George F. Whitworth Honors Program

Honors Capstone Projects

Video made with the assistance of Samuel Ortega ’25

All George Whitworth Honors students complete an individual project as part of their Honors Curriculum, cultivating skills of problem-solving, project proposals, and project management.

 

Projects may be academic or applied but in some way reflect the Honors Program’s Mission:

 

“The Whitworth Honors Program challenges talented and motivated scholars to pursue excellence of mind and heart, to cultivate leadership qualities and skills, and to commit to lives of service. The Honors Program does more than guide scholars to navigate the world as it is; it equips them to solve problems and to develop the world as it should be.”

Click the links below to get a sense of what students have been doing!
Class of 2023
Class of 2024
Class of 2025

Vincent Inayat

My honors capstone project investigates how systemic marginalization affects the political participation and lived experiences of religious minorities in Pakistan, focusing particularly on Christian communities in Karachi. Through qualitative research involving semi-structured interviews, I examined how fear, discrimination, and historical shifts in state ideology contribute to political disengagement. Participants expressed deep frustration with exclusionary practices, legal discrimination through blasphemy laws, and socio-economic disenfranchisement. Yet, I also uncovered stories of remarkable resilience such as communities leveraging civil society, clustering in safe neighborhoods, and using social media as new platforms for political expression. 

Read More »
May 6, 2025

Andrew Doughty

This project had two facets: one was working with the Books to Prisoners organization to put on a book drive. Through this drive we collected over 200 books which will be mailed to prisoners across the country as well as a grant for 500$ from the Sigma Tau Delta Honor society as a part of the Chapter service project to provide them with new shelving, postage, and specifically requested books. This meets a physical demand: access to the books prisoners want to read.
The other aspect of this project was volunteering in the Juvenile Detention Center in downtown Spokane where I was able to work with high school students in their English classes through creative writing workshops. I was able to connect with individual students who come from a variety of situations and use the tools I’ve learned about creative writing to help them to process and create though creative writing of their own.

Read More »
April 24, 2026

Ahmed Amir

Small businesses operate under constant time pressure, often leading to missed calls. Data shows that 62% of calls to small businesses go unanswered, and 85% of those callers will not try to contact the business again. This translates to an average loss of over $126,000 in annual revenue per business. While large corporations have the budget for advanced AI communication tools, small business owners are often left behind due to high costs and technical complexity. My project aims to bridge this “tech gap” by creating a functional prototype of an AI onboarding process and dashboard tailored specifically for small business needs. My research focused on how to make sophisticated technology user-friendly; I developed an onboarding system that allows a business owner to set up a custom AI agent through simple, non-technical steps. Additionally, I built a dashboard that visualizes critical metrics such as response times, booking rates, and engagement patterns in a clear, accessible format. By simplifying the configuration and monitoring of AI, this project demonstrates how automation can reduce friction, save time, and help small businesses capture opportunities that would otherwise be lost. My goal is to prove that with the right design, cutting-edge AI can be a tool for every entrepreneur, not just those with enterprise-level budgets.

Read More »
April 28, 2026

Jillian Whiting

Ultimately, my project seeks to foster a more informed healthcare environment. One in which researchers, healthcare professionals, and patients are better equipped to navigate the unique complexities of women’s health.

Read More »
May 1, 2025

Abby Ruffcorn

Over the past 10 years there has been a huge uptick in violence on college campuses in the United States, however, there has been no significant state or federal legislative efforts produced to work to protect students on campuses. In addition, Campus Security staff members nationwide have been overwhelmed and have been facing burnout due to lack of support from university administrators, leaving college campuses and their students vulnerable. Under the Cleary Act, nationwide, campuses have reported over 23,000 crimes on college campuses. This is a situation that has been pushed forward even more by the increase of political divisions on campuses and the prevalent nature of protests that turn unpeaceful and spark further violence. This project seeks to demonstrate the need for federal legislation that demands one professional campus security officer per two hundred students on any college campus that takes federal funding from the United States government. Currently, in the United States, there is no clear baseline/bench marker for how many campus security officers an institution needs to have. This lack of foresight leaves room for campus violence to surge. Through this project I will write a policy that institutes a required number of security officers on any campus that takes federal funding and identifies itself as a university. 

Read More »
April 22, 2026

Sera Wiesen

With the overturing of Roe V Wade came a plague of misinformation surrounding reproductive health. This led to medical practitioners and specialists being misinformed and fearing prosecution for providing lifesaving procedures on pregnant women. Reproductive healthcare doesn’t just involve abortion, it includes emergency care, about the right to survive a pregnancy. The misinformation flooding the system is making everything worse. State laws are murky and full of vague language state by state, leaving medical professionals unsure if they’d be prosecuted for providing necessary, lifesaving care for their patients. To me, it is wrong that in a first world country, people are left to suffer because of this misinformation. My goal is to bring light to proper information about abortion care even in the most restrictive states.

Read More »
May 13, 2025

Chloe Stelly

Since going through the Education Department here at Whitworth, I have become increasingly interested in the academic achievement of our students here in Washinton. Education has changed so drastically over the years, and the hope is that we are still meeting the needs of our students in an ever-shifting society. Since Covid, state testing has dropped and has continued to do so which raises concern; how can our children get the best education when standards are so demanding? Is the education we are providing right now the education our students need? I wanted to study the effects that state standards have on primary children and whether or not an increase in academic performance is happening in our schools. The reason for this project is to study the impact of our state standards on the growth and development of our students.

Read More »
April 29, 2026

Irene Racharla

IRENE RACHARLA Class of 2024. Majoring in Computer Science on Business Track with minors in Sociology and G.W. Honors. Hosanna leader and member of Forest

Read More »
May 1, 2024

Shelbe Nelson

Growing up, I’ve always had an affinity towards creativity, art-hobbying, and music. They bring me joy and personal flourishing outside of my every-day life. I think that it is a large part of being human. What inspired my work is the recent conflict between social media platforms and artists. Over the recent years, the content of visual and musical artists have been subjugated to constant thieving of their work by AI and being buried due to biased media algorithms. In a time where many careers are put under threat by replacement via AI, I want to make a change, even if it is a small one. My career of studying marketing and economic tactics has taught me how to be a voice for those who need it. So I have decided to put my skills to the test and bring light to my peers even in these uncertain times.

Read More »
April 22, 2026

Dylan Richardson

Our climate policy framework is largely built on two significant bills: the 2019 Clean Energy Transition Act, which commits the state to greenhouse gas emission-free electricity generation, and the Climate Commitment Act, which implements a carbon tax and emissions trading scheme. While the CCA and CETA are essential steps, any policy framework inevitably leaves out certain local concerns. My research explores one way that these policies leave out the Spokane area, particularly in the context of our unique geologic history. The Spokane Valley–Rathdrum Prairie Aquifer is particularly vulnerable to contaminated runoff.

Read More »
May 1, 2025

Noran Khalil

My honors project addresses this gap by developing a sign language translator application, functioning similarly to Google Translate. The app features a keyboard that displays ASL signs as images, allowing users to either select signs directly to communicate in sign language or type words normally and have them translated into the corresponding signs. This application is built with one goal in mind: to ensure that every person, regardless of hearing ability, can communicate effectively and with dignity.

Read More »
April 23, 2026

Kae Benton

KAE BENTON Class of 2024. Biochemistry Major. As a student who has spent many hours in biology and chemistry classes, I have fostered a deep

Read More »
May 1, 2024

Jude Ruetschle

Broadly speaking, our world tends to see religion as a sort of ‘meaning-making’ device. In faith, one is able to carve divine order into the chaos and fragmentation of the human experience. This makes faith a vehicle for hope—for settling the existential realization that nothing in our lives makes sense. The premise of this project, however, challenges that assumption: What if grasping after order and unity is not a source, but an obstruction to our ability to embrace life?

Read More »
May 1, 2025