Pomona College once again is a welcoming presence in the city of Pomona after the 2023 opening of a new community center in the city where the College held its first classes in September 1888.
The Pomona College Community Engagement Center in Pomona’s vibrant downtown Arts Colony builds on longstanding ties between the city and the College, which was founded in a cottage near downtown Pomona before moving to Claremont the next year after a hotel building was offered to house the new school.
The Pomona College Community Engagement Center at 163 W. Second St. in Pomona held its opening last fall.
The Pomona College name stayed, however, and over the decades the college built relationships with its former city through tutoring and arts programs in schools, service programs for teens, and faculty members’ research and engagement in the community.
With the opening of the Pomona College Community Engagement Center at 163 W. Second St. near Garey Avenue in Pomona, the College is building programs that will offer after-school activities for teens such as games, art projects, tutoring and workshops on college access, wellness topics and more. Last fall, a six-session series helped high school students learn about college options and guided them in applying to University of California and California State University campuses as well as to private colleges and universities.
Pomona College will continue gathering input and ideas from community members about what they would like to see at the center. Future plans call for Pomona faculty to hold some classes at the center, which also will host workshops on topics such as identifying and writing grants, college access and financial aid. In time, offerings will expand to provide help for nonprofit organizations to conduct community-based research in the city.
“We are here to serve and strengthen our ties with the people of Pomona, particularly the youth,” says Sefa Aina, the College’s associate dean responsible for community engagement. “We want this to be a place that builds community, supports learning and serves nonprofits and other Pomona organizations.”
Architectural drawing of Ayer Cottage, a small house in the city of Pomona where Pomona College held its first classes in 1888 in exercise of its charter granted October 14, 1887.
Municipal boundaries aside, Pomona College President G. Gabrielle Starr says the center is a tangible example of the College’s commitment to its namesake city. “Pomona College aims to expand opportunity in education and for society as a whole, and we see this center in the Arts Colony as a natural place to partner with the community to promote learning, creativity and a sense of connection.”
The location is particularly fitting since the Pomona Arts Colony was co-founded by Ed Tessier ’91, who also helped launch the nearby School of Arts and Enterprise. The College is renting the space from Tessier’s firm, Arteco Partners.
“The College moved to Claremont in 1888, but the Pomona College family always remained engaged here, making a difference,” says Tessier. “Those efforts will only grow in ambition and impact now that scholars, residents, visionaries and volunteers can work together in one space.”
Assistant Director of the Draper Center Rita Shaw, left, Ed Tessier ’91 and Director of the Draper Center Sefa Aina at the opening.
City-College connections abound. About five blocks to the north of the center stands Pilgrim Congregational, the church that founded Pomona as a nonsectarian college. The American Museum of Ceramic Art, started by the late David Armstrong ’62, is even closer. A nearby downtown mural depicts scientific pioneer Jennifer Doudna ’85, the first Pomona College graduate to win a Nobel Prize. The late civil rights champion Ignacio Lopez ’31, who fought discrimination against Latinos in the region from the 1930s to 1960s, published his influential El Espectador newspaper from his Pomona home less than a mile from the center. And nine or so blocks southwest of the center stands a plaque marking where the College held its first classes in Ayer Cottage.
“Pomona is in our very name,” says Aina. “We are proud to be back in Pomona in this new way.”