Now That They Have Banned Trays at the Dining Halls...

Claremont McKenna's dining halls will be banning trays next year in some bogus cost cutting move. The move was heavily influenced by the utterly dishonest -- or utterly incompetent -- campaign by the self-described Environmental Crusaders to showcase the food that CMC students supposedly waste.

A CMC parent writes in and asks,

On Trays:

1- what if you brought your own tray? (you can swipe them from Taco Bell)
2- What if the CLaremont Conservative sold trays as a fundraiser?
3- If CMC students boycotted Collins and ate at Mudd where they have trays, Collins would lose money and $$$$ talks?
4- Will parents get discounts on meal plans since you'll eat less?
5- The big question, will there be trays used on parent day or orientation?

George Posner CMC '12 crunked the numbers on the last issue of The Claremont Independent and it turns out that the meal plan price per meal is rather expensive. [See charts below.]

Does anyone know the answers to any of these questions?

Professor Pitney on Twitter

I glanced over at Abhi Nemani's gchat status and noticed that Professor John J. Pitney is now Twittering.

I'm about to bit the bullet and start syndicating my Twitter posts -- I refuse to say 'tweets' -- about Claremont McKenna on the blog. God help me. Sam and I are working on a catchy, easy to remember name for the blog.

CMC's Free Media, Courtesy of the Indian Press

Claremont earned some serious free media when the it was announced that the daughter of Infosys co-founder, N.R. Narayana Murthy is to be married.

Her name is Akshata Murthy, she's done some consulting, and yes, she's a CMC alum.

I have read the book of one of the other co-founders. The book is Nandan Nilekani's Imagining India. I heartily recommend it if you're curious as to what the modern India portends for the world.

Okay, I have now exhausted much of what I know about Infosys. Carry on.

CMC Alumni Out in About: What Does a CMC Degree Do For Your Wallet?

CMC alum Chuck DeVore '85 was on the Hugh Hewitt Show talking to guest show Jim Geraghty of National Review talking about how his opponent for the U.S. Senate, Barbara Boxer played the race card when she disliked the findings of the National Black Chamber of Commerce's President Harry Alford. You can watch the video of her racial pandering and insensitivity here.

I listened to Professor Harry Jaffa talk to Peter Robinson of Uncommon Knowledge about the set up of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. Just how did Lincoln convince three term senator to debate him? He started showing up at Douglas events and talked immediately afterwards to Douglas supporters. In order to get Lincoln to stop doing that, Douglas agreed to a series of debates. There's a lesson here for Chuck DeVore. Go to Boxer's events and start talking afterwards if she won't agree to debate you.

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Randy Kraft CMC '67 is a serial killer who has intrigued people ever since the publication of Angel of Darkness (which is a terrific read, by the way.)

Apparently, there's someone soliciting anyone who knows anything about Mr. Kraft on Craigslist for his senior thesis. Do contact him about anything you may know.

So What Should I Major In? PayScale Has The Answer, Or Does It?

I saw this as it came across the wire earlier yesterday, but now that I've been asked about in the comment section, I thought I would point out a few problems with the data set. For those interested in splicing and dicing the data, here's a link to the New York Times blog, which does just that.

For starters, PayScale doesn't count anyone who gets a post-college degree. This means that if your college produces high-powered attorneys, business school graduates, researchers, or professors, these wage earners won't get counted.

In addition, PayScale doesn't say what it's sample size is and the data is self-reported. What's more, these figures are from a few years back. In short, it's a very imperfect measure.

Still, it is nice to point out that Claremont McKenna's highest median starting salary is one of the highest profiled of schools that aren't technical -- $58,300. Harvey Mudd's was $71,000

This means that we beat out all of the other liberal arts colleges, in addition to such Ivy League colleges as Dartmouth, Yale, Brown, and Cornell.