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.

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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?

The Claremont Political Union was created as a confluence of the Claremont Democrats and Claremont Republicans clubs, and CMC’s two partisan newspapers, the Claremont Port Side, and the Claremont Independent. According to President of the Claremont Democrats, Elaine Maloney (SC ‘08), “People might be involved in politics, but might not be allegiant to a party. But this is a good place to start for the same goal.” Mike Whatley (CMC ‘11), Vice-President of Operations for the Claremont Republicans, echoed this goal: “It is a good thing to come together, and hold events together in a friendly environment.”

Yet, the debate over the choice of TV channel almost turned the event hostile. A half-dozen Republicans charged the party’s organizers with partisanship because they chose CNN over Fox News. To appease both sides, the CPU decided to switch between channels every 30 minutes. Yet, Mr. Whatley told me that “CNN was better anyway.”

By 6 PM, The Hub was full of Democrats, Republicans, and Independents alike, and voting in California was still open for another two hours. Sometime after 6 p.m., CNN made a projection—Barack Obama had won Delaware. The crowd of Obama supporters was glowing and cheering. On the other side, the response was more hushed during Republican projections—when John McCain won New York, the crowd remained mostly unmoved with a few scattered claps and boos.

None of the organizations in the CPU endorsed a candidate as a club, and are now focused on future events and funding. They are planning an “unconventional partisan debate” during Alumni Weekend, and are seeking funding as an organization (a consortium within a consortium?), instead of using funds from each member club. This time, club funds bought sets of red, white, and blue balloons and a handy delegate chart that was much easier to follow than that of the Situation Room at CNN.

Breaking from the usual CMC party scene, the clubs did not buy alcohol with their funds. “No one here is looking to get smashed on a Tuesday night,” said Ms. Maloney. Still, a few students improvised with Chardonnay (Obama supporters).

In CMC’s community of political involvement and partisanship, many students loved the bipartisan atmosphere. Molly Doyle (CMC ‘09) said, “I’m just so excited to be here. This event would only happen at CMC.”