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Haverford Headlines

Over the past few months, there’s been a lot of change on Haverford’s campus and a lot of national news about Haverford and Haverford alumni. In case you weren’t following along, here are some headlines:

The Good News:

  • Lutnick: new library
    • The most visible change to campus this year was the opening of Lutnick Library, the fresh-faced renovation of Magill. As sophomores enjoy their first year with an actual library and seniors grapple with a severe deficit of carrels, enjoy a sparkling coconut water beverage at the Library Cafe or just watch students slog their way through the first midterms of the year.
  • Duo has a ‘remember me’ setting!
    • Duo is more often said as an epithet than anything else on campus, but our much-mocked account authentication service got just a little bit better this semester with the ability to tell a device to ‘Remember me’ for a week before needing to authenticate again. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work with BiONiC yet—but we’ll take what we can get.
  • Founders Great Hall open for parties again
    • With Lutnick Library now complete, the Great Hall in Founders is once again available to host parties in! The Student Life Office held Supahfun there at the close of Customs Week and 80s Dance the week after, both annual Haverford traditions. Its return is a much-needed addition to the few available party spaces on campus.

The Bad News 

  • Terroristic threats
    • This summer, rising Haverford sophomores, juniors, and seniors received a sobering email from Tom King regarding terroristic threats made by a student not currently at the college. The student was taken into custody and eventually released as police examined their electronic devices. Delaware County’s district attorney, Kat Copeland, commended Haverford College’s Campus Safety for their efforts.
  • Trump/FAFSA
    • Two Haverford students came close to obtaining Donald Trump’s tax returns by accessing the FAFSA account of one of his family members. Through a combination of leaked information (like social security numbers) and clever guesses, the two graduates/ex-students came within one security question of obtaining the much-sought information before being defeated. The attempts, made from the computer lab in the basement of Roberts, made headlines but came just short of making history. Both parties pled guilty this summer after an IRS investigation discovered the attempt and were charged with accessing Haverford computers using another student’s login information, and attempting to obtain another person’s tax returns without authorization.
  • Lutnick: Trump donation
    • The same Lutnick now widely known on campus by way of his bibliographic namesake made headlines for a different, more controversial reason earlier this summer when he hosted fundraisers for Donald Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign at his home in New York City.  Haverford graduates had mixed reactions to the news on the “You know you went to Haverford if…” alumni Facebook page, debating the school’s attachment to the man and the need for funding via billionaire philanthropy.
  • Palantir/ICE/Haverford alumni? 
    • Another billionaire alumn of Haverford College, Alex Karp, has also been the subject of ongoing controversy this month. Karp is the cofounder of Palantir Technologies, a data firm scrutinized for the work it does for the United States government. That work has included providing services for ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). ICE has made the news frequently in recent years for their role in separating families and detaining children at the border, and in response to the relationship the Grace Hopper Celebration—a conference for womxn in tech—removed Palantir as a sponsor. Palantir fired back with both a general op-ed and one by Karp himself.

The Just News: 

  • Rededication of Marshall Fine Arts
    • The Summer of Lutnick just kept on coming, with the news first breaking in July on Haverford’s student-run Facebook meme group that Marshall Fine Art Center (which houses the Fine Arts Department and assorted art studios) had been renamed the Jane Lutnick Fine Arts Center. Jane Lutnick, the deceased mother of Howard Lutnick, joins several other friends, family, and associates of Howard Lutnick with spaces named for them on campus. We now have the Field House containing the Gary Lutnick Tennis & Track Center, named for Howard Lutnick’s brother; the Cantor Fitzgerald Gallery in Whitehead Campus Center, named for his Lutnick’s financial services firm, and Lutnick Library, named for Howard Lutnick himself.
  • Gummere exists? (and won Dorm Olympics)
  • The latest hot meme on ‘havermemes xii: wendy’s worner’ insists that first-year dorm Gummere does not actually exist. Confusing and delighting first-years and upperclassmen alike, the theory raises a troubling question; if not Gummere, then who won Dorm Olympics this year? (Disclaimer: the author is a two-year Gummere resident.)

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