As a writer, sometimes it’s not your day. For the author of “Sagecock of the Week,” Friday was not his day. After naming Jack Klukas the title's recipient, he presented a grossly inappropriate write-up, calling out one of the elite athletes on this campus, who, as a first-year, has already made...

In the last couple of weeks, between the Super Bowl and the latest Republican primaries, a shocking news story broke. The Susan G. Komen Foundation, a breast cancer research organization, was planning to stop providing funding to Planned Parenthood. Planned Parenthood, the national family...

Perhaps the most generous observation one might make about last semester’s documentation controversy is that it generated a great deal of conversation. From passionate TSL articles to Facebook diatribes to protest movements, I have never seen the entirety of the...

You are going to eat at a decent Chinese restaurant with your friends. But wait, do you want Chinese food or Americanized Chinese food? Undoubtedly, Americanized ethnic food, such as American pizza, or American dumplings, is now everywhere: not only in Pizza Hut or Panda Express, but also in...

It’s a fairly safe assertion to make that the Claremont Colleges are home to few if any Newt Gingrich supporters. Yet Gingrich deserves consideration by supporters and detractors alike, because there is a chance that he will become the Republican presidential nominee...

The December 2 termination of 17 dining hall workers at Pomona College prompted a heated discussion about the college's ethical responsibilities to its community.  Many students took action, from boycotting Pomona dining halls to organizing a vigil outside Alexander. But other...

The Associated Students of Claremont McKenna College's (ASCMC) decision to vote down the Claremont Port Side’s livestream of their informational meeting Feb. 6 reflects a lack of openness surrounding controversial affairs at the Claremont Colleges. In light of the...

If you’ve been to a major party at the Claremont Colleges, you’ve seen it.  Most likely, you’ve done it.  It’s how a lot of sexual encounters get started—often in the form of hook-ups with people we may not know very well. We talk about sexuality abstractly in...

The SAT score inflation mess at CMC has raised some important issues about how our two neighboring campuses and student bodies interact, and presents a valuable opportunity to outline the role we hope that the TSL Opinions page can serve in facilitating productive...

The Claremont Colleges haven’t been buzzing like this since that security alert warning us about the danger of a crazed Mudd alumnus. Both Claremont McKenna (CMC) and Pomona are in the New York Times this week, and not for anything nice. CMC’s VP of Admissions pulling a “reverse Scripps” and...

After the tumultuous events of last semester, an eerie calm has settled over the Pomona College campus. Aside from Frank Dining Hall’s closure on the weekends, there is not much evidence to attest to the firing of 17 college employees and the unprecedented protests, debates, and meetings that...

Let's be clear about one thing: the recent uproar about Claremont McKenna College's fabricated SAT scores is no reflection on the quality of its students or its academic experience. CMC provides a phenomenal education that should continue to be sought after by the best students in the country....

The following Statement of Purpose was distributed to members of the Pomona College community on Dec. 8 regarding a hunger fast initiated by students (undersigned) calling for a meeting between current and former Dining Services employees and members of the Pomona College Board of Trustees...

The following letter was sent to the Pomona College community on Dec. 6 on behalf of Sidley Austin LLP, which has been providing legal counsel to Pomona College and the Board of Trustees throughout the employment authorization review process that resulted in the termination of 17 Pomona College...

Editor's note: the following letter was originally submitted to Professor Michael Teter in response to his first letter to the Pomona College Board of Trustees regarding documentation reviews, which was published on The Student Life website on Dec. 1 and in the Dec. 2 print issue. The author...

To the Editor:Last Thursday, I sent a letter to the Pomona College Board of Trustees that focused on the College’s work status verification of many employees. The letter was published in The Student Life, and I have since received many responses—almost uniformly supportive. But there have also...

On November 12th of this year, a Pomona-Pitzer men’s basketball team score showed up at a rather atypical location: ESPN’s “BottomLine” sports ticker. Perhaps more impressive was the result; the Sagehens kept the D1 Pepperdine Waves to within 10 points, and had even led with eight minutes to go....

You know it’s coming before it even happens. About 15 feet out, you see him: John, an acquaintance from Econ 51, walks toward you, threatening another blasé social interaction. Although the two of you chat regularly in Carnegie, you are not sure if this “friendship” will transfer beyond the...

As Opinions Editor this semester, I have learned about the dedication of the staff and the immense amount of work that goes into the newspaper. I have also learned that the newspaper receives a nontrivial amount of criticism for the work published in its name. Perhaps this merely demonstrates my...

"The Colts got raped by the Steelers last night! What a disappointment." When I hear someone use the term "rape" in a nonchalant manner, it is often so jarring to me that I am unable to listen to the rest of the statement. Not everyone feels and reacts as I do, but the abuse of the word has...

For three years I have supported Workers For Justice (WFJ) and tried to help by going to protests, boycotting the dining halls, and wearing WFJ buttons and orange armbands. The recent events have created an even stronger need for WFJ, but it is rather disappointing the way certain actions have...

Perhaps you’ve seen the tents around Alexander or heard about the encampment from someone else. Perhaps you’ve read the letter released on Wednesday morning to the Pomona College community, signed “Concerned Pomona Students.”But reading a statement released by a group of people taking an action...

Two weeks ago, The Student Life and the ASPC Committee for Campus Climate and Diversity co-sponsored an event open to the entire Pomona College community where we discussed the role of this newspaper in issues of diversity on campus. Event attendees included TSL employees, members of the ASPC...

To the Editor:As a Pomona College alumnus, as well as a recent two-year Visiting Assistant Professor in the Politics Department, I feel compelled to respond to the Board of Trustees’ recent letter to the Pomona College community regarding efforts to verify the legal status of faculty, students,...

Just over two months in, the sheen has already worn off Occupy Wall Street. Previously enshrined in the public imagination as a group of heroic callers-out of corporate capitalist cronyism, its image has morphed. As a host of commentators have pointed out—some in these pages—OWS has suffered from...

The following letter was produced on Tuesday, Nov. 22, by a group of Pomona College students in response to the college's ongoing review of the employment authorization documents of 84 college employees. For more information on the document reviews, please see stories in News.Dear Pomona College...

Dear Editor,There seems to have been a little uproar over my piece on the WFJ protest last week. I say "seems" because no one voiced their concerns directly to me. Instead, I had to hear about how I am ignorant, made people want to vomit, and value my sleep over the workers' livelihoods on the...

On Nov. 7, Pomona College issued letters to 84 students, faculty, and staff members requesting that they schedule a meeting with the Office of Human Resources before Nov. 11 regarding incomplete or deficient employment authorization documents. These employees were told to submit proper...

This week marked the six-month anniversary of Commencement 2011 and also of my copy of Metate showing up in the mail. As Pomona nostalgia set in hard, I found myself reflecting on my four years on campus and the months since. I found there was one idea that could have made my experience at Pomona...

Dear Editor,I have become aware of the current tense atmosphere at Pomona regarding unionization efforts of the dining hall staff at the college. Jeff Zalesin's fine article touches on the important history of union efforts and points out that getting tough on documentation is a tried and true...

We talk a lot about community at Pomona. As a residential liberal arts college, we’re in a unique position to build a democratic political system that can be accountable to our community. The extent of student and faculty involvement in Pomona's governance is evidence of our investment in this...

Surprisingly little has been written in these pages about the ongoing economic calamity that has plagued the country for the last several years. Make no mistake, either—the crisis is certainly ongoing, as unemployment hovers around nine percent nationally, with much worse numbers for our age...

The Occupy Wall Street movement (OWS) seems to have the support of this campus and, generally, the support of those with liberal sensibilities and concerns about the current distribution of wealth. Though the instincts behind it may be good, this support of OWS is a mistake. But it is not a...

Clank! Clank! Clank! That is what I and many others in Clark V and III were rudely awoken by at six in the morning on Tuesday. It was not the harshest way I’ve ever been yanked from slumber, but boy, was it annoying. Luckily, it only lasted a few minutes and I was groggily able to fall back...

The Workers for Justice movement is currently stymied because the workers’ organizing committee wants the administration to remain neutral during the vote for unionization, which the administration refuses to accept. From the workers’ standpoint, neutrality is crucial for a fair union vote free...

There’s no such thing as a perfect revolution, but Tunisia’s recent elections demonstrate what may be the best of all possible worlds when it comes to overthrowing an Arab dictator and the aftermath. Put aside all the handwringing about that moderate Islamist party winning; Halloween is over, and...

Dear Pomona,After reading the “Despite Transports, Harwood Likely to Return” article published in last week's TSL, my first thought was that this is very typical of how the administration responds to problems of this type. Instead of asking why there has been a spike in alcohol poisoning...

In last week's sports section of TSL, the author of “A Better Admissions Policy” argues that a developing trend of increased student-athlete acceptance has the potential to increase the academic and athletic achievement of the school. In support of this statement, he points to the fact that “our...

At its next meeting, Pomona’s Student Affairs Committee (SAC) will be considering a revision to or complete elimination of the school’s system for administering monetary fines to students who violate policies in the Student Handbook (see story Page 1). If the proposal moves forward, it could lead...

The debate over fair treatment of Pomona’s food service employees has been going on for over a decade. In 1999, when all dining hall workers at the Claremont Colleges were employed by the massive food service provider ARAMARK, there were allegations of improper labor practices, according to a...

I found last week's "A Response to 'Hook-up Culture': The Conversation Continues" a challenging read. On the one hand, I agree with the author's thesis that "the hook-up culture at our consortium and nationwide is fundamentally backward." And yet something about the response left a bad taste in...

Turning to the Republican presidential nominating contest, it looks like the ground has shifted decisively in Mitt Romney’s favor. But the show isn’t quite over; Rick Perry will not go down without a fight. He has a huge war chest and influential friends, and he takes personal pride in his...

These pages have already seen an extended conversation on whether or not a liberal should feel comfortable supporting the reelection of President Obama. I don’t wish to reopen those wounds. Instead, I hope to explore Mr. Obama’s decision to crack down on California medical marijuana dispensaries,...

Monday morning at breakfast, I came across a flyer distributed by the Workers for Justice (WFJ) highlighting recent changes in Pomona’s health-care plan for staff. The flyer claimed that the reduction in monthly payments for the two-party and family plans was a huge improvement, and it credited...

Pomona College’s annual Halloween party, Harwood Halloween, has become an occasion where some students binge drink and get intoxicated to unsafe levels. We saw it last year when students pushed up against the fence outside Pomona’s Information Technology Services (ITS) parking structure after...

Corin Hamilton wrote a very good article on the hook-up culture last week—so good that it deserves a follow-up. I thought Corin was right in asserting that the hook-up culture causes us to miss out on experiences that could be special or meaningful, and I thought he was equally correct in...

I’ve learned a lot at Pomona, but it hasn’t been the “Tell me what you learned at school today” kind of learning. It hasn’t been the kind of learning that would impress someone like my dad, a man who's interested in How Stuff Works. And although after four years of osmosis I can confidently say...

Let’s forget for a moment about the electoral landscape of reality and turn to Hollywood’s take on our political life. It’s not that Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, the Tea Partiers, Nancy Pelosi, the Wall Street occupiers, and Barney Frank aren’t fun. But George Clooney—full-time actor, sometime...

When President Obama announced last week that all American troops would leave Iraq by the end of the year, we were surely all thinking the same thing: what, no flight suit?Leaving aside the distinct lack of a "Mission Accomplished" banner and the fact that newscasters (and the American public)...

Fall semester of last year, my friend and I joked about how we should bake brownies and send them to Obama because we felt bad that so many people were so mad at Obama for who knows what. My friend and I still believed in Obama. We wanted to show him that we still supported him, and hey, who...

The media’s seemingly cyclical concern over an out-of-control hook-up culture among the nation’s undergraduates tends to be misguided (e.g. college students are actually having less sex now than they did 20 years ago) and/or sexist in its subtle reiterations of the 'slut/player' dynamic....

When I heard of Occupy Wall Street, my first thought was, "Finally!" I agreed with the central message: that corporate influence in the United States government is compromising individual rights in favor of profit. Though I was skeptical of the movement's capacity to enact real change, I was...

Last Saturday, I spent some time at the Occupy L.A. branch of the Occupy Wall Street movement. What struck me first was the disorganization. While it was obvious that the protesters were disgruntled, while many had good intentions, it also seemed that every protester had his or her own agenda. I...

In the summer of 2007, my Jewish summer camp handed out the dog tags of three Israeli soldiers as one of their standard “solidarity with Israel” giveaways (usually it was just a flag or something). The three soldiers had been captured the previous summer in raids by Hamas and Hezbollah at the...

America’s leading environmental journalist, Bill McKibben, will visit the 5Cs next week. McKibben is the author of numerous books on environmentalism and the founder of 350.org, an international grassroots organization aimed at confronting climate change denial and cutting emissions of carbon...

Something extremely unexpected is happening to the political landscape: the left is coming back to life. In Massachusetts, Harvard law professor Elizabeth Warren is challenging Republican incumbent Scott Brown for the Senate seat he won in a special election last year. A video of Warren speaking...

This column aims to inform students about their elected representatives and their interaction with the campus community. This week, I hope to give you an overview of my work as Academic Affairs Commissioner. I serve regularly on three of the college’s faculty committees. As Academic Affairs...

Dear Editor,Just a quick note to Elizabeth Kokemoor about her “Life After Life After Graduation” article. There is no reason you would fully appreciate your Pomona experience; you have nothing to compare it to yet. Once you leave Pomona and see what other people consider to be “the college...

Of Facebook’s 800 million active users, the group that far and away uses it best—and when I say best, I mean Mark Zuckerburg-defined best––is college students. No need to catalogue why and how; you know what I’m talking about. You realize that the life of a 20 year old without Facebook, although...

Before this year, there were two spaces on Pomona’s campus in which students above the age of 21 could consume alcohol: in the privacy of their own rooms, and at officially registered parties at which alcohol is served.This year, however, with the addition of the new North Campus dorms and a...

Two weeks ago, I wrote an op-ed challenging liberals at the Claremont Colleges to justify another vote for Obama in 2012, given that his administration has retained and expanded many of the controversial Bush-era policies that he was elected to dismantle. I didn’t receive many responses, aside...

Three weeks ago, an unregistered party on Pomona's South Campus took a turn for the worse when a first-year at the event was transported to a hospital for treatment for alcohol intoxication. In accordance with Pomona’s Good Samaritan policy, the Office of Campus Life (OCL) didn’t sanction the...

Dear Congressional “Leaders,”Please, no more—my frail heart just can’t take it. The whining; the bickering; the incessant finger-pointing. If it weren’t for the fact that my life is actually affected by your antics, I’d laugh. But it is, so I won’t.At first, I found it absolutely darling when you...

A disclaimer: I write this having just survived a rather rowdy weekend and with a nearly-downed quart of mother's ruin staring at me angrily from the shelf above my desk. I harbor no grudge toward the rambunctious collegiate lifestyle, nor do I disapprove of those who choose to avoid the fray...

Because of the discussion of sexual assault in this piece, I would like to warn readers that some of what is described here has the potential to elicit strong emotional reactions. If you are experiencing a strong reaction and would like someone to talk to, you can contact the Advocates at...

When I stepped outside last Saturday to swing by the dedication of Pomona's new dorms (where I am fortunate to reside this year), I immediately wanted to slink back in. It's not like I would have been able to skip it anyhow—my window was exactly adjacent to the cocktail chatter of various alumni,...

From The Student Life to my Twitter feed, people have been hating on Obama a lot recently. I’ve noticed disappointment with the president coming from all sides, but what worries me most is the growing disillusionment among Democrats. Running with the slogans “change we can believe in” and “yes we...

We received many responses to Michael Ceragioli's Letter to the Editor last week. The following are some excerpted responses.As a queer student of the 5Cs, I actually tend to agree with the author of this article that political correctness is causing a stifling of dialogue amongst student groups...

On Sept. 22, Pomona VP and Dean of Students Miriam Feldblum notified the student body of a federally-mandated policy change to the Student Handbook that will lower the standard of evidence required to find a student guilty of sexual misconduct. The standard has been changed from "clear and...

It is, of course, only a coincidence that the formative years of my political consciousness coincided with the eight years of the George W. Bush presidency. But for me and, I’m guessing, my peers at the Claremont Colleges, the consequences of this coincidence have been tremendous. As we tried to...

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict—although conflict is not really the right word—is a bitter, bloody, and at times all-consuming rift. One might almost imagine it as a decades-old chasm marking some elusive, shifting border between "Israel" and "Palestine." But there are no straight, shining lines...

Pomona students should embody a certain social awareness that inspires action. We bask in our great ranking as a liberal arts school (number four?!), and we enjoy access to innumerable campus resources. Even as first-year students, we are taught by our surrounding peers, faculty, and staff to...

Barack Obama’s leftward rhetorical shift has caused many on the right to accuse him of engaging in class warfare. I wonder if they aren’t missing a more important war that is being conducted against a demographic to which all Claremont students belong. This war reaches across national boundaries,...

Before you get into this article, I need to issue a disclaimer: My reason for writing it is primarily personal –a result of my perception that the editors of TSL treated me unjustly last week. However, because I think my own complaints shed light on broader issues at Pomona, I believe you should...

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, The Student Life would like to offer a response to those who were confused, upset, or frustrated by last week’s ‘snapping’ article. As this Editorial Board explained last week, we are trying to build a dialogue, and sometimes that means taking...

To call these past few months Barack Obama’s "winter of discontent" is an insult to the concept of discontent. An indicator of the depth of his trouble: Last week, Anthony Weiner’s old district in New York City went for a Republican contender in the special election for the first time since the...

This year compensation for Resident Advisors at Pomona dropped significantly, and now Pomona RAs are paid less than their counterparts at all the other Claremont Colleges. I believe that RA pay should be increased rather than cut, especially because of recent increased tensions between students...

As of last Thursday, Sept. 15, students can access a new Associated Students of Pomona College (ASPC) website. Over the summer, Pomona’s student webmaster Joseph Long ’14 worked closely with ASPC Student Body President Nathaniel Brown ’12 to determine which aspects of the website needed...

Friday morning, I cheerfully grabbed an issue of TSL and skipped nonchalantly back to my room. Along the way, I glanced down and read the title of one of the front-page articles: “‘Snapping’ Causes Controversy at RHS Training.” I immediately froze, but I kept reading incredulously. My eyes...

Troy Davis died at 11:08 p.m. EST Wednesday night. Ten minutes earlier, he entered a room built for him to die in. He was on death row for 22 years. He was convicted of murdering a police officer. There was no material evidence, only eyewitness testimony. The testimony that convicted him has...

The Student Life would like to welcome all our new and returning readers back to campus for another semester of quality 5C journalism. With each issue, we aim to deliver informative, interesting, challenging, and well-reported coverage of news, arts, sports, and opinions at the 5Cs.This semester,...

I do not remember September 11 very well, to be honest. I went to school that day: the bus driver had turned the radio up until it was deafening, but I did not listen or understand. We gathered by our lockers with a child's vague awareness of unease. Seeing footage of the attacks on the...

As President of the Associated Students of Pomona College (ASPC), I am excited to share with you some items on the ASPC Senate’s ambitious agenda for the 2011-2012 year. In fact, we have already accomplished several of our goals, such as ending the ‘GOTCHA’ program and voting to implement a...

Last week, what is likely to be the full contingent of contenders for the Republican presidential nomination met for the first two widely-publicized debates of the 2012 electoral cycle, offering the American public a comprehensive look at the options for replacing 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue’s...

The compulsion of comparison—an instinct too powerful for most social scientists to resist—proffers this analysis for your perusal.And I will try to make that my last ridiculously nerdy statement. Try.So. It starts with the Claremont Cash. A handy,...

The platitude “Pomona doesn’t just provide you with knowledge; it teaches you how to think” has become such a staple of discussion surrounding education at the college that calling it a cliché borders upon cliché. Given this fact, it is natural to assume that Pomona does indeed teach us how to...

Recently, a frustrating two-hour conversation about dance parties and the hookup culture at the five colleges inspired us to conduct a quick survey. We received 428 responses, 376 of which are from Pomona students. * Having reviewed the data, we felt moved to share our results with the broader...

The Student Life would like to take this opportunity to express our respect for the initiative shown by the 17 Pomona College students who recently petitioned President Oxtoby and Dean Conrad in order to create a tenure-track position for Andrew Lear, Visiting Professor of Classics. One of...

Did you celebrate how Good your Friday was last week? No, I'm not talking about looking forward to the weekend (partying, partying, yeah!). Maybe you didn't even remember that it was Holy Week until you got a package filled with chocolate rabbits and Cadbury Creme Eggs from your...

To the Pomona College Community:As has been reported in TSL, I am retiring at the end of June, leaving my position as Associate Dean of Students and Director of the Smith Campus Center. I have held this position for 18 ½ years, capping a 40+ year career in higher education. Although I will...

As reported on the front page of this issue, ASPC recently formed a subcommittee to address the endorsement of ASPC candidates by ASPC-funded organizations. This came out of the discussion in response to an e-mail sent out to the mailing list of Empowered Latin@s in Action (ELA)—an...

When I arrived at the Claremont Colleges in 2008, the Consortium had a plan for a new campus in Singapore. Regardless of the merits of the plan (many questioned whether a liberal arts institution could exist in an authoritarian state), the idea was bold, and it offered a response to the...

I want to start this letter humbly, by tipping my hat to the RAs. I don't think anyone could choose a harder job at the Claremont Colleges, so thank you for graciously stepping up to the plate. Honestly, thank you for doing your job so that I don't have to. Because why would anyone in...

The Sagehen: the meekest of wild fowl. Chirp! The meekest of cheers. Neither Pomona’s mascot nor its rallying cry regularly elicits more than a semi-embarrassed chuckle from Pomona students, let alone our SCIAC opponents. The support for a college’s sports teams, though not the...

“My own very deep hope is that instead of one great, undifferentiated university, we might have 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. In this way I should hope to...

A number of online commentators have taken TSL to task for a front-page story from last issue, "Date Rape Drug Stories Go Unnoticed on Claremont Campuses." Though the authors of these comments were unrelenting in their attacks on the author and the article, their criticism was rigorous...

On April 4, Barack Obama officially launched his reelection campaign with a video, "It Begins with Us," which, in a nod to the "hope and change" days of 2008, features Americans from all walks of life talking about the need to reelect him. Obama's announcement was not a...

I know I'm not the only one thinking it, so I'll just come out and say it: What the hell?! Bob Robinson kicked a chair, and you filed a report with the police? Are you insane?Please tell me that this is just a big joke so that I can maintain my delusion that all Pomona students have at...

The U.S. Department of State’s annual human rights report was released last Friday. As usual, it chastised China for human rights abuses, including arbitrary arrests, torture, and media restrictions. Also as usual, China responded by lambasting America’s infringement upon other...

As reported on the front page of this issue, next year some sponsor groups may find themselves with two female sponsors as opposed to the typical male-female pair. While OCL administrators and student-employees have attempted to glorify this as an effort to do away with the gender binaries and...

President Oxtoby’s e-mail response to the investigation of workplace misconduct by Assistant Vice President of Facilities and Campus Services Bob Robinson raises the question: as students, how do we come to understand an event about which we’re told conflicting stories?To be clear:...

The final decisions for Pomona's Summer Undergraduate Research Program (SURP) were e-mailed to students on Friday, April 1. I would first like to congratulate those who were selected for SURPs and wish those who weren’t the best of luck during next year's application process....

Over the past several weeks, thousands of pasty adolescents have arrived at Pastor Terry Jones's Dove World Outreach Center in Gainesville, Fla. The massive influx of children has left officials overwhelmed, frustrated, and confused, as the minors have responded to social workers and police...

I am writing to clarify some of the confusion surrounding the recent motion passed by the ASPC Senate regarding the renovation of the ASPC Coop Store. On Feb. 28, 2011, the ASPC Senate decided to allow the ASPC Coop Committee to proceed investigating a potential renovation of the store by voting...

Does a culture of happiness have deleterious effects on student-to-student sexual respect? Happiness and harassment appear to be diametrically opposed, but I would like to argue that a culture of happiness entrenches types of harassment that proliferate in gagging silence. Before I continue,...

Pomona prides itself on being a college that listens to its students. Pomona students are involved in college governance to a degree unheard of at other schools. There is an atmosphere of mutual respect between administration, faculty, and students; it is understood that each group brings...

Last August, I stood in my daughter’s new room in the Pitzer freshman dorm and peered out the window. She was lucky. The view encompassed the steep blue face of the San Gabriel Mountains. And even more unusual in this urban setting, her room looked over an expansive stretch of undeveloped land, a...

I visit the Coop Store almost every day. Conveniently located, staffed, and managed by an extraordinarily friendly subset of the Pomona College community, and selling delicious and nutritious (well, at least, delicious) items for "fake" money, it satisfies my snacking needs. Aside from the markup...

Every so often a serious but accessible international relations book or documentary comes along and catches popular notice. Its success is a decent indicator of how well-educated, reasonable Americans view the changes in the world. Thomas Friedman’s The Lexus and the Olive Tree, for example,...

At last week’s Student Affairs Committee (SAC) meeting, administrators brought up the idea of installing video cameras in the residence halls. According to SAC members, if the plans are approved, video cameras could be installed in the dorms as early as next semester. While we acknowledge...

Under new management as of spring 2011, Pomona College Dining Services has implemented a number of new policies. Among other things, it has cut frozen yogurt, instituted “Meatless Mondays,” and temporarily put the Food Rescue Program on hold. These changes have generated varying...

Hey Frary, It was really nice running into you the other day. You looked just... great. Of course, I hadn’t really planned on seeing you. My friend and I were on our way to Collins when suddenly, out of the blue, my friend asked, “Hey, why don’t we go to Frary?” I was...

For the uninformed in the 5C student body, Pomona first-years took a survey at the end of the fall semester to see how they felt about campus life at Pomona. For the average student, this survey probably seems unimportant, but for sponsors like ourselves, it’s a bigger deal. To a large...

“There are certain universal principles that [Americans] adhere to… the first principle is that… government responds to peaceful protestors peacefully. The second principle [Americans] believe in… is the right to express your opinions.” ~ President Barack Obama,...

On Nov. 2, 2010, Raul Oliveros was fired after 14 years of exemplary service to the Harvey Mudd’s Hoch-Shanahan Dinning Commons. In an e-mail sent to students, faculty, and staff, HMC’s Vice President for Administration and Finance Andrew Dorantes explained that Raul had threatened a...

On Feb. 18, after three hours of emotional debate, the House of Representatives voted 240-185 in support of an amendment to a bill that would eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood. Amid Republicans’ gory and gross mischaracterizations of abortions, Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA)...

Maybe discrediting the domino effect was premature. A month after Egyptian protests brought down Hosni Mubarak’s dictatorship, oppressive regimes across North Africa and the Middle East are quaking and crumbling. Some experts are speculating about the dawn of a “fourth era” in...

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker assumed office this year on Jan. 3, and he has already managed to set off massive protests both in Madison and around the state. Surely this is a new record for an incoming governor. Walker has proposed a controversial bill to address Wisconsin’s anticipated...

As someone who has always been interested in issues of education, access to quality education, and inequalities in schooling, I am excited about the apparent recent increase in attention to education reform. The public school system in the United States needs to improve—no one is arguing...

Sitting in Seaver’s lecture halls or at Carnegie’s seminar tables, it’s easy to forget about the desks where we first learned to read and write. Yet while we learn about RNA polymerase and organizational theory, President Obama and Arne Duncan, the U.S. Secretary of Education,...

What characteristics do you think the new reauthorization will share with No Child Left Behind, and in what ways do you think it will differ? Well, they’re not going to get rid of the push for curriculum standards or for annual testing of 3rd graders through 8th graders, and they’re...

As detailed on the front page of this week’s issue, dining service worker Emilio Flores was recently fired by Pomona College. According to the administration, allegations were brought against him, a full investigation was conducted, and the administration subsequently had no choice but to...

At my new student orientation freshman year in 2008, the welcoming speakers emphasized Pomona’s wealth. With an endowment, at the time, of $1.9 billion, Pomona could apparently fund anything a student could imagine. Trips to exotic places, crazy parties, and luxurious quarters were merely a...

Consider today’s Editorial Board a belated welcome from TSL’s new senior staff. We felt it best to use this space in the last two issues to comment on two of the major issues that have been discussed on Pomona’s campus so far this semester: the Office of Campus Life’s...

The Academy Awards will be held on Sunday night, and one of the contenders for Best Picture is a little out of the ordinary when it comes to the Oscar circuit. Winter’s Bone, an independent film that won the Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival, is about poverty,...

As popular revolutions continue to overthrow entrenched dictators, Western commentators, as they scramble to critique the evolving situation in North Africa and the Middle East, often miss the mark. Egypt and Tunisia are not going to become radical Islamic states. The flight of Tunisian...

“After ‘Victory Friday’ in Tunisia and ‘Liberation Friday’ in Egypt, [Libyan strongman Muammar] Gaddafi has decided to abolish all Fridays.” So declared the U.A.E.-based columnist Sultan al-Qassemi two weeks ago. It was an absurd statement, but it also...

HvZ. Once a semester, these three simple letters transform a pristine college campus speckled with palm trees and flip-flops into a ghoulish battleground teeming with the living dead. The epidemic settles in, subduing any and all foolish enough to face its awesome power. Bandanas taut, chambers...

Sometimes big changes happen fast. Last week, Egypt was a case in point. After 18 days of trying to wait out the mass protests in Cairo, Hosni Mubarak finally gave up the Egyptian presidency. His last hours in power were schizophrenic ones; if the stakes had been lower, it might have been funny....

Tomorrow, Pomona College students and their visiting families will face a choice, and that choice will not be easy. Workers for Justice (WFJ), a pro-union coalition of Pomona’s food service workers, has chosen Saturday to orchestrate a boycott of Frank and Frary in order to show support...

Matt Wolfson, stop hating on Skins! In last week’s issue of TSL, Matt Wolfson argued that the new MTV series Skins is a work of fantasy escapism that portrays an unrealistic world to susceptible teens. The show, in his estimation, is devoid of the institutional rules or “everyday...

Not many countries have broken from the shackles of dictatorship as peacefully as Egypt. After only 18 days of protests, the people of Egypt have overcome years of oppression and now wait hopefully for the establishment of democracy. Last Friday, Hosni Mubarak’s regime, in place since...

Dear Frary, Let me just say that this is probably the hardest letter I’ve ever written. Where do I begin? These past few weeks it’s become clear to me that we’ve grown apart. We just want different things these days. Meatless Monday? That came out of nowhere like a sucker punch...

According to the flyers that appeared around campus last weekend, Workers for Justice (WFJ) and their supporters are sponsoring a boycott of the Pomona dining halls this Saturday. Coincidentally, this weekend is also Family Weekend. The coincidence begs the question: was this boycott planned in...

Every three months, the Red Cross Club of the Claremont Colleges and the three fraternities on Pomona’s campus work together to organize a blood drive. There are generally dozens of volunteers who come and roll up their sleeves, eager to partake in what many consider an important part of...

MTV, proud producer of Jersey Shore, is making waves with its new hit show Skins. Two weeks ago, the media watchdog Parents Television Council pronounced that the wildly popular series was “the most dangerous show for children that we have ever seen.” In response, Skins supporters...

The new North Campus dorm, Sontag Hall, will be completed this summer and open for students in the fall. Most of the junior class is hoping to live there, and they should be; the suites are great, there’s a garden on the roof, and the rooms have full-size beds. But there’s a serious...

On Jan. 25, President Obama gave his second State of the Union address, outlining his vision of America’s present and its future. First and foremost, Obama addressed the nation’s lingering concerns about the economy. Unfortunately, the main signs of progress cited by the President...

The following article was submitted by the Advocates for Survivors of Sexual Assault. It’s probably happened to every one of us—somebody makes a joke that hits us personally, and we don’t laugh. We understand the punch line, that the reason the joke is a joke is that it pushes...

The last two weeks have been my worst at Pomona College. I have slept little and been unable to fully concentrate on my schoolwork, a result of stress greater than that of finals week. The worst part is that the actions of the Office of Campus Life (OCL) exacerbated my problems. As many may...

On Thursday, Nov. 18, I narrowly escaped the Thanksgiving Dinner debacle at Frank Dining Hall. It is only with the utmost perseverance that I am even able to relive the tragedy now. I am braving the psychological trauma for the sake of my journalistic integrity, a supreme respect for the telling...

It was just past 10 p.m. on a calm Friday evening. Like everyone else filling the cushy theater seats around me, I was in full-on Harry Potter mode, my internal fury already brewing at the mention of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Just a few more previews remained before witches, wizards, and Death...

I’m a big fan of the Harry Potter books, but so far I’ve been disappointed by the movie adaptations. Not this time around. For me at least, the seventh Harry Potter film did what I thought was unthinkable: it improved on the parts of the novel it portrayed. The movie enacts the first...

“I do believe in the Bible as the final word of God, and I do believe that God said the Earth would not be destroyed by a flood.”—Rep. John Shimkus (R-IL), dismissing concerns about climate changeAs a general rule, I appreciate the entertainment that America’s...

It’s true what all the guidebooks say—Pomona students really are one big family, and the more time we spend here, the bigger the family gets. Of course, I’m not talking about your biological family—I’m talking about your Eskimo Family. Before I came to Pomona, my...

The Bernard Field Station and its friends have a lot to be worried about now that it’s missing its manager. This recent development in the field station’s complex history marks a critical turning point in the decades-long battle between those who believe the BFS should be preserved...

According to Pomona administration, labor issues were not the driving force in the decision to terminate Sodexo’s contract. Instead, operational factors (e.g. quality of food, cleanliness, responsiveness to management) played a much larger role. We have no reason to doubt the...

What does it mean to be a modern family? The Emmy Award-winning TV show Modern Family, now in its second season, answers that question in two ways. The first fairly superficial answer that the show gives is that “modern families” are diverse. Cam and Mitchell are a gay couple who...

I miss it. I miss the way it clung to my pillow as the morning sun prodded my tired eyes open. I miss the way it warmed my cheeks, protecting the soft skin now barren and vulnerable to the cold slap of a breeze. I even miss the way it itched like mad. Last Monday I shaved, and I just...

Good evening, America! I’m Ryan Seacrest and I’ll be your host for Presidential Election Night 2012! [Audience applause.] Tonight’s election is sponsored by Taco Bell! [Bell rings.] For a limited time, you can buy three Steak Chalupas and get a fourth one FREE! Think outside...

The Obama administration has been remarkably indecisive on the subject of immigration. On one hand, the president talks a lot about his support for a bill that creates a path to legalization for undocumented immigrants. On the other hand, the Obama administration has also deported a record...

In the 1950s, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru coined the phraseHindi-Chini Bhai Bhai, which in Hindi means “India and China are brothers”. Though little remains of Nehru’s dream, the Sino-Indian relationship has come a long way in the last 60 years. Two developing...

TSL expressed concern over a possible Campus Safety policy change in last week’s editorial, but—as we pointed out might be the case—our portrayal of the potential change misconstrued the actual content of the proposal. Dean of Students Miriam Feldblum clarified the new policy,...

Dear Editor, I read with interest the well written and well documented article by Nick Gebbia regarding Proposition 19 and the possibility of legalizing marijuana. In all arguments it is important to know what information has been included and what has been left out. I hope that my concern...

Have you heard? Those crazy kids are up to no good these days! What is this younger generation coming to? For those who haven’t noticed the growth of the hipster movement or who don’t hang out in trendy enough areas, hipsters have been loosely defined, by those who bother to...

Several weeks ago I looked on with disgust as children clad in adorable costumes trick-or-treated throughout the quiet streets of Claremont. They rang the doorbells of everyday God-fearing Americans and held out their bags expectantly, their bright eyes and wide smiles masking a horrible...

Kanye West has always been a controversial figure, but with his new album, “My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy,” he’s gone too far. The cover of his album says it all: a naked black man holding a green bottle (read: beer) is straddled (read: having sex) by a naked white woman...

Last week’s midterm elections ushered in a number of changes for California. While Republicans did extremely well nationwide on November 2, California Republicans had good reason to be disappointed, as seemingly competitive Republican candidates in the gubernatorial and US Senate races...

Hari Ram works part time as a domestic helper at my neighbor’s house back in India. He has three daughters, two of whom have been married. The third daughter is a spinster, long of marriageable age but still living at home. In his village, Hari is shunned for having an unmarried daughter....

The tide has turned. The Republican Party has once again ridden a red sea of voters back into power in the House of Representatives. After gaining 60 seats in the House and six seats in the Senate, Republicans look set to steer Congressional agenda-setting in the next two years. The voter base...

“Do we want America to continue to be exceptional, the single greatest nation on Earth, or do we want her to become just like everybody else?”—Florida Republican Senatorial candidate Marco Rubio“All political thinking for years past has been vitiated in the same way....

What Jon Stewart amusingly but inaccurately dubbed “Indecision 2010” is finally over. The polls have closed and voters were decisive. Now things get interesting. America is once again under divided government and the battle lines are drawn: Republicans on the Hill vs. Democrats in the...

It has recently come to TSL’s attention that a Campus Safety policy change is in the works at Pomona—a change that could gravely affect residential life on this campus.The details of the proposal are murky at best, but if our understanding of what one senior administrator told us is...

Students are right to point out that the grade inflation problem is in no way limited to Pomona’s campus. It has been taking place across the country at a multitude of institutions for decades. Pomona, however, outdoes them all when it comes to boosting GPAs. The average GPA at the...

It’s no secret that 5C students are a pretty politically correct bunch. The occasional bias-related incident notwithstanding, I think we do a fairly good job of making the 5Cs a safe and open environment for everyone, regardless of their race, socioeconomic status, position on the gender...

“By disclosing such sensitive information, WikiLeaks continues to put at risk the lives of our troops, their coalition partners, and those Iraqis and Afghans working with us.” —Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, on the release of files documenting alleged torture and killings...

Over fall break I spent two hours watching Daniel Craig (a.k.a. James Bond) go toe-to-toe with an egomaniacal killer bent on world domination. In Bond’s universe, this is standard fare, but I didn’t think the overblown evilness of a 007 villain existed in reality until a day or two...

You can usually determine the quality of an apple by looking at the tree from which it came. Proposition 23 is a rotten apple from a depraved tree. Under the crafty guise of the “California Jobs Initiative,” Prop. 23 is nothing more than a filthy piece of legislation aiming to...

Marijuana. Even as the word begins to take shape on one’s lips, a nationwide parental shudder is felt. The substance is illegal, while the topic is taboo. It’s no wonder that the groundbreaking legislation proposed in Proposition 19 has had such a polarizing effect on all those...

Last Friday, I, along with more than 30,000 of my peers, attended President Obama’s rally at the University of Southern California. The president was participating in a Democratic Party rally in support of Barbara Boxer, Jerry Brown, and other local Democratic candidates. Behind the...

My meal plan is a masterpiece. Not the standard, 16-meal per week, $160 of BoardPlus generic package, mind you—no, I’m talking about my perfectly flawless schedule for ensuring consistent caloric intake. Fall semester has 108 days, including weekends and vacations. 108 days is 15...

From stimulating the economy to reforming the healthcare system, Obamanomics has come under a critical public eye. Our big-name leaders have become big-time spenders. We, the people, have become wary. Such scrutiny of our leaders raises the question: What should government spending look like? At...

Sometimes watching cable news is a tiring endeavor. Seeing the same people yelling, the same old political arguments, and the same accusations can be wearying. Indeed, nowadays most cable news shows don’t actually offer very much news—they’re mostly political entertainment....

I grew up in a very pro-Israel household. For eight years I attended synagogue, said my prayers every Shabbat, and listened to explanations of the Middle East conflict that, as I gathered at the time, consisted of villainous terrorists killing the good people of Israel. It was a very...

Every year, Hollywood comes out with the usual set of summer blockbusters. This year’s films—from Inception to Despicable Me—have generally been high-quality, well-made films. Inception has already been tagged by some critics as a classic. Then there was The Last Airbender, M....

Dear Claremont Consortium Community, Last week an anonymous individual carried out a very trivial act that some may deem bias-related but that a large portion of the student body may find innocuous or even comical. This action may or may not be: (i) an offensive joke expressed verbally, written...

Michelle Obama has recently been criticized for privately sharing her take on life at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. According to French first lady Carla Bruni, Obama compared living in the White House to life in “hell.” It’s unclear whether the statement Carla Bruni revealed is true...

Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s. No, I’m not telling you to return the pencil you borrowed in English class from that kid with the weird name. I’m speaking, of course, about taxes. In contemporary American society, paying taxes is as natural a part of life as watching reality TV...

In the seven months since the Workers for Justice campaign began, I’ve often felt uncertain about my participation as a student organizer. From the beginning, different aspects of the campaign have rubbed me the wrong way: the secretive nature of the original student group, the way certain...

One of life’s tragedies is that “Arrested Development” went off the air after only three seasons. Rubbing salt into the wound, the post-cancellation movie is now stalled. This upsets me a great deal because, with the possible exception of the Dunphys of “Modern...

“Pyongyang and the today’s North Korea is a socialist paradise where all the people have a life with dignity, without poverty and more than ever demonstrate the invincibility and union of the masses around the Leader.”—Official website of the Democratic People’s...

Here are the crossword solutions, and here they will remain, until the end of TSL.

You enter the box, slap a few checkmarks next to the names of your favorite candidates—be it because they have great political platforms or just an inviting smile—and you’re done. This is voting. This is a representative democracy. But who’s representing you? More...

On the flight to L.A., my mind was a blur. I was about to spend the next four years of my life (and possibly more) in an unknown town in an unknown country in “the New World.” Raised outside the U.S., I had little prior experience with American culture beyond what I’d gleaned...

Progressive writer Randolph Bourne once wrote that “war is the health of the state.” This is true in the sense that the government can use war to distract citizens from domestic problems and conflicts by uniting subjects in common support and admiration of the government and its...

Few arguments arouse such extreme passion as the fight over immigration. The topic touches many aspects of everyday life and can be seen as a threat to traditional culture, an opportunity to broaden ideological diversity, an economic boom or bust, or a political game-changer. Wanting to further...

For those of you who haven’t heard, Stephen Colbert testified before Congress a couple of weeks ago. The subject? Immigration reform. Colbert was invited to speak at the—take a deep breath—House Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law...

Every year, Hollywood comes out with the usual set of summer blockbusters. This year’s summer movies – from Inception to Despicable Me – have generally been high quality, well-made films. Inception has already been tagged by some critics as a classic. Then there was The Last...

As “The Apprentice” hobbled into its sixth season last week, TV spots ran the following tantalizing exchange from the show:Contender A: “I need you to calm down.”Contender B: “I need you to shut up.”I wasn’t compelled to tune in, but this piece of grist...

In the past few years, members of differing political ideologies have struggled to agree on even the most routine policy and legislative issues. Ask any politician or virtually any pundit though, and regardless of their place on the philosophical spectrum you’ll find one view in common:...

I was walking back from Frary the other night, passing Oldenborg on the way back to Wig. I had just indulged in a delicious snack, complete with a couple double-chocolate chip cookies and a cold glass of two percent milk. I was ready to return with renewed strength to my Tuesday night...

Arizona’s recent and harsh anti-immigrant bill reminded me of another law passed a while ago. Commonly called the Bennett Law, it aimed to make teaching English mandatory at all public and private schools in Wisconsin. Like Arizona’s law, it constituted a political response to a large...

I, Romy-Michelle Unger, student of Scripps College, hereby acknowledge and accept the shortcomings of feminism. Despite the best efforts of post-wave feminists everywhere to distinguish the term from the wrongly-associated signifiers “feminazi” and “manhater,” I understand...

I have a proposition for you. Well, let me clarify: when I say “I” I mean “the state of California”; and when I say “a proposition” I mean “nine propositions.” That’s right, folks, it’s votin’ time. In just under six weeks, on Nov....

Year after year, the questionable status of the Lawry common rooms stirs up controversy among the dorm’s residents. The common rooms are technically “public space”—Resident Advisors can walk through the area, and any Pomona student can swipe in unless the residents request...

Nothing requires more mental acuity, physical strength, natural speed, agility and most importantly, stealth, than the nightly (or daily) game of RA-aversion. Escaping the RAs is not an activity for the faint of heart. You must have the uncanny ability to see through walls, or if you are not as...

When I first arrived at Pomona College, I thought a lot of things.Some were right. Most were wrong. For the uninitiated, the small misperceptions quickly become self-evident, so I won’t point them out. If you haven’t realized that wearing your college lanyard around your neck screams...

Ladies and gentlemen, in light of troubling recent events in two of South America’s largest democracies, I am here today to educate you on what is unequivocally the most pressing national security threat our great nation has ever faced.I am not talking about obesity or climate change or the...

As all 5-C students have voluntarily committed at least four years of their lives to California, it seems appropriate to say a few words about Meg Whitman, the former CEO of eBay and potentially the Terminator’s successor as the Golden State’s governor. Nowadays you can hear her on...

Last Thursday, I walked over to the Draper Center for a meeting about Learning in Collaboration (LINC), a Pomona-organized volunteer program that sends 5C students to two local, under-resourced high schools to tutor grade school kids. Arriving a few minutes late, I sat down toward the back of the...

Algeria’s 2010 World Cup team was an oddity. Most of the squad’s players were not actually born in Algeria, and many of them do not speak Arabic. In fact, an astonishing 17 of the 23 players on the Algerian squad are the French-born children of Algerian immigrants who decided to play...

Now that some of the dust has settled and the semester has officially begun, we’d like to take the opportunity to welcome you back to another year of The Student Life.In typical fashion, the new semester brings with it a fresh and ebullient new staff here at TSL, and we’re looking...

Tonight, I ate at Frary. Earlier this week, a number of my friends expressed interest in breaking the boycott. However, when six o’clock came around today, lo and behold, suddenly they “had to be at a meeting” or “were supposed to go to a special off-campus dinner.” ...

Iceland is a small country in big trouble.During the heady times of economic growth, its banks expanded operations far beyond what the country could possibly support. When the global financial crisis arrived, all three collapsed. Millions of depositors in Britain and the Netherlands would have...

The year is coming to an end, and for the seniors among us college is ending with it. This reality means many things to many people. For some it means the beginning of a high-paying job as a consultant, telling people with vastly more experience than they have how to run their businesses. For...

We’re nearly six months away from the 2010 midterms, and the country is in a foul mood. “Democrats’ Long-Held Seats Face GOP Threat,” reported the New York Times last Sunday. “Both parties,” the article noted, “agree that Republicans are within reach of...

Of the many hats I wear here at Pomona, my role in Skeeze’s leadership—the Ski and Snowboard Club of the Claremont Colleges—is the one in which I take most pride. This year, my ability to lead the club has been substantially limited by the Associated Students of Pomona...

In a past article, I made clear my position on the card check versus secret ballot debate. For the purposes of this article, we shall cast aside the debate over whether or not the Workers for Justice (WFJ) group has the right goal in mind. Instead, we shall briefly examine whether or not...

1. What is AB 32? AB 32 is clean-tech, clean energy legislation that California enacted in September 2006. It was and remains a landmark bill; no other state or nation has passed such a comprehensive measure to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) by incentivizing technological and entrepreneurial...

A teaser that appeared at the bottom of the front page last week mischaracterized the tone of the article it referred to, which described plumbing problems that forced the Sagehen Café closed for two days last week. The headline for that article seemed to imply that the pipes that serve...

Students of Pomona College,In weekly meetings, each Senator is obligated to periodically “report out” from the committees they chair, to keep the Senate informed of their activities. As the year draws to a close, I’d like to highlight some of the many initiatives and...

A story by Ben Conway last week did not include his TSL position title. Ben Conway is the Opinions Editor for TSL, and once opened for Gym Class Heroes. In a sub-headline about No-Chella last week, we incorrectly stated that KSPC presented the festival. CCLA presented the festival, but with...

The UC Berkeley student senate voted 16-4 last month to pass Bill 118: A Bill in Support of ASUC Divestment from War Crimes. The vote followed intense campaigning and hours of deliberation which included testimonies from many on both sides of the issue. It underwent some back-and-forth, which...

The widespread perception of the Tea Party, both among the left and among the large swath of moderate Americans, has been an amalgamation of Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin, and Glenn Beck—that is to say, of hyperbole, misinformation and uncensored rage. Last week, though, the New York Times and...

Conservatives love him, and yet the Republican establishment can’t seem to stand the guy. And liberal bloggers are strangely drawn to the evangelical politician from Arkansas.Of the entire motley crew that ran in the 2008 Republican primaries, only two candidates stood out. The first, John...

The worker unionization process has raised questions about the character of our community and challenged every student to examine the gulf that exists between our vision of Pomona and the realities experienced and expressed by many of the workers. The unionization attempt has no doubt added...

Many of the students here know about those pesky bias-related incident reports. They cluttered my inbox last year and became a joke for the most part. Luckily, this year they are less frequent and actually cover serious incidents, for the most part. Even so, the Foundation for Individual Rights...

There are lots of ways you could die in college. Now, you can add chicken pox to the list. Currently, some person—or people—in Lyon dorm has chicken pox. There’s no need to panic; chicken pox doesn’t usually kill young people. But the fact that a student got the chicken...

In article about this year’s Class Day speaker, Pomona College Trustee Scott Olivet PO ‘84 was incorrectly listed as having overseen marketing for Nike subsidiaries, including Converse and Hurley. In fact, Olivet oversaw all operations at the Nike subsidiaries, not just marketing. The...

Dear Mr. Willert:I was a varsity basketball player at Pomona 1973-74 and 74-75 and held many records. Then I transferred to Duke University and played as a walk on for the 76-77 season (coach was Bill Foster, I have never become enamored of Coach K).So I went from being a Sagehen to being a Blue...

We have a language problem on campus. I don’t mean the “language problem” your mom lectured you about, nor do I mean an inability to understand a foreign language. We have a problem choosing our words.For example, I recently read an e-mail from Workers for Justice, regarding the...

College is often described as a wonderful institution, a place where people have the best experiences of their lives. Students like me forge lasting friendships, take a leap into independence, and sometimes even learn.College is also a place to make life-long connections. If you’re destined...

With the Apr. 8 e-mail casually titled “On-Campus Storage Announcement,” the administration dropped a huge bomb: no more on-campus storage for students. However, the explanation provided in the e-mail left something to be desired. The anonymous author argues that the “added...

It seems a bit ridiculous to write vitriolically against an evil administration that, as many of the rational commentators on Trabajadores Por Justicia emphasize, isn’t actually evil. There is a part of us all, I think, that would love to be given a reason for which to sacrifice our hearts...

Karen Sisson, Pomona College Administration and College Community,First, we would like to express our thanks to Vice President and Treasurer Karen Sisson and the administration of Pomona College for giving us the opportunity to speak freely and explain before the entire community the reasons why...

In response to the efforts and inquiries concerning the re-painting of Walker Wall:The Queer Resource Center does not discourage the repainting of Walker Wall. The event has passed, but the sentiments, even once they are painted over, are still present on the campuses. However, we were grateful...

Trust me: I’m not one of those people protesting the U.S. Census. And this is not one of those diatribes about how the Census is a secret plot by our socialist government to send us to concentration camps.Sure, it’s possible that the government is plotting to take over our lives, but...

The following e-mail was sent to the QRC on Sunday evening:Dear Staff and Students of the Claremont Queer Resource Center,We are writing both to explain and to apologize for the painting of Walker Wall—and more importantly the painting over of the recently-painted Rainbow Flag—that...

To the Editor,I’m not sure where to begin in critiquing this atrocious example of classist, sexist, irresponsible journalism. I think it might be best to simply wade through this travesty of an article and let you follow along with my thought process.Nguyen sets up Tropical Lei as an...

To all the ladies and gents who read last week’s Tropical Lei article and responded to the TSL,You’re right. There was no objectivity in that article, and outside the context of April Fools’, it looked like a complete anti-feminist rant that a part-time Randian who had no tongue...

This whole Gaypril Walker Wall situation is a disgrace, and at this point, I am not sure with whom I should be more frustrated. To me, it represents not one, but two pressing issues of insensitivity and ignorance at Pomona College. The first is obvious: the painting of homophobic, sexist, racist,...

This whole Gaypril Walker Wall situation is a disgrace, and at this point, I am not sure with whom I should be more frustrated. To me, it represents not one, but two pressing issues of insensitivity and ignorance at Pomona College. The first is obvious: the painting of homophobic, sexist, racist,...

icle three times now, the biggest lesson I have learned is that writing about music is bloody hard if you don’t plan on being regarded as a snob of one kind or another. The more passionate you are about music, the more likely it is that you will end up taking some personal form of criticism...

Stigler’s Law, for you non-math types, states that no theorem is named for the actual person who dreamed it up and proved it in longhand. In other words, no discovery is named for its true discoverer. And because of this collective disregard for the truth, we may never know the real...

If you didn’t watch basketball Monday night, or you never realized that Senator Palpatine somehow became the Pope, or you put off re-reading post-Hegelian ontology until next year, then there’s a memo you might have missed: God is dead.The evidence is fairly clear on the matter,...

Sometimes I wonder if I’m the only one in this entire school who has ever taken an economics class or worked with a union. Between the collecting of signatures, rallying, and general noisemaking, it seems to me that no one has actually stopped to think that there might be a downside to a...

As a prominent institution that prides itself on eager, thoughtful, and reverent action, Pomona College has many opportunities to act as a shining beacon of liberal thought in an otherwise reticent, thoughtless and irreverent world. The College’s adoption of a gender-neutral housing policy...

The Wild Animus box set by Rich Shapero, which contains a 300-page novel and three CDs of accompanying music, has been recently distributed about the Pomona College campus, but you may or may not be aware of that fact.That’s not a horrible thing. If the artistic endeavor had been anywhere...

A photo of comedian Russell Peters published Mar. 12 was credited to TSL photographer Michael Benesch. The photograph actually appeared on www.schememag.ca.The annual TSL Joke issue published Apr. 1 was entirely fictional.The Student Life regrets these errors.

A lot of people hate hipsters: the creative underclass, certain Hasidic Jewish populations, other hipsters. Hatred deep enough to paint a bold “No Hipsters” message upon private stoops in very public places. And yet, they have silently worked their way into the fabric of society....

It is widely acknowledged that we’re well taken care of at Pomona College. The school pays us to intern at Los Angeles production companies and takes us surfing before we even enroll in classes. In fact, many of us chose this institution because of the administration and faculty’s...

The Democrats’ long-delayed health-care triumph last week was almost overshadowed by events that, in any case, will play to the Left’s rhetorical advantage. These were the raucous protests and, more seriously, the ominous threats that Tea Party members leveled against congressional...

Several months ago, the House Financial Services Committee approved an amendment that would quite negatively impact our economy’s future well-being. If passed, this change could hamper our growth for decades to come. Offered by Congressman Ron Paul, the amendment vastly expands the...

If the debate over dining hall worker unionization is to result in any tangible progress, parties on both sides of the issue need to drop vague rhetoric and move toward concrete action. Rather than talking through blog posts and cc’d emails, the parties must come together at some point to...

In the Mar. 5 issue, news staff writer Nik Tyack’s name was misspelled as “Nik Tyak” in the byline for “City Approves Partition of Bernard Field Station.” We also omitted the “C” in his last name (there is no “C” in the first, we’re...

We, the staff of the Pomona College Women’s Union, support the proposed gender neutral housing policy for second-year students and above.Recognizing our freedom and our ability to live and choose as independent adults, the proposed policy provides a very basic right to Pomona College...

The ASPC Senate is elected to serve as a voice for the student body in the community at large. As an assembled body, we have met with concerned students, dining hall staff, and administrators about the issue of dining hall workers’ rights to unionize. As the process develops, we are...

Like most of us, I’m all for blaming it on the goose, making love in this club, just leaving with me now say the word and we’ll go, and getting low low low low low low low low. But you have to draw the line somewhere, and I draw it at Kesha. (No, I will not spell her name with a...

Last week I bashed Cosmopolitan for its laughably dreadful flirting tips, yet I realize now that I forgot something. I completely neglected another vital publication: Men’s Health. The male version of Cosmo, Men’s Health is almost as ridiculous when it comes to giving advice. I...

How is the ASPC different from Pomona College? What do my student fees pay for?Pomona College and the Associated Students of Pomona College are in fact two separately incorporated non-profit 501(c)3 organizations. They do not mix funds or share money except for the fact that the College collects...

Rick Blackwood is a Professor of English and Media Studies at Pomona College and Louisiana State University. He teaches Film and Screenwriting and below offered his thoughts on this year’s Academy Awards.1. How seriously are the Academy Awards taken by people working within the film...

On the eighth anniversary of 9/11, a professor of mine made a comment that inspired a lot of soul-searching for me. He remarked, quite casually, that the United States is in decline.His words angered me. Nobody likes to hear his country characterized in such a manner. But ever since then...

With spring break coming up, the question everyone on campus is asking during conversational lulls is: “Where are you going?” Given a little free time, people inevitably seem to leave home and the comfort of familiarity in search of an adventure. I crossed the Atlantic Ocean for the...

If the debate over dining hall worker unionization is to result in any tangible progress, parties on both sides of the issue need to drop vague rhetoric and move toward concrete action. Rather than talking through blog posts and cc’d emails, the parties must come together at some point to...

The other night when I was hard at work—on my thesis, duh—I paused to consider the serious state of the world, or at least the world as it appears on HuffingtonPost.com. The usual matters troubled me: The horrendously public disintegration of the marriage of once-presidential-hopeful...

“People are angry,” Senator John McCain told Barack Obama at last Friday’s seven-hour health care summit. “We promised them change in Washington, and what we got was a process that you and I both said we would change.” Obama replied waspishly, “John,...

One of the most important health care reforms we could enact would eliminate an inefficient, outdated tax exemption that is still a fundamental part of U.S. policy.This is how it works: If a company provides health insurance to its employees, the federal government does not tax the health...

Last Wednesday’s announcement that General Motors is shutting down its Hummer brand marked the end of an era. It should not have come as a surprise, as GM has been trying to sell the Hummer brand for more than a year. They finally made a deal last June with Sichuan Tengzhong Heavy...

A headline for an article on Addie Salomon on page one listed her as a member of the Class of 2010. Salomon is actually a member of the Class of 2012.In an Opinions article on Haiti last week, we incorrectly printed “Media Cov-” in place of a byline. The article was written by staff...

Brace yourself for a visceral tale of pointless escalation and buffoonery. Imagine that you are the son of a powerful head of state in Country A. You have been born into a world of extensive avarice and political influence. The world is your oyster. In 2004, whilst barreling down the Parisian...

As detailed in this week’s front-page article, Pomona President David Oxtoby has stated that the college is unlikely to allow its food-service workers the “card-check” vote to form a union that workers and student activists are advocating. This response follows a petition,...

The editors at Cosmopolitan have a tough job. No, really. Constantly thinking up new and different ways to “please your man” every month is nearly impossible. Unfortunately, these difficulties are reflected in their articles because it seems like every time you turn around, they have...

It is universally acknowledged that celebrities who are rabidly followed by the media are often lacking in value or substance. How do we know this? Because headlines about Tiger Woods and cocktail waitresses hold people’s attention for far longer than in-depth discussions about the...

When it comes to American figures, we all have our favorites. Emerson and Thoreau had some good lines, Warren’s got a whole court named after him, Twain’s always good for a quote or two, and for contrarians, there’s always Aaron Burr. There are so many awesome historical...

Over the past few years, media coverage of Israel has experienced a subtle but distinct change in tone. The mainstream media is taking a harder look at Israel’s policies and finding that not everything is to its liking.There are several reasons why coverage of Israel has traditionally been...

When asked about the parallels between Hurricane Katrina and the recent earthquake in Haiti, Edwidge Danticat recalled a news story that had said, “These kinds of things don’t happen here, they happen in Haiti or in Africa.” As part of the Africana Studies Department 2009-2010...

This week, Ed Board is taking a little time to make a few small dining suggestions that would make life on campus that much more palatable.We should switch up the menu at Frary more often. We Eds like fried chicken and ribs as much as the next person, but we don’t like fried chicken and...

The Coptic Christians of Egypt have experienced a tumultuous relationship with the country’s religious majority since the Arab conquest of 641 C.E. Currently, the Coptic minority comprises around 12 percent of Egypt’s population. Identifiable by the blue crosses tattooed onto their...

Mark Wood, Senior Director of Communications at Pomona College, recently oversaw the team that designed and built Pomona’s new web site, which launched on Monday. Mark is also an executive editor and art director and designer for Pomona College Magazine.TSL: What was the biggest debate the...

Dear Editor,Many thanks for the thoughtful and well organized article [staff writer] Sarah Kinicki wrote on the Ceramic Annual at Scripps College. The staff of the gallery and director commented on how well she has gotten the feel of the show across to the reader. In addition, she has given the...

A story on Nicholas George PO ‘10 on Page one wrongly described him as a double major in physics and Middle Eastern studies. George’s lawsuit states that the Pomona student is majoring in both academic areas when in fact he is only majoring in physics.Sports Staff Writer Sarah...

Like many of you, I like to watch movies. Even today, there are still a lot of feel-good, old-fashioned hits that make your heart warm. Ones like Slumdog Millionaire and National Treasure.In National Treasure—the sequel, that is—there’s a scene in which Nicholas Cage, the...

Proposition 8 was a ballot proposition and constitutional amendment passed during the November 2008 California state elections. The measure added a new provision to the California Constitution which reads, “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.”...

It’s been 78 years since FDR’s New Deal and 45 years since LBJ’s Great Society, the two great triumphs of liberal expansionist government. But now it’s 2010, and it’s increasingly looking like the Democrats missed the boat this time around. Health care reform is...

At the risk of becoming The Student Life’s official Sarah Palin reporter, I list below three fictional responses from elected officials of varying political stances in reaction to Sarah Palin’s appearance at the Tea Party Nation’s National Convention two weeks ago. For the...

Dinner table conversations typically include heated discussions of professors, “American Idol,” drinking game exploits, and things of that nature. You know, standard college-kid fare (SCKF). The thing is, 99 percent of dining hall SCKF misses a very major part of actual SCKF: a...

When I was a young girl—15, maybe 16—my mother and I would have the occasional disagreement. I wasn’t allowed to have sugary cereal, but all I wanted to eat in the morning was Marshmallow Fluff-Pops. I couldn’t watch television past 10 p.m., which made it difficult for me...

As featured on the front page of the Feb. 12 issue of TSL, Assistant Professor of English Meg Worley was recently denied tenure by the Pomona College Board of Trustees. Professor Worley was a beloved teacher and mentor to more than a few past and current TSL employees and a plethora of...

I didn’t get into Hinduism and South Asian Culture this spring or Intro to Asian Religious Traditions in the fall. This is really very bad because if I can’t learn how to meditate and gather karma, then I’m probably not going to liberate myself from the Samsara cycle of...

Dear Editor, The ASPC Residence Halls Committee is the representative voice of the Pomona student body on all housing policy decisions and is charged with addressing concerns in the residence halls. Comprised of students at large and at least four members of RHS, it is chaired by the ASPC North...

A few days ago, the House of Representatives passed the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, a meaningful reform of the way student loans are conducted. In my mind, this bill constitutes one of the Obama administration’s most important accomplishments.In recent years, the cost of...

We are one year into Barack Obama’s presidency, and the knives are out. There was never a moment of serious doubt on the right: Obama’s election equaled the triumph of socialism, which meant America’s imminent doom. But now the left is in revolt, leveling increasingly...

Welcome back to a new semester and a new TSL. We have again assembled a great staff and hope to continue to make improvements to The Student Life, bringing you quality coverage of campus events and discourse.We believe that the role of student media is not solely to stand on the sidelines, but to...

“It’s not about supporting Mel Zelaya specifically, it’s about defending democracy in Honduras,” Miriam Miranda of OFRANEH (Fraternal Black Organization of Honduras) said, speaking about the Resistance movement at the Honduras Justice Tour forum held at Scripps College...

The seemingly ceaseless plight of the Haitian people has been widely syndicated since the earthquake on Jan. 12. While the miasma of chaos, destruction, and death persists, concerns about the recovery effort’s ability to successfully revive Haiti have arisen. To examine the likelihood of...

Considering that I’m a humanities major, I actually know very little about what makes me a human. I have no idea how anything inside me works: how my legs receive a coded transmission from my brain when I put a foot forward or a hand into the cookie jar, how my endocrines do the nifty stuff...

Imagine this: Each time you refill your glass of chocolate milk at Frary, you are unknowingly examined—essentially scouted—by a recent college grad. You’ve never spoken to him before because he’s just the kind of guy (you can tell by looking at him) who got 10 fives on his...

A man from our country goes on vacation and sees a boy fishing.“Why aren’t you in school?” he asks.“Why would I go to school?” the boy replies.“So that you can get a job.”“Why would I want a job?”“So that you can make...

Will you go out with me?Depending on who you ask, those six words are said too often or too rarely on campus. Two of my colleagues at The Student Life have taken opposing views on the issue. Last month, Charles Johnson wrote an op-ed describing how the lack of a college dating scene and the sheer...

Advice: avoid foreign women, you’re just begging for trouble.Of course, this raises a practice/preach problem for me, since I fall in love four or five times daily (and especially with foreign women), but seriously, trying to date abroad has been one misplaced word after another. No matter...

Last week, two articles covering Barack Obama appeared which were startling in both content and tone. The first was from The Economist, a magazine that has been relatively supportive of the White House in the past. It talked about the disturbing “weakness” the President showed in his...

Pomona College is missing a notion of responsibility. Not academic responsibility—Pomona students arguably take their academics almost too seriously. Rather, Pomona College has become a community devoid of personal responsibility and accountability. This editorial board calls for a new...

Last issue’s article about the theatrical production “Keep it Cute” stated that Bottom Line Theater and Without a Box presented the performance. Without a Box sponsored and funded the performance, though they didn’t run the production and weren’t involved...

Last Wednesday afternoon, Nov. 24, I put my hatchet away and sat down at my desk to find the right words to tell the Pomona College community that Miss Henrietta Gobbles, a turkey whom Isaac Kastama PO ’11 and I had purchased to kill and cook for Thanksgiving, was deemed unfit for slaughter...

This year has marked increased attention to the college alcohol policy. We feel that the college’s alcohol policy deserves some serious discussion and consideration at this time. As it stands, the college’s policy remains vague, relatively inconsistent, and clearly ineffective.We...

To achieve true happiness, we must develop wisdom out of compassion for ourselves and others. Together, wisdom and compassion complement each other and are two tools that can bring peace to our lives. They cannot be untangled; it is because we have compassion that we seek wisdom and because we...

I’ve never understood Sarah Palin, but I enjoy trying to. Why? Because 58 million people voted for the ticket she was on in last year’s election, more than a third of this country has a favorable opinion of her, and, most importantly, she has over 1 million supporters on...

It’s not every day that I get to beat up on a nun, so here goes. Truthfully, I’m about as agnostic as you can get on spiritual matters, but I do believe that everyone retains a right to distinguish right from wrong. The Athenaeum was wrong to invite yet another left-wing speaker to...

Pomona College’s allotment system, which was implemented this semester and caps non-financial aid students’ earning potential at $1,000, is an unmitigated disaster.Pomona College has chosen to dissociate work from compensation. Under the new allotment caps, work is not worth a set pay...

I burn through time in a number of strange ways, and I do so with the same whole-hearted fortitude that Tecumseh Sherman harnessed in order to burn through the Confederacy. Day after day, for long hours on end, I watch “Gossip Girl,” shop the Internet for real estate, and do certain...

Last summer, Pomona College adjusted the work study program on campus in an effort to curb spending on work study jobs.The problem is not the recent changes. The current predicament, with all of the problems it is causing for on-campus employment, is simply exacerbating an existing problem on...

I love complaining. On my very first day of college, I complained about my room when it didn’t have air conditioning, my classes when I had to wake up at 10:45, and Frank when it didn’t have Count Chocula. Looking back on it, the last lamentation was especially preposterous.How many...

Maybe I’m just more in tune with the natural world than you are, but lately, I’ve noticed that squirrels have been acting a little out of sorts. To me, squirrels have always been suspiciously undomesticated and populous creatures. And what with winter around the corner, I can see how...

When Fareed Zakaria, editor of Newsweek International, spoke at the Athenaeum two weeks ago, he said something surprising: his greatest fear for America has less to do with any of the normal trouble spots—finance or healthcare or national security or immigration—than with the utter...

Beer is the ultimate liquid asset. All bad puns aside, malt beverages are almost a form of currency on campus. Like prisoners trading cigarettes, Pomona students accrue and settle debts by the can, bottle, and case. Right now, I have roughly the same amount of money owed to me in various forms of...

A caption for a photo corresponding with coverage of a climate change rally on page one said the goal of the international event was to reduce carbon emissions to 350 parts-per-million. The goal of 350 actually represents carbon concentration level, not emissions.The headline for an article...

The recent forum “Policies, Procedures and Pomona,” held in Rose Hills Theatre on Oct. 29, was designed to address student concerns over privacy and procedural matters in policy enforcement.Our problem with this forum is not the nature of what was discussed, or that the conversation...

Over the course of my brief career as an unpaid Opinions columnist, I have heard a fair amount of feedback from a diverse group of readers. The spirit of honest criticism and praise (oh the praise!) inspires me, no matter what its form.There’s my mom, who repeatedly tells me that I’m...

As students of the 5Cs, we have become uncomfortably accustomed to the “bias-related incident” e-mails that we receive on, it seems, a far too frequent basis. I think (don’t stop reading) that this whole business is silly at its best and irresponsible at its worst. Don’t...

When my cousin had minor surgery last year, he decided he wasn’t going to take it lying down. That is, he didn’t want to suffer alone. To brave the microscopic laser and local anesthetic, he’d need a support system. Someone or somewhere so that he could talk through the nausea,...

Earlier this semester I was nearly killed on the L.A. freeway. As I stared at the bed I had just purchased, lying about 10 yards from the car, I knew that this might be it, and got ready to run for it. With Maxwell Hodge CM ‘09, I made a dash for the fallen bed, grabbed the mattress and the...

In the midst of overwhelming academics, jobs, and social activities, let us stop for a moment and ask ourselves: are we truly satisfied with our lives? Could something be changed to allow us to live a more meaningful life?No one can hand over answers to such personal questions, but thinking about...

Forget the new dorm construction pit, CMC’s mammoth crane, or even Oldenborg’s hideous stucco faade: The new ugliest sight on campus is Frary fountain. The huge Grecian urn that used to be topped off with a simple waterspout is now burdened with a hideous copper ball spewing little...

Editor,I have to admit that I entered college with my mind full of horror stories about bathrooms shared by young adults who had better things to do than clean up after themselves. I was pleasantly surprised to find that not only were my fellow freshman more than willing to avoid the tragedy of...

I was depressed Monday night. First, Jenny’s queen bee hegemony was challenged in “Gossip Girl.” Then, five minutes later, in a moment of deepest thought and introspection, I meditated that my shielded Upper West Side upbringing had completely blinded me to many of the austere...

Well, who knew? The Republicans, who for the last year have been exhibiting all the emotional symptoms we normally associate with serious midlife crises (confusion, resentment, Tourette’s-like outbursts at inappropriate times), suddenly seem relevant again. In the only two gubernatorial...

“Mad Men” is great television. What it is not, however, is a social agenda. I have sat idly by too many times, listening to bandwagon critic-quoters regurgitate the underlying “purpose” of “Mad Men”, and I have had enough. “Mad Men” doesn’t...

September 25, 1066: The European Viking Age draws to a close with Harald Hardrada’s defeat at Stamford Bridge, thereby paving the way for a united England under William the Conqueror.September 25, 1555: the Schmalkaldic League of Holy Roman princes signs the Peace of Augsburg, a first step...

I sometimes think we underestimate the Republicans’ contribution to our political lives. Just when things were getting a little slow—you can’t give the president of the United States a Nobel Prize every Friday—up popped Rush Limbaugh wanting to buy the St. Louis Rams. A...

Dear Editor,We’re pleased to see the recent coverage of issues concerning staff in TSL. As an organization we hope to promote critical dialogue on these issues. Because of the attention surrounding recent Workers’ Support Committee actions, we want to clarify our purpose to the Pomona...

Dear Editor, We’re pleased to see the recent coverage of issues concerning staff in TSL. As an organization we hope to promote critical dialogue on these issues. Because of the attention surrounding recent Workers’ Support Committee actions, we want to clarify our purpose to the...

Judging by the significant turnout at the Stand with Staff rally on Oct. 9, members of the student body have undoubtedly been energized to act on the issue of workers’ rights. With emotions running high, however, it is absolutely critical that students maintain productive discourse that...

“Si se peude!” was heard echoing across the campus on Friday as students rallied in support of staff in front of Hahn. We rallied to present a united, clear, and bold position that had the greatest likelihood of making an impact on those who hold the power to make changes on campus....

The night Barack Obama found out he was to receive the Nobel Prize, I was having a humbling experience of my own. Though I’m a semester and a half from a college degree, I could not make my bed. I don’t know whether it was because my foam mattress pad was lumpy, or that my sheets were...

I remember the cutest girl from my high school. She wasn’t sexy, per se, as much as unquantifiably adorable—the same way the droopy snout and dangling ears of a young basset hound make you want to hug it and wrestle it to the ground before embracing it for two hours without stopping...

Last week, something unusual happened in Washington, D.C.: President Obama was at a loss for words. Actually, a lot of the D.C. establishment failed miserably in the rapid-response department, all thanks to Nobel Prize Committee Chair Thorbjoern Jagland. Jagland managed to throw everyone for a...

Dear Editor,In light of the recent events that led to a de-sponsorship, we would like to respond to the many students who have discussed the situation with the Head Sponsors and each other. This letter is an effort to make our own intentions at the Office of Campus Life clearer and to eliminate...

Last May, the Board of Trustees of Pomona College adopted and approved a budget for the 2009-2010 fiscal year, an important step in the college’s financial planning process. For the preceding six months, the Budget Planning Advisory Committee (BPAC) met to provide suggestions and guidance...

Walker Wall has always been a public outlet for student opinion. Technically, no one is supposed to regulate the wall; students post their thoughts and eventually other students write over them with their own ideas and advertisements.The beauty of Walker Wall is that when students disagree with a...

The Headline for a story on Professor John Seery on page one said the award that Seery received was the Sidney Hodke memeorial award. The award is in fact the Sidney Hook memorial award, as the article correctly states. This error was made in the photo caption below as well.The article on the...

Despite its occasional excitement, the political arena often coasts at a median altitude of boring. How many Americans actually know what a public option is? Or who Max Baucus is? They have lives to live and mouths to feed, plus Angelina Jolie is a lot more interesting than Nancy Pelosi. Add to...

Religion is often a visible or tangible element of identity. Faith can be a more complex and frequently subtler concept. For a person raised in both a faith tradition and a liberal society, this distinction becomes vitally relevant. Many people from generation “Y” were raised as...

This past Wednesday, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was stripped of his immunity from prosecution while in office by that crooked, corrupt bunch of nincompoops known as the Italian Constitutional Court. What is our world coming to when this sort of injustice can beset even Silvio...

Editor,When my high school friends arrived at their large universities, empty tables in dark cafeterias marked the beginning of a tough first month: It’s not enjoyable to anxiously await meeting people you actually like. My first day began when a sophomore, turns out he was my sponsor,...

One of the extraordinary and confusing aspects of modern democratic societies is that people can spring—almost literally—from nowhere onto center stage.You are a young African-American state senator from Illinois with extraordinary talents, living a relatively ordinary life. No one...

From my window, I can casually overhear (eavesdrop on) a lot of interesting and pertinent conversations and see a lot of friends (spy on strangers). People argue about just about everything. Collins or Frary? Trays or no trays? Peach Ooh-la-long Honest Tea or Nantucket Nectars Half-and-Half?...

I have a question for you. Would you rather wear one roller skate for the rest of your life or eat your grandmother? For me, the answer is simple. I’d eat my grandmother, since seeing as I can’t remember meeting either of them, it’d be no different than eating anyone else;...

A story on Christian Lander on page one used the author’s voice to describe the opinions of Christian Lander. The article should have quoted directly from Christian Lander’s talk instead of paraphrasing his thoughts. A corrected article is available online.The editor’s note in...

Quite a few budget cuts have occurred across campus since last semester, but perhaps the least palatable cut came from the dining budget. While most of the dining changes were announced last year, the reusable take-out system was not.Last year, Pomona College created a Food Committee, whose job...

Glenn Beck’s latest addition to the American literary canon is entitled Glenn Beck’s Common Sense, and it is comically bad. It reads like a transcript of his radio talk show, which means that it is filled with italicized words, SENTENCES IN ALL CAPITALS, and extraneous exclamation...

Dear Readers,We have begun a new year, and so opportunity on campus once again presents itself. I hope that you will find that this year’s paper continues to be a vibrant forum for campus dialogue, an interesting exchange of ideas, and above all, a reliable source of information. As usual,...

We have reached a strange lull in the health care debate. The tumult that arose at the end of July and peaked in the middle of August is still in full flow—recently, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) called President Barack Obama a liar during Obama’s address to Congress, while the Left...

At the end of last semester, while most students were busy studying for exams and preparing for the arrival of summer, a series of troubling events quietly unraveled out of a lack of communication between administrators and students. These events highlight a number of concerns regarding student...

No candidate in the recent era has become a serious contender for the Oval Office without uttering, in one way or another, “I am a person of faith.” While America has no state religion, 86.8 percent of Americans self-identify as religious. Identifying as a person of faith is a de...

What was the first thing you noticed when you came back to campus this fall? Was it the brand-new Norton-Clark residence hall? The labrynthine new dorms under construction behind Frary? CMC’s giant crane?You have to admit, Pomona has done a bang-up job coordinating all of the construction,...

Editor,As a Media Studies major with an emphasis on Digital Media, I was saddened to see an under-researched and needlessly offensive piece like Nick Hubbard’s “The Problem With Twitter” appear in The Student Life.Hubbard is not unjustified in noting that Twitter is a...

Pomona College has the ability to be socially responsible. In fact, Pomona has a responsibility to uphold moral and contractual obligations to not just those that attend this academic institution, but also the many people who work and teach here. Stand with Staff definitely got that right. Pomona...

The clear and present danger of terrorism, two long wars, and an economic downward spiral have wrought changes, both large and small, in the American fabric of life. One change that I am noticing, and that I find deeply disturbing, is that we seem to be abandoning our sense of...

While it may be a drastic oversimplification, for millions of Americans the issue of homosexuality boils down to the basic question: is homosexuality a lifestyle choice or an innate, uncontrollable trait? People who tend to hold the latter view also tend to have more positive views towards...

This past week, I have been bombarded by constant signage, Facebook wallposts, and verbal calls to sign the “Stand with Staff” petition. As much as I love to have people accost me outside of Frary or to have activists come and post “Stand with Staff” signs inside my...

Social responsibility is under attack. At a corporate level, companies are opting to cut back on charitable ventures to meet revenue quotas. Corporate social responsibility is now—perhaps alongside jobs—the first to go under the knife. At a collegiate level, staff and faculty cuts...

Editor, The Food Rescue Team would like to recognize and thank the Pomona College Dining Hall staff and managers for all the work and effort they have poured into the shaping of the Food Rescue Project this year. The project donates the un-served and edible leftovers that would otherwise be...

Editor,Rosa Rodriguez has worked at Pomona for 13 years as a housekeeper. During this time, she has been a dedicated and passionate worker, vital to the experience of students, faculty and other staff.Since last spring, however, when Rosa went on workers’ comp due to a job-related injury,...

Editor,On April 28, the Ombuds Search Committee officially recommended that President Oxtoby hire a candidate for the position of campus ombudsperson. As the student representative on the committee, I was present at both this candidate’s interview and the meeting at which the decision was...

The Student Life’s Apr. 17 news article about thefts on campus misstated the day that the student outdoors group On The Loose sent out an e-mail notifying members that their gear room had been broken into. It was Monday, not Tuesday.TSL regrets this error.

There are lots of ways you could die in college. Bicycle accident, sleepwalking off a balcony, running across Sixth Street, taking one too many shots all by your lonesome, attacked with a sword on Mt. Baldy, or picking up meningitis from some kid with an earache at Jump Start. There are literally...

The sponsor program is the central component of the first-year experience at Pomona. It is intended to create an immediate, supportive group that can ease the transition to college life. Many students will say that the program has done just this, but others have taken issue with the system. Does...

While I personally appreciate the wit and humor (and trying to figure out some of the esoterica), I am very concerned about two aspects of your program. The first is the damage done to our buildings. There is not a building on campus that hasn’t been scarred with the figure-eight glue...

I have a confession: I hate Twitter.Twitter has got to be the most egregiously narcissistic and self-indulgent waste of Internet space since 14-year-old girls discovered LiveJournal. Just think about the entire concept for a second. You send text messages—in Twitter lingo, these are called...

Last Monday, a three-judge Minnesota state panel declared Al Franken the winner of a protracted U.S. Senate race. After five months filled with litigation and recounts since the Nov. 4 election, the final tally showed Franken, the Democratic candidate, beating Norm Coleman, the incumbent...

While recently flying cross-country, I was surprised to find that on both my flights the sink in the lavatory had been covered in duct tape and under the faucets were napkins with the words ‘no water’ hastily written in pen. I began to consider all of the situations in which a lack of...

The Student Life’s Mar. 27 news article about awards for 5-C students misidentified the recipient of the Watson Fellowship. His name is Brandon Horn, not Richard Horn. The article also did not mention that the four Pitzer students mentioned in the article were already recipients of the...

Among the multitude of budget cuts this year, a rather large sum of money is being removed from the Pomona College work-study employment program.Approximately fifteen years ago, Pomona decided that it wanted to afford all students the opportunity to work regardless of status on financial aid....

This March I was in Chicago visiting a friend whose aunt works in city government and talk, unsurprisingly, turned to Barack Obama. The aunt is directly connected through her work to one of Obama’s top advisors, Valerie Jarrett. She remembers Jarrett as influential partly because of her...

Everyone at Pomona is crazy. Some are downright bananas. Most are secretly loco, relegating their moments of insanity to cheeky emails and singing in the shower. But all the way from Wig to Clark I, I am convinced that lunacy runs wild through the campus. For the most part, this is a good thing....

Last Wednesday at lunchtime, I was minding my own business at the Motley, headphones on and a cup of French roast by my side to motivate my study for a dreaded Macro Theory quiz. I could not, however, help but overhear snippets of an open meeting between the co-chairs of Scripps’s Diversity...

Over a month ago, in a letter to the editor, Nick Hubbard PO ’11 vocalized concern that TSL does not receive any 5-C funding despite the fact that it covers 5-C news and CMS athletics. It would seem fair that in exchange for covering CMS athletics that Harvey Mudd, Scripps, and Claremont...

In the past several semesters, editors of The Student Life have made a concerted effort to expand our publication’s 5-C reach and staff beyond the historical norm as a Pomona-centric publication. The idea is to use our considerable resources to create a publication with appeal to readers...

A wise man once told me, variety is the spice of life. Living at Pomona can often be excitingly monotonous, an endless routine of Frank dinners and hyper-scheduled living. There is something to be said for consistency and regularity, but reciprocal spontaneity and irregularity, I feel, are...

We know that students do not have final control over 5-C budgets, and the drastic cuts that will be made in next year’s budget are likely to ruffle students’ feathers, no matter how much input is collected from students. Still, it is reassuring that the college’s administration...

The Student Life’s front-page article on Mar. 27 about Pomona College’s accreditation process did not attribute all of the staff involved in reporting for the article. Janet Ma contributed reporting.A photograph, which accompanied a page-three article on Mar. 27 about fellowships and...

Last month, I was talking about Sarah Palin with an old friend of our family, a staunch conservative of thirty years who voted for Barack Obama in November. He was comparing her to Ronald Reagan. “I remember seeing Reagan come up to the microphone in ’76 at the Republican National...

The Iraqi government is flexing its muscles. Recently, it arrested a significant Sunni leader in Baghdad. This particular leader was a member of the Sunni Awakening, the key to the stabilization of Iraq along with the shift in U.S. military strategy to utilization of a troop surge. On the...

Dear Editor,As a Writing Fellow, I feel it is my duty to let other students know when their arguments simply are not up to snuff. In that vein, I would like to provide a response to the arguments of one John Holler regarding the state of the Writing Program at Pomona College. John, you requested...

In the midst of countless articles and e-mails about hateful tortillas, racist alma maters, banned students, the financial crisis, and the poor quality of food at Frank, I’d like to add a little color—the beautiful watermelon greens and reds of a mineral called zircon.I’m a...

The board of trustees wrote, in a statement about admissions, that “the future of the nation and humankind depends upon the quality of the education received by young people. Institutions such as Pomona College should prepare their graduates to lead lives of creative leadership and...