With that, congratulations to these winners as well as the entire Class of 2010 for your incredible academic achievements and contributions to the CMC community.  We’re really going to miss all of you.

STUDENT AWARDS

The Alamshah Award: Isayas Theodros ’10

The Alamshah Award is presented annually by the Dean of Students to a student who has shown the strongest commitment to student government.

The O’Keefe Award: Stark Hall

The O’Keefe Award is presented to the dorm with the lowest dorm damages, highest number of activities, and a number of other factors in the past year.

The Sydney J. Rosenberg Award for Debate: Charlie Sprague ’10

Note: Within each academic department, best thesis decided by the faculty via popular vote while best overall is the student in the major with the highest GPA.

Robert Day School of Economics and Finance

Best Thesis-Ryan Wessels ’10

Best Overall-Keren Michelson ’10

Robert Days School of Economics and Finance (Accounting)

Best Thesis-Janice Tan ’10

Best Overall-Mollie Amkraut ’10

Gender Studies

Best Thesis-Rebekah Binns ’10

Government

Best Thesis-David Ernst ’10

Best Overall-Brendan Sasso ’10

History

Best Thesis-Rebekah Binns ’10

Best Overall-Bri Riggio ’10

International Relations

Best Thesis-Elaisha Nandrajog ’10

Best Overall-David Nahmias ’10

Literature

Best Thesis-Livia Romano ’10

Best Overall-S. Nadini Majumdar ’10

Mathematics

Best Thesis-Camila Friedman-Gerlicz ’10

Best Overall-Will Feldman ’10

Modern Languages

Best Overall-David Nahmias ’10

Philosophy

Best Thesis-Corey Davia ’10

Best Overall-Hunter Jackson ’10

Psychology

Best Thesis-Courtney Dern ’10

Best Overall-Courtney Dern ’10

Religious Studies

Best Thesis- Elaisha Nandrajog ’10

Best Overall-Alexander Haines ’10

Science

Best Thesis:

Biological Sciences: Giselle Galanto ’10

Physical Sciences: Dianna Buckett ’10

Neuroscience: Sheila Bhardwaj ’10

Best Overall- Spencer Trooboff ’10

The Alumni Association Citizenship Award: Courtney Dern ’10 and Shamil Hargovan ’10

The Alumni Association Outstanding Athlete Award for Men and Women: Warren Brown-Pounds ’10 and Annie Perizzolo ’11

The William Dickinson Athletic Award: Cameron Hanson ’10

The Brian Walkenbach Award for Outstanding Resident Assistant: Cameron Hanson ’10

The Berger Award for Outstanding Senior Man and Woman: Abhi Nemani ’10 and Becca Arnold ’10

Students apply to be the recipient of this award based academic achievement, contribution to the CMC community, and moral integrity among other things. The winner is decided by ASCMC and Dean of Students’ office

NATIONAL FELLOWSHIPS & SCHOLARSHIPS

Fulbright Scholarships

Amber Ariate ’10

Katie Walker ’10

Rebekah Binns ’10

Francesca Ioffreda ’10

Max Sterling ’10

Camille Sheffield ’10

Alternates:

David Nahmias ’10

David Franzel ’10

Harry Truman Scholarship

Nirant Gupta ’11

Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship

Nikki Holzberg ’11

FACULTY AWARDS

The Roy P. Crocker Award For Merit

Diane Halpern, Psychology

The Glenn R. Huntoon Teaching Award

Bassam Frangieh, Modern Languages

Direct vote by students for most effective faculty member, both junior and senior faculty members are eligible.

The G. David Huntoon Senior Teaching Award

Eric Helland, Economics

Decided by nominations from faculty and students, then student-faculty committee.

Presidential Award

Mark Massoud, Robert Day School of Economics and Finance (Accounting)

Personal award from President Gann for achievement within an individual’s career.  Professor Massoud has won 13 Huntoon teaching awards in his 31 years at CMC.

CMC students are generally conscious of their attire, but of late, there have just been too many people inappropriately dressed at the Ath. Just like you would not wear a tight mini-skirt to an interview, you should probably leave the mini-skirt in your laundry basket when you attend the Mitt Romney dinner tomorrow.

Here are some tips that I’ve garnered from my friends, family, professors, and bosses that might help you when you decide what to wear when you next attend an Ath function.

Men

• Do NOT wear polo shirts—The polo shirt is an athletic shirt—you wear them when you play polo, tennis, etc. They were part of my high school PE uniform. Do not wear gym clothes to the Ath. (Even if it’s from Band of Outsiders.)

• Do NOT wear casual shirts with a collar. Just because it has a collar does not mean it’s a dress shirt. (Personally, I think you should avoid cheap dress shirts as well. They rarely fit well and turn a weird color after a few washes. If possible invest in a good, crisp white shirt. It doesn’t have to be Dior Homme, J. Crew makes nice shirts too.)

• Do NOT wear shirts in the following colors: red, black, sky blue, or any neon. You are not going to a nightclub in the Meatpacking district or a rave.

• Do wear dress shoes. Please don’t wear sneakers with your waistcoat. You are not Justin Timberlake at the Grammy Awards.

• Do be careful about how many buttons you leave open on you shirt. It’s fine if you don’t wear a tie to the Forum’s Idea Night but we don’t want to see your chest hair, even if your significant other may dig it.

• Do tuck in your shirt. God forbid you’re wearing a polo, but if you are, tuck that in too. No exceptions.

Women

• Do NOT wear skirts that are shorter than three inches above your knee. Remember that annoying rule back in high school? Yes, it applies at the Ath also.

• Do NOT wear heels that you cannot walk in. This isn’t so much a dress code issue but more of a safety of the servers carrying trays of food issue.

• Do NOT wear anything that you would wear to TNC.

• Do wear a jacket, cardigan, or shawl over a dress or top that might be dangerously revealing. I’ve also gotten away with some dresses that might be more black-tie with a suit jacket. It also helps hide any unsightly bra straps.

• Do accessorize. The boring formal LBD that your mother gave you can easily be jazzed up with jewelry, the right shoes, and purse.

• Do NOT wear sundresses to the Athenaeum. They are not formal. Also, the color-blocked dresses I see every so often at the Ath, also not formal and also so very 2008.

Instead of doing suggested outfits, as I normally do, for the Athenaeum, I thought I would showcase some of what I might wear to the Athenaeum and how I combine pieces that are not always formal so I don’t need to have a separate formal wear wardrobe. (As you will probably notice, I don’t wear a lot of color.)

If you have additional tips or ideas, please feel free to leave comments below. See you at the Ath!

Items in this set:

From L to R : Will Kahn '12, Nico Brancolini '11, Shamil Hargovan '10, Caroline Taylor '10, Chloe Cotton '12, Bri Riggio '10 (photo credit: Isabelle Heilman '13)

The play The Dining Room by A. R. Gurney, directed by Cory Davia ’10, is set in a dining room and tells eighteen different stories, each scene not lasting more than ten to fifteen minutes. This demanded talent from the actors, an ability to distill the essence of a character in the short time they were allotted; some actors succeeded, others fell short. Overall, the strong actors truly carried the play and I found it to be an enjoyable performance.

Will Kahn ’12 in his cable-knit Ralph Lauren-esque sweaters and his slacks portrayed a compelling Northeastern, WASP-y father. The scene where Kahn, as the father of a daughter considering divorce, has an awkward conversation with his daughter (Bri Riggio ’10) about her separation from her husband is perhaps the highlight of the play. Both Kahn and Riggio made us cringe in our seats as the conversation got increasingly more awkward by the minute (“Dad, there’s another woman”). The pregnant tension was absolutely thrilling.

Max Sterling ’10’s portrayal of a grandfather lecturing his grandson (Will Kahn ’12) about the pointlessness of a private school education reminded me so much of conversations I’ve had in the past with male relatives. Sterling’s demeanor, body movements, and voice were impeccable and Kahn’s dejected replies were adorable. The housekeeper’s final remarks—“Go get your grandfather’s checkbook before he falls asleep”—were delivered with just the right amount of derision, advice, and approval.

A professor at my table mentioned that the actors did the best they could with the play. Perhaps he said this because the characters’ difficult relationships with their dining rooms seemed outdated and irrelevant in California where most people no longer have formal dining rooms. For a relatively young audience like CMC, a different play might have been better received.

Various administration officials scrambled to respond to student outcry late into the evening. John Faranda used his Facebook profile to respond to the new group. Dean Huang sent an email out to the student body to calm things down, which was followed by another this morning. “We have agreed to let the Senior Thesis Fountain Party continue, in its old location,” he wrote, “but simply want those participating to be respectful of others and noise issues.” It was not made clear how student sentiment factored into the recent decision.

Is that Professor Ward Elliott we spy,snapping pictures on the left? Could that be a sign of senior faculty approval?

The timing of this incident could not have come at a worse time for the administration. Poor Andrew Brewer, Assistant Director of Annual Giving, has scheduled an event to collect senior gifts at the Senior Apartments tomorrow night. My guess is that seniors will be happy to take the free sandwiches and beer, but be far less generous with their wallets in light of recent news. Some seniors who have already donated have even been threatening to cancel their senior gift, but the viability of this option remains unclear. Furthermore, with many high school students expected on campus in the coming weeks, and many of them considering whether to accept CMC’s offer of admission, the Office of Admission must be concerned about an angry and unhappy student body expressing their feelings to prospective students.

The Fountain Party fiasco represents only the tip of the iceberg of student discontent.  This year the administration, led by the Dean of Students, has launched a concerted attack on CMC’s culture by canceling or amending many traditions. The Dean of Students indefinitely canceled TNC on the eve of Spring Break before announcing a reinstatement of the tradition starting this Thursday. In addition to beefed up security (reportedly staffed by the CMS Football Team) and fencing, TNCs will now be CMC-only with the exception of a guest list for friends of CMCers. The Dean of Students Office seems to be repeating the same strategy with the Fountain Party. After 26 years, the Madrigal Feast was canceled. Madrigal had been in danger for years and the Athenaeum had grown tired of holding the event, but it was a deeply unpopular move nonetheless.

Some of these have been attributed to Mary Spellman’s arrival at Dean of Students. Charles Johnson argues that killing traditions was her legacy at Sarah Lawrence College and he speculates that she was brought to CMC for that purpose. CMCers complained that with the Fountain Party and Madrigal Feast gone, two of the four traditions mentioned on Claremont McKenna College’s Wikipedia article have ended.[iv]

The CMC student body is deeply resentful of the administration’s assault on CMC traditions. A typical reaction was voiced by senior Max Mautner, “How can the administration be so stupid to remove a popular tradition just as an entire class is about to graduate?” In regards to the administration’s rationale for ending the Fountain Party, the reported complaints about students getting wet and professors disliking the noise don’t seem compelling to students. The fountain can be avoided with only a minute of extra walking time and the sound coming from the celebration can hardly be any louder than the construction of the “Taj MaKravis.” If some of these events are causing problems, the administration should proactively work with students and ASCMC to change them for the better rather than unilaterally canceling or modifying them.

More fundamentally, the administration’s approach seems guided by an overall strategy of trying to end CMC’s “party culture.” Way back in September, the administration met with RAs about semester-opening party events, stated that “things have to change,” and even threatened to turn CMC into a dry campus. If this is the administration’s strategy, they are highly unlikely to succeed. Fellow Forum writer Kevin Burke has made the poignant observation that partying is the dominant status game at CMC and the administration can’t change that reality. Moreover, the administration shouldn’t be in the business of trying to air-dry CMC. Students come to CMC knowing full well that we have an open drinking culture with parties available to all. Along with many other organizations, the Student Life Committee provides plenty of opportunities for socializing without alcohol. Students are capable of self-policing and feel comfortable criticizing their peers’ poor judgment. For most of its history, CMC has successfully discouraged drunk driving and alcohol poisonings by holding large, on-campus parties with a lax alcohol policy where students feel free to seek help if they need it. We absolutely should preserve this aspect of the CMC experience.

[ii] Despite Michael Wilner’s suggestion, I refuse to call this incident “Fountaingate”.

[iii] Yesterday, I emailed Dean Huang, Dean Nauls, and Dean Spellman to get information about this story. Only Spellman responded by telling me to speak with Dean Nauls.

[iv] Somebody evidently updated the article just hours after William’s announcement.

Emily Forden '10 prepares to execute Kyle Block in Roman ritual style.

The first, Jeremy Wolff ’13, introduced the impressive versatility of “circular thinking” in the design field. He raced through the slides at a lightning pace, inundating the audience with circular designs in everyday life and explaining their merits by using Bauer Center, Starbucks, and the Athenaeum designs as examples. Luckily his haste was matched by sharp wit and a strong ability to present alternative examples to the audience during the short Q&A.

The second presentation was by John-Clark Levin ’12 and Jason Soll ’12. The pair spoke about the underlying causes of poverty. Poverty, the two argued, is not a lack of money; rather, a lack of money is a symptom of poverty. With my personal political convictions, I’m inclined to agree with the general premises and most things the conservative pair might argue. Still, I didn’t understand their idea for a solution. Neither did Michelle Kahn ’12, Charlie Sprague’10 or Sandy Russell ’10, who all successively asked variations of the same question: what are you going to do about it? That was the idea the audience was expecting to hear, and didn’t. The guests were further surprised when an unrelated picture of Jason in a track suit appeared on screen, detracting from his presentation. Contrary to popular belief, including a picture of one’s biceps does little to strengthen an argument.

Next up were ASCMC veterans Eric Scott ’11 and Ben Kraus ’11, who presented their idea for the Improvements, Projects, and Actions Committee (IPAC), a committee of students designated to create and implement long-term goals to improve the CMC experience. Eric and Ben recovered flawlessly when some unforeseen technical difficulties erased half of their slideshow, inadvertently giving them an added opportunity to show their command over their subject and presentation. Josh Siegel ’10 “went there” and asked Ben if he would have created the Committee had he won his bid for ASCMC president. “No,” he responded, ”Not immediately.  But by October 2010 I would have figured out that it was necessary to create lasting change at CMC.”

Fourth was Emily Forden ’10, who encouraged active audience participation with a live demonstration of her thesis argument on the Roman torture method unassumingly called “The Sack.” Emily “executed” Kyle Block ’10 with the assistance of David Nahmias ’10 by stuffing Kyle into a maggoty cow’s carcass with a whole ark of dead animals. Then, Kyle was spoon-fed Ath dessert to ensure temporary survival. Kyle’s torture and death was a first for the Athenaeum, which previously claimed zero casualties in its 40-year history. Throughout the demonstration, Emily explained her historical interpretation of this Roman tradition and the purifying effect she believes it had on the collective Roman soul. Liz Johnson ’11 stepped up and asked the question everyone was wondering: “What are some other creative manifestations of Roman criminal justice?”  to which Emily replied, “They aren’t Ath-appropriate!” (If you liked Emily’s talk, then I strongly recommend any class by CMC history professor Shane Bjornlie.)

Roxanne Phen ’10 presented a condensed version of her thesis topic: changing the philanthropic landscape by introducing low-profit limited liability companies (L3Cs). Arguably the perfect pitch for a CMC crowd, Roxanne spoke about capitalizing on the benefits and flexibility of for-profit companies for non-profit purposes. For more on her presentation, Roxanne will be publishing a Forum article in the coming week.

Finally, CMC alum Alex Caldwell ’09 spoke about robots. I question the selection committee’s decision to include an alum when so many current students had applied to give talks. Nevertheless, the audience was undoubtedly entertained by Alex’s accessible presentation on our fast approach to the technical singularity point– a moment in time when robots will be able to teach themselves. Noting studies that argue against the ability of robots to ever make moral choices, Alex put forth his idea of  utopia as a day when human labor is rendered obsolete. In his Q&A session, Mr. Caldwell had to admit that, no, he had not seen WALL·E yet.

Voting by text message-- bringing democracy to the 21st century.

In the end, there could only be one. The audience voted by text message and the results were displayed live, yielding a dramatic dead tie between Jeremy and Roxanne. An instant runoff was held and Roxanne took the title of the first Athenaum VIP, solidifying her name on an Athenaeum plaque and snatching a coveted ticket to the head table for Mitt Romney’s talk on April 15.

Congratulations to the lovely Roxanne Phen and her winning idea on future philanthropic models, and to Carl and Michael for hosting a wonderful event and creating a new CMC tradition.   I predict it will become a part of CMC’s Athenaum culture and remain with us for quite some time.

(note: a few of the extra shots can be found here)

Students are invited to submit papers, projects, or original research for the enjoyment of the CMC community below. Participants and their topics will be selected by a committee of student representatives for uniqueness, interest, and quality. We are looking for interesting arguments on any topic — politics, culture, CMC, etc — and although the content will vary greatly, the form will remain constant: each participant will have 10 minutes, a projector, and a podium.

Presentation skills will be valued equally alongside content. At the end of the event, the audience will be asked to rank the speakers on their interest and persuasiveness, and while everyone will get a token of our appreciation, the winner will get a special prize: Ath VIP Status, including a head table spot at Mitt Romney and your name on the wall. More details regarding the prizes to come.

To get you thinking, here are some ideas (although not necessarily good ones) from our own Carl Peaslee: “Will NASCAR be the sport of the future?” “Who is the bigger nuclear threat, Iran or North Korea?” “Is Ford a better investment than Toyota?” “What does Twilight have to do with the recession?” “How is Star Wars the perfect metaphor for the Obama administration?”

Enter to present your idea using the form below, and be sure to sign up at the Ath for the dinner. Check out who else is going and invite your friends on facebook.

P.S. Everyone who steps up and applies will get a (very CMC) surprise gift.

Beyond satisfying the typical requirements of an elite liberal arts college, CMC deserves a president who thoroughly appreciates and is committed to what makes it special: its unique brand of liberal arts education and the intimate, nurturing atmosphere that it affords.  Crucially, this requires professors and administrators to interact with students at more than a formal level. Yet I don’t know anyone who thinks Pam Gann knows their name, let alone them as a person. Maybe it’s different for the ASCMC crowd or the hyperactive on campus, but it seems that us mere mortals don’t register on her radar.

As a part of being on the football team, I’ve been forced able to go to the IRanWithGann event the past three years at CMC.[i] Besides getting an awesome selection of free t-shirts, this has also illuminated Gann’s relationship with the student body. First of all, this is one of the few times each year that I see her walking around on campus—let alone talk to students. More damningly, at the 5K, her conversations with students always seem to be of the “What’s your name/major?” variety. You’d think at some point she’d run into a student whose name she already knew or whose major she actually remembered. It’s hard to escape the feeling that she’s there to check a box (“See Board of Trustees! I told you I care about the student body!”) rather than have a genuine interaction with students.  Perhaps, though, this is just me being biased.

I suppose that could be forgiven. Over the past four years, my love for CMC has outgrown my demands for what it does for me. But more disappointing, I don’t see that same love of CMC, that wholehearted embrace of what makes the school special, in Pam Gann.  It may sound corny, but when she talks about the school, I don’t see a twinkle in her eye. Gann speaks highly about CMC, but her comments often feel like they would fit any elite liberal arts college. She praises our small classes sizes, our great professors, our selectivity, but always seems to miss the part about things that make CMC special.

In her first convocation, Pam talked about the how CMC fits into the broader higher education landscape and the importance of branding in “outrunning” the competition. This would have been a perfect place to talk about CMC’s unique attributes. Glaringly, though, she doesn’t even allude to the special character of the school. The implication is that we’re a liberal arts school like any other, struggling to (1) to be within the group of “brand name” colleges and universities; and (2) to compete effectively within this “brand name” group for students, faculty, and resources. The same speech would have worked at Amherst, Williams, or even Pomona.

At this point in the conversation, a voice of reason will often say “Yeah, but at least she’s raised a lot of money.” That is true. But money is not raised in a vacuum, and one person is not responsible for all of an institution’s fundraising success. Furthermore, our alumni population is getting older. It seems reasonable to think that older alumni 1) have more money since they’ve been able to work more years and 2) are more likely to donate money because, to put the matter bluntly, they want to have an impact on something they care about before they die. The steady increase in annual donations in the chart below seems to evidence this story. There is more volatility after Pam becomes president, but there isn’t a marked increase in donations over the trend line.

At a personal level, I don’t have any particular problem with President Gann. She hasn’t done anything outrageous or grossly failed in her duties as president. But CMC is much more than a typical liberal arts college and deserves much more than a typical president. At a dinner honoring Gann for her ten years of service to the College this past December, former CMC president Jack Stark thanked her for what she didn’t do: change the character of the school. But I think CMC deserves better. CMC deserves a president that doesn’t make its students question whether the president cares about them. CMC deserves a President that is firmly committed to keeping CMC a special place.

Pam Gann, simply put, fails those standards. For that dinner honoring Gann, the administration tried to film a series of students being asked questions about Pam Gann’s life and what they thought about her. According to Dean Huang, they had to scrap the project, however, because apparently not enough students said nice things. To me, that’s pretty damning. Out of a school of 1200+ students, we couldn’t cobble together enough pro-Gann students to make a two-minute video. Perhaps, I’m going a bit overboard, though, and you feel that Pam Gann actually does a decent job as president. But shouldn’t CMC, as our government department would say, strive for excellence?

Caption: This graph shows the total amount of alumni giving that went into the operating budget in a given year. It notably excludes large donations that go to things like a new buildings or a new Robert A. Day Master of Finance program. Those large gifts often take multiple years to negotiate and structure and thus are affected differently by factors like the economy, alumni aging, or a new president. The purpose of this graph is not to prove that President Gann fails as a fundraiser. Rather I am merely trying to show that under this basic fundraising metric she does not surpass the trend. Following her inauguration in late 1990s, support from alumni giving has mostly kept with its rising trajectory set by earlier presidents. Thus, deciding whether President Gann is doing an exceptional job fundraising depends on the degree to which she impacted recent large donations. But to answer that, we’d need to look inside Robert Day’s head, which I, unfortunately, do not have the ability to do.

Billed by both the Ath and her own website as “the last protege of Ansel Adams,” Cook is clearly a talented photographer, and her work reflects her studies with Adams. For example, like Adams she shoots in black and white and does some landscape work. Beyond those base similarities, her work echoes the clean style, high contrast, and simple subject matter of Adams. Even if I didn’t think her art was notable — lots of important museums do; her works are part of the permanent collections at the Met, MoMA, and the Smithsonian, to name a few. Her art is not in question here, but rather her (in)ability to reveal something about herself and her work.

For her talk, Cook showed a number of her portraits (most of which, if not all, were readily available on her website) and said a few words on each photograph, sometimes only mentioning the subject’s name and occupation. That was it. Though her commentary revealed some clues as to her methods, working style, and occasionally short anecdotes about her notable subjects, she gave almost nothing of herself to the audience.

Katherine Graham, Jorge Louis Borges, Francis Crick, Merce Cunningham, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Jamaica Kincaid, Lillian Hellman, Sidney Janis, Philip Johnson and David Whitney, Francois Mitterrand, Dorothy Norman, Mirium Rothschild, Steven Spielberg, Dorothea Strauss, Maya Lin and Daniel Wolf — do those names mean anything to you? I only knew about 7 out of 17 of those names and I consider myself to be at least moderately culturally literate. How about a little context? A good speaker neither overestimates nor underestimates the audience’s intelligence (or in this case, cultural literacy). For an address to a school with limited theater opportunities, no arts programs, almost complete neglect for creative talents (save Ath events like this one), Cook might have tailored her comments to a more ignorant, but curious crowd.

Her background as a fine art photographer was also unclear. To have had the opportunity to photograph really important, influential individuals, such as the publisher of the Washington Post, a founding member of the Beat movement, the former president of France, and a three-time Academy Award winning director, one must ask– how? why? Cook never addressed how she was able to gain access to these individuals. For example, Cook photographed Michelle and Barack Obama in 1996 as part of her book featuring images of couples– how did the young politician and his wife come across her radar?

These were the only facts I could gather about her:  she had a wealthy background as her parents collected art and owned a De Kooning, she speaks excellent French, she’s well-traveled, and most importantly, she has friends in high places.  Now clearly not all speakers come to the Ath to talk about themselves, but at least they speak at length about their work, their research, their industry, or something, no?

Though Cook admitted that she chose an arbitrary title for her talk (“What is a portrait?”), her insight on what makes a good photograph was pretty unoriginal. “I felt like I revealed something of who he was,”  she said of photograph of a bookstore owner Jacob Zeiltin.  “He thought the portrait looked more like him than he did.”

Maybe I’m a jaded art history major, or maybe, Cook doesn’t have a whole lot to say and should stick to what she does best — taking beautiful portraits.

Alumni tell me CMC has prepared me well for the journey, but have I really learned much since the 5th grade?  I have some plans, but I’ve never been more unsure of where I’ll be in five years.

Despite my personal confusion, I think I have a pretty good idea of where Claremont McKenna will be in five years. There are a lot of good “Decade in Review” articles and posts around the web lately, but I say those are written by people like Kevin Burke who can’t see into the future. Here’s what’s going to happen at CMC in the next decade.

2010:

• CMC amends the science GE requirements to allow computer science courses as an alternative option.
• The music video “That’s So North Quad” drops and takes the school by storm (just wait).
• I graduate.

2011:

• The Kravis Center opens.
• In his final act of bravery before graduation, the ASCMC Social Activities Chair will throw the largest CMC party ever in the middle of North Quad. There will be strippers, midgets, fifths, handcuffs, clowns on stilts, clowns on goats, Kanye West, and a 40-foot crane hanging a roasting pig over a spit. Epic. The next morning, a townie tied to a chair, gagged and missing his two front teeth, will wake up in the Appleby laundry room. Nobody will know how he got there. A Claremont McKenna water polo player will find the missing teeth days later at the bottom of the CMS pool. The townie will sue CMC for a few milli. In response and retaliation, the administration will cancel all ASCMC parties for the following three weeks.

2012:

• CMC announces a plan to tear down Ducey Gym and build a new gym in the “pit” across Claremont Boulevard. They have been doing this annually for years, but this time they “mean it.”

2013:

• The company that owns the College Park Apartments tries to found the sixth “Claremont” college, Upland College. The Consortium decides not to admit the school, so the company founds their own consortium — The Upland Colleges.  Holla.  The Upland Colleges will become renowned for their strict alcohol policies, degree in ergonomics, and loose women.

2014:

• An ambitious CMCer will hear about this thing called Claremont Confessions. “Sounds cool,” he says, so he brings it back. This time the site implements an anonymous video and hidden camera feature. I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.
• Chipotle adds a store to the Claremont village. In-N-Out Burger takes over for Bon Appetit at the Hub.

2015:

• A few weeks ago I said to President Gann, “Tear down whatever buildings you want and rebuild them, but don’t try to tear down North Quad.”  She laughed.  ”That’s what everyone tells me!” she said.  In 2015, she draws up plans to tear down North Quad as part of what she dubs “Ganny-Gann’s Masta Plan.”

2016:

• Facebook groups remain a vehicle to achieving powerful institutional change.  President Gann mysteriously retires following the creation of the Facebook group, “WE LOVE YOU NORTH QUAD – DON’T LEAVE CMC!” The Board of Trustees hires an Economics Professor (finally!), Brock Blomberg, to take her place.  The plans to tear down North Quad are dropped.
• ASCMC gets audited by the Internal Revenue Service. Uh oh. As the ASCMC CFO shreds files associated with line items for “Tropical Lei Expense,” “Cigars for Meetings,” and “Income from Extraordinary Sources,” a CMC alumnus who was appointed head of the IRS in 2015 calls off the audit.

2017:

• Newly appointed Athenaeum Director Ward Elliot reinstates the Madrigals tradition as his first order of business. The wassail will flow once again.

2018:

• Moose Halpern (CMC ’10), running on a campaign of “What up, chief?” is elected the youngest US Senator in California history.
• Scripps goes coed and quickly becomes the most competitive 5C school to get into. Mudders will cry. The Motley will stop serving “feminista” coffee.

2019:

• Henry Kravis bequeaths a large amount of cash money to CMC under the condition that we buy, restructure, and annex Pitzer with it, renaming the school “Claremont McKravis College” (see image).
• CMC will have the largest liberal arts college endowment in the world.

________________

I can’t predict what will happen beyond 2019 — CMC might open a water park in Montclair, the senior class might take over the Children’s School playground, the consortium might kick out Pomona College — only time will tell.  Who knows what’s coming?