HN 300 and 400
A core part of the Honors Program here at Whitworth is our final capstone project.
October 5, 2025
A core part of the Honors Program here at Whitworth is our final capstone project.
Whitworth traditionally hosts a large selection of speakers for students, visitors, and faculty to hear and learn from. Honors students, in particular, will find these experiences valuable and instructional.
The Honors Program had its first Honors Lunch Network of the Fall 2025 Semester. We look forward to where our discussions will take us!
As we ring in the new 2025-2026 school year, the Honors Program has taken off running. Whitworth Honors is the proud recipient of a large endowment from the Mullet Fund. Full press release below:
Nine of our Whitworth Sigma Tau Delta chapter members are flying out to present at the annual international convention in Pittsburgh.
Come see Whitworth’s production of Little Women March 7th/8th, 14th/15th at 7:30pm, doors at 7:00pm, or March 16th at 2:30pm, doors at 2:00pm
SIRC is a conference sponsored by Whitworth and Gonzaga University for undergraduate students across Spokane to present their research and creative works.
Kyle Marquez spent his summer interning with the Department of Agriculture, specifically the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Washington.
Whitworth’s Office of Church Engagement runs the Summer Fellowship Program, which places students with churches, camps, and nonprofits nationwide.
Honors Sophomore Completes Pre-Law Internship Abby Ruffcorn, political science major and Whitworth Class of 2027, shares about her internship at a local law firm:
I’ve always considered it a blessing to have been raised in an environment that exposed me to different types of peoples and cultures. I am
Come see Whitworth’s production of Little Women March 7th/8th, 14th/15th at 7:30pm, doors at 7:00pm, or March 16th at 2:30pm, doors at 2:00pm
Whitworth to send 9 presenters to the Sigma Tau Delta, an international English Honors Society, Conference March 19-22 in Pittsburg, PA.
Kyle Marquez spent his summer interning with the Department of Agriculture, specifically the Natural Resources Conservation Service in Washington.
This semester, the Honors Program and its students were hard at work promoting our message of thriving in the world as it is and developing it as it should be.
New Zealand Perspectives Honors Junior Megan Hirasaki has been in New Zealand since July on a study abroad trip focusing on seeing viewpoints outside of
Over the summer of 2023, Kate Vaccaro undertook an intensive 4-week program at Oxford University, one of the most prestigious universities in the world.
Going to Oxford had always been one of Kate’s dreams. “As a person who loves academics, the richness of learning there has always been appealing,” she said.
Our time spent in the Holy Land was rich with fellowship and joy, and highlighted the beauty of diversity in which God connects with his children. Beyond the spiritual encounters we had, there was an enlightenment of knowledge and understanding that came from the Biblical sites we saw, guides we were molded by, and the history we became familiar with during fall of 2022.
For Jan Term 2023, a group of freshmen Honors students travelled to Italy. Read about their journey through the Doge Palace and exploration of it’s historic and artistic value.
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.
As a Christian in the science field, these two dominant fields have always been a big part of my learning and worldview. During our time at Cambridge, we read a book by Yuval Harari titled Sapeins. In this book, Yuval Harari is attempting to tell the story of science throughout human history. I observed that in this attempt, Harari is guilty of placing science in a bubble, ignoring big changes going on in the world, specifically around the Scientific Revolution. This realization, paired with my strong passion and fascination for science and religion, led me to desire to be able to better prove that these two fields are not in conflict.
My research is specifically looking at Whitworth and how they treat sexual violence on campus. I looked into what resources and programs there are for sexual violence survivors on this campus or any education about what sexual violence is for the rest of the student body. What I found was scarce, not only the research around Christian colleges and sexual assault, but also the resources on this campus for students.
As the world increasingly deals with the presence of Climate Change, we will increasingly need quality research to understand how it will affect the ecosystems that surround us. For this reason, this project is a collaboration with an existing research team investigating the effects of a changing climate on small aquatic ecosystems such as ponds. In the past, the associated research project has focused primarily on the effects of increasing pond temperatures. But, water oxygen saturation is another key indicator of ecosystem health. Not only does oxygen saturation directly affect the well-being of pond flora and fauna, but it also is affected by a warming climate.