Franklin & Marshall College

Dear Parents,

Have you watched any of our Common Hour presentations online? Common Hour is a weekly presentation for the campus community that covers a host of topics and speakers. Our Common Hour website tells you about events coming up and allows you to watch archived talks and highlights online. There, you can view presentations on everything from Facing a Blank Page: How and Where Does a Composer Get Ideas? by Professor John Carbon, to Guyland: The Perilous World Where Boys Become Men with author Michael Kimmel, to NPR Legal Affairs Correspondent Nina Totenberg on The Supreme Court and Its Impact on You. What a great way to connect with your F&M student -- discussing the latest issues and comparing your responses to the various talks. Or, if you are in town, feel free to participate -- Common Hour sessions are at 11:30 a.m. on Thursdays and most are open to the public. Be sure to watch the March 8 Common Hour presentation by fellow parent Jamie Widdoes P’12 on The Culture of College Drinking: Is It Still Animal House?

All the best,

Maura Condon Umble ‘83
Director of Parent Relations
Franklin & Marshall College
maura.umble@fandm.edu
717-291-3888

Upcoming Parent Gathering in New Jersey

You are invited to a regional parent gathering in Franklin Lakes, N.J., on Thursday, March 29, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. Thanks to hosts Caryn & Jeff Robbins P’13, you’ll have the opportunity to meet other parents in your area and to hear from Beth Throne, Esq., ’95, our new associate vice president for Student and Post-Graduate Development. Beth is eager to share with parents the College’s plans to successfully launch our students into happy lives and successful careers. If you live or work in the northern New Jersey area, we hope you’ll join us! Kindly RSVP here.

Deans & Honors Lists

Congrats to Deans and Honors Lists students! At Franklin & Marshall, a student earns Honors List recognition for achieving a 3.7 or better grade point average and Dean's List recognition for achieving a 3.25 or better grade point average (out of a possible 4.0). Following each semester, we publish these lists on the F&M website. We also use an independent service that sends this information to local papers in each student’s home town. We unfortunately cannot make any promises about when and if the newspapers choose to publish the information that is provided.

Getting to Know: Akbar Hossain ’13

Sitting in the atrium of Franklin & Marshall’s Steinman College Center, Akbar Hossain ’13 receives a call on his cell phone. The caller is his friend and classmate, Mona Lotfipour ’12, with whom Hossain has worked for the past several months in F&M’s Human Rights/Human Wrongs course to help persecuted immigrants gain political asylum in the United States. Hossain and Lotfipour experienced the thrill of helping one refugee win asylum in December. Now, it is happening again. "We just won another one, and I can’t describe it," Hossain says, trying to contain his excitement as a smile spreads across his face. "Some of these refugees have been raped and tortured. You really don’t know what’s going on until you meet them." The asylum news would be good for any student, but it hits home in a special way for Hossain. A decade ago, Hossain and his family moved to the U.S. from Saudi Arabia through the diversity immigrant visa program -- a lottery administered by the U.S. Department of State. Read more.