Winning a Watson Fellowship is both a creative passport and a generous provision to wander the world and do independent research for a full year after graduation. However, just as it did to best-laid plans around the world, COVID-19 interrupted those of this year’s Watson winners.

But for Watson recipients Adin Becker ’20 and Zed Hopkins ’20, the disruption is only a delay, not a dead end. The Watson Foundation has granted each of them a two-year deferral period.

Becker, a politics and Middle Eastern studies major from Portland, Ore., learned of his big win amid the frenzy of packing up to go home due to the pandemic.

“The news of my acceptance allowed me to take a step back from the stress of the current moment and concentrate on the passion that had led to me apply in the first place. In times of crisis, it is wonderful to have something extraordinary to look forward to, especially if it happens to be a project you have dreamed of doing for over a decade,” says Becker.

His dream is to explore small, isolated international Jewish settlements in Peru, Ghana, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Tunisia and Poland to gain insight into their persistence and survival despite perpetual threats to their existence.

Hopkins, a theatre major from Brisbane, Australia, has plans to travel and do research in South Africa, Uganda, Greece, India, Indonesia, Switzerland, Austria and Italy. He is grateful for the award but says, “Traveling the world seems like the last thing you want to be doing right now.” However, he plans to do so as soon as it becomes feasible—hopefully by early 2021.

Hopkins’ proposal is to analyze the six pillars of theatre performance and how they connect the imaginative and physical worlds of diverse cultures. The specifics of his project may evolve depending on the economic and social repercussions of the pandemic, so he has been busy brainstorming alternatives. “But if Pomona has taught me anything,” he says, “it’s that you have to lean into that discomfort and embrace and enjoy the challenge.”

Plenty of folks consider campus radio station KSPC 88.7 FM an essential part of their daily routines.

When California Gov. Gavin Newsom issued a statewide stay-at-home order in March, that became official in a manner of speaking: Broadcasting was deemed an essential service along with other media.

The only problem was that all the student DJs were gone after the closing of campus. But Erica Tyron SC ’92, Pomona’s director of student media and KSPC station manager, kept the station going at first by patching together pre-recorded or archival shows and public service announcements. Soon students and alumni began sending in prerecorded shows on MP3 files though Box or Dropbox. A few local community and alumni DJs dropped by the studio.

But one student, Hannah Avalos ’21, started broadcasting her Friday show live from her home in Whittier, spanning the 25 miles to campus via a Zoom connection that gives her mouse-control access to the KSPC studio in Thatcher Music Building.

For Avalos, the high-wire adrenaline of being live sustains her in the stay-at-home era—all via technology undreamed of when KSPC first signed on to the airwaves in 1956.

“It’s kind of like an outing for me,” Avalos says. “It’s an activity, more than another task I have to do. It’s a really nuanced difference, but I think having it at a set time is more like having an appointment or a fun activity, rather than another homework assignment or a work assignment.”

Eight Pomona seniors were awarded prestigious Fulbright fellowships for world travel and teaching English, though the Fulbright program also delayed the start of its fellowships until after January 1, 2021. Here are the winners from the Class of 2020.

Tyler Bunton, an English major from Hamden, Conn., has been selected to teach English in Brazil.

Jordan Carethers, an international relations and French double major from Bloomfield Hills, Mich., was selected to teach English in rural Taiwan.

Evan Chuu, a linguistics major from Arcadia, Calif., will teach English in Malaysia.

Oliver Dubon, a music major from Palmyra, Va., was selected to go to Estonia on a research award.

Netta Kaplan, a linguistics major from St. Paul, Minn., was selected to teach English in Turkey.

Daphnide Nicole, an international relations major from Portland, Ore., was selected to teach English in Senegal.

Aleksandr Thomas, an international relations major from Pasadena, Calif., was selected to teach English in Russia.

Kim Tran, a public policy analysis major from Chicago, Ill., plans to teach English in Vietnam.

With the campus closed, there have been lots of wildlife sightings, including everything from owls to coyotes. In this photo, a family of raccoons peeks out of their hiding place in a storm drain on College Avenue, between the President’s House and Carnegie Hall. —Photo by Lupe Castaneda

Listen in on enlightening conversations with some of Pomona’s most interesting alumni with Sagecast, the podcast of Pomona College. Here is a sampling of this season’s offerings, now available at pomona.edu/sagecast:

Jennifer Doudna ’85
winner of the 2020 Nobel Prize for Chemistry for her work with a gene-editing tool that has revolutionized  genetic research

Mac Barnett ’04
author of such beloved children’s books as Extra Yarn and The Wolf, the Duck and the Mouse

Anjali Kamat ’00
award-winning investigative reporter who covered the Arab uprisings in Egypt and Libya for Al Jazeera

Lynda Obst ‘72
renowned film producer of such groundbreaking films as The Fisher King, Sleepless in Seattle, Interstellar and more

Bill Keller ’70
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and former executive editor of The New York Times 

Richard Preston ’76
New York Times best-selling author of The Hot Zone, among other books, and expert on emerging viruses