Campus News

A Century of Commencement Speakers

April 4, 2025 by Staff Comments Off

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!

April 4, 2025 by Staff Comments Off

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

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

April 4, 2025 by Brian Whitehead Comments Off

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

April 4, 2025 by Staff Comments Off

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

November 19, 2024 by Staff Comments Off

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 ’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 ’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

November 19, 2024 by Staff Comments Off

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

November 19, 2024 by Staff Comments Off

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.

Pomona Welcomes Eight New Faculty Members This Fall

November 19, 2024 by Staff Comments Off

The group of both tenure-track and tenured faculty includes multiple alumnae, as well as several who previously taught here as postdoctoral fellows and visiting professors.

Alejandra Castillo ’17, visiting instructor of mathematics and statistics, graduated from Pomona with a degree in mathematics before pursuing a master’s in statistics at Oregon State University. Her graduate student research explores alternatives to penalization when trying to obtain a sparse solution to a clustering problem. In Corvallis, Castillo was a graduate mentor for the Oregon 4-H Outreach Leadership Institute, which prepares high school migrant youth from farming communities for college.

Pui Tiffany Chow, assistant professor of art, earned her MFA in visual art from UC Riverside. She previously taught at Pomona as a lecturer and visiting assistant professor. Chow’s painting explores the intersection of abstraction and figuration through a pastiche of historical references ranging from the representation of the female form to various Eastern and Western cultural codes.

Andrew Law, assistant professor of philosophy, specializes in freedom and moral responsibility, in addition to metaphysics. His research encompasses free will, time and the relationship between the two. Law earned a Ph.D. in philosophy from UC Riverside and did his postdoctoral research at the Institute for Philosophy at Leibniz University Hannover in Germany. Law previously lectured at Western Washington University and USC.

Amira Lundy-Harris, assistant professor of gender and women’s studies, is a scholar in trans studies, Black studies, kinship, Black feminist thought, women’s studies and LGBTQ studies. They earned a Ph.D. in women, gender and sexuality studies at the University of Maryland, College Park, where they were the instructor of record in a course that introduced significant strands of thought in the field of Black trans studies and covered genealogical connections to Black feminist thought and trans studies.

Pamela Prickett, associate professor of sociology, earned a Ph.D. from UCLA. She was an associate professor at the University of Amsterdam and served as a faculty member for the Amsterdam Research Centre for Gender and Sexuality and the Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research. Her research focuses on how the erosion and resilience of social ties perpetuate social inequalities. She has published two books about Los Angeles, including Believing in South Central and The Unclaimed: Abandonment and Hope in the City of Angels.

Omer Shah, assistant professor of anthropology, received his Ph.D. in anthropology from Columbia and has been teaching at Pomona as a Chau Mellon fellow since 2022. Shah was awarded a summer stipend from the National Endowment for the Humanities to write two chapters of his monograph Made in Mecca: Expertise, Techno-politics, and Hospitality in the Post-Oil Holy City.

Amani Lee Starnes, assistant professor of theatre, has been a professional performer in Los Angeles and New York for nearly 20 years, appearing in such productions as Amazon’s Transparent and NBC’s Community. She earned her Ph.D. in theater and performance studies from Stanford this summer, and her expertise includes contemporary Black feminist theatrical adaptation.

Jessica Stern ’12, assistant professor of psychological science, graduated from Pomona summa cum laude with a degree in psychology and earned a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from the University of Maryland, College Park. Her research examines how early childhood experiences shape brain development, empathy and mental health over the life course. Stern most recently was a National Research Service Award postdoctoral fellow and Engagements teaching fellow at the University of Virginia.

Kara Godwin Joins Pomona as Inaugural Senior Global Fellow

November 19, 2024 by Staff Comments Off

Kara A. Godwin, a visionary leader and strategist, will join Pomona as the inaugural senior global fellow starting at the end of August.

Godwin brings more than 20 years of experience as an accomplished strategist and collaborative scholar focused on global engagement, with an emphasis on institutional transformation and interdisciplinarity. Most recently, she served as the director of internationalization at the American Council on Education (ACE), where she led ACE’s global strategy and flagship Internationalization Laboratory program.

“This new position is a critical step forward in advancing our Global Pomona Project as we work on realizing our vision of providing transformative global learning experiences for all Pomona students,” says Yuqing Melanie Wu, vice president for academic affairs and dean of the College. “With Kara’s leadership, the College is poised to accelerate our progress toward our global engagement goals.”

New in the Catalog

November 19, 2024 by Staff Comments Off

Students in lounges and hallways of Millikan Hall.

Students majoring in any discipline now have a new option for a minor: data science. A new offering this fall at Pomona, the data science minor will help student develop skills in using and analyzing data. All data science minors will have to complete five courses, one in each of the core areas —programming, statistics, data science, ethics, and linear algebra courses—by the end of their junior year.

Among the data science minor faculty are mathematicians, economists, psychologists and biologists who will use an interdisciplinary approach to enable students to extract and communicate meaningful insights about data.

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