Parlour Talk
Regular readers of this column stop here to learn something about the current issue of the Bulletin, but I suspect that a few of you may be reading "Parlor Talk" for the first time, searching for a clue as to what happened to your magazine. It looks different, doesn't it? Our new designer, Suzanne DeMott Gaadt, has done some serious renovations.
A magazine designer arranges words and images to invite you into our pages and deepen your understanding of our articles. Good design is more than decoration; it complements and enriches the ideas and stories that are the heart of this magazine. Yet, until a magazine's readers notice a change, they may not ever consider how carefully it's done.
In colleges as with magazines, change is something we notice. When alumni return to Swarthmore, they comment more frequently on the new than the familiar--new buildings, new faculty members, a more diverse student body, new areas of study. All are examples of the constant, mea-sured change that takes place in the life of a thriving, forward-looking college. Society doesn't stand still, and neither does knowledge; thus, Swarthmore isn't the same college it was in ... well, you pick the year.
Several articles in this issue are about change. Tom Krattenmaker writes about new ideas and authors in the English literature curriculum. Kathryn Morgan, professor emerita of history, speaks her mind about the changes she's witnessed--and wrought--in the racial consciousness of the College. Throughout these pages, you will find dozens of examples of how Swarthmore students, faculty members, and alumni are agents of change.
Yet there's one important transformation you might overlook because outwardly it appears to be the same each year--Commencement. To me, this ceremony is the ultimate symbol of change because it celebrates hundreds of young people whose lives have been altered by the experience of Swarthmore College and who will go on, in one way or another, to change the world.
That's the design of a great college. In the scheme of things, a little change in the Swarthmore College Bulletin doesn't seem like much, does it?
--Jeffrey Lott
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