A longtime Sagehen donor, Tina Blair ’70 champions Pomona College’s commitment to global engagement by supporting opportunities that give students global experiences.
Oldenborg residents gather in what was called the Sino-Soviet Lounge to craft holiday decorations. (Photo courtesy of Tina Blair)
Blair as a sophomore student at Pomona in 1968.
Friends decorate a Christmas tree in the Oldenborg Residence Hall. (Photo courtesy of Tina Blair)
By the time Tina Blair ’70 graduated from high school, she had lived in the U.S. for just four years due to her father’s assignments as a foreign service officer. Born in Morocco and raised in Italy, India and France, she was part of a growing community of “third culture kids” — a term coined by sociologist Ruth Hill Unseem in the 1950s for American children who spend their formative years abroad.
Blair found her international identity affirmed as a student at Pomona College, where she joined a community of classmates with global backgrounds similar to her own. She says she felt relieved — and free to be herself — while stoking her intellectual curiosity by taking classes and seeking connections that strengthened her foreign language skills and broadened her cultural knowledge.
“For the first time, here were all these people like me,” says Blair.
Now retired as an ordained pastor and professor of practical theology at the New Theological Seminary of the West, Blair taught about multicultural theological perspectives and women in theology. She credits her college experiences with honing her international intellect and helping her to flourish as a third culture kid.
During her first year at Pomona, Blair made fast friends with her roommate, who was from the Philippines, and was thrilled to learn that a hallmate who’d lived in Ankara, Turkey, knew her best friend from India. Blair says it was an amazing year of discovery as she continued to find globe-spanning connections with other students.
But it was Blair’s transformative experience in the Oldenborg Center for Modern Languages and International Relations that played an integral role in shaping her trajectory.
“Oldenborg confirmed the global nature of the world for me in a profound way that allowed me to teach and write about culture and multicultural issues throughout my career,” Blair says.
Blair moved into Oldenborg her sophomore year to be a part of its multicultural, multilingual community. She was fluent in French, studying Russian and enjoying the many opportunities to practice at the language tables at lunch and in lounge conversations with hallmates. Blair also took advantage of Pomona’s study away opportunities, spending a summer in Russia and a semester in Israel. She sampled a few majors before choosing anthropology and was a student in the rigorous Independent Study Program spearheaded by the late Lee McDonald ’48, professor of politics.
“Tina’s story illustrates Pomona’s long history of supporting students from a wide range of backgrounds and deepening their engagement with global learning,” says Nicole Desjardins Gowdy, senior director of international and domestic programs at Pomona. “The College’s liberal arts model, classes and programs allow our students to build international experiences and customize their learning paths to explore issues and parts of the world that spark their curiosity.”
A longtime Sagehen donor, Blair says she’s inspired by Pomona’s commitment to global engagement and supporting a diverse student body. She believes ensuring access to multicultural education and study away programs for students are critical for a global community to understand one another.
“Our intelligence gets stronger based in experiences,” Blair says. “The more areas in which we learn, the better we can grow and flourish.”
Learn how your support can help expand Pomona students’ immersive study away opportunities by contacting Kyle Davis, senior director of development.