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Members of the Board of Trustees, faculty, students, staff, alumni,
distinguished guests, and friends of Pomona College: What a thrill it is to
stand before you today as President of this College! I’m delighted that so many
of you could travel from such distances to be here today, and I’m particularly
pleased that so many members of my family and Claire’s could join us on this
occasion. I’d like to thank those who brought greetings for their warm welcome
to the campus, and especially to thank Pat McPherson for her remarks today.
As we approach the 116th anniversary of the founding of Pomona College, I stand
in awe of those who have preceded me in this role. Our first presidents
(Baldwin, Ferguson, and Gates) had the courage to establish a college that would
stand for excellence in a place where only citrus groves existed; James
Blaisdell had the vision to plan for a group of Colleges here in Claremont that
has shaped our distinctive character ever since; my fellow scientist Charles
Edmonds built the auditorium in which we assemble today; E. Wilson Lyon
transformed Pomona College into an institution visible on the national and
international stage. Finally, it is a special pleasure to welcome David
Alexander and Peter Stanley here today. Their collective thirty-four years of
leadership, their calmness, high aspirations, and firm moral values, have shaped
what Pomona College is today and prepared us for further growth in the future.
What is a liberal arts college today, in 2003? To begin to answer that question,
let me go back one hundred years to the eloquent polemic written by W. E. B. Du
Bois, “The Souls of Black Folk.” This monumental work from 1903, which Du Bois
introduced with the prophetic words “The problem of the Twentieth Century is the
problem of the color-line,” touches on the role of higher education in ways that
speak profoundly to us today. In his words, “The function of the university”
(and, I would add, the liberal arts college) “is not simply to teach
bread-winning, or to furnish teachers for the public schools, or to be a centre
of polite society; it is, above all, to be the organ of that fine adjustment
between real life and the growing knowledge of life, an adjustment which forms
the secret of civilization.”
Let’s explore these words carefully. Note the three functions that Du Bois
mentions first, each of which is a desirable goal, and in fact part of the
reason why we have a Pomona College today, although each is inadequate by itself
to justify our existence. The first of these is “to teach bread-winning.” We
want students emerging from Pomona to get good jobs, and we know that the skills
taught in our curriculum will equip them well for life in the world outside. But
this alone is not the justification for a liberal arts college. Nor is the
second function, “to furnish teachers for the public schools,” which in broader
terms can be thought of as preparing an engaged citizenry who will use their
talents to help society. Desirable as this is, it alone is not enough. Nor is
the third function, “to be a centre of polite society.” This suggests a
traditional image of an “educated lady or gentleman” who speaks foreign
languages, appreciates the arts, and can discourse on philosophy and other
intellectual subjects. All of these are desirable outcomes of an education, but
not the full basis for a College in 1903 or in 2003.
What, then, does Du Bois tell us is the real function of a college? It is, to
quote him again, “to be the organ of that fine adjustment between real life and
the growing knowledge of life.” This is a plea for a holistic view of education.
The aim of a college is to build a lasting connection, for both students and
teachers, between what we do in life and what we think about, between our
activities and our understandings. For Du Bois, this task “forms the secret of
civilization.”
As I think about the future of Pomona College, two complementary images come to
mind: the cloister and the crossroads. Each has something to say to us about
what our college can and should be at the dawn of the twenty-first century.
The first image, the cloister, is the more traditional model of a college,
bringing to mind a picture of Oxford from the fourteenth century. It is present
in much of our architecture, in the enclosed spaces represented by Lebus Court
or the Clark residence halls. Symbolically, it represents the college as a
“protected space” for teaching and learning, where students and faculty in
classroom, laboratory, and library can join together in the discovery of
knowledge. In earlier times, the cloister has been too often a way of excluding
certain types of people, using race, religion, or income level as tests for
admissibility to a club. We must work consciously to make our own community one
that welcomes diverse students, faculty, and staff. Only in this way can the
dialog within the “cloister” be a meaningful one. One can never permanently
achieve true diversity in a world that is constantly changing; rather, it is a
target toward which we need to strive continuously through our student
admissions and faculty and staff recruitment efforts.
The cloister model of the college brings two very positive values to the fore.
The first is that in the protected space represented by a college, students and
faculty are freer to take risks. To students, I say: use these four years not
for narrow vocational training in a pre-selected field, but rather as an
opportunity to explore new subjects that you may never have thought about before
setting foot in Claremont. Follow your passions, and you will end up with an
education that prepares you for the world outside the cloister. To faculty, I
say: think big in your scholarship. Use your teaching and research to move into
new areas, to make new connections with other faculty and with fields that are
far from your dissertations and your pasts. That is a special value that is
fostered in a liberal arts college. The stretches that you make, both as
students and faculty, bring excellence to life in this community.
The second value which is brought by the college-as-cloister is one of freedom
of speech. In the protected spaces of our classrooms and residence halls,
members of the community should feel able not only to speak openly, but also to
listen carefully to the views of others. Freedom of speech is only useful if it
frees us to hear different kinds of speech than our own, and to welcome the
contributions made by others even if we disagree with them. For Pomona College
to be a strong community, we must bring diverse voices and opinions inside our
walls, and encourage open and frank discussions of difficult subjects, allowing
ourselves sometimes even to be persuaded by a different view. In that way we can
serve as a model for our country and for the world.
A second and complementary model for Pomona is the college as crossroads. This
image of openness is also reflected in our architecture, in the broad expanse of
Marston Quad and the vision of our campus planner, Myron Hunt, which has enabled
us to expand over the years and yet still retain our small-college character. An
openness to change and to the spaces beyond our borders was very much present in
the vision of our fourth president, James Blaisdell, who was bold to establish
the Claremont Group Plan, which has led to the creation of four additional
colleges and two graduate schools, working cooperatively to share resources,
where possible, but also retaining independence and individual missions. I
welcome and celebrate this vision, and I pledge in my time as President to fight
against the bureaucratic boundaries that have crept back. In every area, whether
it is information technology, intramural sports, or the language program, our
first question should be “What is right for Pomona College?” but our second
question should always be “Can this be enhanced by working together with the
Claremont Colleges?”
Pomona College as crossroads needs to be placed squarely in our setting in the
Los Angeles metropolitan area, connected more closely with that community than
in the past. As Steve Koblik argued persuasively in his speech this morning,
California is part of the Pacific Rim just as much as China and Latin America,
and it needs to be part of Pomona’s identity, even if we are a college of
national and international aspirations. There are extraordinary opportunities
right here in southern California to connect with the leading issues of our day:
the environment (think of questions of energy policy, water resources, and air
quality), community development (think of immigration, the schools, and the
impact of political systems), and modern culture (from the Getty to the vibrant
modern art scene to Hollywood and the media). We need to know our region better,
and Los Angeles needs to know Pomona better. Some of this may involve simple
steps such as organizing more trips for students off campus into the city and
surroundings. Other parts involve reexamining our priorities, and may lead to
new directions in faculty hiring, new or redesigned courses, or new summer
internship programs that place Pomona students in non-profit organizations
through the metropolitan area. By strengthening our connections with this region
we will not be sacrificing our national reputation; rather, we will be making
the theories from our classrooms come to life in a real setting.
Los Angeles is an international city, and we will only understand our region if
we see it in its international context. Our students take part in an outstanding
range of study-abroad programs, and many report this as one of the most positive
parts of their Pomona experience. This is wonderful. But we need to explore
together ways of increasing the international dimension of our program right
here on campus. Should there be more international students matriculating here
in Claremont, bringing a different dimension to our classroom discussions? Are
there ways of enhancing language study so that students are better equipped for
their experiences in other cultures? How can we revitalize the Oldenborg program
to make it a model for the years ahead? I look forward to exploring all these
questions with the Pomona community.
So far, I’ve spoken mostly of the “curriculum”: the analytical and thinking
skills taught in classrooms, laboratories, libraries, and, increasingly, over
the worldwide Web. In the next few minutes, I’d like to turn my attention to
several areas that fall between the curricular and extracurricular sides of
Pomona. Our challenge here is to integrate these further types of activities
into a Pomona education, breaking down artificial barriers that now exist
between the curricular and the extracurricular.
The first of these is the creative arts, encompassing art, music, theater, and
dance. To see the world around us not just through words and books, but through
the eye and the ear, and to integrate analysis and criticism with creation and
performance: this is one of the goals of a Pomona education. We are not a
conservatory, nor a professional art school, but we declare that the creative
arts are a vital component of a liberal education. Certain obligations are then
thrust upon us. First, we need to develop facilities for the creation and
display of art that are comparable in quality to the well-designed and flexible
Seaver Theatre and to the restored gem of Bridges Hall of Music. Second, we need
to bring to campus creative artists and performers, both on our own faculty and
from the outside, to provide examples to our students and to work with them to
raise their sights and improve their skills. And finally, we need to establish a
culture on campus that celebrates and recognizes the arts.
If I have spoken up to now about the development of the mind and of the senses,
it is time to turn to the third side: the body. I welcome the new, broader
emphasis that Pomona College has been placing on “wellness,” including educating
the entire community about substance abuse and encouraging a lifelong commitment
to fitness. I’m delighted that the new Claremont Consortium Wellness Center will
by 2006 provide a state-of-the-art facility for health services, counseling, and
wellness education. Matching this is a commitment from Pomona College to
physical education and athletics. This starts with our varsity teams, where we
must provide excellent coaching and first-class facilities so that our athletes
have the opportunity to compete successfully with counterpart schools, keeping
firmly in mind the ideal of the student-athlete that Pomona has preserved since
its founding, in a period where increased professionalism threatens our values.
But our commitment has to extend to our physical education classes, intramural,
and club sports as well. I’d like to see an increase in participation in all of
these areas. In particular, I’d like to challenge all of the Claremont Colleges
to work together to provide the playing space and facilities for a top-notch
intramural program involving far larger numbers of our students.
Third and finally, let me turn to a subject that I know is on all of your minds:
having fun. As many of you know, Pomona slipped from its first-place position a
couple of years ago as the most “fun” campus in the country to number two. How
can we regain our proper place? First, I’d like to celebrate the steps taken
over the last decade under Peter Stanley’s leadership to remake the campus as a
center for student life, starting with our wonderful Smith Campus Center and
moving beyond to the wide range of activities that come right here to campus
every day and every night of the week. The next step to move forward, in my
view, is to encourage students to break out of what they refer to as the
Claremont Colleges “bubble”: the delightful but somewhat artificial world that
seems to confine them to our campuses twenty-four hours a day and seven days a
week. To this end, I am announcing here the creation of my first
presidential-level task-force: a committee to prepare a list of the forty-seven
things that every Sagehen should do in the Los Angeles area during his or her
four years on campus. I’m delighted that David Menefee-Libey has agreed to chair
this committee, which will bring together students, faculty, and staff in an
effort to assemble the best suggestions and prepare a definitive list. I hope
all of you will contribute to it.
In my remarks today, I have tried to lay out some areas for growth and change at
Pomona College, and to identify some challenges that we will be working together
to meet. In the end, though, our success will not be marked by quantitative
measures such as buildings built and funds raised, or even by our standing in
national surveys. Rather, it will rest on the passion for learning stirred up in
the hearts of each of the members of our community: this is the ultimate goal of
education.
Here on the Pomona College campus stands a graphic image of this passion: the
fresco painted in Frary Dining Hall by Jose Clemente Orozco of Prometheus
stealing fire from the gods and giving it to humanity. If you haven’t seen it
before, go and look at it this afternoon; if you have seen it many times, take
another look, and go to the Art Museum to see the artist’s sketches for this
masterpiece. The precious gift of fire represents knowledge, which transforms
human experience; that is the reason Orozco chose this theme for Pomona College
as an educational institution.
The story of the creation of this mural still surprises even today. For a small
college like the Pomona of 1930 to place such a radical mural in such a visible
location took real courage; it was the first major mural by a Mexican artist in
this country, and set the stage for subsequent work of Diego Rivera and others.
The initial vision came from a faculty member, Jose Pijoan of the Department of
Art. Students played a critical role in achieving this goal. Because the College
had not really raised the money to pay for the mural, students organized
fundraisers toward Orozco’s fee, and the muralist lived in Clark and took his
meals with students in Frary while he worked. Finally the administration under
our fifth President, Charles Edmonds, together with the trustees had the sense
just to step back and let this happen, a bold move to present such a
revolutionary work of art to conservative California.
The story of Prometheus is one that has had a resonance for me throughout my
life. In my early teens, my first intellectual passion was not for chemistry or
mathematics but for Greek literature. One of the very first books that I bought
using my own allowance was a volume of plays by Aeschylus, translated by David
Grene, of the University of Chicago (a university that I’d never heard of at
that stage) and Richmond Lattimore, the Greek scholar at Bryn Mawr College at
whose home I once had the privilege of dining with my parents. The play
“Prometheus Bound” in that volume stood out for the way it grappled with
fundamental issues of free will and human destiny. When I first visited Pomona
last year, Frary was tantalizingly closed for renovation, so it was not until
the summer that I had the opportunity to see our “Prometheus” at first hand.
When I had lunch recently in Frary, I was struck by the incongruity of munching
brownies in a dining hall in front of this dramatic mural. It felt a bit
uncomfortable, as I am sure it has to some of you. I realized, though, that this
is exactly the point. The conversations we have in the dining halls, banal or
profound, are part of the Pomona education, and so it is fitting that this
dramatic image of fire coming down from heaven is not locked up in a museum, but
is right in the middle of our everyday life. It symbolizes the passions that
break through into our daily activities. It reminds us that education is not
always easy, but that it can be life-transforming. That is what we celebrate
today; that is what we will work for in the years ahead.
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