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Editor's Note

Parlor Talk

One of the things I like about Swarthmore is the number of people here who inspire me. After a hectic week of deadlines, there’s nothing better than watching Associate Professor of Music John Alston lead the Chester Children’s Chorus (CCC) rehearsals on Saturday morning. I usually take my camera so it looks like I have [...]

Parlor Talk

By Jeffrey Lott

A year ago, as Swarthmore’s presidential search committee was starting its work, the country was in a presidential search of its own. The national conversation was about hope and change, and almost anything seemed possible.
By the time of Barack Obama’s inauguration in January, the national conversation had changed dramatically. Last summer’s sunny hopes had been [...]

Parlor Talk

I’ll never forget the Saturday in December 2000 when the Board of Managers decided to end Swarthmore’s football program. A colleague called from campus and said, “You’d better get up here.” That evening, I covered a protest on the steps of Parrish Hall and saw Coach Pete Alvanos weeping as he stood at the microphone.
The [...]

Parlor Talk

By Jeffrey Lott

There’s no question that we are in the midst of significant political, economic, and social changes. This issue of the Bulletin looks at change in another era and another country—China. Moying Li M’82 and Linnea Searle ’84 describe their experiences with the Great Leap Forward of the late 1950s and the Beijing Spring of 1989. [...]

Parlor Talk

By Jeffrey Lott

A few weeks ago, in the midst of angry Congressional debate over the financial bailout, scary chaos on Wall Street, and noisy election campaigns, I heard this news: We saw it snowing on Mars.
That just stopped me in my tracks.
Using a laser instrument, the U.S.-launched Phoenix spacecraft detected snow falling through the thin Martian atmosphere [...]

Parlor Talk

“A mascot for Swarthmore? Do we need one?” asked the headline on the back cover of the November 1995 issue of this magazine. Barbara Haddad Ryan ’59—then associate vice president for external affairs and head of the Alumni Office—was convinced that the answer was yes, but she was treading lightly. After all, there’s nothing Swarthmoreans [...]