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Bookmarks Summer 2023

June 6, 2023 by Staff Comments Off

Asian American Histories of the United States

In Asian American Histories of the United States, Catherine Ceniza Choy ’91 presents 200 years of Asian migration, labor and community formation, all the while reckoning with the recent surge in anti-Asian hate and violence.

Chloe and the Kaishao Boys

Chloe and the Kaishao Boys, a young adult rom-com by Mae Coyiuto ’17, follows a Chinese-Filipina girl in Manila as she gets off the waitlist for USC and decides if following her dreams is worth leaving everything behind.

The Last Cold Place

Naira de Gracia ’14 writes a memoir about her experience studying penguins in Antarctica, weaving in the history of Antarctic exploration, climate science and personal reflection in The Last Cold Place.

Tales of Whimsy, Verses of Woe

Tales of Whimsy, Verses of Woe by Tim DeRoche ’92 is a collection of lighthearted poetry filled with wordplay reminiscent of Shel Silverstein and Dr. Seuss.

I Have Her Memories Now

The short stories in I Have Her Memories Now by Carrie Grinstead ’06 touch on health, medicine and death and explore themes of vulnerability and fallibility.

Nocturne

The poetry of Jodie Hollander ’99 in Nocturne charts the emotional journey of the daughter of a professional classical pianist, exploring family dysfunction and musical obsession.

Tasting Coffee: An Inquiry into Objectivity

In Tasting Coffee: An Inquiry into Objectivity, Kenneth Liberman ’70 sheds light on the methods used to convert subjective experience into objective knowledge with coffee as its focal point.

Representation Theory and Geometry of the Flag Variety

Representation Theory and Geometry of the Flag Variety by William “Monty” McGovern ’82 is a reference for researchers and graduate students in representation theory, combinatorics and algebraic geometry.

Blue Jeans

In Blue Jeans, Carolyn Purnell ’06 presents extensive research on the history of jeans as well as the global and economic forces that shape the industry. The book is part of a series called Object Lessons about “the hidden lives of ordinary things.”

Quinoa: Food Politics and Agrarian Life in the Andean Highlands

Linda Seligmann ’75 tells the story of Indigenous farmers and the global demand for a superfood in Quinoa: Food Politics and Agrarian Life in the Andean Highlands.

The Way to Be: A Memoir

The Way to Be: A Memoir, a firsthand account of the life and work of artist Barbara T. Smith ’53, accompanies an exhibition on view at the Getty Research Institute through July 16, 2023.

Beyond That, the Sea

The novel Beyond That, the Sea by Laura Spence-Ash ’81 follows Beatrix, an 11-year-old British girl sent to live with a New England family during World War II, as she navigates two worlds.

After Anne: A Novel of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Life

After Anne: A Novel of Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Life by Logan Steiner ’06 tells the story behind the story of the author of Anne of Green Gables, offering a nuanced portrayal of her life.

Democracy in Latin America: A History Since Independence

In Democracy in Latin America: A History Since Independence, Thomas Wright ’63 chronicles Latin America’s struggle for democracy as well as the challenges that lie ahead.

Alex Zylstra ’09 Plays Key Role in Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough

June 6, 2023 by Marilyn Thomsen Comments Off

The shot that took just a few billionths of a second was 60 years in the making, and Alex Zylstra ’09 played a key role in its success. Just after 1 a.m. on December 5, 2022, Zylstra and fellow scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) at last achieved fusion ignition. The energy produced by a controlled fusion reaction exceeded the amount required to fuel the process: 2.05 megajoules in, 3.15 megajoules out. For a tiny fraction of a second, they produced the brightest thing on Earth.

Fusion, as the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) describes it, occurs when “two light nuclei combine to form a single heavier nucleus, releasing a large amount of energy.” The NIF scientists achieved a breakthrough that could someday lead to limitless clean energy to power the world, using the same reaction as the sun and stars.

Zylstra was on the panel of experts at the DOE news conference in Washington to describe the successful experiment, which involved shooting 192 huge lasers at a target the size of a pea. The resulting temperature reached more than 100 million degrees. The pressure was more than double that at the center of the sun. The level of precision the experiment required was mind-boggling.

“We had a debate over a laser setting equivalent to five trillionths of a meter,” Zylstra said at the news conference. “We had a discussion with the laser science team over timing discrepancies of 25 trillionths of a second.”

In an email, Zylstra writes that he had been “eager to work on validating the results before we went public.” Outside experts also provided peer review before the successful experiment was announced. Still, “When I saw the early data start coming in after 1 a.m. on December 5th, I was incredibly excited,” he writes.

As principal experimentalist, Zylstra describes his role as twofold: “First, to be the primary scientist associated with executing a particular ‘shot,’ or experiment, and second, to guide a set of experiments to develop improvements or test hypotheses.” He describes the NIF as “a highly interdisciplinary endeavor,” and works closely with the other teams—computational, design, measurement, laser and target fabrication, and operations.

Dwight Whitaker, chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Pomona, was not surprised at Zylstra’s role in the groundbreaking experiment. Zylstra was in his junior year when Whitaker joined the Pomona College faculty and began setting up his lab. “I was trying to set up some difficult experiments and I was ecstatic when he joined the lab, because he was extraordinary,” Whitaker recalls. “Alex and I worked a lot of hours together. I used to turn knobs with him in the lab, and now he’s running one of the most complicated experiments ever created.”

Zylstra has focused on fusion since starting a doctoral program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology the fall after graduating from Pomona. As an undergraduate, he’d had the opportunity to see the NIF center being built and says that “it felt like a chance to work on something straight out of science fiction.”

Whitaker says fusion could “solve one of the biggest problems facing humanity right now—the climate crisis.” But fusion research, like most other areas of science, is a long and arduous process. Whitaker says that “probably the personality trait you need to have as a physicist is the ability to grind through very unrewarding times, because experimental physics is usually a lesson in failure. Ninety percent of the things we do don’t work,” he says. “But each time you fail, you learn. I think that’s what fusion has been—lots of incremental steps and failures.” And then, success.

A Sustainable Garden Beside Marston Quad

June 6, 2023 by Staff Comments Off

Graphic Credit: Ben McCoy/Department of Space

Alongside the parade of young oaks planted beside Stover Walk to replace some of the trees lost in the 2022 windstorm, a new sustainable garden is taking root in the beds next to Marston Quad’s grassy expanse.

Once it is established in two to three years, the Marston Quad Sustainable Garden will require minimal to no irrigation. It includes plants such as California sagebrush¹, white sage² and chamise³ that have many uses among the Tongva people, the traditional caretakers of the land Pomona College now occupies. Other plantings with importance to Indigenous peoples include chaparral yucca⁴, mulefat⁵, toyon⁶, manzanita⁷ and single-leaf pinyon pines⁸.

While many of the established plants such as camellias and azaleas whose blooms have signaled the arrival of spring for generations remain, the new plantings include 30 species native to California, among them desert mallow⁹, hummingbird sage¹⁰ and California fuchsia¹¹. Designed by Claremont landscape architect Ben McCoy, the garden will have signs that identify the plant species in the Tongva language as well as by their English and Latin names, thanks to input from Tina Calderon, a culture bearer of Gabrielino Tongva, Chumash and Yoeme descent, and Char Miller, W.M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis and History.

The decision to create a more drought-tolerant landscape featuring native plants was guided in part by the research of environmental analysis students Lucy Whitman Sandmeyer ’21, Madi Brothers ’22, Owen Hoffsten ’22 and Maya Edstrom SC ’22, who completed their 2022 senior capstone project report, “Roots & Resilience: Reimagining Marston Quad after the Windstorm,” under the guidance of Professor Guillermo Douglass-Jaimes. The group surveyed alumni, students, staff and faculty, receiving the majority of input from alumni, with more than 300 responses. Alumni also had an opportunity to voice their opinions during the 2022 Alumni Weekend in one of two charrettes held by the student researchers.

The survey indicated that most of the Pomona community sees Marston Quad as the heart of campus, the students reported, and supports a landscape plan that “maintains the same open and green design as before the windstorm, features shade trees—especially native oaks—and [is] prepared to withstand the changing climate.”

‘Easter Egg’ Hunt

June 6, 2023 by Staff Comments Off

The season of searching for colored eggs is past, but Brian Faber, director of project management in the Office of Facilities and Campus Services, invites people to search for eight hidden examples of the number 47 on campus. Seven of them are identical, and two different types can be found at the new Center for Athletics, Recreation and Wellness. All of them can be seen from the exterior and are permanent, Faber says. Happy hunting. We haven’t found any yet.

Award-Winning ‘TSL’

June 6, 2023 by Staff Comments Off

The oldest college newspaper in Southern California is still thriving—and still in print every Friday when class is in session.

The Student Life, founded in 1889, brought home 20 awards at the recent California College Media Association conference in San Francisco, including first-place awards for best newspaper, newspaper website, overall newspaper design, interactive graphic, editorial, social media reporting, feature story, news photograph, social justice coverage and news series in its category of publications on four-year campuses with 15,000 or fewer students.

Popovich at Pomona

TSL also claimed third nationally for newspaper and fourth nationally for website in its category in the Associated Collegiate Press awards. Recent editors-in-chief of TSL, the newspaper of The Claremont Colleges, include Jasper Davidoff ’23 and Jenna McMurtry ’24. If you’d like to stay in touch with what’s happening on campus and the work of TSL journalists, visit tsl.news or subscribe to the weekly newsletter or print edition at tsl.news/subscribe/.

‘Coach Pop’ to Hall of Fame

There was little suspense over whether Gregg Popovich would be elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. After all, the San Antonio Spurs coach has won five NBA titles and more games than any coach in the history of the league. One bit of suspense remains, though: Will he mention his early coaching days at Pomona-Pitzer in his induction speech? Tune in to the August 12 ceremony in Springfield, Massachusetts, to see.

New Pitzer President a Sagehen from the Start

June 5, 2023 by Staff Comments Off

The bonds of The Claremont Colleges will become a bit tighter this summer, when consortium alumni take over as presidents of two of the colleges.

Strom C. Thacker ’88.
Reprinted with permission of Pitzer College

Strom C. Thacker ’88, who graduated from Pomona with a degree in international relations, cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa, becomes president of Pitzer College on July 1. On the same day, Harriet B. Nembhard CMC ’90 becomes president of Harvey Mudd College.

Thanks to conveniently aligned athletic programs, neither one will have trouble knowing which side to sit on when Pomona-Pitzer plays Claremont-Mudd-Scripps in Sixth Street Rivalry games.

Thacker, who has been dean of the faculty and vice president for academic affairs at Union College in Schenectady, New York, grew up in Northern California and came to Pomona with the help of generous financial aid that included a federal Pell Grant. He went on to earn a Ph.D. in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and become an advocate for college equity, access and the value of a liberal arts education.

Among Thacker’s duties at Union College, by the way: Managing a budget of approximately $47 million. (Chirp.) Welcome home, President Thacker.

2023 Wig Awards

June 5, 2023 by Staff Comments Off

Each year, juniors and seniors vote for the Wig Distinguished Professor Awards for excellence in teaching—the highest honor bestowed on Pomona faculty—in recognition of exceptional teaching, concern for students and service to the College and the community. This year, William A. Johnson Professor of Government and Professor of Politics David Menefee-Libey was honored for the seventh time, tying the late Emerita Professor of English Martha Andresen Wilder for the most recognitions since the establishment of the award in 1955.

2023 Wig Award recipients, from left: Fred Krinsky Professor of Jewish Studies and Professor of Religious Studies Oona Eisenstadt, Assistant Professor of Chicana/o-Latina/o Studies Arely Zimmerman, William A. Johnson Professor of Government and Professor of Politics David Menefee-Libey, Professor of Mathematics and Statistics Jo Hardin ’95, Assistant Professor of Mathematics and Statistics Konrad Aguilar, Assistant Professor of Psychological Science Sara Masland. Not pictured: Henry G. Lee ’37 Professor of English Prageeta Sharma.

A Path to U.S. Colleges for Refugee Students

June 5, 2023 by Staff Comments Off

Among Pomona’s newly admitted students for 2023-24 are nine refugees with citizenships from Congo, Syria and Ukraine.

The admissions are a reflection of Pomona’s commitment to the recently launched Global Student Haven Initiative, a program founded by eight colleges and universities in response to the war in Ukraine and the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan.

Along with Bowdoin, Caltech, Dartmouth, NYU, Smith, Trinity and Williams, Pomona is dedicated to providing a path for students affected by worldwide crises to apply to U.S.-based colleges and universities—and to receive scholarships and other support when they arrive. The initiative seeks to help students continue their education and later to return to their home nations.

“This is about opening doors and helping people through them,” says Pomona College President G. Gabrielle Starr. “The global disruptions of recent years have tested American higher education’s long commitment to reaching out to the world. We seek to reaffirm our global ties, starting with the urgent needs of students facing the devastation of war.”

Pomona’s effort is supported by an earlier $1.2 million gift from Florence and Paul Eckstein ’62 in honor of his immigrant parents, and a new $1 million gift from the Fletcher Jones Foundation.

2023 Commencement Speakers

June 5, 2023 by Staff Comments Off

Pomona’s 2023 Commencement speakers know about persistence, as do the new graduates they addressed in a May 14 ceremony.

Sherrilyn Ifill is a distinguished civil rights lawyer, voting rights advocate and scholar. A senior fellow at the Ford Foundation, she previously spent a decade as president and director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the nation’s premier civil rights law organization. She was chosen one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People of 2021.

“We need you in this fight. You have to find time to do your part. While you do your part, hold onto your joy. Joy is part of resistance as well.”
—Sherrilyn Ifill

Penny Lee Dean ’77 set 13 world records as a marathon swimmer, including a 1978 crossing of the English Channel that shattered the men’s world record by more than an hour. She was inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame in 1996. A six-time All-American swimmer at Pomona, she returned to the College and coached and taught for 26 years, winning 17 SCIAC women’s swimming titles and guiding the women’s water polo team to a national championship in 1993.

“From my time as a student, I learned to stand up for what I believed in. Never stop believing in yourself.”
—Penny Lee Dean ’77

In addition to conferring honorary degrees on Ifill and Dean, Pomona posthumously honored Trustee Emeritus George E. “Buddy” Moss ’52 with the Trustees’ Medal of Merit. A member of the Board of Trustees from 1995 to 2004, Moss made possible many programs for faculty and students. Among his many contributions, he made gifts to establish the George E. Moss Community Partnerships Fund, the George E. and Nancy O. Moss Professorship in Economics, the Henry G. Lee ’37 Professorship in Poetry, the Peter W. Stanley Chair of Linguistics and Cognitive Science and the Roscoe Moss Professorship in Chemistry.

Long-Serving Faculty Members Retire

June 5, 2023 by Staff Comments Off

Professors Margaret Waller and Zayn Kassam have retired after decades of teaching and service to Pomona College.

Waller, the Dr. Mary Ann Vanderzyl Reynolds ’56 Professor of Humanities and professor of Romance languages and literatures, had been a member of the faculty since 1986. A specialist in 19th-century French literature, she also is an expert on gender and power. Her 1993 book, The Male Malady: Fictions of Impotence in the French Romantic Novel, was one of the first to pioneer masculinity studies in the field of French literature. Waller, known as Peggy, was honored with the Wig Distinguished Professor Award for excellence in teaching in 1991 and 2000.

Kassam, the John Knox McLean Professor of Religious Studies, retired in December 2022 to become director of the Institute of Ismaili Studies in London. A professor at Pomona since 1995, her most recent leadership role was as associate dean of the College for diversity, equity and inclusion. Kassam was a three-time recipient of the Wig Award for excellence in teaching (1998, 2005, 2015) and in 2005 was honored with the American Academy of Religion’s National Teacher of the Year Award.

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