An attic is the space just below the roof, where all things are lost and found.
Welcome to the Westminster Attic
This is an online archive of past work, proud moments and impressive students from the Whitworth English Department. Our department, its faculty and students actively seek to discover new complexities, work with varying perspectives, and challenge each other to explore, reflect and rethink. We are a community that celebrates what we’ve written and pushes each other to continue writing, researching, reading and telling stories.
Located in Spokane, Wash., Whitworth University is a private liberal arts university affiliated with the Presbyterian church. With red-brick buildings, tall pines and cheery squirrels, it’s the perfect place to get reading and start writing.
Why Archive?
Our department strives to uncover, dust off and appreciate the hidden treasures: our students and their writing. We value creativity and innovation, while exploring tradition and simplicity. Westminster, the home to our English program, houses dedicated professors and inspired students who show a commitment to literature and a love for writing.
English major Katie Lacayo ’19 arrived at Whitworth with a strong passion for writing and a strong disdain for reading. After discussing this tension with English faculty, she found herself on a mission to find something – even just one thing – that she enjoyed to read. Through studying 21st century American fiction and modern poetry, absolutely strange works, such as The Wasteland, and culturally significant novels, such as Last Man Standing, she found much more than just one piece of writing that resonated with her. Reading became a way to engage her mind and heart in something that mattered.
The Whitworth English Department is a place that challenges students to take what they know and stretch it. Within this department, Katie climbed a mountain for credit, discussed disease, war, comic books and band names with intelligent, genuine classmates, shared ideas in Script and Rock & Sling editorial meetings, sat with professors in their quirky offices with questions about snowflakes, monasticism, class schedules and life calling, built confidence through writing workshops, readings and conferences, and worked with faculty, staff and students to develop this site. The Westminster Attic was made in partial fulfillment of an Honors requirement, but it also came about because people in this department care. Past and present students can attest to the deep impact that English professors have made, and will continue to make, here at Whitworth. This archive is simply a glimpse.
Want to learn about our archiving project? See more about us for details.
Be sure to peruse our department instagram, facebook and blog for more fun English-y things.