Warren Wilson College updates post-Helene

From Warren Wilson College:

Essential Updates:

– You can see all official campus updates, posted by the President, at the following link: https://www.warren-wilson.edu/weather

– All 750 of our students are safe and accounted for, in addition to all staff/faculty. While our campus did sustain some damage including multiple trees on buildings, flooding of some buildings, and extensive flooding of our 1000+ acre farm and garden, we are incredibly grateful that we are all safe and the damage on our campus compared to our immediate surroundings in the Swannanoa Valley is relatively manageable.

– Our campus continues to be without power and water, but we have a generator running our cafeteria and many staff and faculty are present to band together with remaining students. Most of our student body has returned home, but about 70 students remain on campus including international students and students with specialized skills who wish to stay and help pitch in, particularly with farm maintenance and community service in the local area.

– With community service at the heart of our educational model, our national ranking as a top 20 school for service learning (US News and World Report) has become particularly remarkable in the aftermath of Helene. Our students have mobilized and served countless hours in Swannanoa already, partnering with Hearts with Hands, 12 Baskets, and executing fundraisers to donate supplies.

– We have set a tentative date of October 21st to resume classes. We are focused on ensuring that students remain engaged and complete credits on time, and continue to receive all of the typical academic support services in order to succeed this semester.

Student Response:

We also wanted to offer a few angles on possible stories that may include Warren Wilson College and offer some hope to others:

1. Our student response to Helene was remarkable, and showed incredible grit and resourcefulness. Warren Wilson is one of 10 federally designated work colleges. Every student on our campus works on one of 60 crews to help run the College. As such, Warren Wilson students are resilient, self-sufficient, and our education-in-action approach gives them the academic skills and know-how to address challenges and be problem-solvers. This has made our response to the impacts of Hurricane Helene unique. The work college model has shined so brightly in the past week, in ways we hadn’t fully conceived of pre-disaster.

A few examples:

– Phineas, a sophomore, ran the kitchen in the hours just after the storm passed when food service professionals could not make it to campus. He led a small team that fed more than 700 students that night.
– As the waters rose, Sof, a leader on our farm crew, saved our livestock by moving them to high ground. Pigs were floated out on plywood in order to save their lives. Sof is still leading rescues of pigs from our farm who were washed away and are trying to find their way back to the farm.

– Our students developed a Flush Crew, later renamed by them as P.O.O.P. crew. After tapping a well on our campus, they distributed flush water across campus to help with sanitation in our bathrooms. They continue to deliver water and keep toilets flushed.

– Our Garden and Farm students wanted to capture rainwater for the farm. They got permission from Facilities to use available plumbing supplies to create an efficient water capture system for rainwater.

Climate Change:

Our Center for Working Lands (CWL) continues its efforts post-Helene to model agricultural and land rehabilitation, climate resiliency, and energy independence. Our rural communities are the threads that keep Western N.C. going. We remain committed and our students are empowered to serve and rebuild rural communities, their livelihoods and economies. We are preparing to address the probable questions that are arising post-Helene with regard to mitigation and resiliency. As we launch a Master’s in Applied Climate Studies this year, our institution is also focusing on an initiative called Climate Action Now, which will permeate our entire curriculum. These were launched prior to Helene.