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Standing for social justice Karima Wilson ’03 has always known that there was something just a little bit different about her. “I grew up as part of a biracial family in a very segregated town—Birmingham, Ala.,” she said. “Especially in Birmingham, everyone who’s not black or white is put into this amorphous category.” For years, Wilson wondered about the differences that distinguished her from her friends, although she didn’t know how to talk about them. All that changed after her ninth-grade year when Wilson attended Anytown, a weeklong youth leadership program sponsored by The National Conference for Community and Justice (NCCJ). There, she found an open setting to discuss issues of diversity, and, as she said, “For the first time, I was able to tell people I was different, and they were like, ‘That’s cool.’” Her experiences at Anytown are something that Wilson still cherishes today. As one of 22 Eugene M. Lang Opportunity Scholars currently enrolled at Swarthmore, Wilson has been able to use college grants to fund her own social justice project. So for the past three years, Wilson has worked closely with the NCCJ to ensure that programs like Anytown will continue well into the future. Wilson, a sociology/anthropology major and psychology minor, said the NCCJ works to eliminate bigotry and racism by promoting greater understanding among people of different cultures and races. She spent two summers interning with the organization, the first at a regional branch office in Birmingham and the second at the national headquarters in New York City. She returned home to Birmingham last February to begin work on her capstone project—the development of a volunteer training program for the NCCJ. As Wilson explained, volunteers are often undertrained and underused by nonprofits. She, therefore, set out to create a program that would develop a group of qualified volunteers capable of effectively instructing youth leaders in the vocabulary of diversity. “The program was about training the volunteers in the same issues they’re going to be training the leaders in. So we talked about race, we talked about class, we talked about gender, we talked about ability. And we talked about developing leadership skills around these issues,” Wilson said. Twenty-one volunteers completed the inaugural training session. Wilson spent the entire spring and summer planning and executing the project, beginning in February and finishing in August. Now a senior, she is unsure of what she plans to do next year. Maybe law school, maybe graduate school—teaching is also a possibility. What she does know for sure, however, is that issues of diversity and social justice will always be important aspects of her life. What’s most special about diversity work is the bonds that people make because of it,” she said. “People are able to be friends because they understand each other better and understand where they come from. We understand that everyone has biases and prejudices, but we can work around that.” —Elizabeth Redden ’05
One question I hear a lot about minority groups on campus. How does the College decide when a student is a member of a minority group? This decision is not the College’s. Students are asked to identify their own background on admissions forms. Students may check more than one category—and even expand on the general categories—but in keeping with state and federal reporting requirements, the College must report them in only one of the allowable categories, which include African American, American Indian/Native Alaskan, Asian/Pacific Islander, Hispanic, and white (non-Hispanic). Those who fail to self-identify are counted as “white.” Of 1,467 students enrolled during the 2001-2002 academic year, 61 percent were white, 16 percent were Asian, 8 percent were African American, 8 percent were Hispanic, and less than 1 percent were American Indian. The rest were international students, who are not counted in the same way as American citizens. Director of Institutional Research Robin Shores reports that these standard categories are slated to change in 2004. The College will then be allowed to report students in multiple categories. Endowment drop squeezes budget Editor’s Note: Vice President for Finance and Treasurer Suzanne Welsh has been fielding a lot of questions about the current state of Swarthmore’s finances. She prepared the following questions and answers for the College community in mid-November. What is the College’s current financial picture? • The decline in the stock market has caused a downturn in the endowment. The endowment declined from a peak of about $1 billion in the late summer of 2000 to about $830 million at the end of October 2002. In addition, lower interest rates are leading to lower revenues on operating cash balances. • The lower endowment is putting strong pressure on the College’s ability to increase endowment support to the budget. It makes it difficult, if not impossible, to pay for the cost of new facilities from the endowment, making the success of the current capital campaign essential. • The budget is feeling pressure from large increases in health insurance and property insurance. • The College has entered this period in excellent financial condition and is well positioned to meet the challenges. Nonetheless, our commitment to our priorities combined with the more constrained finances has reinforced our focus on efficiency and allocation of resources to our most important priorities. How does the endowment affect Swarthmore’s budget? • The endowment is the largest source of revenue in the College budget, providing even more revenue than net student fees. About 46 percent of the revenues in this year’s budget come from the endowment. Income of $39.5 million from the endowment was used last year. Will there be budget reductions? • Yes. Although the College plans to sustain the regular increase in the endowment support to the budget in order to protect the quality of its educational program, as a result of lower interest rates and the cost pressures mentioned earlier, we still need to find savings of up to $1 million to balance the budget and respond to cost increases beyond our control. What is the budget process? • The president’s staff and the College Budget Committee are already working on next year’s budget and are examining the consequences of reducing costs in several areas. • The Board of Managers has named an Expenditure Review Committee to ensure that the allocation of College resources fully reflects our priorities. As part of this effort, it is conducting a cost-comparison study with six other institutions and looking at long-term financial models to assure adequate funding for the core elements of Swarthmore’s quality and character. What are the guiding principles for this process? • The College is committed to the following: - Sustaining an academic program and broader educational program of the highest quality. - Safeguarding need-blind admissions and providing adequate financial aid to assure access to an exceptional and diverse student body. - Recruiting and supporting the finest faculty. - Recruiting and retaining an excellent staff. - Preserving the long-term health of the endowment. - Providing responsible stewardship of the College’s physical resources. Where will costs be saved? Will positions be eliminated? • We do not have all the specifics yet. Each area is looking for budget savings. • We have identified some positions that have been vacant and will not be filled. How does the capital campaign fit in? • The Meaning of Swarthmore has attracted gifts and pledges of $114 million toward a $230 million goal that is scheduled to be reached by 2006. Although we have seen some slowing in receipts on pledges and less comfort from donors given the unpredictability of future financial markets, we remain confident that, given the responsibility that alumni feel for the College, we will succeed in meeting the campaign goals. • Our first priority is to raise more support for the science center, which is only partially funded. • The next priority will be to raise support for the necessary renovation of Parrish Hall. This will also require construction of a new residence hall to provide housing for students currently living in Parrish Hall while renovation proceeds. The start of construction on these will depend on campaign progress.
Welsh is appointed financial vice president In August, President Alfred H. Bloom announced the appointment of Suzanne Welsh (right) as the College’s vice president for finance and treasurer. Welsh replaced Paul Aslanian, who retired after seven years as vice president for finance and planning. Welsh joined the College in 1983 and has been treasurer since 1989. She received undergraduate degrees in mathematics and accounting from the University of Delaware and an M.B.A. from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. At the same time, Bloom broadened the responsibilities of Larry Schall ’75, whose title was changed from vice president for facilities and services to vice president for administration. Bloom also announced that Associate Vice President for Human Resources Melanie Young would henceforth report directly to him. Campaign approaches halfway mark The Meaning of Swarthmore, the College’s current $230 million capital campaign, is just short of its halfway mark both in time and dollars raised. As of Oct. 30, the campaign, which is set to end in 2006, had garnered $114 million in gifts and pledges. Fund-raising from key leadership donors began in 1999, following a three-year study of the College’s most pressing academic, community-life, and physical-plant priorities. The campaign was publicly announced in December 2001 with the publication of The Meaning of Swarthmore, a 48-page case statement. The kickoff of the public phase of the campaign had been scheduled for a campus gala on Sept. 21, 2001, but the event was canceled following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Instead, the College has hosted alumni, parents, and friends at a series of regional events. This fall, Swarthmore gatherings were held in Philadelphia, London, Boston, and Los Angeles. Other events have been held in Washington, D.C.; San Francisco; Chicago; New York; and Brussels. Dan West, vice president for alumni, development, and public relations, said in early November that “although this is a challenging economic environment in which to raise funds of this magnitude, The Meaning of Swarthmore is on track and making progress toward meeting the College’s most important future priorities. We are about where we need to be after the first year of a five-year public phase of the campaign.” These priorities include construction and renovation of important facilities; endowment for new academic initiatives, faculty teaching and research, instructional technology, and student financial aid; and fortification of the Annual Fund. A complete list of campaign priorities and opportunities to participate is at www.swarthmore.edu/support. —Jeffrey Lott Quantifying quality
Although Swarthmore has long been known as one of the nation’s best liberal arts colleges, in recent years, comparative rankings have become a national obsession. The higher-education list published each fall by U.S. News & World Report—the weekly magazine’s best-selling issue—has generated debate about the usefulness of such lists, how they are compiled, and whether they have prompted colleges to change their admissions practices. In the 2003 U.S. News rankings of national liberal arts colleges, released in September, Swarthmore tied for second place with Williams College. Amherst College held the No. 1 spot, and the top 10 was rounded out by Wellesley, Carleton, Pomona, Bowdoin, Middlebury, Davidson, and Haverford colleges. According to Robin Shores, the College’s director of institutional research, since the inception of the U.S. News rankings in 1983, Swarthmore has never fallen below third place among national liberal arts colleges. It has held the top position six times, including last year, tied with Amherst. Because of its generous financial aid program, Swarthmore has also consistently ranked among the magazine’s “best values” in higher education. U.S. News derives its rankings from seven different factors (listed here with their weight in the total score): academic reputation (25 percent), student selectivity (15 percent), faculty resources (20 percent), graduation and retention (20 percent), financial resources (10 percent), alumni giving (5 percent), and what the magazine calls “graduation-rate performance” (5 percent). Many of these factors have subcategories. Critics have claimed that colleges, which self-report data to U.S. News, are tempted to inflate their numbers, but Shores credits the magazine with being increasingly thorough in checking the data received. “They are now very specific about how we are to count things,” she says, “There are numerous follow-up questions, and they cross-check our surveys against other sources of data.” Still, says Shores, the single factor with the most weight—academic reputation—is largely subjective. To generate this statistic, U.S. News asks college presidents, provosts, and deans of admission to rank peer institutions on a scale of 1 to 5. “I see this as somewhat self-perpetuating,” says Shores. Although she believes that the rankings fill a need for information that colleges “have not instinctively done a good job of providing,” she says that “they torture the data in order to make fine distinctions that are not really useful to parents and prospective students. The difference among schools that are closely ranked is not significant.” Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Jim Bock ’90 agrees. Despite Swarthmore’s position at the top of the rankings, “we don’t tout [the rankings] in our publications or in talking with prospective students. We don’t want people to choose Swarthmore for the wrong reasons.” Bock says that he doesn’t feel any pressure to stay at the top of the rankings. “It’s just not part of the conversation,” he says. In any case, he explains, actions taken by the Admissions Office have scant effect on the College’s overall U.S. News performance: “It’s been said that we’re being more selective, using early decision, or driving up yield [the percentage of students offered admission who matriculate] in order to maintain our position, but accep-tance rate and yield account for just 4 percent of the total. The SATs and ACT are also about 6 percent. [Yield and test scores are subcategories within the student selectivity factor.] Whether we are up or down 10 points on our median SATs doesn’t affect these rankings.” The median combined SAT verbal and math score for those recently admitted to the Class of 2006 is 1,450. What does Swarthmore get from of the rankings? “It’s free publicity,” says Bock. “It gets Swarthmore’s name out there. But really, how do you quantify quality? Every school is different, and every student’s experience of it will be different. The college experience is subjective, and U.S. News tries to make it objective.” —Jeffrey Lott Dukakis urges health care reform In his first appearance on campus since 1995, former Massachusetts governor and 1988 Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis ’55 urged the adoption of federally mandated health insurance. Delivering the annual McCabe Lecture to a large audience in the Pearson-Hall Theatre, Dukakis asked: “When are we finally going to make the decision that all Americans deserve basic health insurance? What is it about our political system that makes it impossible to do what every other advanced industrialized nation does for its people?” Noting that students in the audience were in preschool when he challenged then-Vice President George Bush for the White House in 1988, Dukakis recounted that presidents Truman, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, and Clinton had attempted to pass legislation to create a government-run universal health insurance plan or to mandate employer-paid private insurance. Only Johnson succeeded, but his Medicare plan is limited to the elderly and the subsequent Medicaid plan covers only the poorest Americans. After Medicare passed in 1965, said Dukakis, who teaches public policy at Northeastern University, “everyone assumed that it was only a matter of time until benefits would be extended to everyone.” In 1972, Republican Richard Nixon put forward a comprehensive plan that would have required all employers to provide basic medical coverage. It might have passed over the objections of the insurance industry and the American Medical Association, said Dukakis, but for the opposition of Democrats who favored a government single-payer system. Massachusetts Senator “Ted Kennedy told me that his early opposition to Nixon’s plan was the single biggest political blunder of his career,” said Dukakis. “By the time he threw his support to Nixon’s bill, Watergate blew up, and it was too late.” Dukakis said the United States spends twice as much per capita for medical care as any other advanced industrialized country, “and what do we get for it? They provide universal health care at half the cost of running the U.S. system, and we have 42 million people without insurance. Where do these people go when they get sick? To hospital emergency rooms, where it costs about $1,000 per patient to treat them. And where does that $1,000 come from? From individuals and employers who do pay for insurance. If you insure your employees, you also have to pay for the guy down the street who doesn’t.” Dukakis said that government-run single-payer health care is “unlikely to pass, given the private insurance system that has evolved in America.” He favors a national system similar to Hawaii’s, which he called “very close to the original Nixon plan.” Under Hawaii’s law, which has been in effect since 1974, all employers are required to provide basic coverage for their employees; insurance companies cannot deny coverage for preexisting conditions or other common risk factors, and state government covers those who are changing jobs, unemployed, or indigent. “It’s worked well for nearly 30 years,” said Dukakis, who teaches one-quarter of each year at the University of Hawaii. “They have better health outcomes overall, and nobody’s gone out of business because of it.” Dukakis said the Clinton administration’s 1993 health care proposal, which failed to make it through Congress, was “far too complicated—they should have modeled it on the Hawaiian system.” He blamed the Democratic Party’s 1994 loss of Congress on the “fallout from that defeat.” Since then, politicians have been “nibbling around the edges of the problem” with prescription drug coverage under Medicare and the patient’s bill of rights, which he said “marginally improves things for those who have coverage to begin with. “As a society, we’ve defined employer responsibility to include worker’s compensation, unemployment insurance, and retirement. Why not health? We spend $1.5 trillion dollars a year on health care, yet we still have millions of Americans who have no coverage.” Before taking questions, Dukakis closed with a plea to Swarthmore students to get involved in politics: “Guided by the experiences I had on this campus, I’ve had the good fortune to be involved in politics for a lifetime. I want you to think seriously about becoming actively involved in the politics of your communities. Get into campaigns, work for people you admire and whose values you share—you can make a difference.” —Jeffrey Lott Grenoble program turns 30 This year, the College’s oldest foreignstudy program celebrates its 30th anniversary. The Swarthmore Program in Grenoble, France, began in 1972, a result of the efforts of Simone Smith, a former College professor of French. Today, according to Swarthmore’s Foreign Study Office, it is one of the most respected programs in all of Europe. “Significantly more Swarthmore students attend Grenoble than any other single program that we recommend,” says Steven Piker, professor of anthropology and foreign-study adviser. College French majors must spend at least a semester in the program, but it is open to all Swarthmore students and to all American colleges and universities. It attracts people from all over the United States, according to Professor of French and James C. Hormel Professor of Social Justice George Moskos, program director this semester. Currently, 11 of the 105 Swarthmore students studying abroad for credit, along with 10 students from other schools, are enrolled through the program in classes at Université Stendhal and live with host families in and around Grenoble, which is aptly named “Capital of the Alps.” The city of about 150,000 is renowned for scientific research and has a large international student population. The program in Grenoble is the first and oldest operated by Swarthmore. The College also has a formal affiliation with a program in Madrid, Spain, operated by Hamilton College. Recently established programs in Poland and Ghana have expanded foreign-study opportunities. In addition to these programs, which are formally affiliated with Swarthmore, recent students have taken advantage of approved study-abroad opportunities in more than 30 countries, with the most popular including Australia, England, France, and Italy. Study abroad has increased dramatically in the 1990s. Between 1991 and 2002, the number of students who have studied at least one semester outside the United States jumped from 23 to 48 percent of the graduating class. —David King ’00 George Fox's legacy Look up George Fox on the Web today, and the search engine is likely to take you to the site of the Canadian country-rock musician. But country music was far from the minds of the 150 Quaker historians and others who attended a two-day conference on “George Fox’s Legacy” at the College in October. They were more interested in the lasting influence of George Fox (1624-1691), one of the founders of the Society of Friends and a dominant figure among 17th- century Quakers. The conference spanned two days and included such topics as the Barbados Declaration, the Hicksite-Orthodox separation and the holiness movement of the 19th century, evangelical Quakers of the 20th century, Quakers and politics, Quaker education, the prophetic voices of Quaker women, and perfectionism. The conference was sponsored by the Friends Historical Association and the Friends Historical Library. —Jeffrey Lott Totally Swat The Dash for Cash is no more. The men’s and women’s rugby teams’ long fund-raising tradition of running naked down the halls of Parrish, grabbing dollar bills from cheering spectators, has received a firm reprimand from the Eastern Pennsylvania Rugby Union (EPRU). According to president of the men's rugby team Brett Klukan ’03, the EPRU got wind of the Dash from an Associated Press report in The Philadelphia Inquirer about last spring’s Dash. Said Klukan: “When [the EPRU] heard of it, they told us that they felt it represented an aspect of rugby that they’d rather not have shown in the mass media, and that they would like us not to host it anymore; if not, we’d be subject to penalties.” Fortunately for Dash fans, the event took place as usual on Nov. 1—renamed Cash for Dash under the auspices of The Availables, a campus band, which opened the naked run to any student who wanted to bare all. About 10 students, about evenly divided by gender, took the challenge and dashed past the Admissions Office before a smaller than usual crowd just after 1 p.m. One admissions tour guide later said she made sure her group had cleared Parrish by then. “It’s easier to explain the Dash than it is to have the prospective students and their parents actually see it,” she said. —Evelyn Khoo ’05, The Daily Gazette Science and values What kinds of facts are needed to form sound value judgments? What is objectivity? What role do values play in scientific activity and to what extent do they determine areas of scientific research? These are some of the questions that challenge students attending Scheuer Family Professor of Humanities and Professor of Philosophy Hugh Lacey’s course Science, Values, and Objectivity this fall. Leading an exploration of ways in which the natural sciences interact with moral and social values, Lacey questions the idea that science is value free. He presents the notion that general philosophical issues arise in life situations but that, conversely, they can also define life issues. Although value judgments cannot be logically derived from scientific judgments, he says, scientific knowledge is nonetheless essential to form sound value judgments, and moral and social values play a vital role in the acquisition of scientific knowledge. When values are applied to scientific activity at the “right” moment—in which case, science is not value free—they in no way undermine the objectivity of scientific judgment, he says. Lacey illustrates these abstract assumptions by referring to concrete, current issues in agriculture—specifically to case studies of conflicts connected to the use of genetically modified organisms. In the first class meeting, Lacey encouraged the nine students to examine the nature of values, guiding them to distinguish between personal values and social/moral values. Suggesting that humans form values according to what they think is worthwhile, and that these values are part of their being, he offered an example of a personal value, saying: “I spent most of my life doing philosophy because I think it’s worthwhile. Not many people think that. It’s a personal value.” Then, he went on to question the importance of friendship. Although one or two students said that it is possible to do without friendship, most argued that life would be unpleasant without it, thus forming a shared, or deeper, moral value. In the second half of the three-hour class, Lacey used a concrete example to show that in every social conflict there are embedded philosophical conflicts. He recalled a news report about aid shipments of transgenic corn seed—Bt-corn—to famine-ridden African nations, which refused the corn. The conflict is evident: A high-yield, improved form of food is offered to starving people, and they refuse it. Because of the varying moral outlooks of the two culturally and socially different groups, a conflict arises. The aid organizations, backed by the seed manufacturers, aim primarily to combat famine by using modern “technoscience.” The African farmers, on the other hand, fear that the introduction of transgenic seed—in this case, corn whose DNA has been modified by insertion of genes from Bacillus thuringiensis, a naturally occurring, soil-borne bacterium that acts as a pesticide—will be harmful to their agricultural system. They claim that traditional farming methods would suit their needs better—were they to be given adequate resources. Both claims are based on facts but are defined by widely differing values, Lacey pointed out. Technoscience has developed an agricultural product that has been proven to work, at least for now, but whose long-term effects on biodiversity and farming have been neither thoroughly researched nor tested over time. The established values of traditional farming, on the other hand, combine productivity with sustainability, em-phasizing biodiversity and enabling local farmers to work independently of large seed corporations. The students actively participated in class discussions. After the first meeting, senior Andrew Fefferman, a physics major and philosophy minor, said: “The question of whether my work as a scientist would be value free is one that has haunted me for a long time.” A few weeks later, Keefe Keeley, a freshman interested in environmental studies and especially the use of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in agriculture, said: “We are acquiring a strong philosophical platform on which to discuss the issue [of GMOs], and the class is continually engaging and interesting. The best part for me is that Professor Lacey brings in a current news item that is directly related to the course material for that day or from the week before.” The issues concerning sustainable agriculture were among the major topics of September’s World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa. In honor of Lacey’s retirement at the end of the year, a conference will be held on his work next March, featuring, among others, Harvard biologist Richard Lewontin and Vice Rector of the University of Central America Rodolfo Cardenal. —Carol Brévart-Demm
Keith honored Centennial Professor of Anthropology and former Provost Jennie Keith was honored in May by her alma mater, Pomona College, with an honorary doctorate. In her talk to the graduating class, she recalled the stress of working with a piano professor who sat behind her poised to leap forward “to defend whatever composer I was mangling,” an experience that taught her that learning, especially from a great teacher, is seldom comfortable. “And when you’re in that situation,” she said, “I’d like to be that little voice in your ear saying, ‘Go ahead, try, be uncomfortable. You might learn something.’” Keith, whose research has focused on the influence of culture and society on the lives of older people around the world, has returned to Swarthmore after a one-year sabbatical to become head of the Lang Center for Social Responsibility, a new effort to coordinate the College’s civic programs. —Jeffrey Lott Books take flight Holding a book is like protecting a treasure: The most enchanting ones synthesize the size, shape, and texture with lyrical words. As Claire Van Vliet, founder of Vermont’s Janus Press in 1955, said during an early October slide lecture in Kohlberg Hall, “These books are unusual shapes because of the text, which inspired a different approach.” Students, faculty, staff, and alumni who attended were mesmerized by the display of her work. Van Vliet, a native of Canada who believes that a book “must be comfortable in the hand,” has taught at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the University of Vermont. “The landscape seen from the press is used a lot in our work,” she said, showing a photograph of her home and studio in Newark, Vt., surrounded by 5 feet of snow. The dramatic Vermont landscapes are often translated into her designs, such as Lilac Wind (1993)—one of several foldouts on handmade paper— displayed in McCabe Library through mid-October. Even though the works were behind glass, Associate College Librarian Amy Morrison said, “These books are meant to be read.” Some of Van Vliet’s more than 100 works appear in collections at the Library of Congress, Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Montreal Museum of Fine Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, and the National Gallery of Art. Other books in the exhibit illustrated Van Vliet’s blending of ink, paper, color, and structure—on pop-up and wagon-wheel pages—to mirror content. In Night Street (1993), about a young woman in the city, she wanted to convey “architectural excitement and a sense of the city that was enticing but threatening.” Aunt Sallie’s Lament (1993) is a quilter’s story on diamond-shaped leaves; “the poem’s perfect symmetry becomes clear as the reader turns the page, and they finally form a quilt square,” Van Vliet said. Van Vliet enjoys working with other artists because it “pushes me to do things I wouldn’t do otherwise,” she said. “None of us works in a vacuum,” Van Vliet added, particularly gratified by “being able to make a living as an artist.” —Andrea Hammer What's in a verb? What does a verb mean? It may sound like a simple question. But in Navajo, the answer can leave even native speakers tongue-tied. Associate Professor and Chair of Linguistics Ted Fernald should know. As vice chair of the Navajo Language Academy (NLA), he organizes the group’s annual summer institute. Held this year in Rehobeth, N.M., just outside the Navajo reservation on the Arizona border, the institute combines theoretical linguistics with practical exercises that Navajo language teachers can use in their classes. According to Fernald, the verb is the key to both. “Navajo packs a lot of information into the verb, not just agreement with subjects and objects,” he says. “You have to know a lot about grammar to understand one.” Of all the languages and cultures in native America, Fernald says, Navajo has the best chance to survive intact because of the size of the tribe and the amount and location of the land it controls. But in many ways, the NLA is in a race against time. Although roughly 100,000 Navajo speakers currently exist, the number drops sharply every generation. Recent studies show that less than half of Navajo preschoolers speak the language, and Fernald thinks the actual figure is much lower. The numbers underscore the importance of the summer institute, which brings together educators from both off and on the reservation. “Because few Navajo linguists are able to be active in the field, teachers and aides come to us for help,” he says. “Teaching the verb is hard, so most teach nouns, and the classes are horrible. We try to convince them the verb isn’t crazy, that there really are rules. It’s great to turn them onto that.” Lindsey Newbold ’03, an honors linguistics major from Chester County, Pa., discovered this challenge when she attended the institute to conduct her own research. “My senior thesis, on how [a Navajo verb’s] seriative prefix causes plural interpretations, is a real mind bender,” she says. “I couldn’t have done it if I had just showed up in New Mexico on my own. But with all the interest and expertise among NLA members, everything was set up for me.” In June, Newbold presented her thesis at the Athabaskan Language Conference at the University of Alaska. Her work became the first from a Swarthmore student to be published as part of the conference’s proceedings. In past summers, the NLA’s institute has ranged from 10 days to five weeks, depending on what the group can afford. This year, it lasted three weeks; although Fernald hopes for the same next year, he ruefully admits that without an endowment, “things usually get thrown together and are very much hand-to-mouth.” An additional challenge this year was the palpable absence of Ken Hale, a legendary linguist from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who helped establish what became the NLA in the 1970s. Hale died last fall, not long after teaching his last class—on the structure of the Navajo verb—at the institute. “He was dying, but it was exactly where he wanted to be,” Fernald says. We were all thrilled and amazed by his dedication, and he was grateful for the opportunity.” This dedication fuels Fernald. “My dream is to build the NLA so it operates year-round and provides career opportunities for Navajo linguists,” he says. “To engage in a high level of academic work while helping people gain access to the scientific community and the information that is useful to them—for me, that integration is a lot of what Swarthmore is about.” —Alisa Giardinelli Leading African poet is Cornell visiting professor Internationally renowned Ghanaian poet Kofi Anyidoho’s writing philosophy is different from that of most English bards. His compositions are supposed to be heard rather than read silently. Consequently, he won’t use a word that does not easily roll off his tongue or sound pleasing to his ear. “As a rule, I won’t use a word that I can’t say without feeling awkward about it. That’s why it’s not difficult to [perform] many African poems on stage. It’s a different experience to hear poems out loud,” says Anyidoho, who holds the Julien and Virginia Stratton Cornell Visiting Professorship at Swarthmore this year. One of Africa’s leading poets and writers, he is currently a guest of the Theater Department and the Black Studies Program. He’ll teach two courses this year that deal with oral literature and the challenge of bilingual creative writing in Africa. Anyidoho is head of the English Department and director of the African Humanities Institute Programme at the University of Ghana-Legon. He also promotes African culture as host and producer of Ghana television’s African Heritage Series. His latest poetry book, PraiseSong for TheLand, was released this fall. —Angela Doody
“The News From Home” I have come this far
I have not spread my wings To those who hear of military coups
I too have heard of
I have heard of
And I am tired  on dunghills of owners of earthI shall keep my sorrows to myself folding them with infinite care corner upon cornertaking pains the foldings draw circlesaround hidden spaces where stillour hopes grow roots evenin this hour of finite chaos
Those who sent their funeral clothes
Meanwhile —Kofi Anyidoho, 1984 Reprinted with permission from Earthchild (Woeli Publishers, 1984). On the Ball At 10-9, the women’s soccer team recorded the most wins in a season and just its second winning season since the program began in 1982. The team was 5-5 in the Centennial Conference. Eleanor “Ele” Forbes ’05 led the Garnet in scoring with seven goals and three assists for 17 points and became the first Swarthmore player to earn first-team all-Centennial Conference honors since Madeline Fraser Cook ’95 in 1993. Goalkeeper Catherine Salussolia ’04 led a Garnet defense that allowed just 24 goals in 19 games, the fewest goals allowed in a season. Salussolia finished second in the conference with an .869 save percentage and ranked third with five shutouts, earning conference honorable mention. Charlie Taylor ’06 led men’s soccer (5-14-1, 0-9) in scoring with five goals and five assists for 15 points. His five assists tie for third place for assists in the Centennial Conference. Goalkeepers Reuben Heyman-Kantor ’06 (.792) and Nathan Shupe ’05 (.790) ranked fifth and sixth in the conference in save percentage. The men’s and women’s cross country teams both delivered solid performances again this year, earning seventh and fourth places in the Centennial Conference Championships, respectively. For the men, Lang Reynolds ’05 earned NCAA III All-Region honors for the second consecutive season with a 27th-place finish at the Mideast Regional Championships. Reynolds also earned All-Conference honors with a 10th-place finish at the championship meet, leading the Garnet to a fifth-place team finish. Maria Elena Young ’04 led the Garnet women to a seventh-place finish at the 2002 NCAA III Mideast Regional. Young earned All-Region honors for the third consecutive season with a 31st-place finish, covering the 6K course in 22:22.90. She also earned All-Ccnference honors with a third-place finish at the conference championship, leading the team to a fourth-place finish. In field hockey (7-11, 3-6), forward Margaret “Meg” Woodworth ’03 earned second-team All-Conference honors. Woodworth led the team in scoring with nine goals and two assists for 20 points, placing sixth in the conference in scoring. Woodworth closed her career with 26 goals, eight assists, and 60 points, ranking ninth on the Garnet career goals list and 10th on the all-time points list. Goaltender Kate Nelson-Lee ’03 earned Centennial Conference honorable mention recognition, recording a 1.47 goals-against average and a .848 save percentage that ranked fifth best in the conference. Nelson-Lee closes her career with 12 shutouts, a 1.5 goals-against average, and a school-record 425 saves. In volleyball (5-19, 1-9), Emma Benn ’04 led the Garnet with 178 kills and was second with 309 digs, earning Centenial Conference honorable mention. Outside hitter Patrice Berry ’06 was fifth in the conference in digs per game (4.02) and seventh in aces per game (0.50). Setter Emily Conlon ’06 ranked seventh in set assists per game (6.29), and middle-blocker Natalie Dunphy ’05 finished fourth in the conference in blocks per game (0.82). —Mark Duzenski
Robot wows conference GRACE (Graduate Robot Attending Conference)—the brainchild (literally) of researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, Swarthmore, Northwestern University, the Naval Research Laboratory, and defense contractor Metrica—was an active participant at last July’s American Assn. of Artificial Intelligence conference in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. After being dropped off at the door, the 6-foot-tall GRACE successfully navigated her way to the registration desk; lined up and interacted with other participants; requested a name tag, bag, and directions to the talk area; and gave a 15-minute presentation on her historic accomplishment, explaining her hardware and software to an audience of hundreds. Exceeding all performance expectations, she received a standing ovation. Assistant Professor of Engineering Bruce Maxwell ’91 developed GRACE’s vision module, which enabled her to navigate her way through the crowd and around the conference. Next, Maxwell plans to give GRACE the capability of reading name tags and detecting faces as she interacts with people. —Carol Brévart-Demm Cartoonist lectures Clay Bennett, winner of the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartoons, visited Swarthmore on Nov. 12 to present an illustrated slide lecture. Bennett has served as editorial cartoonist for The Christian Science Monitor since 1998. Bennett’s lecture, accompanied by an exhibit of his cartoons in McCabe Library, was the latest in McCabe’s annual cartoonist series. —Elizabeth Redden ’05 College honors final football teams A plaque commemorating the final seasons of Swarthmore’s football program has been mounted outside the Lamb-Miller Field House at the entrance to Clothier Field. It lists the names of 88 athletes and 13 coaches who worked with former Head Coach Peter Alvanos during the 1998 to 2000 seasons. Swarthmore played its final football game on Nov. 11, 2000, defeating Washington and Lee 16-6. The plaque, which was installed in September, was part of an effort begun last spring to honor those players. About 180 former players and family members attended a banquet at Springfield Country Club in April organized by Kathy Pagliei, mother of Justin ’02, and Eleanor “Peggy” Schmidt Clark ’71, mother of Ken Clark ’03. Tom Krattenmaker of the College’s News and Information Office spearheaded production of a video, One Heartbeat, that was shown at the banquet to commemorate the seasons under Alvanos. Copies of the video, a scrapbook of team memorabilia, and rings made from the Clothier Field goalposts were given to the former players and later sent to those who were unable to attend. Pagliei had proposed the idea to President Alfred H. Bloom, who provided funding for the event and video. She said that after the College decided in December 2000 to end its football program, “it was all about the decision, the negativity. These kids had accomplished a lot, and they needed a reason to celebrate—to have what they did be recognized. It was great to see them laughing, having fun, and enjoying each other again.” —Jeffrey Lott Clothier field renovated Construction is nearing completion on a new field, track, and lighting system to replace the College’s old Skallerup Track and Clothier Field. The project includes a state-of-the-art synthetic track surface as well as Sofsport synthetic grass on the field. The all-purpose, all-weather facility will be used by field hockey, men’s and women’s soccer, and men’s and women’s lacrosse; it will also be available for club and intramural sports. Lights on the field will extend its uses into the evening. When completed in December, the surface will consist of 2-inch tufts of synthetic grass atop a 1/2-inch porous rubber mat. A mixture of sand and ground rubber is then added to the “grass” to create a field that, according to Associate Director of Athletics Adam Hertz, “is nonabrasive and feels like a good, soft natural turf field.” The project was designed to allow for groundwater recharge under the Borough of Swarthmore’s recently adopted storm-water management plan. —Jeffrey Lott Tracking the geography of hate In 1999, Associate Professor of Economics Philip Jefferson and Professor Emeritus of Economics Frederic Pryor published a paper in the journal Economics Letters that has gained renewed significance during the past year. Titled “On the Geography of Hate,” their research analyzed the correlation between socioeconomic factors and the location of hate groups, concentrating on groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, Christian identity groups, and white supremacist “skinheads.” Surprisingly, they learned that factors such as education and unemployment, which might be presumed to be predictors of intolerance and frustration in communities, were not, in fact, statistically significant. Further investigation showed an equally negligible connection between local laws against hate crimes and the existence of hate groups in the respective localities. Although it focuses on domestic hate groups, the paper was cited after Sept. 11 by scholars trying to explain the terrorist attacks. Jefferson believes it is important that the paper was published some years before Sept. 11. “That fact gives it a level of objectivity,” he says. “It’s unclouded by the event. No one can think that the data were engineered to fit the situation. And what is exciting for us is that similar types of analyses of data gathered in places like Germany and the Middle East supported our broader findings that socioeconomic factors are not really useful in predicting the location of terrorism.” Jefferson says that although, in a way, the result is negative, it has been confirmed in at least two other geographical settings, “which is good for academics,” he laughs, “but we have to look elsewhere for a solution to the problem of hate groups.” —Carol Brévart-Demm |
 Lang Opportunity Scholar Karima Wilson ’03 developed a volunteer training program for the National Conference for Community and Justice in Birmingham, Ala. (Photo by Eleftherios Kostans photo)  “Why can’t this great country of ours come to grips with an issue as fundamental as this?” asked Michael Dukakis in this year’s McCabe Lecture. (Photo by Eleftherios Kostans)  Financial Vice President  (Photo by Jim Graham)
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