Letters

Letter Box

November 16, 2017 by Staff Comments Off

“Hidden Pomona” and the Whartons

Hidden Pomona I was recently visiting my mother (Mayrene Gorton Ogier ’49) in Atascadero, Calif., and noticed the cover photo of the Spring 2017 issue of PCM depicting Pomona’s first Black graduate, Winston Dickson 1904. The magazine was doing secondary duty under a flower pot, but the water-stained photo nevertheless looked familiar. And indeed, it depicts Dickson boxing with my great-uncle, William Wharton 1906.

Then, inside on pages 28 and 29, was a wonderful double-page photo spread of Dickson a year and a half after his graduation, socializing with the 1905–06 Pomona College football team—evidently relaxing and recounting plays following a hard-fought game. (In those years, Pomona routinely beat USC, among others.) The gentleman immediately in front of Dickson in profile with his back to the camera wearing a disheveled suit coat is very likely Seaborn Wharton 1901, who stayed on at Pomona as football coach for a number of years before returning to Tulare, Calif., to manage the family farm.

The two gentlemen sitting in the dirt talking with Seaborn and Dickson are almost surely William, who was team captain in 1906 and strikingly handsome, but who tragically died in a mining cave-in soon after graduating, and likely, Charles Greene (Charley) Wharton 1907, my grandfather, who later became a urologist in the Sierras silver-rush town of Bodie, Calif., and then in downtown Los Angeles, after graduating from medical school at Bowdoin. All three of them were distinguishable from their Pomona mates by their six-foot-plus height and wild curly hair—as was their sister, Minnie 1902, who taught school in Pomona and was vice president of the Pomona Alumni Association after World War I.

If I knew how to communicate with those Whartons now, I would ask about Winston Dickson, as per the wishes of the hosts of the “Hidden Pomona” podcasts, who had little information to work with aside from old photographs. The Wharton family surely knew him very well.

By the way, that early 19th-century Wharton family “thing” about Pomona College (the entire family moved to Claremont for a decade so the children could attend) has persisted. If my children had matriculated at Pomona as I hoped they might (they chose Princeton and Occidental instead), they would have been the 31st and 32nd extended Wharton/Alexander/Ogier/ Gannon/Wyse/Wiederanders family members to do so (counting also my father, Walter T. Ogier, who chaired the Physics Department for many years). To further the Pomona cause, my grandfather, Charley Wharton, and my grandmother, Aileen, in addition to being substantial direct donors to Pomona during their lives, also contributed financially and otherwise to the successful passage through Pomona of my siblings, Thomas Ogier ’82 and Kathryn Ogier Lum ’88. How I managed to miss Pomona’s siren call is not clear.

—Walter C. Ogier
Williams College ‘78
Winchester, Mass.

I Do Belong

Pomona College Magazine Summer 2017 cover I’ve been meaning to write since reading the touching, inspiring article by Carla Guerrero ’06, “I Do Belong Here,” in the Summer 2017 PCM. Then, this week, President Starr asked us to write our Pomona stories to her, and I responded. It was only right that I also write to you, for it was Carla’s story that inspired me to be in touch with Pomona College again after over 60 years.

In 1952–54 I was a freshman and sophomore at Pomona College. As the only Japanese American in my class (there were two other Asians—no Blacks or Latinos) and coming from an immigrant, working-class family in Los Angeles, I was very aware I did not fit at Pomona in terms of race or social class. I was even invited to join the International Club. I suppose the well-meaning people who invited me did not understand that people of color were not necessarily born outside the U.S.

Your story, the information that more than 50 percent of this year’s new class are domestic students of color and President Starr’s appointment fill me with joy. Pomona has always been a fine academic institution. I’m glad it is also moving toward being a welcoming home for multicultural students who reflect the current demographics of our country.

Congratulations and thank you to Carla and others who were part of the wise group of people who brought President Starr to Pomona College.

—Amy Iwasaki Mass ’56
El Cerrito, Calif.

I was very touched by Carla Guererro’s column in the most recent PCM entitled, “I Do Belong Here.” I graduated from Pomona in 1998, and as I read her piece, I was transported back to my days as a student. I could completely relate to her experience as an awkward first-gen Latina daughter of proud immigrant parents trying to find her place at Pomona. Like Carla, I found a good group of peers, and with the support of wonderful faculty and staff, I thrived. The excitement she described at the hiring of Gabi Starr as Pomona’s new president is felt well beyond Claremont. I’ve talked to many of my Pomona friends, and we all agree—we’re so very proud of Pomona and can’t wait to see how President Starr will influence and inspire the entire community. Thank you, Carla, for writing a piece that truly captured not only a shared experience of the past but also a shared enthusiasm for the future of the college we love.

—Juliette Cagigas ’98
Whittier, Calif.

The Mind of a Psychopath

I enjoyed reading the article titled “How to Understand the Mind of a Psychopath” in the Summer 2017 PCM. I was impressed with 2017 graduate Kaily Lawson’s view on cognitive science and what goes on inside the mind of what many consider to be a “serial killer.” I found it interesting that many prominent figures in today’s society have traits found in psychopaths.

Now, when it comes to famous serial killers whose acts spurred an utter disturbance among Americans, it is hard to determine how the legal system should treat these individuals. An example of this is Ed Kemper, infamous as “the Co-Ed Butcher.” Although he was found guilty of his horrible crimes and received seven years to life in prison, he turned himself in to the police and ultimately felt remorse for what he had done. In his most recent parole hearing, he rejected attending it because he deemed himself unfit to return to society. He suddenly recognized that his crimes were morally wrong and confessed his guilt. But what caused this sudden change in intuition? Lawson obviously has a great interest in this branch of psychology, and I completely understand when she says there’s a “continuum” for psychopathic traits, where people may be placed on a spectrum of “good” or “bad.”

Once again, I enjoyed reading this article, and I hope Ms. Lawson finds success in her future career. I also wish her the best in her efforts to influence public policy in today’s legal system.

—Jules Winnfield
Inglewood, Calif.

Extreme Individualism

The summer issue of PCM contains three letters from readers shocked by the simplistic right/wrong mentality of the modern occupants of Pomona College. I studied philosophy with Fred Sontag and W.T. Jones in the ’50s and sang in the glee clubs. But for the last 15 years I have been a student of Sanatana Dharma, the timeless path of the ancient riches in India. Before that I was interested in Chinese thinking for decades.

My background leads me to see what is going on at Pomona as an extreme form of individualism in the still-adolescent culture that is the United States. What we need today is the ability to open our hearts to everyone and use our minds to try to understand what our hearts tell us about others. Pomona is of course a bookish place.

I take issue also with the idea that climate change is the major issue. Doris Lessing’s futuristic novels suggest what the world might look like after catastrophe: They are lost but surviving. However, I would say that the major issue is the fallout from unregulated socially irresponsible capitalism and our apparent inability to live together in a crowded landscape without resulting in wars between city blocks scaled up to nations.

There are so many good people in America, although one might think money is the main value for most people. So I also hold the thought that Trump may save us yet by pushing us so close to self-destruction that we may suddenly experience a mass epiphany and find in our midst unknown new leaders who can lead us, hopefully without too much humor about how foolish we were to be taken in by our dogmatic old beliefs.

—Thomas (Megha) deLackner, ‘58
Concord, Calif.

I hope certain letter writers in the Summer 2017 PCM learn someday that what they call “political correctness” is simply treating those different from them with basic dignity and respect. They should try it sometime. They might learn a few things that four years at Pomona evidently failed to teach them.

—Bruce Mirken ’78
San Francisco, Calif.

Correction

In your obituaries in the Summer 2017 PCM, you listed Robert Shelton as Robert “Bob” H. Shelton ’47. He was always known as “Robin” Shelton at Pomona. I should know because I married him.

—Miriam Cross Shelton
Laguna Beach, Calif.

Alumni, parents and friends are invited to email letters to pcm@pomona.edu or “snail-mail” them to Pomona College Magazine, 550 North College Ave., Claremont, CA 91711. Letters may be edited for length, style and clarity.

Stray Thoughts: “I Do Belong Here”

June 28, 2017 by Carla Guerrero ’06 Comments Off

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO this summer, I was nervously anticipating my big move to Pomona College. Even though I traveled less than three miles from my home in the city of Pomona to my dorm on Bonita Avenue, I had no idea what to expect. I was the first in my family to go to college, and my proud immigrant parents, who encouraged me along the way, could not guide me further. I was on my own, or so I thought.

My four years at Pomona were bumpy, at times rough. As an introverted, socially awkward, “first-gen” and low-income brown girl, I felt out of place and had a hard time adjusting. But my Pomona experience smoothed out, thanks to the amazing people I met—the faculty mentors, staff and friends who kindly, and at times more forcefully, asked me to stop leaving campus and stick around for the weekends.

The message they kept repeating was that I belonged here—but it took me a while to believe it.

Today, a lot has changed. I now work for the College as an associate director in the Office of Communications (I am on campus more now than when I was a student); I’m a proud member of the President’s Advisory Committee on Diversity (PACD); and I’m a very proud alumna. (If you read this magazine regularly, you know there’s a lot to be proud of in recent years.)

So this past year, when I was able to join my colleagues, the faculty and students in the hiring process for a new president, I did it with a sense of pride and commitment to the College.

When three candidates were brought to campus, there was one woman, our new president, G. Gabrielle Starr, who elicited such a strong and immediate reaction in the staff forum that one colleague—a young woman of color—stood up during the Q&A portion and said, “I love you.” Gentle laughter followed that comment, but I knew what she meant, and judging from the excited chatter in the room, others were feeling it too.

Later that day, PACD had the opportunity to meet with Starr and we heard about NYU’s Prison Education Project, which she helped launch. It was obvious in her trembling voice and the tears that filled her eyes how much the project, and the lives it touched, meant to her. In that short hour we had with her, I saw in her a champion and role model for our students and a leader for our campus.

It was no surprise then when Board Chair Sam Glick ’04 sent us an email in December announcing Pomona’s 10th president as G. Gabrielle Starr, that a palpable sense of excitement—perhaps even jubilation—was felt across campus. At least, that is how I felt.

This summer, as a new class of Sagehens (of which more than 50 percent are domestic students of color) nervously anticipates the big move to campus in late August, they not only enter a much more diverse campus than the one I knew in 2002, but they also enter at an exciting moment in Pomona’s history: our first woman and first African American president will lead the College.

Although the journey will have its bumps and twists, I know the amazing people who teach here, work here and study here will continue to help the College progress, grow and thrive under Starr’s new leadership. More importantly (and a bit selfishly), I believe having Starr lead my alma mater will give other young women of color that confidence to say loudly and boldly, “I do belong here.”

Carla Guerrero ’06 is a guest columnist for this issue.

Letter Box

June 28, 2017 by Staff Comments Off

Hidden Pomona

I WAS DISAPPOINTED to see one glaring omission in the item about the 1969 bombing in Carnegie in the spring 2017 issue of PCM. While there were no injuries from the bomb at Scripps, that was, sadly, not true at Pomona. That bomb did not simply explode in the mailbox—it was picked up by a young secretary in the Government Department, and it exploded in her hand. According to the Los Angeles Times, she was Mary Ann Keatley, 20, wife of a CMC student. She had her “left eye ripped open and her right one penetrated by a fragment.” She also lost two fingers on her right hand. While the crime was never solved, there was considerable speculation at the time that the Vietnam War may not have been the motivation. Interested alums can use the research skills learned at Pomona to delve into newspaper archives for more information about the bombing and the turmoil on campus at the time. Both were heavily covered in Southern California, and the bombing made national news.

—Diane Pyke ‘69
Port Charlotte, Fla.

Editor’s Note: Please keep in mind that the sidebar about the Carnegie bombing was a short excerpt from a much longer “Hidden Pomona” podcast. The full podcast covers these tragic facts in detail, and I highly recommend it for anyone interested in knowing more about that sad piece of Pomona history.

MY GRANDMOTHER, Katharine B. Hume, was 1904 class secretary. I have letters and class (1904) snapshots of Winston Dickson, Pomona College’s first Black student, who was mentioned in “Hidden Pomona” in the spring 2017 issue of PCM. He founded a law firm in Houston, Texas, that still exists. He never got back to a class reunion—it was too far.

—Katharine Holtom Jones ’61
Alpine, Calif.

Fact or Myth

The Men’s Glee Club of 1932

IN THE SPRING 2017 issue of PCM, in the section titled “Fact or Myth,” I saw the picture of the Pomona College Glee Club and read the story about them winning the National Championship in St. Louis. This was a long-standing story in my family about my father’s participation in the Glee Club. (I believe he is the third person from the left in the front row of the picture.) His name was Richard G. Henderson, and he was in the Class of 1934. I never knew my father because he died when I was 1 year old. After graduating from Pomona in 1934, he went on to St. Louis University Medical School and graduated from there in 1938. During World War II, he was at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Md, and was working on a vaccine for scrub typhus, a disease that the American troops were contracting in the Pacific theater. He, unfortunately, contracted the disease while working on the vaccine and died from the disease at the Naval Hospital in Bethesda in 1944.

I have read PCM for many years and really appreciate the excellent quality and informative nature of the magazine.

—William G. Henderson ’65
Denver, Colo.

I ENJOYED READING about “Hidden Pomona” in the spring issue of PCM. The story of the Men’s Glee Club of 1932 in “Fact or Myth” brought back memories to share. Several Glee Club members sent children to Pomona, including John Shelton ‘35, Louis Ronfeldt ’34, Leonard “Agee” Shelton ‘32 and Juan Matute ‘34. The tributes include John’s daughters Heidi ’61 and Lucy ’65 (a soprano), David Ronfeldt ’63, Agee’s children John ’63 and Jane ’65, and Juan’s children Juan Jr. ’63 and Gini ‘66.

Agee was a bass and later a trustee. His son, John, was my close friend from grade school on. Agee told us of the story of the National Championship competition in St. Louis. The Glee Club sang Pomona’s original song “Torchbearers” to win the title, so “Torchbearers” is still the reigning national champion song. Moreover, the judges were impressed that the Pomona Glee Club did not have a director present and yet sang extremely well.

Agee’s daughter, Jane Shelton Livingston, notes that while they were on the train to St. Louis, they sang and sang and sang to perfect their a cappella chops. She added that often-reigning Yale was the school to beat. Also, the Glee Club’s director, “Prof” Lyman, was the guiding force and beloved by all. It’s true he didn’t conduct the singers, but he certainly prepared them and inspired them.

Two more things: First, the 1932 championship was the 17th annual event, not the first. It was the first time in St. Louis, and the prior 16 events were held in New York. Second, the runners-up were (not necessarily in order) Penn State and New York University. Yale is not included in the “Final Three” choruses in the excerpt. It does not tell us who was second and who was third.

There is probably much more to the 1932 Glee Club story. I hope that additional people will write in.

—Robert Benson ‘63
Davis, Calif.

OUR FATHER, Juan Matute ’34, arrived at Pomona College a few years after he had come to Claremont from his birthplace in Guadalajara, Mexico. He had yet to master academic English. Imagine how thrilling it was for him to travel across the country with the Glee Club. It was an experience of his lifetime and one that he treasured throughout his life. We still have his scrapbook and the memorabilia he collected from the tour, including matchbooks, napkins and pictures.

He was the first musical director for the Mexican Players of Padua Hills. He also played piano, guitarron and bass. He not only was the musical director but, as well, acted and produced many of the plays and musical concerts there. He met his wife, Manuela ’35, at Padua Hills, where she was a singer, dancer, actress and waitress. Manuela sang in the Women’s Glee Club at Pomona.

When our father died in 1992, we played “Torchbearers” in honor of what Pomona College meant to him.

—Gini Matute-Bianchi ’66
Aptos, Calif.
and Juan Matute Jr. ’63
Claremont, Calif.

IN “FACT OR MYTH” from the spring 2017 issue, the writer has added a new myth, that of the flightless sage grouse. While it has a chunky body and does not migrate, it is decidedly not flightless. It can fly up to 50 m.p.h on short local flights of up to five or six miles. As a bird photographer, I have watched their leks during mating displays many times, and I can personally debunk this one before it goes any further.

—Mary Jane Gibson ‘68
Edmonds, Wash.

Cecil 1.0

THERE’S AN ARTICLE in the spring PCM about Cecil 3.0, where the writer mentions not knowing the origin of the first Cecil costume. I can help with that. The costume was made in the summer of 1980. Laura Stiteler ’82 was working in the athletics department and was assigned to (or maybe volunteered to) get a mascot costume for the fall.

I’m sure the budget was generous: The head was very sturdy and professional-looking, and the rest of the costume was far superior to Cecil 2.0. It was a high-end costume, made at the time that the San Diego Chicken was a celebrity. Laura and I had gone to the same San Diego high school, where I’d been the mascot. So toward the end of my freshman year, she asked if I’d be Cecil. I said yes, and I was Cecil for the next three school years, until I graduated.

Laura had ordered such a high-end costume that one part couldn’t take the kind of abuse I gave it. (I got beat up in it twice: once at a football game at Occidental, and once at a football game at CMC. Both times it was my fault; I provoked the other team’s fans.) The orange leather duck feet that it came with started falling apart, so Bob, the equipment manager in the gym, dyed some sweat socks orange and had somebody whip up some more resilient orange feet. I still have the original leather feet in a box somewhere.

The photo (above) is from an ad for the old Coop Store, and the other people in it are Aditya Eachempati ’83 and Liora Szold Houtzager ’83. When I graduated, Dave Peattie ’84 took over being Cecil, and when he graduated, it passed to Allison Sekuler ’86.

For the first year or two that I was Cecil, the dean of freshmen, Elizabeth Chadwick, called herself Cecily. She put out a newsletter authored by Cecily and had a pair of feathers, one blue and one white, that she kept in her office. When she left Pomona for her next job, she gave me the feathers and said now I’d be both Cecil and Cecily. So Cecil was both genders, or no gender, or something along those lines, way back in the 1980s.

Chirp.

—Dennis Rodkin ’83
Highland Park, Ill.

Marine Zoology

IN RESPONSE TO the short article in the spring PCM on the end of the marine zoology program 50 years ago, I took Marine Zoology and Ecology with Professor Willis Pequegnat the summer of ’51. (There was also an advanced course for pre-meds.) The boys slept on the roof under a big blue tent, but girls had to find accommodations in town, so not many girls took Marine Lab. I was lucky that my family home was in Corona del Mar, two blocks from the Marine Lab, and I even kept my summer job (cutting back on hours). Our textbooks were Animals Without Backbones and Between Pacific Tides. We had occasional field trips to local tidepools and a little outboard motorboat to travel in. It was a great experience! Why did it stop in ’67?

—Perdita Myers ’54
Idyllwild, Calif.

Wrenching News

PCM HAS ALWAYS been a good read—a welcoming and dreamy trip to my Pomona past—but also a reminder of Pomona’s vibrancy long after I scooted through the halls of Harwood. But it is wrenching trying to process the devastating news that one of my dear Pomona friends, Marylou Correia Sarkissian, was taken away from her children, family and friends in December.

Any of us who crossed paths with Marylou knew we were spending time with a capital “E” extrovert. Back in 1985, I was a sophomore transfer and had a lot of introvert in my DNA. It was probably a good thing that Marylou was my Harwood neighbor. She drew me out and introduced me to her friends. In a matter of weeks, I already felt like I had a home in the Sagehen roost. Marylou simply had that quality of making most anyone comfortable in her presence.

She’d often come by my room to announce we were going “somewhere” in her white Chevette. A fast-food joint. The gym. Just a cruise down Foothill Boulevard. It didn’t really matter where. We had a great time hanging out and just chatting about life.

Our last semester, Marylou and I both attended a job fair at a hotel near the Ontario airport. I wasn’t entirely sure of my next step post-Pomona, but Marylou was determined, focused and chock-full of résumés for the HR recruiters. I can’t be 100 percent sure—let’s call it 99 percent—but she left that job fair with more interviews lined up than any other attendee. Prestigious hospital and pharmaceutical firms. I can sadly admit, I was a touch jealous on our drive back to campus.

It’s kind of crazy how certain people leave such an impression on your life. Friendships from those formative years bake into your memory. Then one evening, an awful piece of news, and all those memories come flooding back. We are reminded of the special people we knew, and how much pain their families are going through with their loved ones taken away.

I wish Marylou’s children and family all of the possible strength they can muster. Words may not provide tremendous relief at this point in their lives. But they should know she touched a lot of lives in so many positive ways.

Until we may meet again, dear friend.

—Matt Gersuk ’88
Fair Oaks, Calif.

Which Side of History?

I HAVE LONG feared that the path of political correctness that Pomona College has chosen over these last several years would lead to a deterioration of my alma mater and the values it used to represent. The editorial titled “The Right Side of History” in the spring edition of PCM, which actually celebrates this decline, has confirmed my fear and provoked me to take pen in hand.

In March of 2004, a CMC professor named Kerri Dunn told Claremont police that her car had been vandalized and spray-painted with racist and anti-Semitic slurs. The Claremont Colleges immediately erupted in self-righteous indignation and a frenzy of predictable PC actions, including canceling classes; organizing rallies, demonstrations and sit-ins; wearing black shirts; and chanting slogans of “pro-diversity, anti-hate.” When the facts came out, the Claremont Police Department and the FBI determined that Dunn had vandalized her own car and spray-painted the epithets herself, thereby creating a campus-wide hoax.

A student reportedly said of the Dunn affair: “I’m not concerned whether it’s a hoax or not.” Really? Do facts and the historical record not matter anymore? Any historian who was trained, as I was, by mentors such as Vincent Learnihan, John Gleason, Jack Kemble and Margaret Gay Davies, would be horrified by such w anti-intellectual nonsense. Has Pomona College learned nothing since 2004?

I believe that the proper definition of a college is “a community of scholars in search of the truth.” I have difficulty understanding exactly what Pomona College has become, but it is certainly no longer a community that includes me or any other like-minded alums who care about history.

Editor Wood: You, sir, are actually on “The Wrong Side of History,” and you are taking my college down with you.

—Mark Shipley ‘66
Las Vegas, Nev.

IT WAS WITH interest and dismay that I read your column, “The Right Side of History,” in the spring 2017 issue of PCM. You note that “climate change is likely to top the list” of issues that “will seem so ethically obvious that people will wonder how on earth anyone could have gotten them wrong.” First, let me state my belief—and the belief of many others—that climate change is not settled science. The climate-change lobby has trampled on the scientific process in the myopic pursuit of its political and economic objectives and has shown little interest in contemplating the impact on its “research” of legitimate discrepancies in data and its mediocre adherence to the scientific process. The facts are far from conclusive, and the purported remedies even less so.

The more important issue, however, is the event that occurred on the CMC campus on the evening of Thursday, April 6—the intimidation of, and attack on, scholar Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute. Is it not part of the mission statement of Pomona College that, “through close ties among a diverse group of faculty, staff and classmates, Pomona students are inspired to engage in the probing inquiry and creative learning that enable them to identify and address their intellectual passions”?

That hardly seems to be the case any more, given the events of April 6 and the administration’s lack of response. I was unable to find any mention of the Mac Donald event on the College’s website, much less a forceful statement from President Oxtoby supporting Ms. Mac Donald’s rights, the students’ obligations to respect those rights and the College’s intention to punish the aggressors.

So if ever there was a moment for the Pomona community to determine which side of history it wanted to be on, this would surely be it.

—S. Matthew Katz ’98
Bronxville, NY

I OPENED AN Internet site that reprints news articles from around the country this morning. First on today’s list: “Geology professor accepting students into her course based on race and income.” Thinking as I called it up, “What dumb liberal college is getting its five minutes of fame while destroying our educational system?” I saw these words: “Pomona College.”

My school. My beloved Pomona College. Why am I dumfounded, after our reunion two years ago featured confusing signs regarding who could or couldn’t use every public bathroom on campus, and where the alma mater is no longer allowed to be sung, nor a beautiful song that won our Glee Club a national championship long ago? Political correctness over “liberal arts” education (in the outdated definition of those words). Professor McIntyre, what has happened to your department and your school since you retired?

Our culture is declining so fast, this kind of abuse of authority on campus is honored by school administrators almost everywhere, as is violent agitation against free speech by anyone not parroting liberal tenets. The only people allowed to be offended without reprisal are constitutionalists, who don’t carry billy clubs and fire sticks. I no longer contribute to the decline. Nor will I, while the mind-twisting continues.

—Patricia Yingling White, ’66
Colorado Springs, Colo.

Ocelots Where?

HMMM. MIGHT BE a gratuitous detail in the intro, p. 37, of the spring PCM that just arrived: ocelots in Uruguay? Hmmm. No more mention of this in the body of the fine article. But I live in Uruguay several months a year. Ocelots? Never heard of them there. Maybe my ignorance. I do vaguely remember an ocelot (I think) as the subject of a fascinating Kafka-like story by one of (neighboring) Argentina’s greatest 20th-century writers: Julio Cortázar. But in Uruguay? Hmmm.

—Bill Katra ‘68
La Crosse, Wis.

Wonderful Alchemy

I WAS RECENTLY back at Pomona for my 25th reunion. It is hard to say why Pomona friendships remain resilient after so many years—because this was a formative time in our lives? Because of the particular people Pomona attracts? Was it the institution itself that molded relationships in a certain way? Or was it simply a surfeit of sun? It’s a strange and wonderful alchemy.

I am grateful for all of your efforts with PCM. Whether I was in Myanmar or Laos (or Vietnam or India or Hong Kong before that), PCM has been a wonderful means of learning and staying connected. I always feel grateful for being part of the Pomona community after reading an issue.

—Chris Herink ’92
Clifton, Va.

Number 47

HERE’S ANOTHER STORY about the number 47. I will be going with my classmates to see the sun eclipse in August, and they have been kicking around the number 47 with a couple of professors from Pomona. What they have been talking about is far beyond me since my field was theology.

For five and a half years, I did business for the United Methodist Church in 47 languages. I would leave Los Angeles on the first of November, flying west, and hopefully arrive back in Nashville, Tenn., for Christmas. It included large groups like Cantonese and Mandarin and small groups like the Kuki and Meitei tribes in Burma. Some interesting travels and stories.

—Bob Wood ’65
Franklin, Ind.

Kudos

KEEP UP THE good work with PCM. You and your staff are doing an excellent job in my opinion. You have had a number of very good articles in recent issues.

—John H. Davis ’51
Carmel, Calif.

CORRECTION

In the story “The Magical Bridge” in the spring 2017 PCM, the name of Olenka Villarreal’s husband should have been listed as “Robert” instead of “Richard.” Our apologies to the Villarreal family for this uncorrected error.

The Right Side of History

April 10, 2017 by Mark Wood Comments Off

History can be complicated, and institutions that span centuries are lucky if they don’t find themselves on the wrong side of it on occasion. So I suppose it should come as no surprise that a lot of American colleges and universities are struggling today with the moral implications of their complicated pasts.

In 1838, the priests who ran the Jesuit college that eventually became Georgetown University sold 272 slaves to sugar plantations in Louisiana for the modern equivalent of $3.3 million. That now-infamous sale—which saved the institution at the cost of condemning 272 enslaved men, women and children to even greater suffering—illustrates the conundrum institutional leaders face today as they look back at times when their predecessors failed to rise above the ethical blind spots and moral outrages of their times.

The history of institutional involvement in slavery is, perhaps, the most extreme example of this. In his 2013 book, Ebony and Ivy, Craig Steven Wilder argues that in addition to church and state, America’s early colleges were “the third pillar of a civilization based on bondage.” In recent years, institutions like Harvard, Brown, Princeton and Emory have also investigated and publicly acknowledged their own historic ties to the slave trade.

Since you can’t change the past, institutions that find themselves on the wrong side of history have to find ways to atone for it today. Georgetown has announced a number of real and symbolic reparations, including a monument to the slaves who were sold, preferential admissions for their descendants and the renaming of buildings in their honor. Similarly, Yale recently decided to rename the residential college that has been, since its construction in 1933, named for John Calhoun, known as slavery’s most forceful political advocate.

If there’s a lesson to be learned from all this, it’s probably that it would be far better to avoid such situations to begin with. But how do you do that? It’s tempting to say: Just do the right thing, even when it’s hard. And in the final analysis, there’s probably no better advice to be found. But at the same time, you only have to look at today’s heated debates over a range of questions to see that culture and self-interest cloud our ethical vision, and people on both sides of an issue can feel morally righteous. Today, it’s almost impossible to imagine how anyone could have ever defended such a barbaric practice as slavery, and yet, we know that in the first half of the 19th century, the topic was angrily debated in this country and became so deeply divisive that it eventually led to civil war.

So what are the divisive issues of our own time that, at some point in the distant future, will seem so ethically obvious that people will wonder how on earth anyone could have gotten them wrong? And what will be the final verdict of history, once time has peeled away the layers of self-interest, political animosity and cultural bias that trouble our ethical sight today? These are questions we probably should all ask ourselves from time to time.

For my part, I think climate change is likely to top the list. Someday, I believe, when the disruptive realities of a warmer world are indisputable facts on the ground, the denial and inaction of many of today’s leaders will be viewed as criminal acts of willful blindness. Philosopher Miranda Fricker suggests that people of all eras should be judged according to “the best standards that were available to them at the time.” By that standard, I think climate deniers will have a lot to answer for someday.

My list doesn’t end there, however. It would also include such things as LGBT rights and the treatment of refugees and undocumented immigrants in this country—which I would argue are the civil rights issues of our time.

In all of these issues, I’m proud to say that the college that employs me to create this magazine puts its money and its people power where its values are. I feel confident that Pomona’s efforts to do the right thing—including its commitment to carbon neutrality by 2030, its sustained efforts on behalf of the LGBT community on our campus, and its leadership in the fight for the undocumented students known as “Dreamers”—will, on these issues, at least, put it very much on the right side of history.

Letter Box

April 10, 2017 by Staff Comments Off

Memories of Virginia Crosby

When our daughter Beatrice [Schraa ’06] was applying to college, she received a brochure saying Pomona professors often formed lifelong friendships with students. That was certainly true of Virginia. I took French 51 from her in the fall of 1968 and several classes after that, including a wonderful seminar on the French Revolution, co-taught with Burdette Poland. My wife, Louise [Schraa ’72], remembers her as one of the friendly and accessible professors whom everyone knew. We kept in touch after graduation, and I was working in Paris when she moved there and acquired the first in a series of tiny but exquisite and wonderfully located apartments. We saw her regularly after that, especially in Paris and then when we lived in Brussels.

For Beatrice, Virginia was literally a lifelong friend. Virginia was at her christening in Paris and, although she couldn’t attend Beatrice’s wedding earlier last year, we had lots of interested emails and calls with good wishes and requests for details and pictures. When she was only 95, Virginia was able to attend the wedding of our daughter Eugenia and spent the evening charming new people and dancing.

You might have thought she would be an honorary grandmother to our girls. Although they certainly knew her better than my mother, that was never the case. Rather, she was always, in the best professorial fashion, an adult friend, even when they were little tykes. Our whole family always looked forward to seeing Virginia, with her interest in all kinds of things, insightful conversation, good humor and fresh outlook, even in very old age. She avoided the old person’s tendency to reminisce, but very occasionally something would prompt a perfect anecdote, about the time she saw Hitler, about her one and only deer hunt, about her radio program with her husband, etc. Very occasionally, in the most discreet and subtle way, there came a nugget of advice or guidance as well. We traded articles, political comments and book recommendations with her until shortly before her death. I owed her a book report every year on the annual winner of the Prix Goncourt.

Everybody who knew Virginia remarks on what an extraordinary person she was and what a rich and varied path she had found through life. Louise, Eugenia, Beatrice and I all felt knowing her enriched our lives. We will miss her a great deal.

—David Schraa ’72

New York, N.Y.

***

Virginia and I article I received my Pomona College Magazine yesterday, opened it this morning to the last page and came unglued to see Virginia Crosby’s beautiful smiling face.

All the memories of a long, wonderful friendship came flooding back. Virginia and I met when we were both completing our B.A. in French in the early ’60s. I was a single mom with two young sons and little money for a babysitter, so I would take them with me to Virginia’s house, and the two of us would study for exams—particularly those of our favorite professor, Leonard Pronko. I went on to earn a teaching credential in French at CGU, while Virginia got her Ph.D. and—as we all know—became a professor at Pomona.

We kept in contact over the many years, either in Claremont or Paris. In April of this year, I flew down to Ontario to visit friends and learned that Virginia had been diagnosed with brain cancer. I was able to visit her a few days before she died. As I was leaving after the second visit, I whispered good-bye in French. She whispered back in French, “I love you and am so proud of what you have done.” I will forever hold those last words in my memory, along with the many others of our 50-year friendship.

My thanks to Mary Schmich for her article.

—Réanne Hemingway-Douglass ’63

Anacortes, Wash.

***

Thank you to Mary Schmich ’75 for her article about Virginia Crosby, which I enjoyed and which inspired these memories.

In the fall of 1967, I tested into Mme. Crosby’s fourth-semester French class (French 62), which I survived with a generous B. However, I then had the audacity to sign up for her “Renaissance French Literature” class the next semester (spring ’68). Here I was: (1) the only boy (as a callow 18-year-old, I wouldn’t say “man”); (2) the only non-language major (I did economics-math); (3) the least prepared student. However, it was obvious that I was there for the love of the subject, so again, she was generous with my grade.

Toward the end of the semester, an older student (I was still only 18) helped me buy a bottle of red wine, “La Bourgogne de Cucamonga.” I had a silver chalice; so to celebrate Rabelais, we brought this to class, quite against the rules. Mme. Crosby took us off campus across Harvard Ave. and we celebrated: one bottle for about 8 people didn’t get us too drunk. I know she got a chuckle out of the silver chalice.

A couple of years later, she invited my girlfriend and me to her home in Padua Hills to play our “Glory of Gabrieli” (E. Power Biggs) record on her husband’s state-of-the-art stereo system, and for a very pleasant afternoon on her deck overlooking the valley.

Around 1970, Zeta Chi Sigma voted Mme. Crosby as a member. Not a faculty advisor. Member. (At this same time, we also voted several women students as members.) All of this was against the rules, but in the spirit of the times, we didn’t ask.

Did she share with you her story of how she got into writing radio soap-operas while living in a Chicago apartment with “a prostitute in the apartment above and an abortionist in the apartment below”?

I tried looking her up when I was in Claremont a few years ago, but was told that she wasn’t doing well.

Let me end with some verses from a poem we studied in her class (Ronsard: “A Cassandre”):

Las! voyez comme en peu d’espace,

Mignonne, elle a dessus la place

Las! las ses beautez laissé cheoir!

Ô vrayment marastre Nature,

Puis qu’une telle fleur ne dure

Que du matin jusques au soir!

Thank you for the article, and thanks for letting me share.

—Howard Hogan ’71

Owings, Md.

Anguished Father

I am an anguished father, white and privileged, who may lose his adopted, undocumented sons to deportation. My heart is shattered.

—David Lyman ’66

South Pasadena, Calif.

Shining Example

Thank you for the inspiring story in the summer 2016 PCM about Judge Halim Dhanidina, who has steadfastly exhibited the courage to promote the values and enforce the laws of our country in the face of the prejudice and fear engendered by the 9/11 attack on WTC. I’m sure I would not have his courage to do the same. He is a shining example of the values and vision we believe Pomona instills in all graduates. His life is (or should be) an inspiration to all Americans.

—Mike Hogan ‘69

Black Forest, Colo.

Another Cane

Another Cane “The Cane Mystery” article in the PCM summer 2016 issue was interesting and reminded me of the cane which I now have. The cane belonged to my father, Robert Boynton Dozier (1902–2001), Class of ’23.

The cane has the same dimensions as those mentioned in the article: 35 inches long, with a five-inch curved handle. Attached about 29 inches above the base is a 3/4–inch sterling band which is engraved: “R.B.D. ’23” (see photo at right).

As I recall the story my father told me many years ago, the freshmen class men beat the sophomore men in the Pole Rush competition. The challenge: Which team could have a man reach the top of the pole the quickest? He felt that the freshmen had done so well because they had a plan as to where the men would be positioned and who would climb where and when. The award was a cane. I do not know how many other men received and kept a cane.

My father really enjoyed having that cane as a special memento of Pomona College and kept it on the umbrella stand in his home. He also found it to be a useful walking aid when he was in his late 90s. I am pleased to have the cane in my living room, though I have not yet needed to use it.

—Bobbie Dozier Spurgin ’49

Carlsbad, Calif.

Memories of a Friend

I’m writing to share a few thoughts about the passing of my friend, Richard E. Persoff ‘49 (see Obits). These are perhaps of more interest to Pomona undergraduates than to alumni, partly because there are few of us left from the 1940s, and partly because the present students are now grappling with the same questions that Persoff faced in the aftermath of WWII: “Is liberal education, including the humanities, relevant to those who look forward to careers in technological fields?”

Persoff used his undergraduate work to learn how to think. And because of that, he was able to continue applying his mind in several areas. That luxury is as pertinent today as it was in the 1940s.

At Pomona, he studied hard and then played hard. Once, emerging from his books after midnight, he roared at me from across the room: “Andrews! Let’s go to the snow!” We then exited the world of academia temporarily for some improvised adventure, and then returned with renewed energy to our studies.

He could be critical, but outside his field, he was a champion of tolerance. He liked to strike up conversations with the immigrant workers of the local gravel pits and try to absorb their views on lives so different from ours. He befriended the college gardener, a family man who cared for the plants on campus with as much responsibility as an ancient shepherd might tend to his flock. Richard once visited the hobos who cooked their haphazard dinners on open fires in their “jungle” down by the railroad tracks. In our college days, the Great Depression and World War II were recent history. We knew songs from nations victimized by the war, as well as some older songs collected by the poet Carl Sandburg—songs that reflected man at odds with society, but whose protagonist could still recognize life’s gifts, for castaways often seek community in strange places.

One night, we decided to see what it was like to ride a freight train. We crouched by the tracks as locomotives came by. We felt the earth shake, heard the deafening mechanical sounds and felt the blast of the glowing firebox passing only a foot or so from us. We ran along next to the slow-moving train, hoping to grab hold somewhere and swing aloft into an empty box car. We quickly realized that if we leapt and missed, we might fall under the wheels, and we wisely postponed our plan indefinitely, but we never stopped searching for the answers of that odd life and the freedom that it symbolized

I was taken by surprise when good old Dick phoned me to say, “This is the last word you will have from me.” We had given each other the unqualified friendship that holds much of the world together. Thinking of him as I tried to adjust to the loss of his steadfast support, it occurred to me that Dick had finally gotten a grip on his freight train and was just riding off to another great adventure.

With appreciation of Pomona’s contributions, past and present…

—Chris Andrews ’50

Sequim, Wash.

Andrus Remembered

I was saddened to learn that my senior thesis advisor, Professor William Dewitt Andrus, had passed away (PCM fall 2016). Under his able direction, my thesis topic was a study of a unicellular algae, Dunaliella salina. This prepared me for my Ph.D. dissertation on photosynthesis at the University of Bern, Switzerland, in 1966. Prof. Andrus was a brilliant experimentalist and had a sense of humor.

—Katherine J. Jones ’61

Alpine, Calif.

Thank You

Last year a note in PCM suggested that we in the community that appreciate the quality and effort that this amazing publication delivers can say “thank you” by sending in a “voluntary subscription.” The latest example, featuring the Oxtoby years, is such a stunning keeper that I am finally moved to action. So, I wish to add my voice to the cheering throng—PCM is an enormous credit to Pomona. We are flattered and fortunate to be on the mailing list. Thank you!

—Joe Mygatt P’13

Stanford, Conn.

CORRECTION

Our apologies to Eric Myers ’80, whose name was misspelled in a class note in the fall 2016 issue of PCM. —Editor

Stray Thoughts: The End of an Era

October 25, 2016 by Staff Comments Off

01-stray-thoughts Nearly 14 years ago I wrote a column about the imminent departure of Pomona’s eighth president. It began with these words: “A college president is remembered for a word, a deed, a gesture—something personal to each one of us. A presidency, however, is remembered for more enduring things.”

Forgive me for falling back on old words, but I can’t think of better ones as we now prepare to say goodbye to Pomona’s ninth president.

Personally, I’m sure the first thing I will remember about David Oxtoby is his phenomenal energy—the kind of energy required to take a red-eye to the East Coast, rush from meeting to meeting at a breakneck pace till long after dark, then fly home just in time to hurl himself into another trying 12-hour day—and do it day after day, month after month. Of course, I’ll also remember a particularly humanizing moment when that brutal schedule finally caught up with him, causing his eyelids to droop during a long, boring meeting.

And there are other indelible memories—like the carefully articulated Spanish in which he always addressed the gathering at the annual holiday luncheon for college staff in order to ensure that everyone was included in his message. Or the refreshing honesty and quiet civility with which he faced the inevitable storms that struck his presidency.

But that’s just my list. Others will have lists of their own—good memories and bad, but rarely indifferent. That’s a fact of life for college presidents—especially those who remain on the job for a decade or more. They tend to arouse strong feelings, one way or the other.

Which brings us to the question of how history will remember the Oxtoby presidency—and the corollary question of how much of the credit should go to the person at the top.

David Oxtoby would be the first to point out that college presidents accomplish very little by themselves. In looking back at these 13-plus years, he prefers to talk about the College family as a whole and what we have accomplished together. However, the truth is that institutional progress is a messy business, full of fits and starts that can easily devolve into a morass of conflict and well-intentioned ineffectiveness. It takes a rare combination of temperament and skills in order to manage it successfully.

Indeed, very little of consequence happens at a place like Pomona without bearing the president’s fingerprints in some way or other—through an overall vision, a specific goal, a set of priorities, a mediation between warring parties, or simply a well-timed word of encouragement. In this particular case, I think some of the biggest accomplishments of the Oxtoby years—like the dramatic upturn in the diversity of the student body or the highly successful Daring Minds Campaign—have his fingerprints all over them.

There are still eight busy months to go in the Oxtoby era, but even as the work goes on, the institution is beginning to look forward—with sadness, nostalgia, excitement and trepidation—to the dawn of a new era. But before we turn that page, we invite you to join us for a look back at the Oxtoby years, with a focus on both a transformational presidency and the remarkable person behind it.

Letter Box

October 25, 2016 by Staff Comments Off

02-letterbox Thank you for the faith focus of your summer 2016 issue. It is good to know that, just as in my day, people of faith are being helped by their Pomona education to deepen and integrate their received religious heritages into modern worldviews that will enable them to live creative and fruitful lives.

I do wish, however that the fine interview of Judge Halim Dhanidina had touched upon how his faith as an Ismaili Muslim has served him as a foundation for his commitment to providing equitable justice in these United States.

—The Rev. John-Otto Liljenstolpe ‘62
Seattle, Wash.

***

I just wanted to let you know how much I enjoyed the summer issue. I was a religious studies major at Pomona (featured once myself when I brought a group of Tibetan monks to campus to create a sand mandala), and it was so much fun to read about students and their personal, spiritual and academic journeys. I particularly enjoyed reading about the young man in “The Calling”; he was very inspiring. Now I’m a practicing ob/gyn in a low-resource setting, and the “No Más” article also hit close to home. Well done; I really enjoyed it.

—Kristl Tomlin ’05
Phoenix, Ariz.

***

It is such an honor to have TWO letters from the Class of 1962 in the newest Pomona College Magazine’s “Letter Box” pages. You’ve made my classmates and me very happy.

However, there must have been some sort of glitch in the printing of the magazines sent to the 95120 zip code in San Jose, California. Pages 25 through 40 were missing from the center of the magazine. My San Jose friend from the Class of 1966 showed me her magazine, and it has the very same problems.

On the Class of 1962 listserv I asked my classmates if anyone else was missing magazine pages. Those who replied said that their magazines were fine. One of them, who had finished reading the magazine, mailed it to me, and I will share it with my San Jose friend. It has all of the correct pages and no duplicates.

I was glad to have the complete magazine. Look at what I would have missed:

The gorgeous two-page photo of the Pomona Glee Club singing at St. Peter’s in Rome—It bowled me over.

The photo of that “youngster,” Deborah Bial, founder of the Posse Foundation—I looked her up. Since 1989 she has identified promising students from urban backgrounds using alternative standards for predicting their success in college. The students are provided with extra support, and the program has an excellent graduation rate. In 2007 she won the MacArthur “genius” grant. In 2010 Barack Obama gave his Nobel Prize money to 10 charities, and the Posse Foundation was one of the 10.

The interview with Ashlee Vance, author of a book on Elon Musk—I found the book on Amazon and read several pages. Mr. Vance is a somewhat casual writer, but his stories held my interest. Elon Musk’s Tesla factory is just up the road from my San Jose house. Ordinarily, only customers who have purchased a Tesla can tour the factory, but a friend was able to get our group in. (I’m a Prius owner.) The tour was fascinating.

“Fireproof Ants”—What’s not to like about a title like that?

“Molecular Origami”—I didn’t realize that protein molecules folded and unfolded, and if they don’t fold properly, they make us sick.

Halim Dhanidina, Class of 1994, a judge in Long Beach, CA.—If I had to be in court, I’d want him for my judge.

“The Meaning of Emptiness”—Added to my continuing education about Buddhism.

Once again you have given us a splendid magazine. I’m thinking that most college magazines haven’t featured students wrestling with the religious practices with which they had grown up, trying to see if they fit with their college experience. So you’re breaking some new ground there. The photos accompanying those interviews are beautiful.

On page 19, I glanced casually at the photo of Bryan Stevenson and then suddenly realized that I was in the middle of reading his book, Just Mercy, as an assignment for my church women’s class. If the magazine had arrived a month earlier, I wouldn’t have known who he was. What a heart and a mission that man has.

At my 50th reunion we toured the two new dorms and I was charmed by the roof garden on one of them. The magazine shows the garden as a place for meditation (page 12) and as an opportunity to mentor local high school students (page 20).

So, congratulations on another “work of art” in magazine publishing. But let me know if you find out what went wrong with my missing and duplicate pages.

—Bonnie Home ’62
San Jose, Calif.

***

I always look forward to reading each issue of PCM. This last issue—summer 2016, “Keeping the Faith”—holds meaning for me. I thought it especially wonderful to see the Islamic student (Pomona ‘16) on the cover as well as to read what she has to say in the pages inside. I have always felt that all true religions are God-bearing in the light of human hearts. There is something else which spoke to me in particular—namely, her connection to nature. She writes of going up on top of Pomona Hall among birds and clouds. Much of my work as a poet (an Angelean lyric poet) is inseparable from nature-phenomena. So I am especially filled with gratitude for this issue.

—Alan Lindgren ’86
Culver City, Calif.

***

Correction

There was an error in my birth announcement in the most recent issue. My name is Daniel Jones, not David Jones. There was also a punctuation typo—an extraneous period between “and” and “Graeme.”

—Daniel Jones ‘04
Newton, Mass.

***

Letter Box

August 3, 2016 by Staff Comments Off

Dying With Dignity

PCM-summer2016text58-web2_Page_10_Image_0001

I read your “Before I Die” article with interest, as I am sure most of us from the Class of 1962 did. It is called current events. However, I suggest that there is one important part of the death process that was not included in the story.

Twenty years ago Oregon passed the nation’s first Death With Dignity Act. Two years later an attempt to repeal it was soundly defeated. My wife and I voted in favor of the act both times, little suspecting that we would use it later. Since then, Washington, Vermont, California and Montana have passed virtually identical laws, and quite a few other states are considering such a law now. The law is nothing at all like the “death panels” that Gov. Palin carried on about for a long time.

In our case, my wife had colon cancer surgery and then breast cancer surgery within one year. Initially the doctors believed that the surgeries were successful. The colon cancer never returned, but the breast cancer came back three years later. After four more surgeries during the next six years, four rounds of radiology treatments (15 each) and close to 100 chemotherapy treatments, her body began to stop functioning. She did not want to get to a point that she would be a “vegetable” (her term) in a care facility, and the family could recognize that life, as any normal person would like to live it, was about over. She was bedridden and had stopped eating or processing food.

A two-week process is required, with certifications from two doctors that the patient’s life will likely end within six months. The doctors referred us to Compassion & Choices, a fabulous group of volunteers nationwide who are leading the effort to expand legislation in other states, and who provide volunteers to help with the process. My wife took the medicine and passed away in less than an hour. She was satisfied with the process, as were all of the family, and friends when told about it later.

C&C can provide much more specific information on the subject. But with the law now in effect in CA, and with so many Pomona alums living in California, I believe it is important that information about Death With Dignity should be included in the otherwise very interesting article you wrote this quarter.

—James A. (Jim) Johnson ’62

Portland, Ore.

Face to Face

PCM-summer2016text58-web2_Page_10_Image_0002 We loved the latest Pomona College Magazine “Face to Face” feature. We wanted to share our relationship to last a lifetime.

In the summer of 1963, we each received a letter from Dean of Women Ina T. Nider informing us that we had been assigned to one another as freshman roommates. It was apparently a successful pairing. We were suite-mates sophomore year and roommates again our senior year. Linda was a religion major, active in Chapel Committee and the Claremont Committee to End the War in Vietnam. Lesley was a biochemistry major and spent most of her time in the chemistry lab.

After graduation, Lesley went on to obtain a Ph.D. in molecular biology at the University of Wisconsin, did two postdoctoral fellowships at UC Berkeley and then worked for 32 years at the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, starting as an assistant professor and serving her last 20 years as provost. She has served as president of Pacific University in Forest Grove, Ore., since 2009.

Linda worked in a garment factory in San Diego, then obtained her teaching credential and taught for 36 years in inner-city Los Angeles, the last 28 years at Manual Arts High School, retiring in 2009. Finding that unsatisfactory, she went back to school, obtained a master’s in history at Cal State Los Angeles and is now an adjunct instructor at East Los Angeles College.

Through the years, we have shared annual trips to Disneyland with our kids, weddings, divorces, an untimely funeral and innumerable photographs of adorable grandchildren. We currently see each other a couple of times a year, chat regularly on Facebook and compete daily in cutthroat games of Words With Friends.

Thanks, Ina T.

—Linda Baughn ’67

Los Angeles, Calif.

and Lesley Moore Hallick ’67

Forest Grove, Ore.

You do, indeed, publish a beautiful magazine! I usually start at the back, to see if any of my classmates are in the Class Notes. Then I page through the entire thing.

However, this month your “Face to Face” feature grabbed my attention right away, so I read all of these stories first thing. That was a clever and time-consuming project for you, I would think. Loved it! The only face I knew was that of Bob Herman ’51. As I remember, he has led our class tours of the campus on Alumni Weekends. A terrific storyteller! My husband, DeForrest ’61 and I met at Pomona, so the married couples who met there were of special interest. We’ve been married 52 years.

One of the many things I like about the magazine is how you include stories from the school’s past, along with what is currently happening on campus. Of course, I love to read what the graduates have done recently. I’m always interested in the books they’ve published. I appreciate your including very short articles as well as longer ones in just the right mix. Some college magazines are so dense with material that there is no hope of reading everything.

DeForrest and I spent a bit of time studying Jeff Hing’s gorgeous double-page photo of the campus. The snow-covered mountains with the clouds spilling over them were spectacular.

I’ve finished reading the “Letter Box.” So, what to read next … the story on Cuba, since some of my friends are traveling there? The article about the celebrity photographer? Maybe about that “youngster” Peggy Arnold, who graduated three years after I did.

My grandniece is a Pomona student at the moment, so I feel that your magazine is keeping me in touch with her there. I’m looking forward to my 55th reunion next year. How I love returning to that beautiful place, full of so many memories.

—Bonnie Bennett Home ’62

San Jose, Calif.

As a friend of Pomona College, I have enjoyed reading Pomona College Magazine for many years. The latest issue moves me to send this appreciation of the continuing quality of the publication under your most competent custodianship. I especially liked the piece about relationships. This reminder of how important and durable they can be during one’s collegiate interlude is nicely done. Thanks to you, your staff and contributors.

—Gilbert Pattison Joynt

Seattle, Wash.

Pomona Lifeline

Since my retirement in 2006, the Pomona College Magazine has become my cherished lifeline to the College and the Pomona family and community that was my home for so many years—and I miss so keenly. Each issue offers delight and fascination for me, as you offer marvelous features about the extraordinary individuals within our diverse community whose creative lives have so enriched our world. As such, the magazine is a beacon of hope for me in a world so darkened by forces of bitter divisiveness and destruction. Our Pomona students, faculty, administration, staff and alumni all have voices within your magazine, and I read every word to learn more about their lives and accomplishments and to celebrate them.

May I say, too, as an English teacher forever enamored with fine writing, that the quality of writing in every article is superb. I especially enjoy your “Stray Thoughts,” always a personal and engaging reflection on issues at hand from your marvelously unique and candid point of view.

Your layout and design are glorious indeed. You offer visual as well as verbal pleasures.

With every best wish for the flourishing of the Pomona College Magazine—and for your ongoing delight in your devoted and inspired efforts for us all.

—Martha Andresen Wilder

Professor Emerita of English

Claremont, Calif.

Note Correction

In the Class of ’59 Notes in PCM Spring 2016, there are three entries: Epps, Lathrop Wells and myself. Two of us were botany majors (there were, in total, three botany majors in 1959. How’s that for keeping the Pomona College connection? I think botany was unique because of the three-day field trip fall and spring to all of the vegetation zones of the West over a three-quarter-year span. These field trips formed a cohesion to the department and College, just as student research with faculty does today. Both Betsy and I had keys to the botany building—master keys at that—and this was a bonding element also. But somehow, my note in Class Notes ended short of the complete sentence. I intended for it to say: “I am rich in experiences, but in retirement short on pension. Pomona and Harvard shaped my life, and I will be eternally grateful for the expanding opportunities and challenges I took from them.” I appreciate the correction. We are downsizing and I found 60-year-old 8-page magazines—a far cry from now.

—Garrison Wilkes ’59

Hingham, Mass.

Stray Thoughts: Faith and Spirituality

August 3, 2016 by Mark Wood Comments Off

PCM-summer2016text58-web2_Page_09_Image_0003 Pomona’s original seal, emblazoned with the words “Our Tribute to Christian Civilization,” adorned every Pomona diploma for almost a century. Appropriate in 1887 for a church-founded college where theology was part of the curriculum, it slowly became an anachronism, as the College cut ties with the church and drew students from many traditions. Steve Glass ’57 still laughs good-naturedly about receiving a diploma imprinted with that motto just before going to Bridges Hall of Music to be married in a traditional Jewish ceremony.

Over the years, as American culture grew steadily more secular, American colleges—once places for reinforcing inherited belief systems—became, instead, places for questioning them. I was reminded of this fact as I prepared for this issue, when a couple of students declined to take part because their parents weren’t yet aware of their evolving beliefs.

Just in the past decade, according to a study by the Pew Research Center, the portion of the “millennial” generation with no religious affiliation has grown from a quarter to more than a third. Pomona students may be slightly ahead of that curve, judging by the Princeton Review’s rather eclectic rankings, in which Pomona seems to be perennially listed in the top 10 for “least religious students.” (Last year, we were number nine.)

But another study, conducted at UCLA in the early 2000s, found that while religious affiliation typically declines during those college years, “spirituality”—defined as “an active quest for answers to life’s ‘big questions,’ a global worldview that transcends ethnocentrism and egocentrism, a sense of caring and compassion for others coupled with a lifestyle that includes service to others”—actually increases.

That’s one of the reasons why institutions across the country are beefing up offices that provide spiritual counseling and promote religious expression or community service. Here at The Claremont Colleges, for example, the Office of Chaplains recently appointed a new Muslim chaplain, who joins Catholic, Protestant and Jewish chaplains at the McAlister Center to support the needs of individual students and groups spanning a wide spectrum of beliefs.

Since 1914, Pomona’s gates have welcomed students who are “eager, thoughtful and reverent” and encouraged them to “bear their added riches in trust” for humankind. Today we may understand those words a bit differently than when they were first carved. We may speak about reverence for truth instead of reverence for a particular deity. We may discuss the ethic of helping others without framing it in a religious context. But Pomona students continue to keep the faith in their own individual ways.

—MW

Stray Thoughts: Dinner With the Deathies

April 7, 2016 by Mark Wood Comments Off

Floral-skull pattern When I was in my early 20s, I briefly dated a young woman who, as I soon discovered, had already planned out her entire funeral. She had it all down on paper—from music to flowers to who would speak when—with corrections and notes in the margins. I suppose that funeral fetish might have had something to do with the fact that we only dated briefly. After all, in our society, thinking too much about death is considered morbid and strange.

Forty years have gone by since then. Thinking about death no longer feels strange—more like inevitable. Recently, a friend about my age said it about as well as it can be said: “The scary thing is to realize that I can no longer die an untimely death.”

So when Peggy Arnold ’65 invited me to Colorado to meet her group of end-of-life activists—whom she refers to as “the Deathies”—and to dip my toe into the the end-of-life revolution, I took it not only as a professional opportunity, but also as a personal challenge. The tangible result is the story titled “Before I Die” on page 44 of this issue. The intangible results are still percolating inside my head.

In retrospect, it was probably a good time for me to bring this part of my inner life out into the open and give it the thought it deserves. Five years ago, for an issue titled “Birth and Death,” I wrote a column that pulled together all my most memorable little moments of epiphany concerning those two great mysteries of life. But what used to come in tiny aha moments—some beautiful, some terrifying—now seems a permanent part of my thought process. I’ve become so acutely aware of endings that I almost dread going on vacation because I can already feel the wistfulness that comes with knowing that it’s over.

But sitting around the dinner table with the Deathies, I found their enthusiasm surprisingly contagious—these are people for whom death is truly an integral part of life. Around that table, thinking and talking about death isn’t morbid—in fact, it’s strangely liberating.

Of course, there are practical reasons for thinking about death, and the Deathies are focused mainly on those. There are decisions to be made while there’s still time to make them. There are preparations to be made to prevent loved ones from having to make them in times of extremis. There are situations ahead that we can’t foresee but that we hope to be able to control when the time comes.

But I’ve found that there are also hidden benefits, and one of them is a growing sense of acceptance. Don’t get me wrong—I trust that I still have miles to go before I sleep. But partly thanks to the Deathies, I’ve overcome some of my fear of the subject. My wife and I are making plans. And if tomorrow, a doctor reads my imminent fate in an x-ray or a blood test, I feel a little more confident that I’ll be able to swallow the news and get on with my life.

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