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Whitman College recently installed a new artistic style of solar panel called the SmartFlower in the Nancy Serrurier Village. The panel is self-cleaning, rotates to track the sun’s position and is designed to look like a giant sunflower. It will generate around 16% of the estimated on-site electrical needs in tandem with rooftop panels in the Village. 
Aside from the SmartFlower, Whitman uses a variety of sources to work to maximize energy efficiency and consumption, including Cascade Natural Gas and Pacific Power. 
In 2025, the SmartFlower was selected for Milan’s Garden of Ideas Vanity Fair as a beautiful yet proficient solar panel. CEO of SmartFlower Solar, Jim Gordon, further explained the intention behind it, including the origins of the panel’s sunflower design. 
“Inspired by sunflowers, it brings together natural efficiency and innovative design to encourage curiosity and awareness around clean energy,” Gordon said. “SmartFlower is meant to be educational as much as functional. It invites students to engage with sustainability in a tangible way, turning renewable energy into something approachable and relevant.” 
For Gordon, the SmartFlower is meant to be seen and analyzed as a piece of art in addition to providing efficient energy. According to Whitman’s former sustainability manager, Sarah Williams, who helped organize the college’s 2024 Campus Sustainability Plan, the SmartFlower is not unique in terms of efficiency. 
“The price that [the college is] paying per watt is not anything near what you’re getting with rooftop solar,” Williams said. “The maintenance costs and the lifecycle of the SmartFlower, because the more pieces it has (and it has a lot of pieces it moves and rotates), the harder it’s going to be to make sure that it’s maintained well.” 
Considering Williams’ comments, maintaining the SmartFlower involves upkeep for all of its complex moving pieces. Walla Walla is a dusty environment, and, on campus, the panel is located in a high foot traffic area and may get dustier than a typical rooftop panel. 
Despite the dust, the flower’s decorative design does reflect its purpose — the SmartFlower is meant to be seen, not to be the most efficient solar panel possible. Physics Professor and Chair, Kurt Hoffman, explained how colleges might be more efficiency-focused, and how that mindset may not always be the best route. 
“It’s great that Whitman can be a little less obsessed with efficiency and price point … We can do some things that actually help the community see things and think about things in a different sort of way,” Hoffman said. “If somebody’s going to build a solar farm, they’re not going to install 5,000 of these … so I think the function of this is a little different. It gives something visible and gets people thinking about [sustainability].”
Priorities for reaching sustainability goals may easily get lost in debate, but the student perspective plays a key role in meeting steps toward sustainability. Both Hoffman and Williams expressed that students care about sustainability and want to make progress. Williams also expressed that the lack of a sustainability manager can make communication between students, faculty and staff more difficult. 
“It makes me so sad that there’s no one advocating for the students anymore,” Williams said. 
While the absence of a sustainability manager troubles some, others find comfort in developments like solar panel installations on campus. Hoffman pointed out how he particularly likes the sunflower design and the location of the SmartFlower. 
“It’s playing on people’s connections with plants,” Hoffman said. “The function of the solar flower is not that it is a more efficient solar panel than the other ones that are on the roofs, but it’s in a location that people can see.”
Hoffman added that when students see it, they might question the panel and its purpose. According to both Hoffman and Gordon, this visibility promotes curiosity and thoughtfulness around sustainability on campus. It creates an environment where people can investigate further and learn, prompted by the presence of the SmartFlower. As the SmartFlower encourages curiosity on campus, students can learn more about the solar panel in a new documentary titled “Planet Sun.” 
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