At right, Soleil Ball Van Zee ’19, a volunteer mentor for the the Rooftop Garden Mentoring Program, works with local high school students in the container garden atop Pomona’s Sontag Hall. A collaboration between the Pomona College Draper Center and Teen Green, a program organized by the local nonprofit Uncommon Good, the 5-year-old venture aims to increase activism and awareness around environmental justice, sustainability and gardening, as well as build leadership and presentation skills, according to Maya Kaul ’17, one of the program’s student coordinators. “When I see our hard work in the garden succeeding,” Kaul says, “with a lot of our seeds sprouting, it reminds me of the other ways in which our investments in the program have ‘blossomed’ via the growth of community within our mentoring program.”
Articles Written By: emae2021@pomona.edu
Rooftop Gardeners
Healing Labyrinth
As part of April’s Healing Ways Week, students built a stone-lined labyrinth at the Organic Farm to be used in walking meditations. “We wanted to involve our community in making a public art installation that can be used for ongoing contemplaton, practice, and study,” explains Associate Professor of English and Africana Studies Valorie Thomas, one of the orgqanizers of the weeklong event.
Titled “Healing Ways: Decolonizing Our Minds, Our Bodies, Ourselves,” the series of healing-related events also included workshops, lectures, practitioner presentations, art, and performance focused on healing and social justice.“We particularly intended to offer support to students who have been feeling traumatized and stressed by current social events and who are shouldering the work of doing critical thinking and activism,” says Thomas.
In an informal ceremony following the completion of the first stage of labyrinth construction, Thomas (above) stepped to the center of the labyrinth to read a passage from Jorge Luis Borges’ short story, “The Garden of Forking Paths,” which she describes as “a meditation on labyrinths and the benefits of occasionally losing your way.”
EnviroLab Asia
Madi Vorva ’17 (right) on the Baram River in Malaysia
Madi Vorva ’17 has been an environmental activist since the sixth grade, when she and a fellow Girl Scout started a national campaign to pressure the organization to commit to using deforestation-free palm oil in their cookies. However, until this spring, when she joined a clinic trip to Malaysia and Singapore with the 5C initiative EnviroLab Asia, she had never actually visited the region she was working to save.
“This was the first time I’ve been on the ground with these issues, so it was a really meaningful moment for me, and I really appreciated the chance to finally connect my advocacy with my school,” says Vorva.
EnviroLab Asia, begun last fall with a Luce Initiative on Asian Studies and the Environment (LIASE) grant from the Henry Luce Foundation, allows participants from The Claremont Colleges to study big environmental issues like water quality, forest health, social justice and deforestation of rainforests to produce palm oil.
“One of the reasons EnviroLab Asia is important is that it has helped us understand the global nature of local environmental issues,” says Professor of Environmental Analysis Char Miller. “It’s a way for us to understand our complicity in these issues and the ramifications.”
Among the 5C students and faculty who accompanied Vorva on the trip were Ki’amber Thompson ’18 and professors Marc Los Huertos (environmental analysis), Zayn Kassam (religious studies), Stephen Marks (economics), Wallace Meyer (biology) and James Taylor (theatre).
Bryan Stevenson on Change
“For change, you have to get proximate. You have to change the narratives that are behind the problems that you’re trying to address—there’s a narrative behind the issues that we are dealing with. You have to be hopeful—that’s my third piece of advice. You cannot change things if you are hopeless about what you can do. That’s absolutely vital. And you have to be willing to do uncomfortable things. I don’t think anything changes when you only do what’s comfortable and convenient.”
—Acclaimed lawyer and social justice activist Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, spoke at Bridges Auditorium and conducted a master class at Pomona as part of the three-day Pomona College Criminal Justice Symposium held on campus in March.
The Accolades of Spring
As usual, springtime at Pomona brought news of a flurry of highly competitive student and graduate awards, including:
16 Fulbright Awards
7 Research Fellowships
- Benjamin Cohen ’16 (Ukraine)
- Madeleine Colvin ’16 (China)
- Amelia DeSnoo ’16 (China)
- Nathalie Folkerts ’16 (United Kingdom)
- Alexandra Goss ’16 (declined in favor of Watson Fellowship)
- Elisabeth Hanson ’16 (France)
- Marek Zorawski ’16 (Poland)
9 English Teaching Assistantships
- Angeli Bi ’16 (Colombia)
- Jamila Espinosa ’16 (Portugal)
- Mia Hahn ’16 (Taiwan)
- Janet Herrera ’16 (Peru)
- Nana-Korantema Koranteng ’16 (Bahrain)
- Thuy Tien Le ’16 (South Korea)
- Edmund Pacleb ’16 (Indonesia)
- Isaac Levy-Rubinett ’16 (Colombia)
- Duong (Cody) Thach ’16 (Vietnam)
2 Watson Fellowships
- Harrison Goodall ’16 (Canada, Denmark, Ethiopia, India)
- Alexandra Goss ’16 (Argentina, Bolivia, Morocco, United Kingdom)
2 Downing Scholarships
- Fiker Tadesse Bekele ’16
- Conner Samuel Kummerlow ’16
3 Goldwater Scholarships
- Tanner Byer ’17
- Ziv Epstein ’17
- Nathan Sandford ’17
2 Boren Scholarships
- Dallon Asnes ’18 (India)
- Eli Tanenbaum ’18 (Jordan)
Bookmarks Summer 2016
First Words
On Dostoevky’s Introductions
Lewis Bagby ’66, emeritus professor of Russian at the University of Wyoming, examines Fyodor Dostoevsky’s use of forewords to introduce some of his greatest and most challenging works of fiction, from Notes from the Underground to The Brothers Karamozov. Excerpt: “Dostoevsky did not wish to be overtly directive in his fiction. Nor did he wish to poke his nose out of his hole into the great world: in the manner of Gogol’s Rudy Panko. Like his beloved Pushkin, he chose to remain in the background and to allow other voices to speak, not for him, but for themselves.”
Mediterranean Summers
Karen Heath Clark ’66 invites you to join her, her husband and their dog, Roka, on an eight-year Mediterranean adventure aboard their 39-foot trawler. Excerpt: “Roka went with us everywhere. She learned to sit between us on a motorscooter seat. She sat quietly under the table during dinner. She is an expert at taking escalators and elevators and riding buses. She learned to ride in a basket on Bruce’s bike attached behind his seat and trotted on her leash alongside my bike, even in heavy traffic. She seemed to relish her time with us on the boat and the many adventures she experienced.“
Collier’s Guide to Night Photography in the Great Outdoors
Nature photographer Grant Collier ’96 shares his detailed expertise in capturing the beauty of nighttime scenes and the wonders of the heavens with a camera. Excerpt: “I’ve seen many night shots where there is just a flat, dark horizon with the night sky above it. While the sky may be dramatic, the shots are little different from countless other images of the night sky. What really sets a good night photo apart from the others is the foreground. Not only does it make the image more unique, but it can also add depth to an image and draw the viewer into the scene.”
A Witherston Murder Mystery
An auction of rare Cherokee artifacts, Appalachian antiques and a young African grey parrot leads to murder in the second Witherston murder mystery by Betty Jean Craige ’68. Excerpt: “Why should this story matter to us Witherstonians? Because those of us living in the twenty-first century have inherited more than money and furniture from our ancestors. And we’ve inherited more than their genes. We have inherited perspectives and prejudices—through the stories we’ve heard at family dinners, the novels we’ve read, the songs we’ve sung.”
Red Flags
A Kate Reilly Mystery
In her fourth mystery about racecar driver Kate Reilly, Tammy Kaehler ’92 offers up another high-octane thriller, this time from the world of Grand Prix racing. Excerpt: “As a driver, I actively listened to the health of my racecar with my entire body. I was attuned to the feel of balanced suspension and a happy engine—in a Corvette C7.R set up for right and left turns. This IndyCar chassis might have a Chevrolet engine, but that was the only similarity. The car felt bent—less so on the banking than on the flat. But still broken.”
21 Days to Resilience
How to Transcend the Daily Grind, Deal with the Tough Stuff, and Discover Your Strongest Self
In this practical self-help guide,
psychologist and health and wellness expert Dr. Zelana Montminy ’04 offers a research-based toolkit to help people develop their capacity to handle whatever life may throw at them. Excerpt: “Hope is our fuel. It’s our choice. Resilient people choose to overcome feelings of hopelessness. They don’t rely on changing experiences or emotions to define their reality. They choose to look forward, to hope.”
America’s Great National Forests, Wildernesses & Grasslands
Professor of Environmental Analysis Char Miller and photographer Tim Palmer create an arresting tome about America’s diverse public lands. Excerpt: “The Sandhills of Nebraska, a vast stretch of rolling prairie in the center of the state, seem an unlikely place for a national forest, let alone one administered in conjunction with the iconic high-elevation forests of the Rocky Mountains. Yet the Nebraska National Forest’s very existence is a perfect reflection of the ambition of late 19th-century and early 20th-century foresters to manage landscapes, treeless or wooded, and make them productive.”
The Babylon Complex
Theopolitical Fantasies of War, Sex, and Sovereignty
Associate Professor of Religious Studies Erin Runions examines the tangled intersection of religion and politics in the U.S., focusing on the ambivalent image of Babel or Babylon. Excerpt: “For those bothered by the increasing diversity that appears within the nation as a result of globalization, Babel is a negative term. For instance, the conservative Pat Buchanan consistently applies the image to complain about difference: that the United States is converting from a Christian nation into the Tower of Babel (1997) or that love of diversity is producing the Tower of Babel and destroying the idea of America (2009).”
Glee Club in Rome
The Pomona College Glee Club, under the direction of Professor Donna Di Grazia, performs in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome during the group’s spring tour of Italy.
Buonasera Glee Club
This May, St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome and St. Mark’s Basilica in Venice will ring with the voices of the Pomona College Glee Club, as the group brings its annual concert tour for the first time to Italy. Each year after the end of the spring semester, the Glee Club takes a little piece of Pomona on the road, performing in venues across the country and around the world. Last year’s East Coast tour included a performance at the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. (below). The last time the troop went transatlantic was in 2012, when they performed at venues across Poland, England and Germany, including the famous Thomaskirche in Leipzig (Bach’s home church for nearly 30 years), St. James’s Piccadilly in London, and the Berliner Dom in Berlin.
For Sagehens abroad or those who plan to be abroad in May, here’s the complete schedule (all are concert performances unless otherwise noted):
- Basilica San Nicolo, Lecco (Lake Como region), Italy—May 19, 9 p.m.
- Chiesa San Salvador, Venice, Italy—May 21, 7 p.m.
- St. Mark’s Basilica, Venice, Italy—May 22, noon (featured choir at mass)
- Chiesa di Santa Caterina, Pisa, Italy—May 24, 9 p.m. (concert sponsored by UNESCO.)
- Basilica Santa Trinita, Florence, Italy—May 25, 9 p.m.
- Chiesa San Marcello, Rome, Italy—May 27, 9 p.m.
- St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican City, Rome, Italy —May 28, 5 p.m. (featured choir at mass)
Artwork by James Hueter ’46 Acquired by The Huntington Library
The sculpture-painting, “The Figure Rising,” by artist James Hueter has been acquired by The Huntington Library, Art Collection and Botanical Gardens in San Marino, CA, for their permanent collection of American Art. James studied art at Pomona and received his M.F.A. at CGS. He has been an active artist since then and continues to show and work. A 60-year retrospective of his work, curated by Steve Comba, associate director of Pomona College Museum of Art, was shown at the Claremont Museum of Art in 2009, and he will have a show at Bunny Gunner Gallery in Claremont in May 2016. See photo of James with his work at the Huntington. He and his family had a private tour of the gallery space in Jan. with Hal Nelson, curator of Decorative Art, and Jessica Todd Smith, chief curator of American Art.
New Work by Linda Kawasaki Yoshizawa ’78
A new work by Linda Kawasaki Yoshizawa ’78 was included in the visual arts portion of the 10th annual “East Meets West” art and poetry exhibit, integrating visual and literary arts, held in the Civic Center at the main Livermore, California, library. Yoshizawa is a printmaker from the San Francisco Bay Area whose artwork reflects the mixing of two cultural sensibilities—American and Japanese. Her nature-inspired drawings are used as symbols of our own struggles and yearnings. She uses colors, values, and textures to elicit mood, questions, and a sense of serenity. Her monotype printing technique balances serendipity and design with a personal aesthetic that reflects her Japanese-American identity. An art major at Pomona, she is a member of the California Society of Printmakers and the Los Angeles Printmaking Society. Her work is included in many personal and corporate collections across the country, including Kaiser Permanente in San Ramon and Pleasanton, California.