For the first time in the history of the Claremont Consortium, the presidents of all five Claremont Colleges as well as the CEO of Claremont University Consortium (CUC) discussed the state of the 5Cs at a panel cosponsored by the CMC Forum and the Pomona Student Union (PSU) in Little Bridges Hall of Music on Monday, Feb. 28.

The discussion featured Pomona President David Oxtoby, Scripps President Lori Bettison-Varga, CMC President Pamela Gann, Harvey Mudd President Maria Klawe, Pitzer Vice President for Student Affairs Jim Marchant (sitting in for President Laura Trombley), and CUC CEO Robert Walton. CMC Forum Editor-in-Chief Michael Wilner CMC ‘11 asked the panel questions based in large part on the input of students who submitted questions for the panel to the Forum website earlier in the week.

The speakers addressed a number of topics pertaining both to their respective colleges and to the consortium as whole. Topics addressed included prospects for expansion of the consortium, potential development plans for a graduate program, substance policy across the 5Cs, and the role of competitive and collaborative dynamics between the colleges.

Walton, who has served as CUC CEO since July 2007, endorsed the idea of expanding the consortium to include new institutions, but he refrained from promising any specific projects.

“Seven colleges are actually quite a lot,” Walton said. “I think that there will be new institutions. I’m not sure now if it will be colleges, but we will be building institutions.”

“It is quite likely that there will be further institutions,” Oxtoby agreed, though he was careful to mention that this would not happen any time soon.

Marchant suggested the possibility of adding a law school to the consortium.

“I think that something like a law school would be very complementary to the undergraduate institutions here,” Marchant said. “I’m not saying it’s in the plans, but from my perspective it would be good in the long run for the Claremont Colleges.”

Klawe advised caution in attempting to establish new educational institutions in the consortium.

“I think the worst thing you could do is to add a new college unless you have the resources and the vision to do it,” she said.

When asked why the consortium institutions do not publish collaboratively in the manner of the Oxford colleges, the panelists entered into a discussion about the role and benefits of institutional competition and collaboration within the consortium. Marchant emphasized the benefits of intercollegiate programs and departments, while Walton and Klawe pointed to the benefits of competition among the colleges as a means to preserve the diversity in character and mission among the institutions.

The panel also discussed differences in substance policies across the 5Cs. When questioned about the relative strictness of Scripps’s substance policy relative to the other colleges, Bettison-Varga said that reforming the school’s policy is something that the Scripps administration was open to exploring.

“I’m not going to take a defensive position on it,” Bettison-Varga said. “It’s something I feel we need to have conversations about on campus.”

When asked to characterize CMC’s social scene, Gann said, “Some students think it’s too vigorous; others think it’s not vigorous enough. I think most students are reasonably happy with the social life at CMC.”

The discussions among the panelists were peppered with one-liners. At one point, Klawe said, “In 30 years or so, everyone will know that HMC is better than MIT and Caltech rolled into one.”

Likewise, Bettison-Varga delivered a plain “no” in response to a question from an audience member about the possibility of co-ed enrollment at Scripps. This response was accompanied by cheers and laughter from the audience.

Julia Markham-Cameron SC ’13 said after the event that she thought the discussion was interesting.

“It was great that all the presidents were able to come together,” she said. “I was really interested in hearing other colleges’ perspectives.”

In an interview with TSL, Wilner expressed hopes that events like this one would happen again.

“It would be nice for them to give a status update once in a while on how the Claremont Colleges are doing,” he said.

PSU president and event co-host Michael Levine PO ‘11 expressed similar hopes.

“It was a well-conceived event,” he said. “It would be nice to schedule something like this every year or every other year, to give students a chance to interact with the presidents.”

“I think the most interesting part of the event was when students in the audience got the microphone,” he added. “In a future event, I would want to see more of that.”