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Baseline Benchmarks
Updated August 2009

Whitworth has enjoyed steady improvement in a number of areas over the past 16 years:

• More than $83 million in campus improvements have been made over the past decade, including a new center for the visual arts, Weyerhaeuser Hall academic building, three new residence halls, and several outdoor athletics facilities. Construction is under way on Phase I of a $53 million science project -- a 60,000-square-foot biology/chemistry building scheduled to open in fall 2011.
  
  
• Whitworth is ranked 10th in U.S. News & World Report's 2010 rankings of 116 master's-level universities in the West, and sixth in its ranking of best values in the same category. U.S. News also recognized Whitworth for extraordinary undergraduate teaching.
  
  
• The number of freshman applications has increased 518 percent from 1,132 in 1993 to 5,862 for fall 2009. The growth in applications has contributed to Whitworth becoming one of the most selective colleges in Washington state, with the 2008 freshman class having an average SAT score of 1811 and average high-school GPA of 3.7.
  
  
• In the past decade, overall enrollment has grown 66 percent, to 2,781; undergraduate enrollment has increased 88 percent, to 2,453; and full-time undergraduate matriculated day enrollment has grown 63 percent, to 2,006.
  
  
• The freshman-sophomore retention rate rose steadily, to a record high of 89 percent in 2006; it stands at 87.2 percent in 2009. The six-year graduate rate reached an all-time high of 76.9 percent in 2008 and stands at 73.1 percent in 2009 -- its fifth consecutive year above 73 percent. Both percentages indicate double-digit improvement over the past decade; each is well above the national average.
  
  
• The average of annual unrestricted gifts and total gifts received by the university doubled in the five years ending in 2008, compared with the five years ending in 1993. In 2008-09, the university received $2,095,842 in unrestricted gifts/income and $7,226,660 overall. The endowment grew 494 percent, from $18.6 million in 1993 to $92.8 million in 2008, before dropping to $73,191,175 in the market downturn.
  
  
• Faculty and staff salaries have risen annually by an average of 4.5 percent - about twice the rate of increase in the consumer price index. These increases do not include special salary adjustments.
  
  
• Whitworth’s visibility and reputation have grown stronger through significant regional and national media placements and numerous awards and recognitions.

Annual Unrestricted Gifts Received
(Fiscal Year: July 1-June 30)

Annual Total Gifts Received
(Fiscal Year: July 1-June 30)

Endowment

Faculty/Staff Salary Raises
-- Not Including Special Salary Adjustments

National Media Placements

USA Today — Dec. 17, 1999
Boston Herald — Dec. 19, 1999
Washington Times — Dec. 25, 1999
Wilmington (Del.) News-Journal — Dec. 31, 1999
Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel —Jan. 12, 2000
World Magazine — Feb. 26, 2000
The Chicago Reporter — April 2000
College Bound Magazine — September 2000
The Chicago Tribune — Dec. 31, 2000
Down Beat Magazine — May 2001
Teacher Magazine — October 2001
Salon.com — April 21, 2002
American Philanthropy News — April 26, 2002
Ethix Magazine — January 2003
Christianity Today — April 2003, May 2004
Chronicle of Higher Education — April 4, 2003
Alaska Airlines Magazine — October 2003
The Philadelphia Inquirer — May 2004
University Business Magazine — August 2005
Newsday — January 2006
Christian Management Report— February 2006
Seattle Post-Intelligencer —May 2006
Washington Post — July 2006
Los Angeles Times — July 2006
Science & Theology News — August 2006
SI.com – November 2006
USA Today — February 2007
CBS SportsLine.com — April 2007
Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine — April 2007
Chronicle of Higher Education — October 2007
Dow Jones Newswire — December 2007

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• President Bill Robinson received the 2001 CASE District VIII Distinguished Leadership Award.
  
  
• English Professor Laurie Lamon, '78, received a 2001 Pushcart Prize, a 2002-03 Graves Award in the Humanities and a 2007 Witter Bynner Fellowship for her poetry.
  
  
• Director of Athletics Scott McQuilkin, '84, was named 2002 Athletics Director of the Year for the NCAA DIII West Region.
  
  
• Whitworth Professor of Education Doris Liebert received the 2002 Presbyterian Educator of the Year Award.
  
  
• Art Professor Scott Kolbo’s print Naaman Dirty was named “Best of Show” in printmaking at the 28th annual Bradley National Print and Drawing Exhibition in 2002.
  
  
• Whitworth was named Best Christian Workplace among large colleges/ seminaries in 2003 and 2004 Best Christian Places to Work survey, commissioned by Christianity Today magazine.
  
  
• The Council of Independent College presented its 2003 Heuer Award of Achievement to the Whitworth Physics Department.
  
  
• Professor of Education Betty Williams was selected to receive a 2004 Washington Award for Excellence in Teacher Preparation, following Doris Liebert in 2001 and Dennis Sterner in 1998.
  
  
• The Whitworth Jazz Ensemble won first place at the 2008 Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival, its sixth top-place finish since 1996.
  
  
• Whitworth Athletics won the Northwest Conference All-Sports Trophy for overall excellence across all fields of competition in 2005, 2008 and 2009.
  
  
• The American Association of Physics Teachers recently presented an AAPT Special Presidential Citation Award to the Whitworth Physics Department for achieving an exemplary increase in the number of students majoring in physics at Whitworth. Defying national trends, the number of physics majors at Whitworth increased 600 percent, from 11 in 1997 to 60 in 2006.
  
  
• Seven Whitworth students and four Whitworth faculty members have been selected as Fulbright scholars or fellows between 2000 and 2008.
  
  
• Students in Whitworth’s Master of International Management Program were chosen for a selective U.N. graduate study program in Geneva in four consecutive years (2003-2006).
  
  
• Jordan Sand, ’06, received a $300,000 Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Graduate Scholarship to complete an M.D. and a master’s in public health at the University of Washington.
  
  
• Whitworth received a 2006 President’s Higher Education Community Service Award for Excellence in Hurricane Relief Service from the Corporation for National and Community Service.
  
  
• Whitworth students were awarded prestigious Goldwater Scholarships for math and science excellence in 2003, 2005 and 2007.
  
  
• The Council of Christian Colleges & Universities presented Whitworth with its 2008 Robert and Susan Andringa Award for Advancing Racial Harmony.

• The Whitworthian, the university's student newspaper, won the top award in the 2007 Excellence in Journalism Competition held by the Inland Northwest Chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists.

• Is Jesus the Only Savior?, by Professor of Theology and Bruner-Welch Chair Jim Edwards, '67, was chosen Best of Book of 2007 in the apologetics/evangelism category by Christianity Today magazine.
  
  
• Professor of Political Science John Yoder, an expert on the history and culture of Liberia, has been recruited twice in recent years by the Carter Center to monitor elections in the West African nation.