Not Pictured: Demetrius Lalanne. Editors Note: Cara Daley and Burk Zanft are no longer members of the Executive Board

Dear CMC, the Greatest College Ever:

A belated welcome-back and happy almost-fall break to you all! If you don’t know me, my name is Jessica Mao a.k.a. JMAO, MaoMao, Jay-Meow, and whatever other nickname you’d like to give me. I am writing to you today about the current state of the student body, which includes my role as this year’s President, goals that the Associated Students of Claremont McKenna College trying to meet, and a huge wad of other things you should look forward to this year. This letter serves as a preview into what is happening, so you can be in-the-know. I’ll leave it up to some of my fellow Executive Board members to elaborate on their incredible work in future Forum articles!

“So, MAO — What do you do as Chairman? Oops, I mean President….”

Despite the rumors, I am not like my great-great-great-uncle, Chairman Mao. I oversee the Board of Directors and run our weekly Sunday night meetings where we give our updates and have discussions about anything and everything CMC-related. With your input, I work closely with the Dean of Students Office to continually bring forward your concerns. In addition to that, I make sure the usual things like elections and budgeting happen in a timely manner. Most of the work I do is behind a computer, hence all the important emails you get from me!

ASCMC Phase II: Making the Transition

A lot has changed since we came into office in March: Kravis Center, the Ath 2.0, and the super-cool new Dean Eric. Those were expected changes, but a special election was not. ASCMC is still in transition mode with a new Webmaster, a new SLC Chair, and a new Executive Secretary on the way. Thankfully, PaiPai (yes I call him that) has done incredible work with Senate and your Social Chairs have planned amazing events in the meantime, but I’m telling you right now: ASCMC is just getting started. We’re aiming to be more than awesome parties and events. In the following sections, I’ll talk about our current and future projects to maintain traditions, throw great events, but also take CMC to new depths of leadership.

Quality Events
As promised in our ASCMC Letter to the Students, we have already began discussion and planning of events for this semester and the spring. After a nice, long ASCMC brainstorming session, you can expect the usual favorites: an epic Monte Carlo, White Party, and Wedding Party. Throw in a new winter party, a focus on bringing small live music acts, with a few more surprises and you get an AMAZING YEAR. Event-planning is what we’re best known for, so we’re going to bring it BIGGER and BETTER this year. To execute certain events well will take some synergy, but I’m getting ahead of myself here!

Serving YOU – Engagement and Communication

If you missed the ASCMC Sunday Sundae Snack, don’t worry, we’ll be bringing you at least a couple more Sunday Snacks before our term ends in March. Serving and representing CMC students is the reason we exist! Have ideas for an affordable snack other than sundaes? Come to my Mao Pow Wow every Friday from 11AM-1PM at the Appleby Picnic Tables and voice your ideas and other thoughts! While I can’t guarantee the fruition of every idea, we can always talk it out and figure out what can be done. I want you to be heard and assured that your input matters. My ongoing project is to address the concerns brought to me at Mao Pow Wow. One of my goals for ASCMC is to be more accessible to students. In addition to more engaging events like Sunday Snack, the following are projects we’ve undertaken to improve student body communication:

- A newsletter is in the works, which will also incorporate a list of weekly club events.

- We are uploading our minutes regularly, so you can stay informed about our meetings.

- Improvements to our websites and social networking are of high priority.

- Any other suggestions? Please share them below in the anonymous suggestion box! (Be nice…)

SYNERGY
After reading too much Case in Point, I can tell you that synergy is the beauty of combined forces working towards one mission. ASCMC is one of several groups on campus working towards improving student life and planning events. Without teamwork and cooperation with the Dean of Students Office, College Programming Board, RAs, and the brand-new Center for Civic Engagement (CCE), certain ideas and initiatives may not reach their full potential. Assisting the RAs in promoting the incredible Ath Speaker Series, “Shifting Perceptions: Celebrating the Spectrum of Leadership”, is an example of partnerships that ASCMC has already taken. The new College Programming Board also gets a shout-out as we are discussing collaboration on upcoming events. So much CMC community love!

Social and Fiscal Responsibility
ASCMC, along with the groups previously mentioned, is taking a new direction this year in promoting leadership at CMC. Key areas like social inclusion, community service, sustainability, and party-rocking responsibility (I’ll explain), are all aspects of CMC life that need more attention. While ASCMC’s job isn’t to focus solely on these areas, we are making efforts to be part of these conversations in order to enrich the student body. Whether it be helping the RAs with the speaker series or giving input into events held by the Center for Civic Engagement, the goal is for the student body to lead in as many ways as possible.

On the topic of sustainability and party-rocking responsibility, SPEAR, CCE, and the RAs are among those taking the initiative to promote the use of new Red Cup Recycling Bins. ASCMC is right on board with this movement for sustainable partying. Cups aside, did you know that ASCMC accrued over $12,000 worth of damages this past school year? This is a sad bill to pay when we know that money could fund another Senate, 3 White Parties, 15 clubs, or 40 Hub quizzes. More importantly, it is extra non-overtime work that building attendants have to complete. Will Brown, in a Forum article to appear later this week, will elaborate more on this devastating cost, but the point is for you to all be aware that a little cleaning up goes a long way. Let’s work together this year on minimizing our physical damage to CMC and maximizing our dollar! ASCMC doesn’t have nearly as big of a budget in comparison to ASPC or other colleges across the nation, so it’s our challenge to do more with every penny.

Whew, thanks for taking the time to read this! Despite the 1000+ words I’ve used up, everything I’ve said is only a brief synopsis of what ASCMC is doing this year. I know my job is to oversee every facet of ASCMC and its responsibilities, but you can play a bigger role in making things happen. If you’re interested in campus life, please find ways to get involved, stay informed through the Forum, and insist on being heard. ASCMC cannot make decisions without a clear idea of what you, the student body, want. Send us emails, write in the box below, and dare to make a difference.

P.S. Mao Zedong isn’t actually my great-great-great-uncle. Gotcha!

The Glitch Mob.

While this Los Angeles-based trio has been performing together since 2006, they only released their first studio album, Drink The Sea, in May of last year. Since then, they’ve been touring their asses off, playing solo gigs in addition to huge festivals like Coachella, Lollapalooza, and Red Rocks.

Drink The Sea is a departure from The Glitch Mob’s original dance floor-approved sound. With this record, they tried to create a work of art that can be appreciated in its entirety again and again. Now that doesn’t mean you can’t get your freak on–songs like “Animus Vox” and “Drive It Like You Stole It” will induce some serious head-nodding and foot-tapping– it just means that The Glitch Mob have decided to add more depth and “[take] you to a different world.”

This trek into The Glitch Mob’s auditory landscape begins with “Animus Vox.” The kick-drum and melodic vocals set the stage, but the song quickly changes pace as it blasts off using heavy percussion and distorted synths as fuel. There’s a reason why it works so well in this video.

Your journey through The Glitch Mob’s soundscape downshifts with “Between Two Points,” the album’s only song with prominent vocals. They really turn down the beats per minute on this one.  It flows over you like honey. Both Swan’s mesmerizing voice and her lyrics convey a sad sense of yearning, of desires left unfulfilled. She isn’t specific, but you can fill in the gaps with your own memories and cravings–remember, this is your voyage and the music serves as an emotional guide.

After this solemn reflection, the pace picks up again almost as if the music is challenging you to make the most of the little time we have left. “Drive It Like You Stole It” is nothing short of a call to action. How can you not picture yourself doing something reckless and monumental while listening to this jam? Whether you’re manning up to make a move on the girl you love, or getting ready to play in the championship game, or saving a kangaroo from a flood, it will be much more epic while listening to “Drive It Like You Stole It.”

Drink The Sea finishes off with the soothing “Starve The Ego, Feed The Soul.” It’s the cool down to a hard workout or the car ride home after one hell of a mushroom trip in Joshua Tree. You’re tired and sad to be returning to reality but this song will help you readjust. Look on the bright side: you can always listen to the album again.

The entire album features bass-laden beats and super-charged synth riffs reminiscent of Ratatat. In fact, Ratatat is a good comparison to make to The Glitch Mob’s live performances. Both groups have the tough task of transforming electronic music composed using computers into an entertaining live show. Yet neither group can be called DJs in the traditional sense because they don’t use turntables to mix other people’s songs together. Instead, they play their songs live like a conventional band would. To do this, The Glitch Mob uses a multi-touch device called a Lemur and drums to play each sound you hear during their shows. It’s harder than you think.  Look for them on stage this weekend.

Fortunately, this is where The Glitch Mob excels. They bring Drink The Sea to life in a way that 3 guys huddled behind a computer screen really can’t. Don’t expect to hear an exact copy of the album either. While their sets have a predetermined order, they leave room for improvisation and even add in some hip-hop lyrics for good measure.

Besides the energized renditions of their original songs, remixes, and the dynamic nature of the trio performing, there is one more thing that makes The Glitch Mob’s live sets memorable: BASS. Get ready for an auditory and visual adventure with an extra dose of womp sauce. You can feel the music at their shows, and that adds a whole new dimension to the experience. And I’m not just talking about loud noises. I’m talking about the low frequency sounds that your computer speakers can’t produce. The bass line is a large part of what makes “Seven Nation Army” by The White Stripes such an awesome song. Hopefully, we’ll get to hear (and feel) that classic bass riff come to life on Saturday.

Don’t miss The Glitch Mob at the White Party this Saturday, February 26th in the Scripps Garage.  Doors open at 9:30pm.

My advice as a departing senior is to make friends at other colleges, take advantage of the resources at all the colleges, and appreciate that you aren’t at a tiny liberal arts college stranded by itself in the middle of nowhere.

Yes, certain members of the colleges do stupid things from time to time. Two years ago, Debra Wood, the Scripps College Dean of Students, sent an e-mail to the Scripps College student body complaining about a “racist party theme” at CMC held by the class of 2010. This party, hosted by Class President Isayas Theodros, encouraged students to wear white clothing because there would be a blacklight. Earlier that year, (mostly) Pitzer students engaged in a ridiculous protest of Karl Rove.  During that same year, Harvey Mudd’s Dean of Students made the bizarre decision to report to Campus Safety writing on a whiteboard that said “Hillary is a foxy lesbian.” Just recently, Pomona’s The Student Life published the wrong commencement speaker for CMC’s graduation this year.  For its part, CMC’s administration recently decided to ban non-CMC students, except for a guest list, from Thursday Night Club.

As unfortunate as these incidents are, they are clearly the exception and not the rule.  The reality, however, is that most of the people who attend the Claremont Colleges are good people. Sure there are jerks everywhere, but stereotyping across campuses is way too common at all of the 5Cs. Furthermore, almost all the stereotypes reflect the different colleges of 5-10 years ago much better than they reflect those institutions today. All of the 5Cs have similar values and fairly similar students and we cooperate in tons of academic, extracurricular, and social activities. There are important reasons a good percentage of Claremont Colleges students applied to multiple colleges, transferred between colleges, or take a lot of classes with mixed student populations.

The Claremont Colleges are excellent institutions, but we would all be even better if we integrated more and were less hostile towards one another. In my experience, most people at the end of the day seem to understand this and treat the rivalries as a fun tradition that amuses us. There are some people, however, who take these pointless rivalries way too far. They vandalize property, harass peers, or get in petty disputes with people from other colleges for really dumb reasons. Don’t be these people and don’t let your friends be these people.

Yohei, last week CMC held no sponsored parties. We all understand that you need a break from throwing events and that there has been an increase in alcohol-related incidents at CMC. Is there anything else you can tell us in terms of what to expect in the future and what really happened?

Recently, the Dean of Students’ office told us there were a few issues we needed to deal with. We started discussing those issues and were unable to reach a solution in time, which is why last week’s parties were canceled. Fortunately, we had a meeting last Friday discussing each issue and changes that needed to happen. We came up with a few changes. We’re going to start implementing those and bringing back parties this weekend.

What are the changes?

Well, it’s a lot and not all of it is clear at this point. For one thing, we have to register our parties with the school differently. [Parties have to be registered at least two weeks in advance with details such as the number of attendees. The regulations for a registered party are correlated with the estimated attendance of the event.] We’ve always registered TNCs as a 100-person event because we used to get about 100-150 people at each one. The average TNC attracts about 300 people now, sometimes more. We’re going to start making changes reflecting that.

We will have more security to keep non-affiliates out. We’ve always had fenced off parties once in a while and they’ve been great—it’s just that they’re all going to be like that which will be different.

Additionally, there are a lot of parties, like the 24 Hour Party, that people expect to happen that are looking very iffy right now. The DOS is against having a 24 Hour Party at this point. We will continue to talk to them. We’re doing our best to keep the same fun continuing.

To what do you attribute the increase in attendance at CMC’s parties?

I think there is a misperception that people are more out of control than in the past—that is just not true. There have been more reported alcohol-related incidents this year than in the past, but we’ve also had many more attendees at each event. So proportionally, alcohol-related incidents are probably not more prevalent than in the past.

As for parties in general, there’s been a lot less intercampus partying over the last couple years. We try to pick up the slack at CMC, which causes problems. My freshman year I went to a lot of Pomona and Mudd 5C parties. I think people still go to Mudd but not Pomona.

Why is that?

I think our parties are just a lot better (laughs). Also, maybe people are used to our parties and don’t want to go other places. I think Mudd has some crazy parties and they put a lot more effort into them than even we do, but our parties have just as many people now.

Is there anything CMCers need to do to help the current party situation?

We want CMC students to keep doing the same thing, but watch out for non-CMCers more. For example, if a Scripps student comes here and has an alcohol-related problem, the parents call the Scripps administration who calls the CMC administration, and that’s hard to deal with. (If you have a friend visiting, whether it be from the other 4Cs or from further away, I want CMCers to realize that they have to be responsible for their friends actions.

Have you thought about charging other schools for parties like our TNC? Something like requiring non-CMCers to pay $3 at each party?

Haha, that’d be awesome. We can’t do that though, it has to do with our rules.

Every CMCer knows your name—the Party Inform is the one weekly digest e-mail students anticipate all week and hold dearly when they receive it. Some people even print it out and hang it on their wall. Who writes the Party Inform? How early in the week do you know what will be in it? What is the process involved each week?

(Laughs) People actually put it on their walls? Well, TNCs are thrown by dorm presidents. Sam Stecker, the Dorm Affairs Committee Chair, is in charge of rotating which dorm throws that week’s TNC. Sometimes multiple dorms help out. Fridays are often uneventful, but CMC usually has non-alcoholic events like movie night. I often feel like Saturdays are my responsibility, so unless another school is throwing a party I throw one at CMC or find someone to throw one with me.

I meet with the Social Affairs Committee Chair from the other colleges every Sunday and discuss the upcoming weekend. In general, we try to plan as far ahead as possible. If there is an open Saturday, CMC always ends up picking it up and hosting a party. The other schools don’t make sure they have a party every Saturday. That’s another reason we have had a hard time—we always make sure there’s something going on.

As for the other events, anybody who wants an event to be in the Party Inform sends me an email by midnight on Wednesday.

How much planning goes into each event?

The bigger the event, the earlier you’d like to plan ahead. We have to register smaller parties two days in advance and larger parties two weeks in advance. The hardest part is the brainstorming. We—a group of people consisting of dorm presidents and other involved parties—sit around and talk about what we want to do. In the days leading up to the party, we spend a few hours shopping every day to go buy the decorations, beverages, and whatever else we need (cups, etc.). The day of a party, the people involved in throwing the party usually end up spending the entire day on that event.

How much does all this cost?

The cheaper parties float around $300, most of it for decorations, beverages and cups. Bigger parties on Saturdays like the Toga Party can go up to $1,000 or more. A lot of that is security and fencing. Security is especially expensive, as you can imagine. The new rules we are discussing with the DOS will make TNCs cost twice as much.

Where does the money come from?

All of it comes from the ASCMC from SAC, DAC, Senate, dorm funds, etc. It’s all money allocated from the ASCMC from student membership fees and fundraisers like yearbook sales. Everything is on the books and done through reimbursement as the ASCMC is a 501(c)(3) organization. We also go to different CMC and 5C organizations to get money depending on what the event is. For major 5C parties we get funding from all 5Cs.

Last weekend’s White Party, for example, was primarily funded by CMC, but we asked for the maximum from the other schools. Of course, not all 5C schools have as much money as CMC does.

What role does the Dean of Students play in all this?

The Dean of Students’ office deals with the issues when things go wrong, and then they talk to us. This year we’ve had a lot of communication between the DOS and ASCMC. They keep us updated on issues we have and talk to us and discuss possible solutions with us. It sucks that the rules are getting tougher, but they haven’t dropped a single rule on us without talking about it, which is great. Overall, there’s a lot of communication.

What drew you to the position of Social Affairs Committee Chair?

I wanted to be SACC within the first month of my arrival at CMC. Basically, I realized that we had a large budget we could throw parties with and all we had to do was throw parties with it. I was dorm president last year and saw how things worked via that job. I threw a lot of parties without an official title in my suite, and I guess it just went from there.

Who will be the next SACC?

I haven’t heard of anyone who has wanted to step up. Hopefully someone will. I don’t want to do it next year because there are a lot of other positions I’d be more interested in. If I were going to run for an ASCMC position I’d want to run for class president. The senior class president gets to throw the 100 and 200 days left parties, as well as frequent Las Vegas trips.

Can you talk about the White Party controversy from last week and what your role in it was?

Fortunately I wasn’t the one who had to deal with it. Isayas Theodros, the Sophomore Class President, hosted the party and had to deal with it the most. Still, the ASCMC sat down as soon as we heard about it and discussed what we should do. I think we did exactly what we should have done—nothing.