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11/16/09 |
Pomona Donates Rare Condor and Other Birds to Museum
Pomona College donated a rare California condor specimen and more than
one hundred study skins of stuffed birds collected from Belize to the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology on October 30.
Pomona Associate Professor of Biology Nina Karnovsky, along with her vertebrate biology class, delivered the specimens to enthused museum curators in Camarillo, Calif.
Although there remains some ambiguity as to how the specimens were acquired by the college, there is no doubt about their scientific value.
 According to textual evidence, the condor was killed and mounted in 1884, and donated to Pomona College in 1904, at a time when taxidermic collecting was a more active and accepted hobby. With less than 400 individuals alive today, the condor is now considered one of the most endangered vertebrates in the world.
While in the Pomona Seaver South Biology building, Karnovsky often walked by the bird and ruminated upon what better scientific purpose the bird could serve.
“I thought it was cool but wrong that we had it and that it should be donated for conservation,” Karnovsky said, adding that, while the well-preserved bird specimens from Belize were interesting, the department used more local species for class instruction.
The College has a history of donating to the museum, the most notable of which was an egg collection offered to the institution in the late 1960s. The eggs, each inscribed with a number, came with corresponding field notes that later helped the Western Foundation of Vertebrate Zoology identify a collection of similarly numbered eggs which were discovered to be part of the same set of specimens.
Karnovsky’s class field trip consisted of a tour of the research facility, including their rare egg and nest collections.
“We got a tour of the basement where we saw an assortment of some really rare and special specimen, like the eggs of the now extinct elephant bird,” said Michael Mulroy PO ’10.
The museum has since kept in contact with Karnovsky, updating her on their progress with the condor. “They’re going to do a genetic analysis of the specimen as related to other condors,” Karnovsky said. “They’re also going to make a display for the public and make it open for researchers to come from all over to study it.”
 An upper-division class taken by many science majors, Karnovsky’s vertebrate biology class regularly incorporates excursions such as this one into its lab schedule. This semester, students have taken trips to see the Aquarium of the Pacific, the Bernard Field Station, and to visit Pomona alumnus Matt Barbour ’07 at a lab where he studies rattlesnakes.--Michelle
No SC '12
This article was originally published in the
November 13,
2009, edition of
The Student Life. Photos by Nina Karnovsky.
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10/28/09 |
Michelle Moran '00 Delves Into History for Her
Best-Selling Novels
 In her newest novel
Cleopatra’s Daughter, Michelle Moran ’00 reconstructs a portrait of the orphaned children of Marc Anthony and the infamous Egyptian monarch. Moran picks up where many accounts end—the fateful days after Augustus Caesar’s troops marched into Egypt. The novel follows the children as they leave their homeland and adjust to life as political prisoners on Palatine Hill.
Written with a considerable foundation of research and hands-on experience at archaeological sites and historic places, Moran based her characters on what was preserved in the historical record.
“I begin by purchasing what feels like every book ever written on the subject I’m interested in. Sometimes that means our mail carrier will be delivering 60 books to my house in one week,” says Moran, who lives Northridge with her husband Matt Carter ‘01.
 “It takes me several months to go through them, and when I feel like I have a pretty strong outline of my subject’s life, I make a storyboard and begin to look for holes. Whatever holes I find, I try to patch with an event that wouldn’t seem too far-fetched. If I run into trouble with a setting or a scene, I have friends in the archaeological world who can advise me on whether or not something I want to include is realistic.”
An English major at Pomona, Moran took an early interest in writing, archeology and history. She began submitting stories to publishers at age 12, and spent summers taking history and paleontology classes at the L.A. Natural History Museum. After Pomona, she spent a summer on an archaeological dig in Israel before returning to California to earn her MA from Claremont Graduate University. She’s since traveled the world extensively with her husband.
Moran was a high school teacher for six years before devoting herself to writing full time last year. Her first two novels, the best-selling
Nefertiti (2007) and its sequel The Heretic Queen (2008), capture the intrigue and drama of the ancient Egyptian royal court.
Cleopatra’s Daughter was published by Crown in September 2009.--Pauline
Nash
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10/22/09 |
Where in the World Are Pomona Professors on
Sabbatical?
Each year, several of our professors take
sabbaticals for research projects, to write books,
perform as visiting scholars or professors at other
universities, and more. Here is a sample of what our
professors are currently doing on their sabbatical leave.
Read more>>
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10/15/09 |
Ned Shadek ’82 and Kristine Shadek Offer Matching Challenge for Tennis Facilities Upgrade
While the Pomona-Pitzer Division III Tennis program has earned many great successes during the past several years, they have done so under less than optimal conditions--most notably, a lack of appropriate lighting at the 10-court Pauley Tennis Complex, which requires student athletes to seek excused absences from classes to compete in weekday matches.
Planned upgrades for the Complex, which was dedicated in 1990, will cost $750,000. The College has set aside $250,000 for the upgrades, but needs an additional $500,000 in gifts to ensure the improvements can begin construction during the upcoming holiday break to be ready for the 2010 spring season.
Ned Shadek ’82 and his wife Kristine have challenged the Pomona-Pitzer tennis community to join them in supporting the upgrades with a promise to match any gift or pledge of $10,000 or more made by November 30, up to $200,000.
Read more>>
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10/14/09 |
Theatre on the Fringe
The Edinburgh Fringe Festival draws thousands of alternative theatre groups to the Scottish capitol every year for a month-long celebration of the arts. From the more than 500 eligible productions, less than 20 are honored annually with the prestigious Fringe First award.
Under the direction of Camille Cettina ‘01, a group of young women from the Mulberry School—an arts-based high school of predominantly Bengali girls from London’s poorest borough—took home top honors this August. Working with iconic British playwright Fin Kennedy, the girls stunned audiences with The Unraveling, an original play about a dying mother who asks her daughters to weave her a story out of cloth.
Read more>>
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10/7/09 |
Video:
Poster Conference Highlights the Breadth of
Students' Summer Undergraduate Research Program
Projects
Each summer, several dozen students are afforded the opportunity to work on extensive research projects through the Summer Undergraduate Research Program. SURP participants receive up to $4,000 in financial support for four to 10 weeks of extended, focused research on independent projects with substantive faculty mentoring or working directly for a professor as a summer research assistant.
And every fall, these students display the results
of their projects at the fall poster conference.
Read
more and watch the video>>
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10/7/09 |
New Café Adds Comfort to Honnold-Mudd Library
Orange-cushioned seats flank spacious tables, widescreen televisions display photographs of the 5Cs, and couches and booths make up a quaint area known as “The Café.”
Such is the updated look of Honnold-Mudd Library’s first floor. New features include an open area where students can lounge and study, as well as the added café.
Read more>>
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10/5/09 |
PSU Brings Former Congressmen to Campus
A two-day program organized by the Pomona Student Union (PSU) brought former Representatives Dennis Hertel (D-MI) and Denny Smith (R-OR) to campus Sep. 28-29 to provide insight into the legislative process and perspectives on current political situations. Over the two days, the congressmen attended six classes, participated in two student interviews, ate four meals with students and professors, and interacted with more than 200 students.
Read more>>
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10/5/09 |
Pomona Hosts Global Warming Meeting
Pomona College hosted residents of the greater Los Angeles area on Saturday, September 26, to discuss views and perceptions about global warming. The meeting was one of five hosted in the United States as part of an event sprawling across six continents, 38 countries and including over 4,000 participants.
Politics professor Rick Worthington led the effort to bring one of the consultations to Pomona College.
Read more>>
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9/30/09 |
A Brief Interview With John Krasinski
On September 29, actor, writer and director John Krasinski visited Pomona College to debut his film based on David Foster Wallace’s
Brief Interviews With Hideous Men.
Read
more>>
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9/28/09 |
Cruz Reynoso ’53 Awarded Prestigious Witkin Medal for His Ground-Breaking Legal Career
Cruz Reynoso ’53 was recently honored with the Bernard E. Witkin Medal by the California State Bar at its Annual Meeting in San Diego on September 4. The prestigious Witkin Medal, named after the renowned California legal scholar and Reynoso’s former colleague, is given annually to lawyers and scholars who have made a major impact on jurisprudence in the state.
“It is a great honor to receive an award and medal named after my friend, Bernie Witkin, a giant in California law,” Reynoso said. “The medal speaks to the importance of the Bar, the bench and law schools working together to enhance the rule of law.”
Reynoso’s illustrious legal career—one that earned him a Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Clinton in 2000—has spanned more than 50 years in positions across California and in Washington. He was the first Latino judge appointed to the California Courts of Appeal, and the first Latino to sit on the California Supreme Court after being appointed by Gov. Jerry Brown in 1982. After failing to win re-confirmation to the court in 1986, Reynoso joined the faculty at the UCLA School of Law. In 2001, Reynoso became the first Boochever and Bird Chair for the Study and Teaching of Freedom and Equality at the University of California at Davis.
Reynoso has worked extensively on the issues of education and civil rights. In the 1960s, he was the assistant director of California's Fair Employment Practices Commission and associate general counsel to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in Washington. He was also tapped as vice chair of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights and chair of the California Post-Secondary Education Commission. Most recently, Reynoso assisted the Obama Administration’s transition to the White House as a member of a justice and civil rights agency review team.
“The dream I have followed is one seeking after social justice; not just formal legal justice, but real justice in an opportunity to obtain an education, to not want for food, clothing, housing and medical attention, and to be respected,” he said. “Each of us deserves no less.”
Reynoso graduated from Pomona College with a degree in history. After a brief stint in the Army Counter-Intelligence Corps, he earned his law degree from UC-Berkeley’s Boalt Hall School of Law in 1958.
He currently serves as professor emeritus at UC Davis and sits on the leadership council of California Forward, a political organization aimed at reforming state government.
--Travis Kaya '10
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9/18/09 |
Meet Pomona College’s New Faculty Members
This year, we welcome 11 new faculty members, including two professors who have moved from visiting professor positions into full-time positions and a lecturer who has been promoted to assistant professor.
Lisa Anne Auerbach, assistant professor of art, has had numerous solo and group exhibitions including the recent “Nine Lives: Visionary Artists from L.A.” at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. Auerbach, who received a California Community Foundation Fellowship for Visual Artists in 2007, incorporates both photography and knitting into her artistic practice. A political activist and bicycling advocate, Auerbach knits political jokes, riddles and iconic images into sweaters. Teaching both beginning and advanced photography this fall at Pomona, the artist has taught at USC, Los Angeles City College and the Art Center College of Design. .
Assistant Professor of Sociology Colin J. Beck,, a 2008-09 affiliated fellow with Stanford University’s Center on Democracy, Development, and the Rule of Law, Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, focuses his research on political sociology and volatile political situations. Beck is currently studying the ideological dimensions of revolution, movement radicalism and political violence; his current Pomona course list includes Radicals, Revolutionaries and Terrorists and Politics and Society. Beck earned his B.A. from Lewis & Clark College and his M.A. and Ph.D. in sociology from Stanford University, where he was a 2008 recipient of Stanford’s Centennial Teaching Award. His forthcoming articles “State-Building as a Source of Islamic Political Organization,” and “The Contribution of Social Movement Theory to Understanding Terrorism,” will appear in the peer-reviewed journals Sociological Forum and Sociology Compass respectively.
Jessica L. Borelli, assistant professor of psychology, comes to Pomona after having completed the past year as a NIH Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the University of Arizona, Tucson. Her expertise includes attachment, traumatic stress disorder and emotional experience in adults and children. She focuses on the specific ways in which parent and child relationships are internalized and influence future patterns of emotions regulation and relationships. Having clinical experience working with both adult and child patients, Borelli spent a year with UCLA’s Neuropsychiatic Institute as a case coordinator and therapist for children aged 5-12 in 2007-08. A graduate of Yale University, Borelli received her Ph.D., Master’s of Philosophy and Master’s of Science in Clinical Psychology.
Assistant Professor of Physical Education Bruce Kerr Brown is the new head men’s and women’s swimming coach. Coach Brown first joined the Sagehens as a visiting professor in 2008. During his career, he has coached two U.S. Olympic Trial Qualifiers, 17 male NCAA Division III All-Americans, seven female NCAA Division III All-Americans, two SCIAC Swimmers of the Year and an NCAA Division III National Champion. Brown is a graduate of Occidental College and UCLA and has served as a swim coach with Stanford University, San Francisco State University, CSU San Bernardino, Claremont-Mudd-Scripps, Occidental and Whittier.
Pierangel De Pace, assistant professor of economics, specializes in econometrics (mathematics in economics), time series econometrics and macroeconomics. His research interests include international finance and open economy macroeconomics. A Johns Hopkins University fellow from 2003-09, De Pace earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from Johns Hopkins and a B.A. and M.Sc. from Milan’s Bocconi University.
Hillary Gravandyk, instructor in English, is teaching American Nature: Poetry in/and the 19th Century and Singing to Each Other: 20th-Century Collaborative Art Works. Her publication projects currently in process or under review include: Through, Plain by Larry Elgner (with critical introduction) and The Holloway Anthology: 30 Years of Poetry at Berkeley (co-writer/editor with Lyn Hejinian). Her poetry has appeared in American Letters and Commentary, Barnstorm, The Bellingham Review, Berkeley Poetry Review and The Colorado Review. Gravandyk earned her B.A. from Tulane University, M.A. from University of Washington, M.A. and Ph.D. from University of California, Berkeley.
Jonathan King, director and assistant professor of neuroscience, comes to Pomona after a two-year postdoctoral grant with the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. His research interests include learning and memory, stress physiology and neurophysiology. King earned his Ph.D. in neurobiology and behavior from Cornell University and was the recipient of a five-year National Institutes of Health, Cellular and Molecular Neurobiology Training Grant in 2000.
Assistant Professor of Biology and Neuroscience Jonathan Matsui, a recipient of Pomona’s Wig Curriculum Development Grant in 2009, is teaching introduction to neuroscience and developmental neuroscience. A postdoctoral fellow with the Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Harvard University,
in 2006, he was later promoted to lecturer on
molecular and cellular biology and earned Harvard’s
Certificate of Distinction in Teaching in 2007 and
2008. Interested in regeneration, he is currently researching how cellular pathways regulate how receptors in the eye and ear die with the possibility that therapeutics may be designed to prevent blindness and deafness.
Char Miller, director of environmental analysis and W.M. Keck Professor of Environmental Analysis, has been with Pomona since 2007 as a visiting professor. His field of expertise ranges from fire in the American West and Western water politics to immigration and border security. Miller is the author of six books, editor of 14 anthologies and collections, and author of more than 400 journal articles, book chapters, essays and opinion pieces on conservation, environmental politics, water policy and water scarcity, urban planning and development, and wild land fire. He is also a contributor to the Que Pasa Media (North Carolina), Rio Grande Guardian (Texas), Texas Observer and Forest Magazine.
Anthony Shay, assistant professor of theatre and dance, first joined Pomona’s Department of Theatre and Dance in 1998 as a lecturer. Shay’s upcoming course list includes Traditions of World Dance, History of Social Dance and Crossing the Iron Curtain: Dancing in the Balkans. He traveled to Croatia in 2008 with a Rockefeller Foundation Trust for Mutual Understanding Fellowship. His expertise includes folk dance, belly dancing, men and dance, Balkan dance and dance in the Middle East.
Assistant Professor of Philosophy Julie Tannenbaum, whose area of expertise include ethical theory, moral psychology and bioethics, is currently a co-writer and consultant for the Office of Science Education and the National Institutes of Health’s Department of Bioethics project producing a bioethics curriculum supplement to the U.S. high school biology curriculum. Tannenbaum, who came to Pomona after two years with CSU Northridge and one year postdoc with the National Institutes of Health’s Clinical Bioethics Department, earned her Ph.D. from UCLA. Her article, “Categorizing Goods,” will be included in the forthcoming book in the series Oxford Studies in Metaethics.
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9/18/09 |
Professor Politics John Seery Wins Prestigious Phi Beta Kappa Award
 Every three years, the Phi Beta Kappa Society recognizes national distinction by a single scholar in three endeavors--scholarship, undergraduate teaching and leadership in the cause of liberal arts education--with the Sidney Hook Memorial Award. This year’s recipient is our own George Irving Thompson Memorial Professor of Government and Professor of Politics John Seery. He will receive the award and provide the keynote speech at the closing banquet of the 42nd Triennial Council of the Phi Beta Kappa Society on Saturday, October 3, in Austin, Texas.
"Wow--this is far more attention than I need, or deserve. It's rather daunting,” says Seery, whose keynote
speech will address "The Liberal Arts as a Vocation."
“We professors at small liberal arts colleges don't seek such national exposure, but I'm glad Phi Beta Kappa wanted to recognize what we do. In that spirit, I'll happily accept this award on behalf of my liberal arts colleagues."
Seery, an Iowa native, received his BA from Amherst College and his MA and Ph.D. from UC Berkeley. Previous to Pomona, he taught at Stanford University, UC Santa Cruz and Tufts University.
Seery, whose classes include Modern Political Theory, Political Freedom and The Idea of America, has written broadly on politics. He’s the author of four books, including the forthcoming Too Young to Run? A Proposal for an AGE Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (Penn State Press), and is currently collecting and editing a volume of original essays for the University Press of Kentucky, called Democratic Vistas Today: The Political Companion to Walt Whitman.
He’s published op-ed articles in the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, Le Monde Diplomatique, the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin, the San Gabriel Valley Times, and the Philadelphia Independent, and has been interviewed on ABC News, MSNBC, and numerous radio broadcasts. Here at Pomona, he’s received the Wig Distinguished Professorship Award twice, the Graves Award in the Humanities in 1998.
The Sidney Hook Memorial Award, which is presented every three years, was established in 1991 in memory of American philosopher Sidney Hook. Funding for the $7,500 award was made possible by a grant from the John Dewey Foundation. The Phi Beta Kappa Society, founded in 1776, is the nation’s oldest academic honor society with chapters at 276 institutions and more than half a million members throughout the country.
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9/3/09 |
Pomona College Participating in Yellow Ribbon Program for Veterans
The new Post-9/11 GI Bill, put into effect on August 1st, is a much expanded college program for veterans, providing college tuition and fees up to the highest public in-state undergraduate tuition rate in a given state. Part of the bill is the “Yellow Ribbon” matching program, which allows participating schools to help fund tuition expenses that go beyond the public college rate. Yellow Ribbon colleges can fund up to 50
percent of those expenses and the Veteran’s Administration will match that same amount.
Pomona College is proud to be a participant in this program, offering to contribute the full 50 percent for five qualified students each school year.
“Pomona College would welcome applications from returning veterans for whom a residential liberal arts college like ours would be a good match for their educational goals,” says Pomona College President David Oxtoby. “The experiences of such veterans would add a great deal to the conversations on campus and would strengthen our community in important ways, while the veterans would benefit from the hands-on learning and close interaction between students and faculty at our College.”
To be eligible for the Post 9/11 GI Bill, veterans must have served at least 36 months of active duty after September 10, 2001; have been honorably discharged from active duty for a service-connected disability and have served 30 continuous days after September 10, 2001; or be a dependent (spouse or child) eligible for Transfer of Entitlement under the Post-9/11 GI Bill.
Other educational programs, including the Montgomery
GI Bill, are still in effect. To learn more about
the Post-9/11 GI Bill, visit the
Veteran’s Administration website and our own
Yellow Ribbon section on our
Financial Aid website.
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8/31/09 |
Pomona College Reaches Out to Local Schools
For the Pomona College community, education doesn't end at the school’s gates. On campuses and in classrooms across Southern California, Pomona students, faculty and staff have made a difference through educational outreach programs that have enriched the lives of thousands of local youth.
Pomona’s Draper Center for Community Partnerships has been at the center of those outreach efforts.
Read more>>
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8/27/09 |
Kenji Yoshino, Author of First-Year Book Selection, to Speak at Big Bridges on Sunday, August 30
 As part of the first-year book experience, author Kenji Yoshino will be appearing on campus this Sunday evening. Yoshino, a law professor at New York University, wrote
Covering: The Hidden Assault on our Civil Rights, a book that is part memoir and part analysis, examining what Yoshino calls the drive to conform and “cover” our true selves regarding sexual orientation, political beliefs, religious beliefs, gender, race, and so on.
Yoshino will be speaking at Bridges Auditorium (450 N. College Way) on Sunday, August 30, at 6:30 p.m. A reception and book signing will precede the event at 5:30 in Bridges lobby, and informal discussions at the Sagehen Café will follow the presentation.
Each year, incoming freshman are invited to read one book over the summer, which will then be discussed when they arrive on campus. The book is chosen by the Orientation Committee, which solicits ideas from the campus community, seeking selections that are broadly accessible, explore compelling or relevant themes, and can generate multi-faceted debates.
 Yoshino, a specialist in constitutional law, antidiscrimination law, and law and literature, has published work in both a wide variety of academic journals
and popular venues like The New York Times,
The Washington Post and Slate.com. He is the inaugural Guido Calabresi Professor of Law at NYU Law School and was previously the inaugural Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor of Constitutional Law and deputy dean at Yale Law School. He is currently at work on a book on Shakespeare and the law.
The Yoshino lecture is brought to you by the Dean of Students Office, Office of the President, Queer Resource Center, Student Affairs, Public Events Committee, Pomona Student Union and the Smith Campus Center.
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8/17/09 |
The Pomona College Museum of Art Presents "The New Normal" and Project Series 38
The Pomona College Museum of Art is set to open two new exhibitions on August 25. “The New Normal” is a traveling exhibition of contemporary artworks that reflect the state of privacy in the world today, and “Project Series 38: Constance Mallinson” features life-size oil paintings that depict figurative imagery using decaying and rotten natural materials.
The exhibitions will run from August 25 through October 18 with an opening reception on Saturday, September 12, from 5 to 7 p.m. Other exhibition events include an Artist Lecture with Trevor Paglen
on Wednesday, October 14, at 4:15 p.m. in Lyman Hall
(Thatcher Music Building, 340 N. College Ave.); a
panel discussion on “The Public and Private in
Media” on Wednesday, September 23 at 4:15 p.m.; and a public lecture
by Constance Mallinson about her work on Wednesday, September 16, at 2 p.m.
at the Museum.
“The New Normal” brings together 13 artists who use private information as raw material and subject matter. Each of the works in the exhibition offers access to the private sphere of the artists themselves, of strangers, and of public officials. The works take diverse forms—video, websites, novellas, found objects, and photographs—to question the forced and voluntary confessions that make the private sphere visible to the public eye.
The artists include Sophie Calle, Mohamed Camara, Hasan Elahi, Eyebeam R & D/ Jonah Peretti and Michael Frumin, Kota Ezawa, Miranda July and Harrell Fletcher, Guthrie Lonergan, Jill Magid, Jennifer and Kevin McCoy, Trevor Paglen, Corinna Schnitt, Thomson & Craighead, and Sharif Waked. The exhibition is co-organized by iCI, New York, and Artists Space, New York, and circulated by iCI. Curated by Michael Connor, the exhibition premiered at Artists Space in New York and will travel through July 2010.
 “Project Series 38” premieres Mallinson’s new paintings, which examine how we construct meaning from nature in an increasingly urbanized world. In a richly detailed, highly rendered trompe l’oeil style—a painting technique that gives the illusion of three-dimensional photographic reality—Mallinson’s newest works combine the beautiful and the grotesque in equally unsettling and intriguing measure. The life-size oil paintings—on paper or plywood—depict figurative imagery ranging from a pile of twisted dead branches resembling severed limbs to an exacting recreation of Édouard Manet’s 1863 seminal painting
Olympia from natural materials reminiscent of the style of 16th-century Italian painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo.
The Project Series, organized by Museum Curator Rebecca McGrew, presents Southern California artists in focused exhibitions. The purpose of the series is to bring to Pomona College art that is experimental; that introduces new forms, techniques or concepts.
The Pomona College Museum of Art is located at 330 N. College Avenue, Claremont. The Museum is open to the public free of charge Tuesday through Friday, from noon to 5 p.m., and Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 5 p.m. For more information, call (909) 621-8283 or visit the museum’s website at
www.pomona.edu/museum.
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7/30/09 |
Pacific Basin Institute to Co-Sponsor International Film Forum in Honolulu
 The Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College is co-sponsoring the “Cultural Forum Through Film” from August 7-9 at the Doris Duke Theater in Honolulu.
Presented in collaboration with the Center for Pacific Islands Studies at the University of Hawai’i at Manoa’s School of Pacific and Asian Studies, the forum will showcase seven films from Australia, New Zealand, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea and Canada. Each screening will be followed by a discussion about the contemporary cultural and social issues underlying the work.
The films cover a wide range of issues, providing attendees a fascinating look into the contemporary struggles of Oceania. The festival also provides a platform for lesser-known Pacific Rim filmmakers.
“Often, we focus so much on Asia that we forget about the Pacific, so this is a way of exposing the whole region to Pomona and the PBI’s commitment to the Pacific region,” said PBI president Dru Gladney. "This film festival represents PBI's ongoing commitment to helping to increase exposure to Pacific Basin films and culture.”
PBI provided the primary start-up funding for the festival last year. Now, in its second year, the festival attracted several other sponsors and is nearly self-supporting. Gladney says that PBI’s role in the festival this year has been to help promote the festival among Pomona alumni and friend, support the film selection process and co-host the opening reception.
The Pacific Basin Institute has served as a bridge between the United States and East and Southeast Asia for 30 years, sponsoring interdisciplinary conferences, workshops and study groups exploring aspects of the growing Asia/Pacific community. The Institute and its unique film archive and production facilities play an integral role in the life and academic activities of the College.
The Doris Duke Theater is located at 900 South Beretania Street in Honolulu. Free tickets will be made available 30 minutes before each screening on a first come, first served basis. For more information, including movie times, visit the Honolulu Academy’s website at
http://www.honoluluacademy.org.--Travis
Kaya '10
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7/27/09 |
Pomona College Is Best in Nation for Classroom Experience and in Top Five for Great Financial Aid, According to Princeton Review
Pomona College students are the nation’s happiest with their classroom experience and among the most satisfied with financial aid, according to the Princeton Review’s
The Best 371 Colleges, 2010 edition, released today.
In their survey of more than 122,000 students, Pomona College ranked #1 for Best Classroom Experience, #5 for Great Financial Aid and #7 for School Runs Like Butter. Pomona was also ranked #14 for Dorms Like Palaces and #19 for Best Quality of Life.
Read more>>
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7/22/09 |
Young Thespians to Perform Minatory
Mansion This Weekend at Pomona
College
This weekend, the Claremont School of Theatre Art will perform
Minatory Mansion as their annual summer production. The CSTA is a summer theatre academy for local children ages 11 to 15. They attend
theatre classes at Pomona for five weeks each summer, and the program culminates with a theatrical production.
The play Minatory Mansion is an original work written by LaTiana Culbreath, an ’00 Pitzer alumna who majored in theatre via Pomona’s Theatre Department. A mix of scripted and improvised scenes, the play is set in an offbeat mansion with mischievous and maniacal forces that plague its residents and visitors. It’s directed by Ben Acland ’07, Jocelyn Matsuo ‘06, adjunct instructor Darren Blaney, and movement instructor Shakina Nayfack.
Performances take place Thursday through Saturday at 7 p.m., with matinee shows on Saturday and Sunday at 2 p.m. Tickets are $9 for adults and $7 for children ages two through 12. For reservations and ticket sales, call (909) 607-4396. The performances will be located at the Virginia Princehouse Allen Theatre at the Seaver Theatre Complex at 300 E. Bonita Avenue.
To learn more about the CSTA, which is in its 16th year, read this
Claremont Courier article and our own
feature from last year.
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7/20/09 |
A Photo Op with President Obama Humorously
Memorializes Nora Becker '07's "Quitting" Moment
It’s never easy to tell your boss that you’re quitting your job
and moving on to a new opportunity. For Nora Becker ’07, she has that moment captured forever in a photograph…with the current President of the United States.
 In an image captured by Becker’s boss Peter Souza during the White House staff picnic in June, President Barack Obama teases Becker when she gives him the news that she’s leaving her job as executive assistant in the White House photo office to attend the University of Pennsylvania for a joint MD/Ph.D. program.
Becker has supported President Obama through
internships and campaign work since his senate race
in 2003. Hailing from his same Chicago neighborhood,
Becker volunteered for the senate campaign during
her school breaks from Pomona. She also completed
Claremont McKenna’s Washington Program, during which she interned full time in Obama’s senate office.
After graduation, Becker worked for 18 months on the Presidential campaign and was hired this past February for the photo office job.
Becker’s plans always included a return to graduate school to become a medical doctor. “I’m hoping to both be able to practice clinically as a doctor and also do research on health-care policy issues from the academic side, in the areas of health-care reform and health disparities,” says Becker.
At the White House staff picnic in June, President Obama and the First Lady, Michelle Obama, met and shook hands with staff members, many of whom rarely interact with the President. And while Becker has met Obama several times over the years, she’s never worked with him closely.
“When it was my turn to shake the President’s hand, my boss told me to tell him what I was doing next,” Becker recalls of the photographed moment. “I said, ‘I’m starting the MD/Ph.D. program at the University of Pennsylvania.’ And the President raised his hands up and went ‘Ooooooooh!’ sarcastically. And that’s the moment Pete captured in the photo. And then, of course, right after that, he said very sincerely, ‘Congratulations.’ And I said thank you.
“I feel really lucky that I get to keep that photo for the rest of my life,” says Becker, who begins her new studies in August. “I just got really lucky that it turned out to be such a great photo and the President’s facial expression is so funny.”
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7/6/0909 |
Pomona Ranked No. 8 Among Small Colleges
for Contributing Seniors to Teach for America Corps
A record number of recent college graduates are joining the ranks of Teach for America this fall, and Pomona’s class of 2009 is ranked at the top of the list. With 11 seniors joining the program, Pomona is tied for eighth among small-sized colleges.
Teach for America is a national corps of mostly recent graduates who commit to teach for at least two years in urban and rural public schools to help eliminate educational inequity.
This year, the program had a record 35,000 applications from graduating seniors, postgraduates and professionals, and 4,100 were chosen for the program, the largest national corps in the organization’s history. The 2009 corps comes from more than 550 colleges, and Teach For America is the No. 1 employer of graduating seniors at more than 20 schools.
Historically, Pomona has contributed 90 graduates to
Teach for America and this year, nearly 14 percent
of Pomona seniors applied for the program.
Peter Kass ’09, a neuroscience major, became interested in the program during his junior year. “My high school was defined by the opportunity gap that Teach for America attempts to close,” says Kass, who will teach AP Biology in downtown Los Angeles and attend medical school after his two-year commitment to TFA is over. “For this reason, I felt compelled to TFA's mission of offering every student in America a good education regardless of their socioeconomic background. “
Sarah Batizy ’09 always wanted to be a teacher, and also learned about the program during her junior year through recruitment. To learn more, she watched a Pomona alumna in her classroom. “I was hooked. I realized that TFA wasn't diluted teaching,” says Batizy, an English major. “We have real classrooms, we have real preparation, and we have real students that deserve an education.”
Once I was accepted, I began realizing how crucial and powerful this movement is. I met with alumni, spoke with students, and observed countless classrooms. The achievement gap is real, and it's unbearably and incomprehensibly wrong. I may just be one teacher, but I get to be a part of a movement that has over 4,000 amazingly talented people that are working toward the same goal.”
Starting this fall, Batizy will teach English in a Compton high school.
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7/2/09 |
Pomona Hosts Fireworks Celebration and Parades the Goddess Pomona on the 4th of July
Claremont’s 61st annual Independence Day Celebration will culminate in a music- and fireworks-filled celebration at Pomona’s own Strehle Track. Gates open at 6:30 p.m. and the sky will light up in a 20-minute, music-synchronized fireworks show at 9 p.m. Local band The Ravelers will also perform at the festivities.
 Pomona is also participating in the 4th of July Celebration Parade. A volunteer group of staff, faculty and student volunteers, led by Oldenborg Assistant Director Luz Forero, built a flower-filled float on Thursday to celebrate the goddess Pomona. Portrayed by Leah Steuer ’11, Pomona will be flanked by columns and harvest décor and accompanied by Cecil
the Sagehen (Katie Settie ’11). For a sneak peek of the float and photos of the building party, visit our
Flickr photo gallery.
(Forero, Steuer and Cecil pictured to the left.)
The parade begins at 4 p.m. on Saturday at the corner of Indian Hill Blvd. and 10th St., and then moves south to Harrison, west to Mountain, and ends at Larkin Park.
Other Claremont Independence Day events include a festival at Memorial Park (840 N. Indian Hill Blvd.), which includes a pancake breakfast, children’s activities, food booths, and the Willard Hunter Speakers’ Corner, which celebrates the U.S. First
Amendment; and the 17th Claremont Village Freedom 5000 1K Fun Walk and 5K Race Run and Walk.
Presale tickets for the fireworks celebration are $6 and available at Claremont City Hall, Claremont Human Services, Claremont Chamber of Commerce, Vons on Baseline and Wolfe’s Market. Tickets at the gate will cost $8.
Parking information, entrance locations, and
addresses for presale tickets can be found on the
City of Claremont website.
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7/1/09 |
Professor Mark Allen Tapped to Alter the Hammer Museum Visitor Experience
In June, The Hammer Museum in West Los Angeles announced that it had received $1 million grant from the James Irvine Foundation’s Innovation Fund to enable the Museum to create a new kind of interactive museum with “an artist-driven visitor engagement and education program that encourages daily contact among visitors, artists and Museum staff and activates the spaces, exhibitions and websites in imaginative ways.”
Pomona’s Mark Allen, professor of art and founder of the Los Angeles-based
Machine Project, has been tapped as the program’s first artist innovator. He teaches courses at Pomona like “Digital Art” and “Electron Wrangling for Beginners,” and also recently joined the board of the Andy Warhol Foundation in New York. He told the
New York Times his mandate at the Foundation is “to represent scrappy, storefront, noninstitutional institutional spaces,” much like his own Machine Project.
Machine Project, a storefront gallery and instructional space in Los Angeles’ Echo Park neighborhood, collaborates with artists to produce site-specific work, provides educational resources to people working with technology and handcrafts, and promotes conversations between scientists, poets, technicians, performers, and the community of Los Angeles. Upcoming events include classes on soldering and making jam, a 4th of July celebration of American folk music, and a performance piece based on “found performances” from individuals on psychedelic substances.
Allen showed his prowess for altering a museum experience with the November 2008 event “A Machine Project’s Field Guide to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art,” in which he led 35 artists in a day of performances, new installations and workshops. Experiences included artists Jessica Hutchins and Dawn Kaspar staging a 26-clue murder mystery that began with a female corpse found under an Alexander Calder mobile, a crochet workshop, the mapping of fruit in the museum’s collection by urban foraging group Fallen Fruit, and even a poem devoted to the ideas that didn’t come to fruition, like “Garden on top of the elevator.” The event received glowing reviews in both the
New York Times and
Los Angeles Times.
In a recent
KPCC
Radio “Off Ramp” interview, Allen brainstormed a few ideas for his Hammer residency, like an event where children would visit the museum during the day and damage art works followed by an evening event when conservators could repair them in front of the public. (Ann Philbin, director of the Museum, can be heard laughing in the background.)
For Allen, “What’s so interesting about museums is that they’re like a giant iceberg of all these people doing these fascinating things underneath the surface of the water. Often the public gets to see is just this tiny little point that comes out. So, how are these amazing, beautiful works of art that have been around for a hundreds of years, how do we take care of them, how do we repair them if their damaged, how does the chemistry of all of that work. That seems like something I’d like to know more about and I bet others would as well.”
Other potential ideas mentioned by Allen include guide dogs that would take visitors to specific works of art and teaching visitors to create their own forgeries and then leading them on a treasure hunt to find one hidden among the Hammer’s masterpieces.
The goal of the new Hammer program will be increased
visitor engagement and transparency of how artists
and museums work. Guest artists will be invited for
one-year terms to design and implement changes to
visitor services and educational programs, working
with the curatorial staff. Allen will be discussing
ideas with the Museum this summer and begin his
residency in September.
To read more about the Hammer's plans for its Irvine
grant, visit the
L.A. Times.
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Official news releases are issued by the Pomona College Office of Public Affairs. Members
of the news media requiring further assistance with these stories should contact Cynthia Peters,
Associate Director of Public Affairs, at (909) 621-8515 for immediate assistance, or by e-mail
at cynthia.peters@pomona.edu. |
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