Swarthmore College
Encyclopedia
Private school
Private schools, also known as independent schools or nonstate schools, are not administered by local, state or national governments; thus, they retain the right to select their students and are funded in whole or in part by charging their students' tuition, rather than relying on mandatory...
, independent
Independent school
An independent school is a school that is independent in its finances and governance; it is not dependent upon national or local government for financing its operations, nor reliant on taxpayer contributions, and is instead funded by a combination of tuition charges, gifts, and in some cases the...
, liberal arts college
Liberal arts colleges in the United States
Liberal arts colleges in the United States are certain undergraduate institutions of higher education in the United States. The Encyclopædia Britannica Concise offers a definition of the liberal arts as a "college or university curriculum aimed at imparting general knowledge and developing general...
in the United States with an enrollment of about 1,500 students.
The college is located in the borough of Swarthmore
Swarthmore, Pennsylvania
Swarthmore is a borough in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States. Swarthmore was originally named Westdale in honor of noted painter Benjamin West, who was one of the early residents of the town. The name was changed to Swarthmore after the establishment of Swarthmore College...
, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
, 11 miles (17.7 km) southwest of Philadelphia
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and the county seat of Philadelphia County, with which it is coterminous. The city is located in the Northeastern United States along the Delaware and Schuylkill rivers. It is the fifth-most-populous city in the United States,...
.
Coeducational since its founding in 1864, Swarthmore was established as one of the earliest coeducational colleges in the United States after Oberlin College
Oberlin College
Oberlin College is a private liberal arts college in Oberlin, Ohio, noteworthy for having been the first American institution of higher learning to regularly admit female and black students. Connected to the college is the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, the oldest continuously operating...
and Earlham College
Earlham College
Earlham College is a liberal arts college in Richmond, Indiana. It was founded in 1847 by Quakers and has approximately 1,200 students.The president is John David Dawson...
. The school was founded by a committee of prominent liberal Quakers of the day, a group of figures from the 19th century anti-slavery and women's rights movements, including the activist Lucretia Mott
Lucretia Mott
Lucretia Coffin Mott was an American Quaker, abolitionist, social reformer, and proponent of women's rights.- Early life and education:...
. Swarthmore was established to be a college, "...under the care of Friends, at which an education may be obtained equal to that of the best institutions of learning in our country." Swarthmore dropped its religious affiliation and became officially non-sectarian in the early 20th century.
Today, the college is known for a rigorous intellectual character, shaped by a commitment to social responsibility and the legacy of Swarthmore's Quaker heritage. Ninety percent of graduates eventually attend graduate or professional school and over twenty percent of graduates attain a Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
degree in their lifetime, a rate surpassed only by the California Institute of Technology
California Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...
and Harvey Mudd College
Harvey Mudd College
Harvey Mudd College is a private residential liberal arts college of science, engineering, and mathematics, located in Claremont, California. It is one of the institutions of the contiguous Claremont Colleges, which share adjoining campus grounds....
.
Swarthmore is a member of the Tri-College Consortium
Tri-College Consortium
The Tri-College Consortium consists of three private liberal arts colleges in the Philadelphia suburbs: Bryn Mawr College, Haverford College and Swarthmore College. The consortium allows students to cross register for courses at the other colleges. Haverford enjoys an especially close relationship...
, a cooperative arrangement among Swarthmore College, Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College is a women's liberal arts college located in Bryn Mawr, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, ten miles west of Philadelphia. The name "Bryn Mawr" means "big hill" in Welsh....
, and Haverford College
Haverford College
Haverford College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college located in Haverford, Pennsylvania, United States, a suburb of Philadelphia...
. The consortium shares an integrated library system of more than three million volumes, and students are able to cross-register in courses at all three institutions. A common Quaker heritage amongst the consortium schools and the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
also extends this cross-registration agreement
Quaker Consortium
The Quaker Consortium is an arrangement between three liberal arts colleges, Bryn Mawr College, Haverford College, Swarthmore College, and one research university, the University of Pennsylvania, in the greater Philadelphia area...
to classes at Penn's College of Arts and Sciences.
Swarthmore's campus and the Scott Arboretum
Scott Arboretum
Scott Arboretum is an arboretum located across the campus of Swarthmore College, 500 College Avenue, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. It is open to the public daily without charge....
are coterminous—that is, they are coextensive in land, sharing the same borders.
History
The name "Swarthmore" has its roots in early Quaker history. In England, Swarthmoor HallSwarthmoor Hall
Swarthmoor Hall is a mansion in Swarthmoor, in the Furness area of Cumbria in North West England. It was the home of Thomas and Margaret Fell, the latter an important player in the founding of the Religious Society of Friends movement in the 17th century. It remains in use today as a Quaker...
in Cumbria
Cumbria
Cumbria , is a non-metropolitan county in North West England. The county and Cumbria County Council, its local authority, came into existence in 1974 after the passage of the Local Government Act 1972. Cumbria's largest settlement and county town is Carlisle. It consists of six districts, and in...
was the home of Thomas and Margaret Fell in 1652 when George Fox
George Fox
George Fox was an English Dissenter and a founder of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers or Friends.The son of a Leicestershire weaver, Fox lived in a time of great social upheaval and war...
, fresh from his epiphany atop Pendle Hill
Pendle Hill
Pendle Hill is located in the north-east of Lancashire, England, near the towns of Burnley, Nelson, Colne, Clitheroe and Padiham, an area known as Pendleside. Its summit is above mean sea level. It gives its name to the Borough of Pendle. It is an isolated hill, separated from the Pennines to the...
in 1651, came to visit. The visitation turned into a long association as Fox persuaded Thomas and Margaret Fell and the inhabitants of the nearby village of Fenmore of Friendly, and Swarthmoor was used for the first Friends' meetings.
The school was founded in 1864 by a committee of Quakers who were members of Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, New York Yearly Meeting and Baltimore Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends. Edward Parrish
Edward Parrish
Edward Parrish was an American pharmacist. He was the first president of Swarthmore College.-Biography:...
was its first president. Lucretia Mott
Lucretia Mott
Lucretia Coffin Mott was an American Quaker, abolitionist, social reformer, and proponent of women's rights.- Early life and education:...
was among those who insisted that Swarthmore be coeducational.
By the early 1900s, the college had a big-time sports program (playing Princeton, Columbia, and other larger schools) and an active fraternity and sorority life. The 1920 appointment of Frank Aydelotte
Frank Aydelotte
Frank Aydelotte was a U.S. educator. His full name was Franklin Ridgeway Aydelotte. He is known for redefining Swarthmore College as an institution while he was president between 1921 and 1940 and was also the director of the Institute for Advanced Study from 1939 until 1947.Aydelotte was born in...
as President began the development of the school's modern academic focus, particularly with his vision for the Honors program, based on his experience as a Rhodes Scholar.
During World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Swarthmore was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program
V-12 Navy College Training Program
The V-12 Navy College Training Program was designed to supplement the force of commissioned officers in the United States Navy during World War II...
which offered students a path to a Navy commission.
Solomon Asch
Solomon Asch
Solomon Eliot Asch , also known as Shlaym, was an American Gestalt psychologist and pioneer in social psychology.-Early life and education:...
and Wolfgang Köhler
Wolfgang Köhler
Wolfgang Köhler was a German psychologist and phenomenologist who, like Max Wertheimer, and Kurt Koffka, contributed to the creation of Gestalt psychology.-Early life:...
were two noted psychologists who were professors at Swarthmore. Asch joined the faculty in 1947 and served until 1966, while Köhler came to Swarthmore in 1935 and served until his retirement in 1958. The Asch conformity experiments
Asch conformity experiments
The Asch conformity experiments were a series of studies published in the 1950s that demonstrated the power of conformity in groups. These are also known as the Asch Paradigm.-Introduction:...
took place at Swarthmore.
Reputation
In its 2011 college ranking
College and university rankings
College and university rankings are lists of institutions in higher education, ordered by combinations of factors. In addition to entire institutions, specific programs, departments, and schools are ranked...
, U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report
U.S. News & World Report is an American news magazine published from Washington, D.C. Along with Time and Newsweek it was for many years a leading news weekly, focusing more than its counterparts on political, economic, health and education stories...
ranked Swarthmore as the #3 liberal arts college, with an overall score of 96/100, behind Williams
Williams College
Williams College is a private liberal arts college located in Williamstown, Massachusetts, United States. It was established in 1793 with funds from the estate of Ephraim Williams. Originally a men's college, Williams became co-educational in 1970. Fraternities were also phased out during this...
and Amherst
Amherst College
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college located in Amherst, Massachusetts, United States. Amherst is an exclusively undergraduate four-year institution and enrolled 1,744 students in the fall of 2009...
, respectively. Since the inception of the U.S. News rankings, Amherst, Williams, and Swarthmore are the only colleges to have been ranked #1 on the liberal arts rankings list, with the three colleges often switching places with one another every year. Swarthmore has been ranked the number one liberal arts college in the country a total of six times so far (the most recent being in 2002).
Some sources, including Greene's Guides, have called Swarthmore one of the "Little Ivies
Little Ivies
Little Ivies is a colloquialism referring to a group of small, selective American liberal arts colleges; however, it does not denote any official organization....
".
In its 2010 ranking of undergraduate programs, Forbes Magazine ranked Swarthmore as seventh in the nation. Placed ahead of Swarthmore were, in order, Williams, Princeton, Amherst, United States Military Academy, MIT and Stanford, while Harvard, Claremont McKenna, and Yale followed Swarthmore to round out the top ten institutions. In a 2008 ranking of undergraduate programs by Forbes Magazine, Swarthmore was ranked fourth after Princeton, Caltech, and Harvard, respectively.
In the March/April 2007 edition of Foreign Policy magazine, a ranking of the top twenty institutions for the study of international relations placed Swarthmore as the highest-ranked undergraduate-only institution, coming in at 15. The only other undergraduate-focused programs to make the list were Dartmouth and Williams, although neither school is exclusively undergraduate.
Swarthmore ranks 10th in a 2004 Wall Street Journal survey of feeder schools to elite business, medical, and law schools.
The Higher Education Data Sharing Consortium published a comprehensive study on the Ph.D. productivity of all undergraduate programs in October 2006. The study found that Swarthmore ranked third among all institutions of higher education in the United States as measured by the percentage of graduates who go on to earn Ph.D.'s. Only Caltech, at number one, and Harvey Mudd, in second, outranked Swarthmore, with Reed, MIT, Carleton, Oberlin, Bryn Mawr, University of Chicago, and Grinnell rounding out the top ten, respectively.
PC World ranked Swarthmore as the 4th most wired college in the nation in a 2006 report.
In 2008, The Princeton Review gave Swarthmore a 99 (the highest possible score) on their Admissions Selectivity Rating.
In the November 2003 selectivity ranking for undergraduate programs, The Atlantic magazine ranked Swarthmore as the only liberal arts college to make the top ten institutions, placing Swarthmore in tenth place.
In 2009, 2010 and 2011, Swarthmore was named the #1 "Best Value" private college by The Princeton Review. Overall selection criteria included more than 30 factors in three areas: academics, costs and financial aid. Swarthmore was also placed on The Princeton Review's Financial Aid Honor Roll along with twelve other institutions, including Caltech, Harvard, and Williams, for receiving the highest possible rating in its ranking methodology.
Academic program
Swarthmore's OxfordUniversity of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
tutorial
Tutorial
A tutorial is one method of transferring knowledge and may be used as a part of a learning process. More interactive and specific than a book or a lecture; a tutorial seeks to teach by example and supply the information to complete a certain task....
-inspired Honors Program allows students to take double-credit seminars from their junior year and often write honors theses
Thesis
A dissertation or thesis is a document submitted in support of candidature for an academic degree or professional qualification presenting the author's research and findings...
. Seminars are usually composed of four to eight students. Students in seminars will usually write at least three ten-page papers per seminar, and often one of these papers is expanded into a 20-30 page paper by the end of the seminar. At the end of their senior year, Honors students take oral and written examinations conducted by outside experts in their field. Around one student in each discipline is awarded "Highest Honors"; others are either awarded "High Honors" or "Honors"; rarely, a student is denied any Honors altogether by the outside examiner. Each department usually has a grade threshold for admittance to the Honors program.
Unusual for a liberal arts college, Swarthmore has an engineering
Engineering
Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
program; at the end of four years, students are granted a B.S. in Engineering. Other notable programs include minors in peace and conflict studies
Peace and conflict studies
Peace and conflict studies is a social science field that identifies and analyses violent and nonviolent behaviours as well as the structural mechanisms attending social conflicts with a view towards understanding those processes which lead to a more desirable human condition...
, cognitive science
Cognitive science
Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary scientific study of mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works. It includes research on how information is processed , represented, and transformed in behaviour, nervous system or machine...
, and interpretation theory
Critical theory
Critical theory is an examination and critique of society and culture, drawing from knowledge across the social sciences and humanities. The term has two different meanings with different origins and histories: one originating in sociology and the other in literary criticism...
.
Swarthmore has a total undergraduate student enrollment of 1,491 (for the 2007-2008 year) and 165 faculty members (99% with a terminal degree), for a student-faculty ratio of 8:1. Despite the small size of the college, the college offers more than 600 courses a year in over 50 courses of study. Swarthmore has a reputation as a very academically-oriented college, with 90% of graduates eventually attending graduate or professional school. With the highest frequency, alumni earn graduate degrees at UC Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
, University of Chicago
University of Chicago
The University of Chicago is a private research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by the American Baptist Education Society with a donation from oil magnate and philanthropist John D. Rockefeller and incorporated in 1890...
, Harvard, MIT, Columbia
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
, New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
, University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
, Princeton
Princeton University
Princeton University is a private research university located in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. The school is one of the eight universities of the Ivy League, and is one of the nine Colonial Colleges founded before the American Revolution....
, Stanford, and Yale
YALE
RapidMiner, formerly YALE , is an environment for machine learning, data mining, text mining, predictive analytics, and business analytics. It is used for research, education, training, rapid prototyping, application development, and industrial applications...
.
Swarthmore is a member of the Tri-College Consortium
Tri-College Consortium
The Tri-College Consortium consists of three private liberal arts colleges in the Philadelphia suburbs: Bryn Mawr College, Haverford College and Swarthmore College. The consortium allows students to cross register for courses at the other colleges. Haverford enjoys an especially close relationship...
(or TriCo) with nearby Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College
Bryn Mawr College is a women's liberal arts college located in Bryn Mawr, a community in Lower Merion Township, Pennsylvania, ten miles west of Philadelphia. The name "Bryn Mawr" means "big hill" in Welsh....
and Haverford College
Haverford College
Haverford College is a private, coeducational liberal arts college located in Haverford, Pennsylvania, United States, a suburb of Philadelphia...
, which allows students from any of the three to cross-register for courses at any of the others. The consortium as a whole is additionally affiliated with the University of Pennsylvania
University of Pennsylvania
The University of Pennsylvania is a private, Ivy League university located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. Penn is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States,Penn is the fourth-oldest using the founding dates claimed by each institution...
and students are able to cross-register for courses there as well.
While many in higher education recognize Swarthmore College's relative lack of grade inflation
Grade inflation
Grade inflation is the tendency of academic grades for work of comparable quality to increase over time.It is frequently discussed in relation to U.S. education, and to GCSEs and A levels in England and Wales...
, there is some controversy over the accuracy of such perceptions. One study by a Swarthmore professor in 1993 found "significant grade inflation." However, other professors and students fervently dispute the findings based on their own experience. Current students go so far as to sport Swarthmore t-shirts proclaiming, "Anywhere else it would've been an A." Some have pointed out that statistics suggesting grade inflation over the past decades may be exaggerated by reporting practices and the fact that grades were not given in the Honors program until 1996. In the end, many still credit Swarthmore with having resisted grade inflation
Grade inflation
Grade inflation is the tendency of academic grades for work of comparable quality to increase over time.It is frequently discussed in relation to U.S. education, and to GCSEs and A levels in England and Wales...
, bucking the perceived trend amongst peer institutions.
Since the 1970s, Swarthmore students have won 30 Rhodes Scholarships, 8 Marshall Scholarship
Marshall Scholarship
The Marshall Scholarship, a postgraduate scholarships available to Americans, was created by the Parliament of the United Kingdom when the Marshall Aid Commemoration Act was passed in 1953. The scholarships serve as a living gift to the United States of America in recognition of the post-World War...
s, 151 Fulbright Scholarships, 22 Truman Scholarships, 13 Luce Scholarships
Henry Luce Scholar
Henry Luce Scholar is a recipient of a cultural exchange and vocational fellowship sponsored by The Henry Luce Foundation, a private foundation established by Time, Inc. founder Henry R. Luce.-The program:...
, 67 Watson Fellowships, 3 Soros Fellowships, 18 Goldwater Scholarships, 84 Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowships, 13 National Endowment for the Humanities Grants for Younger Scholars, 234 National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowships, 35 Woodrow Wilson Fellowships, and 2 Mitchell Scholarship
Mitchell Scholarship
The George J. Mitchell Scholarship is a scholarship given annually by the US-Ireland Alliance to twelve Americans aged 18-30 to fund one year of graduate study in Ireland. Unlike in the United Kingdom or in the United States, one year is usually enough to complete an Irish master's degree...
s.
Admissions
In 2011, 14.9% of applicants were admitted to Swarthmore for the Class of 2015. 31% of the admitted students were valedictorians or salutatorians, 51% were in the top 2% of their high school class, and 89% in the top decile. For the Class of 2014, the middle 50% SAT range for mathematics, critical reading, and writing were 670-770, 670-760, and 680-770, respectively. The Middle 50% ACT range is 29 - 33.Tuition and finances
The total cost of tuition, student activity fees, room, and board for the 2008-2009 academic year was $47,804 (tuition alone was $36,154).One hundred percent of admitted students' demonstrated need is offered by the college. In total, about half of the student body receives financial aid, and the average financial aid award was $32,913 during the 2007-2008 year. As a "need-blind" school, Swarthmore makes admission decisions and financial aid decisions independently.
Swarthmore's endowment at the end of FY2008 was $1,412,609,000. Endowment per student was $966,631 for 2007–2008, one of the highest in the country.
Operating revenue for the 2007-2008 school year was $130,536,000, over 40% of which was provided by the endowment. As is the case with most elite institutions of higher education, actual costs as measured on a per-student basis far exceed revenue from tuition and fees, and so Swarthmore's endowment serves to offset ever-rising costs of education, subsidizing every student's education at Swarthmore—even those paying full tuition. For the 2008-2009 year, tuition, fees, and room & board charges ($47,804) fell well short of the actual cost of education per student, which was approximately $81,073 in 2007-2008.
Swarthmore ended a $230 million capital campaign on October 6, 2006, when President Bloom declared the project completed, three months ahead of schedule. The campaign, christened the "Meaning of Swarthmore," had been underway officially since the fall of 2001. 87% of the college's alumni participated in the effort.
Loan-free movement
At the end of 2007, the Swarthmore Board of Managers approved the decision for the college to eliminate student loans from all financial aid packages. Instead, additional aid scholarships will be granted.Campus
Campus radio
Campus radio is a type of radio station that is run by the students of a college, university or other educational institution. Programming may be exclusively by students, or may include programmers from the wider community in which the radio station is based...
station WSRN-FM
WSRN-FM
WSRN-FM , The "Worldwide Swarthmore Radio Network") is Swarthmore College's official campus radio station. It broadcasts out of the suburban Philadelphia borough of Swarthmore, Pennsylvania....
as well as the weekly student newspaper, The Phoenix.
From the SEPTA
Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority
The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority is a metropolitan transportation authority that operates various forms of public transit—bus, subway and elevated rail, commuter rail, light rail, and electric trolley bus—that serve 3.9 million people in and around Philadelphia,...
Swarthmore commuter train station
Swarthmore (SEPTA station)
Swarthmore is a station along the SEPTA Media/Elwyn Line, the former Pennsylvania Railroad West Chester Line. It is located on Chester Road between downtown Swarthmore and the edge of the Swarthmore College campus . Dollar-a-day parking and permit parking are available...
and the ville of Swarthmore to the south, the oak-lined Magill Walk leads north up a hill to Parrish. The campus is also adjacent to the Scott Arboretum, cited by some as a main staple of the campus's renowned beauty.
The majority of the buildings housing classrooms and department offices are located to the north of Parrish, as are Kyle and Woolman dormitories. McCabe Library is to the east of Parrish, as are the dorms of Willets, Mertz, Worth, Alice Paul, and David Kemp Hall. To the west are the dorms of Wharton, Dana, and Hallowell, along with the Scott Amphitheater. The Crum Woods generally extend westward from the campus, toward the Crum Creek. South of Parrish are Sharples dining hall, the two non-residential fraternities (Phi Psi and Delta Upsilon), and various other buildings. Palmer, Pittenger, and Roberts dormitories are south of the railroad station, as are the athletic facilities, while Mary Lyon dorm is off-campus to the southwest.
The College has three main libraries (McCabe Library, the Cornell Library of Science and Engineering, and the Underhill Music and Dance Library) and seven other specialized collections. In total, the libraries hold over 800,000 print volumes as well as an expanding digital library of over 10,000 online journal subscriptions, reference materials, e-books, and other scholarly databases.
Clubs and organizations
There are more than 100 chartered clubs and organizations at Swarthmore, in addition to many other unchartered groups. Clubs and organizations are a fundamental part of the College, and the center of many students' energies and social life. This extracurricular involvement contributes to the frequent characterization of Swarthmore students as both motivated and overworked.Mock Trial
Founded in 2007, the Swarthmore Mock Trial program has won numerous accolades and boasts a team of over 30 members for the 2011-2012 season. The 2010-2011 competitive season resulted in all three teams competing at Regional Championships, two teams going on to Opening Round Championships, and one team qualifying and competing at the 2011 National Championships held in Des Moines, Iowa, where the team placed 15th in their section. Mock Trial’s A Team placed first out of 28 teams in the Philadelphia Regional Championship on February 20, 2011.Debate Society
The Amos J. Peaslee Debate Society, named after a former United States Ambassador to AustraliaUnited States Ambassador to Australia
The position of United States Ambassador to Australia has existed since 1940. U.S.-Australian relations have been close throughout the history of Australia...
, is one of the few independently endowed organizations on campus. Members of the Society generally debate on the American Parliamentary Debate Association circuit.
College Bowl
Swarthmore's College BowlCollege Bowl
College Bowl was a format of college-level quizbowl run and operated by College Bowl Company, Incorporated. It had a format similar to the current NAQT format. College Bowl first aired on US radio stations in 1953, and aired on US television from 1959 to 1970...
team was considered one of the best in the country during the late 1990s and early 2000s - it won the 1998 Division I Undergraduate NAQT
National Academic Quiz Tournaments
National Academic Quiz Tournaments, LLC is a question-writing and quizbowl organizing company founded by former players in 1996. It is unique among U.S. quiz organizations for supplying questions and hosting championships at the middle school, high school, and college levels.The format is a set...
tournament.
Swarthmore College Democrats
The Swarthmore College Democrats are a student-run political organization on campus. In 2008, they brought Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA) and former Alaska senator and then-presidential candidate Mike Gravel to campus.Swarthmore College Republicans
While Swarthmore has historically had a mostly liberal student body, the Swarthmore College Republicans were revived as a group in the spring of 2008. However, they are no longer an active group on campus. Conservatives are now represented in their own Swarthmore Conservatives group.Greek life
Two Greek organizations exist on the campus in the form of the fraternities Delta UpsilonDelta Upsilon
Delta Upsilon is the sixth oldest international, all-male, college Greek-letter organization, and is the oldest non-secret fraternity in North America...
and Phi Psi. Notably absent are sororities, which were abandoned in the 1930s following student outrage about discrimination within the sorority system. There is an all-female student group known as LaSS (The Ladies' Soiree Society), which organizes campus wide charity events and social functions.
Sports
Swarthmore offers a wide variety of sporting teams with a total of 22 Division III Varsity Intercollegiate Sports Teams. 40 percent of Swarthmore students play intercollegiate or club sports.Varsity teams including badminton
Badminton
Badminton is a racquet sport played by either two opposing players or two opposing pairs , who take positions on opposite halves of a rectangular court that is divided by a net. Players score points by striking a shuttlecock with their racquet so that it passes over the net and lands in their...
, baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
, basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
, cross country
Cross country running
Cross country running is a sport in which people run a race on open-air courses over natural terrain. The course, typically long, may include surfaces of grass and earth, pass through woodlands and open country, and include hills, flat ground and sometimes gravel road...
, field hockey
Field hockey
Field Hockey, or Hockey, is a team sport in which a team of players attempts to score goals by hitting, pushing or flicking a ball into an opposing team's goal using sticks...
, golf
Golf
Golf is a precision club and ball sport, in which competing players use many types of clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a golf course using the fewest number of strokes....
, lacrosse
Lacrosse
Lacrosse is a team sport of Native American origin played using a small rubber ball and a long-handled stick called a crosse or lacrosse stick, mainly played in the United States and Canada. It is a contact sport which requires padding. The head of the lacrosse stick is strung with loose mesh...
, soccer, softball
Softball
Softball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of 10 to 14 players. It is a direct descendant of baseball although there are some key differences: softballs are larger than baseballs, and the pitches are thrown underhand rather than overhand...
, swimming
Swimming (sport)
Swimming is a sport governed by the Fédération Internationale de Natation .-History: Competitive swimming in Europe began around 1800 BCE, mostly in the form of the freestyle. In 1873 Steve Bowyer introduced the trudgen to Western swimming competitions, after copying the front crawl used by Native...
, tennis
Tennis
Tennis is a sport usually played between two players or between two teams of two players each . Each player uses a racket that is strung to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over a net into the opponent's court. Tennis is an Olympic sport and is played at all levels of society at all...
, track and field
Track and field
Track and field is a sport comprising various competitive athletic contests based around the activities of running, jumping and throwing. The name of the sport derives from the venue for the competitions: a stadium which features an oval running track surrounding a grassy area...
and volleyball
Volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...
play in the Centennial Conference
Centennial Conference
The Centennial Conference is an athletic conference which competes in the NCAA's Division III. Member teams are located in Maryland and Pennsylvania....
. Notably lacking among these teams is football, which was controversially eliminated in 2000, along with wrestling
Wrestling
Wrestling is a form of grappling type techniques such as clinch fighting, throws and takedowns, joint locks, pins and other grappling holds. A wrestling bout is a physical competition, between two competitors or sparring partners, who attempt to gain and maintain a superior position...
and initially badminton. The Board of Managers offered a number of reasons for eliminating football, including lack of athletes on campus and difficulty of recruiting. Swarthmore also offers a number of club sport options, including men's and women's rugby
Rugby union
Rugby union, often simply referred to as rugby, is a full contact team sport which originated in England in the early 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand...
, ultimate frisbee, volleyball
Volleyball
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules.The complete rules are extensive...
, fencing
Fencing
Fencing, which is also known as modern fencing to distinguish it from historical fencing, is a family of combat sports using bladed weapons.Fencing is one of four sports which have been featured at every one of the modern Olympic Games...
, and squash
Squash (sport)
Squash is a high-speed racquet sport played by two players in a four-walled court with a small, hollow rubber ball...
.
Publications
The official weekly newspaper of Swarthmore College is The Phoenix. It is published every Thursday, except during final week and vacation time. Some staff positions are paid a token amount. The newspaper was founded in 1881, with online editions beginning in 1995. Its current tabloid format is more similar to a newsmagazine than a newspaper, with a color front cover. Two thousand copies, free of charge, are distributed across the college campus and to the borough of SwarthmoreSwarthmore, Pennsylvania
Swarthmore is a borough in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, United States. Swarthmore was originally named Westdale in honor of noted painter Benjamin West, who was one of the early residents of the town. The name was changed to Swarthmore after the establishment of Swarthmore College...
. The newspaper is printed by Bartash printing in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Pennsylvania
The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is a U.S. state that is located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The state borders Delaware and Maryland to the south, West Virginia to the southwest, Ohio to the west, New York and Ontario, Canada, to the north, and New Jersey to...
. The newspaper's staff runs The Phoenix's website, with bandwidth provided by the Swarthmore College Information Technology Services. In 2010, The Phoenix was an Online Pacemaker
National Pacemaker Awards
The National Pacemaker Awards are awards for excellence in American student journalism, given annually since 1927. The awards are generally considered to be the highest national honors in their field, and are unofficially known as the "Pulitzer Prizes of student journalism."The National Scholastic...
for the Associated Collegiate Press
Associated Collegiate Press
The Associated Collegiate Press is the largest and oldest national membership organization for college student media in the United States. The ACP is a division of the National Scholastic Press Association...
award.
The Daily Gazette is another student newspaper. E-mailed daily to 2,500 people, its coverage includes news, arts, and daily sports reporting. The first issues were distributed through e-mail during the fall semester of 1996, with an online edition soon following. It is partially funded through the Student Activity Fee, with additional income from advertising.
There are a number of magazines at Swarthmore, most of which are published biannually at the end of each semester. One is Spike, Swarthmore's humor magazine. The others are literary magazines, including Small Craft Warnings, which publishes poetry, fiction and artwork; Scarlet Letters, which publishes women's literature; Enie, for Spanish literature; OURstory, for literature relating to diversity issues; Bug-Eyed Magazine, a very limited-run science fiction/fantasy magazine published by Psi Phi, formerly known as SWIL; Remappings (formerly "CelebrASIAN"), published by the Swarthmore Asian Organization; Alchemy, a collection of academic writings published by the Swarthmore Writing Associates; Mjumbe, published by the Swarthmore African-American Student Society; and a magazine for French literature. An erotica
Erotica
Erotica are works of art, including literature, photography, film, sculpture and painting, that deal substantively with erotically stimulating or sexually arousing descriptions...
magazine, ! was briefly published in 2005 in homage to an earlier publication, Untouchables. Most of the literary magazines print approximately 500 copies, with around 100 pages. There is also a new photography magazine, Pun/ctum, which features work from students and alumni.
The school's yearbook, The Halcyon, has been published annually since 1887. Because Commencement is such an important event, The Halcyon includes professional photos of the ceremony and is therefore printed later, in the fall. The new alumni, however, receive their book in the mail over the summer. The Halcyon is free to all students who attended Swarthmore for at least one semester during the academic year it covers. As a result, The Halcyon is the college's most costly student publication and there is currently a movement to offer books free only to seniors, and to reallocate money towards subsidizing student textbook costs.
A Cappella
As of the 2009-2010 school year, there are five active a cappellaCollegiate a cappella
Collegiate a cappella ensembles are student-run and -directed singing groups that perform entirely without instruments. Such groups can be found at many colleges and universities in the United States, and increasingly worldwide....
groups. Sixteen Feet, founded in 1981, is the College's oldest group, as well as its first and only all-male group. Grapevine is its corresponding all-female group, and Mixed Company is a co-ed group. Essence of Soul is a group whose music focuses on the music of the African Diaspora. Lastly, Chaverim is a co-ed group that includes students from the Tri-College Consortium and draws on music from cultures around the world for its repertoire. Once every semester, all of the school's a cappella groups collaborate for a joint concert called Jamboree.
Radio
WSRN 91.5 FM is the college radio station. It has a mix of indieIndie (music)
In music, independent music, often shortened to indie music or "indie" is a term used to describe independence from major commercial record labels or their subsidiaries, and an autonomous, Do-It-Yourself approach to recording and publishing....
, rock
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
, hip-hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
, folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
, world
World music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
, jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, and classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
, as well as a number of radio talk shows. At one time, WSRN had a significant news department, and covered events such as the "Crisis of '69", extensively. Many archived recordings of musical and spoken word performances exist, such as the once-annual Swarthmore Folk Festival. Today WSRN focuses virtually exclusively on entertainment, though it has covered significant news developments such as the athletic cuts in 2000 and the effects of 11 September 2001
September 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...
on campus. War News Radio and The Sudan Radio Project (formerly the Darfur Radio Project) do broadcast news on WSRN, however. Currently, the longest running show in WSRN's lineup is "Oído al Tambor", which focuses on news and music from Latin America. The show has been running non-stop, on Sundays from 4:00 to 6:00 p.m., since September 2006. After its members graduated in December 2009, the show's concept was revived by the show "Rayuela", which has been running since September 2009.
Swarthmore Fire and Protective Association
Swarthmore College students are eligible to participate in the local emergency department, the Swarthmore Fire and Protective Association. They are trained as firefighters and as emergency medical technicians (EMTs) and are qualified on both the state and national level. The fire department responds to over 200 fire calls and almost 800 EMS calls a year.Activism and community service
Swarthmore is known as a center of social and political activism. The Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility, endowed by philanthropist and Swarthmore alumnus Eugene M. Lang '38 in 2002, prepares students for leadership in civic engagement, public service, advocacy and social action. Swarthmore students are active in the local community, performing outreach programs in nearby Chester. The college has recently received significant coverage due to two student groups founded in 2004, the Genocide Intervention NetworkGenocide Intervention Network
thumb|right|300px|Genocide Intervention Network logoThe Genocide Intervention Network is a non-profit organization that "envisions a world in which the global community is willing and able to protect civilians from genocide and mass atrocities...
(now an independent non-profit organization) and War News Radio. Swarthmore's political landscape is generally considered fairly left-wing, though student activism is far less than it was in the heyday of the protest culture of the 1960s. Recent high-profile campaigns included a living wage organization (Swarthmore Living Wage & Democracy Campaign); actions surrounding the electronic voting
Electronic voting
Electronic voting is a term encompassing several different types of voting, embracing both electronic means of casting a vote and electronic means of counting votes....
machine manufacturer Diebold Election Systems (now Premier Election Solutions) by campus groups Students for Free Culture and Why War?; and a "Kick Coke" campaign aimed at replacing soda machines offering Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola is a carbonated soft drink sold in stores, restaurants, and vending machines in more than 200 countries. It is produced by The Coca-Cola Company of Atlanta, Georgia, and is often referred to simply as Coke...
with alternative products. The Kick-Coke campaign had a victory in November 2006 when the College agreed to cut its contract with Coca-Cola. However, after finding that the Kick-Coke campaign's assertions had been false, and after the company showed that it did indeed do a thorough investigation about the claims, Coca-Cola resigned a contract with the college in early fall of 2009.
Swarthmore College Computer Society
Swarthmore College Computer Society (SCCS) is a student-run organization independent of the official ITS department of the college. In addition to operating a set of servers that provide e-mail accounts, Unix shell login accounts, server storage space, and webspace to students, professors, alumni, and other student-run organizations, SCCS hosts over 100 mailing lists used by various student groups, and over 130 organizational websites, including the website of the student newspaper, The Phoenix. SCCS also provides a number of spaces that are open to members of the student body, as well as to faculty and staff:- A computer lab of DebianDebianDebian is a computer operating system composed of software packages released as free and open source software primarily under the GNU General Public License along with other free software licenses. Debian GNU/Linux, which includes the GNU OS tools and Linux kernel, is a popular and influential...
LinuxLinuxLinux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
and Mac OS XMac OS XMac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
machines - A meeting space
- A specialized library of computer books, indexed as part of the college library's collections
- A digital darkroomDigital darkroomDigital "darkroom" is the hardware, software and techniques used in digital photography that replace the darkroom equivalents, such as enlarging, cropping, dodging and burning, as well as processes that don't have a film equivalent....
with color calibrated negative scanning, editing and archival printing, used by the Photo Club and other students - An 8-foot projection screen with WiiWiiThe Wii is a home video game console released by Nintendo on November 19, 2006. As a seventh-generation console, the Wii primarily competes with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Sony's PlayStation 3. Nintendo states that its console targets a broader demographic than that of the two others...
, Xbox 360Xbox 360The Xbox 360 is the second video game console produced by Microsoft and the successor to the Xbox. The Xbox 360 competes with Sony's PlayStation 3 and Nintendo's Wii as part of the seventh generation of video game consoles...
, DVDDVDA DVD is an optical disc storage media format, invented and developed by Philips, Sony, Toshiba, and Panasonic in 1995. DVDs offer higher storage capacity than Compact Discs while having the same dimensions....
, VCR, PlayStation 2PlayStation 2The PlayStation 2 is a sixth-generation video game console manufactured by Sony as part of the PlayStation series. Its development was announced in March 1999 and it was first released on March 4, 2000, in Japan...
, NESNintendo Entertainment SystemThe Nintendo Entertainment System is an 8-bit video game console that was released by Nintendo in North America during 1985, in Europe during 1986 and Australia in 1987...
, AtariAtariAtari is a corporate and brand name owned by several entities since its inception in 1972. It is currently owned by Atari Interactive, a wholly owned subsidiary of the French publisher Atari, SA . The original Atari, Inc. was founded in 1972 by Nolan Bushnell and Ted Dabney. It was a pioneer in...
, and other gaming systems in the "Video Pit"
The computer lab and Video Pit together comprise the SCCS Media Lounge, located in Clothier basement beneath Essie Mae's snack bar. The SCCS staff consists of a group of students selected by existing staff and approved by members of a student body-elected policy board.
Impact
In September 2003, the SCCS servers survived a Slashdotting while hosting a copy of the Diebold memos on behalf of the student group Free Culture Swarthmore, then known as the Swarthmore Coalition for the Digital Commons. SCCS staff promptly complied with the relevant DMCA takedown request received by the college's ITS department.SCCS was noted in PC Magazine's article "Top 20 Wired Colleges" as one of the reasons for ranking Swarthmore #4 on that list. During the 2004-2005 school year, the SCCS Media Lounge served as the early home of War News Radio, a weekly webcast run by Swarthmore students and providing news about the Iraq war, providing resources, space, and technical support for the project in its infancy.
Two SCCS-related papers have been accepted for publication at the USENIX Large Installation System Administration (LISA) Conference, one of which was awarded Best Paper.
Alumni
Swarthmore's alumni include five Nobel PrizeNobel Prize
The Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
winners (second highest number of Nobel Prize winners per graduate in the U.S.), including the 2006 Physics laureate John C. Mather
John C. Mather
John Cromwell Mather is an American astrophysicist, cosmologist and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate for his work on the Cosmic Background Explorer Satellite with George Smoot. COBE was the first experiment to measure ".....
(1968), the 2004 Economics laureate Edward Prescott (1962) and the 1972 Chemistry laureate Christian B. Anfinsen
Christian B. Anfinsen
Christian Boehmer Anfinsen, Jr. was an American biochemist. He shared the 1972 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with Stanford Moore and William Howard Stein for work on ribonuclease, especially concerning the connection between the amino acid sequence and the biologically active conformation...
(1937). Swarthmore also has 8 MacArthur Foundation
MacArthur Foundation
The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation is one of the largest private foundations in the United States. Based in Chicago but supporting non-profit organizations that work in 60 countries, MacArthur has awarded more than US$4 billion since its inception in 1978...
fellows and hundreds of prominent figures in law, art, science, business, politics, and other fields.
- Suffragist and National Women's Party founder, Alice PaulAlice PaulAlice Stokes Paul was an American suffragist and activist. Along with Lucy Burns and others, she led a successful campaign for women's suffrage that resulted in the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1920.-Activism: Alice Paul received her undergraduate education from...
belonged to the class of 1905; - Nancy RomanNancy RomanNancy Grace Roman is an American astronomer. Throughout her career, Roman has also been an active public speaker and educator, and an advocate for women in the sciences....
NASA's first Chief of Astronomy in the Office of Space Science, 'mother of the Hubble telescope' - Michael DukakisMichael DukakisMichael Stanley Dukakis served as the 65th and 67th Governor of Massachusetts from 1975–1979 and from 1983–1991, and was the Democratic presidential nominee in 1988. He was born to Greek immigrants in Brookline, Massachusetts, also the birthplace of John F. Kennedy, and was the longest serving...
(1955) was the DemocraticDemocratic Party (United States)The Democratic Party is one of two major contemporary political parties in the United States, along with the Republican Party. The party's socially liberal and progressive platform is largely considered center-left in the U.S. political spectrum. The party has the lengthiest record of continuous...
nominee in the 1988 presidential election - Novelist James A. MichenerJames A. MichenerJames Albert Michener was an American author of more than 40 titles, the majority of which were sweeping sagas, covering the lives of many generations in particular geographic locales and incorporating historical facts into the stories...
(1929) left his entire $10 million estate (including the copyrightCopyrightCopyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
s to his works) to Swarthmore. - Robert ZoellickRobert ZoellickRobert Bruce Zoellick is the eleventh president of the World Bank, a position he has held since July 1, 2007. He was previously a managing director of Goldman Sachs, United States Deputy Secretary of State and U.S. Trade Representative, from February 7, 2001 until February 22, 2005.President...
(1976), current president of the World BankWorld BankThe World Bank is an international financial institution that provides loans to developing countries for capital programmes.The World Bank's official goal is the reduction of poverty...
. - John C. MatherJohn C. MatherJohn Cromwell Mather is an American astrophysicist, cosmologist and Nobel Prize in Physics laureate for his work on the Cosmic Background Explorer Satellite with George Smoot. COBE was the first experiment to measure ".....
(1968), American astrophysicist, cosmologist, and Nobel PrizeNobel PrizeThe Nobel Prizes are annual international awards bestowed by Scandinavian committees in recognition of cultural and scientific advances. The will of the Swedish chemist Alfred Nobel, the inventor of dynamite, established the prizes in 1895...
in Physics laureate for his work on COBECOBEThe COsmic Background Explorer , also referred to as Explorer 66, was a satellite dedicated to cosmology. Its goals were to investigate the cosmic microwave background radiation of the universe and provide measurements that would help shape our understanding of the cosmos.This work provided...
with George SmootGeorge SmootGeorge Fitzgerald Smoot III is an American astrophysicist, cosmologist, Nobel laureate, and $1 million TV quiz show prize winner . He won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2006 for his work on COBE with John C...
. - David K. LewisDavid Kellogg LewisDavid Kellogg Lewis was an American philosopher. Lewis taught briefly at UCLA and then at Princeton from 1970 until his death. He is also closely associated with Australia, whose philosophical community he visited almost annually for more than thirty years...
(1962), ground-breaking philosopher known for his work in Analytic Metaphysics, rated by fellow academics as one of the fifteen most important philosophers in the past 200 years.
Other prominent alumni: Seventh Circuit Judge Frank Easterbrook (1970); Congressman Christopher Van Hollen (1983); Senator
United States Senate
The United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
Carl Levin
Carl Levin
Carl Milton Levin is a Jewish-American United States Senator from Michigan, serving since 1979. He is the Chairman of the Senate Committee on Armed Services. He is a member of the Democratic Party....
of Michigan
Michigan
Michigan is a U.S. state located in the Great Lakes Region of the United States of America. The name Michigan is the French form of the Ojibwa word mishigamaa, meaning "large water" or "large lake"....
(1956); Author Mark Vonnegut
Mark Vonnegut
Mark Vonnegut is an American pediatrician and memoirist. He is the son of the late writer Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. and his first wife, Jane Cox. He is also the brother of Edith and Nanette Vonnegut. He described himself in the preface to his 1975 book as "a hippie, son of a counterculture hero, B.A...
(1969); musical composer and satirist Peter Schickele
Peter Schickele
Johann Peter Schickele is an American composer, musical educator, and parodist. He is best known for his comedy music albums featuring his music that he presents as music written by the fictional composer P. D. Q...
(1957); astronomer Sandra M. Faber
Sandra M. Faber
Sandra Moore Faber is a University Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and works at the Lick Observatory.In 1966, she obtained a B.A., with high honors, in physics from Swarthmore College....
(1966); The Corrections
The Corrections
The Corrections is a 2001 novel by American author Jonathan Franzen. It revolves around the troubles of an elderly Midwestern couple and their three adult children, tracing their lives from the mid-twentieth century to "one last Christmas" together near the turn of the millennium...
and Freedom author Jonathan Franzen
Jonathan Franzen
Jonathan Franzen is an American novelist and essayist. His third novel, The Corrections , a sprawling, satirical family drama, drew widespread critical acclaim, earned Franzen a National Book Award, and was a finalist for the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction...
(1981); New York Times theater critic Ben Brantley
Ben Brantley
Benjamin D. "Ben" Brantley is an American journalist and the chief theater critic of The New York Times.-Life and career:...
; Long-time Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
editor, Peter Bart
Peter Bart
Peter Benton Bart is an American journalist and film producer. He perhaps best known for his lengthy tenure as the editor of Variety, an entertainment-trade magazine....
; Caltech president and Nobel laureate David Baltimore
David Baltimore
David Baltimore is an American biologist, university administrator, and Nobel laureate in Physiology or Medicine. He served as president of the California Institute of Technology from 1997 to 2006, and is currently the Robert A. Millikan Professor of Biology at Caltech...
(1960); Former Georgetown University Law Center
Georgetown University Law Center
Georgetown University Law Center is the law school of Georgetown University, located in Washington, D.C.. Established in 1870, the Law Center offers J.D., LL.M., and S.J.D. degrees in law...
Dean T. Alexander Aleinikoff
T. Alexander Aleinikoff
T. Alexander Aleinikoff is a law professor and dean at Georgetown University Law Center in Washington, D.C. He is currently on leave to be the Deputy High Commissioner in the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Geneva, Switzerland.- Background :Aleinikoff received a...
(1974); Berkeley Law Dean Christopher Edley, Jr.
Christopher Edley, Jr.
Christopher Fairchild Edley, Jr. is Dean of the University of California, Berkeley School of Law . After receiving his undergraduate degree from Swarthmore College, he attended Harvard Law School, where he later served as a professor. He is married to Maria Echaveste, former deputy chief of staff...
; philosopher and Nietzschean scholar Alexander Nehamas
Alexander Nehamas
Alexander Nehamas is Professor of philosophy and Edmund N. Carpenter, II Class of 1943 Professor in the Humanities at Princeton University. He works on Greek philosophy, aesthetics, Nietzsche, Foucault, and literary theory....
(1967); Justin Hall
Justin Hall
Justin Hall , is an American freelance journalist who is best known as a pioneer blogger , and for writing reviews from game conferences such as E3 as well as the Tokyo Game Show....
(1998), widely considered to be the first blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
ger; eminent Polish theatre director Michal Zadara
Michal Zadara
Michal Zadara is a Polish theatre director and set designer. He has worked primarily in Warsaw and Krakow, but he also staged several plays abroad, in Germany, Israel and the United States...
(1999); Wall Street
Wall Street
Wall Street refers to the financial district of New York City, named after and centered on the eight-block-long street running from Broadway to South Street on the East River in Lower Manhattan. Over time, the term has become a metonym for the financial markets of the United States as a whole, or...
magnate and Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co.
KKR & Co. L.P. is an American-based global private equity firm, specializing in leveraged buyouts, based in New York. The firm sponsors and manages private equity investment funds. Since its inception, the firm has completed over $400 billion of private equity transactions and was a pioneer in...
founder Jerome Kohlberg, Jr.
Jerome Kohlberg, Jr.
Jerome Kohlberg, Jr. is an American businessman and early pioneer in the private equity and leveraged buyout industries founding private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and later Kohlberg & Company....
(1946) who also founded the Philip Evans Scholarship Foundation in 1986 at Swarthmore; Jed Rakoff (1964) US District Judge for the Southern District of New York; Kenneth Turan
Kenneth Turan
Kenneth Turan is an American film critic and Lecturer in the Master of Professional Writing Program at the University of Southern California.-Background:...
(1967) film critic for the Los Angeles Times; Faux-Christian Music/Comedy duo God's Pottery
God's Pottery
God's Pottery is a New York faux-Christian acoustic music and comedy duo. Its members are Jeremiah Smallchild and Gideon Lamb. The duo is played by Wilson Hall and Krister Johnson . They are both from New York City....
Krister Johnson (1995) and Wilson Hall (1995); The Gregory Brothers
The Gregory Brothers
The Gregory Brothers are an American musical group who characterize their music as "Country & Soul, Folk & Roll". Members include Michael Gregory on drums and vocals, Andrew Rose Gregory on guitar and vocals, Evan Gregory on keys and vocals, and Sarah Fullen Gregory on bass and vocals...
, of internet series Auto-Tune the News fame, Evan Gregory (2001) and Andrew Gregory (2004); Author Kurt Eichenwald
Kurt Eichenwald
Kurt Alexander Eichenwald , an American writer and investigative reporter formerly with The New York Times and later with Condé Nast's business magazine, Portfolio...
; Long-time editor of The Nation
The Nation
The Nation is the oldest continuously published weekly magazine in the United States. The periodical, devoted to politics and culture, is self-described as "the flagship of the left." Founded on July 6, 1865, It is published by The Nation Company, L.P., at 33 Irving Place, New York City.The Nation...
, Victor Navasky
Victor Navasky
Victor Saul Navasky is a professor at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He was editor of The Nation from 1978 until 1995, and its publisher and editorial director 1995 to 2005. In November 2005 he became the publisher emeritus...
(1954); Eugene Lang
Eugene Lang
Eugene M. "Gene" Lang is an American philanthropist who founded REFAC Technology Development Corporation in 1951. He created the I Have A Dream Foundation in 1981, and Project Pericles in 2001. He has also made large donations to Swarthmore College, The New School's undergraduate liberal arts...
(1938), founder of the I Have a Dream Foundation, who has endowed many buildings and programs on campus, including, as noted above, the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility; Eugene's son, film star Stephen Lang (actor)
Stephen Lang (actor)
Stephen Lang is an American actor and playwright. He started in theatre on Broadway but is well known for his film portrayals of Stonewall Jackson in Gods and Generals and George Pickett in Gettysburg , as well as for his 2009 roles as Colonel Miles Quaritch in Avatar and as Texan lawman Charles...
(1973); Cynthia Leive
Cynthia Leive
Cynthia Leive is the Editor in Chief of Glamour magazine.Under Leive, Glamour has received a record number of editorial awards...
Glamour Magazine Editor-in-Chief;Patrick Awuah founder of Ashesi University; Lisa Albert
Lisa Albert
Lisa Albert is an American television writer and producer. She has worked in both capacities on the AMC drama series Mad Men and has won a WGA Award for her work on the show.-Biography:...
Emmy Award winning writer and producer for AMC's Mad Men
Swarthmore College Peace Collection
An internationally important archive of papers and books concerning the work of pacifist organizations and individuals, the Peace Collection forms part of the Swarthmore College Library. Its mission is to gather, preserve, and make accessible material that documents non-governmental efforts for nonviolent social change, disarmament, and conflict resolution between peoples and nations.Points of interest
- Scott ArboretumScott ArboretumScott Arboretum is an arboretum located across the campus of Swarthmore College, 500 College Avenue, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. It is open to the public daily without charge....