valid for exploring God's creation and work in the world. We recognize that reason is the most distinctive feature of humankind, and at the same time, a capacity vulnerable to misuse. It is largely through the intellect that we comprehend the revelation of God; it is also the intellect that can lead us astray through the illusion of self-sufficiency. We affirm, at the same time, that all aspects of life matter: action, emotion and character as well as cognition. We are called as whole persons to live lives of faith, commitment and service and to reflect the sacrificial love of Christ in the world.
• We affirm our role as an educational community, with education's unique and necessary commitment to academic freedom, to healthy debate, and to a willingness to listen to voices that enrich, broaden and challenge our perspectives. We also affirm the individual Christian scholar's responsibility to serve the mission of the institution with which they choose to affiliate and to exercise respect for others even in the midst of vigorous disagreement.
• We affirm the need for engagement with the world, and understand our Christian mandate to include participating in, leavening and transforming the social, political, economic and cultural domains. We recognize and respect Christian differences on how this mandate is best carried out.
• We affirm our responsibility to extend hospitality, charity and love to all members of the Whitworth community. We uphold the worth of individuals and value their differences, but like the New Testament church in which there is "neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female," we also affirm a community identity which transcends individual differences.

As a function of its theological heritage and commitments, Whitworth University values and has worked to preserve those aspects of community that provide essential moorings of identity. Central to this mooring is the university's policy of hiring people who deeply share commitments to Christian faith and to higher education. From its founding, Whitworth has required that all regular personnel profess to the reality of Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. Yet Whitworth University reflects an ecumenical spirit in hiring rather than requiring subscription to an institutional doctrinal creed. It asks each employee to affirm faith in Christ and to provide a personal statement regarding ways in which faith informs understanding of their vocation at Whitworth. Given the tendency of institutions that hire outside their mission to see erosion of institutional identity, mission-based hiring is of critical importance. We also uphold the value of a community of Christian scholars who integrate faith and learning and support one another in providing academic resources to the Christian community and Christian voices within the broader academy.

Whitworth University's educational identity and ecumenical spirit likewise are the basis for its student recruitment policy. While the foundation of institutional identity is preserved through mission-based hiring, students are enrolled from an even wider array of backgrounds, including perspectives from outside the realm of Christian faith. As an educational institution, we live in the world and do not wish to establish a fortress mentality that excludes any who wish to learn in this environment and can benefit from the academic strengths we have to offer. In addition, we do not want and would not thrive with complete unanimity of perspective. And so we value the presence both of students who share our core Christian convictions and of those whose ideas help offset an easy presumption of certainty. To enrich our always limited understanding and to reflect the quality of community that God created, we will work to encourage rich and respectful campus conversation in which a variety of voices, from beyond our community as well as within it, are heard and thoughtfully considered.