Let's Play Ball

Hi everyone! Things are now officially quiet in the office, but as the office slows down, life around campus speeds up. Last week students were finishing up finals, others were moving out and graduation was on Saturday.

Last week, with graduation is right around the corner, there were a ton of events going on for the senior class ranging from graduation rehearsals to parties at a Professor’s house and a reception at the President’s house. Wednesday, however, was one of Pitzer’s best traditions. The Faculty and Staff vs seniors softball game. Yet again the faculty and staff won!!! In fact we have won every single year, this may be because we have the math department on our side creatively keeping score, but I think it is just because we are that good.

As always, the softball game was a lot of fun. Everyone from the maintenance staff to the President came out. Unfortunately Angel and Arnaldo were busy, but don’t worry, I represented for the Admission Office.

I think my favorite part of the game was Jim Marchant’s (our Dean of Students) new haircut.

This year he made a bet with the senior class. The bet ran, if the senior class got 100% participation with the senior class gift Jim would get a Mohawk for graduation. As you can see, the seniors succeeded in getting 100% participation in the gift campaign.

Here is another picture of Jim looking tough as nails (I think we also win the competition for having the coolest Dean of Students)

The senior class gift is the first chance for graduating seniors to give back to the Pitzer community.

Just so the seniors don’t get all of the attention the faculty and staff campaign was also a huge success. This your 90% of our faculty and staff gave back to Pitzer. This puts us at number one in the country for faculty and staff giving.

Back to the softball game, it was obvious that we were going win because, as Justin said, we had a ringer, Laura Skandera Trombley Pitzer’s President.

Can’t you see the fear in the students’ faces as she steps to the plate?

Here is a picture of Chris Brunell, our Director of Residence Life, right before he crushes a ground rule double.

And just to prove that I was out there, here is me waaaayyy out in leftfield

I would like to say that I was responsible for catching many pop flies, but in reality the ball came absolutely no where near me.

But hey, I did get my base hit! And let me tell you running on grass in dress shoes is not easy.

All in all it is an amazing tradition and Adam, one of our Admission Fellows who graduated in January even came back to play.

As you can see he has been missing the southern California sun.

Before I leave you to start preparing for graduation, I have a quick note for any juniors out there. The Claremont Colleges Receptions (or CCRs) are about to begin again. These receptions are a great way to get an introduction to the Claremont Colleges and gives you the change to speak with representitives from CMC, Harvey Mudd, Scripps and of course Pitzer. Here is the schedule of where we will be in the next few weeks.

Washington, DC- Sunday, May 17 at 2:00 p.m.
Philadelphia, PA- Monday, May 18 at 7:00 p.m.
New York, NY- Tuesday, May 19 at 7:00 p.m.
Boston, MA- Wednesday, May 20 at 7:00 p.m.
Honolulu, HI- Sunday, May 31 at 1:00 p.m.

If you are interested in attending please register on our shared website
http://claremontmckenna.gotoextinguisher.com/survey/index.php?time=2009-05-18%2019:00:00&id=158&timeID=592

Tune in for graduation pictures as soon as I get them.

May 1

So last Friday was May 1. You know what that means, it was decision day!!!!

For all of you high school seniors, this marks our joint trip through the admissions process (remember this is my first time seeing it all the way through from the other side of the desk). Once you get that card in the mail, which hopefully you have already done, take a moment take a big breath and give yourselves a pat on the back. You deserve it!

Even though my first cycle is coming to a close it has still been a busy time of the year for me. We just had our two Admitted Student Days, which went very smoothly. Here are some pictures

Peter Nardi our acting President giving the welcoming speech.

And here are all the students with their parents.
Take a look at Sol leading an awesome tour
And we can’t forget two of our blog winners showed up. Jacey came to say hello and offered to give me capoeira lessons next year (don’t forget Jacey, I may take you up on that offer) and Jon Rice also came. He even had the foresight to bring his Cecil with him.

Aren’t they are great team!

The next week’s Admitted Student Day also coincided with our Spring Diversity Program. This means I spent the whole week running around making sure everything was ready, but the lack of sleep was worth it and we had an AMAZING time!

On Friday we went to the beach and it was a blast. Check out the pictures from our trip.

Here is my van on the way to the beach. It is a little blurry, but still the best van group EVER (P.S. Don’t worry I didn’t take the picture while driving, Tim took it)

Here we are at the beach

We also hired 2 new interns for the program, Bryce Coefield and Maricela Ledezma. I don’t have a picture of Maricela with me, but here is a picture of Bryce

After the Diversity Program there was no rest for Danny. On Tuesday I hopped onto a plane to New Jersey for Spring College fairs. They were a lot of fun! I haven’t been to NJ before so it was a brand new experience for me. Although I must admit I was less than thrilled with driving in NJ, I don’t like roundabouts L.

Overall the fairs were fun. I say overall because my GPS decided to take me the longest roundabout method possible to get me from school to school. I would have to say one of the high points of my fair trips was getting to see Watu Poe one of our admitted students when I visited the Peddie School. I even was able to coerce him into taking a picture with Cecil.

After NJ I finally got some downtime and went to visit some friends in New York. This was great because I have only been to NY on one other occasion, and I was sick 2 out of 3 days. This time was much better. I refrained from doing any touristy activity and instead spent time with my friends in Central Park and went to the Tribeca Film festival. Overall I had a great time, but am ready to stay in my own time zone for a while.

Well it is time to get back to reading transfer files, but I wish you all luck with the last few weeks of school before summer.