President's Annual Report
November 1, 2002
The
previous academic year began just days before September 11. Helped by the familiar, dependable rhythms
of collegiate life, we were able to come together as a community: dorm rooms to be unpacked, class schedules
to be shuffled, football games to be played, knowing we were extraordinarily
fortunate to have suffered no loss of life within the immediate Claremont
McKenna College family. As an
institution dedicated to the preparation of future leaders, we examined and
discussed the issues leading to, and resulting from, the attacks. Just days later, we hosted a packed town
hall discussion.
I-Place, the
international center of The Claremont Colleges operated by CMC, played an
ongoing role in the community dialogue, hosting a yearlong program of events
and speakers of importance to international relations and cross-cultural
understanding. And we recently
commemorated the one-year anniversary of September 11 in the CMC tradition of
intellectual examination burnished by heartfelt fellowship; a candlelight
evening gathering at Zinda Field followed a public discussion, led by several
outstanding members of our faculty, in which the aftermath of September 11 was
discussed.
This
year, as last, we are settled in. The 250 members of the Class of 2006 have
proclaimed their arrival, and we all look forward to the coming year. Before we move ahead, though, I wish to take
this opportunity for a final look at the outstanding achievements of our
students, faculty, and staff during the past year.
PLANNING
Over the past two academic years,
the College worked to develop a strategic plan to guide CMC's development over
the next decade. The strategic planning
process was collaborative, with more than 130 people officially working on
various strategic planning committees, including trustees, faculty, students,
alumni and parents. The strategic
planning process concluded last March, with unanimous adoption by the Board of
Trustees. Below, I briefly highlight the Strategic Plan's top priorities, and
outline the College's next steps in its planning efforts.
As all members of the
CMC family know, CMC was founded with a unique and distinctive mission: to educate future leaders in business, the
professions, and public affairs. Since
that time, CMC has advanced and grown across a number of dimensions, while
remaining faithful to its original mission.
Thus, it should not be surprising that this Strategic Plan is based on
the following premises:
- That
CMC's mission is its most important strategic asset.
- That
CMC has successfully developed into an excellent college and is effectively
accomplishing its mission.
- That over the course of the next decade, the
size of the College should remain at approximately 1,000 students in Claremont.
- That
over the course of the next decade, CMC should focus on securing and
strengthening the quality of its students and faculty and on responding to the
challenges and opportunities presented by the external environment. These
external challenges include: preparing students for leadership in a global workplace driven by advances in science and
technology; attracting and educating an increasingly diverse student
population; and optimizing the
College's resources to ensure that we provide the best and most valuable
student experience among a peer group that includes some of the oldest colleges
and universities in the nation.
Based on these premises, the Plan provides that CMC's chief priorities
must be the continued recruitment and retention of highly able students and an
exceptional faculty of teacher-scholars. With respect to students, the Plan commits the College to ensuring
that students who come to CMC possess both strong academic skills and
leadership qualities. In order
to succeed in this task, the College must maintain a highly competitive
financial aid program, including:
- Reaffirming CMC's commitment to need-blind
and meet-all-need admission. CMC
is one of approximately 30 institutions nationwide to admit all students
regardless of financial need and make the CMC education affordable for any
family. Financially securing our
need-blind policy through increased endowment support will ensure that the
College can continue to educate the most highly qualified students solely on
the basis of their individual merit, not their financial resources.
- Improving merit aid programs. CMC's merit aid programs, led by the
McKenna Achievement Award program, have been instrumental to the College's
success in recruiting future leaders.
The Plan commits the College to maintaining these programs, and
increasing the amount of the McKenna Award from $5,000 to a benchmark of
one-half tuition, if finances are available.
A strategic expansion of CMC's
faculty by approximately nine positions is the top priority for improving the
quality of education received by our students.
Although CMC was successful in maintaining its excellent student-faculty
ratio through its recent growth to 1,000 students, it is also clear that the
College has important staffing needs.
As a liberal arts college, CMC distinguishes itself from other
institutions by offering small classes and opportunities for students to
develop strong mentoring relationships with faculty. Nevertheless, CMC
currently faces class size pressures in a number of important departments, including
economics and joint science. Increasing the size of the faculty will help
relieve these pressures and will also ensure that full-time faculty teaches a
higher percentage of classes. Finally,
increasing the size of the faculty in ways that are consistent with the mission
will also improve the quality of advising and mentoring of our students.
Although
the Strategic Plan has been approved, it is important to remember that the
planning process is a continuing part of what we do as a College. Indeed, the Plan itself calls on the College
to engage in a number of important future planning efforts, including a
curriculum review. Over the next two
academic years, the faculty's Curriculum Committee is expected to engage in a
curriculum review in consultation with trustees, students, alumni, and other
constituencies. The review does not
contemplate any fundamental changes to CMC's mission to provide a liberal arts
education that emphasizes economics and public affairs, but will instead
address issues considered to be critical to the College's ability to prepare
its students for positions of leadership in the coming decade. Examples include: the effectiveness of the senior thesis; the effectiveness of the
joint science program; the effectiveness of curriculum in developing "core"
skills in such areas as speaking, writing, information technology, and
mathematics; and opportunities to increase linkages outside the classroom,
including internships, mentoring, the research institutes, and community
service.
Strategic
plans also frequently identify potential building projects, and CMC's Plan
identifies four major building projects the College will need to evaluate over
the next decade: an athletic and
recreation center (to replace Ducey Gym), a new student/campus center, a new
academic building, and a new joint science building. It will be an important priority to develop a plan and schedule
to address these long-term needs.
We have a
strong tradition of conservative financial management, and will not depart from
our established financial practices to implement any recommendation in the Plan
that will require additional resources.
Thus, implementation of the major recommendations in the Plan will be
contingent upon fundraising, and the College will not utilize tuition increases
for this purpose. Thanks to support
from three trustees, including a lead gift pledge from Gary Biszantz '56, and a
grant from the Spencer T. Olin Foundation made possible with assistance from Mary
Dell Pritzlaff and John Pritzlaff '76, the Athletic and Recreation Center
planning phase is well underway.
Beyond the community of CMC alumni and parents, larger individual and
foundation gifts allow us to pursue programmatic and capital improvements to
fulfill the aspirations of the Strategic Plan.
The quality of our students' residential life experience, for example,
will be enhanced through the North Quad dorm expansion project, made possible
through gifts from the Boswell Foundation, Jack Croul '49, trustee Neal
Dempsey P'95; Matt Shevlin '51, and a bequest from the estate of Professor and Mrs.
Arthur Kemp. The North Quad project
will provide approximately 32 additional beds, as well as lounge space.
The
Strategic Plan presents an ambitious set of recommendations based on the
College's traditional strengths to guide our development over the next
decade. If we are successful in
implementing the Plan, the result should be an even stronger CMC that is
producing students who are as prepared as any in the country to pursue
thoughtful and productive lives and careers of responsible leadership in
business, the professions, and public affairs.
ACADEMICS
While
our mission remains unchanged, the College continually evolves to meet the
challenges of the evolving world in which we live. Even as we set our sights on ensuring CMC's long-term vigor and
success, we continue to advance the College and fulfill our mission through
careful and thoughtful focus on present-day needs, as well.
A
look at just a few new classes developed last spring for the 2002-03 academic
year reflects CMC's relevance to the world around us. For instance, Crises in Presidential Leadership contrasts
successful and unsuccessful presidential leadership strategies that have
profoundly affected U.S. history at critical moments; Government and Society
in the Middle East examines the political systems of the Middle East and
North Africa, specifically Libya, Yemen, Syria, and Iran, and the challenges
they face within their societies and the larger regional and international
context; and Radical Islam, provides an overview of the historical,
political, and sociological contexts from which new Islamic movements have
emerged. Certainly the most
important resource we provide our students is an active, engaged, and splendid
faculty. Reflecting President Benson's
ideal of the teacher-scholar, our faculty members are not only distinguished
intellectuals in their respective fields, but are, foremost, dedicated to
undergraduate education.
The
intellectual strength of our faculty is reflected in the diverse and impressive
range of their recent publications, released prior to June 30, 2002, and
virtually defining the breadth of a liberal arts curriculum. For instance, the
emerging field of Holocaust studies is addressed by two books from John Roth,
the Russell K. Pitzer Professor of Philosophy and Religious Studies: Pope
Pius XII and the Holocaust, and Holocaust Politics, and
complemented by the class he team-teaches, "Researching the Holocaust." Future lawyers and judges would do well to
take a look at Ralph Rossum's class, "Representation and the Supreme
Court." Rossum, the Salvatori Professor
of Political Philosophy and American Constitutionalism and director of the Rose
Institute for State and Local Government, recently wrote Federalism, the
Supreme Court, and the Seventeenth Amendment, after becoming intrigued by
the topic while on leave to team-teach with Justice Antonin Scalia. William Ascher, dean of the faculty and the
Donald C. McKenna Professor of Government and Economics, has co-edited The
Guide to Sustainable Development and Environmental Policy, a four-year
project that navigates the conflicting fields of development and the
environment. Students can learn more in
his new class, "Politics and Economics of Natural Resource Policy." Ronald
Riggio, the Henry R. Kravis Professor of Leadership and Organizational
Psychology and director of the Kravis Leadership Institute, Susan Murphy,
associate professor of psychology and KLI associate director, and Francis J.
Pirozzolo, former KLI scholar-in-residence, co-edited Multiple Intelligences
and Leadership, a look at the connection between leadership and
intelligence. Jay Martin, professor of
government and the Edward S. Gould Professor of Humanities, has written Journey
to Heavenly Mountain, an account of his summer spent living as a
Buddhist monk in various temples in China, described by The Los Angeles
Times as "a rare, refreshing temple trip."
The work of
our two faculty members who received tenure last year similarly invigorates
their teaching. Robert Faggen, who was
promoted to full professor of literature, has published The Notebooks of
Robert Frost and wrote the introduction to the 40th anniversary
edition of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. James Morrison, associate professor of literature and film
studies, is the author of the novel Broken Fever.
The
excellence of our faculty is not only appreciated within CMC, but also lauded
in the community of its peers. Eric Helland, associate professor of economics,
has been named the John M. Olin Visiting Professor of Economics in the George
Stigler Center at the University of Chicago.
He has been granted a sabbatical for this academic year and, in addition
to his appointment, will continue his research in empirical law and
economics. Dan Krauss, assistant
professor of psychology, has been named a Supreme Court Fellow. He will be on
leave this academic year to serve in the United States Sentencing Commission,
an independent agency that establishes sentencing guidelines. Lisa Cody, assistant professor of history,
received the prestigious Judith Lee Ridge Article Award from the Western
Association of Women Historians for her article blending interdisciplinary
research in political economy, gender theory, and social and political history.
In
addition to celebrating the accomplishments of our current faculty, we continue
building on its strength. Gregory Hess,
the inaugural Russell S. Bock Chair of Public Economics and Taxation, is a
widely recognized economist who brings to CMC his extensive experience in
economic policy. He is a member of the Federal Reserve Board Shadow Open Market
Committee, and has served the Federal Reserve in Washington, D.C., as well as
in its Kansas City and Cleveland regional banks. He has taught at the University of Kansas, Carnegie-Mellon
University's Graduate School of Industrial Administration, the London Business
School, and Cambridge University. In addition to numerous journal articles, he
is the co-author of Intranational Macroeconomics (Cambridge University
Press). Professor Hess earned a Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University and has
served on the Ohio Governor's Council of Economic Advisors. He joins us from Oberlin College, where he
was the Danforth Lewis Professor of Economics.
The College's
strength in the sciences also continues to increase with the addition of two
tenure-track faculty, Cheryl Baduini and Emily Wiley, in the Joint Science
department. Professor Baduini, who specializes in marine ecology and
psychological ecology, received a Ph.D. from the University of California,
Irvine. Professor Wiley, a molecular
biologist, is conducting important genetics and chromatin research and received
a doctorate from the University of Washington.
With additional faculty supporting the academic initiatives of joint
science, a major gift from the Fletcher Jones Foundation supported its physical
structure through funds for critically needed expansion in the Keck Science
Center.
Strengthening
the College's globalization focus as outlined in the Strategic Plan, CMC and
Pitzer have been awarded a joint $2 million grant from the Freeman Foundation.
This four-year grant will help create an Asian political economy program,
including courses, research, and community outreach, as well as important
opportunities for students and faculty to study in Asia.
The
ongoing good work with the Freeman Foundation of Chae-Jin Lee, BankAmerica
Professor of Pacific Basin Studies and director of the Keck Center for
International and Strategic Studies, has resulted in semester-long visits this
year by two outstanding leaders in Asian studies. David Lambertson, former U.S. Ambassador to Thailand, joins us
this semester as the Freeman Foundation Visiting Professor in Asian Studies. As Ambassador to Thailand, he led one of America's
largest embassies, and held oversight responsibility for U.S. government
activities in Vietnam and Cambodia prior to normalization of relations with
Vietnam. He has held numerous other
senior positions within the State Department, including deputy assistant
secretary of state with responsibility for Southeast Asia, and director of the
Office of Korean Affairs. He earned the
State Department's Meritorious, Superior, and Distinguished Honor Awards, and
several Presidential awards.
Our second
Freeman Foundation Visiting Professor of Asian Affairs, Chong-Wook Chung, joins
us for the spring semester. He served as Korea's senior secretary for foreign
policy and national security, and Korea's Ambassador to the People's Republic
of China. He earned a master's degree in international studies and Ph.D. in
political science, both from Yale University.
Currently a professor at Ajou University, Suwon, he has also taught at
American University, Yale University, and Seoul National University. Among many journal articles and book
chapters, he is the author of Korean Options on a Changing International
Order (University of California Press); and Maoism and Development: The
Politics of International Management in the People's Republic of China 1945-95 (Seoul
National University Press). He is a
former Fellow at the Keck Center for International Strategic Studies.
The goal of preparing students for
careers in an increasingly global society is
supported through a recent $330,000 gift from the Henry Luce Foundation's
Luce Fund for Asian Studies. The grant
provides for an assistant professorship in East Asian History, with emphasis on
Korea, beginning in the 2004-05 academic year.
Our nine research institutes have
completed another year of vibrant programming and curriculum enrichment,
allowing students to work closely with faculty scholars across a broad range of
interests.
Our newest
research center, the Berger Institute for Work, Family, and Children, completed
its inaugural year under the direction of Professor Diane Halpern, the author of more than 15 textbooks on
cognitive learning and gender differences.
In its first year, the Berger Institute launched research projects examining
such topics as characteristics and outcomes in adoptive families and backlash
against family-friendly work policy; offered a diverse and fascinating speaker
series; and assembled an excellent advisory board of leaders from across the
field.
The
Family of Benjamin Z. Gould Center for Humanistic Studies continues to expand
and thrive under the direction of Jonathan Petropoulos, the John V. Croul
Professor in European History, increasing its undergraduate seminar and speaker
series after the success of last year's examination of "Democracy and Art." Plans for this year include a series on "The
Role of the Public Intellectual," led by Professor Robert Faggen.
The
Keck Center for International and Strategic Studies, under the direction of
Chae-Jin Lee, has initiated new programs including three new student
scholarships in international strategic studies, Asian studies, and Chinese
studies, and continues to play a leadership role in examination of key policy
issues. Last year's guest speakers included former National Security Advisor
Anthony Lake; William Gerberding,
president emeritus, University of Washington; Yukihiko Ikeda, member of the
House of Representatives of Japan; and Ambassador Burton Levin, with topics
including Russia and the West; Israel and the Palestinians; Women in
Military Service; and US-China Relations and the Bush Administration.
The
Kravis Leadership Institute was recently cited in the Chronicle of
Higher Education as one of the six most respected leadership studies
programs in the nation. Its new online journal, the Leadership Review, provides
a vibrant forum for important leadership discussions and research, and the
Institute continues its program of national conferences, local workshops,
speaker series, and outreach to enhance the development of young leaders and
the leadership capabilities of the larger community. Last year's Kravis de Roulet Conference focused on nonprofit
leadership, particularly important in the wake of Sept. 11 strains on the
nonprofit organization, and KLI's speaker series and Scholar-in-Residence
program continue to showcase the latest in leadership research.
The
Henry Salvatori Center for the Study of Individual Freedom in the Modern World
continues to play a major role in questions of political philosophy as they
bear on the life of contemporary America.
Its spring conference, Bush's First Year: A Changing Administration
in a Changing World, included a keynote address by noted political
consultant and commentator Patrick Caddell and panel discussion with Michael
Barone of U.S. News and World Report, White House correspondent Martha
Brant of Newsweek, and expert analysts Aaron Friedberg, Richard Betts,
and Nelson Polsby.
The
Rose Institute of State and Local Government hosted a topical conference on Southern
California's Looming Water Crisis, featuring private sector and agency
leaders, as well as a major conference on waste management; a project with
AT&T Broadband; and a statewide study of California's after-school programs
commissioned by Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The Lowe Institute of Political Economy reported further results on the impact of NAFTA in its Claremont Policy Briefs; released assessments of the feasibility of monetary integration in the Western Hemisphere; and completed several issues of the North American Journal of Economics and Finance. The institute co-sponsored sessions, workshops and conferences in Atlanta, Claremont and New York, as well as the weekly Claremont Economics Seminar series, which brought speakers from a variety of universities and institutions to campus. Institute research findings were presented at conferences in the U.S. and abroad. A large number of CMC students served as research assistants and research scholars in the institute.
The Roberts Environmental Center students and faculty
have focused on preparation of a book, Clean, Green and Read All Over: Ten Rules for Corporate Environmental and
Sustainability Reporting, edited by center director and Roberts Professor
of Environmental Biology J. Emil Morhardt. Published by the American Society
for Quality Press, the book provides a guide to writing environmental reports
for corporations and other organizations and features research of faculty and
students in the Environment, Economics, and Politics (EEP) major.
The Ruth K. and Joseph C. Reed Center for Decision
Science hosted a gathering last fall of the Southern California Chapter of the
American Statistical Association, bringing together leaders from the public and
private sector, including Stanford University, Harvard Medical School, the
University of Washington, the University of Chicago, the United States Census
Bureau, and Lockheed-Martin, in discussion of large-scale randomized trials of
disease prevention in women. Under the
auspices of the Reed Institute, two students won prizes for their work at the
joint meeting of the American Mathematical Society, the Mathematical
Association of America, and the Association for Women in Mathematics. Sarah Awad '03, and Cameron Pinckney and Carolyn
Staples, both '04, received top honors.
We
continue to explore the optimum role of our institutes in serving student
research needs and helping bridge the undergraduate curriculum with real-world
questions and issues. One such
proposed new CMC institute, the Center for the Study of the Holocaust,
Genocide, and Human Rights, has been endorsed by the Research Institutes
Committee of the Board of Trustees and is in its early planning stages. Under the direction of Professors John Roth
and Jonathan Petropoulos, goals for the proposed center focus on the expansion
and enhancement of CMC's curriculum in these key areas of the human
experience. Another new center under
early investigation is the proposed institute focusing on financial economics,
which would provide centralized services for faculty/student research in the
field of financial economics. Professor
Janet Smith, the Von Tobel Professor of Economics, and Harold Mulherin, the Don
and Lorraine Freeberg Professor in Economics and Finance, are leading this
discussion.
As outlined in the Strategic Plan, we seek to
strengthen our commitment to advances in information technology, ensuring
graduates who can embrace technological change with agility throughout their
lifetimes. Two important gifts will
help us realize this goal.
First, the College received a $1.3
million grant from The Atlantic Philanthropies to support a program in
information technology "FITness"
(Fluency in Information Technology). The FITness concept, popularized by the
National Academy of Sciences, refers to a nationwide effort to prepare students
for a lifetime of technological advancements and improvements, rather than
utilizing a narrow, exclusively skills-based learning method.
CMC has also received an important grant from the
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation of $665,000 to support a collaborative academic
computing program within the Claremont University Consortium. For use over the
next three years, the grant supports the information technology operations of
the seven Claremont Colleges, enhancing IT fluency among the faculty of the
consortium. CMC has the leadership role in this consortium-wide program.
STUDENTS
The 271 members of the Class of 2002 left
CMC to meet the world on a sunny Sunday, May 19, with a compelling and
memorable address by Academy Award winning actor and humanitarian Sidney
Poitier. Our commencement ceremonies
received national interest, with media coverage including C-SPAN, Associated
Press, the Los Angeles Times, Entertainment Weekly, the Journal of
Blacks in Higher Education, and NBC Nightly News. If you were not able to be with us at commencement, I think you
will enjoy reading a transcript of Mr. Poitier's speech at http://www.claremontmckenna.edu/news/2002news/poitierspeech.asp
The comments of our commencement speakers
reflected the challenges faced by the Class of 2002, both as seniors and as
newly minted graduates in a world of economic and geopolitical
uncertainty. About 35% of CMC's
graduating seniors plan to enter the workforce immediately, as compared to 60%
in previous surveys; and a record 30% report they have not yet finalized their
post-graduation plans. Our new alumni are applying to graduate schools at a
reported rate of 29.4%, just slightly under the Class of 2001.
Those graduates who go into the
workforce directly upon graduation find excellent services and support from our
Career Services Center. Despite challenges brought by the economic slowdown and
decline in corporate travel following September 11, CMC continues to draw the
highest number of employers for on-campus recruitment of all The Claremont
Colleges. About 60% of all employers who come to Claremont, come to CMC. Last year, our students had 155 different
future job opportunities offered by 82 employers, which was within the range of
the last 10 years and reflects increased outreach and persistence by our Career
Services staff.
We continue a strong track record of
placing students in important positions in business and in public affairs. For instance, members of the Class of 2002
are analysts with Banc of America Securities, Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch,
Morgan Stanley, Cascade Investments; Investment Development Services; and
Salomon Smith Barney; consultants with Deloitte & Touche, Bain & Co.,
PricewaterhouseCoopers, Tucker Alan, Unified Consulting, and William Mercer;
research associates with National Economic Research Associates, Northwestern
Mutual, Towers Perrin, and Johnson & Johnson; and in human resources at
Microsoft. Graduates will also be
taking positions as officers in the State Department's Foreign Service and U.S. Army. Additionally,
we have seen increases in newer areas of interest from previous years,
including Shelter Partnership, Race for the Cure, Peace Corps, and Teach for
America.
The 70 members of the Class of 2002 who
plan to attend graduate school reported their graduate study fields of interest
as, in order: law, medicine, business/economics, education, international relations/public
policy/journalism, science, psychology, and film. Of these students, 62.8% were accepted into their first choice
school, and 32.3% to their second choice, with destinations including the
University of California, Berkeley, and Cambridge, Columbia, Cornell, New York,
Georgetown, George Washington, Stanford,
Northwestern, Harvard, and Yale Universities.
Recognitions and honors received by
members of the Class of 2002 reflect the depth and diversity of our students,
with several important national honors.
Included in the class were two Fulbright Scholars, Julie Jacoby and
Sandy Uyekobo. Julie, a member of Phi
Beta Kappa, is teaching high school in Austria while continuing her senior
thesis research on war crimes tribunals, and Sandy is in Japan, continuing her
research on contemporary Japanese ideas on work and family issues. Annie Lee, also Phi Beta Kappa, is the
recipient of the Thomas R. Pickering Graduate Foreign Affairs Fellowship. She
has recently begun two years of public policy graduate study at the Maxwell
School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University, which will be
followed by a three-year foreign service internship. Our two Rotary Ambassador Scholars have similarly compelling plans: Jackie Ward is studying dance in Guadalajara,
Mexico, and Kelly Freeman is focusing on environmental sciences at Universidad
de Concepcion, Chile. Kelly is also a Thomas J. Watson Fellow, one of only 60
nationwide, traveling through India and South America to study the impact of telenovelas,
popular prime time dramas, on regional cultures. Megan Nelson, winner of the
Harry S. Truman Scholarship her junior year, is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, was
awarded Best Overall Student in government, and received the H. N. and Frances
C. Berger Prize for Outstanding Seniors. Megan is continuing her thesis
research on outcomes analysis of youth justice programs through a Coro
Fellowship in the Los Angeles County courts. And for the first time, CMC had
two valedictorians: Nicholas Janof and Daniel O'Neill. Nick, a member of Phi Beta Kappa, received
the Best Student in Economics award for two consecutive years and spent a year
studying at the London School of Economics before writing his thesis, a
screenplay about our 36th president, Young Mr. Johnson. Daniel
O'Neill, also Phi Beta Kappa, was named most outstanding sophomore and junior
in economics, and served as director of operations for the Winston Churchill
Society.
Holding true to interest in the world
around them, CMC ranked first in a 2002 national survey of community service
activity for work-study federal grant recipients. Our students visited cancer
patients and senior citizens; built homes for Habitat for Humanity and restored
wilderness trails on Mt. Baldy; they bought shoes and clothes for children in
need, and served as timekeepers at Little League games.
The Claremont Colleges Debate Union, which
won the National Championship Tournament Sweepstakes Award at the 2002 National
Championship Tournament of the National Parliamentary Debate Association,
included among its eight members five CMC students: Brendan Behan, Aaron
Ehrlich, and Daniel Pawson, all '03; and Daniel Rosengard and Jennifer Bindel,
both '04. In the largest
intercollegiate debate event ever held in the United States, the team placed
first in a field of 284 debate teams from 93 colleges and universities,
including last year's champions from the University of California,
Berkeley. This is the eighth
consecutive year that members of the Debate Union have ranked among the top 20
in the nation.
The Claremont Colleges Ballroom Dance team waltzed away
with a first-place finish at this year's U.S. National Collegiate Formation
Team Championships, with the following CMC dancers participating: Sandy Ukebo '02, Kat Garcia '03, and Malcom Murfin
'04.
Our athletes brought home trophies, as
well. Claremont-Mudd-Scripps won SCIAC All-Sports trophies again this year–the
14th consecutive such honor for the men and the 10th
consecutive for women. CMS is the only
school to win a championship in each of the 19 SCIAC sports, and it has won all
19 at least twice. Last year, CMS
placed first in: men's cross country
(sixth consecutive year); women's cross country; women's tennis (ninth
consecutive year); men's track and field (eleventh consecutive year); women's
track and field (fifth consecutive year); and men's basketball, advancing to
their first NCAA Division III Championship playoffs in six years. In men's tennis, the doubles team of John
Michael Cham-A-Koon '04 and Ivan Yeh '05 captured the NCAA Division III
national championship. Individual
honors included: CMC Male Athlete of the Year, David Juiliano '02; CMC Female
Athlete of the Year and winner of the NCAA Championship, 200-yard breaststroke,
Suzi Nicoletti '02; Dickinson Award, Brad Kertson '03; Krieger Award, Bob
Donlan '02; and SCIAC Scholar Athletes Soames Boyle and Chivas Fujimoto, both
'02.
This
summer, CMS athletics welcomed former professional soccer player Dan Calichman,
the new head coach for men's soccer and instructor of physical education, and
Dana Latona, the new women's lacrosse coach and instructor of physical
education. Coach Calichman was captain and central defender of the Los Angeles
Galaxy from 1996-98 and was named Best Major League Soccer defender by USA
Today. He played for two other
professional teams; was a member of the U.S. National Team from 1997-98; and
was the first and only American player in Japan's professional league. He earned a bachelor's degree from Williams
College, where he was captain of both lacrosse and soccer teams, and is one of
the few professional players to have advanced directly from NCAA Division III
soccer to a professional career. CoachLatona is a former Division III Player
of the Year and a member of the 2000 Women's Lacrosse National Champion team.
At
CMC, the exchange of ideas and informal debate on the issues of the day is
another serious form of student life. Appropriate for a college whose
mission focuses on preparation for lives of leadership and service, our
students have access to a virtual brain trust of guest speakers through visits
to the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum, a pivotal part of the CMC experience. In
fact, one of the comments I hear most from alumni is how much they miss their
evenings at the "Ath." Last year's guests
included: P.J. O'Rourke, satirist and
author; Anthony Lake, former National Security Advisor; Charlayne Hunter-Gault,
author and CNN bureau chief; cartoonist Cathy Guisewite; journalist Hedrick
Smith; author Ann Crittenden; Academy Award winning director John Singleton;
and humorist David Sedaris. This year's program, including the recent
appearance by Academy Award-nominee Spike Lee, promises to be equally
compelling.
Students can also hear and meet national and world figures
through our Res Publica and President's Society programs, with recent speakers
including former Senators George Mitchell and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, Reagan administration U.N. Ambassador Jeane
Kirkpatrick, General William Crouch '63, former Commander-in-Chief of the U.S.
Army, Europe, and, this year, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich.
Consistent with our mission to prepare future leaders, we
believe that the opportunity to study abroad and in Washington, D.C., is an
important element in the total educational experience. Fifty-eight percent of last year's
graduating class spent a semester or full year studying abroad and, despite
initial concerns over worldwide events, only a few students cancelled their
plans. With educational opportunities
ranging from Argentina to Zimbabwe, the program continues to prepare our
students for borderless careers.
Students participating in the CMC
Washington Semester Program experienced a year unlike any other; a few even
serving as White House interns on September 11. Director of Off-Campus Study
Nicole Hamon, Washington Program director Elizabeth Spalding, and Dean of
Students W. Torrey Sun worked together immediately to address concerns and
questions of the Washington-based students and their families. Despite such a challenging year, our
Washington students proceeded in typical CMC style, completing internships that
included the House Ways and Means and International Relations Committees; the
White House press office; the U.S. Department of State; American Bar
Association; Physicians for Social Responsibility; ACLU; Center for Strategic
and International Studies; and the offices of seven members of Congress. The year ended on a positive note, with the
program's 30th anniversary commemorated in May with a reception
co-hosted by CMC trustee Congressman David Dreier '75, chairman of the House Rules Committee.
THE CLASS OF 2006
CMC seeks to enroll a diverse and
increasingly talented student body, comprised of individuals with established
records of achievement in academic and co-curricular activities, and who aspire
to future positions of responsible leadership. The Class of 2006 reflects these principles: the 250 young people in the
class, 114 women and 136 men, represent combined median SAT scores of 1390.
Eighty-two percent are in the top tenth of their high school class, only the
third year that figure has been higher than 80%. Last year's applicant pool
numbered 2,918, with 805 admitted and 250 enrolling, resulting in an acceptance
rate of 27.6% and a yield in admitted applicants of 31%. The Class of 2006 includes 18
National Merit Scholars and 28 McKenna Scholars. Thirty-five percent, or 88,
are students of color, and 52% are from outside California, including 13
international students.
In addition to the obvious ability and intelligence
of members of the freshman class, they are also the kind of students we look
for at CMC, with demonstrated leadership and concern for community and the
greater world. Among the Class of 2006 are:
14 student government or senior class presidents; 29 other student
officers and 56 with general student government involvement; 33 editors of high
school newspapers; and 34 involved in speech and debate. The class contains 19
soccer captains, 14 basketball captains, 13 volleyball captains, 12 football captains,
eight swim captains, seven captains each for track and cross-country; six
captains each in baseball, tennis, and water polo; and three golf captains.
Although from diverse backgrounds, nations, and native languages,
the Class of 2006 shares a distinctively CMC sensibility of action and
interest: Cody Hill, a McKenna Scholar from Portland, Ore., at age 11 started
the Guns Aren't Fun Foundation, an award-winning program encouraging
children to turn in their toy guns for other playthings; Zafar Jafri of
Riverside, Ca., already realized financial success in high school through the
establishment of commercial web sites.
Following the events of September 11, he turned his focus to a different
kind of programming, and has used his internet skills to start web sites based
on tolerance and understanding.
CMC's
excellent financial aid program is critical to the College's ability to attract
these outstanding students.
Significantly, 71% of the Class of 2006 received financial aid. Our students graduate with an average loan
debt of $12,004, about 25% lower than the average reported in the latest major
survey of private four-year institutions.
Last year's average financial aid package was $21,770 for all students,
and $22,275 for this year's incoming freshmen. Our commitment to need-based, meet-all-need
financial aid, further sets us apart from the majority of colleges and
universities; as stated earlier, we are one of only 30 institutions in the
nation with need-blind and meet-all-need guidelines.
We are a founding member of the 568
Presidents Working Group, whose goal is the development of a set of fair and
consistent principles adopted by all U.S. colleges and universities in
calculating a family's share of their child's education expense. This group of 28
College presidents and their representatives was formed in 1999 and includes
the presidents of Amherst, Bowdoin, Williams, Pomona, and Haverford Colleges; MIT; the University of Chicago; and Duke,
Stanford, and Yale Universities.
Georgette DeVeres, CMC associate vice president of admission and
financial aid, serves a key role representing CMC within the group.
EXTERNAL RELATIONS
External
relations activities include alumni affairs, public affairs and communications,
and fundraising. Each of these areas
will be the key to CMC's ability to implement its plans for the future and to
thereby continue to add value to the educational experience of our students.
With
respect to fundraising, I am pleased to report that we have completed our best
year in history, surpassing an already-increased goal of $18 million to end the
year at just over $21 million. The
record-breaking success in fundraising is particularly important in that it is
not the result of a few large gifts, but rather represents across-the-board
strengths by source and category in every fundraising area. This includes
excellent performance in principal and major gifts, foundation and corporate
relations, annual giving, and a record year for the Alumni Fund at more than $3
million, under the leadership of National Alumni Fund Chair Matt Shevlin '51
and CMCAA Vice President for Giving, Boyd Hudson '73, P'05.
The
Alumni Fund's success is especially important as it supports year-to-year
operating expenses, particularly financial aid. Another important indicator is the excellent alumni participation
rate of 51%. This is rivaled by only a
small circle of older East Coast colleges and is a figure of which our alumni
should be proud. It is also an
important factor in national college rankings, which base alumni satisfaction
on the percentage of those who give back to their alma mater.
The Parents Club
enjoyed a successful 2001-02 year, led by
Sandy Cericola P'02, president, initiating a program of regional
representatives serving as links between the campus and various areas of the
country. A full slate of activities for
parents of current students and alumni included Parents Orientation, four
on-campus meetings, two Evenings With a Professor programs, and Parents
Weekend. The Parents Fund, led by
National Parents Fund Chairs, Patti and Mike Meyers P'03 marked its second most
successful year, raising $613,000 and setting a record of 1,283 parent and
grandparent donors.
The College has also experienced
another strong year in Planned Giving. Notable among these were planned gifts
from trustee Richard and Mary Butler, former trustee Leopold "Rick" Schmidt
'63, Waldo Neikirk, and a bequest from Mee Chow, aunt of trustee Stan Wong '75.
Several recent alumni gifts include
an unrestricted gift from John V. Croul '49, who earlier funded the Croul Chair
in European History now held by Professor Petropoulos. We received major gifts from two trustees,
Robert A. Day '65 to support the Robert A. Day 4+1 Program, and Michael Larson
'80, to various purposes, many of which support student scholarships. And
former dean of the faculty and senior economics professor Orme Phelps and his
wife, Barbara, designated an unrestricted gift annuity representing the largest
gift made to CMC by a full-time faculty member. We are honored to receive such
a generous gift from a distinguished leader from the College's earliest days.
Beyond the community of CMC alumni and parents,
larger individual and foundation gifts allow us to pursue programmatic and
capital improvements to fulfill the aspirations of the Strategic Plan. The quality of our students' residential
life experience, for example, will be enhanced through the North Quad dorm
expansion project, made possible through a gift from the Boswell Foundation; as
well as a portion of the Jack Croul gift earmarked toward the expansion; an
unrestricted gift from trustee Neal Dempsey P'95; a pledge from Matt Shevlin
'51; and an estate bequest from Professor and Mrs. Arthur Kemp. The North Quad project will provide
approximately 32 additional beds, as well as lounge space.
One of the
most visible and positive threads in the CMC fabric is our strong alumni
base. From "Pacesetters," members of the College's first graduating classes,
to young alumni making their presence known around the world, they play a huge
role in the life of the College–so much so that we often refer to our
undergraduates as "alumni-in-residence."
A strong
alumni association does not happen by accident and is a result of enormous
tenacity and dedication. CMCAA had a very impressive year in 2001-02, thanks in
large part to president Jerry Schwartz '82, and Lorraine Bains '88, who took
over those duties on July 1 and serves as the association's first woman
president. I appreciated their
excellent leadership and look forward to the coming year. The past year's impressive list of projects
was highlighted by the completion of the new CMCAA print and online directory
projects, a behemoth undertaking that has allowed thousands of CMCers to keep
in touch with their classmates. Alumni
also participated in a diverse and busy schedule of activities, including
Evening with a Professor programs, social and athletic outings -- even a
sleepover at the Los Angeles Zoo for fearless young parents and their
children. We look forward to another
upcoming year of CMCAA fellowship and fun. John Faranda '79, a face familiar to
virtually every CMC graduate, has been promoted to the new post of vice
president for alumni relations. He
brings to this new role an abundant knowledge of, and boundless enthusiasm for,
his alma mater, together with his continued responsibilities as director of
development.
Our tradition of strong links
between students and alumni grew last year with the development of the
President's Leaders Forum. Through this
program, alumni and friends of the College return to campus for a day or two of
intense interaction with students through classroom, small group, and
individual settings. The program
provides an informal, informative adjunct to the classroom experience. In the program's inaugural year, we welcomed
a diverse and impressive array of alumni leaders, including: Henry Kravis '67
and George Roberts '66, founding partners of Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.;
Robert A. Day '65, chairman & CEO, Trust Company of the West; Mike Jeffries
'66, Abercrombie & Fitch chairman & CEO; Augie Nieto '80, Life Fitness
president and CEO; James McElwee, general partner, Weston Presidio Capital; Jon
Kirchner, president and CEO, Digital Theater Systems; and Thomas Neff '76, founder
and CEO of FibroGen.
This year's President's Leaders Forum speakers include: Alison Winter P'02, executive vice
president, Northern Trust Company; and Gary Biszantz '56, president and owner,
Cobra Farm, and his daughter, Suzanne Biszantz, general manager, Greg Norman
Division, Reebok International; and Robert J. Lowe '62, past CMC board chair
and chairman and CEO of Lowe Enterprises and his spouse, Beth Lowe, a Pomona
alumna and outstanding leader in the Los Angeles philanthropic community who
has twice served as chair of the Los Angeles County Commission for Children and
Families.
FINANCIAL REVIEW
Despite a challenging year, and thanks to
a true team effort in managing budgets across the campus, I am delighted to
report that we once again finished the year in the black, ending the year with
a significantly higher surplus than projected.
These excellent results include, of course, our continued commitment to
key principles including fulfilling need-blind admission and meeting all need.
The
College's investment performance, consistent with the recent and ongoing poor
performance of the equities markets in general, continues to struggle. We ended the fiscal year with a decrease in
the endowment from $367,000,000 at June 30, 2001 to $292,000,000 at June 30,
2002. We remain committed to the
long-term growth of the fund and believe we are well positioned for future
market trends. Additionally, the Board
of Trustees adopted a revised spending rule that should reduce the volatility
in the College's operating budget associated with short-term volatility in our
investment performance.
A JOB WELL DONE
I send my best wishes and enormous thanks
to Bob Lowe, who served as chair of the CMC Board of Trustees for six years,
during my recruitment and first years at the College. He is an exceptional
leader -- critically and rationally analytical, fair-handed, direct, and above
all in possession of total integrity in the conduct of his leadership. Bob
received an honorary doctorate from CMC at May's graduation exercises and was
awarded the Alumni Association's highest honor, the George C.S. Benson
Distinguished Achievement Award, during Reunion Weekend. We appreciate his
service and dedication to CMC during his term as Chair and look forward to
benefiting from his continued guidance as a trustee.
We also thank departing trustee Don
Russell, who joined the Board of Trustees in 1990 and served on several key
committees, including the Buildings and Grounds and Investment committees. We
also appreciate his enthusiastic leadership of the Res Publica program.
We are fortunate that Bob's term has been
followed by the induction of another leader of great steadiness and vision,
Peter Barker '70, advisory director of Goldman, Sachs & Co. In his ten years as a member of the CMC
Board of Trustees, Peter has held several key leadership positions, most
recently serving as chair of the Strategic Planning Steering Committee and
Board Affairs Committee, and membership on the Executive Committee. Completing our senior leadership is Robert
A. Day '65, past CMC Board chair and chairman and founder, Trust Company of the
West, who will chair the Executive Committee.
We welcome three new trustees: David Hetz '80, managing partner, Cutlass
Capital in San Francisco, a past president of the San Francisco chapter of the
CMC Alumni Association and a founding member of the Gould Center board of
governors; Thomas Neff '76, founder, president and CEO of San Francisco-based
FibroGen, Inc.; and Louis Caldera, executive vice chancellor of the California
State University system, past member of the California Assembly, and former
U.S. Secretary of the Army. We also
welcome a new alumnus trustee, attorney Cary Davidson '75, partner in the Los
Angeles-based firm Reed & Davidson and treasurer and general counsel for
the host committee of the 2000 Democratic National Convention; and ex-officio
trustees Patti L. Meyers, CMC Parents Club president and an academic consultant
in Redmond, Wash., and Lorraine Bains '88, CMCAA president and assistant vice president,
United California Bank. I look forward
to their input and guidance as we approach implementation of the Strategic
Plan.
And last year brought fond farewells, as
well, as we said goodbye to several respected colleagues, three of whom have
served a combined tenure of 112 years with the College.
Ricardo Quinones, professor of literature
and founding director of The Family of Benjamin Z. Gould Center for Humanistic
Studies, retired after 39 years at CMC.
Happily for us all, his writing and work will continue as professor
emeritus. The legendary, white-bearded Professor had positive comments for his
colleagues who also began teaching in the '60s. "I would say our generation -- the generation that came into maturity
in the 1950s and 1960s --- we did the job well. The students are just as smart, if not smarter than ever."
Professor Margaret "Meg" Mathies leaves
CMC after 37 years teaching biology and also playing an active role in the
recruitment and development of women faculty members. She will divide her time
between Claremont and London, where she is a visiting research associate at the
Imperial Cancer Research Fund. "I view
retirement," she says, "as an extended sabbatical."
Chemistry professor Robert Pinnell, just
one year shy of his colleague's 37 years at CMC, is credited with a
student-first ethic that helped carve the shape of the Joint Science department
since its inception. After completing graduate studies, Dr. Pinnell had planned
to teach at a large university. "But
then I came here," he recalled, "and it changed everything."
We also send our good and heartfelt wishes
to Frederick "Fritz" Weis '65, P'94 vice president and treasurer who served his
alma mater for two decades. Fritz ended
one chapter of life at CMC, but will be back following a year's leave,
returning this time to our accounting classrooms where he will serve as an
executive of the practice of accounting.
So we say a temporary goodbye to Fritz and welcome Robin Aspinall, who
joined the senior staff of the College as treasurer and vice president for
business and administration. She joined
CMC following a 17-year career at Pomona College, where she served as
controller and associate treasurer.
Like Fritz Weis, Robin works closely with the six other institutions of
The Claremont Colleges and came to the College already having earned the
respect and affection of her colleagues across Claremont.
And, finally, I was also delighted to help
commemorate a very special employee anniversary last fall, when food services
employee Cheva Garcia marked her 55th year of employment at CMC ---
all logged without missing a single day.
Cheva's remarkable service was celebrated by students, faculty, and
staff at 2001 convocation and in special ceremonies that concluded with a dining
room being named in her honor --- not that she's even considering
retiring. I know we all look forward to
many more years with Cheva's warm welcome in Collins Dining Hall.
The upcoming year will be one of challenge
and opportunity. I look forward to
working with our wonderful faculty, staff, students, and volunteers toward a
productive and rewarding year for us all.
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