For the 12th consecutive year, Swarthmore College will conduct a public hunt of the deer population in the College’s Crum Woods, on the west side of the creek.
All in Swarthmore College
The Tree of Us in a March Chinook: Stitching a Scattered Community Into a Quilt
A Swarthmore College senior dreams up a community quilting project to hold onto a sense of community during Covid-19.
College Names Honorary Degree Recipients
Swarthmore College will award honorary degrees to philosopher Elizabeth Anderson, U.S. Assistant Secretary of Health Rachel Levine, and filmmaker Dawn Porter at the college’s 149th commencement ceremony on June 6. Approximately 350 undergraduates will also receive degrees at the online ceremony.
Swarthmore College Grounds to Open June 7
Swarthmore College will reopen its grounds to the public on June 7 for the first time since last summer — plus some information about the college’s graduation and plans for the fall.
Sustainability Research Fellows Presentation
The 2020-2021 cohort of the Swarthmore College President’s Sustainability Research Fellows will conduct their final presentations on Monday, May 10, from 1 to 3 p.m., via Zoom. Now in its fifth year, the President’s Sustainability Research Fellowship program matches motivated students with small teams of staff and faculty mentors to research, develop, and implement projects in a yearlong course and associated internship.
Guggenheims Awarded to Swarthmore Faculty
Guggenheim Fellowships were awarded to two Swarthmore faculty members: Steven Hopkins for a study of lament and the ethics of mourning, and Ron Tarver for a photography project on Black cowboys.
Swarthmore College’s Roadmap to Zero
A new $69 million Energy Master Plan, also known as Roadmap to Zero, will help Swarthmore College eliminate 98% of on-site and purchased-electricity greenhouse gas emissions. This is a major step toward the college’s goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2035.
Moving Toward Zero Waste and Forward With Parklets
At its March 1 work session, Swarthmore’s borough council discussed zero waste, parklet guidelines, and community access to the Crum Woods.
2020 in Review: Before and (Mostly) After
Rereading articles from this past January and February is like peering through the wrong end of a telescope into a lost world. Here’s a review of what we were doing and thinking about in 2020, as it showed up in the pages (and website) of this newspaper — both BC (Before COVID) and AD (After Distancing).
Swarthmore College Student Strike Suspended
Members of the Black Affinity Coalition, which organized a student strike that began November 16, suspended the strike on November 26.
Swarthmore College Students Strike for Action on Black, Indigenous Concerns
A strike involving about a third of the Swarthmore College student body began on November 16. The students are protesting what they call the college’s complicity in violence against Black and Indigenous people. The students refuse to attend class, complete assignments, or work at campus jobs until their demands are met.
College Grounds to Remain Closed
Even with few students living in the dorms for the next few months, the college grounds will remain closed. In a letter to the Swarthmore College community, President Val Smith explained the decision, citing the current surge in COVID-19 cases across the region as well as projections of even higher positivity rates to come.
Dorie Friend, College’s 11th President, Dies at 89
Theodore “Dorie” Friend, who served as Swarthmore College’s 11th president from 1973 to 1982, died of cancer at his home in Villanova on November 4. He was 89. An award-winning historian who pursued his scholarly interests with passion and conviction, Friend came to Swarthmore with the goal of rebuilding trust and a sense of community on campus after the challenges of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Is Our Democracy Eroding?: The State of American Self-Government in 2020
Brendan Nyhan, professor of government at Dartmouth College, will present new research on the state of American democracy in a talk on Tuesday, September 22, at 7:30 p.m. Drawing from expert surveys conducted by Bright Line Watch, a watchdog group he co-founded, Nyhan will assess the extent to which the protections in the U.S. Constitution are preventing the erosion of key democratic principles and norms.
Empathy and Exploration: A Journey to the Holy Land Offers Immersive Lessons in Understanding Conflict (Part Two)
This is the second part of a two-part article about the immersive 10-day Swarthmore College study trip that concludes a course on Israeli-Palestinian conflict taught by Assistant Professor Sa’ed Atshan. An alumnus of the college, Atshan lives in Swarthmore.
Empathy and Exploration: A Journey to the Holy Land Offers Immersive Lessons in Understanding Conflict
Hebrew University of Jerusalem anthropologist Guy Shalev encourages the 36 Swarthmore College students visiting the region with their eight faculty and staff chaperones not only to ask questions, but to ask “the right questions.” A 20-plus-year member of the college’s communications office, I audited the class and joined the trip as a chaperone with the intention of writing about it for the community.
College Releases Fall Plan
Freshman and sophomores are the two main cohorts of Swarthmore College students invited to campus this fall. Incoming transfer students and resident assistants will also be permitted on campus. But even for those students, very little about college life will be normal.
Swarthmore Professors Adapt to Online Learning
The Swarthmore College website proclaims that its community “thrives on open dialogue, shoulder-to-shoulder discovery, face-to-face exploration.” This approach, as well as the 8-to-1 student to faculty ratio, has helped the college garner a reputation as one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country. But its hands-on, intimate learning had to be modified once the college transitioned to remote learning.
Class of 2020: Facing the Future
On Sunday, over 400 Swarthmore students from all over the country and the world came together virtually, watching on their laptop screens, or maybe on their phones, the landscape that should have surrounded them. High school commencements are up next. Strath Haven High School students will graduate on Friday, June 5. A choreographed plan of staggered appointments will permit each graduate to receive their diploma, accompanied by two guests, and have their photograph taken to document the moment.
Swarthmore College Commencement 2020: By the Numbers
418: Graduating seniors. 418: Packages to be delivered to seniors containing a diploma, T-shirt, and cookies from Dining Services.