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The 20th Annual Alumni Symposium - May
1-2, 2009 |
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On Reading - Practice,
Prohibition, Possibility |
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 “A writer only begins a book. A
reader finishes it.”
-Samuel Johnson
“I took a speed-reading course
where you run your finger down the middle of the page and
was able to read War and Peace in 20 minutes. It’s about
Russia.”
-Woody Allen
“If you can read this, thank a
teacher.”
Anonymous
The act of reading is arguably the most human act of all.
The ability to recognize and interpret symbols and clues in
the world around us is what sets the human brain apart—and
the higher-level ability to learn from the preserved
knowledge and experience of others, both living and dead, is
the very essence of human civilization.
Internationally-acclaimed author Vikram Chandra ’84 is a
featured speaker at the 2009 Alumni Symposium (11 a.m., May
2). His latest novel, Sacred Games, has been called a
contemporary masterpiece reminiscent of Dickens. It received
the Hutch Crossword Prize for English Fiction (India), a
Salon.com Book Award for Fiction (USA), and was a finalist
for the National Book Critics Circle Award (USA). Chandra is
also the author of Love and Longing in Bombay and Red Earth
and Pouring Rain. He currently divides his time between
Bombay teaching creative writing at UC Berkeley.
You are encouraged to read Sacred Games and be ready for a
stimulating discussion with the author.
As you consider
attending this year's Symposium, please take a look at the
list of suggested readings to
help prepare for the event.
As part of Alumni Weekend 2009, the 20th annual Pomona
College Alumni Symposium will focus on reading in its
broadest and narrowest senses. Alumni, faculty and community
participants will share their thoughts on such topics as:
● The Oprah effect
● The projected death of
the newspaper and demise of the book as we know it
● The new culture of
reading: celebrity book signings and bookstores as social
centers
● The importance of reading
aloud
● The “Reading War” over
phonics, whole language and literature
● Reading well vs. being
well read
● Teaching children—and
adults—to read
● Dangerous and “forbidden”
books and their censors
● Atypical reading and the
decoding of computer language
● The technology of
reading: Kindles as portable libraries and texting as
neo-telegraphy
In addition to the presentations, a range of special events
will encourage you to:
● Attend book signings by
featured alumni authors.
● Join a discussion about
life-changing books and all-time best reads.
● Share news about your
reading group, how it is organized, which books were runaway
successes and which merely limped to the finish line.
● Explore the Reading Tent
on Marston Quad, where teeming tables provide information
about reading related events.
Lunch Reservations:
If you haven't already made lunch reservations for Friday
or Saturday, you can purchase them in person. On Friday, May
2, lunch will be in Edmunds Ballroom from noon to 1:30 p.m.,
and there will be a check-in table just outside the Ballroom
where you can pay. On Saturday, May 3, lunch will be on
Marston Quad from noon to 1:30 p.m., and you can buy a lunch
ticket at the Registration tent on the east side of the
Quad. The cost for
each meal is $20 per person.
For information on past symposiums, please follow
this link.
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The Program |
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Friday, May 1 |
9:15a.m.
9:30 a.m.
10:15 a.m.
11:10 a.m..
Noon
1:30 p.m.
2:30 p.m.
3:45 p.m.
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Friday sessions will be held in the Rose
Hills Theatre, Smith Campus Center, 170 E. 6th Street,
Claremont, CA, unless otherwise noted.
Welcome and Introduction
Gary Kates, Dean of the College
The Once and Future Book
Meg Worley
On RereadingI
Verlyn Klinkenborg ´74
These Books Are Not For Reading!
Susan McWilliams and
Meg WorleyLunch in the Edmunds Ballroom, Smith Campus Center
($15/person if you register online by Friday, April 3.)
How Reading Begins: A Teacher’s Tale
Pamela Gould ’79 and Jennifer Haushalter
On Reading Aloud
Verlyn Klinkenborg ´74
Bound to Last: Book Clubs, Book Lists, and Best “Reads”
An alumni discussion group with Paula Pitzer ’59,
Facilitator
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Saturday, May 2 |
11:00 a.m.
Noon
12:30 p.m.
1:15 p.m.
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Saturday sessions will be held in the Rose
Hills Theatre, Smith Campus Center, 170 E. 6th Street,
Claremont, CA
Writing Gangsters, Reading Cops: Language, Representation,
Reality
Vikram Chandra ‘84
Lunch on the Quad
($15/person if you register online by Friday, April 4.)
Sacred Games Discussion Group
Bring your box lunch and share your thoughts with other
readers of Vikram Chandra’s ’84 brilliant novel, Sacred
Games. Outdoor dining table, north of Pearsons Hall, 551 N.
College Avenue.Texts, Blogs and Twitters: Condensed Reading in an Online
World
Taziwa Chanaiwa ´95 |
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Throughout the Weekend
Art Exhibition: Reading Our Remains
Jessica Drenk ’02
Smith Campus Center Gallery
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This program is subject to change.
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The Presenters |
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Taziwa Chanaiwa
’95
Associate Director of Alumni Relations, Pomona College
Taziwa Chanaiwa is primarily responsible for managing the
Alumni Office’s online presence. He manages the office’s
Webpage, Facebook profile and email listservs. Taziwa has
spent his professional career working in the non-profit
sector as a fundraiser and consultant for Pomona College,
Harvard University and Blackbaud Inc. He learned to create
Web content when the easiest way to do so was to beg, borrow
and steal code from other Websites. Learning how to discern
“Shakespearean” code from the rest was therefore crucial.
Taziwa will discuss the increasingly frequent situations in
which we are expected to know how to read everything from
tomes and “txts” to “the matrix” and manga.
Vikram Chandra ’84
Author
Vikram Chandra’s latest novel,
Sacred Games, was the
recipient of the Hutch Crossword Prize for English Fiction
(India), a Salon.com Book Award for Fiction (USA), and was a
finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award (USA).
“‘All human life is here’ was the old newspaper boast,” said
Jane Shilling in her Daily Telegraph review, “and so
it is in Sacred Games, delineated with a master’s
grandeur and scope and a miniaturist's precision and
tenderness.” He is also the author of Love and Longing in
Bombay and Red Earth and Pouring Rain. Chandra
has published in the Paris Review and The New
Yorker. His work has been translated into 16 languages.
Chandra received an MA from The Writing Seminars at Johns
Hopkins University and an MFA from the Writing Program at
the University of Houston. He currently divides his time
between Bombay and Berkeley, California, where he teaches
creative writing at the University of California.
Jessica Drenk ’02
Artist
Jessica Drenk’s art has been influenced by her early
appreciation of history and the natural world and by museums
featuring archaeology and paleontology. Much of her work is
focused on sculpting “museums of the present.” Drenk earned
her M.F.A. at the University of Arizona, where she was
awarded the International Sculpture Center’s Outstanding
Student Achievement Award in 2006. Her work has been
featured in Sculpture Magazine and seen in museums
across the country, as well as in Belgrade, Serbia and
Marseilles, France. Selections from her award winning
series, Reading Our Remains, will be exhibited during
Alumni Weekend. This commissioned public art installation of
altered book sculptures was originally created for the
University of Arizona Library.
Pamela Achilles Gould ’79
First-grade teacher, Chaparral School,
Claremont
Pamela Gould graduated from Pomona College with degrees
in English literature and art history. She received her
teaching credential from California State University
Fullerton and has taught K – 6 school children for over 25
years in the Fontana and Claremont Unified School Districts.
As a teacher of early reading, Ms. Gould is recognized for
her work bridging children’s literature with creative
writing and the visual arts. She has studied holistic
language programs in the United Kingdom and has mentored
American teachers through the La Verne University Enrichment
Program and by serving as a master teacher for beginning
teachers from Southern California universities.
Jennifer Haushalter
Reading specialist and teacher, Mt. Baldy
Elementary School
After receiving her degree in education from the
University of San Diego in 1996, Jennifer Haushalter entered
a graduate program in education at Pepperdine University
where she earned her elementary teaching credential. For
several years she taught kindergarten, first, and second
grades before serving as a reading specialist for children
from grades 1 – 6. In 2000, Haushalter was named Educator of
the Year in the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School
District. In her work, she has developed a range of
activities aimed at increasing her students’ reading
comprehension and providing reading enrichment as well as an
early exposure to creative writing.
Verlyn Klinkenborg ’74
Author and Journalist
Tom Brokaw said Verlyn Klinkenborg’s book of gentle
essays, The Rural Life, is “not only a rich and
evocative pastoral pilgrimage, it is a national treasure …
Klinkenborg is our modern Thoreau.” A member of The New
York Times Editorial Board, Klinkenborg is also the
author of Making Hay, The Last Fine Time, and
Timothy; Or, Notes of an Abject Reptile. His work has
appeared in many magazines, including The New Yorker,
Harper’s, Esquire, National Geographic, The New
Republic, Smithsonian, Audubon, GQ, Gourmet, Martha Stewart
Living, Sports Afield and The New York Times Magazine.
He has taught literature and creative writing at Fordham
University, St. Olaf College, Bennington College, Harvard
University and Pomona College. A 1974 graduate of Pomona
College, he received his Ph.D. from Princeton University in
1982. He currently lives in rural New York, where he is at
work on a new book titled Several Short Sentences About
Writing.
Susan Jane McWilliams
Assistant Professor of Politics, Pomona
College
After earning her B.A. in Russian and political science from
Amherst College, Susan McWilliams went on to earn her M.A.
and Ph.D. in politics from Princeton University. She taught
at Princeton and Haverford College before coming to Pomona
in 2006. Her publications and professional presentations
focus on a range of topics in the history of political
thought and the intersection of politics and literature. She
is at work on an edited volume about the political thought
of author James Baldwin. During the fall 2008 semester, she
taught a freshman critical inquiry course titled “Dangerous
Books.”
Paula Pitzer ’59
After graduating from Pomona College with a degree in
international relations, Paula Pitzer embarked on a
secondary education program at Claremont Graduate
University, where she earned her teaching credential. After
five years of teaching high school European history, world
affairs, and geography, she served as a stay-at-home-mother
and community volunteer. Then she worked ten years for the
Webb Schools in Claremont as Alumni Secretary, where she
edited the alumni bulletin, followed by fifteen years as a
development officer at the Foothill Country Day School. A
self-described “voracious reader,” she is a charter member
of a 10-year-old Pomona College alumnae book club.
Meg Worley
Assistant Professor of English, Pomona College
Meg Worley was graduated with degrees in both philosophy and
literature from Emory University. After earning her Ph.D. in
comparative literature from Stanford University, she taught
briefly at the University of California, Davis, before
coming to Pomona College in 2004. Her published works,
courses, and professional presentations touch on such
diverse subjects as the Bible as literature, Chaucer and
other medieval writers, the issue of translation, medieval
linguistics, children’s literature, and graphic novels. She
speaks seven living languages – including Dutch, Japanese,
and Polish – and reads in eight ancient ones. She currently
teaches “History of the Book: Papyrus, Parchment, Paper,
Pixel.”
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Suggested
Reads |
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Please follow this link for
a list of books you may consider reading in preparation for
the Symposium.
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2009 Alumni Symposium Planning Committee |
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Many thanks to the members of the 2009 Alumni Symposium
Planning Committee for the many hours of hard work that have
gone into putting together this years event. The committee
members are:Rosemary Choate ′63 -
Symposium Coordinator
Julie Armstrong ′63
Steve Brewster ′66
Taziwa Chanaiwa ′95
Kris Fossum ′76
Don Pattison
Alice Piatt
Greg Shapton ′71
Mark Wood
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Past Alumni Symposium Topics |
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Begun in 1990, the Alumni Symposium is
celebrating its 20th year. This unique, award winning Alumni
Weekend symposium consists of alumni presenters, faculty,
and frequently student and community participants. Over the
years, the Symposium has featured a number of topics,
including: 1990 - The Curtain
Rises: The New Drama in Eastern Europe
1991 - The Turmoil of
the Middle East
1992 - Arts in the 90s:
Assailed from Left and Right
1993 - Science Where You
Least Expect It
1994 - Music of the Late
20th Century: A Tribute to Karl Kohn
1995 - And All the Men
and Women Are Merely Players: Theatre at Pomona College
and Beyond the Gates
1996 - Politics in Asia:
Fire-Breathing Dragon or Lotus Blossom?
1997 - Studying Politics
– Doing Politics
1998 - Is There
Intelligent Life on Earth (or Anywhere Else)?
1999 - Asia´s New
Century and Ours: The Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College
2000 - Fin de Millenaire: Millennium Truths and Myths
2001 - Focus on a
Generation: Pomona College and the WWII Years
2002 - “Clash of
Civilizations?”: Perspectives from a New Century
2003 - Trust Betrayed:
Exploring Contemporary Ethical Issues
2004 - The 'Aha!'
Moment: Discovery, Breakthrough, Epiphany
2005 - Headlines and
Deadlines: A Conversation with Pomona's Alumni Journalists
2006 - Bio-Feedback:
Science and Society in Dialogue
2007 -
Memory, Memoir, and Madeleines:
Remembering Things Past
2008 -
Reel Time: Sagehens and the Silver Screen |
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