I just found this website that gives a weekly synopsis of places in LA that are having drink specials and open bars.

Businesses including Red Line Leather, Peyton Gray, Chloe and Hunter, and Celley’s have been the first ones to go, but more popular businesses, such as Coldstone Creamery and Maui Wowi are also looking to sell and we can definitely expect to see more empty storefronts in the near future.

Luckily, the businesses in Village West that are most popular with Claremont Colleges students, like 21 Choices, American Apparel, or Jamba Juice, have not reported that they are closing, but we will have to wait and see how they fare as their neighbors shut their doors.

The Courier reports that, aside from the current economic crisis, the City of Claremont admits it may have a problem with “branding.”

While much of the hardships of the $22.5 million redevelopment project are blamed on the dismal economy, some shopkeepers have complained that the city has not done its part to promote the area as a vibrant shopping destination.

In response, city officials are in the process of discussing a “branding study” that they hope will re-define the city and draw in visitors and their sales tax dollars from around the region. City staff estimated the project would cost $50,000 to hire an outside consulting firm to come up with the brand and another $50,000 to promote and advertise the new brand.

The goal of a new brand would be to promote Claremont as a shopping destination, rather than just “The City of Trees and PhDs.” The article compares Claremont’s situation to that of Upland, who has just spent $150,000 on consultants for development of a new image. However, while Upland and Claremont are near each other, the attitudes and demographics of the residents could not be more different. Upland has tried to market itself as a shopping destination by attracting big box stores, such as Target, Best Buy, and Office Depot, but Claremont would be making a big mistake in trying to attract these types of stores and giving up their image of being a small college town. It seems that members of the Chamber of Commerce agree, and It is likely that Claremont will not go that far, but rather try to market itself more like an Old Town Pasadena.

Mayor Ellen Taylor, a former Chamber of Commerce CEO, believes the branding study has merit. Claremont has never been a one stop-shopping destination where residents can buy everything from large appliances to daily shopping needs, Ms. Taylor said, but offers shoppers an alternative to places like Victoria Gardens or the Montclair Mall.

While some residents welcome any growth in Claremont, others feel that spending $100,000 to market the town is going too far. Either way, most residents seem to be in agreement that the town needs to attract popular businesses with staying power, despite the economic situation.

It seems to me that Claremont does need a new image (whether it needs to pay to get that image I’m not sure) and that a good place to start would be having fewer specialized stores like Himalayan Collections or Phebie’s Needle Art, and more businesses that will provide a real alternative from malls or shopping centers in the area.

CMC’s overall grade was a C, an average of the grades in nine other categories, which ranged from A to F.

The report highlights some of the new initiatives at CMC for sustainability, but it also draws attention to the lack of transparency and accountability for where our tuition dollars are being spent and how our endowment is being invested.

According to the Report Card website, “The profiles of 300 schools were created using information gathered through independent research as well as through voluntary responses from school administrators to three surveys.” Grades assess performance across 43 indicators divided into three main categories: Administration, Climate Change and Energy, Food and Recycling, Green Building, Student Involvement, Transportation, Endowment Transparency, Investment Priorities, and Shareholder Engagement.

The Report Card defines its goals in the following way:

Sustainability is meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. Are these considerations guiding how resources are managed in campus operations and endowment practices? The Report Card is designed to identify colleges and universities that are leading by example on sustainability.

The highest score for CMC came in the Green Building category, where it scored its only A. This grade is due to the new dorm and the rennovations to the towers, all of which meet LEED silver certification, and the plans for the Kravis Center and the new athletic center, which both will be LEED certified as well.

CMC received B’s in two categories: Food and Recycling and Student Involvement and got a C grade in Transportation and Energy and Climate change. These are all areas where the college is working on improving (think new to-go containers and solar trash compactors), but still has a long way to go. It mentioned that CMC is “planning for a parking lot covered by a solar array.” Interesting.

The College also received a C in Investment Priorities and received F’s in the areas of Endowment Transparency and Shareholder Engagement. Currently, CMC does not disclose how its Endowment is invested or what guidelines shareholders use to vote on the way money is spent. For the purposes of the report card, transparency is important for greater accountability for voting for sustainable investment. For us as students, knowing how our endowment is invested and who is making the decisions where to invest it is extremely important, especially in uncertain financial circumstances.

When I attempted to contact the Chief Investment Officer at CMC multiple times, to find out for another article, at the request of multiple students and faculty members, how the CMC endowment was doing in this current financial crisis, I was met with no response. In fact, the contact information of the CIO is not even listed on the CMC website and there is no reference to him. Nowhere is information made available to students at CMC about how the endowment is being invested or how shareholders are voting.

It is important for CMC to set a positive example and make a difference by making socially responsible and sustainable investments. However, the lack of transparency in CMC’s administration goes beyond sustainability to infringing on our right to know how our endowment is being spent and the economic status of the school we attend.

Overall, CMC fared poorly compared to other prestigious liberal arts colleges and universities in the U.S., primarily because of its poor grades in investments and transparency and its lackluster performance on Energy and Climate Change, where many schools did very well due to their use of alternative energy. It appears that the college needs to pay more attention to its future impact, both environmentally and socially. One step toward this goal would be making information about the endowment available to students.

Oh. And not watering the sidewalks every night.

Also, check out what the CMC website says about sustainability.

The list of signatories does not include president Pamela Gann of Claremont McKenna College.

Given CMC’s fairly liberal attitude towards underage drinking, at first glance it seems surprising that our administration would not gladly sign onto a statement that promotes lowering the drinking age. However, when examining the Amethyst Initiative statement more closely and comparing it to the drinking culture at CMC, it is apparent that president Gann has some good reasons not to sign it.

Despite the drinking age being 21, says the statement, “a culture of dangerous, clandestine ‘binge-drinking’ – often conducted off-campus—has developed.” While there may be a fair amount of binge drinking at CMC, clandestine is definitely not the word to describe it. In addition, there is little social life off-campus for underage students and more students that are 21+ go off campus to drink than those that are underage.

A social life that centers around campus, says President Gann, is exactly what the CMC administration aims to achieve” “We don’t stick our heads in the sand and say students aren’t going to drink,” she says. Instead, the administration tries to respect students’ privacy and focuses on the safety and security of the students. These actions by our administration are different than most other colleges and universities and perhaps show that there’s an alternative to lowering the drinking age that can still promote student health and prevent drunk driving and “clandestine” binge drinking. Gann points out that the size of our school and the fact that almost 100 percent of students live on campus are helpful to achieving these goals, and that she is not ready to promote this a solution for other schools.

In addition, the statement says: “alcohol education that mandates abstinence as the only legal option has not resulted in significant constructive behavioral change among our students.” President Gann believes that education about alcohol is extremely important and that college administrators have a responsibility to make sure that their students are prepared to deal with widespread drinking, both on campus and in the “real world” after graduation.

“We run 24/7 a village and community for young people and it is our responsibility to make sure they are socialized to the appropriate uses and dangers of alcohol,” she says. This goes beyond focusing on the law to providing a practical education about alcoholism, alcohol and mental illness, alcohol poisoning, and other dangers of alcohol. It also means exposing students to an environment where they can make healthy decisions about alcohol. This type of education is important regardless of the drinking age, Gann believes.

Opponents of the Amethyst Initiative, most notably Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD), have argued that raising the drinking age has lowered drunk driving deaths by over 10 percent, even when controlling for other factors like new safety features. The unique approach to alcohol at CMC serves as an example of how we can keep our roads safe while cutting down on uncontrolled and unhealthy drinking on campuses.

There are certainly many compelling reasons for lowering the drinking age, and I’m sure most of you underage would love to be able to drink legally (I just turned 21 suckers!), but CMC proves that there are many actions that college and university administrators can take without having to drastically change public policy.

One of the most positive results of the Amethyst Initiative is that it has sparked debate, not only on college campuses, but also throughout the country. The drinking age not only affects us at CMC, but it affects our peers serving in Iraq who are not trusted to drink even though they are prepared to give their lives. “Colleges are just a very small subset of the American population,” says Gann. She looks forward to having candid discussion about this issue, both on campus and in the greater American community.