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Reading the Desert

Early the weekend before Thanksgiving, two SUVs loaded with junior geology majors, one professor, camping equipment and burrito fixings hit the road. The small caravan drives about three hours southeast, traversing interstate, state, county and local roads until finally, the asphalt ends.

 anza1They head down Fish Creek Wash, a dry riverbed winding its way through dramatically deep stone canyons.

 Destination? The final exam for Sedimentology. In the Split Mountain area of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park—California’s largest state park and second largest state park in the continental U.S.—students witness the geologic history of the arrival of the Colorado River and the development of the San Andreas Fault as Baja California was ripped away from the North American Plate, opening the Gulf of California, five million years ago.

 “The importance of sedimentary rocks is that they are the Earth’s history,” says Associate Professor of Geology Robert Gaines. “What’s really cool about Pomona College is instead of having to look at some dusty old samples in boxes, we can go camping, and students can actually put their hands on a really complicated succession and try to figure out what was happening during the deposition of these strata, to reconstruct the ancient environments that were present by looking at signatures in the rocks.”

 While the area Gaines and his students explore—which includes wind caves, slot canyons and fossil records like Ice Age mammal footprints—is only accessible to those driving high-clearance vehicles, Anza-Borrego is full of well-marked trails (including part of the Pacific Crest Trail) in its diverse 900 square miles extending from below sea level to 8,000 feet. The park is located mostly in eastern San Diego County, and first-timers can start at the Visitor Center in Borrego Springs for information on the natural history and highlights of the area. Consider visiting in February or March to experience the dramatic blooming of desert wildflowers like the chuparosa, chinchweed and dune evening primrose.

 Call the Park’s wildflower hotline at (760) 767-4684,for updates on the seasonal blooms, or visit www.abdnha.org for more information.

A River Runs Through It

The morning sun has only begun to tint the sky when Heather Williams breaks through thin shrubs to reach the gravelly bank of the Santa Ana River, which is running cool, clear and fast. Williams has come here often over the past two years, mainly as part of her academic research, but also because she finds the site enchanting at the break of day.

williamsriver1She also is drawn by the juxtaposition. Egrets, ducks and other birds wing above as unseen creatures rustle in the dry grass, a bucolic backdrop to the homeless people sleeping in tents deep in the brush, and the distant rush of commuters barreling down unseen roadways. The air carries a tinge of burning garbage as well, from breakfast campfires near the covered-over Tequesquite Landfill that Williams walked past to get here.

 “This is here, this is accessible to us, even when we think that we are surrounded by nothing more than big box stores and concrete and freeways and noise,” says Williams, a professor of politics who teaches, among other courses, Global Politics of Food and Agriculture. “For me it’s a metaphor for our ability to access nature in unexpected places. And it presents us with a choice for the future.”

 For all the natural beauty of this stretch of river, the spot Williams has picked out cuts through suburban neighborhoods three miles southwest of downtown Riverside. The Santa Ana, surprisingly, is the largest river in Southern California, traveling nearly 100 miles from its source on Mount San Gorgonio through the Inland Empire and Santa Ana Canyon—where the 91 Freeway cuts through the mountains to Orange County—and on through to the Pacific at the Newport Beach-Huntington Beach border.

 This geography represents past and future, and the centrality of water to human settlement—people have lived along the waterway for 9,000 years. And  it is the subject of Williams’ book-in progress, River Underground: The Secret Life of the Santa Ana, which looks at the modern evolution of the river from early flood-control efforts through its present condition, amid the region’s expanding population and conflicting demands.

 It’s a convoluted past for this inconsistent ribbon of water. The Santa Ana has raged in massive floods and all but disappeared in droughts. It has had its riverbed paved in sections. And it has been the focus of political battles over who gets to use its water, how it should be managed and the role it plays in regional recreation.

 In fact, there are scores of free access points along the river, from the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains to Williams’ favorite spot here amid the cottonwoods to where the Santa Ana reaches Orange County’s emblematic beaches. More than 40 miles of developed hiking and biking trails along its length offer oases of nature—and a glimpse of the original landscape—amid the SoCal sprawl.

 Oddly, Williams was drawn to studying the Santa Ana River through a research project she did in Peru on the political overlays to human migration and boundaries, both natural and national. But the local Peruvians wanted to discuss water quality and mechanisms to collect statistical portraits of the health of local rivers.

 That started an evolution of thought that led Williams to wonder about the health and history of her local watershed, and the demands that will shape its future.

 For Williams, this spot along the river represents what has become a consuming area of academic inquiry and a place to generate and share ideas, as she did last summer with a “dream team” of summer research assistants, including Tara Krishna ’14, Clare Anderson ’15 and Minerva Jimenez, Cal State Fullerton ’14. But it also has become a temporary refuge, a place where, on a spring day, “you would see the willows in all their glory. And you would hear the wind coming through the cottonwoods.”

 

A Rim With A View

ericcrater1a

More than a decade ago, when Geology Professor Eric Grosfils first started bringing students to Amboy Crater in the Mojave Desert, he dreaded the last stretch of the long trip, each time hoping the rough dirt road and unpaved parking lot had not been washed out in a storm.

 Fortunately, the path always was intact and the three-hour bus ride always worth it, Grosfils says, because the strikingly symmetrical cinder cone volcano offers such an accessible, boots-on way to teach introductory students about the basics of volcanology.

 Since then, new amenities have been put in place—restrooms, a shade spot and, best of all, paved roads and parking—clearing the way for you, too, to more comfortably visit this desert wonder located right off an old section of Route 66. Reaching the cinder cone simply requires a relatively flat, mile-long hike, and a convenient breach on the west side of the crater wall makes the steep path up to the rim a bit more manageable for those who are in less than impeccable shape. “You can go into the crater and crawl around,” says Grosfils. “It’s fresh. It’s young. The lava flow looks great. The cinder cone is completely intact.”

 Grosfils takes students to the crater during the first few weeks of his introductory geology class, which he teaches with a planetary emphasis. The idea is to give them access to a very obvious volcano that they can roam and get a sense of the scale of things.

 In the class, a lot of numbers are thrown around, Grosfils says, and the visit helps put the figures into context. If the students are huffing and puffing while climbing up the 250-foot-high Amboy Crater, and they know the massive Olympus Mons volcano on Mars is in the ballpark of 14 miles high, “it means something.” “This is a field trip that’s really about observation,” he explains. “It’s about finding out what you can see in the field and building hypotheses from that—things that are testable. … I want the students to be asking questions about what they’re seeing. I want their observations to drive the hypotheses about the processes that go on.”

 While up on the rim, he asks the students to look out at the surrounding desert plain and imagine what they would have seen if they had been standing there watching when Amboy first erupted. He has them estimate the thickness of the basaltic lava flow, and later in the term they consider what shape it would take under the conditions of another planet. On Mars, for example, with all other conditions the same, the lighter gravity would most likely lead to a much taller, though less extensive, volcanic flow.

 For your trip, you can get a little more down to Earth, taking notice of the two nested areas inside the volcano, evidence of two smaller and later eruptions. You also can figure out the direction of the prevailing winds by noticing the absence of sand on one side, a wind streak (also visible to orbiting spacecraft, like similar features on Mars) that forms on the downwind side of the volcano. Amboy Crater’s relative youth—Grosfils says that recent estimates put it at anywhere from 7,000 to around 80,000 years old—makes it a great, unblemished example of a cinder cone volcano.

 But even if you hear explosions and rumbling, rest assured the dormant volcano is probably not the culprit. The boom-boom-boom is likely coming from the Marine Corps bombing range to the southwest, so, along with taking the usual desert heat precautions, make sure you know where you roam.

State Secrets

State Secrets: Drawing on their research and expertise, Pomona faculty and staff let us in on some fascinating but not-so-obvious spots to visit around the Golden State.

statesecrets721) Amboy Crater: Geology Professor Eric Grosfils likes to take students to a strikingly symetrical cinder-cone volcano in the desert.

2) The Santa Ana River: Professor Heather Williams’ research explores a surprising and important riparian ecosystem — right in our own backyard.

3) Vast and scenic Anza-Borrego State Park is the perfect place for Geology Professor Bob Gaines’ student to learn the Earth’s history.

4) In San Diego’s Torrey Pines Mesa, regional economic expert Mary Walshok ’64 touts a hub of biotech innovation, striking architecture and seaside beauty.

5) Windswept and remote, San Francisco’s Farralon Islands are a key spot for birds — and a second home for Biology Professor Nina Karnovsky.

6) At the Computer History Museum, noted tech writer Ashlee Vance ’00 plugs into the ever-changing story of innovation and Silicon Valley.

7) Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe closed years ago, but the old church remains central to Professor Tomas Summers Sandoval’s history of San Francisco’s Latino community.

8) History Professor Victor Silverman finds a tragic human story and a stunning natural landscape at Donner Memorial State Park.

9) In the Los Angeles Central Library, Sociology Professor Emeritus Robert Herman finds the heart of the nation’s second-largest city.

 

 

 

Dialed in

Erica Tyron

tyron1

Long before KSPC Director Erica Tyron’s 25 years at the station, there was her turn as a DJ in the fourth grade. In a classroom overlooking the schoolyard, her teacher, Mr. Ramirez, set up a turntable and speaker, and allotted the kids 20-minute shifts to spin to their little hearts’ content. Tyron’s favorites to play included “Rock Lobster” by the B-52s and ABBA’s “Eagle,” a choice the young, diehard fan would immediately regret because it ran a full six minutes, cutting into her time.

That was back in the day—before music on demand—when every minute of airtime mattered. “Radio was everywhere,” recalls Tyron. “That was really your connection to what was happening in pop culture … it was a lifeline.”

Tyron held tight to that lifeline. During her four years as a Scripps student, the anthropology major took pretty much every position a student could hold at KSPC: publicity director, production director, management, newscaster. By the end of her first year she had a midnight-to-3 a.m. underground rock show, which later became “Stick It in Your Ear,” showcasing local bands live. She spent her summers at the station, too, and when she graduated in 1992 she was immediately hired as KSPC director. Day-to-day, Tyron, who also directs the Studio DJs, 120 volunteers and 18 student managers, to keep the FM station humming around the clock, every day of the year. It’s her dream job, Tyron says.

But today the role of radio has been changing in response to the rise of iTunes and digital streaming sites such as Pandora and Spotify. “Pre-Internet, the discovery of music was college radio,” Tyron says. “Once the Internet happened, that really changed things for a time. It was a transition of how students and people in general consume music.”

Where does that leave radio? Tyron says what initially seemed like a threat hasn’t really become one. “I think although there’s obviously a definite advantage to a Pandora service, or anything where you can create your own channels on demand and don’t have to worry about commercials, that’s obviously going to have a draw. But what [radio has] is the character and personality and local content,” she says.

People are always going to be hungry for news, and a station is a way to hear about events, even more so now that newspapers’ budgets and community coverage have been drastically cut, Tyron points out. And the digital revolution has actually extended radio’s reach: Today, KSPC can be heard anywhere on the globe via live stream.

The listeners are signaling their support, with more response and call-ins than KSPC (88.7 FM) has ever had before, Tyron says. In other words, Internet didn’t kill the radio star. “I think people don’t want to or don’t have time to line up all their playlists. Or maybe they just forgot their iPod that day. I think people still like to be surprised and L.A. is still very much a car culture. Off campus we’re picking up new listeners who are just cruising around the dial, looking for something else to listen to.”

The Art of Surprise

Mowry Baden’s art has deep Pomona College roots. He started here as a student and then came back to campus later as an art professor, department chair and gallery director from 1968 to 1971.

 Long based in Victoria, B.C., Baden ’58 is known for his large-scale kinesthetic sculptures. “Dromedary Mezzanine,” on view at the Pomona College Museum of Art through April 13, is a tall, platformed bicycle that a museum visitor pedals to reach four wall-mounted tents containing tools—an effort that is both exercise and meditation for the participant. Baden’s body-oriented, interactive works have impacted generations of Pomona students and garnered him wide respect.

 baden1Q: What’s the philosophy behind moving sculpture?

A: Almost all of my working life as a sculptor I’ve dedicated my energies to capitalizing on the physical energies of the period. So often people ask me, “What is your medium?” I say, exertion. Not my exertion but the exertion of the viewer, and this involves so often intercepting their habitual habits, gestural habits; intercepting those habits and sending them in unexpected directions.

 So the viewer makes a discovery, or several discoveries, about the way their mind and body collaborate—and we call that kind of event an illusion, a phantom. This sculpture [“Dromedary Mezzanine”] capitalizes on the viewer’s energy. To ensure that the viewer engages with the work as long as possible, I’ve put these little destinations, chambers, high on the wall and each chamber contains a tool. When I acquired the tools I didn’t know their function; they’re very old, they’re out of use. So old are they, we have no idea how to put them into use, so that each is a mystery. This sculpture tries to do two things at once, exertion and the pausing and pondering of these mystery objects.

 What do you find most compelling about this kind of work?

A: The central objective is to get into the sensory, to get in behind the external of the viewer, to surprise her with her own perceptual habits, which she thinks she knows from A to Z, but she doesn’t. So the sculpture opens a window into that internal space and she is surprised. Then another layer consists of the signaling that goes on between her and the other people in the room. So she comes, she engages with this, her friend or a stranger watches her and waits her turn. But sometimes her friend is too timid, sometimes her friend is too self-conscious, sometimes

her friend is inappropriately dressed. No matter, because just the act of watching this activity is something her friend’s brain pays acute attention to. In her brain, what are firing are synapses called mirror neurons, and we all have them. In more conventional language, we would call the firing of your neurons empathy. Then there’s another layer: gossip. She comes, she engages with the sculpture. She came alone. But she sees her friend at Starbucks and tells her what happened. Her friend comes to experience the same things, but the curious thing is she doesn’t experience the same thing. Because the two people are different. So really, that’s why I emphasize the particular, because no two people are the same. Generally the same, but particularly not. Another layer is institutional. There’s a lot of code breaking going on here. The first code is, don’t touch the art. So [a work like this] circumvents that code and invites the viewer to do something that she shouldn’t do in this no-touch world of the museum.

 The fifth layer has to do with collaboration. If you come sometime to this space and watch people come in, you know how best to manage this apparatus, but they don’t. Each person engages with it unsuccessfully, but those people who view that person interacting with the sculpture take it a step further when it is their turn.

 Q: How did your Pomona experience at those different stages—first as a student, then a professor, then as a gallery director—impact your art?

 A: In this group of exhibitions, the museum is presenting drawings and paintings by my old teacher Frederick Hammersley…back in 1954-58. He would have us sit at our drawing places and he would say, “Put your pen right there.” [Baden tosses tissue to the floor signifying the movement.] “Now send it around.” So the idea was to keep your eye out there on the object and keep your pen traveling along its perimeter as you drew on the paper in front

of you. It could take a long time to get the line all the way around the object and often the results were startling, but they were always very physical. So your eye and your hand and your body all engage with trying to make this mark significant. He was a very good teacher and you can see how through a kind of filter it surfaces in the kind of work that I do. Then later when I taught here, then ran the department and then was gallery director, I had the good fortune to meet and work with a lot of students and with the gallery director who were more than ready to embrace the engagement of the body as an active component of a work of art. So I had wonderful colleagues like Guy Williams and David Gray in the studio program, later on Lewis Baltz. I had wonderful students like Chris Burden ’69 and Michael Brewster ’68, and I had maybe the best gallery director of the period… Hal Glicksman. So it was really, truly a golden moment in the history of this institution and I was very privileged to be a part of it.

 Q: What drives your art?

A: Boredom. Just wanting to entertain yourself, right? I’ve been an artist since I was 8 years old; I don’t know how to do anything else really. At least nothing that chases boredom away so conclusively. I’m also the son of an architect, so almost all my work is larger-scale, body-size, even mini-architectural scale. And even one of my sons is an architect. So I guess in a way it kind of runs in the blood of the family. My mother was a poet. I’m just an art brat.

This interview has been abridged and edited.

Team Player

Matt O’Connor ’15

Matt O’Connor ’15 wanted two things out of college—rigorous academics and the opportunity to play football. As a starting linebacker and double major in theatre and the interdisciplinary field of philosophy, politics and economics, Matt says he found both at Pomona, along with something else he considers just as important: fellow students who are collaborative, open and involved. A native of Louisville, Colo., Matt also competes in the shot put and participates in musical theatre and the Pomona College Choir. He founded Claremont Christian Athletes and is active in Nourish International, a student-run nonprofit that works to fight global poverty.

matt1Teamwork
“Choir is like a football practice in a way; you go through songs over and over, crafting what you’re doing and perfecting it to get the best product in the concert, just like you do in practice when you run plays over and over again to get the best product on the field. When you’re doing a musical, you’re in a much more intimate setting; it’s more of a family environment. We’re in this together, you have people you can rely on as your family, people you really grow close to and get really deep connections with just like athletics.”

A Conversation about Faith
“I’m very active in the faith community, and Claremont Christian Athletes was a route for me to open up a conversation about religion in an athletic environment. It’s very refreshing to see how open people at a secular school like Pomona have been, and how wildly successful the organization has been in its first year.”

Three Professors Who Made a Difference
“Three professors who’ve had an impact are Lorn Foster, who is like my father away from home and one of the smartest people I’ve met; Fernando Lozano, who was the first professor to really engage me at Pomona and make me feel comfortable; and Art Horowitz, who has such passion for teaching and for each of his students. Art drove all the way to Occidental to watch me and another of his students compete in a track meet. He climbed up what seemed like 10,000 freakin’ stairs to cheer us on. All three are wonderful professors, but way more important, wonderful, wonderful human beings”

Breaking the Mold
“Sometimes American higher education tries to make students fit a certain mold. We’re told to think a certain way in order to achieve a certain societal status and get a certain job. Pomona doesn’t put you in a box; it puts you in this  un house of intellectual stimulation and encourages you to get outside your comfort zone, to craft your own path. That’s what I think really defines the idea of Daring Minds. I’ve opened my eyes to the fact that success is not defined by a paycheck or resume but instead how I use my talents to make this world we live in a better place.”

A Valentine’s Day Serenade
“We had a fundraiser for Nourish International on Valentine’s Day, where I serenaded random people in the dining hall for $3 each. We raised over $70 in two hours. My voice was completely gone by the end of it, but it was extremely fun, and I think people either really enjoyed it or were really uncomfortable but applauded to diffuse the tension. One of the two. Or both.”

Why I Sing
“In my Theatre for Young Audiences class, we go to the city of Pomona and work at Fremont Academy. We’ve talked with the students about things that make you feel like you’re flying, and I think that gets to the root of music for me. Singing makes me feel whole, it makes me feel like I don’t have a care in this world, and to remember to smile and laugh and live a little. I can let go of all the frustrations of my day and just feel. That’s why I’m always singing.”

 

Acclaimed authors have new books out in India

Two of Pomona College’s most prominent alumni authors, Vikram Chandra ’84 and Ved Mehta ’56, have new books out in India.

chandracover1The latest from Chandra, author of the bestseller Sacred Games, is Mirrored Mind: My Life in Letter and Code, which explores computer coding and novel writing and the connections and trajectories of the seemingly opposing methods of expression.

Mirrored Mind will be released in the U.S. in September as Geek Sublime: Writing Fiction, Coding Software. Chandra, who has spent years as a computer analyst and years as an acclaimed fiction writer, creates a work described by the publisher as “part literary theory, part tech story, and part memoir.” The book ranges from discussions of the Silicon Valley coding culture to an analysis of the writings of the fourth century Sanskrit grammarian Panini to an examination of his own relationship to Western literature.

The Telegraph (U.K.) called it “a delight to read and never prescriptive… a thought-provoking set of linked essays that are part memoir, part analysis of geeks, part aesthetic treatise.” Meanwhile, Chandra’s bestseller Sacred Games may become a TV series.

mehtacover1Ved Mehta ’56, the author of 27 books and many articles, has released The Essential Ved Mehta. The book contains excerpts from almost all of his nonfiction writings, beginning with his first novel Face to Face, published in 1957. Mehta was a staff writer at the New Yorker from 1960 to 1993, writing prolifically during his tenure. The Essential Ved Mehta contains Mehta’s published pieces that include his many writings on India and politics, as well as family stories and personal memoirs that delve into living with blindness since the age of 4.

Mehta also offers personal commentary that he wrote specifically for this collection as a reflection on each piece. In an interview with WWD, the author “says that he feels that the U.S. and India have equal weight in his consciousness, and that he thinks of himself as belonging to neither of the countries as a writer. Rather, he’s a ‘rootless writer,’ he says, adding that good writing should not be limited by geography.”

Both The Essential Ved Medhta and Mirrored Mind are published by Penguin India.

How to Put the Slam in Pomona Poetry

Since his first poetry slam a year ago, Frank Sanchez ’13 has been leading a crusade to bring the high-octane competitions to Pomona. Audience members judge the poet-performers, so connecting with the crowd is key, says Sanchez, who takes us on his path to becoming a poetry promoter.

 1)   DISCOVER spoken word poetry in eighth grade while listening to the radio. Connect to poet Beau Sia’s humor and conversational style. Put aside poetry (temporarily) for music. Play piano, drums, guitar, and write punk and pop songs. Leave Austin for Pomona and a major in gender and women’s studies. Perform on campus in band called Awarewolves.

 2)  CHECK OUT the performances at a café in L.A.’s Little Tokyo. Embrace poet Edren Sumagaysay’s challenge to the audience to write every day. Pound out your very first poem that night. Know you’ve found your voice.

 3)  TAKE CLASSES in creative writing and poetry. Focus on spoken word and slam poetry. Write about family, home and childhood. Attend first slam poetry contest in Austin during winter break. Get plucked from audience as a judge. Return the following week as a performer. Realize you’re hooked.

4)  LAUNCH a campaign to bring slam poetry to Claremont. Enlist novice poets from Pomona to compete in national college contest. Take some solace that you don’t finish dead last. Decide your senior thesis is going to be about slam poetry and the ways it engages people. Teach a poetry class to high school students over the summer.

5)   COME FULL CIRCLE. Attend a book signing by Beau Sia. Win your first poetry slam back home in Austin on break. Organize writing workshops, open mics and performances by slam poets. Bring together poets, dancers, and other artists from across campus for your big spring event. Recruit a team to compete at the 2013 nationals. Get ready to graduate. Plan to keep on slamming.

Quick Looks

 

The second floor of Millikan Laboratory is home to “Seeing Symmetry” an exhibition of mathematical art by Frank Farris ’77 that will be on display until summer. Farris, a math professor at Santa Clara University, says his interest in the intersection of art and mathematics began at Pomona. More recently Farris reconnected with Pomona people at a national conference, leading to the on-campus exhibition.

 Claudia Rankine, the Henry G. Lee Professor of English, has been elected a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, a distinguished position that in the past has been held by such poets as W.H. Auden, Elizabeth Bishop and Adrienne Rich. At Pomona since 2006, Rankine is the author of four collections of poetry: Don’t Let Me Be Lonely, Plot, The End of the Alphabet and Nothing in Nature is Private.

 Bertil Lindblad ’78, leaving his role as director of the UNAIDS New York office, is the College’s new senior advisor for international initiatives, bringing more than 30 years of experience in large and complex organizations focused on international cooperation and development. In the newly created position, Lindblad will work to coordinate and expand Pomona’s global connections and international activities through collaborative relationships.

 The latest translation project by Professor of Chinese Allan Barr has brought him into the world of Chinese pop culture, political criticism and blogging. This Generation: Dispatches from China’s Most Popular Literary Star (and Race Car Driver) is a collection of blog posts by Han Han, a national celebrity in China who is both controversial and celebrated as a blogger, race-car driver and best-selling author.

 Erica Flapan, the Lingurn H. Burkhead Professor of Mathematics, has been selected as one of the inaugural fellows of the American Mathematical Society, which recognizes “members who have made outstanding contributions to the creation, exposition, advancement, communication and utilization of mathematics.” She has been at Pomona since 1986.