Blog Articles

Talk of the Campus

August 31, 2011  by emae2021@pomona.edu Comments Off on Talk of the Campus

“THE MINUTE YOU REALIZE that the people in my generation and above are doing just about everything with our positions of authority but solving your problems, the minute you stand up, like you stood up in 2008, and make history with literally just your feet marching into voting booths, the minute you stand back up again, we’re going to have a different country. And it’s critical you understand this.” –Van Jones, activist and author of The Green-Collar Economy, speaking to students in Edmunds Ballroom in January as part of the Pomona College Distinguish Speaker Series.

“THERE’S A TRUE SCHIZOPHRENIA where if you say to voters, you know, ‘Do you think the federal government spends too much money and they should spend less?’ They say, ‘Yeah, absolutely.’ Then you name specific things like Pell Grantsfor students and they say, ‘No, not that.’ How ‘bout NIH, medical research funding? ‘Nah, you really shouldn’t cut that.’ And pretty soon you prove that what the American public is against is arithmetic.” —Bill Gates, philanthropist and co-founder of Microsoft

“I’VE ALWAYS BEEN AN ADVOCATE of going out and registering, finding like-minded people and getting them ready to vote and getting that voting bloc together and that is the way we’re going to change it. You can make as many rallies as you want … you know, all the flag-waving and the rest. And that didn’t get us anything, did it?” –U.S. Congresswoman Loretta Sanchez of Orange County, Calif., speaking in March at a Cesar Chavez Day event in the Smith Campus Center.

“THE MEDIA IS LIKE … a dome that settles over this country. We’re isolated in the sense that the media is controlled by corporations, the advertising is the objective, making money and also controlling the information. And I think to get inside that is impossible on a good scale, on a big scale … It’s a roof. It’s like an Astrodome you can’t get through.” –Filmmaker Oliver Stone speaking in Rose Hills Theatre in February after a screening of his documentary South of the Border.

8 minutes & 28 seconds with Bill Gates

August 24, 2011  by Mark Kendall Comments Off on 8 minutes & 28 seconds with Bill Gates
Bill Gates

Bill Gates, the tech entrepreneur turned global health and education philanthropist, fielded questions before a full-house crowd of about 2,400 people in Bridges Auditorium in March as part of this year’s Pomona College Distinguished Speakers Series, established by a gift from the Broe family, and Harvey Mudd College’s Annenberg Speakers Series. Before the big event, he also met with students from Pomona and Harvey Mudd in smaller settings.

Danny Low ’11 was all set. He had practiced his presentation at least 10 times, made the last-minute switch to a more conservative tie and had just finished a try-to-relax lunch with a friend. And, then, shortly before Bill Gates entered the room, Low learned he would go fifth among the six students there to present their research to the Microsoft co-founder during his visit to campus. Low tried to tune in as his peers presented their findings on everything from laser-driven fusion to thin-film solar cells, but, really, he didn’t absorb anything they said.

Finally, Low was up. He thrust out his hand and introduced himself to Gates, who wore a checkered shirt, sans tie or jacket, along with an engaged-but-informal manner. Low, who had a copy of his C.V. handy—you know, just in case—found his nerves quickly faded as he began to explain his work. He crisply laid out how he had first gone to Tanzania in 2009 to work with a charitable group doing HIV/AIDS education in rural areas. “After a few months, I really became hooked on global health [work]—that’s what I want to do,” he told Gates, adding that the Tanzania project led to his next opportunity, this time doing tuberculosis research in neighboring Kenya.

With his arms folded and his fingers stroking his chin, Gates scrutinized Low’s research poster as the anthropology major presented his counter-intuitive results, which showed patients at a Mombasa hospital who tested negative for tuberculosis actually had worse outcomes. Low also told how he went back to Tanzania with a grant to train student leaders to teach their peers about HIV/AIDS education, but when the time came for questions, Gates zeroed in on the TB research.

“They had a negative sputum smear but then they were put on TB treatment?” Gates asked. Low replied that there often aren’t great diagnostic tools for TB in Kenya and sometimes people are treated based purely on symptoms. Gates pressed again: “It’s hard to think why a negative sputum smear would be associated with worse” outcomes. Again, Low was ready, explaining that it may be a matter of misdiagnosis: those with negative smears are still being treated for TB, but perhaps they really have something else that is going untreated. Or maybe patients truly do have TB, but the negative test result delays treatment, leading to more problems. Or it could be that people with HIV co-infection, a common situation, may show more diffuse symptoms that lead to negative test results.

Gates eventually moved on to ask whether Low had encountered many other Americans working in healthcare in East Africa—the answer, simply put, was “no”—and then he summed up Low’s work as “fantastic.” Low never did find the right moment to hand off his C.V., but meeting Gates left him with a college experience to remember. “He’s changed the way we live our lives probably more than any person I’ll meet in my life,” says Low. —Mark Kendall