Pomona College Turns a Blind Eye to Anti-Conservative Bigotry

Four years ago this November, my good friend Eric Fraser wrote a letter to The Student Life — Pomona College’s student newspaper — decrying the consistent harassment and mistreatment endured by Pomona College’s conservative minority. He detailed several incidents — including a rock being thrown through one student’s car window — to illustrate his excellent point.

Today, the problem appears to be no closer to a solution. In a recent Facebook note, another good friend of mine wrote about the harassment her conservative little brother currently faces on campus:

Pomona students have thus far poured coffee on John’s bumper stickers, ripped off his McCain stickers from his door, stolen his McCain sign from his window, and written “F**K U” on his (new) McCain sign.

Keep in mind that this is a campus that went into a rumpus following a victimless “hate crime” in early 2003 and shut down classes after a hate crime hoax only a few months later — even after the administration knew that the crime was faked.

If LBGT students or students of color were being treated in the manner described above, everybody would be up in arms. But treat a conservative this way and nobody comes to the rescue.

So much for eager, thoughtful, and reverent. I’m loathe to write any checks to my alma mater until this issue gets the administration attention it deserves.

Claremont McKenna College Acts Like a Spoiled Brat, Won’t Share Toys, Tickets to Clinton Speech

Recently, former president Bill Clinton came to speak at Claremont McKenna College. CMC is a part of the Claremont Consortium, which is where I went to school. Specifically, I’m a Pomona alum. The two schools do have a rivalry, and obviously this may indicate a bias on my part. Nevertheless, I see a disturbing trend with regard to CMC.

For his recent speech, President Clinton was kind enough to waive his usual speaking fee, with the assumption that most of the audience would be students. That’s why the decision on the part of the CMC administration to exclude students from all the other colleges from participating in the event was — in a word — sucky.

As Pomona student Jenn Wilcox wrote:

This event seems like a slap in the face to the concept of an educational consortium. The whole point of shared resources (like a large auditorium located on Pomona’s campus…) is that they can be accessed by the entire community, not one college desperately trying to draw more applications and climb up the ranking system.

Yes, President Clinton was CMC’s speaker. And yes, it was absolutely appropriate that they allocated enough tickets to make sure that all of CMC’s students and faculty were able to see Mr. Clinton speak. But the rest of the tickets should have been made available to the other students in the consortium, rather than given away to donors.

Claremont McKenna consistently scores lower in the college rankings that Pomona. Recent crises of leadership further underscore serious issues with the college. Unsurprisingly, CMC’s students take it to heart. They walk around with a chip on their shoulders when it comes to Pomona. In one particularly egregious incident, they defaced a priceless mural belonging to Pomona College.

With this most recent act of disrespect to the entire consortium, it appears that the destructive rivalry between the two schools has finally found its way into CMC’s administration. By way of a solution, I suggest that CMC President Pam Gann be fired. Obviously, the school needs much sounder leadership.

Student Says Bulk of Virginia Tech Shootings Were Easily Preventable, I Agree

Today’s tragic murders at Virginia Tech started at about 7:30 a.m. EST when gunfire erupted inside West Ambler Johnston Hall, which is one of the school’s biggest residential buildings.

On the Virginia Tech network public discussion forum at Facebook student Ben Hair wrote:

They could have prevented most of this…shooting at 730 in WAJ, classes don’t start til 8, why couldn’t they cancel classes for the day…SOMEONE WAS SHOT AND IT TURNS OUT THEY DIED…I THINK THATS GROUNDS TO CANCEL CLASS RATHER THAN SENDING OUT AN EMAIL THAT SAYS USE CAUTION AND REPORT ANYTHING TO POLICE. They could have save almost 20 lives and 20 injuries if they just decided to cancel class right away.

Update: Here is a campus map that I got from CNN:

As you can see, West Ambler Johnston Hall is all the way across campus from Norris Hall where the bulk of the shootings took place two hours later. With two hours and a sprawling campus between the first and second incidents, I want to know just how the latter half of this tragedy wasn’t prevented.

Update 1:45 p.m. : College officials are saying that they had reason to believe that the first shooting in the residence hall was domestic in nature and that the shooter was on the run. Evidence at the scene led campus police to believe that the shooter in West Ambler Johnston was leaving campus and likely leaving the state. They say they do not yet know whether the shootings at Norris Hall were linked to the shootings at West Ambler Johnston.

Read more

Fundamentalist Lefties Scare Me!

When it comes to insane behavior, the radical left is just as bad as the radical right. Case in point: the unprovoked stalking, home-invasion and assault on a college Republican by a fundamentalist lefty who found the man via Facebook.

This kind of thing used to happen at Pomona, too. I knew a lot of people in college who weren’t comfortable discussing their less-than 100% liberal political beliefs openly for fear of persecution. Our senior year, my good friend Eric M. Fraser wrote a letter to the editor of our college pager explaining his conservatism and was roundly lambasted in the editorials section the following week.

Worse, a girl who shall remain nameless to protect her privacy wound up withdrawing from the college her sophomore year due to the irrational persecution heaped on her by the student body due to her political views. I also heard a rumor about a student with a Bush/Cheney bumper sticker finding his car window smashed with a brick in the student parking lot. This was never fully substantiated to my satisfaction, but the fact that it was plausible was enough to give me real pause.

It’s time for us all to face the fact that fundamentalist, self-reinforcing enclaves — whether left-leaning or right-leaning — are good for nobody. It’s one thing to criticize an opposing political party on the facts. It’s another to assault them bodily, make them fear for their safety, or mock them simply for being who they are. That’s just plain wrong. It was wrong when it happened at Pomona, it’s wrong now that it’s happening at University of Mary Washington. It’s wrong anywhere and everywhere.

Right-minded people from both parties need to come together to stop this kind of bullshit once and for all, before somebody gets killed.

Update: I’ve formed a group on Facebook to condemn politically motivated violence.

I Wish I’d Had ‘Homesickness Guidelines’ When I Went to College

My first semester in college, I was pretty damn preoccupied with home. Specifically, I was preoccupied with my home baseball team. The Mariners have always been an important part of my life, but my first year in college they were the object of my single-minded obsession.

According to this new report, that preoccupation was a symptom of “intense homsickness.” Fortunately, there are new research-informed guides for parents and students to deal with this kind of homesickness. I wish I’d had this in college.

I Hope You Had the Time of Your Life

College was an incredibly special time for me, and for my friends. I’ve recently begun the process of resurrecting all the digitial video from those wonderful years and posting it to YouTube. Here’s my latest snippet:

Islam and 9/11

On September 11, 2001, I was a lonely college freshman. I had just arrived at Pomona College and I was still getting used to things.

My mom called very early on the morning of 9/11 to wake me up and tell me about the terrorist attacks. I totally lost it. It was just too much. The loneliness. The hating my roommate. And now this. I wanted to go home, curl up in my room and never leave again.

A lot of people think about Islam on 9/11 and they think about the terrorists who flew planes into buildings and the masterminds still at large. When I think about Islam and 9/11, I think about my friend Tunji.

Tunji–who is Muslim–lived just down the hall from me, and I think he knew I was having a hard time with college. When he heard me crying that morning, he came into my room and put his arms around me. I was a mess. I hadn’t brushed my teeth or combed my hair or anything, but he was there for me. I really, really needed a hug that morning.

On this day, five years after that horrible morning, we need to keep in mind that Muslims were among the people who died on 9/11 and the people who grieved the senselessness of it all. We need to remember that the terrorists pervert Islam into a repressive, fundamentalist pseudo-utopian system that barely resembles the religion on which their ideology is based.

Islam is a compassionate religion. The Q’uran itself says, “if anyone has killed one person, it is as if he has killed the whole of mankind.”

My Advice: Invest in Plastics

Today was the 113th Annual Commencement Exercises of Pomona College. A number of people I care very much for walked today, and I’m proud of every one of them.

Lauren Capp: Oh dress-up girl! You are one of the most remarkable women I’ve ever met. In addition to being brilliant, driven, kind, funny and blessed with both physical grace and the voice of an angel - you’re drop dead gorgeous. I wish you every success in New York and beyond. Chris, I hope you know you’ve got yourself one helluva woman.

Kristi Symon: You’ve cracked me up more times than I can count, and your love of dance is always inspiring. Congratulations, love!

Yianni: Sorry I couldn’t remember how to spell your last name, man. Seriously, you’re hellish to guard in basketball and you’ve always been a great friend to Andy. I always enjoyed our political talks, even if we seldom saw eye to eye. It was good to see you when I was on campus a few months ago. Good luck with everything. Let me know if you ever need a place to crash in Seattle.

John Bejjanii: Teasing you and Yianni about being the odd couple was one of the high points of my college career, particularly when Andy pointed out that if gay marriage was legal in California, you two might actually be common-law married by now. Be sure to kick as much ass in life as you did in college.

Molly Knobler: Sorry I messed up your car during senior week last year. And thanks for waiting to get the scratch buffed out until we could find a body shop that didn’t bankrupt me. Who knew BMW’s were so expensive to fix? Anyway, I think you’re a top-notch person and you’re going to do really well in life. Good job on the starting rock climbing thing.

Dan Elitzer: Working with you on the faculty selection committee was fantastic. Truly, your opinions really shaped the way things went, and I was proud to have been selected to work with you as the other student rep. Congratulations.

Brandon Gardner: What kind of a wish is that? ‘Nuff said.

Fritz Graham: You made summers on campus a lot more fun.

Ralitsa Sapundzhieva: Scripps pool + camp sec = insanity.

Christina Hurtado: Sorry I wasn’t a better CLSA sponsor. I love how you don’t apologize for being exactly how you want to be.

Amitha Prasad: Remember when I told you things get better? Wasn’t I right? Glad you stuck it out. Looks like you had some fun.

Mark Melief: Remember what your feet can do when you put your mind to it, you’ll do fine. I hope we can actually be friends one day.

Summer Gray: You’re a cute little snot, but I love you anyway. Splashing with you in the pool in the summer was always a treat, no pun intended. And here’s to being the best girl I’ve ever played caps with, ever!

Ode to Jessica Case

At the end of freshman year, I was having a hard time finding people to live with. All my best friends had been given spots in Oldenborg except for me. I was on my own. So I joined a friendship suite in Wig with a bunch of people I didn’t know. As it turned out, the boy right next door was Andy Sparrow - my future husband. And the woman I lived with, Jessica Case, was one of the coolest people I’ve ever met.

You’d think living with someone you’d never met, someone who just recently started hooking up with the guy next door might have pissed a number of people off. But not Jessica. She just sort of rolled with things. We bonded that year over Buffy the Vampire Slayer (iTunes) and good food from Trader Joe’s. We had dinner parties and regular parties, and we had a lot of fun together.

Recently, I found out that Jess had been accepted to the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Affairs. She’ll be moving to Seattle in the fall, and I can’t freakin’ wait. It’s always good when your friends move to town, and Jessica is one hell of a friend.

Claremont McKenna College Hoodlums Demonstrate Inferiority Complex

Ahh the carefree days of college. The endless games of volleyball on Walker Beach. Throwing unsuspecting freshmen in the fountain on their birthdays. Blowing spitballs at priceless works of art….

That’s right, folks. That’s what happened at Pomona College - the place I will always think of as home - last weekend.

Behind the “prank” were a pack of as-yet unidentified students from Claremont McKenna College - henceforth called simply CMC - who were attending a 24-hour party at which one of the activities was “prank Pomona.”

I say we’ve put up with this crap too long. When students from another school start bringing “Fuck Pomona” banners to your cross-campus sporting events, you learn to live with it. When they wear “Puck Fomona” tee-shirts all around campus, you learn to live with it. But when they take their collective inferiority complex to this level, you have to stop and question what’s behind it.

Claremont McKenna College is ranked 10th to Pomona’s 6th on the US News and World Report’s 2006 rankings of private liberal arts colleges. They are inarguably one of the premiere institutions of education in the country. Yet their students are plagued with an inferiority complex so severe that they feel compelled to vandalize another campus and blow spitballs at a Jose Clemente Orozco mural. Their contempt for Pomona’s students, faculty, and especially our hardworking staff was indicative of a much larger problem than a cross-town sports rivalry.

I’m sure many of you remember a couple of years back when a CMC professor - the now incarcerated Kerri Dunn - trashed her own car with hateful slogans and claimed it was a hate crime. The incident shut down the five campuses and created an emotional and racial uproar that has yet to die down.

Obviously that was an embarrassing incident for CMC - and they’ve tried hard to move on. But perhaps they did so without taking a good look at what it may have indicated about them as a college. Perhaps a lack of leadership at some level was responsible for Dunn’s behavior, and for the continuing escalation of antagonism toward Pomona.

Claremont McKenna needs to take a good hard look in the mirror.

Protecting the Residential Quality of Pomona College

One evening during our last semester at Pomona College, my friends and I sat in Frary dining hall and contemplated a prank that would create havoc among the freshman class. We were planning to fake an e-mail from an administration official claiming that due to severe housing shortages, the rising sophomore class would not be guaranteed housing. At first this struck us as a hilarious way to rattle the freshmen - but as we continued to discuss it, we realized that it could be potentially damaging to the way that our underclassmen and women perceived the residential character of the college - even after the e-mail was exposed as a prank. We decided on much more innocuous tomfoolery.

But our decision not to send the prank e-mail seems positively prophetic given the disturbing article I read in this issue of The Student Life. The news: students returning from fall study abroad programs next year will not have guaranteed on-campus housing.

One of the things that attracted me to Pomona was the school’s guarantee of on-campus housing for all students, and the high percentage of people that took advantage of this. The resulting community spirit was a huge reason that I chose Pomona over some of the larger East Coast schools I’d previously set my heart on. To suddenly declare that students taking advantage of the study abroad program during the coming semester will not be given the same guarantees offered to all students is a real problem.

I understand and respect the administration’s position. Pomona is suffering a housing crisis. More students going abroad in the fall than in the spring compounds this problem severely. They cut it incredibly close this year, and something has to give. But just because revoking the housing guarantee is the easiest move doesn’t make it the smartest for the long-term good of the college.

I never went abroad myself. I was too busy being in love with my fiancé and having the time of my life in SoCal. But as I understand it from my friends that did go abroad, there were a number of programs that they would have loved to explore but couldn’t because they would not be guaranteed credit for the semester. Pomona should look into expanding its approved list of programs, particularly those offered in the spring. To further balance the equation, they should enter students who make their study abroad plans in the spring in a raffle for some kind of fabulous prize. Those two measures alone would probably go a long way to curb the shift towards fall study abroad while preserving Pomona’s residential character.

I hope other alums that read my blog will weigh in on this issue as well. Perhaps our voices, joined with those of the TSL Ed. Board and the student body will help convince the administration that there are other ways out of this unfortunate situation that do not involve revoking guaranteed housing for even one Pomona student.