Provida Futuri, Laura Skandera Trombley Pitzer College President CONGRATULATIONS Charge to the Class of 2014 Commencement 2014 Opening Remarks Visions & Voices | Commencement 2014 Comme
Trang 1Volume 47, Number 2
INTRODUCING
Trang 2Dear Class of 2014,
We had a beautiful, joyous commencement and once again congratulations to you all While every graduation marks a milestone,yours was particularly meaningful
as it marked our half-century birthday Pitzer College’s 50th Anniversary Commencement included a procession of alumni from the past 49 years, led by Katherine Gibbs ’65, one of the three women who made up Pitzer’s entire first graduating class Kathleen Kile ’97 created special anniversary stoles for you and her fellow alumni to wear and Professor Brent Armendinger delivered a poem he wrote especially for the occasion, a fitting bookend for the first commencement where poet James Dickey spoke Van Jones, who was so pleased to be selected as your speaker, gave a glorious commencement address and certainly honored our values and ethos
A question that has been repeatedly in the news, particularly since the 2008 recession, concerns whether a college education is “worth it.” Setting aside the
argument about the intellectual benefits, a recent article in The New York Times
unequivocally declares: “Yes, college is worth it, and it’s not even close For all the struggles that many young college graduates face, a four-year degree has probably
never been more valuable." A recent article in Science posited the interesting
perspective: “Over the long run, college is cheaper than free Not going to college will cost you about half a million dollars.”
On May 17, 2014, we celebrated our learning journey together and looked forward to the next 50 years The alumni who returned to campus that day embody our belief that your Pitzer education does not end with graduation A diploma doesn’t sum up your time at college What you have learned, the work you have created, the friends you have made, the places you have gone, the professors you have inspired—these are the things you take with you and they can’t be calculated or measured or framed You made Pitzer College a better place, and I cannot wait to see what you do for the rest of world
Provida Futuri,
Laura Skandera Trombley Pitzer College President
CONGRATULATIONS
Charge to the Class of 2014
Commencement 2014
Opening Remarks
Visions & Voices | Commencement 2014
Commencement Speaker
Van Jones, environmental advocate, civil rights activist and
host of CNN’s Crossfire
Senior Class Speaker
Brian Robbins ’14
Special Announcement: Pitzer’s Climate Action Plan
Jessica Grady-Benson ’14 and Donald Gould, member, Board of Trustees
50th Anniversary Poem: Accepting the Charges
Brent Armendinger, associate professor of English and
World Literature/Creative Writing
Alumni Greeting
Tracy McDonald Tindle ’82, president, Alumni Association Board
Trang 3CLASS OF 2014 Next Chapters
PITZER COLLEGE
Commencement 2014
Alfredo Valencia will master the elements in Harvard’s chemical biology PhD program and Samantha Morse will turn the next page as an English doctoral student at UCLA
Dahnya Nicole Hernandez-Roach will design youth programs at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington DC and Rachel Silbert will work to create a low-carbon future at The Climate Group in London
Kelsey Frenck will study Arabic at the American University in Cairo and Shawn Thuris will be all business as he earns his MBA in Shanghai
Sage Schaftel will create community partnerships at the Governor of Colorado’s office in Denver and Andrea Mariana Frias Graterol will co-facilitate youth programs for Spectrum LGBT Center in the Bay Area
Evan Slovak will set the bar as he pursues his JD at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and Hannah Tannenbaum will plunge into a new career teaching scuba diving in the Caribbean
Rachel Kipnes will coordinate outreach at the Vietnamese American Youth Leadership Association in New Orleans while
Leora Paradise choreographs an Israeli dance program for a Jewish community center in Vancouver
Braden Holstege will finesse finances as an analyst for Payden & Rygel in Los Angeles and Somer Drummond will cure critters at Ross University School of Veterinary Medicine
in New Jersey
Joanna Hong will pursue an MA in human rights at University College London and Natasha Silfanus will begin a master’s in management at City University London
Haley Irving-Ruffing will mix it up as a chemistry teacher for Exploration School in New Haven and Jaya Williams will serve
as manager/designer for Barbareño restaurant in Santa Barbara
Aiko Uytterhaegen is bound for Brussels to pursue an MA
in art history and Jennifer Burleigh will head to Columbia University for a master of social work degree
Justine Oesterle will explore the ecosystem at JPL in Pasadena and Annelise Stabenau will intern for Nordic by Nature in Berlin
Matthew Hoffer will embark on his MA in economics at USC and Emily India Richter will pursue a master of public health degree at Johns Hopkins University
represent 28 states, 9 countries and range in age from 20 to 50
22% were double majors
30% had minors
14% were STEM (science, technology,
engineering and math) majors
75% studied abroad
designed their own majors and graduated with degrees in:
13%
• Healing as a Form of Resistance
• The Culture and Labor of Food
• Technology and Social Change
• Embodied Knowledge
Top 10 Majors
1 Psychology
2 Special/Self-Designed
3 Environmental Analysis
4 Economics
5 Sociology
6 Political Studies
7 Media Studies
8 English & World Literature
9 Human Biology
10 Anthropology
Pitzer College held its 50th Anniversary Commencement
ceremony on Saturday, May 17, 2014 Hundreds of
friends and family members
turned out to celebrate the Class of 2014.
Click for more Commencement 2014 photos
Trang 4Teaming with Talent
Baseball Jackson Badger ’14 and Coleman Lukas ’14
helped the Sagehens rack up 97 wins over four seasons and qualify for the 2013 NCAA Division III Tournament A Coaches Award winner, Lukas served on the Sagehens advisory committee
Men’s Basketball
This season, Xavyr Moss ’14 contributed to the team’s highest win total since 2004 Moss has been a first-team All-SCIAC and SCIAC All-Academic team selection
Women’s Lacrosse
Co-captains Kaitlin Jones ’14, Rachel Kessler ’14 and Jana London ’14 propelled Lacrosse to finish 2nd in the SCIAC and qualify for the NCAA Division III Tournament for the first time With a SCIAC-leading 68 goals this season, London was named Pitzer’s Most Outstanding Student Athlete, as well as first-team All-SCIAC and first-team IWLCA West Region Kessler was first-team All-SCIAC and second-team IWLCA All-West Region Jones won the 2014 Julie and Frank Fenton Award for Athletic Leadership and was
a SCIAC All-Academic team selection
Men’s Soccer Andrew Lind ’14 played midfield and was
a key member of the starting lineup for the
2012 SCIAC title-winning team
Women’s Soccer Sara Ach ’14 helped the Sagehens set a new team record with 13 wins this season and finish a close 2nd in the SCIAC
Men’s and Women’s Swimming and Diving
Both Men’s and Women’s Swimming
& Diving finished 2nd in the SCIAC and ranked in the top five nationally in Division III team GPA Men’s Swimming &
Diving team captain Gabriel Leggott ’14 was
a SCIAC All-Academic team selection for both swimming and track & field.
Men’s Tennis Christopher Wiechert ’14, the 2011 ITA National Rookie of the Year and West Region Rookie of the Year, won Pitzer’s Most Outstanding Student Athlete Award and was named first-team All-SCIAC all four years He helped the team finish 2nd
in the SCIAC, reach No 10 nationally and advance to the NCAA regional finals
Women’s Tennis
Women’s Tennis reached No 6 in the national rankings and advanced to the NCAA regional finals Claire Willey ’14 provided the clinching singles victory in the SCIAC quarterfinals and contributed an 8-1 doubles win during the NCAA regional finals.
Men’s Track and Field Gregory Hook ’14, the team’s 2012 MVP, was part of a 4×400 relay team that finished 2nd in SCIAC this year with the second-best time in program history Brian Cohn ’14, who runs the 400, was selected for the SCIAC All-Academic team.
Women’s Track and Field Alexandra Oxborough-Yankus ’14 ranks 6th
in school history in the hammer throw and 8th in the javelin She has received All-SCIAC honors and been named to the SCIAC All-Academic team.
Men’s Water Polo
Center Jarrod Gaut ’14 overcame injury to finish 2nd on the team with 48 goals and be named first-team All-SCIAC and first-team All-America He plans to play professional water polo in Spain
Over the past four years, Pitzer’s student-athletes have won seven SCIAC championships, including in Men’s Soccer, Women’s Tennis and Men’s Water Polo This year, Women’s Water Polo claimed the conference title for the third year in a row and Women’s Lacrosse
qualified for the NCAA Division III Tournament for the first time in team history.
CLASS OF 2014
Athletics
Andrew W Mellon Foundation Environmental Analysis Fellowships
Evelyn Byer ’14 Jessica Grady-Benson ’14
Capital Fellows Programs
Shiyana Gunasekara ’14 Nicholas Romo ’14
Community Water Solutions Fellowship
Jeremy Brecher-Haimson ’14
Coro Fellowships
Shiyana Gunasekara ’14 Aidan Lukomnik ’14 Romarilyn Ralston ’14
Fulbright Fellowships
Alaitz Aritza ’14 Samantha Bromley-Coolidge ’14 Evelyn Byer ’14
Katherine Cabrera ’14 Hannah Engles ’14 Shiyana Gunasekara ’14 Minji Lee ’14
Benjamin Levine ’14 Zoey Martin-Lockhart ’14
Samantha Morse ’14 Elizabeth Pedersen ’14 Autumn Pham ’14 Nicole Pilar ’14 Alexander Rawding ’14 Claire Thoman Tedford ’14 Cesar Vargas ’14
Mia Yamashiro ’14
Freeman Awards for Study in Asia
Nicholas Romo ’14
German Academic Exchange Service Scholarship
Autumn Pham ’14
Gilman International Scholarship
Nicholas Romo ’14
Harvard National Model United Nations
Braden Holstege ’14 Benjamin Levine ’14 Elizabeth Pedersen ’14
Japan Exchange and Teaching Fellowship
Harisimran Paton ’14
Joint Mathematics Meetings Outstanding Presentation
Karly Brint ’14
Kemper Scholarship
Leonardo Flores ’14
Lingnan University Teaching Fellowships
Sophia Baldwin ’14 Vanessa Gonzalez ’14
McNair Scholarship
Uriel Rafael ’14 Alfredo Valencia ’14
Napier Award for Creative Leadership
Marcela Jones ’14
Newman Civic Fellowship
Arthur Levine ’14 Nicholas Romo ’14
Princeton in Africa Fellowship
Emily India Richter ’14
Princeton in Asia Fellowship
Sophie Howard ’14
Robert Day Scholarship
Braden Holstege ’14
Teach For America
Lillian Barrett-O’Keefe ’14 Danielle Frankel ’14 Andrea Gochi ’14 Noemi Larrondo ’14 Benjamin Levine ’14 Elizabeth Pedersen ’14 Madeleine Ranson ’14
Udall Scholarship
Keiko Budech ’14 Jessica Grady-Benson ’14
US Department of State Critical Language Scholarship
Samantha Morse ’14
US Teaching Assistantships at Austrian Secondary Schools
Autumn Pham ’14
W.M Keck Foundation Summer Research Fellow
Peter Rominger ’14
CLASS OF 2014 Awards
Trang 5Another person might have called off the meeting A few
people had canceled and dark clouds threatened rain But Marcela Jones ’14 is not easily deterred At a picnic table in the Huerta del Valle Community Garden, she switched seamlessly between Spanish and English, laughing, cajoling and inspiring as she spoke with Pitzer students and residents of Ontario, Calif about launching
a reading program for children She didn’t mind the nearby noisy chickens or the roaming dogs she called “free-range Chihuahuas.”
“The saddest thing in life is when people wait for the right moment,” she said “Conditions are never going to be perfect, so just
do it and figure it out later.”
For Jones, timing isn’t everything, tenacity is In 2007, she and her husband were in the process of franchising a fast food restaurant
in Ventura, Calif when a car accident left her unable to walk After months in rehab, she decided she needed to pursue a college education
“If you’re in a wheelchair and don’t have a degree, you don’t have a lot of options,” Jones said “So I thought, OK Plan B.”
She began taking classes at a community college, where a counselor told her about Pitzer Jones enrolled at the College through the New Resources Program for non-traditional college-aged students and was one of 18 New Resources graduates in May An international
& intercultural studies major, she taught English to day laborers, worked at the Community Engagement Center, spent a semester in the Pitzer in Ontario (PIO) program and, in her spare time, wrote a novel, feeding her “dorky passion” for everything literary
This February, she won a Napier Award for Creative Leadership
and is using the award’s $10,000 stipend to start a literacy project for the children of families who have plots at Huerta del Valle, an urban garden created by PIO and community members
Jones knows the challenges many children in the neighborhood face—she grew up less than two miles from the garden and spoke Spanish at home with her parents, who were born in Mexico
“I just want to do something that helps people,” she said
And she knows that right now—whatever the conditions—is the perfect time to start
Making the Right Moment:
Marcela Jones ’14
CLASS OF 2014
Graduate Profile
When Nicholas Romo ’14 applied to college, he wasn’t one
of those students with a mile-long list of extracurriculars
“I didn’t start my own nonprofit in high school,” Romo said
“I was struggling with some of the things nonprofits are created to help.”
His father passed away when Romo was three and his mother had
to support four sons on a special education teacher’s salary Growing up
in northeastern Los Angeles, Romo worked in a shoe store after school, helped his family any way he could and studied hard, determined to get into a good college
When Romo’s mother applied to undergraduate schools in the ’60s, The Claremont Colleges seemed as distant and unattainable as Harvard, especially for Latino/a students, Romo said Five decades later, Pitzer’s bright orange acceptance envelope arrived in Romo’s mailbox and “it was like the dream had made it home.”
“I came to Pitzer with the attitude that I had to cherish everything; I had to take advantage of everything,” Romo said
He says he started college with an 18-year-old’s hubris and a newcomer’s uncertainty “I felt like, I’m this kid from this place and I’ll need help.”
So he looked for mentors and found them all over campus:
professors, students, alumni, staff members, and the dining hall and facilities workers who treated him like family
By the time he graduated, Romo seemed to have done everything but start a nonprofit He had earned honors as a political studies and sociology major, been elected chair of the Student Senate, tutored low-income children as an Americorps member, served on the Latino
加油 Keep Going: Nicholas Romo ’14
Leadership Council, conducted summer research in Canada and helped coordinate Pitzer’s Native American program
He represented Pitzer at conferences across the country, from the Debating for Democracy Conference in New York City to the Public Policy and Leadership Conference at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government He won a slew of scholarships and fellowships, including
a Gilman Scholarship to study in China and a Newman Civic Fellows Award for leadership and community involvement
In May, Romo was named a California Senate Fellow by the Capital Fellows Program in Sacramento He will work in the Los Angeles Mayor’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development this summer before joining the legislative staff at the state capitol in the fall
Today, Romo closes his emails with a Chinese saying he learned
from his roommate in Beijing-加油 (jiā yóu)! He says it translates
roughly as “Add energy, keep going.”
CLASS OF 2014 Graduate Profile
I came to Pitzer with the attitude that I had to cherish everything; I had to take advantage of everything.
Click to watch Marcela Jones profile videop
Click to hear Nicholas Romo talk about heading to China during his junior yearp
Trang 6Meng Xu ’14 studied abroad twice during college: for
one semester in Tokyo, Japan and for seven semesters in
Claremont, USA Originally from Shanghai, China, Xu is one
of nine international students who graduated from Pitzer College in May
Just as many students travel to Nepal or Costa Rica during college,
Xu came to Pitzer to learn a foreign language and experience a culture
different from his own He viewed his initial discomfort as a desirable
inevitability—a kind of prerequisite for a global education
“I wanted to give myself a hard time, to push my limits,” Xu said
Xu lived in Anaheim for two years during high school, but he
spent much of his time there with other Chinese students During
Pitzer’s New Student Orientation, Xu was afraid he would embarrass
himself if he spoke English “I couldn’t talk for like a week,” he said
Today Xu speaks not only English, but Japanese, in addition to his
native Mandarin
The media studies major has been fascinated by Japan’s popular
culture since he was a child and began studying Japanese his first
semester in college For many in his parents’ generation, relations
between China and Japan are often strained by historic tensions
stemming from the World War II era Xu says his generation sees the
world differently
“For young people, the feeling is less strong,” Xu said “I am a big
fan of Japan.”
The Art of Communication:
Meng Xu ’14
One of the first students Xu met at Pitzer was Yo Wakita ’14, who is from Japan but lived in Beijing as a child Now good friends, Xu often speaks with Wakita in Japanese while Wakita answers in English, with a Chinese saying tossed in every once in a while
Xu’s interest in how people communicate and break cultural barriers drew him to media studies at Pitzer He says he has learned both inside and outside the classroom from professors and fellow students alike
“Everyone is such a good example to me—I just copy and paste a little bit,” Xu said
The international student who was afraid to speak English when
he arrived on campus is now a funny, outgoing college graduate who enjoys chatting in multiple languages about media theory, fashion, and issues of identity and culture He plans to work in guest relations with a Japanese travel company in Hawaii before pursuing graduate studies in media, communications and governance in Japan
“Pitzer College remade me,” Xu said “A liberal arts education is about more than learning the language and American culture; it is also about human liberty and learning how to be yourself.”
CLASS OF 2014
Graduate Profile
I didn’t get to Pitzer College alone—none of us did
My dad and sister helped move me in I remember the orange-clad upperclassmen clapping and cheering while I dragged my luggage up the stairs of my first-year dorm My new home was on the second floor
of Pitzer Hall, nestled in between the residence director’s office and the garbage room Wow, I thought, I’m not going to be able to get away with anything The only other thing I remember from move-in day was the scorching heat, which was the source of some personal discomfort and my first disagreement with my new roommate
He, being from Southern California, suggested turning off the room’s air conditioning and opening the window because temperatures dropped quickly in the late afternoon, while I, the stubborn New Englander, wanted the AC cranked and all doors, vents and windows closed—
sustainability be damned Well, after four years of familiarizing myself with the weather here, I am finally ready to admit that temperatures do, in fact, drop quickly at night
That was just the start of me learning by being proven wrong at Pitzer
■■■
In the capstone to my major, the Senior Seminar in Economics, Professor Linus Yamane gave a lecture about life after Pitzer I think he could feel the collective anxiety in the room so he ended with a quote by
What’s So Right about Being Wrong
by Benjamin Levine ’14
CLASS OF 2014 Graduate Essay
the playwright William Saroyan “Try to learn to breathe deeply, really
to taste food when you eat, and when you sleep, really to sleep Try as much as possible to be wholly alive with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell, and when you get angry, get good and angry Try
to be alive You will be dead soon enough.”
Saroyan’s quote highlights perhaps my biggest misconception about college, and its most valuable lesson Like many of my classmates,
I came here thinking I was going to learn everything in my chosen field, as well as philosophy, sociology, biology, political science, art and environmental analysis But, once again, Pitzer proved me wrong Yes,
I learned economics, and all my classmates learned their disciplines
But what we learned collectively as part of the Pitzer experience was the urgency for change, the endurance of commitment, and the audacity
of action and social activism We learned how to live, and what we
take with us is insight and a passion for improving the lives of others
If we seize our postgraduate lives with the same noble intent, idealistic passion and thoughtful pragmatism, we will leave this Earth in better shape than we found it
I will be wrong again, but in this, I am sure
Benjamin Levine ’14 was awarded a 2014–15 Fulbright Fellowship to teach English in Indonesia Last year, he found a nice cave in Joshua Tree National Park and is looking forward to returning to it after his Fulbright year.
“
”
we learned… the urgency for change, the endurance of commitment, and the audacity
of action and social activism.
(once in a while)
Click to continue the conversation with Meng Xup