Click here to see two photos of the renovated McCabe Library.
Students returned last fall to find a lighter, brighter first floor of McCabe Library. Gone are the red carpet--which one student described as "angry"--and the black-vinyl, dungeon-like atmosphere of the room known as the "reading pit." A coffee bar was added, lamps brought new light to the reading area, and a cozy new lounge was created in the circulation area. "The idea was to make the library more of a social center," says Elizabeth Mahon of Kirby Mehrhof and Lawrence D. McEwen architects, who did the renovation. "This center court helps create areas where groups can meet and interact."
In a special meeting on Jan. 4, the Board of Managers let stand its Dec. 2 decision to cap at 15 percent the admissions spaces reserved for recruited athletes, end intercollegiate football and wrestling, and change women's badminton from varsity to club-sport status. The meeting, which was held in New York City, was called under bylaws that allow a minimum of five Managers to request a Board meeting. The only item on the agenda was further discussion of the recommendations of the Athletics Review Committee (ARC).
In December, the ARC, which had been created by the Board a year earlier, called on the College to limit the number of recruited athletes (those students for whom athletic talent is a deciding factor in their admission) to between 10 and 15 percent of each entering class--a figure that would make it impossible to continue football. The Board approved its recommendation by a vote of 21-8.
In January, the Board heard new presentations by spokespersons for both sides and conducted what Board Chairman J. Lawrence Shane '56 called "an informed and thoughtful discussion." This time, no vote was taken, and the Board's earlier decision was reaffirmed by "a sense of the meeting."
"I thought it served a useful purpose," said the Board chair. "It allowed many Managers to recheck their thinking on the issue after listening again to those who disagreed."
Debate over the process that led to the Board vote has been almost as contentious as controversy over the decision itself. Many alumni who objected to the decision said that, by voting at its December meeting, the Board of Managers had broken its tradition of reaching conclusions by consensus. December's vote was unusual, said Shane, "but the Board was unanimous in agreeing that, for a variety of reasons, a decision on the future of athletics had to be made at that meeting. In the end, we all felt that it was important to honor the position of those who could not accept the ARC proposal by making their 'no' votes part of the record."
According to Dulaney Ogden Bennett '63, Board members on both sides of the issue agreed that delaying a decision on the fate of football and other sports would have put the Admissions Office and coaches in an unethical position with prospective students. Acting Dean of Admissions Jim Bock '90 told the ARC and the Board that Swarthmore could not admit student-athletes in good faith unless the future of the sports program was clear.
College administrators spent much of December explaining the need for athletics reform to students, parents, and alumni.
After responding to immediate student and parent protests (see "The End Zone," December Bulletin). President Alfred H. Bloom and Provost Jennie Keith, who had chaired the ARC, met privately with football players, wrestlers, and members of the women's badminton team. Bloom told the student-athletes that he valued all aspects of their contribution to the College and urged them to stay at Swarthmore.
Dean of the College Bob Gross '62 reported in January that three athletes transferred to other schools after the end of the first semester and that several others are considering transfers at the end of the academic year.
Asked to describe student reaction, Jordan Brackett '01, co-chair of Student Council during the first semester, said, "Reasonable people can disagree about important issues, and there's a reasonable disagreement here," he said, "but it's important to listen [to students]. There were mechanisms in place, but [those] didn't happen."
Brackett acknowledged that "you can't have a campuswide discussion about which sport to cut. You have to prevent different segments of the community from going to war with each other.... But there's a tricky balance between releasing enough information and releasing too much."
Student protest included a two-hour sit-in outside the Admissions Office on Dec. 4 and a large turnout for an open meeting with members of the ARC and top administrators that night. Reacting to fast-moving events, The Phoenix published new articles daily on its Web site and printed an unprecedented 36-page issue on Dec. 7. Sports columnist Kate Nelson-Lee '03, a varsity lacrosse player, expressed the feelings of some student athletes: "Though neither my coach nor the Admissions Office has directly stated it to me, I firmly believe that I received an acceptance letter two years ago because I was 'slotted.' I'm a recruited athlete.... The ARC and the Board may not like it, but they are sending a message to the student-athletes here that they are second-class citizens, that being an athlete makes you different in a negative way."
After the Dec. 2 vote, word of the decision spread quickly on the Internet, and both Board members and College administrators were inundated with messages, both pro and con. Alumni created two Web sites to rally others to their cause, and the College posted letters of support on its own Web site and later created a separate site (http://athleticsreview.swarthmore.edu), featuring documents related to the decision and answers to frequently asked questions.
College officials carefully read and tallied responses, writing personal replies to many letters and e-mails. Diane Crompton, director of development operations, said that Board members and administrators received communications from more than 1,200 alumni, parents, and students in the weeks after the decision.
Organizers of one alumni Web site, www.saveswatsports.com, announced in January the formation of an organization called "Mind the Light," which describes itself as "a standing organization, independent of the College, to ensure that the future of the College is reflective of its Quaker past and an inclusive set of core values." In February, Neil Austrian '61, who resigned from the Board of Managers after the January meeting, became chairman of Mind the Light. James Noyes, father of Julie Noyes '95 and former College lacrosse coach, also resigned from the Board.
Austrian, former president of the National Football League, told the Bulletin in early March that he had resigned from the Board because of a combination of factors, including what he called "broken commitments, a terribly flawed process, and an abrupt and hasty decision by the Board, which hadn't had time to consider any facts--and, incredibly, did not even have the facts in front of them when the decision was made."
Austrian said that Mind the Light would seek to "educate the alumni as to how this decision and process took place, so that it doesn't happen again." Organizers of Mind the Light have sent e-mails to numerous alumni and, Austrian said, a letter to all alumni was being prepared.
A letter to the College community signed by President Bloom, Provost Keith, and Board Chair Shane was mailed on Dec. 12--the same day that more than 200 alumni, mostly from the Philadelphia area, convened in the Swarthmore Friends Meetinghouse to express their views.
The session was moderated by Alan Symonette '76, a member of the Board of Managers and former president of the Alumni Association. It began with remarks by Bloom, who praised alumni for caring so deeply about the long-term health of the College. He later told the Bulletin, "I feel terrible for alumni who feel that something has been taken away from them. This was an incredibly difficult decision, but I am convinced that we did the right thing for Swarthmore."
Keith offered a detailed description of the ARC's 10-month process, which involved extensive discussion, rounds of interviews with coaches and student team captains, and research into the athletics programs at peer colleges.
The ARC determined that increased specialization and competition in Division III sports required Swarthmore to seek out talented athletes for most teams in order for the College to compete effectively in the Centennial Conference. (The conference includes Bryn Mawr, Dickinson, Franklin & Marshall, Gettysburg, Haverford, Muhlenberg, Ursinus, Washington, and Western Maryland colleges and The Johns Hopkins University.) The committee told the Board that a quarter of the male students would have to be recruited athletes if Swarthmore were to support football as well as the other male intercollegiate sports. The number of female athletes needed would be lower, about 15 percent. The price in admissions, the ARC majority decided, was too high.
At the open meeting, Board member Catherine Good Abbott '72, a member of the committee, explained that "it now takes 65 to 70 players to field a football team, which means that 1 in 10 [male students at the College] would have to play football.... The scarcest resource at Swarthmore is a place in the entering class--just 375 students per year--and 10 percent of the entering men would be needed for football."
For two hours, alumni took turns speaking at microphones set up in the aisles. Like many who spoke, Diana Judd Stevens '63 praised her athletic experience at the College as well as that of her husband, Paul Stevens '65, and daughter Kathryn '89. She warned that eliminating football would negatively affect other sports. She later said that "many students play more than one sport and are involved in other College activities. Top student- athletes won't apply to Swarthmore if they sense a negative attitude toward athletics here."
Robert Barr '56, dean emeritus of admissions, said, "People whose lives I followed with great pride … now may feel marginalized, less valued." He went on to emphasize that College Board scores--"the other thing driving this"--have "nothing to do with the development of students over the course of their careers."
Fred Kyle '54, a former Manager, spoke in favor of the Board's move. "I'm im-pressed with the arithmetic of the problem," he said. "My message to the Board is to walk up to the problem and face it. It's been with us the whole 50 years I've been involved with the College."
--Jeffrey Lott and Cathleen McCarthy
On a January afternoon, a dozen students cluster on the chairs and carpet of Parrish Parlors, chatting quietly while hunched over their needlework. No, this is not a quilting bee. They're knitting.
"It's really relaxing," says Bianca Passarelli '01, head of the Knit Wits club since 1998, "and it keeps you awake in class."
"Oh yeah," says Maria Alvarez '04, looking up from her latest creation, a pair of fingerless glove/mittens that dangle from a wire ring in her lap. "It also makes me feel like I'm being productive, even if I'm just watching TV or sitting on the floor, talking to my friends."
"It's a tactile thing. It just feels good," adds another student, launching an animated discussion of yarns, from ultrasoft "bunny angora" to spun dog hair--something no one in this group has tried. Yet.
Once thought of as the pastime of gray-haired ladies with spare needles stuck in their buns, knitting has become popular among youthful achievers, especially those frequently called on to wait. Julia Roberts is known to knit between takes on the movie set. Yarn is even infiltrating the fine arts. According to Philadelphia's City Paper (Jan. 4-11), Sheryl Robin David received a Pew Fellowship grant for her crochet art and, at Philadelphia's Fringe Festival last fall, a performance artist drew curious onlookers by knitting, unraveling, and reknitting the dress she was wearing.
The click of needles can be heard these days in Swarthmore's classrooms, dorms, and libraries. Now, in Parrish Parlors, the sound rises to an industrious buzz, as it does every Thursday afternoon when the Knit Wits gather to work on their latest projects and trade techniques, patterns, and stories of valiant--but not always victorious--efforts. After an hour, Passarelli pauses to update the group on ongoing community programs, such as the donation of knit caps to chemotherapy patients at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.
Meanwhile, skilled knitters like Joanna Brown '02--who works on a pair of gloves from a tricky system of single-pointed needles (most gloves are made on double-ended needles)--give pointers to newcomers like Kenneth "Ross" Hoffman '04, whose sister taught him to knit over Christmas break. Hoffman clicks away at a red wool beret, his second project, pausing to yank the rim onto his head, demonstrating a perfect fit. "That's the nice thing about knitting for yourself," a woman says, smiling.
As dusk falls over the snow-covered lawn outside, Alvarez pulls out a half-finished cable-knit sweater from her bag. "I'm really hoping to finish this before winter ends," she says. "I'm from California. I'm freezing here!"
--Cathleen McCarthy
In his Sustainable Development class this fall, Wlodzimierz "Wlod" Wojcik, Cornell Visiting Professor of Engineering and Environmental Studies, lost no time giving students their mission: a greening screening of the College. "Environmental sustainability" is a familiar topic for Wojcik. He has explored it for several years in his homeland, Poland, where he teaches at the Politechnika and the University of Mining and Metallurgy in Krakow. But compared with Poland, a place in dire need of pollution control, Swarthmore's campus was already pretty green.
"There's no doubt that compared to other universities in the United States and around the world, we are far ahead," Wojcik says. "A lot of colleges are very proud of what they have done, but compared to Swarthmore, they are just at the beginning--especially in terms of pest control, chemical usage, recycling, and composting."
However, there is always room for improvement, and Wojcik challenged his students to find it. He divided them into committees and set them loose on the campus. In the course of the semester, they grilled Swarthmore's faculty department heads, directors of Facilities Management, Environmental Services, Dining Services, and the Scott Arboretum and dissected recycling, chemical usage, land management, and shuttle transportation. Students studied not only technical points of view but also legal, financial, and even public relations.
Wojcik's students reported their findings at a December presentation, and details can be found on an impressive student-designed Web site (http://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/org/green). The Political Science and Biology departments were praised for the environmental connections in their courses, and suggestions were made for more environmental awareness in the curricula of the English, Economics, and Chemistry departments. Students also complimented the greening efforts of administration, staff (especially the Scott Arboretum), and the student group Earthlust but noted "a lack of collaboration and communication" among these groups.
The biggest surprise for Wojcik--who is at Swarthmore as part of the Poland exchange program--was the students themselves. "I thought they would be more aggressive and would oversimplify, but instead they seemed to understand the complexities of the problem. They saw that there is not one simple solution, that there are many constraints and connections, and many factors involved in environmental issues."
Jesse Hartigan '04 summed this up at the presentation. "We live in various systems, from the most general, the universe, to the most specific, local ecosystems," he said. "Within each of these systems is a series of interrelated components, physical, psychic, and spiritual…. The well-being of each depends on the well-being of all the others."
--Cathleen McCarthy
This lovely rock garden near Bond Hall is actually an experiment in pollution reduction and stormwater management, constructed as an alternative to underground cement drainage pipes in 1997. A collaboration of the Scott Arboretum, an engineering firm, and a landscape designer from Longwood Gardens, the biostream was designed to imitate a natural streambed. It was intended to reduce water pollutants by causing storm water to run over a bed of river rocks, which would leach out heavy metals from campus roadways and roofs before they entered the waterways via Crum Creek.
The effectiveness of the biostream as a pollution control was never scientifically tested, however, until senior engineering majors Marc Jeuland and Stephen Armah conducted a study last fall for Water Quality and Pollution Control, a class taught by Professor of Engineering Arthur McGarity.
After analyzing the runoff from three storms, the students found that the biostream removed 20 percent of "suspended solids" and 31 percent of organic matter, both of which can create problems in rivers and creeks. However, in late fall when the study was done, decomposing plants actually added to the amount of nitrate and phosphate in the water, which can tax the oxygen production of rivers and streams.
Along with further studies to analyze seasonal effects, Jeuland suggests adding water-leaching wetlands plants. "The types of plants being used there could make a significant difference," he says. "There hasn't been much research in that area, so it's hard to know which plants work best." For his senior design project, Jeuland plans to produce a "constructed wetlands for storm-water treatment"--using wetlands plants.
Claire Sawyers, director of the Scott Arboretum, welcomes the input. "Based on our success with the biostream, we're discussing putting a storm-water retention pond on Parrish lawn, near Mertz Hall," she says. "That would give us the opportunity to try additional plants that could serve as bioscreens. If students are able to identify such plants, that would be great."
--Cathleen McCarthy
Pulitzer
Prize-winning science journalist Laurie Garrett warned a packed Kirby
Lecture Hall last November of an impending global health crisis and
the perils of ignoring it. Garrett's talk "Public Health--For Whom?"
mixed hard, epidemiological data and sociological analysis with
individual stories and photographs culled from her award-winning book
The Coming Plague (1994) and her latest Betrayal of Trust: The
Collapse of Global Public Health (2000).
Garrett described AIDS as "the biggest killer in the history of our species" and said that the epidemic is still in its infancy. She also noted that the United States spends more on health than any other country, yet one in five is still without health insurance.
As part of the College's Media Fellow program, Garrett also met with student journalists over lunch before her talk. Previous fellows include 60 Minutes reporter Mike Wallace and Tom Bettag, executive producer of Nightline. "Her command of the political climate, economics, and all the details is just brilliant," said Kathryn Tong '01, a political science major. "Swarthmore students, because of our sense of community, are extremely interested in the issues she raises, such as access to health care in the Third World. She's definitely an inspiration."
--Alisa Giardinelli
Congressman Rush Holt [D-N.J.], who taught physics at the College from 1982 to 1986, returned to Swarthmore in February to offer an insider's look at the government. Holt was re-elected in November as a democrat from New Jersey's 12th district, by a margin of only 750 votes.
Civility, which he defined as "not just politics [but] courtesy and conformity with the rules of social order," is "generally lacking" in the government, he said. Without it, he warned, Congress will be continually engaged in campaigning and will approach all issues in a partisan manner. He also voiced concern about President Bush's "divisive policies," which he believes must be examined carefully.
He spoke with more warmth about his experience at the College. "Swarthmore was a great place to be," he said. While he taught here, Holt was an adjunct for the government, using his academic background to give advice on topics such as arms control.
He continued as a government liaison while serving as assistant director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, before running for Congress in 1996. Holt ended his talk by encouraging faculty and students to devote a little time to politics.
--Jonathan Ehrenfeld '04
As part of the reorganization of Swarthmore's intercollegiate athletics program, which eliminated football and wrestling and made badminton a club sport, the Department of Physical Education and Athletics and administration have been taking deliberate steps to strengthen the 21 continuing sports.
In accouncing the moves, President Alfred H. Bloom said the College's goal was to "more consistently offer student-athletes the quality of intercollegiate experience and the satisfaction they deserve."
The College is creating a new associate director of athletics position dedicated to the intercollegiate program. Reporting to Athletics Director Bob Williams, the associate director will provide support for recruitment, act as a liaison to the Admissions Office, and supervise the day-to-day operations of the intercollegiate program. The new position is expected to be filled by next fall.
The department and the Admissions Office will continue to work closely to identify and recruit athletes for Swarthmore teams. Jim Bock '90, acting dean of admissions, said that the need to recruit "is the reality in all levels of intercollegiate sports in this new era--one we must acknowledge if we are to have a competitive program. Still, our athletics and admissions staffs admit athletes who are students who can thrive at Swarthmore and take advantage of the extraordinary academic opportunities available here."
In addition, the coaches of softball and baseball are being asked to increase their hours this spring to as close to full time as they are able, and the volleyball coach has agreed to work off-season to recruit for next fall. In addition, the department and administration are working to further redefine coaching positions to ensure that each intercollegiate team has a full-time department member as head coach.
Athletic Director Bob Williams stressed that the increased time on campus will make a significant difference in the effort to integrate intercollegiate athletics more fully into campus life. "Coaches do an awful lot of counseling and work on student life issues," Williams said. "This change will bring the coaches closer to the College and help with their understanding of the overall mission of the school, which will, in turn, enable them to provide more support for our student-athletes."
The Athletics Review Committee (ARC), whose Dec. 2 recommendation to limit the number of recruited athletes to between 10 and 15 percent of each entering class began the reorganization, is devoting the next phase of its work to shaping a campus culture that offers greater appreciation for the contributions of student-athletes. "In consultation with students--both athletes and non-athletes--as well as representatives of the broader campus community, we plan to assess the current climate for student-athletes and develop strategies to make it what it should be," said Provost Jennie Keith, who chairs the ARC.
--Tom Krattenmaker
Pete Alvanos, who coached Swarthmore football for three years before the program was eliminated in December, has accepted the job of head football coach at Hamilton College in Clinton, N.Y. Alvanos was also offered the head coaching job at Ursinus College, a team with a strong record in the same Centennial Conference as Swarthmore. Hamilton, on the other hand, had its last winning season in 1996. "I really enjoyed my three years here," Alvanos told the Swarthmorean. "I have no regrets [about] coming to Swarthmore and doing what was asked of us."
The Board of Managers elected four new members at its December meeting: Wilma Lewis '78, Carl Russo '79, Salem Shuchman '86, and Pamela Wetzels '52. Lewis, Russo, and Shuchman are term Managers; Wetzels is an alumni Manager. All will serve four-year terms.
Lewis has a J.D. from Harvard Law School and is an attorney in the U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia. Russo is group vice president of Optical Networking at Cisco Systems in San Jose, Calif. Shuchman is a general partner at Patricof & Co. Ventures, Inc., in New York City. Wetzels lives in Austin, Texas, where she has been involved with numerous civic organizations.
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Wilma Lewis ’78 |
Carl Russo ’79 |
Salem |
Pam Wetzels ’52 |
It was quite a season for Swarthmore women athletes. A record-setting performance in basketball was just one of three championships won by women's teams. Swimmers and badminton players also had outstanding seasons. Here are the highlights of a memorable winter for Garnet sports.
• Women's basketball (23-5) won its first-ever Centennial Conference title, earning a berth in the NCAA Tournament. The Garnet defeated Johns Hopkins in the championship game, 63-53. Heather Kile '02 paced Swarthmore with 22 points and Alison Furman '03 matched her career-high with 21 points with a Centennial playoff record-tying seven three-pointers. Kile was named first-team all-Centennial for the third consecutive season and moved into second place on the Swarthmore all-time scoring and rebounding lists. The Garnet set a new record for wins in a season, posting 23 victories before being defeated by Elizabethtown College in the second round of the NCAA tournament. The previous mark, established last season, was 14.
• Women's swimming (7-3) also won the Centennial Conference championship, outpointing Gettysburg 679-639. Alice Bonarou '02 won the 100 butterfly in a time of 59.67, and Natalie Briones '03 captured gold in the 100 breaststroke in 1:08.92. The duo teamed with Becca Howes-Mischel '01 and Davita Burkhead-Weiner '03 to capture the 400 medley relay in 4:04.48. The 200 freestyle relay team of Leah Davis '04, Tara Trout '04, Burkhead-Weiner, and Amy Auerbach '02 set a Swarthmore record with a second place finish in 1:41.69.
• The badminton team (7-0) captured the PAIAW championship. The doubles team of Siobhan Carty '01 and Karen Lange '02 placed second at the Northeast Regional Badminton Championships to lead the Garnet to a second-place team finish, earning a trip to the National Championships at Albright College.
• Men's swimming (3-6) finished third at the Centennial Conference championships. Ted Sherer '01 won the 100 breaststroke for the third consecutive season, and David Whitehead '03 captured the 100 butterfly in 52.80. The duo teamed up with Mike Dudley '03 and John Lillvis '03 to win the 400 and 200 medley relays.
• The men's indoor track and field team placed 8th of 9 at the Centennial Conference Championships. Captain Marc Jeuland '01 won the 5000 in a time of 15:16.04 and set a school record with a second place finish in the 3000 (8:45.41).
• The women's indoor track and field team placed 5th out of 10. Joko Agunloye '01 won the 5000 in a time of 18:27.54. The 4 x 800 (9:50.25) and distance medley relay (12:46.07) teams of Agunloye, Sarah Jay '01, Claire Hoverman '03, and Njideka Akunyili '04 earned silver medals in school-record times. Jay set a school mark in the 1500 in a NCAA qualifying time of 4:45.30 to earn a bronze medal. Sarah Selling '03 set a school mark in the pole vault, clearing 6'8".
--Mark Duzenski
Thrilled to find he had campus access to the on-line version of the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (www.grovemusic.com), George Huber, performing arts librarian at the Underhill Music Library, immediately did a "full-text search" for Swarthmore. "We have 14 hits," he reports happily.
Since Sir George Grove published his dictionary in the late 19th century, it has become the ultimate resource in English for music scholarship. With the latest print edition, published in January, the series has expanded to 29 volumes and 25 million words and retails for $4,850.
But, as Huber points out, on-line access can be had for a $300 annual fee--unless you happen to be at a place like Swarthmore, which offers it free. Among the Swarthmore "hits," you'll find alumni such as composer and humorist Peter Schikele '57; the late opera expert John Rosselli '46; Joseph Horowitz '70, music critic for The New York Times; and H.C. Robbins Landon, whose most recent book was Mozart Essays. Other Swarthmoreans who have contributed articles include Bill Gatens '73 (four) and James Freeman, professor of music and chair of the Music Department (three). You'll also find several people who taught at the College over the years, including Jane O'Leary, Paul Lansky, David Finko, Alfred Swan, Harrison Birtwistle, and Claudio Spies (in an article written by Robert Pollock '68).
--Cathleen McCarthy
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