Despite Whittier College trying to ignore whittiergate.com - except those associated with the College who keep trying to sabotage whittiergate through what they know best, Dirty Tricks - we note the following impacts on Whittier College of whittiergate spotlighting:
Ethnic Enrollment Percentages, Hispanic-Serving Institutions program Fraud; Why Whittier College Now Looks Like Los Angeles, Not the United States; and Why White Students Are a Minority for the First Time in Whittier College's History
Hispanic enrollment has suddenly increased dramatically as Whittier College seeks to avoid being busted for defrauding the federal Hispanic-Serving Institutions program for over a decade. Asian-American and African-American enrollment percentages have also increased, to 11% and 7%, respectively. Latino enrollment is alleged to have risen from 26.9% to 32%, still short of the Latino enrollment high of over a decade ago, but clearly only accomplished by great effort. (We must note that the veracity of Whittier College's self-generated statistics have been questioned on several grounds.)
To meet the requirements for H-S I funds, Latino enrollment must not only meet a threshold of 25% of undergraduate enrollment, and fully one-half of those Latino student families must be living below the official poverty level, but the school must be in the process of becoming largely Hispanic, which means a Hispanic enrollment percentage of around 60%, the percentage at other Hispanic-Serving Institutions program schools recognized as largely Hispanic. Whittier College could only apply to the H-S I program when the threshold was lowered from 40% to 25% when this federal program's rules were modified to help more schools who were, unlike Whittier College, really becoming largely Hispanic, and even then Whittier had to be dishonest about its real intentions.
Whittier College never mentions all the requirements for a school to benefit by participation in the Hispanic-Serving Institutions program, only the 25% enrollment threshold, and even that detached from its context, from that threshold indicating that the recipient school is in the process of becoming largely Hispanic. Whittier College spokespersons addressing this issue speak as though they know what to say and what to be quiet about from a H-S I program scammer's point of view.
Consequently, for the first time, White students find themselves to be a minority at Whittier College. Caucasian students are now to be found in, not a White, not a Caucasian, but in the Other category. Every major ethnicity at Whittier College except Whites has their own named category. Caucasian enrollment is now less than 47% (the percentage of students in the Other category, which also includes students who decline to state their ethnicity and students who state that they're White when they aren't White - watching Mexican TV one would think most Mexicans have blonde hair and blue eyes - as well as students who are of extremely rare ethnicities ).
White enrollment would have to be reduced to less than 40% for Whittier College to even slightly surpass the school's Latino enrollment of more than a decade ago, and then be gradually further reduced to meet the requirement that the College be in the process of becoming largely Hispanic. White enrollment would have to be ultimately reduced to around 20% for the College to make room for a Latino enrollment of around 60%, and that's hardly allowing for any increases for Asian- and African-Americans, Native Americans, Et Al. Whittier College has painted itself into a corner by perpetrating its Hispanic-Serving Institutions scam.
Whittier College would be far better off returning the millions scammed from the Hispanic-Serving Institutions program than turning the College into a largely Hispanic institution. The College's new recruiting policy cannot meet the H-S I requirements without diminishing White enrollment to the point where it will become difficult to recruit any White students, and contributions will largely dry up, fundraising campaigns will fizzle.
No matter how much money the federal government prints, the state of the world makes it all too clear that federal programs like the Hispanic-Serving Institutions program are not going to be continued indefinitely, let alone remain open-ended, admit new school participants indefinitely. Federal programs to help largely Black and Native American colleges are already capped, there will be no more colleges accepted into those programs. As incredible as it may seem, it doesn't seem to have dawned on Whittier College administrators or trustees that it's promising Latino students most of all who don't want to go to a largely Latino college.
whittiergate conducted a survey of highly promising class of 2013 Latina students' college plans this past summer, and not a single one of the students surveyed either wanted or planned to attend a largely Latino college. Among the schools being attended by these Latina students are Stanford, UC Irvine, UCLA, USC, and MIT. The only small private liberal arts college to attract one of these students was Dartmouth, in the Ivy, not Bush, League. One student made the Yale waiting list, but is now at Stanford. Students from, for example, L. A. public schools with largely Latino enrollments have struggled just to move beyond a largely Latino school education.
The purpose of the Hispanic-Serving Institutions program has always been to help largely Hispanic colleges, overwhelmingly community colleges, offer a higher quality educational experience for Hispanics; largely Hispanic schools are often deficient in comparison with mainstream colleges. Whittier College has never been an appropriate Hispanic-Serving Institutions participant.
For Whittier College to continue its H-S I school masquerade that was born of desperation, by a guy who was on drugs and having sex with boys while married, while president of Whittier College, and who's now a convicted felon with significant indebtedness, makes one wonder who could possibly be making the policy decision to continue with an ex-con's scam, now...?
The H-S I scam was the brainstrom of outed gay ex-Whittier College President James Lee Ash, Jr., who had to cope with enrollment and income shortfalls in the long wake of the Watergate scandal and Whittier College alumnus Richard M. Nixon's resignation of the United States presidency - the only presidential resignation in our country's history. Dr. Ash, known best for major miscalculations, set a Hispanic enrollment percentage starting point at the beginning of the scam of 34%, which the College quickly backed down from to the 25% threshold percentage, taking a calculated risk that the College wouldn't be kicked out of the H-S I program and have to return funds for which it had not still hasn't qualified - and for which it will obviously never quality.
Dr. Ash went on to a Nevada state prison for drug trafficking (and is still subject to court orders prohibiting him from being alone with males or females under the age of 21, as well as the rules of his probationer status), while racking up considerable debts which he has simply ignored, and Whittier College simply went on defrauding the Hispanic-Serving Institutions program after Dr. Ash resigned the Whittier College Presidency. Even the desperate recruiting effort for the Whittier College Class of 2013 comes up short, failing even to just match the 1997 Hispanic student enrollment percentage of 34%, and, it should be clear by now, the Latino enrollment percentage has to keep increasing until the school is largely Hispanic (60%), or Whittier College will remain ineligible for H-S I funding.
Current Whittier College President Sharon Herzberger must not have done very well in her required statistics for the social sciences undergraduate course because there's simply no way to spin the numbers to make any appearance of sense in this regard. The numbers make clear the fact that Whittier College is damned if it does, and damned if it doesn't, come clean and own up to its Hispanic-Serving Institutions program fraud. President Herzberger has been Whittier College's Great Helmsman for half a decade now, and lurching down this cul-de-sac is the best she can do?
Sharon, fess up, own up, answer this question: Is Whittier College going to become a largely Hispanic school, is White student enrollment going to be reduced to 20%, or is Whittier College going to face up to having defrauded the federal government, the taxpayers, and repay the millions of dollars Whittier College has wrongly taken from the Hispanic-Serving Institutions program?
Whittier College Recruiting Methods Revealed, Bode Ill for Quality of School's Education, Academic Reputation, Degree Values, and Economic Viability
Facing increasing difficulties recruiting new students, and this difficulty being complicated by the need to try to avoid being busted for defrauding the Hispanic-Serving Institutions program, Whittier College has focused its recruiting efforts on students who aren't prepared for and can't afford a quality private liberal arts education, high school students who participate in Upward Bound and AVID programs designed to help average students go on to college. And still Whittier College, whose Class of 2012 started out with 421 freshmen, saw the new Class of 2013 begin with only 359 frosh.
Raising further questions about what the heck is going on in terms of Whittier College's future, 46 transfer students from community colleges were enrolled at Whittier in 2008, but 94 community college transfers were enrolled in 2009. While this increase suggests an effort to improve the College's athletic teams' performances, it also further clarifies the school's recruiting strategy, luring mediocre students to Whittier College..
Housing Silver Lining
We note that while overall enrollment has declined, despite recruiters scraping the bottom of the college prospects barrel, Whittier College still managed somehow to even further overcrowd on campus housing, which therefore now includes previous storage, class, and lounge spaces hastily converted into student 'rooms'. These ad hoc student rooms already look more like an orphanage or military barrack than traditional liberal arts college student rooms. The silver lining of this negative achievement is that some students will now, unless refugee tents or toxic FEMA trailers are set up on campus, be spared a $10,000 + rip off, being required to live on campus when they can easily commute and save that significant amount of money.
Update
Whittier College has announced that enrollment will be increased - to 1,500 students! without any plan to house those additional students, nor any plan to help students get into classes they need to graduate and want toward a genuine higher education. Where these additional students will be found hasn't been made clear. Can this College go any lower than Upward Bound and AVID programs and community colleges scraping up students as it's already doing?
"When I tried to register, all the classes I wanted were full and the waiting lists were endless." And "In the end I was forced to register for classes I did not even want to take just for the sake of being a full-time student." - Jackson Burris, 09-10 Whittier College Frosh quoted in Quaker Campus
Whittier College classes and waiting lists are first come, first served, which could seem fair only to a Whittier College administrator. Ask seniors how they feel about first come, first served waiting lists. Whittier College students are going to be lucky to graduate in 5 or even 6 years or more at the rate this school is maximizing income at the expense of everything else, if students can afford to or stand living in barracks that long.
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whittiergate Societies Exposes Cause Whittier College to Give Lip Service to Societies Reform While Tightening Control of the Societies and Using Them As Liability Sops
Whittier College has declared new Societies standards and accountability reviews after whittiergate exposed Societies misconduct and crimes. Not surprisingly, the proposed changes don't address the criminality of the Societies, particularly the hazing of pledges, and upon inspection are seen to be not much more than part of the College's ongoing reorganization of its Societies for its own purposes.
Societies will from now on have to present an annual management plan at the beginning of each academic year, and an annual report at the end of each academic year. The management plan will help inform the administration of the societies' intentions, help the administration make sure that the societies put on enough events to save the College the expense of doing so, and insulate the College from liability for such events, and increase administration control of its Societies, in no small part with an eye to a range of possible liability issues. .
The annual report is supposed to be graded, which could lead to a Societies rating system, but this remains in the discussion stage. The only two instances of accountability that can now be addressed via the annual report are a Society's GPA and its community service record. A Society's GPA, averaged over its entire active membership, has been raised from 2.0 to 2.5. The new community service requirement is that each Society carry out at least one community service project per year and that the Society's membership community service hours average out to at least 5 hours per member.
Senior ISC Co-Chair Katy Foley told Quaker Campus' Leslie Tumulac that most societies already meet both the new GPA and community service requirements, revealing these supposed reforms as, on one hand, a means for the administration to further increase its control of its societies, and, on the other, as a red herring to distract attention from the Societies', and therefore the College's, Achilles Heel, hazing during pledging, harassment of depledges, and other criminal activities throughout the year.
There is also a requirement that a series of topics be presented to Societies members that range from individual health to values - now that's chutzpah, Whittier College, which replaced its family doctor away from home student health care with an anonymous profit first health industry business model, after replacing its healthy, safe, and environment-friendly natural grass stadium field with a health and safety and environmental hazard artificial turf installation, teaching health and values - and the hypocritical Whittier College version of politically correct diversity. No doubt White students will want to know why Whittier has suddenly become a White minority campus, and no doubt Latino students will want to know why Whittier has suddenly become a White minority campus.
So Whittier College's reorganization of its Societies continues apace, the Societies yielding their autonomy step by step to an administration implementing its plan to control, rebrand and market the Societies to undergraduate students - because societies alumni contribute more to Whittier College than do non-Society grads, and because the societies can be made to underwrite and carry out community service projects that improve the College and the College's relations with the larger community, and be induced to plan, promote, and stage social events for which the College can take credit while limiting it costs and liability therefore.
So, Dean Andre Coleman, President Herzberger's Societies Czar, hear this: No one is fooled by these so-called reforms. We continue to be acutely aware of the fact that the College's Societies are committing crimes against their pledges from the very beginning, Societies that are controlled by this College, which is, no matter what you say, liable for these Societies' criminal acts and their consequences.
Meanwhile, non-Society-affiliated students, the overwhelming majority of students, are subjected to a bare social calendar featuring an occasional event or party that's inevitably devoid of imagination or decency, and worse still demeaning to and dangerous for females, which also makes less of male students.. All students pay a fee that all together underwrite campus events. Why on Earth should the Societies be allowed, more be helped, to get away with the lion's share of the money, contributed by all students, to stage second rate events and parties for students?! Imagine, on the edge of Los Angeles and this is the best the Socieites can do?!
Whittier College dormitories constitute the equivalent of a Native American reservation, and Whittier's Societies come out of an outdated and ultimately disastrous play book... The minority Sunni were set up as straw bosses over the majority Shiites in Iraq, the minority Alawites were set up to run Muslim majority Syria, the freed American slaves were set up to dominate the majority indigenous Africans in Liberia, the minority Tutsi by imperial design held sway over the majority Hutu in Central Africa. At Whittier College, a distinct minority of students are offered a deal, "perks" as Andre Coleman calls them, and obligations, that set them up to determine the tone of campus politics, the social scene, and even the arts that will constitute the Whittier College experience for all students. With the College administration determining the academic and sports experiences, what does that leave the overwhelming majority of non-Society-affiliated students to determine about their college experience? Only through unity can students prevail over an administration and their chosen straw bosses, the Societies members.
Elect non-Society student government representatives and officers, have your representatives tell the Societies to find their own funds for their own events and parties, and start putting on some fresh events and parties with some class for all students. You know, a change will do you good. Bring rising musicians and comedians to campus; bring some forward looking, provocative, and some respected traditionalist speakers to campus. You are on the edge of Los Angeles, the richest nation in history's number two market and the entertainment capitol of America and the World, not on the edge of Nowhere. When Whittier College raises the minimum societies GPA to Dean's List or better, then you might trust them with your entertainment or social life, or trust in their pollitical sense or artistic sensibility, but until then that wouldn't be a very bright idea, would it?
Whittier College Societies: Stop Misrepresenting Membership Benefits ! Stop violating anti-hazing law ! and Stop harassing depledges !
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Erotic City AKA Adam & Eve Returns to Campus Under whittiergate Spotlight
The Erotic City event put on by the Lancer Society has finally come back to campus. The event is still demeaning for female students, it's a pity that their female President Herzberger, a supposed authority on abuse, has failed to put a clean end to the lingering Old Boys/Dirty Old Men 101 course alternating with cornball fluff substituting for a fresh, healthy, fun social life on campus, but female students are less, no pun intended, exposed to harm being on campus wearing too little while intoxicated than they are out on the streets, especially of Whittier with its unusually high concentration of registered sex offenders. Why any young female student would want to be in either situation in that condition is a sad commentary on the lack of self-esteem and self-worth in female students at Whittier College.
Erotic City AKA Adam & Eve violence has apparently receded with this event back on campus, although an athlete and Campus Safety officer are reported to have mixed it up at this year's on campus Adam & Eve event. The problem of those Old Boys/Dirty Old Men still hasn't been dealt with, as Prof. Chuck Hill (Penn Society Advisor) made clear by his presence at this event. There is the issue of older big brothers showing up into middle age that really highlights the creepy aspect of the Erotic City event, the objectification that precedes all sexual offenses, all made possible by girls lacking in self-esteem and any sense of their own worth. No stupid girls; no Erotic City. As one male Adam & Eve participant commented, "If they're here, they suck." Women have not sacrificed decade after decade for this, to be back where they started, do you think, girls?
If President Herzberger cared at all about women's issues, about the girls in her charge, a current Whittier College student photo ID card would be required for entrance into such an event, and if Sharon cared as much as she should care, this event wouldn't be on campus, or off campus, or off planet; it would be on the junk heap of Whittier College social history where it has belonged for a number of years.
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Homecoming King and Queen, Whittier Weekend Mr. and Ms. Whittier, are now just that, and Whittier College Students now have a Homecoming Dance
Homecoming King and Queen, Whittier Weekend Mr. and Ms. Whittier, are now elected in a manner more likely to result in a Mr. and Ms. Whittier representative of the student body, and minor students, the overwhelming majority of Whittier College students, are no longer kept out of their own Homecoming dance.
whittiergate is very pleased to have been part of some restoration of homecoming weekend tradition at Whittier College.
To whittiergate:
"I was surprised to see no mention of Whittier College spending upwards of $50,000 on a cooling system (that doesn't really work) for the artificial turf installed in the stadium and for related P R costs. Those expenses were definitely a reaction to "Whittiergate Spotlighting". Keep pressuring the administration and trustees until we get natural grass back in our stadium!"