The incoming class of 170 women and 152 men hails from 37 different states as well as Puerto Rico and nine foreign countries. Seventeen percent are students of color. The class was selected from an applicant pool of 2,600, and more than 97 percent of the enrolling students ranked in the top fifth of their high school graduating class. The group also boasts an impressive record of service and extra-curricular activities: 65 percent won a letter in a varsity sport; 25 percent served as athletic team captains; 68 percent were members of a school musical or drama club; 36 percent were editors or writers for their school publications; and 52 percent volunteered for service organizations while in high school.

This year 65 upperclassmen are helping Haverford's new students make the transition to campus life. As part of the student-run Customs Committee, the upperclassmen are conducting the college's traditional Customs Week, an orientation program consisting of social activities and seminars to familiarize new students with the college's 100-year-old Honor Code and encourage discussion about student-life issues such as tolerance, diversity and alcohol and drug abuse. The new students will take part in a viewing of the movie "The Joy Luck Club" to discuss how the film's themes of compatibility, diversity and empathy may apply to their own college experiences.

The start of the 1998-99 academic year on Monday, August 31 also brings a variety of new administrators and faculty members to Haverford's campus. Joseph Tolliver, the former dean of student affairs at Skidmore College, joins the campus as the new dean of the college. He replaces Randy Milden who left the post last spring after a decade of service. As dean, Tolliver will oversee the full range of student activities, including academic counseling, career development, student volunteer programs, housing, health and psychological counseling services, multicultural affairs and study abroad programs. Tolliver is a graduate of the State University of New York at Plattsburgh where he received a B.A. in American history and an M.A. in counseling. He holds an Ed.M. degree in student personnel administration and an Ed.D. in higher education administration from Columbia University.

The college also welcomes three new tenure-track professors to its 110-member full-time faculty.

Robert Manning, formerly a postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Maryland, College Park and member of the faculty at the Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, joins the mathematics department as an assistant professor. Dr. Manning received a Ph.D. and M.S. in applied mathematics from Cornell University and a B.S. from Yale University.

Karin Stigsdotter Ã…kerfeldt joins the chemistry department as an associate professor. A former assistant professor of chemistry at Rutgers University, Camden, Dr. Stigsdotter Ã…kerfeldt specializes in bioorganic chemistry with an emphasis on protein structure-function relationship studies using synthetic approaches. A former Fulbright Fellowship recipient, she received a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, a M.S. from the University of California, Davis and a B.S. from the University of Stockholm, Sweden.

Suava Zbierski-Salameh joins the sociology department as an assistant professor after working as an instructor in the sociology department at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Zbierski-Salameh, a specialist in the sociology of post-socialist Poland, received her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley and an M.A. in sociology from the University of Poznan, Poland.

The college also welcomes Bill Astifan as the new manager of the college's arboretum and the director of the Haverford College Campus Arboretum Association. Astifan is a former superintendent of parks for the city of Wilmington, Delaware and a former director of facilities management for the Medical Center of Delaware. He received his B.S. in environmental studies and landscape architecture from the State University of New York, College of Envrionmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse and an A.A.S. degreee in Construction Technology from SUNY, Canton.