Spring 2025 Series

The Swarthmore Discussion Group will hold its spring series at The Inn at Swarthmore. The series will consist of four monthly Wednesday evening presentations in January, February, March and April.  All presentations include a catered dinner.

JAN. 15, 2025

Highly Selective Admissions and Access: Mission Impossible?

Jim Bock '90,
Vice President and Dean of Admissions, Swarthmore College

Confidence in American higher education has never been lower, and with costs always increasing, many question the value of residential colleges and liberal arts degrees. Between concerns about the role of standardized testing, the end of race-conscious admission, and the impending demographic decline, it’s a contentious time to be working in highly selective admissions. In this talk, Bock will share what attracted him to the profession, why the mission of highly selective colleges has never been more important, and how Swarthmore Admissions navigates the challenges of promoting access while building an incoming class.

Feb. 19, 2025

Murder in a Mill Town

Bruce Dorsey,
Professor of History, Swarthmore College

Murder in a Mill Town presents history as true crime, recalling the tale of sex, violence, and religion that lead to the nation’s first “trial of the century” in 1833. Dorsey will consider how criminal justice works in a participatory democracy, and examine how notorious crimes provoke doubts about whether the courts, the criminal justice system, or other forms of collective justice can be trusted to hold people accountable for crimes when political forces, especially populist sentiments, push and pull at the levers of justice and punishment.

March 19, 2025

Deciphering the alphabet of contemporary lipidology: what letters should I ask about at my next visit?

Dan Soffer, Cardiology, Internal Medicine, Penn Medicine, President National Lipid Association

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) remains the most common cause of death in the U.S. and for most of the planet. The most common cause of CVD is atherosclerosis (plaque in the arteries). For more than 100 years, scientists and clinicians have debated the central cause(s), and this public debate has led to misunderstanding, confusion, hyperbole, and misdirection. This conversation is meant to clarify and define what individuals and their families need to know when receiving health care.

April 9, 2025

A Political Cartoonist Tells All

Signe Wilkinson, Political Cartoonist

Wilkinson has skewered politicians and other powerful miscreants for decades, first in the Philadelphia Daily News and then in the Philadelphia Inquirer. She will share “how a nice little Quaker girl grew up to be an attack cartoonist” and promises to tell all from her 40-year career, which includes being the first woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning.