Two months after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Risa Mongiello '03 asked students and staff at the Malott Commons if their lives had been changed in any way.

Beyond the initial shock, student consensus affirms that Scripps' innovative Core Curriculum in Interdisciplinary Humanities provides the most frustrating, rewarding, upsetting, and enriching academic experience of today's Scripps undergraduates.

"If you have to write to make sense of what's going on in your life, you're a writer." So said author Sandra Cisneros who spoke at Scripps as part of the College's 75th Anniversary Celebration: The Scripps community came out in great numbers to hear the best-selling author of The House on Mango Street and Woman Hollering Creek, on September 25 in the Malott Commons.

by Jenny Schroedel

Molly Ivins made her first return in almost forty years to Claremont, and Scripps, on November 10. She began by regaling the audience of alumnae, students, and local fans with a story of her year at Scripps before transferring to Smith.

She is renowned for her brass tacks tome, Dr. Susan Lave's Breast Book, dubbed by some the "bible for women with breast cancer." And on October 2, she graced the Balch Auditorium stage and shared information about breast cancer and menopause with an audience comprised primarily of her target group.

Award-winning architect Norma Merrick Sklarek modestly and quietly spoke to a spellbound audience in the Humanities Auditorium about her many "firsts." She was the first Afirican-American woman to become a licensed architect in the United States, the first woman elected Fellow of the American Institute of Architects for outstanding architectural contributions.

by Chris Anderson '71

Lech Walesa describes the 21st century as beautiful but dangerous. Tailoring his slated speech on "The Globalization of Democracy" for an audience steeped in recent events, Walesa firmly outlined the need for quick and determined action against what he considers a global battle and an impediment to securing economic and political unification.

On September 18, President Nancy Y. Bekavac sent an e-mail to alumnae. Here are excerpts.

by Leslie Martes '02

In celebration of Ellen Browning Scripps' birthday (October 18th) and the College's 75th anniversary, alumnae hosted events in 15 different cities across the country. The events provided an opportunity to update alumnae on the state of the College, and, this year, to gather together in an unusually difficult time for the nation.

"I have the greatest job in the world," says Margaret Russell '71. "I wake up every morning and can't wait to get to work." As a second-grade teacher at Chaparral Elementary School in Claremont, Russell finds her students a constant source of inspiration. She, in turn, inspires her students with her extraordinary dedication and creative teaching methods.

Ruth Greenberg '89 creates wholeness from fragments. From slabs of clay that she cuts, fires, colors, and arranges, emerge an enchanting underwater scene or a portrayal of Odysseus, Ajax, and Achilles setting sail for Troy.

by Mary Shipp Bartlett

Perhaps she would have traveled a rather dull career path had she not changed her major every year while at Scripps in an effort to explore her varied interests. As it stands, she describes her career as having "three distinct but overlapping parts: painter, theatrical designer, and political activist." She maintains that each area of interest is informed and shaped by the others and has resulted in a deeply satisfying professional-and personal- life journey.

I have sought many words to express how I felt in that moment, but each falls short, each sounds lame and superficial. Where the two familiar forms of the World Trade Center had always stood, I saw a single, orphaned structure, engulfed in fire, perforated by deep charred, black rifts. I thought I knew the meaning of the word "horror," but I didn't have a clue before Tuesday.

On October 27, 2001, Julia Hodgkins '88 was inducted into the CMS Athletic Hall of Fame. Julia was a distinguished basketball and volleyball player in her years at Scripps. Among her volleyball achievements, she was CMS Most Valuable Player in 1985 and 1988.

As a college student, I live in a bubble. It is easy to forget the outside world while in school. I can choose not to look at news web sites and not watch television because I have the excuse that I am busy with class work. My perspective of Scripps and of the world changed on September 11.

We originally planned to focus almost exclusively on the Core Curriculum in Interdisciplinary Humanities for this issue of the Bulletin, with a recap of fall 75th anniversary events and speakers. Then, September 11.

Last spring when we began to plan for this occasion, we intended from the first that this event begin our yearlong celebration of the 75th anniversary of the College, which began its formal existence on May 24, 1926, when the articles of incorporation were signed and filed. What we had in mind then all has been altered by recent events; in Yeats' phrase, "All changed, changed utterly."

First, Nancy Y. Bekavac (1990). Then, Marilyn Chapin Massey (Pitzer, 1991), followed by Pamela Gann (CMC, 1999). In 2001, Brenda Barham Hill (Claremont University Consortium). Now, Laura Skandera Trombley prepares to take the helm as president of Pitzer College, on July 2002, replacing Massey. Skandera Trombley will become the fifth woman to head a Claremont college or the consortium.

Serving as co-presidents of the Scripps Association of Families (SAF) for 2001-2002, Brenda and Nelson Spencer are the newest members of the Scripps College Board of Trustees.

The much-awaited new Scripps swimming pool was completed this summer on the southwest corner of Alumnae Field. The 25-meter pool includes changing rooms and a landscaped sunning area with mature date palms and two specimen coral trees.

On October 6, the Scripps community celebrated the dedication of the Ellen Browning Scripps Reading Room and Courtyard. The courtyard has been landscaped with California native plants, a reflection of Miss Scripps' interest in natural history and wildflowers.

by Kristina Brooks

Martha H. Keates has been appointed vice president for development and college relations, after serving as the acting vice president since July 2001. Her career at Scripps spans seven-and-one-half years, with increasing levels of responsibility in areas of foundations and corporate relations, major and special gifts, planned giving, and management.

by Margo Tanenbaum

This past summer, Scripps seniors and economics students Mackenzie Rowe and Sarah Junker shared an experience they won't soon forget. The two worked as trainees at PRE, the electricity company for Prague, Czechoslovakia. Mackenzie and Sarah were the second team of Scripps students to participate in the program, arranged by Professor of Economics Patricia Dillon.