Sam's L33t Journal

Olin College, by consent of the remaining former directors of the Franklin W. Olin Foundation and a majority vote of the College Trustees, has amended the Founding Precepts of Olin College, item six, to reduce the Olin Scholarship by 50% starting for the class of 2014 (entering in Fall 2010).

I would like to say that I totally called the current crisis in my letter to President Miller back in 2004. I wish I had taken a less alarmist tone in that letter, maybe if I had, it wouldn't have been ignored. But let's be honest, it probably would have been ignored anyways.

What really saddens me isn't the abandonment of the founding precepts or the charging of tuition (although that's plenty sad, too). It's the lost opportunity to respond to the crisis with an experimental, innovative, radically creative solution. By responding with a conventional business solution, the administration has dealt a real blow to the Olin ethos, one that will likely remain even if scholarships are eventually restored.

Early Olin was a risk, and the students who signed on reflected that. Now, as the memory of that time begins to fade from the minds of the student body, Olin is in a critical time of transition. But just when leadership was most needed, the administration has wimped out.

Olin College is in an interesting predicament due to the recent economic mess. One of Olin's Founding Precepts (a binding agreement, part of the conditional grant from the Olin Foundation) requires giving full-tuition scholarships to all students (at least through 2020). Unfortunately, the endowment which pays for said scholarships has not fared well.

The precepts can be amended with written consent of the three remaining Olin Foundation directors and a majority of the Olin Trustees. The Trustees met recently and made some secret recommendation to the Directors. I'm hoping the Directors hold out on principle, but it doesn't look good.

Today, Olin's commencement events kicked off with an alumni reception and an alumni planning meeting with Olin's new director of business development (the guy who develops the relationships that provide for Olin's financial future). Being back on campus increased my optimism quite a bit, and the meeting even more so. The initial discussion ended up being quite interesting, then Mel (characteristically) suggested we split up into groups and brainstorm. In the brainstorming session, someone noted the need for a better alumni directory to facilitate Olin getting specific information to relevant alumni about ways they could help. I noted I could implement something basic in Google Docs, and the rest of my group said "well, you do that then". So I did. Worst case, it doesn't work (although I do hope people aren't mad at me for sending too many emails to alumni-all).

Was good to see a lot of the other alumni, too. I had an especially nice conversation with Maria, who was kind enough to give me a ride to the T after the meeting.

I'm graduated, with a diploma and everything. I've moved into my new home. Seeing my family was very nice. I start work at ITA Software tomorrow.

Guess I'm in the real world now.

Up surprisingly early this morning. I'm a bit hungry, had a small, early dinner yesterday. Maybe that has something to do with it.

Olin Mel's birthday party is today, on Boston Common. I'm looking forward to it. I'm hoping I'll get to see Sarah before she skips town, too. She's been super-busy with finals.

School-wise, things progress as usual. Work is ramping up a bit (starting on my final project for Software Systems, designing and programming a Linux shell), but I'm still keeping afloat, more or less.

This Saturday there was the Mexico party at Man Hall, celebrating the end of their recent double-secret probation. It was fun, and quite an amazing crowd showed up (more than the whole student population by a significant number).

Second Candidate's Weekend was fun, too, although I didn't have much time to interact with the candidates. I really enjoyed FWOP's production of Into the Woods, though.

The past weekend was awesome. Friday night was dinner at the Chabbad with JOO, then Pogo's birthday party. Saturday night was the Heaven and Hell party at Man Hall, and they really outdid themselves on food and decorations. So I definitely over-indulged my gluttony that weekend...

Less than three weeks to break. Three final papers to finish.

I have housing for break now, I'll be staying in the Olin enclave near Porter Square.

The weekend was good. The conference was very interesting. I also saw FWOP's production of Picasso at the Lapin Agile, which was quite excellent.

I have a job interview on Friday for ITA Software, a phone interview a week from then for The Open Planning Project, and my information is in to Google, so all is going well on the job search front.

I bought some business-casual clothes, too, so I'm not lacking that anymore. This Friday's interview is casual dress, though.

My first SCOPE design review is tomorrow.

Overall, this was an eventful week. Jury duty on Tuesday (wasn't selected, fortunately). Career fair on Thursday (yet another step on my quest to get a job (real one, this time)). Seeing my mom and sister Friday and Saturday for family weekend. Sausagefest (Man Hall's October party) this evening. Watching the baseball game at the party (Sox and Tribe tied 6-6, then the Tribe scored 7 runs in the top of the 11th).

I've got a lot of work to finish tomorrow, though.

Rachel (the injured freshman) died today.