Articles Written By: emae2021@pomona.edu

Stray Thoughts: Dinner With the Deathies

Floral-skull patternWhen I was in my early 20s, I briefly dated a young woman who, as I soon discovered, had already planned out her entire funeral. She had it all down on paper—from music to flowers to who would speak when—with corrections and notes in the margins. I suppose that funeral fetish might have had something to do with the fact that we only dated briefly. After all, in our society, thinking too much about death is considered morbid and strange.

Forty years have gone by since then. Thinking about death no longer feels strange—more like inevitable. Recently, a friend about my age said it about as well as it can be said: “The scary thing is to realize that I can no longer die an untimely death.”

So when Peggy Arnold ’65 invited me to Colorado to meet her group of end-of-life activists—whom she refers to as “the Deathies”—and to dip my toe into the the end-of-life revolution, I took it not only as a professional opportunity, but also as a personal challenge. The tangible result is the story titled “Before I Die” on page 44 of this issue. The intangible results are still percolating inside my head.

In retrospect, it was probably a good time for me to bring this part of my inner life out into the open and give it the thought it deserves. Five years ago, for an issue titled “Birth and Death,” I wrote a column that pulled together all my most memorable little moments of epiphany concerning those two great mysteries of life. But what used to come in tiny aha moments—some beautiful, some terrifying—now seems a permanent part of my thought process. I’ve become so acutely aware of endings that I almost dread going on vacation because I can already feel the wistfulness that comes with knowing that it’s over.

But sitting around the dinner table with the Deathies, I found their enthusiasm surprisingly contagious—these are people for whom death is truly an integral part of life. Around that table, thinking and talking about death isn’t morbid—in fact, it’s strangely liberating.

Of course, there are practical reasons for thinking about death, and the Deathies are focused mainly on those. There are decisions to be made while there’s still time to make them. There are preparations to be made to prevent loved ones from having to make them in times of extremis. There are situations ahead that we can’t foresee but that we hope to be able to control when the time comes.

But I’ve found that there are also hidden benefits, and one of them is a growing sense of acceptance. Don’t get me wrong—I trust that I still have miles to go before I sleep. But partly thanks to the Deathies, I’ve overcome some of my fear of the subject. My wife and I are making plans. And if tomorrow, a doctor reads my imminent fate in an x-ray or a blood test, I feel a little more confident that I’ll be able to swallow the news and get on with my life.

Man of the World

Portrait of Adan Amaya

Adan Amaya knows that to travel the world, you don’t necessarily have to go very far. Known for his outgoing personality, Amaya enjoys meeting students, faculty and staff in his daily rounds with Pomona’s mail services team. And when he’s not delivering the mail, he’s at Oldenborg Dining Hall using his passion for language to travel the world himself.

Born in El Salvador, Amaya moved to San Bernardino 35 years ago. His 20-plus years of experience as cook made it easy to find a position with Scripps dining services in 2007, but he was soon ready for a change. He is now in his eighth year at Pomona, where he exercises his love of language every day at Oldenborg.

“Rita Bashaw [Director, Oldenborg Center] approached me one day and invited me. I really was kind of shy because I don’t have experience being around students, but I said ‘I’ll be there.’ I started going, and after that I liked it. I’m always there, every day.”

Amaya speaks four languages—his native Spanish, English, Greek and Italian—with more to come. On Wednesdays, he’s at the beginner Italian table, while on Thursdays, he goes Greek. He spends the rest of his lunches at the Spanish table, helping beginner and intermediate students with their conversation skills.

“I’m committing myself because I love it; it’s my passion to be there with the students because the students really want to learn Spanish, so I can give them a little motivation to practice and have conversations.”

Even before arriving at Pomona, Amaya was exploring his capacity for languages. His first goal upon coming to the United States from El Salvador was to learn English, but then his language learning took a turn. His cooking experience brought him into work with a Greek family as cook, manager, and eventually supervisor in their southern California restaurants. To advance in the business, he says, it became necessary to learn Greek. Between two trips to Greece (once in 1998 and again in 2000) and 10 years of studying, Amaya has mastered the language.

When he left the restaurant business, he didn’t stop there. “I do speak Italian too, but Italian is easier than Greek,” he says. “Italian is very easy because once you master Spanish, you can go ahead and do Italian.” What’s next for Amaya? French, he reveals, and a little farther down the road, Portuguese. “I always have a little space for learning something,” he adds.

When Adan isn’t traveling the world through language, he’s probably, well, traveling. He makes the trip back home to El Salvador twice a year; he has even brought Pomona students along with him, including a Chinese student he met during his Oldenborg lunches.

“He showed up to the Spanish table with his little Spanish,” recalls Amaya. “I said, Bob, do you really want to master Spanish? In order to do that, you have to put some passion into it. I’ve been seeing his improvement over two years, and he took the courage to go with my family back to El Salvador. That’s one of my greatest experiences.”

From his trips to Greece to his travels around Central and South America, Amaya is no stranger to exploration. His next destination: Roatan Island, Honduras. For someone who naturally likes to wander, he was surprised to discover he feels right at home with Pomona’s mail services team.

“I never thought that I would stay for very long. But since I’ve stayed at Pomona and seen how the environment is related to the work, and how you move around with people, I’ve liked it. I’m going to hang out here at Pomona for a long time.”

Celebrating Campaign Pomona

“Five years ago, the Pomona College community set out on a daring quest to make an extraordinary liberal arts education even better—more equitable, more experiential, more sustainable and better suited to the needs of the 21st century,” President David Oxtoby told the crowd of campaign donors, trustees, faculty, staff and students who gathered on Feb. 27 to celebrate the successful conclusion of Campaign Pomona: Daring Minds. “I am proud to report that together, we have done all of that and more.” The campaign closed Dec. 31, 2015, after eclipsing its $250 million goal with a total of $316 million raised.

—Photos by Jeanine Hill

Edmunds Ballroom

Edmunds Ballroom decorated for the campaign celebration dinner

SCC decorations

Welcoming decorations in the Smith Campus Center hallwa

President David Oxtoby offering a toast

President David Oxtoby offers a toast

Sam and Emily Glick

Board Chair and master of ceremonies Sam Glick ’04 and Emily Glick ’04

Stewart Smith at the podium

Campaign Chair Stewart Smith ’68, P’00, P’09, addresses the crowd

Cocktail glass

A special “Daring Mind” cocktail

Chocolate dessert

Dessert with Campaign Pomona chocolate decoration

Libby Gates at the podium

Campaign Co-chair Libby Gates Armintrout ’86 makes a point

Trustees and a student chatting

Trustees Allyson Harris ’89 and Jack Long P’13, P’15, chat with student Jaureese Gaines ’16

Ashley Land and Nico Kass

Student speakers Ashley Land ’16 and Nico Kass ’16

Attendees watching campaign video

The crowd watches a special video

Choir members singing

Members of the Pomona College Glee Club entertain the assemblage

Bulletin Board

Looking for your chance to come face to face with fellow Sagehens?

This Bulletin Board is a great place to learn about alumni community events on campus, in your area and around the globe. For more frequent updates on opportunities to come together with fellow Sagehens, join the Pomona Alumni Facebook group at facebook.com/groups/Sagehens, check listings of upcoming events at pomona.edu/alumnievents and update your email address at pomona.edu/alumniupdate.

Pomona in a City Near You…

Speaker at Pomona in the City Southern California

Pomona in the City Southern California

The fall 2015 edition of a popular new Sagehen tradition, Pomona in the City Southern California, took place on Sunday, November 8 in Dana Point, California. 135 alumni, parents, faculty, staff and friends flocked to the St. Regis Monarch Beach to reconnect with the College community and attend a series of learning sessions, kicked off with a welcome from President David Oxtoby and a keynote address by Professor Char Miller. The afternoon of learning concluded with an outdoor cocktail reception on the Pacific Ballroom Promenade. To date, Pomona in the City—a conference-style program that takes the academic offerings of the College to major cities to share the classroom experience with the Pomona community—has been held in Seattle, San Francisco, New York, Washington, D.C., and Southern California. Pomona in the City speakers have included David Oxtoby, Pierre Englebert, George Gorse, Lesley Irvine, Susan McWilliams, Char Miller, John Seery, Shahriar Shahriari, Nicole Weekes, Ken Wolf and Sam Yamashita.

Pomona in the City: San Francisco

The most recent Pomona in the City program was scheduled for Saturday, April 9, 2016, at the Hotel Nikko San Francisco. Watch for details of future editions of this popular program in your mailbox and at pomona.edu/alumnievents.

Honor a Daring Mind Wrap-Up
Two Daring Minds honorees Daring Mind honoree Cecil and a Daring Mind participantNote from Professor Andresen

What makes a meaningful finale for a years-long, record-breaking campaign? A celebration of the people at its heart, of course! Members of the Pomona community showed up in droves for the Honor a Daring Mind celebration, which kicked off in November and gained momentum through December as Sagehens around the world caught word. More than 1,100 students, alumni, parents and friends answered the call to honor their favorite Pomona person, recognizing 678 inspirational professors, coaches, classmates, mentors and friends. Gifts given in honor of Daring Minds during the celebration, totaling $447,064, were matched by the Daring Minds Fund, fulfilling a $1 million matching grant to support Pomona education. Thank you, Pomona community, for recognizing the people at the heart of this effort and closing the Campaign with a ringing “Chirp!” To see the full list of honorees, please visit pomona.edu/hdm before June 30.

Quest Student/Alumni Engagement Reception at Alumni Weekend 2016

Happy Anniversary, Quest alumni! This year, Pomona celebrates 10 years of partnership with QuestBridge, a program with a mission to match high-achieving, low-income students with top-tier colleges and to support them from high school through college to their first job. Since 2006, Pomona has enrolled 325 students through the program.

Students, alumni and friends of the Quest program are invited to a special Quest Student/Alumni Engagement Reception on the Pomona campus on Friday, April 29 to celebrate as part of the Alumni Weekend 2016 festivities. 47 chirps to our Quest alums!

To see the growing list of events and receptions planned for Pomona College cohorts, campus organizations, academic departments, visit pomona.edu/alumniweekend. Make your plans soon to come back to Claremont for the biggest Sagehen party of the year!

Winter Break Parties

More than 800 Sagehen alumni, parents, current students (and early decision admittees of the Class of 2020!) gathered in 10 major cities this January for Pomona’s annual Winter Break Parties. Held during the first two weeks of January, Winter Break Parties are one of the best ways for Sagehens of all ages to connect with the Pomona community in their own city. For more information on Winter Break Parties and other events in your area, visit pomona.edu/alumnievents and join us in the Pomona College Alumni Facebook Group.

It’s Lonely at the Top

Number 1

There’s no modest way to say it. According to Forbes magazine, Pomona College is now #1 among all colleges and universities in the country.

Really.

When Forbes released its “America’s Top Colleges 2015” issue earlier this year, to the surprise of many across the country and the delight of Sagehens everywhere, Pomona topped a distinguished list that went on to include #2 Williams, #3 Stanford, #4 Princeton, #5 Yale and a lot of other amazing institutions. (Harvard is in there somewhere.)

Forbes explains that their rankings differ from other college rankings, in part, due to their emphasis on outcomes, including amounts of student debt, graduation rates and measures of student satisfaction and career success.

“While the cost of U.S. higher education escalates, there’s a genuine silver lining in play,” explains Forbes. “A growing number of colleges and universities are now focusing on student-consumer value over marketing prestige, making this a new age of return-on-investment education.”

Of course, we all know ratings are overrated. Then again, what’s wrong with a few hard-earned bragging points?

Certified Platinum

Millikan Laboratory lit up at night

The newly rebuilt Millikan Laboratory and Andrew Science Hall have been certified LEED Platinum, the highest rating for building sustainability standards, joining nine other Pomona College buildings that have achieved LEED (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design) status. As Pomona’s first LEED Platinum science/laboratory building, the complex joins just four other science buildings with that rating in all of Southern California.

“Obtaining a LEED Platinum rating is much more difficult in a science building because of the specialized systems required by laboratory facilities,” says Robert Robinson, assistant vice president of facilities and campus services. Millikan’s numerous green features encompass landscaping, lighting, materials and alternative energy.

Here’s the full list of LEED certified buildings on the Pomona College campus today:

LEED platinum seal

 

PLATINUM
Millikan Laboratory and Andrew Science Hall, 2015
Pomona Residence Hall, 2011
Sontag Residence Hall, 2011

 

LEED gold sealGOLD
Studio Art Hall, 2015
Grounds I, 2013
Grounds II, 2013
Grounds III, 2013
Edmunds Hall, 2007
Lincoln Hall, 2007

LEED silver seal

 


SILVER
Richard C. Seaver Biology, 2006

 

 

(In addition, the South Campus Parking Structure (2011) was built to LEED Gold+ standards even though parking structures do not qualify for certification.)

Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor

Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor speaking at BridgesIf you’re comparing yourself to others, you’re often going to find yourself short on something, especially if they have a background that’s different from your own. … Don’t measure yourself against others. Measure yourself against you. How much have you done to get where you are? And take pride in that, because that adds to the richness of your university and the place that you’re in.

—Supreme Court Justice Sonya Sotomayor during a visit to campus in October

Project #50

Rebecca McGrew portraitFor nearly 20 years, the Pomona College Museum of Art has been home to a series of exhibitions designed to turn a spotlight on emerging and underrepresented artists from Southern California. After 49 exhibits in what became known as the Project Series, senior curator Rebecca McGrew ’85 decided to take it up a notch for Project #50 by showcasing seven artists in concurrent solo exhibitions in “R.S.V.P Los Angeles,” which will be open through Dec. 19. “I envisioned collaborating directly with the artists who themselves were engaging with the contemporary cultural moment through a rich, boundary-blurring dialogue of art, culture, history, social issues, politics, music, science and more,” says McGrew on how the Project Series was conceived in 1999. Many of the artists who have been featured in the series have gone on to major national recognition.

Critical Inquiries

Collage of Critical Inquiry course titles

Manners for the 21st Century

Etiquette sitting on a plate and silverware arrangement

Emily Post’s Etiquette By Peggy Post, Anna Post, Lizzie Post and Daniel Post Senning ’99 William Morrow, 2011 736 pages • $39.99

As the great-great-grandson of the world’s most famous expert in etiquette and a fifth-generation steward of “the family business,” Daniel Post Senning ’99 is a co-author of the 18th edition of Emily Post’s Etiquette. He and his cousins Anna and Lizzie Post are part of a new generation working to keep that classic work relevant in the 21st century.

PCM: Today the word ‘etiquette’ has an old-fashioned ring. Is that justified?

Daniel Post Senning: It’s certainly a perception that I’m used to. The Emily Post Institute is a five-generation family business. The original Emily Post was my great-great-grandmother, and she wrote the first edition of Etiquette in 1922.

If you were to pick up that book today, it would read like a historical document. It’s actually quite remarkable as that. There are people who love looking at etiquette books that have been produced throughout history. One of my favorites, Castiglione’s The Courtier, predated The Prince. Oftentimes, a good book of etiquette will tell you a lot about a culture or a time.

We are very fortunate to be part of a tradition that has continued to update that original book. It was incredibly popular in its time. They couldn’t print it fast enough. But as times changed, they found that it was absolutely necessary to revise it. It’s that process of revision that I think has really become the substance of what we do at The Emily Post Institute.

PCM: Define ‘etiquette’ for me.

DPS: We say that etiquette is a combination of manners and principles. For us, the manners are time-, location- and culture-specific. They’re the particular expectations we have of others and ourselves in a particular social situation. The principles are what we use to guide us as manners change and evolve, or to help us make choices when we’re in a new situation. For us at the Emily Post Institute, the fundamental principles for all good etiquette are consideration, respect and honesty.

Here’s an Emily Post quote for you, “Any time two people come together and their lives affect one another, you have etiquette.” Etiquette is not some rigid code of manners. It’s simply how persons’ lives touch one another. Any time you have people interacting, you’ve got social expectations.

PCM: So how do you become an expert on etiquette? Is it something you just absorb?

DPS: I never thought a liberal arts education would prepare me so well for the work that I do. Being someone who writes about etiquette, researches about etiquette, teaches about etiquette, I find myself drawing from so many disciplines and so many skill sets. When I’m teaching and I’m presenting, my background in dance and the performing arts comes out. When I’m doing research, my background in critical inquiry comes out. When I’m assessing a new study that we’re getting, and I’m looking at data that’s come in from our survey partners, my background in microbiology and having the ability to look at data sets come into play.

Let me tell you a personal story. I was living in Claremont, working with the Laurie Cameron Company out of the Pomona College Dance Department, when I first started working for Emily Post. At the time, I was answering questions via email. My cousins and I cut our teeth on those emails. We would get batches of questions. We’d go through the books. When there was a particular question that had a historical precedent—questions about how you use formal titles or orders of introduction or protocol and courtesy around weddings—oftentimes we would refer to the book and find an answer that was pretty concrete.

Other times, there are relationship situations that people are trying to resolve, and that framework of consideration, respect and honesty comes into play. You ask yourself: Is the advice that I’m giving considerate? Is it taking into account all the people who are involved? Is it respectful? Is it recognizing their worth and their value? Is it honest? Is it something I can do with a sense of integrity and sincerity? It’s really a pretty powerful framework to give advice from.

PCM: How much of etiquette is timeless and how much do you believe is bound to the times?

DPS: Our whole approach is that etiquette is a moving, living, breathing thing. It changes and evolves all the time. That’s why the book is currently in its 18th edition. It’s never been out of print, and we think that’s really important. That’s why it’s important to continue to update it, because it is a moving target. If it were to ossify, it would lose its meaning very quickly.

When you look at the 1922 edition of Etiquette and the 18th edition of Etiquette, there’s some material that looks remarkably similar. You can probably guess that the way my great-great-grandmother described using a knife and fork is very similar to the way I would describe that today. Manners around how we share food and how we eat change relatively slowly. Those are cultural expectations that are very firm. The ones that we see changing the most rapidly are manners around communication.

PCM: So, do you have etiquette suggestions for Twitter?

DPS: We absolutely do. The framework that we use is relationships. When you’re assessing behaviors around new communication technology, you use the relationship as your guide. My cousin Anna’s really good at this. When she’s presenting, she’ll take her phone, hold it up and say, “This is my phone. It’s the newest, the latest, the greatest. It’s amazing. I can do incredible things with it. It’s not rude. It’s not polite. It’s how I use it that matters.” If you think about the relationships that are being impacted and affected, it helps you make good choices in those environments.

PCM: Still, there’s a lot of rudeness out there in cyberspace. Do you think this is a particularly bad-mannered period in history?

DPS: Sometimes we hear from people, “Oh, there are no manners today; manners are in a state of decline.” One of the nice things about having a generational perspective on this work is that every generation perceives that to be true, witnesses the changes that occur over time and thinks that the state of manners are in decline.

Like so many things in life, I really think of it as a pendulum. I think that people challenge and push the boundaries, and then there’s a response. New structures come into being. I think the generation that had the most difficult time with this was my parents’ generation, and even my grandmother, who was writing in the late ’60s and early ’70s. You had a generation that was intentionally trying to deconstruct the social order at that time.

I don’t think that happens in the same way right now. Quite the contrary, I think we might be in a time where, because there is so much choice, because we do live in an increasingly casual and informal world, people are looking for information to help them make choices in that environment.

PCM: You said it’s mostly about relationships. But a lot of modern communication is more like broadcasting. Emily Post didn’t have to worry about the etiquette of announcing one’s foibles to seven billion people around the world.

DPS: Absolutely, but here, too, there are lessons to be learned from the past. When I teach conversation skills, I’ll teach three tiers to a conversation. Tier one is safe territory—sports, the weather, pop culture, local celebrities, what you had for breakfast that morning. Tier two is potentially controversial. People have different and valid opinions about these topics. They were not table talk. They were reserved for private conversation—religion, politics, dating, your love life. The third tier, the most intimate, is family and finance. You don’t ask probing questions or offer too much information unless someone has already opened the door to that in some way.

Those rules for conversation around a dinner table or in the workplace function very well for the online space, where you’re talking about a much bigger conversation, but one where a sense of discretion and propriety are really important.

One of the immediate associations people often have with etiquette is that it’s common sense or that it’s the Golden Rule. It’s treating other people the way you’d want to be treated. You hear that a lot. I like to emphasize the Platinum Rule these days, the evolution of the Golden Rule. In an increasingly diverse and complex world, it’s really important to treat other people the way they would want to be treated. It’s no longer enough to go around applying your own standard to everybody that you meet. You need to make an effort also to take into account the different standards that different people have. That’s a challenge for all of us to continue to push ourselves to be aware of not just our own perspective, but that of others as well.

PCM: So what’s the future of etiquette?

DPS: Sometimes people ask me, “What would success look like in this business?” and I say, “If I can be a steward for this tradition, if I can hand it off to the sixth generation, I’ll absolutely consider that a success.”

We’re approaching the hundredth anniversary of the original publishing of Etiquette. The 20th edition will be out in 2022. They stopped, as you know, publishing Encyclopedia Britannica a couple of years ago. Being in the publishing industry, particularly publishing reference books, is a really challenging thing.

One of the challenges for our generation has been figuring out how to not just continue to evolve our content, but also to continue to find new mediums for it. The vehicle that I most like to promote these days is a podcast that I’m doing with my cousin Lizzie called Awesome Etiquette. It’s produced by American Public Media, the folks that do Marketplace, and Prairie Home Companion, and Splendid Table. It’s a Q and A show, kind of a Car Talk of etiquette.

To me, Emily was also a radio star. She was a lifestyle personality who was recognizable across America. The return of Emily Post to radio, I think, is a really big deal for us.

PCM: But is the printed book still the core of the business, or is it becoming less important?

DPS: It’s the backbone of what we do. There have been other etiquette experts who have done amazing work. A contemporary of Emily’s, Amy Vanderbilt, produced an amazing book. Letitia Baldrige in the 1960s, the Kennedy White House social secretary—her book is also very good.

Emily Post’s Etiquette is unique in the fact that we are a reference book that has continued to change and evolve, and has been in print for over 90 years now. There is no replacing that. We sometimes call ourselves a social barometer. In figuring out which manners have lost their utility and have gone out of fashion and which are emerging and coming into being, the process of editing and rewriting that book every five to seven years is substantively the most important work that we do.