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Swarthmore in the News March 11, 2011

 

Targeted News Service

March 7, 2011

Occidental College issued the following news release:

Daisy Larios '07 has been named one of 18 winners of the Luce Scholars Program for 2011-2012. A history major, she is the 14th Luce Scholar from Occidental College since this prestigious award was initiated in 1974, and the College's third winner in three years.

...Like other Scholars honored by the Henry Luce Foundation, Larios will be placed in a major Asian city, connected to important institutions and people in her areas of interest, and given a year of financial and administrative support to cultivate her career. In Larios' case, that will be in libraries/archives, in line with her current job as the career and information services library assistant for Drexel University's Hagerty Library, where she co-founded the LibVid Awards blog (http://libvid-awards.com/) with her colleagues. She will complete her master's in Library and Information Science (MLIS) degree at Drexel this June.

...A native of Inglewood, Larios was selected as a 2009 Spectrum Scholar by the American Library Assn., and is currently organizing an upcoming fundraiser for the Spectrum Scholarship program. She came to libraries by way of the Mellon Library Recruitment Program, a grant-funded program that awarded her an undergraduate internship experience, a post-baccalaureate Fellow position at Swarthmore College, and a graduate school scholarship. Her experience in the Getty Multicultural Internship Program after her sophomore year at Occidental also provided an initial entryway into the world of museums, libraries, and archives. ...

 

The Philadelphia Inquirer

Keeping a Bucks sculptor's legacy alive

By Daniel Rubin

March 7, 2011

A new scholarship this fall at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts honors the late Selma Burke, a Bucks County sculptor whose work is familiar if you've ever studied your change.

That picture of Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the dime? It bears an uncanny resemblance to a bas-relief that Burke formed of FDR.

Until her death 16 years ago at age 94, Burke would tell visitors to her Solebury Township studio of the presidential commission she won over 11 other sculptors.

Lewis Tanner Moore, the Warrington collector of African American art, said Burke often recalled the day in 1944 when she unrolled a sheet of butcher paper across the Oval Office and sketched Roosevelt for 45 minutes in charcoal, while reminding him to sit still.

Her bronze relief of him has hung since 1945 at the Recorder of Deeds Building in Washington. Burke's pride turned to outrage a year later, when the U.S. Treasury Department released a coin to honor the late president.

The design, by John Sinnock, the U.S. Mint's chief engraver, looked suspiciously like Burke's. She complained, but was never credited.

Numismatists have debated her contribution ever since. But there was no question in her mind - or Moore's. She was robbed.

"The engraver needed something," Moore said. "He used her artwork."

The story of the coin figures prominently in the efforts of Burke's followers to keep her name alive and raise money to promote young African American artists. Moore asked artist Faith Ringgold if she would make a print that members of the newly formed Selma Burke Sculpture Foundation could sell to fund the yearly $12,500 scholarship.

Ringgold produced an edition of 65 prints, each costing $1,100. She titled her work:

Dear Selma, every time I see a dime I think of you. Burke didn't need credit for the coin in order to be memorable, Moore pointed out. She lived art history, flowering in the Harlem Renaissance of the '20s and '30s, studying in Paris with Henri Matisse and Aristide Maillol, starting two schools of sculpture, teaching at Haverford and Swarthmore.  ...

 

The San Francisco Chronicle

Flurry of updates costs companies, consumers

By James Temple

March 6, 2011

As Apple CEO Steve Jobs  proudly unveiled the next-generation iPad at a crammed news conference last week, you could almost make out the collective groan from millions who bought the original.

These early adopters suddenly transformed into technology laggards, like post-ball Cinderellas staring at pumpkins. The urge to get iPads under the Christmas tree propelled sales of the tablets to more than 7 million last quarter alone, so a significant chunk of the 15 million total owners have had the thing for only a little more than two months.

At this point, it's not exactly a revelation that there's consumer frustration over the accelerating pace of the technology product cycle - and in several important ways, Apple is far from the worst offender. Knowing that what you buy today will be leapfrogged in the near future has become the basic price of participating in the consumer electronics industry.

But there's a growing recognition that the flurry of updates, along with ever-expanding options, might come at a cost for the companies, too.

Wall Street and the media generally reward businesses that crank out devices, but some researchers believe that the vast array of choices can result in consumer paralysis or perpetual dissatisfaction.

People become so worried they'll make the wrong choice that many delay or forgo making one at all, said Barry Schwartz, a psychology professor at Swarthmore College and author of The Paradox of Choice: Why More Is Less. When they do make a purchase, they're often left unsure and unhappy with what they bought, whatever its actual merits.

"They'll walk around kicking themselves for not having chosen well, and looking over everyone else's shoulder," he said.

...The lesson here for businesses is that fewer options and updates trump more. It may seem counter to the very nature of the technology industry, but it's actually truer for gadgets than jams, because there's a layer of complexity that already intimidates consumers, Schwartz said. ...

 

InsideNoVA.com

Monologue highlights suffragists who did time at Occoquan

By Bennie Scarton Jr.                                                                                    

March 8, 2011

In honor of Women's History Month, the Manassas Museum will present a one-woman monologue by a socialite suffragist who was imprisoned at the Occoquan Workhouse.

Historic interpreter Lynn Garvey-Hodge, who portrays Suffragist Mrs. Robert Walker, will reveal the story of her arrest in front of the White House on July 14, 1917, her incarceration at the Occoquan Workhouse, and her participation in the Prison Parades of 1918-1919.

Her presentation will be March 13 at 2 p.m. and it is free to the public.

As the former Amelia Himes of Baltimore, Walker was born into a world of privilege and graduated from Swarthmore College in 1902 when few women were educated. After marriage and settling in Baltimore on her large estate "Drumquhazle," she was active in a number of charities, many relating to her Quaker heritage.

Garvey-Hodge relates how Walker was transformed from a member of Baltimore's elite "Blue Book' society into a suffragist, and how she gained the support of her entrepreneur husband and three children.

... "I've fallen in love with her. She really believed in the cause, and had a household where she regarded everyone as the light of the world and passionate believed that everyone needed equality," said Garvey-Hodge.

After her 60 day incarceration for obstructing traffic in front of the White House, Walker joined the Prison Parades, where former prisoners toured the country in prison garb and revealed the horrors of their time behind bars.

Walker spent the remainder of her long life lobbying for equal rights for women, even making several presentations to Congress for the Equal Rights Amendment.

 

The Atlantic

America's Thirst for Total Victory

By Dominic Tierney

March 7, 2011

Last week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates addressed the cadets at West Point, and suggested that the United States should get out of the regime-change business.

"In my opinion, any future defense secretary who advises the president to again send a big American land army into Asia or into the Middle East or Africa should "have his head examined," as General MacArthur so delicately put it."

Many readers will be nodding along at this sentiment.

But it reminds me of the drunkard who wakes up with a terrible hangover. With his head throbbing and his stomach churning, he promises: "I'm never touching alcohol again!" And he really means it--at the time.

But friends of the drunkard smile wryly because they know he'll be back on the bottle soon enough.

In the wake of Afghanistan and Iraq, with thousands of American dead and hundreds of billions of dollars expended, Americans are suffering from a national hangover. We're quite sincere when we say "never again!"

But we'll sober up too, and rediscover our thirst for sending a land army into Asia, Africa, or the Middle East. (more)

Editor's note: Dominic Tierney is assistant professor of political science at Swarthmore College. He is the author of How We Fight: Crusades, Quagmires, and the American Way of War 

 

SPORTS

 

The Philadelphia Daily News

Big success stories among small colleges

By Kerith Gabriel

March 7, 2011

...Swarthmore College (women)

Location: Wallingford-Swarthmore

Coach: Renee DeVarney (sixth season)

2010-11 record: 15-10, 11-9

About Swarthmore: Its record might not prove it, but Swarthmore is the most improved program in the area thanks to one player: Kathryn Stockbower. Though she refuses to take credit, Stockbower transformed Swarthmore from a team that finished 4-20 the year before her freshman season to a .500 team or better in her 4 years. Stockbower holds the all-time NCAA Division III record for career double-doubles (83) and is one of three players in program history to record 1,000-plus points and 1,000-plus boards. A double major in biology and German studies, Stockbower, who will apply to medical schools this fall, is also in line for the Jostens Trophy, given to the most outstanding male and female Division III hoopster. "I never envisioned this when I arrived here as a freshman, I was just happy to play college basketball," Stockbower said. Basketball is a team sport and no one player can make a team, but I am happy that I made such an impact here at Swarthmore."