This fall we’re celebrating originals.

Original thinking—one of the hallmarks of this singular place—is at the heart of Originals: The Campaign for Pomona College, an ambitious fundraising campaign to enrich and sustain the College for generations of Sagehens to come. You can read more about Originals in this issue’s special section (page 25), and I encourage you to do so.

What makes a thing original has also been very much top of mind for our editorial team as we contemplated our feature stories for the magazine.

In “What’s the Big Idea?” we cast our eyes back over decades of Pomona history to lift up a dozen (or so) true originals who came up with brilliant ideas and had the talent, tenacity and all-around gumption to turn those gems into transformative realities—be it an Avery label, a windsurfer or a bengal cat (see page 33 for more genius inventions).

We’re pretty sure there are scores more Sagehens out there who have changed the world—or at least a corner of it—for the better through next level creative thinking and extraordinary powers of collaborative problem solving.

Have you crossed paths with a fellow alum who fits that description to a T? We’d love to hear about them. Send me a note!

—Judy Hill 
editor-in-chief
judy.hill@pomona.edu

I was saddened to read in PCM of the death of Rev. Gordon Verplank ’62 in September 2024. He was a very fine person and someone who had a major impact on Pomona and the other Claremont Colleges as College chaplain from
the late 1960s through the 1970s.

Rev. Verplank, or Gordon as I and other students knew him, started as the Colleges’ chaplain during the height of the Vietnam War. He helped organize protests against the war and became the administrator for the Claremont Colleges Draft Counseling Center, working with countless students faced with the difficult decision of whether to enlist, wait to be drafted, become a conscientious objector or go to Canada. It’s safe to say that his work saved many young lives.

Gordon was also the driving force in expanding the chaplaincy from being solely a Protestant ministry to including both a Catholic priest and a Jewish rabbi as co-leaders with him.

I came to know Gordon my last two years at Pomona when he learned that I was doing a double major in political science and religion. It was Gordon Verplank who challenged me to “come out as a Christian,” not in terms of sexual expression, but to quit letting other people define what being Christian meant. For Gordon, that meant caring about this world and its peoples, standing up for justice and working for peace. “If you think that’s what is important in life,” he said, “then don’t let other people get the last word about what being Christian means.”

I know from other classmates that he played a similar role in their vocational decisions. Both Pomona College and this world were well-served by Rev. Gordon Verplank.

—Rev. Talitha Arnold ’75
The United Church of Santa Fe

We got several responses to our call in the last issue of PCM asking Sagehens to tell us about their first-year class book (pre-2003). This is what we know so far (and who told us):

1961
The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution
by C.P. Snow
(Svata M. Louda ’65)
or
Memoirs of Hadrian
by Marguerite Yourcenar (Candy Reiter Midkiff ’65)

1963
The Secret Agent
by Joseph Conrad (Judith Grammel Evans ’68)

1967
No first-year read
(Peter V. Huisking ’71)

1974
No first-year read
(Diane Mayfield ’78)

1978-1979
No first-year read
(Margo Tanenbaum ’82,
Jack Mearns ’83)

1996
Palace Walk
by Naguib Mahfouz
(Kelly Nord ’99, Shauna Pellauer ’00)

1997
The English Patient
by Michael Ondaatje
(Alex Cho ’01)

1998
Life on the Color Line: The True Story of a White Boy Who Discovered He Was Black
by Gregory Howard Williams (Vanessa Kettner ’02, J. Speidel ’02)

In the early months of the COVID pandemic, when isolation was beginning to take its toll, Frank LaHorgue ’58 came up with the idea of gathering the Pomona Class of 1958 together in a Zoom meeting. Enlisting the help of a few others, he invited everyone in our class to the first meeting in the spring of 2020. Six years later, we’re still meeting every month.

Our meetings, which are planned by a committee, consist of a presentation followed by lively discussions. Subject matter has been varied, ranging from slide shows of our reunions to reprises of significant events from our careers to presentations by classmates (“Starting a Coffee Plantation in Panama”) and professors from Pomona College and other institutions (“Artificial Intelligence in Today’s Classrooms”). We have learned about the complexities and uses of seaweed, about the psychological problems of military personnel conducting remote missile and drone attacks, about the cultural and political history that makes China what it is, and about the history of the Gabrielino/Tongva Nation in Trojoatngna (aka, Claremont).

To plan and organize our monthly gatherings, a committee of eight classmates—two of whom have Zoom Pro licenses—meet weekly on Zoom. At these meetings we generate ideas for presentations, which often include taking advantage of contacts from the “outside world.”  We send out announcements a week before the presentation, and, a few minutes before the meeting, we send a link. We use the Zoom record function to distribute the meeting for classmates unable to attend.

Our meetings have not only enriched our lives intellectually but have proven to be a tremendous bonding experience for our class as we renew old friendships and create new ones. We’ve also found that our gatherings have amplified our ties to Pomona College and engendered feelings of gratitude for being among its graduates.

—Patrick Muffler ’58
Connie Leas ’58

It’s a familiar refrain heard across dinner tables, holiday gatherings and comment threads: “Back in my day…” Every generation seems to carry a version of this lament—the notion that they had it tougher or that life was more demanding. Whether it’s holding down a job at 16 or walking to school uphill both ways, the past tends to wear a nostalgia filter, painted in hues of grit and resilience.

While there’s some truth to the idea that the challenges of youth are universal, in 2025 it’s safe to say that there are some pretty unique complexities ahead for folks born in the last 30 years (i.e. the elder “Gen Z” Zoomers, and the younger “Alphas”). The next generation is in the midst of navigating a thorny landscape littered with issues like loneliness, climate anxiety, skyrocketing housing costs, an AI-disrupted job market and political polarization.

This issue aims to explore the realities, hopes and hurdles of those coming into adulthood today, with a particular focus on the three topics of work-life, parenting and mental health. We delve into the future of office work and how young professionals are questioning hustle culture and demanding purpose alongside their paychecks; we talk to experts about how financial stress and shifting cultural expectations have made younger generations less likely to have kids; and we confront the ongoing mental health reckoning that has involved evolving conversations around self-care and seeking therapeutic support.

Adam Conner-Simons ’08

As we turn the page of this issue, we invite you to set aside the nostalgia and listen to the stories of those growing into adulthood at a time unlike any other. While every generation thinks they had it hardest, it just might be true that this one has it different—and is rising to meet it in extraordinary ways.

—Adam Conner-Simons ’08
editor-in-chief