Features
Profiles
Collection
Books + Arts
Faculty Expert
In My Life
Connections
Q + A
Editor's Note
Letters
COVER
OUTSIDE LINKS
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Features |
Swarthmore Hatches a Big Red Bird |
And Names a Student Team to Bring the Phoenix to Life |
By Jeffrey Lott
Photographs by Eleftherios Kostans |
It’s a big, red bird. Very big and very red. Note that the wing feathers also look a little like flames. Note the ever-so-slightly aggressive beak—it’s a raptor, and it can be tough. Note the oversize shoes with the garnet S. Then allow yourself a laugh at the highly shakable tail and the overstuffed appearance of the whole silly thing. What more can you say about it—except that it’s Swarthmore’s new mascot, the Phoenix! |
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Features |
Independent Streak |
Business success has allowed David Bradley ’75 to pursue some old dreams—like owning The Atlantic magazine. |
By Paul Wachter ’97
Photograph by Eleftherios Kostans |
One morning in November 1993, David Bradley boarded an airplane at Dulles Airport, bound for Vietnam. He was accompanied by his Swarthmore classmate and close friend Jim Snipes ’75, who had purchased first-class tickets on the occasion of Bradley’s 40th birthday. It was to be one last “boys trip,” Bradley says, and as they prepared for takeoff, Snipes advised his friend to stay awake for the first 13-hour leg to help him adjust to the time difference. Within 20 minutes, however, Snipes himself had nodded off, leaving Bradley alone with his thoughts. |
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Profiles |
Head in the Clouds |
For flight instructor Max Trescott ’79, a passion became a profession. |
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When Max Trescott was a boy, the irresistible sound of aircraft flying overhead invariably turned his eyes skyward. The buzz of small planes intrigued him. When he was 10 or 11, he took his first flight, awakening an innate passion that has lasted for 30 years. “Looking down on the world, everything looks so different. I just loved the view from way up there,” Trescott says. “I still do.” |
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Collection |
Collection |
Commencement Address 2008 |
by President Alfred H. Bloom |
Among the greatest privileges of being president of this remarkable institution has been coming to know its alumni, whose number you join today. Their passion for ideas and experience, their personal warmth, their astounding achievements, and their affection and admiration for Swarthmore are constant sources of joy, and of pride. |
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Books + Arts |
Books + Arts |
Blowing the Whistle on the Mob |
Bob Delaney and Dave Scheiber ’76 |
Covert: My Years Infiltrating the Mob (Union Square Press, 2008)
In the New Jersey suburbs where I grew up, guessing which of your neighbors might be a mafioso was something of a parlor game. But it wasn’t a game to Bob Delaney, whose just-published book Covert, written with Dave Scheiber ’76, recounts his tension-filled years as an undercover cop infiltrating the seedy New Jersey waterfront, where he exposed the Mob’s reach of corruption and coercion. |
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Faculty Expert |
Means and Ends |
When the state engages in violence, there’s a connection between capital punishment and torture. |
By Robin Wagner-Pacifici |
When E.M. Forster famously wrote his “Only connect … ” epigraph to Howard’s End, he was exhorting his readers to connect the prose and the passion of life, to live life fully with others. Sociologists might also be said to live under the “Only connect…” dictum, but they derive a different meaning from it. The task of the sociologist is to demonstrate connections where others see none—to connect apparently disparate aspects of social life under a larger, overarching frame in order to reveal a larger truth. |
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Connections |
Connections |
Alumni Weekend by the Numbers |
54: Number of classes represented
79: Average high temperature for June 7 in Swarthmore, Pa.
94: High temperature on Sat., June 7
110: Number of events held during weekend
1,600+: Alumni Weekend attendees
Alumni were able to enjoy a rain-free reunion for the second year in a row. The entire weekend was beautiful, with barely a cloud in the sky, and, despite unprecedented high temperatures, everyone had a fabulous few days back on campus. |
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Q + A |
Q+A |
What’s Taken for Granted |
By Jeffrey Lott |
As a sociologist, I do a lot of interviews,” says Joy Charlton at the beginning of our two-hour conversation, “but they’re always confidential. The thought of being on the other side of the tape recorder and saying things that will become public is a little scary.”
Charlton joined the faculty in 1981, bringing an interest in organizational sociology, the workplace, gender roles, and research methods. (Her dissertation at Northwestern University was on secretaries and bosses.) |
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Editor's Note |
Parlor Talk |
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“A mascot for Swarthmore? Do we need one?” asked the headline on the back cover of the November 1995 issue of this magazine. Barbara Haddad Ryan ’59—then associate vice president for external affairs and head of the Alumni Office—was convinced that the answer was yes, but she was treading lightly. After all, there’s nothing Swarthmoreans do with greater relish than create a process for making a choice. |
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Letters |
Letters |
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Swarthmore Shouldn’t Stand Apart on Environment
As a recent graduate of Swarthmore, I was deeply concerned by the attitude displayed in the April 2008 Bulletin article “Our Own Shade of Green.” The article begins by introducing three indicators used by major national organizations to measure commitment to environmental stewardship in American universities. It notes for each of these indicators that Swarthmore either fails to measure up to its standards or receives only a satisfactory grade. |
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