A Look Inside Archived Senior Letters
Trinity Larsen | Nov. 12, 2025
Back when physical media was still desirable to consume, graduating seniors were required by the president of Warren Wilson College (WWC) to write a senior letter before they could receive their diplomas. Senior letter writing began in the 1940s, as the college transitioned from a farm school into a small liberal arts college. The requirement to write a senior letter ended in 2021, as graduation requirements have become less of a way for graduates to self-reflect on their journey at the college. Now, the primary place students at WWC might interact with these letters is in the college’s archives.
Seniors could choose to sign a waiver giving permission for their letter to be published in future articles, the threat of which did not discourage many from writing with honesty about faculty and the disappointments they experienced during their time at WWC. The senior letters The Echo reviewed for this piece were from the class of 2000, and were addressed to the faculty, staff and administrators employed at that time.
Most of the topics seniors wrote on towed the line between personal diary entries and suggestions as to how WWC could improve. Seniors were given the option to write their letter as an "Artistic Tome” (a journal entry), “The Travelogue” (the journey they took in their four years), “The Grievance” (an injustice done to them) or the “Essay Test” (seniors answered questions like “What have you found of special value during your time here?”, “Which professor(s) had the most impact on you?”). However, almost all letters were written about multiple topics, and most seniors free-wrote about their work crew experience, lessons they learned about themselves and what they hoped to do after graduating.
With the evolution of more specific majors and the disappearance of others, academics at WWC have changed throughout the decades. A frequent complaint among the graduating class of 2000 was that they were not allowed to double major. In student letters, there were those who graduated with a degree in integrative studies, which was designed to allow students to "integrate" two or more majors. This major no longer exists at WWC, having been cut in 2023 when the college restructured many of its academic offerings.
When asked how WWC could improve, there was a consensus among all of the letters that there was a clear lack of open-mindedness from the administration towards student participation.
One senior letter stated, “The relationship between an institution and the individual is a constructional one, the relationship between community and the individual is a moral one.”
A repeated frustration among the letters reviewed was students’ perception of the administration of saying one thing but doing another. One senior wrote that the school claimed to stand by its environmental commitment but contradicted this commitment by failing to nurture the land surrounding WWC. Another said that they and their friends had trouble getting the approval of Eco Dorm–a dorm that has since been built and is for students wishing to minimize their environmental impact–as this was their example of the college claiming to be environmentally friendly but with limitations.
International students graduating in 2000 also had their own set of issues with the college administration. One senior stated, “We say that we are diverse, but the only non-white people we have here are international students.” Other graduates commented that the college attracted “Wilson type of people,” with one writing that “Relating to my family through television and shopping has a heaviness for me now, and I have become the conscience of the family.”
Students reflected on the community they found at WWC, appreciating its contribution to their college experience, though some expressed mixed feelings about the quality of the community they found. One student stated that “A community is always an institution, but an institution is not always a community.”
Another major difference apparent in student letters was the size, function and kind of work crews operating on campus. Many crews were much smaller than they are today, with the literary magazine crew only having two staff and the Garden Crew operating with only four. Jobs like Public Safety, then called Campus Watch, were worked by students. Recycling and dorm cleaning were also run by student work crews.
Trips abroad were one of the ways students breathed new life into their purpose at WWC. Study abroad, which was called a WorldWide trip back in 2000, led students to places like Thailand, Ireland and Mexico. Almost every senior who studied abroad wrote about their trips with fondness and reflected on the new perspective they gained.
At the end of their letter, most seniors wrote about their plans for after graduation. Some planned to start working at a job, some thanks to a work crew they had been on at WWC, but most were uncertain where they would end up.
Senior letter writing was not only a requirement for graduates but a piece of written self-reflection for individuals to measure how far they have come. For most, it was a diary entry they didn’t mind sharing with WWC faculty and staff of the lessons seniors learned in hopes that the college would listen and improve for the next senior class.