In a letter dated March 21^st to Claremont McKenna College President Pamela Gann and Dean of Faculty Gregory Hess, CMC’s history department and 45 faculty members of the consortium called the process “forced de-accessioning” – a deeply harmful and permanent discarding of some of the library’s print collection.  The letter reads that the professors “can neither understand nor approve a process that amounts to a yearly ‘slaughter of the innocents.’”

Dealing with desperate capacity issues and a myriad of other setbacks, library administrators have instituted a more vigorous process of de-accessioning.  Faculty around the college, including CMC’s Literature, Philosophy, and Economics departments, raised objections to various forms of downsizing in addition to the History department.  Many believe the policy neglects the integrity of the library and is detrimental to the consortium’s students and academics.

The de-accessioning of the print collection coincides with a move to decrease the number of online journals to which the library digitally subscribes.  With the downsizing, the Robert Day School of Economics (RDS) is losing access to important digital data sets published in several prominent journals and have voiced concern.

Philosophy faculty around the consortium are also drafting a letter of discontent.  Professor Paul Hurley, who teaches philosophy at CMC, explained that the, “proposed cutbacks include many journals without which it would simply be impossible to do effective research in philosophy, including several ‘top ten’ journals.”  CMC’s Literature Department has also drafted its own separate letter to the library.

Origins of the Crisis

Honnold, as early as 1988, was aware of the impending capacity issues.  With a collection of over 2 million volumes, Honnold has been, by some estimates, officially over capacity for eleven years.  Before the financial crisis, library officials developed a plan to build a permanent storage facility capable of holding up to 40% of the collection that would prevent any drastic measures of weeding (another commonly used euphemism for the discarding of books).  As the economy turned south, Professor Bill Alves of Harvey Mudd College and the chair of the Advisory Board for Library Planning (ABLP) explained, those plans were abandoned as budgets were cut.

The library is currently 150,000 books over capacity. “Our position,” says library administrator John McDonald, “is that we need [to] deaccession approximately 20,000-40,000 books per year to slowly get down to capacity and to provide space for the more than 10,000-15,000 books we buy every year.”  In the past month, faculty reviewers have deemed about 15,000 of the 37,000 books on review for this round of de-accessioning too valuable to discard.

While professors and students may have only found out about the “de-selection” of books this spring, the underlying tensions and problems are rooted in years of library policy decisions and consortium development strategy.

In 2007, the library administrators, without student or faculty involvement, notes Alves, created the Library Task Force Report.  The ABLP holds only an advisory role – CUC makes library policy, which is then approved by college presidents and deans.  The report echoed the plan to move 40% of the books off site, a plan that was put on hold during the 2008 financial crisis.  The report also called for an “expansion of user space” – a policy that drove the renovation of the first floor periodical shelves into the library café.  While increasing the study and social space of the library is a great boon for the consortium, it was intended to coincide with permanent and accessible off site locations that could hold over capacity books.  When that was canceled, the library, partially in reaction to the Claremont president’s 2007 endorsement of expanding “social space” at the library, forged ahead – further restricting Honnold-Mudd’s capacity.

In fall of 2009, the library began to downsize its collections of print journals.  Alves explained, “no one knew about it…[it had] faculty in an uproar.”  Most print journals, however, are also available online in various databases – JSTOR, Lexis Nexis, etc.  The library, at least digitally, still provides access to some of these journals.  But even that, is a tenuous excuse, especially when the library has begun to eliminate several digital subscriptions and discard almost 40,000 books. When Honnold’s books, many out of print or hard to find, are discarded, it is very likely they are gone forever, explained Professor Hamburg, a history professor at CMC.

Compounding the problem, the consortium, out of financial concerns, chose to close its satellite libraries in Spring of 2009.  This included two science libraries at Pomona and Mudd, as well as Scripps’ Denison library at the time.  Denison was spared until further measures could be taken, but that did not even come close to alleviating capacity issues in Honnold.  In addition, the library began to merge the Science library collections during the Summer of 2009 while also selecting books that were to be discarded, explained McDonald.

The Controversy

The library developed a time line for de-accessioning, but the ABLP was not aware of it until 2010.  The library’s space issues had grown so tight that for every new book purchased, an old one had to be removed directly off the shelves.  There was no longer any storage space left to hold over-capacity texts and the ABLP developed protocol that allowed for faculty review of the books chosen for de-selection.

Mr. McDonald explains the library set up a faculty review period of the de-selected books for January 2011-April 2011.  However, Professor Rosenbaum, a previous member of the ABLP and now sitting on a separate committee tasked with hiring a new Vice President for the Library, explains that CMC’s history department did not find out about the upcoming forced de-accessioning until a week or so before spring break.

McDonald, in an email, was adamant that the library had taken the necessary measures to inform the faculty of the upcoming de-accessioning.  “I cannot say why the History Department would say they only found out about it in the past month,” referring to the month of March.  However, Cody, Rosenbaum, and Hamburg all attest that they found out very recently – after the books had been selected and moved off site in preparation.  Professors can visit the Records Center to review the books and the library has created an online portal for browsing the candidates for de-selection.  Yet with tens of thousands of books on the intellectual chopping block and only limited time as a result of communication errors, many faculty feel that such steps are not adequate for what they see as a direct threat to our academic library.

This communication gap between the faculty and library, as well as students, is an ongoing issue.  There are, Alves explains, “problems aside from money,” underwriting the current round of problems.  The ABLP was created to combat faculty unhappiness with the library and recommend policy or planning options, but the board alone cannot dictate library policy.  When the board asked the library to delay de-accessioning, the library agreed at first, opting to move the candidates for de-selection to an off-site storage space until the faculty review period was over.

Mr. McDonald explains, “We leased the largest possible space we could find in April 2009.”  This space, the CUC Records Center in Upland, holds various consortium files and briefings and is now full.  Until a compromise on the de-accessioning process is reached, the library has determined it will no longer be leasing additional space for financial reasons.  While storage space itself in the Inland Empire may be affordable, the facility would require a staff and there would be numerous perceived logistical problems in moving some of the collection to the new site – whereas now it can be kept all together at one off-site location.

Faculty Pushback

Every professor I spoke with agreed that routine de-accessioning is a legitimate practice at all libraries.  However, this forced de-accessioning of such a large number of books is dangerous. Hamburg explains, “the crisis is just beginning.”

De-accessioning is severely harmful in several ways for the consortium, however it is perhaps the History department that will bear the brunt of the process.   Historians need the library’s physical collection for research, and valuable books are being lost.  Professors Rosenabum, Selig, Hamburg, and Cody (all CMC faculty) have all remarked that they discovered rich and important primary and secondary texts within the group of books that may soon be discarded.  While these professors can now flag a book as valuable and remove it from the pool, they can only do so in their field of expertise.  With 150,000 books over capacity, the consortium does not have enough academics to pour over each crop of candidates for de-selection every year.

Alves, and many others, noted there is significant opposition to these arguments.  Many, in the 21^st century, think digital books can replace traditional print media.  This is, to some degree, the case with journals and archival newspapers, explained Hamburg.  However, the same cannot be said for books.  For one, the possibility of the all-digital library is still years away.  Private corporations like Google have undertaken the beginnings of a such a process, but it is far from replacing the value of a book and the importance of cataloguing knowledge by context and not searchable keywords.  The History department’s letter states, “we are not living in the ‘radiant future’ of the all-digital library, but in the here-and-now of a library that has precious, and in our view irreplaceable sets of books, collected at great cost in a plan initiated with the foundation of Pomona College more than a century ago.”

There are also pragmatic arguments for maintaining an extensive physical collection and only conservatively downsizing duplicate or obsolete books.  For one, a strong library is key in attracting top tier faculty – the type of faculty that publish nationally recognized books and journal articles.  This sort of publicity will not only appeal to faculty but also attract elite students and perhaps contribute to a higher school ranking.

The Road Ahead

Despite the many problems with de-accessioning, the process, according to Dean Hess and John McDonald, will continue.  The library decided to delay execution of the plan until May 27^th to allow for further faculty review and consideration.  Yet, all signs point to a continuation of a de-accessioning of the collection at the abnormal and damaging rate determined a year ago.  The faculty that signed the History department’s letter called for an immediate moratorium on the process.  This request, however, has been denied by the library and the deans at consortium colleges.  Additionally, the letter requested the leasing of additional off-campus space to offer a long-term solution.  This request is still under consideration.

The library and CUC, explains John McDonald, is pursuing a permanent solution in order to bring a stop to the damage.  However, no tangible timeline exists and the nature of the library at a consortium – where no one takes direct ownership – does not point to any immediate financial backing for an on or off site expansion.  While a permanent solution may be a ways off, permanent damage to the consortium is not.  Research opportunities, academic reputation, educational abilities for the undergraduate students in all disciplines, and an already stressed relationship between the library and faculty could all be highly detrimental as the library continues to downsize its print collection and number of online journal subscriptions.

“The Analyst Papers,” named in honor of CMC’s first student newspaper, the Analyst, is a five-part series published by the Forum, the official student publication of Claremont McKenna College.

For the first time, the history of Claremont McKenna has been brought online. The Analyst Papers has been published in the form of five accessible articles, with the aim of navigating through years of characters, monuments, and obstacles. CMC’s history is a short one, but a good one, and few know much of it. To learn it is to better understand what CMC stands for, its challenges and its future.

In 1996, the Trustees of CMC commissioned California historian Kevin Starr to write a book commemorating the College’s first fifty years. His remarkable work, “Commerce and Civilization: Claremont McKenna College, 1946-1996”, has been a key source for this series.

Additionally, CMC’s Development Office has opened the College’s archives to Forum staff for this project. We thank them, as well as the CMC Alumni Association, for access to primary sources and first-hand interviews.

Part I: The Founding: An Idea, Long Before a College

Part II: CMC’s Conservative Heart

Highlights in Part III:

· CMC’s campus mirrors the school’s founding philosophy, as well as the conditions in California that existed as it was developed. North Quad in particular represents a unique space on its own terms, personifying the school’s founding struggles.

· Within its first four years, the school grew from six prefabricated units to an early draft of North Quad, with CMC’s four most iconic dorms standing erect.

· The Athenaeum, an idea first concocted in 1968 by Donald McKenna, was not completed as a space until 1983 – giving the campus an intellectual mantlepiece.

Part IV: Claremont Men’s College, with Women

Part V: Our Place in the Liberal Arts

____________

Part III

The Challenge of the Campus

While CMC's first students lived in the basement of Bridges Auditorium, dormitories that the College first called its own were vet units, pictured here in 1947.

In June of 1946, Robert Bernard made a judgment call.  Gordon Kaufmann, architect behind the primary Scripps College Quad and Harper Hall, had just completed his preliminary drawings for Honnold Library.  Bernard, a founding trustee, was planning on sharing these drawings with Marie Rankin Clarke – a wealthy and generous philanthropist who had expressed interest in the Group Plan.  George Martin, another trustee, had warned Bernard not to ask Clarke for money on behalf of the new men’s school, but rather to approach her as an emissary for the entire consortium. But Bernard, before bringing the drawings to Ms. Clarke’s room at the Biltmore, asked Kaufman to sketch in the hopeful foundations of CMC’s campus to the East of Honnold.

Up to that point, the only plans for a Claremont Men’s College campus were six prefabricated buildings, acquired as a result of a housing surplus at an Army Air Force Base in Santa Ana.  Called “hubs,” these units lived on as the original nickname for the Student Union and, now, The Hub. President Benson had purchased these units through the Federal Public Housing Authority – another New Deal program vital to the anti-New Deal boosters of the new college.

In its very first days, before these units arrived, CMC students lived in the basement of Bridges Auditorium, famously decorated with potted palm trees and referred to by its inhabitants as Coconut Grove. They took classes in makeshift rooms, surrounded by sheets draping from the ceiling in Bridges’ attic before the arrival of all the units.

Allison and Rible drew this blueprint for Claremont Men's College in 1947. It is likely the first of its kind.

While meeting with Ms. Clarke, Bernard explained what the area just East of the library contained – Claremont Men’s School.

Starr writes, “When Mrs. Clarke showed interest in the new school, Bernard followed up by sending her a copy of the program of the opening convocation, together with the photos of students living in the basement of Bridges Auditorium.”

Mrs. Clarke ended up giving $500,000 before the first semester of the school came to a close.  With such bold beginnings, the school incorporated, and began to plan out its physical environment.

Sixty years later, another trustee, Henry Kravis, would sit down with another architect, Raphael Vinoly, to dream up the next step for CMC’s academic village.  In between were six decades of transitional and incremental campus development.

Unlike Scripps, largely planned out and financed with Ellen Browning Scripps’ initial investment, CMC could only build a campus environment piece by piece. Each piece would provide CMC’s founders with serious fundraising challenges.  But each piece, at least through the 1970s, would reflect both the foundational ideas – California conservatism – as well as the norms of the typical American campus structure.

Somehow, these campus foundations had to be reconciled with a college that had visions way beyond the confines of acreage.

CMC’s campus is often discarded or discounted when compared to the gorgeous gardens of Scripps or the handsome and traditionally tailored campus of Pomona.  But while there is no aesthetic competition with the Scripps physique, CMC – North Quad in particular – has its own architectural legacy and stories.

This past reflects and twists the American notion of the campus space, symbiotic of both CMC’s daunting and unlikely struggle for national success, and its roots in California’s growth.  In short, the bleakness of CMC’s architecture, thanks to Benson, who had little concern with its form, is in itself something to celebrate.  CMC’s campus space is a story representative of conservative roots, social norms after World War Two, and California’s multi-partisan progressive tradition.  In this, North Quad provides its own brutal beauty.

CMC students made the most of limited resources, Analyst coverage shows.

The Group Plan became a vestigial of Los Angeles traditions of progressivism and boosterism. Bernard, in a Harper’s article, explained not just of CMC but the entire consortium: “No period of American history has a monopoly on founding…there is nothing to be undone here; we start from scratch.”

Only in California could such a statement be made. In 1923, a Los Angeles Times editorial read, “We are being hotly pursued by our future.” Los Angeles, never a static place, internalized these fears, explain historians, soldering themselves to doctrines of development. CMC’s founding is rooted in California’s fanatic 1920s growth.

Architecture, particularly in southern California, is an expression of history and social process. CMC is no exception, representing its own flavor of the “academic village,” derivative of a distinctly American feature of higher education – the idea of the university as a community in and of itself. For CMC, this community would mimic 1940s restraints: “values of thrift, efficiency, and functionalism,” explains Starr.

He continues, “Like the odds and ends of military attire favored by the undergraduates in the first two years, surplus housing units of either wood or steel vividly evoked the transitions of the postwar era.”

The first permanent structure was the original Story House.  The building, named after Russell M. Story, served as a dormitory, commons, and focal point for campus life. By 1947, however, work had already begun on dedicating the furnishings of a campus.

Out of a dire need for dormitories came the first pillar of North Quad.  Architecture firm Allison and Rible, an omnipresent character throughout the campuses accelerating first fifteen years of growth, presented Benson and his trustee building committee with their work: a dorm turned inside out.  Instead of a central corridor, rooms would be accessed from a first or second story gallery.  The endeavor, now Appleby Hall, turned out to be a cost-effective success in the short run. And the College’s first dorm came to personify CMC’s aspirations and inclinations – functional and pragmatic, yet democratic, and distinctly Californian.

By the 1950s, CMC's architects were asked to draw up plans for a student center that would be shared with Scripps College. It would eventually adopt its colloquial name, "The Hub."

Benson, aware of the need to define and begin projecting a campus for recruitment and fundraising needs, had Allison and Rible quickly turn the project into a master plan – the initial rendering of a four dormitory quadrangle with an adjunct cafeteria.  By 1950, the four-legged quad was enclosed by Appleby, Green, Boswell, and Wohlford.

The college rounded out the 1940s with Pitzer Hall at the Western end of the Quad.  Before construction, however, there was a need to acquire the land. After World War Two, California experienced a significant housing crisis. “Even the most embattled shelter represented an asset,” explained Starr.  In total, the trustees spent $100,000 to clear the land for Pitzer Hall.  With limited funds and Russell Pitzer’s gift already tied up in loans associated with the construction of the dormitories, trustees pored over Allison and Rible’s drawings looking to cut costs.  Hot water in the bathrooms was eliminated by Benson.  Fortunately, through small gifts and loans from local banks at the hands of respected trustees, construction started in 1949, mirroring the construction on the Eastern end of the quad of Boswell Hall.

In this 1952 rendering from a promotional pamphlet, the shape of the campus begins to crystalize.

Upon the conclusion of the Korean War in 1953, the American economy accelerated – particularly in Southern California, where a building boom commenced. CMC trustees, many personally reaping the rewards of the 1950s, were eager to fund CMC’s own building boom.  Pitzer Hall was expanded in 1955.  In 1957, construction on Collins Hall, giving North Quad a permanent dining location, was completed.  The dining hall sat just off the quad, overlooking the green with large glass windows that demanded a vibrant and public eating routine, a dramatic contrast with Mallott Commons’ intimate rooms or Frary’s monolithic dining room.

While amidst a boom, the overlapping projects pushed the College’s finances to its limits, mandating further austerity for the buildings.  But within fifteen years, CMC’s academic village had arrived, after donations and loans were precariously strung together, leaving behind evidence of the financial restrictions imposed on the campus’ architectural needs.  In 1959, the interest on the $750,000 in loans taken out from the bank and endowment was about the same as an associate professor’s salary.

Now with a campus, the trustees and administrators sought to further provide the furnishings the college’s environment. Sixteen projects, including Auen, Fawcett, Benson, Berger, and Marks Halls, were completed during the 1960s.  Pitzer Hall, by the 1960s, could no longer support the administrative needs of the school.  Bauer Hall, with its groundbreaking in 1967 after Modestus Bauer’s $2.2 million gift, provided the solution. Bauer Hall provided the eastern end of north quad, and, remarkably, was accepted as an impressive architectural terminus for the quad.  The building mimicked the themes of North Quad: exterior corridors, simple hints of Mediterranean style, and an emphasis function over form. Bauer Center, while certainly no rival to the Kravis Center across the quad, still provides CMC with its own academic rotunda, and has played a key role in defining North Quad as a dynamic and multipurpose place that contained residential, academic, administrative, and social spaces.

Claremont McKenna's current master plan calls for an extension of the College's original quad.

The following years, while not without construction, were years focused on academic and administrative planning and development. Little physical change occurred when the College went coed. It was not until the 1980s that North Quad received an intellectual mantlepiece with construction of the Atheneaum. Donald McKenna pushed the project to establish a permanent building for speakers and discourse.  As early as 1968, McKenna had formulated the concept of the Atheneaum, a space that could simultaneously serve as an intellectual hub to exchange and learn but also mesh with the school’s ambitions to maintain a residential college. A $2 million building, construction began in 1982 and was finished within a year.  Now the campus had an explicit space where intellectual pursuits flirted and mingled with the CMC community in a social setting.

With the completion of the Ath and now further aware of how its identity had adapted to changing times, CMC announced a Master Plan in the mid 1980s.  Of most importance, Starr notes, was the realization that the older buildings were “disconcertingly Spartan in appearance,” due to lack of funding, and the aesthetic minimalism of the founders. Still, the campus had overcome architectural austerity to develop a profound space that respected the academic ambitions of the College. And while the founders saw little intrinsic value in designing a campus beyond its basic needs, these very tenets had, in a twist of fate, created a unique California campus that would become cherished by its inhabitants.

Read Part IV: Claremont Men’s College, with Women.

Eighteen members of Claremont McKenna’s Class of 2011 have accepted offers to join TFA, which will likely make the organization CMC’s single largest employer this year. These graduates will serve as elementary, middle, and high school teachers for two years in our nation’s public and charter schools.  Thirteen Pomona students, ten Scripps students, and one Pitzer student have also been accepted.

Prior to this stint, each corps member will attend a five-week institute that attempts to prepare them for their tour of duty, training them in classroom management and lesson planning. In a mere 35 days, Teach For America tries to educate newly minted college graduates on the challenges of high-need classrooms. The organization then provides supplemental support and education while corps members work full-time.

Unfortunately, with the timeframe they have created, TFA cannot and does not succeed in cultivating the set of skills teachers need to successfully translate their knowledge into digestible material for students. As Deborah Appleman writes, “good teachers need more than idealism.”

How is it a good idea to source fresh college graduates– who have yet to decide on a career to serve as an architect, a lawyer, or a construction manager– to instead serve as a teacher for two years, after five weeks of training? TFA’s answer is twofold: it works because these individuals are smart, and because they are interested in making a difference– or will learn to be, with time. They can therefore better America’s public schools.

Forget the precedent of research that proclaims teaching is a learned ability that increases with experience over years (between three and five, not one or two).  Forget the fact that many of the corps members have limited experience in dealing with kids, let alone kids raised from incredibly different upbringings.  Instead, TFA gives us an alternative version of history. Rather than just help the rich get richer, you can actually make a difference. And you can do it on the way to Goldman Sachs, or Harvard Law.

After their two-year tour, over 50% of TFA corps members will bow out from their posts as teachers to never come back– perpetuating a cycle of rookie teachers in a field where many argue experience is everything.  Research has shown that a teacher reaches high levels of performance after three to five years of performance, not two.[1] In this respect, a cornerstone of TFA’s modus operandi– that inexperienced, young, college graduates unsure of a career can learn to teach, and learn to teach well– is operationally flawed.

This criticism falls flat on many TFA supporters. Ultimately, Teach For America is not primarily addressing the national standard for quality teaching (a cause that, admittedly, nobody seems to know how to address). Instead, the organization seeks to plant an awareness of the gaping needs of American education in the cream of the crop: college graduates that will go on to be successful businessmen, bankers, politicians, lawyers, and, hopefully, reformers.

Amy Jacobson ’11, CMC’s student representative for TFA, advocates this position.

“One of TFA’s main focuses is in the classroom, but it is also working to build a movement to lessen the achievement gap by way of utilizing recent college grads and future leaders,” Jacobson said. “That doesn’t mean it is necessarily a fix to the whole system, as TFA is working on specific aspects and working to bring educational inequity into the spotlight.”

But here lie other failures.

For one, TFA may not even be honoring this presence. A study done by Doug McAdams at Stanford University demonstrated that,  “in areas like voting, charitable giving and civic engagement, graduates of the program lag behind those who were accepted but declined and those who dropped out before completing their two years.”[2]

However, 63% of corps members remain in the field of education after the program, and civic engagement does not directly translate to awareness of possible treatments for flaws in education. So McAdam’s study alone isn’t enough to exemplify the demerits of TFA.

Yet after its two main premises fall into serious question– that the program can produce quality teachers quickly, and that it can breed a generation of civic activism focused on education– there still exist two more unfortunate truths. And those are that Teach For America has a misguided incentive structure, and that it proclaims to have a role as a functionary of reform that it has not necessarily earned.

Teach for America, a now constant in “Best Place to Start a Career” lists, is not just concerned with change. As a private company, it is equally concerned with brand.  Protecting this brand has become more than just following through with its ambitious goals of reform. Because of the promises it has made, the organization now must maintain its role as a potential stepping stone for idealistic college graduates. Such pressures are heavy, especially for an organization that calls itself a modern-day civil rights movement.

Finally, and most importantly, TFA fails to address the roots of education inequality: the wealth gap.

Education inequality is rooted in the widespread de facto segregation and systemic poverty that has come to define America’s cities, of which poor teachers are a symptom. The causes of such a predicament are vast, but trace back to housing segregation, discrimination in the labor market, and the shortcomings of the civil rights movement when it came to breaking these forms of segregation– particularly evident in cities like Detroit, Milwaukee, and Boston.  Little progress has been made in desegregating our schools.  Dana Goldstien cites the UCLA research on contemporary school makeup. “The average white child in America attends a school that is 77 percent white,” Goldstien writes, “and where just 32 percent of the student body lives in poverty. The average black child attends a school that is 59 percent poor but only 29 percent white. The typical Latino kid is similarly segregated; his school is 57 percent poor and 27 percent white.”[3]

The 1970s and early 1980s witnessed widespread legally mandated integration. During this period, the National Assessment of Educational Progress shows that achievement gaps between blacks and whites diminished.  When forced integration came to a halt, so did progress.[4] This was particularly evident in Charlotte where “”the highest-performing teachers fled schools that became predominantly black and poor” after the district ended the 30-year long bussing program.[5]

So the problem is clear: our schools are overwhelmed by the obstacles of poverty upheld by an abandonment of integration programs.  The problems of our schools lie in factors that originate outside of classrooms.  Teach for America has failed to show it is capable of attacking these flaws in the short run, it misses the point by believing change will come from inside the classroom with inexperienced college graduates.  It can defend itself by claiming at least these teach for a while teachers will go on to be successful leaders focused on education reform, but foundational flaws, as I have shown, lie in these claims as well.

Teach For America, a corporation, presents itself as the missionary.  It advertises a message that places its business model at the fulcrum of success for our nation’s education system. At the end of the day, TFA ships off privileged college graduates, within months of commencement, to neighborhoods they have likely never spent time in before, with limited training in order. Its followers fail to understand the broader context. But worst of all, the effects it has on teaching are deeply harmful, as it brands the field as a discounted form of charity work for those waiting out a bad economy and holding out for better offers.

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/04/education/04teach.html?em

[3] http://www.danagoldstein.net/dana_goldstein/2011/01/on-mlk-day-some-thoughts-on-segregated-schools-arne-duncan-and-president-obama.html

[4] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/18/AR2010111802148.html?nav=mbot

[5] http://www.danagoldstein.net/dana_goldstein/2011/01/on-mlk-day-some-thoughts-on-segregated-schools-arne-duncan-and-president-obama.html http://www.prospect.org/csnc/blogs/tapped_archive?month=05&year=2009&base_name=what_happens_when_desegregatio



In the past month, Claremont McKenna’s Dean of Students Office and administrative bodies have begun to act publicly on growing concerns over CMC’s social culture– a culture in which alcohol is, in many ways, fundamental. Michael’s article has demonstrated the presence of these worries within the administration: that the college, as its presence on the national stage grows, could be compromising future success by maintaining a social precedent that has developed over time.

Their actions and statements have created fervor campus-wide.  Some of this has turned into thoughtful debate about CMC’s future; others have ignored the facts, choosing instead to vilify and bark down a problem that is integral to the character of CMC. But a legitimate question has been brought forth: can a culture with an open and responsible presence of alcohol, as the student body has come to know and cherish, be reconciled with the CMC we expect to see in twenty years?

Madrigal, CMC's longest-running tradition, was cancelled in 2009 due to alcohol-related incidents.

In many ways, we should commiserate with the administration’s arguments.  I can see why the Admissions Office is concerned with our ranking on Princeton Review’s “Most Beer” list.  I am, too. In no way is drinking a defining aspect of a CMCer, nor has it ever been.  And it is embarrassing to hear of prospective students who were ostracized by the social culture here.  But there is a reason CMC has achieved so much success in the past sixty years and developed such a strong appreciation for its culture– from alumni to current students.  That is not to say that we do not see both sides, but there is value in an open acceptance of alcohol.  When CMC honors the responsibility of ASCMC and the student body, the college provides for a campus social life in a way that brings alcohol out from behind closed doors to create a unified student body that can clearly, as past successes and events show, excel in striking a profound balance between work and social events.

The administration, even with good reason to question the feasibility of its policy going forward, must not react with a simplified tightening of our social culture.   There will always be a segment of college students, especially CMCers, that drink.  Forcing these students to close their doors will draw a line between them, and very well may change the potential for social interaction at this school in a dramatic way.  A party at CMC is not contingent upon drinking like the hidden, small scale, and isolated social events students at other colleges experience; rather anyone, from 18-22, is given the same potential to enjoy the same event.

I do not think it is the explicit goal of DOS to abandon or ignore the benefits of a culture like this, one that CMC has had for decades but has perhaps pushed to some limits in recent years.  The Alcohol Task Force report, which everyone on this campus should read, claims that a dry campus is not the final goal.  It is infuriating to watch students react without all the facts and aggregate events into some ‘master plan’ with the goal of tearing down social tradition here.  In figuring out how CMC moves forward, we need more proactive and informed arguments.

In the same vein, the administration should avoid jumping to the somewhat paranoid conclusion that the only way to avoid a national party reputation is by curtailing the existing drinking culture. By almost any legitimate measure, we are far from a party school. And if administration were to lose sight of the advantages of our culture, their arguments for change could snowball into significant changes that are detrimental to what CMC’s character has been and should, in key aspects, continue to be.

We do not have to just accept the form of other top tier liberal arts colleges as we are given more attention. CMC’s success comes from a unique allure, academic and otherwise.  In some ways, our appreciation of events that are responsibly reliant on alcohol fosters the exceptional and united community we have here.  Yes, comparisons to schools like Pomona and Dartmouth will continue. There’s no reason to inject their social cultures and alcohol policies into ours.

This is a convoluted, and even amorphous, situation; both sides of the debate share the same goal to advance CMC. But many of us have misinterpreted fundamental premises.  CMC is still a young school, but its narrative is on the cusp of matriculating towards a new era.  The positives and negatives of this maturation are beginning to become apparent; our challenge is to now retain a culture that responsibly incorporates alcohol as an aspect of a much-celebrated social atmosphere.  This is far from impossible, but not all that we have had in my time here is feasible.  What follows from understanding future needs and responsibility, as CMC becomes evermore prominent and money continues to accrue, is a recognition of the vital and beneficial aspects of a culture that got us to this point in the first place. Some student factions will put up guards and develop a paranoia that prevents growth and improvement. But who CMC becomes in the future must incorporate what got us here, and alleviate the insecurities that become apparent as CMC’s reputation takes its place among the elites– not just in our own eyes, but also in those of future students, alumni, faculty, and administrators.

Club budgets are determined by presentations given to the Budgeting Committee, number of active members, and presence on campus.  Any concerns or questions can be directed to me (abargmann11@cmc.edu).

A couple notes:

• The Vernacular’s budget is still a matter of discussion as we work with the club’s leadership.  It may be increased through discretionary funds in the fall.
• Active clubs that are not listed here did not sign up for a presentation slot at ASCMC budgeting or missed their scheduled time.  If this happened to a club you are involved with and expect to be active next year, email me and we can begin discussing the matter.

For more from your ASCMC Executive Board, check out the official blog: ascmcblog.blogspot.com

The way I see it there are two frequently updated, longstanding blogs.

1. Ben Casnocha’s (’11) personal blog, by the sophomore entrepreneur who published a book about his experience starting and running a company at age fourteen.  Worth a look even if you didn’t go to CMC, the scope of Ben’s blog extends beyond the Claremont Community to include musings from and about his newest project, ThinkDifferentTV.  At the same time, his blog is well-written and relatable to by students.
2. Charles Johnson’s (’11) The Claremont Conservative is the most infamous of student-run blogs at CMC.  Charles was recently appointed editor of the Claremont Independent (his appointment has prompted some students to quit writing for the publication, a source tells us) and has decided to merge his personal blog with the printed publication.  The effect of this merger is uncertain– the blog has largely remained as Charles’ personal soapbox for partisan politics and angry attacks on students, faculty, and alumni.  Just as Ann Coulter makes a living with invective, Charles has learned the best way to gain attention (aka blog hits) is by making outrageous claims and using sarcastic, cynical rhetoric. Even if you subscribe to his mantra, you might find this blog irritating – like an itch underneath your arm cast that you keep trying to get to, but then when you finally get a scratch on it, the itch just gets worse.  Of course, Johnson has some fans…Now on to what this article was really about, unearthing some unknown blogs that deserve your attention:
3. Lewis Corson’s (’11) [cardboard living] is a far cry from your standard CMC blogs– it does not center around politics, economics, or making money– thank God.  Lewis is studying abroad in Sevilla, Spain this semester, and his blog, with the most unique and interesting web layout of any blog mentioned here, is focused around music and fashion.  With a feature post on remix artist Diplo, several fashion posts and even more links to music, Lewis is off to a great start.  Whether or not [cardboard living] can keep up the posting is the question.  The title implies a blog for the fiscally conservative college student (read: broke); it would be cool to see this theme incorporated a little more. (Note: [cardboard living] now also has its own Facebook group)
4. Immediately after learning of [cardboard living], I was also pointed to The Den of Vice, a new blog by CMCers focused on music.  I couldn’t find who started the blog on the website but a Facebook group dedicated to the site was created by Mateo Blumer ’10 with Andrew Hess ’10 and Jimmi Carney ’10 listed as officers.  I enjoyed the Thin White Duke remix of “Talk” by Coldplay and they’ve also recently put up a praising review (coupled with some Explosions in the Sky songs — one of which is the theme from Friday Night Lights)  of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, one of the best from my favorite author.
5. Sahil Kapur’s (’09) The Daily Musing.  While Sahil is certainly not under the radar (Sahil’s been published on The Huffington Post and Daily Kos), I was unaware of his blog until this year.  Frequently updated, Sahil primarily focuses on politics and international affairs with a dash of music.   Everything from links to YouTube clips or noteworthy articles across the web, The Daily Musing is an eclectic blog with no stand out focus.
6. Kevin Burke (’11) keeps a blog with a similar introspective flavor as Ben Casnocha, without the entrepreneurship, meshed with a college student’s take on the do-it-yourself lifestyle of Tim Ferriss.  Kevin’s blog is also worth checking out if you’re looking for some CMC-centered blogging and writing.
7. David Franzel (’10), an International Relations major who studied in Cairo, Egypt last semester just started a blog called Peaces of Chaos about conflict in the Middle East.

Have a blog that isn’t listed? Leave it in the comments.