Janet Inskeep Benton ’79, chair of the Pomona College Board of Trustees, has made a $10 million gift to support the new Center for Global Engagement (CGE), advancing a new model for global education at Pomona.
At the heart of Benton’s gift is a deep belief in the residential experience and its power to shape students. Residence halls, Benton says, are more than places to live. They are where friendships form, perspectives broaden and conversations continue long after class ends.
“The Center for Global Engagement stands as a testament of our unwavering commitment to preparing students for the world they will soon inherit,” Pomona President G. Gabrielle Starr says. “I am profoundly grateful to Janet for her visionary partnership, ensuring Pomona remains a leader in global and interdisciplinary education, and that residential life remains the heartbeat of our campus.”
Benton’s lead gift to the CGE will build upon the legacy of the Oldenborg Center for Modern Languages and International Relations while reimagining how Pomona prepares students to engage with an interconnected world. Beyond language immersion, the CGE will connect students and faculty across disciplines, foster inquiry into complex global challenges and cultivate the global literacy students need to navigate different cultures, histories and systems.
The Center is one of the signature priorities of Originals: The Campaign for Pomona College, a historic campaign that will raise $530 million and double alumni engagement. Originals will expand access, advance teaching and discovery, strengthen the communities that help students thrive, connect generations of Sagehens and ensure Pomona has the independence and strength to lead for generations to come.
Benton’s lifetime giving has left an enduring mark on Pomona. She has supported priorities across the College, including the Benton Museum of Art, named in recognition of her extraordinary generosity. Her philanthropy continues to shape the landscape of campus —creating spaces where students can learn, live and connect—and her latest gift to the CGE extends that legacy for generations to come.
“Pomona has always been a place where original ideas and original people come together in powerful ways,” Benton says. “The CGE represents the next chapter in that story, one that embraces our world and the promise it holds.”
The Center will have nine immersive living-learning communities, including seven focused on language immersion and two centered on interdisciplinary themes with global relevance, such as climate change, migration and conservation. Across the CGE, academic programming will connect these residential experiences with courses, faculty engagement and collaborative research, giving students multiple ways to develop global literacy and investigate questions that cross national and disciplinary boundaries. Its 60,000-square-foot residence hall will increase residential capacity by 60 new residents for a total of 200.
Throughout the Center, students will move between classrooms, interdisciplinary collaborations, residential communities and gathering spaces, carrying questions from coursework and research into everyday conversation. The informal encounters that defined Oldenborg will remain essential, but the CGE will place them within a broader ecosystem for global learning and discovery.
“One of the most remarkable things about Oldenborg was that learning happened in fleeting moments,” says Jocelyn Cho ’28. “Someone would stop you in the hallway and teach you a word in Portuguese, or a phrase in Mandarin would come up over breakfast. What excites me most about the CGE is that even more students will have these experiences and make them a part of daily life.”
Anne Bages, former director of the Oldenborg Center and emeritus professor of physical education, adds: “In its time, Oldenborg accomplished so much, but we also knew we had outgrown the building. The Center for Global Engagement allows the vision behind Oldenborg to become everything it was always meant to be.”
Imagine a Day at the Center for Global Engagement
What might Benton’s gift help make possible? Imagine a day at the Center a few years from now.
It’s 7:30 a.m., and breakfast is already underway.
At one table, students debate the latest football match in Spanish. Across the room, two students work through a Japanese conversation assignment while someone describes a family tradition from India.
By 9 a.m., students scatter throughout the building. Some head to technology-enabled classrooms and seminars. Others settle into collaboration spaces to prepare for a water scarcity project led by a professor and peers living thousands of miles away.
Lunch stretches beyond the meal itself as a student lingers with friends from different countries. Someone invites classmates to a Lunar New Year celebration. Another asks for help practicing French before tomorrow’s oral exam.
By late afternoon, each residential community has taken on its own rhythm. In one, students prepare dinner together while speaking Mandarin. Down the hall, another group gathers to discuss refugee journeys and questions of identity and belonging as part of one of the Center’s globally themed communities.
As evening settles in, students drift into the courtyard. Some are finishing homework. Others are teaching one another expressions that don’t quite translate, while making plans to study abroad.
When Benton imagines Pomona’s future, these are the moments she hopes her support will help make possible at the CGE: the unscripted conversations, unexpected connections and everyday encounters that expand how students understand one another and the world.