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Swarthmore in the News February 18, 2011

The Philadelphia Inquirer

Survey finds record low mental-health outlook among college freshmen

By Adrienne Lu; Inquirer Staff Writer

February 14, 2011

A national survey has confirmed what college counselors in the Philadelphia region have already noted on their own campuses with dismay: Students are rating their emotional health at all-time lows.

Only 51.9 percent of respondents judged their emotional health above average, according to a survey of 201,000 freshmen at 279 colleges and universities conducted in the fall by the University of California at Los Angeles.

That was the smallest percentage since researchers began asking the question in 1985. From 2009 to 2010, the share of freshmen reporting above-average emotional health dropped 3.4 percentage points.

At several colleges in the Philadelphia area, administrators say that the demand for mental-health services has been growing for some time, but that there was a noticeable uptick this academic year. Many have responded by increasing counseling staffs, among other measures.

At St. Joseph's University, Greg Nicholls, director of counseling and psychological services, said that not only were more students seeking counseling, but their mental-health issues were more severe, with diagnoses of bipolar and anxiety disorders among the most common.

"We're increasingly taxed," he said. "That's true of all our neighboring schools."

At Swarthmore College, there was a 20 percent rise in the number of students seeking help in the fall, said David Ramirez, director of psychological services there. He cautioned, however, that it was difficult to know what caused the increase.

"You don't know if it's a cultural shift, if people are less embarrassed [to seek services]," Ramirez said. "Before, there was a stigma, and now it's just a smart thing to do."...

 

The Philadelphia Inquirer

Longing: Egyptians here wish they were there

By Jeff Gammage, Sam Wood, and James Osborne; Inquirer Staff Writers

February 12, 2011

Sarah Salem was at work at Temple University when she heard the news, and she couldn't hold back her tears. When she reached her father by phone in Egypt, he was crying, too.

Hazem Reda, a Drexel University student, decided to leave town for Washington. On this day, he needed to be with his family.

Ramy Khalil, a businessman, was upset that he had been evacuated from Egypt as the street protests accelerated and could not stand with his countrymen in Tahrir Square.

"I am sorry, very, very much, that I'm not there," he said.

Across the Philadelphia region Friday, people who had hoped, prayed, and marched to change the government in Egypt reveled in the rarest of outcomes - a total, peaceful victory, declared when President Hosni Mubarak resigned in the face of massive protests and turned over power to the military.

His departure ended nearly 30 years of autocratic rule and provoked euphoria in Cairo, where people climbed onto cars and trucks, waved flags, danced, and cheered. In Philadelphia, Egyptians clung to one another and logged on to Facebook to shout their joy into cyberspace.

...Farha Ghannam, an anthropology professor at Swarthmore College who has conducted fieldwork in Egypt for 17 years, noted that the Egyptian army appeared to be in control and that people were comfortable with that. In the United States, military domination of the government would be unthinkable. In Egypt, "the army is considered the force that brings people together, that defends Egypt as a nation; it's invested with all these positive meanings."

...Indeed, for many, Friday was a day to celebrate, not to debate.

"I'm going to be living in the moment for now," said Ramy Hassan, 25, an Egyptian American student in Philadelphia. "Tomorrow I'll think about the options that face the Egyptian people."

 

City Arts (NY)

Celia Gerard: Regions of Unlikeness

By Mario Naves

February 8, 2011

In his seminal essay "Cezanne's Doubt," philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty wrote of the French artist's painterly process, of how vacillating fields of chiseled brushstrokes simultaneously defined and questioned the objects at hand. Merleau-Ponty concluded that for Cezanne "'conception' [could not] precede 'execution.'" The results, rigorously analytical and forever skeptical, set into motion the idea of the canvas as a public accounting of an artist's tussle with uncertainty.

Having filtered its way through Modernism-roughly speaking, from Cubism to Giacometti to Action Painting to any number of artists eager to flaunt their egos and erasers-"Cezanne's Doubt" has become as much a cliché as any other approach to art-making. That is, until someone comes along and demonstrates why it is, in fact, viable and vital. Celia Gerard's black-and-white mixed-media drawings, at Sears-Peyton Gallery, remind us that tradition is for the taking should an artist have the gumption to follow through on it.

Cezanne resides in Gerard's drawings more in process than in image, but one can divine a link from her ruled forms to Cezanne's insistence that nature be represented through cylinders, spheres and cones. Gerard goes about it in a reverse order-transforming fractious arrays of triangles, circles and the odd sloping contour into panoramic landscapes-of a sort, anyway. Though her diagrammatic structures create a certain perspective logic, space is developed more from the reinvention of individual shapes and the connections that accrue between them. Gerard's compositions are malleable even as they achieve an elegant and scrabbled resolution....

Through Feb. 19, Sears-Peyton Gallery, 210 11th Ave., 212-966-7469.

Editor's Note: Celia Gerard is a visiting assistant professor in the Studio Art Department of Swarthmore College


SPORTS

The Delaware County Daily Times (PA)

Swat's Bodur gets milestone

By Terry Toohey

February 17, 2011

SWARTHMORE - Ceylan Bodur knew it was bad when she collapsed to the ground during Swarthmore's 64-47 victory over Gettysburg Jan. 29.

The cracking sounds her right knee made before she fell to the court, combined with the pain was a dead giveaway of the severity of the injury. She had torn the anterior cruciate ligament.

Bodur, a senior from Istanbul, Turkey, immediately believed her college career was over and with it was the chance to become the eighth 1,000-point scorer in the history of the women's basketball program.

She was right and wrong at the same time.

Her career, for all intents and purposes, was done. Her quest to join the 1,000-point club was not.

In a display of sportsmanship that will be criticized in some circles, Bodur was allowed to score an uncontested layup at the start of Swarthmore's 73-44 victory over Bryn Mawr Tuesday night at Tarble Pavilion to cross the 1,000-point mark in her career.

"It was a really special moment for me," Bodur said. "It would be terrible if I had to end my career with that final injury.

It was a staged event, put together by Swarthmore coach Renee DeVarney with the help of her counterpart at Bryn Mawr, Springfield native Deb Charamella.

Bodur had 999 points at the time of her injury. DeVarney immediately thought of the Villanova-Connecticut game from Feb. 28, 1998, when the Wildcats allowed Nykesha Sales to score an uncontested layup to become the leading scorer in Connecticut history. Sales tore her Achilles tendon two points shy of breaking Kerry Bascom's record for points in a career. With the OK from Villanova coach Harry Perretta, Sales was able to score a layup to break the record. Connecticut then allowed Villanova to score and the game resumed from that point.

"It's one of the first things that crossed my mind," DeVarney said. "I was hoping that we could do it against a special team and Bryn Mawr's a special team to Swarthmore." (more)


The Star Tribune (MN)

Associated Press

February 16, 2011

D-III Swarthmore's Bodur scores uncontested layup on torn ACL for 1,000th career point

SWARTHMORE, Pa. - A Division-III basketball player who suffered a career-ending knee
injury last month scored her 1,000th career point on an uncontested layup.

Swarthmore's Ceylan Bodur was allowed to score the first basket of Wednesday night's game against Bryn Mawr.

Bodur, a senior from Istanbul, was hurt Jan. 29 stuck on 999 career points. She had
scored the first four points of the game before she was hurt midway through the first half.

Swarthmore asked Bryn Mawr for permission for Bodur to become the eighth player in school history to score 1,000 points.

Bryn Mawr scored its own uncontested layup and the game resumed from there. Swarthmore won 74-43.

 

Collegeswimming .com

Swarthmore Sweeps Washington College

February 8, 2011

Host Swarthmore College defeated visiting Washington College, 126-66, in Centennial Conference men's swimming tonight in Swarthmore, PA. Junior Nick Longworth (Media, PA/Strath Haven) won the 200 backstroke in a Washington College season-best time of 2:02.40 in the loss for the Shoremen.

Junior Austin Auger (McLean, VA/Langley) added a first-place finish in the 200 breaststroke in 2:20.46. Junior Ross Mills (Silver Spring, MD/Paint Branch) received the first-place points in the 200 butterfly, finishing in 2:16.22. ...

Host Swarthmore College topped visiting Washington College, 116-90, in Centennial Conference women's swimming tonight in Swarthmore, PA. Senior Rachel Glasser (Silver Spring, MD/Springbrook) and junior Jenna Moore (Catonsville, MD/Mount de Sales) combined to win five individual events for the Shorewomen in the loss. ...