In the sesqui swing of things swarthmore swarthmore college bulletin | january 2014

c4-c1_2nd.indd 1 12/12/13 2:24 PM campus view

A view from the dome of Parrish Hall in October reveals the

Commodore Barry Bridge, which spans the Delaware River in Chester, Pa.

Photo by Laurence Kesterson

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4: FROM THE EDITOR

5: LETTERS Readers react

6: From the President By Rebecca Chopp

8: COLLECTION • Mural weaves College’s past, present, future • New center a good match • 150 years ago: Swarthmore seeks a charter 35 • Hidden in plain sight • Responding to Cupid’s arrow • ‘Remaking College’ paves new ground for liberal arts • 3 days to brainstorm—in Paris • College book to arrive in your mailbox soon 39: CONNECTIONS • New group empowers black alumni and students • Join a Collection of service • Conversations on future of the liberal arts set for April • Attend the All-Alumni Reunion Weekend • Commitment to current students strengthened 41: CLASS NOTES The world according to Swarthmoreans

44: IN MEMORIAM Farewell to cherished friends

68: BOOKS + ARTS Alumni Works Peter Biskind ’62, My Lunches with Orson: Conversations between 20 Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles, Metropolitan Books, New York, 2013.

70: IN MY LIFE profiles Talking So People Will Listen, Listening So People Will Talk After turning around their own failing relationship, Laurie Gerber 54: A Tradition and a Gift ’96 and Will Craig ’96 became coaching gurus worldwide Yvonne Healy ’75 keeps age-old Irish stories alive onstage. By Laurie Gerber ’96 By Mike Agresta

72: Q&A 58: A New Lens Renaissance Woman From legal briefs to camera cues, lawyer-turned filmmaker Dawn Through teaching—and learning—Professor Patricia Reilly lives Porter ’88 makes an artful shift to social action. the liberal arts. By Carrie Compton Interview by Carrie Compton

On the cover: Photo Wynter Lastarria ’15 and Sam Cleaves ’14 by Laurence Kesterson. Styling by Laila Swanson. Archival photo of the original Parrish Hall, circa 1869, courtesy of Friends Historical Library.

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02-03_TOC_3rd.indd 2 12/13/13 2:01 PM in this issue features

14: A Railroad Runs through It 29: Talent Scouts The train was important to Swarthmore’s For 25 years, the Mellon Mays founding and still is today Undergraduate Fellowship program has By Sherri Kimmel fostered diversity in the academy. By Sherri Kimmel 20: When Suffrage was Cool Our own revolutionary, Alice Paul, Class of 32: Thanks for the Memories 1905, crossed the line to victory. Two college friends reflect on campus life By Jamie Stiehm ’82 during the 1930s. By Carol Brévart-Demm 24: Of Swarthmore Time and Space The College is on the brink of a 20-year– 35: Campus Traditions Then and Now long makeover. A dusty dive into yellowing copies of The By Carol Brévart-Demm Phoenix inspires a whimsical jaunt through history. By Carrie Compton 14

29 july 2011 3

02-03_TOC_3rd.indd 3 12/12/13 2:47 PM from the editor

Tracking on 150 Years History can be fun, as you can see from our cover design. Against a white backdrop, I’m no George Plimpton, but I do enjoy staff photographer Laurence Kesterson participatory journalism, especially when it photographed Wynter Lastarria ’15, who involves climbing around on a train. Well, was interviewed for our story on the participatory may be stretching it. I wasn’t importance of train access to the College pulling the throttle on the train engine. I was today, and Sam Cleaves ’14, an intern for just along for the ride with Conductor Frank the communications department. Sam’s Moscatelli, whose day job is teaching physics 1860s-era look was assembled and styled by at Swarthmore. Laila Swanson, assistant professor of design Sitting in a primo spot beside the and resident costume designer. Bulletin engineer, I looked out beyond the wooden designer Phil Stern ’84 cleverly placed the ties and steel rails to see the fall colors students in an 1869 scene and changed Sam unfold before me. It’s a view that American from living color to black and white, as he travelers have widely enjoyed since trains would have appeared in photos way back began traversing the country coast to coast when. in the 1860s. That same decade Swarthmore The fun continues with our crowd- College was founded, and the site for the sourced feature on campus traditions. See new college was picked for its proximity to what your classmates have to say about a depot. The importance of rail lines to the curfews, the Pterodactyl Hunt, and more. College—then and now—is the subject of And send us your own memories for one of our history-related features for this inclusion in a future print or online follow- issue, which commemorates the kickoff of up. Swarthmore’s sesquicentennial. I hope to see you soon here on campus at Here at the Bulletin, we revere the one of many extraordinary sesquicentennial- la urence kesterson College’s distinguished history, but we related events. See the back cover for details. don’t think you have to be stuffy about it. —Sherri Kimmel

on the web contributors

This issue and more than 17 years of Jamie Stiehm ’82 is a Creators Laura Markowitz ’85 is a book Bulletin archives are at Syndicate columnist covering editor, a contributing producer for www.swarthmore.edu/bulletin. politics, history, and culture. She Arizona Public Media, and author Also on the College website, you was a reporter for the Baltimore of Book of the Sky God. She chairs will find: Sun. Her first journalism job was the Tucson Connection group. as an assignment editor at CBS News in London. Her liberal op- Explore and contribute to Swarthmore’s eds have appeared in newspapers across the nation. Elizabeth Vogdes is a freelance sesquicentennial website, the online hub of all Stiehm is a contributor to Disunion, The New York writer who contributes to print sesqui-related news and events. Special features Times series tracing the Civil War. She lives in and online publications at the include a timeline that spans the College’s Washington, D.C. College and has written articles history, archival videos, a space to share for Context magazine, the journal memories with the College and one another, and Rowan Barnes-Murphy lives in the of the American Institute of the Swarthmore 150—a list of things students United Kingdom and France. He Architects in Philadelphia. She is have said they had to do (or wish they had) before draws images for The New York also an architect and illustrator who enjoys drawing graduating. Do you have a memory or something Times as well as kids’ and adult pen-and-ink building portraits, especially of houses to suggest for the timeline or 150 list? Let us publishers around the world. His in Swarthmore. know! Go to swat150.swarthmore.edu. best-selling Too Soon for a Midlife Crisis series has sold more than Michael Agresta is a writer living 700,000 copies. More of his work can be found at in Los Angeles. His work has been www.rowanbarnes-murphy.com. published in The Atlantic, Slate, and The Wall Street Journal. He has contributed to the Swarthmore College Bulletin since 2010.

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04-05_Front_5th.indd 4 12/13/13 2:09 PM letters

swarthmore ‘Bulletin’ builds bonds recoup our expenses out of royalties. Before college bulletin that, I took whatever freelance or contract editor My daughter is a graduate of the Class of work I could find, just to stay afloat. In all Sherri Kimmel 2012, and her education at Swarthmore that time, I never worked as hard as I did associate editor was the greatest gift I could have given her. at Swarthmore, for such intangible rewards Carol Brévart-Demm We retain our connection and bond with (getting out alive with a paper in my hand, class notes editor Swarthmore through her and, importantly, plus some lifelong friendships). The only Carrie Compton designer through the Bulletin. “encore” I’m eager to see is a year-round Phillip Stern ’84 While I was not selected for the survey summer vacation. photographer that you mentioned in your October editor’s Laurence Kesterson column, I’d like to share a very important Jacqueline Lapidus ’62 editorial assistants point with you—the Bulletin is a mirror of Boston David Fialkow ’15, Danielle Charette ’14 administrative assistant what Swarthmore stands for, how young Janice Merrill-Rossi student minds and the College are evolving, Depiction of Israel challenged editor emerita what ideas and constructs are engaging the Maralyn Orbison Gillespie ’49 student and academic community, how I graduated from Swarthmore in 1949. In the College is planning for the future. Most 1950–51 I moved to Baghdad, Iraq, to teach contacting swarthmore college college operator important, it makes for intelligent reading. at the Queen Aliyah College for Moslem 610-328-8000 www.swarthmore.edu The quality of discourse, debate, Women. That was a long time ago, as was the admissions dissemination of ideas, and writing reflects formation of the state of Israel. 610-328-8300 [email protected] where Swarthmore is at this moment in time, I was surprised to see the Bulletin publish alumni relations and the Bulletin captures this effectively. It a letter opposing a proposed Swarthmore 610-328-8402 [email protected] communications is also a reassurance that, while the College trip to Israel that cited arguments from “the 610-328-8568 [email protected] transforms itself, it retains its core values, Palestinian Narrative” hoping to engender registrar which have stood the test of time and have interest in a boycott or divestment in Israel, 610-328-8297 [email protected] been maintained into the future. When those particularly when the citations rest on the world wide web core values are revisited and re-evaluated, happenings of 1948. There is also an “Israeli www.swarthmore.edu changes of address as they should be, then the changes are narrative,” and the truth probably lies Send address label along with new address to: disseminated through the Bulletin. I hope somewhere between these two. Alumni Records Office this essence of the Bulletin will always be The cited 1948 incidents were one side of Swarthmore College maintained. a complicated conflict. Palestinian authority 500 College Ave. A final request—please do not succumb leaders are not returning to the arguments of Swarthmore, PA 19081-1390 Phone: 610-328-8435 to publishing an online-only version! those times. Rather, the parties to the conflict Or email: [email protected]. Atul Kumar P’12 are trying yet again to negotiate a peaceful The Swarthmore College Bulletin Mumbai, India solution to the problems of establishing (ISSN 0888-2126), of which this is volume Palestinian statehood. The Bulletin does no CXI, number 2, is published in October, January, April, and July by Swarthmore No more ‘encores,’ please favor to the search for truth and the search College, 500 College Ave., Swarthmore, for peaceful solutions by publishing one side PA 19081-1390. Periodicals postage paid The alumni mentioned in the October of a bitter and long-standing dispute. at Swarthmore, PA and additional mailing Bulletin had “encore careers” that were more I would hope that anyone who visits the offices. Permit No. 0530-620. Postmaster: Send address changes to Swarthmore College meaningful to them than their original area at this time would talk with as many Bulletin, 500 College Ave., Swarthmore, PA careers. But, what about those of us who people as they can. Instead of a boycott, 19081-1390. worked beyond retirement age because a tour might increase understanding and We welcome letters on subjects covered in the we couldn’t afford a life of leisure? During support of the current peace initiative. magazine. We reserve the right to edit letters for length, clarity, and style. Views expressed a 50-year working life as editor, teacher, in this magazine do not necessarily reflect the and translator, some of the jobs I had were Corinne Edwards Greenwald ’49 opinions of the editors or the official views or interesting, but they didn’t quite add up to a Arlington, Va. policies of the College. career, and rarely was I paid what my skills www.swarthmore.edu/bulletin ©2014 Swarthmore College. were worth. The more interesting the job, Editor’s note: We received several letters Printed in USA. the lower the salary or hourly rate. Recently responding to an October letter from Dahlia I’ve put in four years of unpaid labor as co- Wafsi ’93, which criticized an advertised editor (with Lise Menn ’62) of The Widows’ College-sponsored trip to Israel. Above is a Handbook: A Poetic Anthology (Kent State representative letter. University Press, forthcoming this year), hoping that some day, maybe, we may

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04-05_Front_5th.indd 5 12/12/13 3:12 PM from the president Past visionaries are present-day guides

By Rebecca Chopp

Pictures of two “practical visionaries” stand watch is—or should be—a creative activity. It is not merely the over my office here at the College. The first is of Lucretia passive acquisition of facts but rather an active process of Mott—Swarthmore founder, leading abolitionist, organizer thought.” of the landmark Seneca Falls Convention, gifted preacher, These two pictures remind me—and all who enter devoted wife and mother of six, and tireless organizer for this space—what Swarthmore is essentially about. For causes in which she believed. Lucretia Mott is revered as Aydelotte, it’s a rigorous education that, among other the progenitor of women’s political advocacy and social things, enables people to soar—to graduate schools action in this country. In the large portrait that faces my and careers, equipped with creativity, confidence, and desk, she appears incredibly somber, even stern. But I know the ability to see new possibilities and solve problems, from her biography that while she was a good Quaker, this regardless of their field of endeavor. For Mott, it’s serious image fails to convey her passion, humor, intellect, education for the common good—values that ground and friendliness, and ability to apply knowledge to realize her challenge us, even as the expression of these values evolves. practical vision for an equitable and just world. I am not suggesting that Mott didn’t care about The other picture is of President Frank Aydelotte intellectual rigor or Aydelotte about values and the and Albert Einstein standing together on the porch of common good. Quite the contrary. At the College’s Parrish Hall, taken when Einstein received an honorary founding ceremony, Mott expressed the hope that its degree in 1938. Aydelotte instituted our Honors “teachings would be so comprehensive and free from Program, securing the College’s reputation as a school theological bias that those who receive them will be for intellectual undergraduates. He will always represent prepared to recognize good where found.” And Aydelotte’s an uncompromising commitment to academic rigor and commitment to academic rigor and creativity was fully excellence—pushing students to perform at levels they did rooted in his passionate moral conviction about the not know they could attain. Einstein standing next to him dangers of materialism and the priority owed to “beauty, reminds me that Swarthmore-style rigor always reflects a intelligence, and morality.” practical vision of imagination, creativity, and innovation As we celebrate our sesquicentennial, I find myself in education and knowledge. Said Aydelotte, “Education imagining what these two guiding figures, my anchors and polestars, would say if they were to speak at a 150th anniversary celebratory event.

Lucretia Mott: I am gratified that Swarthmore remains skeptical of claims that come too easily, glad that it questions all “deeply held beliefs,” and rejects “truth” that is based simply on authority. I like the seminars that challenge biases; I like debates in dining halls and libraries. Our “perfect College” accepts no political, religious, or intellectual orthodoxies. I was subjected to violence when in 1838 I walked arm-in-arm with African-American women in the streets of Philadelphia, so I’m pleased to see so much diversity among students, faculty, and staff. The College waited too long to become a racially diverse community, especially since it was open to women and all social classes from the beginning. Yet the Swarthmore community needs even more persons of color, from even more diverse backgrounds, reflecting an even wider spectrum of beliefs. You must keep educating students to build communities in which everyone riends hist orical librar y F Left: Albert Einstein and President Frank Aydelotte in 1938. Facing page: A portrait of Lucretia Mott by William Henry Furness Jr., similar to the one in the president’s office. cour tesy of

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06-07_Presidents_4th.indd 6 12/13/13 2:16 PM has access to education and employment and, as I maintained in the mid-1800s, where there is equal pay for equal work. Also, I beseech you, preserve the wonderful commitment to what you have labeled “need-blind admissions.” I heartily endorse the many approaches to civic and social responsibility. I applaud the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility, which reaches out locally, nationally, and internationally to ameliorate suffering. I see other places on campus where knowledge is being used for social improvement and justice: a course in statistics that helps nonprofits, a course in prisons in Chester and Philadelphia, and the Evans Scholars program. Swarthmore’s involvement in Chester’s schools is important on many levels. Please keep asking what we riends hist orical librar y

can do better, and please remember that we F Quakers also cared a great deal about making sure commerce was conducted ethically and that moral men (and, today, women) provided cour tesy of civic leadership. Thus, I also applaud the Center for Innovation and Leadership. Times have changed, but I encourage you approach to education. Your approach will seems a perfect way to support the intellectual to study Quaker values, hold them dear, and differ from the one we undertook in the 1920s. life of faculty across disciplines and to argue them intensely. Adjust them as need be, Today we must all be revolutionaries. We need cultivate intellectual interests in an era when but stay focused on simple living, integrity, to make sure our education is challenging, the contours of knowledge and teaching are generosity, peace, and the amelioration of imaginative, and accessible to all students changing so dramatically. suffering. Without these fundamental values, who want to pursue this challenge. We must we would not be Swarthmore. revolutionize the world of education in this Even as I acknowledge Lucretia Mott and day of technology, globalization, economic Frank Aydelotte as two of the College’s most Frank Aydelotte: It appears the Honors challenges, and dangers to the survival of the significant and enduring inspirations, I am Program has succeeded not only in supporting earth itself. mindful that Quakers do not venerate people the true ends of education—beauty, truth, That the Honors Program has changed as saints but rather cherish the memory of goodness—but also in helping to secure does not surprise me. The goal of attracting Friends who lived in the light and did well in Swarthmore College’s reputation for academic and supporting incredibly bright students their times. We must remember that if we do rigor and creativity. I am deeply grateful for remains, and I see that the College is doing this no more than our ancestors have done, we your support for the intellect and pursuit of in multiple ways. Given that so many colleges cannot progress. With this in mind, I invite these virtues. today are “academically adrift,” I am gratified you to use this sesquicentennial year to create When we began our experiment in honors, that Swarthmore insists that it recruit students a Swarthmore “cloud of witnesses.” Please we were trying to “make Swarthmore College with intellectual passion and pleased that it tell me who in Swarthmore’s past or present conscious of itself and of its opportunity defines “intellectual” far more broadly than we is your guide (teacher, friend, founder, for service to American education.” Today did nearly a century ago. dean, etc.) and tell me how you imagine education is again subjected to a great flood of I applaud the continuous emphasis on that person would evaluate the College criticism. I worry that you—faculty, alumni, recruiting the finest faculty and supporting now as we celebrate our sesquicentennial. president, and others—are not sufficiently their intellectual development. After all, Write to me at [email protected], aware of the urgent need to address these students benefit when faculty are, what I and we will share your testimonies on the pressing problems. Our country will not termed, “intellectually alive.” Your Institute sesquicentennial website, www.swat150. prosper without a rigorous and creative for the Liberal Arts, with its Rhodes-like spirit, swarthmore.edu. g

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community,” says Craig. “Back home, nine Public art “can create relationships,” says Dee Craig, Mural weaves College’s the Irish artist who collaboratively created the mural, times out of 10, I’m working with a single- above, this fall. Photo by Laurence Kesterson. past, present, future identity community, so the main challenge for me, and it was a good one, was coming Members of the College community as well here and working with such diversity. I how nations construct collective memories, as campus visitors will notice a colorful, hope the mural generates discussions about which was perfectly related to how Dee has symbolic artwork affixed to the Science such things. Is there something we need depicted the conflict in Northern Ireland Center—a mural stretching the length of to address? Is there not? It’s a way to bring through his art. That understanding makes the two-story southeast wall, adjacent to the discussions to the fore and set platforms for seeing the piece a much more interesting DuPont parking lot. those discussions.” experience.” David “Dee” Craig, a muralist from Craig didn’t just paint the 24-feet-by- Many members of the community also Belfast, Northern Ireland, who has created 16-feet mural on thin nonwoven media talked with Craig outside the classroom, as many pieces depicting the changing nature but visited a variety of classes to discuss his workstation outside the Science Center of the conflict in his country, created the his personal experience with the conflict provided a public place to connect. The mural to depict the College community on in Northern Ireland. He offered students project was truly interactive, with a team of the 150th anniversary of its founding and a thought-provoking perspective on that students and faculty working with the artist the 125th anniversary of the first higher history, allowing them to tie it to the work to brainstorm ideas for what the final piece education course in Peace and Conflict created on campus. would look like. Studies, which the College pioneered. “It was a neat opportunity for students “This experience has allowed people to The Irish artist, whose monthlong visit to hear Dee talk about what it was like to get hands-on,” says Craig. The fact that the was funded by a Mellon Tri-College Creative be a mural artist growing up in the midst community can actively participate gives a Residency grant, was determined that the of the conflict,” says Lee Smithey, associate sense of ownership. That ownership is so content of the mural would align well with professor of sociology and coordinator of important. At the end of the day, this is the the College’s distinct set of values and the College’s Peace and Conflict Studies legacy I leave.” g traditions. Program. “ —David Fialkow ’15 “The whole mural, in a broad context, “Dee gave a talk in a course I’m taking represents the past, the present, and the called Memory, History, Nation,” says To watch a video of the mural future aspirations of what I see as this Samantha Stevens ’15. “The course is about installation, go to bit.ly/MuralVideo.

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08-13_Collection_6th.indd 8 12/12/13 4:06 PM New center a good match with sustainability efforts

One afternoon in November, and use technology to heat, Stuart Hain, vice president for cool, and light the building Swarthmore Seeks facilities and services, described based on the time of day and the construction work current number of occupants. a Charter underway in the old squash The $2.5 million lead courts facility as “unbuilding.” gift for the new center By January 1864, the founders of our Instead of simply demolishing comes from a Matchbox College had raised money, settled on a the outdated facility to make Challenge. Lead donors will name for the new school (Swarthmore way for the new Matchbox match, dollar for dollar, College), found a location (Westdale), and center for wellness, fitness, every donation the College appointed a committee to secure a charter and theater, a crew has been receives in support of the from the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. carefully disassembling the Matchbox through Oct. 1. They were certain the college would building this fall. “We’re taking The Matchbox Challenge be coeducational. There was never any

everything apart in an effort la urence kesterson is expected to supply $5 doubt that men and women would share to save all the materials we can million of the $5.3 million the governance of the school. They knew possibly save,” says Hain. Matchbox couple Salem total projected cost. Since they liked trees and were already eyeing Shuchman ’84 and Barbara Deconstructing the facility Klock ’86, P’16. the Board of Managers the site to see where they could plant has allowed the College to announced, in September, more. Everything else about the new salvage materials to reuse around campus two lead gifts to support the project, institution was unsettled. Part of the issue (visitors to the President’s Office, for including an anonymously given $1 million was money. The founders knew that what instance, can admire new radiator covers and $1.5 million from Salem Shuchman ’84 had already been collected was sufficient built from reclaimed wood). With the and spouse Barbara Klock ’86, P’16, interest to buy the land and erect a building, but unbuilding now over, the building of the and support has intensified. how big a building would depend upon Matchbox center, adjacent to the Lamb The Parents Council endorsed the the willingness of those who had already Miller Field House, is underway. Matchbox as a priority fundraising initiative purchased stock in the new institution to The campus will be greatly enhanced by at its fall meeting. According to Vice dig a little deeper into their pockets. the addition of the new facility. A fitness President for Development Karl Clauss, the They had no model for the college. center, featuring ultramodern equipment project was met with “great enthusiasm and They weren’t trying to build a Harvard or and space for sport-specific training, will endorsement.” Since the fall meeting, Parents a University of Virginia or even a Hicksite improve the College’s athletics and wellness Council Chairs Michael and Maureen version of Haverford. Perhaps they already programs. The Matchbox will also provide Bertuch P’14, as well as former Chairs Vernon knew that Swarthmore would become one space for the thriving theater program, Drew and Leslie Aucoin P’13, have made of America’s “distinctive colleges.” As befits including a new black box theater, and a leadership commitments to the initiative. a college that is constantly reviewing its flexible event space for lectures, student In addition, Sigco Inc., a glass-fabrication values and purposes, the original Board forums, and group meetings. company of which David McElhinny ’75, of Managers could be considered the first Says Board Chair Giles “Gil” Kemp ’72, P’17 is CEO, will donate all the glass for the committee charged with considering “the “The Matchbox perfectly expresses many project. Sigco’s donation of sustainably made meaning of Swarthmore.” of the goals of our strategic plan. Its space glass will help defray a major cost for the In April 1864, Swarthmore College was is flexible, it will promote both wellness new building, which will feature large glass formally chartered by the commonwealth. and intentional community, and it will be windows with impressive views of the Crum The corporation was authorized “to constructed with sustainability concerns at Woods and campus. establish and maintain a school and the forefront.” Construction is scheduled As an example of the initiatives to be college for the purpose of imparting to for completion by the time student-athletes supported by the College’s comprehensive persons of both sexes knowledge in the arrive on campus in mid-August. campaign, set to launch this year, the various branches of science, literature The Matchbox project not only includes Matchbox sets the tone for future campus and the arts. …” Now the real work of careful attention to sustainability and a improvements. “This beautiful new building building and moulding a college could purposeful approach to minimize materials will serve the College for many years to begin. g waste and save energy and funds but will come,” says President Rebecca Chopp. “It —Christopher Densmore, curator, Friends make good use of the footprint of the old represents a major step forward for our Historical Library squash courts. Other measures will protect community.” g the Crum Creek from stormwater runoff, —Randy Frame and Amanda Whitbred restore impervious surfaces to green space,

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Rolf Valtin ’48 displays a souvenir from his participation Hidden in Plain Sight in the 1948 Olympics.

“Well, I’ll be!” Rolf Valtin ’48 proclaimed as he opened his front established “Rolf Valtin” had a solid argument for induction into the door to welcome a small contingent from the Swarthmore College Hall of Fame. Department of Athletics. The purpose of a fall visit to Valtin’s home What no one in the athletics department could have anticipated in Alexandria, Va., was to present him with a plaque honoring his was that a closer look into Valtin’s background revealed a fascinating, induction into the Garnet Athletics Hall of Fame (due to ailing knees, almost unbelievable personal story. he could not travel to the induction ceremony Oct. 4). A three-sport athlete and a star of Swarthmore’s soccer With his wife and college sweetheart Nancy Eberle Valtin ’47 at his team, Valtin earned All-America honors “We were Hitler side and the contingent from Swarthmore all ears, Valtin explained three times during his career. that he came to America—a German immigrant of Jewish decent— “I begged you not to come, but here refugees ... of a with his two brothers and mother when he was 13. you are!” said Valtin, a short, jovial man “We were Hitler refugees,” said Valtin. “I had a mother who was of with a slight German accent. “This is a Jewish and Quaker a Jewish and Quaker background, and that was enough to make life great, unexpected, honor.” unpleasant.” A successful athletics career at background.” Their mother’s contacts with Quakers in America helped the family Swarthmore is just one small part of escape just a few months before the Reichskristallnacht, while their Valtin’s personal story—one that, due to —Rolf Valtin father remained in Nazi Germany. Quakers in the Philadelphia area a clerical error, remained hidden in plain provided housing and schooling at George School in Newtown, Pa. sight for 70 years. George School propelled Valtin and brother Heinz ’49 to In 2011, during the nomination process for the Garnet Athletics Swarthmore. Soon after setting foot on campus, Valtin became an Hall of Fame, an alum notified the athletics department of a mistake athletics standout in varsity soccer, baseball, and basketball. in the online edition of the men’s soccer career record book: Two In 1943, after just one year at the College, Valtin was drafted into players listed in the book, Rolf Wiegelmesser and Rolf Valtin, were the U.S. Army and forced to leave school. Because of his German actually the same person. heritage, he became an interrogator for the 16th Regiment of the 1st The statistics were combined, and, mix-up aside, the newly Infantry Division. June 6, 1944, the 16th Regiment helped lead the

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08-13_Collection_6th.indd 10 12/13/13 2:21 PM assault on Omaha Beach during the Normandy invasion. Valtin recalled that fateful day. “Our sector was a particularly bloody one, so you can’t help but have that deeply ingrained in you,” he said. “Our beach had the toughest resistance from the Germans, so we had the hardest time, and we had by far the most casualties.” His time in the Army also explained the name change that led to the initial confusion. “Our father was still in Germany, and the thought of being captured with the name Wiegelmesser was uncomfortable.” He also admitted that Wiegelmesser “was a pretty awkward name and wasn’t difficult to shed,” which drew a thankful smile from his wife. Returning to the College in 1946 to finish his degree, now as Joining Valtin in the 2013 Hall of Fame were, from left: Ed Greene ‘85; Jeanne Gibson Rolf Valtin, he resumed his standout soccer career, netting a then- ’78 and Barbara Gibson ’71, representing Helen Tomlinson Gibson ‘41; Joan Faulkner, program-record 11 goals his senior year, including four in a shutout representing Ed Faulkner; Julie Noyes LaFramboise ‘95; and Imo Akpan ‘02. of Princeton. His strong play during his senior season led to a tryout for the 1948 U.S. Olympic soccer team. While admitting that soccer who helped shape his life—including the College. “Swarthmore “was not a national sport in America” at the time, he shined through would not have been the same for me without sports,” he said. “I was a series of tryouts to join the team that went to postwar London. He active in every season. I loved it. It gave me a certain stature that I is one of the few Swarthmore alums to participate in the Olympics. would not have had. Although the Americans had little success at the Olympic games, “I am grateful for my wife, for the sports, and for my career,” he they won a post-Olympic exhibition against the newly formed state concluded. “Swarthmore has everything to do with that.” g of Israel. Valtin tallied one of the goals. —Mark Anskis At 88, Valtin remains active and profoundly sharp, only recently retiring from a long career as an arbiter of labor disputes—a career To watch a video of Rolf Valtin, go to bit.ly/RolfHOF. that he says was sparked by a labor economics class taught by Frank Pierson ’34. For more sports, go to Swarthmoreathletics.com. At every opportunity to boast about his amazing life and accolades—Valtin declined, instead praising others, especially those

Responding to Cupid’s arrow Was it in the Crum Woods, on the Whispering Bench, or in Parrish on s Parlors? Love has blossomed in every corner of Swarthmore’s ter s breathtaking campus. If you are among the 1,300 matchbox couples who have met, courted, fallen in love, and remained together, write us! Tell us about your romance in 350 words or fewer, and send us a matchbox photo—then or now. We’ll publish a selection of stories in our summer edition. Send via regular mail to Swarthmore College Bulletin, Swarthmore College, 500 College Ave., Swarthmore, PA 19081, or to [email protected] before April 1. t orical librar pho y. t o by la urence ke s ’ hi ’ s y of friend s Sculpture cour te

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‘Remaking College’ Paves New Ground for Liberal Arts

fact, the presentations were so compelling education, including cost, governance, When President Rebecca Chopp collaborated that Chopp, Weiss, and higher-education technology, and changing student with Daniel Weiss, president of Haverford consultant Susan Frost, at the urging of many demographics. In addition to her editorial College, in April 2012 to stage the attendees, compiled the presentations into role, President Chopp authored the chapter, conference The Future of the Liberal Arts a book. Remaking College: Innovation and “Remaking, Renewing, Reimagining: The College in America and Its Leadership the Liberal Arts, published by Johns Hopkins Liberal Arts College Takes Advantage of Role in Education Around the World, their University Press, was released in December. Change.” expectations for attendance were somewhat Says President Chopp, “This book Suzanne Welsh, Swarthmore’s vice modest. The friends and colleagues were captures the truly provocative, imaginative president for finance and treasurer, also mildly (and pleasantly) surprised when more thinking higher-ed leaders all over the contributed a chapter on economics and than 200 college presidents, faculty members, country are already doing, and I’m confident affordability. students, and board members from around it will be a springboard for future progress.” As with the recent establishment of the country attended. The conference She states in the book’s preface, “Those of us the College’s Institute for the Liberal Arts, also generated considerable media buzz who work as presidents and other leaders at Remaking College solidifies the leadership in higher-ed circles, contributing to the liberal arts colleges recognize the importance role Swarthmore College plays in higher dialogue about the future of liberal arts of this moment in higher education, and we education, in general, and President Chopp’s institutions and the significance of their role understand the power of a strong foundation status as a passionate spokesperson for the in democratic cultures. The 2012 conference in the liberal arts for transforming people cause of liberal arts education, in particular. clarified that the issues facing higher and communities.” On April 1, alumni will have the opportunity education—and liberal arts in particular— Among the institutions represented by to interact with Chopp and Weiss at a are urgent ones. the book’s contributors are Bryn Mawr, joint Swarthmore-Haverford event in The presentations at the 2012 event, held Colorado College, Franklin & Marshall, Philadelphia. g at Lafayette College, also revealed the extent Lafayette, Macalester, Pomona, Princeton, —Randy Frame to which liberal arts educational leaders have Smith, The University of the South, Vassar, responded both cohesively and creatively Wheaton, and Williams. Essayists address a Listen to Chopp and Weiss discuss their to the challenges confronting them. In wide array of challenges confronting higher book at bit.ly/ChoppLiberalArtsBook

The Crum Regatta, a 500-meter race through the shallow waters of Crum Creek, was one of the highlights of Garnet Homecoming and Family Weekend, Oct. 4–6. From left: Chris Grasberger ’17, Ariel Henig ’17, and Noah Rosenberg ’17 were among the soggy participants in this year’s perennial crowd pleaser. Several hundred guests enjoyed other events such as the second annual Garnet Athletics Hall of Fame induction ceremony (see photo on Page 11) and the annual McCabe Lecture by filmmaker Dawn Porter ’88 (see Page 59 for more on Porter). la urence kesterson

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08-13_collection_6th.indd 12 12/13/13 2:21 PM 3 Days to Brainstorm— recommendations to be discussed by the delegates during the event. The rapporteurs in Paris then delivered summaries of their group’s discussions for inclusion in the “outcome For three days in late October, 500 national document.” Their topic was Policy Formation student delegates from more than 150 and Review with the Participation of Youth. countries assembled at the UNESCO “On the first day of the forum, I had Headquarters in Paris for the 8th UNESCO the honor of being up on the stage to Youth Forum. The carefully selected introduce the Axis 1 rapporteurs’ draft group spent three days brainstorming on recommendations,” he says. Tran also the theme Youth and Social Inclusion: introduced himself and his home country, Civic Engagement, Dialogue and Skills speaking of its beautiful landscape, Development. Duong Tran ’15, a native of hospitable population, and vibrant youth Vietnam, was chosen to attend. community. Last summer, Tran, a Chinese and “It was truly exhilarating to speak in economics double major and Lang front of such a brilliant group of young Opportunity Scholar, interned for the people with diverse backgrounds yet the director general of the Vietnam National common purpose of creating positive Commission for UNESCO. She was so change in the world. The forum broadened impressed with Tran that she nominated him my understanding of youth development as a Youth Forum delegate. as an essential component of sustainable “We gathered in Paris to exchange ideas development. The knowledge that I gained and debate on three axes for an official Youth was a valuable addition to my academic Forum Outcome Document,” Tran says. pursuits in public policy. And my new Tran was chosen to be one of four connections with other delegates during the Duong Tran speaks to delegates on the stage at the “rapporteurs,” whose initial role included Forum will open up further possibilities for 2013 UNESCO Youth Forum. gathering opinions on the three axes from me to broaden the impact of my current LOS youth around the world before the forum project in the coming years,” Tran says. g and compiling them into a draft list of —Carol Brévart-Demm

‘Swarthmore College: A Community of Purpose’ to Arrive in Your Mailbox Soon

At the dawn of its sesquicentennial celebration, the College will through the guidance and financial support of an alumnus of the mail a special gift to all Swarthmore alumni, friends, and parents College whose career was in book publishing. Former Bulletin editor of current students: the book Swarthmore College: A Community Jeffrey Lott is the book’s primary author and editor; he also oversaw of Purpose. This 200-page resource includes numerous faculty and the design process. Contemporary photos of the College and the alumni profiles, historic pictures of the College and its Scott Arboretum are by staff photographer Laurence founders, and many new photos revealing the beauty Kesterson. of the campus as it looks today. “I hope that in Says President Rebecca Chopp, “I hope that in reading Its visual appeal notwithstanding, stories drove the this book, our many alumni, friends, and parents will book’s development. Six chapters explore the major reading this book, take to heart its subtitle, for Swarthmore College truly is, themes that have defined Swarthmore historically above all, a community of purpose. The education young and that continue to define it today. These include our many alumni, people receive here never has been and never will be an commitments to academic rigor, building community, end in itself. We’ve always expected graduates, in service and serving the common good. In the book’s final friends, and parents to our Quaker tradition, to give back, to live, and serve chapter, President Rebecca Chopp makes a strong with purpose.” case for the importance of a liberal arts education and will take to heart its Chopp expressed the hope that Swarthmore book develops her vision for how Swarthmore can advance clubs nationwide will consider including Swarthmore the cause in a time when the value of a liberal arts subtitle.” College: A Community of Purpose on their lists of books education has been increasingly challenged. to read and discuss during the College’s celebratory year. The publication and distribution of Swarthmore —Rebecca Chopp Watch for announcements of faculty-led discussions College: A Community of Purpose was made possible around the country during 2014. g

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cour tesy of friends hist orical librar y

the Train was important to Few institutions of higher learning are bisected by a major highway. Swarthmore’s founding Dickinson College and James Madison University come to mind. But a railroad and still is today running through the campus proper? Perhaps only at Swarthmore. At least that’s what Jim Bock ’90, vice president and dean of admissions, speculates. By Sherri Kimmel A peppy native Texan with an easy smile, Bock proudly trots out this notable feature during information sessions with prospective students and parents on the third floor of Parrish Hall or during his far-flung travels, which take him around the world to find students who are the very best fit for the Swarthmore experience. At a recent group session, he asked parents and prospects what they knew about the College. One response: “This place is isolated.” “I said, ‘Let’s explore that,’ and I started with the train,” Bock explains. Many current students, in fact, claim that a key factor in making the match with Swarthmore is the train’s proximity. Those who hunger for a hit of the urban experience can reach Philadelphia in just 20 minutes via the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA).

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The rail connecting city and what was once country is, in fact, also was a highlight of his research. Not only could the female the reason Swarthmore College resides where it does today. Back members of the Board, of which 50 percent were women, travel to in the 1860s, when the Hicksite Quakers were casting about for a the College in what was then rural territory, but they could attend location for their future college, they narrowed their choices to three women’s suffrage meetings by rail. “They were liberated from the Philadelphia-area sites, all with the same prerequisite—a nearby difficulty of traveling by stagecoach,” says Moscatelli. rail depot. Rather than Wissahickon in Montgomery County or Showing a slide of an early icon of marketing, Phoebe Snow, the Radnor Farm in Delaware County, they chose Westdale, a rural standing on a train platform decked out in spotless white, from neighborhood named for the local painter Benjamin West, and later bonnet to ground-grazing full skirt, he explains that this image was renamed for the College. from an ad campaign designed to put women at ease about train “Almost everything we take for granted living and working in travel. Phoebe was the Betty Crocker of her day, appearing in ad after Swarthmore—the layout of the road system, the very location of the ad for the Lackawanna Railroad. He also exhibits a sign instructing College, the affluence that allowed it and the region to develop—can gamblers and the not-so-white-as-snow—“fancy women”—to sign be traced to the influence of just one privately held corporation, the mammoth Pennsylvania Railroad,” explains Frank Moscatelli, a physics professor who is a weekend tourist-train conductor (see Page 18 for details). Not only was the Pennsylvania Railroad the largest in the world in 1900, but its budget was bigger than the federal government’s, he stresses. While serving on the College’s sesquicentennial committee last year, Moscatelli, the Edward Hicks Magill Professor of Mathematics and Natural Sciences, delved into the historic connection between the College and railroad. His research led to a half-hour talk last February for fellow faculty members. Performing a reverse striptease—slowly donning pieces of his conductor uniform (tie, vest, jacket, and conductor’s cap)—Moscatelli showed PowerPoint slides of the depot at the foot of the College hill. From the 1880s, he displayed a bearded College grounds worker with a horse and wagon and two male students with their baggage, setting out for Magill Walk.

Other images showed the depot in the early 1900s, KESTERSON LAURENCE 1930s, and into the 1940s, when heavy-duty icons of the Physicist and train buff Frank Moscatelli stops by the Swarthmore depot. He American streamlined design whistled through town and campus. researched the connections between the train line and the College. Left: The depot He also touched on the importance of the railroad to African- with the borough of Swarthmore in the background, circa 1910. American history. “The railroads were the first major employers of recently freed slaves,” he says. While the Underground Railroad, a network of secret routes and safe houses used by enslaved blacks up with the conductor upon boarding the train. “In all my time as a seeking freedom, is usually not associated with real train tracks, it conductor, I never had to sign up fancy women,” says Moscatelli with was an actual rail line between Lancaster and Philadelphia (now part a shake of his head. of Amtrak’s Keystone Corridor). In specially designed boxcars, slaves The Pennsylvania Railroad has been defunct for nearly 40 traveled the 70-mile stretch, Moscatelli says, referencing a 2010 USA years, with part of its area served by Amtrak, the other by Norfolk Today article on the topic. “You don’t think of it as an actual physical Southern. “Its influence on rail travel in the Northeast—from Amtrak place, but it was.” service between Washington and New York, to freight carrier and Moscatelli also mentions a local event that sparked a famous even commuter rail—can’t be overestimated,” says Moscatelli. Nor court case involving the right of blacks to ride in the same train can be the train’s influence on Swarthmore. compartment as whites. The forcible expulsion of a black teacher, “The College is here because the railroad is here,” he says. “Because Mary Miles, occurred in 1867 on the line that ran through of the railroad, the College is in the suburbs now.” g Swarthmore (see Page 16 for details). The railroad’s role in emancipating, rather than evicting, women

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Early leaders of the Underground Railroad. Frederick only means of public transport, Miles refused Douglass, the renowned African-American to budge and was left at an unspecified strongly tied social reformer, questioned his own “well- station somewhere along the West Chester & established conviction” that no white man Philadelphia Railroad (WC & PRR) line. to Underground could have true respect for the black man In early 1867, Miles brought a suit in after hearing Hopper’s courtroom defense of a Philadelphia court against the railroad Railroad an escaped slave. company, which stated in its defense that it In his 1872 memoir The Underground was “not unreasonable … to seat passengers The stately oaks that usher the traveler from Railroad, William Still, who helped about so as … to prevent contacts … arising from the Swarthmore train station to the College’s 800 slaves gain freedom, listed many College- natural … repugnancies, which are liable to hilltop hub were planted in 1879 by a veteran related families among those who helped the breed disturbances by promiscuous sitting.” of another kind of railroad—a network to anti-slavery cause. The names sound like an The court countered that “defendants could assist fugitive slaves with no clearly marked inventory of campus buildings, including not compel plaintiff to change her seat route. Clothier, Wharton, Hallowell, and Parrish. simply on account of her color.” Miles won Edward Magill, Swarthmore’s second Still also mentions Lucretia Coffin Mott, the case and was awarded $5. president, grew up north of Philadelphia in a Quaker social activist, founder of the The WC & PRR then took the case to Bucks County. In his youth, he transported Female Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court. In late 1867, escaped slaves by wagon from Solebury to in 1833, and a primary organizer of the Justice Daniel Agnew overturned the prior New Hope, Pa., on the Delaware River. After seminal 1848 Seneca Falls women’s rights ruling, stating that while he agreed that a his retirement from the College, he recorded conference. Subsequently, she became one of common carrier could not refuse to take a the many stories of his early friends and the founders of the College. Now, 150 years passenger on the basis of skin color, as long neighbors who were also involved with the later, her life and legacy provide enduring as a traveler had an equally safe, comfortable Underground Railroad. inspiration to Rebecca Chopp, Swarthmore’s and convenient seat, it was “not unreasonable Though Swarthmore did not hold its first 14th president. g to assign places … to passengers of each classes until 1869, the College had many —Elizabeth Vogdes color.” supporters who had held strong anti-slavery Based on 2013 Garnet Weekend walking tour, As an analogy, the judge offered the views, some of whom were participants “Quakers, Swarthmore, and The Underground example of the “ladies’ car … [which] in the escaped-slave network. Westdale, as Railroad,” given by Friends Historical Library implies no loss of equal right on the part the Swarthmore area was first called, was Curator Christopher Densmore. of the excluded sex …” or the separation located only 18 miles from the slave state of military from civilian passengers. In of Delaware and part of the first hospitable Important racial- addition, the judge noted that though a ground encountered by slaves who fled March 1867 state law made it an offense for before the Civil War. discrimination case railroad companies “to make any distinction Quakers had been voicing objections to between passengers on account of race or the institution of slavery since before the played out on color …” it was passed after the incident in Revolutionary War. In fact, the grandfather question. of Edward Parrish, Swarthmore’s first local train line Ironically, the West Chester & Philadelphia president, originally joined the Pennsylvania Railroad v. Miles case, which began as a Abolition Society in 1784, followed by As Swarthmore College was opening its complaint against racial discrimination, Edward’s father Joseph and then Edward doors in the mid-1860s, so did a train on the later became one of many used to support himself in 1848. Edward’s childhood home line from Philadelphia through Westdale— the constitutionality of “separate but equal” in Philadelphia served as a station on the to insist that an African-American woman public facilities in the landmark 1896 Underground Railroad, and he and his disembark. Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson, siblings “learned to keep quiet when a slave Teacher Mary E. Miles was traveling from upholding segregation for nearly 60 years was harbored in the cellar,” as reported in the Philadelphia to her home in Hinsonville, until the Brown v. Board of Education ruling Friends’ Intelligencer in 1915. a small rural community of free black was issued. At the insistence of the College founders, landowners near Oxford, Chester County, Long before Rosa Parks took her famous a portrait of Isaac Hopper hangs in the west the location of the historically black Lincoln 1955 stand against racial discrimination front parlor in Parrish. A leading member University. She was asked to move from her on a Montgomery, Ala., bus, the relatively of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, seat in the middle of a car to one “set apart unknown Mary Miles made a similar Hopper spent his life aiding fugitive slaves for persons of her race” or leave the train. In statement on Swarthmore’s own train line. g and has been described as the founder an era when trains and streetcars were the —Elizabeth Vogdes

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14-19_Railroad_5th.indd 16 12/12/13 4:28 PM A portion of the sprawling Pennsylvania Railroad network in 1911, showing Swarthmore (red star), the Philadelphia region, and connections to New Jersey and New York City.

Johnson was one of many Swarthmoreans deeply disturbed this fall by the news that SEPTA’s Media/Elwyn line, which connects Swarthmore with Philadelphia, could be halted in 2015 due to lack of funds needed to repair four trestles. In typical Swarthmore fashion, Sara Morell ’15 responded to the threat by creating an online petition opposing the potential closure. Within three days, there were more than 3,000 supporters—students, alumni, employees, and other local travelers. “That would be a big blow to the College’s intellectual life—research, conferences, and so forth,” says Johnson, glumly, of the threat. “It’s such an attractive feature of the College.” She mentions the train’s role in transporting visiting scholars, parents, students, and alumni to campus. And, of course, “if it happens, my whole lifestyle would change,” she laments. (In late November, the state legislature passed a bill to allocate $2.3 billion a year to Train remains a selling point improve Pennsylvania’s highways, bridges and mass-transit systems, rescuing the Media/Elwyn line.) While historically important, the train, whose ka-klunk and whistle Wynter Lastarria ’15, like Johnson, considers the Swarthmore line are heard from every point in Swarthmore, is a lifeline for the College essential. “Public transit and easy access to it is just something I’ve and community. It’s essential not only to students (first years can’t always taken for granted. bring cars to campus) but anyone with a hankering for world-class “A factor in my deciding to go to this college was access to public art museums, concerts, or “Philly-style health food—cheese steak, transportation—apart from the practical aspect of getting home [to hoagies, and grinders,” as Jim Bock ’90, vice president and dean of the Bronx], but also access to Philadelphia,” she continues to say. admissions, puts it. It’s also essential to the College workforce. “It’s a good way to get out of the Swat bubble. I’m from a city that Tania Johnson, associate director of sponsored programs and never sleeps, and it gets a little claustrophobic here.” The rail line also institutional relations, has a half-hour daily commute to Swarthmore is essential for students who have internships or who take classes at from Aldan, Pa. She’s never owned a car and, like nearly 4 million Penn, she adds. other Philadelphia-area commuters, she relies on the nation’s Having train access to Philadelphia became more urgent this fall, sixth-largest rapid-transit service, the Southeastern Pennsylvania after shuttle-van service to Philadelphia was discontinued, says Aya Transportation Authority (SEPTA). Ibrahim ’15, outreach coordinator for Student Council. “The train is “Eight years ago, when I started working here, it seemed odd to an option that everyone needs,” she says. “A taxi costs $60.” people that I relied on public transit,” remarks Johnson. Now, she To serve student SEPTA needs, “we started a very active program says, three other people in her office building alone travel to campus last spring, with funding from the president’s and dean’s offices and by train. “This is the future of how many people want to live—not student budget,” Ibrahim says. Students could apply for one of 40 free depending on a car,” she says. train tickets, distributed through a lottery system weekly. “By the end Not only is rail a sustainable and economical way to commute, but of the semester, we had 280 people apply each week,” she says. it’s less stressful than driving, Johnson points out. “And it’s a way of This fall, Student Council upped the number to 80 tickets but building relationships for a lot of us—seeing each other every day at asked students to pay $6, about half the cost of a round-trip SEPTA the train station.” ticket. While working out system efficiencies, the council is pondering The depot’s proximity to campus also is a selling point that other obstacles, such as the hourly departures during non-rush-hour she includes when writing grant proposals. “If faculty have a times and the fact that the last train leaves Philadelphia at 11:20 p.m., collaboration with a researcher at Penn or Drexel, it’s just 20 minutes making late-night entertainment plans challenging. g away. Not being able to claim that would be a negative.” —Sherri Kimmel

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The Ride of His Life While it may not be as extensive as a Ph.D. program, the training for his job captaining a train involved passing many tests on the same Physicist Frank Moscatelli has been on track United States Federal Railway Administration rules that an Amtrak with trains since boyhood employee needs to master. Moscatelli started out in 2009 as a trainman—collecting and By Sherri Kimmel punching tickets and escorting passengers. For the last year, he’s held the top job, the lone professor among 11 conductors, whose If the rumble of the rails, the hiss of the air brakes, and the shrill professions include software engineer and truck driver. They trade off piping of a train whistle are music to your ears, then you have a lot in conducting the 14-mile round-trip stretch of rail. The West Chester common with Frank Moscatelli. Railroad has been an independent tourist line since 1997, nine years A self-proclaimed “gears-and-pulleys kind of guy,” Moscatelli is after commuter service from Philadelphia ended. an experimental physicist who’s taught at Swarthmore for 31 years. Being a conductor, Moscatelli says, “is a position of responsibility.” He’s quick to admit, “I’ve been a railroad buff for as long as I can His duties include reading the day’s orders, figuring out how many remember.” coaches to put on the train, tallying the number of passengers, He loved playing with model trains as a child in Brooklyn. The attaching the air-brake system and testing it to make sure every family’s move to Long Island for his father’s job in the aerospace wheel responds. Warming up cars on winter mornings, cleaning and industry introduced the scientifically curious boy to the Long Island decorating them—for the fall foliage tours, that means orange, leaf- Railroad’s busy commuter trains. shaped lights tacked above the windows—are part of the job. “It’s not But what really packed a powerful wallop was his eighth- all glamour,” he points out. grade class trip to Washington, D.C. Riding behind iconic, But the payoff makes all the behind-the-scenes work worthwhile. megahorsepowered locomotives from New York’s Penn Station to Once the train sets off, Moscatelli enjoys the scenery as much as the Philadelphia to D.C., he recalls little about the soaring marble sweep first-timers pointing their Nikons out the windows. “I’ve always loved of the Capitol but all about the vintage cars he encountered and the riding trains. It’s relaxing,” he says. world he glimpsed through those train windows. He was hooked. And he enjoys mingling with passengers—sometimes even Unlike air travel, where you’re sealed off from the outer agreeing to dance with them—on holiday excursions with guest environment, train travel offers a quiver, clatter, and creak as your attractions such as Count Trackula at Halloween and Santa and the car rattles and rocks along, the blast of a whistle as you pass through Easter bunny. a crossing, the scrape of wheels on steel. Through your rectangular “I’m interested in bringing people together and being a source for window you see not blank sky but four navy-blue silos, a white them to learn about trains,” he says. “The teaching part is interesting wooden barn with its paint chipping away, a dun-brown cornfield, and, of course, ties into my life at Swarthmore.” with half its stalks standing, half consumed by the maw of the But Moscatelli also enjoys being a student. “I’ve learned a lot from combine. Larry here,” he says, pointing to a trainman. “Railroaders are also Train travel is an experience Americans have enjoyed since teachers.” the late 1820s. Now Moscatelli has achieved something rare—an Some days a different trainman assists him—his wife Anne-Marie, equivalent to the rush a die-hard baseball fan feels as he suits up for a French professor at West Chester University. “As with any good a Yankees Fantasy Camp. Except this is no one-time dream come spouse, she shares in her husband’s fetish now and then,” he says with true. Moscatelli has progressed from guiding model trains around a smile. his parents’ dining room to directing the forward and backward The Moscatellis also share a love of Manhattan, often traveling movements of genuine 100-ton diesel engines pulling vintage cars there by rail. When he retires, Frank plans to shift to the New York and hundreds of passengers. City Transit Museum. “They use lots of volunteers and occasionally Nearly every Sunday, if you take the 90-minute round-trip tourist- take out vintage subway trains,” he says. train ride through rugged rock cuts and green and gold tunnels Until then, he’s delighted to split his time between a rewarding of trees from West Chester, Pa., to the striking red-brick Victorian career and a fulfilling hobby. Says Moscatelli, “It’s wonderful to be station in Glen Mills, you’ll hear him hollering, “All aboard!” In able to be both a physicist and a conductor—a physicist endeavors to his navy suit, a gold watch chain looping across his vest, his billed understand everything, while a conductor is in charge of everything. Pennsylvania Railroad cap emblazoned with a gold conductor badge, It’s a dream come true.” g he cuts a striking figure. Conductor Moscatelli strolls the aisles of the 1930s-era cars of the West Chester Railroad, walkie-talkie in hand, directing the engineer and the crew when to leave the station and To view a video of Conductor Frank Moscatelli in action, go to bit.ly/ when to stop the train. MoscatelliVideo. Come Monday, you’ll see the Edward Hicks Magill Professor of Mathematics and Natural Sciences hatless, in casual pants and short- sleeved shirt commanding a physics class in the Science Center. Frank Moscatelli, suited up for his scenic Sunday circuit from West Chester to Glen Mills, Pa., says his dream is to ride the rails on the Orient Express or across the United States.

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14-19_Railroad_5th.indd 18 12/12/13 4:28 PM LAURENCE KESTERSON LAURENCE

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20-23_Alice Paul_5b.indd 20 12/12/13 4:39 PM Our own revolutionary, Alice Paul, crossed the finish line to victory

By Jamie Stiehm ’82

Friends, readers, countrypeople, meet one of the greatest alumnae in the American history pantheon. Our own beautiful revolutionary, Alice Paul, Class of 1905, was far ahead of her time—and President Woodrow Wilson—a century ago. Their clash over “Votes for Women,” her thoroughly modern seven-year campaign, was bitter and personal. By the time Paul burnt Wilson’s speeches in a “Watchfire Protest,” the president and the suffragist had met several times and could not stand each other. She gave him no peace even in wartime. Enlarging American democracy has never been easy. The right to vote was never “given” to women; it was hard won in 1920. Paul, founder of the National Woman’s Party, led the movement to victory with the passage of the 19th Amendment. What made all the difference? Taking suffrage outside—to the streets of Washington in a visible, ongoing display of vigils, protests, arrests, and other civil disobedience. “Alice Paul put suffrage back on the national stage,” says Elspeth Kursh, the collections and facilities manager at the Sewall-Belmont House and Museum. Two blocks from the Capitol stands the spacious brick house where Paul lived and built the 20th-century women’s suffrage movement. “She understood it was a great moment of change, and real change is only achieved by the party in power,” Kursh adds as she leads visitors

A scene from the 1913 March for Suffrage in Washington, about to turn onto Pennsylvania Avenue, led by Jane Burleson, with a sign stating a demand for a federal suffrage amendment. Above: A National Women’s Party meeting with Alice Paul, center. Courtesy of the National Woman’s Party Collection, The Sewall-Belmont House and Museum.

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20-23_Alice Paul_5b.indd 21 12/12/13 4:39 PM through the elegant rooms and up the and gather for a grand spectacle. Like Henry staircase of the 1799 mansion. A century V’s Battle of Agincourt, you’d be sorry if you ago, women streamed in and out, some weren’t there. staying a while as organizers for the cause; As the presidential guard changed, a it was a perfect base camp for a long climb. new era and star were born in the suffrage Telegrams were the latest technology, which movement. With Paul taking the torch at With Paul taking the Paul issued with Twitter-like urgency. the same moment as Wilson, the movement In 1913, the spirited young Quaker was more daring, defiant, and exhilarated. torch at the same woman organized a massive demonstration. Paul’s charisma drew a whole wave of The languishing women’s rights movement, young college-educated women into the moment as Wilson, divided for decades and weakened by ranks. In fact, at the parade, she marched Susan B. Anthony’s death in 1907, needed with a contingent of Swarthmore friends. the movement was fresh blood and a new strategy. Fresh from Thousands of women wore white dresses on standing shoulder to shoulder with London’s the streets. One rode a white horse. Purple more daring, defiant, militant street suffragettes, Emmeline and was the other color of the day. Flowers made Christabel Pankhurst, the 28-year-old Paul for picturesque scenes. The notable Helen and exhilarated. Paul’s was the woman of the hour. Keller came to the march, as did Nellie Bly. A cultural Southerner born before the Then the lines of women were attacked charisma drew a whole Civil War, President Wilson never caught by a mob of men, hurling bricks and stones up to Paul, an avant-garde Quaker from right under policemen’s noses. The police wave of young college- New Jersey. Arriving in Union Station joined in the riot, attacking the suffrage as president-elect March 3, 1913, to be marchers, 100 of whom were hospitalized. educated women into sworn in the next day, a surprised Wilson And the cavalry was (literally) called out by demanded to know why there wasn’t a crowd Bainbridge Colby, later Wilson’s secretary the ranks. of well-wishers to greet him. The answer: of state, to protect parade marchers from “Everyone’s watching the Woman Suffrage further harm. So it was not all bread and Parade, sir.” To be sure, the parade was a roses. harbinger of progress. Violence done by a city police force Wilson, a proud Princeton man, was not underlined what Paul well knew: Don’t amused. Even as a Progressive politician, depend on male authority to “give” women he was no friend to human rights at home. Paul’s grand suffrage parade on Constitution and Pennsylvania avenues was just her way of saying hello, with brilliant timing, sending a public signal d museum

that suffrage was, well, cool. As historian n Jean H. Baker has noted, Paul was the first leader of a mass movement to focus t house a on only one person, the president. With n single-minded intensity, Paul never let

Wilson forget suffrage for a day—even the all-belmo day before he started the job. w

Somehow in only three months, Paul, the se , Lucy Burns, and a small army mobilized n at least 5,000 women to march in the parade, the likes of which Washington had never seen. From the National Woman’s ’s p ar ty collectio

Party headquarters, her home base, Paul’s n team sent word across the land to come al Woma n

President Wilson leaves Union Station on his way to inauguration in 1913, which had to compete for an audience with the Suffrage parade. Opposite, Alice Paul in 1905. cour tesy of the Na tio

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20-23_alice paul_5b.indd 22 12/12/13 4:39 pm anything except a hard shove. The movement From an old-line Quaker family, Paul in Occoquan. Once women were force-fed would no longer politely petition for suffrage knew all about nonviolent resistance— to end a hunger strike, public sympathy rights. Instead, women would make more Quakers practically invented it when swept to their cause. Somebody’s mother, scenes in public. They chained themselves to the English crown harassed them, and somebody’s wife, or somebody’s sister was the White House gates. As America prepared they practiced it as abolitionists hiding being brutally hurt. That was the beginning to enter World War I, suffrage signs mocked fugitive slaves in their homes. Many people of the end of the suffrage campaign. Wilson the Wilsonian idea of making the world safe think Quakers are timid in the face of at last surrendered as public opinion and for democracy when women were awaiting confrontation. On the contrary, they are congressional support mounted, state by liberty. In inclement weather, Wilson at times often creative in conflict and brave enough to state, in favor of the rallying cry: “Votes for invited them in for tea and a lecture, but be jailed for their beliefs. Women!” The wartime effort also helped these sessions did not go well. Ladies who Paul was first jailed in London; stateside, women win the day. stepped out of their place were not his cup she and others in the suffrage sisterhood were This major figure in our College’s of tea. placed in a squalid Virginia detention facility history is too little known, though there is a Swarthmore residence hall and an HBO movie in her honor. As a history major, I never heard a word about her in class. To wit, did you know Alice Paul authored the Equal Rights Amendment? She named it for Lucretia Mott, a famous Quaker founder of the College. A leading anti-slavery light, Mott founded the American women’s rights movement in 1848, and Paul carried on her unfinished work. It’s no accident that these champions of justice were Quakers, raised to speak out ever since they were schoolgirls. Generations apart, they each brought their inner light to the public square, where women had no voice and no vote. In 1920, Alice Paul was just warming up: “It is incredible to me that women should consider the fight for full equality won. It has just begun. ... Unless women are prepared to fight politically they must be content to be ignored politically.” The rest of her life, into her 80s and 90s, she campaigned for passage of the ERA, which fell just short in the 1970s. She died just before it failed in a few state legislatures. It will never be given to women. They will have to win it. Her Quaker identity and lifelong quest for justice aptly fit the Quaker expression: “Let your life speak.” Alice Paul’s speaks resoundingly to this day. g

Jamie Stiehm ’82 is a Creators Syndicate columnist covering politics, history, and culture. She lives in Washington, D.C.

Listen to a lecture about Alice Paul, Class of 1905, and Mabel Vernon, Class of 1906, at bit.ly/AlicePaulLecture ‘cour tesy of friends hist orical librar y

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20-23_alice Paul_5b.indd 23 12/12/13 4:39 PM Of Swarthmore Time and Space

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24-28_MasterPlan_4th.indd 24 12/12/13 4:54 PM The College is on the When Joseph Swain became Swarthmore’s Liz Braun, dean of students and another brink of a 20-year–long sixth president in 1891, his vision included steering committee member, offers her makeover the following: “A college … must be so perspective: “Everything in this plan leads conducted that while best serving each back to the idea of cultivating intentional By Carol Brevart-Demm generation in its turn, it will ever adapt itself community. Spaces are very powerful in the to the new and larger wants of the rising ways they connect to one another, provide one.” opportunities for people to bump into one During Swain’s tenure, 1902–21, a heating another, form relationships. Space plays a A rendering from the Campus Master Plan, plant, new dormitory, dining facilities, critical role in the formation of community.” showing expansions to Sharples, McCabe athletic buildings and fields, a chemistry Library, and Willets residence hall. Inset: building, library, and the Sproul Observatory, Connect A sketch of the campus in 1866. equipped with the largest telescope on the Thoughtfully planned roads and pathways East Coast were added. He also developed will lead naturally to and through campus, the College into one of the top academic intersecting more directly with the institutions in the country. Swarthmore borough. A new main College Swain’s vision—applicable for not only entrance, with visitor parking, by the his own but for all time—and Swarthmore’s Benjamin West House on Chester Road, will stellar reputation still endure. For 150 address the confusion first-time visitors often years, the College has adapted to the needs feel when parking in current visitor parking of rising generations in a world where the near the Science Center. decline from state-of-the-art to out-of-date This is a change that Jim Bock ’90, vice is accelerating and the student population president and dean of admissions welcomes. increasing. Now, the College is poised to “I couldn’t be more thrilled,” he says of embark upon a 20-year sequence of major the plan to have visitors walk up through projects that will bring the physical campus campus between McCabe Library and Old into alignment with initiatives articulated in Tarble rather than enter through the “back the 2011Strategic Directions for Swarthmore door.” Says Bock, “they will have a beautiful College (bit.ly/SwatStrategicPlan) and that view, no matter what time of year they visit.” allow for gradual and cautious growth of the Another improvement will be a campus. roundabout at the exit from the railway Several years in the making, a new underpass on Chester Road that will slow campus master plan that adheres to four traffic and simplify entry to the campus guiding principles—”connect,” “sustain,” from the south. “When you drive to work “innovate,” and “cultivate”—was completed here every day, you tend to forget how very last fall and is slated for review and final circuitous the current route into campus is,” approval by the Board of Managers in says project manager Paula Dale. February. It comprises structural, building, To strengthen the ties between town and and landscaping requirements that allow the campus, a new 40-bed inn, with conference campus to accommodate the growing needs space, a restaurant, and a relocated College of its population and further the concept of bookstore on the Chester Road edge of an inclusive and engaged community. College grounds, will be built in the next “The notion of planning and mapping few years, Dale adds. Palmer, Pittenger, and out the campus, which is what this plan does, Roberts halls will feel more closely connected is not just anticipating growth,” says Maurice to the campus by the construction of a new Eldridge ’61, vice president for college residence hall between them and the athletics and community relations. Eldridge was a complex. member of a campus master plan steering committee, assisted by a campus advisory Sustain committee. The plan “looks at overall While new buildings rise, some existing capacity so that if there must be growth, ones will be enlarged and repurposed. Work we’re thinking about what must stay green, is already underway on the Matchbox, a where we need hard surfaces and parking, joint athletics-theater-wellness center on how we can remain sustainable—things we the former squash courts site. (See more on have to think about these days, whereas when the new center, funded by a $2.5-million I was a student here, we didn’t,” he explains. challenge led by Salem Shuchman ’84 and

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24-28_MasterPlan_4th.indd 25 12/12/13 4:54 PM Barbara Klock ’86, on Page 9.) Clothier anticipates “up-to-date labs with appropriate the edge farther into campus will increase Hall and Tarble all-campus space will be venting, safety features, storage space, and the canopy and provide more interior forest refurbished to encourage its use as a campus welcoming social and study spaces. The for us to use.” meeting place, thanks to a $20-million gift new labs and offices will encourage more from Board Chair Gil Kemp ’72 and his wife integration of projects and ideas. And we’ll Innovate Barbara Guss Kemp. have room to think about activities and A 20-year plan must necessarily be adaptable “It’s really emblematic that Clothier Hall, facilities that we can’t consider now because and done in phases, Dale points out. “What’s one of our most iconic buildings, is going to we have no unencumbered space,” she says. important is that if we know we’re going to be reimagined in a way that it can become a Engineering students and professors put a building in a certain place sometime community hub. That’s spectacular,” Braun recently reaped the benefits of renovation, during the next two decades, we won’t build says. something else there. This helps us to save More buildings are envisioned to better money and time in between, because thought serve the needs of today’s students. Dana “All the projects are designed to meet has already laid the foundation.” and Hallowell halls will be connected and Liz Braun adds, “All the projects are expanded by an addition large enough the needs of current students but designed to meet the needs of current to contain 75 beds. McCabe Library, the students but with an eye toward 20 years Field House, Sharples Dining Hall, and with an eye toward 20 years from from now, so that the next generation will Willetts residence hall will be enlarged by also have opportunities to continue to shape the addition of bright, new spaces. Pearson now.” the spaces in ways that make sense for them.” and Papazian halls will become more closely connected by an addition to the northwest —Dean Liz Braun Cultivate façade of Pearson. A new building will Just as the new and renovated buildings connect the Lang Performing Arts Center will invigorate intellectual, academic, and with the Lang Music Building, providing when some of the engineering facilities were social activity, the continued cultivation of extra rehearsal space for both. Several of the updated in summer 2012. Housed in Hicks, the College’s stunning campus will provide, planned additions offer possible sites for with some labs in the basement of Papazian, as it always has, a place of beauty and calm, green roofs. the department has long required updated conducive to creativity and contemplation, The departments of biology, engineering, lab spaces and more room for student to introspection and engagement, as and psychology—the three most hampered projects. a playground and as a classroom, for by space constraints—will benefit from “We got a lovely renovated third-floor the campus community and the town renovation and expansion. Their current lab with amazing views into Crum Woods. population. homes in Martin, Hicks, and Papazian halls It’s ideal for running robots around in In 20 years, President Rebecca Chopp have narrow footprints unsuited to modern a big space,” says Assistant Professor of envisions, “Alumni will enjoy more than research. A $50-million gift from Eugene Engineering Matt Zucker. “This bodes well ever returning to their home to see both Lang ’38 will fund construction of a new for the still-hypothetical new space we’ll get, how things have changed and how they science building to house the overflowing whether in the new science building or an have stayed the same in order to educate biology department—and perhaps the expanded Hicks.” students with rigor and creativity and to engineering department. Slated to begin Though thrilled at the prospect of cultivate their personal development and construction in 2016–17, it probably will new digs, biology and engineering faculty their ability to use knowledge to improve the occupy part of the DuPont parking lot to feel wistful about leaving their current, world. Twenty years from now, the gardens, protect existing green space. A future study beautiful, old buildings. Zucker mentions amphitheater, and lovely green spaces will will address the impact on campus parking, the engineers’ lounge in Hicks “with its continue to support and engage our campus says Dale. great family-room atmosphere, where community. Our faculty, students, and staff “We’re literally cramped to the gills,” students spend the evenings studying in this will continue to think rigorously, experiment says Assistant Professor of Biology Nick collaborative, supportive environment.” and design boldly, perform and create Kaplinsky. “We’ve turned storage closets and The new home of the psychology powerfully in spaces that are more flexible in spaces under staircases, which were never department is still uncertain. Relocation terms of their use, more efficient in terms of intended to be used by people, into research to a refurbished Martin Hall or expanded their energy consumption, and reshaped as spaces. We have about 50 to 60 biology Papazian are options. needed for the intellectual and cultural needs majors a year, and the number of premeds Crum Woods—both classroom and of the community in 2033.” enrolling keeps increasing. The new building leisure area—will be expanded by planting It’s a vision that would make President will allow us to support the growth of the trees on its edges near campus. “Some of the Swain smile. g department including increasing the number sustainability benefits of a forest occur in its of faculty members.” depths,” Dale says. “Plants, animals, and birds Professor of Biology Rachel Merz shouldn’t be too close to man, so bringing

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24-28_MasterPlan_4th.indd 26 12/12/13 4:57 PM When the fire of 1881 destroyed Parrish Hall, then- Jewels of Potential president Edward Magill raised money, once again through the sale of subscriptions. The College was able Swarthmore students have benefited to rebuild and even pay off its $12,000 mortgage with the mightily from building benefactors help of a $25,000 gift from Samuel Willets, Swarthmore College’s first major donor. “A check … signed upon his By Laura Markowitz ’85 deathbed, completed the amount necessary to cover our loss by the great fire,” wrote Magill in Volume 1, Issue 1 of A stroll across Swarthmore’s idyllic, 300-acre arboreal the Phoenix (so named after the fire). “The Alumni have campus presents an ideal opportunity to meditate on also remembered their Alma Mater in her hour of need,” Trotter was originally generosity. Imagine the early 1850s, when the College he added, by contributing $2,500 to rebuild the library known as the Science was just a dream in the minds of a small group of Quakers. collection. Hall. Built in 1882, with One of them—Edward Parrish—rode out on his horse Parrish has always been the heart of Swarthmore funds from Samuel Willets (pictured above), it was from meeting to meeting across the mid-Atlantic region College. Around it sprouted new dormitories, classrooms, renamed in 1937, in pitching the idea of a college to Hicksite Friends. He athletics facilities, libraries, arts and recreation facilities. honor of Spencer Trotter, described it as a place where their sons and daughters Every one of those buildings—for that matter, every professor of biology and could learn without being harassed for their pacifist scholarship and every endowed chair—is rooted in a geology. views. Eventually, 2,000 “subscriptions” of $25 and more story of generosity. Some of Swarthmore’s benefactors were purchased by the Quaker merchants and farmers, chose to give anonymously, such as the donor of the First President Edward and that seed money built the building that became decade-old Alice Paul residence hall. Others proudly Parrish (bottom, right); his namesake building, circa Swarthmore College. Edward Parrish went on to be put their names on their legacies. Eugene Lang ’38, the early 1870s. elected Swarthmore’s first president. Today, that first most generous donor in Swarthmore College’s history, building bears the name Parrish Hall. built not only the Lang Music Building, but also the Lang

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24-28_MasterPlan_4th.indd 27 12/13/13 2:38 PM Performing Arts Center and Lang Center for Civic and Social Library to learn about the people whose names grace the Responsibility, and endowed many chairs and scholarships. buildings. Many of the buildings on campus are named not for the donor Clothier, Wharton, Willets, Worth, Mertz, McCabe, Dana, but in someone else’s honor. Martin Laboratory, built in 1937, Hallowell, Kohlberg, Lang, Clothier, Tarble, Kemp, Cornell, was named for Edward Martin, Class of 1878, who taught briefly Sharples. This is the Swarthmore mantra falling from the lips of at the College and served on its Board of Managers. A surgeon, generations of students—those jewels of potential, the original he saved the life of Fred Kirby, founder of F.W. Woolworth five- raison d’être for Swarthmore. The buildings were a gift to and-dime stores. Kirby donated more than $1.8 million to the them, to us, to learn, study, dream, invent, exercise, create, and College—a huge sum in those days—and asked that the building flourish. be named for Martin. Today’s students are more diverse and international than Funds to build a gymnasium for women came from Mary those early Quakers could possibly have conceived. Yet, one Stevenson Wistar, who served as Swarthmore’s director of hopes, they would be delighted to know that the seeds they physical culture from 1893 to 1894. She was so dismayed at generously sowed created a place of abundant intellectual the lack of proper facilities for women that she returned to inquiry, social engagement—and gratitude. Swarthmore her year’s salary to start a fund for a gymnasium. “People do so much at Swarthmore, but it’s less common to (It was named Somerville Gym, after Mary Somerville, a famous appreciate where we are,” says Jessica Schleider ’12, a former 19th-century scientist.) Almost a century later, John and Marian psychology major who, in 2009, helped to launch Gratitude Snyder Ware ’38 donated money to build Ware Pool. Marian was Week on campus. “We can get caught up in the minutiae and captain of the women’s swim team and wanted to give future forget to appreciate where we are right now.” g students a chance to enjoy swimming as much as she did. And today, treading in those early footsteps of Samuel Willetts and Fred Kirby, three of the College’s more recent donors have pledged their support for new, renovated, or repurposed buildings. In December 2012, Eugene Lang ’38 donated $50 million—the College’s largest gift ever—toward new engineering and science facilities. Two months later, Board Chairman Giles “Gil” Kemp ’72 and wife Barbara Guss Kemp gave $20 million to support key initiatives identified in the College’s 2011 Strategic Directions, including the renovation of Clothier Hall. In September, Quaker matchbox couple Salem Shuchman ’84 and Barbara Klock ’86 announced their lead gift for a $2.5-million challenge, matching every gift donated toward a new building that will support wellness, fitness, and theater. Currently under construction on the site of the former squash courts, the building’s name will be, appropriately, the Matchbox (see Page 9 for more details). There are relatively few public displays of philanthropy on campus—few plaques on buildings, few visible markers to acknowledge the constant stream of generosity that created and continues to maintain and improve the College. You have to dig through yellowing files in the Friends Historical

Right: A residence hall that opened in 2004 was named for suffragist Alice Paul, Class of 1905. (For more on Paul, see Page 20.) The anonymous donor left the naming of the new dormitory to the students.

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24-28_MasterPlan_4th.indd 28 12/13/13 2:41 PM Talent Scouts

For 25 years, the Mellon Mays fellowship program at Swarthmore has fostered diversity in the academy

By Sherri Kimmel

Photos by Laurence Kesterson

Phoenix reporter Eric Glover ’07 had no intention Fellowship. Its aim was to encourage students of color to Paul Cato ’14 (left) has of investigating his own life when he entered the Parrish consider a career in academe. benefited immensely from his relationships Hall office of Myrt Westphal, associate dean of student life, According to Chuck James, the Sarah Lawrence with Mellon Mays one day his sophomore year. But after Glover interviewed Lightfoot Professor Emeritus of English Literature who mentors such as the now-retired dean for a story on residence life, she coordinated Swarthmore’s program from its inception Anthony Foy (right), turned the questions in his direction. until 2007, the College was selected because it was coordinator of the “I remember telling her I was very interested in successful at enrolling highly qualified underrepresented program. dramatic criticism and theater in general,” Glover recalls. students who would be good prospects for the “When I matriculated at Swarthmore I thought I would professoriate. be either a writer or a critic. It never occurred to me that I Mellon had “a unique idea to change the face of could also aspire to become a college professor.” the academy to better reflect American society,” James But the notion occurred to Westphal, who nominated explains. Through faculty recommendations, top students Glover for a Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship of color deemed candidates for the professoriate—rather (MMUF). “The fact that one person thought I could be than medicine or law—were chosen as fellows. a competitive applicant was enough reason to go ahead The program has been a revelation to current students and submit the application,” says Glover, who now has just as it was for Glover. Janelle Viera ’14 from Queens, completed all but his dissertation for a Ph.D. in English at N.Y., came to Swarthmore thinking she could teach Princeton University. English at the high-school level. “At that point I hadn’t Glover is one of 131 Swarthmore students of color seen professors who looked like me,” she says. “But in the last quarter century to be identified as a potential Swarthmore has a diverse faculty in sociology. Seeing my academician and offered mentorship and resources professors helped to spark my interest and show me that I through the MMUF program. can do this, too. And being involved with the Mellon Mays Swarthmore was one of eight charter schools— program helped me see I’m not the only one who feels this including Harvard, Yale, and Princeton—that the Andrew way.” W. Mellon Foundation selected in 1988 for a program Viera, a sociology and anthropology major, is one originally titled the Mellon Minority Undergraduate of 10 current fellows (three juniors, seven seniors). The

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29-31_MellonMays_3rd.indd 29 12/13/13 2:43 PM program’s name was changed in 2003 to three [Viera, Danielle Fitzgerald ’15, and honor Benjamin E. Mays, former president Eleanor Pratt ’14] are excellent, at the top of Morehouse University and author of the of their game in class, and are intellectually first sociological study of African-American mastering the material,” she says. “I saw their religion. At the same time, the mission aptitude for scholarly work and their desire was broadened to not only increase the to pursue it. number of minority students in academe “As for their summer research—they but encourage those who demonstrate a just attack it,” she continues. “They’re so commitment to eradicating racial disparities. motivated, so mentoring is not burdensome; All must plan to pursue a Ph.D. in core fields it’s a gift. I don’t have to invest time with in the arts and sciences. someone who needs intense supervision. I’m Students are nominated in the spring so excited that one is applying to graduate of their sophomore year. Anthony Foy, the school. I talk with her about applications and associate professor of English literature essays and who would be good to work with who coordinates the program, approaches in grad school.” nominees and asks them if they would like Viera, whose summer research project to apply. Applicants must submit a personal explored the income and educational level of statement describing their interest in the the Puerto Rican middle-class community program, a proposal for a research project, in central Florida, is interested in attending two letters of recommendation, a resume, Duke, Northwestern, Harvard, Princeton, Rutgers and UNC–Chapel Hill. “I’m not sure where my heart is yet—they all sound “As for their summer research—they pretty cool.” To sort things out, she says, “I’m meeting with professors Foy and Johnson.” just attack it ... They’re so motivated, This year’s Mellon Mays cohort is weighted toward sociology and anthropology, so mentoring is not burdensome; it’s with six of the 10 majoring in that discipline, in part, because its faculty members have so a gift.” embraced the program, says Foy. According to Johnson, sociology is a natural fit for the —Nina Johnson program because of its “intersection between theory and practice and connection to the social world. That excites students.” The religion, helped Cato navigate this new other four fellows are majoring in biology, direction, straight into the MMUF program. and a writing sample. A six-person, cross- with an environmental studies minor; Last summer, with fellowship support, Cato disciplinary selection committee picks five religion, with a black studies minor; English studied one-on-one with a faculty mentor at new fellows each year. Students are matched literature; and history, with a black studies the University of Chicago. Like many Mellon with a faculty member and receive funding minor. Mays fellows, his summer research informs to conduct summer research before entering Paul Cato ’14 of Silver Spring, Md., is his senior thesis—on the Brothers Karamazov in the fall as new members of the MMUF the religion major. Like Glover and Viera, and the work of French philosopher cohort. he entered Swarthmore with another Emmanuel Levinas. Cato gave a presentation The mentorship component is a career in mind—working for the United in July at a national conference—another key benefit of the program, says Viera. States Department of Justice in civil rights. experience that MMUF encourages fellows Of her mentor, Nina Johnson, visiting Soon he realized his initial fields of study, to try. “It was nerve-racking, but after I assistant professor of sociology and faculty philosophy and political science, “were completed the talk, I could see myself in coordinator for community-based learning not for me. I took a course in religion and the academy for the rest of my life,” Cato at the Lang Center for Social Change, Viera literature and was surprised. We talked about says. His likely grad-school targets are the says, “She is an all-encompassing mentor. I’ve philosophical topics the way I wanted—in University of Chicago Divinity School and gone to her about grad-school concerns, and an interdisciplinary way. We talked about the Princeton’s department of religion. I get personal with her. I’m not sure I want nature of the human condition. Toward the Further cementing Cato’s vocational to move so far away from my family for grad end of 2011, I could see myself teaching these resolve this fall was the opportunity to meet school. She went through the process not topics and doing research throughout my past Swarthmore MMUF graduates like terribly long ago herself.” career, and the idea of law school was not so Glover, who visited campus in early October Johnson, who is mentoring three Mellon appealing.” to talk about the musical In the Heights. Mays fellows, clearly relishes her role. “All Foy and Mark Wallace, professor of Glover had joined Foy and the fellows

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29-31_MellonMays_3rd.indd 30 12/13/13 9:25 AM theater to see if we could tease out the argument and translate that argument on representation to Into the Heights. I owe a lot to the Mellon Mays Undergraduate program, so if I can give back in any way, I’m happy to do so.” Now 18 months away from achieving his Ph.D., Glover envisions teaching at a small liberal arts college, where “students have the opportunity to develop close academic and interpersonal relationships with professors, as I did with Professor Foy. That greatly impacted my academic success at Swarthmore and at grad school.” A college like Swarthmore, he says, “really functions as a community, and everyone is looking out for one another and also holding everybody accountable.” Glover also could see himself following the path of two members of Swarthmore’s original Mellon cohort, Sean Decatur ’90, newly inaugurated president of Kenyon College, and Garikai Campbell ’90, new provost at Morehouse College. “Seeing them in administrative positions helps me see that I too might become a president or provost of a college,” Glover says. Glover wasn’t the only MMUF alumnus this fall eager to give back. Sa’ed Atshan ’06 gave a talk on humanitarian politics in the Palestinian Territories, at the invitation of his Mellon Mays mentor, Farha Ghannam, associate professor of anthropology. A newly minted Harvard Ph.D. in anthropology and Middle Eastern studies who attended a Quaker school in Ramallah on the West Bank before Swarthmore, Atshan is a postdoctoral fellow at Brown University. “What the [MMUF] program does is allow you to believe in yourself, that you can go to a great grad school and earn a doctorate, and you can become a scholar,” Atshan says. “I hope to inspire and mentor other minority students to believe in themselves. It’s such a privilege.” Support for Mellon Mays fellows doesn’t end when they start Naimba Baskerville ’14 presents findings from her summer research during a fall graduate school, he points out. Funds for books, research, and travel meeting of Swarthmore’s Mellon Mays fellows. to attend retreats centered on dissertation proposal writing and preparation for joining the professoriate as well as meetings with two weeks earlier to see the Tony Award-winning production at MMUF alumni from around the nation are available. Philadelphia’s Walnut Street Theater. Since it began in 1988, the MMUF program has expanded to “We go to a cultural event each semester,” Foy explains. In the include 39 institutions and a consortium of 39 historically black case of In the Heights, “We discussed the meaning of the play, how colleges and universities in the United States; since 2001, the it worked and connected to what is happening in the world.” Foy program has also added three South African universities. More also holds program meetings with the fellows five times a semester, than 4,000 undergraduates have been selected as fellows, and 60 addressing topics such as preparing graduate school applications, percent continue to graduate school, with 35 percent entering Ph.D. crafting statements of purpose, and preparing for the Graduate programs. There are currently more than 650 fellows pursuing Record Exam. doctoral degrees. To date, more than 500 fellows have earned Ph.Ds., “I get a lot of personal satisfaction from showing the students and 60 of those have earned tenure. the options and joys of an academic career,” Foy says. “I’m doing for The Mellon Mays program is working especially well for others what was done for me as an undergrad. It’s really stimulating Swarthmore, Foy notes, proudly ticking off the latest statistics— and inspiring to work with such remarkable young fellows.” Staying “29 Ph.D. recipients in the past 24 years, which means that of our connected with and continuing to advise past mentees, like Glover, 96 fellows who are five or more years beyond graduation, 30 percent also is gratifying. have earned doctorates since the inception of the program.” Glover’s October campus visit had a two-pronged purpose—to Reflecting on the now 25-year-old program, Swarthmore’s first further explore the musical and talk about graduate school. “I had fellowship coordinator, Chuck James, says, “I’m impressed with a lot of fun sharing my love of musical theater with them and also how the program has worked out for us from the outset. I like the learning from them,” Glover says. “I also did an exercise where we did seductive aspect of it. It seduces by incentive, motivation … and a close reading of a paragraph from an academic essay about musical some funds.” g

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29-31_MellonMays_3rd.indd 31 12/13/13 9:25 AM Thanks for the emories

Two college friends reflect on campus life during the 1930s

By Carol Brévart-Demm

Anne Bowly Maxfield and Gertrude “Trudy” Bell, graduates of the Class of 1934, have been friends for 80 years. Although understandably less physically fit and nimble than in their college days, their memories are remarkable, their demeanor playful, and their humor infectious. They are both quite beautiful. And they are both 100 years old. Anne and Trudy were members of what Anne described as a “Depression” class. “We were lucky to be in college, which was a pretty ivory-towered existence then,” Anne wrote in a 1994 reunion questionnaire.

This fall, the two centenarians and their daughters— Betsy Maxfield Crofts ’63 and Barbara Bell Seely ’67, who served very nicely as prompters—spent an hour reminiscing at Pennswood Village, a retirement community in idyllic Bucks County, Pa., where Anne lives. Trudy lives in Blue Bell, Pa. “College fees at the time were $900 plus $50 for books,” Anne said. “Some students held down jobs and lived at home to finance their Swarthmore education.” H. Craig Bell ’34, the young man Trudy later married, now deceased, was one of them. “My father commuted from Glenolden by trolley to school every day,” said Barbara. “His parents made him come home to dinner every day, so he missed most of the weekday after-dinner activities.” Of course, the College has changed dramatically since Anne and Trudy were students. But of the 59 buildings on campus today, 24 existed when they were cour tesy of the maxfield f amil y students, notably the College Building (now Parrish Above: Anne Bowly Maxfield ’34 takes a break with her two friends Hall), where meals were served in the space currently Marcia Lamond Moxey ’33 and Marion Hirst ’34. Right: Gertrude Mitchell occupied by the student lounge and the post office); Bell (left) and Anne Bowly Maxfield were happy to see each other for a the Science Building (now Trotter Hall); Sproul lunchtime get-together. Photo by Laurence Kesterson. Observatory; Hicks, Papazian, and Wharton halls; Mary Lyon’s four original buildings; Bond Hall and had so many good professors. And I knew both the the Lodges; Fraternity Row; and Worth Hall, where all Blanshards. They were very popular. Brand Blanshard senior women lived. taught philosophy, and his wife, Frances Blanshard, was Anne was one of the earliest students in the Honors dean of [women of] the College.” Program, recently created by President Frank Aydelotte. Trudy, an English literature major interested in A French major who minored in philosophy and political science, reminisced about a new young history and graduated Phi Beta Kappa, she said, “We English professor, who, in his first year of teaching,

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32-34_MaxfielBell_4th.indd 33 12/13/13 9:56 AM Above: Gertrude Mitchell Bell’s Halcyon portrait. Right: Smiling and handsomely clad, ladies from the 1930s, including Anne Bowly Maxfield (third from right), pose in front of the College cloister.

was chronically late to class. “We’d been told they liked the sport but were not good at it. but not selected, which, Anne said, was the that if a professor didn’t come after a certain Anne enjoyed organizing, so had little reason that she was instrumental in their length of time—five minutes or so—we time to “be social,” she said. Involved in being abolished, along with Molly Yard ’33, a could leave,” she said. “So we sat and watched activities such as managing the swim team feminist activist who later served as president the clock, then as soon as the time had (“I didn’t swim, though; I just managed.”), of the National Organization for Women. passed, we rushed out of the classroom,” she she also oversaw the campuswide “Abolishing the sororities was a major added gleefully. distribution of The Phoenix and was a event,” Anne added. Unlike today, all finals examiners—not member of the Halcyon staff, the French only those for honors students—came from Club, and GWIMP, an athletics managers’ After graduation, followed by a secretarial outside the College, Anne and Trudy said. “I society for women’s sports, whose male course for Anne and a master’s in library almost didn’t graduate,” Trudy joked. “My counterpart was KWINK. science for Trudy, they worked: Trudy as a examiner asked a question that I couldn’t Both women were members of Phi librarian and Anne as a secretary at George answer, then I remembered I’d done some Mu, one of several campus sororities and School, where she met her future husband outside reading and realized that was what fraternities. William as well as “Jim” Michener ’29, a the question was about,” she laughed, going “One of the best things about being in a teacher there at the time. on to explain that as a graduate of George sorority,” Trudy said, “was that if a girl met In her reunion notes on life at School—a well-known Quaker high school a boy she liked, she could invite him to a Swarthmore, Anne, who served as class in Bucks County, hundreds of whose dance.” This was how she met Craig Bell. secretary from 1985 to 2007, wrote: “We graduates have populated the Swarthmore “I asked Craig to a sorority dance and produced at least two college presidents, campus—she received automatic admittance then to a Phi Mu weekend outing to the New [James Perkins and T. Noel Stern]; at least to the College, while Anne applied through Jersey shore that the sorority had organized. two peace activists as well as a top-notch normal channels. Later, I married him,” Trudy said. designer and executive for Boeing, doctors, “Anne got As, though,” Trudy said. “I On the whole, College romance was not professors, teachers, coaches, librarians, never got an A in my life,” she added, eliciting so very different from today. Most students social workers, homemakers, bankers, a chuckle. had little money to spend so looked for lawyers, public relations consultants, “I did get As, but that was because my inexpensive ways to have fun. business executives, authors, at least one mother was a teacher,” Anne countered “We walked in Crum Woods,” Trudy exhibited artist, a television producer and modestly. mentioned. “It was a good place to go if you executive, and many community volunteers. “We weren’t athletic, were we?” Trudy wanted a date but didn’t have any money.” “We were a productive class, no doubt asked her friend. Although sorority life was fun, both Anne privileged and fortunate, but a good group,” “Oh, no, but we all had to take field and Trudy felt bad for those young women Anne said. g hockey as freshmen,” Anne replied. Both said who were interviewed for membership

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32-34_MaxfielBell_4th.indd 34 12/13/13 9:56 AM raditions Th s T en a pu nd am N C o w

a dusty dive into yellowing copies of ‘The Phoenix’ inspires a whimsical and vibrant jaunt through history

By Carrie Compton Illustrations by Rowan Barnes-Murphy

Book and Key Society on the first Thursday of May. According to an Oct. 8, 1957, Phoenix article, the entire student body would gather in front of Parrish to “I remember the induction of members of Book and Key, when a ghastly observe, while every seven minutes a Book and Key member would hand came out the door and pulled the new member in.” rush into the crowd and tap a junior until seven had been selected. —Andy Wilcox Palmer ’51 Selection seems to have been based on each man’s An eerie and windowless pyramid once stood at the end of other campus leadership Whittier Place on Elm Street. What happened inside was unknown positions: members were to all but seven senior men. This was Swarthmore’s secret Book and usually captains of sports Key Society, which endured from 1906 to 1966. The club, founded by teams, student council Morris L. Clothier, Class of 1890, and Howard Cooper Johnson, Class members, or fraternity of 1896, was consciously modeled on secret societies at Yale. officers. Masses gathered The Temple, as the Egyptian-style clubhouse came to be known, a week later in front of the was paid for by Clothier, and in 1906, the first seven “bookies” were Temple to watch as initiates initiated. Club members were known to get up from the dining hall lined up. at seven minutes to 7 each Thursday night to begin a silent, strange “A crashing of chains, a procession to the Temple for their weekly meeting. Each spring, rumbling of gears, and the door seven juniors were selected by outgoing members during “tap night,” would inch open,” says the 1957

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35-38_Traditions_4th.indd 35 12/13/13 10:00 AM Phoenix article. “A grotesque white hand would reach out and snatch Hechler created the Garnet Marching Band, a tradition that is much [a new member] into the Temple.” mentioned by its members in Swarthmore reunion yearbooks from Once inside, initiation rites were arcane spectacles, with ornate classes in the next three decades. handshakes and oaths recited from memory. Blindfolded throughout By the mid–’70s, however, the band, then called the Swarthmore the initiation, Ed Mahler ’50 remembers the ominous sound of Marching Society, had become the College’s version of a “scramble running water in The Temple and then staying up all night to ring a band,” a movement popular in Ivy League schools in the ’60s, which gong at the top of the building every hour. rebelled against the regimented formation of traditional marching The accelerated wartime program at the College and the bands, Jim Rupert ’79 recalls. Instead of marching, students proliferation of veterans after World War II dealt the club a blow performed music to wacky skits at halftime and, according to Rupert, from which it never recovered. Soon, enthusiasm for membership “once ran formations to illustrate a sperm fertilizing an egg.” and the closely held secrecy waned, opening the organization to Not surprisingly, the football players, trying to recover from what fierce scrutiny. With an ever-more-unified student body, tap night was then the longest losing streak in American collegiate sports (36 and elaborate initiations long gone, the club struggled to attract straight games), did not appreciate any additional follies on the membership. No new members were tapped in 1957, much to field, Rupert says; by 1976 the band was being budgeted a scant $150 the chagrin of the Temple Trust Association, composed of mostly per year, according to The Phoenix. Tom Lapinski began his tenure “bookie” alumni. The group stagnated for nearly 10 years before as coach in the late ’70s, turning the team around and bringing selling the clubhouse to Swarthmore for $1 and donating its Swarthmore into the national rankings by the early ’80s. By then remaining assets to the College. The building, windowless and out of there was no band to herald the victory. code, was razed in 1967 leaving behind the empty lot that remains to this day. The Folk Festival The Marching Band “Dress styles … were tame “Some of my fondest memories are of the small marching band we compared to what was soon to had—some 28 marchers. At the Haverford game my freshman year, we come, but there was enough were determined to be on TV, so with the players all lined up and ready informality [at Swarthmore’s to go, down the muddy field we came—I even temporarily lost a shoe.” Folk Festival] to arouse negative —Barbara Hill Lindsay ’54 reactions. Most notably, many of the young visitors, both male and Swarthmore’s marching band was remembered by Bill Hirsch ’49 female, wore blue jeans.” as a ragtag team of shoeless musicians with a sprinkling of stringed —Ralph Lee Smith ’51 instruments among their ranks. An email to his class quickly set “If I Had a Song,” the Bulletin, the record straight: Memories poured forth of organized—and March 1997 yes, shoed—musicians adroitly providing all the necessary Sousa selections to back up the Garnet on the gridiron. Swarthmore students’ love The first of the marching bands on campus began in 1928, for music found its official footing in February 1940 according to the 1929 Halcyon. By 1929, the band had “improved when a women’s physical-education teacher organized a barn dance greatly,” and garnet cloaks and berets were purchased. However, on campus. The wild popularity of the event gave way to weekly by Ken Hechler ’35’s freshman year in 1931, the band was again instructional classes on leading and teaching square and folk dancing, nonexistent, so he was permitted to write all incoming which would satisfy the phys ed requirement. Enthusiastically, that men in the Class of 1937 to bring their class had a mission to create a music festival for campus, which led to instruments if they were the first Folk Festival in May 1945 featuring Richard Dyer-Bennet. musicians. In the next decade, the event and the renown of the performers “Dean of Women grew exponentially, featuring acts like Leadbelly, Woody Guthrie, Frances Blanchard eyed me Pete Seeger, and Jean Ritchie. By 1955, attendance exceeded 2,700, coldly as though I was a sex and while the audience was never unruly, having so many campus maniac,” Hechler wrote in visitors—outnumbering the student body by a ratio of 3-to-1—did a May 1993 Bulletin article not sit well with campus officials. Facilities were inadequate for of his attempts to include such large crowds, and administrators couldn’t square the notion of incoming females in his campus resources being devoted to the enjoyment of more outsiders campaign. “I resisted the strong than students. It was decided no Folk Festival would occur in 1956 temptation to observe that I was to allow time to study the issue. Students, irate at not being given only a sax maniac.” representation on the committee formed to examine the festival, were And so it was that in eventually given three places on the committee. Despite their efforts Depression-era Swarthmore, to limit attendance, there was no festival.

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35-38_Traditions_4th.indd 36 12/13/13 10:00 AM The Folk Festival began again in 1957 and was smaller, with more scantily dressed,” opened the door: It was a man! He asked to specifications agreed upon by students and administrators. While the borrow a cake pan, which Lori produced. “That’s some outfit for ensuing folk festivals were widely enjoyed, the yearly tradition came greeting male guests,” Pat said once the door was safely closed. (The to a halt in 1964, giving rise to sporadic folk festivals throughout the “scanty” outfit, adds Lori, was a plain summer nightgown—a gift ’70s and then to the campus’ comparatively short-lived Rock Festival. from her mother.) Today, students continue the Swarthmore passion for communal music through the Large Scale Event, a springtime concert featuring On-Campus Cuisine big names in pop and hip-hop, which in recent years has been large enough to warrant use of the field house. Worthstock, an all-day “I waited tables at the druggie [Michael’s College Pharmacy] on Sunday outdoor music event, is a kielbasa-based picnic featuring local acts morning so I could have bacon sandwiches and grilled cinnamon buns. I on the day after spring classes adjourn. remember the term ‘mystery meatballs’ used in the campus dining hall; we joked about what it actually was, because meat was rationed.” —Verdi Hoag Johnson ’45 Of Curfews and Kleenex Boxes So overextended were the old dining facilities in Parrish, that “Open house was in both boys’ and girls’ dorms on Sunday afternoons. President Courtney Smith once called it “a struggle for survival,” The door had to be open 6 inches (the width of a Kleenex box), and and the Bulletin proclaimed Sharples as “a humane setting,” everyone had to have one foot on the floor at all times.” upon its opening in 1964. —Pat Myers Westine ’61 Overrun or otherwise, the 400-seat Parrish dining Swarthmore’s second president, Edward Magill, infamously banned facilities and its fare are the two sexes from walking the grounds together or “coasting remembered often, not upon the same sled,” in his “100 rules” in 1883. Throughout the always fondly, by alumni ensuing 90 years, the comingling of the sexes created consternation in reunion yearbooks and for administrators and students. By today’s standards, the bygone class notes. Many recall parietals established for dorm life seem archaic—and even butter pats flung at the amusing—but for several decades, these rules dictated much of dining-hall ceiling, and others campus and student life. remember a well-loved game Students would not receive full autonomy over their nightly of removing a coffee-cup-and- comings and goings until 1970—a long and uphill battle for saucer pair from amid a stack students—but in the preceding decades, strict attention was given to of four without toppling the male-female relations. Verdi Hoag Johnson ’45 recalls the institution pairs above or below. of open houses (weekend afternoon hours during which men could “Subbies,” as hoagies were once called on campus, were visit female students’ rooms—doors open, of course), which were outsourced from various off-campus locales, and sold black-market heralded with great fanfare, including style on dorm floors. “An enterprising student would take orders, go formal invitations and all the way to Chester on the bus, and bring back the most wonderful refreshments. Patricia smelly meats-onion-cheeses subby sandwiches,” Betty Chase Odum Clark Kenschaft ’61 recalls ’47 wrote in her reunion yearbook. Other off-campus favorites one man’s expulsion after included the druggie (the local pharmacy) and the Ingleneuk Café, being discovered playing where students held jobs for spending money, and also for the free cards with women in their eats. dorm room after curfew. The “served meal” in Sharples in the ’70s is one indication that Yet, in the ’60s, the rules the College food was meeting muster. Students could sign up to were somewhat relaxed, serve their peers who would make reservations and dine with extra allowing for once-monthly formality in a smaller dining room in Sharples, which back then “3-o’clocks,” which served steak on Saturdays. permitted an elongated By the ’90s, on-campus eats had evolved from mundane to curfew. All women were gourmet, and among an ever-growing foodie culture throughout escorted by their dates back to the dorm for sign-in, their goodbyes America, Paces cooks and bakers were born. supervised by a stern housemother, Agnes, according to Pat Myers “It was almost a competitive sport,” says Lani Seidel Horn ’93 Westine ’61. recounting that their complicated recipes required trips to various Kenschaft explains the stark contrast of modern coed dorm life in Philadelphia markets. Twice a semester, Paces cooks, who normally a memory of visiting her daughter, Lori Kenschaft ’87. A knock came made lighter nighttime fare, would battle shoddy equipment to on her daughter’s door as mother and daughter readied for bed, Pat’s turn out a Sunday brunch. The chefs competed with gladiator- cue to modestly hide under her covers. She watched as Lori, “much like intensity. Burners were either on or off—Horn describes

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35-38_Traditions_4th.indd 37 12/13/13 10:00 AM maneuvering pans above the flames to make way, moving him to the head of the over by SWIL (Swarthmore Warders of adjust temperatures—making brunches “our line. Today, a runner who can cite a quote’s Imaginative Literature), now known as Psi personal Wimbledon,” she writes. Almost source enjoys the same advancement. The Phi, the science fiction and fantasy club. Sampras-like in the kitchen, John Krinsky ’91 book is then slapped shut to begin the race. The tradition grew, both in the number of once received a comment card praising him Amid the brutal 90-degree turns and the participants and the intricacy of its rules. for the salmon quiche Horn had created. She jostling runners, the stacks loom, teeming “We spent endless hours on weekends burst into tears as Krinsky, having with students buying pool noodles, duct tape, and cable planted the card, broke into laughter. who straddle ties to hand wrap the handles of lots and lots “I saved that card with my recipes to and stand on of foam swords,” writes Jillian Waldman ’06, remind myself that cooking should or between the who signed her email as “SWIL loremistress, not be about the ego,” says Horn. bookshelves, former president, and duly elected Akon of Today, students seem to be cheering. Swat.” In her ’dactyl days, she was also known generally satisfied with Sharples fare, The two lead as a wizard, then an oracle, and finally, the though delivery from local pizzerias runners are elusive pterodactyl. or Chinese-food restaurants is awarded a roll Today the hunt calls for three ’dactyls— common. Eateries on Baltimore Pike, of toilet paper each of which are protected by three orc such as Panera or Qdoba, also draw each, in honor guards—which cannot be battled without students—if they can get there. of Thomas hunting licenses, bought with spoils from “If you know someone with a car and McCabe, Class killing monsters. Last year the playing field they’re going out to eat,” says Bulletin of 1915, the engulfed the lower half of Parrish Beach intern David Fialkow ’15, “you do library’s namesake from Sharples to the outdoor tennis courts. whatever you can to get in that car.” and former president of the Scott Paper Once a team of hunters purchases a license, Co. The race still occurs—always with little they can engage a pterodactyl, which is publicity—typically at night during Ride armed with a water gun, sporting a pair of The McCabe Mile the Tide weekend in April for Swarthmore’s huge PVC-supported cardboard wings to newly admitted students, who watch in awe. which targets are attached, and—probably— “You can hear the muted thunder of running blue jeans. Once the targets have been until it’s over. Then sweaty students come up Pterodactyl Hunt knocked from each wing, the hunters can try the stairs, two of whom have huge rolls of toilet to land a direct blow to the ’dactyl’s “armor” paper … ” “I remember one year, a few students from with their “swords.” If they successfully —Mary Ann Wood, McCabe librarian Bryn Mawr and Haverford were on campus manage this, the prehistoric bird must during the hunt and had no idea what was relinquish its heart, which the victors use to Peter Koelle ’79 described it as a “combination happening. They ended up running through redeem their delicious spoils. of the Boston Marathon and the Indie the woods to avoid getting hit by the foam “[SWIL] was a group of friends that 500” in a 1989 Philadelphia Inquirer story; bats.” practiced radical acceptance—the first others have likened it to a roller derby on —Mark Dlugash ’08 place where people thought I was awesome feet. The McCabe Mile, started in 1970 by because of my eccentricities,” says Waldman, Dave Johnson ’73 and Peter Gould ’73, still Swarthmore is probably the only campus who maintains friendships with enough endures, along with its various rites. Fatigued in the world with an orc-hobgoblin fellow SWILlies that she had plenty of places and stir crazy in their McCabe basement rivalry. These are but two from a long list to stay during a recent cross-country road carrels, Gould and Johnson concocted a plan of monsters that pterodactyl hunters will trip. “I learned to be accepted and accept and to stage a race consisting of 18 laps around encounter on their quest for the ultimate nurture others [through SWIL], and the club the stacks. prize: pizza. was a huge part of what made Swarthmore The event quickly gained momentum: The Pteradactyl wonderful for me.” g as participation escalated, contestants Hunt, originally were arranged by class year—freshmen, a joke within the To remark upon these then freshmen who ran cross-country Folk Dance Club, memories or share one of or track, and so on, ending with seniors. has been held your own, please comment Johnson, who presided over many races after yearly since 1982. on this story at bit.ly/ graduation, once found time beforehand to In 1984, the event, SwarthmoreTraditions or browse the stacks, coming across an inspiring which includes email bulletin@swarthmore. quote. While reading it to the queued-up donning trash edu. runners, someone in the back blurted out bags as armor and the source. Johnson says he pronounced the wielding foam bats boy a “true scholar” and told the throng to as swords, was taken

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35-38_Traditions_4th.indd 38 12/13/13 10:00 AM Connections

Group Forms to Empower Black Alumni and Students Ja’Dell Davis ’06 at the Swarthmore Black Alumni Network during Garnet Weekend in October. Photo by Laurence Kesterson What began as an email from Marilyn Courtney Smith House, and lively discussion Holifield ’69 to a small group of friends of what SBAN should become. The event and classmates last spring has become the also attracted student voices. not only the mentor and mentee but the fledgling Swarthmore Black Alumni Network “As a black student at Swarthmore you community of black students and alumni as (SBAN), which held its inaugural event hear about alumni opportunities, like a whole, remarked Jaky Joseph ’06. during Garnet Weekend, Oct. 4–6. internships and externships, but you don’t Expanding the Rubin Scholars, a “There is a wealth of experience out usually see alumni who look like you,” said mentoring program that matches students there that can be supportive of students and Taylor Clark ’16. Having the opportunity from disadvantaged backgrounds with a staff other alumni in the network,” says Holifield, to meet black alumni of all ages, and get a or faculty mentor and provides internship explaining that SBAN plans to support multigenerational perspective on life during opportunities with alumni, is one possible black alumni and students and encourage and after Swarthmore, drew Clark to SBAN fundraising initiative for the organization. intergenerational connections. and motivated her to attend. While the new affinity group focuses Through informal email conversations, In future gatherings, Paul Cato ’14 on identifying the best ways to support the discussion on a Swarthmore Black Alumni hopes to see more of the straightforward College’s black community, it is already Association LinkedIn group, and biweekly and honest discussion of black students’ promoting intergenerational discussions and conference calls, a key group of volunteers, needs and welcome alumni back to campus networking. Reflecting on the day’s events, the SBAN Organizing Committee, emerged. informally to speak with the Swarthmore Clark said, “I connected with black alumni Working closely with alumni relations African-American Student Society or visit across classes, from 1969 graduates to young staff this summer, Sherry Bellamy ’74, Harold the Black Cultural Center (BCC). alumni in a way that I haven’t really seen Buchanan ’69, Kip Davis ’75, Russell Frisby “In the BCC we have all these photos before.” g ’72, and Holifield collected ideas about how of alumni, pictures all the way back to the —Amanda Whitbred black alumni would like to reconnect with ’60s,” Cato said. “I’d like to invite those fellow alumni, students, and the College. alumni back. I want to hear from them For more information about the Swarthmore The inaugural event brought 75 alumni, about the history of the black community at Black Alumni Network, or to get involved, students, parents, faculty, and staff together Swarthmore.” contact Alumni Relations at 610-328-8402 or for panel presentations, a reception at Multigenerational mentorship benefits [email protected].

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39-40_Connections_5th.indd 39 12/13/13 10:11 AM Commitment to Current Students strengthened Swarthmore’s Alumni Council focused its attention on students and student-alumni interaction during its semiannual meeting on campus this fall. Student-alumni connection opportunities were abundant and included mock interviews conducted by council members, a

alden dirks ’16 Liberal Arts Live mixer in Parrish Parlors, a career- networking dinner, an informal Sunday brunch Above: The Alumni Council at the fall meeting. Right: in Sharples, and a concert Alumni in 33 locations welcomed recent graduates featuring the works of and new residents to their cities (including New Haven, Conn., pictured) during the annual Welcome student and alumni to the City event Sept. 28. composers, performed by student and alumni musicians. These events spurred honest discussions All-Alumni Reunion of the role of alumni Weekend in current students’ How many Swarthmoreans does Swarthmore experiences. it take to celebrate the College’s The Alumni Council sesquicentennial? We hope to answer is working closely with that question at this year’s All-Alumni join A Collection of Service Student Council and Reunion Weekend, June 6–8. Wondering how to celebrate Swarthmore’s Career Services to offer experiences that As we celebrate all things 150th birthday in 2014? This April, join will help students prepare for life after Swarthmore, we want to include fellow alumni in Swarthmore’s Collection Swarthmore. Council members bring everyone who’s made the College what of Service. Watch for announcements from firsthand experience of how to turn a it is today. All alumni and guests are Connection chairs and alumni leaders Swarthmore liberal arts education into invited to this landmark occasion in around the world about events that celebrate professional success and hope to share their the College’s history. Let’s make this the Swarthmore’s commitment to the common collective wisdom with students. biggest and best Alumni Weekend ever! good. We will collect photos of our global To foster a discussion on how to Reunite with the senior who was community in action and encourage you to make student-alumni engagement more your friend when you were a sophomore add your photos to the virtual collection. meaningful and mindful, the Alumni but haven’t seen in years. Reconnect Display your Swarthmore pride as you Council welcomed several guest speakers, with a classmate who hasn’t returned to volunteer in your community—on your including President Rebecca Chopp, Vice campus in decades. Witness a historic own or in a group. If you are interested President Maurice Eldridge ’61, Dean of moment in the life of Swarthmore in coordinating an event for local alumni Students Liz Braun, Student Council Co- College. and friends, please email Geoff Semenuk at President Lanie Schlessinger ’15, and Student We have a lot planned for this year— [email protected]. g Outreach Coordinator Aya Ibrahim ’15. from the premiere of a documentary The speakers addressed current campus film on the history of Swarthmore Conversation on the Future of issues, including Title IX compliance and to concerts and parties galore. With the Liberal Arts set for april sesquicentennial celebration planning. rooms reserved around the city, and a Attention, Philadelphia-area alumni: Join By the weekend’s conclusion, inspired schedule loaded with fun and interesting President Rebecca Chopp and Haverford by enthusiastic student participation and events, we will have all your All-Alumni President Daniel Weiss for a discussion of the positive feedback, the Alumni Council Reunion Weekend needs and wishes future of the liberal arts on Tuesday, April decided to deepen its ties to the student covered. All we need now is you! g 1, in Center City Philadelphia. The pair will body more formally. Under the leadership discuss their new book Remaking College: of President David Ko ’92, the council will To learn more visit bit.ly/ Innovation and the Liberal Arts. (See Page 12 consider establishing a student-alumni AlumniWeekend14. for more info.) Watch for invitations to this mentoring program. g joint Swarthmore-Haverford event. g —Deborah How ’89

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39-40_Connections_5th.indd 40 12/13/13 2:54 PM books + arts Food For Thought orson welles dishes up sour grapes

Peter Biskind ’62, My Lunches Although some of Welles’ enmity with Orson: Conversations between toward Charlie Chaplin is affixed Henry Jaglom and Orson Welles, to the idea that Chaplin stole the Metropolitan Books, New York, script for Monsieur Verdoux from 2013, 320 pp. him—Welles received screen credit for the idea about a Bluebeard-like In the midst of one of the many killer, but Chaplin claimed to have midday meals chronicled in My written the screenplay himself—his Lunches With Orson, edited by Peter preference for Buster Keaton and Biskind ’62, Orson Welles starts Harold Lloyd is expressed without venting to his perennial companion, malice. Chaplin he admits, “was the director Henry Jaglom, about absolutely a genius,” but Lloyd was the unpleasant experience of “the greatest gagman in the history reading a biography of the poet of movies,” and Keaton was “more Robert Graves. It’s not that the versatile, more, finally, original.” book was bad, Welles explains, but Whether or not one agrees with “I learned more about him than I Welles’ assessment that John Ford’s wanted to know.” The Searchers was “terrible,” it’s That’s certainly a danger galvanizing to hear him disrupt with Lunches, which finds Welles the accepted canon. (Interestingly, near the end of his career and, one of the Ford pictures he looks unknowingly, his life. (He died in kindly on is How Green Was My 1985; the book’s transcripts begin Valley, which these days is best in 1983.) It’s dispiriting to hear remembered as the movie that beat the director of Citizen Kane and Citizen Kane for the Best Picture Touch of Evil laying plans for new Academy Award.) works and knowing they would In his introduction, Biskind says all come to naught, to hear him that the profligate Welles “needed call King Lear “the part I was born someone to yell, ‘Focus!’ and this to play,” knowing he would never was the mantle Jaglom assumed.” get to play it. To hear Welles over At least on these tapes, it’s a role the course of his periodic meetings at Los thing for Welles to snub Richard Burton, who he plays fitfully, sometimes pushing Welles Angeles’ Ma Maison, captured, purportedly trots over to ask if Elizabeth Taylor might toward potential projects and apparently with his consent, by a tape recorder hidden pay his table a visit, quite another for Welles acting as his agent, at others furthering in Jaglom’s bag, is to eavesdrop on a great to dress down the restaurant’s wait staff for his acidic musings on the likes of Johnny man all but defeated, whittling down his the sin of asking how he’s enjoying his meal. Carson, whom both agree without much more successful colleagues with no small (Jaglom is even worse, equaling Welles’ ill explanation is a plague upon the earth. amount of spite. Depending on your humor with much less justification.) “There can be nothing more sterile than an tolerance for Hollywood dish, this is Welles But Welles can also be spectacularly extended conversation between two people either uncensored or unhinged, asserting eloquent, in criticism and in praise. Of who basically agree,” Welles tells Jaglom at that Josef von Sternberg “never made a Carole Lombard, whom he esteems, he one point. “If we basically disagreed we’d good picture” and disparaging his one-time says, “My God, she was earthy. She looked be getting somewhere.” But even when champion Peter Bogdanovich as a disloyal like a great beauty, but she behaved like a the two were in sync, there was plenty of careerist. Even at his most petty, Welles’ wit waitress in a hash house. That was her style disagreement within Welles himself. g is lethal: He says that Marlon Brando, even of acting, too, and it had a great allure.” at his pre-Apocalypse Now weight, had a neck (For proof of her earthiness, track down —Sam Adams ’95 is the editor of Indiewire’s like “a huge sausage, a shoe made of flesh.” the outtakes from My Man Godfrey, where Criticwire blog and a member The collective bile can be wearisome. It’s one she swears like a sailor with Tourette’s.) of the National Society of Film Critics.

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68-69_Books_3rd.indd 68 12/13/13 10:25 AM Books flood towns and the ones Michael Eric Dyson praises advising dads-to-be to learn that flood human lives. … the author’s clarification things like the language of Leslie Bell ’92, Hard to The very essence of a good of “the shifting intellectual pregnancy and childbirth, Get: 20-Something Women read.” and social anatomy of our burning the baby books, and and the Paradox of Sexual most perplexing national indulging yourself. It even Freedom, University of Stephen Henighan ’84, obsession.” contains a short vocabulary California Press, 2013; A Green Reef: The Impact of of “Terrifying Pregnancy 262 pp. This intimate Climate Change, Linda Leith William Krist ’62, Words of the Day.” examination of the sex and Publishing, 2013; 50 pp. The Globalization and America’s love lives of 20-something author, a successful writer Trade Agreements, Parke Wilde ’90, Food American women reveals of fiction and nonfiction, Woodrow Wilson Center Policy in the United States: the paradox of opportunity offers an essay incorporating Press and The Johns Hopkins An Introduction, Routledge and uncertainty they face as personal memoir and University Press, 2013; 2013; 236 pp. Offering a they traverse the complex daunting scientific evidence 256 pp. Krist examines broad introduction to food landscape of sexual desire to inform readers of the the United States’ intricate policies in the United States, and pleasure. repercussions of global trade agreements of the the author writes for those warming and climate change last 25 years in a way that readers who are concerned Peter Cohan ’79, for life on earth. former Deputy U.S. Trade not only with the economic Hungry Start-up Strategy: Representative Alan Wolff interests of farmers but also Creating New Ventures Tony Holtzman ’55, applauds as “very important with an eye to nutrition, With Limited Resources and Forever Wild, Cloud Splitter and needed.” sustainable agriculture, Unlimited Vision, Berrett- Press, 2013; 257 pp. This the environment, and food Koehler Publishers, 2012; third book in the Adirondack William Matchett ’49, security. 244 pp. Aimed at startup Trilogy continues to bring Airplants: Selected Poems, entrepreneurs, the author history to life, as Holtzman Antrim House, 2013; 108 pp. Gavin Wright ’65, Sharing identifies and analyses presents a stand-alone According to poet William the Prize: The Economics of the areas crucial to being story that serves also as the Merwin, Matchett’s the Civil Rights Revolution in successful: goal setting, conclusion to his riveting poetry [in the tradition of the American South, Harvard market selection, raising novels of the Carter family Wordsworth and Frost] University Press, 2013; capital, team building, and their positions as leading displays “a quiet tone in 353 pp. American economic gaining market share, and citizens of 19th-century a pastoral mode taking its historian Naomi Lamoreaux adapting to change. Franklin County, N.Y. strength and merit from a says that this book alters closeness and fondness for “our understanding of the Clayvon C. Harris ’88, David Chalmers ’49, [Matchett’s] observations of civil rights movement in Year of Trial, Year of Grace And the Crooked Places the living non-human world the South, showing how … — A Catholic’s Search for Made Straight: The Struggle around him.” civil disobedience of black Grace, Angelwalk, 2012; for Social Change in the Southerners … improved the 125 pp. Inspiring and deeply 1960s, The Johns Hopkins John C. Pollock ’64, lives of … whites and blacks. intimate, Harris explores a University Press, second Media and Social Inequality: contemporary perspective edition, 1996, updated Innovations in Community Benjamin Aldes on Catholicism through a 2013; 264 pp. Pulitzer Structure Research, Wurgaft ’00, Jews series of weekly reflections prize-winning author Routledge, 2013; 190 pp. at Williams: Inclusion, interwoven with themes of David J. Garrow calls this Previously a Fulbright Exclusion, and Class at a guilt, scandal, and the power work “an exceptionally Scholar in Argentina, Pollock New England Liberal Arts of prayer. valuable overview of systematically explores College, Williams College the 1960s, replete with the impact of community Press, 2013; 186 pp. This Ethan Hauser ’92, The astute interpretations and inequality on reporting book studies the anti- Measures Between Us, commentary.” political and social change. Semitism, assimilation, and Bloomsbury, 2013; 390 pp. class that governed Jewish World-renowned auth Michael P. Jeffries ’02, Hugh Weber ’00, Dude participation in elite higher or Stephen King regards Paint the White House to Dad: The First 9 Months, education for the first two- Hauser’s book as “a Black: Barack Obama and Familius LLC, 2013; 114 pp. thirds of the 20th century. beautifully written and the Meaning of Race in This father’s guide to completely compelling America, Stanford University transitioning from dude to story about the storms that Press, 2013, 156 pp. Critic dad is hilarious yet wise,

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68-69_Books_3rd.indd 69 12/13/13 10:25 AM in my life Talking So People Will Listen, Listening So People Will Talk

After turning around their own failing relationship, Laurie Gerber ’96 and Will Craig ’96 became coaching gurus

By Laurie Gerber ’96

Sophomore year, 1993, Will Craig ’96 and I met in an education class. We married five years later in the amphitheater. Less than 10 years into our marriage, we lived in Manhattan with two toddlers. I was running a tutoring company, and Will was running a home day care while trying to renovate a townhouse we’d just gone out on a very thin limb to purchase, after the contractor had mysteriously disappeared. We were also having trouble selling the home we lived in to create the cash for the new one. We were pushed to the limits of our love. Even before all those stressors, we had settled A very generous and thoughtful person, Will The husband-and-wife team of marriage coaches, Will into a practical, rather passionless routine. was rather devastated to be so “kicked when Craig ’96 (left) and Laurie Gerber ’96 (center), made TV appearances with Dr. Phil McGraw twice this fall. So when the going got tough, I blamed Will. down.” Right: Laurie and Will celebrated Independence Day I didn’t think of him as my teammate; I Enter the Handel Group, the corporate in 1998 by getting married at the College. thought of him as an incompetent customer- consulting and life-coaching company I had service agent and, at times, an opponent. I originally hired to help me figure out how to was not nice. grow my business and change careers. Now I enough to reveal the truth. He told me that As communication deteriorated, divorce severely needed help with my marriage, and I almost always interrupted him and that it was beginning to cross Will’s mind for the I got it. was akin to a physical assault. He told me he first time. While he was the one handling At the urging of Lauren Zander, inventor had stopped trying to talk to me years ago, the real-estate debacle and crazy renovation, of the Handel Method, I sat down with Will that my interruptions were usually about doing primary care for our kids, and running one afternoon and told him I had a dream of my own anxieties, not about his reason for his own business, my job (other than achieving deep intimacy in our relationship talking with me, and that left him feeling running a business of my own), it seemed, and asked him to tell me why we didn’t totally disrespected. Whoa. was to worry, nag, complain, and undermine. have it. I worked hard to make him feel safe Maybe for the first time, I actually

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70-71_IML_3rd.indd 70 12/13/13 2:59 PM the more I wanted to listen. Turns out he realized that what I really wanted was to had many wise and interesting things to say, teach in the program. Will joined Handel which I had been sadly missing. It was a great shortly after, having wrapped up the in- reawakening for us, stimulating the intimate home preschool he had started. We started connection I’d long desired. Many years as practitioners of the techniques we learned later, I still have to keep the “no interrupting” from Handel, but Will and I are now both promise in the forefront of my mind. How? executives with the company. I have a made-up consequence to go with The principle of personal integrity that we my promise. If I interrupt Will, I have to do now teach in companies and organizations an extra household chore. I rarely forget to all over the world, including MIT, Stanford, listen, because I hate chores! and New York University, demonstrates that Of course, Will had his own work to do— we can align our highest ideals, thoughts, learning to declare his needs, not “martyring” plans, and actions through a system of himself by staying silent. Together, we’ve promises and consequences. It’s simple, but decided to bring our best selves to our startlingly effective. We used it to save our marriage and have become the passionate marriage. partners we, and most people, fantasize We have come to believe there is no more about being. The keys: dreaming, listening, sacred work than the work of love—not love as a concept but as a verb, which we describe as caring about the other person’s experience as much as you do your own. This is the skill we most want our children to have and that we want to continue to hone forever. The “love-ability” we learned through the Handel Method cemented our desire to teach its tools to others. Since 2010, we’ve been working with couples, in addition to coaching corporate executives and individuals around the world. Sometimes we save marriages, and sometimes we help people amicably break up, but we always teach love as a verb. In 2013, Dr. Phil invited us to be the coaches on The Marriage Test, an A&E show he produced. We helped four couples decide if their marriages could be saved. He then brought us on as experts on The Dr. Phil Show. We’ve also written for many publications, including The Huffington Post. Will and I have just celebrated 20 years together and 15 years of marriage. That said, we are still at the beginning of our adventure, still proving that marriage can get deeper listened and let his experience sink in. I telling the truth, admitting our “bad traits,” and hotter over time. Two decades after we flashed to memories of my parents and and connecting them to promises and met in that Swarthmore education class, we brother pointing out my selfishness and consequences. consider our relationship to be very much a other conversations I had derailed to serve Will and I had always been teachers and platform for learning and teaching. g my agenda. I was mortified by my behavior learners. Through the years, in our careers, for the first time, realizing I hadn’t listened to we found that what we most wanted to teach A former special major in political science the feedback others had given me for years. I were the methods that helped us the most. and educational studies, Laurie Gerber ’96 is told Will I would stop interrupting him. We both frequently worked with parents an executive vice president and senior coach Pivotal to the Handel Method is learning and other adults to serve their children’s at Handel Group Life Coaching, a world- to make and keep promises. And I worked academic needs but wanted to help on a renowned coaching company that works with hard to keep mine. The more I listened to more emotional level. I used the Handel people to design and realize their dreams across Will, the more he talked. The more he talked, Method to explore my career options and all areas of life.

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70-71_IML_3rd.indd 71 12/13/13 2:59 PM q + a Renaissance Woman Through teaching—and learning—Professor Patricia Reilly lives the liberal arts

Patricia Reilly breezes into her cluttered Beardsley office one afternoon, gently cradling a steaming teacup. She apologizes for the piles of thick art books, stacked amid framed student artwork, explaining that her Parrish Hall office— where she’s spent the last two of her three- year appointment as associate provost for faculty development—is undergoing renovation. She’s just returned from a faculty mentor lunch, which she gleefully characterizes as “cacophonous” due to the lively interaction between the senior faculty and their younger mentees. During her stint in the provost’s office, Reilly has expanded the scope of the mentoring program and overseen new- faculty orientation, weekly faculty lunches, and other programs that unite and enrich the College’s professoriate. During her 12 years here, the art historian has seen how difficult it is for faculty members to get out of departmental silos to meet, interact, and collaborate. She has made it her goal to help the faculty do just that. This interest in transcending boundaries

is one that is reflected in her personal la urence kesterson history: A Californian by birth, she migrated East—attending Bryn Mawr College for her Liberal Arts—a faculty-driven initiative Patricia Reilly (center) often incorporates making M.A.—to experience the culture. Afterward, arising from the campus Strategic Plan— art into her art history classes. Above, students she made inroads in the contemporary art Reilly has enjoyed a familiar challenge of Natalie Gainer ’15 (left) and Rachell Morillo ’14 work on a mural representing good and bad in the U.S. world working with feminist artist Judy finding a nexus among disciplines to create government as a means of analyzing 14th-century Chicago in the United States and abroad, and a campuswide liberal arts experience. She Italian political artist Ambrogio Lorenzetti. yet she eventually specialized in Renaissance explains her process for uniting people and art. Reilly returned West for a Ph.D. at ideas—in the classroom and beyond—to UC–Berkeley in rhetoric—a department Bulletin writer Carrie Compton. In graduate school I discovered that the that included scholars from disciplines early Renaissance was a period when artists such as film, law, and classics. Throughout, What was your earliest interest in art? started to self-consciously analyze what they Reilly has always sought to elucidate the My mother was very talented; she was were doing and why, especially in relation “interdisciplinary and philosophical interested in drawing and painting, which I to other intellectual and creative activities, underpinnings of the practice and theory of took to naturally as a child. I thought I was such as poetry, music, and mathematics. art.” going to be a studio artist, and then I realized That moment in history is what made me As chair of the steering committee for my gifts were less in making art and more in decide I wanted to become a Renaissance art the newly established Institute for the interpreting and appreciating it. historian.

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72-c3_Q+a_4th.indd 72 12/13/13 10:27 aM I start out by telling them, “every image is get together to offer each other support an argument attempting to persuade you. and wisdom. These groups allow a member If you can analyze how that argument is to lob out a question like, “What kinds of constructed, you can find meaning in a assignments do you find most productive?” work.” I begin by asking students to carefully or “How do you engage a quiet student?” and look at works of art, purely in formal terms, get a variety of answers. These cohorts also thinking about how the image leads the create opportunities for natural affinities and eye. I’ll display two images that depict the friendships to arise. same subject matter, such as a crucifixion— because we talk a lot about Christian art How has your provost’s office appointment in the Renaissance—and analyze how factored into your role in the Institute for the those pieces can be very different in their Liberal Arts committee? interpretations: One might emphasize My work with the Institute for the Liberal Christ’s human suffering, while the other Arts has been one of the most pleasurable emphasizes his relationship to Mary as and rewarding experiences I have had the representative of the church. Once we working here, and I’ve had a lot of great analyze the vocabulary of the image we then experiences. The institute was created to discuss the role of the patron, the “period inspire the quality and inventiveness of eye” of the viewer, and then all the cultural, Swarthmore College’s liberal arts practices political, and social meanings that are and to promote the understanding of the deposited in that painting. liberal arts on a national and international stage. It nurtures the dynamic intellectual What is your goal for students to take away community of the Swarthmore College from that experience—in a larger liberal arts faculty. Our faculty are so dedicated, sense? innovative, smart, and creative, and the I want students to know the importance of institute provides them with the support understanding an image on its own terms, they need to collaborate with one another. rather than through preconceived and And all of this goes right into the classroom. contemporary notions. Works of art, like An example of this is the faculty seminar people, are complicated, and they require on poverty and inequality, which is made up viewers to step out of their comfort zones of colleagues in economics, biology, religion, and expectations in order to understand history, philosophy, sociology and other them. By discussing images in groups, disciplines. Together these faculty members students come to understand one another as are investigating how different disciplines much as the image. They come to appreciate approach and interpret these topics and are different perspectives, both literally and using this knowledge to inform their own metaphorically. I often say, “If we could just teaching and research. Next year the institute have representatives of warring countries will sponsor a faculty seminar on pedagogy, stand in front of a painting and talk about where six pairs of faculty will sit in on each it, they would realize how many experiences other’s classes during the semester. The 12 Is Renaissance-era art your favorite? and values they actually share.” will also meet in a seminar to discuss best My favorite kind of art is art that draws Another important skill I hope my practices in teaching, coach each other, you in and says, “I am a sophisticated students take away is the ability to critically and bring in outside sources. These faculty pictorial solution to a perceptual and analyze an image. We live in a culture where seminars allow colleagues to work across intellectual puzzle—a deposit of aesthetic images are a primary source of information departments, and they create a community choices and historical, religious, and social and persuasion, and yet, visual intelligence is of faculty who share with, learn from, and circumstances.” I like art that invites you to not something they are taught in school. inspire each other. The institute provides the work with it to puzzle those things out. For structure and support necessary for these me, the Renaissance is the most fun period in Talk about your stint as the associate provost important activities to happen. which to do this, because I know that world for faculty development. In sum, the idea for the Institute came so well. There are many elements of this position that out of a faculty desire for these kinds I find engaging. One is the faculty mentor of opportunities and my being on the How are you able to get students to program. I’ve added a more social element to committee as associate provost was a perfect contextualize art with presumably little the traditional pairings by creating mentor fit. I’m very happy to say that I was in the specialized knowledge of an era? cohorts of five mentor/mentee pairs that right place at the right time. g

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72-c3_Q+A_4th.indd 73 12/13/13 10:27 AM Selected Sesquicentennial Events

Jan. 22 Happy 150th!—Swarthmore Open House: music, dessert, McCabe Library display Feb. 22 Symposium: The Future of the Liberal Arts, featuring alumni in leadership positions in higher education March 1–2 Pig Iron Theater Co. production: Tweflth Night April 7 Reading: Author Toni Morrison June 1 April 18 Commencement Presentation: Queering Swarthmore History—Three Glimpses of the Past by June 6–8 Alumni Historians All-Alumni Sesquicentennial Reunion Weekend/ premiere of documentary film on the spirit of the College by Shayne Lightner ’87

This is just a sampling of what’s on tap during our sesquicentennial year. Please check out our special sesquicentennial website at swat150.swarthmore.edu.

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