Dear Members of the Scripps College Community:
The summer months at Scripps College are deceptively quiet. While students are away from campus and faculty are busy engaging in research and learning projects here and around the world, we host summer conferences and camps, including our Scripps College Academy and the popular Camp Scripps for our alumnae. At the same time, we are closing the books on the last academic year and busy preparing for the beginning of another. I take this opportunity to share with you news about our success in fundraising during 2009-2010, the profile of the incoming Class of 2014, and a variety of projects in which we are currently engaged.
Fundraising Success
We ended the year with the most successful fundraising in the history of the College. By June 30, 2010, the College had received a record $15.5 million in cash gifts, which includes $2.5 million in contributions to the Annual Fund (surpassing our budgeted target), $5.1 million in bequests (most of which are dedicated to endowed scholarships and faculty research), and a $500,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation to strengthen our Curriculum in Interdisciplinary Humanities program. In addition, we received a $3.5 million pledge for a ceramics building and program endowment from Joan ’49 and David Lincoln. Alumnae participation also remains strong at 47.6% and is the highest within The Claremont Colleges.
Class of 2014
By every measure, 2009-2010 was an extraordinary year for Scripps’ admission cycle, confirming once again that the demand for a Scripps College education remains strong. We experienced a 2% increase in our applicant pool, and the percentage of students accepting admission continues its positive trend, having increased from 26% to 32% during the past five years.
The Class of 2014 arrives on campus on Thursday, August 26. These students are smart, diverse, and international. The group includes 36 James E. Scripps Scholars, 24 National Merit Scholars, and two National Hispanic Scholars. The class brings great diversity to the campus: 16 African Americans (the largest number in the College’s history), 20 Latinas, and 11 international students from Australia, Botswana, Ghana, India, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, and Venezuela. Thirty-seven percent of the Class of 2014 comes from California; this is lower than the 39-40% we have seen in past years. We also look forward to welcoming 25 transfer students and 14 mid-year admits who will enroll in spring 2011.
Please plan to attend our annual “End of Summer” community meeting in Balch Auditorium on Monday, August 23, at 11:00 a.m. when the Admission Office will provide more information about the Class of 2014. The Dean of Students Office also will share with us the Orientation activities that have been planned to welcome these phenomenal students to campus.
Vice President for Enrollment Search
We have launched a search for a Vice President for Enrollment to replace Patricia Goldsmith, who assumed the Vice President for Institutional Advancement position on July 1. A search committee has been formed with Thierry Boucquey, Associate Dean of Faculty/Professor of French; Claire Bridge, Assistant to the President; Mark Figueroa, Director of Assessment, Planning & Institutional Research; Kelly Hewitt, Program Director of Scripps College Academy; and James Manifold, Treasurer/Vice President for Business Affairs (Committee Chair). A copy of the job announcement has been posted on the College website. We invite your nominations for the position.
While the search is underway, we are fortunate that William “Bill” Tingley, who retired in February 2010 after 12 years as Vice President for Admission and Financial Aid at Occidental College, has agreed to serve as Senior Advisor for Enrollment. Highly respected throughout the admission and financial aid profession, Bill brings more than four decades of experience, which includes positions at Pitzer College and Stanford University. His expertise in admission and financial aid will serve us well as we assess our current operations and plan for the future. We are confident that with Bill’s assistance, Scripps College will be able to ensure both consistency and stability with our enrollment planning during this time of transition.
Scripps College Academy (SCA)
For its innovative and successful academic enrichment programs, Scripps College Academy has been named a 2010 Coming Up Taller semifinalist by the United States President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. This presidential commendation recognizes outstanding community arts and humanities programs that celebrate the creativity of America’s young people and provide them with learning opportunities and chances to contribute to their communities. Scripps College Academy is one of 50 semifinalist organizations out of 459 nominations from 48 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. This fall, the 15 Coming Up Taller Award finalists will be announced; each award recipient will receive a $10,000 prize presented by First Lady Michelle Obama and an invitation to attend the annual Coming Up Taller Leadership Enhancement Conference in Washington, DC.
Denison Library
You will recall that in 2009, the Council of The Claremont Colleges voted to consolidate its libraries in an effort to reduce costs. It was decided that Honnold/Mudd Library would remain open, but all other campus library buildings managed by the Claremont University Consortium (CUC) would return to their respective institutions. Sprague and Seeley Mudd libraries closed in June 2009; the Consortium extended funding for Denison Library through June 2010.
On June 22, CUC began the process of removing its books and collections that have been housed at Denison Library. You may have seen the large book carts rolling down Columbia Avenue to the Honnold/Mudd complex. Of the Denison collections, only the circulating monograph collections are moving to Honnold/Mudd.
The historic Kaufmann Wing of the library will remain open, and all of the Scripps-owned special collections — the rare books, Macpherson Collection, Scripps College Archives, and manuscripts — will remain in that building and be accessible to faculty and students. The hours of operation for the Kaufmann Wing will be announced later this summer. The newer Drake wing of Denison Library, which had held the majority of the CUC collection, has been closed.
I will be appointing a design committee, composed of faculty, students, staff, and alumnae, to review and plan for the renovation and repurposing for the entire facility — the historic Kaufman Wing and the Drake addition. Several principles will guide this committee’s deliberations in the months ahead. We must minimize disruption to Scripps College and the larger community; maintain access to the important resources used by students, faculty, and classes; and optimize a final design to provide flexible academic space that will preserve the historic Kaufmann Wing. This process also will address the significant Denison Library renovation needs that have been deferred for decades. We will continue to keep you informed as our work progresses.
Center for Women’s Research and Leadership
Amy Marcus-Newhall, Vice President and Dean of Faculty, has been appointed chair of the steering committee for the Center for Women’s Research and Leadership. Establishing a Center is one of the key initiatives identified in the 2007 Strategic Plan to strengthen Scripps’ role as a national leader in women’s education. The Committee will review preliminary planning documents currently on file and explore how Scripps’ location in Claremont and in Southern California could be used to advantage the Center, as well as how the Center might connect current activities on campus. The Committee also has been asked to identify program elements that might be created to enable the College to further meet its Mission. The steering committee includes Trustee Joanne Blauer, Chair of Educational Policy Committee; Claire Bridge, Assistant to the President; Kelly Hewitt, Program Director of Scripps College Academy; Andrew Jacobs, Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Vicki Klopsch, Director of Career Planning and Resources; Nancy Macko, Professor of Art and Director of the Digital Imaging Program; India Mullady, SAS President; Rita Roberts, Professor of History and Africana Studies, and Natalie Sacks, SAS Chair for Judicial and Academic Review. In the fall, the steering committee will organize discussion groups for members of the College community to share their ideas and aspirations for the Center. With this feedback, the steering committee will develop a discussion paper proposing the objectives, structure, and program elements of the Center.
Student Union
Last fall, Scripps Associated Students (SAS) President India Mullady ’11 and former SAS President Anna Salem ’10 presented a proposal to the Buildings and Grounds (B&G) Committee of the Board of Trustees asking the College to consider creating a student union on campus. Their very convincing presentation highlighted the many benefits students would derive from having a student union on campus. The B&G Committee agreed and wholeheartedly endorsed the concept. The student union project then was referred to the on-campus Facilities Planning Committee (FPC), which was charged with exploring existing spaces on campus to house this new student space. The FPC recommended that the College create a student union by relocating the Student Activities and Residential Life Offices (SARLO) from the second floor of the Malott Commons to the Routt and Frankel Halls area of the campus. SARLO would occupy the space that currently houses the Writing Center (next to the SCORE offices) and the Routt Hall living room. The Writing Center will move to Humanities 121.
Expenses related to creating a student union are being funded by deferring a small number of other approved summer projects. In order to avoid increased costs in the College’s capital budget for this year, we will convert the Writing Center into SARLO office space and defer changes to the Mary Routt living room.
The student union project and subsequent office moves were scheduled to be completed this summer. However, because these moves significantly impact our Student Affairs staff while they are in the midst of preparing for the arrival of our new students, it was decided to delay the opening of the student union until mid-September, when most of the major new student orientation events have taken place.
College Use of McAlister Center
The College will be renting the now-vacant lower level of the CUC McAlister Center to ease the continued shortage of faculty office and academic space. McAlister Center is directly across the street from Balch Hall and houses the Office of the Chaplains. We are reviewing the Facilities Planning Committee’s recommendation on the use of this space, and we will make a final determination within the next few weeks.
Revelle Elm Trees
Recently, the College removed the elm trees in front of Revelle House. After one of the trees fell a few weeks ago, we decided to engage an arborist to assess the health of the remaining elms. She determined that the trees were unsafe. As sad as we are to see them go, we had no other option than to take this safety precaution. Within the next few weeks, we will develop a landscape plan to mitigate the effect of the tree removal before the beginning of the new school year. Some of the wood from the elm trees will be milled and used to make special campus furniture. Other mulched wood is being spread throughout the campus in planter areas.
We are happy to report that, after two years, the new trees on Elm Tree Lawn continue to flourish. When we purchased the trees, we ordered additional reserve trees in the unlikely event that some of the new plantings needed to be replaced. It is now clear that we no longer need these extra trees. The College has given one of the elms to the City of Claremont, which lost a 100-year-old tree damaged during a recent construction project. As a town/gown gesture, we donated the tree that you can now see planted at the southeast corner of Indian Hill Boulevard and 10th Street. We used another elm to replace the weakened tree in Hibiscus Court in Grace Scripps Clark Hall.
Strategic Planning
In 2008-2009, the Ad Hoc Committee on Strategic Plan Prioritization and Implementation (AHC) was established and charged with reviewing the 2007 Strategic Plan to analyze the costs and financial impact of the initiatives outlined in the plan and presenting the Board of Trustees with a prioritization of those initiatives. During the past 18 months, the AHC, composed of trustees, alumnae, faculty, students, and staff, conducted a thoughtful and thorough analysis of the approximately 50 action items delineated in the 2007 Strategic Plan. In its final report, the AHC identified key funding priorities and the requisite endowment levels needed to successfully achieve these goals. The Board adopted the AHC’s recommendations at its June 5th meeting. Next, we will conduct a feasibility study to determine if these key priorities are of interest to the College’s donors, and then develop appropriate fundraising strategies.
Moving Forward
At the June 5th Board meeting, I was asked to present my “vision” of the College. My comments reflect the collective hopes, aspirations, and expectations that are shared by faculty, students, staff, alumnae, parents, trustees, and friends based on my many conversations with them throughout this past academic year. Scripps College has a wonderful reputation, but now we must work to move toward greater recognition of excellence and strengthening of our programs and financial position. This is no ordinary college. Scripps aspires to be known not just as the premier women’s college, but also as a model for liberal arts and sciences education. At the same time, the College will be recognized as one that retains a deep connection to and respect for the legacy of its past, focuses on its mission, and preserves its commitment to sustaining our College community.
Our collective vision is to continue our forward momentum. There is much work to be done. However, the tremendous positive energy among all members of the campus constituencies only increases my anticipation of success for the coming years.
Sincerely,
Lori Bettison-Varga