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Pomona College

Pomona College Mark
Motto Our tribute to Christian civilization
Established October 14, 1887
Type Private
President Dr. David W. Oxtoby
Faculty 196
Undergraduates 1548
Postgraduates 0
Location Claremont, CA, USA
Campus Suburban, 140 acres (0.65 km²)
Endowment US$1,459,036,000[1]
Nickname Sagehens
Mascot Cecil Sagehen [1]
Website www.pomona.edu
The Smith Campus Center Fountain at Pomona College during the inauguration of College President David Oxtoby
The Smith Campus Center Fountain at Pomona College during the inauguration of College President David Oxtoby

Pomona College is a private residential liberal arts college located 33 miles (53 km) east of downtown Los Angeles in Claremont, California. The College was founded in 1887 in Pomona, California by a group of Congregationalists and moved to Claremont in 1889 to the site of a donated hotel; its name remained the same. The school's enrollment is 1,548 students.[1]

The founding member of the Claremont Colleges, Pomona is a non-sectarian, coeducational school. Its founders strove to create "a college of the New England type;" in order to reach this goal, the board of trustees included graduates of Williams, Dartmouth, Colby and Yale.[2] Beginning in 1925, the Claremont Colleges, which have grown to include five total undergraduate and two graduate institutions, have provided Pomona's student body with the resources of a larger university while preserving the closeness of a small college atmosphere.

Contents

[edit] History

Pomona College was established as a coeducational institution by a group of Congregationalists on October 14, 1887. The group wanted to create a college in the same mold of the ones that typify New England, such as Amherst or Williams Colleges. The College was originally formed in Pomona; classes first began in a rented house on September 12, 1888. The next year, the school was moved to Claremont, at the site of an unfinished hotel. This building would eventually become Sumner Hall, location of the Admissions and the Office of Campus Life. The name – Pomona College – remained after the relocation. The College’s first graduating class consisted of ten members in 1894.[3]

Its Congregationalist founders’ values led to the College’s belief in educational equity, and in 1904 its first African-American student graduated and went on to Harvard Law School. Like other Congregationalist-founded colleges such as Harvard, Dartmouth, Middlebury and Bowdoin, Pomona was given its own governing board, ensuring its independence.[3] The board of trustees was originally composed of graduates of Williams, Dartmouth, Colby and Yale, among others, to help create "a college of the New England type."[2]

In the early 1920s, the College’s growth led its president, James A. Blaisdell, to call for “a group of institutions divided into small colleges—somewhat of an Oxford type—around a library and other utilities which they would use in common.” This would allow Pomona to retain its small, liberal arts-focused teaching while gaining the resources of a larger university, shared among other similar small colleges. On October 14, 1925, Pomona College’s 38th anniversary, the Claremont Colleges were incorporated.[4] By 1997, the consortium reached its present membership of 5 undergraduate and 2 graduate institutions.

[edit] Campus

Pomona’s campus is located in Claremont, California, covering an area of 140 acres. It includes 59 buildings, including 12 residence halls.[5] The campus in Claremont originally began with the donation of an incomplete hotel—what would become Sumner Hall. It quickly expanded from 7 buildings in 1909—the time James Blaisdell took over as President.[6] He had the foresight to purchase the empty land around the College while it was still available, securing the College’s future and allowing for expansion for years to come.

Currently, First Street borders the campus on the south, Mills and Amherst Avenues to the east, Sixth Street on the north, and Harvard Avenue on the west. Claremont Graduate University, Scripps College and Claremont McKenna College are adjacent to Pomona’s north, from west to east respectively. Pomona is divided into North Campus and South Campus, casually divided by Sixth Street, with a few exceptions. Many of the earlier buildings were constructed in the Spanish Renaissance Revival and Mission Styles, usually only one or two stories in height. Bridges Hall of Music is an example of these styles combined.[7] Later buildings have taken inspiration from these styles, with usually three or fewer stories and stucco walls.

Bridges Auditorium across Marston Quad
Bridges Auditorium across Marston Quad

South Campus consists of mostly first-year and sophomore housing and academic buildings for the social sciences and humanities. Among the notable dormitories are Harwood Court, originally a women’s dorm constructed in 1921, and Oldenborg Center, a foreign language housing option for sophomores that includes a foreign language dining hall.[8][9] Also of note is Sumner Hall, Pomona’s original building, Bridges Auditorium (“Big Bridges”)—used for concerts and speakers with a capacity of 2,500[10]—Bridges Hall of Music (“Little Bridges”), a concert hall built in 1915 with seating for 600[7], and Carnegie Building, which houses the Politics and Economics departments. It was originally built in 1929 as a library for the College. Marston Quadrangle is located between Carnegie Building and Bridges Auditorium, one of two quadrangles on campus.

North Campus is also a mix of residential and academic buildings. Most of the academic buildings house science departments. Among the notable buildings are the Richard C. Seaver Biology Building (“Seaver West”), built with environmentally friendly features, completed in 2005[11], and the Lincoln and Edmunds buildings, both completed in 2007. North Campus dormitories house mostly juniors and seniors. Of interest is Smiley Hall, the oldest dorm on campus, constructed in 1908.[12] While it is south of Sixth Street, it is still considered a North Campus dorm. Frary Dining Hall, one of two dining halls on campus, is the location of the murals “Prometheus” by José Clemente Orozco, his first work in the US, and “Genesis” by Rico Lebrun.

Also located along the south side of Sixth Street are buildings central to the campus. Smith Campus Center is home to many student services, including a mailroom, The Coop student store and two restaurants;[5] Alexander Hall houses administrative offices. Athletic facilities are located to the south of Sixth Street and to the east of Smiley Hall. The Rains Center is the main athletic facility with a fitness center, gym and locker rooms. Adjacent to Rains Center is Merritt Football Field, Alumni Baseball Field and Haldeman Pool. Other Pomona facilities of note include the Sontag Greek Theatre—and outdoor amphitheater—as well as The Farm, an experiment in sustainable farming and the Seaver Theatre Complex, built in 1990 with a 335-seat auditorium, 100-seat experimental theater and several other studios and rehearsal spaces.

San Gabriel Mountains from South Campus
San Gabriel Mountains from South Campus

The campus lies less than five miles (8 km) south of the San Gabriel Mountains, on top of the alluvial fans that have come from nearby San Antonio Canyon. The campus is relatively flat, with a slight uphill grade from south to north, because of this. Mount San Antonio (formerly Mount Baldy) is 14 miles (22 km) north of the College and is visible from the campus. The Mount Baldy Ski Lifts is a popular spot for students to ski in the winter because of its convenient location. On clear days, the Chino Hills are visible to the south and San Bernardino Mountains to the east.

[edit] Academics

[edit] Profile

Admission to Pomona is highly selective. For the Class of 2010, the rate of admission fell to 16%, the lowest acceptance rate in the College’s history.[13] The Class of 2010 had mean scores of 726 on the SAT critical reading section, 718 on the math section and 712 on the writing section. The mean ACT score was 31. Eighty-eight percent of that class graduated in the top decile of their high school classes, with 18% being valedictorians.[1]

The body of about 1,500 undergraduate students hails from 46 U.S. states, the District of Columbia and 26 foreign countries. It is composed of 7 percent African American students, 16% Asian American, 11% Latino American and 1% Native American, according to a self-identification survey.[5]

Pomona has both need-blind admissions and need-based financial aid policies. 100% of students’ demonstrated need is met. In the 2006-2007 academic year, 53% of students received a financial aid package. The average award in 2005-2006 was about $29,700; $24,700 of scholarship and $5,000 of work study and loans. The total cost of tuition, room and board and other fees will be about $43,155 in the 2006-2007 school year.[5] The College’s endowment stands at $1,459,036,000 for the 2006-2007 academic year[1]; it was ranked 39th in American institutions in 2005.[14] Its endowment per student in the 2005 fiscal year was $841,626, ranked 8th in U.S. institutions (2nd among liberal arts colleges).[15]

[edit] Rankings

Pomona is ranked 7th nationally among liberal arts colleges according to the U.S. News & World Report, tied with Bowdoin College.[16] In the last 13 years, it has placed as high as fourth and as low as eighth.[17] The Princeton Review ranks Pomona as the 11th "Best Overall Academic Experience for Undergraduates." Other high rankings include first for "School Runs Like Butter," second for "Students Happy with Financial Aid", sixth for "Dorms Like Palaces" and tenth for "Best Quality of Life."[18]

[edit] Student life

There are a few local fraternities (some of which are co-ed or open to students of the other Claremont Colleges), and no officially recognized national fraternities or sororities. Fraternities play a limited role in the school's social life.

There are several newspapers operated at the consortium, including The Collage and The Student Life, which is the oldest college newspaper in Southern California.

Virtually all students live on campus for all four years.

[edit] Unique traditions

[edit] 47

The number "47" has held mystical importance for Pomona students for forty years. Two different stories about its roots exist. Campus lore suggested that at some time in the 1960s Pomona math professor Donald Bentley produced a convincing mathematical proof that 47 was equal to all other integers, and that other faculty members and senior students could not disprove his equation at first sight. (By the 1970s oral history had grown this tale into a 1950s McCarthy-era exercise by an unnamed professor, and that it was a symbolic attack on the "big lie" political style of the Red-hunters of the era.) Another version — later verified by Bentley — holds that two Pomona students on a summer grant project in 1964 hypothesized that 47 occurred far more often in nature than random number distribution would explain. Soon the entire school was looking for 47s... and of course they found them! Crowds began to cheer at football games when the ball was on the 47 yard line, when basketball game scores for either team reached 47, or when 47 seconds were left on a game clock. Interestingly, Pomona College is located off exit 47 on Interstate 10.

Over time the phenomenon built on itself. Writer Joe Menosky, a 1979 alum, included the number 47 in the show Star Trek: The Next Generation when he joined in its fourth season: damaged shields fell to 47 percent strength; 47 colonists were missing; 47 minutes would display on a timer. The traditions continued through Deep Space Nine and Voyager. The web link for a full list of Star Trek 47s is below.

Video games, especially those by Intellivision, also displayed 47s regularly on screen and on game boxes. This turned out to be the work of Pomona graduates and Intellivision game designers Don Daglow, Eddie Dombrower and Dave Warhol; Daglow and Dombrower also made 47 the number on the batter's uniform in the seminal Earl Weaver Baseball game from Electronic Arts. Additionally, main character in the game Hitman is called "Agent 47", or simply "47".

[edit] Ski-Beach Day

Uniquely situated in the foothills of San Gabriel Mountains, Pomona College takes advantage of its location to host an annual "Ski-Beach Day" each spring. While the origin of this tradition is unclear, professors and various campus staff have noted that it has been around for at least twenty years. Some hypothesize that the day is a salute to other liberal arts colleges, as most of them are on the relatively frigid East Coast or in the Midwest.

Students board a bus in the morning and are driven to a local ski resort where they ski or snowboard in the morning. After lunch, they are bussed down to an Orange County or Los Angeles County beach for the rest of the day. The trip is widely popular and is considered one of the things you must do during your time at the school.

[edit] 'Mufti'

Rooted somewhere in the mists of the 1940s, originally the outgrowth of an unhappy group of women students protesting on-campus policies, Mufti is a secret society of punsters-as-social-commentators. Periodically their 5x7 sheets of paper are glued to walls all over campus, with double-entendre comments on local goings-on: when beloved century-old Holmes Hall was dynamited to make way for a new building in 1987, the tiny signs all over campus announced "BLAST OF A CENTURY LEAVES THOUSANDS HOLMESLESS." Although nominally vandals under constant threat of punishment by the school if caught, Mufti are actually celebrated as part of the school's tradition on the Pomona website. As the school states: "The adhesive used to plaster the sheets over campus is not easily removed, and College administrators have tried many tactics to persuade the group to make their statements less permanent. At one point, former Dean Shelton Beatty offered to post the Mufti fliers himself, just to ensure that the glue would not damage the buildings. A few days after his offer, a stack of Mufti fliers appeared in his locked office. The message simply read, 'Mufti comes unglued.' True to his word, Dean Beatty made his rounds of campus, posting the fliers with a more water-soluble adhesive. However, this compromise did not last. The following week, sheets again appeared with the message, 'Mufti stuck up again.'"

[edit] Ponding

Also known as "fountaining," students celebrating their birthday can expect to be taken by their friends, usually when they least expect it, and thrown into one of the five fountains on campus. As a precautionary measure, all fountains on campus are now chlorinated, as a benefit to the well-being of this tradition's victims.

The origins of this date back to the mid-1970's, when students from Harvey Mudd College used to do a five-college "puddle stomp" during finals week. Among their stops were Frary Fountain and the little fish pond behind Harwood Court, which was a rather disgusting algae-filled mudhole which incredibly enough contained a live goldfish. When Harwood residents heard the soggy shoes of the Mudders headed our way, with their dogged chant of "H2O! H2O!" we would post guards out by the main entrance to send them off toward the side entrance between Harwood and Wig. Then others would send them out past Harwood dining hall and Olney dining hall to the street near Pendleton Pool, where they would try to gain access next. We always ensured that the little fish was okay!

[edit] Athletics

The school's athletic program participates, in conjunction with Pitzer College (another consortium member), in the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference and the NCAA's Division III. The school's sports teams are called the Sagehens.

When Cecil Sagehen Chirps
Words by then student, now professor Graydon Beeks '68 and Brian Holmes '69
Music by Brian Holmes

"When Cecil Sagehen chirps, we're gonna fracture the foes of Pomona's might!
When Cecil Sagehen chirps, we're gonna wail on their bods for the Blue and White!
Our foes are filled with dread, whenever Cecil Sagehen flies over head!
We're gonna C, we're gonna H, we're gonna I-R-P, When Cecil chirps his way to victory! Chirp!"


"'Push On, Pomona'"

Words and Music by Terry Koenig '13

"Push on, Pomona, to a victory, cheer Pomona's men,
Push on, Pomona, to a victory, for we've got the stuff to win and win again!
Just watch them smash, and crash, their way through ev'ry line,
Show the old Pomona fight!
For all we have to do is stand behind the White and Blue
And we're-------All Right!"

[edit] Notable alumni

Pomona College in winter
Pomona College in winter

[edit] Famous dropouts

  • John Cage
  • Twyla Tharp
  • Marianne Williamson, Author and spiritual teacher
  • Frank Zappa Zappa, then a resident near Pomona College in San Bernadino County, would occasionally bring samples of his scores to Prof. Karl Kohn. This was not part of a normal undergraduate program, nor was it some form of school-sanctioned visiting student arrangement, but simply informal private lessons. By 1970, Pomona publications referred to Zappa having studied there, and Kohn's name appears on the cover of Freak Out! (1966) under the heading "These People Have Contributed Materially In Many Ways To Make Our Music What It Is. Please Do Not Hold It Against Them". Zappa contributed to the renovation of Pomona's Bridge's Hall of Music, and one of the seats in the hall bears a plaque with his name.
  • Anthony Zerbe
  • Georgia Skoirchet

[edit] Hollywood & Pomona College

Over the years, many films and television shows have been shot in and around Pomona College, including:

[edit] Majors

The Pomona sign
The Pomona sign

Humanities and Fine Arts

Natural Sciences

Social Sciences

Interdisciplinary Programs

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ a b c d Pomona College Profile 2006-1007 (PDF). Pomona College. Retrieved on January 11, 2007.
  2. ^ a b Rudolph, Frederick (1962). The American College & University: A History. Athens, Georgia: University of Georgia Press. ISBN 0820312843. 
  3. ^ a b History of Pomona College. Pomona College. Retrieved on January 11, 2007.
  4. ^ History of the Claremont Colleges. Claremont University Consortium. Retrieved on January 11, 2007.
  5. ^ a b c d Pomona Profile 2007. Pomona College. Retrieved on January 11, 2007.
  6. ^ Anderson, Seth (2007-12-14). James Blaisdell and the Claremont Colleges. Claremont Graduate University. Retrieved on January 11, 2007.
  7. ^ a b Peterson, William (2002). CB Fisk #117 Pomona College, Claremont, CA. C.B. Fisk, Inc.. Retrieved on January 11, 2007.
  8. ^ Residence Halls -- South Campus. Pomona College. Retrieved on January 11, 2007.
  9. ^ Oldenborg Center - Information. Pomona College. Retrieved on January 13, 2007.
  10. ^ About Bridges Auditorium. Claremont University Consortium. Retrieved on January 11, 2007.
  11. ^ Richard C. Seaver Biology Building. Pomona College Biology Department. Retrieved on January 11, 2007.
  12. ^ Residence Halls -- North Campus. Pomona College. Retrieved on January 11, 2007.
  13. ^ Jimenez, Cristina. "Selectivity Increases As Admittance Drops to 16%", The Student Life, 2006-04-16. Retrieved on January 11, 2007.
  14. ^ 2005 NACUBO Endowment Study (PDF). Retrieved on January 11, 2007.
  15. ^ Largest Endowments per Student, 2005 (fee required). The Chronicle of Higher Education. Retrieved on January 11, 2007.
  16. ^ Liberal Arts Colleges: Top Schools (fee required for full access). U.S. News & World Report. Retrieved on January 12, 2007.
  17. ^ Pomona College Ranked #4 in U.S. News & World Report. Pomona College. Retrieved on January 12, 2007.
  18. ^ Pomona College's Best 361 College Rankings. Retrieved on January 12, 2007.

[edit] External links

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