We envision a Pomona College community that is engaged, curious and prepared to act with courage and self-awareness in an ever-changing, interconnected world.
At the Center for Global Engagement, “global” is an expansive concept. It includes our international study away programs, many areas of faculty expertise, our international students, connections with institutions in many other countries, the worldwide reach of our alumni and more. More than that, though, “global” describes a multifaceted and interdisciplinary intellectual framework that informs Pomona’s and the CGE’s approach to questions and challenges in our own backyard and around the world.
Critical to this work are the skills we cultivate as Pomona community members. For as global participants, we recognize the imperative of such attributes as rigorous habits of mind, cultural humility, communications acumen and tireless curiosity. The CGE aspires to elevate and serve these qualities as it brings together thinkers from across our community in addressing complex issues from the local to the global. In pursuing this work, the center can become a model for collaboration, discussion across our differences and human connection from Southern California to peoples around the world.
As the CGE emerges, we also are building deliberately on Pomona’s storied history in global learning. In particular, we aim for all of the programs and opportunities once housed in the Oldenborg Center for Modern Languages and International Relations and the International and Domestic Programs Office (study away) not only to continue but also to thrive as part of the CGE. The CGE will expand students’ immersive experiential learning opportunities, support faculty research initiatives and serve as a hub for the College’s engagement in the world from near to far.
In pursuing these goals, the CGE will function as the physical and conceptual home for work such as the following:
Dialogue Across Difference
Cultural humility is a core learning goal for the whole Pomona community. Through structured reflection, cross-cultural collaboration and engagement with diverse perspectives, the College strengthens an array of abilities, including powers of self-reflection, intercultural agility, adaptive leadership, language proficiency and civil discourse about the most challenging topics. Such qualities are essential for our students as they navigate an ever-shrinking yet more polarized world. Developing these skills is central to College values and fundamental to the kind of in-depth research, original creative practice and complex inquiry that are the foundations of the CGE—and that help develop graduates who are well-prepared to be exceptional industry, scholarly, creative and community leaders. Among the many CGE-based programs that will help our students become effective collaborators and communicators across difference will be:
- Language tables
- Collaborative dialogue and civic discourse initiatives
- Language conversation classes
- Foreign Language Resource Center
Living-Learning Communities
For decades, Pomona students in Oldenborg expanded their linguistic and intercultural fluency by living in immersive language halls with other students and mentors. The CGE will retain and enhance the seven language immersion halls through purposefully designed spaces and expand the concept by adding theme halls where students focused on a particular challenge will live together. The CGE’s new residential space will provide:
- Language immersion halls
- Global Collaborative theme halls
- Visiting Scholar and Language Resident apartments
International & Domestic Programs
The world-as-classroom is deeply embedded in the College’s DNA. Half of Pomona students study away at some point in their college career. In addition to traditional year- or semester-abroad programs, as part of emerging CGE planning, Pomona faculty and staff are creating innovative opportunities for concentrated, short-term field study. Pathways to learning beyond campus that CGE will expand include:
- Study away programs
- Pomona programs
- Global Gateways
- Academic field experiences
International Student & Scholar Services
Pomona is proud to be a destination for students and scholars from a diverse range of areas across the globe. Their contributions to our community shape our culture and expand our collective understanding of the wider world. We must support their campus experience with appropriate spaces, including those that help bring international students together with our community as a whole. International services, formerly housed at Oldenborg, that will move into dedicated new space in the CGE include:
- Advising and immigration
- Orientation and cultural programs
- Consortium collaboration
Global Collaborative
The most urgent and pervasive challenges of our time—including climate change, AI, migration, public health and erosion of democratic values, among others—require interdisciplinary approaches, diverse individual perspectives, creative thinking and collaborative curiosity. As the CGE’s signature initiative, the Global Collaborative will address complex problems through hands-on learning and faculty-driven inquiry. This initiative will propel multiple rotating projects with partners across campus and in the local and global communities that are of core interest to Pomona faculty and students. The types of endeavors the Global Collaborative will support include:
- Faculty-student teams
- Problem-based projects and research
- Community-campus partnerships
Visiting Fellows Program
The CGE provides new frameworks for welcoming leaders, scholar-practitioners and visiting faculty from around the world to campus for periods of a few weeks to multiple years. It also creates pathways for emerging experts—including postdoctoral researchers, postbaccalaureate professionals and graduate students—to engage with the community, share knowledge, mentor students and collaborate on projects. This program will support, for example:
- Language Fellows (seven resident native speakers)
- Global Fellows (senior scholar-practitioners, extended appointment)
- Visiting Fellows (short-term leaders and scholars)
- Affiliate Fellows (postdocs, postbaccalaurates, graduate students)
Community Gatherings
An array of programs will bring together students, faculty and visiting experts to explore differing viewpoints and spark dialogue for addressing the most complex issues of the day. Featuring the new CGE forum space, these efforts will include:
- The continued Oldenborg Luncheon Colloquia
- 360 Seminars, gatherings of scholars representing diverse views on various topics
- Programs across art, civic engagement, dance, music, theater and other initiatives
Pacific Basin Institute
This interdisciplinary center is devoted to the study of the art, culture, economics, history, politics, religion and current issues of the Pacific Ring of Fire, including the nations that touch the Pacific Ocean. It is a natural fit with the concepts driving the CGE. Through the CGE, it will continue to support partner collaborations, its lecture series and its library archives.