GENERAL ANNOUNCEMENTS

Greetings to All Strong College Members (The Class of 2000!) and Old

Summer greetings and salutations to all members and friends of Strong College! During the school year (“term time” as we say) the Strong College Newsletter is distributed every week to all our members and to an assortment of friends of Strong College. During the summer we send out an issue to keep people up to date on what’s been going on in the College while most people are away, and to welcome our new members.

We have an outstanding group of new students joining Strong College this coming year, along with our many loyal and dedicated returning members. The year ahead promises to be a magnificent one! Our membership consists of about 260 student members and 25 faculty Fellows. Most of our student members are undergraduates, but we have a few graduate student members as well. The resident members all live in Moore-Strong Hall, the headquarters of Strong College, and the non-resident members (the Fellows and a small number of students) come to Moore-Strong Hall regularly to participate in College activities and events.

Strong College in a Nutshell (Or, What is a residential college, anyway?)

The idea of a residential college in a large university is unfamiliar to many people. Here’s a bite-sized explanation of what Strong College and places like it are about: There are many advantages to attending a large university. Excellent libraries, a large and diverse faculty, and advanced research opportunities all make for a rich academic experience. But along with all these advantages may come some disadvantages as well. A student in a large institution can sometimes feel lost in the crowd: an anonymous number who doesn’t really have a home or belong to any community. To escape these disadvantages many people choose to attend small liberal arts colleges rather than big universities. In the friendly environment of a liberal arts college they receive excellent support and a strong sense of belonging, but they miss the many advantages that a large institution clearly can offer. It might seem that there is no solution to this dilemma, but in fact there is, and it is a solution that has been adopted at many other institutions, both public and private. That solution is to distribute the student body into smaller collegiate communities, each with an associated group of faculty. These collegiate communities may have their own curricula, as they do at Oxford and Cambridge, but they need not, and indeed collegiate communities like Harvard’s, which have no curricular component at all, are easier to establish and maintain: what holds them together is a social bond and a tradition, developed through regular interaction in a common dining room and library, and at any of a number of regular college functions. Cornelia Strong College is a community of this type, and its new students join in its many traditions.

Opportunities for Service

Strong College is not a cruise ship: it depends very much on the efforts of its members to enrich the College’s daily life. There are a great many opportunities for service in our community, and incoming members will learn more about them when they arrive. Just a few of them are: volunteering to work in the Library, hosting the weekly College Tea with Dr. White, serving on the College Council to help plan social events and College activities, helping to develop the College grounds and gardens, helping to set up and clean up the Blue Lemur Coffee Bar each week, curating the small but growing College coin and stamp collections, participating in the weekly Literary Hour, helping to keep our building pleasant and attractive, giving tours for campus visitors, and of course (the most important of all) watching Star Trek with your fellow Strong College members each week.

Advice to Freshmen

“Leave no stone unturned to insinuate your selves into the favour of the head, and senior-fellows of your respective colleges. Whenever you appear before them, conduct yourselves with all specious humility and demureness; convince them of the great veneration you have for their Persons, by speaking very low, and bowing to the ground at every word; whenever you meet them, jump out of the way with your caps in your hand, and give them the whole street to walk in, be it as broad as it will. Always seem afraid to look them in the face, and make them believe that their presence strikes you with a sort of awe and confusion.” (Nicholas Amhurst’s magazine, Oxford University, ca. 1721)

Points of Light

The Strong College Newsletter regularly reports the doings of College members, so if you are doing anything interesting let us know so we can mention it!

Andrew Winternitz is attending the Olympics in Atlanta, and we are counting on a five-star report from him when he gets back. We understand he has front row seats for the frog jumping contest.

David Day has been continuing to work on his elegant and thematic murals of starships in the Star Chamber over the summer, and Dr. O’Hara has even drawn in one or two more stars. When everyone returns in a few weeks we will have regular star-drawing parties each week during Voyager.

The Strong College Fellows had a secret party earlier this month to which no students were invited. The editor is not at liberty to reveal what went on there.

Deborah Stewart has been working hard as a Summer School RA, and she can’t wait for everyone to be back!

Dr. White is spending two weeks in Vienna, Austria, and will deliver a lecture on sausages upon her return.

Strong-L, our email discussion group for Strong College, has been flourishing all summer with conversations ranging from history to the Olympics to neighborhood beautification (thanks to Dr. Tulloss). Both new and returning students who want to join in should look for information on the bulletin boards soon after they return.

A paper Dr. O’Hara presented at a conference in Milan, Italy, on the history of biology and linguistics was published this summer in the journal of the Milan Museum of Natural History.

Do you have access to the World Wide Web over the summer? Then pay a visit to our web page!

STRONG COLLEGE CALENDAR

The College Calendar appears in the Newsletter each week with reminders of upcoming events. As the year gets underway this space will fill up with many weekly and special events (including the Croquet Tournament!).

Saturday, 17 August

9:00 a.m.–1:00 p.m., Moore-Strong Hall: Check-in for new students who did not attend the “Step Ahead” summer orientation.

Sunday, 18 August

9:00 a.m.–3:00 p.m., Moore-Strong Hall: Check-in for new students who did attend the “Step Ahead” summer orientation.

OFFICIAL DISCLAIMERS: Nothing here is official. Please don’t sue us. I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself King of Infinite Space, were it not that I have bad dreams. Objects in mirror are closer than they appear. May be harmful if swallowed. Fasten seat belts. Soft shoulders. Mind the gap. No caffeine. All trademarks are the property of their owners. For external use only. Do not eat. Your mileage may vary. Store in a cool, dry place. Refrigerate after opening. Does not include tax, title, or destination charges. Drink plenty of fluids. Use only in a well-ventilated area. Very low sodium. No one under 17 admitted without parent or guardian. Past performance does not guarantee future results. This does not represent the official policy of the United States Government, the State of North Carolina, Apple Computer, the International Olympic Committee, the City of Atlanta Transportation Authority, or the fabled Lost City of the Lemurs™. Please recycle. Contains 10% real fruit juice. Wait three minutes before restarting. Shake well. Do not inhale. Wild hammocks crossing. Void where prohibited by law. No refills. Rules subject to change. Give me a home where the buffalo roam. The right of translation is reserved except in regions of temporal distortion. Point away from people while opening. There’s coffee in that nebula. Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. Think continually of those who were truly great. Risk—risk is our business; that’s what this starship is all about; that’s why we’re aboard her. Per aspera ad astra!