As Swarthmore moves forward with an 18-month strategic planning process, I find that it’s all too easy to be cynical about long-range planning. You ask a lot of earnest questions and gather guarded, self-interested answers that range from the sublime to the ridiculous. You write it all up in a study that’s out of date [...]
In his essay “Justice, Technology, and the Environment,” scientist and religious scholar Ian Barbour ’44 asserts that our vision of the “good life” need not include a high-consumption lifestyle. Writing from a religious perspective, Barbour says that “once basic needs are met, true fulfillment is found in spiritual growth, personal relationships, and community life…. We should [...]
Like a building with many doors, a good magazine has lots of entry points. The best magazines—the ones you tuck in your bag for a trip or take with you to the loo—invite you in at every turn. We know that as a Bulletin reader, you’re a peripatetic traveler of our pages, skimming headlines, browsing [...]
I’ve never taken time off while an issue of the Bulletin was in the final stages of production, but the chance to accompany six Swarthmore students to Cambodia during spring break last month could not be missed, prompting me to dig into my own pocket for the airfare. I’m currently in Phnom Penh, where I [...]
I think we may have committed a journalistic sin in this issue of the Bulletin—we probably “buried the lead (pronounced lede).” It’s a rule that I used to emphasize with my high school journalism students in the 1980s—don’t hide the most important fact or engaging element of the story (or in our case, this issue). [...]
One of the things I like about Swarthmore is the number of people here who inspire me. After a hectic week of deadlines, there’s nothing better than watching Associate Professor of Music John Alston lead the Chester Children’s Chorus (CCC) rehearsals on Saturday morning. I usually take my camera so it looks like I have [...]
A year ago, as Swarthmore’s presidential search committee was starting its work, the country was in a presidential search of its own. The national conversation was about hope and change, and almost anything seemed possible.
By the time of Barack Obama’s inauguration in January, the national conversation had changed dramatically. Last summer’s sunny hopes had been [...]
I’ll never forget the Saturday in December 2000 when the Board of Managers decided to end Swarthmore’s football program. A colleague called from campus and said, “You’d better get up here.” That evening, I covered a protest on the steps of Parrish Hall and saw Coach Pete Alvanos weeping as he stood at the microphone.
The [...]
There’s no question that we are in the midst of significant political, economic, and social changes. This issue of the Bulletin looks at change in another era and another country—China. Moying Li M’82 and Linnea Searle ’84 describe their experiences with the Great Leap Forward of the late 1950s and the Beijing Spring of 1989. [...]
A few weeks ago, in the midst of angry Congressional debate over the financial bailout, scary chaos on Wall Street, and noisy election campaigns, I heard this news: We saw it snowing on Mars.
That just stopped me in my tracks.
Using a laser instrument, the U.S.-launched Phoenix spacecraft detected snow falling through the thin Martian atmosphere [...]