Articles Written By: emae2021@pomona.edu

Mountainous Monument

February 23, 2015 by emae2021@pomona.edu Comments Off

PCM-winter2015-48_Page_05_Image_0001

THE MAJESTIC San Gabriel Mountains, Pomona College’s ever-present backdrop, are now a national monument encompassing 350,000 acres of scenic, rugged terrain. President Barack Obama visited nearby Bonelli Regional Park in October to sign the proclamation, saying, “We are blessed to have the most beautiful landscapes in the world.” For Pomona students, the nearby mountains have always been a favorite spot for recreation, but they also serve as a key site for field trips and student research in geology and other fields. The College’s shared one-meter telescope at Table Mountain Observatory is located high in the mountains near the resort town of Wrightwood.

Do You Speak Sagehen?

February 23, 2015 by emae2021@pomona.edu Comments Off

POMONA HAS ITS own ever-evolving set of unique words that only have meaning on the Pomona campus. Here are a few special words and phrases that are vital to understanding life at Pomona today. PCM-winter2015-48_Page_05_Image_0003

Spo-gro — Short for “sponsor group,” this is a word students are likely to hear frequently during their first year at Pomona, and possibly for the rest of their lives. Designed to help students make a smooth transition to college, the Sponsor Program clusters first-year students into sponsor groups of about 15 students who live together in a residence hall, along with older students who help them settle into the Pomona community.

OA — OA stands for Orientation Adventure, the three-day trip that all first-years go on before they start class. There are various derivations of this word, such as “OA-by,” which is what you may be introduced as if you encounter your OA leader at a party.

Table Manners, Pub, Bloc, Tap — At Pomona, the term “Table Manners” doesn’t refer to a set of polite social behaviors every student should learn. For today’s Sagehens, it’s the name of a party thrown in Doms Lounge of the Smith Campus Center every Tuesday night. Other parties that take place on campus weekly have equally cryptic names, such as Pub, Bloc and Tap.

Sustainable Numbers

February 23, 2015 by emae2021@pomona.edu Comments Off

Layout 1 The number of gallons of water the College expects to save each year due to new pH controllers installed on its 10 water-cooling towers. Purchased last March, the new controllers reduce the number of water replacement cycles in building air conditioning systems.

Layout 1 The number of pounds of used appliances, furnishings, books and other items (including 100+ couches) saved from the landfill last May in the College’s Clean Sweep, which picks up items left behind in residence halls for resale the next fall. This year’s sale raised more than $9,500 for sustainability programs.

Layout 1 The number of new low-flow faucets and showerheads installed as part of the College’s Drought Action Plan. The College also reduced irrigation to landscaped areas by at least 20%, timed watering schedules for night-time and prohibited washing of outside walkways.

Layout 1 The number of bicycles available to students last year through the College’s Green Bikes program, in which students check out bikes for the entire semester and learn how to repair and maintain them.

Layout 1 The percentage of produce served in Pomona’s dining halls last year that came from local sources

How Classes Are Born

February 23, 2015 by emae2021@pomona.edu Comments Off

POMONA OFFERS MORE than 600 classes in 47 majors, and each year new courses are born. Here’s a look at the origins of seven of the newest:

1) Behaviorial Economics (Professor of Economics John Clithero ’05) was added by popular student demand. It explores a growing subfield that attempts to incorporate more psychologically plausible assumptions into the traditional economic model of “unbounded rationality.”

2) Laughing Matters (Professor of Romance Languages and Literatures Jose Cartagena-Calderón) grew out of the professor’s research into the meaning and value of humor in Hispanic literature and art.

3) Anthropology of Food (Professor of Anthropology Drew Gladney) explores food and culture with special attention to food taboos and security issues. The course was born out of a discussion of California’s ban on foie gras in an Introduction to Anthropology class.

4) Genes and Behavior (Professor of Neuroscience Elizabeth Glater) originated in a conference the professor attended that focused on the gap between what the public believes and what studies have shown about the dominant influence of genes on behavior. The class examines the science behind the fundamental question of “nature vs. nurture.”

5) The Science of Empire (Professor Pey-Yi Chu) explores the history of science in connection with the expansion of European empires. The class grew out of a book Chu is writing on the history of frozen earth and permafrost research in Russia and the Soviet Union.

6) Surveillance and the Media (Professor of Media Studies Mark Andrejevic) was created in the wake of recent revelations about the NSA and increasingly intrusive technologies of surveillance. Originating in the professor’s writings, it examines “how the media in which we are immersed double as tools for monitoring and surveillance.”

7) Disability Studies (Hentyle Yapp, Mellon Chau Post-Doctoral Fellow in Gender and Women’s Studies) was formed to examine the changing definitions and approaches to the concept of disability and related areas of activism as part of Pomona’s emphasis on Dynamics of Difference and Power.

Rocking Studio Art

February 23, 2015 by emae2021@pomona.edu Comments Off

A SELECTION OF interesting rocks placed in the courtyard of the new Studio Art Hall will serve as instructional tools, artistic inspiration—and occasional outdoor seating. PCM-winter2015-48_Page_05_Image_0006

The idea came from Art Professor Michael O’Malley and Geology Professors Bob Gaines and Jade Star Lackey. Original plans calling for the placement of some generic granite stones were replaced by a more eclectic arrangement of rocks as a way to enliven the building’s stark open spaces, inspire young artists and bring in other disciplines. The Geology Department plans to use the rocks as teaching tools in introductory courses.

“Artists draw inspiration and knowledge from all sources,” says O’Malley. “As a sculptor, I love learning about stones and the fascinating stories behind them. The art faculty hopes that the building draws students from across the campus, and we saw the stones as a device to create a more complex community.”

Standouts among the stones include a brilliant sheet of green quartzite from Utah and a dazzling marble boulderin its raw, unpolished form. One rock, a checkered block of granite, even has a strong connection to the L.A. art world, having been discovered in the same Riverside quarry as Michael Heizer’s Levitated Mass installation at LACMA.

The Mystery of 47

February 13, 2015 by emae2021@pomona.edu Comments Off

“To the uninitiated, 47 is a mystery. To knowledgeable Pomona Sagehens, 47 is dogma. To sociologists, 47 is a prime example of a minor piece of whimsy that somehow developed into a legend of mythical proportions…”
—Pomona Student Handbook, 1985-86

In 1964, a tongue-in-cheek student project to determine whether the number 47 appeared more often in nature than other random numbers turned into a wholesale 47 hunt that has continued to this day and is even celebrated at Pomona on April 7.

After all, you can’t deny the evidence:

Pomona College is located at Exit 47 of the San Bernardino Freeway.
There are 47 pipes in the top row of the Lyman Hall organ.
At the time of Pomona’s first graduating class in 1894, there were 47 students enrolled.
The Bible credits Jesus with 47 miracles.
The Declaration of Independence has 47 sentences.
There are 47 strings on a concert harp.
In the freshman class that entered Pomona College in the year 2000, there were 47 valedictorians.
The tropics of Cancer and Capricorn are located 47 degrees apart.

Even Hollywood has gotten in on the act. From art films to sci-fi to Will Ferrell vehicles, Pomona’s enduring in-joke has slipped past countless millions of movie-goers and tube-watchers in recent years. On TV’s Lost, 47 people survive the plane crash. In The 40-Year-Old Virgin, Steve Carell keeps a collection of 47 G.I. Joes. Watch Monsters Inc. closely and you’ll spot an “Accident Free for 47 Days” sign on the Scare Factory floor. The 2009 blockbuster reboot of Star Trek alludes to 47 Klingon vessels being destroyed. There is even a much-viewed YouTube spoof of Jim Carrey’s The Number 23, substituting—you guessed it–the No. 47.

It goes as far back as the The Absent-minded Professor (1961). The Disney comedy features a basketball game filmed at Pomona’s old Renwick Gym. The final score? 47-46.

The recent spate of number-dropping started in the ’90s in earlier incarnations of Star Trek. Joe Menosky ’79 was a writer for The Next Generation (and later Voyager and Deep Space Nine) when he started slipping 47s into the shows. A producer eventually got wind and shut down the underground effort. But 47 keeps popping up in all sorts of shows.

If Menosky has moved on, how come our secret number keeps landing bit parts time and again? Is our 47 tradition at risk of overexposure? There’s no getting a straight answer out of Tinseltown on this sort of stuff, so—in a playful spirit—we turned to graphic novel artist Andrew Mitchell ’89 in our Fall 2009 issue of Pomona College Magazine for a creative take on the mystery (page 22 of the PDF).

Big Laughs for Joel McHale at Little Bridges

September 8, 2014 by Laura Tiffany Comments Off

mchaleblog2 Comedian Joel McHale entertained a packed house of Claremont Colleges students at Little Bridges on Saturday night.

McHale, who is the host of “Talk Soup” and stars on the sitcom “Community,” did his research, commenting that Claremont is like Tolkein’s Shire and ribbing the audience on the differences between the colleges. From his time hosting E!’s “The Soup,” McHale shared stories of angering reality TV stars like Tyra Banks and the Kardashians, as well as shared a tribute joke for Joan Rivers, before segueing into stories about raising young sons.

He even took a crack at Pomona’s beloved mascot: “Cecil the Sagehen is not very intimidating. It’s like, ‘We’re gonna beat you… if you were to eat us and we were undercooked. We’re gonna salmonella you all over the field!’”

The event was co-sponsored by the CUC Holmes Fund; Bridges Auditorium, which produced the event; and Bridges Hall of Music, which hosted the event. Each of The Claremont Colleges received a set amount of free tickets, distributed through the respective college’s student affairs staff.

Pomona College often hosts top-bill comedians, including Wanda Sykes, Eddie Izzard and Aziz Ansari in recent years.

mchalecrowd

Andrew Hong ’13

September 4, 2014 by Daniel Gould Comments Off

Andrew Hong ’13 wants you to start tinkering. As Public Programs Coordinator for the MIT Museum in Cambridge, Mass., Hong works to shine a light on the university’s high-tech research break throughs while bringing science education to local communities. Along the way, he’s found an outlet for his passion for getting people to engage with new technology and making the field of science less intimidating and more accessible for everyone.

INNOVATION MEETS EDUCATION

At MIT, Hong organizes programs designed to demystify research and create a “public face” for the institution. To draw in children and families, the museum offers interactive discussions with MIT scientists who share their latest experiments and discoveries, from projects like creating new prosthetic body parts to designing better solar-powered lighting. Other events are geared more to an older crowd, like a program called “Drinkable Science” that explains the physics and chemistry behind the trendy art of mixology. The idea is to “sneak science into fun, everyday topics,” Hong explains.

A key mission of the museum is encouraging people to reconsider their assumptions that a certain technology or concept might be too complicated to understand. Hong tries to make visitors feel more confident about their abilities by giving them a taste of the trial-and-error process that engineers and scientists wrestle with every day. “We structure our activities with failure built in,” he says.

“There’s an expectation that you’re not going to get it right the first time.”

DELVING INTO DESIGN

One of Hong’s favorite projects has been creating a new design and engineering space called the Idea Hub, where museum-goers can experiment with unfamiliar tools and learn skills like computer programming. Visitors do hands-on activities like assembling electronic circuits and creating art with 3D printers. “Our goal is to teach people—to give people this hands-on experience—so that they feel empowered to engage with technology in the future.”

Hong has been building up his own expertise by taking advantage of the resources he’s found in Cambridge. The job gives him access to courses at MIT, where his assignments include tasks like programming 3D printers to generate artistic designs and models. “Since getting here, it’s just been a constant crash course in how to build things and how to tinker,” he says.

By expanding his knowledge, Hong says he’s been inspired to get others excited about tinkering. “It feeds back into my desire to show people that you can do this stuff. I’m a walking example of someone who didn’t have a background in this field, and now is competent enough to teach people creative problem-solving and the design process.”

FINDING HIS FIT

A neuroscience major at Pomona, Hong was always fascinated with the sciences, but didn’t picture himself as a teacher or researcher. After sophomore year he began to chart his own path, starting with a SURP project at Professor of Art Mark Allen’s L.A. nonprofit, Machine Project, where he was exposed to the idea of learning about technology through the use of art and creativity. The next summer he landed an internship funded by the Career Development Office at the Exploratorium science museum in San Francisco, known for its participatory exhibits.

His experience in Cambridge has given Hong a clearer vision for the future. His ultimate goal is to design educational technologies for the museum field, like the kind he uses every day in his work. Wherever he ends up, Hong says he will keep following his personal career philosophy, inspired by the advice of Pomona neuroscience professor Rachel Levin.

“Her advice to me was, ‘Get really good at something you love, and convince someone that they need you.’”

On Board:

September 4, 2014 by emae2021@pomona.edu Comments Off

Jack Long, chairman and co-founder of SchoolAdmin, LLC, and father of a Pomona graduate and a current student, has been named to the Pomona College Board of Trustees.

Long’s SchoolAdmin produces web-based administrative systems for K–12 independent and charter schools—more than 130 in all. Long is past chairman and co-founder of PeopleAdmin, Inc., and Lone Star Overnight, L.P., both recognized in Inc. magazine’s Inc. 500 list of fastest-growing privately-held businesses. In 1994, he was named an Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst & Young. In 2003, Long became part of the founding faculty of the Acton School of Business, where he currently teaches. Prior to that, he was an adjunct professor at the University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business MBA program.

Long serves on the board of directors of Blue Avocado Company and Greenling, Inc. His nonprofit work includes serving on the boards of the Texas chapter of The Nature Conservancy, the Pilatus Owners and Pilots Association and the Board of Visitors of Vanderbilt University’s Owen School of Business. He is a past trustee and finance chair of St. Stephen’s Episcopal School. Long and his wife, Carolyn, have chaired the Pomona College Parent’s Council for the last three years.

Currently pursuing a bachelor of science in astronomy at the University of Texas at Austin, Long earned his undergraduate degree in business administration from the University of Richmond and an MBA from Vanderbilt University.

Long and his wife make their home in Austin, Texas. He is the father of Adam Jackson Long ’13 and Carlen Elizabeth Long ’15.

Letter Box

September 4, 2014 by emae2021@pomona.edu Comments Off

Old and New

The spring issue was an amazing mix of the old and the new—descriptions of some incredible people keeping the values we cherished in more bygone days when I attended Pomona and later practiced pediatrics in Claremont, and the far-out stereoscopic pictures of beautiful California.

It was uplifting for me to hear of Dr. Juan Guerra’s perseverance as he pursued his desire to truly serve his community. I was also pleased to learn that when he was told he wasn’t going make it because of his failure of a biology course, he seemed to realize that the art of medicine was more important than the science. I find that too much emphasis on the science of medicine can lock a physician into a system that won’t allow innovation and cuts off knowledge the physician can gain by listening to his/her patients.

Matt O’Connor, the young man of many talents, unabashedly speaks of his part in Christian Athletes, which shows he is aware of where his talents come from.

The addition of the stereoscopic pictures of naturally beautiful California provided some real nostalgia and balanced the “old” with the “new.”

Let me know if anyone remembers a kindly pediatrician who practiced in Claremont in the ‘60s. He has two pediatric books, with an emphasis on nutrition, that can be browsed on Amazon: books, Ralph Campbell.

—Ralph K. Campbell, M.D. ’50
Polston, Montana

3D Collector’s Item

I appreciate the quality of the content and the professional design of the Pomona College Magazine compared to similar endeavors from other colleges and universities. Your magazine outshines any others I have seen; and I hate to admit, I have attended classes or completed degrees at Scripps College, University of Colorado, University of South Florida, Western Michigan University, The University of Kansas, and Gonzaga University in addition to Pomona College (class of 1970). I am writing because you really outdid yourselves with the Spring 2014 issue. I absolutely loved the 3D photos and appreciated greatly the way you interweaved them from front cover to content to back cover. I have been in love with 3D since the early 1950s Viewmasters and 1953 Hollywood 3D films. You did an outstanding job; what a find to have come across 1870s stereo views of California (I am what was known in the past as a “prune picker,” an old term for someone who was born, raised and lived in California. My dad, Leland Williams [class of 1929], also had this distinction.)

Thanks so much. I will be adding this very special issue to my extensive collection of 3D photography.

—Randy Lee Williams ’70
Spokane Valley, Washington

Environmental Faux Pas

During my son’s remarkable time at Pomona, his mother and I have immensely enjoyed the Pomona College Magazine. And this compliment comes from a magazine publisher (we own three in the field of recycling).

But the Spring 2014 issue was designed with a serious environmental error. The inclusion of 3D lenses was a major mistake on your part. Only two things can happen with these non-recyclable items. The reader might not put them on, and thus the lenses end up contaminating the paper recycling stream, or they end up in the trash. The other result is the reader uses them, and then throws them away.

So it seems your decision meant you harmed paper recycling or added to the waste stream. I think a so-called technology vendor sold you a bill of anti-environmental goods.

Again, I compliment you on a wonderful product. Your product is remarkably comprehensive and well-written. But in the future, please assess the environmental consequences when you consider any publishing changes (paper, inks, etc.). As one publisher to another, I’d love to provide advice to make sure poor environmental decisions such as this do not occur again.

Go Sagehens!

—Jerry Powell
Portland, Oregon

Time for Divestment

The time has come for Pomona College to divest its endowment from the fossil fuel industry and redirect its investments into the energy sources of the future. I don’t believe I need to go into detail about why fossil fuels are problematic, as 97% of the world’s scientists have long since identified human use of fossil fuels as the primary driver of climate change.

I am certainly not the first to suggest the College make such a move. For 18 months Pomona students have been asking for change, yet last September President Oxtoby and the Board of Trustees rejected divestment, claiming it would cost the school $485 million in lost earnings and citing the many environmental initiatives occurring on campus.

I am proud of the work Pomona College has done to receive a gold rating from the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System (STARS), its LEED-certified green buildings, and its environmental analysis academic program. But that is not enough.

I live in Montana, a place with a lot of beautiful, unspoiled landscapes and rivers. But it also has coal strip mines, and its pristine nature is increasingly under threat from fracking as a means of oil and gas development. In addition to harmful climate-change emissions such as fugitive methane from oil and gas extraction, fossil fuel development has extensive impacts on the land, surface water, groundwater and air sheds. Aquifers are polluted, residents get nosebleeds from the fugitive methane, and spills occur regularly, killing fish and waterfowl.

People protest, and the fossil-fuel industry uses heavy-handed tactics to buy off politicians and silence dissent. This is happening here in my home, Montana.

I do what I can as an architect, homeowner and bicycle commuter to implement a fossil-fuel-free future, but I know that my action alone is not enough. And far too much is at stake. So I work long hours through a local citizens’ group to hold industry and governing powers accountable. I would like to have my alma mater, Pomona College, as an ally in this work rather than as an opponent. And I am only asking Pomona to uphold its stated core values, as I have challenged myself to do.

I call upon President Oxtoby and the Board of Trustees to become committed and creative about working toward a divestment solution as though their lives depended on it. In the big picture, my life, my home and everyone’s lives do.

—Ed Gulick, ’94
Billings, Montana

Error Card

According to Wikipedia, an “error card” is “a trading card that shows incorrect information or some other unintended flaw.”

Alas, your Summer 2013 issue’s “Pomona All-Stars” baseball card of Mike Salk ‘00, which shows him standing in front of a large banner proclaiming Boston sports radio station WEEI 103.3 FM, has been rendered an “error card” just a half-year after the magazine’s publication.

Although it was the perfect job for Salk, a known—and deeply knowledgeable—sports fanatic since his undergraduate days, it was also an impossible situation: ever since the advent of a rival sports radio station, 98.5 The Sports Hub, WEEI has been inexorably bleeding listeners, ratings and advertisers in the metro Boston market.

An upper-management shakeup, new hires (such as Salk) and other innovations have so far proven unable to resurrect WEEI’s “brand,” as 98.5 is now perceived as the younger, hipper alternative to the “dinosaur” that is WEEI. Not even a cross between the two Howards—Cosell and Stern—could revive WEEI’s fortunes.

With his dedication, intelligence, and likeability, it is no surprise that Salk has already landed on his feet with a new announcing job at Seattle’s ESPN 710.

Perhaps PCM can quietly airbrush out, Soviet-style, the “WEEI 103.3” from the online version of Salk’s “Pomona All-Stars” card, and replace it with “ESPN 710”?

Teasing with affection…

—Doug Meyer ‘01
Waltham, Massachusetts

Drumbeats

James Schlesinger, the rare public servant who served in the Cabinet of both Republican and Democrat presidents, died last week. He was Secretary of Defense for Presidents Nixon and Ford, and later Secretary of Energy for President Carter. He also headed the CIA when its credibility was threatened at the height of President Nixon’s Watergate scandal. Schlesinger was brilliant and blunt, two qualities that don’t always show up together and don’t always work well together in Washington. I met Jim in the 1990’s when we were seated together at a luncheon. As people do in Washington, we looked for common ground. When I told him I was a graduate of Pomona, he immediately started singing, “Drumbeats, drumbeats, drumbeats rolled over the silence profound, high above Pomona, he ne terra toma.” A Harvard man, Jim was in a college singing group when he heard the Pomona men sing “Torchbearers” nearly 50 years earlier. He called it the best college song he had ever heard, bar none. Neither of us knew that “Torchbearers” would become the painful subject of campus debate a few years later. Some were offended by the made-up dialect and the historically inaccurate imagery of Native Americans in the Pomona Valley. Those who loved the song and paid little or no attention to the words thought the controversy was political correctness gone berserk. After a lengthy study, a special committee recommended (if my memory serves) that in the future the song should only be sung at alumni gatherings and only if the offensive words were changed. Sounds like a Washington, D.C., solution (unless it deals with the Redskins). I wonder what ever became of “Torchbearers.” Like Jim Schlesinger, I’ve never been able to get those wonderful, haunting sounds out of my head. If today’s students don’t get to hear it, it’s a shame.

—Allen Moore ‘66
McLean, Virginia

Saddened

I was deeply saddened to learn that my classmate, Emory Zimmermann had passed away. I sang first soprano in the Women’s Glee Club, and Emory sang bass in the Mens’ Glee Club. I earned Emory’s annoyance one year by lining up not one but two speakers for the Annual Glee Club Banquet: my great uncle, Howard Ross (‘04), an early member of the Men’s Glee Club, and my grandmother, Katharine Bird Twinting (‘04) who knew the origins of “Torchbearers.” She knew Prof. Brackett and David Barrows who copied the music from the local Indians and turned it into Pomona’s “Torchbearers.”

“Torchbearers” requires low basses. Fortunately, Emory had a deep bass voice. One could always hear Emory singing the bass part. Though we grieve that his voice is now stilled, in my mind’s eye, I can always recall the resounding sound of “Torchbearers” and Emory singing the low bass part.

He will be missed by us all.

I was also saddened to learn that my academic advisor, Edwin A. Phillips, emeritus professor of botany, had passed away. I rarely agreed with him, but I was part of the NSF grant studying hybridization of Quercus dumosa x Quercus douglasii. I did complete my Ph.D. magna cum laude in 1966 at the University of Bern, Switzerland, with a dissertation on photosynthesis.

I left biology for physics in 1970, but the Botany Gang was a unique group.

—Katharine Holtom Jones ‘61
Alpine, California

[Alumni and friends are invited to email letters to pcm@pomona.edu or “snail-mail” them to Pomona College Magazine, 550 North College Ave., Claremont, CA 91711. Letters are selected for publication based on relevance and interest to our readers and may be edited for length, style and clarity.]

«‹74 757677 78 ›»