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6/14/07 |
Former Pomona-Pitzer basketball
coach Gregg Popovich leads San Antonio Spurs to
fourth NBA Championship.
He's done it again. San Antonio Spurs head
coach Gregg Popovich, who led the Pomona-Pitzer
men's team for eight years before heading to the
NBA, has lead his team to a fourth
NBA Championship. The
Spurs swept the
Cleveland Cavaliers in four games.
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Gregg Popovich, at center, during his Sagehen days. |
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Popovich coached Pomona-Pitzer men's basketball from
1979 to 1988, leading the team to its first outright
title in 68 years. Then he jumped from Division III
to the NBA, taking a job as an assistant coach at
San Antonio. He took the Spur's top coaching job in
1994, but he still maintains close ties to
Pomona-Pitzer hoops, as Los Angeles Times columnist
Bill Plaschke noted the last time Popovich won a
championship:
"... And when somebody dares break up the
detailed basketball talk to ask him about Pomona-Pitzer,
which happened in a press conference last season?
“It was wonderful,” he said later adding, “It gave
you a real breadth of experience ... that’s what I
thought I would always do.”
He was then asked, did anything learned at Pomona-Pitzer
apply to the NBA? A bold question, but one that
could be answered by eight years’ worth of former
Division III players who have delighted in seeing
their nice little game carried to the sport’s
grandest stage by a guy who has changed only the
patches on his jacket.
“You might think I’m teasing you,” Poppo said, “but
everything applies.”
Read more about Popovich's Sagehen days
Popovich bio
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5/28/07 |
Sagehen running star Will Leer
'07 wins two track events at Nationals.
Even after graduating, Will Leer '07 just
can't stop winning races for Pomona.
 The
track star took first place in the 1500-meter
(3:53.13) and the 5000-meter (14:25.41) at the 2007
NCAA Division III National Track & Field
Championships, held in Oshkosh, WI May 24-26.
Leer, an eight-time
All-American, becomes Pomona's first two-event
winner in a single year. The Pomona-Pitzer team
finished eighth overall out of more than 70 teams.
Earlier this month, at the
Occidental Invitational, Leer smashed the school
record in the 1500 meters with a time of 3:41:98.
That was just a day before Pomona's May 13
Commencement,
in which the Minnetonka, MN native graduated as a
math major. He plans to keep running, hoping
to compete at the Olympic Trials for track and field
in June 2008.
Read more about Will Leer
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5/24/07 |
Fulbright
Grants Awarded to 24 Members of the Pomona College
Class of 2007, Breaking School’s Record
Twenty-four graduates of the Pomona College Class of
2007 have received prestigious Fulbright Fellowships
to pursue research or teach around the globe,
breaking Pomona’s all-time record for Fulbrights
received. In addition, four graduates from earlier
class years received Fulbrights, bringing this
year's full total to 28. The previous record was set
last year with fifteen recipients.
 The
Fulbright U.S. Student Program, founded in 1946 and
sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, offers
opportunities for recent graduates, postgraduate
candidates and developing professionals and artists
to conduct career-launching study and research
abroad. Designed to increase cultural understanding
between U.S. students and citizens of foreign
countries, the grants generally provide round-trip
transportation, language or orientation courses,
book and research allowances, and maintenance for
the academic year, based on living costs in the host
country.
More ...
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5/9/07 |
Away to
the U.K.: Three Pomona seniors headed to Cambridge
Daniel Hickstein, a Pomona College
senior, has been named one of only 12 Winston
Churchill Scholars. The
Churchill
Scholarship provides approximately $50,000 for
one year of study and research at Churchill College
at the University of Cambridge.
 Hickstein,
a chemistry major with a math minor, will use his
scholarship to earn a Master’s degree in physics.
His research will focus on the interaction of x-rays
with crystals to explain why some molecules have
interesting and useful optical properties. As
a student at Pomona College, Hickstein conducted
research with chemistry Professor Daniel O’Leary and
co-authored articles that were published in the
Journal of American Chemical Society and
Heterocycles.
Meanwhile, Pomona seniors Evan Hall and Sylvan Long
have been awarded the
Downing
Scholarship, which underwrites a one-year
exchange to Downing College at the University of
Cambridge. The program is a special arrangement
between Pomona and Downing College.
Hall, a chemistry major from Kenmore, Washington,
will earn his Master’s in Philosophy in Biological
Science degree and focus his research on quorum
sensing, or the way bacteria communicate with each
other. His ultimate goal is to work in medicine,
either in research or practice.
Long, a geology major from Spokane, Washington, will
pursue a Master’s in Philosophy in Polar Studies at
the Scott Polar Research Institute, an affiliate of
the University’s Department of Geography and Earth
Sciences. After earning his M.Phil., he plans
to take time off and then pursue a Ph.D. in
hydrogeology or another environmentally-focused area
of geology.
More about
Hickstein
More about
Hall and Long |
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5/2/07 |
Triple triumph for Sagehen
sports as women's water polo, women's tennis and
men's baseball take conference championships.
The end of the school year is only a week
away, but many Sagehen athletes are still in
competition after three Pomona-Pitzer teams took
conference championships this season:
 Men's
baseball: Winning 29 games, men's baseball took
its first Southern California Intercollegiate
Athletics Conference championship since 2003. The
team will go on to compete in the
NCAA
Division III West Region Championship beginning
May 16 at Chapman University in the City of Orange.
Women's tennis: The team captured its first
title since 2003. With a 5-4 victory over
rival Claremont-Mudd-Scripps on May 5, the Women's
Tennis Team advances to the quarterfinals of the
2007 NCAA Division III Women's Tennis National
Championships hosted by the University of Mary
Washington May 15.
Women's water polo: After winning their
conference with a 10-0 SCIAC record, the team will
compete in National Collegiate Women's Water
Polo Championship to be held May 11-13 in Los
Alamitos.
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4/06/07 |
IT building will be named for family of Jim C.
Cowart '73, Pomona's first computer science major.
Creating his own academic program, Jim C.
Cowart '73 majored in computer science long before
Pomona College formally offered that major. While
still a student, he helped teach Pomona's sole
programming class. He even successfully lobbied for
a foundation grant that allowed him and other
tech-savvy students to set up their own computer
mini-center in the Mudd-Blaisdell residence hall.
Three decades later, Cowart is still taking the
initiative for technology at Pomona College, this
time by making the naming gift for the College's new
information technology building. With a formal
dedication set for May 2, the J.C. Cowart
Information Technology Building will be named for
three J.C. Cowarts, including his wife, Janet C.
Cowart '70, and their son, Jefferson C. Cowart '07.
Opened in January 2006, the 12,000-square-foot IT
structure allows the College's entire ITS Department
to be housed at one site, while also offering
enhanced technological facilities for students,
faculty and staff. Key features include a 24-hour
student computer lab; spacious conference room
equipped with an interactive whiteboard; and a
classroom that can be set up with as many as 30
laptops for training sessions.
More ...
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3/20/07 |
Peter
Shelton's striking, 30-foot-high sculpture,
gandhiG, is latest artistic addition to Pomona's
campus.
Peter Shelton '73's gandhiG has a new,
prominent place on campus, along College Avenue
outside the Pomona College Museum of Art. Getting it
there wasn't easy: The street was closed off as a
cast of crane operators, metal workers and anxious
museum staff worked over several hours to place the
sculpture
on the pad and cement the legs.
.
 According
to the museum's website,
gandhiG (2002) is an insistent presence. It
engages us viscerally and intellectually as we
respond to the long spindly legs supporting a human
torso 30 feet above street level; and decipher
the form wrapped in what looks like a dhoti
(traditional Indian dress for the lower part of the
body), growing organically from the ground.
The sculpture is on long-term loan to the College,
from LA Louver Gallery and the artist. It is the
first in a series of changing sculptural
installations.
With a large public art project recently unveiled at
the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, Shelton is
a distinguished artist with work in a number of
public and private collections in the United States
and Europe. Shelton will talk about his work on
Wednesday, March 28 at 4:15 p.m. in Lyman Hall in
Thatcher Music Building.
More ...
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3/12/07 |
Pomona
ranked one of top 5 "best value" colleges by
Kiplinger's
Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine
has named Pomona College fifth on its list of the 50
Best Values in Liberal Arts Colleges. The list,
which ranks private colleges and universities that
exemplify outstanding economic values and an
exceptional education, appears in the magazine's
April 2007 issue (on newsstands March 12) and
online.
 “I’m very pleased that both Pomona’s quality and its
generous financial aid policies are being
recognized,” said Pomona College President David W.
Oxtoby. “Pomona College provides one of the very
best college educations in the country and is one of
only a handful of colleges with need-blind
admissions that meets the full financial need of
every accepted student. This ranking and the
information on financial aid serve an important role
in helping to publicize that moderate and low-income
families can afford to attend a high quality,
private college. This information is too often
missing from news stories about college tuition and
admissions.”
Kiplinger’s ranked the top 50 universities and top
50 liberal arts colleges in separate tables. To rate
each school, Kiplinger’s took into account admission
rate, SAT or ACT scores, student-faculty ratio,
four-year/five-year graduation rate, total costs,
cost after need-based aid, aid from grants, cost
after non-need-based aid, and average debt at
graduation.
Read more
See full list
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1/22/07 |
Director Sylvain White '98's
Stomp the Yard stays atop U.S. box office.
Director Sylvain White '98's
Stomp the Yard was the No. 1 movie in the
U.S. for the second consecutive weekend, bringing
its cumulative
box office gross to nearly $42 million. The dance-themed
movie is also bringing more attention to the rich
tradition of stepping carried on by Black
fraternities: "Stomp the Yard throws
well-deserved light on this somewhat under-the-radar
phenomenon," writes the Washington Post.
 The
coming-of-age drama revolves around DJ Williams
(played by Columbus Short), a young street dancer
from Los Angeles, who goes off to a historically
Black college in Atlanta and winds up excelling in fraternity step-dance competitions. As told through
his publicist, K. Forrest Beanum '97, White's
artistic approach with this film was to "portray
African Americans in a positive light while also
encouraging the community to recognize the
importance of history and the pivotal role of
education in achieving goals."
With his French mother and American pro basketball
player father, White was born and raised in Paris.
He attended Pomona College, where Professor Richard
Barnes' "History of Silent Film" class stoked
White's fascination for film. His first advisor,
Professor Brian Stonehill, practiced "tough love" in
pushing him to never settle for less than he was
capable of producing, and by encouraging White to
find his artistic vision. After graduating in
1998, White won awards for his short films and went
on to direct an eclectic, cutting-edge series of
music videos and commercials in the U.S., Europe and
Japan.
Learn more:
Listen to Sylvain White on NPR
Los Angeles Times story
New York Times review
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12/12/06 |
PC Magazine names Pomona
to list of the Top 20 Wired Colleges
Pomona College has been named as one of the
2007 Top 20 Wired Colleges by
PC Magazine and
The Princeton Review. The list honors colleges with
the most comprehensive—in terms of size, scope and
quality—computing and technology offerings.
 Highlights
of Pomona College’s technology include free gigabit
Ethernet access for all campus network connections
including the residence halls, ubiquitous wireless
access to the network, 24-hour computer labs, and a
high percentage of classrooms equipped with
technology teaching stations. PC
Magazine also noted that an unusually high
percentage of Pomona students were using technology
based on the number of students who were on Facebook,
had contributed to Wikipedia, and other
activity.
To identify the honorees, The Princeton Review
surveyed college administrators from the schools
featured in the 2007 edition of the Princeton
Review’s college guide, Best 361 Colleges.
The criteria focused on three main areas of
technology: Academics, Student Resources, and
Infrastructure; and included questions on everything
from faculty computer training to streaming media
from the college's radio or television station to
the types of tech support available to students on a
24-7 basis.
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12/11/06 |
Hip for the holidays: Brendan Milburn '93's
alternative musical Striking 12 hits the
bigtime in New York.
In his hit musical Striking 12, currently
playing off-Broadway, Brendan Milburn ’93 is a
cranky, burned-out New Yorker determined to spend
New Year’s Eve home alone. His plans for a solitary
evening are foiled when he meets a quirky
door-to-door saleswoman (played by Milburn’s
real-life spouse, Valerie Vigoda), who is hawking
special light bulbs designed to ward off seasonal
affective disorder.
 The
show itself seems to be having a similar
mood-elevating effect on audiences and critics.
Though Striking 12 features only three performers –
Milburn, Vigoda and Gene Lewin – and the sparest of
sets, the New York Times raved that “this
modest show is more artfully crafted and engaging
than virtually all the standard-mold musicals coming
our way these days.”
With notices like that, Milburn rarely spends a
night home alone these days. Milburn (vocals and
keyboard), Vigoda (vocals and electric violin) and
drummer Lewin form the rock-folk-jazz-pop trio
GrooveLily. In February, the trio will be arriving
in Los Angeles to ramp up for another show they’ve
been co-writing with Rachel Sheinkin, the Tony
winner who they also teamed up with for Striking
12. Sleeping Beauty Wakes is a retelling
of the fairy tale, set at a modern-day sleep
disorder clinic. “It's pretty wild and wonderful,’’
Milburn says of the show opening March 31.
Wild and wonderful is an apt description of
Milburn’s career so far.
More ...
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11/27/06 |
Pomona President David Oxtoby named a Fellow of The
American Association for the Advancement of Science
David W. Oxtoby, president of Pomona College, has
been awarded the distinction Fellow by the American
Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS).
Fellows are selected based on their efforts toward
advancing science applications that are deemed
scientifically or socially distinguished.
 Oxtoby was recognized by the AAAS Chemistry Section
“for career-long contributions to understanding
dynamics of liquids and gases, and for energetic
leadership in strengthening undergraduate
education.”
He became president of Pomona College in 2003,
following a long career as a professor of chemistry
at the University of Chicago where he was dean of
physical sciences. He is a long-time member of the
Board of Trustees of Bryn Mawr College, and earlier
this year was elected to the Board of the American
Association of Colleges and Universities.
As a research chemist, Oxtoby is author or co-author
of more than 165 scientific articles and co-authored
two nationally popular textbooks in chemistry,
“Principles of Modern Chemistry,” (with H. Pat
Gillis) now in its fifth edition and in use at
institutions across the country; and “Chemistry:
Science of Change,” (with Wade Freeman and Toby
Block) which is now in its fourth edition. He has also
been invited as a guest lecturer at conferences and
institutions around the globe.
More ...
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11/16/06 |
Pomona students take on Green Cup Challenge to
conserve energy.
Pomona College students are in the midst of a
month-long “Dorm Energy Conservation Challenge,”
seeking to save energy and help out the environment.
 The
student group Campus Climate Challenge is asking
students to take at least five actions from the
Pomona College Sustainability Pledge and conserve
energy throughout November. The winning dorm will be
presented with the Green Cup, a party and $2,000 for
a dorm sustainability measure chosen by that dorm's
residents.
The Pledge calls for actions ranging from making
sure a desktop computer is set to sleep mode to
replacing lights with compact fluorescent bulbs to
thinking twice before using take-out plates at the
dining hall. “Taking on the pledge has been
incredibly easy, especially because everyone around
continues to report how they are saving in different
ways as well,” says Ada Aroneanu, a senior who
co-founded Campus Climate Challenge. “It's an
incredibly powerful feeling to realize that
everyone's in it together."
To win the Green Cup Challenge, a dorm needs to have
the highest percentage of pledges signed and the
highest percentage energy use reduction compared to
the average consumption for that dorm in November.
More ...
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11/8/06 |
As L.A.'s
famous Griffith Observatory reopens, the media
discovers another star: Pomona College alumnus Edwin
C. Krupp '66.
The Griffith Observatory, L.A.'s most famous
spot for scanning the heavens, just reopened after
a four-year, $93 million renovation. And amid all
the hoopla, the media seems to have discovered
another star: Pomona College alumnus Edwin C. Krupp,
who has served as director of the observatory for
more than 30 years.
 The
Los Angeles Times recently ran a profile of the
ever-quotable Krupp, who has done much to popularize
the study of the cosmos in a city better known for
Hollywood stars. Notes the Times: "Krupp
spouts sound bites the way black holes suck cosmic
matter. During a tour of the new planetarium, he
suggests that the old wooden headrests may have
violated the Geneva Convention ... Resisting the
trend toward all-recorded planetarium presentations,
Krupp announces that he's sticking with live
lecturers because 'this place isn't about astronomy
— it's about astronomy and people.'"
 Krupp,
who graduated from Pomona in 1966 after studying
physics and astronomy, also appears in recent L.A.
Times stories about the observatory's
architecture,
tips for visiting and the reaction from the
first
wave of visitors. What's more, the
New York Times,
Washington Post,
Dallas Morning News
and
Associated Press feature Krupp in their
coverage of the renovation.
But this being L.A., Krupp will have to share his
celebrity status. Part of the 4,100-acre Griffith
Park, the observatory over the years has been a
popular place for filming movies, ranging from
The Terminator to Rebel Without A Cause.
There's a bust of James Dean outside the
observatory, and the famous Hollywood sign is
visible in the background.
PCM
article featuring Krupp
47
Things to do before leaving Pomona College
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10/11/06 |
NPR humorist David Sedaris to speak at Pomona
College Oct. 26
Award-winning humorist David Sedaris will
speak at Pomona College on Thursday, Oct. 26, at 8
p.m. Sedaris was the 2001 recipient of the Thurber
Prize for American Humor and Time magazine
“Humorist of the Year,” also in 2001. In 2005 he was
nominated for two Grammy Awards for Best Spoken Word
Album and Best Comedy Album.
 Sedaris,
now a best-selling author, first caught nationwide
attention in 1992 when he appeared on National
Public Radio describing his experiences working as a
department store Christmas Elf. In 1995, he
published his first book, Barrel Fever, a
collection of essays that includes a revisit to his
working days in “SantaLand.” Since then, Sedaris has
published three best-sellers: Holidays on Ice
(1998), Naked (1998) and Me Talk Pretty
One Day (2001). Sedaris’ essays regularly appear
in Esquire and The New Yorker. He is
also a commentator on NPR. Re-runs of Sedaris’
original radio commentaries can be heard on the
Chicago Public Radio show This American Life.
The Sedaris show will be held at Bridges Auditorium,
located on the Pomona College campus (450 N. College
Way, Claremont). Tickets for Sedaris’ performance
can be purchased for $20 at the Bridges Box Office
Monday through Friday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. For
information, call the box office at 909-621-8032.
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9/18/06 |
Award-winning screenwriter and producer Tom Musca
teaches
creative writing class at Pomona College.
Tom Musca, award-winning screenwriter, producer and
director, has been named the 2006-2007 Moseley
Fellow in Creative Writing at Pomona College. As the
Moseley Fellow, Musca will teach a screenwriting
course at Pomona College in fall 2006.
 Musca
first captured attention as the producer and
co-writer of Stand and Deliver, a film about
a dedicated calculus teacher, Jaime Escalante,
inspiring students at an East Los Angeles high
school. Musca is currently scripting Bringing the
Heat, a high school chess drama that is
scheduled to shoot this year. Tortilla Soup,
his most recently produced screenplay, won numerous
accolades and is the third highest selling
Latino-themed DVD in history.
Previous Pomona College Moseley Fellows include:
Paula L. Woods, award-winning mystery author; Verlyn
Klinkenborg, an acclaimed essayist, author and a
regular contributor to the New York Times;
Salvador Carrasco, writer and director of the
feature film The Other Conquest; poet B.H.
Fairchild, author of Early Occult Memory Systems
of the Lower Midwest; and Janet Fitch, author of
White Oleander.
More ...
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8/29/06 |
From sea to Sierra, Orientation Adventure offers
Class of 2010 a chance to experience outdoors and
make friends before school starts.
Before hitting the books, first-year students at
Pomona College got a chance to learn to surf, sail
on a tall ship, or hike piney mountain trails to
Yosemite's famous Half Dome. Orientation Adventure
is more than a chance to explore California's
strikingly varied scenery. It gives newcomers to
Pomona College a chance to build friendships in the
outdoors before the school year even begins.
 About 500 first-year students, trip leaders, faculty
and staff members just returned from four-day
adventures across the state (see photo gallery.)
What sets Pomona’s program apart is the number of
trips students can choose from. There are about a
dozen, ranging from community service in Los
Angeles, to kayaking off the Channel Islands to
backpacking in the Sierras.
OA originated about a decade ago when a group of
students from the On the Loose outdoors club
approached Dean of Students Ann Quinley with the
idea, and she collaborated with them to make it
happen. OA has greatly expanded in recent years,
since the College made OA part of the Orientation
program for all students and that continues this
year.
More ...
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8/14/06 |
Kaplan/Newsweek college
guide names Pomona one of the "New Ivies."
Pomona College is one of 25 "New Ivies" recognized
in the 2007 Kaplan/Newsweek “How to Get into
College Guide.” Founding member of the
prestigious Claremont Colleges, Pomona is
known for close relationships between students and
faculty and a range of opportunities for student
research. In spring 2006, 12 members of the Class of
2006 were awarded Fulbright Fellowships to pursue
research or teach around the globe.
 On the social side, Pomona College treats its
freshmen to a four-day Orientation Adventure,
sending them on small group trips ranging from
sailing to Catalina and hiking in the Sierras to
local community service projects. Ski/Beach Day and
the annual Death by Chocolate party are also
popular.
In addition to Pomona, two other Southern California
colleges were named to the “New Ivies” list: Harvey
Mudd College, another member of the Claremont
Colleges, and the University of California, Los
Angeles. Reed College, in Portland, OR, is the only
other West Coast institution to make the list.
Pomona also was noted on NBC's Today show
Aug. 14 in a lengthy segment about the
Kaplan/Newsweek list. And during the same week,
Time magazine mentioned Pomona in its
cover
story about the growing range of college choices,
noting the high proportion of Pomona students
who go on to Harvard Law School: "For students
aspiring to go to graduate school, the more
personalized education offered at small schools can
often provide the best preparation."
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7/27/06 |
Pomona College research shows beating the stock
market may be easier than investors think.
Beating the stock market may be easier than
investors think -- easy as following a popular
magazine's most-admired companies list, according to
new research from a Pomona College economics
professor and one of his students.
 Professor
Gary Smith and Class of 2005 graduate Jeff Anderson
set out to test an enduring piece of Wall Street
conventional wisdom: that great companies often
don't make for great investments. The idea is that
if a company already has an excellent reputation,
that knowledge is already built into its stock
price, limiting the potential for big gains. Known
as the "efficient markets hypothesis," this notion
has gained wide acceptance over the years.
Because it is so widely disseminated and publicized,
Smith and Anderson turned to Fortune Magazine's
annual list of "America's Most Admired Companies" to
test the hypothesis, comparing the stock market
performance of the annual top 10 most-admired
companies to the performance of the broader Standard
& Poor's 500 index. Their research covered the
period from the list's inception in 1983 to 2004, a
span of 21 years, and is published in the
July/August 2006 issue of Financial Analysts
Journal.
The results: the most-admired companies dramatically
outperformed the wider market, yielding annual
returns of 17.7 percent vs. 13 percent for the S&P
500.
More ...
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7/14/06 |
TV didn't kill the novel, says
Pomona professor's new book exploring why "serious"
writers proclaim their medium's demise.
 Kathleen Fitzpatrick's
The Anxiety of
Obsolescence: The American Novel in the Age of Television
(Vanderbilt University Press) delves into the
reasons some writers so loudly bemoan the demise of
the novel. She concludes that the obituaries for
"serious" literature are ultimately self-serving,
setting up these authors as the defenders of an
endangered and valued art form. "It's a way of
re-inscribing a kind of cultural dominance for the
traditional humanist novelist," says Fitzpatrick, an
associate professor of English and media studies at
Pomona College.
TV is typically blamed for the novel's fading
cultural influence, but Fitzpatrick makes the case
that tome and tube can peacefully co-exist. She
points to Oprah's Book Club as an example of
television turning a mass audience on to books. And
she adds that TV dramas, from HBO's Deadwood
to ABC's Lost, are becoming more
intellectually engaging as they turn to intricate
narrative forms once associated with novels. "You
can't take the surface narrative at face value," she
says of these shows. "The viewer is really forced into full
engagement with the text."
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