Unfortunately the answer is obvious, and cringe-worthy: U.S. News & World Report National Liberal Arts College Rankings.

Claremont McKenna College has been rising on this list—and other lists—for some time now. The yearly reports have been big news on campus: we glorify falling admissions rates and drool when Forbes ranks us higher than Yale. We post on our Facebook walls about how we fared relative to other competitive colleges. We put flashy banners on our homepage telling us where we stand. The 5^th and 6^th lines of President Gann’s biography on the college’s website list the school’s ratings and its admissions selectivity ranking.

The administration is obsessed with our placement on an arbitrary scoreboard, and many of us students have joined the self-congratulatory bandwagon. We find ourselves today in an environment so focused on rankings that a senior admissions officer decided that a one-percent fudge was worth his career.

Shame on Mr. Vos, but he does not deserve all the blame.

Monday’s announcement was a wake-up call. Yes, these types of rankings games must be watched more closely. Yes, everyone involved should see the door. But the administration must also address the fact that the incentive to cheat at these games in our community seems to be unusually high. Beyond firing those responsible for cheating, the administration must address both the larger system of college rankings and its attitude towards our own ratings.

The college continues to insist on measuring itself by metrics calculated by people who have never eaten in Collins dining hall. We have an unusual and unhealthy obsession with moving up that list. It must stop now. If the administration continues to see us only in numbers, we will continue to bleed integrity. CMC will win the game. But we will lose ourselves.

Why would President Gann care what U.S. News and World Report thinks about our professors? The answer is simple: high rankings lead to better students, better professors, more money for the school and better jobs waiting for us after graduation. High rankings are good—and we can measure them. How can the college possibly be asked to ignore them?

It can’t really. Somehow, we have to attempt to strike a balance between caring and obsessing about our reputation as an institution. Unfortunately, this is an issue that every college community and every admissions department in the country must confront.

Why? Because the college ranking system is broken.

We know this intuitively. Measuring Harvey Mudd College on paper with Claremont McKenna on paper is like asking a blind man to compare apples and oranges. If a high school senior were to ask you which of the two schools she should attend, telling her the square footage of Kravis or the SAT score statistics of Mudd’s freshmen would be silly. Yet these are the very numbers that colleges around the country let rule the decisions they make at the very highest levels. These statistics are not inherently important; the ranking system makes them important. That’s ridiculous.

Once a school has been named among the top 20 schools in the nation, it should not be ranked against its peers. The differences between schools at this level come from the different focuses and strengths of each school. Publishing rankings only encourages an obsession with prestige: a gaggle of kindergartners standing on tippy toes trying to see who is the tallest.

Undeniably, the actions of anyone involved with this scandal are irredeemable and absolutely inexcusable.

But the admissions department was acting on the pressures it felt by the rankings fixation of this administration. “I put pressure on myself to drive up the rankings because it is in my office’s best interest,” Dean Vos told the Claremont Port Side in an interview in 2008, a year in which scores were inflated. This administration has created an environment that passively encouraged cheating.
But the administration was acting on outside pressures too—pressures caused by a broken ratings system that we know has no baring on the quality of this education. A solution, then, to properly address what happened will be complex.

U.S. News and World Report should admit that what it publishes is based on funny math from essentially all participants. And at some point, this college should stop sending data to institutions that rank colleges. More realistically in the short term, however, this administration needs to address its ranking mania. The resignation of Mr. Vos should not be the end of this fiasco. From here, the first step is to admit we have a problem.

I didn’t come to Claremont McKenna College because it’s number nine. I came here for the people, the classes and the professors. This won’t affect those things. But we must understand that it is worth reflecting on this situation further. For those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

And we are better than this, CMC.

CMC plans on accepting fewer than 600 of these applicants in order to avoid housing shortages. According to their calculations, this would place CMC’s acceptance rate for next year at just 11.7%. The admission rate for the Class of 2015was 13.8%.  CMC could be the most, or one of the most, selective liberal arts colleges in the nation.

Photo by Karan Malik

Last year, Pomona College just barely beat out CMC’s 2015 acceptance rate with 13.6% admittance but, as early reports indicate, growth in Pomona’s number of applications has essentially remained flat. The Office of Admissions also pointed out that Amherst college, last year’s most selective liberal arts college in the nation, had an acceptance rate of 12.8%. Swarthmore College admitted just under 15% of its applicants to the Class of 2015.  Williams College, the top liberal arts college in the nation, announced a 17% admission rate in 2011.

Over the past few years, CMC’s acceptance rate has been plummeting, and this year is a good sign that we might see that trend continue. In 2010, the school accepted 17.2% of applicants, and last year, when 4,481 applied to be a part of the class of 2015, the acceptance rate fell to 13.8%.  If those were great years, the next one may be amazing.

CMC benefits from a dropping acceptance rate. Although the administration may have to say no to more potential Stags and Athenas, increased selectivity will hopefully produce a stronger freshman class, composed of great students and promising leaders. This is just one more sign pointing to a bright future for CMC.  As it continues to grow more selective and appears higher and higher in the rankings each year, it will draw more attention from all corners of the country.  That means more public interest, more renown, and, hopefully, the end of that “I swear it’s not a community college” conversation for non-Californians.

For students here at CMC, there isn’t any doubt that we are attending one of the best school’s in the country. With any luck, this unprecedented admittance rate will force others to take notice as well. For anybody interested in watching CMC take its proper place at the forefront of America’s elite colleges, the Office of Admissions’ announcement is great news.

That’s why it seems so silly that, during two days before classes start, probably the biggest arrival day for returning students, ID cards can only be reactivated for a few hours. Over winter and summer breaks, most ID cards are deactivated, and must be reactivated at Story House. One problem: Story House is only open from 10am-3pm on those days. I’ve spent more time than that on a Daily Show bender. Story House hours don’t seem like much of a problem until you arrive at 3:30pm and don’t have a place to sleep that night.

With a little rethinking, activating cards can be made far more idiot proof, and, as an idiot, I would love to see that happen. For those of us who drive to school or take a particularly long flight, a five hour window during the middle of the day can be a difficult target, and the options for those who miss it are limited.

During the day, it’s easy to get a hold of an RA or find a friend to let you in, but at night? Not so easy. I’ve faced a locked front door late at night and I bet I’m not the only one. At that point, you meet a pretty nasty dilemma: risk pissing off the sleeping Resident Assistant, calling Campus Safety or sleeping in a bush. And if nobody answers your phone call, that bush starts to look pretty cozy. If not for a couple of night owl friends, I would have faced a pretty interesting night.

By keeping Story House open for just a few more hours during the two days prior to classes restarting, we can make the whole process a lot easier. Students can afford to arrive a few hours later, and RA’s can rest easier.

Keeping Story House open isn’t free, but changing around the hours doesn’t have to come at a significant cost to the school. Currently, Story House is open for five hours in the middle of the day, when traffic is probably going to be the slowest. By shifting those hours to later in the evening, say 3pm to 8pm, Story House can ensure that more students will be able to reactivate their cards before it closes and nighttime arrives. Sure, arriving at 7am and not getting into your room until 3pm is inconvenient. But, arriving at 3:30pm and realizing you don’t have a place to sleep that night is much worse. The administration could also give Story House two days off during the middle of the semester in order to allow for extended hours when it really counts.  At the end of the day, even if keeping the card reactivation station operating for longer does cost a little extra, that’s price worth paying.

It seems that most students plan their return trips more effectively than I have, and we don’t see an epidemic of lockouts during the days before the semester officially starts.  For the most part, students are going to be able to find a way to get by without their cards for a night, but a simple change can remove a bit of the travel stress from move-in day. Every little bit helps.

It was a busy semester at CMC.

CMC moved up in the rankings to the 9^th best Liberal Arts College in the country.

The Kravis Center officially opened to students and faculty.  The Living Room (affectionately known as ‘the Kube’) attracted students’ attention  after some technical difficulties and the administration’s initial decision to limit access to students. This was all before the Kube became home to one Pomona student’s temporary interpretive dance studio.

The fall semester also celebrated and embodied student leadership at CMC.  Students started a movement to do a better job of cleaning up after parties and led an effort to change our campus conversation about sex and gender norms. Trying bridge the gap between our Building Attendants and their residents, the Forum got to know some of CMC’s friendliest staff members. CMCers led a campaign to be more environmentally friendly on campus and coordinated a day of reflection on 9/11. Others took the lead in social activity planning, expanding student involvement with Dean of Students and creating the College Programming Board (check out the big name they are bringing to campus). Student initiative also brought the popular TED talks to the Claremont Colleges, hosting a TEDx conference in September.

CMC also faced a number of challenges in the fall of 2011: an unexpected over-enrollment of students forced the conversion of two popular study spaces into four-person rooms and a large number of students returning to CMC in the spring from fall study abroad programs led to an on-campus housing crisis.  The story behind the “Marks Squatter” brought some humor to a rather-serious-but-now resolved issue of on-campus visitors.

The Associated Students of Claremont McKenna College was hard at work all semester, advocating for students on issues such as increased study spaces, building a better quality of life, and providing some much needed snack time.

The Occupy Movement swept the nation this semester and arrived at the doorstep of our Claremont Colleges. Students were active in the protests in Claremont, Los Angeles, and the rest of the nation. Indeed, two Pitzer students were arrested for their involvement in the Occupy LA protests.  Political dialogue was alive and well, especially towards the end of the semester, when CMC welcomed former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to our campus. Many 5C students, however, had a different plan in mind and formed an “unwelcoming” party for Rice’s visit. The planned protests forced a change in venue for Rice’s speech, which triggered an outcry from students. While the protests stirred up quite a controversy, the civility and political discourse throughout the evening exemplified students’ diversity of thought, without provoking violence or hostilities.

The Forum sat down with our very own college president Pamela Gann and discussed her current and future projects for the school, which included a revamp of the beloved North Quad and expanding the new Center for Civic Engagement.

But it wasn’t all business this semester at the Forum. Speaking with Paul Zak, a.k.a Dr. Love, the Forum got to hear the Doctor’s thoughts on love, life, and how giving 8 hugs a day will make the world a better place. Those student globe-trotters enjoying their study abroad experience took time to write home to CMC and share their experiences from far-off lands such as Washington D.C., South America, Italy and Oman. And for those bright-eyed freshmen, returning students and Dean Spellman gave them their two cents (sometimes musically) on how to navigate their first semester and discover how great this college really is.

We uncovered the top 5 companies that hire CMC students, brought Words with Friends lovers the 10 most useful Scrabble words, and suggested 8 classes to students that might have overlooked some academic treasures. Students contributed to the ongoing discussion on topics such as art, film, pop culture, public radio, music and concerts. And despite the delicious unveiling of a new Ath menu, the Forum offered some tips on how to stay healthy, even in the face of all those Rice Krispie treats.

A-Mitch even appeared for an encore.

ASCMC hosted a number of events this semester, improving on past traditions—Monte Carlo—and even starting some new ones—The Boardwalk Empire party and No Shave November. We know you can’t wait for the Wedding Party next spring—and neither can we. Expect even bigger surprises next semester.

Our tech guru offered some awesome tips on his #CMCTech blog, including advice on how to make your work faster and more effective, thoughts on the Semester in Silicon Valley Program and even a holiday gift guide (it’s never too late to get that perfect present).

The Forum also better incorporated sports into our publication. The Forum now offers live broadcasts of all home CMS athletic games, complete with video and audio from student broadcasters.  We celebrated triumph, defeat and the utter domination at SCIACs.  The publication also took and in-depth look at sports at CMC and uncovered how SCIAC rules hurt CMS recruiting high school athletes and what many are doing to save the Intramural program.

Outside of the CMC bubble, the Forum checked in with our beloved Claremont village, celebrating the once-in-a-century Zipcode Day (9/17/11=91711) and partaking in the delicious festivities at the California Beer Festival.

It was a busy semester and time for reflecting has just begun. First, we would like to thank you, our readers, for your support, comments, advice, kindness, crudeness, humor and thoughtful discussion. But, we have one more request. The Forum has grown considerably in the last semester but we want to know how we can continue to improve. Below is a short survey that we hope you will fill out so we can make this publication stronger. We look forward to hearing your constructive thoughts, suggestions and comments.

The Forum wishes you a wonderful break and a restful holiday. We promise to bring you the best in news, opinions, and insights from Claremont College students as we enter our spring semester. We hope you’ve enjoyed reading with us this fall, and we’ll see you in 2012!

The jokes, however, turned bitter when former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited CMC’s campus on November 30th.  Campus news articles and blog posts became online battlegrounds of political rhetoric, pitting “conservative” CMC students against “liberal” Pitzer students.  On the campuses themselves, there was a prescient sense of animosity; in class, I could truly sense a distance among Pitzer students during some of the more heated days of the online controversies.

Most people, Pitzer and CMC students alike, went to Ducey Gymnasium on Wednesday expecting to be involved in a tense shouting match.  In some small ways, the expected malice was there. When I introduced myself as a CMC student to Marcus, a demonstrating Pitzer student, his response was “you’re from CMC?  Baby-killer!” Marcus, however, certainly was not representative of the entire student population at the protests on Wednesday.  In general, the protests were incredibly constructive and peaceful, with little in the way of altercations beyond a few students who seemed intent on provoking a fight where there was none to be found.

Indeed, the aggressors in the crowd seemed to be more the exception than the rule.  Protestors and CMC students alike were generally incredibly respectful of one another.

Christian Neumeister, a CMC freshman who attended the talk, was understanding of the protests. “I certainly think [the protestors] have the right to voice their opinions.  I don’t necessarily agree with their opinions, but it’s their fundamental American right to voice them,” Neumeister said.

An unnamed Pitzer demonstrator agreed: “CMC brought Dr. Rice because it hopes to foster a discussion as part of its Athenaeum program.  That is all well and good – the reason we’re here is not to stop that discussion, but rather to promote our own outside.”

The protests themselves were very different from the disorganized mess that some predicted they would be. During the talk, professors and students lectured bystanders and demonstrators on different topics, which ranged from the use of torture to the impetus behind the Iraq War.  Near the Northeast corner of the parking lot, a group of students held a waterboarding demonstration in order to provoke student dialogue around the moral and ethical issues involved with the practice.  These lectures – while certainly biased to present an anti-Condoleezza Rice perspective – created an environment more conducive to learning than to accusation, and were a welcome presence on a college campus.

Feel free to chalk it up to my freshman naiveté and optimism, but this made me happy to be a student at the 5Cs.  To me, the 5Cs are built on a certain morale and community camaraderie that governs our campus-to-campus interactions, including a certain sports rivalry (in which CMS is most certainly superior).  It is certainly true that the anonymity and immediacy of the Internet allowed the controversy of Dr. Rice’s visit to become more malicious than intended.  Yet, once CMC and Pitzer students were face to face, the conversation took on a human face, one that represented our students in a much more flattering light.

“I have heard a lot of frustration from several students who find the spaces available to be too crowded or limited in hours,” said Mao. “The spaces in the proposal are ones where students should have increased access. Several other institutions allow 24-hour access to classrooms and a 24-hour library space. We’re a top academic institution, but lack these qualities of our peers.”

The SSTF submitted a proposal on Tuesday, December 6, to Dean Jefferson Huang, Vice President for Student Affairs, and Dean Gregory Hess, Vice President for Academic Affairs, which suggests how study spaces on campus can serve to satisfy what they identify as six primary student needs: a 24-hour (1) individual study space, (2) group meeting space, (3) group study space, (4) computer lab space, (5) outdoor space and (6) an informal gathering space.

Photo Credit: David Leathers

Identifying and detailing the proposed use of six spaces–the Hub, Frazee, the Living Room, the Kravis Center terraces, classrooms and the Crocker Reading Room–the proposal seeks to ameliorate the difficulties CMC students have recently encountered with procuring appropriate study spaces. The SSTF also suggests measures to increase the efficiency of printing in computer labs and ways to increase the availability of information to the CMC student body regarding hours of the study spaces.

The proposal recognizes the advancements made in the Hub over the past year, but points out that it is not being fully utilized by the student body. The Hub is most often used during the weekdays, when students can get meal replacements, snacks or socialize with friends. But, as the Hub grill only serves food after 8pm on weekends, the space is nearly empty for much of the day, excluding mealtimes. Thus, in the short-term, the proposal suggests that an expansion in the hours of operation would lead to students making better use of the Hub over the weekends as an informal hangout space. In the long term, the proposal suggests that the Hub should be accessible to students 24-hours a day through key-card access. Furthermore, as the Hub lags significantly in terms of food and aesthetics in comparison to its counterparts across the five colleges, the proposal suggests renovating the Hub as part of next summer’s North Mall Renovation Project.

In its proposal, the SSTF questions the effectiveness of Frazee, the newly created study space on campus, in creating a comfortable and suitable study environment for CMC students. In particular, the proposal sites the ‘chair room’–the room adjacent to the Hub Store–as an inconvenient answer to increased study space. In the short-term, the proposal suggests the conversion of the ‘chair-room’ into a 24-hour conference room for students by removing all the chairs and adding a table. The SSTF suggests that with this change, the room would be more useful as a group meeting space or a group study space. The long-term proposal suggests the elimination of the walls between Frazee’s two rooms to create a much bigger study space.

The Living Room does not currently serve as an appropriate study or a lounge space as the tables are too short for studying to take place and limited access to the building itself prevents students from taking full advantage of its resources. The proposal suggests that it is necessary to increase the accessibility of the room to 24-hours a day.

The SSTF also cites limited access to the Kravis Center terraces as seriously inconveniencing students and preventing use of the space for group meetings, group studying, or more social student interactions. The proposal suggests that day-time access to the second and the third floors should be granted to students every day of the week. ID card readers and security cameras will ensure that students are safe and treat the building respectfully.

According to their proposal, the SSTF assert that there is no group study space on campus where group collaboration can take place. The library and the reading room have restrictive noise rules, making them excellent places for peaceful studying but less great for rowdy meetings. Meanwhile the dorm lounges and the Hub are too noisy. The proposal suggests that classrooms in Kravis Center, Roberts, and Bauer be available for students to work in a group after-class hours. Currently, the Dean of Students Mary Spellman and Registrar Elizabeth Morgan are looking into this while Assistant Dean of Students Eric Vos and Dean Huang are also looking into the matter.

The Crocker Reading Room does a good job of providing a quiet, individual study space to students. The proposal suggests that the Presidential Collection on the second floor be moved elsewhere in order to allow for an extension of hours and access to the reading room. By moving the collection, students would be able to appreciate the collection at a more secure place and there would be no need for student monitors outside the room. The monitors could be reallocated to supervise the Ducey weight room, which would ensure that the student monitors are still employed. The proposal highlights this particular recommendation as it has a few costs for the college, with many benefits for the students.

To the SSTF, printing remains the main problem in the computer labs. Many students rely on the availability of computers at labs like Poppa in order to quickly print reading and study materials; more often than not, however, students arrive at a lab only to find that no computers are available for a simple print job. The proposal notes that these circumstances lead to one of two things: students leave unsuccessfully or interrupt students already at work. To remedy the problem, the proposal suggests the creation of 1-2 ‘printing stations’ in Poppa lab – computers designated for students who come in solely to print. This would solve the problem by allowing students to get in and out quickly, while preventing any additional equipment from being added to the lab.

Perhaps most important in the SSTF’s recent proposal is what they cite as the underlying reason for why the Kravis Technology Classroom or Frazee are underutilized: a general lack of communication. The proposal seeks to address the communication gap between students and the administration and suggests that the “Student Gateway” page of the CMC website include a detailed list of study spaces with availability and hours of operation.  Rather than sending out school-wide emails regarding the hours for a particular study space, the information could be consolidated in an easily accessible and readily available format on the school’s website.

SSTF hopes that with their proposal comes a marked change in how the CMC administration will assess and evaluate the existing–and potential–study spaces on campus. It is clear that procuring appropriate study space for college students is a high priority issue, and the SSTF hopes that their initiative will draw the attention of both administration officials and the CMC student body to this reality.

The full text of the proposal is here.

Photo credit: Huffington Post

The firings signal the end of a verification process that began on November 7th, when the college notified 84 employees that they must provide updated citizenship documentation by December 1st, or they would be let go. The Student Life reports that the letter was sent after the Pomona College Board of Trustees had received a complaint that some campus employees were undocumented, and that the investigation was part of a “series of legal obligations.”

“The College and some of its employees have been placed in a difficult and unfortunate situation, which we wish could have been avoided,” Paul Efron, the Chairman of the Board of Trustees wrote in an email to the Pomona community. “However, while many of us believe that the country’s immigration policies are in need of reform, it is important to emphasize to the Pomona community that the College has a responsibility to comply with the current laws.”

Photo credit: Huffington Post

After 17 employees failed to resolve the discrepancies in their files, the college terminated them effective today. Instead, the employees came to work chanting “we’re here, and we’re not leaving,” according to the Huffington Post.

The employees were joined by an estimated 150 protesters in Frary dining hall this morning, which has been the target of a boycott since Wednesday.  In a school-wide email to Pomona students, Miriam Feldblum, the Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students, announced that protestesters were permitted to take-over the dining hall. ”The organizers stated that their intention was to have 17 of their number arrested by Claremont Police, but College officials declined to have them arrested so long as they were peaceful,” Feldblum writes. “The protestors then moved to Alexander Hall, where they resumed their protest, continuing their stated intention of being arrested. Around 11:30 this morning, as a result of a negotiation between the protestors and the police, CPD arrested 17 protestors for blocking College Avenue.”

Photo credit: Huffington Post

Pomona dining hall workers have been attempting to unionize for over two years, although the L.A. Times reports that talks with Pomona’s administration have stalled. Cynthia Peters, media relations director for the college, told the Huffington Post, “The terminations had nothing to do with the union organizing. The two issues are completely separate.”

The events surrounding this issue are still on-going and this article will be updated as more information becomes available.

According to Dean of Residential Life Eric Vos, the shortfall comes in at only 4 beds; rather, only four students are currently without housing. Last week, says Dean Eric, the number was at 5 after CMC conducted its housing lottery for returning students until one student decided to triple with friends instead. Though some expected the shortfall to be much greater, Dean Eric noted that the newest figure takes into account existing empty beds on campus and those willing to take up the offer to triple or move off campus. The number, however, does not account for those expected to leave campus on academic suspension.

In early November, news of the housing crisis caused a stir and frustrated many, including those on campus and abroad. Though aware of the underlying issues of the most current housing crunch, junior Sean McQueen “was definitely upset that enough housing on campus was not available for juniors coming back from abroad.” McQueen, who is currently participating in CMC’s Washington, DC program, has found housing via an on-campus senior but is concerned for those given less convenient living options. While there seems to be an implicit guarantee for housing all four years at CMC, Dean Eric reminded students at a recent November meeting of the Residential Life Committee that such a guarantee does not in fact exist in CMC’s bylaws.

In an effort to accommodate those left in the lurch, CMC has been working with Pomona College to insure beds for those students unable to find housing on CMC’s campus. Hoping to keep CMC students close to home, Dean Eric attempted to secure beds in Pomona’s newest dorms, Sontag and Pomona Hall, located on the college’s North Campus. The demand among Pomona students for living space in the new dorms, however, has only allowed for availability in Pomona’s Mudd-Blaisdell, a largely freshman dorm located on Pomona’s South Campus and much removed from CMC. Thus far, CMC has secured six beds in three double rooms at Mudd-Blaisdell.

Dean Eric remains hopeful, and says he is “optimistic that everyone returning from abroad will get a bed at the Claremont Colleges.” Indeed, says Dean Eric, “the likelihood that additional openings at CMC will come up for the 4 students [without housing] is high.” Whether those openings on campus are favorable options or last resort attempts at housing remains to be seen. “They’ve all been given the opportunity and information to triple into double rooms,” says Dean Eric, “if they so choose.”

The lingering question remains on how to deal with those CMC students returning to campus in the spring but not from abroad. While transfer students can often account for the increase in housing needs, CMC will not admit any transfers next spring. However, each semester, CMC readmits a certain number of students on leave for suspension, academic probation, or an elected leave of absence. The 5 students who fall into this category next spring, says Dean Eric, are unlikely to get housing at the Claremont Colleges though the potential for space at Pomona seems promising. Unfortunately for the already fragile housing situation, the number of readmits could potentially increase, causing even more stress on campus resources.

To aid all students in securing spring housing, CMC has asked that students consider a triple bed option in rooms the administration will deem appropriate for tripling . In the November Residential Life Committee meeting, Dean Eric suggested, for example, that the especially large double rooms in Beckett Hall be used as triples next spring. Yet after speaking with the residents there, only one room agreed to convert their living space to a triple. Others living in large doubles elsewhere declined the offer to add a third roommate. While there is a slight financial incentive for tripling up ($410 according to the Dean of Students Office calculations), students have indicated that the incentive remains too low to encourage voluntary tripling and should be raised to account for the loss in space. Currently, 4 groups have agreed to the triple option with the possibility of a fifth triple room.

Students are also encouraged to look for housing off-campus. Thus far, 9 students have committed to living off-campus. Sixteen years ago, CMC offered financial incentives for students to move off-campus, but Dean Eric assures that, “we’re not there yet.”

McQueen says he doesn’t blame CMC’s administration for the housing crunch. “I felt like they handled the situation pretty well overall,” McQueen remarked, “Communication wasn’t stellar, but I feel like [Dean] Vos pursued every option he could given the cards he was dealt.”

The root of the housing problem is indeed the result of a number of compounding factors. Most often cited is the disproportionate desire to go abroad in the fall semester versus the spring semester, which translates to a squeeze on bed availability for those returning in January. Kristen Mallory at the Office of Off-Campus Study is working to balance the numbers of students abroad despite the continuing demand to study abroad in the fall—an initial survey of those planning to study abroad in Fall 2012 and Spring 2013 showed a discrepancy of about 100 students preferring fall to spring. Dean Eric assures that the imbalance has been taken care of. “After accounting for attrition rates, moving students from fall to spring, and late additions,” said Dean Eric, “the numbers have balanced out to reasonable levels.  At this point, there is nothing to worry about for next year’s off campus study students and their spring housing.”

Of course, there are other factors that enter the equation. The opportunity to apply for a Residential Assistant (RA) position is only available in the spring and requires all applicants to be on campus at the time of their application. Students often want to get involved with student government and run for ASCMC office, yet can only do so in the spring term. Additionally, certain required courses are offered spring term only and can deter students from choosing the spring option for their off-campus study experience. The desire to be involved in campus life creates hesitancy among those students thinking about a spring semester abroad.

CMC has taken steps to address the root cause of the problem, working with the Office of Off-Campus Study and the Dean of Students Office to better coordinate their student numbers for the fall and spring. In order to avoid a housing crunch where tripling in double rooms and housing on Pomona’s South Campus remain the most viable options, the administration will have to look more closely at their methods of estimation regarding students both on and off CMC’s campus.

The event is sponsored by the College Programming Board, a group of elected student representatives who plan to bring “concerts, special events, lectures, comedians, and more” to campus this year. The board consists of elected members from each dorm on campus and is chaired by Christina Khavarian ’12.

Photo Credit: NJ.com

Martin, a Yale grad, went on to New York University Law School but found his calling in comedy soon after, dropping out in his second year at NYU. His instincts proved good, and Martin rose to comedy greatness via showcases on Comedy Central, an appearance on Late Night with Conan O’Brien, and a contributor spot on The Daily Show with John Stewart. In 2009, Martin hosted and starred in his own television show on Comedy Central called Important Things with Demetri Martin. The show ran for two seasons and featured Martin alternating between standup, sketches, and his other unconventional forms of comedy.

To check out some of Martin’s greatest moments, click here or here.

Bridges Auditorium is located at Pomona College. Tickets are $15.00 for Claremont Colleges students and $27 for General Admission.

I’m almost done with my thesis. Wow. That feels amazing to say. I’m writing this article as my “pre-final” draft prints out–just one more read-through for grammar and typos and it’s done. I drafted the first words on October 27, and one month later I have about 30,000 of them. <– world’s nerdiest brag

What happens after I hand this treasure to Elizabeth Morgan on Monday? I get to post it on the internet for everyone to see. And while I’m aware that some or many of my peers are concerned about this, I couldn’t care less. Here’s why:

1. I feel like I owe it to the academic world. It’s easy to forget, but we have had better access to academic resources than any CMC class ever. The thousands of man hours necessary to assemble a resource like JSTOR or Google Scholar or EasyBib or any of the other resources everyone depends on required a commitment to improving the lives of students like us from people that probably had better things to do with their time. You could say that we pay student fees and tuition, part of which goes to the libraries who then pay subscriptions for these services. But I, for one, cited dozens of working papers, reports, panel contributions, and dissertations that hadn’t (yet) found their way into a peer-reviewed economics journal yet added greatly to my thesis. So if one poor soul trying to learn something about regional economic growth stumbles upon my thesis online and can find something helpful, I will feel like I’ve given back to those who have gone before me. If you’re not the kind of person who feels compelled to give back to a wider community from which you’ve benefited, you’re probably also the type of person who doesn’t plan on donating to CMC after you graduate. I’m the type of person who doesn’t plan on being friends with people like you after I graduate.

2. Wake up and smell the 21st century. You’re living your life online, why shouldn’t the biggest component of what you presumably have spent the last four years of your life doing (obtaining a college education) be part of your online life? Online publishing is not something that you do in addition to printing out your thesis–it’s part of finishing your thesis now. It’s not like musicians are going “above and beyond” when they put their music online. The world is online and just as we wouldn’t expect to have to go to the library to read an article we want to cite, we wouldn’t expect to have to go to the reading room to skim through someone’s senior thesis (yes, you can do that). Another example of how things have changed: on Thanksgiving I was talking to my Dad about how I had written the first drafts of my thesis in Google Docs and how I thought it was incredible that with modern technology, I was able to write the entire thing without ever clicking a “Save” button. He reminded me that he never had to hit the “Save” button either when he wrote his doctoral dissertation… because he wrote it all by hand. This is a different world we live in, for better or for worse.

3. Finally, to those of you who are concerned about your thesis being discovered later on in life when you’re running for office or something, I have two questions. First, if you’re writing something that you’re concerned will prove embarrassing or damaging in the future, then why the hell are you writing it? Write something else, or stand by your opinions. And if you don’t plan on standing by your opinions later in life, or at least explaining why you’ve changed them, then you’ve already lost my vote. Just like this guy:

Second question: do you honestly think that not letting your thesis go on a website that’s only accessible from campus is going to be effective in preventing your work from getting out if someone wants to hunt it down? In how many Senate confirmation hearings have you heard someone say, “Jeez, we bet you wrote something while you were in school that we could really give you a hard time about, but we can’t figure out a way to track it down…” No! If you write it, then it will get out. So if you’re that concerned, write something else. Otherwise, just suck it up and publish your work.

And then congratulate yourself. Because writing a thesis isn’t easy, and you more than likely worked your ass off. Nice work. See you in the fountain.