The Echo - Best School Year Hits
Emily Cobb | April 30, 2025
As the flowers bloom and the semester wraps up, many Warren Wilson College (WWC) students may be in the mood to reflect on what has happened over the last nine months. Here is a recap of some of the moments The Echo covered throughout the 2024-2025 school year.
WWC was awarded a $3,000 Work College Consortium Grant for the 2024-2025 school year aimed at directing creative projects around campus. The grant focused on interdisciplinary collaboration and storytelling with a team composed of Jetta Ghosthorse, Scotti Norman, Siti Kusujiarti, Liesl Erb and Ivy Beach.
On Thursday, Sept. 26, WWC was hit by Hurricane Helene, leaving mass destruction in its wake on campus. Fallen trees had blocked main roads off campus. Power lines were slicked against the pavement. The Swannanoa River had surged past its banks onto the road. Mud water coated the valley, debris and trash littered throughout the river. For students, faculty and staff, this was a surreal scene, something out of a dystopian novel.
In December of 2024, the president of WWC, Damián Fernandez, announced that the school had received a $10 million donation from an anonymous donor. The donation was directed to the school’s unrestricted endowment, bringing the roughly $55 million endowment up to around $65 million —a nearly 20% increase.
Resident Assistants (RAs) at WWC, who provide a range of services to make dorm life easier, voiced their frustration that their pay has been slashed by half for the 2024-2025 academic year and beyond. The change came alongside high turnover and understaffing, which raised their workload.
At the beginning of 2024, WWC announced the Master of Science in Applied Climate Studies. Now, after a year of planning and coordinating, the program is gearing up for its first semester. By June, 20-25 applicants will have been chosen to be a part of the cohort and will travel from their respective locations to take part in the first 12-day intensive residency, which will be followed by two other residencies throughout the two years.
In January, two days after WWC students returned to campus for the spring semester, suites in Villages A and B suffered burst pipes from the attic due to the freezing temperatures, causing a dozen residents to be relocated.
On Jan. 21, Warren Wilson College (WWC) President Damián J. Fernández announced the launch of an Innovation Grant Program. The program will provide faculty and students with seed grants of up to $5,000 to engage in research, entrepreneurship and creative projects related to climate change and its effects.
On Feb. 4, 2025, the Provost and Dean of the Faculty Jay Roberts announced that two student driven changes to the work program will be implemented starting fall 2025: a 10.5% increase in pay from $9.05 to $10 an hour, and an increase in general contract hours from 8 hours weekly to 10 hours.
On Jan. 29, 2025, President Donald Trump signed the Laken Riley Act into law, mandating that any undocumented immigrant accused of burglary, theft, larceny or shoplifting must be detained by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The bill, named after 22-year-old Laken Riley, who was murdered while on a run in Athens, Ga., has raised serious constitutional concerns about due process for undocumented migrants and may worsen the already devastating impacts of Hurricane Helene on undocumented people in North Carolina.
Restoration efforts on the beloved portion of the Swannanoa River running through the Warren Wilson College (WWC) campus are underway. Hurricane Helene left the banks of the river unrecognizably torn through and littered with debris, which are now being removed by contractors. This is the first step to restoring the river ecosystem, which has long been an important part of the school’s culture. While some community members have concerns that the ecosystem is being neglected in the operation, conservationists at WWC are setting a different course for restoration.
WWC is stepping into a new long-term Quality Enhancement Plan (QEP) in fall 2025 as part of its 10-year reaffirmation process with the regional accreditor Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC). The project, which is referred to as the Career Academic Learning Launch (CALL), emerged from campus dialogues during the 2023 and 2024 school years. The primary aim is to promote career readiness by integrating experiential learning into every major, strengthening work, teaching and learning at WWC.
On April 10, students at WWC joined together for a historic tradition, jumping into projects across campus for Work Day. From construction projects to thank-a-thons, the community showed out to do what we do best: gettin’ it done!
The Echo appreciates the support and viewership it got throughout the 2024-2025 school year. If one would like to pitch a story idea for next year or submit something to be published, The Echo can be reached by email at echo@warren-wilson.edu.