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October 2011 @Pomona Newsletter

Table of Contents

News and Notes

  • Mark your calendars: Open benefits enrollment will take place from Monday, October 24, through Monday, November 14. Packets should be ready for distribution to faculty and staff the week of October 17.
  • You still have time to get a flu shot! The vaccine is available to all Claremont Colleges staff, faculty and students for $20. Dates and locations: Tuesday, October 11, 11:30 am - 1 pm, CMC Collins Green Room; Wednesday, October 12, 11:30 am - 1 pm, HMC Aviation Room; Monday, October 24, 11:30 am - 1 pm, Keck location TBA; Tuesday, October 25, 11:30 am - 1 pm, Pitzer McConnell Lounge; Thursday, October 27, 11:30 - 1 pm, Scripps Lower Dining Room; and Wednesday, November 9, 3 - 6 pm, Tranquada Multipurpose Room.
  • New meal rates: These were released earlier this year, but here's a friendly reminder: Meal rates at the door for faculty and staff at the dining halls are $5.25 for breakfast, $6.75 for lunch, and $8.75 for dinner. For more information, visit the Dining Services website.
  • Keeping Up With Athletics: Our new Sports Information Director Jeremy Kniffin is blasting news out of the Athletics department on a daily basis! Want to keep up? Follow @sagehens on Twitter, "like" www.facebook.com/sagehens, visit the Athletics website, or look for weekly updates in our news section.

New Emergency Website & Upcoming ShakeOut Drill

During the past few weeks, you should have received a new emergency instruction booklet in your campus mail. Please note that this information is also online on our newly revamped Emergency website. There, you can also print the evacuation map, find out who is on the Emergency Response Team, learn how to update your Connect-ED contact information and more. Please bookmark both www.pomona.edu/emergency and www.pomonaemergency.info (our outside site that exists in case the College servers are down in an emergency).

Additionally, on Thursday, October 20, at 10:20 a.m., the College will be participating in the Great California Shake-Out, a state-wide earthquake drill. To explain why such drills are crucial, Professor of Geology Linda Reinen will be giving a talk on "The ShakeOut Scenario: A Potential Magnitude 7.8 Earthquake in Southern California" in Smith Campus Center 208 on Wednesday, October 19, at 11 a.m.

2011-12 Faculty Promotions & Appointments

This year, 19 Pomona College faculty members received promotions and another nine were reappointed. They are: Mark Allen, André Cavalcanti, Eileen Cheng, Vin de Silva, Stephan Garcia, Karl Johnson, Aaron Kunin, Fernando Lozano, Pardis Mahdavi, Daniel Martínez, Gilda Ochoa, Dara Ross Regaignon, Erin Runions, Victor Silverman, Patricia Smiley, Michael Steinberger, David Tanenbaum, Kyla Tompkins, Dwight Whitaker, Tony Boston, Paul, Cahill, Roger Caron, Angelina Chin, Valerie Cowan, Grace Dávila-López, Michael Green, Ann Lebedeff, and Virginie Pouzet-Duzer.  All promotions and reappointments were effective July 1, 2011. To read more about each faculty member, please visit ourarticle on the promotions.

Campaign Pomona: Daring Minds Update

As of the end of September, more than $142,000,000 has been raised toward the Campaign goal of $250,000,000.

The new north campus residence halls, Sontag Hall and Pomona Hall, are the most recent visible results of the Campaign. Sontag Hall was made possible by a lead gift of $7.5 million from Rick Sontag HMC ’64 and Susan Sontag ’64. Pomona Hall was supported by a $7.5 million lead gift from an anonymous donor.

The Campaign will run until December 2015 and each year of the Campaign will focus on a broad theme. This year’s theme is “The Arts.” The Pomona College Museum of Art’s exceptional PST exhibition, It Happened at Pomona: Art at the Edge of Los Angeles 1969-1973, is one of the highlighted events on campus, along with music and theatre productions. Planning is also under way for a new Studio Art Center to be built on the east side of campus, next to Seaver Theatre. The Center will be the next new facility realized through Campaign Pomona.

To learn more about Campaign Pomona: Daring Minds and to watch the Campaign videos, please visit the Campaign website.

Convocation

If you missed Convocation due to work duties, you can experience all the speeches via video and text in our Convocation section. In particular, Professor Elizabeth Crighton encouraged new students to consider the importance of a liberal arts education and how it can set them free, and to remember the honor of attending Pomona:

Acceptance to Pomona College is a great honor. There were 7,200 applicants for 400 places in your class. Only 14% of applicants were admitted. This is a very high bar indeed. Admission to Pomona is also a tremendous privilege, because you join the small number of American students--150,000 or so--who attend a selective liberal arts college. That’s less than one percent of the population of college and university students in the United States. Even among this rarified one percent, few students attend need-blind colleges like Pomona, where students and their families pay what they can afford, without student loans. If you come from a family that does not need financial aid, you too are on scholarship, because Pomona shoulders a third of the cost of your education. In the language of our time, Pomona College has invested in each of you. The investment goes far beyond the dollars and cents pulled out of our endowment on your behalf. It includes time, attention, and a commitment to stretch your talents as far as they will go--and not just on the part of faculty. You might be surprised to know how much the staff and administration of this college care about and contribute to the quality of your experience here.

Please read or view the full speech here, as well as the speeches of President David Oxtoby and ASPC President Nathaniel Brown '12.

Residence Halls Dedication

On October 1, 2011, the Pomona College community gathered to dedicate Pomona and Sontag Halls. Paul Efron ‘76, chair of the Board of Trustees, opened the program, which also included speeches by President David Oxtoby, Lauri Valerio ‘12, Professor and Director of Environmental Analysis Char Miller and Rick Sontag, who commented on the meaningfulness of the residence halls to his own family and his hopes for a lasting impact on his family's donation of $7.5 million for Sontag Hall:

“It’s exciting to think that over the course of the next several decades there may be thousands of students who will have the opportunity to live in this dorm and develop into mature adults. And maybe some of these students will pass by that bronze memorial plaque on the wall bearing the names of Sontag family members and wonder--who is this Sontag family and why did they feel compelled to sponsor the construction of this building? If by asking this question, it triggers a thought that eventually leads to their giving back in some comparable way, our family will have made an even more significant gift to Pomona.”

Visit our news article on the dedication for photos from the event and links to the text of all the speeches. 

Happy Binary 47 Day!

Last year, we celebrated the 47th anniversary of 47. This year--more specifically on 10/11/11--we celebrated Binary 47 Day, which only comes along once every 100 years. In the 47-second video below, Professor Ami Radunskaya explains what Binary 47 Day is all about:

 



Sustainability Tip

Did you know the Smith Campus Center Mailroom has a Recycling Center? You can recycle the following items there:

  • Batteries
  • Small electronics including cell phones, computer accessories, CFLs and other fluorescent bulbs, and anything that plugs in
  • CDs and DVDs
  • Printer ink cartridges
  • Brita water filter cartridges
  • Cardboard boxes

New Employees

  • Elisa Alban, associate registrar, Registrar's Office
  • Mary Raymond Baginski, associate dean and director of career development, Career Development Office
  • Lauren Moore Bergeron '05, assistant director, Office of Annual Giving
  • Jeremy S. Kniffin, associate director of sports information, Office of Communications
  • Deborah L. Jasco, major gifts administration assistant, Major Gifts
  • Frances Marin, senior staff accountant, Business Office
  • Crystal Camarena, dining services cashier, Dining Services
  • Horace C. Chavez, utility dining services, Dining Services
  • William Elgin Johnson, utility dining services, Dining Services
  • Kristen McCabe Romero, assistant director, Office of Annual Giving
  • Cassandra L. Salas, dining services cashier, Dining Services
  • Joel Arthur Thornton, utility dining services, Dining Services

Recent News

Faculty and Staff Accomplishments

Scholarly Talks and Lectures

Allan Barr (Asian Languages and Literatures) presented a paper in Chinese titled "New research on the 1657 Shuntian examination scandal" at the eighth International Conference on the Traditional Chinese Examination System at Wuhan University in China from 23-25 September.

On 16 September, Ralph Bolton (Anthropology) delivered the opening lecture for the University of Richmond Museums' exhibit, "Achachis y Bordados: Storytelling Embroideries from Chijnaya, Peru," which he co-curated. The exhibit runs through 9 December. He also spoke to the members of the American Folk Art Society when they visited the exhibition on 18 September. He gave a talk, "The Return of the Gringo: Remembering the Past, Reconnecting for the Future," on 25 September in Washington DC at the 50th anniversary celebration of the creation of the Peace Corps.

Gizem Karaali (Mathematics) gave a talk on 28 September titled "Quantization and Superization" at the Mathematics Colloquium of the Claremont Center for the Mathematical Sciences, which brings together the mathematical community of the seven institutions of the Claremont Consortium.

Pardis Mahdavi (Anthropology) gave a talk on "Human Trafficking, the Middle East and Human Rights" at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington DC on 23 September.

Alma Martinez (Theatre & Dance) presented a lecture, "Spitfires, Latin Lovers and Bandidos: The Myth of the Hollywood Latino Stereotype," at several locations from 20-23 September, including Christopher Newport University in Newport News, Virginia; Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton, Florida; and  Dutchess Community College in Poughkeepsie, New York.

Daniel Martinez (Biology) was an invited speaker at the international workshop "Searching for Eve: Basal Metazoans and the Evolution of Multicellular Complexity" that took place at the Evangelische Akademie Tutzing in Germany from 12-15 September. Martinez also presented two posters at the workshop: "Origin and Diversification of Hawaiian Hydra" and, with Alexya Aguilera '12, "Hydra viridissima and its algal Endosymbionts."

Bryan Penprase (Physics and Astronomy) and Catherine Wilka '12 attended the "High Redshift Universe" conference at the Institute for Astronomy, Cambridge, UK, and presented a poster on their results on low-metallicity absorption systems.

Virginie Pouzet-Duzer (Romance Languages and Literatures) presented a paper, "Ivsic-Le Brun : la poétisation amoureuse des débris de rêves de Toyen," at the ninth International Conference on Word and Image Study (IAWIS) in Montréal, Canada, on 26 August.

Monique Saigal (Romance Languages and Literatures) gave a presentation titled "A Hidden Child During WWII Honors Young Women who Fought for Liberty and Justice" to the Kiwanis at St. Ambrose Church on 22 September. She also gave a presentation to book club at the Claremont Club on 18 August and a SunCity Community in Lincoln, California, on 29 August, discussing her book Women in the French Resistance, as well as similarities between her life in Paris in 1942 and the book Sara's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay.

On 15 September, Michael Steinberger (Economics) presented his work, "Same-Sex Unmarried Partner Couples in the American Community Survey: The Role of Misreporting, Miscoding and Misallocation," at the Census Research Data Center Conference in Minneapolis. On 22 September, he presented "Economic Update: More of the Same?!" at the Northwest Credit Union Association Annual Meeting in Tacoma, Washington.

Publications

Erica Flapan (Mathematics) wrote the chapter "A Topological Approach to Molecular Chirality" in Expeditions in Mathematics, eds. T. Shubin, D. Hayes and G. Alexanderson (Mathematical Association of America, 2011), pp. 137-152. 

Peter Kung (Philosophy) published "On the possibility of skeptical scenarios" in the European Journal of Philosophy 19:3 (2011), pp. 387-407.

Virginie Pouzet-Duzer (Romance Languages and Literatures) is the author of "Madame Daudet, ou l'époux fait masque" in Jeu de masques: les femmes et le travestissement textuel (1500-1940), eds. Jean-Philippe Beaulieu and Andrea Oberhuber (Publications de l'Université de Saint-Étienne, 2011), pp. 145-156.

Adolfo J. Rumbos (Mathematics) published, with David A. Bliss and James Buerger '10, "Periodic boundary-value problems and the Dancer-Fucik spectrum under conditions of resonance,” in the Electronic Journal of Differential Equations 112 (2011), pp. 1-34. 

Exhibitions and Performances

Joyce Lu (Theatre and Dance) danced under the direction of and with Oguri and Company in Fall Water, an original site-specific dance piece with a live soundscore by composer Paul Chavez with Feltlike at the Indianapolis Museum of Art on 23 September.

A solo exhibition by Sandeep Mukherjee (Art and Art History), "New Work at Project 88," opened on 22 August in Mumbai, India, and runs until 28 October. In June, Mukherjee’s Public Collections: Work from 2011 was acquired by the San Jose Museum of Art in San Jose, California, for their permanent collection.

Honors and Awards

 Paul Cahill (Spanish) received a research grant from the Program for Cultural Cooperation between Spain's Ministry of Culture and United States Universities.

Virginie Pouzet-Duzer (Romance Languages and Literatures) was awarded an Albert & Elaine Borchard Foundation grant to work on a project, "Impresionnisme littéraire," for an upcoming book as a scholar-in-residence at the Chateau de la Bretesche in Missillac, France, in the fall of 2011. 

Other

Jon Bailey (Music) is spending his semester away from Pomona working as a guest lecturer on cruise ships speaking about the history of Broadway musicals, as well as music in Venice and the Adriatic. This coming year, he will be giving lectures on Celebrity, Azamara, Seabourn, Princess and Cunard's Queen Mary 2.

Thomas Leabhart (Theatre), as part of his sabbatical year, taught from 25 April - 6 May at the University of Santiago de Composela in Spain and from 9-20 May at the University of Seville, Spain. On 30 May, he taught a one-day workshop and performed a lecture-demonstration at Stefan Niedzialkowski's Theatre School in Warsaw, Poland, and from 6-28 June he taught for Arts en Scene in Lyon, France. From 20 June - 1 July, he taught for Association Hippocampe in Paris, and from 4-15 July for La Montade in Aurillac, France. From 18-29 July, he worked with a group of 12 professional actors on devising a new theatre piece, which they performed outdoors in Paris in four different locations on 30 July. 

Alma Martinez (Theatre & Dance) served as co-dramaturg in the 25 August development workshop to bring T.C. Boyle’s novel The Tortilla Curtain to the stage. The play will be presented at San Diego Repertory Theatre in their spring 2012 season.

On 25 August, Jason Smith (ITS) won his age group in the 4.8-mile Optimis Distance Swim Challenge at Venice Beach with a time of two hours and five minutes. Smith also placed third overall in the US Masters Swimming category. 

On 27 September, the U.S. Census Bureau cited the joint research of Michael Steinberger (Economics) at the UCLA Williams Institute in their decision to change accuracy measures in the Census and American Community Survey. This contribution to the change was cited numerous news sources, including the New York Times, Washington Post, NPR's All Things Considered, and a nationally syndicated Associated Press piece.

@Pomona Newsletter