Last semester, I started working with Professor Emeritus Marjorie Harth on a book that would document the history of Pomona College through its physical campus. Research for this project began for me in a little room on the southeast corner of Alexander known as the public archives. The space itself was amazing to me: I suppose I had always imagined that the College did indeed keep documented record of everything that went on, but never knew exactly what form it might come in.

It turns out that the public history of the college is indeed located in one small room, filling two crammed walls of filing cabinets. Inside the cabinets there are folders labeled with the names of buildings, clubs and organizations, and important people. Inside the folders are clippings from the Claremont Courier, photographs, pamphlets from various offices, and other weathering remains of the past.

Upon rifling through a few dozen folders, I was struck by two thoughts: First, I was simply intrigued. Think what you could learn from spending a day, a week, a month just reading, consuming the history of our college in this way. The stories that would leap out, the patterns that would emerge, the images that would cling together like constellations forming the shape of our college’s history—these were the things that fascinated me.

My second intuition was to become slightly worried. After all, the files were all made of paper—some were already crumbling and yellowed. They seemed so fragile; a single cup of coffee spilled in the right place could mean years lost, and it seemed too easy for files to be thrown away, misplaced, or lost.

But I should have known better than to worry. The archives may have a fancy room all to themselves, but the history of Pomona College does not live only in a handful of file folders. The story of Pomona College is alive in those of us who are now part of this community. It’s in our professors and staff members, some of whom have been here since before us students were born. It’s in the classrooms and the residence halls, in the organizations that we create and the activities we participate in. It’s in our day to day experiences as part of the College community, which could not occur, were it not for the history I am currently researching, whether or not we are explicitly aware of it.

I decided to tell you this today, however, because I still think that we have room to be worried. Perhaps not about the fear of Alexander burning to the ground and turning this collection into piles of ash, but about the way that we engage the College’s history on a daily basis.

As students, we cycle through our four years at this college so quickly that we often forget to question why things are the way they are, or why we cannot make them into something else. We take for granted that the classes we need for our majors will miraculously pop up in the course catalogue, that the residence halls where we live will be cleaned and readied for our arrival, that the clubs and organizations we wish to join will beg for our attendance and serve refreshments at every meeting. But how did that come to be, and how could these things continue to happen if it were not for the consistent attention of those around us? It is this spirit of looking back to our foundations and looking forward to something that we are in the process of creating that I commend.

Last semester we were reminded of the way that a curriculum is built when the faculty remade the entire general education system—something we, as students, had accepted as an immutable part of our Pomona College education. But what was put into this new curriculum, and what was left out? How will future generations be affected by the changes that were made? These are questions I believe are still important.

As a student activist, I think we have plenty of things to learn from past Pomona College students. What have students fought for in the past, and how have they achieved their goals? It is well within our power as students to effect real change on this campus, but in order to do so we must work together, and use each other as resources.

There are a multitude of other facets that I think we can examine on the same level. It’s our responsibility as members of this community to not simply take this place at face value, but to always realize that we are the ones who make it what it is. As a first-year, use your fresh eyes to examine your surroundings with an eye toward the way that you can affect those around you. If you have a question, I can guarantee that someone in this room has an answer for you. If there is a need that is not being addressed, an interest that is not being satiated, come your sponsors, your mentors, your professors, your student government, and together we will find a solution.

The cabinets in the archives may be jam-packed, but I know for a fact that there is plenty more room inside. At the end of this year, will there be a folder with our name on it? How will our stories weave together with those from years past to create a cohesive trajectory, and what, if anything, are we leading toward? Only time will tell.