Alumni

New on the alumni board

November 14, 2012 by emae2021@pomona.edu Comments Off

Onetta Brooks ’74

Lives in: She is in Fairfax, Va., through May serving as an interim pastor. Education: B.A., mathematics, Pomona College; master of public administration, Cal State Dominguez; master of divinity, San Francisco Theological Seminary/Southern California.

Career: Ordained in 2007 in the Metropolitan Community Church (MCC) and is serving as the interim pastor of MCC of Northern Virginia. She worked for 34 years as program manager/systems engineer/software engineer/programmer analyst at aerospace and defense companies such as Rockwell, Hughes, Logicon and Northrop Grumman.

Alumni involvement: Served on the Alumni Council from 1986 to 1989; after she was inducted into the Pomona–Pitzer Athletic Hall of Fame (volleyball and basketball) in 1984, she served on the Athletic Hall of Fame Committee for several years; supported and participated in activities of the Office of Black Student Affairs over the years; participated in a few alumni phone-a-thons.

Community involvement: Brooks serves on the MCC Governing Board through 2016 and supports various social justice groups in the Los Angeles and in the D.C. metro/Fairfax County areas.

Adam Conner-Simons ’08

Lives in: Cambridge, Mass.

Education: Conner-Simons majored in psychology. He was part of the campus band the Fuzz, was involved in The Student Life newspaper and the gender-discussion group Male Dissent and served as a student representative for the Admissions Committee.

Career: As a student, Conner-Simons did research for Psychology Professor Patricia Smiley, and worked at the Career Development Office and the Office of Communications. He is communications coordinator at Brandeis International Business School at Brandeis University.

Alumni involvement: Conner-Simons writes regularly for Pomona College Magazine, and has helped organize Boston-area alumni events and served as an alumni ad- missions interviewer.

Bill Ireland ’81

Lives in: Venice Beach, Calif. Education: Ireland majored in history, before attending UCLA Law School. He played water polo and swam at Pomona and is in the Athletic Hall of Fame. He met his wife, Ellen Brand Ireland ’82, when he was visiting her roommate, Caren Carlisle Hare ’82, who was a freshman swimmer.

Career: Ireland is a partner, specializing in commercial litigation, at Haight Brown and Bonesteel, a Los Angeles-based law firm. One of the cases he worked on re- sulted in two published books, Greenmail by Norma Zager and Parts Per Million by Joy Horowitz. Ireland competes in open water swimming competitions, which is mostly an excuse for trips to places with warm water.

Alumni involvement: Ireland was on the Alumni Council from 1987 to 1996. After working with events, and volunteering for the 90th and 100th anniversary celebrations, he was president of the Alumni Association for 1993-1994. Later, Ireland served as an alumni volunteer on the Board of Trustees Nominating Committee. Ellen and he have both repeatedly chaired their class reunions. Bill was also an Alumni Admissions volunteer. Community involvement: Bill and Ellen have been involved with their local Presbyterian church. Bill has been a trustee, and an elder, as well as clerk of the Presbytery Judicial Commission for the Presbytery of the Pacific. Bill also has been an officer and board member for the governing board and the foundation for Ghost Ranch, a Presbyterian camp and conference center in Abiquiu, N.M.

Kayla McCulley ’09

Lives in: Amherst, Mass.

Education: A Pomona double major in international relations and French, McCulley is working toward her M.B.A. and master’s in sport management at the University of Massachusetts. At Pomona, McCulley was a four-year member and senior co-captain of the lacrosse team and was active with the European Union Center of California.

Career: After graduation McCulley departed for Europe, first to Brussels as an intern with the U.S. Mission to NATO and then to Switzerland as a Fulbright scholar. Since then, McCulley has pursued her passion for sports with positions at the National Collegiate Athletic Association, Octagon and the Ivy Sports Symposium. She is a frequent contributor to national media outlets such as espnW, Women Talk Sports and The Business of College Sports.

Alumni involvement: McCulley serves as an alumni admissions volunteer in the liberal arts college hotbed that is Western Massachusetts, enticing would-be Williams/Amherst/Mount Holyoke students to head west and become proud Sagehens.

Bulletin Board

November 13, 2012 by emae2021@pomona.edu Comments Off

Alumni Weekend May 2–5, 2013

What do you call 1,500 Sagehens flocking together for four days of revelry? Alumni Weekend! Please make your calendars for May 2–5, 2013—especially class years ending in ’3 or ’8. This is Pomona’s 125th anniversary year, so we will be celebrating our shared history while looking ahead to the future. Start on Thursday evening by dining with current students. Attend classes, “Daring Minds” lectures, and academic department open houses on Friday. Enjoy the Parade of Classes, Wash Party and your class reunion dinner on Saturday. Sip champagne in the beauty of the Richardson Garden on Sunday. For more details, visit www.pomona.edu/alumniweekend.

Travel Study:

Galapagos Cruise With Professor of Biology and Associate Dean Jonathan Wright August 3–12, 2013 Join Professor Jonathan Wright on his third trip to the Galapagos with Pomona travelers. You will visit a place where animals live without fear of humans and enjoy close en- counters with giant tortoises, sea lions, marine, land iguanas and Darwin’s finches. You will also be joined by a Lindblad-National Geographic certified photo instructor.

Coming in 2014:

Walking Tour of Sicily with History Professor Ken Wolf

Land of the Ice Bears/Arctic Svalbard with Biology Professor Nina Karnovsky

For more information about these or any of our other trips, please contact the Pomona College Alumni Office at (909) 621-8110 or alumni@pomona.edu.

Reflecting on Change

November 13, 2012 by emae2021@pomona.edu Comments Off

Susanne Garvey ’74 came to Pomona at the inspiration of her grandmother, Madeline Willard Garvey, Class of 1911, who spoke with awe of the atmosphere of cooperation and commitment to learning.

Susanne wanted those things, too. At Pomona, she embraced the life of the mind, engaging in those deep late-night conversations, and finding “just the right mix of serious study and social life.” She was an English major—Phi Beta Kappa and Mortar Board—who had many friends in the sciences. She served as arts and culture editor for The Student Life, and also took modern dance classes from Professor Jeannette Hypes, performing several times in her dance troupe. She soaked up everything she could from the small liberal arts college atmosphere.

Then came senior year. Her first semester, spent studying abroad in England, was amazing. Coming back to Pomona for the final semester, though, was a letdown, with the campus now seeming too cloistered at a time before Pomona of- fered the breadth of summer research, community service and internship

So, after a year back home in Menlo Park, Calif., working at an antiquarian bookstore, she was off to earn her master’s at the University of Virginia. Garvey was part of the small percentage of master’s students accepted to stay on and pursue a Ph.D.; but when it came to dissertation time, she realized she was going to have to focus on something very narrow. She decided against that path.

Garvey did remain in the realm of education, though. Her next stop was the U.K., where she spent a year organ- izing a college-level semester abroad program—the very program she had participated in as a Pomona student. Then, Garvey moved to Washington, D.C., where she worked for a semester-in-Washington program before becoming director of development for MATHCOUNTS and National Engineers Week, STEM programs serving elementary and secondary school students across the U.S.

For the last two decades, Garvey has been director of external affairs for the D.C.-based Carnegie Institution for Science. Part of her work takes her to the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, which have historic ties to the Mount Wilson Observatory—and that connection brought her back into contact with Pomona nearly a decade ago.

Carnegie astronomers from Pasadena were invited to give guest seminars at Pomona for advanced astrophysics classes. That led to Pomona and Harvey Mudd students doing internships working with Carnegie’s astronomers. And that, in turn, led Garvey to meet three Pomona student interns.

“They were everything that I remembered that was good about Pomona,” Garvey says. “They were smart … relaxed and interesting. I thought ‘what an amazing place Pomona still must be to produce students like these.’”

When Garvey was invited to serve on the alumni council a few years later, she readily accepted. She didn’t expect to become president. “I don’t have an agenda,” she says, though upon further thought, she adds, “I do have a theme— English majors have themes— ‘Reflecting on Change.’”

Garvey notes that before she joined the alumni council, she hadn’t been back to Pomona in decades, and she was impressed with all the changes in terms of opportunities for internships, research and travel, as well as the physical improve- ments to the campus. “I just felt that everything was better,” says Garvey, who, in a sense, is getting an extended re-do of that last semester of senior year.

Sewing Comfort

November 13, 2012 by Sally James '77 Comments Off

When Karen Gerstenberger ’81 holds a quilt in her hands, she sees more than red and purple and blue and more than crisscross lines of thread. She sees the patterns that grief can make on the lives of patients and families. She imagines a young face, cradling the blanket they may receive on their first day of cancer treatment at a Seattle hospital.

Her own daughter, Katie, died at the age of 12 after about 10 months of treatment for a rare cancer. Before the diagnosis, in a hurry to catch a ferry across Puget Sound to the hospital, Katie grabbed a comforter Karen had made. Through the emotional turmoil of many months, this comforter absorbed symbolism and memories. “After she died, I slept with that blanket,” says Karen, holding the blanket. One side has the cheerful images of official state flowers and the other is just a pale yellow floral. When times were tough for Katie in the hospital, she used the blanket and its state flowers as a distraction, a wrap, hiding place and a comforter.

Five years later, Karen helps others to find safe topics and comforting spaces inside of the toughest months of their lives. She runs a formal guild of volunteers who sew blankets for patients at Seattle Children’s Hospital. She hopes the quilts will be therapeutic.

Some quilts have cowboys, rocket ships and electric guitars on them. Her volunteer army includes people who find donations of fabrics and people who like to sew them together. One woman, Lucile, is 90 years old and puts together almost a whole quilt every day. The guild has given away almost 1,000 blankets at last count.

Through a special patient support system at the hospital, the blankets of many colors and designs are chosen to fit a pa- tient’s interests. Karen and her guild members do not hand them out or meet the patients, but sometimes receive delight- ful notes. Each blanket has a tag with the guild’s name and a dress. From one patient’s mother came this message:

“We had a major setback, and she had to be admitted. … She was so scared at the big bed—she [had] never slept in
one—and having to stay. When she saw the Minnie Mouse blanket she said, ‘I OK now Mama. Minnie is with me.’”

When she was paralyzed by her own grief, in the early months after Katie’s death, Karen found herself motivated to make the first blanket for another child. “Picking out the fabric and thinking about a child I did not know was very satisfying. I knew that child would have that blanket, and if the child didn’t make it, the parent would have that blanket,” she explains. It was there, at her dining room table, that the idea for the blanket guild was born. Karen studied art history at Pomona College before transferring to another college in the early 1980s. But she doesn’t feel especially artistic about these blankets.

“I sew some, but mostly what I do [for the guild] is the administrative stuff,” Karen says. Starting the guild and devoting herself to helping families “opened up a huge new adventure for me.” Katie’s cancer was a rare form known as adrenocortical carcinoma. The family’s journey with Katie included a surgery and eventually the knowledge that she could not be cured. She was in hospice care for about a month before she died in 2007.

During that time, Karen feels her family was lucky to get expert counseling and support from the hospital and health-care team. But not every family is so lucky. She has chosen public ways of sharing her family’s stories in hopes of helping to train physicians and other caregivers.

She wrote a book titled Because of Katie, and was asked to speak at various fundraisers, including one for a summer camp for children with cancer. She also created a video that will become part of staff training at Seattle Children’s Hospital.

“We don’t give young doctors enough help in understanding how to cope with death,” she says. “They need to take care of themselves.” Taking care of others includes preparing for the time when treatment may not be practical. Some states don’t have hospice care for children, for example, which Karen believes is very important. For Karen, there is a thread of writing and sharing that runs through her whole life, even though she didn’t call herself a writer until recently. She found a certain courage in telling Katie’s story, and the courage shows in how she handled an interview full of tough questions with humor and grace.

“I got in trouble [as a kid] for talking in class. Writing is really the same thing, and it is a part of me now.”

FROM BECAUSE OF KATIE:

“IN THE FIRST WEEKS AFTER KATIE’S PASSING, I slept with her comforter—the one which I had made for her. She had held onto that quilt all through her treatment and recovery; you can see it in many of our photographs.

If I needed to wash it, I had to return it to her on the same day. There are two kinds of fabric in it, and she preferred to have it on her bed with a certain side up. She loved that quilt, and used it as a real comforter all through her cancer journey: as a mask, a bathrobe, a blinder, a hiding place, a lap robe, a privacy screen. After she died, sleeping with her quilt felt like a link to her, physically.”

—Karen Gerstenberger ’81 in Because of Katie

(Photo by Larry Steagall/Kitsap Sun)

Alumni Bulletin Board

July 2, 2012 by emae2021@pomona.edu Comments Off

Come Celebrate Pomona’s 125^th

Pomona College’s 125^th anniversary will be celebrated in 2012-13. The main event, scheduled for Founders Day, Sunday, Oct. 14, will be a grand, campus-wide, open house centered on Marston Quadrangle.

In keeping with the anniversary’s theme of community, we are reaching out not only to the immediate Pomona family—faculty, staff, trustees, students, alumni, parents—but beyond, to The Claremont Colleges, the cities of Pomona and Claremont, and particularly to school children and their families, many of whom are working with Pomona students through the Draper Center for Community Partnerships and its outreach programs.

Founders Day will offer a festive mix of events, including music and dance performances, special exhibitions, a behind-the-scenes campus tour and activities for children. We’ll also have refreshments and birthday cake for all our guests. Anniversary observances will extend throughout the year with special events and programs now in the planning stages. The virtual center of this effort will launch in the fall on the College’s web, including an innovative timeline that will both update our history and invite ongoing participation from all members of the community, thus creating a vibrant record of life at Pomona in our 125th year.

Please save Oct. 14 on your calendars now, and look for more information in coming months at www.pomona.edu/125.

Travel Study:

Sicily: Heart of the Mediterranean With History Professor Ken Wolf
May 14—26, 2013

Sicily’s position at the very heart of the Mediterranean has ensured that it would always serve as one of the world’s greatest crossroads. For centuries the island has been subject to a succession of foreign powers: Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Goths, Tunisians, Byzantines, Normans, Aragonese and British. Join Professor Wolf and Peter Watson for this walking tour through history. Price not set at press time.

Galapagos Island Cruise With Professor of Biology and Associate Dean Jonathan Wright
August 3—12, 2013

Join Jonathan Wright on his third trip to the Galapagos Islands aboard the 48-passenger Lindblad Expeditions Islander. The animals here have no fear of humans, so you can get close to the birds, sea lions and iguanas—as well as snorkel with penguins and sea turtles. Prices start at $6,260, not including airfare. Email alumni@pomona.edu or call 909-621-8110 to request a brochure.

Goal-oriented

July 2, 2012 by Marisa Cherry '15 Comments Off

“Fanaticism” is the word that Anna Renery ’06 uses to describe Buenos Aires’ relationship with soccer. Just one example: In the capital of Argentina, all taxi horns sound at the same time whenever a star scores a goal. So when Anna—who played on the women’s varsity soccer team at Pomona—moved there for a job about three years ago, a couple of things took her by surprise.

First, she saw no organized events like the ones she had grown up playing in. Second, opportunities for girls to play soccer were few and far between, largely due to the machismo toward sports found in many South American countries. Anna recalls that she had a hard time finding other girls to play pick-up games with.

For Renery, this was a call to action. Eager to share her love for soccer, she and two partners set out to create the first and only international amateur soccer tournament in Argentina—the Buenos Aires International Soccer Tournament, or BA Cup for short. Renery notes it is the only such tournament in which girls can participate.

The inaugural BA Cup, held in summer 2011, drew more than 2,000 girls, boys and adults representing more than 10 different countries to Buenos Aires to compete and participate in seminars and clinics.

The second cup will be held in July 2012. The BA Cup is designed to help participants develop values such as teamwork and commitment and learn how to lead a healthy lifestyle. Anna says, “I think that being an athlete … teaches life lessons that are valuable in any kid’s life.” She also hopes that the cup helps “people see that women can play, should play.”

Down the road, Renery hopes to further expand the BA Cup as she envisions the tournament growing to become one of the largest in the world, with around 50,000 participants. Renery credits her Sagehen education for her innovative choice of post-undergraduate plans. “Pomona instills a little bit of an entrepreneurial spirit in its students in that you’re really encouraged to do what you want to do and to try new things,” says Renery, who was named most valuable athlete during her senior year at Pomona. “It was always OK to do something less traditional.” More information: www.ba-cup.com.

The Bird is the Word

July 2, 2012 by Brenda Bolinger Comments Off

Wearing her “Shake Your Tailfeathers” t-shirt, Jessica Blickley ’02 is ready to face the flock: “I’m excited to see so many Sagehens in the room!” This time, Blickley is referring to the audience eagerly awaiting her Alumni Weekend lecture on the College’s quirky mascot. More often, however, when Blickley expresses excitement over a group of sagehens—known to ornithologists as sage grouse—she is on the plains of western Wyoming, conducting research on thebizarre and beautiful birds.

A Ph.D. candidate in ecology at UC Davis, Blickley recalls hearing colorful stories about the College’s beloved bird while a Pomona student, and being unclear at the time which were true. But now she is ready to debunk a number of myths about the fascinating fowl.

Among the falsities she exposes is the notion that sage grouse don’t fly. Yes, they do, up to 50 m.p.h. And thank goodness, lest the Pomona fight song lyrics require amending: “Our foes are filled with dread/Whenever Cecil Sagehen flies overhead!”

But a misnomer still exists in the song’s title, “When Cecil Sagehen Chirps.” He doesn’t. The bird’s unique vocalization is more of a “coo-coo-pop-whistle-pop,” explains Blickley, who majored in biology at Pomona.

Here, Blickley addresses both the science and the sublime of the sage grouse, which ranges across much of the Western U.S., but also faces a variety of environmental threats.

How did you get interested in the sage grouse?

I always heard stories and rumors about the sagehen while I was a [Pomona] student, but I didn’t start off wanting to study them, probably because I didn’t know how cool they were. Then, at UC Davis, my advisor, Gail Patricelli, was studying them and I became intrigued—it was sort of a fortuitous accident. I had originally been interested in noise issues as related to birds and, with all of the noise pollution problems that sage grouse are facing, it worked out well to apply this interest to this species. It started to become clear to me that there’s a real need for work and research related to the sage grouse, and it’s really great to have an influence on what happens with conservation.

There’s talk of placing the sage grouse on the endangered species list. Is the bird in trouble?

Currently, it’s a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act because the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has determined they warrant official protection. But the species isn’t in immediate danger of going extinct—there are still as many as 200,000 birds, which sounds like a lot until you consider that there used to be as many as 16 million. There are many things causing populations to decline, including wildfires, invasive [plant] species, livestock grazing and, probably most importantly, habitat loss due to human development. I wouldn’t be surprised if they are listed in the near future, but right now, there are still enough sage grouse that other species closer to extinction take priority. But even so, there’s a lot of work already being done to help protect them.

What’s it like to hold one?

Well, they are very large birds, and they have very strong, powerful wings. The good news is that if you hold them properly, they don’t struggle. But if a wing gets away and hits you, it’s a little startling. Generally, they’re pretty docile.

Is it hard not to laugh at their elaborate mating display, or is it all about serious science?

We definitely have to laugh. Part of it is that they take it so seriously—[the males] strut around, they fight, they do their displays to impress the females, but from our perspective, they look pretty silly. And while it’s hard for us to tell the males apart based on their display, the females are very picky. There may be as many as 200 males, but most of them will never see any action in their lives. One of the things that my lab at UC Davis is trying to figure out is what makes some males’ displays so much sexier than the rest.

For research purposes, how do you tell them apart from each other?

When we’re able to capture them, we put colored bands on their legs, and then it’s really easy. But there are so many and they’re hard to catch. So, for unbanded males, we rely on their distinctive pattern of white dots on their tail plumage.

I understand there’s a layman’s term for this?

Yes, we call that the “butt print.”

I’ve read that the sage grouse is known for its loyalty to a certain area. In what way does this make it a fitting mascot for Pomona?

It’s true, male sage grouse are very loyal to their home lek [a.k.a. “strutting grounds”]. Both males and females tend to return to the same one every year. In the same way, I think a lot of Pomona alumni have loyalty to the school and are excited to come back. I certainly feel that way. Also, the sagehen is a pretty quirky bird, and I’d say the average student at Pomona is pretty quirky as well.

Edward W. Malan

March 5, 2012 by emae2021@pomona.edu Comments Off

Emeritus Professor Edward W. Malan ’48, one of the most influential members in the history of the Pomona College Physical Education Department, died Sept. 6, 2011, at age 88.

Malan came to Pomona as a student in the early 1940s and was already active in athletics, playing football and earning a letter as a running tackle, when, in May 1943, he was among a contingent of men who left campus for the U.S. Army. After serving with distinction in Europe, he returned to Pomona, graduating in 1948 and joining the faculty as an instructor two years later. He went on to earn a master’s at the Claremont Graduate School as well as an Ed.D. from UCLA, and in 1960 was promoted to professor of physical education and named director of athletics, a role he filled through 1978. During this time the challenging yet rewarding process of equalizing men’s and women’s athletics was begun, and the number of intercollegiate competitive sports rose from seven to 17.

In addition to coaching several years of both varsity and frosh football (including an 8-0 season with the 1950 frosh football team in his first year), Professor Malan coached track and field until 1966 and golf later on in his career. He founded the department’s Athletic Hall of Fame in 1958, oversaw its induction ceremonies for 42 years and in 1989 was himself awarded an honorary induction. That same year, he also received the SCIAC Distinguished Service Award. Along with serving as the College’s NCAA representative, he was very active in the NCAA Council and was elected to the presidency for Division III.

As a resident of Claremont, he was elected to the City Council twice, for the 1962-66 term and again for 1968-72, during which time he was mayor from 1970-72. He retired from Pomona in 1989 but remained active with the College and, in 2001, received its Alumni Distinguished Service Award.

“Coach Malan was a class act and a wonderful person,” says Athletics Director Charles Katsiaficas. “We all looked up to him; he was a great role model and mentor to so many of us through the years. We are blessed for the many years he shared with us here at Pomona.”

Richard M. Sheirich

March 5, 2012 by emae2021@pomona.edu Comments Off

Richard M. Sheirich, emeritus professor of German, died from cardiac arrest at his home in Claremont on Dec. 11, 2011. He was 84 years old.

He was born in 1927 in Erie, Penn., and attended local schools through high school. As his parents felt 16 was too young to go to college, he spent an extra year at Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts, graduating in 1945. He attended Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y., for part of his freshman year before enlisting in the U.S. Navy. After a year’s service at Williamsburg, Va., he was discharged and returned to Colgate to complete his undergraduate degree in 1949.

He earned a master’s degree in German from Northwestern University, and a Ph.D. in German from Harvard University in 1965. He also held a DAAD Fellowship at Universität Hamburg in 1957-58. After teaching at Colgate and UC Berkeley, he joined the Pomona faculty in 1965, and for 31 years taught courses in German language, literature and culture ranging from early tribal migrations to the Cold War and reunification. He also conducted research on Viennese poet, novelist and playwright Richard Beer-Hofmann, producing a number of articles as well as an edition of Beer-Hofmann’s correspondence, Der Briefwechsel mit Paula, 1896-1937. Most summers, Professor Sheirich spent time in Vienna, doing research.

In the 1990s he led a major grant-funded project, “German across the Curriculum,” to better integrate the study of German into non-language courses in the humanities and social sciences.The goal of the project, funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, was to improve foreign-language skills and to promote, among both faculty and students, a greater understanding of the complexities inherent in a foreign culture and of the relationship between language and other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences.

He also served on the Alumni Council and, more recently, on the Emeriti Committee. Many in the college community will miss seeing him walk with his wife of 49 years, Perdita, class notes editor for PCM, to and from campus in the early evening.

Upon retiring, Professor Sheirich expressed his gratitude for the fact that “one becomes a part of college life, yes, but it works the other way, too. The College, and a surprising number of students, also become a part of our lives.”

Memorial contributions to a fund supporting research and travel for students in German may be made to Pomona College, in care of Don Pattison, Donor Relations, 550 N. College Ave., Claremont, CA 91711.

Herbert B. Smith

March 5, 2012 by Don Pattison and Sam Yamashita Comments Off

Herbert B. Smith, emeritus professor of history, died Sept. 28, 2011, at his home in Mount San Antonio Gardens, Claremont, where he had lived since 1985. He was 93.

After obtaining his B.A. from the University of Iowa in 1940, he taught social studies for a year before he enlisted in the U.S. Army and was sent to Officer Candidate School. After graduation, he became the post chemical officer at Camp Butner, N.C., where, among other duties, he conducted countless drills against chemical attack for the units stationed there. He later was assigned to the information and education headquarters in Paris, helping to establish a post-hostilities education program for soldiers awaiting their return home.

After earning his M.A. degree in history at the University of Iowa and a Ph.D. in history at UC Berkeley, Professor Smith came to Pomona College in 1952. He was hired to teach French history, which he did for many years, regularly offering such courses as Absolutism and the Enlightenment in Europe, The French Revolution and the European Response and the History of Russia, in addition to Western Civilization. Smith also served as associate director of admissions and director of financial aid during the 1960s, and it was on his watch that Pomona established a policy of “need-blind” admissions.

After a one-year, Fulbright-funded sabbatical at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, he returned to full-time teaching at Pomona in 1969. Besides offering a new course on Southeast Asia, Smith was one of the creators of the two-semester introductory Asian history sequence—Asian Traditions and Revolution and Social Change in Modern Asia—that is still taught today.

He loved to travel, and he and his wife Dorothy traveled in the way that adventurous people did in the 1950s and early 1960s—by freighter and local trains and buses—to countries in Central Asia, the Middle East and Africa that did not see many American tourists in those days.

Smith retired in 1983 as the John Sutter Miner Professor of History after 31 years of teaching at Pomona. At the time, the College reported that he confessed to having had three serious loves in his life: his late wife, Dorothy, formerly a psychologist at Monsour Counseling Center; Clio, the muse of history; and the goddess Pomona. Shortly before he died, his fellow residents at Mount San Antonio Gardens made him the poet laureate of the Gardens.

«‹9 101112 13 ›»