The Haverblog

Stephen T. Curwood, Haverford Board of Managers, presents the honorary Doctor of Laws to Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge, Deputy Speaker of the Parliament of South Africa.

“As a Quaker and Friend who remained a pacifist during the struggle against apartheid she was never afraid to speak truth to power… and as a passionate defender of human rights and womens’ rights she is still not afraid to speak truth to power… “

Madlala-Routledge:  “I congratulate all the students who are graduating today… but I wish to remind you that…the world you are about enter is changing…”

She quotes Nelson Mandela: “No one is born hating another person for the color of their skin, or their religion or their background; they must be taught to hate, and if they can be taught to hate they can be taught to love …

Be proud of who you are. Test your conscience in the deepest part of your innner being and persevere in what you know is right… As I  leave and go back to South Africa I hope to build on this relationship we have established between Haverford College and my country South Africa.”

Linda Bell asks the the Class of 2009 to rise. President Emerson confers the degrees. “I invite each of you to receive the college’s diploma as a symbol of your achievements…”

Aryeh Kosman begins the reading of  the names: “Kathleen Keeegan Abels , Claire Choi Adams, Mark Warren Adelsberg …” and the graduates file up to the stage to receive their diplomas.

Fords current, past and fictional have been especially active in the last few weeks.

Haverfordians who read the Philadelphia Inquirer were treated to a terrific photo of junior fencer Emma Buckingham in last Sunday’s sports. The junior from Houston was named the area’s Top Performer among scholar-athletes in all winter sports other than basketball and swimming of all 28 colleges in the Delaware Valley which sponsor intercollegiate athletics. Talk about a Renaissance woman! Emma has been the top epeeist in the Mid-Atlantic region for the last two years and is pursuing a double major in archaeology and classical culture and society. When they remake the Indiana Jones movies and transform the hero into a heroine, we’ve got a casting suggestion!

Speaking of heroines, Haverford “Fringies,” who are not sketchy characters but fans of the FOX Network Tuesday night drama Fringe (think X-Files), were delighted to learn yesterday that Astrid Farnsworth, demure but feisty multi-talented FBI agent and laboratory assistant to a truly mad scientist, holds a BA from Haverford with a double major in music and linguistics. Astrid is portrayed by Jasika Nicole, an appealing young actress, but Jasika attended North Carolina’s Catawba College so the choice of Haverford as the alma mater of her character remains as great a mystery on Fringe as whether the possibly-evil mega-corp Massive Dynamics is responsible for a series of gruesome fatalities. Rumor is that Astrid, who has had to put up with a whole lot so far, will emerge as a leading action hero next year in Fringe’s second season (season finale this year next Tuesday, May 12.) We will solve the other mystery of the show—how Astrid got from Haverford to the FBI and her lab—even if we have to infiltrate Massive Dynamics itself.

Meanwhile, we’re trying to nail down just how the character “Tom Haverford” got so named. He and Amy Poehler shake up the office in the NBC series Parks & Recreation. Is an alum writing for the show?

Item 3 in the Pop Culture Reference section of this report: unless we missed it, there was nothing in the film State of Play – either dialog or visual – that would convey the screenwriter’s notion that Russell Crowe and Ben Affleck met at Haverford, as we’d been told by the Production Designer when they were shooting.

Back in the real world, three Haverfordians will be featured as main speakers on Commencement platforms at Philadelphia-area campuses in this graduation season. MLB Network CEO Tony Petitti ‘83 will deliver the Commencement address at Doylestown’s Delaware Valley College on Saturday, May 16. Former Time, Inc., editor Norm Pearlstine ’64 will enthrall the crowd at Montgomery County Community College on Thursday, May 21 at 7pm. (Norm’s roots are in Montco, where his family played a leading political, legal and educational role for decades.) At the same time as Haverford’s Class of 2009 is walking across stage in front of Roberts Hall (it won’t dare rain on May 17), Joan Countryman, former member of the HC Board of Managers, chair of the Corporation, and founding principal of Oprah Winfrey’s girls’ school in South Africa, will be speaking to graduates of Moore College of Art and Design in Philadelphia.

A soggy annual rite of spring, with the sun just starting to come out after a day of drear.  (Finals?  Somebody say something about Finals?  Not today!)

What started out as a rainy Spring day transformed into perfect weather for everyone participating in National Walk @ Lunch Day. The first fifty people to pre-register received a free pedometer to help them track their progress as they trekked along the Nature Trail. While some were satisfied with a leisurely stroll in the sunshine, others kicked it up a notch.

Fords do end up in unusual places, with resumes unlike those of anyone else. Eri Tagaya ‘06 was a Swat linguistics major, a successful pre-med here, and as admired a student by her peers as I have known.

She is truly gifted in languages, speaking five languages like a native– English, French, Spanish, Japanese and Tagalog (the latter two representing her parents’ countries of origin). And if that’s not enough, at Duane Kight’s suggestion, she took on the extremely difficult task of getting my own dismaying attempts at speaking French into passable shape.

Since graduation, with medical school still a possibility, she has done some business things in SF and, I believe, was asked to teach at the prestigious American School in Switzerland next year.

So this is SuperWoman, but even she didn’t expect this to happen.

When I saw her in SF in January, she said she had entered this competition on a lark, and mainly to please some older friends to whom it meant a lot. She knew she had no chance of winning. The competition is quite a big deal in SF.

Well, for the only time I am aware of, Eri was wrong. See below.

Eri Tagaya Crowned 2009 Queen; Sarah Kasuga Named First Princess

-Greg Kannerstein ‘63

Spring has sprung!

It was so nice, some even had class outside.

Pinwheel day – A Haverford Tradition

I have to be careful how I word this since our posts get picked up by Google News and, removed from the context of this blog, the information contained in this photo might be somewhat alarming:

But it’s all make believe and in good fun, an April 1 tradition in our Koshland Integrated Natural Sciences Center where Physics & Astronomy students have at it every year.  Here’s a ginormous molecular model in the rotunda, festooned with some bonus components:

A history of  the tradition is included in the second item on this page.

…maybe.

Must be quite a way to introduce yourself:  “Hi, I’m Dan and I’m scouting locations for the next Reese Witherspoon movie.”

And that’s pretty much how Dan Kinkade did it.  Not long afterward, I was escorting him around campus so he could see whether we had the look that director James L. Brooks is looking for in his romantic comedy that also stars Owen Wilson and…drum roll for the benefit of everyone who grew up on Saturday Night Live…BILL MURRAY.  A number of scenes are set on a college campus.

Stops on our “location tour” included hallways and classroom spaces in Chase (see photo), Sharpless and the Koshland Science Center as well as athletic facilities (the Walton Track, Swan Field, the fitness center and indoor tennis courts); there’s also a need for a central casting-style ‘professor’s office’ but sadly Aryeh Kosman wasn’t in today, so I’ll have to email Dan a snapshot — I believe that Aryeh even has a bust of Plato on a pedestal.  It’s fair to say that the interior of the library (The Boat and the Phillips Wing) blew Dan’s mind, as did Founders Great Hall (already memorialized in “Eddie and the Cruisers”).

Next step:  he sends the imagery to director Brooks, who flies out to look around in person if he likes what he sees.  Shooting would happen in June.

Though a snowy day, not a Snow Day:  with our customers on campus and so many faculty living within half a mile of Founders Green, it’s business as usual.  Here’s some video, complete with whistling wind as gusts round the southeast corner of Founders.

Video:  You are walking across campus and suddenly attacked by artistically-minded huggers!