Graduating class has seen four years of changes, challenges

When members of the current graduating class drove through the gates of Taylor Hall for the first time on Aug. 25, 2005, they entered the College community at a unique and critical point in its history. Just as these 652 first-year students were unpacking their things, meeting their rommates and waving goodbye to proud parents, faculty and administrators were concluding their search for the tenth President of the College.

That February, President Frances Daly Fergusson had announced that she would be retiring after a tenure of nearly 20 years as leader of the school. Shortly after, the College began an extensive national search for her successor that yielded more than 200 candidates. Of those contenders, the Board of Trustees unanimously elected Catharine Bond Hill that summer—a decision which was announced to Vassar students on Jan. 10, 2006.

The Class of 2009, then, first saw the College as it was beginning a new era—one which would ultimately be the beginning of President Hill's tenure at Vassar. Since then, the graduating seniors and Hill have shared the ups and downs of the past few years as the College has celebrated some of its greatest achievements and faced some of its most difficult challenges.

During their time at Vassar, the Class of 2009 has seen the multi-million-dollar renovations of buildings on campus—including the Art Library, the Town Houses, the Terrace Apartments, Kenyon Hall and the Maria Mitchell Observatory, our oldest building on campus and a National Historic Landmark. They have seen esteemed art exhibits from Rembrandt and Steinberg pass in and and out of the halls of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center. They have seen the completion of the Raymond Avenue reconstruction and the dedication of the clock tower to the Arlington community. They have seen the African Violets march for the first time at Commencement in 2006 and continue to participate in the processional each year since. And they have seen celebrated speakers—like historians Howard Zinn and David McCullough and authors Salman Rushdie and David Sedaris—come to our campus.

Perhaps most notable among the highlights and successes of the tenure of the Class of 2009 was the return to need-blind admissions after 10 years of a need-sensitive policy. When she first became President of the College, Hill made clear that of her priorities for Vassar's future, a strong financial aid program was paramount. "Need-blind is a very important message to be able to tell students," said Hill in a September 2007 Miscellany News article. "It is right direction to go in as a way of increasing socioeconomic diversity at Vassar."

The Vassar Student Association (VSA) first debated a resolution to urge the College to pursue need-blind at Council meeting on Dec. 3, 2006. Nearly five months later, Hill announced the decision to go need-blind in her remarks during the Class of 2007 Commencement, almost exactly two years ago. The Class of 2012 was the first class to be admitted under the need-blind policy. Since then, the Class of 2009—and the 2008-09 VSA Executive Board in particular—has worked tirelessly with the adminsitration to ensure that need-blind remain among the College's foremost priorties even in the midst of a tumultuous financial climate.

Other major initiatives from the Class of 2009 include the success of the Sophomore Class Gift's Shared Bike Program and increased efforts towards a Student's Bill of Rights, as well as the finalization of the gender-neutral housing policy, which began last year with efforts from former VSA Vice President (VP) for Finance Morgan Warners '08. This year's VSA President Jimmy Kelly '09—who saw efforts towards gender-neutral housing from beginning to end—was quoted this fall in The Miscellany News as saying that the policy was a matter of essential civil rights. "It's the biggest accomplishment of the VSA," said Kelly.

The other three seniors on the VSA Executive Board were VP for Activities Alexandria Dempsey '09, VP for Academics Camille Friason '09 and VP for Finance Marcelo Buitron. Throughout the year the team made especially great strides in cultivating a stronger connection between the Poughkeepsie and Vassar communities. After the Meet Me in Poughkeepsie event this October—which featured 31 different local activities in which Vassar students could participate—the VSA introduced Tasty Tuesdays, the hugely successful weekly program in which local vendors sell food and drink to students in the College Center every Tuesday morning and afternoon.

The Class of 2009, however, did not go four years without witnessing its share of setbacks and struggles. When members of the graduating class first arrived at Vassar in 2005, they were confronted with the reality of Hurricane Katrina, which struck the Gulf Coast on Aug. 29. Students responded almost immediately, hosting a candlelight vigil on Sept. 2 and raising thousands of dollars within one year of the tragedy which effected the lives of so many Vassar students.

Later in September 2005, controversy broke out over an article entitled "Race and Freedom" in the Moderate, Independent and Conservative Alliance (MICA)'s publication The Imperialist. Students argued that the article exhibited racist and sexist material. In a Miscellany News Staff Editorial from that month, the editorial board wrote that publication was filled with "irreverent and inflamatory material that belied any interest in engaging students on an intellectual level."
Vassar continued to deal with issues of race and ethnicity when over the next two years, swastikas were found in Raymond House and in Main Building. Students responded immediately by drawing over the symbols with black markers and covering them with signs that read "Make Love, Not Hate." And, in October 2007, a Residential Operations Center attendant found the drawstring cord of a window shade on the sixth floor of Jewett House fashioned as a noose. Soon after, Hill called a campus-wide forum to address the issue.

The Class of 2009 also witnessed its share of political controversies on campus. In the fall of 2008, the Kick Coke campaign—which worked to ban Coca-Cola products from campus—sparked heated debate amongst students across campus. And a debate which began with an all-campus e-mail sent on Dec. 18, 2007—in which Hill announced that the College would be moving the Bookstore from the College Center to an off-campus location—continued this fall and winter. The decision to move became a contentious one, as many students complained that the new store would damage the Arlington Business District. Others expressed concern that they did had not been aware of the possibilitiy of a move off-campus until after Hill had sent her email, which implied that the decision was already a final one.

Since the Bookstore decision was made, however, the project has been put on hold due to the effect of the economic crisis on Vassar. Indeed, if any one event shaped the four-year experience of the Class of 2009, it was one of their last—the 2008 financial decline, which was officially declared a recession by The National Bureau of Economic Research on Dec. 1, 2009.

Following the global recession, 30 percent of Vassar's endowment will be lost by the end of June. Overall employment will need to be reduced by 10 to 15 percent, and the operating budget for the next academic year must be trimmed by $600,000. As seniors, the Class of 2009 has had to lead the student body through what will be, without a doubt, one of the most difficult years in this College's history. They have maintained solid efforts throughout the year to work with administrators to preserve a rich and diverse curriculum, to find creative solutions to cutting costs and to help ensure that student voice is heard in the process of difficult decision-making. Perhaps most notably, the VSA Executive Board attained a seat on the Advisory Group on the Allocation of Faculty Resources, which makes decisions on the future of Vassar's faculty and curriculum.

As the College moves into one of its most challenging years yet, the efforts and projects of the Class of 2009—which have helped to ensure that student voice is present in crucial debates and decisions—will for long continue to be guiding examples for the student leaders of years to come.