Swarthmore College Alumni Bulletin 2003-06-01

Thinking

Big

with astronomer Sandra Moore Faber ’66

Features
Anselm’s
Question

16

Astronomer Sandra Moore
Faber ’66 has built her career
on thinking big.

At Swarthmore, there are lots
of ways to be an individual.

22

3

Collection

4

Campus beat

Connections

36

Class Notes

38

Alumni events and more

By Eliz a b e t h R e d d e n ’ 0 5

Learning
at Home

Letters
Alumni notes

By Dan a M a c ke n z i e ’7 9

Shake It Out

De p a r t m e n t s

26

The number of homeschooled
students attending Swarthmore
is on the rise.

Friends’ jobs and travels

45

In My Life

60

Preserving a Family Legacy

By Ang e l a D o o d y

B y D e n ise Dennis ’72

Devils in
the Details

30

Kurt Eichenwald ’83 is dedicated
to accuracy in uncovering
corporate crime.

B o o ks & A r t s

72

A Day in the Life

80

Movie review and other pearls
Professor of Physics
Amy Bug juggles teaching,
research, and family.

By Sas h a I s s e n b e r g ’ 0 2

B y C a r ol Brévart-Demm

Brothers

Fraternities work to find
a new role on campus.

32

By Son i a S c h e r r ’ 0 1

Playing
Gershwin’s
Tunes

Inspired by one of the masters,
John Child ’37 still teaches
students how to play piano.

“Mother
Gazela”

TO THE MILKY WAY—AND THE ONLY ONE VISIBLE FROM EARTH WITH THE
NAKED EYE. PHOTOGRAPH BY BILL SCHOENING, VANESSA HARVEY/REU
PROGRAM/NOAO/AURA/NSF. STORY ON PAGE 16.

CONTENTS: ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF ENGLISH LITERATURE ELIZABETH BOLTON
TAKES ADVANTAGE OF A SUNNY DAY IN APRIL TO TEACH HER CLASS ON ROMANTIC
LITERATURE IN THE SCOTT AMPHITHEATER. PHOTOGRAPH BY JIM GRAHAM.

56

Gay Burgiel’s [’61] work
on Philadelphia’s tall ship
is never done.
By Angela Doody

The Art of
Cooking

64

Giuliano Hazan ’81
shares the secrets of his
mouthwatering recipes.
By Andrea Hammer

Philly’s
76
Quirkiest Paper
Matt Schwartz ’01 is editor of
the Philadelphia Independent.
By Deborah Bolling

ON THE COVER: THE ANDROMEDA GALAXY (M31) IS THE NEAREST GALAXY

42

By Tricia Maloney

Deaths

Community condolences

Profiles

PA R L O R TA L K

I

spent a good part of the recent war in bed. I wish I could say I did it in
protest, like John and Yoko in Amsterdam, 1969, but it was pneumonia that
had me down. It started as bronchitis; after ordering a chest X ray, the doctor
said, “Let’s switch to the big guns.” He meant a more powerful antibiotic, but,
during the first week of April, it was an appropriate metaphor.
I’ll always equate the Iraq War with this pneumonia—and with the BBC
news that runs all night on National Public Radio. When the program comes
on at midnight, it’s already 5 a.m. GMT; dawn, it seems, is already breaking in
the Middle East. Those clipped, competent British voices made it easier to pass
the restless nights of coughing and fever that accompanied my illness. In a little
more than a week, I rode quite deliriously from Basra to Baghdad with my
embedded BBC buddies and their trusty NPR allies.
Thanks to the “big guns,” I recovered from pneumonia—an illness that once
killed great numbers. And the U.S.-led coalition conquered Iraq with fewer
than 200 American and British soldiers killed. By the time the looting started, I
was back in the office working on
this issue of the Bulletin. You won’t
find much about the war in this issue
of the magazine. America’s modern
wars tend to come and go too quickly
for a quarterly magazine. By the time
we report on the debate leading up to
war, the whole thing is over.
Yet there was a grim sense of
inevitably surrounding the campus
debate in the weeks leading up to the
invasion. The colloquy between journalists Leon Wieseltier and Mark
Danner (page 11) was the most public example of the intense conversations
that occurred all winter in classrooms, residence halls, and the student press.
Although most students and faculty members seemed to be opposed to the war,
others argued that the evil represented by Saddam Hussein—and the weapons
he was said to have—justified the use of military force. Some organized or
joined in antiwar protests, including the temporary (and clandestine) replacement on March 21 of the American flag atop Parrish Hall with a black banner;
others proudly displayed the stars and stripes and sponsored collection boxes
for personal items to send to the troops.
After the fighting stopped, several students organized a two-week program
of “peace initiatives” that directed attention to the human cost of war. One of
these initiatives was the visit of an Iraqi artist, who led a workshop that promoted cross-cultural understanding and produced visualizations of peace. As
the semester ended, I was feeling a lot better, and the campus conversation had
turned at last to how people of intelligence and good will might prevent the
sickness of war from happening again.
—Jeffrey Lott

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

There was a grim
sense of inevitability
surrounding the
campus debate in
the weeks leading
up to the war.

2

Swarthmore
COLLEGE BULLETIN

Editor: Jeffrey Lott
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©2003 Swarthmore College
Printed in U.S.A.

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION
FOR CONSERVATIVES

Associate Dean Darryl Smaw’s essay “Does
Diversity Include Me?” (March Bulletin)
graphically illustrates multiculturalism’s
fatal flaw. Although he generously supported having [conservative author] David
Horowitz speak on campus, the clear and
overwhelming focus of his attention is
melanin, as if the accident of skin color—
not the content of one’s character and the
quality of one’s intellect—were the primary
distinguishing characteristic of a human
being.
To illustrate my point: All else being
equal, if there were only one slot left to fill
in the freshman class, would diversity at
Swarthmore be enhanced by recruiting
(1) the private school–educated African
American daughter of a wealthy New York
City psychiatrist or (2) the white son of an
illiterate Appalachian coal miner? The
answer, of course, is 2, but would—
could?—a professional multiculturalist
agree? I sincerely doubt it.
Dean Smaw’s efforts to foster true intellectual diversity should start with the
acknowledgment that conservatives have
always been overtly discriminated against

Having
a Ball
The Folk-Dance Tradition Continues

at Swarthmore College. That being the
case, it is only fair that conservatives
should be aggressively recruited as faculty
members, administrators, and students—
and, further, that practicing conservatives
be given special preference over all other
similarly situated candidates.
In this regard, I speak from painful personal experience. As a young man, I came
out of the closet at Swarthmore, proudly
and publicly proclaiming that I love
Edmund Burke, Irving Babbitt, and Russell
Kirk. Thirty years later, how many students—let alone faculty—can correctly
identify all three of these illustrious conservative philosophers? One in 10? One in
1,000? One?
Until everyone on campus knows who
these men were and what they thought,
Swarthmore will only be whistling
diversity.
THEODORE HANNON ’74
Kailua, Hawaii
UNDIMMED ENJOYMENT

Many thanks for your story on folk dancing at Swarthmore (“Stepping and Shifting,” March Bulletin). My Scottish countrydancing spouse and children were amazed
to identify with the activity shown on the
cover of the magazine. The article caused
me to reflect on the many gifts I received
from my four years at Swarthmore.
There was, of course, a stretching and
polishing of my intellect. But more important was the development of a respect for

my own mind and those of others—and of
a wide-ranging, persistent curiosity. There
was a spiritual awakening, which has led
me to become a Quaker. There was the
foundation of some deep and lasting
friendships. And then there was folk dancing, which convinced me that I was not
irretrievably inept physically and socially.
Since graduation, I have continued
Scottish country dancing in various countries with undimmed enjoyment. This
activity has brought me my husband (a
Scottish dance teacher, whom I met at
a dance workshop), has provided my major
source of recreational exercise, and continues to be the primary influence on my
social activity. I owe a great deal to Swarthmore—and much to the folk-dance activities. I trust they will long continue to
flourish.
BERTHA FUCHSMAN SMALL ’72
Ste. Anne de Bellevue, Quebec
NO SPACE FOR FOLK DANCE

In the 1960s, long before there was a
Department of Music and Dance at
Swarthmore, all dance programs—folk,
modern, and water ballet—shared space
with the Women’s Athletics Program in the
old Hall Gym. When it was torn down [in
1988] for the construction of the Lang Performing Arts Center (LPAC), the College
repeatedly assured all users of the gym that
accommodations would be made for their
programs.
Since then, programs with full-time faculty have prospered, either in the new
LPAC or in the athletics facilities. But Irene
Moll of the Athletics Department—the faculty member for folk dance—was not replaced after her retirement [in 1978], and
folk dance was never given its own designated space. Although Professor of Dance
Sharon Friedler’s statement that the LPAC
studios were constructed for the curricular
Dance Program is correct, it suggests—I
believe incorrectly—that other dance programs at the College were to be excluded.
In the early days of the LPAC, all dancers
could use the studios, but as the Dance
Program greatly expanded in the 1990s,
folk dance was denied their use.
As Elizabeth Redden ’05 so ably described in her fine report, folk dancing has
a very long and significant history at
Swarthmore. It would be sad indeed if it
P l e a s e t u r n to page 78

JUNE 2003

I was pleased to read about the Learning
for Life Program at the College (“Learning
for Life,” March Bulletin). It sounds wonderful and much needed. Swarthmore
couldn’t run without all its staff, and they
deserve the same respect and appreciation
given members of the faculty. Students
who want to make a difference in the world
should not overlook what needs to be
changed in their own back yard—and in
their own dining room, dormitory bathroom, etc.
Why do some Swarthmore employees
have to work two jobs to make ends meet?
I can think of nothing more important for
the welfare of the Swarthmore community—and the education of Swarthmore students—than making sure that all Swarthmore employees are paid a livable wage. I
would be eager to contribute toward a significant raise for the Swarthmore employees who are now working two jobs to make
ends meet, and I am sure many other
alumni feel the same way.
BETH FERHOLT ’93
La Jolla, Calif.

LETTERS

LEARNING FOR LIFE

3

COLLECTION
Board gives green light to dorm
AT ITS MAY MEETING, THE BOARD OF MANAGERS AUTHORIZED CONSTRUCTION OF A NEW RESIDENCE HALL, part of the master plan of

WILLIAM RAWN ASSOCIATES INC.

The Meaning of Swarthmore, the College’s ongoing capital campaign. Ground will be broken this summer for the 75-bed dormitory, which will be located along Route 320 near the train station.
It is the first new dormitory for Swarthmore since the construction of Mertz Hall in 1981.
Construction of the $15.9 million dormitory will pave the way
for a significant renovation of Parrish Hall, a project that cannot
begin until 60 students displaced by the renovation of Parrish are
accommodated elsewhere. Beginning in 2004, Parrish will see an
upgrade to its mechanical and safety systems, the addition of elevators, and complete renovation of the central “core” of the historic building. The Parrish project is budgeted at $13 million. The
budget for both projects includes endowment funds for future
operating expenses.
The Meaning of Swarthmore has raised $133 million of its $230

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

DEBATERS FOURTH IN COUNTRY

4

Swarthmore’s parliamentary debate team of
Sara Drescher and Rob Peterson, both seniors, was ranked fourth in the country after
going 3–3 during April’s national championship meet at Brandeis University. The
pair had previously won tournaments at the
University of Virginia and George Washington University.
—Adapted from The Daily Gazette, April 15

MOVING ON UP
The following faculty members were recently
promoted from the rank of assistant professor to associate professor with tenure: JeanVincent Blanchard, French; Kathleen
Howard, Chemistry; Carolyn Lesjak, English Literature; Colin Purrington, Biology;

million goal. More than half of the total is earmarked for physical
plant improvements, including a new science center. Parts of the
science center, scheduled for completion in June 2004, have
already been occupied. The campaign is scheduled to end in
December 2006.
When first planned, the residence hall and Parrish projects
were larger in scope. But according to Dan West, vice president for
alumni, development, and public relations, they were scaled back
to “reflect the current economic posture of the country and the
need for prudence by the College.” He said that the College will
continue to raise funds over the course of the campaign in hopes
of completing the original plans, but that renovation of Parrish
Hall’s access, mechanical, and safety systems was “so urgent that it
had to be done immediately and at a reduced cost.”
In addition to the building projects, The Meaning of Swarthmore includes endowment for scholarships; new faculty positions
in chemistry, computer science, education, political science, and
Islamic studies; an expanded program in film and media studies;
initiatives to expand faculty sabbaticals and enhance the diversity
of the faculty and staff; support for the Honors Program; and
expansion of career services for students and alumni.
For more information on The Meaning of Swarthmore, go to
http://www.swarthmore.edu/support.
—Jeffrey Lott
SWARTHMORE’S NEW DORMITORY, DESIGNED BY WILLIAM RAWN ASSOCIATES OF BOSTON, WILL BE LOCATED BETWEEN MERTZ HALL AND ROUTE
320, FACING THE COLLEGE’S SOUTH LAWN. IT IS BEING DESIGNED FOR 75
STUDENTS, BUT INFRASTRUCTURE WILL BE PUT IN PLACE TO ALLOW FOR
FUTURE EXPANSION TO TWICE THAT NUMBER.

and Andrew Ward, Psychology. Part-time
assistant professors of dance Kim Arrow
and Sally Hess were also promoted to associate professor. Full professorship was
awarded to associate professors Alan
Berkowitz, Chinese; Amy Bug, Physics and
Astronomy; Michael Marissen, Music and
Dance; Kathy Siwicki, Biology; and Janet
Talvacchia, Mathematics and Statistics.
—Carol Brévart-Demm

CRUNCHING THE NUMBERS:
THE CLASS OF 2007
Swarthmore accepted 902 students into
next year’s freshman class—23 percent of
the approximately 4,000 who applied. The
College expects about 375 students to accept
the offer of admission.

The admitted class represents six continents, 41 countries, and 47 U.S. states in
addition to the District of Columbia, Guam,
and the Virgin Islands. Sixteen percent of
the admitted class is from New York, making it the most heavily represented state.
California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Florida, Texas, Illinois, and Ohio follow New York in percentage representation, and South Korea is the
most highly represented foreign nation.
Thirty-five percent of the admitted students are valedictorians and salutatorians,
57 percent are in the top 2 percent of their
high school class, and 94 percent are in the
top decile. Forty-four percent identify themselves as American students of color.
—Elizabeth Redden ’05

Reaching Consensus
SUAL DECISION MAKING WERE
HIGH ON THE AGENDA in early

March as the Board of Managers discussed a report by an
ad hoc committee that studied
how the Board makes its decisions.
The study “Consensual Decision Making by the Swarthmore
College Board of Managers”
was presented by a task group
appointed in spring 2002 by
Alumni Association President
Richard Truitt ’66. The project
grew out of meetings between
President Alfred H. Bloom, representatives of the Board, and
members of Mind the Light, a
dissident alumni group that
formed after the Board’s
December 2000 decision to
drop football and wrestling
from the Athletics Program.
The task group, chaired by
Federal District Court Judge
Jed Rakoff ’64, examined several past decisions faced by the
Board, including opposition to
the Blue Route, divestiture
from South Africa, and debate
over the future of the Honors
Program. It concluded that
“consensual decision making
has yielded favorable results in
many situations where it initially appeared that no consensus
was achievable.”
Although the Board’s bylaws
do not prohibit voting, the task
group found that with the
exception of occasional “straw
votes” designed to determine
“whether or to what extent a
committee or the Board was
divided,” the Managers have
traditionally not voted when
making decisions.
The report said that significant challenges to reaching consensus are the time required to
achieve a sense of the meeting
and the “possibility that an

unyielding group will take advantage of the process to prevent any change.”
Although the task group
report did not comment on the
merits of the December 2000
athletics decision, it said that
the nature of the issue “seemed
to tax the ability of participants
to be receptive to changing their
own strongly held views.” The
ad hoc Athletics Review Committee—unable to reach consensus itself—brought both
majority and minority views to
the Board. And, at a critical
moment, the Board unanimously agreed that because of the

sion had been reached by a
majority vote … was not only
itself a departure from past
practice but also added to the
challenges that this difficult situation presented.”
The task group offered “some
modest suggestions … to minimize the impact of such challenges in the future.” It urged
the Board to “expressly affirm
its commitment to the principles of consensual decision
making.” In a minute adopted
on March 1, the Board did just
that, committing itself to “developing practices that will
enhance the effectiveness of the

An ad hoc committee urged
the Board of Managers to
affirm its commitment to
consensus. On March 1, the
Board did just that.
potential impact on athletes
being recruited for the following
year’s freshman class, the athletics decision could not be postponed.
“Facing this self-imposed
deadline,” the report stated,
“the Board [then] agreed unanimously to accept a preliminary
straw vote as final. That vote—
21 to 8— … evidenced that,
while there was a substantial
majority for the decision taken,
there was not a substantive consensus.”
After noting that the Board
had reconsidered and reaffirmed the December decision
by consensus and without a vote
at a special meeting in January
2001, the task group concluded:
“The fact that the effective deci-

consensual decision-making
process.”
Other suggestions by the
task group include greater
attention to orientation and
training of Managers, increasing opportunities for Managers
to have informal discussions of
important issues before their
formal meetings, and a presumption against “premature
action” driven by time pressures.
In a letter posted on the College Web site on March 4, Board
Chairman J. Lawrence Shane ’56
thanked the task group for taking on “an important task for
the good of the College.” He
promised that the Board—and
especially its Nominating and
Governance Committee—would

“review [the report] carefully
and take it fully into account as
we work on future decisions and
activities.”
Mind the Light member
Diana Judd Stevens ’63, who
participated in conversations
that led to the formation of the
task group, said that “the report
reaffirms my belief and commitment to consensus. Making
decisions by consensus takes a
lot of time. The result, however,
is better decisions. I hope that
the Board will apply what has
been learned.”
President Bloom said that he
was “deeply grateful to Rich Truitt, the task group, and Jed
Rakoff for the care, thought,
and balance they invested in the
report. I very much hope that
the report will serve to renew
confidence in the College
among those alumni who were
unsettled by the athletics decision. We must be united in
ensuring the extraordinary
future of our treasured institution.”
Jed Rakoff summed up the
task group’s work as follows:
“Part of our enthusiasm for consensual decision making stems
from the fact that the more we
studied it, the more we made
use of it in our own extended
deliberations—and it worked
marvelously. Of course, one reason it worked so well was that I
was blessed with a committee of
extraordinarily conscientious,
diligent, and perceptive people—but what else would you
expect of Swarthmore alumni?”
—Jeffrey Lott
The committee’s full report is on the
Web at www.swarthmore.edu/alumni/consensus.html. Printed
copies are available from the College’s Office of News and Information: (610) 328-8533.

JUNE 2003

QUAKER PROCESS AND CONSEN-

5

IN CLASS
Learning
to Be
Wise
HOW DO YOU FEEL WHEN A FRIEND BORapproach the topic without making your
friend feel like you’re a creep? What does
your friend’s behavior say about how
thoughtful he is with respect to you? You
face the dilemma of either saying nothing
and having your friend’s oversight fester or
saying something and having your friend
think you small. How do you know what is
the “right” thing to do?
Trivial as it may seem, this example contains all the ingredients to illustrate the
importance of being able to make a “right”
decision in a difficult and complicated
situation.
This semester, the skills needed to make
decisions like this one are being discussed
in a new course called Practical Wisdom.
Guided by Dorwin P. Cartwright Professor
of Social Theory and Social Action Barry
Schwartz and William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Political Science Ken Sharpe, students
analyze the concept of practical wisdom—
the ability to make “right” judgments, driven by qualities such as compassion, honesty,
empathy, responsibility, or commitment—in
any given situation. They investigate its

ELEFTHERIOS KOSTANS

ROWS A SMALL AMOUNT OF MONEY AND
DOESN’T PAY IT BACK? How can you

HOW DO YOU KNOW THE RIGHT THING TO DO? A NEW COURSE CALLED PRACTICAL WISDOM ADDRESSES
THE ABILITY TO MAKE GOOD JUDGEMENTS BASED ON VALUES, NOT RULES. THE COURSE TOOK LONGTIME
FRIENDS AND COLLEAGUES KEN SHARPE (LEFT) AND BARRY SCHWARTZ MORE THAN THREE YEARS TO
PLAN—AND A LIFETIME TO ARRIVE AT.

necessity in life, the means to acquire it, the
social forces that threaten it, and the consequences for society in its absence. And they
learn the difference between independently
acquired practical wisdom and dependence
on predetermined codes or rules for “moral”
behavior.
In sessions devoted to theoretical topics,
concepts like moral imagination and moral
emotion, limits of utilitarianism, and progression from perception to deliberation to
action are examined. The choice to begin by
investigating the area of friendship was,
Schwartz says, “a stroke of accidental

Shane to retire
from Board
chairmanship

6

ANNOUNCED that he will retire
STEVEN GOLDBLATT ʼ67

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

J. LAWRENCE SHANE ’56 HAS

LARRY SHANE HAS SERVED SEVEN
YEARS AS CHAIRMAN OF THE BOARD
OF MANAGERS.

from the chairmanship of the
Board of Managers in December. Shane, former vice chairman of the Scott Paper Co., was
first elected to the Board in
1970. During his tenure, he
served as treasurer, chair of the
investment committee, chair of
the finance committee, and

genius” because the students can so easily
relate to it.
The 25-student class meets for four-anda-half hours on Monday evenings and in
small groups for a minimum of one hour
during the week. Required reading includes
works by Aristotle, Charles Dickens, Martha
C. Nussbaum, and Mark Johnson as well as
articles relating to the weekly topics.
COLLEAGUES AND COLLABORATORS FOR 25
YEARS, Schwartz and Sharpe wanted to
teach about character and virtue as a kind of
response to contemporary moral and politi-

vice chair. He is a longtime resident of Swarthmore, where his
father, Joseph Shane ’25, served
as the College’s vice president
for development from 1950 to
1972.
President Alfred H. Bloom
said, “Larry has been an exceptional chair, as he is an exceptional human being. He understands the continuity and
future of the College, enjoys the
deepest respect of the Managers and of all the faculty,
staff, and students who know

him. He stays one step ahead of
every issue with clear, nuanced,
and wise judgment and prudent and humane response. He
has led the College through
both favorable and difficult
times with consummate integrity, skill, vision, tireless
energy, and loving care.”
“One of the special privileges of the job,” said Shane,
“was to work with and to get to
know Al Bloom. He’s a great
leader who has a clear vision of
Swarthmore’s defining role in

liberal arts education.” Shane
also praised his fellow Board
members as “an extremely dedicated, talented, and generous
group of people.”
Shane plans to remain on
the Board after leaving the
chairmanship. The Board will
select his successor from among
its members. A nomination will
be brought to the Board by its
Nominating and Governance
Committee. Lillian Kraemer ’61,
chair of the committee, said that
before making a recommenda-

wisdom is the central element of virtue
and character. None
of the traits identified as virtues would
get you anywhere
unless you had wisdom. You’d be better
off with rules.”

SEVERAL WEEKS

INTO THE COURSE,

SAILOR SENTENCED
A sailor initially charged with raping a Swarthmore student in
December 2001 was sentenced in April to a lesser charge of
indecent assault and indecent exposure. Benjamin Ramsayer,
20, was briefly reported AWOL from the Navy before reporting
to Delaware County Prison to serve a minimum of six weeks. He
also faces Navy discipline.
Although the victim went to the College health center the
morning after the incident, a condom that might have become
evidence in the trial was discarded when she first decided not to
press charges. She went to the police in January 2002 after
returning from winter break. “I thought I could just forget about
it, but I couldn’t,” she told the jury in the Media courthouse.
—Jeffrey Lott

the class prepares to
discuss the use of
practical wisdom in
medicine. “Knowing
what practical wisdom is really doesn’t tell
you what to do,” Schwartz tells the class.
The leap from moral understanding to
moral conduct is difficult to see. Fifteen
short readings offer concrete situations as
starting points for the evening’s discussion.
One student presents an interaction
between an oncologist who must tell a
patient that she has ovarian cancer. Someone says: “In deciding what to tell a patient,
it’s crucial for the doctor to know something
about the patient and then to mold the
truth to make it bearable.”
“What then about the virtue of honesty?” asks another student.
Another wonders whether an expert doctor with hundreds of patients—about
whom he knows nothing but their clinical
symptoms—is preferable to a less skilled
family physician who sees fewer patients but
knows them better. The expert is technically
more competent, but the family physician
shows more compassion. “Which
tion, members of the committee
one would care
“will have conversations with
enough to send
every Board member about the
you elsewhere, if
qualities and characteristics that
he didn’t know the
the new chair should possess
answer?” he asks.
and will also seek views on indiSharpe acvidual potential nominees.”
knowledges that
Kraemer added that the commitrisks are involved
tee will be “working hard over
in using judgthe course of the summer to colment. “If your
late and assess these views so
practical wisdom
that we can make an initial
is bad,” he says,
report to the whole Board in
“or if there’s none
September.”
to be had, as in
—Jeffrey Lott
places where there
is no pattern to

follow, you use rules.” He asks whether it is
possible to teach doctors to ask “caring”
questions or whether only certain individuals are able to do this: “How is being a virtuous person essential to being a good doctor?”

AFTER FOUR-AND-A-HALF HOURS OF SUCH
TALK, the students are still vigorously

engaged. Discussion is more important
than reaching conclusions. “We’re thrilled
with the course so far,” says Schwartz.
So, it seems, are the students.
“I love this course,” says Celia Paris ’05.
“The first few weeks of the semester, I felt
like I couldn’t escape from it. Every decision
in my life suddenly seemed to be a morally
laden choice requiring indefinable practical
wisdom. The course helped me understand
the fundamental process of human decision
making and how the decisions have implications for character. And I like the focus on
how institutions shape and are shaped by
certain moral perspectives.”
Sydney Beveridge ’03, a political science
major, says: “This is a great experience.
What sets this course apart is its emphasis
on personal, community, and professional
life.”
One of the goals of the course is for the
students to learn to appreciate the importance of becoming wise. “We’d like them to
develop certain strengths that will enable
them to become wise and compassionate
decision makers,” Schwartz says.
In affirmation of this, Lillian Ray ’05
says, “I feel like I now have a concept of
virtue that I can work with and use to think
about decision making.”
—Carol Brévart-Demm

JUNE 2003

cal trends, which they oppose. During the
past two years—including Sharpe’s sabbatical leave last year—the two spent an incalculable number of hours studying individually and “about 1,000 hours” working
together to develop the syllabus.
“Conservatives,” says Schwartz, “had
sort of cornered the market on virtue talk.
Liberals don’t talk about what it means to be
good or do good, while all these right-wing
people talk about how the liberals are
destroying any notion of character and
morality.” Sharpe adds that the conservative
notion of good character not only excludes
important virtues like compassion, empathy,
honesty, commitment, and justice but also
implies that virtue can be taught according
to certain rules.
“For us,” says Sharpe, “the crucial notion
of a good character isn’t simply to be a good
rule follower but to possess the practical
wisdom to decide what it means to do the
right thing in the right place at the right
time. This notion of practical wisdom—
which is an ancient one—just wasn’t part of
the current discussion.“
In addition, Schwartz and Sharpe both
regard the capitalist marketplace, acclaimed
by conservatives as the solution to social
ills, as corrosive to character and a principal
factor in spawning the very character flaws
that conservatives seem to abhor. Meanwhile, liberals rarely apply their critiques to
character.
“So,” says Schwartz, “we feel that our
idea speaks to both of the two major currents of thinking in America—and that it is
critical of both of them. We came to see that

7

RETIREMENTS

THINKER
FOR SCHEUER FAMILY PROFESSOR OF HUMANI-

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

TIES AND PROFESSOR OF PHILOSOPHY HUGH
LACEY, the end of this academic year marks

8

the completion of a 31-year career at Swarthmore. After one year as an instructor from
1965 to 1966, he joined the faculty of the
Philosophy Department in 1972. He has also
served as chair of the College’s Peace and
Conflict Studies and of Latin American
Studies programs. Recipient of many accolades, he was a Eugene M. Lang Research
Professor from 1992 to 1996 and a Lindback Distinguished Teaching honoree in
1999 to 2000. He is the author of about
100 articles and six books, including his
major work Is Science Value Free? Values and
Scientific Understanding, which was translated into Russian. His research focuses on the
philosophy of science, particularly the interaction of science and values as well as ethical issues relating to biotechnology and its
alternatives in agriculture; the philosophies
of psychology and mathematics; space and
time; liberation theology; community building; and service learning.
Speaking fondly of Swarthmore, Lacey
says: “The College provided me with an
environment of extremely talented students,
making the classroom a constant challenge
and, at times, a source of new insight.
Through its leave program, I also enjoyed
opportunities to engage in my scholarship
in an ongoing and systematic way.”
In return, Lacey has consistently tried to
integrate scholarship and teaching, so that
his students are “constantly involved in the
ongoing production of thinking.” Through a
long association with the University of São
Paulo in Brazil, including three years as a
professor collaborador, he has developed what
he calls a “multicultural agenda,” enabling
him to introduce a variety of perspectives
into his teaching at Swarthmore.
In March, the Philosophy Department
and the Greater Philadelphia Philosophy

Consortium presented a conference “Science, Values, and Society” in Lacey’s honor,
featuring scholars from both North and
South America.
During retirement, Lacey and his Brazilian wife, Maria Inês, will remain in their
home in Swarthmore, but Lacey anticipates
spending one semester a year teaching graduate students in São Paulo. The completion
of writing projects is also on his agenda as
well as time to play with granddaughter
Paige (in photo above). “My wife and I are
both quite taken with her,” he says.

FRIEND
ON DEC. 31, AFTER 30 YEARS AT SWARTHMORE,
Howard M. and Charles F. Jenkins Professor
of Quaker History and Research and Director of the Friends Historical Library Jerry
Frost retired, after being feted by colleagues,
students, and friends. Founder of the Peace
and Conflict Studies Program and its chair
for a total of seven years, he has taught
courses on American Religious History,
Quakerism, War and Peace, American Family in Historical Perspective, Issues in Arms
Control and Disarmament, Religion and
Society, Religion and the Human Experience, and Introduction to Peace Studies.
Author of many books, dozens of book
chapters, articles, and book reviews, Frost
has received several fellowships, including
two Eugene M. Lang Faculty fellowships.
While at Swarthmore, Frost worked hard
to keep the College aware that its Quaker
tradition was still relevant. He says, “I was
successful in that we used that to create the
Peace and Conflict Studies Program and
also that we were able to build up both the
staff and the endowment of the Friends
Historical Library and the Peace Collection.
They are superb collections.”
The creation of the Peace and Conflict
Studies Program, Frost says, encouraged use
of the resources of the Peace Collection. “I
think [the program] enriched the curriculum

JIM GRAHAM

LACEY

ELEFTHERIOS KOSTANS

Four New
Professors
Emeriti

FROST

by linking it beyond the Religion Department to one of the significant testimonies
of the Society of Friends,” he says.
Frost’s retirement activities include finalizing a book manuscript, “Religions, War,
and Peace: A History of Moral Perspectives”;
editing a book of papers to be presented at
the George Fox Conference, to be published
in spring 2004 in a special double issue of
Quaker History; and other research projects.
He is enjoying retirement living—winters in Holmes Beach, Fla., and summers in
Chestertown on Maryland’s Eastern Shore
in an 1859 farmhouse, restored by his wife
and surrounded by soybean and corn fields.
“It’s marvelous,” Frost says.
Occasionally, he misses academic life. “I
think I was singularly blessed to be allowed
to teach at Swarthmore, and I hope that I
was as good for Swarthmore as it was for
me.”

STUDENT DIES IN ACCIDENT
On March 8, Katie Stauffer ’05 was killed
in an automobile accident on Interstate
95 in southern Georgia, while she, Jeff
Schneider ’05, and Marty Griffith ’05
were en route to Florida for spring break.
Schneider, the driver of the car, underwent surgery for his injuries, which
included a cracked vertebra. Griffith suffered minor injuries.
Stauffer, 19, was a graduate of Quakertown [Pa.] Community High School in
Pennsylvania and at Swarthmore was
studying psychobiology and premed. She
was a top sprint freestyler and breaststroker for the College swim team, a
polevaulter for the spring track team, and
an active member of the Swarthmore
Protestant Community.
—Elizabeth Redden ’05

OF THEATER LEE
DEVIN, who retired
CAROL BREVART-DEMM

on Dec. 31, came to
Swarthmore in
1970, no curricular
attention was given
to art of any kind
except the study of
art history. “The idea of giving credit for
courses in acting was pretty revolutionary,”
he says. Based initially in the English
Department, he started with a 0.5 credit
course, Ensemble I, which ran from Sunday
to Thursday from 7 to 10 p.m. The course,
instead of emphasizing performance, concentrated on acting skills, using scripts,
improvisation, physical carriage, and manners. “It was brutally hard—both physically
and intellectually demanding,” says Devin.
The English Department was impressed
and, gradually, so was the rest of the campus. “Their acceptance of the idea of a theater and one that was unique to Swarthmore was really a thrill,” says Devin.
Several years into his mission, Devin
realized that the students he was educating
were quite different from those of his colleagues at other institutions, who were
training students to be actors. Rather than
aiming at stardom, they realized that skills
like the ability to focus, making improvisational choices, and living with the results
are valuable life skills. “I began to see,” says
Devin, “that teaching theater as a liberal arts
major is almost [perfectly] suited to fulfill
the goals of a college.”
Thirty years later, the College has some
of the best facilities for theater and the
other fine arts on the East Coast.
In February, a symposium, “The Invisible
Art: Dramaturgy in American Theater,” was
held in Devin’s honor.
An actor, director, playwright, and consulting dramaturge at The People’s Light
and Theater Company in Malvern, Pa.,
Devin will keep busy. In May, he and former
student and professor of technology and
operations management at Harvard Business School Robert Austin ’84 published
Artful Making: What Managers Need to Know
About How Artists Work. “It’s been spectacular to work with Lee,” Austin says. “He’s
really good at collaboration because he’s
been doing it all his life.”

THE COLLEGE,
Daniel Underhill
Professor of Music
James Freeman
retires this year.
He has taught
FREEMAN
courses including
Opera, Lieder,
Contemporary American Music, Conducting
and Orchestration, and 19th-century music.
His wife and colleague, Dorothy Freeman,
an associate in music performance and
department concert manager, will retire with
him.
Freeman says that his tenure at Swarthmore has been highlighted by “working
with great colleagues, beginning with
Swarthmore’s first full-time professor of
music, Peter Gram Swing, and continuing
today with a tremendously lively department
of superb performing artists, composers,
and scholars.”
His colleague Jane Lang Professor of
Music Gerald Levinson says: “If Peter Gram
Swing was the founding father of our program, Jim is at least equally important to
how we got to where we are.”
“Jim is a marvel,” adds Assistant Professor of Music Tom Whitman ’82. “His enthusiasm for all kinds of music combined with

his vast knowledge of the repertoire and
his boundless energy made an indelible
impression on me, when I was a student at
Swarthmore more than 20 years ago.… [As
a colleague,] he’s a wonderful role model.”
In 1988, Freeman founded the Philadelphia contemporary music chamber orchestra and ensemble Orchestra 2001, the College’s resident ensemble. He has served
since then as its artistic director and conductor. Dorothy, an oboist and English
horn player with the orchestra, also performs with the Philly Pops and the Opera
Company of Philadelphia.
As a conductor, Freeman has commissioned and given the first performances of
numerous new works by American composers. Levinson says: “His service to the
cause of new music is a perfect embodiment
of both his sense of adventure and his nondoctrinaire attitude.”
Freeman plans to expand Orchestra
2001’s season and scope. He is thinking, he
says, “about several projected European
tours and a whole slew of recordings.” Freeman looks forward to “some piano playing
and recording that I’ve been putting off for
years.” And, he adds, “There are a couple of
books to be written as well as some
marathons to be run and some mountains
to climb.”
—Carol Brévart-Demm

Maria Alvarez ’04, Janell Kapoor,
Morgan Simon ’04, Harris Kornstein ’06, Chloe Le Pichon ’05,
and Tika Young ’03 (left to right)
tread a mixture of clay, sand,
and straw to make adobe bricks
for a Wall of Peace to be built in
the Crum Woods below Dana and
Hallowell dormitories. The project—one of several events held
during two weeks of campus
peace initiatives in April—was
conceived by Le Pichon, who
belongs to a campus meditation
group, and Alex Edleson ’04, who has recently learned about natural building.
“We thought we should dedicate the space to a building of peace—with nature, ourselves,
and our community. It expresses our long vision for peace, where each little brick is adding
to the vision,” says Le Pichon. With its undulating contours, the wall will descend from a
height of 6 feet at one end to ground level at the other. “It is a wall that includes, encircles,
and does not divide,” Le Pichon adds. Self-described “avid mud mama” Janell Kapoor, founder
of Kleiwerks (www.kleiwerks.com), an international grassroots natural building organization,
guided the group. Several other members of the campus community participated.
—Carol Brévart-Demm

Mud for Peace

JUNE 2003

MUSICIAN
AFTER 37 YEARS AT

ERNST DEMM

DEVIN

STEVEN GOLDBLATT ʼ67

THESPIAN
WHEN PROFESSOR

9

ON A CORNER BULLETIN BOARD IN PARRISH,
the Animal Rights Coalition (ARC) posts
pamphlets about killing minks for fur coats.
Fabien Tepper ’03, the group’s president,

In addition, ARC distributes free “Vegetarian Starter Kits,” which include vegan
recipes and products, nutrition information,
and articles on raising vegan children. ARC
also sponsors a vegetarian night in
Sharples each semester
in conjunction with
Dining Services (see sidebar), organizes
fund-raisers, and coordinates letter writing
and surveys.
“A survey we conducted two years ago
showed that about 37 percent of the student
body was vegetarian, and 5 percent was
vegan—numbers that I believe have risen
since then,” Tepper says. “I am a vegetarian
and a vegan as well; I don’t eat or wear any
animal products.”
Vegans do not consume any animal food
or dairy products. They also do not use animal products such as leather.
“This year, we are working with the Committee for Socially Responsible Investing to
persuade the College’s Investments Committee to vote affirmatively on shareholder

For the Animals
formed the ARC with seniors Kristina
Alayan and Emily Chavez in fall 2000.
“I co-founded ARC because I felt the
Swarthmore community needed a source for
information about the issues affecting a
group … ignored by American policy makers
... that receives almost no legal protection
from the industries that torture, kill, and
exploit its members for profit,” she says.
ARC has nine active members this year.
Updates are sent to an e-mail list of more
than 50, some of whom post flyers without
attending meetings. Educational campaigns
focus on the puppy mill industry, the meat
industry’s impact on environmental and
natural resources, cosmetics testing practices, and ethical issues.

ballot initiatives relating to animal welfare
issues that are brought against large corporations such as Procter & Gamble and
McDonald’s,” she adds. “This semester, we
are working to convince the College to cosign an initiative, asking Procter & Gamble
to reduce the number of live subjects used to
test their cosmetics—competitors such as
Avon, Mary Kay, Paul Mitchell, Revlon, and
dozens of others have tested their products
using ‘cruelty-free’ methods for years—and
to establish and enforce minimum animal
welfare standards for animals they do use.”
Tepper plans to give lifelong support to
animal rights. “I’ve decided to spend the
summer and fall working on organic farms
in Austria and Switzerland,” she says.
“Our views are far from widely held,
however, and our campaigns meet with both
praise and hostility,” Tepper says. “The
greatest challenge for me is developing a
depth of understanding for other people
that enables me to discuss these issues
always with a listening ear.”
—Andrea Hamme

“MY GOAL FOR ARC IS TO LET PEOPLE UNDERSTAND HOW GROUND BEEF ARRIVES IN THE PACKAGE,” SAYS CO-FOUNDER FABIEN TEPPER (RIGHT). IN
APRIL, DAVIDE BERRETTA (LEFT) JOINED TEPPER IN SHARPLES DINING HALL,
WHERE THEY ENJOYED VEGETARIAN FOOD SUCH AS RATATOUILLE, PIEROGI

ELEFTHERIOS KOSTANS

WITH ONIONS AND SOUR CREAM, COUSCOUS, AND SWEET POTATO WHIP.

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

ONE THIRD OF STUDENTS ARE VEGETARIANS

10

“MEETING THE NEEDS OF OUR VEGETARIAN POPULATION IS A WORK IN
PROGRESS,” says Linda McDougall, director of Dining Services.
Sharples offers vegan and vegetarian options at all meals, including soy and rice milk, veggie burgers, and vegan refried beans. In
addition, vegan-specific desserts such as sorbet, tofutti, apple crisp,
and tofu tarts are served three nights a week. According to McDougall, Dining Services uses approximately 200 pounds of tofu weekly.
“One of our biggest challenges is meeting the dessert needs of
vegans because almost all desserts include eggs or egg whites. As far
as entrees, they are not necessarily a challenge for our cooks; the

challenge, as in all meal planning, is keeping it interesting and
tasty,” she says.
Vegetarian and vegan meals are a little more expensive than regular entrées. Products such as vegan cheeses and frozen tofutti, which
is a vegan ice cream, are twice the cost of regular cheese and ice
cream,” she says. “There is only one wholesale distributor in this
area, and products are often out of stock.”
McDougall estimates that 30 percent of students are vegetarians—slightly fewer than the ARC survey results but in the same
range. She also has observed a 10 percent increase in recent years.
“It seems that even students who consider themselves carnivores
partake of the vegetarian line several times a week,” she says. “In an
attempt to understand the vegetarian/vegan lifestyle better, Director
of Purchasing Janet Kassab chose this [diet] for the Lenten season
last year. We take the need for interesting vegetarian dishes very
seriously here at Swarthmore. Because of the diverse student population, we know we [also] need to offer many ethnic selections.”
Davide Berretta ’05, the newest ARC member and a “rookie” vegetarian says: “I think the College does a great job in addressing
these needs. The dining hall always offers many alternatives for vegetarians, and even a vegan can easily get all that he needs in more
than three to four alternatives.”
—Andrea Hammer

MULATTO NATION
In March, installation artist Lesley Saar reconfigured Swarthmore’s
List Gallery as “The Mulattoville Museum.” Posing as a guest curator
and professor of Mulatto studies, Saar wrote wall texts identifying her
large portraits and dioramas as artifacts embodying the cultural history of a Mulatto Nation—and often parodying American history. In
“Mulattos at War” (above), half-black and half-white dolls ride 5-foot
warships into the “Battle of Halfway.” Curator Andrea Packard ’85
writes: “Colorful, kitschy, and in-your-face, Saar’s dioramas violate
social and aesthetic norms and cause us to examine our assumptions
about art, history, and race.”
—Jeffrey Lott

THE ART
OF SCIENCE
When Audrey Chan
’04 headed outside
with her classmates
to paint landscapes
in an art class last
fall, the studio art
major was immediately drawn to the concrete slabs and steel
beams of the College’s emerging science center.
“Every week, we
headed outside to
paint, but I was less
interested in the sky
and trees than I was
in the monolithic structure emerging outside Beardsley [Hall] that I
passed on the way to class. The interlocking beams and slabs of the
building fascinated me.… I wanted to take on the challenge of
painting the complex architectural form emerging out of—and almost
dwarfing—nature.” Her construction site series was shown at the
Kitao Student Art Gallery.
—Angela Doody

JUNE 2003

ELEFTHERIOS KOSTANS

COURTESY OF CBS NEWS

JUST DAYS BEFORE BOMBS FELL ON BAGHDAD, journalists Mark Danner and Leon Wieseltier debated the brewing war in Iraq before a
crowd of hundreds in the Pearson-Hall Theatre. The two spoke for
nearly two-and-a-half hours on everything from past American policy in the Middle East to future plans for democratizing Iraq.
Danner, a journalism professor at the University of California–
Berkeley and a staff writer for The New Yorker, argued against war.
He told the audience that Iraq, “a miserable country of 23 million,”
posed no real threat to the United States, but that a war there
would “bring more terrorism to our shores.” He also disparaged the
Bush administration’s plan to create a democracy in postwar Iraq,
saying that such plans were too ambitious to be realistic.
Wieseltier, author and editor at The New Republic, defended the
oncoming war by distinguishing between the Bush administration’s
rationale for military intervention,
saying that he was
not a supporter of
the government’s
justification but
believed that a war
should happen
nonetheless. He
called the situation
in Iraq an “international emergency,”
requiring intervenA DEBATE BETWEEN LEON WIESELTIER (LEFT) AND
tion by the global
MARK DANNER WAS ONE OF MANY CAMPUS CONcommunity to reVERSATIONS ABOUT THE IRAQ WAR THIS SPRING.
spond to crimes
against humanity
such as genocide and the use of weapons of mass destruction. He
asserted that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was guilty of both.
One major point of contention was whether past American policy toward Iraq should be used to evaluate current efforts. Also hotly
debated was the efficacy of U.N. weapons inspections.
Finally, the two speakers clashed on the issue of whether Iraq
could realistically be democratized following a military conflict.
Danner raised questions about whether comparisons between postwar Germany and Japan were accurate, saying that, unlike Iraq,
those countries had ethnically homogenous populations, existing
political societies that were amenable to the development of democracy. His opponent countered this argument by noting that a “social
basis for democratization” already was present in Iraq in the form
of a relatively substantial middle class.
Following the one-on-one debate, the floor was opened up to
comment, and the speakers fielded questions about President
Bush’s capacity to lead the rebuilding of Iraq, the consequences of
war for neighboring Middle Eastern nations, and the role of history
in the analysis of the current scenario, among others.
—Jeremy Schifeling ’03
Adapted from The Daily Gazette, March 6, 2003

AGUST AGUSTSSON

Writers Debate
Iraq War

11

SPORTS
Williams
Steps Down
as Athletics
Director
Hertz, associate athletics director for two years, has
been named the College’s new athletics director.
In announcing the moves, Swarthmore President
Alfred H. Bloom praised Williams for his contributions to Swarthmore athletics. “Bob has brought a profound understanding and appreciation of the role physical education and athletics can play in enhancing the mission of fine liberal arts education and devoted 16 years of wise, tireless, and distinguished leadership to Swarthmore’s accomplishment of that goal,” Bloom said.
In addition to continuing as the chair of the Physical Education
Department, Williams will serve as the faculty athletics representative to the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and
will undertake an examination of the role and administration of
club sports at Swarthmore. Williams has served on numerous
NCAA committees, including a three-year term on the NCAA
Council.
Since coming to Swarthmore in 1987, Williams has been athletics director and department chair. In addition, he coached track
and field—as head coach initially and later on a more informal
basis—until 2000. Before his tenure at Swarthmore, Williams was
head track-and-field coach and director of physical education at
Amherst College.
Hertz, whose appointment as athletics director is effective
immediately, came to Swarthmore in 2001 after serving five years

JIM GRAHAM

ROBERT WILLIAMS, DIRECTOR OF ATHLETICS FOR THE
PAST 16 YEARS, IS STEPPING DOWN from the post. Adam

BOB WILLIAMS (RIGHT), ATHLETICS DIRECTOR FOR 16 YEARS, HAS RESIGNED
THE POST. HIS SUCCESSOR, ADAM HERTZ (LEFT), HAS BEEN ASSOCIATE ATHLETICS DIRECTOR SINCE 2001. WILLIAMS WILL REMAIN A MEMBER OF THE
DEPARTMENT OF PHYSICAL EDUCATION AND ATHLETICS.

as athletics director at Alvernia College in Reading, Pa. Hertz also
coached men’s soccer and golf at Alvernia. In addition, he has held
coaching and administrative posts at Arcadia University (formerly
Beaver College) and Spring Garden College in Philadelphia. He
serves on the NCAA Division III Men’s Soccer Committee.
“Adam has a remarkable ability to work with and inspire others,
quickly earns their trust for his fairness and integrity, loves sports,
values excellence, brings high energy and good humor, and understands the ways in which athletics can maximally support and contribute to fine liberal arts education,” Bloom said. “We look forward to the exceptional leadership he will provide in ensuring the
high quality of physical education and athletics at Swarthmore.”
The College currently fields 22 varsity sports and is a member of
the NCAA Division III and the Centennial Conference.
—Tom Krattenmaker

12

“Swarthmore is a highly demanding place intellectually and academically, where everybody knows one another,” writes Women’s
Wear Daily (WWD) in a May 1 story on America’s most fashionable colleges. “The uniform [comprises] jeans (no fancy labels)
and a T-shirt or perhaps a funky top. For some students, the
uniform is an outward expression of an aversion to markings of
social class and capitalism. Others admit they toe the line to
avoid being viewed as too interested in appearance and not
interested enough in their schoolwork.” Unlike some other
national magazine rankings, Swarthmore did not make Women’s
Wear Daily’s top 10.
—Jeffrey Lott
SUSANNA VOLPE ’05 (RIGHT) WEARS IT IN THE COSBY COURTYARD.

BOB KRIST

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

THE UNIFORM

JUNIOR ANJANI REDDY WENT 23–7 IN SINGLES
MATCHES THIS SEASON, EARNING HER SECOND
TRIP TO THE NCAA SINGLES TOURNAMENT.

Murphy had 15 goals and 14 assists on the
season, finishing eighth on the career
points and career goals lists with 142 and
83, respectively. Court finished 13th on the
career assist list. Attacker Joseph DeSimone
’04 led all scorers with 27 goals and nine

JOHN FERKO

Led by first
singles player Anjani Reddy ’04 (23–7), the
women’s tennis team boasted a perfect Centennial Conference (CC) record, winning
the regular season team title for the third
time. The Garnet also won titles in 1995 and
2001. Ranked 17th nationally for most of
the season, the team’s regular season wins
over No. 23 Mary Washington and No. 26
University of the South propelled the Garnet into the 2003 NCAA Division III
women’s tennis tournament, the program’s
first bid for the team nationals. Facing a
rematch of their season opener against
Mary Washington in the first round, the
Garnet dominated, winning all points to
advance to Sunday’s play against the No. 2
team in the nation, Washington and Lee,
before bowing out 8–1 to the Generals.
Several Garnet players were unbeaten in
conference play, including No. 3 singles,
Caroline Celano ’04; No. 4, Ellie Suzuki ’06;
No. 5, Emily Townsend ’06; No. 6, Sonia
Vallabh ’06. The No. 3 doubles team of
Meghan Speare ’05 and Katherine Voll ’03
also boasted a perfect record.
Men’s tennis (7–7) Ranked No. 20, the
Garnet earned their 24th consecutive bid for
the NCAA Division III men’s tennis tournament. With a training trip to Japan sandwiched between the two halves of the season, the Garnet toppled No. 14, Washington
& Lee; and No. 19, Rhodes en route to a No.
3 ranking in the Atlantic South Region.
Women’s lacrosse (6–11, 1–7) After
graduating seven starters, the Garnet rebuilt
around returning starting co-captains Meg
Woodworth ’03 and Kate Nelson-Lee ’03 on
defense. Attacker Jackie Kahn ’04 was asked
to step into the void left by CC leading
career scorer Katie Tarr ’02 and led the team
with 59 goals, good for sixth place in the
conference. Kahn received All-CC honorable
mention recognition. On the defensive end,
Sam Uslan ’03 dominated the cage, earning
first team All-CC honors. With a .596 save
percentage, Uslan is ranked 15th in Division
III.
Men’s lacrosse (8–7, 4–4) The Garnet
finished just shy of the CC playoffs, finishing fifth in the conference. Led by senior cocaptains Than Court ’03 and John Murphy
’03, the team received a bid to the 2003
ECAC Southern Region championships.

MARK DUZENSKI

Women’s tennis (14–4, 10–0)

SENIOR MIDFIELDER JOHN MURPHY LED THE
GARNET TO TWO APPEARANCES IN THE ECAC
TOURNAMENT DURING HIS SWARTHMORE CAREER.

assists, finishing 10th in the conference in
goals per game.
Softball (6–23, 4–12) At 6–23, the Garnet posted its most wins since 1998. Sophomore Val Marone and first-year Val Maulbeck both led the team with a .342 batting
average, good for 13th best in the CC. Firstyear pitcher Emily Remus recorded a 5–7
record.
Baseball (5–22, 4–14) The young Garnet scrapped out five wins on the season.
Junior Ryan Pannorfi hit a team best .340
and led the team in hits (34), runs (29), and
stolen bases (10 of 10). Junior Matt Goldstein hit .303 and put up solid pitching
numbers. The lefty recorded a 3–4 record in
seven starts with a 3.21 ERA, which was
eighth best in the CC. Goldstein held
opposing batters to a .209 batting average,
which was fifth best in the league and
ranked fourth in strikeouts, punching out
50 batters in 56 innings.
Women’s track and field Swarthmore
placed eighth at the CC Championship.
Claire Hoverman ’03 won a silver medal in
the 800 meters, and Njideka Akunyili ’04
captured a bronze medal in the 400 meters.
The duo teamed up with Elizabeth Gardner
’05 and Emily Wistar ’06 to win a silver in
the 4 x 800-meter relay. Gardner set a
school record in the 800-meter run of
2:13.50. Both Akunyili and Gardner competed at the NCAA championships.
Men’s track and field The Garnet placed
seventh at the CC Championship. Sophomore James Golden lived up to his name as
he won the 5,000-meter run in a time of
15:02.78. Junior Lang Reynolds finished in
third place in the 10,000-meter run in
32:13.57, and sophomore Garrett Ash finished in fourth place in both events.
Golf (6–4) The Garnet placed seventh at
the CC Championship held at Eagles Landing Golf Course in Berlin, Md. The team
posted a three-day total of 1,033, finishing
97 strokes off the lead. Sophomore Matt
Draper carded a team-best 250 total to finish in 21st place. Draper fired a career-low
round of 78 on the final day of the tournament on the par 72 course.
This year’s Hood Trophy went to Haverford College by a score of 12.5 to 5.5. Swarthmore last won the trophy in 1996.
—Kate Nelson-Lee ’03 and Mark Duzenski

JUNE 2003

W o m e n ’s Te n n i s W i n s C o n f e r e n c e

13

Seeking Justice
in Sierra Leone

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

14

SWARTHMORE CAMPUS to and from their classes last semester,
Mark Hanis was helping to restore peace in war-torn Sierra Leone.
The 20-year-old junior spent five months as an intern in the
Special Court in Sierra Leone, an independent country in western
Africa that has been racked by years of civil war and horrific war
crimes committed against its people.
The decade-long civil war between Sierra Leone’s government
and the Revolutionary United Front resulted in tens of thousands
of deaths until a peace agreement was achieved in 2001. The independent court was created through an agreement between the
United Nations and Sierra Leonean government and is similar to
international criminal tribunals in Rwanda and Yugoslavia. Its
mandate is to prosecute those who bear the greatest responsibility
for crimes against humanity, which include vicious murders, sexual
violence, human sacrifice, and mutilations.
On June 4, Charles Taylor, the president of neighboring Liberia,
was charged by the Special Court. The indictment accused Taylor
of “bearing the greatest responsibility for war crimes, crimes
against humanity, and serious violations of international humanitarian law within the territory of Sierra Leone.” Taylor has also
been involved in the long-running civil war in his own country.
Hanis, who arrived in Sierra Leone in February, told Richter
Professor of Political Science Raymond Hopkins about his interest
in Africa last year. He was introduced to Michael Pan ’97, a political
adviser to the special court’s prosecutor in Freetown, the country’s
capital, and Pan successfully lobbied his superiors to accept Hanis
as the court’s only college intern.
“Mark [made] Swarthmore proud. He’s bright, hardworking and
deeply committed to the court’s work. He really made a difference
out here, and I was glad to have a fellow Swarthmorean as a colleague,” Pan said, adding that Hanis’ internship was an exceptional
opportunity for a college student.
Hanis’ job at the court required him to do anything from conducting a background check on a journalist to gathering information for investigators. When he was not working, he experienced
the realities of life in one of the most underdeveloped countries in
the world.
Although the Quito, Ecuador, native said he was used to seeing
poverty in his own country, the sights in Sierra Leone were “shocking.”
For starters, only 36 percent of the country is literate, and the
average life expectancy for a man is 43 years. In addition, twothirds of the country’s working population survives by subsistence
agriculture, according to The World Factbook 2002.
“People are struggling. There’s no electricity [in most of the
homes]. Literally, much of the light at night comes from the headlights of the wealthy driving by. There are lines of people walking
on the sides of the roads, trying to avoid the cars and the piles of
trash,” he said.
The lack of electricity and running water prompted Hanis to finish any personal reading before 7 p.m. and take bucket showers.

COURTESY OF MARK HANIS

WHILE MOST OF HIS CLASSMATES WERE TRAVERSING THE TRANQUIL

MARK HANIS ’04 (ABOVE) SPENT A SEMESTER IN SIERRA LEONE AS THE ONLY
COLLEGE-AGED INTERN AT THE U.N.-BACKED SPECIAL COURT THAT IS INVESTIGATING WAR CRIMES THERE DURING A 10-YEAR CIVIL WAR THAT ENDED IN
2001. MICHAEL PAN ’97, WHO IS POLITICAL ADVISER TO THE COURT’S PROSECUTOR, ARRANGED FOR THE UNUSUAL INTERNSHIP.

But with all the difficult experiences, there were also many positive
ones. He was quick to point out that the Sierra Leonean people are
warm and welcoming, and the country’s mountains and white-sand
beaches are some of the most beautiful he’s ever seen.
Even more memorable for the political science major was witnessing the court issue its first indictments against seven people
accused of crimes against humanity and violations of international
law.
“This is such a great opportunity and such a unique court. This
historic event was too good to miss,” said Hanis, who wants to
attend law school and work on economic development issues one
day.
“When I return [to campus], I’ll be more grateful for even the
small things, like fresh drinking water. You tend to lose sight of
what’s important when you’re inside the ‘Swarthmore Bubble,’”
Hanis maintained. “I certainly don’t think I’ll look at tests, finals,
or life the same way again.”
—Angela Doody

The 21st-century Blackboard
feedback is delivered on how
IT WILL SOON BE AS COMMON
well students understand the
ON CAMPUS AS E-MAIL AND THE
material.
WEB—OR MAYBE EVEN CHALK.
But faculty members are not
Blackboard, a Web-based course
the only ones to benefit. “Stumanagement system, made its
dents like going to one place for
Swarthmore debut only two
all their courses and being able
years ago. In that time, its use
to view their grades on-line,”
has jumped exponentially, from
Evans says. “And for class disjust a few faculty members who
cussions and exchanging docufirst used it on a trial basis to
ments, students use it in the
more than 80 in this semester
middle of the night.”
alone.
“We also use it in Informa“Close to 100 percent of the
tion Technology Services as a
students have at least one
forum for training student workcourse on Blackboard right
ers, holding discussions, and
now,” says Elizabeth Evans,
A BLACKBOARD WEB SITE, SUCH AS THE ORGANISMAL AND POPULATION
posting information sheets,”
an academic computing coordiEvans says. “The Business Office
nator who has worked almost
BIOLOGY COURSE HOME PAGE (ABOVE) IS MORE THAN A SYLLABUS—IT’S A
and library use it that way too. I
exclusively on Blackboard for
PLACE FOR COURSE MATERIALS, VISUAL RESOURCES, AND COMMUNICATION.
expect that aspect of its use to
the last year.
INCREASING NUMBERS OF SWARTHMORE PROFESSORS ARE USING THE SOFTgrow.”
The range of classes supportWARE TO EXTEND THE CLASSROOM EXPERIENCE.
In a scant two years, Blacked by Blackboard spans the Colboard has shifted from a small
lege’s offerings, from teamsystem project to a program that runs on
never replace face-to-face teaching at
taught biology classes to seminars in art
Oracle and is hosted on two servers. “It’s
Swarthmore, but faculty members are beginhistory. Faculty members use it to post
becoming as ‘mission critical’ as Banner, the
ning to see several of its tools as useful
course material their students can access
College’s database software, and requires a
classroom support.”
on-line.
big commitment of resources on our part to
Diagnostic quizzes are one of those tools.
“A system like Blackboard is designed to
train users, maintain the data, and run the
Students can submit their answers on-line,
provide on-line course materials and commusystem,” Evans says.
nications tools and can be used as a distance and Blackboard grades them and enters the
—Alisa Giardinelli
results into a grade book. The result—instant
learning environment,” Evans says. “It will

SWARTHMORE LIBRARIANS ARE NOW FORMALLY PREPARED for the
day a government agent marches in asking for information on a
patron who has looked up “suspicious” data.
A special library task force has recently written official policy for
employees and student workers who may be approached by lawenforcement agents seeking such private information. The policy
was created in response to the U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act enacted by
Congress after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Librarians have always been staunch supporters of the First
Amendment and the right to privacy, and patrons should not be
nervous that their actions are being monitored now, said Linda
Hunt, an access-and-lending-services specialist who headed the
task force. She is quick to point out that nothing is different in the
library’s day-to-day operations.
“Quite frankly, our policies haven’t changed. We’ve always put
our patrons’ privacy first, and we still do,” Hunt said. “The questions you ask and the books you take out—that’s still not anyone’s
business but yours.”
The U.S.A. P.A.T.R.I.O.T. Act is an acronym for Uniting and
Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to

Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism. According to library officials, the
federal act is not an easy piece of legislation to read or understand
because it amends 15 different statutes, updates wiretap and surveillance laws, and gives law-enforcement officers greater authority
to conduct property searches.
The library’s new policy outlines the procedures that library
staff and student employees are to follow if approached by a lawenforcement officer. The policy states that students should never
give out information but immediately contact a staff member. Staff
members are instructed to contact College Librarian Peggy Seiden,
who will deal with the inquiry. Also in accordance with the law, students and staff members are forbidden to disclose that they were
approached or that the incident occurred.
In addition, at least one staff member is always working now
when the library is open, so that the student workers won’t have to
field questions from police or federal agents alone.
“Here at Swarthmore, we’re still upholding the same privacy
laws we’ve always upheld, but now we have something in print,”
Hunt said.
—Angela Doody

JUNE 2003

LIBRARY SETS P.A.T.R.I.O.T. POLICY

15

R.R. JONES/UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA–SANTA CRUZ

ANSELM’S
QUESTION

LAST YEAR, DISCOVER MAGAZINE
NAMED ASTRONOMER SANDRA
MOORE FABER (RIGHT) ONE OF THE
50 MOST INFLUENTIAL WOMEN IN
SCIENCE. TWO SWARTHMOREANS
WERE ON THE LIST. THE OTHER,
MAXINE FRANK SINGER ’52, RECENT-

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

LY RETIRED AS HEAD OF THE

16

CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON, D.C., WHERE FABER BEGAN
HER SCIENTIFIC CAREER.

By D a n a M a c ke n z i e ’ 7 9

JUNE 2003

W

hat is the biggest thing you can think of? The Earth? The
Sun? The Milky Way galaxy? Over the centuries, humans
have gradually expanded their conception of “big,” as they
have come to realize the awesome distances that our universe encompasses.
Back in the 11th century, St. Anselm proposed one answer. God, he wrote, was “that being than which nothing
greater can be conceived.” But if you disqualify God (not a physical
entity) or the universe itself (too tautologous) as answers, it may seem
as if there cannot be a largest object in the universe. Whatever you
nominate, the Next Big Thing will come along to top it.
But astronomer Sandra Faber has an answer that she says you can’t
beat. In 1986, she helped discover what is still the largest structure
known to man: the Great Attractor, a massive supercluster of galaxies
(that is, a cluster of galaxy clusters) spanning some 450 million light
years in the southern sky. There is good reason to believe we will never
discover anything larger because the Great Attractor’s dimensions were
set by the primordial fluctuations of matter density in the universe,
shortly after the Big Bang. Although its components are not gravitationally bound (and, therefore, will someday fly apart), it became a distinct structure during the early universe because it did not expand as
much as similar-sized regions of average density.
“Clustering proceeds only as long as the density of
the universe approaches closure density,” Faber says,
> ASTRONOMER
referring to the idea that the expanding universe could
reverse direction and collapse if there were enough mat- SANDRA MOORE FABER ’66
ter to allow gravity to stop or “close” the expansion.
“Once you fall below that density, you’re stuck with
HAS BUILT HER CAREER
whatever structures have already formed—nothing more
can form. We now think that we’re in a universe that had ON THINKING BIG.
close to closure density a long time ago but which is
entering a phase where repulsive gravity is blowing
everything apart. There’s been a shutdown of clustering as a result—
that’s why we think we’ve found the end of greatness.”
For many astronomers, the discovery of the Great Attractor might
have been the crowning moment of a career. But for Faber, it is only the
beginning of a list of equally impressive accomplishments, which led to
her recognition last year as one of Discover Magazine’s 50 most influential women of science. She helped plan the Keck telescope in Hawaii,
with its revolutionary design that integrates 36 separate mirrors into
one smoothly functioning device. She designed the Deep Extragalactic
Imaging Multi-Object Spectrograph (DEIMOS), an attachment to the
Keck telescope that lets astronomers gather high-quality spectra from
more than 100 galaxies at a time. And in 1990, she helped to craft a
plan to repair the troubled Hubble Space Telescope with a rebuilt widefield camera that has since taken so many stunning pictures of the deep
universe.
According to her colleague Joel Primack of the University of California at Santa Cruz, it’s difficult to fit Faber’s work into a sound bite
because she has done so many things so well. “There are three areas
that an astronomer can work in. Sandy is one of the extremely rare
group who’s a leader in all three,” Primack says. “The first is theory, and
she wrote a really influential paper on cold dark matter. The second is
observation, which is what she’s most known for. The third is building
major instruments, and she has now built one of the premier instruments in astronomy, which gives us the data in one night that we used
to be able to collect in three years.”

17

© DAVID MALIN IMAGES

THE SOMBRERO GALAXY (M104, NGC4594, ABOVE) SHOWS PROMINENT DUST LANES. SOME COSMOLOGISTS BELIEVE THAT THERE IS A HUGE AMOUNT OF UNSEEN
MATTER IN THE UNIVERSE, RANGING FROM DUST TO SUBATOMIC PARTICLES. “SPACE IS FULL OF THIS STUFF,” SAYS FABER.

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

W

18

hen Faber arrived at Swarthmore 41 years ago, she says, it felt
vard was a “big letdown” for the budding scientist. Fortunately, she
like coming home. “Even though I went to an excellent high
didn’t have to stay there for long because Andrew moved to Washschool, I was a science nerd,” she says. “It was even worse for me
ington, D.C., and she went with him. She managed her way into the
because I was a girl.” But at Swarthmore, she
Department of Terrestrial Magnetism, a laboratory
instantly felt as if she fit in. “It had a big effect
at the Carnegie Institute of Washington that,
on my personality right away. I met my husband
despite its name, did all sorts of astronomical
at Swarthmore. I went from feeling negative
research. That was where Faber embarked on her
> THE SEARCH FOR
about the human race to feeling positive. It
life’s work, the study of galaxies. “It was the obvitaught me to like my peers.”
DIRECT EVIDENCE OF ous choice,” she says. “Astronomers had spent the
Swarthmore also gave her a flying start on her
previous 20 or 30 years figuring out how stars
career in astronomy. She majored in physics and DARK MATTER IS
worked. Galaxies were the next step up on the scale
worked at the Sproul Observatory, which had a
of the cosmos.”
long tradition of research. (In fact, she and
During the next decade, first at Carnegie and
CONDUCTED TODAY IN
Andrew Faber ’67 were married at the Friends
then at UC–Santa Cruz (the first and only postMeetinghouse by the campus’s night watchman. PARTICLE COLLIDERS
doctoral job she has had), Faber built a reputation
How did she come to know him? “When you’re
as an expert on elliptical galaxies. These galaxies
in astronomy, you’re up a lot at night,” she
are somewhat less photogenic than spirals such as
ON EARTH, BUT IT
explains.) She grew especially close to Professor
the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy. Faber
of Astronomy Peter Van de Kamp, who invited
describes them as “big, fluffy balls of stars.” But
BEGAN WITH
her into his home and once asked her to take
because they are less highly structured, she
care of his ailing wife when he was out of town.
thought they might also be simpler to understand.
OBSERVATIONS OF
And, as chair of the student-run colloquium
And, in fact, Faber discovered the first empirical
committee, she also got the chance to meet top
laws about them, such as the “Faber-Jackson law”
GALAXIES.
researchers in physics and astronomy. “It was
(named after herself and co-author/graduate stuShangri-La for me,” she says.
dent Robert Jackson). It says that stars orbit faster
After Swarthmore, graduate school at Harin larger, brighter elliptical galaxies because, even

SPACE TELESCOPE SCIENCE INSTITUTE

E

NASA//MARSHALL SPACE FLIGHT CENTER

Samurai”) discovered that the
“Hubble flow” was not uniform.
Instead, the flow matched what
you would expect if the cluster
of galaxies that the Milky Way
belongs to (the Local Cluster)
was just a suburb of an immense megalopolis, which they
named the Great Attractor. It
turned out that all of the galaxies in our neighborhood are
being pulled toward the Great
Attractor, and the ones that are
closer to it are being pulled
faster.
It was a discovery whose
importance far outstripped
the problem it was originally
intended to solve. It did tidy
up the Faber-Jackson relation
because the inaccurate distances
had created a corresponding
inaccuracy in the inferred luminosity of the galaxies. But what
grabbed the headlines was that
Edwin Hubble’s picture of uniform expansion was wrong—
even at the coarsest scale. The
universe has ripples in it.
In the early 1990s, these ripples were first seen by the Cosmic Background Explorer
(COBE) satellite, which succeeded in making an image of
fluctuations in the cosmic
ver since Edwin Hubble dismicrowave background radiacovered in the 1920s that
tion that fills the sky. (The
the universe was expanding,
COBE project was led by John
astronomers have used that fact
Mather ’68.) This uneven—or
as a convenient way to measure
“anisotropic”—radiation is a
distances. According to Hubsnapshot of how the universe
ble, the expansion of the unilooked when space first became
verse was uniform, so that distransparent, some 300,000
tant galaxies are moving away
years after the Big Bang.
THE FIRST IMAGES FROM THE HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE WERE BLURRY
from us faster than nearby
This year, results from the
(GALAXY M100, BOTTOM LEFT). FABER AND FORMER STUDENT JON HOLTZMAN
galaxies. Surprisingly, this
Wilkinson Microwave AnisoDIAGNOSED THE PROBLEM—A FLAW IN THE SCOPE’S MIRROR. ANOTHER
speed of recession is one of the
tropy Probe provided a much
FORMER STUDENT, TOD LAUER, DEVISED SOFTWARE THAT SHARPENED
easiest things to measure in a
more detailed “baby picture” of
THE TELESCOPE’S VISION (BOTTOM RIGHT) UNTIL SHUTTLE ASTRONAUTS
distant object because it prothe early universe.
COULD REPAIR IT IN 1993 (TOP).
duces a “redshift,” a displaceThe size of the ripples has
ment of the entire spectrum of
provided crucial evidence for
the galaxy toward longer (and redder) wavelengths. Over the years,
one of the most provocative theories in modern cosmology—that
therefore, astronomers had unconsciously come to use redshift as a
there is a huge amount of matter in the universe that we cannot see,
proxy for distance.
called “dark matter.” This idea is not one that Faber came up with
But for nearby galaxies—those within 100 million light years of
herself (it was first proposed by Fritz Zwicky, a cosmologist at Calus—Faber and her colleagues (who became known as the “Seven
tech, in 1931), but she played a large role in making it respectable.

JUNE 2003

though the net rotation of the
system is small, such galaxies
are, says Faber, “clouds of stars
that orbit every which way.”
However, there was a problem with the Faber-Jackson law.
The relation wasn’t tight—
there was still quite a bit of
variation in the rotational
velocities that couldn’t be
explained by the galaxy’s luminosity. In the roundabout,
illogical way that is typical of
science, this discrepancy led to
the completely unexpected discovery of the Great Attractor.
Thinking that the problem
was a simple lack of data
(because only a couple dozen
elliptical galaxies had been
studied), Faber assembled a
team of seven astronomers in
the early 1980s to do a systematic galaxy survey. They set out
to measure every conceivable
parameter—mass, luminosity,
size, “metallicity” (the proportion of elements heavier than
helium)—in 300 galaxies. As
the data came in, they bumped
over and over into an inconsistency that took them years to
identify: The distances to the
galaxies were wrong.

19

©ROGER RESSMEYER/CORBIS

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

20

W.M. KECK TELESCOPE SITS ATOP MAUNA KEA IN HAWAII, 13,800 FEET

COMBINE DATA FROM THE TWO INSTRUMENTS. “GREAT TELESCOPES LIKE THE

ABOVE SEA LEVEL. ITS 36 HEXAGONAL SEGMENTS FUNCTION AS A SINGLE

KECKS ALLOW US TO EXPLORE THE RIVER OF TIME BACK TOWARD ITS

10-METER MIRROR. IT IS ONE OF TWO IDENTICAL INSTRUMENTS, EACH OF

SOURCE,” SAYS FABER. “THE KECKS ALLOW US, LIKE NO OTHER TELESCOPE

WHICH IS THE LARGEST IN THE WORLD. ASTRONOMERS ARE PLANNING TO

IN HISTORY, TO VIEW THE EVOLVING UNIVERSE THAT GAVE US BIRTH.”

S

ince her days with the Seven Samurai, Faber has been drawn
more and more into “big science,” with her involvement in the
Hubble Space Telescope and Keck Telescope projects. The Space Telescope experience especially taught her the importance of questioning assumptions.
One month after its launch in April 1990, it became apparent
that something was wrong with the Space Telescope. It had trouble
tracking stars, and measurements of its optical quality were so bad
they were off the charts. Faber and former student Jon Holtzman
suspected that the problem was spherical aberration, the simplest
flaw a telescope can have. “I didn’t know anything about optics, and
yet the world’s greatest optical experts were staring at the images
and couldn’t make head or tail of them,” she says. “Why? Because
they were so horrible. They were looking for some very deep and
very fancy reason, and it was right there in front of their eyes.”
Ultimately, Faber and Holtzman did convince the experts by producing simulated images with spherical aberration that matched
exactly what they were seeing through the telescope. Meanwhile,
another former student, Tod Lauer (whom Faber calls “the savior of
the space telescope”) was working out how to compensate for the
spherical aberration by reprocessing the images in the computer. “It
was like having two telescopes in one,” Faber says. “Fifteen percent
of the light was good old sharp space telescope, and 85 percent was
like looking through the shower door. The trick was to glom onto
the 15 percent that was OK and synthesize almost perfect images.”
Lauer’s workaround bought time and maintained public support for
the Hubble, allowing it to work effectively until astronauts could
install corrective optics during a repair mission in 1993.
Faber learned a lasting lesson from the experience, which has
helped her in other large-scale projects. “I am convinced that the
only way you can get a good product is to have proper collaboration
between scientists and engineers,” she says. “Each mentality by
itself is doomed to failure. If you leave scientists in charge of construction, they will try to understand every anomaly, and you will
never get done. By the same token, if you leave engineers in charge,
they will never get to the bottom of important discrepancies. The
project will be on time and under budget, but it won’t work. The fail-

FABER (WAVING AT REAR) AND HER TEAM DESIGNED THE DEEP EXTRAGALACTIC IMAGING MULTI-OBJECT SPECTROGRAPH (DEIMOS). THE INSTRUMENT
ALLOWS ASTRONOMERS TO OBTAIN HIGH-QUALITY SPECTRA FROM MORE THAN
100 GALAXIES AT A TIME. THE TEAM CELEBRATED JUST BEFORE THE DEIMOS
WAS SHIPPED TO THE KECK OBSERVATORY IN HAWAII IN DECEMBER 2001.

ure [of the Hubble Space Telescope] was a failure of the engineering
mentality to question.” But she also faults NASA’s management
style in the 1980s. “It was a shoot-the-messenger culture—you
couldn’t tell the truth,” she says. “There were optical people who
strongly suspected the spherical aberration at the time and didn’t
say anything.”

A

lthough she enjoyed her forays into the theory of cold dark matter on one hand and basic applied optics on the other, Faber
says she has remained first and foremost an observer. The completion of the DEIMOS in Hawaii has allowed her to get back to the
work she began her career with, studying the evolution of elliptical
galaxies. But she seems just as pleased about the way DEIMOS has
facilitated other astronomers’ projects. “This is a workhorse, the
single most productive instrument on the Keck telescope,” she
says. That is no accident because before DEIMOS was even built,
she assembled a “scientific case” for it that included six possible
applications.
“There are two philosophies of observing, analogous to two
philosophies of cooking,” says Faber, who, incidentally, is an enthusiastic cook. “One is to go to a cookbook, find a recipe, go to the
supermarket, and get exactly what you need. The other is to stock up
the pantry with an array of quality ingredients and only then ask,
what can I cook?”
Faber’s career in the kitchen of science has followed the second
philosophy. “I like a well-stocked pantry with fundamental observations and good data,” she says. Using all the ingredients and tools
at her disposal, she has served up a career full of delicious ideas. T
A former mathematics professor, Dana Mackenzie is now a freelance science journalist whose work appears in such publications as Science, Discover Magazine, and New Scientist. His first book, The Big Splat, or
How Our Moon Came to Be, was published by Wiley in April 2003.

JUNE 2003

What is dark matter? It
can’t be seen because it is
impervious to light, and it
AT ALL THREE ASPECTS
can’t be touched because
OF ASTRONOMY: THEORY, it doesn’t interact perceptibly with ordinary matter. The only thing it does
OBSERVATION, AND
is gravitate, and that—for
now—is the only reason
INSTRUMENT DESIGN.
we know it exists. And
yet, as Faber says, “Space
is full of this stuff.” Making a small rectangle with her fingers, she
says, “If you look right here, there could be dozens of these things
[particles of dark matter, or “weakly interacting massive particles,”
as physicists call them] passing through here in a second. And it’s
not ‘out there’—it’s right here.” The search for direct evidence of
dark matter continues today in particle colliders on Earth, but it
began with observations of galaxies.

© UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA OBSERVATORIES

> FABER HAS EXCELLED

21

jumatatu

shake
it
out
At Swarthmore,
there are lots

of ways to be an
S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

individual. Hair is one.

22

S

warthmore College: You, Your Friends, and a Bunch
of Freaks.” So read one of the senior class T-shirts
last year. We all laughed because it was true.
Swarthmore students love to think of their school as a
haven for weirdos, while at the same time asserting
their own elevation above this standard of strangeness.
What takes time to accept is that just about everyone here is strange in some way—and if just about

everyone is, chances are you are too.
A little weirdness is a good thing here—it’s
embraced, accepted as the norm. We’re all individuals
here. Some of us are dancers or painters or athletes or
writers, but all of us maintain our sense of individuality,
our pride in the idea that we are who we are and that
no one else is quite like us. We might complain about
keeping constant company with so many other staunch
individualists, but, the fact is, we all chose to be here—
and most of us would never have chosen any other way.
Swarthmore students express their individuality here
in many different ways. Some like to wear capes and
hold annual pterodactyl hunts. We call them “Swillies,”
after their campus organization SWIL (Swarthmore
Warders of Imaginative Literature). Yet people from all
over campus join in that pterodactyl hunt. Those of us

chloe

who might objectively be classified as more “normal”
jump at the chance to run around campus in the dark
and bop one another with foam bats. Some hide their
strangeness a little bit better than others, but it’s still
there, barely beneath the surface, just waiting for someone to shake it out of us.
Some of us conceal our individuality just slightly,
choosing to express it in subtle, quiet ways—through
our academics, our artistic endeavors, our physical
exertions.
And then there are those who wear it right out there
on their sleeves. Or their heads. They’re maybe a little
better off than the rest of us. What’s inside all of us is,
for them, outside for all to see—the potential to be
individualistic, unclassifiable, young, free, and unimaginably beautiful.

ethan

JUNE 2003

By Elizab e th R e dd e n ’ 0 5
Phot ogra p hs b y J i m G r a ha m

23

J U M ATAT U P O E ’ 0 4
It’s never hard to tell when Jumatatu Poe
has rolled out of bed late. “Sometimes I’ll
blow-dry it straight, sometimes I'll have it
cornrowed, sometimes I’ll have it in an Afro.
And when I don’t feel like doing anything,
you’ll know—because I'll have my hat on.”
Poe started growing his hair long freshman year and can now hardly imagine his life
without it. “Oh, God, I wouldn’t have any
friends.” He pauses, thinking for a moment.
“But I only halfway believe that.”

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

ED STEHLIK ‘05
“I guess it really just sort of exploded a
couple of months ago,” Ed Stehlik ’05
says of his newly forming blond
dreads. They are, he says, taking on
a life of their own. “Whatever happens, happens.”
His hair has yielded a huge
increase in attention—he estimates about 35 prospective students asked him about it during
admitted student visitation in
April—and two followed him around
nonstop. “I feel like I’m something of a babe magnet now,”
he says with a smile.

24

CHLOE LE PICHON ’05
“This was sort of an exercise in showing that
it doesn’t matter what you look like, as long
as you have deep human interactions,” says
Chloe Le Pichon of her decision to shave her
head.
Others have wondered why. Le Pichon
responds, why not? “It’s really liberating to
have short hair or no hair, and it doesn’t
necessarily mean you’re a particular person
or part of a particular group. Why can’t
women just have shaved hair?”

ETHAN JUCOVY ’06
First impressions are key—even when they
involve “people laughing hysterically and
telling me I looked like Sonic the Hedgehog.” That’s how Ethan Jucovy describes the
initial reactions to his once electric blue
hair, which he colored in early February.
The hysterical responses faded along with
his hair color, which Jucovy says now is just
“a God-awful grayish blue.” He does have
one friend, though, who hasn’t yet tired of
the subject.
“He tells me every day that the colors are
gradually getting worse and worse.”

ed

tanya

SUZANNE WU ’03
“I feel like every time I go through a minor
crisis in my life, I need to change something
dramatically.” That’s how Suzanne Wu explains
why she has not seen her natural hair color
since sophomore year of high school.
She’s gone through many colors: hot pink,
for one. Yet, for the last nine months, Wu has
kept her hair platinum blonde. Its constancy
is, she says, “a testament to my stability.” T

suzanne

JUNE 2003

TA N YA G O N Z A L E S ’ 0 6
Tanya Gonzales has colored her hair coppery
orange and red, “Egyptian Plum,” and even
blue, red, and green all at once. Her current
blue streaks, though, have been there since
this past summer.
“I really just like blue. My bed’s blue, my
jacket’s blue, and it was a nice contrast with
my dark hair,” Gonzales says. “Most people
would tell me, ‘Oh, you can’t do that,’ but I
just said, ‘Watch me, I can.’”

25

Learning
at Home
THE NUMBER OF HOMESCHOOLED STUDENTS
AT T E N D I N G S WA R T H M O R E I S O N T H E R I S E .
By Angela Doody

26

ment of Education, an estimated 850,000
children—or 1.7 percent of children ages 5
to 17—received their education at home in
1999. Brian Ray, president and founder of
the National Home Education Research
Institute, believes the numbers may be
about twice that amount.

MEDIA BAKERY

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

W

hen Bernadette Baird-Zars
observed a fourth-grade class
in a Chester, Pa., school as
part of an Introduction to
Education course last semester, the 19-yearold freshman was surprised by what she
saw.
“There was a lot of
time spent on discipline
and learning things like
how to wait your turn at
the drinking fountain.
One of the kids I thought
was really bright got in
trouble for yelling out the
answer, and the teacher
constantly told the kids,
‘Don’t ask questions’; ‘sit
up’; ‘pay attention.’
“There are a lot of
things you have to know
in traditional school. You
don’t want to talk about
your ideas with another
student because then
you’re disruptive. Don’t
raise your hand too
much, or you’re the
teacher’s pet,” claims
Baird-Zars, who admits
that many of the rules—
both written and understood—in a public elementary school classroom are foreign to her.
That’s because Baird-Zars is one of a
handful of Swarthmore students—and
a growing number of students throughout
the country—whose parents elected to
teach them at home before they entered
college.
According to a study by the U.S. Depart-

In addition, the number of parents electing to homeschool their children is growing
by 5 to 15 percent a year, according to Cafi
Cohen, author of Homeschoolers’ College
Admissions Handbook (Prima Publishing,
2000).
This increase has forced college administrators throughout the country to develop

flexible admissions procedures to evaluate
the homespun, nontraditional curricula and
wide range of educational experiences that
these children receive.
The National Association of College
Admissions Counselors reported in 1999
that 51 percent of institutions responding
to a survey now have official homeschooling policies. Cohen, whose book is
a guide for college-bound
homeschoolers, also claims
that “despite a few problems, it appears that homeschooling presents no
significant barriers to admission to more than 95
percent of the colleges and
universities in the United
States.”
The typical homeschooler
is likely to have more than
one sibling and both parents in the house but only
one parent working outside
the home, reports a 1999
U.S. Department of Education survey. Most homeschoolers are non-Hispanic
whites, and homeschooling
parents are, on average, better educated than other
parents, although their
income is about the same.
The report also noted that the most
common reason for homeschooling was the
parents’ belief that they could give their
children a better education at home, either
for religious reasons or because of a poor
learning environment at school. A new comprehensive federal homeschooling study will
be completed this year.

“Homeschooling
can prepare
you better for
college because
you’ re used to
doing things
on your own.”

mother, Belle Zars, a former
Bthe aird-Zars’
teacher turned freelance writer, made
decision to homeschool her daughter

“BEING HOMESCHOOLED LEADS TO CLOSER TIES
WITH YOUR FAMILY, BUT IT CAN ALSO GO
THE OTHER WAY TOO,” SAYS JOANNA PERNICK,
A CLASSICS MAJOR. “YOU CAN REALLY
GET ON EACH OTHER’S NERVES.”

schooling world in their area.
“My mom decided to [homeschool me]
in the ’80s, when it wasn’t popular. She did
it because she wanted to teach her own
kids,” said Cooper-Fenske, whose mother,
Jody Cooper, was a former elementary
school teacher. “Everyone then had an
opinion about homeschooling, and it was
usually negative. When you said you homeschooled, everyone thought you were doing

homeschooling (Princeton University Press,
2001), refutes the widely held idea that
homeschoolers won’t learn to interact with
others, that they’re sheltered from children
who are not like them, or that they won’t
receive a “well-rounded” education because
their parents fail to teach certain subjects.
“There’s usually a laundry list of concerns that I’ve seen in the media,” says
Stevens, “but in my research, I’ve seen no
evidence that homeschooling disadvantages
students academically or developmentally.”
In his interviews with hundreds of homeschoolers, Stevens—who maintains he is
not necessarily a homeschooling advocate—
said he’s found they are active in their local
communities and more likely to be politically involved and to participate in extracurricular activities such as music and sports.
“What homeschooling makes possible is
a more varied set of relationships in [the
students’] school career. They can work part
time or pursue a particular passion. These
kids can pursue their passions to the nth
degree and have extraordinary areas of
accomplishment in some endeavors.
“We sort of presume that [traditional]
school is a good place for youth development, and in some ways it’s worth challenging that notion,” Stevens said.

JUNE 2003

biology major Carrie CooperSherenior
Fenske, from Fairfield, Ohio, considers
mother a bit of a pioneer in the home-

itchell Stevens, associate professor of
M
sociology at Hamilton College and
author of Kingdom of Children, a history of

ELEFTHERIOS KOSTANS

when she was a toddler. The family had
moved several times and ended up in an
isolated area of West Virginia. When her
daughter started reading at age 4 and
appeared to be an eager learner, Zars decided to try homeschooling.
“We couldn’t afford an expensive private school, and I decided we could do it
better than anyone else I could afford,”
said Zars, who maintains there are as many
reasons for homeschooling as there are
homeschoolers.
“I think every kid has a natural inclination and passion for learning, and our job,
often, is to get out of the way. I never met a
kid who wasn’t hungry to learn. You need
to put them into areas where they can follow their interests,” Zars said. She pointed
out that traditional school can often be
viewed as burdensome to a child—“almost
like it’s the kid’s job.”
Some of Baird-Zars’ schooling included
writing a weekly neighborhood newspaper
called The Zephyr when she was 9 years old;
planning a neighbor’s garden, complete
with soil testing; and spearheading a petition for a library and a playground in her
hometown in Logan, W.Va.
Now, Baird-Zars is involved in an
almost unbelievable number of activities at
the College, including the Cricket League,
the Good-Schools Pennsylvania Committee, Living Wage Committee, and the Peace
and Social Concerns Committee at the
Swarthmore Friends Meeting. She studies
Kathak dance, plays marimba in the College’s wind ensemble, and is a Spanish
translator for the Friends of Farmworkers
in Philadelphia. In addition, she and a
friend are organizing a fall conference at the
College on the India-Pakistan conflict over
Kashmir.
“There’s so much opportunity [at
Swarthmore]. It’s like trying to drink from a
fire hydrant,” she said.

it because of conservative Christian ideas.”
Cooper-Fenske has vivid memories of
playing with neighborhood kids in the
morning at the school bus stop. When the
bus came, she and her two younger brothers
and sister would simply walk home and
start their school day in the family’s living
room, which had been converted into a
classroom with a long brown table, chairs,
dry-erase boards on the walls and book
cases lining the walls.
As a high school senior, she was accepted
at all seven colleges to which she applied.
She chose Swarthmore for its focus on liberal arts, variety of cultural dance offerings,
beauty, and small size. After graduation this
spring, she plans to attend medical school
at the Ohio State University.

27

JIM GRAHAM

It was tough
adjusting to
studying
several topics:
“I wanted to
focus on one
thing at a
time. I wanted
a project.”
“I REALIZED THERE WAS A LOT I WASN’T
PREPARED FOR. I HAD MISSED LITTLE-GIRL

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

FRIENDSHIPS,” SAYS LOUISA STROUSE BOIMAN.

28

However, he also noted that homeschooling may not be the right choice for
children who need a more structured environment or for parents who are not adequately motivated.
Sophomore Joanna Pernick agrees.
“There are people who think homeschooling is good for everyone, but I don’t,”
said Pernick, who was homeschooled by her
parents in Haskell, N.J., primarily for religious reasons. “It requires a certain willingness from both the students and the parents. You have to be self-motivated and
fairly disciplined.
“Being homeschooled leads to closer
ties with your family, but it can go the other
way too. You can really get on each other’s
nerves. There are also sacrifices the family
has to make, like there’s not much time to
devote to cleaning.”
Pernick, a 20-year-old classics major,
noted that there were also some extra-curricular disadvantages when she was in high
school. For instance, she wanted to participate in a local mock trial competition but
couldn’t because her homeschooling group
couldn’t get enough students to enter. She
also would have liked to participate in
sports during high school but couldn’t
because homeschooled children were not
then permitted to join school teams.
An increasing number of organizations

and networks have made possible a broader range of experiences for homeschooled
children. “People who homeschool now
have it easier,” says Pernick. “When I was
in high school, I didn’t know that many
people who homeschooled locally. My
friends were more spread out. But my 15year-old brother has tons of local friends,
and now, homeschooled kids can play
sports on local town teams.”
Now that she’s in college, Pernick said
she’s grateful for her homeschool background.
“I think homeschooling can prepare you
better for college because you’re used to
doing things on your own. Since coming to
college, I’ve become very thankful for my
parents,” Pernick said.
Strouse Boiman, a 21-year-old junLmuchouisa
ior from northeast Philadelphia, spent
of her childhood preparing to be a
professional violinist. However, she transferred to Swarthmore after one year at the
Manhattan School of Music, when she
realized she wanted a broader liberal arts
education. She is now a political science
major.
Strouse Boiman says her homeschooling experience is a big part of who she is
today and, although she was glad she was
homeschooled, she did have some problems when she started at Swarthmore.
“My mother always said that if I’d been
shy, she would have put me in school. As a
child, I do remember being terrified of kids
my own age because I didn’t have the same

experiences as them. But I never had a
problem interacting with adults.
“At Swarthmore, I realized there was a
lot I wasn’t prepared for. I had missed littlegirl friendships,” she said. As a result, she
said that during her first semester at the
College, she kept to herself. In her second
semester, she says she had a lot of “psychodramas” with friends. “I didn’t have the
perspective that everything wasn’t a very
big deal.”
Academically, Strouse Boiman also had
some difficulty adjusting to a class schedule

“When you
said you
homeschooled,
everyone
thought you
were doing it
because of
conser vative
Christian ideas.”

AS A HOMESCHOOLED HIGH SCHOOL SENIOR,
CARRIE COOPER-FENSKE WAS ACCEPTED AT ALL
SEVEN COLLEGES TO WHICH SHE APPLIED.

sive to me as an individual, and that was
why it worked,” she says.
Strouse Boiman is currently on leave
from the College, working as a volunteer
coordinator and a paralegal for the American Civil Liberties Union. She’ll start classes
again as a senior this fall, planning to attend law school and work in immigration or
labor law.
ean of Admissions Jim Bock ’90 says
DAdmissions
that when he started working in the
Office eight years ago, the College received only two or three homeschoolers’ applications each year. This year, there
were 25 applications (up from 17 last year),
and he said the number is steadily rising.
A recent Swarthmore directive to homeschoolers and their parents states: “Every
year—and in increasing numbers—we
receive very strong applications from students who have been homeschooled for a
significant period of time, if not all their
lives. As one might expect, each application
looks different, making it fruitless to set
specific, rigid standards for homeschoolers
in the admissions process.”
Swarthmore requires the same testing
(SAT I or ACT and three SAT II exams) and
information for homeschoolers as it does for
traditionally schooled students. Homeschoolers are asked for transcripts from any
formal classes they have taken at community
colleges, arts centers, or summer programs
and for a special descriptive listing of their
“homegrown” classes. The College also asks
for examples of special research projects or

BERNADETTE BAIRD-ZARS WAS HOMESCHOOLED IN
TEXAS AND WEST VIRGINIA. AT SWARTHMORE,
SHE’S INVOLVED IN MANY ACTIVITIES.

internships and extensive travel experiences
as well as a list of extracurricular activities
and written recommendations from advisers, coaches, members of the clergy, and
others.
In addition, an on-campus interview is
strongly encouraged, so that admissions
deans can evaluate whether homeschoolers
are “engaged learners” who will fit in well in
the classroom, Bock said.
Swarthmore typically admits one in four
homeschooled applicants—the same ratio
as the traditionally schooled students who
are offered places at the College each year,
says Kennon Dick, associate dean of admissions. Curiously, all of the current homeschooled students at Swarthmore are
women, although the U.S. Department of
Education reports that about equal numbers
of boys and girls are homeschooled.
Bock said that his view on homeschoolers has changed over the years: “I’ve become
more open to the varieties and types of students who choose homeschooling as an
option.” Although he’s interviewed homeschoolers who are weak in certain academic
areas, he contends that many will do well at
Swarthmore because they are independent,
analytic thinkers and passionate learners.
“They give a different perspective, and
they add something to the social and intellectual life of the College,” Bock said.
“They’re a good fit for us.” T

JUNE 2003

JIM GRAHAM

that had her simultaneously studying several topics for different professors. “I wanted
to focus on one thing at a time. I wanted a
project. I guess I wanted to go to graduate
school,” she laughed. “I resented the time
and assignment constraints that didn’t allow me to go into the material in the depth I
would have liked.”
Strouse Boiman contends that a successful homeschooling experience depends not
only on the motivation of the students but
on the responsiveness of the parents who
teach. “I think my parents were very respon-

JIM GRAHAM

“There’ s
so much
opportunity at
Swarthmore.
It’ s like trying
to drink
from a
fire hydrant.”

29

Devils in
the Details
K U R T E I C H E N WA L D ’ 8 3 I S D E D I C AT E D T O U N C O V E R I N G C O R P O R AT E C R I M E .
B y S a s h a I s s e nberg ’02

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

I

30

n fall 2001, when the dissolution of Enron became big news,
Kurt Eichenwald of The New York Times—like most of the press
who came to Houston to cover the story—knew nothing about
special-purpose entity accounting. While the rest of his peers set off
to chase the drops of news trickling out each hour, Eichenwald
stepped back and relied on a well-honed method for learning about
the knotty accounting procedures that ultimately undid the energy
company.
He organized a three-day seminar for himself, collecting papers
from scholarly journals and relying on a stable of go-to experts who
were willing to explain things to him patiently. After the crash
course, Eichenwald—whose formal economics education consists
of just two courses at Swarthmore, which he says gave him his
worst grades ever—had the knowledge and confidence to take on
Enron’s numbers on the front page of one of the country’s most
influential newspapers. “I am not afraid to reach a conclusion. Most
things are simple in concept; you just have to be willing to deal with
the details,” Eichenwald says. “Once you learn the concept, it’s not
that hard.”
For 15 years as an investigative business reporter, Eichenwald, 41,
has been taking complex stories and, through a combination of
intellectual immersion and investigative drive, slowly and deliberately unraveling them for readers. Before Enron, WorldCom, Tyco,
Global Crossing, and others, Eichenwald was covering corporate
crime, with subjects that now seem distant and quaint: PrudentialBache Securities, Archers Daniels Midland (ADM), Columbia/
HCA. For his work, he has won two George Polk Awards—the journalistic equivalent of a Golden Globe—and has twice been a finalist
for the Pulitzer Prize.
His ability to be a quick study in complicated material is perhaps
his greatest skill. While recently cleaning out his office, he came
across an old, unlabeled tape. “It was two people talking about
arcane financing and things regarding a hospital, and it struck me
as totally bizarre,” Eichenwald says. “Then I realized one of the people was me. Apparently, at the time, I knew what I was talking
about. Now, it made no sense.”
After graduating from Swarthmore as a political science major,
Eichenwald worked in various jobs in media and politics, including
a speechwriting position for Walter Mondale’s campaign, where he
handled remarks to elderly groups. He applied for a job on the clerical staff of The New York Times, a pool from which the paper rarely
hires reporters. Part of the clerk program includes a one-month
assignment to a news desk, and Eichenwald was sent to the business department. The month was October 1987, and after 10 days,

the stock market crashed. Eichenwald was thrust into covering Wall
Street. “If you ask where I learned about Wall Street—on the job,
which I think freaked them out a bit,” he says. He started writing
about the market frauds of Ivan Boesky and Michael Milliken and
slowly started expanding his range into health care, accounting,
patents, and other areas of commerce.
“Business is the only thing that’s really great to write about any
more,” Eichenwald says. “It is the last area of society where there is
power that can affect people’s lives for better or worse and can be
largely unchecked. You’re not going to have another Nixon or see

“Business is the only
thing that’s really
great to write about
any more,”
Eichenwald says.
the CIA run amok. Lots of people learned a lot from the ’60s and
’70s.” The complexity of the business world has presented barriers
to entry, Eichenwald says; often, this is “either because people don’t
understand it or because people don’t pay attention.” He says he is
“not reflexively anti-business, but anti-crime,” and that he is driven,
in part, by knowledge that massive corporate crime has little victims: the elderly investors who lost all because of Prudential-Bache’s
fraud in the 1980s or the struggling farmers who had to pay higher
prices for feed additives because of ADM’s price-fixing schemes.
That last matter—and the multiyear investigation by the FBI
that ultimately led to a guilty plea by the “supermarket to the
world”—was the subject of The Informant: A True Story (Broadway
Books, 2001), a mesmerizing book that grew out of Eichenwald’s
reporting for the Times, in which he was able to treat the typically
labyrinthine business narrative elegantly with a novelistic style.
(The book is now being made into a film by director Steven Soderbergh, and the title role—an ADM executive who volunteers to
wear an FBI wire to ensnare his colleagues—will be played by Matt
Damon.)
Eichenwald worked on that story for a good part of four years
and has not yet been able to let go. He gets regular calls from the

GLEN ELLMAN

AT HIS HOME OFFICE IN DALLAS, KURT EICHENWALD STORES THE DOCUMENTS
THAT UNDERPIN HIS WORK AS A REPORTER FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES.

ready to work. The book is scheduled for publication next year, and
Eichenwald does not plan on taking a leave from the Times to complete his manuscript. He has already written about all these subjects
already for the newspaper, but he says, “it’s more demanding and
takes a lot longer” to do the reporting necessary to reconstruct
events as part of a narrative. He has little doubt that he will be able
to fill those new filing cabinets to his satisfaction. “I never sit and
fret about my ability to get hold of a document,” he says. “With a
lot of luck, I have managed to get every document I have set my
mind to get. There isn’t a central piece of information that cannot
be obtained.”
Among other journalists, the verve for chasing corporate malfeasance has subsided slightly, but Eichenwald is still on the beat. After
Sept. 11, he spent a few months working on Osama bin Laden’s
finances, and he worked briefly on the paper’s team investigating
NASA after the explosion of the Columbia space shuttle. But,
regardless of the subject matter, Eichenwald still has the luxury of
time. “I don’t pull the trigger until the gun is loaded,” he says. Several years ago, an editor told Eichenwald, after reading a story the
reporter had submitted, “I’m not going to accuse one of the top-five
accounting firms of engaging in fraud without knowing precisely
what our proof is.” Eichenwald went through the story, highlighting
his evidence and explaining his case. “‘OK,’” the editor said. “‘We’ve
got ’em. We’ll run it tomorrow.’” T
Sasha Issenberg is a staff writer at Philadelphia Magazine.

JUNE 2003

film’s writers, requesting his help with matters of verisimilitude. On
these occasions, he opens up one of the 40 file boxes he has filled
with ADM materials and finds himself digging through the papers
once again—through the wiretap transcripts, financial statements,
confidential corporate memos, and the FBI field reports known as
302s—trying to make sure the details are right. Eichenwald recently
relocated to Dallas, his hometown, with his wife and three children,
and his only regret in leaving the paper’s Manhattan newsroom was
that he had to give up an unusual perk: his own storage room, to
handle all the paper he accumulated in the course of his investigations. Now, those boxes clutter his new home, where he works.
Eichenwald recently agreed to prepare a book for Random
House’s Broadway Books imprint on the recent frenzy of corporate
scandals. He will write about Enron, Arthur Andersen, WorldCom,
and Harvey Pitt’s U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission,
among others. “It’s not a history of Enron or anything like that,”
Eichenwald says. “It’s about a period of time—a period of absolute
euphoria in the marketplace and absolute despair.” His narrative
will isolate certain individuals and track them through the period,
hoping that their experiences will illuminate the larger changes
then occurring on Wall Street, in Washington, and in corporate
America. “I’m not really interested in how institutions develop,”
Eichenwald says. “I am interested in how individuals deal with
specific circumstances.”
After signing the book contract, Eichenwald skipped the champagne and went straight to the important business: He expanded
his storage capability. “They love me at Staples,” he says after new
filing cabinets were delivered. Eichenwald had successfully expanded his filing space by 50 percent, which meant he was, more or less,

31

B R O T
F R AT E R N I T I E S WO R K TO F I N D A N E W R O L E O N C A M P U S .
By Sonia Scherr ’01

THE CAMPUS WAS MOSTLY QUIET AROUND

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

MIDNIGHT on a Thursday during fall semester, with only a few

32

students waiting for the shuttle outside McCabe Library or walking
to their dorms along the paths that cross Parrish lawn.
But just west of Sharples Dining Hall, inside a small stone
house, INXS’ “Need You Tonight” blared from speakers while four
students played Beirut—a drinking game. A dozen others talked in
small groups. Affixed to one wall was a moose head; a disco ball
dangled nearby. It was Late Night at Phi Psi, one of Swarthmore’s
two remaining fraternities.
Swarthmore does not have a big frat scene. That’s evident from
the numbers: About 70 men—fewer than 10 percent of male students—belong to one of the College’s two remaining houses. Many
of Swarthmore’s peer institutions—including Amherst, Bowdoin,
Middlebury, and Williams colleges—have eliminated their Greek
organizations. Only three of the U.S. News & World Report’s top 10
national liberal arts colleges—Swarthmore, Davidson, and
Pomona—still have fraternities.

Why? The answer lies in the particular nature of Swarthmore
and its fraternities, according to administrators and members of
Delta Upsilon and Phi Psi.
“Our Greek system—if you want to call it that—doesn’t dominate the social life of the College like it can at some campuses,” says
Tedd Goundie, associate dean of the College for student life and
adviser to DU. Students don’t build their identities around their
Greek membership because Swarthmore’s fraternities aren’t residential. Only one person generally lives in each of the two 1920s-era
lodges that DU and Phi Psi lease from the College for about $7,000
annually.
Fraternities at Swarthmore are “not a way that a group of people
can isolate themselves from the rest of campus by eating and living
in their house,” says Dean of the College Bob Gross ’62, adding
that residential fraternities often have a higher rate of binge drinking. Instead, students who belong to fraternities are scattered
through the dorms and eat at Sharples Dining Hall. “They’re Swatties first and fraternity members second,” says Gross.

THE BROTHERS OF DELTA UPSILON (LEFT)
ARE MEMBERS OF ONE OF TWO
FRATERNITIES REMAINING ON CAMPUS.

H E R S
Only three of the U.S. News
& World Report’s top 10
national liberal arts colleges—
Swarthmore, Davidson,
and Pomona—still have
fraternities.

S

warthmore has debated the role of its Greek organizations several times since they first came to Swarthmore in 1888, nearly
25 years after the College’s founding. The early 1900s saw the growing influence of the College’s 10 fraternities and sororities, which
listed new members each fall in The Phoenix.
Women voted to abolish sororities in 1933—a move supported
by then president Frank Aydelotte, who thought they were dominating campus social life. At that time, roughly four out of five women

on campus belonged to a sorority, according to Richard Walton’s
Swarthmore College: An Informal History. But Molly Yard Garrett ’33, a
longtime activist, says discrimination against Jewish students was
the driving force behind the campaign she helped lead to end the
sorority system. (For more on the abolition of sororities, go to
www.swarthmore.edu/bulletin/june03/frats.)
Although the influence of fraternities declined in the 1930s, the
question of whether they belong on campus was raised again in
1951, when a student petition led to a Student Council referendum
on abolishing fraternities. Some thought that the College’s five fraternities were divisive and discriminatory, and the issue generated
heated debate at public meetings. In the end, the student body
voted to allow fraternities to stay. But they also favored doing away
with discrimination in fraternities—a position supported by many
fraternity members, according to Walton.
The number of fraternities on campus has since dwindled to
two: DU and Phi Psi. Perhaps the biggest reason they have survived
is pragmatic: They haven’t been a major problem, administrators
and fraternity members say.
“We don’t see a compelling reason to take any action against
them, and they do contribute something positive to campus social
life,” Gross says.

JUNE 2003

JIM GRAHAM

33

S

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

tudents who belong to DU or Phi Psi don’t fit the predominant
stereotype of the beer-guzzling, closed-minded slacker, fraternity
members say. “These are kinder, gentler fraternities, and I think that
has partly to do with the school,” says Josh Loeffler ’03, president of
Phi Psi. “We have a unique population of students, so we’re going to
have a unique population of fraternity brothers.... You get very intelligent kids who want to have some fun, too.”
Like many brothers, David Murphy ’03 says he didn’t anticipate
joining a fraternity when he arrived at Swarthmore. “I probably
wouldn’t be in a fraternity at any other school or if it weren’t Phi Psi,”
he says.
For Murphy, like many other brothers, the fraternities offer an
opportunity to let loose. But he says he doesn’t feel pressure to drink;
he has spent time at Phi Psi without picking up a beer and one
semester chose not to drink at all.
“It’s a lot of fun. It’s a haven where work doesn’t really get talked
about,” he says. “At the same time, it’s a stable community of people
who have helped me get through some really rough times .”
Not everyone who has the opportunity chooses to join, however.
Ben Saller ’06 said members of DU encouraged him to become a
member, but he was involved in other campus activities and didn’t
want to go through the pledging process. “I don’t have anything
against people who do decide to pledge,” he adds.
The fraternity leaders say they want people who aren’t part of
their groups to feel comfortable socializing at their houses. Although
students at many schools might not be able to attend a fraternity
party without knowing someone who’s a member, that’s not the case
at DU or Phi Psi, members say. “We pretty much have an open-door
policy. We try not to be exclusive,” Loeffler says.
Yet many Swarthmore students who don’t attend DU or Phi Psi
functions say they view fraternities as exclusive clubs devoted to
drinking. “The less I know about them the better,” said one student

34

who didn’t want to be named.
That attitude isn’t lost on fraternity members. “When people
think of fraternities, they think of Animal House,” says DU President
Christopher Morello ’03, a political science major and philosophy
minor. “It’s hard to get over the stereotypes.”
But fraternity members say they’d like people to have a better
understanding of what they do. “We’re trying to branch out and
show them that we’re about more than partying,” Loeffler says.
“That’s really important to us.”

I

n addition to social alternatives, Greek organizations provide students with leadership opportunities, friendships, and support,
says Darryl Smaw, associate dean for multicultural affairs and Phi
Psi’s new adviser.
“I’ve watched some students enter a fraternity or sorority and
emerge having had a very positive experience, and I’ve seen it happen
time and time again,” says Smaw, who came to Swarthmore after
doing similar work with students at another small college in New
England.
Those bonds are what DU and Phi Psi leaders emphasize when
they talk about their fraternities. “We take care of each other more
than I think a lot of the groups do,” says Morello. For instance, DU
members will help a brother who’s struggling in class or make sure
that someone who’s been drinking at a bar has a safe ride home.
DU, which is affiliated with Delta Upsilon International, requires
its pledges to learn about the 108-year history of the Swarthmore
chapter and, according to Morello, advocates “advancement of justice, diffusion of liberal culture, development of character, [and] promotion of friendship.”
The fraternity has a strong alumni base that provides guidance
and mentoring to its 35 student members (see www.swarthmore.edu/bulletin/jun03/frats). It sponsors community service activities
such as a spring blood drive and an annual cleanup at a wildlife preserve. “We do more than throw parties on Saturday night,” says
Morello, who is also president of Sixteen Feet and co-chair of the
Student Activities Committee.
DU—once mainly a football fraternity—suffered a blow in
December 2000 when Swarthmore eliminated its
football team, prompting several members to transfer or take time off. Fraternity membership was
nearly cut in half, says Morello. But an effort to
recruit new members has paid off, he adds. “We are
as strong now as we were before football was cut—
maybe even stronger.”
Swarthmore’s Phi Psi chapter, founded in the
late 1800s, has been autonomous since 1963, when
it broke away from its national organization in a
dispute over discrimination against black and Jewish students, members say. “In a lot of ways, I see
them as the antifraternity fraternity,” Dean Goundie
says. “My sense is that they don’t want a lot of
structure.”
FRIENDS HISTORICAL LIBRARY

Goundie concurred: “I think the schools that did get rid of them
didn’t do it so much for philosophical reasons but because it was out
of control.” Doing away with fraternities without justification would
not sit well with students or alumni, he added.

FRATERNITIES HAVE A LONG HERITAGE AT SWARTHMORE.
MEMBERS OF DELTA UPSILON POSE FOR A FORMAL PICTURE ABOUT 1904.

IN THE MID-1960S, PENDLETON BLOUSES AND MADRAS SHORTS—AND A KEG
OF CIDER—WERE THE FASHION OF THE DAY.

Phi Psi draws many of its members from the lacrosse and
basketball teams, although Loeffler said the group includes a fairly
wide range of students. The fraternity faced declining membership
several years ago but has since increased its enrollment to about 35
members. DU members pay dues of $500 annually; Phi Psi members
pay $350.

A

dministrators say that fraternities generally do a good job with
the campuswide parties they throw several times a year. Since
they have experience hosting those events, they know how to avoid
certain problems—such as alcohol abuse—and what to do if problems arise. They also have an incentive to make sure their parties are
well run, says Goundie: “They have a house, and if there’s a problem,
we can say, ‘You don’t have a house anymore.’”
Nonetheless, Swarthmore’s fraternities haven’t been immune
from some of the problems associated with fraternities elsewhere.
The College revoked DU’s charter in 1983 following conflict
between the fraternity and other campus groups that led to vandalism and an offensive newsletter. The fraternity was reinstated two

years later under conditions that included a four-year probationary
period, responsible use of alcohol, and outreach to other college
organizations.
The deans placed DU on probation in fall 1999, after 27 partygoers were arrested and charged with underage drinking during a
police raid of the annual “Margaritaville” bash held the previous
spring. The fraternity was placed on probation again for the remainder of the 2000–2001 academic year after a student drank too
much at a pledging event and had to be taken to the hospital.
Phi Psi and its individual members were placed on probation for
the year in spring 2002 following a scavenger hunt that involved
vandalism and theft on the Haverford College campus. The group
was also asked to find both an alumni and faculty adviser.
“In general, I think they have a good sense of their limits, but
sometimes they don’t use the best judgment,” Gross says of both
fraternities. The potential for problems with alcohol are a constant
worry, however. “It’s really up to them to monitor their behavior,
and some incidents that we’ve seen gave us reason for concern.”
According to Morello, DU increased security at its social events
after the “Margaritaville fiasco.” The fraternity now checks IDs at its
parties, making sure that partygoers are Swarthmore, Bryn Mawr, or
Haverford students or their guests. Everyone allowed to enter the
party is given a DU hand stamp and those of legal drinking age (21
in Pennsylvania) are given wristbands. “We became the first—and
to my knowledge the only—campus group to do this,” says Morello.
“At first, it seemed to annoy students. But after a while, it became
known that DU was going to ID everyone entering a party.”
Goundie sees other areas for improvement. “I think there are
always ways they could make more of a positive contribution than
they do. I think they’re working on that, though.”
Smaw, Phi Psi’s adviser, believes fraternities enhance campus
diversity. “One of the challenges is getting them to decide how they
want to define themselves within the framework of a diverse community,” he says. “Fraternities need to think about going beyond the
expected social events; more specifically, they should sponsor programs and speakers that contribute to the educational experience at
Swarthmore as well as the social life of the campus.”
Fraternity leaders agree with the deans’ assessment. “I think, in
the past few years, we’ve focused mainly on social activities, and it
definitely should be more than that,” Loeffler says. “I think we’re
going to branch out and do some positive things other than social
[activities].... That’s the spirit of a fraternity. It’s not just about you.
It’s about helping other people.” For instance, Phi Psi recently
helped raise money for a tutoring program, and Loeffler wants to see
the fraternity become involved in more community service activities.
Morello says DU is trying to strengthen its connection with the
Swarthmore African-American Students Society and is also working
on formalizing its relationship with Phi Psi so that the fraternities
can jointly sponsor speakers on such issues as sexual health and
alcohol.
Despite the need for change in some areas, Loeffler believes fraternities have a future at Swarthmore. “I think this is a school that’s
really diverse, and a school that’s really diverse can be accepting of a
fraternity [as well as] some organization that’s the exact opposite.” T
Sonia Scherr is a reporter for the Valley News in White River Junction, Vt.

JUNE 2003

FRIENDS HISTORICAL LIBRARY

DU—once mainly a football
fraternity—suffered a
blow when Swarthmore
eliminated its football team.
But an effort to recruit new
members has paid off.

35

CONNECTIONS

Connection Chair Marilee Roberg
’73 has been very busy planning summer
events. Jeff Jabco, director of grounds and
coordinator of horticulture for the Scott
Arboretum, will join the Connection on the
weekend of July 19 and 20 for a visit to the
Chicago Botanic Garden. Watch your mail
for an invitation.
Also in the planning stages is a Chicago
River architectural tour, an evening at
Ravinia, and an afternoon at the Oriental
Institute. Please contact Marilee at
mroberg@ameritech.net or (847) 853-1208
if you are interested in participating in a
Chicago Connection book group.
London: Lucy Rickman Baruch ’42 hosted
Alumni Weekend British style with a trip to
Swarthmoor Hall in the Lake District from
June 6 to 8, when we were celebrating Alumni Weekend stateside. The London Connection is gearing up for some fall activities. If
you would like to suggest an event, contact
Connection Chair Abby Honeywell ’85 at
abby.honeywell@btinternet.com.
Metro DC/Baltimore:

36

PATRICIA MALONEY

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

Sue Willis Ruff ’60
reports that Richard Johnson ’59, the Lucia,
Ruth, and Elizabeth MacGregor Professor of

LONDON CONNECTION REPRESENTATIVE LUCY
BARUCH ’42 VISITS WITH LOS ANGELES
CONNECTION CHAIR DAVID LANG ’54 AT THE
SPRING ALUMNI COUNCIL MEETING. CONNECTION
CHAIRS FROM ACROSS THE COUNTRY AND AROUND
THE WORLD ATTENDED THE SPRING MEETING.

English Literature
at Mount Holyoke
College, is compiling a reading list
for the book group
and is willing to
provide discussion
questions and give
lecture(s). If you are
interested in joining this very active,
successful book
group, contact
THE CHICAGO CONNECTION WILL VISIT THE CITY’S BOTANIC GARDEN.
sueruff@aol.com.
for all the events she has arranged over the
New York: We are delighted to welcome Jodi
past 10 years.
Furr ’97 and Lisa Ginsburg ’97 as New York
Deb is in the process of passing the
Connection co-chairs. After many years of
baton to a new Seattle Connection chair
service, Sanda Balaban ’94 and Deborah
who will be announced shortly.
Branker Harrod ’89 recently retired from
this post, although Sanda still remains
active in the New York book group. We
WHAT ABOUT MY CITY?
thank them both for their service to the Col- You can start a new Connection in your
lege and look forward to working with Jodi
city or host a one-time get-together. Call
and Lisa. If you want to reach Jodi or Lisa
Patricia Maloney, assistant director of
with Connection ideas, or if you are willing
alumni relations, at (610) 328-8404, or
to help, e-mail jodifurr@hotmail.com or
e-mail pmalone1@swarthmore.edu for
lisaginsburg@juno.com.
more information.
Philadelphia: This very active Connection
toured the Degas exhibit at The Philadelphia Art Museum in May. More than 45
alumni and their guests enjoyed the exhibit.
Pittsburgh: This Connection toured The
Mattress Factory, a contemporary art museum, in April. Third Thursday luncheons
continue at the HYP Club. Kindly R.S.V.P. to
Connection Chair Barbara Sieck Taylor ’75
at b.taylor43@verizon.net, or call (412) 2438307 if you can attend.
Seattle: After 10 years of service to the SeatALISON FOX ‘80 AND SPOUSE MARK REINGANUM,
tle Connection, Deborah Read ’87 is retiring. As a last hurrah, Deb arranged for an
KEYNOTE SPEAKER FOR THE LAX CONFERENCE ON
event by Patrick Awuah ’89, who started the ENTREPRENEURSHIP, VISIT WITH PRESIDENT
first liberal arts college in Ghana. It was a
ALFRED H. BLOOM AND DANIEL REINGANUM ‘06
multifaceted event with Ghanaian food, artiBEFORE THE START OF THE CONFERENCE IN APRIL
facts, art, and music as well as a slide pres(LEFT TO RIGHT).
entation. We thank Deb for this event and
PATRICIA MALONEY

Chicago:

WILLIAM BIDERBOST/CHICAGO BOTANIC GARDEN

CHICAGO

Alumni are encouraged to nominate
candidates for honorary degrees awarded at
Commencement. Please submit background
information, including your own reasons for
choosing this individual, by Friday, Oct. 3,
to the Honorary Degree Committee, Vice
President’s Office, Swarthmore College, 500
College Avenue, Swarthmore PA 19081-1390,
or e-mail Vice President Maurice Eldridge ’61
at meldrid1@swarthmore.edu. All nominations will be kept confidential; please do not
inform the nominee. The committee will forward its recommendations to the faculty in
mid-November.
Criteria used by the Honorary Degree
Committee include the following:
• Distinction, leadership, or originality in
a significant field of human endeavor
• Someone in the ascent or at the peak
of distinction, with preference to the less
honored over those who have received multiple degrees

ipate in activities sponsored by council; the first implementation of
recognition for service contributions in the fall 2002 Report of Gifts;
and additional efforts toward reconciliation. These efforts include
the completion of the Task Group Report on Consensual Decision
Making (see page 4), support of the initiative to strengthen the Athletics Program, and outreach to alumni still estranged from the College after the decision on athletics. At the conclusion of the plenary
session, Susan Rico Connolly ’78 and Tom Francis, associate director of the Career Services Office, made a special presentation to
Cynthia Graae ’62 for completing her dedicated service as national
extern coordinator.
Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning were spent in working
group meetings. In addition, there were meetings of ad hoc groups
working on a communications plan for council, exploring ways to
enhance events and management of Connections and considering
ways to further enhance the efforts of extern coordinators. On Saturday evening, council members participated in a career networking
dinner with students, council members, and other alumni from the
Philadelphia area.
At the final plenary session, council received reports from each
of the working groups on their outcomes and recommendations.
Truitt reported actions taken by the executive committee during
the weekend. A summary of each of these reports can be found on
the Web at http://www.swarthmore.edu/alumni/images/spring_2002_council_update.pdf. Also available on the Web at
http://www.swarthmore.edu/alumni/alumni_council.html is the
current version of the annual work plan of Alumni Council for
2002–2003, which indicates the status of all initiatives of council
for this year.
—Rich Truitt ’66, President, Alumni Association

• Ability to serve as a role model for
graduating seniors, speaking to them on a
major occasion in their lives
• Preference (but not a requirement) for
individuals who have an existing affiliation
with or some connection to Swarthmore.
The committee seeks to balance choices
over the years from a variety of categories
such as careers, gender, academic discipline,
race, ethnicity, and public service.

LISTSERVS IMPROVED
Many alumni enjoy staying in touch on
Internet listservs set up for their class, local
Connection, or special-interest group. In an
effort to improve the performance of the College listservs, we have converted to a new
system called Mailman. The system has features such as archiving messages and password-protected access to lists and information. If you are not signed up for a listserv
that you wish to be on, visit http://alumnioffice.swarthmore.edu/mailman/listinfo.

EXTERNSHIP PROGRAM
SALUTES CYNTHIA GRAAE ’62
Associate Director of Career Services Tom
Francis (left) and Alumni Council Member
Susan Rico Connolly ’78 (right) congratulate
Cynthia Graae ’62 (center) for her stewardship of the Externship Program, which has
grown considerably under her watch. Cynthia
will be succeeded by Nanine Meiklejohn ’68.
If you wish to offer a student an externship
during winter break or can house a student,
please contact extern@swarthmore.edu.

JUNE 2003

NOMINATIONS SOUGHT

STEVEN GOLDBLATT ʼ67

he spring meeting of Alumni Council (AC) began with dinner and a
panel presentation of students and
alumni involved in this year’s Extern Program. Moderated by National Extern
Coordinators Nanine Meiklejohn ’68 and
Cynthia Graae ’62, the panel included
Blair Cochran ’03, Megan Speare ’05,
David Bamberger ’62 (sponsor), and
Sharon Seyfarth Garner ’89 (host).
RICH TRUITT ’66
Council members heard from Lisa Lee
’81, director of alumni relations, and Alumni Managers Kenn Wynn
’74 and Cynthia Graae ’62. Kenn reported on the Board of Managers’ reception of the Task Group Report on Consensual Decision
Making. Cynthia provided an update on other activities of the
Board, including the capital campaign and budgetary challenges
caused by current economic conditions.
President Alfred H. Bloom gave an upbeat report on the current
challenges faced by the College and actions being taken to meet
them. Topics included the status of admissions, meeting the challenges of the campaign in the current economic climate, the living
wage initiative, the affirmative action lawsuit before the Supreme
Court, proposed curriculum changes, faculty retirements, and the
selection of Adam Hertz as the College’s new athletics director.
Carol Finneburgh Lorber ’63, a member of the AC Scholarship
Committee, reported that members have pledged a total in excess of
$60,000 for the scholarship and that the College has selected
Catherine Danh ’04 as its first recipient.
Truitt then provided an update on other council initiatives.
These included efforts to expand opportunities for alumni to partic-

PATRICIA MALONEY

T

Alumni Council Update

37

BOB KRIST

CLASS NOTES

the meaning of

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

s w a r t h mor e

38

Swarthmore has been a
touchstone throughout my
adult life—a source of pride,
one of life’s high points,
a standard of excellence,
a challenge to preserve and
extend my accomplishments,
a foundation to build on,
and an object of my affection.
—Richard Kurz ’75

INSPIRED BY ONE OF THE MASTERS, JOHN CHILD ’37 STILL TEACHES STUDENTS.

I

n December 1936, the Philadelphia “coming out” season was in full swing. John
Child ’37 was in an anteroom of the ballroom of the Warwick Hotel waiting to go to
a party.
The hotel social manager and another
man were also in the anteroom. Child was
well acquainted with the social manager, as
he had attended numerous parties at the
hotel. The other man, not an invited guest,
looked familiar to Child—in fact, a bit like
George Gershwin.
“The social manager was very busy, and
he asked me to kindly tell the man to leave
the anteroom because it was a private party,”
Child said.
Before Child could deliver the message,
the man sat down at the baby-grand piano
and began to play.
“Then I said to myself, ‘that has to be
George Gershwin, and I am not going to ask
him to leave.’”
Instead, Child sat near the piano. “Hi,
young fellow,” Gershwin said, without missing a note; he could talk and play at the same
time. “I’m just going to play a few pieces
while I wait for my train.”
Gershwin played for an hour. Child listened and watched, intently memorizing
exactly how he played each tune. The songs
were familiar to Child but were being played
somewhat differently.
“That is not the way you published that
[song], and that’s not the way anybody plays
it,” Child remarked.
Gershwin answered, “I never play a piece
the same way twice.” He then asked Child if
he was a pianist.
“Yes,” Child replied, “but don’t ask me to
play!”
After he finished playing, Gershwin left
to catch the train. He died nine months later
of a brain tumor. To this day, Child can play
the songs exactly as Gershwin did that wintry night in 1936.
Music is one of many passions in Child’s
life. In 1900, his grandfather bought a
Steinway baby-grand piano for $600. From
the age of 5, Child was “entranced.” That
piano is in his living room today. Child
never had a piano teacher; he taught himself
to play by ear. He says it is in his genes.

STEVEN GOLDBLATT ʼ67

ALUMNI PROFILE
S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

42

Playing Gershwin’s Tunes

JOHN CHILD ’37 PLAYED THE ALMA MATER AT COLLECTION DURING ALUMNI WEEKEND 2002.

Child graduated with a degree in economics and worked in the insurance industry for many years. When he retired in 1973,
he reinvented himself and became a piano
teacher—with a twist. He teaches many of
his students to play by ear, without ever having to learn a note of music. The system he
developed is based on a music system discovered by Pythagoras. The Greeks thought
people should learn to play by ear; they did
not have any musical notation at all.
“I think it is important for people to play
by ear, and I have a developed a system of
writing music that makes it unnecessary to
learn to read music,” Child said. “I have
developed about 650 to 700 pages of
instructions on many songs from the period
of 1920 to 1960, a period of remarkable
excellence in music composition.”
At the age of 87, Child teaches 55 students per week in their homes after school.
He estimates that he has taught 1,500 students in his second career. In his 30s, Child
eventually did master reading music, so he
can teach both methods to his students.

Some do better with the more traditional
method of reading music, and others excel
in playing by ear.
In addition to teaching piano, Child has
an even greater passion for the study of history. In his home in Chestnut Hill, which he
shares with his wife, Beatrice, Child has all
of his family records dating back to 1810 but
can trace his family to 1682 when they lived
in Plumstead Township on 1,600 acres
granted by William Penn. While at Swarthmore, Child took every history course
offered by the College.
“The approach to teaching history was
very different at Swarthmore,” Child said.
“They tried to instill in us the ability to think;
it was expected that we knew the facts.”
Child visits the campus regularly. He and
Beatrice are active Quakers and are often on
campus for the Quarterly meeting. Last
spring, he played the alma mater at Collection on Alumni Weekend. The College supplied the music, but he already knew the
tune and was able to play it by ear, of course.
—Patricia Maloney

G AY B U R G I E L’ S [ ’ 6 1 ] W O R K O N P H I L A D E L P H I A’ S TA L L S H I P I S N E V E R D O N E .

A

s Gay Burgiel walks the deck of Pier 40
in Philadelphia, she’s prepared to
retrieve anything from nuts and bolts to
Chinese food for the crew of the tall ship
Gazela.
As the historic ship’s volunteer coordinator and a devoted sailor, no job is too small
for the 62-year-old Califon, N.J., resident
who is affectionately called “Mother Gazela”
by her fellow shipmates.
“Gay’s our ‘just-in-timer,’” said Gazela
shipwright Patrick Flynn. “We can count on
her for whatever we need.”
“She’s an old-fashioned person like I am.
She doesn’t whine. She just gets it done.
She’s like the mom here,” agreed the Gazela’s
lead shipwright Stephen DeCatur, a fulltime carpenter who helps maintain the ship’s
wooden hull during the winter months.
“I’m listed as ‘volunteer coordinator,’ but
we’ve never figured out what that means,”
Burgiel laughs, noting that on any given day,
her duties may include training inexperienced volunteers, painting, sanding a deck,
or running to Home Depot for supplies.
“Part of my training was being a parent
for 20 years,” said Burgiel, who travels from
her home in northern New Jersey to Philadelphia several days a week throughout the
year. In the months when she’s not sailing
on the ship, she helps with the extensive
maintenance of the 120-year-old vessel. She
even sleeps in a cabin on board on the days
when she’s in Philadelphia.
The Gazela was built in Portugal and is
considered the oldest and largest wooden
square-rigged ship sailing today. As late as
1969, the vessel was manned by up to 40
sailors who fished off the Grand Banks of
Newfoundland.
The ship is now owned and operated by
the Philadelphia Ship Preservation Guild
and serves as an international goodwill
ambassador for the Port of Philadelphia and
Camden. During the spring, summer, and
fall, the ship and its volunteer crew sail to
various ports throughout the Atlantic for
events and festivals. The Gazela has also
been used in several movies, including Interview With the Vampire and The Widow of St.
Pierre.
But in the winter months, the ship is

GAZELA: PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER/RON TARVER. BURGIEL: COURTESY OF GAY BURGIEL

ALUMNI PROFILE
S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

56

“Mother Gazela”

GAY BURGIEL (RIGHT) IS AT HOME ON THE DECKS
OF THE TALL SHIP GAZELA, WHICH IS BASED IN
PHILADELPHIA (ABOVE).

down rigged, and many hours are spent preserving the wooden structure from the elements. In addition, because volunteers come
and go, a new crew has to be trained each
season before it returns to the open water,
sometime in May or June.
“It’s a year-round job to keep this boat
afloat,” said Burgiel, who was attracted to
the ship because of its rare square sails that
remind her of historic whaling vessels. “I
guess I keep coming back partly because I
feel needed and because there’s always something to do.”
Burgiel grew up near Cape Cod, Mass.
“with one foot in a boat,” in a family where
sailing was second nature. She later taught
sailing, rowing, and canoeing in high school
and was on Swarthmore’s now-defunct sailing team.
She took a hiatus from the sport in the
years after college because her now ex-husband was not crazy about the water. Furthermore, there was not much time or money to
devote to her passion when she was raising
her two children, Heidi and Stanley ’92.
In 1994, one day after her divorce was
final, Burgiel found a lump in her breast.
True to her steady, adventurous personality,
she didn’t say anything but went on with her

plans to bicycle across the
Alps with
friends. When
she returned
to the United
States, she
concentrated
on her illness
and the future.
“[My illness] kind of made me think
about what I wanted to do with my life. Did I
really want to sit and write ads for text
books?” said Burgiel, who retired in 1996 as
a project manager in a publishing company.
“I also realized something was calling me
back to boats.”
She is now cancer free and is “busier
than ever” since her retirement. Besides her
work on the Gazela, she also square dances
and is an avid cyclist who has pedaled
through France, Greece, Turkey, China, Australia, Morocco, South Africa, Peru, Argentina, and Chile.
Now on most weekends throughout the
year, you can find her directing up to 20 volunteers who show up to maintain the
Gazela. But her favorite place is out in the
open water on the ship’s deck, watching the
stars with land nowhere in sight. Then, all
the long hours of work are behind her, and
there’s smooth sailing ahead.
—Angela Doody

IN MY LIFE

Preserving a Family Legacy
THE DENNIS FARM
By Denise Dennis ’72

I

AM 5 OR 6 YEARS OLD AND WALKING UP A HILL ON THE FARM, WITH MY
FATHER . It is summer. We are surrounded by trees, which shade and

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

keep us cool and are in a clearing, making it easier for us to climb. My
father holds my hand; a carved wooden walking stick is in his free hand.
We stop. He points to a low stone wall among the leaves and moss and
tells me this is where our people lived when they came to Pennsylvania
from New England. I know, from the tone of his bass voice, that what he is
telling me is important and that I must remember. We continue up the hill,
navigating stones in the rocky soil; sunlight flickers between green leaves.
At the hilltop, we come to a cemetery enclosed by a stone wall and, at the
entrance, an iron gate, curved like the gates of heaven. Daddy looks into
the cemetery, then back to me, and explains that our ancestors are buried
here. I sense, even more deeply, that Daddy is sharing something significant and sacred with me. I watch and listen. Daddy is telling me who I
am; I am more than myself. I began with those who lived and died here. I
will not forget.

60

Everyone should have someone in her life as inspiring as my
aunt, Hope Dennis. We are true “kindred spirits,” close in heart and
mind. She is the standard to which I aspire. A high school guidance
counselor and alumna of Northwestern and University of Michigan,
she advised me to apply to Swarthmore. Now, Aunt Hope has made
possible the most rewarding work of my life. In 2001, we founded
the Dennis Farm Charitable Land Trust (DFCLT) for the historic
and environmental preservation of the more than 100-acre Pennsylvania farm, in Susquehanna County, where our free black ancestors
settled approximately 200 years ago. Among our partners are the
Endless Mountains Heritage Region and Preservation Pennsylvania.
Swarthmore students will be involved in the educational component. I serve as DFCLT president.

“I don’t want the farm to go out of the family on my watch,”
Aunt Hope told me. As sole owner, she sought a feasible plan for
preserving it. The site includes a vernacular, federal-style farmhouse,
originally constructed around 1825, modernized in the 1930s, and in
need of restoration; the Perkins-Dennis Cemetery, where the family,
including a Revolutionary War veteran, are buried; and the grounds,
crowned by a deep forest. The cemetery, at the forest hilltop, is surrounded by an elegant wall of stone quarried from the property and
built by our forebears around 1800. The countryside property—with
preserved hardwood trees, wildflowers, and a pristine creek—has
not been a working farm since the early 20th century but remained
a family summer home.
As I researched a plan, I outlined our concerns and goals for the
site. Besides security and preservation of the cemetery, the house,
books, and documents (dating back to the mid-19th century), photographs, and the land, Aunt Hope wanted to ensure that the property would retain “The Dennis Farm” name and that its significance
as land owned by generations of an African American family would
not be lost.
My first step was to call the Historic Preservation Department at
the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Fine Arts
(GFSA), where, as a communications officer in the 1980s, I had
written about preservation projects. They directed me to the state
historic preservation officer in Harrisburg, who led me to Elizabeth
Watson, a nationally renowned planning consultant, specialist in
heritage development, and co-author of Saving America’s Countryside.
Ms. Watson was familiar with the farm through her work with the
Endless Mountains Heritage Region, was aware of the site’s potential, and contributed invaluable services. We have worked together
over the past six years.
My Aunt Edith Dennis owned and “kept watch” over the farm
until her death in 1980, when it passed to her youngest and only
remaining sibling, Hope. Born in 1899 and an alumna of the University of Pennsylvania, Aunt Edith was a distinguished, loving
influence in my life.
My dear, dear Denise,
Your letter was so welcomed and too very interesting. I do hope
that you are finding great satisfaction in your work, surroundings,
and associations there at Swarthmore. I was quite flattered to
receive your letter during what I’m sure was a busy time—adjustments, etc.
I heard and saw your president a few Sundays ago on television—rather impressive....
Perhaps I’m, shall I say, rather “square” with a couple generation gaps.… I do hope that through all your experiences you will
remain true to your best judgments—remember the farewell speech
of Polonius to his son Laertes—“To thine ownself be true and
thence must follow as night the day, thou canst be false to no man.”
Aunt Hope called me Saturday. All is well with her. She is to
attend a conference held at Indiana University….
Your visit here was most enjoyable—short though. Come again.
Write me soon and remember I’m a good listener and very simpatico....

FARM HOUSE, VIEWED
FROM THE DRIVEWAY,
CA. 1939
TOP LEFT: DENISE AND
NORMAN DENNIS ON
THE FARM
CENTER: IN 2001,
DFCLT FOUNDERS HOPE
AND DENISE DENNIS
VISITED A CEMETERY
NEAR FORTY-FORT, PA.,
WHERE THOSE WHO
DIED IN THE 20TH
CENTURY ARE RESTING.
BELOW: MARY KINSLOW
DENNIS (FAR LEFT),
WITH GRANDDAUGHTERS, GUESTS, AND
DARRYL GORE ʼ79

DAUGHTER EDITH
(SEATED FAR RIGHT)
ON THE FARM IN THE

PHOTOS COURTESY OF HOPE AND DENISE DENNIS

LATE 1940S

My best love to you and sincere wishes for your success in all
your endeavors.
Love,
Aunt Edith
Education has always been a priority in our family, and we want the
Trust to serve an educational purpose. Our goal is to develop a body
of research on themes relevant to the farm and to build a library/
museum on the beautiful site to host scholars and conferences and
annual symposia.

M

ore than 50 years before the Civil War, our ancestors came to
northeastern Pennsylvania from New England—as free
African Americans—and purchased their own property. My great-

great-great-great grandparents, Judith and Prince Perkins (1750–
1839) came from Connecticut in 1792. At that time, black people
were one-quarter of the American population, but a mere 10 percent
were free. Among the first settlers in the area, the family is fully documented in the Susquehanna County Historical Society. This continuous documentation of an African American family is rare. In a
1988 article, historian and former Kent State professor Curtis Stone
wrote: “[These] pioneers arrived in the Brooklyn, Pa., area in 1793,
led by Prince Perkins. The Perkins family formed the nucleus of pioneer blacks moving in and out of the region for the next century …
these early settlers were free men and women, were accepted in the
larger community, and appear to have been the basis of anti-slavery
sentiment in the community and county.” In his book, The Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania, Charles Blockson writes that the
farm served as a stop on the daring route to freedom.
The Perkins-Dennis Cemetery served as the cemetery for black
people in the region. One family member buried there was a veteran
of the American Revolution, having enlisted in the Connecticut Line
in 1777 and served under Washington. His military record is in the
National Archives.
On April 24, 1852, Angeline Perkins, Prince Perkins’ granddaughter, married Henry Dennis, who was born in Vermont and
whose family—originally from Massachusetts—came to Pennsylvania in the early 19th century. Henry and Angeline combined their
properties and had three surviving children; the youngest was my
great-grandfather, Sumner Dennis (1866–1950), named for Charles
Sumner, the senator from Massachusetts who led passage of the
Civil Rights Bill of June 1866. Sumner moved to Wilkes-Barre, Pa.,
in 1886; in 1895, he married Mary Kinslow, and they had five surviving children: Norman, Edith, Marion, Carl, and Hope. Norman
Dennis married Harriette Payne in 1926, and they had two daughters, Margaret, who is my mother, and Edith. My “grand”parents,
Norman and Harriette Dennis, reared me from infancy and, in
1962, legally adopted me—protecting me with the nom de famille.
Margaret is also the mother of Darryl Gore ’79, and has one
granddaughter. Edith has one son, Lonnie Moore, and three
grandchildren.
In pursuing guidance for the Trust’s educational component, I
contacted Swarthmore. In the past year, several key faculty members
and administrators have encouraged me in the project, including
Associate Professor of History Allison Dorsey, Cooley Curator of the
Swarthmore Peace Collection Wendy Chmielewski, and Curator of
the Friends Historical Library Christopher Densmore.
Everything in my life seems to have prepared me for this challenging work.
I am une femme d’un certain age, and I am on the farm with our partners. They are examining the flora and fauna, and someone just showed me
an asparagus plant, asking whether or not my ancestors grew asparagus.
They also discovered, beneath the tall grass, markings indicating a well near
the old barn wall. They look at the ground; I am looking up the hill. The
light falling down the hillside is golden and radiant, and it fills my spirit.
More than light, I feel the warm presence of all their spirits looking down—
all my loved ones. They are smiling; they know we have not forgotten. T
Denise Dennis, author of A Century of Greatness and Black History
for Beginners, may be reached at Dennisfarmtrust@aol.com.

JUNE 2003

OPPOSITE PAGE: THE

61

G I U L I A N O H A Z A N ’ 8 1 S H A R E S T H E S E C R E T S O F H I S M O U T H WAT E R I N G R E C I P E S .

A

t Villa Giona, a 12-acre country residence
and cooking school in Verona, students
start the day sipping cappuccino and eating
fresh pastries while viewing a lush garden.
Joining Giuliano Hazan in the kitchen, they
follow his simple, easy-to-prepare recipes
such as pasta with wild mushrooms and
tomatoes or salmon fillets with capers and
anchovy sauce. Later—after chopping and
grating, salting and stirring—the small class
savors the aromatic meals they create
together while sampling full-bodied wines,
like La Poja, harvested in the Allegrini vineyards nearby.
Hazan started cooking at his mother’s
side as a small boy. By spending time in the
kitchen with his parents, he developed a reverence for food. Focusing on simplicity, with
an emphasis on flavor and love, Hazan’s parents taught him that food is an expression of
caring.
“I am passing on the traditions and lessons I have inherited by continuing to teach
about the genuine and true flavors of Italian
cooking,” he says. “In doing so, however, I
am using my own approach, my own palate,
and my own style of cooking, so that my
work and my mother’s, although similar, are
inevitably different and unique.”
Hazan is a member of the “first family of
Italian food” (Gazette Telegraph, July 5, 1995).
His mother, Marcella, “nearly single-handedly introduced classic Italian cuisine to
Americans through her best-selling The Classic Italian Cookbook in 1973.” His father, Victor, wrote the “bible” Italian Wine in 1982.
While a student at Swarthmore, Hazan
occasionally called his mother for advice
about cooking. During summer 1980, at age
17, he served as a tour guide and interpreter
at his parent’s School of Classic Italian
Cooking in Bologna. He worked his way up
from assistant to teacher and director.
Hazan, a French literature major, also
developed an interest in theater on campus.
“In a way, I have never stopped acting and
directing because my cooking classes and
the courses I teach in Italy are ‘performances’ for an audience,” he says. Hazan
has taught for 15 years, including four years
of teaching a course at the Hotel Cipriani in
Venice.

MARY MCCULLEY

ALUMNI PROFILE
S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

64

The Art of Cooking

GIULIANO HAZAN IS THE AUTHOR OF BEST-SELLING
COOKBOOKS. HIS WORK WAS FEATURED IN THE
APRIL ISSUE OF SOUTHERN LIVING.

Hazan also teaches regularly across the
United States. In January, he held classes at
Casa Italia in his hometown of Sarasota,
Fla.; in February, he was in Marlton, N.J.,
and Houston. In March, Hazan gave demonstrations at Sur La Table in Los Angeles, Salt
Lake City, and Portland. In April, he was in
Tampa.
“Swarthmore certainly helped me learn
how to express myself as a writer and organize my thoughts,” he says. “Swarthmore also
had an important influence in developing
my imagination and creativity, qualities that
are very important in my work.”
After graduation, Hazan attended the
Trinity Repertory Conservatory in Providence, R.I. In 1988, he opened Giuliano
Hazan’s Gastronomia, a takout shop for Italian cuisine in Providence.
Hazan’s The Classic Pasta Cookbook (Dorling Kindersley, 1993) was an international
best-seller, with a half-million copies in

print in 16 countries. Nominated for a James
Beard Cookbook Award in 1994, the work
has been translated into 12 languages. His
second book, Every Night Italian (Scribner,
2000), won the World Cookbook Award for
best Italian cookbook in the English language.
“I would be thrilled to have a Swarthmore alumnus attend my school in Italy,”
says Hazan. Gardens and vineyards surround the 12-acre residence and school, built
in the 16th century on Lake Garda.
Opened in 2000 with co-host and wife
Lael, the school also offers wine tours and
discussions with distinguished red-wine
producer Marilisa Allegrini. Wine samples
complement meals resulting from hands-on
classes making homemade pasta, risotto,
meats, fish, vegetables, and desserts. Hazan
teaches in English and guides field trips in
the Veneto region and beyond. For more
details, see http://giulianohazan.com.
“The best feeling of all is when students
tell me that I have changed their lives
because of the way they prepare and share
food at home with their family,” Hazan says.
—Andrea Hammer

BOOKS & ARTS
S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

72

Invitation to a Soirée
KRISTIN SIMS LEVINE ’97 CO-WRITES AND CO-DIRECTS A FARCE.

Kristin Levine ’97 and Matt
McNevin, co-directors, Soirée,
2003

Y

ou need to start somewhere.
With neighborhood blockbusters costing $100 million or
more to produce, it helps to remember that the lifeblood of creativity in
film is often found in the “indies.”
Young writers/directors, passionate
about their art, somehow manage to
leap over the hurdles and get their
independently produced pictures on
the screen.
Joining their ranks is Kristin
Levine who graduated from Swarthmore in 1997 with a major in German. Her day job is teaching German in a suburban Washington,
D.C., high school, but, with an
M.F.A. in film and electronic media
from American University and an
adjunct appointment there teaching
screenwriting, it is clear where her
heart lies. And now, along with cowriter/director Matt McNevin, Levine
has her own indie film, Soirée,
which opened in March in at least one theater in suburban Washington.
Although many indie filmmakers pride
themselves on doing a film for a few hundred thousand, Soirée cost only $40,000—
a tad more than the cost of a year at certain
colleges.
Levine’s liberal arts background apparently gave her the confidence to tackle an
adult comedy about the marital challenges
of two 40-something couples. Cindy (Anne
Flosnick) and David (David James) are
planning a party to celebrate their 20th
anniversary. In the opening line of the film,
however, Cindy is on the phone to her suicidal therapist, Dr. Sherman (Greg Coale):
“Should I leave the so-and-so, or invite my
friends to the soirée?” They decide to go
ahead with the party, and among the guests
are Roberta (Kate Revelle), a divorce lawyer,
and Greg (Neil Conway), a wannabe novelist who has settled for writing fortunecookie wisdom. Greg and David were best
friends in college, and David went out with

The independent film
Soirée cost only
$40,000—a tad more
than the cost
of a year
at certain colleges.
RELEASED AT SELECTED THEATERS IN MARCH, THE
INDEPENDENT COMEDY SOIREE INVOLVES TWO
MARRIED COUPLES WHO GET TOGETHER FOR A LONG
WEEKEND IN WASHINGTON, D.C.

Roberta until he dumped her to
marry Cindy; then, Roberta married Greg on the rebound.
Despite Roberta’s reluctance, she
and Greg decide to spend the
night with David and Cindy, and,
to boot, they bring along their
misbehaving 16-year-old daughter, Jessica (Lauren Adelman).
Complications ensue. David
has the hots for Roberta again,
Greg has the hots for Cindy, and
Jessica has the hots for David.
Doors are slammed. People hide
in closets. David’s precious baseball with Roberto Clemente’s
autograph is thrown out the window, and the autograph is
washed off. And, like a Greek chorus, Cindy’s intermittent phone
calls to Dr. Sherman, seeking
reassurance, keep interrupting his
suicide attempts. Striking an odd
blow for the effectiveness of therapy, Dr. Sherman’s arrival at
Cindy and David’s house, gun in
hand, precipitates the denouement.
Soirée aims for a kind of retro innocence. Despite some sexual innuendo,
the dialogue and the situations are
more PG. Levine and McNevin have an
obvious affection for the characters
they have created, and the cast runs
through the farce with a sense of fun.
Of course, $40,000 doesn’t buy a lot of
production value these days. The film
was shot on location in Levine’s parents’ house; unless you’ve seen dinner
theater in the DC area, you are unlikely
to recognize any of the cast.
One senses that Levine and
McNevin were trying for something like
the wit of Nora Ephron in the dialogue
and the zaniness of early Woody Allen.
Ephron and Allen don’t have to move
over just yet, but it is exciting to see
Levine and McNevin taking them on. I
look forward to the next efforts of these
talented young filmmakers.
—Robert Gross ’62
Dean of the College

ADAM HASLETT ’92 RECEIVED THE L.L. WINSHIP/
PEN NEW ENGLAND AWARD, NAMED FOR A FORMER
EDITOR OF THE BOSTON GLOBE AND HONORING A
BOOK ABOUT NEW ENGLAND OR BY A NEW ENGLAND AUTHOR. THE AWARD WAS PRESENTED IN
APRIL AT THE JOHN F. KENNEDY LIBRARY AND
MUSEUM. YOU ARE NOT A STRANGER HERE
(DOUBLEDAY, 2002) WAS ALSO NOMINATED FOR
THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD AND WON A NEW
YORK MAGAZINE AWARD FOR FICTION.

BOOKS
T. Alexander Aleinikoff ’74, Semblances of
Sovereignty: The Constitution, the State, and
American Citizenship, Harvard University
Press, 2002. Attuned to the demands of a
new century, the author argues for abandonment of plenary power cases and for more
flexible conceptions of sovereignty and
citizenship.

Philip Ashley Fanning ’57, Mark Twain and
Orion Clemens: Brothers, Partners, Strangers,
The University of Alabama Press, 2003.
This account of Twain’s relationship with
his older brother draws on extensive
archival sources, unpublished letters
between the brothers, and the Mark Twain
papers at the University of California–
Berkeley.
Jan Feldman ’76, Lubavitchers as Citizens: A
Paradox of Liberal Democracy, Cornell University Press, 2003. The author, an associate
professor of political science at the University of Vermont, illuminates a fascinating
group and explores the relationship
between liberal and democratic values.
James Fritts ’60, Essentials of Illinois School
Finance: A Guide to Techniques, Issues and
Resources, Illinois Association of School
Boards, 2002. Originally designed as a
training manual and desktop reference for
school business managers and budget mak-

Michael Alexander ’68, The Case for the
Prosecution in the Ciceronian Era,University
of Michigan Press, 2002. This work reconstructs the prosecution’s case in 11 criminal
trials held in the late Roman Republic.

“THE RANDOM HOUSE BALLANTINE PUBLISHING
GROUP [NOW OFFICIALLY THE RANDOM HOUSE
PUBLISHING GROUP] NAMED DANIEL MENAKER
[’63] THE NEW EDITOR-IN-CHIEF OF ITS RANDOM
HOUSE SIDE, ENDING ONE OF THE MOST CLOSELY
WATCHED JOB SEARCHES IN RECENT PUBLISHING
HISTORY. MENAKER, AN EXECUTIVE EDITOR AT
HARPERCOLLINS WHO ALSO DID A SIX-YEAR TURN
AT RANDOM HOUSE, IS BEST-KNOWN FOR HIS 25
YEARS AT THE NEW YORKER, MANY OF WHICH HE
SPENT EDITING FICTION AND NONFICTION.”

ers, this book is also a reference for anyone
who needs to understand “the essentials of
Illinois school finance.”
Randy Holland ’69, The Delaware State Constitution: A Reference Guide, Greenwood
Press, 2002. State Supreme Court Justice
Randy Holland divides this detailed work
into two parts: “The Constitutional History
of Delaware” and “Delaware Constitution
and Commentary.”
Joseph Horowitz ’70, Dvorák in America: In
Search of the New World, Cricket Books,
2003. In this account of Dvorák’s 1890s
stay in America, the author follows the
musical and cultural influences that inpired
the New World Symphony.

Bernard Beitman ’64, Barton Blinder,
Michael Thase, Michelle Riba, and Debra
Safer, Integrating Psychotherapy and Pharmacotherapy: Dissolving the Mind-Brain Barrier,
W.W. Norton, 2003. This book covers topics
such as research in combined treatments,
pharmacotherapy during psychotherapy,
and the neurobiology of psychotherapy.
Edmund Bowles ’49, Timpani: A History in
Pictures and Documents, Pendragon Press,
2002. The author, an expert musicologist
and iconographer, provides a comprehensive

ACCORDING TO PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (MARCH 3),

Clark Kerr ’32, The Gold and the Blue: A Personal Memoir of the University of California,
1949–1967, vol. 2: Political Turmoil. University of California Press, 2003. This second of
two volumes continues the story of one of
the last century’s most influential figures in
higher education.
CAROLYN M C CONNELL CO-EDITED MAKING PEACE:
HEALING A VIOLENT WORLD.

Dana Mackenzie ’79, The Big Splat, or How
Our Moon Came to Be, John Wiley & Sons,
2003. For a general audience, this book

JUNE 2003

PUBLSIHERS WEEKLY (MARCH 5) REPORTED THAT

T. Alan Broughton ’62, Suicidal Tendencies,
Center for Literary Publishing and University Press of Colorado, 2003. The author of
several novels and poetry collections explores themes such as revolutionary activities in Italy and America.
© SARA BARRETT

JOANNA E. MORRISSEY, 2002

compendium of historical documents and
photographs.

73

BOOKS & ARTS

sion, has more than 30 experiments to
learn the secrets behind amazing bubble
tricks.
Marcus Noland ’81 and Howard Pack,
Industrial Policy in an Era of Globalization:
Lessons From Asia, Institute for International Economics, 2003. This work focuses on
globalization as a description of economic
transformation and its many meanings.
Gwinn Owens ’47, Carpenter’s Heaven,
Xlibris, 2002. In this book, a brilliant and
cantankerous microbiologist seemingly
achieves the ultimate—a dietary supplement that controls the aging process.

AN AVID BIKER, J.P. PARTLAND’S WORK HAS
APPEARED ON NUMEROUS WEB SITES AND IN
MORE THAN 50 CYCLING-SPECIFIC AND GENERALINTEREST MAGAZINES, INCLUDING BICYCLING,
WOMEN’S SPORTS AND FITNESS, AND HOOKED ON
THE OUTDOORS AND OUTSIDE.

relates how lunar scientists arrived at a
theory of the Moon’s birth.
Carolyn McConnell ’93 and Sarah Ruth
van Gelder, eds., Making Peace: Healing a
Violent World, Positive Futures Network,
2003. These stories, including “The Language of Nonviolence” and “Restorative
Justice,” from YES! A Journal of Positive
Futures, support peaceful alternatives in the
media, schools, and international affairs.

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

Sandra ’68 and David McLanahan ’63,
Surgery and Its Alternatives: How to Make the
Right Choices for Your Health, Kensington
Publishing, 2002. Siblings Sandra
McLanahan, a family practice physician on
the East Coast, and David McLanahan, a
general surgeon on the West Coast, provide useful information about the surgical
experience—and how to avoid it.

74

Charles Miller ’59, Ship of State: The Nautical Metaphors of Thomas Jefferson, With
Numerous Examples by Other Writers From
Classical Antiquity to the Present, University
Press of America, 2003. Organized in two
parts, an essay and an anthology, this book
gathers and examines approximately 100
nautical metaphors.
Jim Moskowitz ’88, Bubbleology, innovative KIDS®, 2003. This hands-on science
kit, for children to use with adult supervi-

J.P. Partland ’90 and John Gibson, photographer, Mountain Bike Madness, MBI Publishing, 2003. This account of mountain
biking’s beginnings describes its culture,
style, and global appeal.
Eric Sievers ’92, The Post-Soviet Decline of
Central Asia, RoutledgeCurzon, 2002. This
work explains the economic decline of the
post–Soviet Central Asian states, presenting a challenge to development agencies,
scholars, and human rights organizations.
Maryhelen (Hintz) Snyder ’53, No Hole in
the Flame: A Story of Love and Loss in Prose
and Poetry, The Wildflower Press, 2003.
After her husband, Ross Snyder Jr. ’52, died
suddenly in 1996, the author chronicled
her experience with grief and her reflections on their 40-year marriage.
Daniel Styer ’77, The Strange World of
Quantum Mechanics, Cambridge University
Press, 2000. “Dedicated to two extraordinary teachers of quantum mechanics: John
R. Boccio and N. David Mermin,” this
introductory work is suitable for use as a
course text and will appeal to other readers
“seeking intellectual adventure.”

JIM MOSKOWITZ, THE “ASK THE SCIENTIST”
EXPERT AND SCIENCE-EXHIBIT CREATOR AT THE
FRANKLIN INSTITUTE SCIENCE MUSEUM IN
PHILADELPHIA, WROTE BUBBLEOLOGY FOR CHILDREN AGES 7 AND OLDER. FOR MORE DETAILS,
SEE WWW.INNOVATIVEKIDS.COM.

Stephen Ross and John Yinger ’69, The
Color of Credit: Mortgage Discrimination,
Research Methodology, and Fair-Lending
Enforcement, MIT Press, 2002. The authors
discuss mortgage-lending discrimination
in recent years by reanalyzing existing
loan-approval and -performance data and
devising new tests for detecting discrimination in contemporary mortgage markets.

COMPACT DISK
Adam Grabois ’84 and John Nauman,
Beethoven, Debussy, Rachmaninov, Reflex
Editions, 2002. With an introduction,
“Recording as Performance,” by William R.
Kenan Jr., Professor Emerita of Art History
T. Kaori Kitao, this CD features music that
Grabois has performed and produced.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Paul Waldman ’90, The Press Effect, Oxford University
Press, 2003. This book reveals how media
coverage in America determines what we
know and don’t know about politics.
E. Roy Weintraub ’64, ed., The Future of the
History of Economics—Annual Supplement to
Volume 34: History of Political Economy,
Duke University Press, 2002. Divided into
five parts, this book covers topics such as
North American and international issues,
publication and research, the next generation, and heterodox traditions.

CELLIST ADAM GRABOIS (RIGHT) PRODUCED A
NEW CD. HE PLAYS WITH PIANIST JOHN NAUMAN.

M AT T S C H WA R T Z ’ 0 1 I S E D I T O R O F T H E P H I L A D E L P H I A I N D E P E N D E N T .

T

he long, wooden staircase leading to the
second-floor offices of the Philadelphia
Independent is being painted bright green.
Brushes and open paint cans obstruct the
narrow entranceway. After squeezing past
partially erected displays of eclectic artwork
in the center of Lost Highways, the art
gallery/museum occupying most of the floor,
one finds the nascent publication nestled in
the back—with a mere 150 square feet and
just three computers in its newsroom.
In January, founder, editor, and publisher
Matt Schwartz and his committed team of
news folk—including Mark Lotto ’00, Jonathan Shainin ’00, and Benjamin Tiven ’01—
celebrated the one-year anniversary of the
broadest broadsheet in town. “Too big to
read on the subway” is just one of the mottos emblazoning the newspaper, which
measures about 1 1/2 by 2 feet.
The paper, most notable for its old-fashioned layout and design, is the brainchild of
Schwartz, an honors graduate in philosophy
with a short but impressive list of mainstream newspaper credentials. (He was a
Pulliam Fellow at the Indianapolis Star, an
editorial assistant with the Associated Press,
and an intern with Gannett.) Schwartz and
his dedicated team of 20-somethings—
most unpaid—have embarked on an inkfilled labor of love.
“We think that Philly needs to read about
itself,” Schwartz says. “Our stories are about
where the city has been and where it’s going.
We’re taking a trans-historical look to develop an urban consciousness.”
In the past year, the Independent, which
sells for 50 cents in Philly and $1 beyond the
city limits, has published nine editions.
Printing approximately 10,000 copies per
edition, Schwartz says the paper is now publishing a 20- to 30-page paper the first Friday of every month.
The paper is currently sold at 75 outlets
throughout greater Philadelphia—distributed in hand-painted, refurbished honor
boxes that have become one of the paper’s
trademarks. In March, the paper published
an extra war edition, spreading 12,000
copies across Philadelphia; New York City;
and Washington, D.C. A Web site is also on
the horizon.

BENJAMIN TIVEN ʼ01

ALUMNI PROFILE
S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

76

Philly’s Quirkiest Newspaper

“TOO BIG TO READ ON THE SUBWAY” IS JUST ONE OF THE MOTTOS EMBLAZONING THE PHILADELPHIA
INDEPENDENT. MATT SCHWARTZ FOUNDED THE ONE-YEAR OLD BROADSHEET.

“I work anywhere from 90 to 100 hours
a week,” Schwartz says. “Selling ads takes up
most of my time because most of our money
comes from ads. I’m not a born salesman,
but I really believe in the paper. Right now,
it’s just about breaking even, and it’s pretty
much hand-to-mouth. But from issue one to
issue eight, our ad revenue increased by a
factor of 10.”
For the most part, articles in the Independent are written in the first person, laid
out using a wide assortment of curlicue
fonts and hand-drawn art. Schwartz says he
doesn’t view the city weeklies (The Philadelphia Weekly and Philadelphia City Paper) as
competition; he says the Independent has its
own separate space with readers.
“We’re trying to imitate what newspapers
used to be like in the 18th and 19th centuries,” Schwartz says.
A staff of the devoted mans the publication, which cost less than $3,000 to start.
“We don’t pay our writers yet, but we want

to eventually,” he explains. “Instead, we give
them free advertising for their own projects.”
Independent Art Director Jacob Weinstein,
whose elaborate headers add an unmistakable touch of class to the broadsheet, says
that he’s been contributing his own comics
to the paper since the first issue.
“With me and other cartoonists, we get
an opportunity to do bigger strips than
other papers allow,” says the 23-year-old
Haverford College fine arts major. “Here,
artists have an entire page.”
“The best thing, my favorite thing about
the whole paper,” Weinstein says, “is finding
really talented writers and artists and being
the very first person to say to them, ‘You can
have as much space as you want, to write
what you want,’ and then watching their
eyes light up. That feels great.”
—Deborah Bolling
Adapted with permission from the March 13–19
edition of Philadelphia City Paper.

CLASS NOTES
S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

78

while. Rich Aleong will join
everyone soon, after he receives
an M.S. in electrical engineering
and starts work at Accenture.
In Atlanta, Fran Smith works
for an environmental engineering consulting firm and is soon
to become a volleyball coach at
a local high school. Dimitriy
Levin is finishing up his first
year of med school at U. of Colorado and will spend this summer performing clinical research
in pediatric cardiology. Adam
Rogers is finishing up his first
year of med school at the U. of
Michigan, and Mark Samols is
finishing his second year of med
school at Case Western Reserve
U. He finds life in Cleveland
boring. Tim Stewart-Winter
began a Ph.D. in U.S. history at
the U. of Chicago. Jesse Wells
became engaged recently to
Allison Floyd. At Yale, Kait
Hutchinson is in the school of
nursing and plans to spend
some time in Nicaragua this
summer. Arianna Freeman will
possibly join her this fall, but at
the law school. Aileen Miller
works on an island west of San
Francisco studying marine birds,
which she will continue to do
this summer in Glacier Bay,
Alaska. Annie Willman and Eli
Silk will travel to Australia this
summer and return to the U. of
Pittsburgh for med school and a
doctoral program in education,
respectively. CJ Riley will soon
obtain a master’s in structural
engineering and is headed to
work for the Bridge Design
Group at the Wyoming Dept. of
Transportation in Cheyenne,
Wyo. Road trippers are welcome
to stop by. He is headed to London this summer to visit Darren
Wood and Mark Dingfield.
In the international arena,
Marc Jeuland is still with the
Peace Corps in Mali, where construction has begun for a natural wastewater treatment lagoon
system. Antoinette Graefin zu
Eltz is in Frankfurt but is soon
returning to the United States
for business school. Katie Surrence is currently in Madrid but
may be elsewhere by the time
you read this. Gabe Turzo is liv-

ing life the right way in Melbourne, Australia, and, in
December, he will complete a
master’s. Clara Fuchsman is on
an oceanography research trip
in the Black Sea. Otherwise, she
lives with Hilary Clay in Seattle.
Hilary is going to grad school
for microbiology and often sees
Emily Wilkins, who is applying
to psychology graduate programs. Josh Lindsey is also in
Seattle and continues to work
for Microsoft.
Hilary recently went to New
York and saw Clarissa Nobile
and Chris Woodrell. Clarissa is
auditioning as a dancer for
Broadway plays. Chris works
hard with Lynne Desilva-Johnson to discover creative outlets
on the local stage. Lynne is
leaving grad school for a year to
run a business in downtown
Manhattan and teaches photography. The coolest story of them
all, and I only know because I
saw it with my own eyes, is
Evan Gregory’s. After spending
the fall working on grassroots
politics with Hugh Weber ’00
and Alex Lundry ’99, he spent
his holidays entangled in a
lengthy American Idol audition.
That’s right, BoHee Yoon and I
saw him on TV. He now lives in
NYC, three blocks away from
Andrew Breitenberg, who is
lost from the world.
Julie Levin Russo lives in
Brooklyn and works at the infamous Mac shop Tekserve but is
starting a Ph.D. in modern culture and media at Brown this
fall. Becca Howes-Mischel is
moving to NYC to start an
anthropology graduate program
at NYU. BoHee Yoon is still in
NYC, although she often visits
in DC with Shreena Gandhi. She
recently hung out with Jared
Solomon, Horatiu Stefan, and
Jordan Brackett. She and
Shreena will be spending their
lovely summer in Acapulco
along with Katie Holscher, Lucy
Lang ’03, and Ariana Lindermayer ’03. Then Shreena is
headed to the U. of Florida for a
Ph.D. in American religions and
will become the hostess of many
sunny vacations to come.

Letters...
c o n t i n u e d f ro m p a g e 3

could not continue because the
College fails to provide suitable
space. The problem, in my view,
is primarily internal politics. As
a low-budget, informal program
with instructors who are paid
much less than Music and
Dance Department faculty
members, it lacks strong advocates other than the alumni. I
urge other folk-dance alumni to
add their voices to the effort to
find a permanent home for folk
dance at Swarthmore.
TIMOTHY WILLIAMS ’64
Professor Emeritus of Biology
Franconia, N.H.
REALLY SWELL TEACHER

I greatly enjoyed the article
about folk dancing, but there
was one serious omission. Alice
Gates, physical education
teacher, started a folk-dance
group some years before Irene
Moll took it over. At that time,
membership was by invitation
only; I was delighted to be
selected (having already taken
Alice’s modern-dance class) and
even more delighted that I
could get gym credit for so
much fun. Also, it was at that
time the only coeducational
“sport”—and, because most of
the male students were off to
war, a welcome source of dates.
After college, I kept up with
the English Country Dance
Society in Manhattan; my husband and I also did square and
contra dancing. Now a widow
in a retirement community, I
still go dancing twice a month.
It’s my most enjoyable activity.
I owe a great debt to Alice
Gates, who was a really swell
teacher.
LOUISE ZIMMERMAN FORSCHER ’44
Exeter, N.H.

DANCE CONTINUUM

As a former folk dancer at
Swarthmore, I appreciated your
recent article on folk dancing in
the College Bulletin. I would like
to take issue with Sharon
Friedler's assertion that “folk”
dance is separate from the
realm of performance art. These
separations are better likened to
a continuum. Scottish dancing
in particular has a vibrant performance branch. There are jigs,
hornpipes, step dances, and
sword dances (to name a few),
which are performed and in
which competitions are held in
national and international arenas. Ragtime dances can be performed in highly choreographed
settings or danced as “social
dancing." Scandinavian dancing also has both ends of the
spectrum. Having danced, performed, and competed on both
ends of this spectrum in these
dance forms and more, I am
hard-pressed to see why the
“performance" end of the continuum is more deserving than
the “social." In many ways, they
are not separable. Nurturing
one enriches the other. I hope
that the college can find both
respect and physical space for
“social dancing.” It is not, and
never was, a lesser form of
dance.
KATE MCINTOSH ’89
Honor, Mich.
A GREAT GIFT

The article “Frank Aydelotte:
Architect of Distinction”
(March Bulletin) brought a rush
of recognition and renewed
memories of exhilarating
encounters. As a member of
the Class of 1943, my association with President Aydelotte

disqualified from the football championship
because Coach Frank Aydelotte had entered
the game as a player. Aydelotte remarked
that he only entered the game after the
coach of the opponents had done so.
During my senior year, I was in Aydelotte’s office for an interview when he was
interrupted for a telephone call. After an
extensive, urgent conversation, Aydelotte
apparently received the caller’s agreement to
serve in some capacity. Upon hanging up
the phone, he remarked to me, “The main
part of my job is getting people to do what
they think they can’t or don’t want to do.”
THOMAS SPENCER ’37
St. Augustine, Fla.

THE PRESIDENT’S JOB

AYDELOTTE AND CONSENSUS

The interesting article on Frank Aydelotte
brought back some memories. A friend of
my father’s once told me he was a member
of the committee that selected Aydelotte as
one of the first Rhodes Scholars. My late
classmate Joseph Selligman ’37 showed me a
clipping from a historical feature, stating
that Louisville’s Male High School had been

Many thanks to Vice President Dan West
for his article on Frank Aydelotte, the
“defining president” of Swarthmore College. Aydelotte and his successors, John
Nason and Courtney Smith, were strong
supporters of consensual decision making
and of athletics.
As West points out, Aydelotte’s vision of

TWO-TIERED SWARTHMORE

How different a school Swarthmore was
when Frank Aydelotte instituted the Honors
Program than it is now. In Aydelotte’s day,
there were clearly two tiers of students: a
majority that one might call “average” (the
“red-blooded men and women” from the
letter to The Phoenix) and a minority of
intellectual high(er) achievers (the “greasy
grinds”).
The two-tiered honors and course system made a lot of sense with such a divided
constituency and, most likely, was instrumental in allowing Swarthmore to jump
from a regional school to one of the top
small colleges in the nation.
Swarthmore today is a very different
place. The school has its pick of some of the
best students in the country, and I am sure
that most, if not all, of today’s Swarthmore
students would have been condemned as
greasy grinds by the dyspeptic Phoenix correspondent of 1925. Given this, I wonder
what Aydelotte would think of the twotiered system today? Would he want it to
remain in place simply because it has
attained “signature” status?
JON LORSCH ’90
Towson, Md.

athletics was to have all students participating rather than being spectators. In fact,
during Aydelotte’s tenure, Swarthmore
reached a point where 84 percent of the
male students participated in sports. (Biographer Frances Blanshard did not have figures for participation by women.) Aydelotte’s governance style strongly embraced
Quaker tradition, and he had the wisdom to
allow the time required to explore all possible options fully and to reach a consensus
before important decisions were made.
Congratulations also to the Task Group
on Consensual Decision Making for their
excellent report [see page 4]. It provides a
very clear discussion of the importance of
consensual decision making to Swarthmore,
both in the past and the future. It does a
good job of trying to understand how the
[December 2000] athletics decision was
made—and how it departed from Swarthmore’s tradition. It offers excellent suggestions on how to enhance understanding of
and commitment to consensual decision
making. Finally, it speaks to a real commitment by the Board to continue Swarthmore’s tradition of consensus.
BILL ROBINSON ’60
Westlake Village, Calif.
LAX CONFERENCE THANKS

On behalf of my family, I would like to publicly thank the College’s Career Services and
Alumni Relations offices for organizing this
year's Lax Conference on Entrepreneurship,
which was held on campus on April 6.
Organizing the conference took time and
great effort. Its success can be directly
attributed to the staff members in these two
offices, along with the enthusiastic support
of President Alfred H. Bloom.
I know that students and alumni
enjoyed the keynote address by [stock market expert] Marc Reinganum and the several
panel discussions that followed. We look
forward to next year’s conference.
ANDREW LAX ’77
San Francisco
FOR THE RECORD

In the March 2003 article on Congressman
Chris Van Hollen Jr. ’83, a quote attributed
to Lois Oblender Stoner should have been
attributed to Esther Ridpath Delaplaine ’44.
In addition, the class year given for Stoner
was incorrect; she graduated in 1951.

JUNE 2003

was brief, yet his scholarly legacy and personal kindnesses would remain indelible.
With the advent of World War II, I
transferred to Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute to accelerate my engineering studies.
After graduation, I joined Pratt and Whitney as a safety engineer investigating the
causes of airplane crashes. I had a draft
deferment because of this job but became
restless when many of my friends left for
active service. Having a strong Quaker heritage, I joined the Merchant Marine, where
I could actively serve without carrying arms.
Days at sea afforded many hours for study,
so I took up the great literature my engineering education had slighted.
After a shipwreck, our vessel was towed
to Falmouth, England, for repairs. During
this downtime, I participated in an informal
program at Oxford University for members
of the Armed Services on leave. There, I was
befriended by English scholars who knew
Aydelotte. He was highly respected at the
university, and it was suggested that he
could be very helpful should I have any
future interest in attending Oxford.
I sent Aydelotte a letter describing my
seafaring experiences and scholastic
endeavors. His reply was immediate. As
soon as my ship docked in Hoboken, N.J.,
he sent his secretary to pick me up and
bring me to Princeton, where he discussed
with me what I was reading. Whenever my
ship returned to New York, he helped me
explore—one on one—the great ideas of
mankind. He even took me to member teas
at the Institute for Advanced Study, where I
met Einstein and other great thinkers. And
after the war, he paved the way for me to
return to Oxford for further study.
Frank Aydelotte’s interest, kindness, and
the great gift of his undivided attention are
memories that I have treasured throughout
my life.
EDWIN MOORE ’43
Underhill Center, Vt.

79

A DAY I N

THE LIFE

Mommy Being a
Scientist

S WA R T H MO R E C O L L E G E B U L L E T I N

“M-o-m-m-y!”
“Yes, Momo?”
“Can you come h-e-e-e-re?”
“What do you need, Momo?”
“I need my Yu-Gi-Oh cards.”
“Mo, it’s only five after seven.”

80

JIM GRAHAM

By C a r o l B r é va r t - D e m m

AMY BUG IS CHAIR OF THE PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY DEPARTMENT, WHERE
SHE SPECIALIZES IN COMPUTATIONAL CHEMICAL PHYSICS. SHE ALSO ENJOYS

THIS WAKE-UP RITUAL BETWEEN AMY BUG, professor of physics and

TEACHING A SEMINAR ON GENDER AND SCIENCE.

chair of the Physics Department, and 6-year-old son Moses heralds
the start of a new day in her household. Juggling family time, classes, appointments with the provost, meetings about the women’s
studies capstone seminar, preparation for a physics colloquium in
Virginia, and planning her older son’s bar mitzvah, she hardly has
time to squeeze in an interview.
“I recognize that I’m a slave to my children,” says Bug, laughing, although these days 13-year-old Murphy makes fewer
demands. No longer interested in breakfast, his early-morning
presence is manifested by teeth brushing or the sound of the television, as he waits to run out to the school bus. “What’s the plan this
afternoon?” his mother calls. “Jazz band. I’ll be home on the late
bus,” he answers. The door bangs. Murphy is on his way, as is Bug’s
husband, Bill. “He’s a biologist and senior systems analyst at Drexel
University,” she says. “He takes the train into Philadelphia.” He
knows she can cope. “Amy is the best physicist, mother, social
activist, and pedagogue I could ever imagine in one package,” Bill
says.
Bug helps Momo to dress, not because he needs it but because
he likes her to be there. She likes it too. She offers him pants. “No,
not those. The cool ones,” he says. They search the clean laundry
for cool pants.
While Moses eats toast and cream cheese with juice, Bug dresses. Petite, slender, with tumbling dark hair, blue jeans, and a loose
flowered cotton shirt, she could easily pass for a student herself.
After dropping her son off at the Swarthmore-Rutledge School,
where he currently attends first grade, Bug drives to her office in
the DuPont Science Building, wishing that she could stop in
Kohlberg Hall Coffee Bar, where some of her Physics Department
colleagues and other faculty members meet for morning coffee and
chats. “I’d love to join them more often,” she says.
Bug spends the morning reading scientific papers, preparing
talks and classes, and dealing with the numerous issues that a
department chair must field. Within her field of computational
chemical physics, she specializes in the simulation of absorbed
species in solids. “It’s exciting and deeply interesting,” she says, “to
try and understand how a solid environment modifies the properties of something like a hydrogen molecule, which is used in fuel

technology, or a positron, which is used in medical diagnostics.”
Her recent publications include articles written in collaboration
with Peter Hastings ’01; Lisa Larrimore ’02; and Melaku Muluneh
’03, an honors student. “Doing mainstream research in physics and
astronomy with our students is something that we value greatly in
our department,” she says. “It’s hard, and sometimes, you might
have to make a choice between doing something that’s truly cutting
edge and bringing the student along.”
“It’s usually on days when I have a critical project due,” she says,
“that the phone will ring, and it’ll be the school nurse, saying, ‘Mo
doesn’t feel well. You need to come and get him.’” Smiling, she
adds, “I can’t deny that this provokes an amusing blend of maternal love and impotent rage.”
For years, Bug has been doing research and lecturing in physics;
more recently, she has also been researching and speaking on gender and science at colleges and universities nationwide. She feels
lucky to be at Swarthmore, enjoying the support of “wonderful colleagues,” and where she says the administration “is knowledgeable
and responsive about issues of gender and ethnicity.”
This semester, Bug is holding a three-hour, weekly seminar on
gender and physical science as well as co-coordinating the women’s
studies capstone seminar. The physics seminar has a vast syllabus,
including topics on the historical view of science; science as a world
without women; the question of whether our minds have a sex;
female-friendly science; and feminist contributions to physics and
nonphysical sciences. For the capstone seminar, she leads a unit on
feminism and science. She uses a drawing by Moses called “Mommy
Being a Scientist” as a point of discussion about young children’s
perceptions of what constitutes a scientist. Bug’s most recent article
on the topic—titled “Has Feminism Changed Physics?”—appeared
this spring in Signs.
Bug says: “Those individuals who choose nontraditional
careers, such as men who are social workers or women who are
neurosurgeons (or physicists), have to find a way to transcend
naive, culturally ratified gender categories.
“You have to be creative about your sense of self,” she says, “if
you really want to see yourself doing [that kind of] job.”

FOR HOMEWORK AND FAMILY FUN. AFTER LISTENING TO MURPHY’S BASS
GUITAR LESSONS, AMY STARTED STUDYING THE BASS HERSELF.

Speaking of the kinds of discrimination that female scientists
can experience, she mentions dissertation advisers failing to
encourage female doctoral candidates to publish papers or not
introducing them to visiting scientists. She describes a case where a
male science professor misses a departmental meeting to take his
daughter to a ballet class and is labeled “a great guy, great scholar,
wonderful father,” whereas a female professor, called away from
work to take her child to the doctor, is “not serious about her job.”
Although she rarely finds herself in similar situations, she says:
“The pressures are intensified by race. For example, African
American physicists, regardless of gender, typically have a very hard
time surviving in the mainstream.”

There are too few hours in the day
for Professor of Physics Amy Bug.
Noon approaches—and passes. Bug almost never goes to lunch.
“I have a healthy candy bar in my backpack,” she says. “It’s rare
that I interrupt the flow between morning and the day care dash.
You become intent on using every single moment profitably.”
It’s almost 1:15 p.m., and Gender and Science is due to begin.
Students drift into DuPont 142B. Encouraging them to run the
seminar, Bug sits among them rather than up front.
A couple of male students write on the blackboards. They spend
the first 20 minutes finishing up a topic from the previous week.
Words like “cutthroat, exclusive, competitive, passion, arrogance,
pettiness, us-them, male dominated” appear.
The lists grow as others contribute. The students examine the
words as definitive of the culture of science and ways in which it
compares with other cultures. “Science is uninterested in defining
its own culture, leaving others to examine it,” someone says. Bug
suggests a “culture of no culture.” “Is it similar to any other culture,
of cutthroats, for example?” someone else asks. “How about athletics or politics?” another student answers. They move on, discussing
differences in social or “soft” sciences and physical “hard” sciences

“Mom?”
“Yes, Murphy.”
“Mom, you’re gonna do your homework in here, right?”
“Yes, Murphy, I’m going to do it in here.”
“Good.”
It’s 9:45 p.m. Bug lies down on the floor of her children’s room,
covers herself with a blanket, and opens up whatever she needs to
prepare for the next day. She reads, squinting in the low beam from
the nightlight, aware that she has three hours of work ahead of her
and knowing that she’ll only last 15 minutes. She falls asleep on the
floor. T

JUNE 2003

ELEFTHERIOS KOSTANS

BUG AND HER SONS, MOSES AND MURPHY, GET TOGETHER IN THE EVENINGS

and the crossover areas like biology. Of the 11 students present,
some speak more than others, but most participate. They end with
more questions than answers.
Later, they work on solving physics problems, such as whether
the amount of mass energy in a pea surpasses that produced by a
power plant. It does. Students teach the class, presenting their
solutions, listening to variations from their classmates, and finding
each others’ answers “cool.” Occasionally, Bug makes a suggestion,
guiding them quietly and unobtrusively. Three hours fly.
Senior Robin Smith, an honors physics major and founder of
Swarthmore Women in Astronomy and Physics says: “I’m committed to encouraging prospective female physics majors and find that
Amy’s seminar gives me new tools for mentoring and supporting
these fellow Swatties.”
In Gender and Science, “I give huge amounts of reading,” Bug
says. “The material excites me. It’s completely involving, both emotionally and intellectually. The students are lovely.”
She contrasts teaching a physics course for majors, saying: “It’s
a totally different experience. One teaches differently to a group of
people for whom the class is required and/or who want to acquire
the skills of a physicist. There’s a whole different vibe in that class.”
Bug’s day on campus draws to an end. “I wish I could take the
College dance classes,” she says, “but I just don’t have the three
hours.” She does, however, make time for playing her electric bass.
“When you’re a professor,” she says, “it’s mentally healthy to
find a way to put yourself in the student’s chair once in a while.”
Currently in search of a band, she most recently performed at
Murphy’s bar mitzvah, playing Weird Al Yankovich’s “Pretty Fly for
a Rabbi.” “I kicked butt,” she says conspiratorially.
It’s dinnertime, and the family is enjoying a roast—Bug has
uncharacteristically taken a few minutes in the afternoon to rush
home and slip it into the oven. “If we could get to the supermarket
more often,” she says, “we wouldn’t need to have so many dinners
from Renato Pizza.”
During the evening, Bug sits and works beside her children as
they watch television or read. Murphy says: “Mom comes home
every night and tells us about the problems she has to deal with as
chair, but then she’s just able to have fun with us. She always wears
a smile. I can’t imagine how she can do that. I love it how she’s
never sad.”
At bedtime, both parents read to the children. Amy reads The
Pig’s At Home, followed by Bill with The Prince and the Pauper. Then,
it’s time to sleep.

L
L S

I F E LONG
EARNING
AT

WARTHMORE
ALL 2003

F

What is Lifelong Learning?
Swarthmore’s top faculty members offer
on-campus noncredit courses to Swarthmore’s
alumni, families, and friends.
Classes begin the week of Sept. 15
and end before Thanksgiving.
Tuition is $375 a course plus course materials.
To register or for more information, contact
the Lifelong Learning Program at
(610) 328-8106, or visit the Web site
www.swarthmore.edu/alumni/life_learning.html.
Registration deadline is Monday, Sept. 8.

Empire and America (LLS 108)
Saturdays, 10 a.m.–noon
Trotter Hall 301
Americans have normally thought of
themselves as a democratic republic, but, in
many respects, we have become an imperial
power. This course examines the relationship
between the “empire” and America.
Claude C. Smith Professor of Political
Science James Kurth teaches courses on
international politics, defense policy, and
the American Empire. His recent publications
have examined the interrelations among the
global economy, cultural conflicts, and
American military strategy.

The Athenian Golden Age (LLS 109)
Mondays, 7–9 p.m.
Trotter Hall 301
Authors: Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides,
Herodotus, Thucydides, Aristophanes, and
Plato
Susan Lippincott Professor Emeritus of
Modern and Classical Languages Gil Rose has
been at Swarthmore for 36 years and has
often taught honors seminars on Greek
tragedy, Homer, and Greek philosophy. He
recently taught “Homeric Models of Heroism”
in the Lifelong Learning Program.