A golden view from Whitman's perfect island

WALLA WALLA — If a grand painter were to select a perfect college campus to lift from real life to canvas, it would be Whitman College in October.

The college is known for its liberal and scientific education, its elite status among the state's private colleges and universities, its 60 percent of graduates who go on to more-advanced education, its leaves in the fall that drop to green pathways, and the small creek that blends nature to the buildings.

Why come here is like asking why eat. Whitman has the recognized combination of rigorous academics with smart faculty and a tradition of the lifelong gift of education.

Even so, George Bridges can be excused for being surprised at becoming Whitman's 13th president. He is the former dean and vice provost of undergraduate education at the University of Washington, a Ph.D. in sociology and an academician with big university experience.

"Yes, I was surprised to be selected, but looking back on my first year here, I can't imagine being at a different place than Whitman," Bridges said.

He has an office that is airy, with windows covered just outside by a green curtain of leafy trees. The sun makes a small campus bigger because the place explodes with fall color. If it is a treasure, Bridges knows it is also an expensive treasure.

"Each year a family has a student here, they 'buy' a new luxury car," he said. "Tuition is $30,000 a year — call it $40,000 with the whole package. That's buying a fancy new car every year. We understand only a few families can do that, and we try to make sure deserving students come to Whitman no matter their finances. Even with tuition where it is, the college still adds $8,000 a year to the education of every student we have."

This is a place both serious and artfully irregular. Among its graduates are Seattle entrepreneur John Stanton and Adam West, TV's Batman. West is on campus today donating one of his paintings to the college on Visitation Day, when 200 college-bound seniors come to Whitman to eyeball an elite, four-year college with only 1,450 students taught by about 180 faculty.

Bridges understands that elitism is not the perfect code word for Whitman. Asked for a description of the personality of the college, he says, "academic excellence combined with rock climbing."

"Senior year here is incredibly intense," Bridges said. "Each senior has to go before oral boards and each understands the demands of writing and thinking critically."

Whitman has recently launched a new major in the biomedical/biology field. It attracts scientific educators such as Dr. Ginger Withers, and also offers a full "Seminar in the West," for students to live in the American West.

Washington's private four-year colleges and universities deserve a place at the table with the public institutions, Bridges believes, but he doesn't know exactly how.

"We remain independent," he said, "but we are part of Washington's classroom. We are offering new scholarships for Latino students — here we are in a part of the state surrounded by a dynamic and smart Latino population of 30,000."

Asked about the differences between administering at the University of Washington and Whitman, Bridges begins with a story about meeting a student and watching her develop within herself the art of the essay. In his office, we could be on an island, a perfect island in a corner of Washington where the academy and the scaling of large mountains are one place.

It feels that way, the offices quiet in the October sun. But inside the mind of George Bridges, the wheels are turning and students are coming like waves of untapped power, with enough energy to change the megawatts of the state.

Bridges is learning to form not task forces but working groups, learning the pace of a new college life, learning the skills of providing a little heaven and hell for students with ambitions way beyond the quiet life of Walla Walla.

"Can't believe I'm here," he says.

James F. Vesely's column appears Sunday on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is: jvesely@seattletimes.com