Collection - Swarthmore College Bulletin

At 9:15 a.m., the front porch of Parrish Hall is nearly empty, but this Sunday is not a sleepy one in Swarthmore. In less than an hour, the Clothier Hall bells will peal, and the procession will begin. The Class of 2002 is about to graduate.

Inside Parrish, gowned faculty members begin to gather in the parlors. Some changed into their colorful garb at home, walking borough streets to the College like medieval dons. Professor of Mathematics Don Shimamoto, in his first year as faculty marshal, is there early. Wielding the College’s silver mace, his job is to herd the faculty into line, two by two.

Under the trees outside, seniors adjust their mortarboards. Most wear roses from the Dean Bond Rose Garden, where the subtraction of 336 perfect blossoms hardly diminishes the glorious display. The Scott Arboretum staff, wearing pruning clippers like badges, pinned on the flowers.

A few minutes before 10, President Alfred H. Bloom comes down from his office, smiling and resplendent in crimson. With him are diplomat Denis Halliday and journalist Josef Joffe ’65, who will receive honorary degrees. Bloom chats with Board Chairman Larry Shane ’56 as the procession takes shape behind them.

The seniors form an alphabetical line, also two by two. Registrar Martin Warner fusses over them, addressing most by name. In his head, no doubt, are their majors, grades, and credit hours. If this were sixth grade, he would be telling them not to shove and push, but we’re over that now. One young woman sobs onto the shoulder of a friend—a private sadness amid the general joy.

Near the head of the line, Stu Hain, associate vice president for facilities, speaks quietly by radio to an unseen person controlling Clothier’s bells. The chimes begin, and Shimamoto raises the mace. Perched above the Scott Amphitheater, a brass ensemble begins a sonata by Johann Cristoph Pezel. Swarthmore’s 130th Commencement has begun.

The faculty, now miraculously organized and appointed in a rainbow of robes, streams out of Parrish toward the shady woods. The seniors follow, picking up the pace when they hear the music. Along the way, scores of housekeepers, food service staff, and secretaries applaud and call to their favorite students. A few break ranks for a quick hug or handshake.

As the head of the procession reaches the amphitheater and its tail begins to move near the library, it looks like a colorful black-robed caterpillar with a thousand different shoes peeking out from under its collective gown, moving as a single organism toward its graduation metamorphosis.

In the breezy shade of the amphitheater, parents and grandparents—some of whom claimed their seats quite early—stand to welcome the procession. Conductor John Alston, associate professor of music, glances over his shoulder to see how many more measures will be needed as the caterpillar inches down the stone steps and seats itself on waiting white chairs.

It’s difficult to say why Swarthmore’s Commencement seems so special. As with every such ceremony, there are invocations and admonitions and last bits of advice. There are traditions, like the engineering students’ final gimmick. (This year, each carried a light bulb to be screwed into a giant E they had constructed, and somehow, they made the Clothier bell ring 22 times—once for each B.S. diploma.) There are the usual awards and speeches and honorary degrees.

Yet, rather than becoming a cliché, the ceremony seems to gather meaning—a symbolic moment at the heart of what a college does. After the calls and waves of friends, after the thousands of photographs and miles of videotape, after the traditional moment of Quaker silence, the Class of 2002 is the palpable product of everyone’s labor here.

Larry Shane welcomes the throng and asks the class to face their parents, guardians, and friends—to say thank you. The gesture is sustained and genuine. It is followed by a scripture reading by Marc Sonnenfeld ’68, who quotes from Proverbs: “Happy is he who has found wisdom.”

Class speaker David Kamin then compares Swarthmore students to Smurfs—“McCabe Library Smurfs, Paces Café Smurfs, Activist Smurfs, Interpretation Theory Smurfs, and the soon-to-be-extinct Football Smurf.”

“The point is,” he explains, “there are real differences among us. We are a truly diverse community, and, as I grew in my ‘Smurfiness’ here at Swarthmore, I became less wrapped up in my own need to prove myself—less intimidated by the uniqueness of those around me—and I was able to learn from instead of compete with the ideas and experiences of my fellow Swatties.”

Kamin shares his thoughts about what he calls “the greatest philosophical and artistic work of the 20th century,” Steven Spielberg’s E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial. “Arriving at Swarthmore was like being left behind on a foreign world,” he says. “Now, Swarthmore has become our ‘mother ship,’ so to speak. We have been empowered with an education that few can receive. We are, whether we like it or not, an intellectual elite, and we are about to venture out into a world that seems sadly sinister. It is a world in which despair has won the day and in which the future seems only to promise further bloodshed.

“We enter this world with a special power. Do you remember how E.T. could heal things? He would stick out his finger; light would shine; a dead pot of flowers, without hope, without a future, would be resurrected—and, most important, Drew Barrymore would smile.

“I wish I could say that we’re just like E.T.—that at the moment we graduate, we could open our mouths, and the world would understand the futility of today’s violence. But although we may not be magical, we are powerful. We are powerful because of the hope that the years here at Swarthmore give us—the hope of seeing students from different cultures and backgrounds coming together to build one peaceful intellectual community. We are powerful because we have been given the tools of this elite institution. The tasks before us are vast. Our efforts may fail, but, in one way or another, it is our duty to try to heal this world.”

As if he and Kamin had coordinated their talks for maximum effect, President Bloom then takes the podium and challenges the class to change the world. “Your senior year began with Sept. 11, a stark reminder of how few individuals it takes to have a devastating impact on the world,” he says. “Let June 2 be a powerful reminder of the magnitude of the positive impact that 336 extraordinary individuals can have. Do not sell yourselves, or the world, short.”

Their Swarthmore experience, he says, “will enable you to thrive in whatever careers you choose and will all but assure a future of economic security and societal respect….

“However, in light of how much there is to do to secure our nation and ensure a peaceful world; in light of how much there is to do to create the productivity and the patterns of distribution required to provide adequate nutrition, health care, and education to our own and the world’s population; … in light of how very much there is to do, I ask you to set your ambitions beyond personal and professional success to have the broader impact for which you are also so very well prepared….

“If you devote yourself to research, be the one who refines or redefines the current paradigm in ways you believe will guide the discipline onto a more productive or significant path. If you devote yourself to education, be the model teacher, principal, and educational leader who offers a vision of finer education and who leads the system, or the nation, to deliver on that vision.

“If you choose medicine, law, or business, be the one who introduces treatments, professional directions, or strategies more responsive to the needs of the broader society and the world. If you choose the nonprofit or public sector, be the individual who imagines directions your institution or society might take toward your vision of the good and who, by articulate, persuasive, and public example, galvanizes broader commit-ment and action to that end.”

After Bloom’s remarks, it is time to award honorary degrees. Denis Halliday, former U.N. assistant secretary-general, dons his Swarthmore hood and speaks humbly of the rewards and disappointments of his 34-year career at the United Nations, where he served primarily in humanitarian assistance posts.

In 1997, Secretary-General Kofi Annan had named Halliday, who is an Irish national, as U.N. humanitarian coordinator in Iraq. He served in this position until September 1998, when he resigned to protest the U.N. sanctions against that country. His public resignation ended his U.N. career but freed him to speak out against the effects of the sanctions. As Swarthmore’s Lang Professor of Social Change during the fall semesters of 1999 and 2000, he taught classes in the Peace and Conflict Studies Program.

In an intensely personal five-minute talk, Halliday candidly tells the graduating class of his regrets about his career, especially the times when he remained silent in the face of injustice: “Looking back over those many years, I realize now more than ever that I compromised my own integrity by silence, by nonparticipation in important issues before the world during those years. I was an international civil servant—always living overseas as a guest in another country—not free to vote, not free to speak out on matters of peace, justice, and social equality. In my desire to serve the United Nations, I set aside for more then 30 years my commitment to such issues—ones that preoccupied me during my own student years.”

“Happily,” he notes, “we have among Swarthmore graduates young men and women who want it all—a brilliant, exciting career in a chosen field but yet the ability to be themselves. Freedom to continue good works, the courage to speak out, even when socially embarrassing—or possibly career threatening. To be able to stand up when driven by outrage, by a sense of unacceptable injustice, by witnessing wrong yet knowing the capacity for right exists in abundance.”

Next, President Bloom introduces alumnus Josef Joffe, publisher and editor of the influential German weekly Die Zeit. A double major in economics and political science at Swarthmore, Joffe holds a Ph.D. in government from Harvard and has taught at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Stanford universities. Bloom describes him as a “public intellectual whose interpretations of current political, economic, and social issues consistently offer your global audience new levels of understanding and greater ethical clarity.”

Joffe jokes that, by being honored by Swarthmore, he has finally surpassed his “old friend and teacher” Henry Kissinger, who has never received an honorary degree from his alma mater, Harvard. “[This] proves that Swarthmore is a lot smarter than Harvard,” he says, “but we knew that all along.”

Praising his Swarthmore education, he says it “never became obsolete. What I learned here in philosophy, economics, and political science, in psychology and art history, was money in the piggy bank of the mind that was never depleted. It was the asset of all assets that kept multiplying. Because liberal arts, unlike all those ‘relevant’ subjects from management studies to computer science, never turns obsolete. Liberal arts is the tool of all tools that will accompany you all your life and make you not only a bit smarter but also a bit wiser.”

Referring to the contemporary film Spider-Man, Joffe says, “Look at him. In school, he was put down as a bookworm and ignored by the girl he adored. He has to navigate the shoals of self-doubt and desperation, as we did when we could not finish that seminar paper due in six hours….

But then he was bitten by the spider, and he turned into a superhero. That’s you: You, the graduates, have been bitten by the spider that is Swarthmore.”

Following the speeches, Shimamoto steps forward with the mace. He instructs the class to rise and wear their mortarboards. President Bloom steps to the microphone and intones: “By the power vested in me by the Board of Managers of Swarthmore College and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.…” The tassels are moved en masse, and suddenly it’s official.

Provost Constance Cain Hungerford (who just a year ago was herself carrying the mace) reads each name as the 336 members of the Class of 2002 come forward to receive rolled-up, garnet-ribboned diplomas from a beaming President Bloom. Hoots of joy fill the air from family and friends in the audience.

It takes more than an hour to get from Prince Chuks Achime, a political science major from Duncanville, Texas, to Johanna Moran Yoon, an engineering and art double major from Toledo, Ohio. But then the caterpillar, suitably inoculated by its Swarthmore spider bite, stirs itself to climb out of the amphitheater. The music turns celebratory, as Alston conducts his own arrangement of “Sir Duke” by Stevie Wonder. At the top of the steps, the procession breaks up. The cocoon is cracked; wings unfurl; the metamorphosis is complete.

In the shade of a sour gum tree on Parrish lawn, the arboretum folks hand out souvenir pots of Virginia sweetspire (Itea virginica, Henry’s Garnet). Plant it carefully, I think. Feed and water it well.

—Jeffrey Lott

The complete texts of all Commencement speeches—including the baccalaureate speech by Samantha Power, executive director of the Carr Center for Human Rights Policy at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and the Last Collection speech by Associate Professor of History Tim Burke—are available at www.swarthmore.edu/news/commencement/index2.html.

In a rare U.S. appearance, acclaimed Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish read his poetry in April to a capacity crowd in the Lang Peforming Arts Center. His reading followed a concert by Lebanese musician Marcel Khalife, who canceled dates of his North American tour to attend the event. Both men were introduced as “iconic figures of the Arab world” by Columbia University Professor Edward Said, himself a renowned scholar of modern literature and an expert on Middle Eastern politics.

Although billed as a cultural event stemming from Swarthmore’s interest in promoting Islamic studies, the current political situation in the Middle East was never too far from the surface. In his introduction of Said, Professor of English Literature Peter Schmidt posed questions about U.S. foreign policy in the region and denounced the “deliberate obliterat[ion]” of the “cultural and social infrastructure of Palestine.” Said echoed those sentiments and decried what he called the denigration of Arab culture in the United States, describing it as “pathetically undertaught and unknown.”

Their remarks helped make clear the significance of the headliners’ joint appearance on an American stage. “This event brought a very special part of Arab and Palestinian culture to the United States,” said Assistant Professor of Anthropology Farha Ghannam, a Palestinian who grew up in Jordan. “It also brought together not only one of my favorite poets, an intellectual whom I respect highly, but a singer whom I adored as a teenager. It was wonderful and extremely important to see Palestinian heritage presented and celebrated outside the usual stereotypes.”

Khalife, hailed for composing songs in Arabic using contemporary Arabic poetry, performed musical arrangements based on Darwish’s work. Darwish, the author of more than two dozen books of poetry and prose, read in Arabic from his recent work, while well-known poets Carolyn Forché and Naomi Shihab Nye read different selections from his poems in English. Although his work has been translated into more than 20 languages, very few of his poetry collections are available in English.

Darwish is the recipient of numerous international literary awards, including the $350,000 Lannan Foundation Prize for Cultural Freedom, announced in November. The foundation, which helped arrange his visit, had originally planned to present the award during the program. Instead, according to Vice President for College and Community Relations Maurice Eldridge ’61 in the April 25 issue of The Phoenix, the ceremony was moved to Philadelphia to avoid giving the appearance that the award was coming from the College. Following the reading, students Amalle Dublon ’04, an Israeli citizen, and Selma Hassan ’02, from Sudan, presented Darwish with a Lebanese cedar that will be planted on campus in his honor along with a plaque inscribed with a stanza from his poem “Ruba’iyat”: “I have seen all I want to see of war / A spring of water / Our forefathers squeezed / From a green stone. / Our fathers inherited the water / But they do not give it to us. / I close my eyes: / What is left of the land / I make with my own hands.”

A total of 892 students, including 154 notified during early-decision period, were offered admission to the Class of 2006, which by midsummer was expected to number 375 students. The College accepted 23 percent of the more than 3,900 who applied. Of the admitted students from high schools that report class rank, 35 percent were valedictorians or salutatorians, 53 percent were in the top 2 percent of their high school class, and 93 percent ranked in the top 10 percent. The admitted students came from five continents, 39 nations, and all 50 U.S. states. Fifty-seven percent of the admitted students come from public high schools, 29 percent from private independent schools, 6 percent from parochial schools, and 7 percent from schools overseas. Continuing the trend of recent years, more of the admitted students declare “undecided” as their intended major than any other. Next, in order, are biology, engineering, political science, English, mathematics, economics, and history.

Associate Professor of History Timothy Burke, a specialist in African history and American pop culture, was chosen by members of the Class of 2002 to be their Last Collection speaker—a singular honor. One reason for Burke’s popularity among students might be his Web site. On it, he has the usual syllabi for courses and synopses of his scholarly work. He is author of Lifebuoy Men, Lux Women, a study of how “inhabitants of colonial Zimbabwe developed deeply felt needs and desires for the products of capitalist manufacturing.” And with his brother, Kevin, he wrote Saturday Morning Fever, an admiring look at television’s cartoon culture. But Burke leaps beyond scholarship to offer such Web goodies as: “Professor Burke Explains It All to You”(an advice column for students); “Boiling Oil: Messages from the Ivory Tower” (essays on academe); and the “Geek Chronicles” (commentaries on geek culture). Then there are his “Cranky Restaurant Reviews,” which tell you everything you need to know—and a few things you might prefer you didn’t—about Swarthmore-area and Philadelphia restaurants. For a taste of Burke, click that browser over to http://www.swarthmore.edu/SocSci/tburke1.

The Swarthmore College Peace Collection has received a grant from the National Film Preservation Foundation (NFPF) to repair an original 16-mm print of the film Walk to Freedom. The Peace Collection’s copy of the film is one of only two remaining originals produced in the 1950s by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, the oldest U.S. religious peace group. Though Wendy Chmielewski, Cooley Curator of the Peace Collection, submitted a proposal to restore nine films, the NFPF chose to subsidize only the repair of Walk to Freedom because it contains unique footage of the 1956 Montgomery, Ala., bus boycott. (In the still photo at left, boycott leader Rosa Parks arrives at the Montgomery courthouse for her trial in March 1956.) In addition to the repaired original print, the Peace Collection will receive a 16-mm copy, a broadcast-quality beta videotape, and a VHS viewing copy for the McCabe Library collection.

In May, the faculty voted to adopt a set of guidelines aimed at reducing scheduling conflicts for student athletes. Although the guidelines reaffirm several existing policies, they go beyond any previous faculty action in seeking to provide a framework for the resolution of conflicts between academic commitments and participation in intercollegiate sports.

The guidelines were developed by the Curriculum Committee in close collaboration with the Athletics Review Committee (ARC). They emphasize communication among students, coaches, and faculty members, encouraging all parties “to work out mutually acceptable solutions” where potential conflicts arise. The document acknowledges that “when a mutually agreeable understanding is not reached, students should be mindful of the primacy of academics at Swarthmore.”

In adopting the guidelines, the faculty made a key distinction between athletic practices and contests. They say, “Students who are participating in intercollegiate athletics should not miss classes, seminars, or labs for practice.” But those who anticipate missing an academic appointment for a scheduled athletic contest should “try to come to an understanding regarding the conflict with their coach and their professor as soon as possible, preferably during the first week of the semester.”

The guidelines restate a long-standing practice of ending most regular classes by 4 p.m. on Monday to Thursday and 5 p.m. on Fridays, reminding the faculty to “recognize that the time from 4:15 to 7 p.m. is heavily used by students for extracurricular activities and dinner.” The document asks students to consider the times of athletic contests as they plan their schedules but also urges faculty members and coaches to schedule both academic and athletic commitments well in advance and to avoid last-minute changes that create conflicts.

Professor of Economics Stephen O’Connell, who chaired the ARC, called the faculty’s action “a major accomplishment for the College.” He emphasized that the guidelines are “not rules” and observed that “many are already routinely ob-served by faculty and coaches.”

The new guidelines are appended to the ARC’s final report, which can be viewed at www.swarthmore.edu/news/athletics. In its report, the ARC—which has consisted of faculty members, members of the Board of Managers, coaches, students, and administrators—notes a broad range of improvements to the athletics program. Among the ARC’s recommendations are that its own three-year existence be concluded, with its oversight role passed to the standing Physical Education and Athletics Advisory Committee. A separate committee of the Board of Managers, which includes two members of the Alumni Council, will continue to evaluate progress in strengthening the College’s intercollegiate athletics program.

Every week this summer—even every day—the intricate maze of construction that has swallowed up the old DuPont Science Building progresses and changes shape. Charles Ricciardi, senior project manager for Barclay White Skanska, the construction management firm, and Janet Semler, director of planning and construction from the College’s facilities management group, gave me a tour of the full site on July 3. Coincidentally, the day marked a milestone in the construction—“topping off,” the completion of structural steel erection. Semler declared that the project is 15 percent built. Occupancy will be phased in as sections of the building are completed between December 2002 and spring 2004.

One part of the project is farther along. Tucked beneath the College’s water tower is a “chiller plant.” This box-like building will generate antifreeze-treated 45-degree water to be pumped to rooftop air handlers and connected through climate-control units throughout the 140,000-square-foot science center. According to Ricciardi, the heat that is generated by chilling the water will be used to preheat the hot water in the building—an energy-saving concept that is typical of the “green” design of the building.

Another structure taking shape is an addition, part of which covers the now-demolished facade and roof of the Cornell Science Library. When completed this winter, it will house biology and physics teaching labs, temporary offices for physics and astronomy faculty, and two classrooms. A glass-enclosed commons space will rise where the old DuPont lecture hall stood. All of this will be linked to the Martin Biology Building and to the remaining portion of DuPont, which will be home to the departments of computer science, mathematics and statistics, and the rest of physics and astronomy.

Nearby, the outlines of a new 200-seat lecture hall are already framed in steel like a miniature amphitheater. Standing on a wood platform adjacent to the future coffee bar, one cannot help but be awed by the huge columns supporting an inverted roof that will channel rainwater to a water stair and eventually to an underground stormwater collector that will slow runoff into Crum Creek. Just as awe-inspiring is the three-story skeleton that will become the future chemistry wing, to be finished in July of next year.

The science center project, which has an estimated construction cost of $59 million and will require $18 million in additional operating endowment, is part of The Meaning of Swarthmore, a $232 million campaign for the future of the College. By June 30, the campaign had nearly reached its halfway mark with $113 million in gifts and pledges received.

Two new members of the dean’s staff will concentrate on developing programs for minority students and on creating a broader, more inclusive campus community.

Darryl Smaw began work in February as the College’s new associate dean for multicultural affairs. Rafael Zapata became assistant dean and director of the College’s Intercultural Center in July.

Previously associate dean for program development at Harvard’s Graduate School of Education, Smaw graduated from Colgate Rochester Divinity School and received a Ph.D. in education from Harvard.

Since arriving at Swarthmore, Smaw has conducted meetings with students and faculty members to “learn more about the Swarthmore community, their expectations for this position, and [ways] I might assist them in the development of a multicultural community.”

Smaw stressed that he hopes to reach out to athletes, international students, religious groups, and students with disabilities. “These and other groups,” Smaw says, “characterize who we are and what Swarthmore is as a living, learning community.”

Zapata came to the College from New York University, where he was assistant director of the Office for African American, Latino, and Asian American Student Services.

A 1993 graduate of Iona College, he earned a master’s degree from Arizona State University and is working toward a doctorate in sociology at the University of Pennsylvania.

On June 8, Centennial Professor of History Emeritus Paul Beik died at the age of 87 in Winter Park, Fla. After graduating from Union College in 1935, obtaining a doctorate from Columbia University in 1943, teaching courses at Columbia, and participating in the V-12 Naval Officers Training Program, he joined the Swarthmore faculty in 1945. He retired in 1980. An expert on the French Revolution and modern European history, Beik was the author of five books on French history, including, in 1956, The French Revolution Seen From the Right, a study of conservative thought about the revolution, which was reprinted in 1970; and, in 1959, the textbook Modern Europe: A History Since 1500, in collaboration with Lawrence Lafore. He also introduced the study of Russian history to the campus. Beik is remembered by his students and acquaintances for his geniality, generosity with his time, and the encouragement and rigor with which he prepared students for careers as historians. On his retirement, many of Beik’s former students endowed a lectureship in his name. The subject of the annual lecture alternates between French and Francophone studies and Russian and Eastern European studies. In 1990, the History Department established the Paul H. Beik Prize in History in his honor, to be awarded annually in May, for the best thesis or extended paper by a graduating history major.

The College has committed to meeting 2.5 percent of its energy needs through the purchase of wind power. And thanks to a conservation effort by students, it won’t have to expend additional dollars to achieve a more environmentally friendly energy mix.

Although its cost has fallen dramatically in recent years, wind-generated power still costs more than conventional electricity. To help cover the cost difference, Swarthmore students have agreed to reduce their energy consumption by turning off lights and taking similar measures. The wind power comes from newly developed wind farms—such as the one shown above, near Somerset, Pa.—operated by Community Energy and Exelon Corp.

In lieu of a portion of their final exam, students in the political science course Socialism in Europe, taught by Assistant Professor Jeffrey Murer, opted to be evaluated through a more direct demonstration of what they had learned. They drafted a manifesto of principles and built and lived in a tent commune on Parrish lawn— complete with Soviet martial anthems and red flags—for three days and two nights. The students, who dubbed themselves Trabajadores Unidos para la Revolución, plastered campus bathrooms and lounges with 10-point critiques of capitalism and copies of old Soviet propaganda posters, generating publicity for a culminating rally on In-ternational Workers Day, May 1.

On that historic day, members of Associate Professor of History Pieter Judson’s Fascist Europe seminar unexpectedly upstaged the Socialists at their lunch-hour rally. Wearing black and wielding water balloons and large water guns, the Fascist counterrevolutionaries wreaked havoc in the commune and ascended the Socialists’ Parrish podium in line formation. To the audience’s delight, the Socialists sportingly handed over the microphone to Danny Fink ’03 and Matthew Rubin ’03, representatives of the Fascist Europe seminar, who delivered a hot-blooded ideological attack on the grounds that the Socialists had violated their own precept of equal distribution of wealth by hoarding the College’s Adirondack chairs inside the commune.

After accusing the Socialists of sullying the virtues of the idyllic Swarthmore nation, the Fascists relinquished the stage. The Socialists resumed their program, declaring solidarity with other students rallying in Europe against the rise of Jean-Marie Le Pen and right-wing politics there.

Professor of Statistics Gudmund Iversen retires this year after 30 years at the College, during which he has expanded the formerly one-teacher, one-course Statistics Program to become a popular elective today.

One of the highlights of Iversen’s career at Swarthmore was when, 10 years ago, the name of the Mathematics Department was changed to the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, reflecting the growing importance and popularity of Iversen’s work. Although he claims that study of statistics traditionally has a bad reputation, 50 to 60 percent of Swarthmore graduates regularly have taken statistics courses voluntarily. During Iversen’s tenure, more than 2,000 students have taken his courses. Six years ago, the growing workload necessitated the hiring of a second statistician, Philip Everson, who received ten-ure this year.

Iversen, who is also in his second three-year term as director of the Center for Social and Policy Studies, says that Swarthmore was just the right place for him. An impressive list of publications notwithstanding, research has not been his first priority. “The emphasis on teaching [at Swarthmore] appealed to me,” he says. “Teaching is what it’s all about.”

Of his departmental colleagues and administrators, Iversen says, “I couldn’t have asked for a better group of people to be together with. They’ve been a great inspiration.”

Iversen’s retirement plans include reading statistics books, reviving his high-school interest in photography, and driving the winding U.S. Route 2 cross-country from western Washington state to Northern Maine. At the end of his drive, two small grandchildren await, “as precious as can be.”

Professor of Biology Timothy Williams retires this year after a 42-yearlong association with the College, where he began as a member of the Class of 1964. He returned in 1976, accompanied by his wife, Janet Williams, who has worked as a research associate alongside her husband. “We’ve always worked together,” he says, “so when we look at what I have done, it’s really what we have done.” The Williamses specialize in tracking the migratory patterns of birds and other flying animals.

They have taken students on research voyages to Hawaii and Guam and around the world on the Semester at Sea Program. They observed birds migrating over the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic oceans, estimated the density of migrants, and measured their orientation, which, Williams says, had never before been done systematically.

“The students have been our best friends,” Williams says. “We often get closest to students on our field trips, where they appreciate that we not only studied animal behaviors in class—we looked at real animals in the field.” He received a Flack Teaching Award from the College in 1987.

Author and co-author of hundreds of wildlife-related publications, Williams is also the inventor of several pieces of radar equipment, including an ornithological radar on top of the Martin Building.

On retirement, the Williamses will head for northern New Hampshire, where they have been doing research since 1992. Wil-liams will retain strong links to Swarthmore, where his departmental colleagues have been “marvelous and so cooperative.” As an alumnus, emeritus faculty member, and Swarthmore parent, how could he not?

Thirty-five years after coming to Swarthmore in 1967 as an assistant professor, Susan Lippincott Professor of Modern and Classical Languages Gilbert Rose retires this year. Arriving at the College shortly before jobs in academe became scarce, Rose says: “It turned out that I spent my whole career in one place, and I’m lucky that it turned out to be Swarthmore. It’s a great fit for my commitments and interests and values.”

Rose, who has served as chair of the Classics Department and the Humanities Division, is grateful for the College’s unwavering support of his area of scholarship in a culture and society where, these days, the humanities are “at the bottom of the totem pole.” As a teacher of Greek and Latin at all levels, he has welcomed the College’s commitment to language as the essence of studying Classics. “We require that all Classics majors have a high level of understanding of at least one ancient language,” he says. Most majors take at least three Honors seminars taught in the language itself.

Rose has taught language courses and seminars on Greek and Latin epic, drama, and philosophy. He sees Swarthmore as the kind of environment where a teacher easily develops a close relationship with students. Most of his Honors seminars have taken place in the living room of his home. “The students have remained close friends in many cases,” he says. In 1983, Rose was honored with the American Philological Association Award for Excellence in Teaching, and, in 2000, he received the Flack Teaching Award.

Recently, Rose founded the new Lifelong Learning Program for adults interested in continuing education classes, which de-buted successfully in 2002 and which he hopes will become a regular feature of both his own and the College’s life.

Yasmin Khawja never aspired to be an ambassador. Actually, she wants to be a doctor. Nonetheless, in May, with very little time for preparation and no prior experience, she succeeded in grabbing the attention of two heads of state.

Khawja, born and raised in Boston as the daughter of a Pakistani father and a Colombian mother, is a premed medical anthropology special major. She spent the spring semester at the Universidad de la Habana in Havana, sponsored by Butler University’s Cooperating Programs in the Americas (COPA). The program is part of former President Bill Clinton’s People to People Act, which now permits American students to study in Cuba. Khawja was there when former U.S. President Jimmy Carter arrived in Cuba on his mission to improve relations between that country and the United States after 43 years of hostility.

The week before she was due to leave Cuba, Khawja was informed that she had been selected to represent the 49 COPA participants from 36 American universities, speaking at the event surrounding Carter’s address to the Cuban people. Broadcast on television from the grand hall of the university, the event was attended by Cuban President Fidel Castro and other Cuban dignitaries as well as Cuban and American students and members of the American delegation accompanying Carter. “This was an absolute surprise,” Khawja says. “I found out on a Thursday that I was to speak the next Tuesday, and we were going on a trip for the weekend.”

As part of an evening program that included speeches by the director of the university, the president of the University Student Federation, and Carter, Khawja spoke in Spanish for six minutes, summarizing the impressions that she and her group, whose members came from varied ethnic backgrounds, had gathered during their stay. Her role, she said, was not to relay their political views but rather their experiences of everyday life among the Cuban students and people. In her speech, she spoke of positive and valuable interactions between program participants and Cubans of all ages and from all sectors of society—whether while singing; worshiping; learning to play the bongos; or making presentations in class, which they attended with Cuban students. Although she mentioned problems the COPA students had observed in the Cuban economy and transportation system, she said they had been im-pressed by the fact that the country has no organized crime and that it is safe to walk the Cuban streets at all times of the day and night as well as to hitchhike—the preferred mode of travel because public transport is so unreliable. She hoped that her remarks, al-though not offering actual solutions, might illustrate the capability of Cubans and Americans to coexist peacefully and thereby contribute to eventual solutions.

At the end of the evening, Castro and Carter had to hurry away to throw ceremonial pitches at a baseball game, leaving a hall full of disappointed students, who had hoped to at least shake the dignitaries’ hands.

For Khawja, however, the experience continued. The next morning, she received an invitation to Carter’s farewell dinner with the Consejo de Estado (national council) in the Palacio de la Revolucion. “It was like a dream,” she recalls. Castro and Carter “remembered me from my speech, and I got to talk to them.” They asked her about her plans for medical school. Castro said he enjoyed her speech and offered her admission to the Latin American School of Medicine he founded two years ago, which gives full scholarships to all its students.

She adds: “I definitely saw the bad sides [of Cuba] and things that I would change, like the restrictions on the Cuban people. I think I got a clearer, less idealistic view of both the good aspects of Cuban society and government and those that still need to be worked on.”

Cubans and Americans have much to learn from each other, says Khawja. The Cuban people, whom she found to be warm, lively, and very creative with their limited resources, were as curious to know more about American culture as she and her fellow-students were to explore Cuba. She believes that with mutual respect and a willingness to communicate—such as the Cuban and COPA students had shared—both countries would benefit from reconciliation. But this effort, she adds, has to begin with the heads of their national governments.

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