Family Weekend this year featured the world premiere of five new plays—each no more than 10 minutes long. The plays, written by members of the 5-college community around the theme of self-discovery, were all part of the eighth annual 10-Minute Play Festival, sponsored by Pomona’s Department of Theatre and Dance, organized by Carolyn Ratteray, visiting assistant professor of theatre and dance, who said the plays ranged “from the silly to the absurd, as well as the moving and the heartfelt.” At right, Peter Brown ’15 directs a group of Pomona actors in “While Away,” his play about three siblings dealing with the aftermath of their grandmother’s death, simultaneously bonding and fighting over her less-than-perfect legacy. Pictured, from left, are Rachel Tils ’19, Brown, Barbara Peisch ’19 and Ben Hogoboom ’19.

Student Ani Alyce Schug ’17 (center) works with housekeeping staff members Rosario Osorio and Beatriz Tovar on an English lesson.

Mastering a second language is no easy feat, but it gets easier when you have help. At Pomona College, employees wishing to learn or improve their English have been getting assistance from students for more than 10 years now.

Employees gain language skills and students learn teaching skills, but at the core of the program are the relationships developed between students and the employees who often work in the background in housekeeping, dining services and grounds and are integral in keeping the College running smoothly.

Math major Luis Antonio Espino ’18, a student coordinator for the program, joined for very personal reasons. “As a first-generation immigrant, I grew up being a translator for my parents,” he says. “I dealt with the troubles of having to go to the doctor and seeing my parents struggle through that. That was one of the reasons I was interested in the doing the ESL program.”

Espino says that while in college, students are encouraged to develop strong ties with faculty, but he sees connecting with staff members as equally important. “One of the goals is to bridge that gap and have students recognize everyone’s equal worth,” he says.

Ani Alyce Schug ’17, a politics major who studies Arabic, Spanish and Swahili and grew up speaking Armenian, is in her second year as a student coordinator for the program, which is run by the Draper Center for Community Partnerships.

“It’s one of my favorite parts of being at Pomona,” says Schug, adding that while the majority of employees choose to learn English, some are looking for help in areas such as computers and GED prep.

“This is my first time taking ESL classes,” says Rosario Osorio, who emigrated from Mexico 12 years ago and now works in housekeeping. “We, unfortunately, arrive to this country to work and don’t have the financial means to go to school and take classes because we must immediately find work, and we have children to raise. But thanks to students at Pomona, we have this opportunity and we should take advantage of it.”

“Massive, exciting, chaotic and a bit overwhelming.” That’s how Olivia Voorhis ’16 described her time as an official observer of COP21, the United Nations conference on climate change held last December in Paris, where delegates of 195 countries came together to try once again to negotiate a global climate agreement.

In halls she describes as “the size of jet hangers,” she encountered languages and dress from around the globe and attended dozens of lectures and panels and a range of side events. “There were thousands upon thousands of people, from scientists and researchers to activists, media and government representatives,” she says.

In all, she spent a week in Paris, focusing mainly on ways in which World Wide Views, a global citizen consultation initiative, might become a more effective part of the international policy-making process.

She doubts that the COP21 agreement, which was signed after she left Paris, will achieve everything environmentalists had hoped for, but she believes the conference is a step forward becasue it focused global attention on the problems. “I think the global community left COP21 with admirable goals,” she says, “but now comes the extremely difficult and politically contentious work of implementation.”