Dear Pomona College Community,
Last week, higher education leaders gathered on our campus for the annual meeting of the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities (AICCU), the key group representing the state’s private colleges.
Though the member schools vary greatly in size and focus, they are working together to make it easier for community college students to transfer to our institutions. Building a stronger, wider pipeline to college is a crucial goal as higher education faces ongoing questions about access and new doubts about its value among some in our broader society.
Pomona will take a leadership role in promoting transfers to help more students earn their four-year degrees, and our admissions team is at work right now to increase the number of transfer students we draw from community colleges.
In our early days, the college ran a preparatory school to put students on track for Pomona. In the future, we will develop new partnerships with community colleges to promote transfer to Pomona and other top liberal arts institutions. The goal is a transformative effect like that of our Pomona College Academy for Youth Success (PAYS), which puts high school students on track to four-year institutions.
Over time, I see Pomona helping community college students find the paths to a range of liberal arts institutions, which I believe are uniquely equipped to help transfer students thrive. Collaborating with other institutions – both two-year colleges in our region and four-year liberal arts colleges -- will be essential to making transfers happen at a scale that benefits more students.
As part of the AICCU gathering, Dr. Emil Kakkis ’82 served as the keynote speaker, and his story provides a powerful antidote to any doubts about the value of higher education. Emil set his sights on a career in science after a summer project in the lab of the late Pomona Chemistry Professor Corwin Hansch, and Emil has gone on to become a pioneer in finding treatments for rare diseases that struggle to draw research funding. The story of his work to save one child expected to die from a rare disease recently was featured on NBC’s Today Show.
Kakkis is one of countless Pomona graduates helping to shape a better future. Just recently, Jason Torres-Rangel ’03, who teaches English in the Los Angeles Unified School District, was chosen as a California’s teacher of the year and the state’s nominee to the 2023 national competition. Sagehens such as Leah Donnella ’13, an editor for NPR’s Code Switch, and Maggie Fick ’07, East Africa deputy bureau chief for Reuters, are serving the public good as journalists. Those are just a few examples.
Higher education continues to offer a powerful path to change lives, contribute to society and expand the possibilities for our world. In the years ahead, Pomona will build on our long-time work in promoting opportunity and seeking creative solutions to our world’s most pressing problems. I can’t wait to see what our next group of graduates will do when they move beyond our campus gates in May.
With best wishes,
Gabi