Margaret Neisser Lobenstine ’65 divides the world into two categories. One includes those highly focused, decisive individuals who come into the world knowing exactly what they want to do when they grow up. ...the other category, the one comprising people Lobenstine calls “Ben Franklins.” Inventor, publisher, writer, philosopher, public citizen, statesman, Francophile, founder of a university and a post office, and all-around Promethean thinker, Franklin was what Lobenstine calls a “Renaissance soul.”

Just before 12:30 on a Saturday afternoon in early June, six children gathered around a piano 4 miles from their homes in Chester, Pa. They sang a song about how easy it is to go home, written by a man who never had to run a car pool. Associate Professor of Music John Alston’s left hand floated through the air, conducting as his right plinked out a melody on the piano. “Goin' home, goin' home,” the children sang, “I'm a-goin' home.”

Tumbling from the nest of college life into the work world requires graduates to find their wings as they explore new territories.

When Henry David Thoreau wrote that most people live lives of quiet desperation, he clearly did not have in mind Bill ’72 and Amy Vedder Weber ’73.

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.