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Meticulous Intensity

By Robert Strauss

THE 45-YEAR-OLD MAN LOOKED QUITE RESTED on the operating table, almost as if he were a character from a cop flick. He was wearing white Nike sneakers, navy blue sweatpants from Old Navy, and a long-sleeved sweatshirt with a Nike logo.
The problem was, the guy was, in fact, dead—one of dozens of dead folks who [...]

Let's Talk About It

By Laura Markowitz ’85

ON A SUNNY MONDAY IN APRIL, OPPOSITE THE doors of Parrish Hall, a group called Students for Peace and Justice in Palestine (SPJP) erected a 10-foot tall fence covered in black plastic. With a narrow opening at its center, topped with barbed wire, it mimicked an Israeli checkpoint. People who wanted to experience the mock [...]

Lesson for Reform

By Stephen Davidson ’61

PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA'S SUCCESSFUL EFFORT to enact a health care reform bill was widely seen as a triumph of policy, and it is hard to overstate the historic nature of the achievement. But any assessment of the legislation that emerged from the yearlong effort is best made through a political lens. The story of health [...]

Ready to Serve

By Elizabeth Redden ’05

“TWENTY YEARS AGO, WE WERE MOSTLY CONCERNED ABOUT FIRE AND WATER,” says Steve Schwartz ’84, CEO of Lion Apparel, a Dayton, Ohio–based uniform company started by Schwartz’s great-grandfather in 1898.
“That grew into a greater concern about industrial chemicals and blood-borne protection, and today it has evolved further into CBRN [chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear] protection.” [...]

[Still] Need Blind in Tough Times

By Susan Clarey

Sara Lipshutz ’11, a busy junior biology major, would not be at Swarthmore without a scholarship. Nor would John Boucard ’10, who plans to go to medical school after graduation. They are just two of the 760 students who are receiving need-based aid at the College this year—about half the student body.
Lipshutz, from New City, [...]

Velvet & Steel

By Elizabeth Redden ’05
Illustration by Edward Sorel
Photographs by Eleftherios Kostans

VICTOR NAVASKY ENJOYS A GOOD FIGHT: a boxing match, a debate, a gentlemanly duel, his preferred weapon a barbed article in a journal of opinion.
Navasky, the publisher emeritus and former editor of The Nation and now professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, is not pugnacious but temperate in demeanor. He is interested in [...]

The Essence of “S-ness”

By Carol Brévart-Demm

­Who of us would ever have imagined that the letter s could be of any significance in issues of social status? For Ana Celia Zentella, the Eugene M. Lang Visiting Professor for Issues of Social Change, phenomena like the “s-ness” in pronunciation of Spanish language varieties offer important linguistic pointers on how speakers of those [...]

A Survey in Progress

By Jeffrey Lott

It used to be that, like a hot shower or a glass of orange juice, an art history survey course was best taken first thing in the morning. Anyone who ever took one knows this. As one of the few academic disciplines taught in the dark, with slide after slide flashing on the screen while [...]

A New Model of Leadership for Africa

By Ken Maguire

Africa’s rich and powerful are almost as easy to spot as its ubiquitous poor. Many of them shuttle to and from work and around towns like Accra, Ghana, in shiny chauffeured cars and oversized SUVs.
That’s not how Patrick Awuah ’89 rolls. The man who wants to revolutionize how Africa educates its future chief executives of [...]

Jazz with a Difference

By Carol Brévart-Demm

Captured in the stage light’s golden circle, Hans Lüdemann’s long, slender fingers deftly work the keyboard of a majestic grand piano. The internationally acclaimed German jazz virtuoso coaxes out a slow, haunting seven-note melody—a theme that will recur repeatedly as the piece “Turning Points” develops. Eyes closed, lips moving, Lüdemann murmurs to himself, “as if [...]