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Board of Managers officially approves dorm plan

BY SEBASTIAN DUNCAN-PORTUONDO

In print | October 5, 2006

During their meeting last weekend, the Board of Managers approved the plans for the construction of the second half of the Alice Paul dormitory. While the building will be in the same style as Alice Paul, it will not bear the same name. In recognition of their donation of $10 million to the school, 70 percent of which was ear-marked for the construction of a new building, Giles Kemp ’72 and his wife Barbara are being given the opportunity to name the second half.

According to Joella Fink ‘07, Student Council co-president and the student observer at the Board of Managers meeting, the Board was virtually convinced that the new building should be constructed, even before they had heard the Property Committee’s recommendation. “It seemed like by the time the Property Committee presented, the Board was fairly convinced with the fact that it had to be built. They had already talked out the cost and consequences of a new residence hall on campus when Alice Paul was first conceived of,” said Joella Fink ’07. “As one Board member put it, the question was less whether to build it than when to build it.”

The upcoming end of the Meaning of Swarthmore fundraising campaign, which had begun in 2001, was also discussed at the meeting. According to Vice President Maurice Eldridge ‘61, the monetary goal of the campaign has been met, though the college hopes to raise even more money before the campaign ends in late December. "The campaign is not over until Dec. 31. While we’ve exceeded our monetary goal, we haven’t accomplished all of our programmatic goals. We hope to ride the tide of the present momentum in order to raise more money to [meet those goals]."

Eldridge said those goals included raising money “to match a grant for Arabic language instruction from the National Endowment for the Humanities,” supporting the media studies program and completing the Alice Paul dormitory. According to Fink, “the building of the new dorm is seen as the pinnacle of the Meaning of Swarthmore Campaign.”

While the campaign was seen as a success, Fink said that “the annual fund donations had decreased among Board members, probably due to increased donations to the Meaning of Swarthmore campaign. That’s a bad thing because the Board is a huge support for the annual fund. It’s a problem that is expected to fix itself with the end of the Meaning of Swarthmore Campaign.”

While the Board did not come to a decision with regards to early admission, the policy was discussed at last weekend’s meeting. According to Fink, “the particular ways in which [early admission] is appropriate for Swarthmore’s admission program. After Jim Bock’s report, the Board seemed very supportive of early decision at Swarthmore.”

Students will have access to the minutes of the Board of Managers meeting in the coming days.

“I wrote up my report of the Board of Managers meeting, and will probably send a shorter version to the school with the original attached,” Fink said. “It has to be approved by Maurice Eldridge and I am going to have Student Council approve it also.”

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