Most Likely to Become a CMC Professor? Jesse Blumenthal

Most Likely to Attend TNC Next Year? AJ Harris

Friendliest? Aviana Gracial & Divya Vishwanath

Most Dreamed About? Joe Swartley

Best All-Around? Joe Swartley (pictured above) & Kathryn Mgrublian

Best Hair? Carolina Vicario & Alexander Reichert

Wish You Knew Better? (L-R) Marshall Fisher, Chris Jones & David Cook

Best Smile? Marshall Fisher (pictured above) & Tammy Phan

Best Eyes? Joe Swartley (pictured above)

Class Clown? Carl Peaslee

Best Dressed? Alex Mitchell & Victoria Din

Most Changed? Joey Farewell & Alice Reichman

Best Couple? Brittany Pineros & Mikey Ngyuentat

Best Ho-mance? Sarah Dick & Kaitlyn Desai

Best Bromance? Ian Anderson & Marshall Fisher

Renaissance Man? Chris Jones (pictured above)

Renaissance Woman? Cara Daley

(Photo credit: Caroline Nyce)

Most Likely to Become the next John Faranda? AJ Harris (pictured above)

Most Likely to Become the next Fid Castro? Tammy Phan (pictured above)

Most Likely to Stick with TFA? Amy Jacobson

Most Likely to Take Over The World? Charles Johnson

Most Likely to Become President? Mike Whatley

Most Likely To Have a Building Named After Him? Ben Kraus

Most Likely To Wear a Stags Jersey to the Birth of his first child? Beaumont Heidrich

Most likely to marry current significant other? Sean Wasserman & Ana Kostioukova

Late on Thursday afternoon, Johnson presented ASCMC President Jessica Mao and Chief Financial Officer Lacey McLean with $15,000 in cash.  Speaking to people close to the ASCMC Executive Board indicate negotiations over the future of the Forum have gone on for weeks.  It is still unclear what prompted the move, why ASCMC accepted the offer and why Johnson would even be interested in the publication.  Records indicate that the Forum was stable financially and there were no rumors of collapse. An independent audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers found the publication was running smoothly and under budget.

In a press release circulated to various campus publications, Johnson announced the appointment of a new senior staff, none of whom attend any of the Claremont Colleges. An anonymous source familiar with the situation said, “Johnson wanted his own people, to fulfill his own agenda and did not want any dissenting opinions.” The change was effective immediately according to the letter.

Rumors circulated Thursday evening about possible reasons for Johnson acquiring the Forum. Some thought this was a move to silence his rival publication on campus.  Others speculated the purchase was a well thought out investment.  An individual in Johnson’s inner-circle said Johnson was strongly considering shutting down the publication. The individual added that Johnson’s desire to “squash the largest competing publication” was the driving force behind his decision.

Hyatt was spotted leaving his office behind McKenna Auditorium with his few office belongings.  Stan Lipstein, a passerby saw him and said, “He seemed slightly frustrated and astonished as he got into his car. There was no yelling or cursing that I heard.” Multiple reports indicate Hyatt left the premises escorted by Campus Safety. Campus Safety said the escort was a formality.

Hyatt was only Editor-in-Chief at the Forum for 10 days before the publication switched hands.  He was unavailable for comment about the recent move and changes.  Some question the decision to release him from the publication. A source close to Hyatt said he and Johnson simply wanted to take the Forum in different directions and those irreconcilable discrepancies led to Hyatt’s termination.

Johnson, a Senior at CMC, Editor-in-Chief of the Claremont Conservative and entrepreneur, was also unavailable for comment. His secretary said Johnson will hold a press conference on the Bauer Center steps on April 4 announcing a new direction for the publication and his plans for the future.

Other members of the previous senior staff including Rachel Brody, W. Max Mullen and Kelsey Brown could not be reached for comment.

I think my friend has a serious problem with alcohol. He often turns to alcohol when he is having a “rough day,” pouring multiple drinks on weeknights when he has class early the next morning. Without fault, he almost immediately makes at least one drink every Thursday after his last class of the week…and his class ends before noon. My friends and I have tried to talk to him; dropping hints that his drinking is excessive and inappropriate, turning our heads when he offers us alcohol at ridiculously early hours of the day. His habit makes us pretty uncomfortable. What else should my friends and I do? Is there a way we can tactfully tell our friend that we think he has a drinking problem?

Thanks,

Boozer’s Buddy

Fun Killer,

Hmmm, you know, logistically speaking, alcohol is good for you. Why do you think boozers never get sick? Duh, alcohol kills germs. Whoever doesn’t know that is dumber than the people who thought the miners trapped in Chile were actually “minors.” Can you believe they let children work in mines?! Little did we know they were down there chillean’ out, pounding brandy and cola like athletes during post-game catch-up. And now they all have book and movie deals, right? See, alcohol is good for you.

Photo Credit: Internet

I guess what I’m really trying to say is, didn’t you mean to send this question to the Dean of Students Office? Or maybe your RA? Did they not waste last spring break figuring out how to deal with alcoholics? I mean, I’m a reserve, but that just means until I poison Henry Lyford I have the freedom to smash pumpkins and sneak into Scripps dorms wearing my banana hammock and Uggs.

Alright, alright, the situation is rather serious. Alcohol is a drug and while it is a more accepted drug, it can be equally as detrimental to the life of an individual. There’s a difference between drinking, and drinking to numb reality. That’s not to say people shouldn’t booze when they want. It’s when alcohol becomes the only way one can cope with a “tough day” that red flags should fly – which they have, and that’s good, but then you asked me what to do instead of speaking with someone who can actually get your friend some help.

I know there is this stigma associated with telling DOS about troubled students. It feels like you’re ratting out a friend, being the asshole that over-stepped his boundaries. People don’t know how smooth DOS is though (everyone just read that line and laughed out loud). But for real, they’ll find a random reason to pull your friend in, just to chat. His RA will check up on him a little more and he’ll never know you said anything…

…annnd you’ve dismissed the idea of telling DOS. There has to be another way. You’ve already nudged some disapproval towards this friend. Maybe give him a little incentive to not drink, don’t be his companion. Misery loves Johnnie Walker Red. It’s also privy to company, and every time you break down and take a shot with him you are reinforcing his behavior. Even if you only do it sometimes, know that intermittent reinforcement makes behavior increasingly difficult to extinguish (holler at me psych majors!). Tell him you’d rather have seltzer water. I doubt it will do much to curb his consumption, but it might help you understand alcoholics need more than a scolding from their friends to buck their addiction.

People brag about being heavy drinkers: “I’m such an alcoholic. I drank like, a whole fifth of Mike’s Hard last night!” Cool, you drink a lot, congratulations. You still have your shit together, you still go to class, and when finals come around, you buckle down in the library. Alcoholics drink, and drink, and don’t give a fuck if they are with friends or alone in their room on Monday morning.

So do something. Tell someone who has the means to help. That is DOS, Monsieur, or your RA. If not, I’ll have my friend find the IP address from your email, and I’ll do something about it.  Moral of the story: friends don’t let friends drive drunk. Unless you’re going to Del Taco. Then it’s okay. We’re hungry.

Love,

A Mitch

After the administration gave Bon Appétit, the company that manages meals at Claremont McKenna College, a reduced budget for the year, Bon Appétit decided that limiting Snack to students on the meal plan was the best option to reduce costs.

Snack was implemented to accommodate students’ sleep schedules, and give them a chance to fraternize. “Many college students don’t eat breakfast in the morning and are hungry at night,” said Vice President for Student Affairs Jeff Huang. “A second reality is that there have been times when the Hub was not open and there weren’t a whole lot of food options for students at night.  It was also a very good to build community among students from across the college.”

The Snack attendance policy change affects the entire campus, not just hungry upperclassmen.

“It’s kind of unfortunate for underclassmen on the meal plan as well as for upperclassmen off the meal plan,” explains Charles Johnson ’11, who is off the meal plan. “When I first came to CMC, I met a lot of the seniors and other upperclassmen at snack. Snack was one of the few events that we all had in common. It was healthy for the school.”

The administration blamed the economy for the change in policy.

“The downturn in the economy hit us like it did a lot of other [colleges]. We tried to figure out how we could economize within the college’s budget without major disruption to student programs,” explains Dean Huang. “Our treasurer had to come up with some different budgets. There was a meeting between herself, myself and Bon Appétit where she suggested what we could do to save money, and Bon Appétit also had several ideas.”

Bon Bon Appétit has made a number of budget cuts over the past year, including canceling Snack on Sunday nights, removing trays, which colleges found can save up to 5% of their food waste, reducing the number of meals faculty receive for free each week, and closely managing overtime, cookware and other supplies.

Cutting snack from five nights a week to four saved the school approximately $50,000. Back of the envelope calculations reveal that the school is saving between $2,000 and $12,000 this year by excluding students who are off of the meal plan.¹

“I don’t know of any other colleges that have a free fourth meal either for the boarders or for the non-boarders,” explains Dean Huang. “There is a lot of food to be found on this campus, Athenaeum tea, Ath programs themselves, whether you are on [the meal plan] or not.”

“I think that they should give at least a discounted rate, for seniors especially,” says Johnson. “I am really barred from having any sort of interaction with underclassmen. The Associated Students of Claremont McKenna College will have elections later on in the year and most upperclassmen won’t even be allowed to go see the speeches since they are usually held at snack. It will have a negative impact on campus camaraderie.”

1. Assuming Snack costs $200,000 per year, the school provides Snack on 128 nights a year, food/drink costs are 30% of Snack budget, between 5% and 20% of traditional Snack attendees were off the meal plan, and non-attendance by those students translates directly into lower food costs.

To begin with a few criticisms, the obviously ideological nature of the publication can at times lead the authors to ignore obvious realities.  For example, Karthik Reddy’s article on America’s recent turn to Keynesian economics, mentions that the stimulus may lead to “crowding out,” whereby public expenditures displace private investment by raising interest rates.  Yet he must be aware that interest rates remain near zero and simply refuses to include this uncomfortable fact while describing the danger of crowding out.  The publication also has no qualms about unappealing metaphors.  Though Liberty’s Last Stand surely takes pride in being controversial, Spencer Kline (an editor-in-chief) might have considered it prudent to avoid referring to cheap low-skilled labor as “the grease that keeps our economy functioning at peak efficiency.”

On the whole, however, Liberty’s Last Stand is enjoyable and worth reading. Ariel Katz has the courage to argue in favor of the legalization and state recognition of polygamy and Andrew Jarmon presents a persuasive case for abolishing the corporate tax.   These article in particular highlight the unique contribution a libertarian publication can make to campus discourse.  To be sure, many of the articles will find a receptive audience at the generally liberal Claremont Colleges.  Matt Fillipo’s manifesto for progressive libertarianism will speak to many students at the Claremont Colleges (and CMC in particular) who are staunchly opposed to Prop 8, but would like lower tax rates to keep more of their lucrative consulting salaries after graduation.  Additionally, Livia Romano’s article on the human suffering in Latin America caused by the War on Drugs is informative and interesting.  The international perspective is particularly appreciated, especially given how infrequently we Americans tend to examine the effects of our policies on other countries.  Liberty’s Last Stand also has a blog, Penguins in Claremont, which features a collection of posts that generally attack the anti-liberty policies of various governments.  Some of these posts are quite funny, such as one that mocks Australia’s selective crackdown on pornography with small-breasted women.

What does the future hold for Liberty’s Last Stand?  Though I wish the publication the best of luck, the Libertarian Club has limited membership to draw contributors from and organizing libertarians has been compared to herding cats.  With all but one of the writers being seniors, the publication will need to inspire new writers and editors if it wants to continue past May.

Disclaimer: I am friends with many of the Ron Paul fan boys who write and edit Liberty’s Last Stand.

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?

Urban Dictionary defines “hooking up” as everything from making out to intercourse, which in a sexual context, is to say anything.  The word is an empty vessel through which we can share our exploits without sharing them, into which we can pour our shame without confessing.  It allows us to simulate genuine interaction without actually having to go through the ordeal of being completely honest.

But shouldn’t we be honest, if not with each other, the at least with ourselves?  If you can’t deal with saying “I had sex with some rando last night” or “none of your goddamn business,” maybe you shouldn’t be hooking up.  Just a thought.

A more interesting question, though, is to ask what the phrase says about our sex lives generally.  Is it not indicative of a type of interaction that places more emphasis on simulation than reality?  Half the conversations on a typical Saturday night really don’t deserve the name.  Talking is less an actual interplay of ideas than an exchange of signs, decodable only in a carefully calibrated argot—what some call the game.  The words spoken and the sentences they create matter less than what they represent.  “Want to watch a YouTube video in my room?” is not a genuine request but actually a nifty and socially non-threatening way to ask the other person if they want to hook up.[1]

This raises a question: why is so much of how we pursue each other pretense and deceit?  There’s a reason it’s called the game, but why is that so especially true at the 5Cs?   Why do we grind up on each other in dark rooms, searching for a hint of a connection somewhere, somehow, as we drown in a sea of signifiers? I don’t want to moralize—and really I shouldn’t.  I just think maybe we need to take a collective look in the mirror.

I mean, why do so many of us want a normal dating scene?  And yet why is the only ostensible indication of this in articles written behind the safe ramparts of online discourse?  Why is it creepy to ask someone to hang out in your room when you’re both sober and not when you drunkenly stumble into each other at TNC?

I don’t have answers to these questions, but I think I know the root of the problem: being a genuine person is hard.  It’s far easier to hope to drunkenly stumble into someone that you like on a Saturday night than ask them on a date.  You don’t actually have to show initiative, just trust to Providence and the will of Andrew Cosentino.  Of course, any missteps you make can easily be blamed on being drunk.  And any emotion you might feel can be safely siphoned into the linguistic black hole “to hook up.”  In short, our sociolingual edifice is more than accommodating.  But there’s value to that harder step.  It’s why Socrates said “The unexamined life is not worth living” and—I think—why there was such a positive response to Charles’ open letter.  Perhaps all of us—myself included—need to better appreciate how hard it is to forge meaning out of life, and how worthy that struggle truly is.

I’m being haunted by the hookup from hell. At the beginning of last year I hooked up with a guy I thought I liked. Turns out he totally “New York’d” me. Now there’s a rumor going around that I got an STI from him. The truth is I never slept with him and I don’t have an STI, although he did give me a lesson in how guys can’t think with both heads at the same time. How do I stop this rumor?

Pattie Cake,

Sometimes rumors are blessings in disguise. Take, for example, Harvey Mudd students. Most had a bad rumor made up about them in middle school that completely debilitated their social life and propelled them to eat Fritos and root beer for lunch in the science lab. That sounds pretty lame until ten years from now when they perfect nuclear fusion on earth and are forever known as those Frito-eating geniuses. If I were you I would grab that STI and run like the wind. You’re getting into Harvard Grad.

If you really can’t stand having guys avoid you like the Home section at Collins, there are a couple of things you can do. If you want it to be easy, just scan your STI test results and make copies for the gossip hounds. Hand it to them and say, “I actually don’t have [insert slandered STI].” Granted, they’ll have your blood counts and hormone levels to Photoshop, possibly turning you into an AIDS-infected hermaphrodite on paper.

You don’t like either of these suggestions, do you? Me neither. So maybe just talk to him. You’re furious right? No doubt, but I don’t think screaming insults will help. Find him alone and calmly tell him how much his lies hurt you. I know I sound like your mom in grade school when she was like, “Well tell Sarah it hurts your feelings when she calls you stupid.” And you said, “I know,” but in your head you were like there is no fucking way I am saying that. Well, you’re older now, and often genuinely informing someone how damaging their words are is far more powerful than yelling, cussing, and creating rumors about how their penis competes with your index finger in length. You don’t want to turn this into a game of tennis against a brick wall, or, rather relevantly, refuting anything Charles Johnson has to say.

Realistically, there is something to be said for the strength of a person who has the self-esteem to let a rumor run its course. You know the truth and hopefully your friends do too – why let him cut you even deeper by dwelling on this falsity?

A Mitch

Dear A Mitch,

Why are the guys at CMC douchebags?

Miss Descriptive,

In the same way Pomona boys are all pretentious, Mudders all hopelessly nerdy, and Scrippsies all scissoring humanitarians, CMC guys are just dicks. Please clump us together as a huge whale douche (the ocean?). Look, there are plenty of d bags at the 5C’s, and if we did a 5C statistical survey, I wouldn’t be surprised if CMC guys ranked first in douchebaggery. I do sometimes wonder as well – you aren’t the first person to have reoccurring issues with CMCers. If I am going to hypothesize as to why so many people think Stag=douchebag, I would need to organize my thoughts. Numbers will help. And then transition sentences are not necessary. Timesavas!

1. About thirty percent of CMC  students are athletes.  This means there’s a bevy of bros who not only have a stunning physique, but have likely been popular studs for most of their lives; they are the yeast in baking success with women (in high school at least). Athletes are not inherently douches by any means – they are simply more susceptible to the status. It is easier to disregard the feelings of another when there’s always going to be someone giving a shit about how damn good you look in crimson and gold.

2. Claremont McKenna teeters on the title of liberal arts college. This is a school popular for economics, business, and finance. We have more econ majors than Jay-Z has problems, okay, actually way more. Now this might be a leap, but I imagine the kid who wants to go to school for four years and have a $60,000± investment firm salary when they graduate is the type that prefers immediate gratification. Which translates to: Gettin’ mine tonight. Or, my deeper thoughts concerning how my actions might affect people are subordinate to my drive to be successful. But then you meet Moose Halpern and everything I just said sounds outlandish.

3. Where you are meeting these guys? TNC right? T – Thursday N – Night C – CLUB. Rasmussen’s latest poll shows that clubs are for womanizers. And menizers. Especially party clubs, where a large proportion of individuals are willing to play smoochikins at the end of the night. Are you getting my drift? If you are looking for someone who you can really connect with, maybe try developing friendships outside of the party scene. If you were to walk by the basketball suite on a Saturday night, you would probably hate all of us. But have a midday chat with Seth Winterroth and you might fall in love. Drunken debauchery is misrepresentative of who people are, and while it does define a small facet of a person, the larger fraction is more visible during Sunday’s coffee conversations, Tuesday night’s psych seminar, and green beach bathing in November.

So don’t stereotype us like I have in this response. You only know what you experience –alter the environment in which your judgments occur.

A Mitch

Got a question of your own for A Mitch?  Submit it anonymously and maybe you’ll be lucky enough to be on the receiving end of A Mitch’s wise words.

If the recent controversy over Bob McDonnell’s senior thesis is any indication, public figures will be subject to increasingly thorough vetting of their academic careers and papers in the future and everything we write, from Facebook notes to essays, will be fair game.

We’ve heard cautionary tales of College students not getting jobs due to idiotic Facebook pictures.  But this has a simple solution – remove the pictures.  Removing does no harm and keeping offers no help.

But in raising controversial issues and voicing opinions, there is a harm associated with timidity- the campus environment and conversation is not as engaging.  Say what you will about Charles Johnson, CMC ’11, but at least he has the balls to write what he thinks and the campus discussion, by and large, is better for it.

And so I’ve been thinking whether or not to officially brand myself as a “Democrat.”  Yes, I’m politically left of center but not by much (I’ve argued at CAP conferences in favor of school vouchers and against EFCA…).  While I run the blog for the Port Side, with the exception of Jonathan I’m easily the most conservative student on staff.  And so calling myself a Democrat?  That seems sketchy.

The advantages to not being branded are obvious – you seem to not have partisan entanglements and appear to come from a place of “rationality” and “moderation.”   In future job pursuits I wouldn’t be disqualified for my political beliefs.  Though one of my Facebook networks is “Obama for America,” I know enough moderates and even Republicans who worked on the campaign and voted for the man that I’m okay with it.  But recently I was appointed Platform Director for the California Young Democrats.

Why did I accept?  Because in the future I’d like to work in Government, and if I have to pick a team I pick not-Republican.  That leaves me with the Dems.  And so I’ve been sitting on my new email address, platform@youngdems.org, for some time.  If I join the Facebook network, I’m a Democrat.  Anyone searching my name will see that.

But maybe the path of least association isn’t the best path.  So I’ll be a Democrat – does that mean I can’t look rationally at an issue?  Does that mean I can’t be measured and moderate?  I would hope not.

So for those interested in potentially blogging, either for the Port Side or the Claremont Conservative, and for those who want to write controversial opinions but who are afraid of the google-search – sack up.  Down the line it probably won’t hurt to have an opinion so long as you can rationally defend it.  And if times change and public opinion changes, hopefully your employer will give you a chance to explain your thinking.  If not, he’s probably a douche and you probably don’t want to work for him anyway.  In the end, there are worse things to be disqualified for than having an opinion (and even when your opinion is unpopular, you can still raise $200,000 + in cash-on-hand overnight).

“The ‘Environmental Crusaders’ name wasn’t effectively portraying our mission,” Munro explained.  Indeed, the Crusaders have frequently been at the forefront of some of the more controversial environmental efforts on campus.  For Earth Day in 2008, the Crusaders constructed a pyramid of trash demonstrating the amount of food waste produced at Collins Dining Hall in a single day.  More recently, blogger Charles Johnson generated controversy when the Crusaders took a school-funded trip to Washington, DC for the Powershift 2009 conference.   “I believe that this new name is representative of a new direction we are taking the club, helping to make Claremont McKenna a more sustainable college.”

The last several years have seen Claremont Mckenna College take a number of steps to conserve waste and reduce the environmental footprint of the school.  The opening of Claremont Hall, the school’s first LEED Silver certified building, was hailed as a breakthrough for the college.  Additionally, CMC (as part of a consortium move), eliminated trays from dining halls for the 2009-2010 school year.  Club Vice President Ashley Scott says the change was not directly linked to her group.

“The administration made the call on their own.  I think that some people don’t realize that this is a beneficial move for our campus,” said Scott, a junior who has been involved with the group since her freshmen year.  “Students are being asked to trade a little inconvenience for a policy that saves the school money.  It’s a matter of environmental economics, not something that’s purely ideological.”

SPEAR plans to push several campaigns for environmental activism on campus.  Among these, Munro points to Take Back the Tap, a national effort to reduce bottled-water usage as an important effort for CMC students. Drinking bottled water comes at a high cost both in terms of trash produced and money spent he says and there are opportunities for students to both save money and reduce waste.

Starting this month, SPEAR hopes to involve itself in the school’s long-term conservation goals.  “The Administration is forming an ad-hoc committee that will include students to revisit some of the conservation policy the school is involved in,” said Munro. This includes goals to make CMC a carbon-reduced or even carbon-neutral institution, provided there are opportunities to do so.  Also on the docket is continued support by President Pamela Gann of the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment, which she signed in 2007.

So far, both Munro and Scott see their club’s re-branding as a success.  Although the group may still serve as a lightning rod for environmental issues on campus, the new incarnation of the club is working towards a more moderate and professional image.  With a larger-than-usual turnout for the club’s first official meeting, the group will continue to partake in discourse at CMC and on the 5C campus, lest we forget global warming has the potential to affect even the very beer we drink.