The messy paint job was a result of the previous night’s Thursday Night Club (TNC), a weekly party sponsored by CMC’s associated student government, ASCMC. The event, which boasted a DJ, beer, and of course, bottles and bottles of paint, was open to students from all five Claremont Colleges and took place at CMC’s eastern tennis courts.

Even without the addition of paint, TNCs have a reputation of leaving behind quite a wake of debris. Director of Facilities and Campus Services (Story House) Brian Worley explains, “Each party has its own gestalt in the aftermath.”

But the paint party had a gestalt all its own. Worley remarked that in all his time at CMC (5 years, to be exact), he had never seen a “Paint Party” TNC requiring a comparable clean up effort. The clean up, which began the next morning, has meant repeated power-washings of cement sidewalks and the repainting of benches near the tennis courts. Over a week later, the clean up is still incomplete.

Students Enjoying the 2010 Paint Party (Photo by Andrew Jordan)

PAINT IT RED

This is not great news for ASCMC—and its budget. So far, Facilities has billed ASCMC for $612 worth of damages from Thursday’s Paint Party, but the final tally could be upwards of that.

Alexandra Cooke, former ASCMC Student Life Chair and current Dorm Activities Chair, led the Paint Party planning efforts and said the event cost ASCMC about $500 to host. When combined with the damage costs, this means ASCMC is paying over $1,100 in student funds for one night of brightly colored debauchery.

The cost of the paint itself–about $300–is the average cost of throwing a regular TNC, estimates Cooke. “We were willing to spend more on a 5C TNC,” she explained, “because there will be more people in attendance, and therefore, more people enjoying the event.”

Cooke notes that the outcome of the Paint Party shouldn’t be a shock to anyone at Story House or in the Dean of Students office. She says ASCMC made clear the details of the event to both Facilities and Assistant Dean and Director of Student Activities Jim Nauls.

“They understood the nature of the event,” said Cooke, “and that there would be damages. If there had been adamant resistance, we would have taken that into account and restructured the party or reconsidered the theme.”

Indeed, the aftermath of the Paint Party is somewhat unsurprising. The combination of free booze, paint, and college kids does not bode well for cleanliness. However, in previous years, the party was more successful at managing to limit destruction to campus property.

Worley recalls a Paint Party held a few years ago in McKenna Auditorium, where the party sponsors laid out plastic sheeting throughout the enclosed space. This meant paint-splattered surfaces could be balled up and thrown away, without causing any damage to the wooden floors and walls.

According to Worley, Story House offered the party sponsors a water hose to facilitate clean-up during Thursday’s party, but no one from ASCMC ever retrieved it from the offices. Cooke noted that in the future, ASCMC will look into the possibility of a “clean up/wash station” for party guests to de-paint before leaving the venue and heading home.

BILLS, BILLS, BILLS

While the paint damages are certainly costly, some of the most expensive TNC-related charges ASCMC has paid have been the result of stolen campus property or the removal of furniture from a party space—both of which count as vandalism, according to Story House.

In January of last year, Story House charged ASCMC over $355 in damages for “several lights” missing from Fawcett Hall’s first floor lounge following a TNC event. For the same event, Story House billed ASCMC for $144 for 8 building attendants to return all lounge furniture from outside the building to its proper place.

The 2010 Paint Party Tarp (Photo by Andrew Jordan)

“If the damages are in a dorm where TNC takes place,” says Cooke, “then ASCMC will be charged. If the damage is in a dorm that wasn’t where TNC was located, then the dorm is charged.”

This school year, the most expensive single charge for a TNC event has been $428 worth of carpet damage in CMC’s newest dorm, Claremont Hall. The figure includes the cost of replacing the damaged carpet as well as the cost of hiring a professional carpet cleaning company to remove the stain.

In some instances, it is difficult to attribute costs directly to the party sponsors, and Story House’s billing policies have come under fire by students at ASCMC.

Jessica Mao, former ASCMC President, expressed frustration over the billing system, saying, “I think there needs to be a more structured system of payment and damage disputing between ASCMC and Story House. It seems ridiculous to have this accumulation of bills happen every few years when both sides could easily do a better job of sorting them out.”

With the ASCMC Financial Advisor now acting as a direct liaison between students and Story House, says Mao, “charges that don’t seem accurate can be caught right away as opposed to 2 years after a party happened.”

Worley understands the difficulty in ascribing damages to students. He offered the example of damage from a 5-College event held just after the Paint Party on Saturday, March 31. On Sunday morning, broken bottles littered the street between CMC and Scripps College, which co-sponsored and hosted the party.

“I don’t believe we will be billing anybody for the broken glass because it was just random acts that were done,” says Worley. “It wasn’t something that you can directly attribute to the party per se. In the case of the paint, it obviously is directly attributable to that.”

PAY DELAYS

While students may have their beef with Facilities over billing policies, ASCMC does not have a particularly stellar track record in paying up to Story House. Worley explains that, in past years, ASCMC has been tardy in paying for damages. and the costs lag over into the next fiscal year. In other words, students have been sacked with paying party damages for which they might not be responsible.

“The previous year’s billing wasn’t paid,” says Worley, “and that saddled the next year’s ASCMC budget with the major amount of money to come out of their funds that really had to do with the previous year.”

In May 2011, the total charges to ASCMC amounted to just over $9,864, which included charges for the entire school year as well as leftover charges from previous years. After ASCMC successfully disputed several charges, Facilities settled for $5,000 in February 2012.

This situation is not ideal for either party. The college loses thousands of dollars, and ASCMC is left to foot the bill racked up by graduated classes. Because neither Story House nor ASCMC sets a hard and fast deadline for repayment, the system leaves much room for error in attributing costs to students.

In the meantime, Story House and ASCMC are working to clarify the muddier parts of the process . “We’re trying to move forward to make sure that billings are done in a timely manner and payment from ASCMC is in a timely manner as well,” says Worley.

WORTH IT?

For students, the money going toward damages in the aftermath of a party depletes funds that might otherwise be used for putting on student events—not cleaning up after them. Students have responded by launching campaigns to encourage party clean-up, but none have seem to stuck.

The heaviest of costs, however, are not a result of a few red cups. To limit the cost of damages may be a matter of changing campus culture and perhaps making visible the monetary effects of stealing a chair from Claremont Hall or breaking windows in North Quad.

“Sometimes we become a little concerned that we’re facilitating inappropriate behavior,” says Worley. He elaborated, “We’re cleaning up messes that maybe ought to be seen for a little while rather than hastily cleaned up like it never happened. I become a little bit concerned about that, but again, our charge is just to make the campus functional and presentable.”

And the Facilities crew is working to do just that. Ironically or not, Story House is just a few coats of paint away from restoring campus back to normal.

The final vote was 10-1.  The lone dissenter was Vice-President Miles T. Bird, who took to his personal Twitter account to voice his complaints – tweeting “#teammiley.”

The concert will be held on Saturday May 5, the last Saturday before finals week. ASCMC President Aditya Pai ’12 justified the scheduling decision as being “beneficial to everyone. Finals week is stressful, and we feel that 115 decibels of pure, unadulterated teen pop would help ease tensions.” In order to reach the maximum number of listeners, the concert will be held on Pomona’s Walker Beach, with all speakers facing towards Honnold-Mudd Library.

In order to subsidize the cost of tickets to CMC students, ASCMC will be hosting the first annual Henry Kravis Leadership Auction, which will feature priceless CMC artifacts. Items up for auction include Jim Nauls’ caps lock key, Professor Brock Blomberg’s aviators, and Professor Ward Elliott’s fishing hat. The auction will be held at the Athenaeum this coming April 4, in lieu of the Robert Gates event.

MC for the Evening Will Kahn

All four years of CMC’s student body were represented on stage, and each were given ten minutes to make their case for a new, radical idea. The audience comment feed that backed the stage, allowed audience members to post live reactions to both the speakers and, more often, their fellow audience members during the presentations, making for quite the participatory show.

The live feed wasn’t without its faults, however. Elise Hansell ’15 noted the value and humor it brought, but was concerned about how much of a distraction it posed, stating “It could have been extremely distracting to the speakers and is probably not a good idea for regular Ath speakers.”

The night opened with a presentation by Jen Ringoen ’12 on the need for a new, unified Claremont-Mudd-Scripps mascot to replace the current Stag and Athena. Ringoen postulated that the confusing couple does nothing but reduce the quality of potential CMS apparel (which sports either a tame Athena or a mediocre-looking Stag) as well as create a division in the school between Stags as a men’s mascot and Athenas for the women. Ringoen’s solutions drew on essential elements of 5C culture, with possible new mascots ranging from the ubiquitous squirrels on campus to simply the Sae Bins, after Sae Bin Park ’12. The audience response system agreed, though some students proposed such suggestions as the Fighting Farandas, or the JIM NAULS DISNEYLAND TICKETS.

Sean McQueen Presenting on Humans Becoming God

Sean McQueen ’13 presented next on the idea of merging robotic technologies with the human body. McQueen focused on the idea’s possible implications, ranging from telekinetic communication to the potentially devastating issue of viruses and spyware. McQueen believes that humanity will either kill itself before reaching this level of technological advancement, or will simply need much more time to make this a reality.

Nadeem Farooqi ‘15 followed McQueen with a presentation on the race to explore and live on the Earth’s moon. Farooqi shared McQueen’s thought that humans will most likely extinguish themselves before managing to live on the moon, or beyond for that matter, but suggested possible success if the idea were couched in global cooperation. Farooqi took pains to distance himself from current Republican Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich by pointing out the inherent flaws of Gingrich’s insular and self-driven approach to moon colonization. Farooqi spent a large portion of his time showcasing the current technologies that could potentially aid humanity in their quest for outer space exploration, focusing on new rocketry and shuttle programs.

Maz Zipperman Presents on Entomophagy

The final presenter, Max Zipperman ‘14, focused on the potential benefits of entomophagy or the eating of insects. Zipperman led the audience, which had thankfully finished dinner by that time, through a detailed analysis, showing that a majority of the world practices entomophagy in some form or the other. Zipperman also highlighted the hidden bugs in our food today, explaining that most chocolates and peanut butter products include a significant amount of insect parts. Zipperman concluded his presentation by offering the audience a taste of prepackaged insects, an offer in which few indulged.

Perhaps we will see these ideas sparking serious discussion in the future. I, for one, am looking forward to Chef Dave starting to serve up skewered crickets and grasshopper soufflé for Ath dinners and the CMC Squirrels playing Pomona-Pitzer in the newly constructed Ducey Moonasium.

Want more pictures from the event? Check out Caroline Nyce’s photoessay here. Be sure to check back in for the video of the event.

Which is why I’m stoked about Trepic, (“trip” + “epic”) a new website launching today. Eric Johnson ‘12 and his partner Will Forrester, who goes to Washington University in St. Louis,  created it after getting interested in the cultural phenomenon of “casual carpooling,” used by thousands in the Bay Area to get to work. Person-to-person car sharing has never been an easy problem to solve. Without car sharing, your best shot at attending a fun event might be to pray Jim Nauls pays for a bus. Johnson believes there are many missed opportunities when students don’t even consider going somewhere for lack of transportation.

Trepic seeks to solve the “need to get to” problem–and even more importantly, the “want to get to” problem–in a user-friendly, super accessible format. Simply create an account with your Claremont email address (i.e. name@cmc.edu), and you’ll be presented with a list of rides going various places. Each ride has a departure time, a pickup location, a destination, an event, a price, the number of open seats remaining, and the name of the driver. Each driver’s photo is linked to their Facebook profile,  so you can check them out before committing. For example, Matt Hollander ‘12 is driving from 6th and Mills to Santa Monica, leaving at 9am on March 17th for a beach trip, and has three spots available. He wants $5 per seat. I’m down.

Johnson believes that the easiest way to encourage usage is to make the site as simple as possible. It takes one click to sign up for a spot in someone’s car, and just seconds to create a new ride. If you’re the kind of person who drives a lot of places off campus, this is the perfect way to make a few bucks on a Target run, or more significant cash if you’re driving to far off locales like Las Vegas or San Diego. You might even make some friends along the way. Trepic is committed to developing an inexpensive community for student travel. For now, users will determine prices for the rides themselves and handle the transaction in cash individually.  While Trepic’s long term business model is still being developed, the pilot program starting today is free to you, me, and the 5Cs.

Trepic is offering the “Trepic Travel $100:” any student who signs up for Trepic and either (a) posts a ride offer or (b) posts two ride requests will be entered to win $100 to cover travel expenses related to your trip. Just get started at www.trepic.us. For more information on the prize, “Like” Trepic on Facebook here.

Also, I’m offering my own personal incentive: free rides. I’ll be making two free Trepic trips in late March/early April. My Hyundai is clean and usually smells nice. Come join me!

Both groups have eerily similar functions. The CPB is a board of elected officials that plans alcohol-free events and activities for students at Claremont McKenna College (CMC). Alexandra Cooke ’14, the current SLC chair, is required by the Associated Students of Claremont McKenna College (ASCMC) constitution to “coordinate non-alcoholic activities for the student body.” If you just did a double take, you’re not alone because CPB and SLC have essentially the exact same purpose. The only differences? CPB has deeper pockets, different funding sources and an unelected leader.

Jim Nauls helped bring Aziz Ansari to Claremont last spring

This article is not intended to disparage either Cooke or the current CPB chair Christina Khavarian ’12.  As dozens of airbrushed unicorn tattoos and decorated holiday cookies will attest, they have each done a fantastic job of keeping us entertained, happy, and well-fed inside and outside our Claremont bubble.

Still, from budget differences to election practices or lack thereof, it seems that the CPB chair and SLC chair are two positions that could easily be merged in order to truly benefit the students and be most effective. If combined, the new “dry chair” could pool monetary resources from two sources and avoid the inefficient overlap in positions that currently exists.  The position of SLC chair should be eliminated altogether and the CPB Chair should be elected by the students to allocate funds from both the DoS Office and ASCMC. This does raise a few problems: will ASCMC become nothing more than a glorified party-planning committee? Where will the money allocated to the SLC chair go? Because the CPB is not governed by a constitution, would the interests of students truly be spoken for?

Cooke sums up budgetary concerns perfectly, “The main differences between the two are simply where their funds come from and the sizes of the budgets. My budget comes from ASCMC and CPB’s budget comes from the Board of Trustees and is allocated by Jim Nauls in the Dean of Students Office.” Cooke notes that CPB’s budget is approximately 10 times larger than her SLC budget and reiterates, “I work for ASCMC and CPB works for Dean Nauls. While I have a constitution, an executive board and a budgeting committee to oversee how I spend my budget, CPB is guided by Dean Nauls.”

Don’t get me wrong, it is indeed admirable that CMC students (via CPB) are now in charge of allocating the funds the Dean of Students Office has appropriated for student activities, but it just seems convoluted to split funds (unevenly) between ASCMC representative Cooke and CPB’s 14-person board. CPB gets to sponsor the big names like Demetri Martin, take students to Dodgers  games, and bring Kogi trucks while Cooke only has the funds to sponsor No Shave November contests and cookie-decorating.

Then there’s the matter of the election process. As Cooke puts it, “ASCMC has a constitution that mandates the fair election of an SLC; CPB does not (yet).”

Indeed, this is how the election for CPB student representatives went in Appleby Dorm. Resident Assistant Jordan Santo ’12 asked his residents, “Who wants to be our CPB rep?”  Silence. “Seriously guys…someone…anyone?” Someone tentatively raised their hand, and thus, a new CPB representative was born!  It was hardly the best example of political activism at CMC, and while the process may not have been the same in other dorms, it’s hard to imagine that there was any hard-core campaigning going on.

Yes, Cooke ran unopposed, but she still had to make her future plans known and tell us what she intended to do as SLC chair.  Besides, a certain sneaky “Write-In” (John Faranda, perhaps?) gave her a run for her money by winning 27.37% of the vote. Students had to actively take thirty seconds out of their day to check boxes and that, my friends, is democracy.

While the individual members of the board were elected, Khavarian was chosen by Assistant Dean of Students and Director of Student Activities Jim Nauls and was not elected to her position.

In an earlier Forum article introducing CPB to the campus at large, Jim Nauls was quoted as saying “she will not have any more say in the events than other students on the board.”

CMC is all about choosing their leaders and controlling spending (trust me, I’ve seen Senate debate the merits of a various garden plants for over a half hour), and I find it hard to believe that this decision didn’t ruffle a few feathers. Yes, the idea of a CPB tyrant imposing miserable activities on sober students is preposterous, but shouldn’t the students have more of an active role in choosing who plans activities on their behalf?

When it comes to the CPB and SLC chair Cooke, the method of “divide and conquer” has become “divide and do the same thing with different funding and varying degrees of student input.”   Add to this the fact that there is very little if any communication between the two, and it’s clearly time to combine and conquer.

Though much of what we see from ASCMC as students are events like Monte Carlo or the “party inform,” ASCMC isn’t simply a governing body debating the merits of various themes (or so we hope).  As a group of leaders trying to create the best community for all of us, I believe ASCMC could get used to the idea of contributing what funding it previously used for SLC chair to CPB’s fund so we could benefit from both resources.

Cooke agrees that some cooperation could benefit both groups. “I think CPB and SLC have great potential to work together…the two groups should collaborate more, to maximize great events.”  If the SLC chair simply becomes CPB chair, eliminating redundancies and allowing for fair elections, CMC students can have the best of both worlds. Imagine a glorious campus where you can nosh on hand-decorated cookies while laughing uproariously at Demetri Martin. Dreams do come true.

Ultimately, both groups joining forces to accomplish the exact same thing can only create and fund even better activities for all of us. Personally, I’d like to see some collaboration or I’ll be forced to adopt the much less catchy slogan (my apologies to Patrick Henry), “Give me a fairly elected group of students with shared funding to provide booze-free entertainment, or give me death!”

Laila Heid and Bryan Brown in "The Actor’s Nightmare"

In the next play, “The Actor’s Nightmare,” Bryan Brown starred in an over the top performance of a terrified actor trapped in a fit of forgotten lines and stage fright as he is forced to keep up with an angry stage manager and a constantly changing cast. His role was well complimented by Laila Heid and David Leathers, both of whom had the crowd laughing after nearly every line delivered. This play was easily the most involved, and while it sometimes made obscure references, the audience was kept on their toes at every turn.

This fast-paced, comical series of scenes was contrasted by the performances of Ileana Gabriela Mendoza and Crystal Adams in “Poof.” This play dealt with the dark topic of women trapped by abusive and violent husbands. However, when Mendoza’s tormentor disappears with hardly a trace, it adds a twist that causes feelings of celebration, resentment, and ultimately relief for the two women. Though there was hardly a break from the serious tone of this play, Mendoza and Adams gave convincing performances beyond their years.

The final One Act in the series featured Julia Starr and Jennifer Baute in “The Wake.” Starr’s quirky role as an uninvited guest to a wake was perfectly matched to the moving, and equally funny, performance of Baute as the grieving
widow. Her performance in particular helped the play maintain a flawless balance of comedy and tragedy as she dealt with the guilt of partially causing her husband’s untimely demise. The resounding applause at the end of the production demonstrated the audience’s appreciation for the heartfelt performance of these two actors.

Paige Costello and Will Khan in "Finger Food"

But the performance that stole the show was that of a hand modeling shoot gone awry starring Paige Costello and Will Kahn. An unexpected reversal of gender roles paired with hilariously executed physical comedy had the audience in hysterics from start to finish. Kahn’s style, from his flamboyant gestures to his fake Italian accent, commanded the attention of the audience. Costello  matched him move for move, making “Finger Food” one unforgettable performance.

UTL President, Jennifer Baute, commented on her job of organizing the production, saying “I really enjoyed working on one acts this year. From acting to directing to organizing the event, it’s UTL’s members and the students who come to see the fruits of our labor that make participating worthwhile. I’m looking forward to working on the full-length Ath production next semester!”

Not only were students the performers within the actual production, but each One Act was directed by various students as well, demonstrating once again that the pool of talent at CMC knows no bounds. Overall the acting was well-rehearsed, the plays well-chosen, and the performance seemed to go off without a hitch.

Julia Starr and Jennifer Baute in "The Wake"

Special thanks to Michelle Kung, Jim Nauls, the Media Tech Department, and the whole cast of UTL for another stellar production.

A Queen crowned at the traditional 3C Starlight Ball

This year Monte Carlo, which will take place on Saturday, November 12, reverts to its namesake theme and will see the revival of many past traditions as well as the beginning of a few new ones.  Connor Barclay, class of 2013 president, explains that this year’s Monte Carlo is all about “recapturing tradition.”

While last year’s party was still well attended with almost 800 students, the vast majority of them were from CMC. This year ASCMC hopes to see higher attendance from Harvey Mudd and Scripps College students alike, encouraging both schools to join in the festivities. The aim is to bring back the camaraderie that used to be pervasive in the event. As such, Barclay explains that ASCMC has been coordinating an effort to increase awareness, excitement, and participation from the other two colleges. He notes, “This was the one time a year that the three schools really came together and we have lost that.  We are trying to recapture that spirit this year.”

With tradition in mind, ASCMC is announcing the revival of the Monte Carlo Homecoming Court – for the first time in decades, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps students will be able to nominate and vote on homecoming Kings, Queens, Princes, and Princesses.

The Forum will hold write-in nominations through Wednesday, November 9 at midnight, followed by run off elections for the top four nominees for each class at Monte Carlo on Saturday night. “Each class will be able to vote for a prince and princess – endearingly termed Royal Fawns – who will be chosen by a vote tally at the end of the night,” says class of 2012 president Mary Doyle. The Senior class nominees with the most votes will be crowned the Stag King and Athena Queen.  Each class will only be allowed to vote for winners within their own grade – however, anyone within the 3c’s may nominate or be nominated to win. You can nominate the Royal Fawns here.

Another, perhaps even older tradition will be returning as well this year. Going stag isn’t stag tradition – and this year “ASCMC is encouraging students to break from the norm and bring a date with a contest,” says Barclay. This year there will be a contest for the most creative Monte Carlo “asking” by 3c students. Between Tuesday and Thursday students can email hhyatt12@cmc.edu to inform us of the time and place they will be asking their date to Monte Carlo, and the Forum will send a photographer to take pictures of the affair. On Friday, the photos will be posted online and open to a vote by the Claremont community. Whichever couple is voted the most creative asking will receive two free tickets to the event and be announced alongside the homecoming court.

As always, guests from outside the 5Cs are welcome.  Barclay reminds students that they must register guests with their Resident Assistant before Saturday, November 12.

The event itself boasts 45 casino tables and dealers from Atlantic City Gaming, and will feature the band “The Trip” who played at Wedding Party 2011. Fully tented and set up at the old tennis court, the event will have a full dance floor, chocolate fountain, and all the normal accoutrements. Among the host of prizes, will be a two-day, three-night trip to Vegas for two, which will be awarded to the student who wins the most money throughout the night. The other prizes, including a trip to Paris, will be given out through a raffle among the remaining students.

Before the nighttime festivities, the Stags Football team will take on Pomona-Pitzer.  The two teams will battle over the Peace Pipe at 1:00pm on Zinda Field.  ASCMC is also hosting a tailgate party outside Duecy on the outdoor basketball courts.  The tailgate will start at 11:00am. If you are interested in going, please send your meal card numbers to criva13@cmc.edu.

Monte Carlo is this Saturday, November 12, at 9:30pm on the Smith Tennis Courts. You may purchase tickets here. You may also nominate the “Royal Fawns” here.

For as long as any student can remember (and even many alumni!), Assistant Dean of Students and Director of Student Activities Jim Nauls has been in charge of putting together events for students on campus. During a recent Board of Trustees meeting, however, it was brought up that perhaps the beneficiaries of these events, the students, should have more of a say in the use of the Student Activities funds.

Thus the CMC College Programming Board (CPB) was born. According to their mission statement, the CPB is a group of elected 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 (2012). As the year progresses, the board will divide into sub-committees to develop and run both on-campus activities and off-campus activities.

Photo Credit: CPB

This semester, as the students learn the ropes, the board will focus on hosting the events rather than planning them. “I already have a ton of events lined up for this Fall,” explained Dean Nauls, but he hopes that the student energy will help him to hold an event every night of the week this Fall – a goal which he has been working towards for years. “I’d love to have something every night of the week, but I just can’t be at all of the activities,” he explained.

Come spring semester, the tables will turn: Dean Nauls will be taking the backseat and the board will be taking the reins. Both planning and hosting activities will fall in the hands of students. And, while the ideas that the board comes up with will remain top-secret until then, as Khavarian explained, “we already have two whole pages of ideas just from the first meeting.”

The CPB is also separate from the Associated Students of Claremont McKenna College. While the Programming Board may coordinate some activities with ASCMC, the CPB is not taking the place of the Student Life Council, the Dorm Activities Committee or any other student run organization at CMC.

The College Programming Board will also help the Dean of Students office hear feedback from students about events. While Dean Nauls does get students dropping in from time to time saying how great an event was, he noted: “I don’t get many negative comments.” Hopefully, with the board hearing inputs from students all over campus, criticisms of activities will be better heard.

CPB has already hosted a number of events including a Dodgers game, a trip to the Getty Museum, Glee showings, laser tag in McKenna Auditorium, weekly movie screenings in Pickford Auditorium and many others.  They are also hosting the “all-you-can-eat” Kogi Truck on Thursday, October 6 at 10:00PM. Other, previously unannounced, events include a bus and subsidized tickets to Knotts Scary Farm, another bus and subsidized tickets for Wicked playing at the Pantages Theatre, a buffalo wing-eating contest, Hangar 18 rock climbing and other activities.

Some concerns have been raised about how Khavarian was chosen as the Chair of the CPB; indeed, there was no election process this year. Dean Nauls explained that she has worked in his office, helping him run events for several years now. When it came time to put together a student group like this, it made sense to turn to her. “I’ve been working with Jim Nauls for ages,” assured Khavarian. As Jim explained, she will not have any more say in the events than other students on the board–rather, the Chair is in charge of coordinating the sub-committees and day-to-day communication with him and his office.

Dean Nauls weighed in about the drawbacks of a system with so many moving parts: “It was easy when I could just say yes, let’s do it” to an event. Now, with the new CPB, ideas will have to go through many more people to become a reality. Even so, Dean Nauls chuckled as he said that “my job is about to get way easier…maybe I won’t have to be here every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night!”

If you have any comments, ideas or suggestions for the College Programming Board staff, email them at cpb@claremontmckenna.edu or leave comments below.

On the evening of September 13, a student in Marks Hall noticed a woman in her mid-thirties showering in the second floor Marks bathrooms. An hour later, another student found the same woman sleeping in the Marks Hall lounge. Both students called Marks Hall Resident Assistant Kevin MacPherson, asking if somebody’s mother was staying in the dorm that night.

After MacPherson confirmed that the dorm had no registered visitors that night, he called Campus Safety and Security. By this point, the visitor had left the building, leaving behind some personal belongings and paperwork in the lounge.  Campus Safety inspected the building, collected the visitor’s belongings, and left after making sure that all the doors in Marks were locked.

Following the incident, MacPherson sent a dorm-wide safety advisory, issuing an ALL CAPS, Jim Nauls-esque briefing on the importance of locking doors and reporting suspicious visitors.

Photo Credit: Aseem Chipalkatti

Prompted by the email, rumors began to fly around the dorm. Some students claimed that the visitor was wanted in three different states for committing a hit and run. Others swore that she had stolen a child’s passport, and was on the run from the United States Marshall’s Office. A few even declared that she must have been a Pomona student gone crazy with jealousy over the gratuitous amenities of Marks Hall, ranging from vintage coin-operated laundry machines to its hand-laid Italian linoleum that lines the floors.

Things came to a head late on the night of September 14. On the way to an intermural water polo game, Marks Hall resident Logan Solomon noticed a suspicious person hiding in the Japanese Garden behind Benson and Marks Halls. After a brief investigation, he realized that is was the same visitor that had been sighted in Marks the night before. After calling Campus Safety, Solomon and MacPherson stood in front of the entrance to the garden, ensuring that the visitor could not leave.

Upon Campus Safety and the Claremont Police Departments’ arrival, it was determined that the woman posed no immediate threat to students and was only in violation of local trespassing laws. According to Lieutenant Shelly Vander Veen of the Claremont Police Department, the visitor was only a local transient with no warrants out for her arrest. After advising her not to return to the Claremont campuses without prior permission from Campus Safety, two Claremont Police officers escorted her off the CMC campus.

The entire incident showcases the thoroughness of the protective cocoon that CMC provides its students. As stated by MacPherson, “RA’s receive extensive training regarding a variety of scenarios anywhere from potential chemical explosions at the W.M. Keck Science Center to crowd control at the Athenaeum when rice krispies run out earlier than expected.”

While Lt. Vander Veen stated that unwanted visitors are a regular occurrence on the CMC campus, she did have this final piece of advice.  “Often times, dorm rooms are burglarized when doors are left unlocked…we would highly encourage students to lock their doors even when they’re just going to the bathroom or visiting a friend. It will go a long way in preventing them from being a victim of crimes.”

CMC students often refer to the “Claremont Bubble” – the idea that nothing bad can happen on the campuses of the 5Cs. While this incident ended well for everyone involved, it proves that it still pays to lock doors and stay safe, even here at Camp Claremont.

1. The ASCMC Senate enjoyed a change of scenery. Both Bauer Forum and Pickford Auditorium were occupied at the Senate’s new starting time, so all of the Senator’s trudged upstairs to Bauer 35 where they filed in, filling every chair and most of the floor space. It may not have been the most comfortable senate session in the history of the group, but I’m pretty sure that everyone got to know each other a little better.
   
2. For all Senators, it’s time to sign up for committees! Senate President Aditya Pai explained that all Senators interested in joining a committee must submit their applications by tomorrow, Tuesday September 20th.
3. Jim Nauls, Dean of Student Activities, stopped by to talk about changes in student trips budget this year. Nauls noted that the student trip fund received more funding this year and, as a result, “we have programs every Thursday, Friday, and Saturday of the semester.” He did explain that “chances are we will not do anything this semester, as far as concerts,” but that “we do movies every Friday night.” To conclude, he made sure to remind all students with ideas and proposals for student trips to simply drop in and let him know.
4. The Chair of the Administrative Affairs Committee, Adam Griffith (who’s that guy?) explained that the process for funding requests will be modified this year to decrease the amount of time spent on them at weekly meetings. Rather than going straight to the Senate general body, requests will now first go to the Administrative Affairs, who will provide recommendations on all funding requests.
5. The vote for freshmen class President will be held on Tuesday, September 20th , following speeches from each candidate at snack on Monday night.
6. Aditya Pai introduced a new section to the night’s Senate session that he calls Open Senate. During this period of the meeting, any and all CMC students can come before the Senate and describe a personal grievance or campus-wide problem for discussion. Tonight, two speakers came forward.

•      First, CMC student Jack Oliphant described his efforts to convince the Consortium to pay to keep the Honnold/Mudd library open later on weeknights. Thanks to his perseverance in bringing the problem before the administration, he described an upcoming trial program during which students will be able to study in the library café until 3AM to gauge the level of interest in such a time change.
•      Second, Tyler McBrien, Chair of the Senate Student Trips Committee described efforts by his committee to explore a number of new options for school-supported spring break programs, such as a possible W.O.A-like set of excursions during the course of the break.