May 2010 @Pomona Newsletter

News & Notes

• Congratulations to our graduating seniors! Commencement Weekend is this Friday through Saturday with Commencement exercises occurring on Sunday, May 16, at 10 a.m. on Marston Quad. For more information, visit our Commencement web page.
• Save the date! This year's Staff Picnic will be held on Wednesday, May 19, from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.. Enjoy lunch; compete in the raffle for tickets to the movies, Disneyland, Knott's Berry Farm and more; and listen to live music by the Ravelers. Bring chairs and blankets!
• If you completed the Rideshare Survey for Human Resources, please be sure to stop by their office by Friday to pick up the survey gift, a Pomona College lunch cooler. Friday will be the last day that HR will distribute the gifts.
• The Charitable Giving Campaign announced that their 2009-2010 campaign set a new record with 126 donors (68 staff and 58 faculty) giving a total of $33,503. Thank you to the Charitable Giving Campaign Committee--Robin Flynn (co-chair), Mike Kuehlwein (co-chair), Paula Goldsmid, George Gorse, Ronald Nemo, Cathy Paolozzi and Art Rodriguez--for organizing the drive to help local charities.
• The summer Faculty/Staff Fitness and Wellness Program will begin on May 17. Rains Center hours are 11:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m., Monday through Friday, during the summer. It is closed during the weekend and on major holidays. Click here for the wellness class schedule.
• Congratulations to the six offices that have been certified during the pilot phase of the College's new Green Office Program: ASPC, Computer Science, Geology, KSPC, Math and the Writing Center. Visit the Sustainability Integration Office's website for more information on the new program.

New Employees

Join is in welcoming our newest employees!

• Alex Gonzalez, Groundskeeper, Grounds
• Kelly Jung, Advancement Analyst and Raisers Edge Specialist, Advancement Services

Recent News

• Smith Campus Center Wins Facility Design Award for Renovation
• Professor Matthew Sazinsky Awarded NIH Grant
• Pomona College Ranked 3rd Happiest in Nation
• Film Produced by Ian Carr '10 Selected for Cannes Film Festival
• Professor Alma Martinez Brings "Zoot Suit" to National Theatre Company of Mexico"
• Jonathan Lethem Appointed Disney Professor of Creative Writing at Pomona College
• New Film by Sylvain White '98 Released
• 2010 Alumni Award Winners Announced
• How Students Learned to Carve Wood at the Farm
• Daniel Low '11 Awarded $36,000 in Scholarships to Continue Public Health Work in Africa
• Thomas Lane '10 Wins NSF Graduate Fellowship
• Five Students Receive Critical Language Scholarships

Faculty and Staff Accomplishments

Allan Barr (Asian Languages & Literatures) presented his paper “Yu Hua’s Fiction Heads West. . . . Or Does It?” at “Cultural Interactions: Chinese Literature in English Translation,” a conference held at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, 15-16 April.

At the annual meeting of the Society for Applied Anthropology, held in Merida, Mexico, in late March, Ralph Bolton (Anthropology) presented a paper, “On Deflowering the Virgin Mind and Other Perils of Teaching Sex: Some Reflections of an Applied Anthropologist”; chaired a symposium, “Teaching Applied Anthropology: Challenges, Methods and Perspectives”; and served as a panelist in a session on “Issues in Teaching Human Sexuality: Sexual Orientation.”

Bolton was also interviewed on the “OM Zone” program of radio station BLU102.9 in Santa Fe, NM, about his work in applied anthropology with the Chijnaya Foundation in Peru. And with Roland Alum and Garry Chick, Bolton published an essay, “John M. Roberts’s Imaginative Science of Anthropology,” in the American Anthropological Association’s Anthropology News (April 2010), p. 49.

Paul Cahill (Romance Languages & Literatures) gave a paper, “Undoing Genre: Parenthetical Narration in Jenaro Talens’s Menos que una imagen,” at a meeting of the Southern California Chapter of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese, held at Azusa Pacific University, 17 April.

José R. Cartagena-Calderón (Romance Languages & Literatures) presented a paper, "'Lo de Italia': Imperial Spain, Italy and the Pursuit of Sodomy," at the Renaissance Society of America Annual Meeting in Venice, 8-10 April.

Susana Chávez-Silverman (Romance Languages & Literatures) is the author of “Mini Geography Lesson Crónica” and the subject of “Interview: Susana Chávez-Silverman Speaks with David Newman,” in New Delta Review 27:1 (2010), pp. 223-33. Chicano writer Daniel Olivas posted an interview with Chávez-Silverman on La Bloga on 19 April. Chávez-Silverman also read from her new book, Scenes from la Cuenca de Los Angeles y otros Natural Disasters, at the Queer Resource Center on 29 April.

Christopher Chinn (Classics) gave a paper, “Statius, Orpheus and Callimachus,” at the conference “Religion and Ritual in Flavian Epic,” held at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, 23-25 April.

Philip Choi and Bryan Penprase (Physics & Astronomy), along with collaborators from Harvey Mudd and other institutions, have received a multi-year, $637,138 grant from the National Science Foundation’s Major Research Instrumentation program. The grant will be used to develop an advanced adaptive optics system for the College’s one-meter telescope on Table Mountain.

Donna M. Di Grazia (Music) published an article, “New Perspectives on Thomas Myriell’s Tristitiae remedium and Add. MS 29427,” in Early Music 38:1 (Winter 2010), pp. 101-12.

Martina Ebert (Foundations and Corporate Relations), David Menefee-Libbey (Politics) and Per Dahlin, an English professor at Cal Poly Pomona, were the victors at the Fifth Annual Fridns of the Clarmeont Library Adult Spelling Bee. The Claremont Courier reported on 21 April that the trio won the 21-team competition with the word “pantophagous,” a zoological term dealing with creatures that eat all kinds of food.

Steve Erickson (Philosophy) was a Critical Commentator in a session, “Author Meets Critics: Karl Jaspers – A Biography: Navigations in Truth by Suzanne Kirkbright (Yale, 2004),” at meetings of the Karl Jaspers Society of North America held in conjunction with the American Philosophical Association meetings in San Francisco in April.

Kathleen Fitzpatrick (Media Studies) was an invited speaker at a one-day conference, "The Digital University: Power Relations, Publishing, Authority, and Community in the 21st Century Academy," at the CUNY Graduate Center, held 21 April.

Robert Gaines (Geology) gave a talk titled “Potential for Widespread Microbial Reduction of Structural Iron in Common Clay Minerals: A ‘Missing Source’ of Iron in the Oceans?” at the University of Southern California on 5 April.

Hillary Gravendyk (English) presented a paper, “Intertextual Absences: Turner and ‘Turner,’” at the American Comparative Literature Association conference in New Orleans on 1 April.

Michael Green (Philosophy) gave a paper, “Rights and Political Authority in Hobbes,” and commented on a paper, “Hán Fei on Morality in Politics,” at the American Philosophical Association meetings in San Francisco in April.

In November Jonathan Hall (Media Studies) was one of three keynote presenters at the 2nd Annual Conference of the Japan Association for Queer Studies. In March he organized a panel, “The Future of Rancière,” for the Society for Cinema and Media Studies Conference in Los Angeles. He also gave a paper, “Image as Argument: Kawai Masayuki’s Visual Philosophy,” as part of the panel.

Laura L. Mays Hoopes (Biology) has a poem, “Goodbye to Poland,” in Chopin with Cherries: A Tribute in Poetry, ed. Maja Trochimczyk (Moonrise Press, 2010). She also read some of her creative work at the South Pasadena Public Library on 11 April.

Karl Johnson (Biology and Neuroscience) was awarded DNASTAR’s “Rising Star” grant, which helps researchers at small colleges acquire Lasergene software for DNA/RNA sequence analysis and related work.

Peter Kung (Philosophy) gave a talk, “Justification without Vindication,” at California State University, San Bernardino, on 23 April.

Andrew Lear (Classics) gave a talk, “Images of Ancient Greek Pederasty: The Way Greek Artists Portrayed Their Culture’s Homoerotic Customs,” at the University of California, Santa Barbara, on 3 April and at San Francisco State University on 16 April. He had given the same talk at Pomona in March.

Ann Lebedeff (Physical Education) coached the Pomona-Pitzer Women’s Tennis Team to victory in the SCIAC conference tournament, 16-17 April. She also presented the online conference call “Coaching Philosophy: What Is the Message I Want to Send?” to the Intercollegiate Tennis Association on 21 April.

With the Mojave Trio, Genevieve Lee (Music) performed at California State University, Long Beach, on 15 March. The group premiered 22 pieces, including a new work by Tom Flaherty (Music) for piano trio and electronics. Professor Lee also performed in three chamber music concerts at the Garth Newel Music Center in Virginia, 23-25 April.

Alma Martinez (Theatre & Dance) is performing the role of Dolores Reyna in the National Theatre Company of Mexico’s production of the Luis Valdez play Zoot Suit, which premiered in Mexico City on 29 April and runs through 4 July. She has served as US-Mexico Project Coordinator and dramaturg for the production, in addition to consulting on hair and makeup.

Martinez was interviewed by American Theatre Magazine on 14 March and by the Los Angeles Times Mexico bureau on 29 April about the project, and on 22 April she and the rest of the cast participated in a press conference in Mexico City. She also served as faculty advisor to Matthew Helm ’12, Stephanie Valdez ’13, and Pomona staff member Jason Brown, who prepared the online version of “Zoot Suit Guia de Descubrimiento”/”Zoot Suit Discovery Guide,” which launched on 29 April.

Jonathan Matsui (Biology and Neuroscience) has received a three-year, $440,159 grant from the National Institutes of Health for his project “Hair Cell Development of Zebrafish Mutants with Defects in the Marginal Zone.”

With Alex Hagen HMC ‘10, Bryan Penprase (Physics & Astronomy) appeared in “Decoding the Skies,” part of the series “Known Universe,” on the National Geographic Channel on 29 April.

Under the leadership of Frank Pericolosi (Physical Education), the Pomona-Pitzer baseball team clinched the 2010 SCIAC Championship and an automatic bid to the NCAA Division III Baseball Tournament.

With Kristin Hoppa PZ ’06, Jennifer Perry (Anthropology) co-authored and presented a paper, “Middle Holocene Variability on Santa Cruz Island: Implications for Coastal Foraging,” at the 7th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology, held in Saint Louis, MO, 14-18 April. She also co-organized a symposium, “Place as Political: Archaeological Views on Landscape, Ritual, and Space,” in which she presented a paper titled “The Power of Place: Perspectives from California’s Santa Barbara Channel.”

Frances Pohl (Art & Art History) was interviewed by Hugh Hewitt on his KRLA 870 AM radio program on 29 March. The topic was the “American Stories” exhibition at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

Virginie Pouzet-Duzer (Romance Languages & Literatures) published an article, "La Jeanne d'Arc surréaliste de Joseph Delteil: une guerrière en bas de soie," in Le Porche (bulletin des Amis de J. d'Arc et de Ch. Péguy) 32 (March 2010), pp. 79-91.

Lynn Rapaport (Sociology), John Roth ’64, and Jonathan Petropoulos are co-editors of Memory, History, and Responsibility: Reassessment of the Holocaust, Implications for the Future (Northwestern University Press, 2010).

Erin Runions (Religious Studies) is the author of “Teaching the Bible and Film: Pedagogical Promises, Pitfalls, and Proposals: A Response to Matthew Rindge,” in Teaching Theology and Religion 13:2, pp. 150-52.

Monique Saigal (Romance Languages & Literatures) reviewed Tahar Ben Jelloun’s book Au pays in the French Review 83:5 (April 2010), p. 1105. Saigal also discussed the new movie La Rafle at the Centre Middlebury in Paris on 29 March. She also gave talks about her life as a child hidden from the Nazis in France, about women in the French Resistance, and about her book, Héroines françaises 1940-1945, at a variety of venues: at the Women’s International Zionist Organization in St. Cloud, France, on 13 March; at the Cercle littéraire in West Ashley, SC, on 9 April; at the Waccamaw Higher Education Center, SC, on 10 April; at a Yom HaShoah program in Charleston, SC, on 11 April; and at the College of Charleston, Wando High School, and the Addleston Hebrew Academy in Charleston on 12 April. She also led a silent march to the Holocaust Memorial in Charleston’s Marion Square on 12 April.

Jack Sanders (Music) published an essay, “Guitar Hero,” in Soundboard Magazine 36:1. On 18 April, Sanders performed a vihuela, baroque and classical guitar recital at the Scripps Ranch Library. In late April, he gave 10 guitar recitals in Minnesota and Wisconsin under the auspices of the Piatigorsky Foundation.

Jason Smith (ITS) competed in the Superfrog half-ironman distance triathlon in Coronado, CA, on 11 April. The race included a 1.2-mile swim, a 56-mile bike ride, and a 13.1-mile run. Smith finished third in his division with a time of 5:40.

Nancy Treser-Osgood (Alumni Relations) delivered two presentations at the Annual Giving Professionals Network "Meeting of the Minds" Conference at Cal Poly Pomona on 8-9 April. She spoke to newcomers in the profession about the role of alumni relations in advancement, as well as led a session on how giving officers and alumni professionals can coordinate their efforts to enhance institutional fundraising.

Samuel Yamashita (History) organized and chaired a panel on “New Perspectives on Food in Wartime Japan” at the Association for Asian Studies annual meeting, held in Philadelphia in March. He also gave a paper, “The Food Situation in Urban and Rural Japan, 1942-45,” as part of the panel.