Blog Articles

Back to School at 81

For Carole Regan ’58 and Valkor, guide dog training was the beginning of a wonderful friendship.

Carole Regan ’58 and Valkor

When I became legally blind several years ago, I first asked the Braille Institute for a white cane. Although the institute gave me excellent mobility training, the cane only helps detect obstacles when you encounter them. As my vision worsened (now 20/350), I felt the need to avoid obstacles, and that’s the job of a guide dog.

Applying to guide dog school reminds me of applying to Pomona many years ago: neither is for the casually interested and all requirements must be met. Once you’ve decided which school to attend (there are three in California, all funded through charitable donations), you’ll need to line up references, including your physician (are you healthy enough to complete the strenuous training?), your opthalmologist/optometrist (how bad is your vision loss?) and your mobility instructor (can you travel independently using a cane?). Last, you may be asked either to schedule a home visit or to submit a video of your walking and immediate environment.

The first school to which I applied sent a trainer to interview me, but after a walk, he announced that the school would be unable to match me with a dog because I walked “too slowly.” I was stunned, then disappointed, then angry, as his reason smelled of blatant age discrimination.

After submitting another lengthy application to a different school, however, I was thrilled to receive a phone call from Guide Dogs of America (GDA) in Sylmar, accepting me for its November–December 2017 class.

And so, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, there I was sitting with a six-month-old Labrador puppy named June at my feet as Charlene, one of hundreds of volunteers at Guide Dogs of America and a puppy raiser, threaded her way through traffic in downtown L.A. As my apprehension grew, I peppered Charlene with questions about June, but silently, other questions arose that I dared not voice: At 81, how would I manage in a class of much younger students? Would I disgrace myself and future older applicants by “washing out”? These and other doubts would haunt me for the remainder of my stay at GDA.

When we reached GDA’s dormitory, a pleasant young woman named Kim led me into a large entry hall dominated by a very long, corner sofa, explaining that this would be our meeting area. Then she walked me down the long hallway to my room.

At 4 o’clock, our group assembled on the sofas. Five men and four women introduced themselves and shared their causes of blindness, the only characteristic we appeared to have in common. The causes varied from childhood cancer to a severe fall to my macular degeneration. Six of us were getting our first guide dogs and three were back for a refresher course.

The instructors’ were as varied as their students: Two of the credentialed instructors, including Kim, had been trained at Eastern guide dog schools. The third, plus the apprentice instructor (in her first year of a three-year program), had started as volunteers. The head instructor had aspired to be a marine animal trainer at Sea World, but failing that, she had turned instead to training tigers at the Bronx Zoo before gravitating to the safer population of guide dogs.

We learned the rules: no in-room visiting, no alcohol on site, silenced cell phones, promptness for all meetings and meals, walking on the right side of hallways and respect for the rights of others. We would meet at 8 each morning and train until nearly lunchtime. After lunch, we would train again until 4. Only after feeding, watering and relieving our dogs would we have dinner, and after dinner we would often meet again. w

There was no free time, except for a few hours on Saturday afternoon and Sunday. A climate of anxiety filled the air. I think we all feared being sent home in disgrace without a dog.

In the evening, the hazards of living in a blind community became apparent: several of the students became confused about the location of their rooms and nearly collided. Collisions, in one form or another, would be a constant concern for the entire three weeks.

I slept very little that night. After breakfast the next morning, we gathered on the sofa for a lecture, then set off for a “Juno” walk, with the instructors playing the part of guide dogs. We were, it seemed, being evaluated for walking pace.

Excitement grew on Wednesday—the day we would be given our dogs. The instructors enjoyed our excitement, offering to give the first dog to the student who guessed her dog’s name. No one managed—certainly not I. (Who could have imagined “Valkor?”)

Wednesday came, and after lunch we were instructed to return to our rooms and be ready to meet our dogs. There was a knock at the door, and Kim and Valkor appeared with his trainer. Valkor, named by his puppy raisers for a character in a children’s cartoon, is an 85-pound black Labrador-retriever cross and quite handsome. He immediately headed for a toy I had brought with me. I felt somewhat intimidated by his size—it would take me some time to appreciate better his intelligence and calm disposition. Valkor then wanted to show me that he could sit on his haunches and hold up his front paws.

Exactly how we were matched with our dogs remains a mystery, but it seemed to be primarily a matter of walking pace and energy level. Our youngest student received a high-energy dog, and Valkor was described as “a gentle giant.” In any case, the matching seemed to work. We gathered for dinner with nine tails under the table. Everyone seemed very happy.

When packing for my three weeks at GDA I had thrown in a lightweight rain jacket, but instead of rain, that first weekend brought severe dry winds, the dreaded Santa Anas. Monday brought an acrid odor to go along with the strong winds. As we trained that morning, the winds became so strong that at times I had trouble remaining upright. Our eyes burned. All signs warned of fire, but we continued training.

Tuesday morning the odor worsened, and I was glad I had also packed several masks. After our usual morning lecture, we were sent to our rooms to relieve our dogs and wait for an announcement. We all assembled on the sofa to hear the GDA president tell us that those who lived in the area should make plans to return home; those farther away would be sent elsewhere. We were to take our dogs.

Three left; six were accommodated in the homes of staff members and volunteers. Instructions were to pack for an evacuation of several days. Fires had broken out in multiple locations, including Sylmar.

I stuffed a makeshift duffle bag with essentials, including several gallon bags of dog food. Valkor and I met Sue, the GDA bookkeeper, who drove us to her home in East L.A. on the border of Pasadena. Freeway closures forced her to drive alternate routes.

Sue and her husband live in a Craftsman bungalow with two dogs and a grown daughter. Another daughter drops her dog off for day care, so that small house now sheltered four dogs. Luckily, their home also included a small yard accessible via a doggie door. Valkor needed no instructions on its use.

Valkor and I occupied an empty room used for storage. At periodic intervals, Sue’s son—also an employee of GDA— called home to report that the fires were still distant. Fortunately, they would remain so. Valkor amazed me by deferring to the two resident dogs and seemed to understand he was a guest. We were getting to know each other and quickly became fast friends.

Thursday afternoon, Valkor and I piled into Sue’s car for the return trip, stopping to retrieve one of my classmates and her dog on the way. That evening the returning students seemed sober as we recounted our experiences. We all speculated on whether graduation would be postponed. But instead, we were to expand our days and week to make up lessons missed. We would walk several miles in the mornings, afternoons and some evenings, including Saturday.

But what we had missed in techniques we had gained in the vital process of bonding with our dogs, difficult under tight schedules.

In our remaining time, we focused on essentials and tried to ignore the unhealthy air quality and ashes covering the ground. Happily our lessons were mostly out of the area as we learned to negotiate malls, suburban neighborhoods lacking sidewalks, the Pasadena light rail, a city bus, and comfortable parks surrounding lakes. We practiced fending off persistent strangers insisting on petting our dogs. We learned about “intelligent disobedience,” leading guide dogs to disobey the command of “forward” if the situation is unsafe. Valkor, who looks both ways before crossing a street, will not proceed if a car is approaching.

As we entered the third week, our lectures became more intense, covering such complicated topics as negotiating the TSA and airline personnel. We were all exhausted from the stress and began to drowse on the sofas. My blistered, swollen feet hurt from constant walking.

When graduation came, we sat with our dogs in the front row of the large auditorium packed with families, friends and hundreds of volunteers with their dogs, and then took our turns at the podium. When it was my turn, after thanking Valkor’s puppy raisers and the instructors, I cited Joseph Jones, the welder who was rejected by several schools back in 1948, at age 57, because he was “too old” to profit from a guide dog. His machinists’ union then hired a trainer and found a suitable dog. Next, the union established what became Guide Dogs of America, with Jones as its first graduate.

I said that “many organizations espouse nondiscrimination, but GDA practices it.” Then I broke down in tears: At 81 I had survived strenuous training and would certainly profit from having Valkor as my guide.

Now it was time to celebrate.

Rural Voices

Rural Voices

Sebastian Kahale Naehu-Ramos ’21

Kaunakakai, Moloka’i, Hawaii

Sebastian Kahale Naehu-Ramos '21

“I was born on another Hawaiian island, Maui, but my stepfather is from Moloka’i, so I moved there when I was 7, and that’s been home ever since. It’s a very close-knit community. You grow up knowing almost everyone. Everyone knows you; they know your parents; so everything you do is a reflection on your family. The economy is not so great. A lot of people actually sustain themselves through gathering what’s available. We have fish. We also have axis deer, though they’re not indigenous. I do some deer hunting with my dad. This photo is of one of my favorite places. It’s a fresh-water spring—what we call a pūnāwai—that my dad and his best friend restored as a nursery for baby fish. It’s really cold, but it’s nice for swimming. On the other side of the bank is a traditional fish pond—the kind we call a kuapa. It’s about 800 years old. Coming from that setting to a place like Pomona was pretty intimidating at first. I was less politically aware than most people here, so coming here was pretty eye-opening. I tell people I feel like I grew up on a rock. I’ve gotten used to California’s faster pace, but I really miss my family and Hawaiian food and being close to the ocean all the time.”

Katy Swiere ’21

Orangefield, Texas

Katy Swiere ’21

“My community is pretty small. We have a gas station, a fire station now—that’s new—a school and a small grocery store. The lumber industry built my town, but today the main industry is the petrochemical plants along the coast of Southeast Texas and Southwest Louisiana. Most families have at least one member who works there. They call it the cancer belt because there are higher rates of cancer in the area. When I left my hometown, I was kind of like, ‘I’m never coming back here.’ You know—a very typical, small-town person who wants to get out to the big city. But then Hurricane Harvey affected my hometown in the first few weeks after I got here, and that was kind of like a slap in the face. My first thought was that my community really needed me right now, but the last thing they heard me say was, ‘I’m never coming back.’ That really made me think. And then, especially, going back home over break and seeing the destruction, but also seeing the recovery and the ways that my community was coming together and helping each other—that was just a really awesome experience. Maybe that’s not unique, but it’s very special. And I think that’s part of the strong communities these small places have. It’s just that everyone feels so connected, and even if you don’t know each other, there is this connection that you share.”

Malyq McElroy ’18

Soldotna, Alaska

Malyq McElroy '18

“It’s kind of weird, because there’s a whole bunch of small Alaskan villages in the area, but they lump them together into cities. I live in a log cabin in the middle of the woods, roughly 10 miles outside of town, but I’m considered to live in Soldotna. A lot of the people there don’t want government or neighbors or anyone interfering with their lives, so I guess it’s not very communal. I don’t want to speak for all Alaskans, but people in my town really pride themselves on being independent—being able to hunt and fish and provide for themselves. I really didn’t do any of that—if I had, maybe I’d subscribe more to the Alaskan mentality. But I do feel like I don’t rely on things as much as maybe some other people who weren’t forced to live in that kind of environment. Along with a few Alaskan natives, my sister and I were among the only people of color in my school, so it’s been a big contrast coming here to Pomona. But my experience is so different from that of most other people of color here that at first it was kind of uncomfortable. I’m still not a very social person, so I don’t really participate in a lot of things, but I’ve become more acclimated. When I go back home, I enjoy seeing my family and knowing who everyone is when I go to the grocery store, but I don’t think I would want to go back there permanently.”

Alyson Smock ’20

Cozad, Nebraska

Alyson Smock ’20

“Cozad is a town of 4,000 people, give or take a few. The last census was around 2010, and I’m sure we’ve lost folks since then. I was born and raised there. Both of my parents were born and raised there, and their parents came there from other places in Nebraska. It’s a pretty stereotypical small, rural town in the Midwest. The nearest Walmart is in the next town over, so you have to drive like 15 minutes on the interstate to get there. The nearest mall’s even farther than that—an hour away. But it’s a place worth visiting. I ask my friends all the time—sometimes jokingly, sometimes seriously—if they ever want to come visit me in Nebraska, and usually the answer’s no. But it’s a place where people who don’t know you make you feel welcome. If you’ve never been to rural, small-town America, it’s an experience you need to have at least once in your life. I personally prefer small-town living to living here next to L.A, and I often think about going back after getting my law degree. The pace is slower. When you think of California, you think of it being laid back. You think of surfer dudes—or at least I do—and beaches and just a cool, chill pace. But the real slow pace is in rural America, where people aren’t in a hurry to get from place to place. They’re enjoying the day; they’re enjoying talking with people they run into on the street, or when they come into their businesses. They’re catching up. That’s probably one of my favorite parts about small-town living.”

 

Bulletin Board

2018 Winter Break Parties

2018 Winter Break Parties

In January, 699 Sagehens in eight cities found warmth, treats and the kind of great conversation that bonds Pomona people at the College’s popular Winter Break Parties. 47 chirps to this year’s party hosts and speakers: Gladys Reyes ’09 and Reena Patel ’10 (Chicago),

Diane Ung ’85 (LA), Elise Gerrard P’20 (Miami), Elizabeth Bailey P’21 and David Bither P’21 (New York – cancelled due to weather), Steve and Tricia Sipowicz ’85 (Portland), Michael Spicer (San Diego), President G. Gabrielle Starr (San Francisco), Allison Keeler ’90 and Shelley Whelan ’92 (Seattle), and Frank Albinder ’80 (DC).

2018 Winter Break Parties2018 Winter Break Parties


And the Next Pomona Book Club Selection Is…

The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story by Douglas Preston ’78This spring, the Pomona College Book Club will discuss The Lost City of the Monkey God: A True Story by Douglas Preston ’78. Named a New York Times Notable Book of 2017, the story follows Preston’s rugged expedition in search of pre-Columbian ruins in the Honduran rain forest. Join the Pomona College Book Club and read along with your fellow Sagehens!

 

 

 

 


Spring Webinar Series Offers Career Insights for Young Alumni

Throughout the spring, young alumni were invited to participate in three online webinars focused on career growth. Presenters included Carol Fishman Cohen ’81 P’12, CEO and founder of iRelaunch; Lindsey Pollak, millennial career expert and best-selling author; and Christine Souffrant Ntim, startup ecosystem expert and international speaker. View archived versions of these presentations, and enter the password Pomona1887.


2018 Family Weekend

More than 750 Pomona parents and family members flocked to campus in February for the College’s annual Family Weekend celebration. Guests spent four sunshine-filled days attending classes, concerts, plays, open houses and art exhibitions; hearing from faculty, staff and guest speakers during info sessions and the inaugural Ideas@Pomona: Family Edition speaker series; enjoying food trucks and a craft beer tasting on the Quad; and sipping Coop shakes with their students.

2018 Family Weekend2018 Family Weekend

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Alumni Board & Student Leadership Get Creative About Collaboration

Alumni Board & Student Leadership Get Creative About Collaboration

Student-alumni collaboration was one focus of the Alumni Association Board’s creative energy at their annual February meeting. In a session hosted at the Rick and Susan Sontag Center for Collaborative Creativity (“The Hive”) and facilitated by Andikan Archibong ’17, the Board spent an afternoon with students from Pomona’s Peer Mentor Groups and the Associated Students of Pomona College (ASPC), brainstorming ideas to develop and strengthen career networking, community service, and learning collaborations. Learn more about The Hive, a 5C center dedicated to exploration, collaboration and creativity at creativity.claremont.edu. Learn more about the Alumni Board.


Alumni Travel/Study: Galápagos Aboard National Geographic Islander

 June 15 – 24, 2019

Alumni Travel/Study: Galápagos Aboard National Geographic Islander

Join W.M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis Char Miller PZ ’75, PO P’03 for a once-in-a-lifetime trip to the Galápagos Islands with Lindblad/National Geographic Expeditions. See Galápagos as Darwin did—aboard an intimate expedition ship equipped to give you the most engaging experience possible. Contact the Alumni and Parent Engagement Office at 909-621-8110 or alumni@pomona.edu for more information.


Mark Your Calendar: Spring Event Highlights

Alumni Weekend 2018

Alumni Weekend 2018Alumni Weekend 2018

Thursday, April 26 – Sunday, April 29

It’s reunion time for classes ending in 3s and 8s – and, as always, alumni from all class years are welcome back to campus to enjoy the Sagehen party of the year! Don’t miss out on new programs and favorite traditions like the Parade of Classes; “A Taste of Pomona” craft beer and alumni-vintner wine tasting; the All-Class Dinner under the stars on Marston Quad with President Starr; and Ideas@Pomona: a series of TED-style talks from Pomona-affiliated scholars and luminaries. Visit the Alumni Weekend website for event and registration details.

Pomona in the City: SeattlePomona in the City: Seattle

Saturday, June 2 /

Four Seasons Hotel Seattle

Join fellow Sagehens in the beautiful Pacific Northwest for the spring edition of this signature event designed for lifelong learners. Seattle sessions include a welcome and College update from President Starr, keynote lecture and breakout sessions from favorite Pomona faculty, and a networking reception for Seattle area students, alumni, parents and friends. Watch for registration and event details on the Pomona in the City website.

The Wilds of L.A.

The Wilds of L.A.
The 2017 La Tuna Fire in the hills above Los Angeles.

The 2017 La Tuna Fire in the hills above Los Angeles.

Wild Los Angeles? That seems a contradiction in terms, for surely it is nearly impossible to locate nature inside the nation’s second-largest, and second-most-dense city. This metropolitan region, which gave birth to the concept of smog and sprawl—the two being parts of a whole—is now so thickly settled that it is almost fully built out and paved over. In the City of Angels, where even the eponymous river looks like an inverted freeway, there is no rural.

Yet as concretized and controlled as Los Angeles appears, it does not stand apart from nature—any more than do small towns tucked away in remote locales. Consider the natural systems that over the millennia have given shape to this region. They are still at work.

The most obvious of these is manifest whenever the grinding earth moves: Tremors radiate along the Southland’s weblike set of fault lines, an unsettling reminder that we stand on shaky ground.

Even when (relatively) still, the landscape conveys an important message about how we live within and depend on the natural world. While strolling through Marston Quad, for example, look due north, focusing in on Mt. Baldy, which the Tongvan people call Snowy Mountain. The latter name is more evocative and revelatory of that 10,050-foot peak’s role as the apex of the local watershed. It is the source of the alluvial soils on which the College is built and of the aquifer that supplies much of the potable water that contemporary Claremont consumes.

Perhaps the most dramatic signal of just how close Angelenos are to nature, and how compressed is the distance between where we reside and that space we imagine as “rural,” flares up every time a wind-driven wildfire sweeps down canyon or howls over ridge. We have endured too many of these fires over the past decade (unlike Northern California, which has a deficit of fire, SoCal has experienced a surfeit).

Some of these conflagrations have been massive, like the Station Fire (2009: 160,000 acres) and the Thomas (2017-18: 282,000 acres); others have been much smaller, such as the Skirball (2017: 422 acres). Notwithstanding their differences in size, these contemporary blazes follow a historic pattern: Wherever people have gone, fire has followed.

A member of the California National Guard on a rescue mission following the January 2018 mudslide in Montecito, California. (Air National Guard photo by Senior Airman Crystal Housman)

A member of the California National Guard on a rescue mission following the January 2018 mudslide in Montecito, California. (Air National Guard photo by Senior Airman Crystal Housman)

Beginning in the late 19th century, tens of thousands of residents and tourists hopped aboard the Los Angeles & Pasadena Railway’s parlor cars that took them straight to the Altadena station, nestled in the San Gabriel foothills. There, by foot, bicycle or the Mt. Lowe Incline, they headed uphill to frolic in the rough-and-tumble terrain. By the 1920s, with the ability to drive a car to local trailheads or up into the mountains directly, those numbers swelled to millions. Some of those engines sparked. Some of the many visitors smoked. The resulting fires, especially the infernos of the late teens and the 1920s, turned the sky black.

Fires also erupted as housing developments, following rail and road, pressed out toward an expanding periphery. For those with the requisite means, the lure of a quiet suburban arcadia segregated from the disquieting urban hustle, yet situated close enough to commute between family and work, was a powerful magnet. Even as this white flight rearranged the city’s spatial dimensions, class interactions and racial dynamics, it proved incendiary in another sense.

In the immediate aftermath of World War II, Army-surplus bulldozers leveled large lots for grand homes in the Hollywood hills and Beverly Hills, and furious firestorms erupted. For all its damage, then, the Bel Air Fire of 1961, which consumed more than 16,000 acres and incinerated 484 homes, was not unique. In subsequent years, blazes popped up in and around new subdivisions cut into the high ground above the San Fernando and San Gabriel valleys, and, later still, crackled through upland acreage overlooking the Simi and Santa Clarita valleys. Like the August 2016 Blue Cut Fire that torched portions of the rugged Cajon Pass, shut down Interstate 15, and forced upwards of 80,000 people to flee for their lives, the Thomas Fire disrupted freeway traffic in its furious run from Santa Paula to Ventura to Montecito and drove 100,000 from their tree-shaded homes.

With fires come floods. Punishing winter storms, like those that pounded Montecito less than a month after the Thomas Fire sputtered out, can unleash a scouring surge of boulder, gravel, and mud that destroys all within its path. The resulting death and destruction—horrifying, terrifying—is, alas, also predictable. Since the late 1880s, some Angelenos have cautioned about the dire consequences of developing high ground, of turning the inaccessible, accessible. We have ignored those warnings at our peril—peril that climate change is accelerating as it intensifies the oscillation between drought and deluge, fire and flood.

Further evidence that this most urbanized place is, and will remain, inextricably integrated with wild nature.

Char Miller is the W.M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis at Pomona. His recent books include Not So Golden State: Sustainability vs. the California Dream and Where There’s Smoke: The Environmental Science, Public Policy, and Politics of Marijuana.

Letter from the Editor

Letter from the Editor

March 2018

Dear PCM Reader,

Over the past year, Pomona College Magazine has given you the opportunity to walk in lots of different shoes. As a reader, you’ve experienced the struggle to protect an endangered species, the challenge of writing poetry in an alien tongue, the stress of gowning up for a trauma case and the nightmare of homelessness. You’ve welcomed a new Pomona president, explored little-known chapters in College history, witnessed the discovery of a lost civilization—and more. All through people with whom you share an indelible connection as fellow members of the Sagehen family.

My point is this: PCM is there to keep you connected to this special institution and its community of doers and thinkers. Our mission is to inform, entertain and challenge you with Pomona-related stories that make you think, reminisce, learn, laugh, cry, share or simply feel proud to be part of this remarkable college family.

Receiving PCM is a free benefit of your membership in that family. However, the cost of producing an award-winning publication like PCM and mailing it to some 25,000 recipients across the country and around the globe continues to grow, even as budgets tighten. That’s why, three years ago, we launched this voluntary subscription program to supplement our funding and to give you, our readers, an opportunity to help, if you’re so inclined.

Again, let me assure you that you will continue to receive every issue of PCM whether or not you choose to make a gift. This is truly meant to be a voluntary show of appreciation. I know there are plenty of other worthy causes clamoring for your attention, and I would never claim that PCM
needs your help more than those that you’ve already chosen to support (including, I hope, Pomona’s Annual Fund). But if you value what this publication brings to your door with each issue and you can afford to make another gift, we could certainly use your help.

Your generous gift provides direct support for our effort to keep you informed and connected. It also signals that PCM is still a meaningful and valued part of your life. If you wish to make a gift, we’ve tried to make it as easy as possible, using our online giving site.

We are deeply grateful to those of you who have seen fit to show your support in the past and to those who plan to do so this year—again or for the first time. We promise to use these resources wisely to make this magazine even better in the year ahead. In the meantime, we hope you enjoy the enclosed issue on the voices of rural America.

Sincerely,
Mark Wood
Editor

Bookmarks Spring 2018

Permission to Die Candid Conversations About Death and DyingPermission to Die
Candid Conversations About Death and Dying

Rabbi Anthony Fratello ’94 teamed with a neurologist, a psychotherapist and a physician to empower readers to think about death and dying.

 

 

 

 


Spiritual Citizenship Transnational Pathways from Black Power to Ifá in TrinidadSpiritual Citizenship
Transnational Pathways from Black Power to Ifá in Trinidad

Nicole Fadeke Castor ’89 explores the role of Ifá/Orisha religious practices in shaping local, national and transnational belonging in African diasporic communities.

 

 

 

 


My Pomona CollegeMy Pomona College

Emeritus Professor of Economics James D. Likens offers a memoir of 47 years on the faculty of Pomona College, stretching from the turbulent ’60s to the new millennium.

 

 

 

 

 

 


Indecorous Thinking Figures of Speech in Early Modern PoeticsIndecorous Thinking
Figures of Speech in Early Modern Poetics

Professor of English Colleen Rosenfeld examines the use of figures of speech by such poets as Edmund Spenser and Mary Wroth as a means of celebrating and expanding the craft of poetry.

 

 

 


Bones Around My Neck The Life and Exile of a Prince ProvocateurBones Around My Neck
The Life and Exile of a Prince Provocateur

Tamara Loos ’89 examines the life of Prince Prisdang Chumsai, Siam’s first diplomat to Europe, and, through him, the complexities of global imperialism.

 

 

 

 


A Second Course in Linear AlgebraA Second Course in Linear Algebra

This new textbook by Professor of Mathematics Stephan Garcia and coauthor Roger Horn helps students transition from basic theory to advanced topics and applications.

 

 

 

 

 


Where There’s SmokeWhere There’s Smoke

Professor of Environmental Analysis Char Miller edited this interdisciplinary anthology on the troubling environmental consequences of illegal marijuana production on public, private and tribal lands.

 

 

 

 

 


The Party’s Primary Control of Congressional NominationsThe Party’s Primary
Control of Congressional Nominations

Hans J.G. Hassell ’05 explores the ways in which political parties work behind the scenes to shape the options available to voters through the primary process.

 

 

 

 


The Ballad of Huck & MiguelThe Ballad of Huck & Miguel

In a provocative tribute to Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn, Tim DeRoche ’92 transports Huck to modern-day L.A., following his escape down the concrete gash of the Los Angeles River in the company of an undocumented immigrant falsely accused of murder.

Bookmarks Spring 2017

The Adulterous MuseThe Adulterous Muse
Maud Gonne, Lucien Millevoye and W.B. Yeats
Noted biographer Adrian Frazier ’71 explores the life of one of Ireland’s most romanticized figures, Maud Gonne, the charismatic but unfaithful inspiration for W.B. Yeats’s love poetry, who was also a leading figure in the Irish republican movement.

 

 

 

 

 


Daubigny, Monet, Van GoghDaubigny, Monet, Van Gogh
Impressions of Landscape
Lynne Ambrosini ’75, chief curator at the Taft Museum of Art in Cincinnati, was a lead contributor to this beautifully printed book on the interrelationships between the works of these three major artists.

 

 

 

 

 


Candy GirlCandy Girl
How I Gave Up Sugar and Created a Sweeter Life Between Meals
In her part-memoir, part-how-to book, Jill Kelly ’68 relates how she overcame her longtime addiction to food, and in particular, to sugar.

 

 

 

 

 


The Absence of EvelynThe Absence of Evelyn
Jackie Townsend ’87, the award-winning author of Imperfect Pairings, returns with a haunting drama about love, loss and identity that ranges from a palazzo in Rome to northern Vietnam, as four people bound together by the various incarnations of love pursue the strands of an unraveling family secret.

 

 

 

 

 


Perils and Promises of TechnologyPerils and Promises of Technology
In this collection of essays, psychologist David Ruben ’69 examines his own relationship to technology and considers some of the key questions about the future of computer-age humanity.

 

 

 

 

 

 


American EnlightenmentsAmerican Enlightenments
Pursuing Happiness in the Age of Reason
In her groundbreaking new book, Caroline Winterer ’88, a professor of humanities at Stanford University, explores the national mythology surrounding the American Enlightenment, tracing the complex interconnections between America and Europe that gave it birth.

 

 

 

 

 


Southern California Mountain CountrySouthern California Mountain Country
Places John Muir Walked and Places He Would Have Loved to Know
Nature photographer Glenn Pascall ’64 combines his photos of California mountain landscapes with quotes from noted California naturalist John Muir.

 

 

 

 

 


Laryngeal Physiology for the Surgeon and Clinician Laryngeal Physiology for the Surgeon and Clinician
(Second Edition)
Surgeon Clarence Sasaki ’62 updates his classic text on the functioning of the larynx and the management of diseases that strike that complex organ.

 

 

 

Cecil 3.0

Cecil 2.0 and Cecil 3.0There’s a new Cecil in town. Since he’s at least the third in a direct line of Sagehen costume evolution, let’s call him Cecil 3.0.

The old mascot costume—Cecil 2.0—familiar to generations of Sagehens for its round head and dangling ribbon of tongue, has been chirping around campus since 1997 and, after a couple of decades of hard use and washings, was seriously starting to crack, tear and molt. (Not to mention the accumulated—ahem—aroma of years of sweaty occupants that wearers had to cope with when they put on the head.)

Senior Associate Dean of Campus Life Frank Bedoya, in whose closet Cecil 2.0 resided for many years, still has the head of what may have been the original Cecil—call him Cecil 1.0. We were unable to determine when or by whom that Cecil was designed and built, but Bedoya says by the 1990s it was falling apart. “Bill Almquist ’98 was instrumental in coming up with the new design, which we had made,” he says.

Over the years, Bedoya not only housed Cecil 2.0—quite often he was Cecil. He also worked with generations of Pomona students who also donned the costume to bring Cecil to life for some campus event.

Which brings us to 2017. Since the company that created Cecil 2.0 was no longer in business, there was no question of refurbishing the old costume, so the Pomona-Pitzer Athletic Program and Pomona’s Stewardship Office took the lead to create a new Cecil—or should I say Cecils? Due to growing demand, the order was placed not for one costume, but for two.

Cecil 3.0 and his twin (whom we might call Cecil 3.1)—designed and built by ProMo Costumes of Marion, Ohio, based on design concepts provided by the College—are taller, more athletic and a bit more modern-looking than their predecessor. They’re also a bit better dressed—able to choose between a basketball jersey, a football jersey and a snazzy button-up with blue and orange flowers.

They also come with a ventilating fan inside the head and an ice-vest to keep the wearer cool under all that heavy velour and padding, even while dancing inside a hot gymnasium. And for now, at least, inside the head, there’s that luxurious new-mascot smell.

Spaceships and Laundry

What do a 3D space game, an English-Morse code translation app and an app that monitors the machines in a dormitory laundry have in common? They were all among the award-winning entries created in a single night of furious work during the 10th Semi-annual 5C Hackathon, held at Pomona in November.

Billed as a collaborative night filled with “awesome swag, food and mentorship,” the fall 2016 Hackathon covered a span of 12 hours, from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. the following day, during which student competitors worked in groups to come up with novel ideas and put them into action.

Ziqi Xiong ’17, a member of the seven-person team that created Laundry Master, which took second place in the advanced group, said the original idea for an app to let users know when laundry machines were available came from the group’s only first-year student, Sophia Richards ’20. “We found it very cool because it would involve both hardware and software,” says Xiong. Kent Shikama ’18, another member of the team, said he enjoyed the process of “thinking of ways to overcome constraints and executing them.” He cited three memorable hours in the laundry room of Walker Hall, experimenting with an empty dryer and a seismic sensor.

Unlike Xiong and Shikama, two good friends and fellow computer science majors who had partnered in several previous Hackathons, Sonia Grunwald ’18 and Peter Cowal ’19, who took top honors for best design, had never worked together before. “Two days or so before the event I was standing around in the CS lab complaining that I really wanted to do Hackathon and make some simple game with the 3D models I design for fun,” Grunwald said. “Peter happened to be working in the room and heard me. He said that sounded like a fun idea.” The two-person team was formed, and the result was their winning 3D space game, titled “Tiny Forever.”

The Full Fulbright

Pomona College is the No. 2 producer of Fulbright recipients in the nation among all four-year undergraduate institutions, tying for the position with neighboring Pitzer College. For 2016–17, there were 15 Pomona students who garnered Fulbrights. In the previous award year, 14 Pomona students received the coveted awards, and the College was ranked sixth. This year, Smith College was No. 1 on the list. Among this year’s Sagehen projects were a Silk Road journey to study the syncretism of Sino-Islamic identity in China; epidemiological research at the Pasteur Institute’s Enteric Bacterial Pathogens Unit in Paris, France; and teaching positions in Indonesia, Vietnam and Colombia.