Vacation!

Hip hip for summer vacation! I leave tomorrow for the fantabulous state of New Jersey. Oh yes. I'll be back in the beginning of August, which is when the admission season really starts to kick off. Until then, stay cool, spend as much time as possible in the nearest hammock, and remember that it's never too early to start writing your college admission essay.

By the way, our first Discovery Day on Monday was a success! We had 149 guests and everything seemed to flow smoothly. Hannah and I rocked our "Why Mudd" powerpoint presentation, although we were a little tired after repeating it four times in a row! If you're interested, there's another Discovery Day coming up next Friday (the 23rd). I'll be in a minivan en route to western Pennsylvania at the time, but I can promise that Hannah will be back with more powerpoint. And Falone with the ESW-MOSS Kenya video, and Thyra with a special session on admission & financial aid. And our awesome tour guides, who are stuck wearing black T-shirts on 95-degree days, because some nincompoop (that would be me) didn't think about the drawbacks of black, heavyweight cotton T-shirts in the middle of a Southern California summer. Sorry guides. I'll do better next time.

Craziness

It's only the beginning of July, and I'm already planning my travel schedule for the fall. What is the world coming to?!

Iris Critchell is Really Cool

Joseph Min and Iris Critchell during a flight. Since you can only see the backs of their heads, you'll have to take my word for it.

Iris Critchell is one of my personal heroes. She officially directed the Bates Aeronautics program at Mudd for twenty-eight years before "retiring" in 1990. As you can see from the above photo, "retirement" is a loose term -- because even now, in her late eighties (she'll turn ninety this year), she's still teaching students to fly. And still very much a presence here on Mudd's campus.

Among other accomplishments: she's a member of the National Fight Instructors Hall of Fame. She served as a member of the Women Air Force Service Pilots during World War II. And, oh yeah, she's a former Olympic swimmer. Inspired yet? I recently came across an archived interview with Iris from 1984 -- among other interesting tidbits, she talks about raising money for the 1936 Olympics, the experience of competing in Hitler's Berlin, and how she ended up at HMC.

A quarter past a radical

Welcome to Mudd, land of mystery, magic, and math jokes. Besides the friendly face of our receptionist, Pat, here's one of the first things you'll see in the admission office, something to while away the minutes as you wait for your tour or interview: our clock. Thyra (the dean) bought us the clock as an office Christmas present, and it's proved quite a conversation starter. It's a relief to me that even our math-savviest students are still trying to figure out a couple of the concepts. I just gave up and read the cheat sheet, and now it is the great dream of my life that someone will ask me about modular arithmetic or Cauchy's Convergence Test. The clock is from Uncommon Goods and is called, appropriately enough, the "Geek Clock."