Articles Written By: emae2021@pomona.edu

The Road to Basketball Glory

September 30, 2021 by Staff Comments Off

Lately, the road to basketball glory passes through Pomona College.

In July, Coach Mike Budenholzer ’92 and his Milwaukee Bucks hoisted the NBA championship trophy after defeating the Phoenix Suns in the NBA Finals.

In August, Coach Gregg Popovich and Team USA fended off France for Olympic gold in Tokyo.

“Coach Bud,” as he’s known throughout the NBA, played for Pomona-Pitzer from 1988-92 after he was briefly recruited by Popovich before the young Sagehens coach left to become an assistant with the San Antonio Spurs in 1988.

That glancing acquaintance deepened when Pop—as the longtime San Antonio head coach is known throughout the basketball world—hired Budenholzer as a Spurs video coordinator and then promoted him to assistant coach. They would work together for 19 years, piling up four of Popovich’s five NBA titles with the Spurs.

Charmed paths? Not completely.

Despite winning NBA Coach of the Year in 2014-15, Budenholzer faced postseason disappointments in his first head job as coach of the Atlanta Hawks, ending with a mutual parting of ways after five years. There was more departure talk as the Bucks fell short of expectations, even falling into 0-2 holes in two of their best-of-seven playoff series on the way to the championship. But Budenholzer’s Bucks left no doubt in the end, when Giannis Antetokounmpo’s astounding 50-point performance in Game 6 of the Finals gave Milwaukee its first NBA title in 50 years.

Head Coach Mike Budenholzer ’92 holds the Larry O’Brien Trophy after his Milwaukee Bucks win game six of the 2021 NBA Finals.

Popovich, likewise, seemed headed for possible failure as Olympic coach. Without NBA stars LeBron James, Steph Curry and others on the roster, Team USA had early misfires—notably an exhibition loss to Nigeria and a loss to France in the opening game of the Olympic competition.

For Pop, five NBA rings meant little when faced with the five-ring Olympic symbol and the duty to uphold American pride. Add to that his memories of being cut from the 1972 Olympic team as a player out of the Air Force Academy—“I was devastated when I didn’t make it, as anybody would be,” he says—and his role as an assistant coach on the 2004 Olympic team that settled for a crushing bronze medal.

The USA Men’s National Team present Head Coach Gregg Popovich with the gold medal after winning the Gold Medal Game of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.

“You know what sayonara means? That’s how I’m feeling right now,” a relieved Popovich said in Tokyo after winning gold. “You know, every championship is special and the group you’re with is special, but I can be honest and say this is the most responsibility I’ve ever felt. Because you’re playing for so many people that are watching for a country and other countries involved. The responsibility was awesome. And I felt that every day for several years now. So, I’m feeling pretty light now.”

The next time Popovich and Budenholzer gather for a meal—as they often do when they get an opportunity together or with longtime Pomona-Pitzer Coach Charlie Katsiaficas—expect a toast to Pomona.

“I loved playing basketball at Pomona. It was a huge part of my experience,” Budenholzer recalled last spring during an episode of Sagecast, the podcast of Pomona College. “The reason I chose Pomona was I could get the best education while still playing basketball. … I had a couple other places [he could have played] and really none of them were probably even in the same realm academically as Pomona.”

Popovich, despite an NBA career pointed toward the Basketball Hall of Fame, has never lost his love for his days as a Division III coach at a small liberal arts college.

“I just enjoyed the atmosphere where all the players were real student-athletes and they knew that wasn’t going to be their profession or anything, but they sacrificed that time to be on an intercollegiate team,” he recalled as he prepared the U.S. team for Tokyo. “I loved the whole Claremont Colleges set-up down there with the five schools. It was really great for my family. My kids kind of grew up there during that seven or eight years.”

“It was great satisfaction, well beyond basketball.”

Retirement could be nearing for Popovich, 72. Maybe Katsiaficas could use a volunteer assistant.

“Nah,” Popovich said. “I don’t think Charlie’d hire me.”

Gregg Popovich’s penchant for speaking his mind politically didn’t stop when he became the U.S. Olympic coach.

“A patriot is somebody that respects their country and understands that the best thing about our country is that we have the ability to fix things that have not come to fruition for a lot of people so far. All the promises at the beginning when the country was established were fantastic. Those goals have not been reached yet for a lot of people. So being a critic of those inequalities does not make you a non-patriot. It’s what makes America great, that you can say those things and attack those things to make it better. That’s what a lot of countries don’t have. You lose your freedom when you do that. You don’t lose that freedom here.”

—Gregg Popovich

In Memoriam Bob Herman

September 30, 2021 by Staff Comments Off

Bob Herman ’51

Emeritus Professor of Sociology
1928—2021

Robert Dunton Herman ’51, emeritus professor of sociology and author of the definitive downtown Los Angeles walking guide, died April 9 of complications following a recent fall. He was 92.

An expert on urban issues, Herman began taking groups of students on bus tours of Los Angeles neighborhoods in the late 1980s, and he made it his personal mission to introduce skeptical suburbanites to the hidden wonders of L.A.’s under-appreciated downtown.

Herman’s love for cities, trains and suburban Claremont all came together in the early ’90s when the new Metrolink commuter train, with a station just blocks from the Pomona College campus, whisked riders to Union Station. As his son Paul Herman recounts, the professor raced into the kitchen and gleefully announced to his wife, Carol, “This is the greatest day of my life!”

Born in 1928 in Champaign, Illinois, Herman spent most of his childhood in Hillsdale, Michigan, where his father taught sociology at the local college. And it was in Hillsdale (and especially on train trips between Hillsdale and his mother’s hometown of Dundee, Illinois) that Herman first developed the love of railroads and passenger trains that stayed with him throughout his life.

During World War II, the family moved twice more: first to Tucson, Arizona, and finally to Redlands, California, where Herman graduated from high school. He served two years in the U.S. Navy, working as an electrical specialist on the still-new technology of radar, before enrolling at Pomona College in 1948.

At Pomona, Herman studied sociology under professors Alvin Scaff and Ray Baber and sang in the glee club and choir. As a chorister with a fine bass voice, he first met and fell in love with Carol Baber ’51, who also sang with the groups. She was a Pomona classmate who happened to be his academic advisor’s daughter. Following graduation in 1951, the couple held their wedding in the Mabel Shaw Bridges Hall of Music on the Pomona College campus before moving to Madison, Wisconsin, where Herman completed a doctorate in sociology at the University of Wisconsin.

After a five-year stint in Ames, Iowa, where he taught at Iowa State University, the couple returned to Claremont in 1960 when he was hired to fill the seat recently vacated by his father-in-law’s retirement. A year later, they settled into the Claremont home where they raised three children and lived together for the next 60 years.

Herman taught sociology at Pomona College for four decades. He loved teaching, served for many years as the chair of the Sociology Department and was well known among fellow faculty for his warm collegiality. Above all, Herman was passionate about mentoring students and was honored with the Wig Award for excellence in teaching in 1991. His genuine interest in getting to know people led him to develop friendships with many students, several of whom became lifelong friends.

A tall man with a long, distinctive gait and a ready wave, Herman was a familiar figure around Claremont. Friends and neighbors initially dubbed him the “Jolly Green Giant” due to his habit of jogging through town in an old green sweatsuit. They later nicknamed him “Ironman Bob” as he continued to run daily around Claremont’s Memorial Park well into his 70s. Locals also came to know Herman as a popular tour guide who led countless walking tours of The Claremont Colleges and the Village, during which he shared his deep knowledge of the town and region with an infectious enthusiasm.

His interests reached into Los Angeles in the 1980s and, over time, student tours of L.A. neighborhoods expanded into bus and walking tours for alumni, faculty and a variety of civic and professional groups. Herman published Downtown Los Angeles: A Walking Guide in 1996, not long before retiring. It filled a niche, and Herman went on to give hundreds of tours of the Civic Center, Bunker Hill and other downtown districts.

He would start at Union Station, which combined his love of the city and trains, and point out the 1939 station’s optimistic architecture, full of arches and color. “It just tells you you’re in a different place,’’ he said in an interview. “This is California. Your life is going to be transformed here.”

Herman was in the lead in foreseeing the transformation of L.A.’s core: “It’s finally happening,” he said in 2007. “We’re getting a lot of people moving downtown. I’ve been waiting for it all my life.”

Beyond cities and trains, Herman loved Baroque music, and his wife Carol’s long career as a Baroque cellist and viola da gambist delighted him, noted his son Paul. Bob and Carol were married for 69 years.

In addition to his wife, Herman is survived by his sister, Eleanor Kemp of Redlands, his three children, David, Molly and Paul, their spouses and five grandchildren.

Getting There

September 30, 2021 by Sneha Abraham Comments Off

Moving people from point A to point B is a must. But horses and buggies are long gone, an ever-increasing number of vehicles are packing (or are they parked?) the freeways and teleporting is still a way off.

Jarrett Walker ’84 photographed in a Los Angeles Metro station in 2013

Jarrett Walker ’84 is an oft-quoted and oft-consulted international expert on public transportation who has published everywhere from the Journal of Transport Geography to Shakespeare Quarterly and been cited by Bloomberg, The Seattle Times, Atlanta Magazine and more. He has redesigned major public transport networks in North America and overseas and is a frequent speaker on transit and urbanism issues. And he says it’s not enough for mass transit to compete with cars. Mass transit must succeed.

He is certain it will. While the COVID-19 pandemic suggested that public transit is unsafe, Walker contends that it was much safer than we were being told—and time and seats occupied will prove it, despite people’s fears.

“I don’t see safety or perceptions of safety as something insurmountable,” he says. “As long as we don’t cut service, I think that inevitably many people will look at their options and find that public transit is the safest thing to do among their options in enough numbers that will get ridership.”

Riders are coming, but so is the possibility of a permanent transformation of rush hour, Walker says. But to get there requires some serious upgrades to efficiency. Walker points to the Metrolink in Southern California as an example of a very inefficient operation because it is so narrowly focused on rush hour.

“Metrolink has to position a whole bunch of trains to make one trip. There’ll be one trip from San Bernardino to L.A. And they will have to have a whole train and a crew just to run that one trip because by the time you get to L.A. and go back, the peak is over and it’s too late to do it again.”

Because racial and social equity are major concerns, the need to focus on all-day service is even more urgent since low-income people are traveling at all hours, not just the peak. But Walker has a few questions about what the equity priorities should be.

When it comes to fares, proponents say both free fares and more service are necessary. “They’re both important. But what actually happens inside of an agency’s budget when they say free fares is you get free fares instead of more service,” Walker says. “What you often get is free terrible service. If that means the service is useless to low-income people who need it, it’s hard to call that equity.”

But the soundbite of “free fares,” has a better ring to it, according to Walker, because it’s easier to explain in politics.

What’s the travel time solution for low-income workers? Less rigid work schedules, Walker says. Transportation advocates have been pressing for such change for years, but it took COVID-19 to bring it about. If less-rigid work schedules persist, that could unlock an enormous amount of resources to run better all-the-time service, he says, because rush-hour-only service is so expensive.

No doubt resources and revamps are required. But Walker thinks the political debate on infrastructure might be misdirected. For one, nobody knows what the future of rush hour looks like. As a result, he contends that infrastructure projects that depend on rush-hour demand projections should be paused, and possibly rethought. Infrastructure that can be justified by all-day demand should proceed.

A math major at Pomona, Walker says his liberal arts education helped him see the big picture. With a Stanford Ph.D. in drama, literature and humanities, a case could be made he has a good grasp of the human experience. So that combination of broad thinking and deep understanding of numbers and people might be part of what leads him to believe that while we need some big infrastructure projects, a higher priority may be “100,000 crosswalks.” Walker says that however great a bus network he designs, what remains is a huge problem for pedestrians: In much of our suburban landscape, it’s too dangerous to walk.

“I can draw the best possible network of bus services, but I can’t change the fact that I’m dropping you on one side of a road that goes 50 miles an hour and there’s nowhere safe for you to cross. You look at the actual barriers to transportation, and a lot of it is the danger or impossibility of walking.”

Elected officials don’t really know how to take credit for 100,000 crosswalks, Walker says. Instead they want their name on a big piece of infrastructure. But that’s not always what we need, he says. Sometimes yes, but oftentimes no. Walker warns that we are always in danger of building the wrong infrastructure, and a little skepticism is warranted. While politicians may garner support for building things, political pressure would be more aptly applied to fixing things, he says.

“That’s really obvious when you actually analyze mobility,” Walker says. “A bunch of it is actually the many tiny things that are wrong, not just the giant things that are wrong.”

Bookmarks Spring 2021

March 23, 2021 by Staff Comments Off

Horse Brain, Human Brain
The Neuroscience of Horsemanship

This work on human and equine brains, by brain scientist and horsewoman Janet L. Jones ’84, was recently listed as one of Book Authority’s “Ten Best Human Brain Books to Read in 2021.”

My Daily Actions, or The Meteorites

Named to a New York Times list of the “Best Poetry of 2020,” the daily journaling practice of S. Brook Corfman ’13 investigates the ordinary.

Leavetakings

Corinna Cook ’07 presents nine essays, all set in Alaska and posing the question of what coming and going can reveal about place.

Mountain Climber
A Memoir

After nearly six decades of climbing, Bill Katra ’68 recounts his mountain adventures, detailing his experiences and reflecting on the wisdom he’s gained from them over time.

ASPC Manual of Preventive Cardiology

Nathan D. Wong ’83 has co-edited an updated review on the current guidelines and practice standards for the clinical management of cardiovascular risk factors and prevention of cardiovascular diseases.

Not About Dinosaurs

This collection of poems by Linda Neal ’64 digs deep into matters of living, dying and extinction.

Survive
(The Atlantis Grail Book 4)

Vera Nazarian ’88 has released the fourth and final book in The Atlantis Grail series, in which under the threat of annihilation, the fate of the entire human species is at stake.

Posthuman Bliss?
The Failed Promise of Transhumanism

Susan B. Levin ’84 challenges transhumanists’—advocates of radical enhancement—claim that science and technology support their vision of posthumanity.

The City and the Wilderness
Indo-Persian Encounters in Southeast Asia

Professor of History Arash Khazeni recounts the journeys and microhistories of Indo-Persian travelers across the Indian Ocean and their encounters with the Burmese Kingdom and its littoral at the turn of the 19th century.

Book Talk Correction

March 23, 2021 by Staff Comments Off

The publishing information that accompanied last issue’s Book Talk with author Ronald Fleming ’63 was incorrect. Here is the correct information:

The Adventures of a Narrative Gardener:
Creating a Landscape of Memory
By Robert Lee Fleming
GILES | 168 pages | $39.95

Letter Box

March 23, 2021 by Staff Comments Off

Remembering
Bill Wirtz

Professor Bill Wirtz leading an animal-trapping
expedition with students at Marine Corp Base Camp Pendleton near San Diego. —Photo by Helen Wirtz

We would like to recognize the legacy of Emeritus Professor William “Bill” Wirtz, who recently passed away in Norco, California, at 83 years old. Bill provided invaluable experience-based learning to generations of Pomona College students that brought the natural world into focus for all and inspired many of us to continue on in biology and ecology careers.

Many of us fondly remember Bill’s ecology course that included overnight trips to the Granite Mountains (to study desert ecosystems) and the Pitt Ranch (oak woodland/grasslands) and day trips to the San Gabriel Mountains (chaparral and coastal sage scrub communities). Bill was in his element with students in the field. He had a seemingly infinite knowledge of the natural history of mammals, birds, reptiles and plants and how they all fit together in an ecological community. Bill’s infectious enthusiasm and passion for biology made us eager to learn more. His vertebrate biology course featured infamous exams that required students to identify the bones of elephants, seals, snakes and birds and discuss their evolution across taxonomic groups.

Some of us were lucky enough to work for Bill as teaching assistants in the laboratory or as research assistants in the field. These experiences did two things simultaneously. First, Bill taught us how to “do” science, which formed our foundation in biological theories and methods. Second, his guidance inspired us to ask our own questions about nature and humanity’s relationship with it. Bill’s kind and patient mentorship motivated many of us to pursue careers as academics and practitioners, passing on his legacy to new generations.

Bill formed deep friendships with many students that lasted a lifetime. He sometimes referred to us as his academic “kids.” When we checked in with stories from our professional lives, we could feel his pride in our accomplishments. We also knew we could turn to Bill anytime for mentorship and advice.

Bill was a treasured friend and an engaged community member, dedicating his time to a number of endeavors, including fire rescue, the Audubon Society and animal welfare through the Humane Society. His endless passion for biology continues to live on in the work of his students. Bill will be sorely missed and fondly remembered.

—Tania Abdul ‘95, director of Breathe, United for Racial and Environmental Justice

Joel Brown ’80, distinguished professor emeritus, biological sciences, University of Illinois – Chicago

Susan Burr ’91, vice president, AECOS Inc.

Scott Fujimoto ’94, public health medical officer, California Department of Public Health

Julie Hagelin ’92, senior research scientist, Institute of Arctic Biology, University of Alaska, Fairbanks

Greta Hardin ’94, forest lands manager

Brian Hudgens ’92, vice president and senior research ecologist, Institute for Wildlife Studies

Glennis Julian ’92, research technician, Butterfly Genetics Lab, University of Cambridge

Roger Lai ’94, senior product manager, 8×8 Inc.

Brad Lamphere ’93, assistant professor of biological sciences, University of Mary Washington

Audrey Mayer ’94, professor of ecology and environmental policy, Michigan Technological University

Jen Perga ’91, teacher (environmental science), Northwestern Regional High School

Terry Sicular ’76, professor

Gillian Thackray ’92, Thermo Fisher Scientific, chief counsel for IP

John Withey ’91, director & faculty, Master of Environmental Studies Program, Evergreen State College

Clint S. Wright ‘91, emeritus scientist, U.S. Forest Service

A memory of
Ved Mehta

One of my paying jobs during my first year, 1952–53, was serving as Ved Mehta’s reader in biology, a course in which I was also a student. Three nights a week, I sat with him and read the text and tried to explain the diagrams. The diagrams were difficult for us, as Ved was blind. One Sunday night, the devil was in me, and I suggested that instead of reading biology, we walk into town for a coffee at the only place open on a Sunday night, the Sugar Bowl. We did so, and for that night biology took the hindmost.

Perhaps 20 years later, I was leaving a club on W. 43rd St. in New York after lunch just as Ved was leaving his club next door. To my astonishment, when I spoke to him he recognized my voice as the biology reader. We talked for a few minutes, and then went our ways.

At our 50th reunion in 2006, discovering that we were going to cross campus to another event, Ved suggested we walk together, and I remembered his preference for subtle guidance by a touch to his elbows.

It became clear that he retained a strong mental map of the campus as it was, for he paused, concerned, before a place at which a building in our time now no longer existed (Harwood Hall, a World War II wood dungeon, for example) and had no idea of what lay beyond 6th Street.

During our stroll, I decided to unburden myself of the guilt I had sometimes felt for taking Ved away from his studies on that Sunday night. He said, with great sincerity, “Oh no, Doug, I will always remember it. It was the first time anyone had suggested that they wanted to do something with me.”

For the record, I must have been an excellent teacher, for Ved always scored above me on biology exams.

—Douglas K. Candland ’56
Lewisburg, Pennsylvania.

Passages

March 23, 2021 by Mark Wood Comments Off

Our lives are mostly continuity. Days blur into a seamless river of time, broken only by a handful of true discontinuities that stand like dams against the flow of years, shunting our lives onto new and radically different courses.

Some of these are matters of fate and circumstance. Winning the lottery, getting a dream job, getting fired, losing a loved one. This year we’ve all been shaken by one of the most disruptive of all—a pandemic.

Other disruptions take the form of cultural milestones—rites of passage in the course of a modern life. Starting school, leaving home, graduating, getting a job, getting married, having a baby. These transitions seem almost sacramental. They transform our lives, but they also make us feel part of something bigger than ourselves. We look forward to them with equal parts anticipation and fear because they promise both possibility and uncertainty. They also remind us that the clock is ticking inexorably on our lives.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately because I now find myself on the brink of another of life’s sacramental passages—the one called retirement. By the time you read this, I will be at home, readjusting to a new life. And though I do feel some trepidation and wistfulness, I’m also excited about the prospect of focusing all my time and energy on my own writing and art, not to mention catching up on a lot of reading and, once this pandemic is done, having more freedom to travel.

I’ve gotten plenty of advice from friends who’ve walked this path before me, mostly about not repeating their mistakes. There are plenty of mistakes to be made, and I’m sure I’ll invent a few of my own. The best advice I’ve gotten, though, came from Professor Emeritus Richard Fass, who took my elbow one day and said with a wink: “Just remember: It’s a process.”

Which, I suppose, makes it like every other great milestone in life.

But I have to say that leaving this job is a bigger transition than most. I’m now in my 23rd year at Pomona—the longest I’ve ever worked or lived anywhere. This issue of Pomona College Magazine is the 65th I’ve had the privilege of designing and overseeing as either managing editor or executive editor. That number, I was surprised to discover, accounts for more than a third of the total since the very first PCM rolled off a press back in October 1963.

To that, I can only add: Thank you for putting up with me for so long.

When you retire, there are lots of sentimental “lasts’ to get through. This is one of them—the last one of these little essays I’ll ever write. Over the years, I’ve penned lots of them, usually about my take on something relevant to the magazine’s theme. In many of them, I’ve shared personal recollections and reflections from my own life—from childhood memories to the trials of parenthood to, in this case, saying goodbye to a career that I’ve mostly loved. I’ve done this, at the risk of oversharing, because I’ve always believed the universal is in the individual. I hope some of what I’ve written about my own life has resonated with yours.

Twenty-three years ago, in the very first of these little missives, I promised you a magazine that would respect your intelligence, and I noted that PCM’s mission should be to “inform, entertain and sometimes disturb. Like an old friend, it should be reliable, but it should frequently surprise you. It should make you think. In the Pomona tradition, it should challenge you.”

That charge is one that I now leave, with a high degree of confidence, for PCM’s next editor.

In Memoriam—Ved Mehta ’52

March 23, 2021 by Staff Comments Off

Ved Mehta

Ved Mehta ’52
Author
1934–2021

Ved Parkash Mehta ’52, noted author, died Jan. 9, 2021, at age 86 from complications of Parkinson’s Disease. Blind from an early age, Mehta is best known for his autobiography, published in installments from 1972 to 2004. Born in India, he lived and worked mainly in the United States, writing for The New Yorker magazine for many years. Here are a few excerpts from the obituaries published around the world following his death:

The New Yorker

“His book The Ledge Between the Streams describes his life as a blind child in the India of the 1940s, as he learned to read Braille and to ride a bicycle and a horse. Throughout his youth and his maturity as a writer, Mehta was determined to apprehend the world around him with maximal accuracy and to describe it as best he could. ‘I felt that blindness was a terrible impediment, and that if only I exerted myself, and did everything my big sisters and big brother did, I could somehow become exactly like them,’ he wrote.

“Mehta came to the United States when he was 15, and attended the Arkansas School for the Blind, in Little Rock. After studying at Pomona College and Oxford University, he began to flourish in his working life as a writer. He asked David Astor, the editor of The Observer, about writing a 14,000-word piece about his travels in India. ‘Something that long and boring,” Astor reportedly said, “only The New Yorker would publish.’”

Mehta joined the staff of the magazine when he was 26 and, for more than three decades, wrote a stream of pieces, many of them appearing in multipart series. He wrote about Oxford dons, theology, Indian politics and many other subjects.”

The Times of London

“So lush was Ved Mehta’s description of visual detail, so painterly his attention to colour, the American author Norman Mailer refused to believe he was blind. Waving his fist in front of Mehta’s face, the famously pugilistic Mailer said: “If you don’t come out and fight with me, you will show yourself to be a coward.”

Mailer’s incredulity, if not his confrontational manner, was understandable; it was indeed hard to understand how Mehta, without his sight, could write such descriptions as this one, from the first installment of Continents of Exile, his 12-volume memoir: “The fields become bright, first with the yellow of mustard flower outlined by the feathery green of sugarcane, and later with maturing stands of wheat, barley and tobacco.”

The New York Times

“… Mehta was widely considered the 20th-century writer most responsible for introducing American readers to India.

“Besides his multivolume memoir, published in book form between 1972 and 2004, his more than two dozen books included volumes of reportage on India, among them Walking the Indian Streets (1960), Portrait of India (1970) and Mahatma Gandhi and His Apostles (1977), as well as explorations of philosophy, theology and linguistics.

“Daddyji was the first installment in what was to become a 12-volume series of autobiographical works, known collectively as ‘Continents of Exile.’

“‘Ved Mehta has established himself as one of the magazine’s most imposing figures,’ The New Yorker’s storied editor William Shawn, who hired him as a staff writer in 1961, told The New York Times in 1982. ‘He writes about serious matters without solemnity, about scholarly matters without pedantry, about abstruse matters without obscurity.’

“The recipient of a MacArthur Foundation ‘genius grant’ in 1982, Mr. Mehta was long praised by critics for his forthright, luminous prose—with its ‘informal elegance, diamond clarity and hypnotic power,’ as The Sunday Herald of Glasgow put it in a 2005 profile.”

The Sunday Herald of Glasgow

“His most enduring work is surely the ‘Continents of Exile’ series, which was written between 1971 and 2005. It began with stories his father used to tell Mehta and his siblings when they were small. Later, the narrative began to gain its own momentum and eventually a distinct design and architecture emerged. Though he took his lead from Proust and Joyce, his approach was different. As in their epics, memory was fundamental but no less so were other sources, such as letters, diaries, personal papers and newspaper articles. The series culminated in The Red Letters, which begins in New York and describes a a disastrous dinner party, at which his father and mother met Shawn for the first time, and then backtracks to the 1930s when his father had an affair with a married woman.

“Periodically, Mehta—who never had a guide dog or used a stick—would ask himself, “How can anyone be expected to read so much about one life?” His answer was that ‘Continents of Exile’ is not the story of one life but of hundreds of lives, with characters coming and going in the manner of a roman fleuve. Thus the past is regained.”

Notice Board

March 23, 2021 by Staff Comments Off

2021 Blaisdell Distinguished Alumni Award Winners

The Blaisdell Award is one of the most prestigious awards given to Pomona alumni, recognizing high achievement in their professions or their community. We are thrilled to congratulate this year’s Blaisdell Distinguished Alumni Award Winners: Cathy Corison ’75, James Strombotne ’56, Martina Vandenberg ’90 and Nathan Wang ’79.

Cathy Corison ’75 was the first woman winemaker-proprietor in the Napa Valley, where she continues to produce handcrafted wines without compromise. Her grapes are sourced from some of the finest vineyards in the Napa Valley, all located on classic benchland between Rutherford and St. Helena. Corison’s vineyards are certified Napa Green. She has farmed organically for more than 25 years, with sustainability as a core value. She founded Corison Winery in 1987, guided by her belief that winemaking and wine appreciation are a timeless, creative celebration of life.

James Strombotne ’56 is a painter whose work has been featured in more than 100 one-man shows, with 14 retrospectives: four in New York City, 22 in Los Angeles, and others in San Francisco, Washington D.C., Santa Barbara, Newport Beach and Santa Fe, New Mexico, among other venues. His work has also been included in most major group shows in America and can be found in the permanent collections of museums across the United States. He is a professor emeritus at UC Riverside following his retirement in 2005 after 40 years of teaching.

Martina Vandenberg ’90 is the founder and president of The Human Trafficking Legal Center, which she established in 2012 with support from the Open Society Foundations Fellowship Program. For more than two decades, she has worked to fight human trafficking, forced labor and violence against women and establish that rape is a war crime. Vandenberg has trained more than 4,000 pro bono attorneys nationwide to handle human trafficking matters. She has testified before multiple House and Senate Committees, gave the keynote address at the first NATO ambassadorial-level conference on human trafficking in Brussels and currently co-chairs the D.C. Human Trafficking Task Force’s Forced Labor Subcommittee.

Nathan Wang ’79 is one of the most successful composers in Hollywood and Asian cinema. Prolific and versatile, he has written music for Jackie Chan movies, Steven Spielberg documentaries and Disney, DreamWorks, Warner Bros. and Sony Pictures Studios’ films. His compositions have been performed by the Los Angeles Philharmonic, Shanghai Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, Los Angeles Opera and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra. He received a Singapore Grammy for Best Arrangement of a Song and an Emmy for the award-winning film Reefer Madness. Wang is an associate professor of film scoring at Beijing University.

Learn more about these extraordinary alumni.

4-7: An Annual Celebration of #SagehenImpact

Our annual 4-7 Day celebrates and honors Sagehens for their local and global contributions. Although we can’t celebrate together in person, all are invited to join us online for a special day of recognizing and discovering the extraordinary impact alumni make, bearing their added riches around the world! Visit pomona.edu/sagehen-impact to register and learn more.

4-7 Day also provides a unique opportunity to showcase the collective impact of the Pomona alumni community by supporting the growth and learning of our current students. Make a gift of $4.47, $47.47 or $447.47 to the Annual Fund today at pomona.edu/give.

Looking for other COVID friendly ideas on how to celebrate 4-7 Day? The Alumni Association Board has a few—or perhaps 47—ideas for you! Check out 47 Things to Do: COVID-19 Edition.

Coming Together as #OnePomona—and a Big Thank You!

There is a brighter future ahead, and the campus is happily ready and waiting for the return of students, faculty and staff to resume Pomona campus life in person. It won’t be long now!

We also want to pause and chirp a big THANKS to you, our alumni and families, for your support these past 12 months. The Sagehen community came together like never before to help students, faculty and staff navigate the uncharted course of remote learning and more during the global pandemic.

The incredible, ongoing generosity of alumni and families this past year ensured that students and faculty had the technology needed to successfully connect and engage in distance teaching and learning; helped expand urgently needed financial aid resources for students; supported virtual research and experiential learning opportunities in summer 2020 through the Remote Alternative Independent Summer Experience (RAISE) program; and provided support to our local community through Pomona’s PAYS program. And there is more.

This spring, we will be sharing further details about your #SagehenImpact and the many ways your gifts have done so much to promote resilience and provide opportunity and genuine care for students and the campus community. Thank you for your dedication and support! Chirp!

Reunion Celebration 2021 is Right Around the Corner!

Pomona College Reunion Celebration

The Pomona College Reunion Celebration will take place on Friday, April 30, and Saturday, May 1, on the virtual Pomona College campus. We are looking forward to having this year’s online reunion classes join us for two days of activities and prizes, unique presentations, Blaisdell and Distinguished Service Alumni Award winner tributes and more.

Registration is free, so sign up today! For more information or to register, visit: pomona.edu/reunion-weekend

Join your classmates in supporting your Reunion Class Gift. Thank you!

In Memoriam—William Wirtz

March 23, 2021 by Staff Comments Off

William Wirtz

William Wirtz
Emeritus Professor of Zoology and Biology
1937–2020

William Wirtz, emeritus professor of zoology and biology, died at home on Dec. 24, 2020, after a long illness. He was 83.

Wirtz was born in New Jersey on Aug. 16, 1937. He attended Rutgers University, where he studied ecology under one of the nation’s foremost experts, graduating in 1959. At Cornell University, he did his postdoctoral research on the habits of the Polynesian rat in the leeward Hawaiian Islands. He received his Ph.D. in ecology and evolutionary biology in 1968. He joined Pomona College the same year in September, teaching until his retirement in 2003.

As a child, Wirtz enjoyed wandering the woods and taking a boat to the nearby salt marsh to study the wildlife. “I was the kid who brought home mice and snakes. And I never stopped,” he told the Pomona College Magazine in 2003 interview.

At Pomona, Wirtz was responsible for establishing, maintaining and upgrading Pomona’s animal care facility and program. He was also known for his two 10-foot snakes, a reticulated python and a boa, which on at least two occasions over the years had escaped the classroom. (Both snakes were found shortly after their escapes, and eventually were both rehomed to wildlife centers).

Professor of Biology and Neuroscience Rachel Levin remembers Wirtz as an institution within Pomona’s Biology Department. “He was totally at home in the wilderness and he was a skilled and passionate naturalist,” she says. “He had a way of engaging students and turning them on to natural world … He took many generations of Pomona students on unforgettable adventures to Pitt Ranch and the Granite Mountains.”

One of those students, Audrey Mayer ’94, now a professor of ecology and environmental policy at Michigan Technological University, credits Wirtz for launching her career. “I knew I liked biology, but I had no idea what to do after in terms of a career. He’s the one who encouraged me to get a Ph.D., which was not on my radar at all. I have a book coming out in March on the gnatcatcher—that was a book that started with him.”

Julie Hagelin ’92, now a senior research scientist for the Institute of Arctic Biology at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, says Wirtz was the first person who made her realize she could do field biology. She learned the step-by-step process of handling small mammals on her first day working as his student assistant—a skill she took with her to graduate school. “It was like he opened a door to a secret world of biology: in the bushes and brush, with these little animals that are only active at night.”

Retired doctor Sharon Booth ’78 shares the same feeling. “Wirtz’s ecology 101 course awakened my eyes to the natural world and the joy of learning about its complexities.” Booth went on to work for Wirtz, spending at least one summer in the chaparral trapping rodents for population surveys.

Joel Brown ’80, now an emeritus professor of biological sciences at the University of Illinois Chicago, was also one of Wirtz’s early protégés. “I’d always loved ecology, had always loved nature, but had no idea that extending one’s love for nature could be a career.”

“Bill was a nonstop documentary and encyclopedia who taught us all these techniques, and can you believe it, we were being paid!” Brown became a student worker for Wirtz and learned how to trap small animals, put radio collars on raccoons and coyotes, band red-tailed hawks and noose lizards. “It was completely transformative. I went home and told my folks I finally knew what I wanted to do. I want to be an ecologist. And so, from that day forward, Bill offered me amazing opportunities.”

“He was an outdoors guy, a classic mud-and-boots ecologist,” says Brown. “Bill Wirtz was one of the foundational mentors in my life; without him, all the other sequences of my life would not have happened.”

Wirtz was a longtime member of the Mt. Baldy Volunteer Fire Department and lived in the mountains with his wife, Helen, for many years. In the 1980s, he studied habits of coyotes who scavenged in the foothills of Claremont and Glendora, even adopting a rescued coyote. He did extensive work on the distribution of rodent populations in the San Dimas Experimental Forest and studied the nesting habits of the endangered California gnatcatcher that lives in endangered coastal sage scrub. These were just some of his many field research interests over the decades.

After retiring from Pomona in 2003, Wirtz and his wife became involved in equine rescue, including rescuing horses during fires, and served on the board of the Inland Valley Humane Society for some time. He also became more involved in one of his favorite hobbies: Civil War reenactments.

Wirtz leaves behind a large legacy of Pomona ecologists and biologists. “There’s a lot of us around who got that start in our careers working for him,” says Mayer.

Wirtz is survived by his wife, Helen, and a son, William.

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Articles Written By: emae2021@pomona.edu

Bob Herman ’51

Remembering Bill Wirtz

A memory of Ved Mehta

Ved Mehta ’52 Author 1934–2021

The New Yorker

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2021 Blaisdell Distinguished Alumni Award Winners

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Coming Together as #OnePomona—and a Big Thank You!

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William Wirtz Emeritus Professor of Zoology and Biology 1937–2020

Remembering
Bill Wirtz

A memory of
Ved Mehta

Ved Mehta ’52
Author
1934–2021

William Wirtz
Emeritus Professor of Zoology and Biology
1937–2020