Dear Sagehens,
I write to invite you to participate in important discussions between the College and Claremont Graduate University (CGU) about a possible future that we as a Pomona community, must explore thoroughly together.
More than a year ago, CGU announced that it was seeking a partnership with another institution to address challenges to the university’s financial sustainability. CGU’s leaders had concluded that these challenges threatened CGU’s capacity to continue operating as a graduate-only university. This predicament is increasingly common for graduate institutions across the country, and CGU confronted its own challenges head on.
The Pomona Board of Trustees recognized it was imperative that the College remain fully informed about CGU’s plans and to evaluate whether Pomona might play a role in CGU’s future. The Board felt it critical, as well, to protect the interests of the Consortium itself.
Accordingly, late this spring, a group of Pomona faculty, staff and trustees began to engage in the confidential, independent review process that CGU had established to explore the potential value of a partnership with another institution. Our Board has been carefully evaluating this matter as well, including assessing the extensive information and insights provided by Pomona’s working group.
Among other issues, the Board and the working group have considered whether this partnership may, in fact, be essential to protecting and preserving the Consortium. Both Pomona and CGU have been part of the Consortium since its founding 100 years ago by Pomona President James Blaisdell. CGU was the original graduate institution within our distinctive higher education Consortium, and Pomona and CGU share a century of partnership based in President Blaisdell’s founding vision of collaborative educational excellence.
The Board and the working group have also discussed the promise of this partnership to strengthen both Pomona and CGU while firmly protecting Pomona’s liberal arts undergraduate mission and CGU’s distinct identity as a graduate school through proper arrangements. A soundly aligned partnership could allow all parties involved—the Consortium, CGU and Pomona—to remain at the forefront of educational innovation in an era of dynamic change in higher education.
After months of evaluation and review, we are now legally permitted to discuss the process publicly. Our ability to move to community consultation follows a formal invitation from the CGU Board of Trustees to the Pomona Board of Trustees this past weekend to enter exclusive conversations about a potential partnership. Until now, like any other institutions involved in these discussions, we have been bound by a confidentiality agreement, or “NDA,” that legally prohibits all signatories from discussing the matters it covers with anyone not privy to that agreement. CGU required this NDA, and while we are now able to engage in more robust discussions with our community, there are areas, like personnel and financial information, where the confidentiality agreement remains in place due to legal and privacy concerns.
We want to know what the Pomona community thinks about this opportunity. CGU will similarly want to know what its community thinks.
As we enter those open community discussions, I also want to share the following with you:
- First, nothing binding about the relationship between Pomona and CGU has been decided. Any binding decisions on this matter will only follow discussions across the Pomona community, which we are initiating today. CGU will likewise take its own steps to engage its own community as it determines best.
- Second, as we have made clear throughout the months of confidential discussion with CGU, Pomona’s liberal arts undergraduate mission must and will not be turned aside by any agreement with CGU. Additional information about the review process, the deliberations and more is available on a dedicated website.
We have begun planning comprehensive campus discussions to allow the Pomona community to explore together the prospect of any Pomona agreement with CGU; what the risks would otherwise be to the Consortium; what the promise could be for both institutions; and many other vital questions. Among other opportunities, these forums will include the following:
- Campus forums for Pomona faculty, staff and students.
- Campus forums with members of the Board of Trustees.
- Webinar discussions for Pomona alumni and parents.
- Publicly posted information and data that we will post in a dedicated section of the Pomona website.
- An opportunity to submit questions and comments, which you can begin sharing with us now through this feedback form. We will do our best via the FAQs to answer those questions.
- As these and other opportunities for community dialogue about this matter unfold, I will also be providing the Pomona community with regular updates.
- CGU will be establishing its own similar opportunities for discussion and information for the CGU campus community.
At the start of 2026, we will be providing specific information about the above discussion opportunities as well as building them out across the spring semester. We will pursue this kind of comprehensive dialogue because shared governance guides the College and serves and strengthens our mission.
I appreciate being able to share this update with you now that the Boards of the two institutions have made the decision to begin exclusive discussions and CGU has concluded the confidential exploration process. I look forward to these conversations in 2026 and to providing you with continuing updates as we consider as a community the opportunities and challenges an arrangement with CGU may present. I am grateful to the faculty, staff and trustees who have begun this work. Pomona’s unique and precious role in American higher education remain my North Star, and I am excited to see where this discussion leads.
Sincerely,
Gabi