Joseph
Kimmel '44 has become a widely recognized expert on vehicle rollovers
since he developed his K Rollover Stability Index.
The K Index is a mathematical formula for determining a vehicle's probability for rolling over in an accident. After it was endorsed by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), leading experts, and the Center for Auto Safety, a consumer advocacy organization, the K Index received national attention in an extensive USA Today article last July 17.
Kimmel's interest in the rollover issue was sparked after reading that NHTSA, in the early 1990s, was concerned about the issue. Statistics from NHTSA in 1998 show that 9,771 people were killed in rollovers.
Kimmel's K Index algorithm is primarily based on a vehicle's height, weight, and track width, which is the distance between tires measured from the center of one to the center of the other on the opposite side. Wider, heavier, and lower vehicles have the lowest probability of rollover.
However, Kimmel says other factors, including road conditions, speed, and even the state in which the car is driven, must also be considered. He says 70 percent of rollovers are related to a vehicle's dimensions, and 30 percent are related to drivers and the driving environment. Rollovers become a factor because of traffic congestion and driver demographics.
Kimmel says statistics show that bureaucrats tend to drive more conservatively. "A lot of bureaucrats live in the Maryland suburbs just outside of Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, and there's a lower incidence of rollovers there," he says. "The Beltway around Washington, D.C., moves very slowly much of the time because of traffic congestion."
Kimmel analyzed 189 popular model-year 2000 vehicles last year, exclusively for USA Today. Using the K Index, it was determined that 55 of those vehicles would roll over in at least 20 percent of accidents. According to the article, of the 55 vehicles most prone to roll over, about 80 percent were sport utility vehicles (SUVs).
SUVs that received the worst ratings--showing a probability of rolling over in 38 to 43.9 percent of accidents--were the Chevrolet Tracker, Suzuki Vitara, and Toyota RAV4. The SUV least likely to rollover: the Ford Excursion. It had a probability of rollover in 13 percent of accidents.
According to the article, Kimmel found that traditional passenger cars most likely to roll over, in 18 to 21.9 percent of accidents, are the Chevrolet Metro, Suzuki Swift and Toyota Echo. Among the cars least likely to roll over, in 1 to 3.9 percent of accidents, are the Acura 3.5RL; Audi A6 Avant; Bentley; BMW 740, 528; Dodge Viper and Ford Crown Victoria. Kimmel's findings for 2001 vehicles are expected to be published in USA Today in the near future.
A personal experience drew Kimmel to the issue and the decision to help solve the problem. "In 1933, I was 12 and holding my sister's 3-month-old son in a two-door Ford V-8 car. My sister lost control of the car on a gravel road, and we rolled end over end. The roof was crushed. We had to climb out of the shattered windows. Fortunately, everyone was OK. Cars were very lightweight back then compared with now," says Kimmel, who owns two cars--a 1989 420 SEL Mercedes ("It's 4,800 pounds and has a 122-inch wheel base") and a 1999 Audi A42.8 ("It's all-wheel drive and can go anywhere").
In January, NHTSA announced its own rating system for determining a vehicle's probability for rolling over. "The government's rating system has just five steps. Mine is more precise with 10 gradations," says Kimmel. He also states that the government's figures are too gross and don't account for different rates in different states.
To develop his K Index, Kimmel, an industrial economist, used his statistics background. He majored in economics at Swarthmore and has a master's in economics from the University of Pittsburgh. He operates two businesses: JWK Associates, a management consulting company, and Transportation Analysis Institute. Clients of his consulting services have included the Red Cross, Citibank, and the federal government, where he helped reorganize Social Security's supplemental security income and disability insurance operations for the Department of Health and Human Services.
Kimmel and his wife, Elizabeth Blackburn Kimmel '44, have lived in Radnor, Pa., since 1953. In addition to his businesses, Kimmel is active in local Republican politics. He was the founder of the Republican New Look, a re-
form group that ended Republican patronage in the township's government workforce, and for 10 years, he has written a weekly political column for the local Suburban and Wayne Times newspaper.
Looking to the future, Kimmel sees a notable reduction in the number of vehicle rollovers with the increased use of vehicle stability systems. Stability systems, now widely available on high-end cars, work by controlling the skid, which is often what precedes a roll over.
According to Tier One, a market research organization for the automotive industry, it's predicted that by 2008 more than 21 percent of all North American built vehicles will come with some form of a stability-enhancing system. That's a huge increase from just 3 percent last year.
"The stability system is tied into the braking system. It will stop a skid by alternating the braking pressure on each wheel," Kimmel says. "I think having them in more vehicles is a very good idea. They're very effective."
--Audree Penner
In
June 1997, J. Stannard Baker and his partner, Peter Harrigan, went to
the town clerk's office in Shelburne, Vt., and requested a marriage
license. The clerk politely refused. Baker, a child and family
therapist and director of a mental health agency in Middlebury, and
Harrigan, a tenured professor of theater at St. Michael's College,
along with two lesbian couples, filed the Vermont lawsuit that
ultimately led to the history-making Civil Unions Act, which allows
same-sex couples the same legal rights, privileges, and
responsibilities as married heterosexual couples. The lawsuit,
referred to as the Baker Case, led to one of the most significant
gains for the gay and lesbian rights movement in 30 years.
Although Baker was already active in Vermont gay politics, when he was asked by a friend to narrate a promotional video for The Freedom to Marry Task Force, he also became involved in the issue. Two Vermont attorneys had been preparing background material for the suit, and several lesbian couples had agreed to be plaintiffs, but no gay men had stepped forward. "Peter and I spoke to our families and colleagues, and they all supported our decision," says Baker. With secure jobs at institutions with nondiscrimination policies that included sexual orientation, they felt the risks would be minimal. "I also did it because I fell in love with Peter," says Baker. "Because I had been in a previous heterosexual marriage for 20 years, I also knew how powerful those legal and social supports could be to our relationship."
The lawsuit was filed in July 1997, and, by November 1998, the case had moved up to the state Supreme Court. After 13 months of deliberating, the justices came to a unanimous ruling on the Baker Case. Chief Justice Jeffrey Amestoy, a Republican, read the court's statement: "The extension of the Common Benefits Clause [of the Vermont Constitution] to acknowledge the plaintiffs as Vermonters who seek nothing more, nor less, than legal protection and security for their avowed commitment to an intimate and lasting human relationship is simply, when all is said and done, a recognition of our common humanity." Baker and Harrigan were elated.
The court left it to the Vermont Legislature to decide how to grant full rights and benefits to same-sex couples. The legislature spent the 2000 session debating and holding public hearings in the House of Representatives and Senate. Baker was in the public spotlight, traveling around the state speaking to church groups and civic groups every week. "Our purpose as plaintiffs was to put a personal face on the issue," he says. "It was 'Peter and Stan,' not 'those gay people.' After a sometimes bitter battle, the Legislature voted to create an institution called civil union, affording same-sex couples the same rights under the law as married couples.
Baker and Harrigan married on Aug. 13 in an Episcopal Church with a choir, a priest, and 270 guests. "It was more than just a ceremony of our commitment; it is a legal union," says Baker, who adds, "Having the rights of marriage includes having to go through a lot of bureaucratic hoops if we ever wanted to dissolve it--just like heterosexual couples."
But there was a shadow looming over the festivities. While Baker was celebrating his marriage, large amounts of money were flowing in from out-of-state conservative groups to fund a highly visible campaign to overturn the Civil Unions Act. "Take Back Vermont" signs appeared in stores and in farmer's fields throughout the state. Baker's neighbors put up their own signs, "Move Vermont Forward," and "Keep Vermont Civil." He and Harrigan were grateful for the support.
On election day, Baker and Harrigan anxiously watched the local election returns and breathed a sigh of relief when opponents of civil unions failed to unseat the governor and take over Vermont government. Not only that, exit polls showed a strong majority of Vermonters supporting civil unions.
While five more states are now considering civil union legislation, the battle continues in Vermont, albeit somewhat more calmly. "I believe," says Baker, "that as we go into the most powerful and fundamental institution of our culture--marriage--and ask it to apply to same-sex couples, we tell young people they have a choice. Justice is the best antidote to despair."
--Laura Markowitz '85
When
he graduated from Swarthmore, Don Selby had no idea that 25 years
later he'd be running what is probably the most popular Web site
around devoted entirely to contemporary poetry.
Poetry Daily (PD), at www.poems.com (or www.poetrydaily.org), is a nonprofit company that features the work of a different contemporary poet each day. It also keeps an archive of poets, provides links to articles about poetry published in major print-media outlets, and is linked to Amazon.com--so visitors can order books by featured poets with a couple of clicks of the mouse. PD, funded almost entirely by individuals' donations (don't let the "dot.com" fool you!), boasts 45 million yearly hits and 3 million yearly "visits" (a measure of the number of people who stay at the Web site for any length of time). It has 19,000 subscribers to its weekly e-mail newsletter. "Poets, students, academics, and wannabes," says Selby, who founded the site with two partners, Diane Boller and Rob Anderson, in 1997, "but also heavy equipment operators, designers, military men and women, software professionals, unemployed persons, and lawyers and doctors who tell us they sign on to redeem their day! We get mail from South Dakota! India! Even a research ship in Antartica!"
PD's stated mission: "To make it easier for people to find poets and poetry they like, and to help publishers bring news of their books, magazines, and journals to more people."
A self-described "last-minute English major" in college, Selby is not a poet himself. "My last effort was for my junior high magazine. No way to surpass that accomplishment, so I gave it up."
From Swarthmore, he went directly to the University of Virginia's law school but never practiced law. Instead, he got a job with a small Charlottesville legal publishing company, which eventually became part of LEXIS-NEXIS, the massive on- and off-line law-and-business publications company. Toward the end of his 20-year tenure there, he got to talking with an employee--Boller--who was interested in contemporary poetry. They had both noticed how difficult it was to find contemporary poetry collections and journals even in the best bookstores. "We started talking about what could happen for poetry, how we could get it a wider audience," says Selby. "And that's how Poetry Daily began."
Selby, who is currently the site's only full-time employee, says they have not done much self-promotion. "But we were on-line early, and it turns out poetry is one of the most searched-for things on the Web. We got our URL early enough that we got "poems.-
com," and we had experience designing sites, so we knew how to make it easy for search engines to find us. Early on, cultural editors at newspapers were browsing around to see what was happening on the Web. The New York Times, the Times of London, and the Wall Street Journal found us and did articles." PD is now on most poetry book and journal publishers' review copy lists, and every time the site features a poet, "we immediately get a gigantic new network of their friends, family, and fellow poets."
Now, says Selby, the only problem is what to do with the massive mountain of poetry books piling up in his basement, with dozens more coming in weekly.
--Daisy Fried
Swarthmore
has produced some notable choreographers and dancers, but Amelia
Rudolph may be the only one who often performs several hundred feet
above ground. A performance by Project Bandaloop--the group Rudolph
founded nearly a decade ago--is not easily forgotten.
Bandaloop was recently featured on PBS and in Smithsonian Magazine, performing a dance called "Luminescent Flights" off the face of a 2,400-foot granite cliff in Yosemite National Park.
It's an appropriate title, considering that Bandaloop's specialty is equal parts flight and modern dance, rappelling and gymnastics--a sort of sophisticated high-wire act without the net. Rudolph's group has performed on such "stages" as Seattle's Space Needle, the Vasco da Gama Tower in Lisbon, Portugal, and the Pacific cliffs of California.
"Dancing while rappelling has its limitations in terms of choreography, but solving those problems is what intrigues me," says Rudolph, who lives in Oakland, Calif. Although they often perform on the ground, it's the hybrid of mountaineering and dance that drives Project Bandaloop.
Rudolph came to Swarthmore from Chicago's Hubbard School of Dance. Although she majored in comparative religion, she took a lot of dance. "The dance program at Swarthmore is incredible in its ability to bring amazing people in to work with the students," she recalls. "That made it very transformative for me."
After graduation, she performed with prominent modern dance artists such as Mark Morris. But after a knee injury, she returned to comparative religion, this time at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. While preparing her thesis on "American modern dance as ritual," she began working with four of the dancers who now make up Project Bandaloop. All were avid climbers, a passion Rudolph discovered at 25.
Together, the group developed their suspended-dance technique. Hanging from anchored ropes, they wear climbing harnesses and use self-locking devices to descend and hold their positions while they dance. Like the rest of the company, Rudolph is a skilled mountaineer as well as a world-class dancer. On top of the rigors of dancing, they have to traverse cliff walls considered challenging even to career climbers.
"The reason I chose this, rather than a more traditional track, has everything to do with rock climbing," Rudolph explains. "My experience of nature was--and is--profound. Being in the mountains gave me a powerful incentive to create art. It's a continuing theme throughout what I do." So is her interest in religion. "I think modern North American culture is lacking in meaningful rituals that bring us together as a community and lift our spirits. A good performance of gravity-skewing dance can do that."
Most dances Bandaloop performs--even those on city skyscrapers--focus on "capturing the experience of the mountains." Performances have a heart-stopping effect on audiences, but Rudolph insists, it's not as dangerous as it looks. The company employs two professional riggers. "We are extremely safety conscious," she says.
It takes a lot to frighten her these days.
"I don't even register 150 feet or a 10-story building anymore," she admits, "but when we went out a 23-story window in downtown Houston last year, I was scared--something about seeing those tiny cars below! We're all aware in that moment that there is no going back until we're on the ground. On a building, you can't even find a root to hold onto. But once we start rehearsing, we become completely focused on the choreography."
One drawback to choreographing at such dizzying heights, she says, is that audiences are often so distracted by the perceived danger that they miss the subtleties of the dance. "I want people to ignore the sweaty palms and enjoy the work," she says. "I don't deny that there's an incredible feeling when you first go out a 23rd-story window or over the edge of a cliff. But my motivation is the creative ways that I can explore movement, enabled by these unusual situations."
Meanwhile, there are plenty of impressive vertical stages left to dance on, both natural and man-made. And there's one wall that holds particular attractions for Rudolph: "It would be so cool to perform on Clothier Tower!"
--Cathleen McCarthy
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