Alumni

The Tetrasept Reunion

August 3, 2015 by emae2021@pomona.edu Comments Off

Photo of members of the Class of 1968 marching in the Alumni Weekend parade

THE CLASS OF 1968, which launched the College’s ongoing fascination with the number 47 years ago, has now given birth to a new tradition—the 47-year reunion. During Alumni Weekend, members of the class flocked back to Pomona for the first such gathering, and in honor of the occasion, they even created a new genre of poetry, which they dubbed the “tetrasept.”

At the center of it all was Bruce Elgin ’68, who—as a student in class with Professor Donald Bentley back in 1964—was one of originators of Pomona’s ongoing 47 search (along with Laurie Mets ’68). Elgin defines a tetrasept as a poetic form with “either four lines of seven syllables or seven lines of four syllables,” adding: “There are no rhyme or meter restrictions.”

During the build-up to the reunion, members of the class submitted tetrasepts about the reunion itself, the Class of ’68 or the cult of 47, for publication in a 32-page booklet. The submissions ranged from nostalgic to acerbic to esoteric, but they had one thing (in addition to their unique form) in common—they’re characteristic of the extraordinary inventiveness of one of Pomona’s most innovative classes.

Below are a few examples lifted from the booklet titled “Tetrasepts.”

From “Tetrasepts”

We call four score and seven

Oratory from heaven.

But other way ’round … not close:

Seven score and four—just gross!

—Bruce Elgin ’68

Greetings dear friends,

the deadline nears.

Words elude me.

What did I learn

at Pomona?

Procrastinate,

and words will come.

—Karen Porter MacQueen ’68

Why wait ‘til number fifty?

Let’s meet now, and let’s meet then.

Twice the fun! (Like letters here

Are two times forty-seven).

—Ruth Massaro (Henry) ’68

Forty-seven

Since sixty-four

Has proved to be

Unlikely lore;

So now ’hens fete

What shall endure

Forever more.

—Mary Jane Gibson ’68

Forty-seven

Have come and gone

My liberal

Education

Still a solid

Deep foundation

For a good life.

—Jill Kelly ¸’68

Where art thou forty-seven

Our class seeks you everywhere

In proofs, in ads, or even

A silly verse—on a dare.

—Diane Erwin ’68

They only are loyal to

this college who, departing,

bear their added riches in

trust for mankind. James Blaisdell

—Kathleen Wilson Selvidge ’68

Bentley proved all

Numbers equal

Forty-seven;

Hence Pomona

Class reunions

Always are the

Forty-seventh.

—Brian Holmes ’68

Making Waves: Youth-Led Change

February 23, 2015 by Daniel Gould Comments Off

DURING VISITS TO her hometown of Baltimore while she was a student at Pomona, Celia Neustadt ’12 started to notice some interesting shifts in the makeup of the city’s public spaces. The Inner Harbor waterfront, long seen by locals as a tourist-only enclave, had started attracting black teens from around the city looking for a place to shop and meet friends, a big change from when Neustadt herself was a Baltimore City high school student.

The influx of a new crowd, however, had also sparked new tensions. Complaints and concerns from business owners over loitering, theft and “rowdy” behavior were leading to curfews that prevented groups of teens from enjoying thedowntown district at night and after school, and bans that kept them out of popular clothing stores. Negative iteractions with police and security staff added to the resentment felt by Baltimore youth. The friction was palpable, Neustadt recalls, as she walked around the Harbor one night after an Orioles baseball game.

“Not only were there more teenagers than I remembered, but it felt kind of tense. There was a feeling in the air, like if someone lit a match, it would spread like wildfire.”

Intrigued and concerned, Neustadt came back to Pomona for her senior year and began making connections between her own observations and concepts she was studying as a sociology major.

“I had become really interested in these ideas about the power of public spaces,” she says. “I wanted to see if teens were intentionally staking a claim to this space, and figure out how they were using it.”

Neustadt channeled her curiosity into a proposal for a youth-led research team that would help amplify the voices of young people of color who felt excluded from the area. After winning a Napier Grant designed to promote leadership in social change, she went back to Baltimore the summer after her graduation and kicked off a new community organization, the Inner Harbor Project (IHP).

Since its launch in 2012, the IHP has brought together a cohort of high school students from neighborhoods around Baltimore to try to uncover the sources of conflict in the city’s downtown. Building on a tradition in social justice work known as participatory action research, the IHP’s student staffers have combed the city to hold focus groups with other teens, while also interviewing stakeholders such as land developers, security companies and business owners.

The conversations have shed some much-needed light on the issue. Community leaders now have a better understanding of why the Harbor is so valuable to young people looking for a vibrant and inclusive space to call their own.

“Teenagers don’t have that many places to go to in Baltimore, and so they really flock to the Inner Harbor,” Neustadt explains. “They feel like they’ve lucked into this larger world.”

Still, the project has also put a focus on problems like encounters between teens and police, which often cause mistrust and lead to more serious confrontations down the road. To create a takeaway for policymakers and officials, the group used its findings to draw up a list of proposals to reduce tensions and improve safety, catching the attention of local media and politicians. Some of their recommendations were even incorporated into the city’s most recent master plan for the waterfront district.

Neustadt, who says the response from City Hall and local businesses has been “overwhelmingly positive,” credits the Inner Harbor Project’s success to the teens themselves and their ability to draw upon their own lived experiences.

“This organization is about recognizing the extreme potential that these young people have to effect change in their city,” she insists. “They and only they have the answers to this issue that has people at the city level scratching their heads.”

While Neustadt is modest about her own contributions, others stress how her clear values and vision laid the foundation for the program and the positive results that have followed.

“I think Celia’s commitment to community and change has been instrumental in this work,” says Professor of Sociology and Chicana/o-Latina/o Studies Gilda Ochoa, a trusted mentor from Pomona who encouraged Neustadt to involve youth in the project and work from their perspective.

Looking ahead, Neustadt is hopeful that the organization might serve as a model for other cities that struggle with conflict between police and youth of color at their tourist attractions, mentioning locations like the French Quarter in New Orleans and Millennium Park in Chicago.

“This is my attempt to create a little ounce of change, to create a structure for having a discussion about inequality and the way spaces are used. I don’t see myself doing anything else for a long time.”

Alumni News

February 23, 2015 by Staff Comments Off

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Sagehens Flock to Fall Networking Events

Last fall, as students convened on campus for another year of discovery, collaboration and fun, hundreds of alumni and friends also came together to learn and laugh in a series of networking events hosted by Pomona.

In November, more than 120 Sagehens braved the rain in Washington, D.C., to attend the College’s third annual “Pomona in the City.” Held at the stunning Carnegie Institution for Science, the event was hosted by Susanne Garvey ’74. Alumni, parents and friends mingled and enjoyed lectures from Pomona faculty Pierre Englebert, David Menefee-Libey, Cameron Munter, Mary Paster, John Seery and Lenny Seligman, and from President David Oxtoby.

Sagehens on the right coast also flocked to the College’s first East Coast Career Networking Series, with events in New York City, Boston and Washington, D.C. The NYC event, hosted by John Popp ’78, was headlined by The New York Times education reporter Richard Pérez-Peña ’84. In Boston, award-winning architect Chris Chu ’76 shared highlights of her career journey (including a feature on HGTV’s “This Old House Boston”), and the series concluded in the Beltway with remarks by Mikey Dickerson ’01, Chief Administrator of the U.S. Digital Service (and subject of fall’s PCM cover story).

Meanwhile, on the West Coast, Sagehen volunteers spearheaded a San Francisco Tech Happy Hour, and dozens of alumni and current Pomona students gathered at the City Club for the perennial Los Angeles Finance Networking Event, overseen this year by Meg Lodise ’85.

In December, the Los Angeles Entrepreneurship and Investing Alumni Panel, hosted by Marcia Goodstein ’86 at her Idealab offices in Pasadena, closed out an exciting events season for Pomona alumni and friends.

Thank you to the many Sagehen hosts, speakers and attendees who participated in the success of these spirited events. To be sure you hear about upcoming networking events in your area, bookmark the College events calendar at pomona.edu/alumni/events, join the Pomona Alumni Facebook group at facebook.com/groups/ sagehens and make sure your contact information is up to date by emailing alumni@pomona.edu.

BULLETIN BOARD

Worldwide Happy Hour on March 11

Mark your calendar. The next Claremont Colleges Worldwide Happy Hour is scheduled for March 11, 2015. Held every year in September and March, the Happy Hour brings together hundreds of alumni from all seven Claremont Colleges at dozens of bars and restaurants around the world. Want to make sure there’s a Happy Hour near you? Consider hosting and adding your own city to the list! For more information, contact Lauren Bergeron ’05 at lauren.bergeron@pomona.edu.

Connecting Sagehens

Looking for a useful tool to locate and connect with Pomona alums in your area or during travels? Sagehen Connect has been helping Pomona alums get in touch since fall 2013. This free app is available through the iTunes App Store and Google Play and offers easy mobile access to fun and helpful features such as:

searchable alumni directory
mapped results of nearby alumni
alumni information via LinkedIn
the Alumni Events Calendar
Pomona-Pitzer sports
news, schedules, broadcasts

To get connected, just grab your iPhone or Android and visit pomona.edu/sagehenconnect. Chirp!

Chirp Along With Sagehens on Pomona’s Social Media

Meet up with fellow alumni online for discussions of all varieties, new and “throwback” Pomona pictures, alumni news and events, Sagehen sports and more. Join facebook.com/ groups/sagehens and follow @SagehenAlumni on Twitter to get in on the fun and to share your own Pomoniana (include #47sightings and #pomonacollege in your posts and tweets!).

TRAVEL-STUDY

Hawaiian Seascapes (Big Island to Molokai)

With Geology Professor Rick Hazlett

Dec. 5–12, 2015

Board the Safari Explorer for a seven-day cruise from the Big Island of Hawaii to Molokai, with stops on West Maui and the “private island” of Lanai. Enjoy dramatic volcanic backdrops, marine life sightings, and opportunities for snorkeling, kayaking and paddleboarding. Join Geology Professor Rick Hazlett for this seagoing tour, with a look into the islands’ volcanic origins, history and diversity of sea life. Highlights include a night snorkel with giant Pacific manta rays, a marine life search in the Humpback National Marine Sanctuary and an evening pa’ina (feast) and Hawaiian jam session on Molokai.

From Angles to Angels: The Christianization of Barbarian England

With History Professor Ken Wolf TBA (2015 or 2016)

The eighth in a series of alumni walking trips with a medieval theme, this is the first involving the United Kingdom. Its purpose is to appreciate the fascinating history (captured by the Venerable Bede) of the conversion of the barbarian conquerors of England, starring the Irish and Roman missionaries. In Scotland, you will visit Kilmartin, Dumbarton and Loch Lomond; in England, Lindisfarne, Hadrian’s Wall and Durham Cathedral.

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.

First Year: Vintage Made Simple

February 23, 2015 by Daniel Gould Comments Off

Bored of your wardrobe? Jonathan Starzyk ’14 might be able to help. For the past year, he’s been busy filling a gap in the world of men’s wear with his o johnathan-starzyck wn online store that sells unique vintage clothes. First created while he was a student at Pomona, Jonathan’s brand, STARZYK, is now based out of his hometown of Chicago. There, he’s working to make the business take root in the city and continue its growth, using creative efforts to connect with local buyers while still reaching style-minded guys across the country.

A CHANCE WORTH TAKING

Jonathan got his first exposure to the fashion world through summer internships with retailers and brands in Chicago, including a stint at international label French Connection. He loved the field’s link between artistic projects and business know-how, but sought more independence than he saw in some of the positions in the industry.

“I wanted to do something that I knew I’d be really invested in,” he says. “I felt like I understood what worked for a lot of these brands and what didn’t, and I wanted my voice to be heard.”

Interestingly, he was also realizing how difficult it was to find cool, distinctive outfits on his own. Thrift store shopping often meant hunting through racks of cluttered items for hours on end, only to go home empty-handed. Meanwhile, looks from better-known shops were quickly snatched up by others with similar tastes, making it hard to stand out from the crowd.

It wasn’t long before Jonathan sensed a way to tap an unmet need while having free rein to pursue his passion. Why not “gamble on myself,” he thought, and start his own venture?

FROM INCONVENIENCE TO OPPORTUNITY

With the help of a fellowship from student entrepreneurship group Pomona Ventures, Jonathan launched his website ShopStarzyk.com in the fall of his senior year. Selling everything from retro jackets and polos to swim shorts and tees, the site simplifies the tedious task of ‘thrifting’ by collecting quality apparel in one convenient source.

Jonathan finds his inventory by carefully combing through estate sales, thrift stores and other vintage hotspots in search of standout items. The selection process is based on a simple but effective rule: only offer clothes that Jonathan and his colleagues would seek out for themselves.

“We take the time to find pieces that we know we’d enjoy, and we think our customer would enjoy,” he says. “The brand is very much an extension of me and the things I like.”

Knowing he someday wanted to run a startup, Jonathan used the flexibility of his media studies major to pick up valuable skills for the fashion field. At Pomona he took courses in digital photography and graphic design, supplemented by a semester in Australia where he studied marketing. The preparation has paid off, allowing him to handle projects like shooting photos for lookbooks and designing his own logo.

“It’s nice to see how much I’ve grown from my learning experiences and how I’ve been able to apply them to a legitimate business,” he reflects.

LET THE CLOTHES DO THE TALKING

Since relocating to Chicago after graduation, Jonathan has been figuring out new ways to meet the challenges of running an online shop, the biggest of which is getting people to check out the product. The company lends itself well to social media platforms like Tumblr and Instagram, which Jonathan uses to target likely shoppers and define the brand’s look. Still, he says these tactics are just one piece of the puzzle.

“I’ve learned that people want to be able to interact with businesses in any way they can, and that’s hard to do with our online and social presence alone.”

One way to reach out to buyers is through pop-up shops, temporary stands where Jonathan sells his wares in strategic locations like fashion festivals and street fairs. “The idea is to be present, allow for interaction, and let the clothes do the talking,” he explains.

Wherever Jonathan’s current project leads him, friends and collaborators say they’ve come to expect his unique, self-confident style of career building. “Jonathan always has a vision of what he wants, and will go through a very interesting path to get there,” says Hannah Doruelo ’16, a friend from Chicago who interned at STARZYK for a semester to help get the company off the ground. “I really see him as a trailblazer.”

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.’”

Alumni Awards for 2014

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

Blaisdell Distinguished Alumni Awards for 2014

The Blaisdell Distinguished Alumni Award honors alumni for achievement in their professions or community service, particularly those who have lived up to the quotation from James A. Blaisdell which is inscribed into the gates of the College: “They only are loyal to this college who departing bear their added riches in trust for mankind.” This year, there are three winners:

Ifeanyi “Tony” Menkiti’64 taught philosophy at Wellesley College for 40 years and is the author off our collections of poetry: Before a Common Soil (2007), Of Altair, the Bright Light (2005), The Jubilation of Falling Bodies (1978), and Affirmations (1971). He is the owner of the Grolier Poetry Book Shop in Harvard Square, the nation’s oldest continuous all-poetry bookshop.

Born in Onitsha, Nigeria, he came to Pomona in 1961 on the ASPAU program (African Scholar-ship Program of American Universities). After Pomona, he attended Columbia University Pulitzer School of Journalism, New York University and Harvard University. In 1975, he received a fellowship in poetry from the Massachusetts State Council on the Arts and Humanities, followed in 1978 by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts. In addition to his collections, his poems have appeared in Sewanee Review, Ploughshares, New Directions, The Massachusetts Review and other publications.

In 1996, he received the Pinanski Prize for Excellence in Teaching from Wellesley College.

Joe Palca’74 has been a science correspondent for National Public Radio since 1992. He has covered a range of topics, from biomedical research to astronomy, and is currently focused on the series, Joe’s Big Idea, which explores the minds and motivations of scientists and inventors.

Palca began his career in 1982 as a health producer for the CBS affiliate in Washington,D.C. In 1986, he began a seven-year stint as a print journalist, first with Nature and then with Science Magazine. In 2009, he took a six-month leave from NPR to become science writer in residence at The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens.

Palca has won numerous awards for his work,including the National Academies Communications Award, the Science-in-Society Award of the National Association of Science Writers and the American Association for the Advancement of Science Journalism Prize. With Flora Lichtman, Palca is the co-author of Annoying: The Science of What Bugs Us (Wiley, 2011).

A psychology major at Pomona, he later earned both an M.S. and a Ph.D. in psychology at UC Santa Cruz, where he studied human sleep physiology.

Rip Rapson’74 is president and CEO of The Kresge Foundation, a national, private foundation based in Detroit. Since 2006, he has led Kresge in developing programs in arts and culture, education, environment, health,human services and the renewal of Detroit, distributing approximately $150 million annually.

Rapson was a political science major at Pomona, graduating magna cum laude. After at-tending Columbia Law School, he joined the Minneapolis law firm of Leonard, Street and Deinard. He was recruited in 1989 to become the deputy mayor of Minneapolis under Mayor Don Fraser, and was primary architect of the pioneering Neighborhood Revitalization program, a 20-year, $400 million effort to strengthen Minneapolis neighborhoods.

Prior to joining Kresge, Rapson was president of the Minnesota-based McKnight Foundation and also launched the Itasca Project, a private sector-led effort to develop a new regional agenda fort he Twin Cities.

He is the author of two books: Troubled Waters, a chronicle of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness Act legislation, and Ralph Rap-son: Sixty Years of Modern Design, a biography of his father, a renowned architect.Inspirational Young Alumni Award Lt.

Inspirational Young Alumni Award

Francine Segovia’04, a U.S. Navy Reserve research psychologist at the Robert E.Mitchell Center for Prisoner of War Studies, assists survivors recovering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). She is part of a team of scientists and medical specialists examining how optimism and resilience may boost the health of extreme trauma victims.

Segovia, who will return to active-duty service at the U.S. Naval Medical Center in San Diego, attributes her research skills to experience she gained while at Pomona, including participation in the Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP). “The critical thinking skills graduates from an institution like Pomona possess have a direct impact on all your work moving forward,” she says. “These skills have helped me tremendously as I navigated my career.”

Jerry Maguire Moments

September 4, 2014 by Jeremy Kniffin Comments Off

The walls of the Athletes First offices are filled with autographed jerseys, photos and other memorabilia from their National Football League clients, including such household names as Aaron Rodgers, Ray Lewis, Drew Bledsoe and Clay Matthews. Among the jerseys and photos in Andrew Kessler’s office is a framed copy of Newsday from 2011 showing a photo of New York Jets quarterback and Athletes First client Mark Sanchez celebrating a 28–21 playoff win over the New England Patriots with an exuberant scream and a handshake over the front railing of the stands.

Kessler ’03, who is a certified contract advisor and player agent with Athletes First in Laguna Hills, and who helped negotiate the (yes) 47-page rookie contract for Sanchez, is on the receiving end of the handshake. “My Jerry Maguire moment,” he laughs. “That was an AP photo, so it ended up everywhere.”

After graduating from Pomona with a degree in English, and playing for four years on the Sagehens football team, Kessler jumped right into his current field working at IMG Sports with Tom Condon, ranked by Sports Illustrated as the most influential sports agent in the country last year. Kessler, whose father has been a long-time legal representative for the NFL Players Association, had already served an internship with NBA agent Marc Fleisher while attending Pomona, traveling with 18-year old client Tony Parker to various NBA workouts (Parker has since gone on to win four NBA titles with the San Antonio Spurs and former Sagehen coach Gregg Popovich).

In his first two years at IMG, Kessler assisted Condon in putting together landmark contracts for Peyton Manning (seven years, $90 million) and Eli Manning (six years, $54 million), while also attending law school at the University of Texas. In his decade in the field at IMG and Athletes First, where he has worked primarily with David Dunn (No. 11 on the Sports Illustrated list of most influential agents), Kessler has been a part of negotiating contracts that total well over a billion dollars.

Most recently, Kessler helped put together a four-year, $40 million dollar deal for Super Bowl champion safety Earl Thomas of the Seattle Seahawks, making him the highest-paid player ever at his position. Kessler returned to his original home in New York City in February to see Thomas win Super Bowl XLIII at the Meadowlands, before helping to negotiate his landmark deal. Of course, Athletes First was guaranteed to be on the winning side of that Super Bowl regardless, as the firm also represents several members of the Denver Broncos, including wide receiver Wes Welker and linebacker Von Miller.

Kessler, who resides in Laguna Beach with his wife, Alison, and son, Jordan (2), has found success in a highly-competitive, big-money industry at an age when he has been younger than some of his clients. He draws some personal parallels to his playing days for Pomona-Pitzer football, when his teams went a combined 17–15 over four years despite fielding small rosters that were often significantly outweighed by their opponents.

“One lesson I learned from playing at Pomona is that you can’t judge a book by its cover,” he said. “Just about every game we played, we would lose the eyesight test. Sometimes if you just looked at the two teams in warm-ups, you’d think we’d lose by three or four touchdowns, but then the game would start and we’d win by playing harder, smarter or more fundamental football. You see the same things on the job, whether it be negotiating a contract or signing a player or issues with a client. The odds might look against you from the outside looking in, but you can accomplish your goals by digging deeper than the other guys and not being intimidated.”

He is also quick to point out that his academic experience at Pomona has been a big influence on his career. “Most of what I have learned in this business has come from on-the-job training or from my dad,” he said. “But the critical thinking and analytical skills that I use in my profession have come just as much from what I learned at Pomona, as an English major studying Henry James novels, as they have from taking law school courses in contract law.”

Although Kessler willingly made a reference to Jerry Maguire, the fictional sports agent played by Tom Cruise in the 1996 movie (best remembered for the phrase, “show me the money”), he does laugh at the way the movie portrays his line of work. “I imagine it’s the same way that real spies view James Bond movies,” he says. “People may see the eight-figure deals in the headlines, but there’s a real grind and blue-collar element to the job, which I enjoy. It takes months of negotiations and legwork to reach those deals. You can’t just walk in and say ‘give me this, I want it.’ You have to justify your rationale to the team.”

The life of a sports agent can also involve much more than negotiating the fine print of a 47-page contract, and Kessler feels that makes it even more rewarding. “One of my favorite things about this business is that you get to be involved in a lot of different charitable endeavors and other outside interests for your clients,” he says. “I’ve helped our clients raise money for sick kids, families of veterans, youth football organizations and all sorts of things. Some clients just want you involved in one specific part of their lives, and with other clients, you find yourself wearing a lot of different hats—relationship counselor, wedding planner, financial advisor, and you get to talk to them all the time.”

Kessler may also have a career-building opportunity as the primary agent representing Marqise Lee, a second-round pick of the Jacksonville Jaguars in the 2014 NFL Draft. Lee has a Hollywood-type story of overcoming a rough childhood that saw him bounce around several foster homes before becoming the Fred Biletnikoff Award winner at USC as the nation’s top wide receiver.

While his professional experience has been largely centered on the NFL, Kessler has also used his success at Athletes First to begin his own side project called K3 Tennis, which is representing Ernesto Escobedo, a 17-year-old rising star from West Covina. “I’m excited about it,” said Kessler. “It’s still in its early stages and if nothing else, it’s really fun. Some might call it a risky move to invest in something on my own, but that’s always been my personality. I traveled 3,000 miles from New York City to attend Pomona, which was a little bit risky, and I really liked my time at Pomona. When a risk like that pays off, you’re more willing to take other risks.”

His career as an athlete and as an agent has also given Kessler some philosophical perspective. Athletics is, by its nature, hyper-competitive, with a player’s or team’s value often defined by just a simple list of wins and losses. That attitude spills over into other sports-related industries as well. An agent’s success can be defined by wins and losses in contract negotiations, clients signed and dollars generated. Failures happen, and he sometimes sees colleagues who take each defeat as hard as the players on the field do.

“You have to appreciate successes,” he said. “You hear people say that they hate losing more than they like winning, and I understand that philosophy, but you have to have balance or you won’t be happy. My bad days aren’t really all that bad. On my good days, I’ve been there to see Earl Thomas win a Super Bowl. I’ve been there with Marqise Lee and his family when he was drafted, after he overcame so much adversity.”

Of course, he was also there to celebrate a big playoff win with Mark Sanchez and end up with his picture in newspapers all over the country.

“If you can’t enjoy a moment like that,” he says. “Something’s wrong.”

Coming to Doha

March 11, 2014 by Daniel Gould Comments Off

Just before graduating from Pomona, Alexandra “Zan” Gutowski ’13 learned she’d gotten a great opportunity to immerse herself in Arabic and Middle Eastern studies, two of her biggest interests. Since this past September, Gutowski has been a student at a university in Qatar, doing intensive study of Arabic to master her language skills and prepare for a career in foreign policy.

TAKING ON A CHALLENGE Gutowski studied the language for several years in college and even spent some time in the Middle East while she was a student at Pomona, including a semester in Jordan during her junior year. “In Jordan I learned how to conduct my life in Arabic. I could negotiate my rent, get around the city, and attend college classes.”

But her interactions with people from local communities, including a volunteer project with refugees from Syria and Iraq, inspired her to take her learning even further. “In conversations with these young refugee women, my Arabic was good enough to understand them, but not strong enough to say something meaningful back,” Gutowski says. “That’s when I realized I wanted to push my Arabic much further.”

Hoping to become a more skillful speaker, Gutowski made plans to enroll in an Arabic program after graduation. Part of her goal was to gain an edge in Middle Eastern affairs, the field she hopes to enter.“There’s a level of nuance I want to reach in the language,” says Gutowski. “Sure I want to understand things, but that’s something Google Translator can do for you. I want to dig deeper into tone, diction, and syntax, to understand what is being said beyond mere translation.”With the help of some of the staff at Pomona’s Career Development Office, Gutowski applied to the Qatar Scholarship, a year-long program sponsored by Georgetown which allows college graduates from the United States to study Arabic at Qatar University in Doha, the country’s capital. Her acceptance letter came just in time for Commencement.

LEARNING ON THE GROUND

Living and studying with a very international group of students, Gutowski says she’s started to make some exciting progress since arriving last fall. “What’s great is that I’m getting to the point where I’m learning about other things using this language. I can turn on the news or pick up an article, and really understand the bulk of it.”“This is a big breakthrough for me,” she says. “It’s getting fun now.”Outside of class, Gutowski spends a lot of her free time with friends and classmates exploring what the city has to offer, including museum exhibits, lectures and film festivals.

Gutowski says that her experiences in the Middle East so far have opened her eyes to the complexities of the region.

Meeting people from many different countries and having to find her way in an unfamiliar place has been a challenge, but also a cause for growth.“Coming to Doha was a good experience. It woke me up to the fact that I don’t know everything and there’s so much that I have to learn.”

SHAPING HER PATH

An international relations major, Gutowski says she’s always been drawn to public service. But her classes at Pomona were what stoked her passion for foreign affairs. She points to Professor David Elliott as a key influence. “I’m truly indebted to him, not just for shaping me into someone who could pursue foreign policy as a career but as someone who always wants to keep learning.”

Going forward, Gutowski wants to focus on national security issues and Middle Eastern politics. After her scholarship ends in June, she hopes to find work with a research institute or a branch of government like the State Department. She’s already taken a first step by landing an internship this spring as a foreign policy researcher at the Brookings Doha Center, the Qatar-based branch of the well-known Washington think tank. Still, Gutowski says her time in Doha has given her a broader perspective on the path she wants to take in the future.

“Especially in the first year out of college, people feel like they have to have everything figured out,” she says. “In this program I’ve met people who are all in different stages of their lives. I’ve realized that it takes awhile to get to where you want. It might not happen right away.”

The Art of Surprise

March 8, 2014 by Sneha Abraham Comments Off

Mowry Baden’s art has deep Pomona College roots. He started here as a student and then came back to campus later as an art professor, department chair and gallery director from 1968 to 1971.

Long based in Victoria, B.C., Baden ’58 is known for his large-scale kinesthetic sculptures. “Dromedary Mezzanine,” on view at the Pomona College Museum of Art through April 13, is a tall, platformed bicycle that a museum visitor pedals to reach four wall-mounted tents containing tools—an effort that is both exercise and meditation for the participant. Baden’s body-oriented, interactive works have impacted generations of Pomona students and garnered him wide respect.

baden1 Q: What’s the philosophy behind moving sculpture?

A: Almost all of my working life as a sculptor I’ve dedicated my energies to capitalizing on the physical energies of the period. So often people ask me, “What is your medium?” I say, exertion. Not my exertion but the exertion of the viewer, and this involves so often intercepting their habitual habits, gestural habits; intercepting those habits and sending them in unexpected directions.

So the viewer makes a discovery, or several discoveries, about the way their mind and body collaborate—and we call that kind of event an illusion, a phantom. This sculpture [“Dromedary Mezzanine”] capitalizes on the viewer’s energy. To ensure that the viewer engages with the work as long as possible, I’ve put these little destinations, chambers, high on the wall and each chamber contains a tool. When I acquired the tools I didn’t know their function; they’re very old, they’re out of use. So old are they, we have no idea how to put them into use, so that each is a mystery. This sculpture tries to do two things at once, exertion and the pausing and pondering of these mystery objects.

What do you find most compelling about this kind of work?

A: The central objective is to get into the sensory, to get in behind the external of the viewer, to surprise her with her own perceptual habits, which she thinks she knows from A to Z, but she doesn’t. So the sculpture opens a window into that internal space and she is surprised. Then another layer consists of the signaling that goes on between her and the other people in the room. So she comes, she engages with this, her friend or a stranger watches her and waits her turn. But sometimes her friend is too timid, sometimes her friend is too self-conscious, sometimes

her friend is inappropriately dressed. No matter, because just the act of watching this activity is something her friend’s brain pays acute attention to. In her brain, what are firing are synapses called mirror neurons, and we all have them. In more conventional language, we would call the firing of your neurons empathy. Then there’s another layer: gossip. She comes, she engages with the sculpture. She came alone. But she sees her friend at Starbucks and tells her what happened. Her friend comes to experience the same things, but the curious thing is she doesn’t experience the same thing. Because the two people are different. So really, that’s why I emphasize the particular, because no two people are the same. Generally the same, but particularly not. Another layer is institutional. There’s a lot of code breaking going on here. The first code is, don’t touch the art. So [a work like this] circumvents that code and invites the viewer to do something that she shouldn’t do in this no-touch world of the museum.

The fifth layer has to do with collaboration. If you come sometime to this space and watch people come in, you know how best to manage this apparatus, but they don’t. Each person engages with it unsuccessfully, but those people who view that person interacting with the sculpture take it a step further when it is their turn.

Q: How did your Pomona experience at those different stages—first as a student, then a professor, then as a gallery director—impact your art?

A: In this group of exhibitions, the museum is presenting drawings and paintings by my old teacher Frederick Hammersley…back in 1954-58. He would have us sit at our drawing places and he would say, “Put your pen right there.” [Baden tosses tissue to the floor signifying the movement.] “Now send it around.” So the idea was to keep your eye out there on the object and keep your pen traveling along its perimeter as you drew on the paper in front

of you. It could take a long time to get the line all the way around the object and often the results were startling, but they were always very physical. So your eye and your hand and your body all engage with trying to make this mark significant. He was a very good teacher and you can see how through a kind of filter it surfaces in the kind of work that I do. Then later when I taught here, then ran the department and then was gallery director, I had the good fortune to meet and work with a lot of students and with the gallery director who were more than ready to embrace the engagement of the body as an active component of a work of art. So I had wonderful colleagues like Guy Williams and David Gray in the studio program, later on Lewis Baltz. I had wonderful students like Chris Burden ’69 and Michael Brewster ’68, and I had maybe the best gallery director of the period… Hal Glicksman. So it was really, truly a golden moment in the history of this institution and I was very privileged to be a part of it.

Q: What drives your art?

A: Boredom. Just wanting to entertain yourself, right? I’ve been an artist since I was 8 years old; I don’t know how to do anything else really. At least nothing that chases boredom away so conclusively. I’m also the son of an architect, so almost all my work is larger-scale, body-size, even mini-architectural scale. And even one of my sons is an architect. So I guess in a way it kind of runs in the blood of the family. My mother was a poet. I’m just an art brat.

This interview has been abridged and edited.

Coffee with Conscience

November 6, 2013 by Brenda Bolinger Comments Off

nikki

Sociologist Nicki Lisa Cole ’02 carries around an accordion file stuffed with empty, flattened coffee bags she has collected from cafes across the U.S. over the last several years. Each item in her collection, begun when a package of coffee at Starbucks caught her eye, bears imagery or prose that hints at the ethical considerations behind the beans’ journey across the world and into your cup.

As the labels pile up, it’s a lot of information for Cole to parse. And so it is for everyday coffee-drinkers as well. With so many coffee-with-a-conscience practices operating—fair trade, direct trade, organic, shade grown, bird friendly—understanding the different approaches to ethically-sourced coffee, each with pros and cons, would seem to require pursuing dissertation-level research on the topic.

Cole did just that. She became so fascinated with the messages being sent to consumers about ethically marketed or produced coffee that the issue came to drive her doctoral research. Now a lecturer in sociology at Pomona, Cole writes blog posts (21centurynomad. com) on coffee sourcing that are broadly followed, and her expertise has been sought by The Nation, Conducive Magazine and others.

As part of her Ph.D. research, Cole queried 230 coffee drinkers, all of whom identified themselves as regular consumers of some kind of ethically-produced coffee. “Uniformly, people have a very vague, surface-level knowledge of what’s going on,” says Cole. “They tend to recognize the fair trade label, for instance, and know it stands for something good, but most have not done much research.”

With this hazy awareness, the heart of the matter can get lost. Cole wants to remind us why ethical sourcing for coffee is necessary. The reasons include historically low prices that make life a struggle for small producers, fluctuating prices because coffee is traded on the commodities market and price gouging of small producers by large transnational buyers.

So what can coffee drinkers do?

No system is perfect, but Cole says ethical coffee practices do, in fact, make some positive differences around the world. And so her one cup of coffee and one double espresso per day is always fair trade or direct trade. “While I have critiques of all the models out there, I always advocate for picking one that resonates with you and going with it, because it’s better than not,” she says.

The first step: “Ask about the coffee where you buy it: What are the sourcing practices behind this coffee?” Cole says.

The café or coffee shop owner might tell you that they import fair trade certified coffee because they value how the higher price supports community development, or that the certification standards require environmental practices such as minimized use of agrochemicals and water-conserving irrigation systems. Or, you might learn that they happily pay an even higher cost for direct trade coffee (also “relationship coffee”), purchased directly from a grower they trust, as opposed to a cooperative of producers, like in fair trade.

And if they clam up?

“If they can’t tell you what their sourcing practices are, that’s generally a bad sign. It’s probably not the place to get your coffee,” says Cole, a Pomona sociology major who earned her Ph.D. in the same field from UC Santa Barbara. “Most people in the industry who are using some sort of ethical sourcing are proud ofdoing that and want to share that with you.”

Cole points to the transparency of Portland-based Stumptown Coffee Roasters, which practices the direct-trade approach. “They claim ‘our books are open,’” Cole says. Want to learn exactly what price was paid to what producer practicing what methods? You got it.

But even if your coffee vendor provides evidence of ethical sourcing practices, how do you know which system is best? Cole says that depends on what you value. For example, fair trade certification requires a premium be paid on top of the minimum price per pound, which is then used to help workers, farmers and their families through such projects as school improvements, student scholarship provisions or the establishment and maintenance of healthcare clinics. The direct trade model does not provide for this kind of community betterment, according to Cole.

On the other hand, Cole notes, the democratic structure of fair trade cooperatives, where leadership constantly rotates, makes it difficult for buyers to nurture long-term, trusting relationships with producers. Since direct-trade buyers work directly with producers instead of cooperatives, it’s possible to cultivate close, symbiotic relationships in which both parties benefit—buyers pay a higher price for the assurance of high quality coffee, which in turn affords growers a higher level of economic stability.

Also worth considering is Fair Trade USA’s 2012 split from Fair Trade International for the explicit purpose of including large-scale plantations in the fair trade system. When the decision was made, Cole stirred up quite a bit of discussion by declaring “Fair Trade is dead” on her blog, referring to the ramifications of this decision. She still has plenty to say on the matter: “I fear that it’s very bad for small producers, squeezing them out of a market that was supposed to be a fair market.”

Fair Trade U.S.A.officials have defended the move as a way to benefit more farmers and workers, and to allow more consumers to buy Fair Trade products. Cole, though, says there is not nearly enough of a market to support current fair trade coffee production, so adding larger plantations will harm existing fair trade producers.

True to her small-is-good approach, Cole frequents the independent Last Drop Café, located in the Claremont Village just a block or two from campus. “We usually talk about coffee, and it’s been interesting learning about her opinions and insights,” says owner Mike Manning. “Her students have definitely learned a lot from her.”

One thing you might be surprised to learn about Cole, considering the depth of her knowledge and the hundreds of coffee shops she’s visited over the years: She is not a voracious coffee drinker. She is definitely a fan, but has reduced her consumption in consideration of the intense physical efforts that go into cultivating, harvesting and processing coffee beans.

Cole says choosing the higher-priced fair or direct trade coffee, but consuming less coffee overall, is one way to make a difference: “If we change our orientation to the value of goods and to respecting the labor that goes into them, paying a truly fair and just price for those goods, we would see different conditions.”

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