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Notes & Quotes from the 49th Commencement
Keynote Address Mae C. Jemison, medical doctor, astronaut, philanthropist, activist, businesswoman
“Perhaps the greatest challenge you’re going to have to face in the years to come is facing up to our humanity and what it means to us. Facing up to our humanity is the progression of our ability to not just tolerate one another, but to truly see ourselves in each other, and accept and want the best.”
“What science we decide to research and what technology we decide to develop depends on the people we are. It depends on society… It really is our choice, it is our right and our responsibility to decide what we do with our collective resources.”
Jemison is the first woman and the 11th recipient of an HMC honorary doctor of engineering degree. She has worked in both engineering and medicine, was a NASA astronaut for six years, and was an A.D. White Professor-at-Large at Cornell University. She is founder of the Jemison Group, Inc., which focuses on the beneficial integration of science and technology into everyday life. Her latest venture is a new medical technology company, BioSentient Corporation.
Student Keynote Amanda J. Hickman ’07
On what defines a Mudder: “It’s this passion for science, math and engineering, this passion for understanding, this passion for knowledge which unites all of us. This is the passion that makes it possible to keep going even through the hardest times at Harvey Mudd [College].”
“Harvey Mudd [College] will always be a place for passionate creative thinkers who are dedicated to their endeavors. It will always be a place for people who think not just about the facts and the figures, but about people. A place where we help each other and where we know each other.”
Hickman graduated with a degree (high distinction, departmental honors) in chemistry. Her other awards and honors include American Chemical Society Division of Polymer Chemistry Award, Phi Lambda Upsilon (Honorary Chemical Society), and the William and Margaret Radley Prize. She will pursue a Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.

HMC Strategic Vision Work Underway
Two themes from the college’s Strategic Plandiversity and experiential learningare currently receiving special attention due to their importance to the college’s development over the next decade. Two groups are hard at work.
A Strategic Vision Diversity Committee composed of 11 faculty, two students and three administrative staff members began meeting in the spring. The committee held a retreat to assess the current campus climate for diversity and identify strategies to improve it. They then arranged for organizational diversity expert Janice Eddy to hold meetings with community members to discuss perspectives and perceptions. Information from these talks were discussed in the Multicultural Forum held May 1618 for over 40 faculty, staff members, alumni and students, who learned about ways to improve the climate for diversity at HMC. Five facilitators, representing a diversity of ethnic backgrounds, shared articles and videos and led participants in discussions and learning groups. “This is the first step toward a comprehensive plan for diversity training for all faculty and staff,” said President Maria Klawe.
As part of the diversity initiative, a search has begun for an Assistant/Associate Dean for Institutional DiversityStudents. The position, which will report to the dean of students, will provide support and advocacy for students and will lead campus-wide programming, act as an adviser to individuals and student organizations, and help with recruitment efforts. “This position is particularly important to ensure success for the increased diversity we expect in our incoming students this fall,” said Klawe. A record number of women make up the entering class of 2011.
The 11-member Strategic Vision Curriculum Committee has been meeting since early February. Building on the many ideas raised in the strategic planning process about the curriculum, the committee began work by developing a detailed action plan. The plan will engage the community in thinking about how the HMC curriculum will continue to be a vital and energizing component in the education of leaders for the 21st century. The committee has also developed a set of goals, derived from the Mission Statement, that require assessment of HMC’s curriculum as well as other curricular models. The assessment will determine how well the college is accomplishing what it hopes to achieve with and for its students. In addition, the committee has surveyed the curriculum at a variety of other top-tier institutions (Core and major) in order to understand what these schools are doing and what can be learned from their recent curricular reforms. During the summer, the group will engage the faculty and students in thinking about the function and makeup of the Core, with the goal of having one or more model Core curricula available for the community to discuss.
“It is an immense task,” said Bob Cave, professor of chemistry, “but is critical to the ability of HMC to continue to lead and thrive in the coming decades.”.
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circle of silence
Members of student government invited the HMC community to join together April 18 on the lawn between Kingston and Thomas-Garrett Halls for silence and prayer as a way to remember and commemorate those affected by the shootings at Virginia Tech. President Maria Klawe reached out to Virginia Tech’s president Charles Steger with a message that can be found at www.hmc.edu/newsandevents/virginia_tech.html
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Mudd Joins Alliance to Boost CS Majors
HMC has joined a national alliance to be led by Rice University that will engage underrepresented minority students in computing disciplines at majority institutions. The network, composed of leading univer-sities, professional societies, laboratories, research centers and corporations, will involve students in research opportunities, professional development, mentoring programs and support to keep the students excited and motivated as they pursue computing careers.
“The Computer Science Department at HMC is very enthusiastic about this alliance and looks forward to engaging and contributing to it,” said Ran Libeskind-Hadas, professor of computer science and Joseph B. Platt Professor of Effective Teaching.
The Empowering Leadership (EL) Alliance will help ensure the success of minority scholars who are so sparsely scattered across the country that they may be the only one, or one of very few, minority students in their computing classes. Through the EL Alliance, scholars will have access to personal, tailored career support as they pursue their degrees.
According to Richard Tapia, professor at Rice University and director of the EL Alliance, “At universities across the country, we are seeing what I call the ‘loss of the precious few.’ Research shows that isolated, unsupported students of all kinds will leave an environment that does not meet their needs. Students migrate to more welcoming degree programs and departments where they recognize that they have support, a vested interest, and a high probability of success. Those that do complete bachelor’s degrees in the computing disciplines may have had such a painful journey that they are unlikely to consider graduate school, and another opportunity for diversifying our national leadership in computing and advanced technology has been lost.” Tapia spoke at HMC in the fall.
There are indeed precious few students. According to the 2004 2005 Taulbee Study, an annual report from the Computing Research Association (CRA), there were just 38 minority (African-American, Native American or Hispanic) Ph.D. graduates in computer science or computer engineering, out of a total of 1,189. Even more alarming, enrollment is down. Recognizing that the country is at a critical juncture to retain every student in the computing disciplines, the National Science Foundation started a “Broadening Participation in Computing” program in 2005 that now has nine alliances, including the EL Alliance.
The EL Alliance is being led by Rice University, Boston University, UC Berkeley, University of Colorado, Boulder, University of Texas at Austin, and Southern Illinois University, Carbondale. Partners include HMC (the only college) and other universities; professional societies; national laboratories and centers; and corporations.

Walton is CUC CEO
Beginning July 1, Robert A. Walton will become chief executive officer for Claremont University Consortium, the central coor-dinating institution of The Claremont Colleges. CUC provides common services for two graduate and five undergraduate colleges serving more than 6,000 students. Walton’s appointment was announced in January by Robert E. Gipson, chairman of the CUC Board of Overseers. Brenda Barham Hill left the CEO post Jan. 31, 2007 after six years of leading the consortium through a crucial period in its development.
Walton was vice president for finance and business at The College of Wooster, in Wooster, Ohio. Beginning in 1997, he oversaw an annual operating budget of $90 million and managed all non-academic services and functions, including auxiliary operations, information technology, human resources, contract management, and management of the college’s endowment. During Walton’s term as vice president, more than $92 million in capital projects were initiated or completed, including renovation and new construction. In addition, Walton served as the college’s representative to key collaborative efforts, including the Operating Committee of the Ohio Five Colleges, Inc.
Previous to Wooster, Walton served as executive vice president and chief financial officer at Innovative Interfaces, Inc., a leading supplier of information technology to university and government markets. He has also worked for the Texas State Library and Archives Commission as a librarian and director of the Data Processing and Technology Center, and concurrently served as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Texas at Austin, Graduate School of Library and Information Science.
Walton has both bachelor of science and master of library and information science degrees from the University of Texas at Austin. He presently serves on several corporate boards, including iPost Corporation, the Seaman Corporation, and Abbott Capital Private Equity Investments, Inc., is an elected member of the Wooster City School Board, and is a former chairman of the Wooster Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors.

Faculty News

Sustainability audit begins
The call to advance environmental sustainability efforts has been heard around the world, and organizations are responding. HMC has joined the other Claremont Colleges in this effort and has initiated its own projects as well.
Recent student research projects explored water consumption, two new student organizations, Mudders Organizing for Sustainability Solutions and Engineers for a Sustainable World, are attracting growing numbers of students, and a Campus Plant Committee made up of trustees and administration is working on various conservation and improvement projects. Richard Haskell, professor of physics, is spearheading a coordinated campus sustainability audit at The Claremont Colleges, what he calls, “a true collaboration” across the 5-Cs.
His team’s proposal, “Sustainability audits on the Claremont campuses” was selected by the Council of Presidents and the Academic Deans Council as one of three initiatives aimed at designing and implementing new ideas and approaches for advancing environmental sustainability.
Coordinated by Haskell, the multidisciplinary team consists of faculty, students and staff from HMC, Pomona and Scripps colleges, the Joint Science Department of CMC, Pitzer and Scripps colleges, and CUC. On all five undergraduate Claremont campuses members will conduct coordinated sustainability audits that will focus on the performance of representative buildings, including electrical power consumption and natural gas use. The amount of greenhouse gas emissions will be calculated, including indirect emissions from purchased power. The data collected will enable the evaluation of the “carbon footprint” for the colleges’ facilities and physical plant, so as to provide a basis for setting goals and measuring progress toward a reduced carbon footprint. The carbon footprint will be compared with the Kyoto Protocol or “carbon neutrality,” each representing a popular measure of environmental impact.
Water usage will be studied on a per-building basis (to the extent possible), including sewage generation and storm water runoff. In addition, particular attention will be paid to the amount of water used on landscaping at the colleges.
Recycling practices and policies will be examined, not only in the academic and residential sectors of the campuses, but in the food service facilities as well. The impact of campus vehicles will be estimated, and chemical usage for building operations and housekeeping will be monitored.
The data collected will be used to develop recommendations to improve building performance, and estimates of projected savings will be provided. A combination of websites and digital library will be used to display the gathered information.
The team will benefit from the support of HMC alumni Malcolm Lewis ’67 and Jon Roberts ’93 from CTG Energetics, a firm that provides energy and sustainability consulting to clients. Both are enthusiastic promoters and supporters of the Claremont-wide sustainability movement. Samuel Tanenbaum, professor of life sciences and engineering and dean emeritus, who led conservation efforts at HMC for many years, is also a team member. The HMC students who will participate include Lauryn Baranowski ’09, Samuel Brunswick ’07, Annika Eberle ’09, Kelley Hodges ’09, Kristen Huff ’07, Trevin Murakami ’09, Claire O’Hanlon ’09, Eric Peterson ’09 and Corina Tom ’08.

Conference Honors Henriksen
On the occasion of his 80th birthday, Melvin Henriksen, professor of mathematics emeritus, was honored by his mathematics colleagues with a Conference on Ordered Rings (Ord ’07) held this past April at Louisiana State University (LSU). Co-organizer James Madden, LSU professor and a former student of Henriksen’s, said, “Mel is just a grand old man of ordered rings. He’s dipped into every aspect of it. He’s responsible for a large research communitypeople who are pursuing questions he originally raised and developing ideas that hatched first in his brain.”
Henriksen, who graduated from the City College of New York with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics in 1948, is a major innovator in a part of topology developed mostly in the second half of the 20th century. His work on “rings of continuous functions” helped create a new field of mathematics that combines topology with modern algebra. This new mathematics started with a seminar he co-organized in 195455.
Topology is a branch of mathematics that deals with shapes and continuity, while modern algebra investigates operations with properties like those of addition and multiplication of numbers, or matrices. The study of rings of continuous functions spans both fields.
Henriksen was the unnamed third author on the famous book “Rings of Continuous Functions” by Meyer Jerison and Leonard Gillman, past president of the Mathematical Association of America. Madden said that it was Henriksen’s work that contributed substantially to the work. Henriksen also wrote a paper with Gillman on “real closed fields” that Madden calls “an ancient monument in real algebraic geometryStonehenge for the discipline.”
While he acknowledged that many of his colleague’s discussions at the conference were based on work that he had originated, Henriksen remarked, “I learned something from them.”
An avid history buff, Henriksen likes to travel and collaborate with mathematicians in India, Iran and Jordan, whom he keeps in touch with by e-mail.

A tour with class
In the first two weeks of January 2007, Professors Jim Eckert and Jeff Groves led a study tour to England in connection with their class, Literature 117: Dickens, Hardy and the Victorian Age. Having read eight novels by these authors that touch on various facets of the history of England in the 19th century, 19 HMC students and one Scripps student spent one week in London visiting sites associated with Dickens, and then five days in Dorset visiting sites associated with Hardy. Professor of Physics and dean emeritus Tom Helliwell and his wife, Bonnie Busenberg, also participated in the course and the study tour, as did Groves’s wife Teresa Shaw. Joe Heyer (parent of Erin Heyer ’07) joined the study portion of the course.
As an optional part of the first week, a number of students and host Michael Dworetsky ’65, visited the London College Observatory. Other alumni also interacted with the course. David Ruiz ’92 accompanied the group for a late-night Dickens walking tour through the back streets and alleyways around St. Paul’s Cathedral, and Mark Huberty ’00 joined the Dorset portion of the tour, which included several long, wet rambles through Hardy’s countryside. Ruiz, Huberty and six other alumniBruce McNaughton ’70, Keith Cornell ’78, Kathleen DeWitt ’78, Colin Edwards ’95, Amanda Leach ’99 and Liz Gordon ’99attended a special dinner held in an old London pub and carvery which allowed them to meet the current students and interact with the HMC faculty members present.

Goroff leaves VP/Dean post
Daniel L. Goroff, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the faculty since 2005, announced that he would step down from the position June 30. Robert Cave, professor of physics, will serve in the position during the national search for a successor.
Said Goroff, “I am grateful for the opportunity to have served this community as your Dean, and appreciate all the cooperation, encouragement, mutual respect, achievements and progress that characterized our work together.”
A tenured professor of mathematics and economics, Goroff said he hopes to continue to be involved in projects and initiatives at HMC, including the development of courses in financial mathematics. During the 200708 academic year, Goroff will be on leave from the college studying and gaining experience “that could enable me to lead such an initiative.”
Goroff is co-director of the Sloan Scientific and Engineering Workforce Project based at the National Bureau of Economic Research and chairs the U.S. National Commission on Mathematics Instruction at the National Research Council.

briefly
Bill Alves, associate professor of music, performed with the HMC American Gamelan and the Pacific Symphony Orchestra to rave reviews from the L.A. Times, the Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg.
Mary Cardenas, associate professor of engineering, will succeed Bob Cave as associate dean for academic affairs during 200708.
Mathematics faculty Lisette de Pillis, Daniel Goroff, Weiqing Gu and students Ben Preskill ’09, David Gross ’08 and James Moore ’07 visited Capitol Hill in Washington D.C. June 2527 to present their work on “Mathematical Modeling of the Chemotherapy, Immunotherapy and Vaccine Therapy of Cancer” for the Coalition on National Science Funding.
Zach Dodds, associate professor of computer science, was a co-organizer for the 2007 AAAI Spring Symposium on “Robots and Robot Venues: Resources for AI Education” held at Stanford University in March 2007.
Ziyad Durón ’81 is now chair of the engineering department, succeeding Anthony Bright, who held the position for five years. Durón has been an engineering faculty memberhe is the Jude and Eileen Laspa Professorsince 1987.
During the academic year 200708, Weiqing Gu, professor of mathematics, will serve as visiting scientist, engineer and educator in the Division of Mathematics of the National Science Foundation. As a program officer, her responsibilities include research, workforce and infrastructure. Her primary assignment will be in the Topology and Geometric Analysis program.
“Such an offer shows once more the high esteem of the scientific community for the HMC faculty,” said Alfonso Castro, chair of the Department of Mathematics.
David Harris and Sarah Harris (no relation), engineering faculty, published a text on “Digital Design and Computer Architecture.” Amazon.com says they, “… combine an engaging and humorous writing style with an updated and hands-on approach to digital design.”
Geoff Kuenning, associate professor of computer science, has been invited to join the Program Committee for the 5th USENIX Conference on File Storage Technologies (FAST 2007), the premier conference in this field.
Ran Libeskind-Hadas, professor of computer science, and his summer 2006 research students, Ben Birnbaum (Washington University), Karyn Benson (Wellesley College) and Esteban Molina-Estolano ’06 had a paper accepted to the ACM/IEEE Transactions on Networking. Their paper describes new algorithms for solving routing problems in optical networks.
Rachel Mayeri’s new video, “Primate Cinema: Baboons as Friends,” premiered this April at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Denmark as part of the group show, Distant Relations. “Primate Cinema” is a series of video experiments that translate primate social dramas for human audiences. The first experiment, “Baboons as Friends,” is a two-channel video installation juxtaposing field footage of baboons with a reenactment by human actors, shot in film noir style. Mayeri is assistant professor of media studies.
Paul Steinberg, assistant professor of political science and environmental policy, and Director of the Center for Environmental Studies, hosted Greening XVI, an annual conference of environmental social scientists from throughout Southern California. The April 21 event featured undergraduates, graduate students, post-docs and faculty presenting on global, national, local and institutional challenges, and policy issues.
The staff and editorial board of Interface, a multidisciplinary journal dedicated to the promotion and dissemination of student research at HMC, have archived all 23 past issues of the journal at The Claremont Colleges Digital Library. The site contains the exemplary work--technical papers, expository articles, poems and photographs--of past HMC students.
“Long before 'interdisciplinary research' became a buzzword in modern academia, HMC celebrated such work in its first 1973 issue,” said Darryl Yong ’96, assistant professor of mathematics and editor-in-chief of Interface since 2004.
Yong was organizer of the second annual Imagine Math Day held in April for 65 high school math students and 15 secondary math teachers. The topic was non-Euclidean geometry. Imagine Math Day is supported by the HMC Professional Development Outreach Group, which Yong directs.

In Memoriam: Albert Baez, physics faculty member
Former physics faculty member Albert Baez died March 20 in Redwood City, Calif., at age 94. He helped develop the field of X-ray imaging optics and was on the team that developed the first X-ray reflection microscope that could examine living cells. His tenure at HMC was brief (196061). He left HMC for UNESCO, a specialized agency of the United Nations, which appointed him to work with member states interested in the improvement of teaching in the natural sciences. He continued through much of his life as a teacher of teachers. Baez is the father of folk singers Joan Baez and the late Mimi Farina.
Staff News

Briggs to lead Admission and Financial Aid
Thyra L. Briggs, former dean of enrollment at Sarah Lawrence College, has been chosen to serve as the vice president and dean of admission and financial aid at HMC. Briggs succeeds Youlonda Copeland-Morgan, who left the position last fall after 10 years at the college, and Peter Osgood, who served as interim vp and dean and will be returning to his duties as Director of Admission.
“I know Briggs is going to be a wonderful addition to our college,” said President Maria Klawe. “There was an unusually talented group of applicants for this position, and I could not be more happy that our top choice will join us.”
“In a world of higher education when so many colleges try to be everything to all people, I was excited to find in HMC an institution that is unapologetically true to itself with astounding results,” Briggs said. “It is important that the college continue to attract a high level of committed and talented students while strengthening the depth and diversity of the applicant pool, and I look forward to leading this challenge.”
Briggs comes to HMC with many years of experience in college admission and enrollment. In her 15 years at Sarah Lawrence College in Bronxville, N.Y., Briggs moved up in ranks from admission counselor to assistant and associate director of admission to the college’s dean of admission then to her current role, dean of enrollment.
Briggs is a member of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, the New York State Association for College Admission Counseling, and the College Board. She is also an advisory board member of CITYterm, a New York-based college-preparatory program that brings together seven residential faculty and 30 high school juniors and seniors for a semester of intensive, experience-based learning. From 2004 to 2007, Briggs served as curriculum director of the New York State Association for College Admission Counseling Summer Institute, which trains new admission and guidance counselors. She earned bachelor of arts degrees in religious studies and child development (magna cum laude) from Connecticut College.

Butcher wins Binder
Dining Services employee and Jay’s Place Supervisor Brian Butcher was the recipient of the 2007 Mary G. Binder Prize, given to outstanding staff members. An employee at HMC for nearly six years, Butcher runs the very popular late-night HMC eatery that serves up top-selling Philly cheese steak and meatball sandwiches, as well as pizza and other late-night fare. Butcher is known for his friendly, welcoming demeanor. A nominator said of him, “[Brian displays] the most overwhelming sense of caring I’ve seen exhibited on this campus. He knows the names of nearly every Mudd student ...”
The award, Butcher said, makes his work at HMC “that much more awesome.”
The prize includes a $500 check, Brian’s name registered on the Mary G. Binder Prize plaque and a commemorative certificate.

Staff changes, additions
In the Department of Facilities and Maintenance, Robin Ashby accepted the position of assistant director and Isabel Gallegos was hired as facilities use coordinator.
Debra Heavenston, assistant vice president, Human Resources, is now also harassment grievance officer, a position previously held by Karen Angemi, executive assistant to the president.
The Office of the Registrar welcomed Becky Millen as assistant registrar and Denise Lubelski as assistant to the registrar, a promotion from her previous status as a temporary employee. Millen comes to HMC from Cerritos College where she served as program coordinator for international students.
Student News

Graduates headed abroad
Rosalind Beckwith ’07 of Tempe, Ariz., and Kevin Mistry ’07 of Randolph, N.J., each received prestigious scholarships that will allow them to study abroad.
Beckwith was awarded one of 12 Winston Churchill Foundation Scholarships, which offer American students the opportunity to pursue graduate studies in engineering, mathematics or the sciences at Churchill College, University of Cambridge. The scholarship offers one year of study and research at Cambridge and covers all fees, a living allowance at Churchill College, a grant for travel to and from the United States, and a research grant.
An engineering major, Beckwith has a special interest in fluid dynamics. She has done internships and research projects for Boeing, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, and Honeywell Engines. She was president of Tau Beta Pi at HMC, recipient of departmental honors in engineering and the Davies Engineering Prize, and a winner of a scholarship from the Department of Homeland Security. She plays French horn, was a member of the varsity swim team and has completed two triathlons.
Mistry, a physics major, was awarded the J. William Fulbright Scholarship for study at the University of Austria. He will be conducting research on Bose-Einstein condensates at the Institute for Experimental Physics at the University of Innsbruck in Austria. He will work with Hanns-Christoph Nagerl of the ultracold atoms and quantum gases group at the institute. Mistry also plans to take courses in German and advanced physics.
The Fulbright program is the largest U.S. international exchange program.

NSF Fellowships Announced
HMC has 10 recipients among its current and recent graduates and five honorable mention recipients of National Science Foundation 2007 Graduate Fellowships.
- Sara Al-Beaini ’06, mechanical engineering, University of California, Berkeley
- Laurel Fullerton ’07, mechanical engineering, Stanford University
- Elaine Hart ’06, materials engineering, Stanford University
- Nan Jiang ’07, electrical and electronic engineering, Stanford University
- Christine Kalcic ’06, analytical chemistry, Michigan State University
- James McDonough ’07, polymer chemistry, Stanford University
- Katherine Perdue ’05, bioengineering and biomedical engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Gwen Spencer ’05, mathematical sciences operations research, Cornell University
- Daniel Walton ’07, mathematical sciences probability and statistics, University of California, Berkeley
- Andrew Wetzel ’05, physics and astronomy astrophysics, University of California, Berkeley
Honorable Mention:
- Audrey Sederberg ’06, physics and astronomy theoretical physics, Princeton University
- Tommy Leung ’05, electrical and electronic engineering, California Institute of Technology
- Allison Hutchings ’07, mechanical engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Sean Fogarty ’06, life sciences animal behavior, University of California, Davis
- Stephanie Chan ’03, bioengineering and biomedical engineering, University of California, Davis

Three get Goldwater Grants
  
The three HMC juniors receiving the Goldwater Scholarship for study during their senior year are
Karen C. Brown, chemistry
Career Goal: Ph.D. in organic chemistry. Conduct cutting-edge and intellectually demanding research that directly promotes human welfare through synthetic organic chemistry either in a biotech company or academia.
Brian T. Rice, mathematics
Career Goal: Ph.D. in pure mathematics. Conduct research in discrete mathematics and teach at the university level.
Peter J. Scherpelz, physics
Career Goal: Ph.D. in physics. Conduct research in quantum optics or a related field, and teach in a university setting.
The Goldwater Scholars were selected on the basis of academic merit from a field of 1,110 mathematics, science and engineering students who were nominated by the faculties of colleges and universities nationwide. Scholarships cover the cost of tuition, fees, books, and room and board.

COMPETITION RESULTS
HMC Places 10th in the Nation
2006 William Lowell Putnam Mathematical Competition HMC had a great showing, with a Top 10 finish in the team category (out of 508 schools) and many strong individual performances.
Fifty-two HMC students spent a Saturday in December taking a very hard six-hour exam, which requires a unique blend of cleverness and problem-solving skills. Nationwide 3,640 students competed, and this year the median score was 0 out of a total of 120 points. The HMC team of: Brian Rice ’08, Greg Minton ’08 and Theodore Spaide ’09 earned Honorable Mention (team category) for finishing 10th place out of 508 schools.
In the individual category, two students made the Top 100 List, four made the Top 200 List, and 13 made the Top 500 List, a great accomplishment given HMC’s enrollment. Only six of the 508 schools who competed could claim more students in the Top 500.
Special honors go to the following participants:
|
SCORE |
NATIONWIDE RANK |
HONOR |
| Brian Rice ’08 |
59 |
56 |
Honorable Mention |
| Theodore Spaide ’09 |
50 |
92.5 |
Top 100 List |
| Jonathan Azose ’07 |
40 |
140 |
Top 200 List |
| Peter McLarnon ’09 |
38 |
166 |
Top 200 List |
In addition, the following students made the Top 500 List: Steven Ehrlich ’09, Alex Izsak ’07, Fred Johnson ’10, Kenji Kozai ’08, Greg Minton ’08, Maria Pavlovskaia ’09, George Tucker ’08, Daniel Walton ’07 and Jason Winerip ’08.
Three Teams
Meritorious in the MCM
Three HMC teams earned Meritorious honors in the 2007 Mathematical Modeling Contest (MCM) held in February. Twenty-one HMC students participated in this year’s competition (seven teams of three students; four MCM teams and three Interdisciplinary Contest in Modeling (ICM) teams. This year the MCM had a record 949 entries worldwide, with 14 entries earning Outstanding. The Meritorious desig-nation was awarded to 122 papers comprising the top 13 percent of the entries.
During the contest, each team has 96 consecutive hours to research, develop and analyze a mathematical model on an open-ended real- world problem. By the end of the contest, teams submit a formal paper on their work. The team’s papers are judged not only on their scientific and mathematical accuracy, but also on their clarity of exposition, insight and creativity. Teams choose one of three challenging real-world problems.
This year’s problems concerned: (A) Gerrymandering (develop a model for “fairly” and “simply” determining congressional districts); (B) Airplane seating (devise and compare procedures for boarding and de-boarding planes of varying sizes from 85 to 800); (C) Kidney exchange (science, management, and policy issues for organ transplantation networks).
The MCM allows teams to choose (A) or (B), while Problem (C) defines the ICM. Notably this year, three out of four HMC MCM teams earned Meritorious: Problem A: Natalie Durgin ’10, Michael Hansen ’07, Herbie Huff ’07, and David Gross ’08, Will Tipton ’08, Reuben Villagomez ’08; Problem B: Martin Hunt ’08, Kenji Kozai ’08, George Tucker ’08.

Return of The Muddraker
The latest scoop is that The Muddraker, the student newspaper that was published from the mid-1970s to the early 1990s, has been revived by a group of 17, mostly frosh, Mudders. The staff decided to publish one issue of The Muddraker before the current academic year closed, and the “new” issue appeared May 2 with Lea Zernow ’10 as its editor-in-chief.
The idea to again publish a student newspaper came out of strategic planning workshops, during which community members suggested ways to “break the Mudd bubble.” Many felt that The Muddraker would be a step in the right direction toward a better-informed and more-aware student community.
In a statement to the community, The Muddraker staff expressed a desire to reduce student apathy about current event issues and to provide a central source of information and discussion. Staff members also view the newspaper as a way to break down communication barriers between students, alumni, faculty, staff and trustees. They also hope students will share their non-academic pursuits within its pages.
Chris Sundberg, associate dean of students and director of student activities, says there is momentum and enthusiasm to continue The Muddraker. More issues are set to roll off the presses beginning in the fall.
MUDD MATTER OF FACT: Muddraker is a play on the word “muckraker,” defined as one who searches for and publicizes, as in newspapers, any real or alleged corruption that violates widely held values.

Cheering Section: HMC Athletes in CMS Sports, Spring 2007
Men’s Basketball 15-10 overall, 7-7 SCIAC (5th)
Nitin Savant ’08
Women’s Basketball 15-10 overall, 10-4 SCIAC (2nd)
Jennifer Osgood ’10
Maggie Weber ’09
Men’s Swimming & Diving 7-2 overall, 6-1 SCIAC (2nd); 32nd at NCAA Championships (NCAAs)
Mark Emanuel ’07 2nd Team All-SCIAC 3m diving; All-American 3m diving, Honorable Mention All-American 1m diving
Jake Rowley ’10
Women’s Swimming & Diving 9-2 overall, 7-0 SCIAC (1st); t14th at NCAAs
Jerrah Holth ’07
Amy Jarvis ’07
Katie Near ’10
Caitlin Olmstead ’10
Women’s Lacrosse 15-2 overall; t17th NCAAs
Kristen Huff ’07 First Team All-West Region
Softball 14-25 overall, 10-14 SCIAC (5th)
Shannon McKenna ’09
Men’s Tennis 26-7 overall, 10-0 SCIAC (1st); t9th at NCAAs
Andrew Sabater ’09
Michael Starr ’10
Women’s Tennis 15-9 overall, 8-2 SCIAC (2nd); t9th at NCAAs
Min Kim ’10
Raquel Robinson ’10
Men’s Track & Field 7-0 SCIAC (1st)
Asaf Bernstein ’08
Victor Camacho ’07 Second Team All-SCIAC 4 x 4 relay
Nate Chenette ’07
Jeff Clark ’09 SCIAC Champion High Jump
Dan Garcia ’10
Masanori Honda ’10
Jon Hubbard ’10
Brian Kirkpatrick ’07
Alex Kurtis ’10
Matt Kurtis ’10
Chen Lim ’10
James Moore ’07
Florian Scheulen ’10
Kyle Zarzana ’07
Women’s Track & Field 7-0 SCIAC (1st)
Rachael Martin ’09
Katie Mouzakis ’07 Second Team All-SCIAC Steeplechase
Women’s Water Polo 14-16 overall, 6-4 SCIAC (t3rd)
Mary Ellen Moore-Simmons ’10
Katie Near ’10
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