A member of the Pomona College Board of Trustees since 2013, Janet Inskeep Benton ’79 was elected the new chair of the Board. Her three-year term began July 1. Benton is the founder and president of Frog Rock Foundation, a nonprofit whose mission is to improve long-term outcomes for underserved children in Westchester County, New York.
“Our Board of Trustees believes in and is committed to the promise of a Pomona College education,” says Benton. “As board chair, I will engage these colleagues and bring them together to address strategic issues that come before us. I’m honored to serve in this role and look forward to a productive year ahead.”
Erika James ’91 is dean of The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, and an expert on crisis leadership, management strategy and workplace diversity. She was previously dean and professor at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. Her most recent book is The Prepared Leader: Emerge from Any Crisis More Resilient Than Before, co-authored with Lynn Perry Wooten. She serves on numerous boards, including Morgan Stanley, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Economic Club of New York.
“I look forward to reconnecting from the perspective of a leader in higher education,” says James. “Having spent more than 30 years in multiple universities, I have a broad understanding of higher education and am hopeful I can add value to the school that paved the way for my professional journey.”
Jason Sheasby ’97 is a law partner at Irell & Manella, where he specializes in complex litigation, intellectual property, antitrust and internal investigations.
A Harvard Law School graduate, Sheasby obtained a verdict for the city of Pomona that a Chilean mine shipped tainted fertilizer before and during World War II, which leached into the city’s water—the first successful application of California’s product liability law to an environmental tort.
“Pomona [College] altered the trajectory of my life,” says Sheasby. “Its financial generosity allowed me to attend the school and spend two terms in Cambridge, [opening] up a world I did not even know existed. I want to ensure that Pomona continues to play this role in the lives of students.”
Two trustees are transitioning to emeritus status: Allyson Aranoff Harris ’89, a trustee since 2014, and Osman Kibar ’92, a trustee since 2016.
Board Chair Provides Update on the College Endowment and Calls for Divestment
This fall, Pomona College Board Chair Janet Inskeep Benton ’79 addressed concerns to the Pomona community regarding the College’s endowment and calls for divestment. “This is a challenging time in higher education,” says Benton. “World events have rocked college campuses and exposed tensions between free expression, unimpeded access to the educational experience and protection from harassment.” While this plays out in a variety of ways at Pomona, she says, one of her goals as board chair is to address the concerns voiced in the College community about the endowment.
Benton notes that “while there is much to discuss, there are positions about which the board is unwavering. We will not target specific countries with actions such as boycotts or divestment. Pomona seeks to remain open to the entire globe, believing that wider engagement and deeper understanding is the best path forward.”
We are a community that prizes deliberative, thoughtful engagement, and we are committed to working with our partners in shared governance to establish a process for bringing community concerns regarding particular investments to the Investment Committee of the board, the incoming board chair added.
The board invited elected leaders of the College’s four constituency groups–faculty, staff, students and alumni–to share their thoughts in writing and met in person during the board’s October meeting to discuss a process that would engage perspectives of the community regarding investments and about strategies for helping stakeholders understand the endowment. That collegial conversation was a productive first step that stressed the need for open communication and transparency going forward. The Board expects to share further thoughts with the community before the end of the semester.