dialogue

On Our Radar

The Power of the Arts

I am so thrilled and excited by the focused attention given in the Winter 2021 edition of the Bulletin to the power, energy, and beauty of the arts at the College. I write as a member of the Class of ’61, which celebrated the growth of the arts at Swarthmore since our undergraduate days during our virtual 60th Reunion last June. We organized a faculty forum focused on the growth into the curriculum of the College. The faculty included Andrew Hauze ’04 from Music, Sharon Friedler from Dance, Allen Kuharski from Theater, Randall Exon from Studio Arts, Patty White from Film & Media Studies, and Nat Anderson, director of the Creative Writing Program. Their forum was glorious, reflecting their love of the arts and their interrelatedness, with keen attention to the process and timing of their growth and their contributions to the cultural life of the campus community. It was splendid, and the voices expressing themselves in this edition of the Bulletin reflect and celebrate the power of the arts in all of our lives. Thank you!

— MAURICE ELDRIDGE ’61, Swarthmore, Pa.

A HOPEFUL EYE

Your Spring 2021 issue this year is a particularly good one. I liked the article about Leonard Nakamura ’69 a great deal. I’m also keeping a hopeful eye out for the launch of the extraordinary Webb Telescope. Best wishes to Swarthmore in these difficult times.

— SUSAN BARKER GUTTERMAN ’59, New York, N.Y.

Artist rendering of James Webb Space Telescope in space

COURTESY OF NASA

History was made on Dec. 25, 2021, when the James Webb Space Telescope successfully launched from Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. Read more about the telescope and about senior project scientist John Mather ’68, H’94: bit.ly/JWSTMather

Unifying Theme

Cover of Fall 2021 issue of the Bulletin, featuring a whale and the tagline "navigating new waters together"

I did enjoy this issue (Fall 2021) of the Bulletin much more than usual because the alumni profiles had a unifying theme. It was especially memorable, of course, because the theme itself is the biggest challenge facing the world today.

— DIANA BAILEY HARRIS ’64, Portland, Ore.

WRITE ON TIME

This issue (Fall 2021) is very timely in its subject matter, and it is of the same high quality of most of the recent issues.

— THELMA YOUNG CARROLL ’64, Virginia Beach, Va.

STRUCK BY HYPOCRISY

I’m sure I’m not the only alum to be struck, and not in a good way, by the juxtaposition of the Fall 2021 Swarthmore Bulletin and Bill McKibben’s op-ed in the Oct. 26 New York Times. I read them back-to-back this morning whilst waiting for the basement flood alarm to go off as this week’s extreme weather event (the “bomb cyclone”) pummeled my area with yet more heavy rain.

It seems more than a little hypocritical for Swarthmore to tout the various ways in which individual graduates work hard to address climate change and care for a warming planet (which, power and more power to them!) when the College itself could also make a significant impact by divesting from fossil fuels.

If the Board of Managers’ decision not to divest seemed nonsensical in 2015 (it did), then in 2021 it is vicious.

I don’t need to reel off the list of climate disasters taking place around the world to make that point. As McKibben put it, with considerable understatement, Swarthmore should know better. Swarthmore should do better.

— JEANNE GARDNER GUTIERREZ ’02, Wassaic, N.Y.

Editor’s Note: In a November message to the campus community, President Smith detailed the College’s recent efforts to reduce the effects of the climate crisis and provided additional information on how the College’s endowment is invested. Read her update here: bit.ly/SwatClimate

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