Campus News

Women’s Water Polo Four-Peats as Division III National Champions

Water Polo National Champions

Water Polo National Championship
Pomona Pitzer vs. CMS

In May Pomona-Pitzer captured its fourth straight USA Water Polo Division III championship, defeating chief rival Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS), 9-8, to cap another unblemished postseason run.

Kaylee Stigar ’25

Kaylee Stigar ’25

The four-peat sent Zosia Amberger ’25 and Kaylee Stigar ’25 into the sunset with the unprecedented milestone of having never lost a playoff game in blue and orange. Amberger started in goal all four years and was named Tournament MVP this spring.

“Zosia’s probably the best goalie I’ve had here [and] a huge part of what we’ve been able to do,” says head coach Alex Rodriguez. “Kaylee really stepped up and played phenomenally in the finals—she had this anger and vengeance that really helped us.”

As seniors, Amberger and Stigar were among the class of Sagehens that started at Pomona when students returned to campus following the initial pandemic shutdown. In that first year as Sagehens, Rodriguez says the current seniors learned much from the Class of 2022, including how to lead and handle adversity.

With as much winning as the program has done these past four years, the pressure to retain the top spot in Division III mounts, Rodriguez says.

“I have a simple philosophy that to get better, you have to play better teams,” the coach adds. “Because our sport is small, we play a lot of Division I teams early in the season, and that’s how we develop small goals. To be clutch, to be someone who plays well in big moments, you have to understand you’re going to fail sometimes.”

Zosia Amberger ’25

Zosia Amberger ’25

Despite losing Pomona grads Amberger, Stigar and a handful of seniors from Pitzer College, the Sagehens do not expect to relinquish their stranglehold on Division III women’s water polo anytime soon.

Rodriguez and associate head coach Alex La—one of the best coaches in Division III, Rodriguez says—expect leadership roles to be filled by Brienz Lang ’26, Gabby Lewis ’26 and Zosia’s sister Mia Amberger ’26, with key underclassmen continuing to develop and contribute in meaningful ways.

“The goal of every season is to try to have little championship moments every week,” Rodriguez says. “We try to prepare to win certain types of games, get more feathers in our cap, then win a Division III championship by the end.”

100 Years of the 7 Colleges

The year was 1925, and Pomona College had a problem: too many students wanted to enroll. The solution it kick-started a century ago this fall set the stage for The Claremont Colleges, an educational system unmatched in American higher education—and it all began with then-President James Blaisdell’s audacious idea.

In the “roaring ’20s,” Southern California’s population was exploding. Within a 60-mile radius of Claremont, the population doubled in just six years. The attractiveness of Pomona was so strong that by 1926, only one in four applicants gained admission. Clearly, the college needed to expand. But how to do so without becoming, as 1907 alumnus and Rhodes Scholar E.H. Kennard warned in a 1925 article in The Pomona College Quarterly Magazine, “one more drab university”?

In Oxford, a university eight centuries older than Pomona, President Blaisdell saw a possible model for the future: a collection of small colleges that share some common facilities while each maintains its own independence and identity. “I should hope to preserve the inestimable personal values of the small college while securing the facilities of the great university,” he wrote.

1925 illustration of the Group Plan

1925 illustration of the Group Plan

By 1925, what became known as the Group Plan was quickly taking shape in the minds of Blaisdell and other leaders—some of whose names are now etched in stone across campus. Among them were George Marston, Ellen Browning Scripps and William L. Honnold. In March 1925 Blaisdell gave a trustee-appointed committee his summary of the Group Plan. His right-hand man, Robert J. Bernard, took an all-night train to Sacramento to file articles of incorporation for the new educational enterprise on October 14, 1925, exactly 38 years to the day after Pomona itself was incorporated.

The new entity, says Brenda Barham Hill, who served as CEO of The Claremont Colleges consortium from 2000 to 2006, had three main functions. It would provide common services, hold land on behalf of the group and offer graduate education.

Aerial shot of the campuses taken in 1930

With tuition set at $150 per semester and seminars offered in 14 fields, including geology, Latin, psychology and zoology, classes began in 1926 at the clunkily named Graduate School of Claremont Colleges, known since 2000 as Claremont Graduate University (CGU). That same year the inaugural class of first-years was admitted to a new Claremont college named after Scripps, a philanthropist and supporter of education and women’s rights whose fortune was tied to the E.W. Scripps newspaper publishing empire. An ardent advocate of Blaisdell’s vision, she made multiple real estate purchases that became a significant part of the footprint for Scripps, CGU and three additional new colleges.

The end of World War II saw a flood of returning GIs ready to continue their education, and The Claremont Colleges were poised to admit them. The next 20 years saw the launch of three more colleges, including Claremont Men’s College (1946, later renamed Claremont McKenna College), Harvey Mudd (1957) and Pitzer (1963).

Thanks to Ms. Scripps’ foresight and real estate prowess, the colleges are almost entirely contiguous, minus Keck Graduate Institute located west of Indian Hill Boulevard. One easily walkable square mile—these days often biked, scootered or skateboarded—is now home to roughly 9,000 students, 3,000 faculty and staff, and nearly 3.2 million square feet of building space. The central library is the third largest among private institutions in California, behind only Stanford and USC.

Blending the vision and needs of seven distinct institutions that are at once partners and competitors has required informal collaboration and formal agreements hammered out over many decades. Sharing services, from an early steam-heating plant to sophisticated modern cloud-computing clusters, has occasionally required challenging negotiation and a recognition of the importance of “group over the individual.” As Blaisdell put it, “The whole project depends upon whether the participants are primarily interested in their separate organizations or, first of all, concerned in the creation at Claremont of a common and efficient center….”

And yet, a century in, the experiment shoulders on. The consortium has been modified over the years: graduate education, once the purview of all the colleges, is now housed in two distinct consortium members, and individual schools can choose to participate in some shared services but not others, with procedural guidelines and formulas in place to promote fairness. “Part of the genius of the model from day one was that they saw the benefit of sharing, and that it’s not static,” says Barham Hill.

Blaisdell would no doubt marvel at how his idea has flourished in what’s now called the “City of Trees and Ph.D.s.” When he became Pomona’s president in 1910, Claremont had no paved streets and Marston Quad was still a rye field. Now the colleges have collectively graduated about 100,000 alumni, and all five of the colleges are among the most highly ranked liberal arts schools in the country.

Yet Blaisdell would likely not be surprised. As he wrote to Scripps in 1923, “all I can hope to do is to draw the outlines of a project so fine and yet so sane that the generations will not suffer it to fail.”

The Central Pacific Railroad passenger depot in Sacramento

The Central Pacific Railroad passenger depot in Sacramento, where Robert J. Bernard filed the articles of incorporation for Claremont Colleges. [Credit California State Railroad Museum Library]

Celebrating 20 Years of QuestBridge

This year Pomona is celebrating 20 years of partnership with QuestBridge, a national nonprofit that connects exceptional, low-income youth with leading colleges. Through the QuestBridge National College Match college and scholarship application process, Pomona offers a number of College Match scholarships annually that cover the full cost of tuition, room and board and are loan-free.

Bayarmaa Bat-Erdene ’26

Bayarmaa Bat-Erdene ’26

“The access to college that QuestBridge provides is closely aligned with our mission statement at Pomona College to gather individuals, regardless of financial circumstances,” says Edward Pickett III, senior associate dean of admissions and director of recruitment.

Pomona has also hosted QuestBridge-related events such as the National College Admissions Conference, where QuestBridge participants can learn about the college admissions process and meet with admissions staff from partner colleges. This year there are 25 QuestBridge scholars at Pomona. Here’s a snapshot of a couple of them!

Illinois native Bayarmaa Bat-Erdene ’26 credits QuestBridge for making her college experience. She says that her parents, who emigrated from Mongolia, worked really hard to get her to Pomona, and wants to make sure that her parents’ “contributions and efforts were worth it.” Bat-Erdene is studying sociology and public policy analysis, thinking closely about issues like income and immigration. Reading the book The Maid’s Daughter for a class, she was able to compare it to her own experience as her mom worked as a housekeeper for a time.

Peter Schwammlein ’26

Peter Schwammlein ’26

Peter Schwammlein ’26 was drawn to Pomona for the Claremont Colleges consortium, the liberal arts education, and students he had met through the QuestBridge network. Raised in Fayetteville, Arkansas, Schwammlein is majoring in linguistics and considering double majoring in German Studies. Schwammlein has especially enjoyed the students at Pomona. “People are willing to listen to other perspectives,” he says. “The school pulls deep-thinking people that can see multiple sides and are not fully set on their ideology.”

A Century of Commencement Speakers

Top: Danny Kaye, Richard Chamberlain, Bill Bradley, Coretta Scott King, Twyla Tharp. Bottom: Patrick Stewart, John Cleese, Walter Cronkite, Janet Napolitano, Jennifer Doudna.

Top: Danny Kaye, Richard Chamberlain, Bill Bradley, Coretta Scott King, Twyla Tharp. Bottom: Patrick Stewart, John Cleese, Walter Cronkite, Janet Napolitano, Jennifer Doudna.

Pomona’s first commencement was in 1894, but it wasn’t until May 1925—100 years ago this spring—that the school brought in outside speakers to dispense wisdom to the new graduates.

As English Professor Bruce McCulley put it in February of that year, “There was a strong sentiment in many quarters that it may be to the advantage of all if the present practice of having [exclusively] student commencement speakers were discontinued and a [person] of national repute as a speaker be secured.”

As Pomona’s reputation grew in the ’70s, the College was increasingly able to procure bigger and bigger names from the worlds of education, public service, politics and the arts. Here’s a look back at some of the most notable speakers of the last 50 years.

1978: Comedian Danny Kaye
1981: Actor Richard Chamberlain ’56
1982: New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley
1984: Civil rights activist Coretta Scott King
1987: Choreographer Twyla Tharp
1995: Actor Patrick Stewart
1999: Actor/comedian John Cleese
2004: News anchor Walter Cronkite
2010: Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano
2022: Gene-editing pioneer & Nobel laureate Jennifer Doudna ’85

Notable Quotes

“When we make politics a crusade, politicians will begin to understand that they must serve all the people and not just a select few.” —Coretta Scott King, 1984

“Go out and celebrate, but before you do, spend a few moments writing in your yearbook about how your life and the world unfolded, 47 years from today. After that, go out and do something. Do something that you love. Do something that matters. Do something to preserve and cherish our pale blue dot.” —Steven Chu, 2011 (U.S. Secretary of Energy and Nobel laureate)

“I suspect that if kinship was our goal, we would no longer be promoting justice, we would be celebrating it…The measure of your compassion lies not in your service to those on the margins, but in your willingness to see yourselves in kinship with them.”—Father Gregory Boyle, 2014 (founder, Homeboy Industries)

“Real success comes when you identify what you are passionate about doing, and then you do it 110 percent. … We all face challenges in our lives—that’s a part of being human. I think what sets apart those that are successful in whatever they want to do is just embracing those challenging moments and turning them as much as possible into opportunity.” —Jennifer Doudna, 2022

“Tomorrow you will move on. With an education, with experience and with choices. Make a difference.” —Patrick Stewart, 1995


Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that Bill Bradley was a senator from New York. In fact, he represented New Jersey in the U.S. Senate from 1979 to 1997. We regret the error and thank Steve Johnson ’82 for bringing it to our attention.

Now Checking in For Pomona: The Cottrell Sisters!

The Cottrell sisters may be far from home at Pomona, but on campus, a piece of home is always near.

Elsa Cottrell ’28 followed her older sister, Sydney, from Portland, Oregon, to Claremont to play for the Sagehens women’s basketball team. The Cottrells grew up avid sports fans, and in eighth grade, Sydney Cottrell ’26 began taking stats for Elsa’s middle school basketball team—the Sellwood Kangaroos.

The Cottrells, Sydney ’26 and Elsa ’28

The Cottrells, Sydney ’26 and Elsa ’28

All these years later, Sydney remains a core part of Elsa’s playing career as a statistician and game-day announcer for Sagehens women’s basketball.

“As soon as Elsa made the decision to come to Pomona,” Sydney says, “I knew I had to do everything in my power to call her games, even if only to sneak in an embarrassing story or two while on air.”

Elsa, a 5-foot-11 guard, was one of seven first-year players on a young Sagehens team that exceeded preseason expectations. As a newcomer, Elsa found the team culture “positive and so encouraging, a rarity in competitive sports.”

In her first season, Elsa averaged 13 minutes a game, and until leaving for Germany in the winter to study abroad for a semester, Sydney sat courtside calling all the action.

“As an announcer, I think there is an expectation that you maintain a neutral tone and call the game as it is, providing insights where necessary,” Sydney says. “Thus, it’s kind of surreal having my sister out there, someone who I’ve been cheering for my whole life and who I know better than anyone.”

Objective as she was, Sydney says she couldn’t help but smile calling Elsa’s name and number.

In the fall, the Cottrell sisters settled into routines—Monday lunches, library study sessions—and embraced the novelty of having a sibling on campus. As Sydney was at her home games, Elsa was a regular at Sydney’s choir and a cappella group productions.

“Originally, I didn’t want to go to the same school as my sister because we’ve done everything the same our whole lives,” Elsa says. “But now that I’m here, it’s really nice to have her here.”

Adds Sydney: “At first I did have to tell her once or twice that she can’t keep calling me while I’m in class, but I am so grateful to have a shared college experience with her.”

New Sea Sponge Species Named for Turrell ’65

Bob Gaines exploring the Marjum Formation

Bob Gaines exploring the Marjum Formation, a fossil-rich deposit in western Utah.

Ever since his mother gifted him a Trilobite fossil at age 5, Edwin F. and Martha Hahn Professor of Geology Robert Gaines has been fascinated with hunting for history.

His latest quest, this one in western Utah, turned up dozens of specimens of a new species of sea sponge estimated to be half a billion years old—one of Earth’s earliest animals. And it’s named Polygoniella turrelli after James Turrell ’65, creator of Dividing the Light, the Skyspace at Pomona.

This fall Gaines and colleagues from Harvard University described the new species in a paper published in the journal Royal Society Open Science.

The discovery is the result of three years of research conducted on a fossil-rich mountainside in Utah, where layers of shale preserved the specimens.

Rock showing three specimens of new sea sponge species.

This rock shows three specimens of the new sea sponge species.

“Because there was preservation of the organic material, rather than a skeleton or a shell, it’s kind of an extraordinary view,” says Gaines, current acting president of Pomona. “This is at the time when animals first diverged from single-celled ancestors, so we are able to capture what the early family tree of all the animals looked like and understand how the big branches in the animal family tree are related.”

As he pieces together periods of time by exploring new ground and investigating both rocks and fossils, Gaines finds the more he learns, the more questions he has about the history of life. But he remains thrilled to link extraordinary fossils to prehistoric times in his eternal quest to understand the environment in which living things existed.

“For me,” he says, “it’s about the nature of the earliest ecosystems of our own ancestors and their relationship to the Earth system and how they fed on each other. As a student, I recall well the long periods of confusion. But in retrospect I’ve found that I’ve never really learned anything cool without being confused for some period of time first.”

New Study on Global Benefits and Tradeoffs of Natural Climate Solutions

Innovative research by faculty at Pomona, The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and other partners reveals how protecting, better managing and restoring nature for climate change can enhance human well-being, biodiversity and ecosystems.

Charlotte Chang ’10, assistant professor of biology and environmental analysis, is the lead co-author of the new research, which shows that natural climate solution pathways with the highest potential to mitigate carbon also have the most evidence of their impacts on people and nature. Using advanced machine-learning methods and large language models, the researchers analyzed more than 250,000 peer-reviewed publications to assess the benefits and tradeoffs of natural climate solutions. The study was published on December 2 in the journal Nature Sustainability.

“We’ve achieved something unprecedented—the first comprehensive analysis of how natural climate solutions impact every dimension of human and environmental well-being,” says Chang, who is also the inaugural One Conservancy Science Fellow at TNC. “By using open-source large language models, we could evaluate vast amounts of data in ways that were previously impossible.”

This global evidence map will help countries implement natural climate solutions by showing the impacts that pathways such as reforestation and wetland protection can have on human well-being, biodiversity and the environment beyond climate change mitigation.

“Natural climate solutions hold the promise of transforming ecosystems and livelihoods, but their implementation must be informed by evidence,” says J.T. Erbaugh, an applied social scientist at TNC and co-lead author.

“Our evidence base can help ensure that these solutions provide benefits for people and ecosystems more equitably and effectively,” adds Brian Robinson, co-lead author and associate professor of geography at McGill University. “The scale of our evidence base transforms how we understand environmental and climate solutions.”

New Chair and Members Join the Board of Trustees

Janet Benton Headshot A member of the Pomona College Board of Trustees since 2013, Janet Inskeep Benton ’79 was elected the new chair of the Board. Her three-year term began July 1. Benton is the founder and president of Frog Rock Foundation, a nonprofit whose mission is to improve long-term outcomes for underserved children in Westchester County, New York.

“Our Board of Trustees believes in and is committed to the promise of a Pomona College education,” says Benton. “As board chair, I will engage these colleagues and bring them together to address strategic issues that come before us. I’m honored to serve in this role and look forward to a productive year ahead.”

Erika James HeadshotErika James ’91 is dean of The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania, and an expert on crisis leadership, management strategy and workplace diversity. She was previously dean and professor at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. Her most recent book is The Prepared Leader: Emerge from Any Crisis More Resilient Than Before, co-authored with Lynn Perry Wooten. She serves on numerous boards, including Morgan Stanley, the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Economic Club of New York.

“I look forward to reconnecting from the perspective of a leader in higher education,” says James. “Having spent more than 30 years in multiple universities, I have a broad understanding of higher education and am hopeful I can add value to the school that paved the way for my professional journey.”

Jason Sheasby HeadshotJason Sheasby ’97 is a law partner at Irell & Manella, where he specializes in complex litigation, intellectual property, antitrust and internal investigations.

A Harvard Law School graduate, Sheasby obtained a verdict for the city of Pomona that a Chilean mine shipped tainted fertilizer before and during World War II, which leached into the city’s water—the first successful application of California’s product liability law to an environmental tort.

“Pomona [College] altered the trajectory of my life,” says Sheasby. “Its financial generosity allowed me to attend the school and spend two terms in Cambridge, [opening] up a world I did not even know existed. I want to ensure that Pomona continues to play this role in the lives of students.”

Two trustees are transitioning to emeritus status: Allyson Aranoff Harris ’89, a trustee since 2014, and Osman Kibar ’92, a trustee since 2016.

Board Chair Provides Update on the College Endowment and Calls for Divestment

This fall, Pomona College Board Chair Janet Inskeep Benton ’79 addressed concerns to the Pomona community regarding the College’s endowment and calls for divestment. “This is a challenging time in higher education,” says Benton. “World events have rocked college campuses and exposed tensions between free expression, unimpeded access to the educational experience and protection from harassment.” While this plays out in a variety of ways at Pomona, she says, one of her goals as board chair is to address the concerns voiced in the College community about the endowment.

Benton notes that “while there is much to discuss, there are positions about which the board is unwavering. We will not target specific countries with actions such as boycotts or divestment. Pomona seeks to remain open to the entire globe, believing that wider engagement and deeper understanding is the best path forward.”

We are a community that prizes deliberative, thoughtful engagement, and we are committed to working with our partners in shared governance to establish a process for bringing community concerns regarding particular investments to the Investment Committee of the board, the incoming board chair added.

The board invited elected leaders of the College’s four constituency groups–faculty, staff, students and alumni–to share their thoughts in writing and met in person during the board’s October meeting to discuss a process that would engage perspectives of the community regarding investments and about strategies for helping stakeholders understand the endowment. That collegial conversation was a productive first step that stressed the need for open communication and transparency going forward. The Board expects to share further thoughts with the community before the end of the semester.

Jonathan Williams Named New Vice President and Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid

Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, Jonathan Williams

Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, Jonathan Williams

A national leader in college admissions, Jonathan B. Williams became Pomona’s next vice president and dean of admissions and financial aid effective August 1.

Williams joins Pomona from New York University, where he most recently served as associate vice president of undergraduate admissions, precollege, access and pathways.

Under his leadership since 2016, applications to NYU’s three degree-granting campuses in New York, Abu Dhabi and Shanghai increased by 97%. He has played a key role in attracting the most diverse and academically accomplished student body in the school’s history. In addition, Williams extended the reach of the admissions office by creating the Precollege Access and Pathways division at New York University. Through that work, upward of 5,000 students participated each year in NYU pre-college programs that foster a college-going culture in communities nationwide.

“Jonathan joins Pomona at a pivotal time for higher ed admissions and the College,” says G. Gabrielle Starr, president of Pomona College. “He will be instrumental in ensuring that access to a Pomona education regardless of family income remains a bedrock value of the College. We look forward to welcoming Jonathan to campus.”

With a track record of success in college admissions, nonprofit management and enrollment management, Williams is a leader in identifying pathways to opportunity for people seeking postsecondary education. Through his work with organizations such as Reach for College! and Heads Up of Washington, D.C., as well as college admissions offices at Oberlin College, the University of Pennsylvania and Dartmouth College, he has helped thousands of young people and their families through their educational journeys.

Williams earned degrees from Dartmouth College and the University of Maryland at College Park, and he is completing his doctorate in higher education administration at New York University. He serves on the boards of the Common App, the Enrollment Management Association and Minds Matter NYC.

“I am honored to be joining the Pomona community and to work with this incredibly talented team of professionals,” says Williams. “I am excited to build upon the legacy of diversity, inclusivity and academic excellence that are hallmarks of the College’s student body. I am thrilled to continue my work of helping students find and unlock their potential through access to higher education.”

Williams succeeds former Vice President for Strategy & Admissions and Financial Aid Seth Allen, who started at Pomona in 2011 and retired in February 2024. Since then, Ray Brown has been serving as interim vice president for admissions and financial aid for the College.

George C. Wolfe ’76 honored at Tonys with Lifetime Achievement Award

George C. Wolfe posing in the press room at the 77th Annual Tony Awards held at The David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center in New York, NY on Sunday, June 16, 2023.

George C. Wolfe posing in the press room at the 77th Annual Tony Awards held at The David H. Koch Theater at Lincoln Center in New York, NY on Sunday, June 16, 2023.

In June George C. Wolfe ’76 received the 2024 Special Tony Award for “Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre” at the 77th annual ceremony.

Wolfe has been nominated for 23 Tony Awards and won five, including Best Direction of a Play for Angels in America: Millennium Approaches and Best Direction of a Musical for Bring in ‘da Noise, Bring in ‘da Funk. Additionally, Wolfe was the producer of The Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival from 1993 to 2005, directed/adapted Spunk, and created Harlem Song for the Apollo Theatre.

Wolfe’s work outside of theatre includes directing and co-writing the HBO film co-wrote the HBO film The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, as well as Lackawanna Blues, for which he earned The Directors Guild Award, a National Board of Review Award, a Christopher Award, and the Humanitas Prize. For Netflix he directed Rustin and Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, which was nominated for five Academy Awards.

“[Wolfe’s] stellar contributions as a playwright, director, producer and artistic director, including his unforgettable direction in productions like Angels in America and Bring in ‘da Noise…, have left a lasting impression on audiences,” said Heather Hitchens, president and CEO of the American Theatre Wing. “Beyond his tremendous dedication to storytelling, he has shown an unwavering commitment to diversity and inclusion throughout his illustrious career that has shifted culture and elevated the theatre community.”

Wolfe is the chief creative officer of the Center for Civil and Human Rights, and from 2009 to 2017 served on The President’s Committee on the Arts and The Humanities. Additional awards include the NAACP Theatre Lifetime Achievement Award, NYU’s Distinguished Alumni Award, and induction in the Theatre Hall of Fame. Wolfe was named a “Library Lion” by the New York Public Library and a “Living Landmark” by the New York Landmarks Conservancy.