BY YOSHI JOHNSON

In print | May 1, 2008

A few weeks ago I discussed the ethos of Swarthmore with an eccentric alum, eager to gain some perspective on my experience as I prepared to graduate. Quite out of the blue, the conversation took a turn towards the personal, and all of a sudden, we found ourselves reflecting on our respective college experiences. Her tenure here, from 1967-1971, had seen the dramatic, painful transformation of the College and larger society.

Though she — we’ll call her Maria — was a self-described radical activist, then and now, she reminisced somewhat ruefully that the College had been through ‘hell and back’ and taken many people along for the ride, herself included. Maria regarded the many years following Swarthmore as a time for healing, when she reflected on what had happened to her while she was here. ‘It’s a complicated relationship, what I have with my time at Swarthmore,’ she said. ‘I didn’t know what I’d gained from this place, and what it had taken away, until I’d left it behind.’

Maria observed that a lot of what Swarthmore is changes from epoch to epoch, but that she sensed something essentially ‘Swarthmore’ about this place still, particularly this tenuous relationship with Swarthmore that she had described. ‘It’s not necessarily a bad thing,’ insisted Maria, ‘but there is a sense of bitterness in some people, especially if the strain of Swat was great enough during their years here. This feeling is, in every case, very complicated and difficult to define.’ (It seems that Swarthmorean wish-wash is ever a staple of campus culture!)

Later, at Maria’s suggestion, I made my way to McCabe’s third floor to page through the Halcyons of years past. Steeped in the images and events of Swarthmore’s storied past, I sought to glean from those printed words and faded portraits something about what Maria spoke to. In the hours I spent there, though, what struck me most were two pictures I came across: one, of the ivy-clad, ornately designed Carnegie Library (a.k.a. “Old” Tarble), and another, of the same building, gutted and ravaged by the wrath of an unnamed student arsonist in September 1983.

Unlike Parrish, Tarble was never rebuilt to its former glory after it was taken by fire. Seeing in these pictures the enormity of what had been lost in its burning — it was a recreation center, a cherished band space, a student center, and a party space — I thought about what Maria had said and wondered what Swarthmore had done to that arsonist. There had been similar acts of arson committed in Mary Lyon and Clothier, both of which this student was suspected to be the culprit. What had Swarthmore taken away from him that was so great that he wanted to take something back, and in such a destructive, symbolic way?

I mean, Swarthmore has been intense, but I would never want to vengefully burn down a cherished community space. This Swarthmorean intensity, in fact, is at the root of what Maria was talking about, and from the glossy admissions brochures to Bob Gross’s, “No matter what you do or say to me…,” we’ve received many warnings about the challenges this place puts to us. In a sense, then, fire seems quite appropriate for characterizing the experience here. No one escapes completely unscathed, nor should anyone expect to. Apparently, though, some people are burned quite badly, sacrificing much to the demands of the place.

Still, there is a softer side of Swarthmore, one that also fits well with the metaphor of fire. It is, for example, the place where we first come to know the fiery passions in our hearts; the glowing warmth of success; the red, orange and yellow embers of a Swarthmore fall that dwindle into winter, and spring’s brilliance of colors, which sets ablaze the campus once more; the equally predictable cycle of firestorms of controversy that overtake the campus. Here we find romantic flames, some of them lifelong, all kindled in a comfy Quaker matchbox. For many Swarthmoreans, too, their time at Swarthmore marks the moment that ignited that inner light we call a social conscience.

In the end, though, the hardship is real. We give up something to Swarthmore, that we might change and grow by our time here. We walk away from it all with lasting marks that attest to our transformation in the fires of this place. We are a little scorched, perhaps, but nonetheless alive and all the more vibrant, stronger because of what we went through here. I don’t know what these ‘somethings’ sacrificed are — they are different for everyone — but I do know that we accept the bad with the good in the hopes of becoming better people for it.

Graduation is nearly here, and I am of course grateful for every moment of my experience. While I am looking toward the future, trying to discern the shape of things to come, I am also increasingly reflective about Maria’s words and my own complicated relationship with Swarthmore.

Swarthmore really was a trial by fire, and while I am appreciative of the many things I gained, for some time to come I will be wondering about what I gave up, trying to catalogue the things I lost in the fire.

Yoshi is a senior. He can be reached at ajohnso1@swarthmore.edu.

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