Sometimes I skim the table of contents before reading the Class Notes. But tonight, Jeffrey Lott’s “Parlor Talk” quote caught my eye before I got to the Notes.
He raises good, important issues about the kinds of news we submit to Class Notes. I remember mulling over such issues a while ago before and during a [...]
I’m a history major in the Class of 2011, and my pet project over the last year has been writing a column about Swarthmore College history for our online newspaper, the Daily Gazette. You can check out my articles at http://daily.swarthmore.edu/opinions/garnet-stories/. Past topics have included Swarthmore during World War II, a history of Sharples Dining [...]
Carol Brevart-Demm’s article in the July 2010 Bulletin celebrates Rebecca Chopp’s inauguration as Swarthmore’s first woman president. But in summarizing one of the themes of the inauguration, Brévart-Demm hauls forth an outdated, sexist locution, “man’s centuries-long disrespect for nature and his fellow men.” There seems, on careful re-reading, to be no editorial necessity for this [...]
Your July inauguration issue was just dandy. But which of your photographers took the cover photo and the photo on page 24? Whichever, please relay my congratulations. Although both photos make President Chopp look like a young woman (at least in my eyes), are you aware of the fact that, as of her/his inauguration date, she [...]
I happened to see President Rebecca Chopp on a local TV news program a few days before her May 8 inauguration. She talked about being on campus for almost a year before taking office. She answered a question about being Swarthmore’s first female president and talked about her vision for the future.
She struck me as [...]
I enjoyed reading the Q+A with Director of Psychological Services David Ramirez “What Does David Ramirez Know About Failure?”, April Bulletin). I especially liked his comment about tolerating or “being with” students and what they are feeling—not to be put off by it when they share their pain.
After being in a therapeutic process, many children [...]
While reading Jeffrey Lott’s article on the teaching of art history (“A Survey in Progress,” April Bulletin), I came upon a curious reference to “barrel gauging,” which was defined as “the ability to estimate the volume of a container—a vital mercantile skill in an era of nonstandard barrels.” Lott reports that artists of the Renaissance, [...]
Jeffrey Lott’s “A Survey in Progress” touches upon many issues that cannot adequately be addressed in a letter to the editor. However, as the social and historical biases of the history of art are being called into question, new ones seem to be sneaking in through the back door. The most glaring of these is [...]
In the April 2010 issue, we asked for readers’ assistance in identifying the five young women pictured with Mary Lois Broomall Eberle, 1940 May Day queen, in the photo that opened the Class Notes section of the magazine. Several classmates—primarily from classes in the 1940s—enthusiastically provided their input on the identities of the young women [...]
As economics majors, we write in response to your recent article on the economist and Swarthmore graduate Dean Baker ’80 (“Bubblebuster,” January 2010). Although we have more than one quibble with the article, we seek to clarify one particular point of fact. The article asserts that during Baker’s time at Swarthmore, the economics department was [...]