Returning to the World

Nyhavn, Copenhagen, Denmark

For the first time in its 75-year history, the Fulbright U.S. Student Program last year suspended all research fellowships and teaching assistantships due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now the program is back in operation, and these are Pomona College recipients for 2021-22:

> Alexa Bayangos ’21, a math major and Asian American studies minor from Redwood City, California, will teach English in Thailand. As an athlete, Bayangos hopes to foster interest in basketball by organizing a skills camp for youth in her host community. She also intends to provide workshops highlighting social issues within athletics, including gender inequality, body image and mental health stigma.

> Martha Castro ’21, a molecular biology major from Orinda, California, will go to Sweden with a research award. Her project seeks to identify protein biomarkers, or identifiers, for enterovirus infection-induced damage to pancreatic beta cells, which would provide a non-invasive method for Type 1 diabetes prediction and diagnosis in asymptomatic patients. Her planned activities in her host country include joining Karolinska Institute Center for Infectious Medicine’s Global Friends organization, which works to promote connections between Swedish and international students.

> Adam Dvorak ’21, a physics major from Santa Rosa, California, will conduct research in Denmark studying the effects of extreme weather events. In his project, he will be searching for patterns and trends using machine learning and determining which combination of variable renewable energy sources and associated storage is needed to have power at all points of the year, creating a system able to withstand extreme weather events. While in Denmark, Dvorak aims to teach violin.

> Ethan Ong ’21, a math major and Chinese minor from Bellevue, Washington, will teach in Taiwan and hopes to host “food-telling” events where Ong will share a personal story about himself, accompanying the story with food that has an associated emotional connection. These would take the form of regular snack events or potlucks where community members can share their stories with one another.

> Ethan Kostishak ’20, an anthropology major and French minor from Phoenix, Arizona, declined the Fulbright and will work at New York University Shanghai as a senior global speaking and writing fellow.

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program is sponsored by the U.S. government and designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the U.S. and the people of other countries.

On Board: Three distinguished alumni joined the College’s Board of Trustees this summer.

> Susan Gerardo Dunn ’84 is a writer, editor, publisher and founder of Indicia Media, which produces the local daily news website Baltimore Fishbowl and publishes an annual print guide to local schools. She serves as general manager, editorial director, director of digital strategy and product manager. She previously founded a local print magazine for women in Baltimore and, prior to that, was a freelance writer and education reporter. Early in her career, she served as communications director at Advocates for Children and Youth, a nonprofit that focuses on children’s issues. At Pomona, she was an English major and editor-in-chief of The Student Life. She also serves as a board member of the Walters Art Museum, Gilman School, the Thomas Wilson Foundation and the Greater Baltimore Medical Center’s Women’s Hospital Foundation.

> David L. Nunes ’83 has three decades of experience in the forest products industry. For the past seven years, he has been president and CEO of Rayonier Inc., an international real estate investment trust that owns, leases or manages 2.7 million acres of timberland in the U.S. and New Zealand. He previously served for 12 years as president and CEO of Pope Resources, which owned timberland in the Pacific Northwest and built a private equity timber fund business. Nunes also has worked at the Weyerhaeuser Company and Seattle-Snohomish Mill Company, a sawmill started by his grandfather and great-grandfather. He earned a degree in economics at Pomona and holds a master’s in industrial administration from Carnegie Mellon University.

> MacKenzie Teymouri ’09 is a deputy district attorney for Los Angeles County. Currently, she manages a caseload focusing on the prosecution of serious and violent felony offenses. Prior to attending law school at the University of Southern California (USC), she was a clinical research associate at City of Hope National Medical Center, as well as a volunteer counselor advocate for the Los Angeles Rape and Battering Hotline. She is a published author in the Southern California Law Review, the Psycho-Oncology journal and the Journal of the National Cancer Institute. At Pomona, she graduated magna cum laude, with a major in anthropology and a minor in psychology. While captain of the softball team, she earned the Scholar-Athlete of the Year award.

Through the Gates

Never before had two classes made the now-traditional entry through the Pomona College Gates on the same day. Yet in one of the most symbolic images of the return to campus after nearly 18 months, the Class of ’24—students who lost their entire first year on campus to the COVID-19 pandemic—joined President G. Gabrielle Starr for the happy procession on the morning of August 28. Shortly afterward, the Class of ’25 followed, with both classes joined by other new students beginning their time at Pomona. More information on Pomona’s return to campus and COVID-19 safety.

–Photo by Carrie Rosema

Football

The Pomona-Pitzer football team resumed practice in August after a lost year of competition for all sports. The Sagehens’ 10-game season is scheduled to conclude with the Sixth Street Rivalry on November 13 at Claremont-Mudd-Scripps.

—Photo by Jeff Hing

Class Photo

In another of many firsts, separate class photos for the Classes of ’24 and ’25 (seen here) were taken on the steps of the Carnegie Building on the same day, with students wearing masks to the steps, briefly doffing them for posterity and then putting them back on.

—Photo by Kristopher Vargas

Outdoor Classrooms

Pomona has adapted to the pandemic by adding outdoor classrooms throughout the campus, and many can be equipped with audiovisual equipment. Here, Eric Hurley, professor of psychological science and Africana studies, teaches Psychology of the Black Experience in the courtyard of Alexander Hall.

—Photo by Jeff Hing

A Drum Falls Silent

The object below is The Drum, which commemorated the football rivalry between Pomona College and Occidental College for nearly 80 years before Oxy’s decision to end its football program last year brought the tradition to a halt. Pomona-Pitzer’s victory in the final Battle for the Drum on November 9, 2019, means the ceremonial trophy will remain in the Sagehen Athletics archives in perpetuity.

The Oxy-Pomona rivalry predates The Drum itself, with the first football game between Pomona and Occidental played in 1895, only eight years after the founding of Pomona College.

The rivalry was one of the 10 oldest in the U.S.—and the oldest in Southern California, with a 34-year head start on the USC-UCLA game, first played in 1929.

Times have changed on the gridiron, like everywhere else: In 1925, Pomona shut out UCLA, 26-0, for its sixth consecutive win over the Bruins, but lost to Oxy, 6-3.

The Drum itself was introduced in 1941 and presented to Occidental following a 26-14 victory after the alumni associations of the two colleges came up with the idea of a trophy for the annual winner.

Pomona claimed The Drum for the first time in 1942 with a 12-6 win before World War II suspended the rivalry in 1943 and ’44.

Bonfire rallies the night before the Oxy game became a huge tradition. But in 1963, with the nation in shock following the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the planned bonfire was instead lit in silent tribute to the fallen president.

A new rivalry slowly began to grow after Claremont-Mudd launched its own football program in 1958. The Battle of Sixth Street eventually eclipsed the Battle for the Drum and now outlives it.

Trouble for the Oxy program was brewing by 2017 as the Tigers forfeited their final four games because the roster was so injury-depleted it raised safety concerns, fueling debate about the role football should play at the college.

Though none of them could have imagined what was ahead, the Sagehens claimed what proved to be the final Battle for the Drum when they won the 2019 game, 63-14, behind senior quarterback Karter Odermann’s 306-yard passing performance.