Henry Kravis ‘67 knows a thing or two about Claremont McKenna College’s oft-heard tagline “leaders in the making.” As co-founder of the international private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), Mr. Kravis has built a multi-billion dollar empire and made serious waves in the business world.

Mr. Kravis is among CMC’s greatest benefactors and most recently, contributed the funds for the new Kravis Center facility located on the westernmost part of campus. The $80 million building is the largest on CMC’s campus and houses faculty offices, classrooms, and a much-needed underground parking structure. The Kravis Center also unites five of CMC’s touted research institutes under one roof.

Three years after breaking ground, CMC celebrated the opening of the Kravis Center on Friday, October 21, 2011. As part of the convocation ceremonies, Mr. Kravis spoke with Tova Markowitz ’12 and Heath Hyatt ’12 at an Athenaeum luncheon. Mr. Kravis discussed lessons learned as a major corporate figure at KKR and emphasized the importance of a liberal arts education in today’s globalized world. In his opinion, successful CEOs are those that can innovate to adapt to a changing world and shifting markets. “There are very few companies today that aren’t somehow affected by what’s going on in the rest of the world,” said Mr. Kravis.

Below is a video recording of Mr. Kravis’s visit to the Athenaeum. The video also appears on CMC’s website.

Conversation with Henry Kravis ’67 from Claremont McKenna College on Vimeo.

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!

President Pamela B. Gann

Nathan Falk: Thank you for meeting with me President Gann, I hope it’s all right if I start with some general questions about the “State of CMC.” What are the most important projects that you personally have been working on recently?

President Gann: Ok, yes of course. Obviously the biggest project that I’ve been dealing with for the last few months was finishing the Kravis Center and getting it ready for the beginning of school and its grand opening. It’s continuing to be a great success story, and we’ve probably gotten 95% there, but we still have some loose ends here and there that need to be dealt with.

Otherwise, to continue in the realm of buildings and grounds, our next big project is the renovation of the North Mall, which stretches from the Kravis Center all the way to Bauer. We have been working with student focus groups and ASCMC to figure out how best to preserve the aspects we love about the fountain, whether it is dropping students in on their birthdays, celebrating senior thesis accomplishments, or just having fun and hanging out on a really hot day. Student input was extremely important, and I think we have a design that would do that very well. Also, we want to enhance the seating areas and outdoor spaces along the North side of the Athenaeum to make that more of a useable daytime terrace, and also improve the South side of Emett Student Center, where the Hub is. Then, we’re moving forward with further planning for the section from Heggblade all the way to Bauer Center. Although there are no formal designs yet, one idea I like is putting a water feature where the four North Quad dorms meet. The first part of the renovation will be completed this coming summer, while the second piece has no detailed timeline right now.

The third buildings and grounds related project we’ve been working on, is the new Fitness and Athletic Center. This new space would house all our athletic facilities, but would also serve as a large events center where we could seat all students, faculty, and staff under one roof. Currently, we have no place on our campus that can house our 2000+ member community. We are beginning to review the programming for this project, and will start having fundraising conversations now that the Kravis Center is open and functional. We’ve already discussed how athletics will work during the 18-month transition period during construction, so we are ready to proceed with raising the necessary funds.

http://www.cmc.edu/civicengagement/

Transitioning to the Student Affairs and Academic arenas, our biggest project this year was to launch the Center for Civic Engagement, which brings together a lot of existing projects such as the community service internship programs, some community service projects that students have demonstrated interest for in past years, etc. But, the center is meant to pull all of those things together to make the programs more cohesive, robust, and garner broader student interest in the realm of volunteerism and service. We’re focusing on what I call “social capital,” which our country has always depended on. Whether that takes the form of voting, running for local or national office, working on campaigns, community volunteer projects, and environmental or sustainability projects, we want to be able to support students’ ventures in these areas, both domestically or abroad.

Another Student Affairs issue is library hours and study spaces. We are currently working with students on this, and although I don’t have any policy updates, Dean Hess and Dean Huang’s office are working with a student group to come up with a better solution.

Career Services and student needs are also a big focus for me. I think that currently the quality of services is excellent, but we need to increase the scale. Frankly, we’re trying to figure out how to best broaden the scale of our career services.

As for the purely academic side, in addition to conducting extensive faculty searches, our biggest single project is launching the Silicon Valley Program for next fall. Also, last year we ran several experimental models where we had students pursue international work for-credit. This is different than summer-internship credit, and much more similar to our program with Yonsei, where students study economics in South Korea, or the Jordan program, which we think is more likely to be a biennial opportunity.

CMC-Yonsei Korea Summer Program, Photo Credit: DSME Photographer

This year, we’re taking a very serious look at India. We have a faculty working group and student focus groups so that we can try to begin programs there in the areas of Technology, Business, Finance, Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship, not to mention culture and religious studies.

NF: Perfect, that’s quite a lot to deal with at once. Next, I’m curious, what shortcomings have you or your administration encountered in the last few months?

PG: You know, I get asked that question a lot. Just the other day at Forum for the Future, the young alumni asked, “what are your big problems,” and my answer was this: If you look at the college internally, and the things that we can affect, CMC is in a very good spot right now. The biggest single challenge is one thing you can’t control, and that’s the economy. The economy affects our financial model because our revenue comes from three sources: tuition, gifts, and returns on the endowment. So if the economy is growing very slowly, families have a harder time affording tuition, which results in more financial aid, alumni may feel more pressure about how much they’re willing to give, and then you also have lower returns on investment.

Credit: USA Today

In 2008, we had to hit the “reset” button after what happened to the economy, and the markets are just now, a few years later, about to recover everything we lost. So we haven’t gotten above the point, we’re just getting back to where we were. Still, we’ve had two years of expenditures and modest inflation, so the purchasing power isn’t back to where it was, and, since July 1, we’re looking at negative investment returns. That’s not an environment where we can take on lots of new initiatives, etc. That’s an environment where you just try to hold on to everything. So when people ask me what my biggest challenge is, it’s managing the college in such a way that we remain with forward momentum, but not in a way that makes new financial commitments that, at this point, would put financial pressure on CMC. Basically, how do we run the college, keep it moving forward, but not start anything bold or expensive, because we can’t do that in this environment.

NF: How do you want to see CMC change in the next 5 years? In the next 10 years? In the next 50?

PG: Actually, I don’t want to change CMC in the most fundamental ways. We have an incredible mission to educate leaders through the liberal arts, and I think we are accomplishing that mission. I think our students and alumni like our mission, that’s why they’re here. You had lots of choices, and why did you come to this college? I think it’s because this is the right place to be for what you wanted to accomplish while in college.

Secondly, because we’re in the consortium, we have the luxury of not having to do everything at CMC. Let’s say these are the 13 things we do really well, and there’s another 50 in Claremont. I think that’s a luxury, because we don’t have to make trade-off decisions with lots of small departments, small programs, this organization or that organization. I think this is something special to Claremont, and I wouldn’t change that. I think that we should do as much as we can to use the consortium affirmatively to make it work for us and make sure we’re a strong partner with the rest of the consortium. You were asking what we need to be doing 10 years or 50 years out, and I think we have to pay a lot of attention to the consortium. So how do we keep building those bridges and making them more and more significant and more and more distinctive in higher education?

So I think the biggest things are making sure we stay the course, and just continue to work on quality and alignment of everything we do, while building the financial resources to give us the capacity to ride out economic challenges from time to time. I personally love CMC the way it is, and just want to be able to qualitatively improve and deepen the programs we offer. For example, we fund 125-150 summer internships each year. I’d like for us to have the means to fund internships for every CMC student. I’d also like to see every CMC student provided with the opportunity to have one international experience while they are here. It could be for two weeks, it could be in January, in the summer, or for a semester.

I think we are a very innovative place and we keep testing and trying out things, and then when they work, I work to try to figure out how to scale them financially.

Me: Ok, last question. What elements of your job do you most look forward to?

President Gann: My favorite part of my job is the ability to make a difference in people’s lives every day, and I really mean this. I want every student to come here and have a life-changing experience. If I’m a young faculty member, I want him or her to find this as a very satisfactory professional home for teaching and research and identify with CMC as an institution. I feel that my primary job is to come into work every day and try to make this the best possible institution for all of the people who have chosen to be here, and I also care that our staff feels great pride in their identification with this college. What I like to do is to come into work and think somehow I’m going to make this a richer and better and more successful experience for the members of this community.

Though the official opening is Friday, several departments began moving in during the summer.  Sarah Orr, the Executive Director of the Kravis Leadership Institute identifies moving into the Kravis Center as “the first time we as a faculty and staff have been in one place, which is wonderful.”  She added, “Being able to bring us all together has been really extraordinary. It’s just that it’s enabled us to do so much more – plus the view is extraordinary.“ Alex Heiney, CMC senior and Research Assistant at the Salvatori Center gives a humorous take on move-in mishaps, “I’m just thankful that Kravis always has an air of excitement because a water pipe may burst in the Salvatori Center at any minute.”  Despite a few last-minute final touches and corrections, The Kravis Center is now completely ready to officially open its doors this Friday.

Friday will be jam-packed with events from noon onward.  From tours and open houses to a convocation to a ribbon-cutting ceremony and celebratory reception, visitors to the Dedication will be sure to have a good time  The Kravis Leadership Institute is hosting informal discussions on diverse topics, consulting workshops and dialogues, a dinner for Kravis Fellows and students, and even a workshop entitled  “The Lessons I wish I’d Learned While at CMC.”  The Salvatori Center will be hosting a seminar entitled “Are Corporations Persons Under the Constitution?” on Friday from 1:00-2:15 in Kravis 327 that will address “the issues surrounding corporate speech in our constitutional democracy.”  For a more specific list of events refer to each department’s website. Arguably the most anticipated event is the “Lunch with Henry Kravis” taking place at the Marian Minor Cook Athenaeum at 11:30am. Forum Editor-in-Chief Heath Hyatt will moderate the lunch alongside Tova Markowitz, the Student Manager at KLI.

And now to address the question on everyone’s mind, what exactly is the purpose of the cube?  Despite speculation that it will be used to temporarily imprison students who repeatedly lose their ID cards, rest assured that there is indeed a reasonable purpose for the space. Dean Mary Spellman sets the record straight explaining, “The glass room is a “living room” – a place for students to relax, study, talk.  A common, shared space for the CMC community to come together.” Whether you enjoy being studied while studying or you’re searching for a location other than Scripps’ Pool to catch some rays while you soak up some knowledge, the living room is calling your name.   Of course, with all the invisible walls and reflecting pools of water, be sure to watch your step on Friday. Heiney explained “I wish they would have left the moat around it so I could continue to watch students with bad depth perception fall in.”

So how can we adequately thank Henry Kravis for the generous gift he has given our campus?  Orr succinctly replies that the answer is simple, “by saying thank you.”  Dean Spellman agrees that a proper tribute would be to “Enjoy the space and participate in Friday’s dedication events.” Orr adds  “The other thing that he really appreciates is the scholarship of students and knowing how students value CMC, because he truly loves CMC.  So it’s your appreciation for this opportunity that really matters.”

For a full list of events, click here.

CMC Master Plan 2035

In October 2005, Claremont McKenna College began the process of creating a master plan, which outlines a long-term plan for the campus’ evolution and development. Some of the large, long-term aspects of the plan include a new student center, moving some of the athletic facilities into the pit on the other side of Claremont Boulevard, opposite the Senior Apartments, and turning Phillips into a recreational pool. Although these more monumental projects are on hold until after the City of Claremont approves the plan, some of the pieces are beginning to fall into place. Developments in the master plan’s implementation include:

The North Mall Project

Matthew G. Bibbens ‘92, Vice-President for Administration and Planning, has confirmed that CMC plans to completely overhaul the North Mall as soon as the designs are approved. The North Mall is the section of North Quad that extends from Heggblade Center to the new Kravis Center building and includes the Flamson Plaza, the Athenaeum, the Hub, and the McKenna Auditorium entrance space. The administration hopes to accomplish a number of goals with this project:

Credit: David Leathers

Claremont McKenna’s campus sits on approximately a 3% grade from North to South, which creates a slightly sloped North Mall, making the current entrances to the Athenaeum, McKenna Auditorium, and the Hub hard for disabled people to navigate. Design plans would flatten out the walkway between the North and South ends creating a long, gradual ramp that makes the space more friendly to people with disabilities.

In an effort to make this same section of campus more open, plans include one long gradual set of waterfall steps that run from McKenna Auditorium all the way to the West side of the Hub. This means that instead of having separate entrances to McKenna, the Hub, and Heggblade, with retaining walls in between, one set of steps would allow for better accessibility to the buildings, as well as a great spot to read, hang out, or hold outdoor events. “We want to make this area more connected,” said Bibbens.

Credit: David Leathers

The current space between the Hub and the Athenaeum contains two walkways on either side of a large swath of grass. With the overhaul, the administration hopes to, instead, have one single path running down the center of the quad with grass on either side. Then, the outdoor space in front of the Athenaeum can be used to hold indoor/outdoor events and add more space in front of the hub for students to use. Also, in an effort to meet demands for better outdoor classroom space, the plan includes the creation of an outdoor terraced amphitheater-like space in front of Adams hall for teachers to hold outdoor classes if they so choose.

As for the fountain, the Bibbens stated that the administration is working with the architect on  how best to incorporate an upgraded fountain into the new designs that meets the needs of students such as ponding, senior thesis party, sitting in while reading, etc. and also blends well with the other materials used in the project.

The Kravis Center

Unless you rarely leave your room, you have probably noticed that there is a massive, beautiful, new $75+ million building at the West end of campus. The Kravis Center, which houses classrooms, five of the ten research institutes, faculty offices, Faculty Support West, and the Office of Admission and Financial Aid, is nearly done. While the building is ready for operational use and classes as planned, there are still a few finishing touches to be made before the official dedication on October 21^st.

Credit: David Leathers

The most obvious unfinished piece is the “living room,” more affectionately known on campus as “the cube.”  The glass dwelling in front of the main building remains unfinished due to problems with interior materials, and construction crews are still testing pieces of the reflection pool surrounding the building in order to best achieve the desired effect. Many of the other unfinished pieces are minor. Landscapers have yet to determine suitable ground cover for the 3^rd and 4^th floor balconies, some planters have yet to be placed in courtyards, and the administration is experimenting with clearer and more accurate signage.

The remaining construction behind the Kravis Center, on Columbia Ave will create more street parking for the new Admissions Office, while simultaneously creating an outdoor patio at the east end of the Honnold-Mudd library.

The Big Picture

Credit: David Leathers

The college’s master plan is currently undergoing an environmental impact review by the city of Claremont, and the city is expected to either approve or recommend amendments to the plan by the end of the year. The city’s approval is important, as it is needed for CMC to begin construction on its other long-term goals. After the city approves the plan, however, the first big project CMC hopes to undertake is the complete overhaul of the fitness center. Designs for this project have already been drawn, but the college has not yet found sufficient funding for the project.

The college may be young, but the administration remains intent on upgrading the campus to fit the changing needs of its faculty and students. The college is ready, let’s hope the donors are too.

Want more articles like this? You may also be interested in an update on all construction during the summer of 2011 at CMC, a Kravis Center Photoessay or inside the Kravis Center.

The “modules,” affectionately called Center Court, will remain exactly where they are next year. Most of their current inhabitants will relocate to the new Kravis Center in July.

The administration decided that it is financially sensible to save space for future construction projects, and bought these “temporary modules” outright, instead of simply renting the units until construction on the Kravis Center was completed. The space will be used to house faculty when the school undertakes its next construction project: an overhaul of Ducey Gymnasium.

Photo Credit: Sean McQueen

The architecture at Claremont McKenna College has never been something to brag about:  giant tetris-piece towers, military-style barracks in North Quad, and the bomb shelters called Mid-Quad. They’re not unbearable, but they are definitely not the reason that applicants to CMC are steadily on the rise.

Cheap-looking, temporary trailers, on the other hand, are something entirely different.

So why did the college decide to buy the trailers? To be fair, their options are limited. In a few years, the school will be forced to relocate the athletic department faculty members to begin construction on the Ducey project, and without the trailers, there is nowhere to put them. Moving them to a location far off campus is not practical, and it does not make sense financially to remove the current units, then replace them with new temporary trailers in a few years when the Ducey project gets underway.

The current 30-year master plan takes these spacial concerns into account, and projects after the Ducey overhaul should not require temporary extra space.

While the administration’s reasons are logical, the decision to keep the trailers is still hard to stomach. CMC is one of the country’s most respected liberal arts institutions, and having a large number of now semi-permanent trailers in the middle of campus is an affront to the campus’ image.

Photo Credit: Sean McQueen

However, CMC is currently far from beginning construction on the new fitness center, and with no definite time line for that project, the “temporary” units start to feel more like a long-term solution.

The college is relatively young, yet it now has the resources and alumni network to upgrade its original buildings to fit the elite status of the institution. Let’s face it: there is a lot of construction that will be done at CMC in the next couple of decades, and keeping these trailers is not a viable long-term solution.

Members of the administration have indicated that faculty will not have offices in the modules after the Kravis Center is completed, and the buildings will mainly be used to house a few miscellaneous administrative and technical offices.

Claremont McKenna College will continue to expand and improve its campus over the next few decades, and it should.  Ducey and Bauer need to go, but the trailers cannot become the answer to every new construction project. Updating and changing the buildings are important, but it is difficult to reconcile this fact with the continued presence of the trailers.  Students and faculty alike look forward to removal of this academic shantytown.  Until then, admissions officers will just have to explain to prospective students–who will pay over $50,000 a year to attend CMC–that these trailers will stay for their four years at school.

“The Analyst Papers,” named in honor of CMC’s first student newspaper, the Analyst, is a five-part series published by the Forum, the official student publication of Claremont McKenna College.

For the first time, the history of Claremont McKenna has been brought online. The Analyst Papers has been published in the form of five accessible articles, with the aim of navigating through years of characters, monuments, and obstacles. CMC’s history is a short one, but a good one, and few know much of it. To learn it is to better understand what CMC stands for, its challenges and its future.

In 1996, the Trustees of CMC commissioned California historian Kevin Starr to write a book commemorating the College’s first fifty years. His remarkable work, “Commerce and Civilization: Claremont McKenna College, 1946-1996”, has been a key source for this series.

Additionally, CMC’s Development Office has opened the College’s archives to Forum staff for this project. We thank them, as well as the CMC Alumni Association, for access to primary sources and first-hand interviews.

Part I: The Founding: An Idea, Long Before a College

Part II: CMC’s Conservative Heart

Highlights in Part III:

· CMC’s campus mirrors the school’s founding philosophy, as well as the conditions in California that existed as it was developed. North Quad in particular represents a unique space on its own terms, personifying the school’s founding struggles.

· Within its first four years, the school grew from six prefabricated units to an early draft of North Quad, with CMC’s four most iconic dorms standing erect.

· The Athenaeum, an idea first concocted in 1968 by Donald McKenna, was not completed as a space until 1983 – giving the campus an intellectual mantlepiece.

Part IV: Claremont Men’s College, with Women

Part V: Our Place in the Liberal Arts

____________

Part III

The Challenge of the Campus

While CMC's first students lived in the basement of Bridges Auditorium, dormitories that the College first called its own were vet units, pictured here in 1947.

In June of 1946, Robert Bernard made a judgment call.  Gordon Kaufmann, architect behind the primary Scripps College Quad and Harper Hall, had just completed his preliminary drawings for Honnold Library.  Bernard, a founding trustee, was planning on sharing these drawings with Marie Rankin Clarke – a wealthy and generous philanthropist who had expressed interest in the Group Plan.  George Martin, another trustee, had warned Bernard not to ask Clarke for money on behalf of the new men’s school, but rather to approach her as an emissary for the entire consortium. But Bernard, before bringing the drawings to Ms. Clarke’s room at the Biltmore, asked Kaufman to sketch in the hopeful foundations of CMC’s campus to the East of Honnold.

Up to that point, the only plans for a Claremont Men’s College campus were six prefabricated buildings, acquired as a result of a housing surplus at an Army Air Force Base in Santa Ana.  Called “hubs,” these units lived on as the original nickname for the Student Union and, now, The Hub. President Benson had purchased these units through the Federal Public Housing Authority – another New Deal program vital to the anti-New Deal boosters of the new college.

In its very first days, before these units arrived, CMC students lived in the basement of Bridges Auditorium, famously decorated with potted palm trees and referred to by its inhabitants as Coconut Grove. They took classes in makeshift rooms, surrounded by sheets draping from the ceiling in Bridges’ attic before the arrival of all the units.

Allison and Rible drew this blueprint for Claremont Men's College in 1947. It is likely the first of its kind.

While meeting with Ms. Clarke, Bernard explained what the area just East of the library contained – Claremont Men’s School.

Starr writes, “When Mrs. Clarke showed interest in the new school, Bernard followed up by sending her a copy of the program of the opening convocation, together with the photos of students living in the basement of Bridges Auditorium.”

Mrs. Clarke ended up giving $500,000 before the first semester of the school came to a close.  With such bold beginnings, the school incorporated, and began to plan out its physical environment.

Sixty years later, another trustee, Henry Kravis, would sit down with another architect, Raphael Vinoly, to dream up the next step for CMC’s academic village.  In between were six decades of transitional and incremental campus development.

Unlike Scripps, largely planned out and financed with Ellen Browning Scripps’ initial investment, CMC could only build a campus environment piece by piece. Each piece would provide CMC’s founders with serious fundraising challenges.  But each piece, at least through the 1970s, would reflect both the foundational ideas – California conservatism – as well as the norms of the typical American campus structure.

Somehow, these campus foundations had to be reconciled with a college that had visions way beyond the confines of acreage.

CMC’s campus is often discarded or discounted when compared to the gorgeous gardens of Scripps or the handsome and traditionally tailored campus of Pomona.  But while there is no aesthetic competition with the Scripps physique, CMC – North Quad in particular – has its own architectural legacy and stories.

This past reflects and twists the American notion of the campus space, symbiotic of both CMC’s daunting and unlikely struggle for national success, and its roots in California’s growth.  In short, the bleakness of CMC’s architecture, thanks to Benson, who had little concern with its form, is in itself something to celebrate.  CMC’s campus space is a story representative of conservative roots, social norms after World War Two, and California’s multi-partisan progressive tradition.  In this, North Quad provides its own brutal beauty.

CMC students made the most of limited resources, Analyst coverage shows.

The Group Plan became a vestigial of Los Angeles traditions of progressivism and boosterism. Bernard, in a Harper’s article, explained not just of CMC but the entire consortium: “No period of American history has a monopoly on founding…there is nothing to be undone here; we start from scratch.”

Only in California could such a statement be made. In 1923, a Los Angeles Times editorial read, “We are being hotly pursued by our future.” Los Angeles, never a static place, internalized these fears, explain historians, soldering themselves to doctrines of development. CMC’s founding is rooted in California’s fanatic 1920s growth.

Architecture, particularly in southern California, is an expression of history and social process. CMC is no exception, representing its own flavor of the “academic village,” derivative of a distinctly American feature of higher education – the idea of the university as a community in and of itself. For CMC, this community would mimic 1940s restraints: “values of thrift, efficiency, and functionalism,” explains Starr.

He continues, “Like the odds and ends of military attire favored by the undergraduates in the first two years, surplus housing units of either wood or steel vividly evoked the transitions of the postwar era.”

The first permanent structure was the original Story House.  The building, named after Russell M. Story, served as a dormitory, commons, and focal point for campus life. By 1947, however, work had already begun on dedicating the furnishings of a campus.

Out of a dire need for dormitories came the first pillar of North Quad.  Architecture firm Allison and Rible, an omnipresent character throughout the campuses accelerating first fifteen years of growth, presented Benson and his trustee building committee with their work: a dorm turned inside out.  Instead of a central corridor, rooms would be accessed from a first or second story gallery.  The endeavor, now Appleby Hall, turned out to be a cost-effective success in the short run. And the College’s first dorm came to personify CMC’s aspirations and inclinations – functional and pragmatic, yet democratic, and distinctly Californian.

By the 1950s, CMC's architects were asked to draw up plans for a student center that would be shared with Scripps College. It would eventually adopt its colloquial name, "The Hub."

Benson, aware of the need to define and begin projecting a campus for recruitment and fundraising needs, had Allison and Rible quickly turn the project into a master plan – the initial rendering of a four dormitory quadrangle with an adjunct cafeteria.  By 1950, the four-legged quad was enclosed by Appleby, Green, Boswell, and Wohlford.

The college rounded out the 1940s with Pitzer Hall at the Western end of the Quad.  Before construction, however, there was a need to acquire the land. After World War Two, California experienced a significant housing crisis. “Even the most embattled shelter represented an asset,” explained Starr.  In total, the trustees spent $100,000 to clear the land for Pitzer Hall.  With limited funds and Russell Pitzer’s gift already tied up in loans associated with the construction of the dormitories, trustees pored over Allison and Rible’s drawings looking to cut costs.  Hot water in the bathrooms was eliminated by Benson.  Fortunately, through small gifts and loans from local banks at the hands of respected trustees, construction started in 1949, mirroring the construction on the Eastern end of the quad of Boswell Hall.

In this 1952 rendering from a promotional pamphlet, the shape of the campus begins to crystalize.

Upon the conclusion of the Korean War in 1953, the American economy accelerated – particularly in Southern California, where a building boom commenced. CMC trustees, many personally reaping the rewards of the 1950s, were eager to fund CMC’s own building boom.  Pitzer Hall was expanded in 1955.  In 1957, construction on Collins Hall, giving North Quad a permanent dining location, was completed.  The dining hall sat just off the quad, overlooking the green with large glass windows that demanded a vibrant and public eating routine, a dramatic contrast with Mallott Commons’ intimate rooms or Frary’s monolithic dining room.

While amidst a boom, the overlapping projects pushed the College’s finances to its limits, mandating further austerity for the buildings.  But within fifteen years, CMC’s academic village had arrived, after donations and loans were precariously strung together, leaving behind evidence of the financial restrictions imposed on the campus’ architectural needs.  In 1959, the interest on the $750,000 in loans taken out from the bank and endowment was about the same as an associate professor’s salary.

Now with a campus, the trustees and administrators sought to further provide the furnishings the college’s environment. Sixteen projects, including Auen, Fawcett, Benson, Berger, and Marks Halls, were completed during the 1960s.  Pitzer Hall, by the 1960s, could no longer support the administrative needs of the school.  Bauer Hall, with its groundbreaking in 1967 after Modestus Bauer’s $2.2 million gift, provided the solution. Bauer Hall provided the eastern end of north quad, and, remarkably, was accepted as an impressive architectural terminus for the quad.  The building mimicked the themes of North Quad: exterior corridors, simple hints of Mediterranean style, and an emphasis function over form. Bauer Center, while certainly no rival to the Kravis Center across the quad, still provides CMC with its own academic rotunda, and has played a key role in defining North Quad as a dynamic and multipurpose place that contained residential, academic, administrative, and social spaces.

Claremont McKenna's current master plan calls for an extension of the College's original quad.

The following years, while not without construction, were years focused on academic and administrative planning and development. Little physical change occurred when the College went coed. It was not until the 1980s that North Quad received an intellectual mantlepiece with construction of the Atheneaum. Donald McKenna pushed the project to establish a permanent building for speakers and discourse.  As early as 1968, McKenna had formulated the concept of the Atheneaum, a space that could simultaneously serve as an intellectual hub to exchange and learn but also mesh with the school’s ambitions to maintain a residential college. A $2 million building, construction began in 1982 and was finished within a year.  Now the campus had an explicit space where intellectual pursuits flirted and mingled with the CMC community in a social setting.

With the completion of the Ath and now further aware of how its identity had adapted to changing times, CMC announced a Master Plan in the mid 1980s.  Of most importance, Starr notes, was the realization that the older buildings were “disconcertingly Spartan in appearance,” due to lack of funding, and the aesthetic minimalism of the founders. Still, the campus had overcome architectural austerity to develop a profound space that respected the academic ambitions of the College. And while the founders saw little intrinsic value in designing a campus beyond its basic needs, these very tenets had, in a twist of fate, created a unique California campus that would become cherished by its inhabitants.

Read Part IV: Claremont Men’s College, with Women.

CMC has consistently ranked between 9-14 over the past decade in U.S. News & World Report's college rankings.

For those of you who have not read the piece, the argument is as follows: Claremont McKenna’s focus on government and economics is a detriment to other departments, and it prevents our beloved school from rising into the top ten liberal arts colleges as ranked by U.S. News and World Report.  Nico goes on to equate our focus on government and economics with the lack of general name recognition.  He offers three main arguments for his position.  First, the best applicants interested in government and economics go to more big-name schools.  Second, name recognition is a factor for attracting prospective freshmen and transfer students.  Third, CMC loses strong faculty in other departments because of our focus.

Let us begin with the supposed link between our name recognition and our focus on government and economics.  I believe that other factors better explain CMC’s lack of name recognition.  We are the only top twenty liberal arts college that is under 100 years old –rather considerably under, given that our 63^rd graduating class will receive its diplomas in a few weeks.  This relative youth, coupled with the small size of our graduating classes, means that CMC has relatively few alumni. Indeed, all CMC alumni would not fill the Rose Bowl —we wouldn’t even fill one-fifth of the seats! Youth and the size of our alumni network are far more likely explanations of the lack of name recognition than diversity of academic offerings. Compare our alumni base —likely less than 15,000 —to Harvard, Amherst, or Williams.

Now let us consider Nico’s three points.  Applicants that are the best candidates for government and economics majors will go elsewhere.  Fine.  There really is no way to either prove or disprove this point. So, for the sake of argument, let us assume it is true. Dean Vos has stated that CMC’s goal is to enroll 300 freshmen (110 early decision admits + 190 through regular decision).  Relative to the pool of applicants applying to top schools in the United States, this is a tiny number.  We could not hope to attract the top students in any field, even if we put every resource the college had behind that effort.  Students pick schools based on a whole host of factors: size, weather, proximity to home, social atmosphere, city size, and family ties, among others. CMC cannot be all things to all prospective students.  The campus we offer is, I believe, different from a vast variety of other schools.  As such, it will tend to attract particular students.

Is CMC trapped in a cycle of government and economics majors, as Nico alleges?  Well, the majority of CMCers graduate with a dual or double major.  Often, those second majors are something other than government or economics.  Furthermore, those other departments are not as small as Nico portrays them. CMC actually offers more math courses than government courses (55 math compared to 50 government), and has about as many psychology classes (48) as government. The relative parity of those departments is never mentioned in his article.

As an anonymous do-gooder mentions in the comments section of Nico’s post, graduate schools and employers often know exactly what CMC is and why it is such a fantastic institution.   This comment, though I agree with it, misses Nico’s point.  His friends in Indiana had not heard of CMC, although they have heard of George Washington and USC. Nico was talking about the name identification among peers.  I agree with his analysis of the symptoms, but I disagree with his diagnosis. Age and alumni network are likely to”‘blame.”  Indeed, the school most often garners attention when our professors are quoted in newspapers (see Professor Jack Pitney), donors give major gifts to the school (Robert A. Day and Henry Kravis), or when other elements of those two departments which are “holding us back” shine in the public sphere.

In 1969, Claremont Men's stayed true to its mission, bringing in Senator Abraham Ribicoff of Connecticut for commencement to discuss the importance of service. It was the College's twenty-third graduation ceremony.

Finally, let us address this issue of talent recruitment and retention.  I am not going to speculate as to why Professor Khazeni was denied tenure.  Nico is obviously upset by this fact, and I cannot imagine that the decision thrilled the professor either.  Tenure decisions are made by the Advancement, Promotions, and Tenure committee (APT).  This committee is made up of all tenured professors of the college.  There are a variety of reasons why a professor might be denied tenure, and Nico’s assertion without basis that the professor in question was snubbed is both premature and uninformed. Since he admittedly does not know the standards by which tenure is granted, creating his own standards which show that the professor deserved tenure is not sufficient grounds upon which to claim that the APT committee failed in its duty.

Nico’s vision of a brighter CMC future calls for expanded academic offerings by hiring the best talent to other departments. This plan sounds remarkably like what CMC is already doing. Professor Bassam Frangieh did not appear out of midair. He was recruited by CMC from Yale to create an Arabic program. Associate Professor of Philosophy Suzanne Obdrzalek also was previously featured at Yale. Professor Minxin Pei, one of the world’s leading experts in Asian affairs, is now the head of the Keck Center and an instructor in international relations. One can also look to the two new professors being hired by the history department. These are just a few of many examples of how CMC invests in other departments and why Nico is simply misinformed.

Claremont McKenna cannot be all things to all students; we follow the consortium model. Nowhere does Nico mention that some students come here for that very reason. The schools divvy up responsibility to cover more ground in depth, instead of wasting resources duplicating efforts. That such a young school can excel in two major areas of study— economics and government— should be celebrated, not chastised. Anyone who does the latter did not do their research as a prospective student, and has ignored the most important characteristic of the college process: fit.

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.