All tagged 2020/06
Since 2000, Swarthmore resident Lawrence Katz has been a guitarist for the Mighty Mighty Bosstones, a group you most likely know for songs they recorded before Katz joined them, such as 1992’s “Where Did You Go?” or 1993’s “Someday I Suppose.” The band’s sound is sometimes punk overlaid with ska horns, sometimes straighter ska but with rock-and-roll guitar solos. This is a story of his musical journey, including how he found Swarthmore.
On Tuesday, March 24, Tom Shaffer of Rutgers Avenue in Swarthmore started feeling sick. This is an account of his illness and subsequent recovery, edited from near daily Facebook posts by his wife, Virginia Thompson, while she was at home in Swarthmore with their two kids, both in their twenties. At first she called her posts “Update on Tom,” but after a while, she started titling them “The Tom Report.”
June 19 is Juneteenth, the anniversary of the day in 1865 when enslaved people in Texas finally learned that, two and a half years earlier, the Emancipation Proclamation had legally set them free. If regular Juneteenth commemorations have been held in Swarthmore, they have not been announced in the pages of this newspaper, which record observances and public celebrations of Memorial Day, the Fourth of July, Chanukah, Christmas, and Kwanzaa. I would like to change that.
The Strath Haven High School Class of 2020 had a senior year like no other, and they had a graduation ceremony like no other. Class members never expected to finish their last high school classes remotely, and they never imagined watching their own graduation on a computer screen at home. But the one-hour commencement video produced by the Wallingford-Swarthmore School District is full of joy, energy, music, and humor. The video was released at 5 p.m. on June 5, after a slow stream of graduates, each accompanied by two family members or friends, received their diplomas one at a time in the SHHS auditorium.
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.
Swarthmore has been home to at least eight Guggenheim winners over the years. The distinguished fellowships have been awarded since 1926 in the humanities, sciences, and arts. In 2020, 175 people, out of an applicant pool of about 3,000, were granted fellowships. Author and Swarthmore resident Ben Yagoda is one of the award recipients.
The Swarthmorean is seeking an associate editor to work part-time (20 hours/week) assisting with many aspects of writing and producing the paper, which has been published every week since 1893.
Wallingford-Swarthmore School District Superintendent Lisa Palmer reported in an email to WSSD families on Sunday that “a hurtful and disturbing video...is circulating within our community.” School district officials forwarded the video to the Nether Providence Police Department on Thursday, May 28. The department is investigating. Chief David Splain said that the results of the investigation will be presented to the Delaware County District Attorney’s Office to determine if a crime was committed and whether to file charges.
