The Miscellany News
Since 1866 | miscellanynews.com
Volume CXLII | Issue 23
MAY 24, 2009
Graduating class has witnessed changes, challenges Prestigious fellowships W awarded Ruby Cramer
Editor in Chief
Jillian Scharr
F Kathleen Mehocic/The Miscellany News
hen members of the current graduating class drove through the gates of Taylor Hall for the first time on Aug. 25, 2005, they entered the College community at a unique and critical point in its history. Just as these 652 first-year students were unpacking their things, meeting their rommates and waving goodbye to proud parents, faculty and administrators were concluding their search for the tenth President of the College. That February, President Frances Daly Furgusson had announced that she would be retiring after a tenure of nearly 20 years as leader of the school. Shortly after, the College began an extensive national search for her successor that yielded more than 200 candidates. Of those contenders, the Board of Trustees unanimously elected Catharine Bond Hill that summer—a decision which was announced to Vassar students on Jan. 10, 2006. The Class of 2009, then, first saw the College as it was beginning a new era—one which would ultimately be the beginning of President Hill’s tenure at Vassar. Since then, the graduating seniors and Hill have shared the ups and downs of the past few years as the College has celebrated some of its greatest achievements and faced some of its most difficult challenges. During their time at Vassar, the Class of 2009 has seen the multi-million-dollar renovations of buildings on campus—including the Art Library, the
Bronwen Pardes ’95 presents the class banner to President of the Class of 2009 Luis Hoyos during Spring Convocation. The class has witnessed many significant changes to the College and will graduate on Sunday, May 24. Town Houses, the Terrace Apartments, Kenyon Hall and the Maria Mitchell Observatory, our oldest building on campus and a National Historic Landmark. They have seen esteemed art exhibits from Rembrandt and Steinberg pass in and and out of the halls of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center. They have seen the completion of the Raymond Avenue reconstruction and the dedication of the clock tower to the
Arlington community. They have seen the African Violets march for the first time at Commencement in 2006 and continue to participate in the processional each year since. And they have seen celebrated thinkers—like historians Howard Zinn and David McCullough and authors Salman Rushdie and David Sedaris—come to our campus and speak in our lecture halls. Perhaps most notable among the
highlights and successes of the tenure of the Class of 2009 was the return to need-blind admissions after 10 years of a need-sensitive policy. When she first became President of the College, Hill made clear that of her priorities for Vassar’s future, a strong financial aid program was paramount. “Needblind is a very important message to be able to tell students,” said Hill in a Continued on page 4
Convocation invokes feelings of community spirit Molly Turpin
he Class of 2009 was welcomed into the real world with all of the usual pomp and circumstance at Spring Convocation April 29, but with the added acknowledgment of the economic challenges facing the College and their futures. In her opening address, President Catharine Bond Hill noted that this year marks an “‘interesting’ moment in the College’s history.” Hill spoke about the coincidence that Vassar has undergone the reaccreditation process in the same year as it has begun to make significant changes in light of the financial crisis. She joked about backup plans that she might have pursued should the Middle States Commission on Higher Education decided not to reaccredit Vassar, such as selling the Vassar campus to a “multi hundred million dollar corporation.”
Hill did address the very difficult choices that Vassar, like other institutions, will have to make in the next few years. According to Hill, “Temporary measures of savings and sacrifice will not be sufficient or sustainable. The financial world has been fundamentally re-set and we have no choice but to correspondingly re-set the operations of the College.” She named specific challenges that Vassar’s budget faces and explained that while transparent decision-making is ideal, it is not always possible. “Moreover, of necessity, the decisions will profoundly affect the lives of individuals and so while we will make every effort to proceed in a consultative and transparent process about the principles for making decisions, that process cannot be done completely in a public forum.” Despite the challenges that the College faces, Hill looked towards the
Kathleen Mehocic/The Miscellany News
T
Senior Editor
Seniors gather in their caps and gowns outside the Chapel before Spring Convocation on April 29, waiting for their cue to begin their procession. unity that she sees in the Vassar com- “Our points of contention more often munity. “I believe that we are as a com- focus on choosing ways we can better munity fundamentally and profoundly achieve our educational goals.” unified in our purpose and in how that Outgoing Vassar Student Association purpose is being realized,” she said. Continued on page 3
News Editor
ellowships and other awards— from Fullbrights to Comptons— propel past, present and graduating students to foreign lands—from France to Cape Town. The administration will honor graduating fellowship recipients at a private ceremony. Fulbright Fellowships: Five graduating seniors will be working abroad under the Fulbright Program, an “international exchange program offering opportunities for students, scholars, and professionals to undertake international graduate study, advanced research, university teaching, and [nonuniversity] teaching,” according to the official Web site. Two of the seniors received English Teaching Assistantships, part of a special program under the Fulbright banner, and the other three developed independent research projects. Allison Bloom received one of the English Teaching Assistantships. She will work in Uruguay, teaching English in both the provinces and Montevideo. As a side project, the women’s studies major will also research violence against women, a subject that Bloom previously studied. Another recipient of an English Teaching Assistantship, Michael Frenkel will work at a high school in northern Spain. “The grant will enable me to devote a lot of time to activities outside the classroom,” he wrote in an e-mailed statement. Some of these include beginning a debate team at the high school, as well as taking courses at the local university. “[I] am planning to look at the social and political effects of the country’s particularly difficult economic situation,” Frenkel wrote. Laura Fletcher created her own project for her research grant. In addition to attending classes at Beijing Normal University, she will study Chinese school counselors’ techniques and psychological theories by comparing counseling in Beijing and Qingdao. “Since the field of psychology is relatively new to China, I feel that it is important to see how it is developing and being used and understood by the next generation,” Fletcher wrote in an e-mailed statement. Jonathan Kaiman will study the Continued on page 3
Inside this issue
Vassar students compete in nationally televised contests
Powerhouse Theatre Program celebrates its 25th anniversary
Senior retrospectives: graduates remember their Vassar careers
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