Westmont’s Education Department honored its eight elementary and three secondary student teachers, who all earned California Preliminary Credentials, at the Celebration of Teaching event April 26 on campus. Interestingly, the three secondary teachers previously earned bachelor’s degrees in music at Westmont. The annual gathering also thanks cooperating teachers from Adams, Canalino, Carpinteria Family, Cleveland and […]
Two recent Westmont graduates, who served with UC Santa Barbara’s ROTC Program while students, have been commissioned as second lieutenants in the U.S. Army. Jacob Bailey (‘24) of Whitefish, Montana, and Jared Noh (‘24) of Glendale will continue their service in the Army afterthe summer. Bailey, who earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering, will join […]
Westmont was well represented at an annual scholarship awards celebration on May 20 at the UC Santa Barbara Multicultural Center. Seven future Westmont students were honored with $5,000 scholarships through the Program for Effective Access to College (PEAC). Six of the students plan on taking advantage of Westmont’s Accelerated Bachelor of Science in Nursing (ABSN) […]
Mitchell Thomas, professor of theater arts, won a coveted Indy Award for Directing for his role in staging Godspell. The May 20 event was the first time the Santa Barbra Independent has hosted the awards since the pandemic. Thomas was most recently awarded an Indy for directing Pride and Prejudice in 2019. The jazz band […]
Westmont alumnus Dave Talbott (piano) leads the annual All-City Hymn Sing on Sunday, June 2, at 3 pm at Shoreline Community Church, 935 San Andres St. Talbott, the resident musician at the Mount Hermon Christian Conference Center for four decades, will lead attendees in an hour of singing everyone’s favorite hymns. Talbott, who lives at […]
A large crowd gathered inside and out for the opening of the annual juried exhibition of local artists, “[TBH]…To Be Honest,” at the Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art. Los Angeles gallery owner Walter Maciel juried the exhibition of 45 works, selecting the winners for top cash prizes on May 16. The Tri-County Juried Exhibition is […]
Three Westmont alumni, Kenna Brase (‘22), Simeon Michelson (‘24), and Elizabeth Potter (‘22) have won prestigious Fulbright Scholarships to teach English outside the United States. Brase will serve in Turkey, Michelson in Azerbaijan, and Potter in Thailand. For Brase, the trip to Turkey is coming to fruition after a more than four-year delay due to […]
Jacob Guthrie, an incoming junior communication studies student, is not waiting for his Westmont degree to launch his own business. The young, tech-savvy entrepreneur, who turns 20 later this summer, founded 805MediaWorks, a marketing agency focused on Southern California’s thriving real estate market. The agency offers realtors, as well as other businesses, a wide range […]
It seems there’s no more difficult job these days than the college president. Not only have college campuses become battlegrounds for protestors of the Israel-Hamas War, but the value of higher education has come under fire. To be successful, they must inspire faculty, staff, students, and other constituencies, while upholding the ideals of the academy. […]
Westmont has assembled an inspirational group of renowned speakers for its 10th annual LEAD Where You Stand Conference June 5-6 at the college’s Global Leadership Center. David Brooks, New York Times columnist and bestselling author, headlines an exceptional and diverse group of speakers that includes: Gayle D. Beebe, Westmont president and author of The Crucibles […]
The gray skies and light drizzle were no match for the warm hearts and sunny disposition of the 320 members of Westmont’s class of 2024 and their loved ones. The ceremony, replete with prayer and songs of thanksgiving, offered a stark contrast to other college graduations across the country that have been canceled or marred […]
The exceptional talent of local artists will be on full display at the Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art for its annual Tri-County Juried Exhibition from May 16 to June 15. An opening reception for “[TBH]…To Be Honest,” featuring this year’s juror Walter Maciel, a Los Angeles gallerist, is May 16 from 4-6 pm. Maciel will […]
The Westmont Orchestra and the Westmont College Choir join forces in May for the college’s first combined tour. Traveling from Los Angeles to Northern California, about 120 students will perform scenes from “Elijah” by Felix Mendelssohn as well as other pieces. “It’s a big undertaking and will show the breadth of music at Westmont,” says […]
Students presented their findings from research projects that spanned topics from running on slanted surfaces, the effects of music on heart rate, subliminal advertising, and racial identity in study-abroad programs at the Spring Student Research Symposium on April 18 in the Winter Hall Atrium. Kim Denu, Westmont provost and dean of the faculty, spoke […]
Ava Kimmel, a junior soprano who is majoring in vocal performance at Westmont, won the Adult Vocal Division of the Performing Arts Scholarship Foundation competition on April 28 at the Music Academy. The foundation provides financial assistance to students of the performing arts and to support music educational outreach organizations in the Santa Barbara community. […]
Westmont’s Daniel Patterson rewrote the baseball record book April 26 in Irvine, but the Warriors (33-15-3, 23-8-1 PacWest) fell out of contention for their first PacWest Conference Championship. Patterson belted two solo home runs in the first game – one in the fifth inning and another in the sixth. That brought his season total to […]
About 324 graduates will participate in Commencement on Saturday, May 4, at 9:30 am on Thorrington Field with 147 graduating with honors. About 50 Golden Warriors, who graduated in 1974, will march in the procession to celebrate their 50th reunion. Eleven nursing graduates will participate in the ceremony, two days after their pinning ceremony on […]
Two Westmont juniors, Rachael Todd of Nipomo and Levi Wicks of Huntington Beach, won David K. Winter Servant Leadership Awards for showing selflessness and humility as effective leaders. Angela D’Amour, dean of student engagement, introduced the 24th annual awardees on April 10 in Westmont chapel. The award recognizes the late David K. Winter, who served […]
Peyton Hendricks was the Westmont men’s golf team’s top finisher, tying for eighth place with a three-day score of 227 at the PacWest Men’s Golf Championship on Mauna Lani’s North Course on the Big Island. “Peyton improved his score every day with his best score being on the final day,” said Westmont’s head coach Josh […]
Less than two weeks after everyone’s attention was focused on the solar eclipse, the Westmont Observatory focuses on lunar craters and a red giant Friday, April 19, beginning after sunset at 7:30 pm and lasting several hours. The observatory, home to the powerful Keck Telescope, opens to the public every third Friday of the month […]
The annual Spring Student Research Symposium features the work of more than 40 student researchers on 23 different posters, and will be held on Thursday, April 18, from 3:30 –5 pm in the Winter Hall Atrium. “I’m looking forward to seeing the work our students have been doing this year,” says Michael Everest, interim […]
Westmont’s 63rd annual Spring Sing at the Santa Barbara Bowl on April 6 was filled with singing, dancing, acting, and hilarity. Students from each residence hall produced musical skits using the phrase “Out of Order” and competed for prizes and bragging rights. Spring Sing is the college’s longest running tradition and involves more students than […]
Nearly 20 Westmont political science students joined Professor Katherine Bryant to serve on the National Model United Nations from March 24-28 in New York. The students, who represented the delegations from Solomon Islands and Thailand, discussed pressing global issues and stepped into the shoes of diplomats, using the art of negotiation to learn how to […]
A floral portrait of Westmont alumnus Paul Eskildsen (‘81), who died in 2017, appeared in the 2024 Rose Parade on the OneLegacy Donate Life float, Woven Together: The Dance of Life. Paul was passionate about serving others even in death. As a registered donor and in excellent health at the age of 59, he gave […]
Over a 60-hour period before finals, the Weller Organ in Deane Chapel, controlled by Professor Steve Hodson, will be playing “ORGAN2/ASLSP (As Slow as Possible)” by John Cage (1912-1992). This 1987 work explores how slowly a piece of music might unfold. Westmont’s performance will begin at 8 am on April 26 (with a rest) and […]
Three-time Emmy-award winning actor Tony Hale spent an afternoon with Westmont theater arts students before sharing humorous stories and insights with a large crowd in Porter Theatre. Colorado actor Heather Ostberg Johnson (‘11) facilitated the event, Comedy and Faith with Tony Hale, on March 19th that students said helped them visualize a career in the […]
The results are in and the awards handed out at the second annual Montecito Student Film Festival on March 23 at Westmont’s Porter Theatre. About 150 people attended the festival throughout the day to watch 41 films, pared down from the more than 500 that were submitted. Chase Olivera, an 18-year-old student at College of […]
A group donning Lady Leslie Ridley-Tree’s elegant hats visited the Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art to honor their late friend on March 21. Hiroko Benko, Brenda Blalock, Chris Frisina, Mary Gates, Erin Graffy, Bobbie Kinnear, Nan Marr, Joyce Shaar, and Grace Yoon toured Ridley-Tree’s entire collection of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot that she gave to the museum. […]
Six aspiring Westmont art graduates will exhibit their capstone projects at Between Moments from April 4-May 4 in the Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art. A free, public opening reception will celebrate the graduating senior art majors on Thursday, April 4, from 4-6 pm. The students include Danielle Anderson of Palm Desert; Clare Carey of Bonsall; […]
The Fletcher Jones Foundation has awarded Westmont College $500,000 to provide students with education, training, and industry readiness for the burgeoning field of artificial intelligence (AI). The funds will expand the scope of the Center for Applied Technology Lab (CATLab) to include AI, adding state-of-the-art hardware and software infrastructure to facilitate students’ hands-on learning and […]
Malcolm Foley, special adviser to the president for equity and campus engagement at Baylor University, argues that race and racism are fundamentally not issues of pride but of greed in a lecture Wednesday, April 3, from 3:30-5 pm in the Global Leadership Center. The talk, “Child of Mammon or Child of God?: The Anti-Greed Gospel,” […]
This month, as we celebrate the remarkable achievements of women, the legacy of Ruth Kerr, who co-founded Westmont in 1937, continues to shape lives with a vision ahead of its time. She encouraged women to embrace the world beyond the idyllic Montecito campus, inspiring them to pursue their dreams and make a difference on a […]
The second annual Montecito Student Film Festival has exploded in popularity and gone global. Student filmmakers from 65 countries have submitted more than 500 films for the free event. Attendees can watch films throughout the day, Saturday, March 23, from 10 am – 5 pm in Westmont’s Porter Theatre. Festival producer Tamia Sanders (’24) says […]
Adam Goodworth, a professor in the departments of engineering and kinesiology, and alumnus Maury Hayashida (’95) examine balance and mobility and how aging affects them in a talk Thursday, March 21, at 5:30 pm at the Community Arts Workshop, 631 Garden Street, in downtown Santa Barbara. The Westmont Downtown Lecture, “Aging and Mobility: Fundamentals and […]
Jupiter and the Great Orion Nebula, M42, will be part of this month’s free stargazing event Friday, March 15, beginning about 6 pm and lasting several hours at the Westmont Observatory. Along with Westmont’s powerful Keck Telescope, members of the Santa Barbara Astronomical Society bring their own telescopes to share with the public. Views of […]
Two Westmont voice instructors will join forces in a recital, “A Song Celebration,” on Saturday, March 23, at 4 pm in Deane Chapel on Westmont’s lower campus. The performance is free and open to the public. For more information, please contact the music department at (805) 565-6040. Tenor Chad Ruyle and soprano Nichole Dechaine, who […]
In Westmont men’s basketball’s first season in the conference, senior Anthony McIntyre has been named to the First Team All-PacWest. “From the first time he put on a Westmont uniform, Anthony’s continued to improve, especially during the offseason,” says head coach Landon Boucher. “To be the first Warrior in program history to be First Team […]
Richard Haass, who worked at the White House, State Department, and Pentagon under four different presidents, offered a civics lesson on global diplomacy while bringing clarity to international conflicts at the sold-out 19th annual Westmont President’s Breakfast on March 1st at the Hilton Santa Barbara Beachfront Resort. Despite the Israel-Hamas war, the Russia-Ukraine war, contentious […]
This spring, several of Westmont’s athletic facilities have seen dramatic upgrades to accompany the Warriors’ move to National Collegiate Athletic Association Division II in hopes of attracting exceptional student-athletes who will thrive with a rigorous Christian liberal arts education. The Westmont community and supporters have stepped up to provide vital resources for the challenge. Westmont […]
The only active-duty Air Force band west of the Rockies energized audiences at two free performances on Feb. 27 at Westmont and Montecito Covenant Church. The United States Air Force Band of the Golden West Winds woodwind dectet performed several patriotic and classical pieces, including one song that featured kazoos to the delight of the […]