When Beth Hughes was given a Vassar College graduation pin that had belonged to a friend’s mother, Ethel Marie Burr, class of 1909, she knew she had a unique treasure on her hands. The tiny pin is shaped like an owl wearing the numbers “09” over its eyes like spectacles, with the initials “E.M.B.” on its back. (Hughes, a history teacher, had also been given Burr’s Vassarion, which she liked to show to her students.) As the hundredth anniversary of Burr’s Vassar graduation approached, Hughes wanted to do something special with the pin — perhaps to present it to a member of this new century’s Vassar ’09ers.
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According to the World Health Organization, 1.1 billion people — nearly 20 percent of the world’s population — lack access to safe drinking water. This staggering number hits close to home for Maria Méndez ’10, a native of Honduras. After learning of her grandfather’s frustration trying to convince the local government to fund a water project in the community of
El Ciruelo, Méndez was struck by an idea.
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Congratulations to Greg Lichtenstein ’12, who made it to the semifinals in the Jeopardy! 2009 College Championship this past May. Lichtenstein was the first-ever Vassar student to compete in the championship, and the only freshman to make it to this year’s semifinals.
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As returning Vassar students make the trek back to Poughkeepsie each fall, they bring the experiences of the summer along with them — months in exotic cities or familiar towns, hours spent behind desks or among crowds, freshly accomplished ventures and newly formed relationships. For Brian Farkas ’10, the summer of 2008 brought him back to Vassar with a hefty amount of research and a 150-page manuscript — the first version of what would become his nearly 300-page book, Covering the Campus: A History of the Miscellany News at Vassar College.
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As a scholar of economics, I’ve always had a keen appreciation for numbers and the stories they can tell. With the new academic year just under way, the statistics about our newest students, the Class of 2013, are telling indeed. They speak simultaneously of our college’s core values, which remain unchanging, and also of how the face of Vassar, like the face of America itself, is changing, becoming ever more diverse—a new development that, paradoxically, underscores why Matthew Vassar’s magnificent enterprise was created in the first place. To begin with, it’s worth noting that in a year of enormous uncertainty on so many levels, Vassar received 7,577 applications for this year’s freshman class—yet another all-time record that, somewhat unexpectedly, reflects an increase of three percent over the previous year. As a result, our acceptance rate of 24.7 percent is another all-time record. By Catharine Hill
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During Vassar’s 2009 Commencement ceremony, Dean of the Faculty Jonathan Chenette acknowledged the “extraordinary dedication” of William Miller and Robert Suter, retiring educators who have served the college and its students for a combined total of 60 years. VQ takes a look back at their careers at Vassar.
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