Pomona College News

On February 2, 2012, President David Oxtoby appeared on the KCRW radio show, "Which Way, LA?," to discuss the recent events regarding federal work authorization requirements at Pomona College. (Click "listen" on that page for the audio, which starts at about 19:20.) As a result of a complaint filed by an employee with the Board resulting in an independent investigation, the College became aware of deficiencies in the files of 84 employees regarding their work authorization documents. The Board leadership made the decision to comply with federal law, which, if violated, would result in serious civil and criminal sanctions. All but 17 employees were able to resolve the issues with their file by the deadline, and where proper documentation was not provided, the College was left with no choice but to end their employment. The actions taken by the College to address these deficiencies, as required by law, have raised questions and divided the community. For more information on the situation, including letters to the community from the administration, please visit http://www.pomona.edu/work-documentation.

Pomona College has been named one of the nation’s top 10 best value private colleges by The Princeton Review. The listing, which places Pomona at #6, was published this week in the book The Best Value Colleges: 2012 Edition.

Award-winning actor and playwright Anna Deavere Smith will perform and discuss her one-woman show On the Road: A Search for American Character, a collection of excerpts from 25 years of interviews with diverse voices from communities in crisis, on Wednesday, February 29 at 7 p.m., as part of Pomona College’s Distinguished Speaker Series. 

Writer Rebecca Walker, named by Time Magazine as one of the “50 Future Leaders of America” and considered one of the founders of third-wave feminism, will speak on “Black Cool: Language of Survival, Survival of Language” at Pomona College on Thursday, February 9th at 4:15 p.m. in Crookshank Hall Room 108 (140 W. Sixth St., Claremont). Her talk is in conjunction with the release of the book she edited, Black Cool – One Thousand Streams of Blackness (2012).

Among the highlights in Pomona-Pitzer athletics this week were the Sagehen Women’s Swimming and Diving team continuing an impressive streak going against a conference rival and the Men’s Basketball team capturing an exciting win at home to take over sole possession of second place in the SCIAC with two weeks left in the regular season. 

Internationally acclaimed concert organist Christoph Bull, known as “the rock star of the organ world” by KPCC’s John Rabe, will perform on the College’s stunning Hill Memorial Organ in Pomona College’s Bridges Hall of Music on Sunday, February 12. 

The New York Times offers a favorable review of Performance at Pomona, our entry in the Pacific Standard Time Performance and Public Art Festival, during which John White, Judy Chicago and James Turrell '65 re-staged earlier performance art works that they originally staged at Pomona College. Of Chicago's A Butterfly for Pomona, art critic Kevin McGarry notes: "The ebb and flow of transient conditions made the Butterfly feel like an experience out of time; as the smoke cleared and some of the flames burned out, the values of light and darkness only intensified for those candles left blazing in the open air."

Historian Fred Donner will deliver two talks: “The Origins of Islam, Revisited: Old Problems, New Approaches” on Tuesday, February 28 at 11 a.m., and “Nascent Islam as an Ecumenical Movement ” on Thursday, March 1 at 11 a.m., as part of the Ena H. Thompson Lecture Series.

Stand-up comedian, actor and writer Demetri Martin—named by Entertainment Weekly as one of the “25 Funniest People in America”—will perform at Pomona College’s Bridges Auditorium on March 1 as part of his 2012 tour, “Telling Jokes in Cold Places.”

The Research Corporation for Science Advancement, a foundation devoted to science, recently announced the top 10 liberal arts colleges in the United States that have received the most research grants from the foundation in its 100-year history. Pomona College is on the list with 50 grants total. In a Huffington Post article, RCSA President James M. Gentile says "the colleges on the list have...demonstrated ongoing leadership in creating environments in which science education and access to undergraduate research opportunities are closely intertwined.... Hands-on research opportunities for undergraduates combined with personalized attention from inventive professors is one of the reasons that liberal arts colleges have long played a disproportionately large role in the education of our nation's future scientists."

This year marks the 20^th Annual Ussachevsky Festival, and festival director Tom Flaherty says he has “included music of several composers from the first concerts in the early 1990s, including the earliest piece ever programmed on the series – Messiaen’s 1937 ‘Fetes des belles eaux,’ to be joined by several new pieces hot off the toner.” The festival runs Friday, February 3 through Saturday, February 4 with two evening concerts and a lecture/demonstration at Pomona College. All the events are free and open to the public. 

Today's Los Angeles Times reviewed Saturday's "Performance at Pomona" along with shows at The Getty and in Santa Monica. The piece singled out "Preparation F," by John White with the Pomona-Pitzer football team, as particularly "compelling" with a sense of "intimacy." More than 2,000 people attended Performance at Pomona, which is part of Pacific Standard Time's Performance and Public Art Festival, which spans 11 days and has more than 30 performances.

Psychologist Barry Schwartz, author of The Paradox of Choice: Why More is Less, will give a talk of the same title on Monday, January 30 at 7 p.m., at Pomona College’s Seaver North Auditorium (645 N. College Ave., Claremont).

Jonathan Wright, associate dean and professor of biology, has been selected to receive the inaugural Faculty Alumni Service Award from Pomona’s Alumni Association Board.