Dear Pomona College Community,
Part of our mission at Pomona is to equip our community to bridge divides and find common ground.
This work is particularly important amid the division and divisiveness in so much of our world, our nation and in our everyday lives. Our small, residential community is a place to start -- but how do we proceed with both diligence and humility?
In 2019, we launched Shaping Dialogue Now, in partnership with the Sustained Dialogue Institute, to help campus groups find ways to improve relationships and strengthen community.
Based on a methodology developed by Hal Saunders, a U.S. diplomat for the Middle East and a key architect of the Camp David Peace Accords, Sustained Dialogue offers training to help groups carry out difficult conversations, build relationships and create change.
At Pomona, dialogue group topics to date include: 5C Queer Community, Voicing the Black Experience at Pomona and Staff Flourishing and Inclusion, as well as the first such dialogue group in the nation comprised of students and trustees. That group focused on Campus Climate Around Race, Class and Politics at Pomona.
The spring will bring new offerings focused on the first-year experience as well as interfaith approaches to combating antisemitism.
This process alone is no panacea, though – we need to weave the work of dialogue into everything we do. And it needs to reach beyond our campus.
Recently, a group of Pomona student volunteers participated in an exchange with nearby Biola University through a program called Bridging the Gap, which provides a structure with trained facilitators to help students build person-to-person understanding -- even when there are sharp political or cultural differences. Feedback from Pomona participants was positive on the whole.
Of course, the academic experience remains central as we seek the reach across divides. In that vein, our Speaking Partners in the Center for Speaking, Writing and the Image not only offer help in public speaking, as you might expect, but also in how to effectively join class discussions and participate.
We also have more sweeping initiatives under way that will help Pomona bridge divides.
Looking beyond the U.S., our Global Pomona Project aims to help student to thoughtfully engage with the wider world. A key aim is for students to be “prepared to collaborate effectively with global partners to address the world’s most pressing problems.”
And our Strategic Vision calls for Pomona to not only continue on our path of enrolling more low-income students but to reach out to the middle class as well. Middle-income students comprise about a third of the nation, but only 15 percent of Pomona’s student population. To achieve a truly diverse student population that supports greater connection and less polarization, we must open the door to more middle-income students.
For all our larger work, however, so much of this comes down to face-to-face conversation. Last week, students from campus affinity groups gathered during my office hours to express their concerns about the potential partitioning of the Students of Color Alliance (SOCA) Lounge.
We confirmed that we would not make any changes to the SOCA space this academic year and we will have an outside expert do a study in Student Affairs spaces and across campus to determine how we can best allocate it to meet our diverse needs. We will, of course, include students in this process.
I appreciate that so many students came to share their views and experiences. Whenever any of us feel hurt in our community, it is a collective concern and we need to stop and hear the issue out. I’m sorry for that, and I extend my love and respect to you all.
Though our discussion was contentious at times, I’m glad we were able to talk in person to work toward a path forward. It’s important that we always work to make things right wherever we can.
With best wishes,
Gabi