October 24, 2014
Bringing a Hamilton education to the great outdoors, the Senior Gift Committee announced last week that the class of 2015’s senior gift would be an outdoor classroom in memory of Professor Jonathan Vaughan. The gift was announced at the fundraising kickoff event as the winner of a survey of the senior class, which included two other potential gifts. The other options were renovating Babbitt Pavilion and establishing a summer internship fund in honor of former Director of the Maurice Horowich Career Center Mary Evans ’82, who retired after thirty years of dedication to the College.
The Senior Gift is an established tradition at Hamilton, started in 1982 when the graduating class chose to collectively give to the annual fund to commemorate their time on the Hill. Since 1985, though, the senior class has instead chosen and donated a specific gift to the school. Past gifts include the sign at the bottom of the Hill, the basketball court next to the Babbitt Pavilion, and, most recently, the Siuda House Terrace commemorating Hamilton’s first need-blind class. For over 20 years, the Senior Gift has achieved 90 percent participation, and this year’s committee has set the participation goal at 99 percent in order to win the President’s Cup, an award which is given to the class with the highest participation level.
The process of selecting the senior gift begins over the summer when the Senior Gift Committee co-chairs help form the committee and create a preliminary list of gift ideas. After other committee members join, they submit other gift ideas, and the class is polled for ideas. At that point, the committee narrows the list to five options, and then after further consolation with various people like Dean of Students Nancy Thompson and Associate Vice President for Facilities and Planning Steve Bellona, the list is pared down to three options.
Prior to the event there was a lot of speculation about which gift would be chosen. The Babbitt Pavilion renovation seemed to be widely panned by students, who either could not identify what the pavilion was in the first place, or did not think that spending money to renovate an outdoor social space was a particularly wise choice in upstate New York.
The summer internship funding and the outdoor classroom seemed to garner the most enthusiastic support. The internship fund was well received both because of its value to future students and its dedication to Evans. Evans and the Career Center always stressed the importance of career-related experience, and prove this dedication by currently providing summer internship funding to students.
The outdoor classroom was the other favorite during the voting process. On paper, most students loved the idea of an outdoor classroom space, though some also questioned the prudence of an outdoor gift at a school like Hamilton. The biggest concern looming over the outdoor classroom is New York’s most fickle friend: the weather. At a school that faced a polar vortex for most of last winter, and sees the weather quickly change from 70 degrees to flurries, the functionality of an outdoor classroom seemed promising, but unsure. In the end though, the classroom prevailed and garnered the most votes, though it is not clear if it was a majority of the class.
Due to financial constraints, the outdoor classroom does not yet have any specific plans. It can be prohibitively expensive to heavily invest in plans before officially choosing a gift, since the class may not ultimately choose it. The classroom’s location, function, and presentation are still currently undecided, but now that it has been officially selected, the outdoor classroom will be fully planned and designed in the coming year.
One settled element of the Senior Gift is its special dedication. Jon Vaughan was a professor of psychology for 43 years at the college, and his legacy of student engagement and pedagogical passion was renowned. Carrie Cabush, a senior psychology major, commented that Professor Vaughan “put students above himself and trusted us like he would trust a colleague,” and that “first and foremost he was a teacher,” a fact which makes the classroom such a special dedication.
Courtney Hobgood ’15, a co-chair of the Senior Gift Committee, concurred saying that the committee hopes “that [Professor Vaughan’s] love of the brain, as well as of learning and teaching, can live on in this outdoor classroom space.” While this year’s senior gift may face some meteorological complications down the road, it will certainly endure as a permanent reminder of a dedicated professor’s work at Hamilton.
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