Princeton Review

The Princeton Review released its college rankings list August 1 and CMC took top spots in flattering categories, including Happiest Students (#2), Best Quality of Life ( #4), Best Career Services (#7) and School Runs Like Butter (#7).  The full lists are available here.

The Princeton Review book, which profiles the best 300+ colleges in its yearly publication, is a trusted staple for helicopter parents, prospective students, and college administrators.   But the unscientific methods used to create the venerated lists suggest our adoration may be misplaced.

The rankings are calculated by current student surveys.  Here’s Princeton Review’s official word on methodology:

“Most questions offer an answer choice on a five-point scale: students fill in one of five boxes on a grid with headers varying by topic (e.g. a range from “Excellent” to “Awful”). All of our 62 ranking lists tallies are based on students’ answers to one or more of these questions with a five-point answer scale. Some questions on the survey are open-ended and offer students the opportunity to answer with narrative responses.

Once the surveys have been completed and the responses stored in our database, we tally the results. Our methodology and the math by which we calculate our ranking results are quite simple. Each college is given a score (similar to a GPA) for its students’ answers to each multiple-choice question. These scores enable us to compare student opinion from college to college. They are the sole factors that determine which schools make it onto our 62 ranking lists.”

Of course, a rank near the bottom or the top of the pack has some truth to it.  Yes, our professors are accessible, perhaps too accessible when they wander through North Quad on a Thursday night.  But we’re #5 in “Lots of Beer” and UC Santa Barbara is #20?  Is our standing meant to imply that there is more beer consumed per capita at CMC than Santa Barbara? Anyone who believes that, to speak proverbially, clearly has had too much to drink.  That’s up from #13 since last year, but our alcohol policy has only become more restrictive.

CMC, at #8, outranked Scripps in the “Dorms Like Palaces” category.  If the category was “A Dorm is Like a Palace,” then perhaps CMC’s Claremont Hall could give Scripps’ GJW a run for its money.  But no one would doubt CMC’s founding fathers had utility, not luxury, in mind when designing North and Mid Quads.  Save a few hinges, the dorms could have been tipped on their sides and hosed down after a keg tap gone wrong.  Compare this to Scripps, where the sheer number of clinging vines may be enough to qualify it for a feature piece in Martha Stewart Living. The dorms also boast stained glass windows, coincidentally the window material favored by those who live in… palaces.

Forbes

CMC ranks between Harvard and Yale in the Forbes ranking.

The new Forbes Magazine college rankings were released on August 11 and soon became linked and liked all over Facebook.   The Forbes rankings system is its infancy–it’s only three years old–and the magazine is admittedly still working out flaws in methodology, which may explain dramatic year-to-year changes.  CMC moved from #27 in the “Best Colleges” list to #9 in the span of one year, placing it between Harvard (#8) and Yale (#10).

The rankings here are compiled from a combination of student opinions, including 17.5% from RateMyProfessors.com, and objective data, including alumni salaries from Payscale.com.

But the factors included range in legitimacy. Under “Postgraduate Success” is the outright absurd measure of listing of alumni in Who’s Who in America, featured only ten years earlier in the same magazine as “The Hall of Lame” for containing “a lot of relatively unaccomplished people who simply nominated themselves.”  This makes up 10% of a college’s score.

Since last year, they’ve dropped faculty awards altogether from consideration.  Previously, faculty awards made up 8.33% of the rankings.  They’ve included new variables to measure alumni success and default rates on loans.

U.S. News & World Report

The only rankings to get a school-wide email shout-out from President Gann, the U.S. News Rankings released yesterday are the gold standard in college rankings.  They’re also the most methodologically rigorous, incorporating objective measurements as well as subjective evaluations by students, peer institutions, and high school counselors.

The much-anticipated rankings varied only slightly from last year, despite changes in methodology that diminished the influence of ratings by peer institutions’ college presidents that attempted to quantify the reputation of the school.  In 2010, Claremont McKenna was ranked #11 on the list of best liberal arts colleges, a position shared with Vassar College.  In 2011, CMC retained its spot at #11 but has edged ahead of Vassar.   Pomona College, #6 last year, also remains at #6, suggesting to consumers that the methodological changes were not as dramatic as expected.

In 2011 the magazine placed more weight on graduation rates, increasing the measure’s weight from 5 percent to 7.5 percent of the final score.  High school counselors are now given a say and college officials’ opinions will receive less weight to accommodate them.

High honors or cheap sales?

“Top” liberal arts colleges formalized their objections to college rankings by circulating a petition in September 2007 agreeing not to use rankings in promotional material. Notable signatories included the presidents of Amherst, Carleton, Haverford, Wellesley and Pomona Colleges.

In a wide-ranging interview conducted last year by Forum Editor-in-Chief Michael Wilner, Pomona President David Oxtoby discussed his position on college rankings. Although he does think rankings in general have helped all liberal colleges by placing them among larger, well known schools including Ivies and public universities, he wished colleges and prospective students would place less faith in them.

“They have absurd claims to being scientific, which is really frustrating,” Oxtoby said. “On the other hand, the idea of protesting is a waste of time.  So I did not agree to the boycott. I think the reputational rankings are probably more valid that the rest of the survey components.”

He added, “I think we’re under-ranked. We should be higher.  In different ways, the other [Claremont] colleges may be under-ranked as well.”

President Gann had a different approach to the boycott, which she articulated in an interview with Inside Higher Ed.  Gann claimed that CMC only makes “very limited use” of rankings in promotional material, and that her objection to the boycott was the fundamental fissure it would create with the college’s core philosophy.   “Claremont McKenna College is very committed to free markets and individual choice,” she was quoted, “For-profit publications and rankings are what they are in our free-market economy.”

Staff Writer Sara Birkenthal and Editor-in-Chief Michael Wilner contributed to this article.

President Gann escorted the Kuwaiti Foreign Minister to the Athenaeum on Monday, where he was awarded the College's 50th honorary degree.

Dr. Al-Sabah was on campus to receive an honorary doctor of laws. The minister was originally notified of the honor during President Gann’s trip to the Middle East in March, at which point they began coordinating a visit to campus for him to accept the degree.

Typically, honorary degrees are awarded by colleges and universities during commencement ceremonies each spring. But as Dr. Al-Sabah is unable to make CMC’s May 15 graduation, an Athenaeum luncheon was hosted instead.

At the lunch, Dr. Al-Sabah described his alma mater as having a special place in his heart. “Let your heart float and drift in the sea of passion,” he said. “There is no love but your first love.” The sheikh had turned down an invitation from Condeleeza Rice to speak at Stanford the same day, he noted, as his visit to California was for Claremont.

Dr. Al-Sabah, 55 years old, is the fiftieth person to receive an honorary degree in the College’s history. The dignitary has already earned a PhD from Harvard in economics in addition to his BA from CMC, which he earned cum laude in 1978.

In the past, honorary degrees have been given sparingly. Until 2002, only one or two individuals were awarded such degrees each year, if any were given at all. Ceremonies were traditionally separate from commencement, which was an unusual practice. While almost always doctor of laws degrees (LH D), CMC has occasionally awarded doctor of humane letters degrees, to figures such as Marian Miner Cook and George Van Tubergen. The Board of Trustees revised their honorary degree policy in 2003, and as a result, the number of degrees awarded annually has increased.

Dr. Al-Sabah will not be the only Kuwaiti awarded an honorary degree this year. Abdulatif Al-Hamad, Chairman of the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development and another CMC alumnus and parent, has also been chosen to receive a doctor of law.

Parking lots and baseball fields currently utilize this space east of Bauer Center, itself to be replaced with a campus center. In the future, new quads, academic and residential, will take up the land, along with a new admissions office and alumni house, located on the corner of 9th St. and Claremont Blvd.

The plans were formulated based on a proposal to expand the student body from 1150 to 1400 (the maximum allowed in accordance with the College’s Constitution). The rest of the plan describes how the College will reach its “full potential.” Fear not – the sacred student-to-faculty ratio will be preserved at 8:1. But how will the College accommodate all these new students and simultaneously improve the physical campus with the “new or renovated academic facilities, a new fitness and athletic center, a new campus center, and the potential development of an Alumni House” all mentioned in President Gann’s email? These objectives may require diverse and potentially startling changes to the CMC landscape.

The plan assumes that, in order to continue attracting the best faculty and students, the College requires newer and more numerous facilities. This will be accomplished through a set of goals and objectives, which include:

• Making a clear vision for CMC allowing the improvements to strengthen the identity of the College.
• Increasing the aesthetics of CMC.
• Increasing the sense of community through greater opportunities for interaction.
• Environmentally responsible development and planning.
• Better interior and exterior infrastructure.
• Alternative strategies for meeting parking, mobility, and service needs and maintenance.

But what does this actually mean for CMC?

Bauer Center will first be the first major building torn down, to be replaced with a campus center, which will provide a real entrance to Ninth Street. “Much like the Smith Campus Center at Pomona, this central building would have an open, adaptable ground floor, and would house mail facilities, dining options and lounge spaces,” says Buildings and Grounds Commitee member Lucia Foulkes. Collins will be replaced and the new dining hall will be located further north near the new campus center. One wonders whether this will cause more South Quad residents to frequent Frary, and widen the North Quad-South Quad social gap. Perhaps anticipating this worry, the Master Plan only has one dining hall, maintaining the sense of community fostered by Collins. To ASCMC President Tammy Phan, “one dining hall means that we still haven’t grown too large,” and that there still is a “central meeting and eating area.”

This new academic building will be built where McKenna Auditorium currently stands, right outside the Flamson Plaza Fountain and across from the Athenaeum. In the distance, the new campus center is visible, where Bauer Center is located today.

The temporary offices, sardonically referred to as “Trailer Park West” by some peeved professors, will finally be removed and replaced with an eastern expansion of Parents Field. Linked with the new campus center, Parents Field will form the “heart” of campus. The athletic fields to the east will be replaced with a new residential complex – an “East Quad” – consisting of two halls facing each other around a courtyard and a series of gardens. The student apartments will be renovated, but Phillips will be demolished to make room for a Social Pavilion and Recreational Pool. The Hub will be gone as well, replaced by an academic building with a clear path to Scripps.

Of course, the Stags and Athenas will have a new place to shine. Ducey Gym will be replaced with a new Fitness and Athletic Center, and the track and football fields will be converted to intramural and club sport fields. The varsity soccer field will be moved across 6th Street and the rest of the varsity sports’ fields including football, track and field, baseball and softball will be situated in the East Athletic Expansion, across Claremont Boulevard from the apartments.

A substantial overhaul of the College’s pathways is also planned, throughout new and old quads alike. Such pathways are primarily responsible for connecting the campus and for welcoming visitors. Major axis will be redrawn to make for better navigation throughout CMC, and for clearer entrances to the College from various points. These entrances will be more aesthetically pleasing – the first of them being the Kravis Center itself. Trimming and lighting are small aspects of the plan that may have a surprising effect on the look of CMC in the short run.

Overall, these changes sound dramatic, and indeed they are. However, the Master Plan makes a concerted effort to preserve the intimate nature of CMC while strengthening the positive characteristics. “The College has done a lot of planning and group sessions with students,” says Phan, suggesting that we have had and will continue to have a voice in CMC’s future. The architecture of the new buildings will flow with those surrounding them, attempting to create an aesthetically-cohesive campus from two conflicting styles: the utilitarian concrete structures from our founding and the modern masterpieces designed by Architect Rafael Vinoly and CO Architects, among others. Pleasing everyone who enjoys the California sunshine, the plan calls for more open and green spaces round campus and gives them a practical purpose beyond mere enjoyment. The green spaces are designed for better “natural” drainage during rains.

While the changes can seem intimidating, our most characteristic features are here to stay. “It’s reassuring to know that some things will never change,” says Foulkes. “In 25 years, when some of us will have kids at CMC, North Quad will still be here to remind us of our youthful exploits.”  The buildings thoughtfully chosen to remain represent our core CMC values and culture; polished up a bit, but essentially unchanged.

The process has been long. Rodner’s office began by conducting a survey of alumni and students to evaluate opinions on the College’s logo and broader graphic identity. After receiving feedback that was “good, but not great,” the administration felt justified proceeding with a formal project to change the logo.

Since then, administrators have worked with a graphic designer specializing in university branding – who has created logos for a number of other schools, including several UCs and liberal arts colleges – to create some 25 sample designs, which were recently shared with students in a series of focus groups.

On the current status of the project, President Gann explained that “senior staff, the alumni board, students, the Board of Trustees and administrative staff have all reviewed dozens of concepts. Nothing has been decided, but a lot of options have been eliminated. The field is greatly narrowing down. People seem to be gathering around a more modern iteration of the globe, the book and the scepter.”

Gann also described student reactions as “really positive” and, although she declined to set a deadline, hoped to “conclude the process early summer, or next fall.”

A recent student focus group explored several categories of new designs, emphasizing enhancing the current logo, adapting other logos, revising the typography, and creating new ideas.  The results range from the conservative to the comic.  The most popular were those which hewed closest to the current design, either streamlining the globe/book/scepter design or even leaving it unchanged and only updating the font. At the opposite end of the spectrum was an adaptation of the “Campaign for Claremont McKenna” logo, one in which the CMC acronym was used to form a sun rising over mountains, and one rather clearly inspired by the signature logo of the Obama Campaign.

The administration plans to select a few finalists from the current designs and move on to a final decision soon.

Professor Bassam Frangieh, director of CMC’s Arabic programs, believes the new venture is a natural progression for the College after the Arabic program demonstrated such success over the past year. “You cannot teach the language alone,” Frangieh said. “You have to teach the culture, as well. Both are interconnected. And now the students want to do more. They are eager to go to the Middle East to study Arabic and to do internships in Arab countries.”

Currently, over one hundred students have enrolled in Arabic courses at CMC. The current program was founded just a year ago.

Gann & Wenger visited Abu Dhabi, Ad Doha, Kuwait City and Amman. Pictured Above: Streets of Amman, Jordan.

According to Frangieh and Gann, the program would be similar in structure to CMC’s DC Program, with internships attended during the daytime and courses instructed in the evenings. But the program would only be offered during the summer, for now. “We believe the success for the CMC model is to take students who have already studied Arabic here and have a way to project ourselves there,” Gann said. “We would provide housing, courses and internship opportunities” – resources hard to come by in the region without established assistance.

The president visited Abu Dhabi, Kuwait City, Ad Doha and Amman. “I think, on balance, Amman, Jordan will come out as the best location,” Gann explained. “Arabic is the main language there and the culture is more obvious than in the other cities we visited. They speak a lot of English in these other cities. And I believe it will have the best internship opportunities.”

She added: “We also have alumni support there, which I feel is very important. I’d be less excited about going into a country where we have absolutely no alumni. The other issue in the gulf is that, frankly, it’s very hot in the summer.”

Ideally, the program would start in the summer of 2011. But it remains unclear how it would be funded. “We would have to charge tuition for it, because it would be for credit,” she said. Details are to be worked out with Dean Hess in the coming months.

As a CMC program, the College would be able to hire all of its instructors, which would give it much more control over the content of courses and allow for the classes to count for credit. It would be difficult to award such credit, and nearly impossible to coordinate quality internships, if the courses were outsourced to another program or university. “We certainly can do it better and more effectively,” Frangieh noted, adding that he would be willing to go with the students to shepherd them and establish the program. “Creating a strong CMC presence abroad is not only necessary but also a requirement. This is the time to do it.”

While there, Gann traveled with Aleta Wenger, the Executive Director of International Programs and Professor Frangieh’s wife. Together they met with dozens of officials, including the U.S. ambassador to Kuwait, Her Majesty’s staff in Jordan and members of the Brookings Institution’s Middle East Bureau in Qatar.

The trip came in light of increased globalization efforts made by the College on various fronts. Dean of Admissions Richard Vos recently came off a recruitment trip in the Middle East himself, and a trip to Singapore and Hong Kong took place over Spring Break for the Robert Day School. But Gann was clear to differentiate our interests in the Middle East from Claremont’s plans in Asia. “We’re looking at something far simpler in the Middle East than we were in Singapore,” she said, referring to consortium plans to found a sixth college abroad. “We don’t want any bricks and mortar; we just want to organize it as an extension of what we do here.”

Beyond satisfying the typical requirements of an elite liberal arts college, CMC deserves a president who thoroughly appreciates and is committed to what makes it special: its unique brand of liberal arts education and the intimate, nurturing atmosphere that it affords.  Crucially, this requires professors and administrators to interact with students at more than a formal level. Yet I don’t know anyone who thinks Pam Gann knows their name, let alone them as a person. Maybe it’s different for the ASCMC crowd or the hyperactive on campus, but it seems that us mere mortals don’t register on her radar.

As a part of being on the football team, I’ve been forced able to go to the IRanWithGann event the past three years at CMC.[i] Besides getting an awesome selection of free t-shirts, this has also illuminated Gann’s relationship with the student body. First of all, this is one of the few times each year that I see her walking around on campus—let alone talk to students. More damningly, at the 5K, her conversations with students always seem to be of the “What’s your name/major?” variety. You’d think at some point she’d run into a student whose name she already knew or whose major she actually remembered. It’s hard to escape the feeling that she’s there to check a box (“See Board of Trustees! I told you I care about the student body!”) rather than have a genuine interaction with students.  Perhaps, though, this is just me being biased.

I suppose that could be forgiven. Over the past four years, my love for CMC has outgrown my demands for what it does for me. But more disappointing, I don’t see that same love of CMC, that wholehearted embrace of what makes the school special, in Pam Gann.  It may sound corny, but when she talks about the school, I don’t see a twinkle in her eye. Gann speaks highly about CMC, but her comments often feel like they would fit any elite liberal arts college. She praises our small classes sizes, our great professors, our selectivity, but always seems to miss the part about things that make CMC special.

In her first convocation, Pam talked about the how CMC fits into the broader higher education landscape and the importance of branding in “outrunning” the competition. This would have been a perfect place to talk about CMC’s unique attributes. Glaringly, though, she doesn’t even allude to the special character of the school. The implication is that we’re a liberal arts school like any other, struggling to (1) to be within the group of “brand name” colleges and universities; and (2) to compete effectively within this “brand name” group for students, faculty, and resources. The same speech would have worked at Amherst, Williams, or even Pomona.

At this point in the conversation, a voice of reason will often say “Yeah, but at least she’s raised a lot of money.” That is true. But money is not raised in a vacuum, and one person is not responsible for all of an institution’s fundraising success. Furthermore, our alumni population is getting older. It seems reasonable to think that older alumni 1) have more money since they’ve been able to work more years and 2) are more likely to donate money because, to put the matter bluntly, they want to have an impact on something they care about before they die. The steady increase in annual donations in the chart below seems to evidence this story. There is more volatility after Pam becomes president, but there isn’t a marked increase in donations over the trend line.

At a personal level, I don’t have any particular problem with President Gann. She hasn’t done anything outrageous or grossly failed in her duties as president. But CMC is much more than a typical liberal arts college and deserves much more than a typical president. At a dinner honoring Gann for her ten years of service to the College this past December, former CMC president Jack Stark thanked her for what she didn’t do: change the character of the school. But I think CMC deserves better. CMC deserves a president that doesn’t make its students question whether the president cares about them. CMC deserves a President that is firmly committed to keeping CMC a special place.

Pam Gann, simply put, fails those standards. For that dinner honoring Gann, the administration tried to film a series of students being asked questions about Pam Gann’s life and what they thought about her. According to Dean Huang, they had to scrap the project, however, because apparently not enough students said nice things. To me, that’s pretty damning. Out of a school of 1200+ students, we couldn’t cobble together enough pro-Gann students to make a two-minute video. Perhaps, I’m going a bit overboard, though, and you feel that Pam Gann actually does a decent job as president. But shouldn’t CMC, as our government department would say, strive for excellence?

Caption: This graph shows the total amount of alumni giving that went into the operating budget in a given year. It notably excludes large donations that go to things like a new buildings or a new Robert A. Day Master of Finance program. Those large gifts often take multiple years to negotiate and structure and thus are affected differently by factors like the economy, alumni aging, or a new president. The purpose of this graph is not to prove that President Gann fails as a fundraiser. Rather I am merely trying to show that under this basic fundraising metric she does not surpass the trend. Following her inauguration in late 1990s, support from alumni giving has mostly kept with its rising trajectory set by earlier presidents. Thus, deciding whether President Gann is doing an exceptional job fundraising depends on the degree to which she impacted recent large donations. But to answer that, we’d need to look inside Robert Day’s head, which I, unfortunately, do not have the ability to do.

Alumni tell me CMC has prepared me well for the journey, but have I really learned much since the 5th grade?  I have some plans, but I’ve never been more unsure of where I’ll be in five years.

Despite my personal confusion, I think I have a pretty good idea of where Claremont McKenna will be in five years. There are a lot of good “Decade in Review” articles and posts around the web lately, but I say those are written by people like Kevin Burke who can’t see into the future. Here’s what’s going to happen at CMC in the next decade.

2010:

• CMC amends the science GE requirements to allow computer science courses as an alternative option.
• The music video “That’s So North Quad” drops and takes the school by storm (just wait).
• I graduate.

2011:

• The Kravis Center opens.
• In his final act of bravery before graduation, the ASCMC Social Activities Chair will throw the largest CMC party ever in the middle of North Quad. There will be strippers, midgets, fifths, handcuffs, clowns on stilts, clowns on goats, Kanye West, and a 40-foot crane hanging a roasting pig over a spit. Epic. The next morning, a townie tied to a chair, gagged and missing his two front teeth, will wake up in the Appleby laundry room. Nobody will know how he got there. A Claremont McKenna water polo player will find the missing teeth days later at the bottom of the CMS pool. The townie will sue CMC for a few milli. In response and retaliation, the administration will cancel all ASCMC parties for the following three weeks.

2012:

• CMC announces a plan to tear down Ducey Gym and build a new gym in the “pit” across Claremont Boulevard. They have been doing this annually for years, but this time they “mean it.”

2013:

• The company that owns the College Park Apartments tries to found the sixth “Claremont” college, Upland College. The Consortium decides not to admit the school, so the company founds their own consortium — The Upland Colleges.  Holla.  The Upland Colleges will become renowned for their strict alcohol policies, degree in ergonomics, and loose women.

2014:

• An ambitious CMCer will hear about this thing called Claremont Confessions. “Sounds cool,” he says, so he brings it back. This time the site implements an anonymous video and hidden camera feature. I’ll leave the rest to your imagination.
• Chipotle adds a store to the Claremont village. In-N-Out Burger takes over for Bon Appetit at the Hub.

2015:

• A few weeks ago I said to President Gann, “Tear down whatever buildings you want and rebuild them, but don’t try to tear down North Quad.”  She laughed.  ”That’s what everyone tells me!” she said.  In 2015, she draws up plans to tear down North Quad as part of what she dubs “Ganny-Gann’s Masta Plan.”

2016:

• Facebook groups remain a vehicle to achieving powerful institutional change.  President Gann mysteriously retires following the creation of the Facebook group, “WE LOVE YOU NORTH QUAD – DON’T LEAVE CMC!” The Board of Trustees hires an Economics Professor (finally!), Brock Blomberg, to take her place.  The plans to tear down North Quad are dropped.
• ASCMC gets audited by the Internal Revenue Service. Uh oh. As the ASCMC CFO shreds files associated with line items for “Tropical Lei Expense,” “Cigars for Meetings,” and “Income from Extraordinary Sources,” a CMC alumnus who was appointed head of the IRS in 2015 calls off the audit.

2017:

• Newly appointed Athenaeum Director Ward Elliot reinstates the Madrigals tradition as his first order of business. The wassail will flow once again.

2018:

• Moose Halpern (CMC ’10), running on a campaign of “What up, chief?” is elected the youngest US Senator in California history.
• Scripps goes coed and quickly becomes the most competitive 5C school to get into. Mudders will cry. The Motley will stop serving “feminista” coffee.

2019:

• Henry Kravis bequeaths a large amount of cash money to CMC under the condition that we buy, restructure, and annex Pitzer with it, renaming the school “Claremont McKravis College” (see image).
• CMC will have the largest liberal arts college endowment in the world.

________________

I can’t predict what will happen beyond 2019 — CMC might open a water park in Montclair, the senior class might take over the Children’s School playground, the consortium might kick out Pomona College — only time will tell.  Who knows what’s coming?

To help you with your resolution writing, we asked some CMC celebs (well just some Forum writers and members of the administration) to share their hopes for the new year [editorial comments in italics]:

Abhi Nemani, Editor-in-Chief

• I wish I had the diligence to commit to something concrete (e.g. go to the gym, respond to IMs, kick the panda habit), but frankly, I don’t. What I do have is only one semester left with a lot of really great people. I resolve to remember that and to enjoy it. (And to regrow my lost hair.)

Emily Meinhardt, Managing Editor

• To be at the Scripps or College Park pools as much as possible.  And get a job.

Nathan Bengtsson, Forum Fellow

• Reduce my Gmail unread email number from 1,044 to a reasonable 100.  Not only will I be more organized, but I will no longer let the prospect of employers politely declining my generous offer to lend them my CMC-educated skill set cause me to live in fear of my inbox.

Kevin Burke, Forum Fellow

• Be a better friend and stop fantasizing about banging dead people

Wyatt MacKenzie, News Editor

• Dress less like Dior Homme [To those not familiar with Assche/Slimane’s work, that means v-neck t-shirts and slim silhouettes] and more like hmm Burberry [Conservative with a British twist].
• Go more than a month single…oh wait I made it…three months!
• Become an international art thief.

William Mullen, Forum Fellow

• Spend more time with family and work on my cooking skills

Carl Peaslee, Life Editor

• Get on a foreign reality TV show (preferably Scandinavian) and find an opportunity to shoot a gun.

Dan Evans, Forum Fellow

• Stop being pretentious about music (unlikely at best)
• Finish Rap-Musical about life of Jay Z
• Learn to use the phrase “Web 2.0″ without irony.
• also, keep a straight face while beginning sentences with “So the other day I blogged about. . . “

Madison Shimoda, Forum Fellow

• Lose ten pounds by trying the Flat Belly Diet. First, I must buy the book. I hope it doesn’t require me to exercise or cut down on food intake because I LOVE eating.
• Go to the Hunger Site everyday to click to give a free bowl of food to the less fortunate
• Finish my novel/thesis
• Get over my cat allergy or finally get ASCMC to buy me a hypoallergenic cat. (My freshman or sophomore year, I emailed ASCMC to ask for funding for a hypoallergenic cat. I got a one-word email back: No.)

Solon Christiansen-Szalanski, Forum Fellow

• Ever since Abhi began stylishly tramping around our apartment in his Snuggie, I have felt the need to challenge his chic elegance. Therefore, I resolve to purchase the Japanese-version of the Snuggie. If that fails, I will settle for the Snuggie’s British rival, the Lippi Selk.
• I resolve to learn a new skill every week–bacon weaving and sand painting are at the top of my list.
• I haven’t watched any Twilight Movies yet (I figure this Lolcats summary of New Moon has caught me up to speed), but if the final movie, Breaking Dawn, is anything like the book (spoiler alert) I resolve to immediately see it.

And now to the real CMC celebs:

Pamela Gann, President of Claremont McKenna College

• May 2010 be a banner year for CMC’s outstanding students, succeeding against all the challenges presented to them, given the state of the economy.

John Faranda, Vice President for Alumni and Parent Relations

• I do have a goal for this semester of trying to eat more meals in Collins Dining Hall with CMC students…I have loaded some Claremont Cash on my ID card and “resolve” to use it dining with you and your friends.  Except for the Athenaeum, I think that Collins is the best place to get to know people, learn about what is happening on campus, and get a tasty meal!

Gregory Hess, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty

• To read more and run more. And to take Rex and Kaia (our dogs) for more walks.  My final resolution is to will Arsenal to win the premiership! [I'm a Liverpool fan but I really don’t want to see Chelsea or Man U win so I am also rooting for Arsenal after Liverpool.]

Jefferson Huang, Dean of Students, soon to be Vice President of Student Affairs

• I’m not much of a “resolutions” person. I hope that people who do make resolutions can keep them. [The Forum suggests that Dean Huang do a naked lap around campus to show his loyalty for the school.  Alas, Madison does not endorse.]

Marc Massoud, Robert A Day Distinguished Professor of Accounting

• To stay healthy, if I can control that.
• To keep helping others, starting with my students. The success of my students and be able to see their achievements, in my mind, adds years to my life!!!

John Pitney, Crocker Professor of Politics

• Do more to help graduating students find jobs in a tough economy.

Isayas Theodros, President of Associated Students of Claremont McKenna College

• To really try to find my purpose in life. Haha, I know this is going to sound way deeper than it should, but I mean it. I have recently realized that life’s purpose is not all about being as successful as possible (financially, status, etc), but instead to really find what your calling is, and try to make a difference in the world.  [Hear, hear!]

Thank you, everyone who shared resolutions with us! I hope everyone else will make and keep their resolutions (feel free to share yours in the comments) and may the new year bring much happiness and good health to you and your family!

As usual, campus security was riding around in golf carts, sprinklers were watering the grass and sidewalks, and sketchy black cats were scurrying through the bushes by the Athenaeum and Heggblade. The weather was 65 degrees and sunny by day and as cold as 40 degrees at night. And it was really, really quiet.

On Saturday around 5 PM, a few stranded East Coasters at the senior apartments grilled chicken and steaks, played Beirut, and blasted really loud music. Nobody complained.

As our freedoms reached the peak levels of our college years and we started making some poor choices, we thought, what if more people were here? What if instead of a couple dozen students who have no choice but to be here, 1200 CMCers stayed on campus for a day or two before going home?

Unfortunately, CMC closes all residence halls at 8 PM on the Friday at the end of finals week. My guess is it would be expensive to keep the dorms open an extra day — energy costs, liability insurance, cleanup costs, etc. would all add up. I think it’s worth it. Dorms should stay open until Sunday at 8 PM, not Friday at 8 PM.  And here’s what we could do with the extra time:

An All-Campus Game of Capture the Flag

Each dorm puts their flag in their main lounge (or dunk hoops) and receives a target.  If you capture a dorm’s flag, they are out of the game and your dorm gets that dorm’s target.  Every student is equipped with either laser tag guns, paintball guns, nerf guns, or water guns.  Obviously, each potential weapon has its trade-offs and would need to be laboriously debated at the Athenaeum before any decision is made.  There might be problems with 1,000+ students running around campus with fake automatic weapons, but let’s ignore that for now. Other possibility: North Quad vs South Quad.  Blowout After-party: Senior Apartments.

A Community Service Project/Day

I don’t really know what this would entail, but I’m sure we could figure it out.  Some companies have a policy that requires employees to take a day off from work to do community service.  Some companies do it together and all on one day — that’s the idea here, but with CMCers instead of a company. Instead of the townies coming to us, we’ll go to them for once. Blowout after-party: Scripps Pool.

Color Wars

If you went to camp, you know what this is. If you didn’t, read here. Dean Deb Wood will not be happy about this one; I doubt she went to camp. Blowout after-party: Green Beach.

Ski Beach Day

This year, the weather was perfect on the Saturday in question. It was 80 degrees and sunny mid-day. We would take buses up to Mt. Baldy, ski, then go to the beach. We’d probably have freshmen and sophomores go to the beach, then ski, and vice versa for seniors and juniors. Maybe we’d meet in the middle and rent out some huge restaurant/hall in LA for lunch for everyone. Pomona does this to a lesser extent already, why don’t we? Blowout after-party: Mt. Baldy

Camp-Out on Green Beach

We get like 500 tents and put them all over Parents Field in a circle. In the middle, we build a giant bonfire (the environment be damned). At midnight, everyone gathers around in pajamas and passes around a megaphone, giving toasts to the semester and throwing in symbolic pieces of the semester (my Business Law textbook, for example) into the flames. In between some of the tents, we’d have fires for marshmallows, etc. Blowout after-party: Parents Field

The Longest Boat Race in the History of Claremont McKenna College and the Entire World and the Galaxy and the Universe

From the Senior Apartments to President Gann’s front doorstep. It’s an idea that’s been thrown around a lot… let’s do it. Blowout after-party: Pam Gann’s Backyard

Runners-up: Huge snowball fight, carnival day, Joshua Tree trip, Mock Wedding, Hula Hoop Day, Rodeo Day, Catalina wine mixer, Cross the Border Day (AKA Tijuana Day), Dig a Tunnel to Scripps Day, Hug a Townie Day

Sure, institutional changes don’t happen overnight, and they don’t happen easily. Usually it takes a $200 million gift or a 25 percent decline in our endowment for things to change. Regardless, I’m graduating in the spring and plan on enjoying senior week while you all take finals. But if I were a younger man, I might fight for the right to capture the flag.

Top 20 things I would buy if I were President Gann* and had a boatload of money (in order of importance):

1. A new athletics/recreation center to replace Ducey.  Easily the most important thing for CMC right now.
2. A computer science professor (or two).  We only have one now.
3. A new website
4. More “networking” trips during breaks like the ITAB (Silicon Valley) and FEI (NYC) trips.  Both were some of the best learning experiences I’ve had in the past four years.
5. Renovations and furniture for the Hub
6. Renovations and furniture for the computer labs (better furniture, more screens, etc… check out the Mudd/Pomona labs and you’ll see what we’re missing)
7. Renovations and furniture for the Reading Room
   (Onto the frivolous purchases…)
8. Giant plasma screens and speakers all over campus broadcasting the same thing at all times
9. An elaborate mini-golf course between Boswell and Green
10. An outdoor pool for non-athletic use (Scripps is too far and has inconvenient hours for men)
11. A large outdoor hot tub at the Senior Apartments.  (Important: cleaned and sanitized daily, at least.)
12. A bronze statue of Donald McKenna outside Collins Dining Hall.  Oxidized to look old and grand.
13. A gold statue of Henry Kravis outside the Kravis Center.  Polished daily to look new and expensive.
14. Scripps College (just the students, the Motley, and the dining hall.  They can keep the other stuff.)
15. A lazy river from Kravis Center to Bauer Center.  (Important: shut off and emptied on Thursday and Saturday nights.)
16. High speed train from Claremont Boulevard to the top of Mt. Baldy
17. Chairlift (gondola?) from South Quad to North Quad
18. Pitzer College (KKR leveraged buyout style)
19. The Mudd Hole
20. Loanable go-karts (with front-mounted video cameras)

Other changes would include abolishing senior thesis, most GEs, and demolishing McKenna Auditorium and Ducey Gym.

*Henry Kravis, Robert Day, or any other super rich donor would do

Disagree? Did I forget something? Leave it in the comments.