A class taught by Professor Shahriar Shahriari.

I’m not much for college slogans that aren’t old and in Latin, but there’s one that stands out to me: Learn by Doing.

While California’s polytechnic universities have taken up that mantra, many Pomona College alumni, it seems to me, take the opposite approach: They do by learning.

Again and again, I encounter people who have taken an intense academic interest and turned it into a related but less-than-obvious entrepreneurial path. In this issue, we explore a few of those in the realms of food and drink.

Consider Kim Selkoe ’97, who has a Ph.D. in marine ecology, and Doug Bush ’94, who earned a master’s degree in animal science. They each sell seafood for a living, applying their knowledge to expand the sustainable seafood industry along the coast of Southern California.

Like Selkoe and Bush, Cathy Corison ’75 was a biology major at Pomona. After an extracurricular wine-tasting class, she headed to UC Davis and earned a master’s degree in viticulture and enology. She has been a lauded Napa Valley winemaker for decades, but Corison still can be found out among her vines, pruning by hand and nurturing the grapes that produce the noted cabernet sauvignons of Corison Winery.

Sana Javeri Kadri ’16 made an even greater entrepreneurial leap. An art major at Pomona, she landed on a Forbes 30 Under 30 list five years after graduating as the founder and CEO of Diaspora Co., a spice importer. With a focus on reinventing the ancient spice trade, providing fair prices for farmers—and an absolutely stunning Instagram—Javeri Kadri has melded several of the academic interests she pursued during her days on campus.

There is no business major at Pomona, of course. But the training in critical thinking, research, organizational skills and a certain get-right-to-it quality often lay the groundwork for starting a business—which after all is a fundamentally creative endeavor.

Many other Pomona alumni work in the world of food, including some focused on providing for more basic needs than the rather epicurean businesses we feature in this issue. One who leaps to mind is Yi Li ’16, a former McKinsey & Co. engagement manager who is co-founder and CEO of FarmWorks Agriculture in Kenya. FarmWorks is a startup that aims to address food security and climate change in Sub-Saharan Africa. It provides training in regenerative agriculture, technology and market access to more than 5,000 small-scale Kenyan farmers. FarmWorks’ ambitions, however, are not small. The company recently raised more than $4 million in impact and venture capital to strengthen its data analytics capabilities and to learn to use AI to enhance production and influence planting and lending decisions.

Back to this issue, though. It’s meant to be on the lighter side, and we hope it will leave you ready to raise a glass and enjoy a good meal.

The Women Behind Mufti

Thank you to the four women who shed their anonymity to reveal the secret of Mufti’s founding. I grew up in Claremont, surrounded by the traditions and lore of the campuses, including a healthy respect for Mufti—possibly instilled in me by a relative who may have been a member at some point along the way (though since they’ve yet to admit membership, I’ll continue to shield their identity). As a student in the early ’80s, I appreciated the wit, targeted wisdom and biting commentary Mufti provided us in an era marked by so many cultural and political transitions. And with all of that, what a delightful revelation to discover it was women of South Campus in the late 1950s who challenged cultural norms and rigidity in an effort to seek parity with their male North Campus counterparts. While I consider myself a feminist and an academically trained historian of women and gender studies, it never once occurred to me that Mufti could have been founded by women—shame on me, and 47 chirps to them! Of course this begs the question: “In what other ways have the voices and actions of women on the Pomona campus been silenced or lost over time?” Perhaps a rising senior history and/or gender studies major could take this on as their thesis for next year?

—Julie Siebel ’84

Balboa Island, California

‘PCM’ Honored

Our Bird’s Beginnings. All Right! Time to find out where I come from… Story by Robyn Norwood, Illustrated by Eric Melgosa

Pomona College Magazine received a 2023 Circle of Excellence Award from the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) for “Our Bird’s Beginnings,” a graphic story about the origins of Cecil Sagehen that appeared in PCM’s Spring 2022 issue. Judges praised the comic, illustrated by Eric Melgosa and written by Robyn Norwood and collaborators in the Office of Communications, for creativity, ingenuity and clever wordplay, selecting the story for a gold award in the category of writing/profile (less than 1,000 words). The judges also applauded the comic for “highlighting the unsung heroes on college campuses.” You can read the full comic.

Hey Ref! We’ve Come a Long Way

What a great joy for me to read of Melissa Barlow ’87 officiating women’s NCAA tournament games!

Melissa Barlow ’87

She brings back 1958 memories of entering Pomona as an avid basketball player, only to find women’s basketball a missing sport on campus. Having gone to an all-girls high school where basketball was the sport sans males to steal the athletic limelight, I was greatly disappointed with this omission, to say the least.

Once settled into my freshman year, this sport continued to haunt me and finally stirred within the motivation to try to muster up a team. I began by spotting women of above-average height and inviting them to play. A sufficient number of women were eager to do so, with some never having played the sport before. We began with rag-a-tag demonstration games in Renwick Gym, charging the guys an entry fee for the “special” privilege of watching. Gradually, other colleges were engaged in unofficial and unrecorded contests but the seed was thereby sown nonetheless. One cannot help but be grateful for those who then carried the banner in one fashion or another to eventually make this an official women’s sport on campus.

—Susan Tippett Bruch ’62

Santa Barbara, California

P.S. As a 5-foot-11 guard, I never had to learn how to make a basket because in those days, both guards and forwards were forbidden from crossing the center line! Furthermore, once I retrieved a rebound, I was only allowed three dribbles to get it to a forward teammate on the other side lest one might incur a foul. Obviously it was thought that this sport, played as men did, was too taxing for us ladies. … Heaven forbid! Yes, we as women in the world of sports have truly come a long, long way. Thank you, Melissa, for your current Pomona claim to fame in the world of basketball.