1) I have to add Claremont Cash to pay for that extra cup of coffee my Flex can no longer cover.

2) The occasional “study break” for Collins snack becomes a 5-C snack challenge.

3) I take the time to read the self-promoting posters around campus.

Upon allowing my eager eyes to wander, I came across one poster that caught my attention:

If the site itself was as provocative as the poster, I thought, I should see what this proposed solution to sex hair is all about. It would be, at least, a source for further procrastination. What I found on the website, located at HerCampus.com/CMC, was even more disturbing than the posters. I was appalled to find not only an inaccurate representation, but, more importantly, a superficial portrayal of CMC women.

“Don’t make yourself too available, but throw out hints like ‘I really enjoy hanging with you’ so you can boost his confidence,” the dating tip reads.

“Build up his confidence a little, stroke his ego (and maybe a little more),” a sex column advises.

Statements such as these ask women to succumb to a behavior just “get the guy.” Not only do the sex and dating articles suggest that a woman’s self-confidence is dependent on male approval and physical appearance, but it also assumes a solely heterosexual student body. Placing such a heavy emphasis on dating, exercise, partying, and senior crushes simply reinforces the superficiality from which the women’s movement continuously works to distance itself.

It would be one thing if the alcohol-induced girls running after the boys in bro tanks were an accurate depiction of the women here. But it’s not. My time here has presented me with women that are not only remarkably intelligent, but also independent thinkers and leaders. As a woman at CMC, I can confirm that we spend our time discussing issues of greater substance than those the Her Campus website would imply. Like most college girls, we still talk about our weekend hookups and our Pilates workout schedules, but that just barely skims the surface of what I have come to know in the women around me. Contrary to what the site may demonstrate, we are more than a group of diet-frenzied, boy-crazy, party-hopping women, grasping onto our days as love-struck tweens who watched Degrassi.

And we don’t want to go back to those days either. While we may occasionally fall victim to Leonardo DiCaprio’s love sonnets in Titanic 3-D, we are in no way trying to become the desperate-to-find-Prince-Charming Bridget Jones, despite what this statement from the Her Campus website may imply:

“All that is left are girls hopelessly waiting for guys to sweep them off their feet and take them to their fairytale love story.”

This summer, in the absence of TNR and Wednesday afternoon party informs, CMC students could easily take the time to sit back and relax. Instead, women at this campus have found interesting opportunities outside the world of Pilates and dating. Lauren Callahan ’14, for example, will be working for the Institute for Science and International Security, researching nuclear weaponry and diplomacy in the Middle East while attending meetings with other related think tanks. Across the globe in Mysore, India, Amy Hershberger ’14 will be interning at the Public Health Research Institute of India, researching antibiotic resistance of UTI’s and traveling to various hospitals in India to compile data for the research. And freshmen Elise Hansell ’15 will be working for the Human Rights Initiative in Dallas to help refugees seek asylum by organizing cases with pro bono attorneys.

These are only a few of the responses I received from asking just 30 girls about their summer plans. So perhaps for the next “CMC Celebrity,” the Her Campus writers will, for example, choose to highlight a student’s ambitious summer plans instead of glorifying the popularity of a so-called iconic male student.

Her Campus has the potential to be a great resource for students. It serves as a way to individualize CMC women from those of other colleges across the country, and if you couldn’t tell from this article, I am all in favor of more spaces for women on this campus. The problem is that, even with one recently posted article about CMC women, Her Campus is still a poor representation of the student body.

Right now, the site undermines the character and achievements of the women on campus while exacerbating stereotypes that uphold sexism. Interestingly, I looked at other Her Campus college branches only to find myself engaged and impressed with the information presented. This is not a criticism of the brand, but rather a criticism of the majority of the content on the CMC portion of the site.

All this being said, I write this article understanding that this is a fairly new undertaking. For this reason, I urge whoever decides to write, or continues to write, for Her Campus to take a step back and really take a few minutes to think about the women at Claremont McKenna. Think about your friends, your girlfriend, and your classmates; think about the people they are because I can bet my cup of coffee that they are more than what this says about them. This is not simply a message to Her Campus, but rather a message to the student body to remember that, when utilizing our voice, we have the power to collectively construct an image of CMC that is truly representative of who we are.

“I mean, I feel like I should be. I’ve followed the prescribed CMC regimen pretty closely, and from what I know about CMC alumni, it seems reasonable to think that things are going to be OK. I did fairly well in my classes at CMC. I got involved on campus. I’ve made an incredible group of friends here. I had some cool internships during the summer. I went to TNC. I’ve been ponded. I’ve been to Baldy. I’ve been to the Ath so many times I can pretty much generate the taste of the salmon in my mouth at will.

“And it looks like I’ve got a lot to look forward to. There’s a great job and great friends waiting for me in San Francisco.

“All these things make it pretty easy to project an outward appearance to my parents and others that I’m ready. And to laugh and tell all my classmates and fellow CMCers that ‘I’m not ready! I could never leave. I LOVE CMC!’ But the reality is somewhere in between, and it involves a lot of introspection.”

I guess that’s a lot for Google to squeeze into one button. The beauty of college is that I don’t get to waffle in real life. Senior week flew by, and tomorrow, May 12, Dean Hess is going to call my name, and that’ll be it. The rest of my life is real life, whether I like it or not.

My favorite quote of all time is from Robert Louis Stevenson’s first book, An Inland Voyage. To close the book, he writes,

The most beautiful adventures are not those we go to seek.

One last piece of advice. I have loved writing about technology for the Forum for the past year, and I hope that I’ve shared at least one thing you’ve found helpful. I love my computer, my phone, and my iPad. But I love my time away from them even more. Leaving my phone at home when I go to my girlfriend’s, leaving it in the car when I go to the gym, not getting reception up on Baldy—those are the peaceful moments with which no amount of Netflix or Reddit can compete. Don’t become a Luddite, but make sure you spend some time unplugged.

5C Emails

One thing that CMC has down is simple email addresses. If you know someone’s name and class at CMC, you’ve got a pretty good shot at guessing their email correctly. The same cannot be said for some other members of the consortium. So without further ado, email addresses explained, in order of most logical to most absurdly complicated.

Harvey Mudd: [First Name] + [_] + [Last Name] @hmc.edu
Example: David_Meyer@hmc.edu

CMC: [First Initial] + [Last Name] + [Class Year] @cmc.edu
Example: dmeyer12@cmc.edu

Pitzer: [First Name} + [_] + [Last Name and Class Year] @pitzer.edu
Example: david_meyer12@pitzer.edu

Scripps: [First Initial] + [Last name (cut off at 7 characters)] + [Last 4 digits of student ID number] @scrippscollege.edu
Example: dmeyer3633@scrippscollege.edu

Pomona: [First Initial] + [Middle Initial] + [Last Initial] + [ a zero, UNLESS there’s someone else with your initials, in which case it could be a 1, or 2, or 3, or 4...] + [the FULL year you entered Pomona]@pomona.edu
Example: dwm02008@pomona.edu

The Claremont-WPA Network

This mysterious network is every CMCer’s dream. Log in once, the Wi-Fi network remembers you forever! Imagine the time savings when you don’t have to log in to CMCNet or Claremont every time. You’ll probably have your term papers done before spring break! So why does it tantalizingly appear on the list, but we can’t get on? I asked Jeremy Whaley, Director of Information Systems and Network Services. Here’s what he said:

The Claremont-WPA network has not officially launched. As you know it has existed for a while now and has been tested by IT folks and some users throughout its pre-release.

If you are inclined to try it out, when selecting the Claremont-WPA SSID you will be prompted for your user name and password. Similarly to the Claremont SSID login process, you will need to enter your user name with a qualifier (example: jwhaley@cmc) where the @cmc lets the system know I am affiliated with CMC. The password is your CMC Network Password—no surprises there.

This summer we will officially roll out this network, as well as a separate network, Claremont-ETC, which will serve the game consoles and other secondary devices that do not support WPA2 Enterprise.

To encourage adoption of the Claremont-WPA network, an auto-configuration tool will be provided that supports a wide variety of platforms (Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, etc.).

Wi-Fi Access

As in, why doesn’t the Wi-Fi work in my bedroom/dorm room/lawn chair/shower? The fact is, Wi-Fi networks are really hard to set up. As the library has demonstrated this year, adding more hubs can actually make the network worse. Let me solve your problem: Ask one of the alumni you met last weekend what they thought of the Wi-Fi network when they went to CMC.

Things about CMC’s technology infrastructure that are awesome

• free printing
• fast Wi-Fi
• dual monitors, everywhere
• computer labs usually have space
• you can mostly use BitTorrent without getting a letter from the RIAA
• our course evaluations are finally online

Ok, I’m losing steam…

Things you should download or sign up for

• Skitch – take better screenshots on your Mac.
• Chrome Beta – Google actual releases three different versions of Chrome. This one strikes a balance between getting new features sooner and having fewer bugs.
• Flipboard – for iPhone and iPad, an awesome way to read…anything.
• Swift Key – if you have an Android phone, this keyboard will make your life better.
• The Week – a website for people who like the Economist, but don’t have time to read it/get annoyed with British people.
• Sublime Text – if you write any code at all, even just HTML and CSS, this is a beautiful, dead-simple text editor.
• Asana – shared to-do lists for teams. Use it for your next group project.
• Google Calendar – unlike a planner, you can’t lose it. And unlike a planner, it syncs with your phone. And iPad. And every computer. And it sends you reminders.
• Prezi – I’ve covered this.
• Doodle – a better way to do sign-up sheets.
• Google Music/iTunes Match – put your entire music collection on your phone and throw your iPod in the trash. Store the songs you listen to a lot locally; stream everything else. Don’t worry about data. I use it every day and stay under 2 gigabytes per month.
• Text-Only Instagram – the new #whatshouldwecallme.

On April 17, the law firm O’Melveny & Myers LLP released “Investigative Report Prepared on behalf of The Board of Trustees of Claremont McKenna College.” The document, authored by Apalla U. Chopra and Carolyn Kubota, analyzes the manipulation of admissions data by Dean Richard Vos, labeled “VP,” between 2004 and 2011. The report heartily announces:

“We found that the VP reported inaccurate SAT, ACT, class rank, and application statistics beginning as early as 2004. With respect to SAT statistics, we confirmed that the College’s initial disclosures about the VP’s conduct, and the College’s corrected SAT statistics issued the week of January 30, 2012, were accurate.”

There is good news. Based on the findings of Chopra and Kubota’s examination, it doesn’t look like the dishonesty spread beyond the personal office of Richard Vos. Furthermore, they conclude that Vos did not experience extreme pressure or direct financial incentives to improve SAT scores. So it doesn’t look like there was a broad, malicious conspiracy for which Dean Vos took the fall or that he was a victim of the vicious pressure to excel in the higher education industry.

No conspiracy, just an embarrassing lack of oversight.

With the publication of this report, a cartoonish depiction of the formation of CMC’s admissions data over the last seven years is slowly taking shape. Vos played with SAT numbers, ACT numbers, application statistics, and statistics related to the portion of CMC students who placed in the top 10 percent of their high school classes. So how did he conduct this brilliant and shrewd manipulation?

According to the report, while falsifying CMC students’ ACT scores, “he said he would either report the same ACT statistics he had reported the year before, or he would create statistics that appeared correct based on his ‘educated judgment’ or ‘extrapolations.’”

Not only was the process pulled out of a hat, but it wasn’t even repeatable: “The VP also was unable to replicate the Top 10% statistic he reported for 2011. From this file-by-file review, we concluded that the VP’s method was undocumented, not replicable, and ad hoc.”

In his defense, Vos “stated that the compilation of class rank statistics is an ‘art not a science.’” Somehow, I don’t think CMC’s statistics professors would agree.

Even Vos’ method of recording his inaccurate statistics seems to invite dishonesty. The report explains, “The VP stated he was not technologically proficient. He told us that he did not, and lacked the expertise to, alter data in the database. Instead, when he compiled inaccurate statistics, the VP used paper, a pencil, and a calculator.”

These calculations were promptly thrown away.

Dean Vos’ poorly conceived tactics of manipulation were successful only because there existed an egregious lack of accountability in the system. In an interview with the Forum and other campus press, President Pamela Gann pointed to his exclusive control of the calculation of admissions statistics and his efforts to conceal his activities as reasons for his ability to report fraudulent scores for nearly a decade. “He was a long-time, highly trusted, senior member of the College,” said Gann. This trust was so extensive that, as Gann added, the school “did not have at the college a process in place to independently verify the admissions data after he reported it.”

Not even another employee within Vos’ own office took a sincere look at the numbers.

Gann emphasized that the process has been revamped dramatically, and that it is her intention to “have a set of written guidelines, and those will be on the website.” Hopefully this new system will prove more effective.

As far as college scandals go, we’re still doing better than Pennsylvania State, but the fact remains that this should never have happened, and probably would not have under more attentive leadership. Rather than feeling betrayed by Dean Vos, a man I’ve never met, I am left with a deep sense of disappointment in the school’s administration. Hopefully, this will serve as a powerful reminder of the importance of transparency and accountability for CMC’s staff and a lesson in effective management for its students.

<rant>

But. CMC. Makes. It. So. Damn. Hard.

I remember when I first received my CMC email address, the summer before freshman year. It was so cool: a real .edu email address! Google Apps! But during those moments of bliss, nobody tells you about a little thing called DL-Students (or its equally evil cousins DL-Students-Including-Abroad, DL-Students-SoCal, “undisclosed recipients”, etc.).

The problem: A wide variety of entities on campus–research institutes, administration, professors, “centers”–frequently abuse their ability to email the student body. As more campus organizations crop up and our student body grows, the problem increases in magnitude. The inherent value of most emails sent to the entire student body is so low that it effectively amounts to spam. Spam we can’t filter out. I would argue that this problem is not only annoying, but harmful. Simply understood, there has to be a better way of disseminating information widely to students.

Since late February, I have marked every email that went to the student body that I felt was irrelevant, unnecessary, or simply…stupid. In less than two months, I’ve accumulated 152 emails–a very conservative number that varied depending on my patience each day. Some sample subject lines: “KLI Workshop: Dealing with Networking and Small Talk in a Research Context”, “Career Services Center E-Calendar”, “EM: REMINDER Salavator Summer 2012 Internship”. The most common senders? Pretty much a who’s who of CMC. The Writing Center, Career Services, CCE (still not sure what that is), “Inform”, JIM NAULS, professors, deans, Public Affairs office, most anything related to the Kravis Prize…you get the idea. I started tracking these emails on February 21, so these 152 emails average out to almost three emails per day. This includes weekends and spring break, which tended to be blissfully email-free.

Certainly messages like “EM: Internship Opportunity with eHarmony!” are not the intent of the student body mailing lists. There are without a doubt important messages that every student needs to hear, but most messages sent via the DL lists do not qualify. Instead, the DL lists have become a virtual bulletin board for campus events, but one that is crammed into every student’s inbox with little to no control over its content. Assessing each message for its importance or relevance essentially becomes a Sisyphean task.

In addition to simply being annoying, the email overload has serious consequences. Every “stupid” email that goes out proportionally decreases the likelihood that a given student will notice the important ones. Slipped in between the “Informs” and the phishing attack notifications and the research institute newsletters, there might be a “hey, there’s no hot water in your dorm this week”. That’s the kind of email every student needs to read, but can easily get lost in the shuffle when nine out of ten emails are worthless.

Changing our policy towards email will produce better campus dialogue for everyone. I have two proposals, which I believe could work in tandem to solve the problem. First, revoke access to DL-students for nearly everyone. Only the President, Deans, ASCMC, Facilities, and ITS should have access. Every other organization that would like to use mailing lists to contact students will receive its own mailing list, which students OPT-IN to. There will be one website where each student can select the mailing lists to which they want to subscribe–much like how every other company or organization in the world works. This will allow organizations to specifically target students who are already interested in their messaging, and spare the rest of us.

The inherent problem with such a system is that it means that most of the student body won’t hear about most announcements most of the time. Notwithstanding other mediums for spreading a message (CMC survived for most of its history without email, didn’t it?) here is a suggestion for an online solution. One central bulletin board where any campus organization can post a message, event invitation, lecture announcement, request for applications, or whatever else. Each post can then be upvoted or downvoted, Digg or Reddit style, for importance or relevance. This crowdsources the job of discerning what is important and what isn’t to the audience of students themselves. If a message is important, it will end up at the top. If it’s really important, students might tell their friends to check it out. I imagine that each campus organization will learn pretty quickly what the general student body finds important and what it does not. The audience becomes more engaged because the content is curated by the audience itself.

Regardless of the solutions implemented, the problem remains. We, the CMC student body, get far too many pointless, unnecessary, irrelevant emails. This is a plea, to everyone who has access to the DL mailing lists, to make it stop. Please ask yourself what percentage of the student body really needs to receive your next message. If it’s less than 90%, find another way.

Thanks in advance.

</rant>

There were around thirty students total, three of whom went to CMC.

Claremont McKenna isn’t exactly known for art, unless you count some particularly creative beer pong tables. It doesn’t have an art major, any art classes, or any artistic facilities outside of a few auditoriums and the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum. Sometimes, it’s easy to assume that CMC just doesn’t do art.

But that’s not exactly true. Every year, CMC’s Under the Lights presents their one-acts performance and the Athenaeum puts on a Dinner Theatre production. CMC students participate in Acapella groups, the 5C orchestra, and a number of other consortium-wide arts groups. Plus, it’s important not to forget the countless musicians, photographers, and craftsmen that decorate their dorm walls with their work, or play a little ukulele during a homework break.

With those individuals in mind, one student asked CMC President Pamela Gann about the lack of arts facilities on campus when she came to visit ASCMC Senate on March 27th. In response, Gann emphasized the availability of such spaces at other schools, explaining, “The arts are definitely in the Claremont Colleges, so we in the consortium subspecialize.” Seems fair. As long as other campuses meet the students’ need for studios and easels, CMC is free to subspecializes in gigantic, cubical study spaces.

Perhaps that’s not exactly fair to CMC, which, cube aside, has clearly focused its energy on developing world-class programs in economics, finance, and government, among other things. But Gann’s comment isn’t exactly fair either.

Mercedes Teixido, representing the Pomona College Art Department, explained that Pomona College does indeed provide access to its arts facilities, but only to those students currently enrolled in art classes. She added, “We do not have open access even for Pomona students. Because we provide all of the materials for our classes, it would be impossible to just have materials for anyone available.”  She noted this policy was ”a matter of safety and space.”

Teixido went on to point out that Pomona does offer opportunities for students outside of classes, though they are limited.  For example, Pomona has “a Friday afternoon figure drawing session which anyone can come do.”

In short, opportunities do exist, but are significantly restricted. Teixido emphasizes that, “I do have to say that we allow very few allotments from CMC as we have extensive waiting lists for all our intro classes, therefore, CMC students barely benefit from our facilities.”

Christian Neumeister CMC ’15 is well aware of the difficulties of being an artist at CMC. As a member of a band composed of CMC students, he complains that, “there are practice facilities around the 5C’s, but they’ve been extremely difficult to access. Scripps has practice rooms, but they’re tiny. We’ve been told we need to be taking lessons at Pomona to access theirs. At Harvey Mudd, you must be a student to access them.” He explains, “No one is asking for an art department or a music department, just a room or two where we can do what we love without bothering anyone.” Neumeister is working on starting a Jam Society to help give CMC students the opportunity to practice their art, but still needs to secure some facilities to make it happen.

As CMC’s campus continues to grow, limited arts facilities ought to be on the wish list. Gann did point out at the senate session on March 26th that, “We do have a campus center in the Master Plan where we will have gallery space and performance space, but that is not a formal department. I don’t see that changing anytime soon.”

This hardly seems to cover the current gap, especially compared to facilities offered to students of other schools. Compare these meager features to Pitzer college’s Media Studies Production Center which, according to their website, offers Pitzer students “24–hour access” to “professional-quality video and film cameras,” “a full complement of lighting and sound equipment,” “student-run and student requested workshops,” and even a dark room.

It can sometimes be hard to see at first glance, but CMC has a wealth of artistic talent, more than can be fairly represented by a few pictures on the wall of Ryal Lab and a handful of performances in Pickford and McKenna Auditorium. In my wildest dreams, I see a full featured dark room with enough chemicals to repeat the Cuyahoga River fire, but that’s certainly not fair to ask the school to support financially. But, as the campus expands and more buildings are added, a one-room studio with some lights, a few easels and music stands, and a couple sound proofed music studios doesn’t seem like too much to ask.

The SIF Genius

His ego is large enough to fill Bauer. His life goal is to be Warren Buffet. His favorite movie is Wall Street.  Work hard, play hard was always your motto, but he takes it to a whole other level. Devotee of Henry Kravis, he chooses Benjamins over you because in the end, you’re the one that depreciates faster. He doesn’t have time to encourage your menial toils, but the week before his Robert Day Scholars application was due, you brought him coffee on the hour. The more time you spend around him, the more you feel that your entrepreneurial skills are not up to par. But while he’s busy planning to ride the success train all the way to endless 280-hour workweeks, you decide to focus on the few years of coddled, Claremont life you have left…

The College Park Recluse

He doesn’t really go to parties, in fact, he doesn’t really go to anything, but he’s perfect for you, because, like him, you are “so over the college thing.” But there’s a minor setback: He lives far. Really far (or just Claremont far). Pomona, the apartments, College Park, whatever – it’s far. He won’t pick you up, you can’t find a ride, and in the end, you’re left defending yourself against Sixth Street stalkers, trying not to become the subject-line of a campus wide security alert. You then walk of shame back in your best John Belushi toga, looking like a rabid raccoon. He didn’t wake up to make you eggs or even pop tarts.  Until they build a zip-line from College Park to Collins brunch, the prospects for your new beau don’t look good.  Maybe someone a little closer…

The Green Beach Bro

You were tanning on Green Beach one mild spring day when you caught his eye. Or you think he did – between the shades and the low brim, it was hard to tell. The farmer’s tan is not your style, but you’ll go for it for access to his extensive tank collection. He’s very proud of his collection of sick jams, constantly heard over Parents field from his $700 speakers. From the moment he wakes up to the moment he longboards to Collins for dinner, he lays out on the beach to the point where you wonder if he’s actually that chill or just dead. Eventually his laziness starts to rub off on you and you wake up to Manfred Keil cold-calling you in Metrics as you beg yourself to become a functional human being again…

The Sexy Starkie

He really wants to date you. Wait, he wants to date you? There must be something wrong with him. No male in his right mind would let your inebriated self out to Rage the Cage and still welcome you into his pastel-clad, alcohol-free arms. Even when he does lose his composure/sobriety, he only gets more adorable. When you tell people whom you’re dating, they smile and gush about how great he is. You pat yourself on the back for bagging such a cutie, but when he starts asking you to miss Pub to stay in and watch Modern Family, you realize that dating him is like dating a less famous Michael Cera, pre-Youth in Revolt. You decide that your badass-ness will probably corrupt him, and you need to find someone more on your level…

The “What is SLC” Bad Boy

You were never really attracted to guys like him before, but somewhere between high school graduation and W.O.A., a wave of bad-boy want came over you. He always smells like smoke or pinecone, but it really adds to his man smell. He’s never attended a sober event in his life – including class. The fights he picks with his roommate, his suitemates, CampSec, Pamela Gann… You thought it was charming before, but the thought dawns on you that maybe his behavior spells mental instability. His dark side draws you towards him, because you know you can change him. You thought you could handle it, because hey, after climbing on the roof of Green, you’re a bad girl, too. But actually, you’re not, and the 4 AM surprise visits are not helping your sleep patterns. A girl like you deserves a normal college experience, free from the threat of impromptu hospital visits, so instead, you turn your focus to your GPA, your upcoming summer internship, and your next outfit for pub.

However, what scared me the most was how Americans would react to my being a Muslim.

After 9/11, the perception of Muslims around the world became severely distorted so I was afraid people here would judge me for my religious beliefs. As orientation approached, I became more and more fearful. I imagined my roommate requesting a change in rooms after meeting me simply because of my background. When my plane landed in LAX, I was sure I was going to have a very uncomfortable encounter with a TSA official.

I was wrong. I was completely wrong.  

CMC is the best thing that has ever happened to me. The perfect weather. The perfect people. The perfect school. I am now certain I made the correct choice and my fears about Islamophobia at CMC are no more. People don’t care what religion I practice. In fact, they are intrigued by my background. I often spend hours telling people about Jordan, where I grew up. I would have never guessed that people would be so accepting of me. I never would have dreamed that I, a freshman coming from overseas, would be accepted to the extent that I would be elected Student Life Chair.

And now, I feel terrible. I have always protested against the misconceptions about Islam and Muslims. Yet, I ended up unknowingly creating my own misconceptions about most Americans – for that I apologize.

However, despite the accepting and tolerant culture at CMC, Islamophobia is still prevalent in many areas of the US. What can be done do to help diminish its prevalence?

First and foremost, I believe Muslim Americans need to work on changing the manner in which they are perceived by other Americans in order to improve the perception of Muslims everywhere. To do so, they need to avoid isolating themselves and should demonstrate to other Americans that they share similar values and are equally patriotic. In doing so, American Muslims will make their true, loving and peaceful identity known. They can prove that “extremist Muslims” are not true Muslims, and that Islam does not support the killing and torturing of fellow human beings to serve political agendas. Instead, they will demonstrate that Islam promotes humanity, peace and equality between people of all races and religions. Once Muslim Americans are able to accomplish this task successfully, the foundations of Islamophobia will weaken, and this social disease will be on its way to recovery.

I came to the US with my mind set on repudiating any misconceptions anyone had of Muslims. Fortunately, the community I live within at CMC seems to be free of these misconceptions.

I hope that one day America as a whole will be more like CMC: a place where we are judged not by what race or religion we are, but by who we are as people.

Unfortunately, the antipodal pressures of tradition and aspiration may force the administration to try to get the best of both worlds – an effort which will ultimately have devastating consequences to the unity of the student body.

By focusing too hard on the extremes, in a graceless counterbalancing maneuver, the administration risks running the “average CMCer” into extinction.

There are no distinct classes of students at CMC. In a way, everyone is average. This is one of the school’s greatest strengths: We can all relate to one another. Most everyone is similar in academic caliber, social engagement and disposition toward embracing life. Whether you started your day with a refreshing beer shower or awkward walk of shame after a one night stand with Poppa, you can have dinner with any other CMCer and have something to talk about.

CMC is a tight-knit family of peers who respect each other’s differences because we have so much in common. From the brawniest bros to the haughtiest hipsters, from the soberest Starkies to tipsiest TNCers, the term “typical CMCer” applies to all of us.

We cannot take this for granted. If the administration is not careful about how it tweaks its admissions policies, we are headed for cultural armageddon and the destruction of CMC’s middle, and only, class.

Rankings are based exclusively on hard factors, and the game is getting increasingly competitive: College selectivity is at an all-time high, and institutions are constantly modifying their admissions pools to gain an edge. Over the long term, CMC admissions will be forced to reconcile our soft-factor spirit with our hard-factor aspirations.When adding to the CMC family each year, the admissions office looks at a number of “hard factors” (test scores, GPA, etc.) as well as a number of unquantifiable “soft factors” (athletics, leadership, overall Stag Factor, etc.). Traditionally, admitted students have a good balance of both hard and soft factors, perhaps leaning slightly more on one or the other.

To accomplish these ends, the administration will initially simply reduce the weight it puts on soft factors; leadership experience will play a diminished role in admissions, coaches will be told they can lobby for fewer recruits and the minimum acceptable test score will be inched upward, disqualifying more soft-factor reliant applicants.

But there is only so far we can go down this road. Eventually, there will come a point where the administration realizes it is straying too far from its commitment to a well-rounded student body. Without a critical mass of soft-factor students, CMC will begin to lose its identity and the unique vibrancy of campus life will fade as more CMCers forgo ski-beach day and the Green Beach slip ‘n’ slide in favor of a Starbucks Doubleshot and a Honnold carrel.

Nobody wants this, and I don’t think it will be allowed to happen. Despite the recent characterization of the administration as a rankings-hungry zealot willing to sell our soul for a spot in the U.S. News and World Report Top 10, I do not think this will be our fate. I have faith that there is an understanding, even within the administration, that without a healthy level of exceptional athletes, brotastic campus organizers and TNC theme loyalists, CMC will lose that special something that distinguishes us from our East-coast wannabe neighbors to the South.

So what happens when we cannot cut the soft factors any further without risking significant losses in culture and identity?

The obvious mathematical solution (that still sates our rankings craving) is to balance the necessity of soft-factor admissions by overstocking on their hard-factor counterparts. Instead of well-rounded students, with decent hard AND soft factors, the administration will turn to a policy of admitting students with either exceptional hard OR soft factors. Since there will be an effective quota of reserved slots for soft-factor applicants (whatever the administration deems to be a “critical mass”), the only way to maintain a national ranking based on hard-factor averages will be to up the admissions standards for everyone else. Soft-factor applicants will still get in on athletics, leadership or other intangibles, and the burden of upholding test-score and GPA averages will fall on those whose applications who rely more heavily on academics.

Put simply, we will be forced to compensate for our commitment to leadership by cutting out the middle of the spectrum. It will take an impeccable GPA and test scores to get in on hard-factors alone.

The consequences of such a policy will be disastrous. The student body will become increasingly dichotomized. The sobriety of Stark will spread quickly to Auen and Fawcett as masses of SAT-perfect overachievers are let in to pay the rankings debt of CMC tradition. The fluid spectrum of interests and abilities that characterizes present-day CMC will fracture as it becomes easier to tell who is a rankings baby and who is on “leadership welfare.” With less in common, the two communities will become more insular; the bunker design of North Quad will finally be put to use as bros barricade themselves inside, fervently defending their right to blast music at 2:00am on a weeknight against an onslaught of RAs summoned by the enemy to enforce a more “study friendly” environment.  Mid Quad lounges will be set aflame as the two sides fight a turf war over space to party or study. John Faranda will weep on parents field.

Hyperbole aside, I have a legitimate fear that this fate, should it befall us, will go overlooked by the administration. So long as there are enough students in each group, activities and opportunities tailored to each will remain sufficiently popular to give the illusion of cohesion. TNC will go on, CMS will continue to dominate the SCIAC, and the number crunchers at Princeton Review and U.S. News and World will be none the wiser. CMC will have accomplished the impossible, preserving both our institutional identity and academic acclaim. On campus, however, it will be abundantly clear that the “typical CMCer” is gone and the achievement of a well-rounded student body has come at the cost of the well-rounded student.