Collection - Swarthmore College Bulletin

Land-use plan looks ahead
What will the College be like 50 years from now?

A long-range land-use plan that addresses growth, change, and flexibility for the College over the next half-century has sparked a spirited conversation about where and how the College might find new room for expansion—and whether such change is desirable.

Prompted by a request from the Borough of Swarthmore, a committee of administrators, faculty members, Board members, and students was formed a year ago to create the plan, which was made public in February. The College hired Boston campus planners William Rawn Associates to assist the committee in studying the campus and presenting options to the College community and town officials.

“The planning process is a way of informing decision makers both at the College and in the borough,” says Larry Schall ’75, vice president for facilities and services. “It’s also a good exercise for the College, to look 50 years out and see what might happen to the campus.” Preserving flexibility is a paramount concern, according to Schall. “It’s not our job to impose a size or a program on the people who will be running the College in 2050,” he says. Still, Schall believes that the fundamental character of the College will remain the same: “Swarthmore is a small residential liberal arts college, and it will stay that way.”

Four fundamental values were put forward in the document:

• The natural environment is a fundamental component of the campus.

• The College is a residential community for students and faculty members.

• The health of the College is intertwined with the health of the Borough of Swarthmore.

• Informal interaction is fundamental to the culture of the College and must be supported by the physical environment.

Additionally, the committee identified several organizing principles for understanding and planning Swarthmore’s future land use:

• The topography of the campus is organized into zones with different uses. Three key areas are the closely spaced north-campus plateau, which includes Parrish Hall and most academic buildings; the historic and more open central campus, which includes Parrish lawn, residence halls, and the Sharples Dining Hall, making up the College’s most visible interface with the borough; and the lower campus, a more open space south of the railroad tracks, which is largely recreational.

• Additional College-owned property includes much of the near-north residential area adjoining the campus along Whittier Place and Elm Avenue; the Cunningham Fields, bounded by Chester Road, the railroad tracks, and College Avenue; the far-south residential area along Harvard Avenue, stretching to the Mary Lyon residence hall; and the Crum Woods plateau, a largely undeveloped natural resource across Crum Creek from the main campus.

• Green spaces, more than architectural style, define the character of the campus. Swarthmore is a pedestrian campus, and its lawns, gardens, vistas, and woods are the unifying elements of its environment.

• Many campus buildings are integrated within this landscape through a series of three-sided open spaces. Collections of buildings such as Wharton and Worth halls are the most successful examples of this concept, which should be consciously continued. (The Rawn firm is also designing Swarthmore’s new dormitory.)

• Pedestrian pathways on the campus are “definitively more important” than vehicular access. Vehicle circulation and parking are consciously limited to the perimeter of the campus in order to preserve the landscape.

• Buildings at the perimeter of the campus naturally align with the residential streets that surround the College, creating a cohesive relationship with the borough. Each area of connection has its own character, from the faculty neighborhood in the near north to the business district interface near the train station.

When the plan was presented at campus meetings in February, questions were raised about a future growth assumption that planners had based on historic trends. Since the College’s founding in 1864, Swarthmore’s student body has grown at a linear (not compounded) rate of about 1 percent a year. The committee used this figure to project potential future growth, although Schall emphasizes that this assumption is “purely hypothetical”—meant only to preserve options for the future, not to commit the College to any particular growth strategy. In fact, he says, program growth, not increased enrollment, has been responsible for much of the expansion of Swarthmore’s facilities in recent years. Since 1970, the College has added 450,000 square feet of new buildings—a 50 percent increase—and enrollment has increased by about 30 percent.

Schall says that concerns about the plan have largely focused on areas currently considered to be “off campus”—even though much of the land in question is owned by the College. These include the near-north neighborhood, the Crum Woods plateau, and the “hinge block.”

Associate Professor of Religion Mark Wallace, who served on the committee, dissented from the group’s conclusions. Wallace is most critical of the plan for the near-north neighborhood, which comprises faculty homes along Elm Avenue and Whittier Place as well as some other nearby College-owned properties. The plan designates this area for future “residential scale” institutional use such as “small administrative or academic functions.” Wallace, who lives on Elm Avenue, asserts that such uses would threaten the “easy give-and-take among townspeople, faculty members, families, and the College.”

Schall says that the College will maintain “roughly the same amount of faculty housing as currently exists within walking distance [of the campus],” pointing out that it has bought “about a dozen” nearby homes and apartments in the past decade to further this goal.

Wallace also raised questions about the use of the Crum plateau, which the plan identifies as “the most appropriate area” for future expansion of College athletic fields. The question has been referred for study

by a separate Crum Woods Stewardship Committee, which Wallace praised as “a thoughtful, protracted academic process through which to make these politically charged decisions.”

Associate Professor of Engineering Carr Everbach, who co-chairs the land-use committee with Schall, believes that environmental concerns are just one factor that College planners should consider. “I take a more pragmatic view,” he says. “We have to weigh a lot of different factors to make the best decisions for the long-range best interests of the College and the borough.”

In fact, says Everbach, a proposal to build an 80-room inn and restaurant on College property near the railroad station is a more important—and potentially contentious—public issue for both the College and townspeople. The inn is part of a larger plan being considered to revitalize the business district of the borough.

The current plan would have the College lease land to an independent developer who would build and operate the facility.

The land-use plan avoids mention of a hotel, saying only that this lower campus site “would best be used to enhance the connection of the College to the commercial center of the borough.” Schall says flatly that Swarthmore is “not about to get into the hotel business” but must continue to “pay a lot of attention to how we meet the borough.” Borough officials continue to study the hotel proposal, and no decision about it has been made by the town or the College.

Everbach believes that “the best outcome of the current discussions is the increased flow of information and fluid dialogue that has developed between the College and the borough. We’re all neighbors here, and working together is in the best interests of both the College and the borough.”

View the entire land-use plan on the Web at http://landuse.swarthmore.edu

—Jeffrey Lott

Globalization presents challenges in Africa

Cornell Visiting Professor of Economics Ernest Aryeetey, a native of Ghana, would like to see Africa in charge of its own development and democratization. He participated in a March campus conference “Africa and Globalization,” sponsored by the Black Studies Program.

“Globalization reflects changing relations between nations to the extent that today individuals and groups can influence events in other nations more than was previously possible,” Aryeetey says. He points out that the people who benefit most from global integration are those with the right capital, information, and technology. They can take advantage of the opportunities that come with globalization while mitigating the risks stemming from business across borders.

“Africa cannot insulate itself against these risks, which means it has smaller benefits from globalization. But that doesn’t mean that Africa should stay away from it. We now have to ask, ‘How do we strengthen ourselves for the task of enlarging our benefits from globalization?’” says Aryeetey.

Aryeetey believes that African countries should be able to design their own programs for development. Although foreign aid remains crucial, it will need to be restructured to consider the development goals of African societies. This contrasts with foreign aid policies that dictate how aid money should be spent. “It’s about ownership and participation to foster confidence—loyalty and sacrifice to make sure the outcome is what we want,” he says.

In Ghana, Aryeetey says there have been both positive and negative effects of globalization. It has brought improved access to knowledge and information, which encourage more political decision making at the local level. “People have a better idea about what democracy means,” he says. “Now, they see a much more open world.”

But he worries about a concurrent “brain drain,” the loss of hu-man capital that is so vital to a country’s development. “I’m not worried about Ghanaians who go to university abroad at their own expense,” Aryeetey says. “I’m more worried about those educated in Ghana at the expense of the taxpayers, only to use their training elsewhere.”

Also troubling to Aryeetey is the prevalent portrayal of Africa as a place that is undemocratic and engulfed by conflict. Of the 52 African countries, he says that no more than 6 are currently experiencing civil conflict: “I’d like to see the world acknowledge that good things come out of Africa.”

As for the continent’s future, he believes that Africa’s biggest market is Africa itself, where 16 percent of the world’s population live. “It’s up to Africans to develop Africa,” he says, and they are now taking the right steps.”

Aryeetey did undergraduate work at the University of Ghana and received a Ph.D. from the University of Dortmund, Germany. He was deputy director of the Institute of Statistical, Social, and Economic Research until he came to Swarthmore.

—Reiko Teshiba ’02

@ Swarthmore

Where do most people turn when they need help with their computers? To students, of course. That’s happening at Swarthmore, too, but with a twist, reports Stephen Maurer ’67, professor of mathematics and currently the College’s associate provost for information technology (IT). In a year-old program partially funded by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, student “IT associates” sharpen their computing skills in a weeklong workshop, then set to work helping professors and departments improve their Web sites. For a sample of their work:

• Discover dance-related resources, including video, audio, documents, and Web links, at http://www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/dance.

• See how Swarthmore students register for courses these days at http://www.swarthmore.edu/admin/-registrar.

• Get psyched about psychology at the department’s new site: http://-www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/Psych.

—Jeffrey Lott

Asian Studies to Expand

The College will enhance its offerings in Asian studies, adding a four-year pilot program in Japanese language, literature, and culture as a result of a $1 million grant from The Freeman Foundation. The current strengths of the Asian studies program lie in Chinese language and culture. Both the Japanese and Chinese components of the expanded curriculum will include offerings in history, sociology and anthropology, political science, art history, and religion.

Jolly Good Chlen

Professor of Biology Scott Gilbert has been named an honorary fellow of the St. Petersburg Society of Naturalists. Founded in 1868, the society sponsors research in biology and ecology. It has become a leading nongovernmental voice in Russia for protection of the environment.

—Jeffrey Lott

Hot Stuff

A group of Swarthmore students exhibited interdisciplinary work at the sixth annual “March Madness for the Mind” at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in March. The ex-hibition featured inventions from 19 national teams of student scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs.

Swarthmore’s team of current and recent engineering and economics majors showed an energy-efficient home-heating system, which reduces electric power consumption by more than 50 percent and can operate for days on batteries and/or solar power during utility grid outages. Last spring, the team began the patent application process for their system, which was originally initiated by the Isaiah V. Williamson Chair of Civil and Mechanical Engineering and Professor of Engineering Fred Orthlieb.

—Alisa Giardinelli

"WAing" Turns 15

The Writing Associates (WA) Program is celebrating nearly 15 years of supporting student writing at Swarthmore. Launched by Thomas Blackburn, professor emeritus of English literature, the program is now directed by Jill Gladstein, assistant professor of English literature.

To celebrate the anniversary, Writing Program intern Matt Kutolowski ’99 and Student Outreach Coordinator Joanne Gaskell ’03 conducted a faculty panel in April. Faculty members from different disciplines talked with students about the process, challenges, and risks they encounter in their own writing. In addition, the coordinators are planning a publication featuring student, faculty, and alumni writing (see box above).

The WA Program was originally based on the Writing Fellows Program at Brown University, which was developed there by Tori Haring-Smith ’74. Blackburn consulted many other college peer tutoring and writing programs when designing English/Education 001C, The Writing Process, the mandatory training course for WAs.

According to Blackburn, the WA Program grew out of a curricular change in the mid-1980s that implemented required primary distribution courses designed to give students both exposure and a good foundation for writing in a variety of disciplines.

“The WA Program addressed one of the goals of the College— to have students become competent academic writers,” Blackburn says.

The program now consists of course WAs, a staffed Writing Center that is open Sunday through Thursday evenings, an on-line writing lab, WA mentors, thesis WAs, and workshops. In fall 2001, 585 papers were “WA’d” at the Writing Center, in addition to more than 500 papers through course “WAing.” In spring 2002, there were 64 WAs, with 22 courses being served by the program.

“The idea now is that support for writing at Swarthmore is more than just the WA Program,” Gladstein says. “I think we’re starting to see more diverse requests than we’ve had before. We’re hearing from departments we haven’t heard from in a while.”

“You forge academic relationships through the program,” agrees Gaskell. “I see students becoming more conscious of the importance of writing to the Swarthmore experience.”

“I take every paper that’s finished before 2 a.m. to the Writing Center,” says Sarah Bryan ’04. She sometimes brings visiting prospective students who stay overnight to her conferences with WAs. Bryan believes the WA Program has helped her make the important transition from high school to college writing.

Yen Pham ’03 has also been a frequent visitor to the Writing Center since her freshman year. “The WAs are helpful because they look at my paper with a fresh pair of eyes,” she says. “Their comments help me polish my paper.”

“Writing is a process. It’s something that you can always improve and enrich through discussion with your peers,” Kutolowski says.

—Reiko Teshiba ’02

Celebrate Writing With Us

The Writing Associates Program invites alumni to submit a piece of expository writing for an upcoming publication that will showcase the quality of writing at Swarthmore and show how that tradition continues among alumni. Submissions (maximum of 4,000 words) may be sent by e-mail to writing@swarthmore.edu or to Jill Gladstein, director, Writing Associates Program, at the College. The deadline is Aug. 1, 2002.

Chocolates & Choosing

Meeting as a whole class for the first time since freshmen orientation, members of the Class of 2004 gathered in Tarble All-Campus Space on Jan. 25 to mark yet another milestone in their Swarthmore experience: selecting a major. With a faculty panel prepared to discuss the various intricacies of the process—and plenty of chocolate on hand to curb any anxiety that might arise—the “Chocolates and Choosing” event aimed to assist this year’s sophomores with what can be a very daunting process.

According to Dean of the College Robert Gross ’62, the selection of a major does not necessarily have to be a life-defining decision. “Think of it as a tentative hypothesis rather than a chosen path,” he says. “You can always change your mind.” According to Gross, about a third of Swarthmore alumni work in a field directly related to their major, another third work in a field tangential to their major, and the rest have established careers in fields that have absolutely nothing to do with their studies at the College. “For those students who are unsure,” he adds, “I’d say, don’t stress out about it.”

It seems as though very few sophomores do. Krista Gigone, who is planning to be a linguistics major, says that she wasn’t particularly worried about the effect her major would have on her career options. “I don’t think I’ll worry about crossing that bridge until I come to it,” she says.

Many sophomores are struggling with whether or not to apply for the Honors Program, however. Matt Goldstein, a prospective biology major on a premed track who also plays varsity baseball, cited time constraints and his desire to go abroad as critical to his decision. “With baseball, it’s difficult,” he says. “Plus, I’d also like to go abroad, and it’s difficult enough as it is to be a [course] science major and try to go abroad.”

Statistics from Director of Institutional Research Robin Shores and Professor of English Literature and Honors Coordinator Craig Williamson show that, although scheduling conflicts may slightly deter athletes from pursuing honors, the percentage of honors students who are also athletes (29 percent) is only slightly lower than the percentage of athletes in the entire class (32 percent).

—Elizabeth Redden ’05

College Will Replace Aid Lost because of Drug Convictions

At its meeting on Feb. 26, the Board of Managers directed the College to replace financial aid for students for whom federal aid has been denied because of drug-related convictions on their records.

According to Laura Talbot, director of financial aid, this policy is a continuation of the status quo. “We will continue our policy of meeting demonstrated need,” she says. “When federal aid falls short, we’ll provide more of our own.”

The drug convictions provision was added to the Higher Education Act re-authorization bill in 1998 and was first implemented during the 2000-2001 academic year. Several higher education organizations have criticized the law because it tends to discriminate against students who come from lower-income families who are eligible for federal educational grants and loans. Those who can afford the cost of higher education are not affected by the law.

Talbot says the Board’s decision is less a political or moral stance about drug use than an affirmation of Swarthmore’s long-standing commitment to meeting demonstrated need for all admitted students.

For privacy reasons, she would not say whether there were actually any students at Swarthmore who have been denied federal aid for a conviction. Hampshire College and Yale University have recently adopted similar policies.

—Reiko Teshiba ’02

Globe free to good home

McCabe Library’s giant geophysical globe is seeking a new home. Renovations to the library, scheduled to begin during summer 2003, make keeping the globe impractical—there just isn’t space for it. Library staff members hope another educational institution can use the globe; the only condition is that anyone interested must disassemble and transport it.

The globe was the gift of Arthur Magill ’29 and cost $12,000 when installed in McCabe in 1967. It was constructed at a Rand McNally plant in Ossining, N.Y., and consists of two hemispheres of reinforced fiberglass and epoxy. Rand McNally craftsmen painted the globe’s land surfaces in natural vegetation colors and oceans in five shades of blue to illustrate varying depths. Interested? Call Librarian Peg Seiden at (610) 328-8489.

—Andrew Miller

One Question

I read about the “Dash for Cash,” which raises money for the men’s and women’s rugby teams. Is this something put on by the Development Office?

ANSWER: No, the professional fund-raisers cannot take credit for the “Dash for Cash”—nor would they want to. Since the late 1980s, members of the rugby teams have run naked through the halls of Parrish, collecting bills from onlookers. In earlier years, the Dashers were all male, and almost all ran with paper bags covering their faces. In the mid-’90s, women joined the biannual run, and as the millennium approached, the bags were abandoned.

The fund-raiser is not without its critics: Writing in The Phoenix in January, faculty member J. William Frost called the event “a form of sexual exploitation.” Nonsense, fired back nine members of the women’s rugby squad: “Rugby gives us pride in our bodies. The Dash is not an objectification of our bodies but rather an extension of this pride.”

This spring’s Dash, held during Family Weekend, netted $280.

Send your question to bulletin@swarthmore.edu. We’ll try to answer it.

—Jeffrey Lott

In Memoriam:

Bernard Morrill

Bernard “Betz" Morrill, Henry C. and J. Archer Turner Professor Emeritus of Engineering, died on March 3 at the age of 91. Morrill began teaching at Swarthmore in 1947, the same year he graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He received a Ph.D. from the University of Michigan in 1959 and retired in 1975. A specialist in thermodynamics, he was the author of the books Mechanical Vibrations and An Introduction to Equilibrium Thermodynamics. He was a co-designer of the world’s first supercritical steam power turbine, the most efficient turbine of its kind in the world at that time. At Swarthmore, he is remembered particularly fondly for his concern for minority and international students, to many of whom he and his late wife, Bernice, opened their home when campus housing and food services were closed. The Morrills set up an endowment, the Dorothy S. Leikin Fund, to provide food and accommodations for these students.

—Carol Brévart-Demm

Transitions

In February, Allison Dorsey and Bruce Dorsey (the two are not related) of history, Philip Everson of mathematics and statistics, Keith Reeves ’88 of political science, Adrienne Shibles of physical education and athletics, and Elizabeth Vallen of biology received appointments with tenure. Except for Reeves, who came to the College already an associate professor from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, all will be promoted from assistant professor to associate professor. Full professorship was awarded to associate professors Lynne Molter ’79 of engineering, Robert Weinberg of history, and Lee Wimberly of physical education and athletics.

Retiring at the end of distinguished careers on the faculty are Professor of Statistics Gudmund Iverson, Susan Lippincott Professor of Modern and Classical Languages Gilbert Rose, and Professor of Biology Timothy Williams ’64.

—Carol Brévart-Demm

Math Whizzes

Swarthmore’s student math team finished among the top 10 in this year’s William Putnam Mathematical Competition. Swarthmore’s 8th-place finish among more than 300 teams is the College’s best in its last 20 years of participation in the event.

Benjamin Schak ’03 scored in the top 20 of nearly 3,000 students from 453 colleges. Senior Amy Marinello placed in the top 200, and freshman Yijun Li was in the top 500. Eleven other Swarthmore students took the 6-hour math exam in December.

—Alisa Giardinelli

Proxy Fight

This spring, Swarthmore used its position as a stockholder in the aerospace firm Lockheed Martin to urge the company to bar discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation in its equal employment opportunity policy. Although the resolution filed by the College was defeated at the company’s annual meeting in San Diego on April 25, it garnered 5 percent of proxy votes, ensuring that it will be reconsidered at next year’s annual meeting.

This resolution—said to be the first in the country solely initiated by a college or university since the anti-apartheid movement in the 1980s—was the work of the College’s Committee for Socially Responsible Investing (CSRI). The 4-year-old committee is chaired by Harvard University Business School faculty member Samuel Hayes III ’57 and includes students, college administrators, and members of Swarthmore’s Board of Managers. It prepared the resolution in consultation with the Equality Project, a nonprofit organization in New York devoted to securing equality in the workplace for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered employees.

Morgan Simon ’04, an honors economics major and a CSRI member, represented the College at the stockholder meeting along with Paul Aslanian, vice president for finance and planning. Lockheed Martin is only one of the many companies in which Swarthmore holds stock, but Simon says it was chosen because of the potentially large impact of a policy change at such a prominent firm.

According to Simon, more than half of Fortune 500 companies and many of Lockheed Martin’s competitors, such as Boeing, Honeywell International, and Raytheon, already have such a policy in place. “We hoped that our actions would not only lead to change at Lockheed Martin but also exert pressure on other Fortune 500 companies to update their policies and encourage other colleges to use their power as shareholders for social good in the future.”

—Alisa Giardinelli

Secret Runner

Imo Akpan kept her secret from her family for nearly four years. But after she was named NCAA Division III Indoor Track Athlete of the Year by the United States Track Coaches Association—and after Sports Illustrated touted her in “Faces in the Crowd”—it was no longer possible.

It’s not that Akpan, who came to Swarthmore from Nigeria, didn’t want to tell her family about the record six gold medals she won and the four school, meet, or conference records she set at the Centennial Conference Indoor Track and Field Championships in March. Or about the four gold medals she garnered at the Centennial Conference outdoor meet in May. Or about being named that meet’s outstanding female performer. But she couldn’t.

“My family didn’t know I run track,” Akpan says.

Akpan purposely withheld her involvement in athletics from her family because of problems she had during her freshman year. Her family attributed Akpan’s academic difficulties to her involvement in volleyball and track and advised her to stop playing sports.

Akpan thought otherwise. “I knew my problems had nothing to do with athletics,” Akpan says. “I was having some personal family problems. I thought it was normal, something I could handle on my own, but it wasn’t. I soon realized that I needed to seek help from the school.”

Akpan’s decision to disregard her family’s wishes is no surprise to anyone who knows her. She is an extremely independent person.

Born in Houston, she moved to Nigeria with her family when she was 3 years old. She’s been virtually on her own since she was age 9. Akpan attended boarding schools in Nigeria before coming to the United States at age 14 to live with a family friend in New York City, where she was the top-ranked student all four years at Adlai E. Stevenson High School.

It has been a lonely existence. Akpan has seen her mother, Comfort Akpan, only twice since 1994. “There are moments when I see parents at a track meet, taking great pleasure in the accomplishments of their children,” Akpan says. “It would be nice if [my parents] could be here for graduation, but I know that’s not possible. It makes me sad, so I try not to think about it.”

Akpan’s first hurdle in the United States was to learn the language. Because her command of English was limited, she was placed in bilingual classes. But that did her little good because the classes were designed primarily for Spanish-speaking people. Her first language is Ibibo. The bilingual classes also were less taxing academically. Akpan, a chemistry major who plans on attending medical school, thought she belonged in the advanced placement classes.

“I knew words, and I knew sentences; I just didn’t know the proper context to use those words or sentences,” Akpan says. “People would say things to me, use slang terms, and I would take them literally. If someone says, ‘I’m going to jump you,’ I thought they meant they were physically going to jump over me.”

So Akpan did what any other red-blooded American kid would do to understand the English language better—she watched television, specifically the nightly news. “I would listen for words and phrases to see how they were used,” Akpan says. “I also listened to the way the newscasters talked and memorized it.”

Television proved to be a tremendous learning tool for Akpan. She has no hint of an accent, and her command of the English language is better than that of most native-born Americans.

Athletics were a different story. Akpan did not become a competitive athlete until she enrolled at Swarthmore in 1998. “In high school, I thought sports were a waste of time,” Akpan says. “I could not understand why people played sport. I was all about academics. I thought people should be home studying instead of playing sports.”

Akpan’s attitude toward athletics changed in her freshman year when a good friend, Camille Hall, convinced Akpan to go out for the volleyball team. The volleyball coach convinced Akpan to try out for the track team.

Four years later, Akpan is the toast of the United States Track Coaches Association. At the indoor championships, she set a College record in the 55-meter dash (7.2 seconds), school and conference records in the 200 (25.51), a school and meet record in the long jump (18 feet, 1/2 inch), and meet record in the 400 (58.34). She also was part of the winning 400-meter and distance medley relay teams.

After Sports Illustrated ran her photo, Akpan broke the news about track by telephoone to her mother. The call went well.

—Terry Toohey

Adapted with permission from the Delaware County Daily Times, where Toohey is assistant sports editor.

In the Swim—Twice

Three senior members of the women’s swimming team celebrate Swarthmore’s second Centennial Conference championship in as many years. Co-captains Lisa Ladewski and Allison Lyons and Amy Auerbach (left to right) were team leaders last year, when Swarthmore unexpectedly upset perennial conference champion Gettysburg College. Expected to be underdogs again this winter, the Swarthmore women surprised the conference by taking a second consecutive championship.

Auerbach, who has twice been named to the conference all-academic honor roll (she is an honors biology major, planning a career in medicine), holds College records in the 1,000 freestyle and the 800 and 400 freestyle relay.

—Jeffrey Lott

Spring Sports Roundup

(Above) Swarthmore baseball players and coaches congratulate their rivals from Franklin & Marshall College as the sun sets on a cool April afternoon.

Baseball (6-21-1, 5-13) Jared Leiderman ’05 and Scott Kushner ’02 earned All-Centennial Conference (CC) honors. Leiderman, a pitcher, was named to the second team, and left-fielder Kushner was tabbed as an honorable mention. Leiderman posted a 2-8 record with a 3.39 ERA in 12 games. Kushner hit .288 and led the conference with four triples. Center-fielder Brandon King ’05 led the team with a .308 batting average, 33 hits, 18 runs scored, and seven doubles.

Softball (2-24, 2-14) The Garnet snapped a 24-game losing streak with a doubleheader sweep of Haverford. Shortstop Pam Lavallee ’03, who closed the season with a 13-game hitting streak, earned All-Centennial Conference second-team honors.

Golf (5-0, fifth of seven at CC Championship) Matt Kaufman ’02 closed out an outstanding career with a CC Championship and Co-Player of the Year honors.

Men’s lacrosse (6-8, 1-5) Blake Atkins ’02 was named to the All-Centennial Conference second team. Atkins scored 14 goals and added 14 assists on the season for 28 points. John Murphy ’03 led the team in scoring, with 23 goals and 12 assists for 35 points.

Women’s lacrosse (9-6, 4-5) Katie Tarr ’02, Heather Kile ’02, and Jennifer Hart ’03 were named to the All-Centennial Conference first team, and Mavis Biss ’02 earned second-team honors. Tarr led the conference with 66 goals and finished her career with a conference-record 260. Kile, a defender, led the Garnet with 75 ground balls, 44 caused turnovers, and 36 draw controls. Hart, a goaltender, led the conference with a .574 save percentage and was third with a 9.87 goals-against average. Biss was second on the team in scoring with 38 goals and seven assists for 45 points.

Women’s tennis (9-8, 7-3) Anjani Reddy ’04 ran her CC singles record to a perfect two-year total of 30-0, as she captured her second consecutive conference singles championship, earning the CC Player of the Year award. Reddy also teamed with Kristina Pao ’04 for a third-place finish in doubles play.

Men’s tennis (9-8) The Garnet made its 24th consecutive trip to the NCAA Division III Tournament, falling 4-1 to Washington in the first round. Frank Visciano ’04 was the lone winner at No. 4 singles.

Women’s track and field (2-2, sixth of 10 at CC Championships) Imo Akpan ’02 (see p. 10) was named Outstanding Performer of the Meet at the Centennial Championships. Njideka Akunyili ’04, Elizabeth Gardner ’05, and Claire Hoverman ’03 joined Akpan on the relays, which were both run in school record times. Jessica Rickabaugh ’02 earned a silver medal in the high jump, clearing 5-0.25.

Men’s track and field (1-2, ninth of nine at CC Championships) Justin Pagliei ’02 earned the lone medal for the Garnet, finishing third in the discus (130-9).

Hood Trophy: This year’s Hood Trophy went to Haverford by a score of 10-8. Swarthmore won men’s and women’s tennis and softball but split in baseball and lost in men’s and women’s track.

—Mark Duzenski

New Dorm Plans Advance

For more than 18 months, Swarthmore’s campus has been on the minds of a group of architects from the Boston firm of William Rawn Associates. The national-award-winning firm was selected in September 2000 to design a new 150-bed dormitory and last fall was asked to consult on a long-range land-use plan for the College.

The new residence hall will be funded from The Meaning of Swarthmore, the $230 million capital campaign currently under way at the College. It will initially accommodate current residents of Parrish Hall, which is slated for major renovations as a part of the campaign. Once students are moved back into Parrish, the new dorm will help relieve crowding in other residence halls. No increase in the College enrollment is currently being contemplated.

The new residence hall will be located at the southeastern end of campus between Mertz Hall and Route 320, serving as an anchor to the south end of Parrish lawn. Emphasizing the need to respect and even defer to the campus’s landscape, Rawn’s associate principal Cliff Gayley says, “Parrish lawn is really one of the truly memorable spaces in American colleges. The new residence hall will reinforce this space by strengthening its eastern edge."

The architects have met frequently with landscape architects from Olin Partnership Inc. and a College steering committee headed by Vice President for Facilities and Services Larry Schall ’75. After considerable research into Swarthmore’s residential culture, including late-night hours spent with students in the existing dormitories, company owner and principal William Rawn, Gayley, and designers Peter Reiss and Kevin Bergeron have proposed a residence hall that they believe will be in keeping with the unique nature of of the College.

Designed as a three-sided structure with an open fourth side—similar in ground plan to Worth and Wharton halls—the dormitory will have two buildings of three and four stories, respectively. Each building will have a main lounge and kitchen area near its entrance, smaller floor lounges on each story, a laundry, and group study space on the ground floor. The buildings will be surrounded by landscaped areas, designed by Olin.

On the corridors, where the use of natural light will be maximized, students will be housed in 41 double and 78 single rooms on halls accommodating about 25 individuals each. “We spent a lot of time finding the right balance for a properly social corridor and one that lets you study," says Gayley. “For example, we believe that the width and character of the corridor have a lot to do with hall life. We determined that 7 feet is the ideal corridor width for Swarthmore College. Five feet is too narrow and 8 feet too wide. Understanding those physical nuances particular to Swarthmore has been an important area of learning for the architects and the building committee."

With a construction budget of $15 million, according to committee member and Associate Vice President for Facilities Management C. Stuart Hain, the project is currently in the latter part of its design development phase. A date for the beginning of construction will be decided by the Board of Managers in September.

—Carol Brévart-Demm

Magic Carpet Ride

As Swarthmore traditions go, the annual blind-date fest called “Screw Your Roomate” is as well established as the “McCabe Mile” and the “Dash for Cash.” On March 2, hundreds of students in homemade costumes descended on Sharples Dining Hall to find their companions for the evening. Elaborate meetings arranged by friends and roommates were played out as bees searched for flowers, human piñatas were whacked by blindfolded suitors, and Burger King searched the room for his Dairy Queen. (See Magic Carpet Ride photo at right).

The evening continues at an all-campus party at which the “dates” (archaic these days) celebrate the bizarre and ridiculous.

—Jeffrey Lott

Hush

Early this semester, the List Gallery exhibited the landscape photography of Harry Kalish, Richard Kagan, and Brian Peterson. The black-and-white photographs in this exhibit framed shifting patterns of light, texture, airiness, and regeneration.

Kalish began his photography career in 1984 and has work in the permanent collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the National Museum of American Art. “My involvement with landscape photography grew out of an early but unrealized interest in the formal beauty of the world,” he says of his work about structure and form.

When he first moved to the area 30 years ago, Kalish was introduced to the College and the Crum Woods by a group of students and alumni with whom he became friendly. He has covered events and photographed campus grounds—particularly new gardens—for the Scott Arboretum since 1988.

“My personal photography is mostly of the landscape, with some deviation from this highly contemplative genre. For in-stance, I have a series of images made by running the same film through the camera two or more times,” Kalish says. “To me, these pictures have a dreamlike quality that is about the overlapping of segments of time.”

Kalish has also worked during the last three years with the other 100 Scott volunteers who garden at least two mornings each month. “I wanted to contribute a share of the manual effort required to maintain the grounds that I have been admiring over the years and to learn about Scott’s landscaping and gardening strategies,” he says.

—Andrea Hammer

Real World Intrudes

Three recent criminal investigations—an embezzlement arrest, a rape charge, and the search of a student’s computer on suspicion of child pornography—have brought the College a little closer to the “realworld.”

In April, former McCabe Library financial administrator Antoinette Selby-Hobbs was arrested by Delaware County authorities for approving payments of more than $64,000 to dummy suppliers. She was charged with theft by deception, criminal conspiracy, and forgery. Selby-Hobbs was released on her own recognizance, and a preliminary hearing was scheduled for May.

Also in April, a 20-year-old Navy man stationed at the New London, Conn., submarine base was charged with rape in connection with an alleged sexual assault on a female student in December. The victim, whose name has been withheld, reported the incident to local police in late January, prompting mild criticism by borough police chief Brian Craig, who said he was concerned about “losing details and evidence.”

The woman involved reported the incident to College officials within hours. Associate Dean of the College for Student Life Tedd Goundie said that Swarthmore policy is to “do options counseling with students.” Reporting an incident to police is just one of those options, explained Goundie. Others include dealing with the attacker directly, handling charges against another student through the College judicial system, and doing nothing. When classes re-sumed in mid-January after winter break, the woman decided to press charges. A preliminary hearing was set for May 13.

In the third case, a student was arrested after members of the Delaware County Criminal Investigation Division, using a warrant, searched his computer in March. Ivan Boothe, a 20-year-old sophomore, was charged in late April with possession of child pornography and related offenses. The investigation began when New Hampshire authorities were alerted by the parents of a minor.

College spokesperson Tom Krattenmaker said that, if true, “the student’s activity is upsetting and offensive to Swarthmore College. The activity described in the charges violates our principles and our rules.”

—Jeffrey Lott

Tour Time

Student tour guides are masters of coordination. Like most engaging speakers, they have the gift of touching the soul of their audiences—tapping into individual interests and skillfully addressing a gamut of questions. Beyond juggling the time demands of two one-hour tours each week, guides need to be both mentally and physically agile.

As Dave Mister ’04, a tour guide since May 2001 who is also a member of the a cappella group Mixed Company, says: “I’m a performer at heart, so for me to have a captive audience for an hour is a wonderful thing! I really like bragging about Swarthmore to prospective students, and I love it when I’m asked questions because it means the prospective student is really interested—that he or she isn’t just at another stop on a college tour.”

Mister also needs to land safely on his feet like an acrobat. “As for new skills,” he says, “walking backward is something I learned rather quickly: I can even go up and down stairs backward!”

A parent’s role is important during a tour, but Mister thinks the best ones encourage their prospective students to ask their own questions. “It’s impossible to say everything about Swarthmore in an hour, so you need to pick and choose the most important things,” he says. “A good tour guide will be able to tell what’s important to a prospective student and tailor the tour accordingly.”

About two dozen student guides—who commit to giving tours for at least two semesters—are hired each year before spring break. This year, admissions deans interviewed 60 applicants. During a 3- to 4-week period, the new guides gather to meet one another, review an admissions handbook, and finally “shadow” current tour guides who then reverse positions to provide peer feedback.

“The experienced guide critiques the newbie after the tour is over: what the guide missed, what was done well, and so on,” says Mister, who has worked for the Admissions Office in a summer position. “It’s a good system, and it eases guides into the job without making them give tours cold.”

Guides are offered advice on fielding questions that can “throw an entire tour off,” says Alexis Kingham, assistant dean of admissions. These include information about the College’s alcohol policy and sex in dorms. “Suggested responses are that drinking occurs at parties but is not the predominant activity at Swarthmore, and students do engage in sex but are considerate of others,” she says.

Mister adds: “Other questions have included just about all topics, from housing to food to why the exterior of Clothier Hall looks like a church. In all the tours I’ve given, the Board of Managers’ decision to cut the football team came up just twice.” (For his “Top 10 Tour-Guide Questions and Answers." see below)

To keep a tour fresh, Mister learns about participants’ interests. This interaction “requires getting to know the participants a bit,” he says. “I find out what they’re interested in academically and extracurricularly and speak to these areas when I get to those points in the tour.”

Rather than “selling” the College, guides are encouraged to discuss their personal experience and explain what they like about Swarthmore. “A candid conversation about campus atmosphere and a description of the guide’s own experience and friends is more valid,” says Kingham.

Both Mister and Kingham agree that a campus tour has a strong impact on a prospective student’s final choice. “A tour is different from accessing Web information,” Kingham says. “Sometimes a tour is the only contact with a current student.”

Similarly, the tour guide is also enriched by tapping into his or her enthusiasm for Swarthmore, says Kingham, who has enjoyed her work with “lots of quality students who give a valuable sense of the College and represent it well because of a personal investment.”

Mister adds, “Personal experience is much better than statistics. When you get a tour guide who really cares about Swarthmore, it reflects on the quality of life at the College.”

—Andrea Hammer

	Home \| Archives \| Contact \| Features \| Collection \| Profiles \| A Day in the Life In My Life \| Books and the Arts \| Alumni Digest \| Editor’s Note \| Letters \| Bulletin Style Guide \| “In My Life” submission guidelines All contents copyright 2009, Swarthmore College Bulletin, Swarthmore College