The College is actively working toward a consensus with the borough of Swarthmore "to identify ways to sustain or enhance the vitality of the business district and the quality of life for all of us as residents, and for the College as an institution," according to President Alfred H. Bloom
In remarks to the faculty in February, he spoke of a process that began several years ago when then-member of the Board of Managers Christopher Leinberger '72 warned his fellow Managers of the pattern of urban decay in Philadelphia's inner suburbs that would affect the area between Swarthmore and the airport and Chester over the next several decades.
At about the same time, President Bloom said, he and other College officials began a series of meetings with the Swarthmore mayor and Borough Council to discuss topics including parking, traffic, public safety, zoning regulations, and taxation. "But often," he said, "we returned to their concern over the economic viability of the business district."
Motivated by the recognition of a mutual interest on the part of the College and the borough of Swarthmore, the Borough Council created a Strategic Planning Committee (SPC) in January to explore means of sustaining or enhancing the vitality of the business district. One of the first acts of the SPC was to invite Leinberger, a nationally recognized expert on urban planning issues, to speak at an open meeting on Jan. 8.
Leinberger told the audience that "we in this country have been reinventing our metropolitan areas. We have been increasing their size geometrically, and we have been engaging in what I call the strategy of the disposable city, and now the disposable inner suburb. We basically feel we can run from our problems and strike out for a new place out on the fringe."
"Chris outlined his model and his view of its implications for this area," President Bloom said, "but he also offered some specific examples of the kinds of improvements that would not only sustain but revitalize the business district. These examples included opening an inn as well as one or more restaurants, with the assumption that the sale of alcohol be permitted; moving the College bookstore to the Ville; and extending the cover over the [railroad] underpass to create a pedestrian mall."
At the January meeting, Board of Managers Chairman J. Lawrence Shane '56 told the audience that the College is "very dependent on the health of this borough. It's one of the things that's going to influence a student's decision and be a part of our competitive advantage."
The SPC prepared a request for a marketing survey to learn what kinds of development would or would not be economically sustainable. Unfortunately, said Bloom, the request incorporated several of Leinberger's specific suggestions and "gave rise to the perception that the planning committee was acting with an agenda already in mind--and worse, that the College had an agenda that the planning committee had adopted wholesale. Neither of these was the case."
Currently the SPC is clarifying its request and moving ahead with broad consultation with its various constituencies as to what would and would not enhance the quality of life of the Ville. President Bloom stressed that the College has only yet to begin considering possibilities and has a "very long way to go, including a good deal of work together on campus, before arriving at consensus on any one of them."
Hans Wallach, Centennial Professor Emeritus of Psychology, died Feb. 5. He was 93.
A major contributor to the field of visual and auditory perception and learning, Wallach was elected to the National Academy of Science in 1986. His research on perceptual adaptation advanced the field's understanding of the role of learning in the perceptual process. In addition he was credited with discovering the basic psychological principle that makes stereophonic reproduction possible.
President Alfred H. Bloom, who taught with Wallach in the Psychology Department in the mid-1970s said: "The excitement of his intellect and the promise of his warm support figured prominently in why I and many young faculty were drawn to Swarthmore. His combined dedication to fine teaching and significant research exemplify the mission of this community, and his achievements in uncovering the dynamics of the human perceptual systems stand among Swarthmore's most distinguished contributions to science."
Wallach came to the College as a research associate in 1936, a position he held until 1942, when he became an instructor. He was promoted to assistant professor in 1944, to associate professor in 1948, and to full professor in 1953. He chaired the Psychology Department from 1957 to 1966. Wallach retired from the active faculty in 1975 but continued his work as a research associate until 1987.
A member of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton from 1954 to 1955, Wallach won numerous awards and fellowships during his career. He was a Guggenheim Fellow, a visiting professor at the New School for Social Research, and the 1987 winner of the Howard Cosby Warren Medal of the Society of Experimental Psychologists.
A memorial gathering will be held on campus Sunday, May 24, at 3 p.m. in the Whittier Room of the Swarth-
more Friends Meeting. A reception at President Bloom's house will follow. Those interested in attending should contact the Psychology Department by e-mail at psychology@swarthmore.edu or by phone at (610) 328-8431. A memorial fund has been established in Wallach's name to support a variety of scholarly pursuits in psychology.
Theodore Widing '28, a longtime insurance agent and a member of the College's Board of Managers, died Jan. 16. He was 92.
Mr. Widing began writing insurance policies shortly after graduating from Swarthmore. As an agent specializing in life policies, he was a member and past president of the Million Dollar Round Table, the industry's top producers. He was still working at the Delaware Valley Financial Group Inc. a month before his death.
Mr. Widing served on the board from 1940 to 1941 and again from 1950 to 1958. He also served as gift co-chair for his class's 50th reunion.
His wife, Esther Wilson Widing '28, predeceased him; he is survived by four sons, including Theodore Widing Jr. '58.
Still searching ... The search continues for three key administrators at the College: a vice president for alumni, development, and public relations; dean of the College; and College librarian.
In the vice presidential search, the executive search firm of Isaacson, Miller is conducting a nationwide canvass and working toward an early April presentation of candidates. The targeted date for interviews with finalists is June.
The dean's search committee spent last month interviewing six semifinalists (one of whom is Robert Gross '62, currently acting dean). This month three or four final candidates will return for two-day visits. The committee hopes to make its recommendation to the president in mid-April.
The librarian's search became a little more difficult when two of the four final candidates withdrew in January. The committee then brought two new candidates to campus in February and expected to make a selection by mid-March.
New veeps ... Maurice Eldridge '61 and Larry Schall '75 have been named to two new vice presidential posts. Eldridge, a member of the administration since 1989, is now vice president for college and community relations. He had been associate vice president and executive assistant to the president and he retains the latter part of that title. Schall is vice president for facilities and services. He had served as associate vice president for facilities and services since joining the staff in 1990.
Up the ladder ... Full professorship has been awarded to Ann McNamee, music; Marjorie Murphy, history; Stephen O'Connell, economics; K. Ann Renninger, education; and Eva Travers, education. Appointments with continuous tenure and promotion to associate professorships were granted to John Alston, music; Elizabeth Bolton, English literature; Sibelan Forrester, modern languages and literatures; Carl Grossman, physics; Allen Kuharski, theatre studies; and Tamsin Lorraine, philosophy. Reappointed and promoted to associate professor was William Marshall, theatre studies.
Gamelan inaugural ... Swarthmore students, faculty and staff members, and friends joined in presenting the first concert featuring the College's newly commissioned Gamelan Semara Santi. Gamelan, derived from a Javanese term for striking a percussion instrument, refers collectively to a set of musical instruments and to the people who play them. About 45 instruments make up the College's collection, and rehearsals are conducted the way it is done in Indonesia: players listen to one another and play by ear and by touch, without musical notation. There is little room for improvisation in Balinese music. The gamelan was the of idea Thomas Whitman '82, assistant professor of music, who became interested in Indonesian music while on a Luce grant in the mid-1980s. Last year he traveled to Bali, where he commissioned the gamelan on behalf of the College from I Wayan Beratha, a composer and a distinguished instrument maker. Semara Santi takes its named from Semar, the god of love, and Santi, derived from the Sanskrit word for peace, to honor peace-loving Quaker traditions. Here (left to right) Sonja Downing '98, Michelle Park '98, and George Gibbard '01 play the reyong.
by Sarah Susannah Willie
Assistant Professor of Sociology
The civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and the related black power, American Indian, women's, and gay and lesbian movements, challenged the assumption that assimilation at any cost should continue to be an American ideal. Moreover, each movement made explicit that in the United States, a person's race, sex, religion, ethnicity, financial standing, sexual orientation, and physical ability have always been crucial indicators of educational and occupational opportunities and of quality and length of life.
It was as a direct result of these movements that the branches of our federal government were encouraged to codify into law the country's best ideals of participatory democracy. As Columbia University historian Manning Marable observed when he spoke at Swarthmore in February, the pressure exerted from the margins of the society brought about tremendous change at the center.
Making race and sex discrimination illegal--and the explicit expression of bigotry unpopular--were wonderful beginnings of the long and difficult process of eradicating oppression in America. Yet many Americans treated the Civil Rights Act of 1965 as an apotheosis, erroneously assuming that formal equality instantly created informal equality as well. The goals of the movement, therefore, remained incomplete: Hatred, intolerance, stereotypical thinking, and discrimination--rather than being interrogated, exposed, and challenged--were recoded and moved underground, becoming implicit and convoluted.
Thus we find ourselves in a strange historical moment in which there are as many Americans who embrace multiculturalism as there are those uneasy about any celebration of difference that transcends an interest in food and music.
Opposition to multiculturalism and the policies that promote it runs the gamut from the blatantly self-serving to the idealistically principled.
In the case of the former, embracing this country's diverse present, and acknowledging a national history of systematic oppression and imperialism, exposes the hierarchies of the past and their continued influence on the pres-
ent. Such exposure means that the privileges that accompany old hierarchies will be challenged and most likely upset.
In the case of the latter, opposition on principle to group-specific programs and consciousness evolves from the belief that attention to difference goes against the core beliefs of this society where justice is understood as equality, and equality is thought to mean same treatment.
This notion of social justice needs to be challenged and reinterpreted. It reflects an ethic of assimilation drawn selectively from ideas about equality that dominated the country from the Civil War through the McCarthy era. It wasn't just that everyone was supposed to be treated the same under the law, but everyone was supposed to aspire to the same things, even if they could not possibly ever be the same. This ethic has been a basic social code in the United States, leading even the well intentioned to conclude that difference should not be acknowledged.
Most Americans have been weaned on the syllogistic package that difference implies hierarchy; hierarchy implies exploitation; and exploitation implies oppression; therefore, to avoid oppression, difference should not be recognized. The leap in logic occurs early when difference itself is understood as the locus of the problem rather than the various hierarchies of privilege and penalty that have shaped the nation.
America's colleges and universities in general--and Swarthmore College in particular--have never been exempt from participation in affirming the various hierarchies of privilege and penalty. Thus, as the free expression of bigotry and harassment rise on American campuses, it is imperative that we avoid retreating into the self-congratulatory delusion that colleges are intellectual safe havens unsullied by concerns of difference. College campuses are contexts, and, like all contexts, they are places where race, sex, and class relations get worked out over a range of issues from student and faculty composition to curriculum content.
The project of inclusion that Swarthmore has undertaken, despite its sometimes confused rhetoric of providing cultural groups for minority students without the acknowledgment of how much these groups and their constituents make the place intellectually stronger and socially healthier, is the challenging proj-ect of pursuing what Martin Luther King Jr. called "the double victory." The College's decision to be color and culture conscious is evidence of maturity, courage, and wisdom.
Part of the college experience is learning how to translate: faculty members translate knowledge and the passion for pursuing it; administrators translate leadership on campus and enthusiasm about the institution to the wider world; students translate their experiences and interpretations of what they learn to each other, their professors, and administrators. And members of the staff, often unsung, translate their skills and knowledge, making the College a hospitable place.
Swarthmore's goal must be to encourage in each of its participants the drive to become translators and offer them the tools to do so. For as we become better translators of experience, of culture, of ideas about justice and compassion, we step outside of our first and most comfortable "language." This is not just a skill of mastery but one of humility, for as translators we must acknowledge that even after listening carefully, we do not always get it right. It is exhausting work from which we each need occasional respite. But it is the most crucial work of democratic living.
Sarah Susannah Willie is assistant professor of sociology and will become director of the Black Studies Program in the fall. Her book, When We Were Black: College, Race, and the Performance of Identity, is due out from Routledge Press next year.
Freeman Palmer '79, controller of the New York Theological Seminary and former vice president of the Swarthmore Alumni Association, has been elected to the Board of Managers.
Palmer began his professional career as a financial analyst at CBS Radio. After holding a series of other finance positions in television and radio, he was a partner at New Life Event Productions from 1996 to 1997 before moving to his current position in the seminary.
Since graduation Palmer has remained an active alumnus. He served as a member of the Alumni Council, chairing its nominating committee. He has also served as a member of the Black Alumni Weekend planning committee and is the administrative coordinator of the Swarthmore College Alumni Gospel Choir.
Palmer earned an M.B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania before enrolling as a master of divinity student at New York Theological Seminary.
Since 1993 College officials have been working to improve access to campus facilities for those with various physical disabilities and to comply with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Of the 45 public facilities, access has been improved to 15. This map of upper campus indicates generally accessible buildings (green), partially accessible buildings (blue), and nonaccessible buildings (red). During the current year, improvements included Trotter renovations, which created a fully accessible building; new accessible Parrish Hall paths (orange); new entrance and ramp at the Benjamin West Visitor Center; a new chair lift for the Lang Music Building, improving accessibility to the Underhill Music Library, lobby, and Lang Concert Hall; new accessible paths, sidewalks, and handicap parking throughout North Campus, especially around Trotter, Pearson, and Beardsley halls and the rose garden. "Our goal in the years to come," said Mark Evans, director of planning and construction, "is to create full ADA-compliant accessible facilities for three residence halls, all academic programs, all public support facilities, all athletic programs, and public administrative programs."
Peter Alvanos, defensive coordinator at the University of Chicago, has been named head coach of Swarthmore's football program. He replaces Karl Miran, who was asked to resign in December.
A 1988 graduate of Drexel University, Alvanos has held the positions of lineback and defensive line coach at the University of Redlands for two seasons and was outside lineback coach at Lehigh University, also for two seasons.
In an interview with The Philadelphia Inquirer, Alvanos said, "I felt that everyone I talked to at Swarthmore--the athletic director, the president, the provost--is committed to getting football back on track, to be a positive experience within the academic framework."
Alvanos will assume his duties at the end of this month.
The women's indoor track and field squad captured its second consecutive Centennial Conference championship, compiling a conference-record 123 points. The Garnet outdistanced second-place Haverford by 30 points. Seniors Danielle Duffy and Catherine Laine and Desiree Peterkin '00 led the charge for the Garnet. Duffy captured the 200-meter dash and the 400-meter run, whereas Peterkin tied the school and conference record in the triple jump with a leap of 38' 8.25", qualifying her for the NCAA Championships, and she placed second in the long jump. Laine compiled 59 points and placed second in the 200-meter dash, the triple jump, the long jump, the 55-meter dash, and the 55-meter hurdles. The trio also ran legs on the winning 4 x 200 relay with Wonda Joseph '00 and the 4 x 400 relay with Stephanie Herring '99. In her first meet, Anne Baumgartner '01 shattered the school record in the shot put with a toss of 36' 3". Laine broke the school record in the 55-meter dash with a time of 7.55 seconds.
The men's indoor track and field team posted a 7-2 mark for the season and placed fourth at the Centennial Conference championships. Steve Dawson '00 was a double winner at the conference meet, capturing the high jump and the long jump. Dawson out-jumped his closest competitor by 7", clearing a conference record height of 6' 9". Dawson also captured the long jump with a leap of 21' and took second in the triple jump with a distance of 42' 10.75". Mason Tootell '99 placed second in the 55-meter hurdles.
The men's swimming team posted a 9-3 overall mark and went 5-1 in conference duals while swimming to their third consecutive second-place finish at the Centennial championships. Fred Gerson '99 was a double winner, capturing the 100 and 200 breaststroke, eclipsing the school and conference records in both events. Gerson set the 100 mark of :58.56 in trials and the 200 time of 2:09.42 in the final. #Andy Robbins '98 won the 200 backstroke for the third consecutive year in a provisional qualifying time of 1:55.89 and was a member of the winning 800-yard freestyle relay team that included Mark Friedberg '98, Ryan Fruh '99, and Carl Sanders '98.
The women's swimming team posted an 8-5 mark overall and went 5-2 in conference duals. The Garnet women placed second at the Centennial championship meet for the fourth consecutive season. Kris Robertson '98 captured the 200 backstroke for the second straight year while Molly Marino '98 had 49 points, placing second in the 200 backstroke and third in the 200- and 500-yard freestyle.
The women's basketball team capped its 8-16 season with a 58-38 rout of archrival Haverford. Guard Heather Marandola '01 led the Garnet in scoring, averaging 13.4 points per game. Junior captain Jean Quinn led the team in rebounds, pulling down 10.3 per game to finish second in the conference. Freshman guard Kristen English averaged 10.5 points a game and set a school record, connecting on 36 three pointers this season, and now ranks second in career three pointers. Senior captain Michelle Walsh completed her career by playing in all 95 games, which ranks second on the career list.
The men's basketball team capped a rebuilding year with a 66-49 victory over Haverford to snap a 24-game losing streak. Junior captain Tim Schofield led the squad with a 16.5-points-per-game average and was named to the All-Centennial Conference Second Team. Junior captain J.J. Purdy was second in scoring, averaging 7.3 points per game, and led the team in rebounds, pulling down 4.9 per game. The Garnet finished the season at 1-22.
The wrestling team posted a 9-15-1 mark and placed fifth at the Centennial Conference championships. Senior 190-pound Alec Stall placed sixth at the NCAA East Regionals. At the Centennial Conference championships, hosted by Swarthmore, Stall placed second, while classmate Pete Balvanz placed second at 150 pounds, and junior Adrian Wilson finished third at 134 pounds.
The badminton team posted a 4-2 mark and placed second in the PAIAW standings. The team finished in third place at the Northeast Collegiate Badminton Champion-ships, held at Swarthmore. The team of Tam Doan '98 and Wendy Kemp '99 placed second in the women's doubles final, whereas Doan finished third in singles play. At the PAIAW Tournament, the team of juniors Erika Johansen and Jen Chen were victorious in the doubles championship, leading the Garnet to a third-place finish.
In Hood Trophy action, the Garnet narrowed the Fords lead to 6-5 after capturing three points this winter.
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