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In four years as a student at Lafayette, Crystal Taylor ‘03 (Hyattsville, Md.) has watched the College interact with and help the surrounding community in a number of ways. By the beginning of her senior year, she had also spent two summers interning at Goldman Sachs & Co. in New York City, where she learned how private companies contribute to the public good, and another summer conducting research on the relationship between the public and private sectors through Lafayette’s EXCEL Scholars program.
Taylor graduated last Saturday cum laude with honors in mathematics and economics & business. To qualify for the accolades, she completed a year-long research project that explored “town-gown” relationships from an economic standpoint and proposed a mathematical model to describe such relationships.
“In working at Goldman Sachs & Co., first in financial management and later in urban initiatives/investments, I was able to gain a true appreciation of the potential for private entities to engage and contribute to the public good,” Taylor says. “I also began to question the boundaries of this partnership. I asked, ‘Where does it break down? When is it successful?'”
Taylor, who sought the guidance of two mathematics professors, three economics and business professors, and the College’s associate director for public service to complete her thesis, says she began her research by examining how three small private elite colleges — Lafayette, Connecticut College in New London, Conn., and Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. — relate to the communities in which they’re located. She also examined the University of Pennsylvania’s relationship with the city of Philadelphia.
“The true heart of the thesis talks about public and private agents and how they interact,” says Taylor, who interviewed at least one administrator at each school and used Pareto, a technique popular among economists, to measure the fairness and profitability of the distribution of resources.
“This under-appreciated interdependent relationship between town and gown may have resulted in the institutions operating at a point on the utility maximization curve that is not Pareto optimal,” she says, explaining that, in some situations, she concluded that the schools could make “Pareto-efficient improvements.”
Howard Bodenhorn, an associate professor of economics who served as one of Taylor’s advisers during the spring semester, describes “Pareto optimal” as “a ‘win-no lose’ situation.”
“One party can be made better off and the other party isn’t adversely affected,” he explains, pointing out that elite colleges and universities often are located in communities that “tend to be poor relative to the college. The question becomes, ‘is it possible for the college to transfer some of its resources to the community so the local environment becomes better, and then reflects positively on the college?'”
Bodenhorn says Taylor approached her work seriously and with great dedication.
“She’s highly motivated and she’s very bright and hard working,” he says. “She’s everything you’d ever want in a student. She asks a lot of hard questions — she wants to pick your brain. I have no doubts that she’s going to go a long way.”
Gary Gordon, professor of mathematics and another member of Taylor’s mentoring team, says she took an established mathematical model and modified it “to include components that were specifically designed for the town-gown question.”
“She did a lot of heavy-duty math,” he says. “She had to be completely conversant with the model and she had to be able to modify it.”
Taylor describes the thesis as the “culmination of my training,” explaining that she’s grateful to each of her mentors, including Gladstone A. Hutchinson, former associate professor of economics and business, now dean of studies; Harold Hochman, who just retired as William E. Simon Professor of Political Economics; Elizabeth McMahon, professor of mathematics; and Diane Elliott, associate director for public service with the College’s Meyner Center for the Study of State and Local Government.
“I really feel very lucky to be surrounded by so many people who bring to the table such diverse backgrounds and perspectives and who truly care about the work I do,” Taylor says. “I see Lafayette as an institution built upon a system of shared values that opens its doors time after time, intent upon taking a chance on students’ commitment to ideas and scholarship. What greater gift could Lafayette have given me than the gift of courage to achieve my dreams?”
Taylor says that gift will help her when she begins graduate studies this fall at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Economics and Public Policy.
“In my journey through and after college, I will know that I gave myself every opportunity to achieve something greater than myself,” she says. “I know that as I reflect on this time later in life, I will see it as a turning point in my intellectual and spiritual focus and growth.”
Taylor was elected to four academic honors societies: Phi Beta Kappa, Sigma Xi (scientific research), Omicron Delta Epsilon (economics), and Pi Mu Epsilon (mathematics). She also received the John H. Allen Prize, awarded to the author of the best essay in public finance as judged by a committee within the economics and business department.
Last summer, Taylor received a Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Undergraduate Scholarship for students who display “a high level of achievement as demonstrated by superior grades, academically rigorous courses, and participation in challenging extracurricular activities, especially those demonstrating leadership potential.”
In her junior year, she participated in Lafayette’s McKelvy House Scholars program, which brings together students of high academic achievement and promise to reside in an historic off-campus house and share in intellectual and social activities.
She served as “educational guru” for an Alternative School Break team that alleviated hunger in Washington, D.C. last fall. She also was a member of the Lafayette-Easton Community Development Committee. She served externships with Accenture, a financial management company in New York City, and the University of Pennsylvania Community Development/Business Services Division. She spent a semester studying abroad in Dijon, France.
Taylor also served as a member of the Lafayette College Trustee Committee on Financial Policy. “I found this to be an extremely rewarding experience wherein I was able to be a part of the creation and implementation of real-life financial policy initiatives,” says Taylor, who was treasurer of Lafayette Communications Union, an organization dedicated to fostering effective oral communication, and has worked as fitness supervisor in Kirby Sports Center. She was a member of an undefeated team that won the four-on-four intramural flag football championship.