The new year is underway as are many changes across campus. The Dining Center was unveiled and the ambitious To Zero By Thirty-Five energy plan is in motion. But pillars of the College remain. We celebrate the Honors Program and the milestone of 100 years of academic absorption. “Something of an Adventure” (p. 20) explores the history of Honors. Groundbreaking when it began in 1922, it continues to shape Swarthmore’s culture. It was the opportunity to become so completely immersed in a subject of study that made it such a life-changing experience, alumni say.

In “Designed to Succeed” (p. 34) Omri Gal ’20 reveals how a passion for soccer led him to create a program for young students in Chester, Pa. Gal helps artists at Stetser Elementary find a vibrant place to voice their emotions in the form of soccer jerseys!

At a time when the world seems to be moving so rapidly, Swarthmoreans kept pace with positive change. Students and faculty attended the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP27) in Egypt; Kilan Tang ’25 created a way to expand voting access to transgender and nonbinary students; and staff member Luis Alvarez received the inaugural Greg Brown Award, recognizing extraordinary contributions in the areas of Campus Services, Facilities Management, and Public Safety.

On a smaller scale, the Arboretum staff held a workshop to make snow globes. Pieces of evergreen and holly placed inside a bottle seemed a simple project. This photo is an evocative reminder that we do hold worlds in our hands. It’s inspiring to imagine that each of us can create new environments in big and small ways, too.

Happy 2023 from Swarthmore in Pennsylvania to Swarthmore across the globe!

FINDING DIRECTION has always been hard for me. In 2007, I entered Swarthmore thinking I’d major in sociology, or education, or philosophy, convinced I’d know by the end of my first semester who I’d be, what I’d like. After suffering through a dark sophomore slump, it took until my junior year to discover that what I really wanted to study — and what would change my entire life lens — was religion. By my senior year, I’d accumulated enough credits for a religion minor, an educational studies minor, and an English major. Half of me felt like a failure: I’d relinquished applying myself to be part of the Honors program, struggled to write essays despite literature being my main area of study, and had no clue what I wanted to do with my life after college.

But I was also, for the first time in my years at Swarthmore, happy. I’d become known and welcomed as the campus photographer-stalker; I was absorbing the concepts from postmodern religious thought into my being and leaning on them to help me navigate my existence; I’d found, in morsels that became small meals over time, meaning.

Laura Markowitz ’85 and Amy S. Cramer

Voices on the Economy, Vol. I: How Open-Minded Exploration of Rival Perspectives Can Spark New Solutions to Our Urgent Economic Problems
Voices On The Economy, Incorporated

That hallmark of intellectual intensity is thanks in large part to the Honors Program.

Whether you took Honors or not, Swarthmore’s Honors Program had an enormous impact on liberal arts education across the country and contributed to creating what is quintessentially Swarthmore.

The sport quickly became the center of Gal’s life. As a teenager, he traveled across New York and the Northeast for matches and played with the New York Red Bulls Academy team.

Recruited to play soccer at Swarthmore, he felt at home on the team. And when he received a Eugene Lang Opportunity Scholarship in 2018, Gal committed to finding new ways to share his love of the game.

Eventually, he launched Design FC, an after-school program that works with youth to encourage creative thinking and autobiographical storytelling through the design of athletic jerseys and apparel. The program is based primarily at Stetser Elementary School in Chester, Pa.

Over 50 years later, Smith’s observation remained apt: long lines snaking out of the servery into the foyer, tight corners that felt perilous to navigate during peak traffic, limited hours for evening meals, and a lack of natural light all made for a less-than-ideal dining experience.

It was clear that Sharples, originally designed to accommodate around 900 students, could no longer meet the needs of the campus community of more than 1,600 students. Thus, the Dining Center was born.

As part of the larger Dining and Community Commons (DCC) project, the Dining Center brings to campus a reimagined dining experience grounded in Swarthmore’s longstanding values of sustainability, community, and inclusivity.

HEN KEVIN QUIGLEY ’74 and his wife, Susan Flaherty, donated their collection of Cuala Press prints to the College, they wanted to ensure the community could readily access the art. Their collection includes 73 hand-colored woodblock prints and broadsides created between 1906 and 1968 at the Cuala Press in Dublin. Originally called the Dun Emer Press, it was established by Elizabeth and Lily Yeats — sisters of poet William Butler Yeats ­— along with Evelyn Gleeson and Augustine Henry.

“A key criteria was to have it be accessible,” Quigley says. So he funded a paid student internship at McCabe Library to catalog and digitize the collection. “It’s really rewarding for me to hear there’s interest on campus,” says Quigley, “ I have a lot of confidence that Swarthmore will take good care of it.”

When Lemuel L’Oiseau ’25, whose pronouns are they/them, noticed a listing for the internship Quigley had funded, they quickly applied. L’Oiseau had spent the previous year working at McCabe’s circulation desk, nurturing an interest in the behind-the-scenes work of librarians — from cataloging and shelving to research and acquisitions.

A 1973 lunch menu laments that inflation has increased the cost of meat, and a patty melt — the most expensive sandwich on the menu — now costs a whole dollar. The menu also boasts a new item, a 30-cent burrito, and lets students know they can have these, and many other foodstuffs, delivered to them between 10 p.m. and 1 a.m. nightly.

A story from the May 13, 1973 issue of The Sunday Bulletin revealed that cheese fondue and roast duck used to be available for purchase on campus, as well as a treat called “amoeba cookies,” described only as “brownie-like.”

The story also let readers know that “natural foods,” like yogurt and salads, were now standard fare in the cafeteria.