Vol. CXXXIV No. 22

Faculty and students speak out against pension

fossil fuel investments

JACOB RAGAZA & ANNABELLE INK

In accordance with an uptick in awareness about energy holdings at educational institutions, an April 20 Letter to the Editor in “The New York Review,” co-written by Pitzer College professor Dan Segal, criticizes the investments of professor pensions into the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA).

TIAA is a major insurance company that seeks to offer millions of people — namely educators, scholars and arts workers — financial security. Among their massive clientele are the employees at the Claremont Colleges, whose employer-funded retirement accounts are held by TIAA.

Despite the company’s claim to environmentalism, which is displayed on its website with statements about improving the environment and leading TIAA’s industry in modeling sustainable behavior, TIAA has been repeatedly criticized for its contribution to global climate change.

Members of organizations such as TIAA-Divest!, a nationwide effort urging TIAA to “stop financing climate change,” have cited TIAA’s notable holdings in fossil fuel companies as evidence of its active role in environmental destruction.

A report from the Institute of Energy Economy and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) estimated that $78 billion of TIAA’s $1.3 trillion portfolio is invested in fossil fuels.

TIAA is the world’s eighth largest holder of oil and gas bonds, is the world’s fourth largest holder of coal bonds and is a major shareholder in the Adani Group, one of the world’s leading coal operators.

The fund also has a stake in the Willow Project, an oil drilling operation projected to emit 260 million metric tons in carbon emissions.

Laura Muna-Landa, assistant vice president of communications for the Claremont Colleges, added that self-directed brokerage accounts are available for employees, which allow participants to “avoid funds in any particular sector, including energy and utility sectors.”

Segal explained that the calls to divest are not about personal opt-outs from funding fossil fuels but about utilizing the TIAA’s position as a fund of “educators and scientists” to set a precedent among large financial firms.

“This is the retirement fund for some of the most educated

Black students take Allen Theater’s stage for comedy showcase

COURTESY: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Read the full story on page 4

CMC lifts its COVID-19 vaccination requirement

Nearly a month after CMC stopped reporting COVID-19 cases on its website, the CMC Administration has disbanded its vaccine requirements for COVID-19.

In an email on Monday, April 17 addressed to the CMC community from the COVID Compliance Committee, announced that COVID-19 and influenza vaccinations will no longer be required for incoming students, faculty and staff.

“I am a little disappointed in [the decision],” Vijay Jain CM ’24 said. “Vaccines are such a simple way to promote the health of everyone in our community and, because students can appeal for exemptions on religious or other grounds, I do not see them as an

overstep of individual rights.”

The committee’s announcement also stated the approaching termination of its partnership with Hamilton Health Box (HHB) on May 12. HHB provided on-site medical professionals to help with medical services and COVID-19 consulting at CMC.

Other testing options remain open, such as a COVID-19 test kit vending machine in Emmett Breezeway and a limited amount of at-home antigen test kits at CMC’s clinic. Student Health Services has not yet decided whether to continue providing testing for COVID-19, according to CMC’s email.

Those who test positive are required to follow CDC and Los Angeles County Public Health guidelines on isolation and

masking, but CMC has halted mandatory isolation sites.

This change in policy comes after California’s termination of its COVID-19 state of emergency Feb. 28, two weeks after the California Department of Health replaced mandatory masking guidelines in high-risk settings such as healthcare facilities with masking recommendations.

“Professors have been instructed to be less accommodating to students zooming in or otherwise participating in class while sick,” Jain said to TSL via email. “So going forward, students will be at a higher risk of contracting one of these diseases and will receive less support once they do.”

Scripps College has not yet made an announcement regard-

ing its COVID-19 policy but maintains that an update will be provided soon, with decisions made along the guidelines of SHS and the LA County Department of Public Health, according to an email addressed to TSL from Rachel Warecki, assistant director of news & strategic communications at Scripps College.

Assistant Vice President of Pitzer College Wendy Shattuck confirmed that Pitzer College will be upholding its current vaccination requirements for both students and faculty, in an email to TSL.

Jain emphasized the importance of continued COVID-19 precautions.

“I understand the desire to put the pandemic behind us, but we should not forget the

COURTESY: WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

CMC sees spike in COVID-19 cases days after dropping their vaccine requirements.

lessons we learned about taking care of our community.” Pomona College and Harvey Mudd College did not respond for immediate comment.

Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association of America (TIAA) face backlash for investment in fossil fuels to provide insurance for pitzer professor pensions.

‘A safe space to make jokes’

PENSION: 5Cs protest fossil fuel investments

people in the country, [including] a lot of faculty at medical schools,” Segal said. “The goal is to deprive the fossil fuel economy of money from our retirements and to make a public statement that any further investments in fossil fuels are illegitimate.”

Continued from page 1 Since Pitzer’s pledge to divest in 2014, little else has been done to address concerns from faculty and students about the College’s investments in fossil fuel corporations. Aurora Strauss-Reeves PZ ’23, a member of Divest 5C, felt that the inaction reflected poorly on the Claremont Colleges and their values.

Segal emphasized the moral imperative of educators to combat fossil fuel usage. “How any educator, including the president[s] of [the Claremont Colleges], can claim to respect science and oppose divestment is amazing to me. The science tells us we cannot afford to keep burning fossil fuels.”

“I think it’s just really hypocritical for these ultra-liberal colleges to be contracting with organizations that don’t care at all about the environment,”

Strauss-Reeves said. “They’re working with and paying these organizations that are complicit in global warming.”

In contrast with Segal and

Strauss-Reeves, John McCool, vice president of public relations at TIAA, criticized the efficacy of divestment campaigns.

“Divestment cancels [TIAA’s] ability to influence change, maximize returns and meet client demands as part of the global energy transition — and does nothing to remove carbon from the atmosphere, since the carbon assets will [just] be acquired by another asset manager,” McCool said in an email to TSL.

According to McCool, TIAA is taking an entirely different approach to climate change. Instead of defunding the fossil fuel industry, TIAA claims to be creating “long-term environ-

mental change” by engaging with the management of various companies and advocating for transitions to low or no-carbon operations.

“As institutional investors, we wield considerable power,” McCool said. “A seat at the table is more valuable than walking away from it.”

Peter Dien CM ’25, who played a significant role in last year’s divestment campaigns at Claremont McKenna College, rejected TIAA’s strategy, defending the effectiveness of divestment as a vehicle for change.

“That whole idea is so devoid of morality [and] any sort of sense of urgency or action.

It’s just a weirdly articulated defense of the status quo,” Dien said. “People think that divestment means taking away money entirely, but divestment implies reinvestment into better things.”

For environmental activists like Segal, a sense of urgency and action is an absolute necessity in addressing an impending climate crisis: “I’m 65. The planet is gonna be livable for the remainder of my time, but it’s not gonna be liveable for the remainder of [my students’] or my granddaughter’s if we keep burning fossil fuels.”

Pomona contingent faculty members’ housing crisis remains stagnant

Seventeen days after three Pomona College contingent faculty members sent an open letter to faculty about their removal from college-owned residences, the situation — in which a total of nine contingent faculty have received an eviction letter — has yet to be resolved. Still, members of Pomona’s community have continued to express support for those affected, with ASPC inviting the three co-signers to speak at a meeting last week.

Letter co-signer and Visiting Professor of Chemistry Heidi van de Wouw said she is trying to stay patient while the chemistry department is still in conversation with Dean of the College Yuqing Melanie Wu and Associate Dean of the College April Mayes.

“I now know at least one [visiting professor] hired by Pomona College that was not afforded faculty housing has experienced temporary houselessness,” van de Wouw said in an email to TSL. “Only by sharing our personal experiences do I think we can start to have discussion[s] about institutionalized inequities experienced by members of the Pomona College community.”

Wu did not respond to TSL’s request for updates on the housing situation.

Co-signers Maddalena Poli, LiFang Lai and van de Wouw have received public support from faculty who replied to the letter and shared their own experiences, including visiting professors Sean Diament and Esther Hernández-Medina.

“I fully support and agree with the sentiments my close friends espoused in the letter. The rug being pulled out from under them after they committed to work here for another year or two has been incredibly destabilizing, demoralizing, and looks very unprofessional on the school’s part,” Diament told TSL via email. “That is not how you treat valued community members.”

Hernández-Medina said she has found that contingent faculty salaries aren’t enough to live in Claremont, even with faculty housing.

“I am still carrying an obscene amount of debt from that period even though I arrived to Pomona having already paid my student and credit card debt,” she said in an email response to the open letter.

“We need to proactively address the issues concerning the cost of living for all the members of the college (especially contingent faculty and staff) to make sure we can all flourish as a community.”

Some students have expressed support for visiting professors and several have even made social media posts raising awareness of the situation.

“There’s nothing more brutal and horrible that an employer can do, short of firing someone, than removing them from their homes,” Francisco A. Villaseñor PO ’25 told TSL. “To know that the college could take away housing from professors is really disgusting and really upsetting.”

Villaseñor added that some of his strongest and most meaningful faculty relationships have been with visiting assistant professors.

“It’s really just appalling to be a student and know that we can have the professors that really make this experience for us — professors that provide mentorship, support and other ways in which we can advance our careers — to know that they themselves don’t have the protection, to [wonder] if they’re going to have a place to sleep at night,” he said.

This week, anonymous flyers were posted on Pomona campus linking to TSL’s coverage of the evictions. Additionally, ASPC invited Poli, Lai and van de Wouw to attend their weekly Senate meeting last Thursday, April 20, for a conversation about the eviction struggle.

During the meeting, van de Wouw, Poli and Lai spoke about their struggles affording housing and managing the cost of living in LA County. They also touched on their experiences talking to administration and the lack of response they had received.

“We want to keep this conversation going with [visiting professors], contingent faculty, and

students because their salary has to be higher,” Poli told ASPC senators during the meeting.

Politics Chair Amanda Hollis-Brusky said that in a chair meeting that took place before the open letter was sent, Dean Wu said administration was working to provide housing for tenure-track candidates.

Hollis-Brusky expressed her frustrations about the cost of making Pomona attractive to potential tenure-track hires by offering them college-provided residencies.

“Are there no other ways we can find and provide housing for our [tenure-track] folks that doesn’t involve kicking the most vulnerable among us out of their college-subsidized housing?” she said. “If I could wave a magic wand, I would make the college really examine creative ways to provide and subsidize housing for new incoming tenure-track faculty while not evicting current contingent faculty.”

Visiting Assistant Professor of Politics Benjamin Radd said that administrators described Pomona as a safe space during Pomona’s visiting faculty orientation in the summer of 2022.

“They pitched Pomona as a very

welcoming place for visiting [faculty] … a lot of the same treatment and benefits that full-time faculty [have].”

Radd added that other institutions, such as those in the University of California system, pay their visiting professors more than at Pomona.

Visiting Professor Sean Diament, who came to Pomona from Swarthmore College, said he was paid the same rate as early career tenure track faculty at Swarthmore, around $30,000 more than his current visiting salary at Pomona. He added that the morale among contingent faculty at Swarthmore is discernibly higher than at Pomona, where faculty are “treated by the institution as second class citizens.”

“There is a major disjuncture between the [diversity, equity and inclusion] values statements and actually proving the words mean anything beyond branding, virtue signaling and platitudes,” he said. “While Pomona is the most diverse institution I have been a part of, on the equity front the school is sorely behind the curve. Even though it is one of the wealthiest colleges in the world, it perpetuates inequitable practices of low-balling contingent

faculty and staff under the guise of a market-will-bear neoliberal rationale.”

Diament and Hollis-Brusky both acclaimed the administration’s commitment to increase visiting professor salaries in the 2023-2024 fiscal year, but they emphasized that there is still work to do.

“I do want to applaud the administration for their work and recognition … that the way Pomona was paying and compensating visitors was far below peer institutions, and borderline immoral,” she said. “When we situate what’s happening with these evictions within the broader goals of this administration, I think this is an opportunity for the college to do something positive, to make a commitment to work with contingent faculty so they have their basic needs met.”

Diament added that Pomona administration promises seem to fall flat, given their longer history of compensation stratification.

“I appreciate that Pomona has shown the ability to hear from the community and commit to changes, but it is deeply disturbing to learn about how bad the compensation levels have been for contingent faculty and staff for the past decade,” he said. “The mixed bag continues with several faculty and staff being kicked out of visiting housing.”

Villaseñor emphasized the importance of visiting professors to the Pomona community.

“Even though [visiting faculty are] only here for a temporary time, they pour themselves fully into this work,” he said. “And it is really upsetting to see that they are not being taken care of by the same community that they are working so hard to maintain.”

To combat this discrimination against contingent faculty, Villaseñor called students to action.

“I encourage students to have conversations with their classmates and also to become informed about what’s happening here, because this is not something that we should just shrug our shoulders at,” Villaseñor said. “It is really appalling and saddening behavior that someone would do this to folks who are really so essential to our community.”

As CMC administration delays responding to demands, affinity groups escalate actions

As of Sunday, April 23, nearly 1,000 people from the 5C community have signed a petition for Claremont McKenna College’s Board of Trustees to reconsider their rejection of the proposed Race and Ethnic Studies General Education (GE) Requirement. The petition was initially created by the Racial GE Group, which consists of CMC students and faculty that support the GE requirement denied in October 2022.

“I understand the financial power of [the Board],” Naomi said “But I don’t see how a board of people who don’t look like us, who haven’t lived our lives [and] who don’t share similar experiences as ours are creating policy that directly impacts our lives. Do these people understand or step outside of their privileges to see who they’re talking to?”

Following Chodosh’s email, two CMC professors who initially began working on the proposal for the GE in 2020, Gaston Espinosa and Daniel Livesay, hosted an event for students and faculty advocating for the GE requirement. The proposal was sent to faculty for approval in April 2022 and approved by a majority vote prior to its rejection by the Board of Trustees this year.

This institution has profited so much off of our silence and trauma that… I’ve just gotten used to going through it.

Natasha Naomi CM ’25

On Thursday, April 20, President Chodosh explained to CMC students via email that the Board of Trustees rejected the GE proposal for being “insufficiently strong” and “not hav[ing] a U.S. focus.” He also alleges that beyond GE requirements, the introductory courses offered at CMC “have increasingly strong treatments of race and ethnicity in the US.”

The Board of Trustees returned the GE proposal to the faculty with recommendations to change elements of the curriculum. But many 5C students and faculty did not agree that the existing proposal was in need of changes. Natasha Naomi CM ’25, a leader of the African Students Association (ASA), added that the Board of Trustees should not have the authority to request those changes.

After Espinosa and Livesay’s event, the professors called for a meeting with the Board of Trustees to discuss the GE requirement, but they did not receive a response.

This event followed a statement written by affinity group leaders at CMC demanding increased institutional support for BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) students, including the addition of the GE requirement, published on Friday, April 14.

The member of one of the affinity groups who authored the statement, which has asked TSL to remain anonymous so as to speak freely about the CMC administration, alleges that Chodosh’s justification of race already being taught in introductory courses at CMC is false.

“A lot of the GE[s] that are in place don’t cover anything that has to do with race,” one of the members of the affinity group said. “To put out a blunt state-

CMC affinity groups continue to call on administration for recognition.

ment that says economics, psychology, et cetera, is covering race is just absolutely absurd. There have been many students who can come and attest that race has never been brought up in their class.”

The affinity group also said that the Board’s suggestion to expand the GE from its proposed five-week curriculum to a 15week curriculum is a strategy to make the GE less likely to be passed. “They say that [the five-week

period] wasn’t enough time as a scapegoat not to pass it,” another member of the affinity group said. “It creates a divide in [a] sense. [So, they say,] ‘Let’s put this [as] 15 weeks. We’re putting it out to be more likable because it’s longer than the five weeks ... even though we know it’s not feasible.’”

For many 5C students, CMC’s Board of Trustees and their rejection of the GE is symptomatic of an ongoing failure to meet the needs of their students of color,

Peter Dien is a film columnist for TSL. even when they are publicly expressed. Naomi pointed to the recent February ASCMC social life meeting as just another example of the CMC administration’s negligence.

“None of these conversations, these requests, are new. Our grievances and our statements have been coming out since 2015. It has become so normalized,” Naomi said. “This institution has profited so much off of our silence and trauma that … I’ve just gotten used to going through it.”

NHI NGUYEN & FIONA HERBOLD

ESHA CHAMpSI • THE STUDENT lIFE

Faculty members still seek answers from pomona College administration.

MAXINE DAVEY & MARIANA DURAN

WENDY ZHANG • THE STUDENT lIFE

Pitzer, Harvey Mudd and CMC announce winners of student government races

AVERI SULLIVAN

This Monday, April 24, the Associated Students of Harvey Mudd College (ASHMC) announced the results of their executive board election in an email addressed to Harvey Mudd students.

The organization’s executive board has previously been composed of eight members, but will be adding two new positions — Muddlife Director and Athletic Director — to be filled by five elected staffers next year. With these new additions, ASHMC’s executive board is expanding to nineteen staffers.

About the student government’s vision moving forward, ASHMC’s mission states that the organization will “seek to empower our student body by increasing engagement, stimulating leadership, celebrating diversity and advocating for equality.”

Current ASHMC Treasurer Henry Hammer HM ’24 released the names of the winners that will assume their elected positions this fall. Next semester, ASHMC will meet every Friday in the outdoor classroom in the Shanahan Center.

TSL congratulates the winners and wishes them luck!

The results are as follows:

President — Kayleah Tsai

Senate President — Henry Hammer

Club for Activities Planning

(CAP) Directors — Katie Baakkonen, Tia Tounesi and Arushi Malik

Club Directors — Lilly Lee and Jessica Huang

Diversity Directors — Ana Studart and Avani Anne

Social Directors — Talia Wigder and Sheridan Dorsey

Sustainability Director — Alicia Luo and Aly Sawyer

Wellness Director — Ruby Peterman

Muddlife Directors — Jee-In

Kwon, Aditi Bonthu and Misk Nopo

Athletics Directors — Viviane Solomon and Osa Omoregbe

JACOB RAGAZA

On Saturday, April 15, the results of Pitzer College’s Senate election were published via email, announcing the student body’s representatives for the 2023-2024 academic year.

Lola Latan PZ ’25 is the executive branch’s new vice president of diversity. Latan described her priority goal to “normalize the experiences of the vast BIPOC, neurodivergent student population on campus” by creating programs that make the transition to college more manageable.

“[As a first-year,] I wish I [had known] what PERMs were, how to seek academic accommodations [and] how to plan out my tuition payments so I don’t get locked out of registration…” Latan said, “I plan on increasing preparedness for future classes so they know more about what to expect for the next four years.”

409 students voted in this year’s election, resulting in a 34.7 percent turnout — almost four times last year’s turnout of about 9.8 percent.

TSL congratulates the winners and wishes them luck! The results are as follows:

President — Sanya Dhama

Vice President of External Affairs Richard Ampah

Vice President of Internal Affairs

— Jasmine Ali

Vice President of Finance — Lila Feldmann

Vice President of Student Engagement — Siya Bhola

Vice President of Diversity — Lola Latan

JAKE CHANG election, which had a reported 75.57 percent participation rate.

ASCMC announced its officeholders for the next academic year in an email to Claremont McKenna College students on Friday, March 3. The winners were determined after a student vote that opened at 11:59 p.m. on Thursday, March 2. Out of 1347 total ballots, 680 were submitted. This year’s 50.48 percent turnout rate is over a 25 percent decrease from last year’s

TSL congratulates the winners and wishes them luck! The results are as follows:

Student Body President — Zane Yamamoto

Executive Vice President — Kara Hagler

Vice President of Student Activities

— Victoria Williams

Dormitory Affairs Chair — Adidev Jhunjhunwala

Senior Class President — D’Angelo Brown

Junior Class President — Ava Kopp

Sophomore Class President — Ryunosuke Nakase

The elected officeholders asked to postpone TSL’s request for further comment.

ASCMC releases election results, appoints seven students for fall 2023

Pitzer student senate election annual voter turnout increases by almost 300%

ASHMC election brings two new executive positions for fall 2023

The do’s and don’ts of dating ... but this one’s just the don’ts

Black Comic Cultures stand-up showcase brings students to the stage

JADA SHAVERS

Laughter poured from Pomona College’s Allen Theatre last Tuesday, April 18, as students huddled into the packed room, finding seats in chairs or room on the floor, to see the Black Comic Cultures Stand-Up Showcase. With around 10 student performers, the event explored a variety of experiences through humor in a comfortable environment for student voices to flourish.

Organized by a Pomona Africana Studies class, Black Comic Cultures, students had the chance to share their own stand-up comedy routine to a large audience. The routines ranged from stories of Jewish summer camp to different ways of saying white people.

“It was a great safe space where everyone was able to talk about their experiences these past years,” Gabreila Guerrero PO ’23, an attendee of the event, said.

for their routines. This comfort from the stand-up performers spread to the audience and opened up the space into a collective, inclusive experience. With relatable, never-heard before or completely absurd stories, audience members had the opportunity to feel involved in the storytelling space.

“I feel like it’s important to have student-led events ... We’re sharing space [and] everyone was really comfortable,” Nasira Watts PO ’23, an attendee, said. “It was a safe space to make jokes.”

Despite the comfort that the class was able to create, performing in front of any crowd can be terrifying. With the bright purple lights on your face — which numerous performers emphasized during their routine — the act of performing stand-up is a massive undertaking that was not an easy feat for the class.

Claremont, oh Claremont, how I’ve loved oversharing with you these past couple years. I’m heartbroken to report that my time here is drawing to a close, but I wouldn’t dare miss my last opportunity to spill some spicy stories. What I’m trying to say is: let’s go out with a bang — pun intended.

First, allow me to take you back a few years to a moment that was not my finest. In a bit of a dry spell, I had a friend give my number to a guy I had met at a party. Why don’t we do that anymore?

We should do that more. On our subsequent ice cream date, he showed up in head-to-toe gray sweats and running sneakers. For reference, I was wearing about 13 rings. It did not bode well for us, but I kept an open mind.

Where this story gets interesting is after I followed up about watching a Wes Anderson movie we’d discussed and got no response. Ghosted by a man in a groutfit? Unbelievable. So when I was whisked into a game of pong with his roommate a few weeks later, I did not contest. This new man had a mullet — much more my style. After a naked-lap-level win and some classic eye-to-eye flirting, he invited me back to his room and we started making out. It was downhill from there. Perhaps I got what I deserved for pursuing vengeful roommate sex. “Karma’s gonna track you down,” as Taylor Swift once wisely said. While the sex was

less-than-attentive to my needs, the aftermath was the real kicker. There I was: desperate to put my clothes back on, strategically avoiding eye contact and frantically scrambling around the floor of a Harvey Mudd College dorm in the dark. My pants were nowhere to be found. Then, mullet boy lets it rip. I am referring to one of the loudest, most prolonged farts I have ever born witness to. I look up at him, baffled. He says nothing. And then I realize: he’s wearing my jeans.

The second tale I have to tell belongs to a friend of mine. Let’s call her Lilly. In typical housing-crisis fashion, Lilly was placed in a triple her first-year and allocated a bottom bunk. Her roommates were nice, though not quite close friends.

One of them refused to turn the lights off until the wee hours of the morning, and the other — who I’ll call Amelia — spent a lot of time with her long-distance boyfriend. But being the chill, cool, non-confrontational girl she is, Lilly did not take issue with Ethan’s omnipresent existence in their room. Nor was she bothered by Amelia’s frequent praying and proselytizing, despite Lilly’s somewhat traumatizing Catholic school past.

One rare night when the lights were off before 3 a.m., Lilly awoke suddenly in the middle of the night to the unsettling sound of creaking. More than that, her bunk bed was notice -

ably rattling and shaking back and forth. Lilly stared up at the bunk above her, confused. Then: a moan. In a matter of seconds, Lilly came to the shocking and near unbelievable realization that just a few feet above her head — in the very bed that she was sleeping in — Amelia and Ethan were having sex. When her initial shock paralysis dissipated, she let out a hearty cough. The moaning persisted. She got up, went to the bathroom and returned. They hadn’t stopped. Defeated, Lilly sat in the hall for the next several hours watching Netflix and went to her RA the next morning.

“I would appreciate it if you did not have sex while I was in the room,” Lilly nervously told Amelia a few days later. “Especially while I’m sleeping in the bunk bed we share.” Their RA nodded along, having encouraged Lilly to advocate for herself. Amelia cocked her head. “What are you talking about?” Lilly explained the scene she had witnessed just a few nights prior. “Oh, haha,” Amelia chucked, “we weren’t having sex.” Lilly insisted that she heard and saw it loud and clear. “Oh, Lilly,” she laughed again, “anal isn’t sex.” Claremont, with that I leave you. Have fun, be safe and stay sexy. It’s been a pleasure.

Much love, Sleepless on Sixth Street

Professor J Finley, an assistant professor in the Intercollegiate Department of Africana Studies at Pomona, teaches the class, which allows students to develop their own routines throughout the semester. By looking at the history of Black comedy, students were able to learn about Black comics to apply as a backdrop to their own stand-up.

“We go back all the way to slavery and think about the foundations of Black humor and folk humor,” Finley said. “[The class is] half cultural history of Black humor, and the other half is a practicum. So, students learn how to write jokes and perform stand up comedy.”

The dual act of learning the cultural significance paired with practice on stage is a process that Finley uses in her own research of Black comedy cultures. Giving students the chance to be vulnerable and put their skills to the test, she provided students with the necessary tools to feel prepared for the big showcase.

“We’ve been workshopping our jokes pretty much the entire year,” Charlee Mays SC ’26, a student in the class and comic for the showcase, said. “We’ve had creative control with our own routines and where we want to go.”

Providing flexibility for her students, Professor Finley allowed them to bring anything to the stage. Seen with the wide variety of stories shared, as well as the comfortability that each student presented, Mays expressed that there were no rules

“It was really nerve-wracking,” Mays said. “I’m used to telling jokes, [but] not in front of a large audience where I’m the one talking at them.”

For Mays, it was her first time performing stand-up and stepping up to the mic took a lot of courage. Despite the nerves, Mays reflected on the instant validation that laughter carries and was excitedly considering the chance to do stand-up again.

This feeling was something that Finley hoped to see in her students. By providing them the chance to practice throughout the year, she was excited to see them apply the techniques discussed in class.

“It was fun [and] it was entertaining, but I also saw my students actually using some things that they learned from the text and integrating that into their humor,” Finley said.

By providing them the chance to practice throughout the semester, she was excited to see them apply the techniques discussed in class. These applications allowed for people outside the class to see the students’ learning in practice as well as to learn along with them.

“I wanted to see everything that they’ve worked on throughout the semester,” Guerrero said.

Reflecting this sentiment, the showcase created an environment of laughter and reflection of roles that comics bring into the future. In teaching a Black Comic Cultures class, Professor Finley was focused on highlighting Black voices in a way that allowed for a variety of people to interact with.

“There’s a community that brings together Black people from all around the 5Cs, and I feel like I do my best to create a space that is very inclusive, so it’s not excluding [anybody] but also that is fundamentally a Black cultural space,” Finley said.

Zine Fest brings new art and ideas to 5Cs and surrounding community

Artists, storytellers and community members gathered at the small Arts & Bodega store in downtown Claremont on Saturday for The Packing House Zine Fest. Put together by Curious Publishing, which owns the store and describes itself as a nonprofit featuring “Inland Empire Womxn, BIPOC and Queer artists,” the event showcased new artwork and writing shared via old-fashioned print media, screen printing and other types of hand-crafted design.

Rebecca Ustrell, founder and editor-in-chief of Curious Publishing, discussed her goals for the Arts & Bodega, which hasn’t had an in-person event of this magnitude in nearly two years owing to the pandemic.

“I want it to be a place students consider an extension of their campus,” she said.

“Zines,” an abbreviation of the word “magazines,” typically refer to self-published short pamphlets with limited circulations that are designed less for profit and more for sharing important information or stories with interested readers. Zines draw on a tradition of works by historically marginalized groups and provide an outlet for news and opinion that mainstream publishers eschewed.

The Fest, which extended throughout the inner atrium of the Packing House where Arts & Bodega is located, offered an opportunity for students to learn about different print methods.

“I want them to be able to come and collaborate and bounce ideas off of people, getting some real advice and experience with people that are actually working

in self-publishing,” Ustrell said. Tables displayed picture books, buttons, stickers and photographs as artists answered questions and visitors walked from stand to stand.

“Because artists are putting so much work into these prints and zines, if you buy the most simple print here, you’re gonna learn about a new art practice, whether it’s carved block printing, cyanotype or stitch binding,” Ustrell said.

Norman Bentley, a community member who lives just blocks away from the Packing House, came to the showcase for inspiration.

“I’m an old artist, so I come here to see what the young are doing,” Bentley said. “They are rethinking all the tools that they have, and their art and their marketing, in many different ways. It’s just so fun to see that.”

Most of the art was handmade and one-of-a-kind, and many of the artists created work on site on demand. For example, Tania Chaidez Ibarra, co-founder of Errant Press, which publishes bilingual books made by Latin American artists, was creating personalized passports that let the customer choose a name, photo and sexuality. The booklet included sixteen visas with QR codes, allowing readers to travel digitally to other countries.

“Our books try to explore and break the limits of normal books with the square shape — we just think they are too boring,” Ibarra said. “We want to create

itations. Eli Brandwein, a Los Angeles-based artist who is the author of the zine anthology “Urinal Diaries,” writes, illustrates, prints and assembles his own comics, often with the goal of just making people laugh.

“I’m not particularly interested in making a Marvel comic book or getting any of my work adapted into movie or TV,” Brandwein said. “I like the freedom to self-publish, to make whatever you feel like making even though it may not be the most marketable thing in the world.”

Amanda Millar similarly combines disciplines, using her experience as a creative writer to produce zines offering prompts to help writers with writer’s block.

“Prompts have helped me with my writing in the past,” she said. “It’s an easy way to get started when you don’t have a lot of writing practice.”

Ustrell also sees the Zine Fest as a low-cost way to support local artists. “We’re a 501c3,” she said about Curious Publishing. “We get and write grants and occasionally are rewarded them and then have this income where we can actually pay artists to create their side projects,” she said.

Ustrell hopes 5C students will engage with events like The Zine Fest to gain exposure to art and artists who are part of the varied community outside the classroom.

“I hope that everyone learns something new,” she said. “I think this event is definitely to bring awareness of the many cultures that are right here in this region.”

JO KEYSER

SASHA MATTHEWS • THE STUDENT liFE

SLEEPLESS ON SIXTH STREET

The disastrous marketing campaign that caused ‘Babylon’ to flop

PETER DIEN

The first time I saw the trailer for “Babylon,” I was deeply confused. I had been a big fan of director Damian Chazelle’s four prior directorial efforts, so when I heard that he was directing a film about Hollywood’s transition from silent films to audio dialogue, I was ecstatic. That was until I saw that the film’s lackluster marketing campaign relied on name recognition of the cast instead of a concise depiction of who the characters were or what the actual plot was.

The official trailer for “Babylon” does a better job at generating excitement for the film, yet most of the YouTube ads and TV Spots consist of a dancing Margot Robbie and a mustache-laden Brad Pitt doing an early 20th century trans-

atlantic accent. The marketing content for “Babylon” all follows the odd phenomenon of starting with a five-second montage — essentially serving as the trailer before the trailer. Montages may be a good tool to hook the viewer and prevent them from skipping the ad, but it fails to work in this case simply because the trailer for Babylon feels like a longer, more exhausting montage.

Not wanting to spoil a film is a valid factor to consider for marketers –– many trailers for blockbuster films have the issue of revealing too much, such as the trailer for “Jurassic World” in 2016. However, marketing campaigns must strike a balance between not spoiling the plot and giving audiences a basic understanding of what the film is try-

ing to do. For certain films such as “Tenet,” directed by Christopher Nolan, audiences can expect the trailer to be more vague than others but will still watch it because they know the specific themes and narrative tools that Nolan employs in his films.

I ended up watching “Babylon” in theaters, which made me even more confused about the film’s marketing. All of the trailers, TV spots and advertisements for this film use footage that is only in the first 40 minutes. Moreover, articles about “Babylon” in pre-production gave false information about the film, like how Tobey Maguire was supposed to play Charlie Chaplin. Instead, he ends up playing a random, creepy Hollywood drug dealer. All of these elements make me

assume that Chazelle changed the plot several times, resulting in marketers having the impossible task of advertising a film that was still unfinished both narratively and production-wise.

“Babylon” ended up being a box office flop, grossing only $63 million despite having a $110 million dollar budget.

To truly understand Babylon’s marketing fiasco, we can compare this film with “Skinamarink,” an indie horror that had a $15,000 budget yet grossed $2.1 million at the box office. Much of the success of “Skinamarink” comes from the incredibly creepy trailer that captures the essence of the film without revealing any plot points at all. The trailer is recorded on a VHS camera, uses sound in an impactful way and

effectively creates suspense about the story.

“Skinamarink” understands that its appeal comes from its mystery, similarly to how the interest in other horror films like “The Blair Witch Project” were generated through confusion about whether the found-footage element of the film was fiction or fact.

The director of “Skinamarink,” Kyle Edward Ball, has a history of creating short horror videos on his YouTube channel “Bitesized Horror,” which surely informed his ability to garner audience recognition for this.

Although “Babylon” and “Skinamarink” are drastically different films, good marketing comes from an awareness of what the film is trying to achieve and how it goes about packing people into theaters. The marketing team for “Babylon” needed to create more clarity about the plot of the film instead of only using the audience’s recognition of the director and actors to articulate what these Hollywood regulars are bringing to the table. Without an audience understanding of what Brad Pitt or Margot Robbie are specifically doing in this film as actors, the marketing materials end up looking like a Super Bowl commercial where recognizable faces are phoning it in for a paycheck.

On the other hand, “Skinamarink” was able to thrive in its lack of clarity, creating an intrigue that can only be achieved through a more secretive, grassroots marketing campaign. “Babylon’’ is a much more serious film than it was marketed as, making me believe that the misdirection of the advertisements was an intentional tool to get audiences to sit through a three-hour drama about the Hollywood industry’s exploitation. As long as Chazelle and his marketing team can understand where they went wrong with “Babylon,” I’m definitely looking forward to his next film and, more specifically, the next film’s trailers.

Peter Dien CM ’25 is from West Covina, California. He enjoys listening to midwest emo, watching stand-up and playing Go with his roommate.

environmental Justice Conference centers organizers of color through coalition building

“The issue of environmental justice is intersectional in nature, so we work to build strong, caring coalitions in order to win this fight,” Jacqueline Tsai SC ’25, an organizer of the annual Environmental Justice Conference, said.

The 2023 Environmental Justice (EJ) Conference took place across Scripps College and Pitzer College campuses on Saturday, April 15. The EJ conference was spawned out of Thomas Kim’s Power, Justice and Environment (PJ&E) course at Scripps College by students focused on building an on-campus political community.

The 2023 EJ Conference included a wide array of grassroots organizers, including 5C affinity groups, Inland Coalition for Immigrant Justice, 5C Leftist organizations and local urban community gardens. This shared community space offered guest speakers, workshops which centralized the intersections of the EJ movement, a climate tour of Scripps and a mutual aid dinner at the Pitzer Grove House.

The organizers of the event wanted to cultivate a central space for leftist movements at the 5Cs.

“Since all of us organizers are in different political spaces on campus, we wanted to be able to come together under the cause of environmental justice to build community within the 5C leftist community and foster a larger coalition of climate-based activists at the 5Cs,” River Rafferty SC ‘25, one of the conference organizers, said.

A prominent theme of the event was exploring the necessity and expansiveness of environmental justice to interweave social movements.

“By highlighting speakers from food sovereignty groups, immigrant justice networks, the Stop Cop City movement and others, we aimed to make explicit the intersections between seemingly disparate political movements,” Rafferty said.

For instance, there is a significant overlap between frameworks of prison abolition and issues of water pollution.

“Prisons are sites of rampant water contamination; they host toxins and pollutants from nearby facilities and destroy the land they occupy,” Rafferty said. “Therefore, organizers fighting for the freedom of incarcerated people and those fighting for a stop to environmental injustices require solidarity and mutual struggle.”

The all-day conference began at The Motley Coffeehouse with an introduction which set the stage of EJ and Climate Justice (CJ) knowledge frameworks.

The Motley opening in particular featured a land acknowledgement of the Tongva land the 5Cs occupy and an empowering speech from community organizer Allison Vu from ACT-LA — a local transit justice organization — that emphasized the importance of building meaningful coalitions to further the climate justice agenda.

“As soon as we start intersecting our fights and grounding them in EJ/CJ principles, we become an even stronger bargaining unit, “ Tsai said.

Vu also spoke of her expertise of what liberation resembles in the context of EJ and how EJ/CJ is an issue from which no one is separated.

Johns Hopkins University sophomore Olivia Richardson Bozzo, an attendee of the conference, felt Vu’s speech provided major takeaways from the conference as a whole.

“I really appreciated the power of community life offered to us by

Alison Vu from ACT-LA,” Richardson Bozzo said. “Collective liberation does not come until we lift all, specifically those most disadvantaged and harmed.”

Another crucial idea from the conference was the climate walking tour of Scripps, led by a previous cohort of PJ&E students. According to Tsai, the tour provided a sense of important reflection of the role of the Claremont Colleges in sustaining climate injustice.

“The tour gives a brutally truthful perspective on the climate-harming behavior Scripps College continues to uphold in order to maintain outward beauty,” Tsai said. The climate walking tour also provided a more holistic view of what natural spaces embody. The walk sought to shift the narrative that humans are indeed separate entities from nature.

Richardson Bozzo appreciated an Immigrant Justice workshop at the conference which led her to reflect on the positionality and role of 5C students within the Inland Empire community.

“Environmental justice requires recognizing that the envi-

ronment is not sublime natural parks nor the abstract concept of the planet or atmosphere. Rather, it is right here where we all work, live and play everyday,” Richardson Bozzo said.

Perhaps the most important intention of the conference was to challenge the existing narrative of on-campus organizing efforts towards more inclusive and transformative change.

“The nature of the Claremont Colleges makes it so that all current organizing spaces on campus are heavily saturated with white folks, logics and needs,” Tsai said. “This conference expanded who we viewed as ‘belonging’ to the organizing space, de-centered the white voice and recentered voices of color … our voices are not only essential, but central to radical work.”

According to Rafferty, this contributes to the larger discussion surrounding the essence of EJ to denounce all means of oppressive social structures.

“EJ means abolishing the forms of domination that allow anthropogenic climate change to rapidly degrade our planet,” Rafferty said.

The conference emphasized the scope of environmental justice existing beyond mainstream climate activist discourse.

“EJ framework requires an extremely critical lens that looks beyond the capitalist constructed carbon footprint’s individualist logic and instead is a movement beyond the capitalist structure to truly fight for environmental liberation,” Tsai said. “[I]nstead of individual consumer shifts, we demand system-wide change.”

Finally, the conference organizers provided some advice on ways in which 5C students can take an intersectional approach to environmental activism. Rafferty suggests signing letters to Shut Down Adelanto, giving to the Atlanta Solidarity Fund and, if you’re an organizer of color, to fill out the interest form for the 7C Coalition for Racial Justice.

“If you are interested in practicing environmental and climate justice, look further beyond just consuming what big corporations label as ‘green’ or ‘eco-friendly,’ Tsai said. “Instead, turn to your neighbors and your friends and build sustainable communities that focus on uplifting one another.”

JULIA SKAGGS

lUCiA MArQUEZ • THE STUDENT liFE

CHASE WADE • THE STUDENT liFE

The Environmental Justice Conference was held at Scripps and Pitzer College.

Original student-made musical ‘It takes

Time’ tells pandemic stories of growth, hope

NEWMAN

EMMA

A mother and daughter united, supporting their family. A kindergarten teacher learning to teach without a classroom and make friends without leaving his house. A couple planning a wedding without a guarantee that guests will be able to make it.

These interweaving pandemic stories coalesced in the student-produced musical “It Takes Time,” which played at Pomona College’s Seaver Large Studio from April 21 through April 23.

Annika Hoseth PO ’23, who served as the musical’s writer, producer, director and prop manager, was inspired by her own experience in the COVID-19 pandemic.

“I really like to write things that I have a really strong personal connection to and that relate to things that I’ve gone through,” Hoseth said. “So, once COVID happened and I was experiencing online school and having to maintain friendships virtually and losing out on opportunities and adopting a puppy for the first time, I was really inspired to write about those experiences … Once I had written down things that I knew firsthand, I was inspired to go beyond that.”

The play served as Hoseth’s directorial debut, which she found to be both challenging and fun.

“It’s always really hard to find directors. I feel like there aren’t as many at the 5Cs as there are shows sometimes, and so I was like, ‘Okay. If I want this show to happen, I probably just need to be the director,” Hoseth said. “It was more out of necessity. It was very

exciting, but [there was] definitely a lot of trial and error and making mistakes and learning.

I wasn’t expecting to love it this much.”

As a director, Hoseth also enjoyed collaborating with the cast, who she found to be helpful in bringing the themes of the show to life.

“[The cast is] super funny, and I really loved how I feel like they really got the message of the show,” she said. “They got how it was really genuine but also really funny and uplifting and also really honest throughout the pandemic.”

One cast member, Harold Fuson PZ ‘26, truly enjoyed playing his character, Greg, with the help of Hoseth.

“It was a really, really positive experience,” Fuson said. “I worked with Annika. We workshopped what my motivations were [and] what the story that doesn’t really get told in the script [was]. I just had a blast.”

In the musical, Hoseth’s character Greg is a Kindergarten teacher who struggles to connect with his students in the Zoom format and to form friendships during the pandemic. Throughout his journey, Greg bonds with a puppy he adopts and strikes up a romance with his mailman.

Fuson loved his character because of his humor and his insight into a teacher’s perspective on virtual teaching.

“He’s a really, really funny character,” Fuson said. “He definitely does have a lot of growth throughout the show just navigating the whole online school

thing, and I think it’s really cool … to tell that story from the perspective of a teacher. Obviously, the audience was largely comprised of students this weekend, and we all know what it was like to go through online school and Zoom school as a student.”

Hannah Lak SC ‘23 also found playing her character, Yvonne, to be rewarding. Yvonne is a mother to a teenage daughter and a restaurant owner who struggled to stay positive during the pandemic.

However, Lak did find getting into character and memorizing her songs to be somewhat difficult.

“I think it was a little challenging to get into the role at first because she’s very different from me,” Lak said. “Her humor is very different from mine and sometimes she’s very sarcastic in a way that I have not [been], so that was pretty tough, and I also haven’t sung this much ever in a musical before … Learning all of these different songs [and] the choreo and the acting and everything put together was definitely something new for me, but I loved it.”

Lak believes that the true significance of the play was in its positive attitude toward hardship.

“[The play] is very optimistic,” Lak said. “A lot can be going wrong in your life but … remember to keep in mind that there are always little things that you can look forward to and that can go your way.”

On a similar note, Fuson wants audience members to

An unexpected blend between motorcycles and coffee at Rev’d Up

When asked what are the typical vibes of a coffee shop, most think of a minimal, boho setting to study, work or chat with friends. As an avid coffee drinker and café enthusiast myself, I, too, am guilty of imagining the stereotypical café space. You know: simple lighting, plants, modern decor and a relaxed environment.

However, what happens if there was a coffee shop that broke those stereotypes of how we perceive coffee shops? What happens if there is a coffee shop that blends together traditional coffee drinks and cafe bites with a Harley-Davidson aesthetic, of all things?

Introducing Rev’d Up Coffee & Classics, where punk meets coffee — literally.

This coffee shop has quickly grown to be a favorite among many in the Claremont community since its opening in 2016 and is located just outside of Harvey Mudd College on Foothill Boulevard. And yes, it’s so worth the walk.

Walking into Rev’d Up is almost as if you are walking into a motorcycle dealership store. Various street signs, punk posters, vintage objects and two beautiful bikes mounted near the window make it an unrivaled experience for anyone.

Kaylie Chakerian is one of the baristas at Rev’d Up, ringing up customers with a friendly smile while bringing positive energy to the store.

“I did grow up in Claremont my whole life, so I’ve known about this place for five to six years now,” Chakerian said. “I’ve been working here since August and honestly, it had a lot to do with my interests. I’m a fan of cars, bikes and coffee.”

Chakerian also explained the inspiration behind the unique coffee shop.

“My boss is very much in the car and bike scene. He has a lot of biker friends that come by and enjoys picking up a bunch of retro stuff along the way while looking for unique signs,” Chakerian said. “He also has [his bike] inside displayed sometimes or brings it outside. He has some cars he also likes to bring in, so he’s very much into it and he does make a lot of friends here.”

Being in the car and bike scene for a while, Chakerian is working on getting her very own bike. She explained how Rev’d Up acts as a meeting place for many bikers around the area and finds it funny how many of her friends know her coworkers because of this tightknit car community.

“It’s very nice — the community here in Claremont is small, but it does reach a wide range of people who are into bikes and cars,” Chakerian said. “We have bike nights here too so it’s pretty fun. It brings like-minded people with the same interests together. They have a great time and are here for hours. From morning to evening

time. They are just enjoying a good cup of coffee and stories.”

For newcomers, Chakerian recommends the Elvis toast (two slabs of bread with peanut butter, banana, and bits of bacon on it) and the Caffeine Overload drink.

“I really like the Caffeine Overload. To me, it’s also our ‘cold start’ drink. It has our espresso and cold brew, which has a lot of caffeine,” Chakerian said.

Caitlin Niiya PZ ‘26 and Hanna Chen PZ ’26 came to Rev’d Up to get a change of scenery while doing their homework and enjoying a nice cup of coffee.

“It was my first time here at Rev’d Up,” Niiya said. “I like how it’s a small and enclosed space. And the music wasn’t blasting, but it was also a different type of music that was different from the lofi or study music that you get from other coffee shops. I like their menus, signs, pictures and posters on the wall. It made it a really cool cafe.”

Chen agreed, noting that Rev’d Up goes against the grain of typical coffee shops.

“I think Rev’d Up brings a very different study space because generally cafes near school are very minimalistic, cute and simple … if you want a different scene, then it’s a good place to go,” Chen said. Zoe Park PZ ’26 considers her-

self an infrequent but recurring customer here. She is drawn to their vast drink selection and the sitting bar area where she can sprawl out her work while looking at the street, people-watching.

“I definitely think it brings more affordable coffee to students and brings spice to the life,” Park said. “I like the Easy Rider drink. It’s kind of like a cookie butter latte, and I recommend it to newcomers.”

Seven years after its opening, Rev’d Up Coffee remains one of Claremont’s favorite hub spots among students and bikers alike to share a cup of coffee. Bringing a new face to how we view coffee shops, this place continues to bring the surrounding car and bike community together while also serving traditional coffee drinks to its customers. So maybe after all, motorcycles and coffee do go well together.

“Over the years people got used to it, enjoy it, and they now love coming here,” Chakerian said. “I think that’s the biggest change: the people and their hearts.”

5/5 stars.

Carter Soe PZ ’26 is from San Ramon, California. He enjoys being outdoors, reading fiction books and spending his money on overpriced coffee.

have left the play knowing that the pandemic could inspire all types of people to change their lives for the better.

“[The audience] should take away that the pandemic was an opportunity for lots of growth,”

Fuson said. “Instead of focusing on the really, really sad and unfortunate and terrible, terrible moments in 2020 to 2021, and while recognizing that those happened and it’s important to reflect on them, it’s also important to reflect on the positive and the growth that came out of it as well.”

From Hoseth’s perspective, though, the play’s message is that even in times of pain or

struggle, people can live for the little moments of joy and hope.

“I really think that the show is about those more nuanced moments where maybe you’re actually learning something in the pandemic or maybe you’re making a new friend or you’re becoming closer to somebody or you’re changing something about your life that wasn’t working and appreciating all of that at once,” Hoseth said. “You don’t have to stop being sad about it, but you can feel multiple things at once and know that everybody is there with you.”

Harold Fuson is a sports writer for TSL.

The story of Fong Foo Sec, Pomona’s first Asian student

Although Pomona College would not establish its first Asian Studies program until 1936 and its Asian American Resource Center until 1991, the presence of Asian students existed long before the college reached those milestones.

In 1897, a mere decade after the college’s founding, Pomona admitted its first-ever Asian student: Fong Foo Sec, who went on to become an educator, publicist and chief English editor of the Commercial Press, the first modern publishing organization in China.

Fong Foo Sec — 鄺富灼, alternately romanized as Kuang Fuzhuo — was born in 1869 in Guangdong, China. After growing up in poverty, he decided, at the age of 13, to relocate to the West Coast of the United States, then known to him as the “Gold Mountain,” to seek his fortune.

Fong’s search for a varied education brought him to Pomona for five years — four at its now defunct preparatory school and then one as an undergraduate student. He then went on to earn a bachelor’s degree at UC Berkeley.

Although he did not receive his bachelor’s degree from Pomona, he is still considered a “graduate” of the college and an important member of its alumni community.

In 1922, Fong returned to Pomona to attend that year’s commencement ceremony, where James Blaisdell, the fourth president of the College, conferred upon him an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree. It was only the second time Pomona had made such a bestowment.

At Commencement, President Blaisdell praised Fong as being a “citizen of the world,” an “heir by birth to the wisdom of [a] wonderful people.”

Fong arrived in the US in 1882, the same year that the U.S. government passed its first Exclusion Act, barring Chinese laborers from immigrating to the country. Anti-Asian sentiment had been steadily rising in the American West, and Fong found himself facing rampant Sinophobia.

“I was received with bricks and kicks,” Fong said, recalling his experience in his memoir. “Some rude Americans ... threw street litter at us to vent their fury.”

Over the next 15 years, Fong accumulated a vast array of experiences in the United States: he worked in a kitchen for a dollar a week, developed a gambling addiction, converted to Christianity, worked for the Salvation Army and battled near-constant racism and xenophobia along the way.

All the while, he remained focused on his education: he attended a mission school, learned shorthand and typewriting and taught himself English, history and archaeology.

The next step in Fong’s academic journey naturally appeared to be a formal college education. “If I could obtain higher learning, I could go back [to China] and be of service to society,” he wrote in his memoirs.

In 1897, Fong met Samuel Hahn and his son Edwin Hahn PO 1898, then a student at the newly established college. The Hahns conveyed Fong’s academic aspirations to Cyrus Baldwin, the College’s first president, who personally invited Fong to attend Pomona.

However, Fong’s years at Pomona were not without struggle. He had to work multiple jobs, such as cooking, cleaning and waiting tables, to pay his way through college. Moreover, prior to his final year at the prep school, he contracted tuberculosis and had to take a year off to recuperate.

After spending five years at Pomona, Fong transferred to UC Berkeley, where he obtained his bachelor’s degree. He then spent a year at Columbia University, where he earned a dual master’s degree in English and education.

In 1906, Fong returned to China, where he settled in Shanghai and took up the position of chief editor of the Commercial Press’s English editorial department. Education remained his main preoccupation and he wrote and published a number of textbooks for Chinese students in English.

Fong’s lifelong commitment to academic and social development made him famous both across China and in the United States. Despite the challenges he faced during his time in the United States, including poverty, illness and xenophobia, he always recalled his time at Pomona with fondness.

“Five years in college and all the assistance from friends,” he wrote, “these I cannot forget.”

CARTER SOE

MAX rANNEY • THE STUDENT liFE

SiPPiNG

COUrTESY: SAGE WONG-DAViES

The play served as Annika Hoseth PO ’23 directorial debut, which she found to be both challenging and fun.

SARU POTTURI

SPECiAl PrOJECTS: AAPi HEriTAGE MONTH

HONNOlD-MUDD liBrArY SPECiAl COllECTiONS, WHEElEr SCrAPBOOK COllECTiON

Look at what they did together — ‘Live at Bush Hall’ shows BCNR are still friends forever

GERRIT PUNT

On February 4, 2022, an upand-coming seven-piece outfit from England dropped a sophomore record that would end up becoming one of my very favorite albums of the year. That same week, just a few days prior to the record’s release, the band of seven had been reduced to a band of six — the lead singer had officially left the group.

The lead was Isaac Wood, the record was “Ants from Up There” and the up-and-coming seven-piece outfit from England was Black Country, New Road.

Though Wood’s exit from the group was an amicable one, his departure left the little indie-rock orchestra that could without a frontman right as their musical careers were beginning to take off, leaving fans curious and a bit concerned about the band’s trajectory. A frontman like Isaac Wood is impossible to replace. In the year since its release, I have listened to every track on “Ants from Up There” more times than I can count. On each and every repeat listen, I am thrown into an emo-

tional meat grinder. Wood’s vocals are raw and quivering. He dives into songs with a screaming, aching grandiosity that shakes me to my atoms.

Go lie down and listen to the last few tracks on that second album. Wood left a big pair of basketball shoes to fill.

No matter how great a band is, the loss of a member, especially the lead vocalist, brings a lot of uncertainty to the table.

I myself, and I imagine plenty of other fans, anxiously asked themselves “how do you replace the irreplaceable?”

And, in a blossoming orchestral bellow, Black Country, New Road sang back, “you don’t.”

“Live at Bush Hall,” released just over a year from the group’s prior album, opens with the nervous call of a familiar saxophone. It is equal parts an entrance theme and a frantic cry into the unknown. Bassist Tyler Hyde replies in fluttery, operatic conversation, assuring the uneasy sax and the listener that there is nothing to worry about. We are in good hands.

In typical Black Country, New Road fashion, the opening “Up

Song” escalates from a stripped back conference between voice and instrument to an intricate, extravagant crescendo. Hyde is joined by the other members of the band for the song’s triumphant refrain, proudly exclaiming to the world and their former frontman, “Look at what we did together, BCNR friends forever.”

It’s one of the sweetest opening tracks I’ve ever heard.

The rest of the record is imbued with a similar sentiment. Hyde wails a sentimental string of pleasant memories on the haunting “Laughing Song,” and the multi-instrumental Lewis Evans leads the way on “The Wrong Trousers,” belting with earnest sincerity “though you hurt, feel like you’ve lost me, I turn around and look back kindly. For we made something, something to be proud of.”

“Live at Bush Hall” is a love letter to music, camaraderie and Isaac Wood, but it is also a triumph of perseverance and growth. It grants itself the room it needs to reflect on the group’s great loss, but it does not wallow. Wood’s exit from the group

is sad, but it is also an opportunity to take the band in a brand new direction, and BCNR soars with this.

Few people have a voice like Wood, but his absence allows the remaining six members to fill the spotlight. The other members of the band pass vocal responsibilities around, and each of them brings a lot of personality to their respective songs. In addition to Hyde and Evans voices, keyboardist May Kershaw’s delicate warbling carries songs like the sprawling, somber fable of “The Boy,” and violinist Georgia Ellery, drummer Charlie Wayne and guitarist Luke Mark provide backing vocals throughout the album.

With every record, BCNR has shown a willingness to shake up their sound, and “Live at Bush Hall” is perhaps the greatest example of this. It is, in many ways, a step away from the raw romantic anguish of “Ants from Up There” and the paranoid tumbling post-rock of their debut “For the First Time,” leaning further into the orchestral sounds of chamber music that percolate the band’s prior re-

cords.

But while the album’s sound is distinct, the unmistakable current of Black Country, New Road’s signature sound runs through the entirety of the project. It just takes on a slightly different flavor.

The seventh track, “Turbines/ Pigs,” in it’s nine and a half minutes of devastating, escalating glory is reminiscent of tracks off of “Ants from Up There,” but a stripped-down piano and Kershaw’s fragile vocals trade some of Wood’s tortured wailing for a more delicate touch. It is gorgeous.

I don’t love “Live at Bush Hall” in the way I do “Ants from Up There,” but it is an incredible achievement. Black Country, New Road has taken the pieces left in the wake of an enormous loss and turned them into something new, beautiful and all their own. Any uncertainty I had about the group has been extinguished. This upand-coming six-piece outfit from England is going to be alright.

Gerrit Punt PO ’24 loves this album so much he forgot to include any jokes in this article. He’s usually funnier. He promises.

Hackathon comes back to the 5Cs after a year-long hiatus

As the year draws to a close and students feel the tightening noose of exams and deadlines, all-nighters have become part of many students’ daily schedules. Some computer science students are pulling them, not because they have to, but because it’s fun.

On April 14, the 5C Hackathon returned to Pomona College after a year-long hiatus. This 24-hour event brought together students from across the Claremont Colleges for a marathon of coding on a diverse range of projects in Pomona’s Edmunds Ballroom. The event was put together by a team of first-time student organizers, including Hannah Mandell PO ’23 and Sam Malik PO ’24. Strava and Bloomberg served as the main sponsors of the event.

In the days leading up to the event, the Hackathon team ran “Hack Week,” a series of workshops meant to help educate attendees about technical skills, product management, socially relevant technology issues and career development. Participants in the Hackathon do not need to know how to code, so these events help educate newcomers and make the event more accessible.

Among the workshop topics were “Intro to Python and Data Analysis,” “Liberal Arts as a Path to Technology Consulting” and “The World in Our Hands: Exploring ArcGIS.” Many of these workshops were taught by alums of the Claremont Colleges who now hold careers in computer science.

After participating in Hackathon virtually in 2020 as a beginner coder, Mandell had such a rewarding experience that she couldn’t wait for the next year. Only it didn’t happen. So by spring semester of her senior year, she realized if she wanted to ensure the legacy of Hackathon, she’d have to do it herself.

Mandell sent out a Slack message on the Pomona Computer Science

Channel asking if anyone would be interested in a Hackathon. Her and ten other computer science (CS) majors met in Walker Lounge at 6 p.m. in the middle of February to deliberate. Malik was one of the members in attendance.

Before she knew it, it was April, and 200 students were gathered together, coding late into the night.

“Hackathons are daunting, and the fact that you have to sit in a place for 12 or 24 hours straight, coding away at a problem to build a solution that does something for 24 hours with possibly people you don’t know can be daunting to a beginner,” Malik said. “So what we really wanted to focus on was how … we make this an inclusive environment where everyone feels that they have a place in this Hackathon, where everyone can code and create [and where] everyone can bring something new or different to the table.”

The Hackathon consisted of four categories that hackers could enter their projects into: Education, Sustainable Earth, Health Equity and Get Out Vote. They also had an overlay category for beginners, as the event was open to all 5C students, with a big focus on those new to coding.

“We tried to design this Hackathon in a way that encourages participation from anyone, no matter how tech-oriented you are,” Malik said. “We even encouraged interdisciplinary teams because, of course, we’re the 5Cs. We’re a bunch of small liberal arts colleges. We want solutions that blur the lines between computer science and other fields of study. So we definitely did see that with the Hackathon submissions.”

In order to ensure winners prizes and organize workshops, Mandell and Malik reached out to companies and alumni, sending out cold email after email and scouring LinkedIn to secure sponsors. With the tech industry laying

off hundreds of thousands of workers, securing any kind of funding was a gamble. But not only were they able to convince companies to sponsor their event, they also had Meta workers reach out to them asking to judge the competition.

Mandell described what she learned from organizing Hackathon from scratch, and what she hopes students will take away from participating.

“I feel like if you stick true to the values that you project to others, they will also want to embody them. We really wanted to do Tech for Good,” Mandell said. “I think projecting that idea of this [being] a space for good [was vital]. And people really did [honor that theme] with the projects that they created

… It was phenomenal to see people lean into that.”

Participant Yotam Twersky PO ’25, whose team won best project in the Sustainable Earth category, talked about winning his first Hackathon and how it was working on the project with his friends.

“[Hackathon] was cool because I got to kind of work with people who are like my good friends … We are all very engaged in similar coursework, like CS and data science stuff. We hang out a lot, but we don’t really have the opportunity to work on academic projects together, even though we’ve been in classes together. And so this was just a really cool opportunity to work with them … and bond over an academic project,” Twersky said.

Next year’s Hackathon director, Malik discussed his vision for Hackathon moving forward, starting with asking for sponsors and contacting companies earlier than two months before the actual event. However, in addition to logistical changes, Malik hopes to turn Hack Club into more than just an annual event.

“Instead of just at the Hackathon event, we could continuously organize these events so that there’s continuous participation, while still holding true to the core value that these hackathon workshops are meant for everybody to learn and grow from.” Malik said. “The whole point of the 5C Hackathon, and the club as a whole, is for everyone to learn and grow no matter who you are.”

INDIA CLAUDY & TANIA AZHANG

On April 14, the 5C Hackathon returned to Pomona College after a year-long hiatus.

lET’S DO THE TiME WArP AGAiN

The Associated Students of Claremont Men’s College

On March 5, I concluded my term as ASCMC Diversity & Inclusion Chair in a bitter end marked by controversy over the Racial-Ethnic GE, the creation of the now-defunct Social Life Senate Committee and the establishment of the Special Committee on Anti-Semitism and the Jewish Community. Only one side of these events was covered by TSL and made public in Senate and Executive Board minutes. I’m now going to tell you my perspective.

Let’s start here: I was publicly berated by a male executive board member — not once, but twice.

The first time, I invited Claremont McKenna College affinity group leaders to share their experiences with ASCMC at an Executive Board meeting. After the meeting, this member accused me of blindsiding him in bad faith. He claimed he lacked preparation even though affinity groups and their funding fell directly under

his purview. The second time, this same board member insisted I actively create an unequal power dynamic by sitting on a stage during an Executive Board meeting.

This member not only received their full stipend, but was also allotted a bonus for his efforts.

At CMC, male officers create inside circles that obscure accountability for this kind of behavior, reinforced by exclusive boys-only group chats, siloed lines of communication and sexist jokes. These pose structural barriers for women and students of color to thrive in these spaces.

It’s no secret that women, women of color especially, have different experiences at CMC than their white and/or male counterparts. It is also no secret that it is these very men who often come away with a narrative of victimhood and are lauded for their efforts. Of course, they were the ones who “tried so hard,” dealt with “hostility”

and stayed “civil” through it all. Unfortunately, it is too easy for liberal men to forget that they, too, can be misogynists.

Your positionality as a woman also determines the kind of work you get saddled with, much of it being emotional labor and taking on advocacy alone. My own ASCMC “office housework” record demonstrates this.

After our board failed to reach out to CMC’s Sexuality & Gender Alliance to collaborate on Pride Party in September, I had to step in to explain to several male Executive Board members why we needed to apologize and commit to more meaningful collaboration. Those apologies never did come to light.

Camille Forte CM ’23 and I spent hours of our time negotiating with the leaders of the Student Life Committee to pursue a more productive route than a Senate resolution, which led to the current DOS working group.

It was not until the end of my term, when I was making flyers

for said working group, that I realized that when people invited me to join more meetings and when I volunteered to facilitate mediations, it was not labor to necessarily be proud of.

It is unreciprocated, undercompensated and unrecognized work that needs to be done, but I never felt that I could say no. “If I didn’t do it,” I thought, “who would?”

To no surprise, this advocacy work inspires racialized and gendered responses. Throughout this semester, myself and other women of color have been called “aggressive,” “rude” and “hostile” when advocating for marginalized students.

This, unfortunately, is an established pattern for ASCMC.

In a meeting last semester, a group of male officers reprimanded our current female senior class president in a vain and mean-spirited manner under the guise of providing constructive criticism.

Later in that meeting, the

same officers falsely accused former ASCMC President Katherine Almendarez CM ’22 of being drunk at an event last year, a comment made for seemingly no other reason than to create an excuse to talk about her in a derogatory way. While both these former ASCMC presidents dealt with misogyny during their terms, they were also supported by diverse executive boards. In other words, they found support from their peers. Anything I achieved during my term was not solely my work. These were community efforts between student affinity groups and the very few ASCMC colleagues that I could call tremendous allies. Diversity and inclusion is not a task to be assigned; rather, it’s an aspiration that should guide the work of all members of an organization.

How then, after sharing these experiences, can I encourage students of color, especially women of color, to apply for a position where I was bullied, underpaid and unrecognized?

My experience is exactly why it’s crucial for marginalized students to take up space and lead: we support each other.

To my fellow non-white, nonmale peers: please heed this advice.

There is space for you to lead with love and community. You are qualified enough. In fact, you are so qualified that people will begin to rely on you to do it all. It is critical that you do not let this happen as it did to me.

Apologize less. Say no to work that does not fulfill your journey or your aspirations. The institution will not tell you that you are doing too much, that you are overburdening yourself and that confronting this extent of dehumanization from your colleagues is unhealthy.

Do not be afraid to lead, and in those positions, do not be afraid to be selfish with your time, presence and capacity. I just wish someone had told me the same.

Nisha Singh CM ’23 is originally from Dallas, TX. She loves matcha lattes, Brazilian jazz and is very excited to graduate soon.

On this World Malaria Day, none of us are healthy until everyone is healthy

This Tuesday, April 25, was World Malaria Day to recognize Malaria’s impact on the world. Growing up in Nigeria, I witnessed the human toll of mosquito-borne diseases first-hand.

As children, we were frightened about getting bitten — if the front door was left open after 5 p.m., my mother would scream at the top of her lungs. When I was in high school, there were daily stories of classmates, teachers, relatives, family members, instructors and neighbors who were either sick at home or hospitalized due to malaria.

Even with local prophylactic measures, the threat of a deadly mosquito bite never stopped. What is it about malaria and the communities it disproportionately harms that causes the public health community to turn a blind eye?

Perhaps because of my upbringing, public health has become my passion. I’m an expert in community health, currently pursuing a Doctor of Public Health degree at Claremont Graduate University, focusing on improving human health through population-based public health interventions, and I serve passionately as an Advocacy Champion team member with United to Beat Malaria, a campaign of the U.N. Foundation.

Through it all, I’ve learned that my voice is my power — and today, I’m using my voice to call you to action.

The primary horror of malaria is that it can incapacitate even the healthiest adults, adolescents and children for up to months on end; just one mosquito bite can result in crippling joint pain, high fever and swelling, putting an end to work or school and, for a large percentage, causing death.

The World Health Organization reports that while malaria-related fatalities are declining, the number of annual cases is increasing. In fact, mortality rates for vulnerable populations such as children under five and mothers remain among the highest in the world.

Up to 11 percent of maternal mortality, 25 percent of neonatal mortality and 30 percent of under-five mortality are attributable to malaria. What’s more, Nigeria accounts for approximately 25

percent of global malaria cases and 24 percent of global malaria fatalities. Up to 60 percent of outpatient visits and 30 percent of hospital admissions are attributable to the disease, which overburdens an already weakened health system.

On this World Malaria Day, these numbers represent more than mere figures. Missionaries, military personnel, diplomats and legislators are among the mobile population that travels to malaria-endemic regions, putting themselves at risk of infection. The global fight against malaria is multifaceted and needs a collaborative multisectoral approach. Luckily, we have the means to eradicate malaria — we just need to hold ourselves to the

mission. Malaria can be prevented and treated with life-saving insecticide-treated bed nets and other malaria prevention and treatment instruments. A modest bed net can save a person’s life. Bed nets are a financially feasible method of protecting more lives from malaria; it costs only $10 to safeguard a family in need with two bed nets. In addition to bed nets, sending other malaria interventions, such as diagnostics, treatment and training for healthcare professionals, improves global and national health.

Together with our global and country-level malaria partners, organizations and advocates, United to Beat Malaria’s efforts are having a significant impact. The malaria mortality rate has

decreased by more than half since 2000. Nearly 90 percent of those who have access to bed nets use them. Since 2000, the global malaria prevention community has prevented an estimated 2 billion cases of the disease and saved 11.7 million lives.

However, recent outbreaks such as COVID-19 and Ebola exemplify the fact that, in today’s interconnected world, these lethal diseases do not respect borders. In the global fight against ebola, constant and unwavering effort is required. There’s no room for complacency — this deadly disease is nearly eradicated, and that’s exactly why it deserves extra attention. We cannot afford to cease our efforts; in fact, we must intensify

them.

Take my words as a message to donate and become active in the fight against malaria. The Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health says it best: “None of us is well until all of us are well.” Health is wealth. If we work together, we can be the generation that eradicates malaria. If we sit back and do nothing, we join the long line of global public health actors who fail to provide communities like mine with the care that they deserve.

MaryAnn Ngozi Obidike CGU ’24 is pursuing a Doctor of Public Health degree. She is most interested in the social, cultural, political and economic determinants of health and how they contribute to population health and health inequities.

MARYANN NGOZI OBIDIKE

NISHA SINGH

COUrTESY: MArYANN NGOZ OBiDiKE

EMMA JENSEN • THE STUDENT liFE

After her term as ASCMC’s Diversity & inclusion Chair, Nisha Singh CM ’23 shares her experience with its undue emotional labor and misogyny.

Malaria has had an incredible impact on millions of lives, but it continues to lack recognition on a global scale. MaryAnn Ngozi Obidike CGU ’24 calls attention to the public health crisis in light of World Malaria Day.

California Dreamin’ on an Inland Empire day

All I wanted to do was go to college in California. This state was the ticket to success. If I could get to California then all my desires would come true, right? Unlimited access to beaches, tanning, organic foods and sunshine. Not to mention, a pricey education that promised a big payout and a house with an ocean view.

Staring up at the cinder block facade that is Harvey Mudd College was like a slap in the face to my California Dreams.

My experience is likely all-too-familiar to the average TSL reader: the California we encountered on move-in day is a wildly different reality than the one we had imagined, or idealized. Claremont is no Santa Monica: we are 45 minutes from the beach, hours in the sun result in sunburns and freckles as opposed to beautifully bronzed skin. Harvey Mudd insists that the hours of homework are worth it, but the fancy job and oceanside house feel too hypothetical to appreciate. All I could do was focus on each chemistry assignment as it hit me like a brick.

Or was it?

As the semester went on and I spent more and more time surrounded by California locals, I began to find what I came looking for. No, the colleges didn’t suddenly relocate to a beachside town and neither did the number of homework hours change — but

my conception of the mythical California and my place within it did.

So, to my fellow land-locked, middle of the country mountain people who came to California to find some magic: this one’s for you.

To make yourself feel at home, start by grounding yourself in the lingo. If someone’s from California, then they are either from “The Bay” or Irvine, and it’s best to just pretend like you know where both of these places are because any more details

will leave you looking at a map that is inevitably still confusing. Note: if you ever go to “The Bay” you spend a lot of time figuring out which body of water actually is “The Bay.” No, it’s not that lake. If you want to be cool in California, then you should probably figure out how to ride a skateboard or surf. I, unfortunately, haven’t gotten the hang of either but have gained some cool points for being able to ski. Thank you, Colorado, for giving me something to go off of.

Next, figure out a way to love the outdoors. The amount of time you will spend outside in this state is unparalleled. And I come from one of the most outdoorsy places in the country. However, the plentitude of sun and good vibes in California leave you doing absolutely every activity outdoors — to the point where you actually miss the snow at home because crying while it’s 15 degrees and sleeting outside is much more satisfying than when it’s 70 and sunny. By now, you should be on your way to finding an aesthetic. Part of California’s beauty is that it welcomes everyone to build their own brand, whether it’s the Scripps College girl who manages to make every item of clothing look fashionable or the Claremont McKenna College student who is always dressed to impress. For example, I was quickly branded as the token granola girl. I don’t know if it’s the sun or the produce here, but people in California always manage to look good. If you want to incorporate some quintessential California into your budding aesthetic, try bikini tops. You can wear them anywhere. They count as shirts when it reaches above 75 degrees. They are best paired with jean shorts or flower skirts and they are especially acceptable on Saturday afternoons while you pretend to do

your homework. Best of all, they don’t require a beach — seaside clothing items can bring a little of that idealized California to the Inland Empire, all while helping you hone your aesthetic.

Finally, the most important guide-to-California lesson of all: say yes. Perhaps what I have come to value most since venturing west are the people — and their flare for adventure. From runs in the woods to thrifting after class to impromptu beach days to watermelon sunsets to hot tubbing on Tuesdays to dance parties until your feet fall off, you are going to have a good time. Embrace adventure with open arms and don’t let nerves and preconceived notions get in the way of new experiences. These tips may read as superficial, but they’re designed to help challenge you to embrace the world — and the California — around you. Remember that where you came from is just as important as where you’re going. After all, California needs granola girls too.

So, no — the California you imagined isn’t necessarily what you’ve found. But don’t let it paralyze you. Develop your own flavor of Colorado-California hybrid and longboard adventurously into the Claremont sunset.

Sara Wexler HM ’26 is from Colorado. She likes running and dance parties and misses Colorado powder days.

Diversity & Inclusion: a summary of staff demographics and projects

In our commitment to fostering a newsroom that is representative of our 5C community, TSL’s Spring 2023 Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) desk has continued to document the demographics of TSL’s newsroom in a biannual semester-in-review. As DEI editors, we strive for diversity of identity and thought in every step leading up to a published issue. We remain committed to holding our organization accountable and devoted to transparency in this process, and in that vein, we are releasing our findings from our staff demographics survey.

At the beginning of this semester, we set out to increase inclusion and better communication between TSL staffers and readers.

In these efforts, we hope to make our paper continually more accessible to everyone in the Claremont community. In this final issue, we’d like to share three of our biggest accomplishments from this semester.

One of our objectives this semester was to continue to train TSL staffers on inclusive storytelling, a practice that initially began in the fall. Through this initiative, we inform reporters, writers, editors and our media team on the best practices to ensure our coverage is respectful, resonant and accurate.

We also saw an opportunity to increase TSL’s connection with affinity groups around the campuses. We’ve worked diligently on curating a contact sheet with the names of 5C affinity groups and their leadership to make coverage on affinity groups more authentic and accessible for reporters.

Our third major project this semester was an Inclusive Language Guide. Informed by our standard AP style practices for journalism, our language guide

aims to address the evolving landscape of identity with an eye towards sensitivity around disabilities, gender, race, religion and health. We sincerely hope that our Inclusive Language Guide can lead to more accurate and empathetic storytelling from TSL for many semesters to come.

Out of TSL’s 106 staffers, 67 responded to our semesterly survey which collected demographic data, such as college affiliation, graduation year, racial identity, gender identity and financial aid status, along with qualitative feedback on how TSL can improve the work environment and become more representative of the 5C community. Around a third of our respondents were on TSL’s senior staff, with the rest consisting of staff and contributing writers.

Compared to last semester, we have a higher proportion of White, Latinx, East Asian, South Asian and Southeast Asian staffers, and a decreased percentage of American Indian and Alaskan Native staffers.

Similar to last semester, nearly three-fourths of staffers identify as women and roughly 16, six, one and one percent identify as men, nonbinary, agender and genderqueer, respectively.

In addition, 10 percent of our staffers are international students, 10 percent are first generation, low-income students and nine percent of staffers have a disability.

TSL reports on both Claremont undergraduate and graduate institutions, however this semester the staff did not have any graduate students. A majority of staffers, roughly 67 percent, attend Pomona College, while 22, 14, 14 and one percent of staffers are from Scripps College, Pitzer College, Claremont McKenna College and Harvey Mudd College respectively.

Important qualitative feedback was also taken from the demographic survey, including critical analyses on the lack of diversity within TSL senior staff and a desire for more news coverage of ethnic and cultural

events around campus. To address these concerns, we propose that the senior staff hiring process be conducted through a DEI lens. We also suggest that a calendar be made for events from across the 5C community

TOP: TSl’s Diversity and inclusion Desk release organization’s demographic report and outline areas of improvement for representation.

lEFT: This semester, TSl saw an three percent and six percent increase in staffers from Pitzer and CMC, respectively.

to ensure a story doesn’t go by unreported. All responses to the survey are invaluable to our goal of creating a truly collaborative newspaper and are taken into serious consideration by the DEI desk.

SARA WEXLER

MANAN MENDIRATTA & ANNIKA WHITE

MANHOlE SANDWiCH: A COMIC BY SASHA MATTHEWS

ACADEMiA NUTS: A COMIC BY ELLA LEHAVI

GUS AlBACH • THE STUDENT liFE

Crossing campus

BY JASPER DAVIDOFF

For the last issue of the year — and after 80 crosswords since my first year at Pomona — I wanted to leave you with something a little extra. Your mission, if you choose to accept it: solve the puzzles below to find five 7C locations, and use those answers to decode a meta solution at the bottom. Fair warning: this is probably one of the more time-consuming challenges I’ve thrown at you. But grab some friends; I’m sure you’re up for it.

I want to thank all of you who’ve taken the time to work through one of my grids over the years (especially the ones from when I was still learning to construct, which may have been borderline unsolvable), and all of you with solutions pinned to your dorm walls, who’ve solved every Friday or with pals over Sunday brunch. Claremont wouldn’t be Claremont for me without the crossword, and I’m deeply grateful for the colleagues at TSL and friends around the consortium who made it mean as much as it did. Also thanks to the members of Cross Campus, the 5C crossword club, who helped create the theme for this project and flesh it all out. It’s been a fun year solving and wordplaying with y’all. (More info at crosscampus.org!)

FYI: I post grids on my blog at pocket-squares.org (and you can sign up for my crossword email list there!). Hope you’ll keep in touch, and thanks for playing.

ACROSS

Step 1

Find location #1 based on the instructions in the crossword

1. Beginning of some URLs

5. Role for Elizabeth Olsen

10. “Okay, see you later!”

14. Announcements of a discovery

15. Developer of math and physics Newton

16. “Children of the Tenements” muckraker Jacob

17. “Euphoria” protagonist Howard

18. Not gonna, quaintly

19. Travelers’ lodging options

20. Escape to the air

21. Rule for deciphering location

#1 (with 30, 39 and 52-across)

23. ___ state (have a fancy funeral)

25. Fictional identities

26. “My life is falling apart”

29. Little rascals

30. See 21-across

34. U.F.O. pilots

35. Really bothered

36. Acrobat’s equipment?

39. See 21-across

43. Baron Cohen of “Who Is America?”

46. It can take you from Santa Monica to Expo Park/USC

47. Apprentices

51. Sidewalk material

52. See 21-across

55. Suffix for a Revolutionary

Step 2 Conference Call

The following six words and phrases are anagrammed names of SCIAC member schools — but with an extra letter added. Unscramble the schools, find the si x extra letters, and rearrange them to unlock location #2

CONCILIATED

LAUNCH TRAVEL

SALAD NERD

RAVEN ELK

TRIES WITH RANCH MAP

Step 4

Orthographic Wasp

Find as many words of four or more letters as you can using the letter in the center and any others from the periphery. Location #5 is the pangram (a word spelled with at least one of every letter). This has nothing to do with any intellectual property that may or may not be owned by The New York Times Company! ;)

R I N A C G E

Step 6

Solve

the Puzzle

War-era George

56. Figure skater Lipinski 57. Like a chimney sweep after a job

58. Hoppy beer offerings

59. Thick soup noodle 60. Risky way to watch a horror movie

61. Digs for eggs?

62. They’re designed for stages

63. “Gee whiz!”

64. Nautical refuges

DOWN

1. Nuclear decay rate

2. It does not exist, in a “Mean Girls” quote

3. IRS filing periods

4. Tire-filling unit (abbr.)

5. Candle-blowing thought

6. Arthur of tennis recognition

7. Org. founded by Ida B. Wells and W. E. B. Du Bois

8. Gracias, in German

9. Person in a trailer (in two senses)

10. UC San Diego athletes

11. “___ Mountain High Enough” (Marvin Gaye tune)

12. Conspiracy theorist’s accessory

13. Evaluate

21. Tech journalism site

22. “Back in the ___” (Beatles tune)

Step 3

24. Texts on AOL, once upon a time

27. Piece of a bed frame

28. Talk show host Meyers

31. Shirt with a letter shape

32. You might pin one on a donkey

33. Italian volcano

36. Wrap-around shades brand with a snakey name

37. “Will this answer be worth it?”

38. They do well on Mother’s Day

39. LeBron James and John Legend, by birth

40. They blow air

41. Little demons

42. Celestial Seasonings Sleepytime, e.g.

43. Facebook post, once upon a time

44. Where to play pinball or Pac-Man

45. Orange kind of cake

48. Medium for James Baldwin or Joan Didion

49. Bacteria that might infect food

50. One-masted sailboat

53. Digital mag with a Norwegian name

54. Feature of people and potatoes

58. Pig ___ blanket

Where’s My Backpack?

You are a Camp Sec dispatcher and four hapless first-years have all lost their backpacks! Luckily, four bags have turned up around the 5Cs, at Linde, Bixby, Jaqua and Adams — each with a unique color and kind of homework inside. Use the clues to figure out where Jenna’s ( location #3 ) and Jordan’s ( location #4 ) backpacks are.

• Jenna’s backpack is orange and contains physics homework.

• Sydney’s backpack is green.

• Jordan, whose backpack is lavender, has never been to Linde or Bixby.

• Carter’s backpack contains English homework.

• The backpack at Jaqua contains CS homework.

• The backpack at Bixby contains music homework.

• The backpack at Adams is blue.

Step 5 Put It All Together

First, fill in the grid below with the letters you matched to numbers in step 5. (As a head start, some are already filled in for you.)

Then, detach the bottom portion and cut across horizontally so each row is its own strip of paper. Tape each paper into a circle. Check it out — you’ve constructed your very own decoder ring!

Put the circles together and rotate the top row three spaces to the left (such that W = X). Now you’re all ready to decode the meta solution. Way to go!

Why did the first-year say she couldn’t QVRVTY YDN MBUTTVMT YZCDXZNP? “VS’T JNDDP SZ CD!”

Lights, camera, aces: NCAA docuseries highlights

Athena tennis’ 5-4 Sixth Street victory over Sagehens

BEN LAUREN & HAROLD FUSON

This weekend, there was an added element to the Sixth Street clash. As part of a docuseries titled “The Rivalries,” focusing on the lesser-known rivalries of collegiate athletics, P-P and CMS welcomed a film crew from the NCAA and LG to follow the journey to their matchup.

This year, for the ClaremontMudd-Scripps (CMS) and Pomona-Pitzer (P-P) women’s tennis teams, the rivalry is as heated as ever. Nationally ranked No. 2 and No. 3, respectively, the Athenas and Sagehens put on a show in their dual match Saturday afternoon at P-P’s Pauley Tennis Complex, but it was the Athenas who prevailed 5-4 in the weekend nailbiter.

The show’s executive producer, Shane Bissett, was enamored with the uniqueness of the relationship between the two teams.

“In our research we discovered the Sixth Street rivalry,” Bissett said. “I don’t know if there’s anything else quite like it in … NCAA sports … [covering] it just felt like a no-brainer.”

Cameras were seen all throughout campus as they followed the student-athletes through practice, classes and ultimately the long-anticipated match on Saturday. Bissett explained he was hoping to highlight the players’ impressive academic skills in addition to their athletic prowess.

“Y’all are really smart,” Bissett said. “Seeing all of these super bright, hardworking young people made me feel really good about the future of humanity.”

As a student at Harvey Mudd College, Alisha Chulani HM ’25 was a particular focus of this effort by Bissett. Chulani was filmed doing everything from robotics to getting lunch with her brother, Neil Chulani PO ’26, who plays for the P-P men’s tennis team. Overall, she found the filming experience a bit strange.

“It’s kind of a weird experience,” Chulani said. “They came to a lot of our practices; they came to my classes … It was really funny to have them in my class because they’d be filming my experiments, and my team members in the class were all kind of confused.”

Much of the documentary’s focus on the Sagehen side was on

one of their top players, Angie Zhou PO ’25. For Zhou, although the initial presence of the cameras was somewhat disconcerting, she felt the team quickly settled in.

“For a lot of people the documentary … [was] kind of a distraction, but it’s also a unique experience that we’ve never done before,” Zhou said. “I just felt like you couldn’t be yourself at the beginning, but after a while, I think especially during the competition, it was easier to forget about the documentary and focus on playing.”

If the production team was looking for drama on the courts, they certainly got it. Right out of the gate, the two teams found themselves in three very different doubles matches.

On Court 1 it was all CMS from start to finish with the team of Chulani and Nikolina Batoshvili CM ’24 running their opponents off the court in under an hour with a dominant 8-1 victory. They defeated the Sagehen duo of Marissa Markey PZ ’25 and Angie Zhou PO ’25, who were previously undefeated as a pair in conference play. Meanwhile, Court 3 saw a neck and neck shootout that ultimately

saw Lindsay Eisenman CM ’26 and Ella Brissett CM ’25 break away to claim the win for 8-5, putting the Athenas up 2-0. For much of the match on Court 2 it appeared as if the P-P tandem of Nina Ye PO ’24 and Alex Coleman PO ’24 would mirror CMS’ rout on Court 1, but the Athenas would not make it easy for them. Needing to win just one game to take the match, the Sagehens dropped several games in a row to Katherine Wurster CM ’26 and captain Sena Selby CM ’24, who pushed it into a tiebreak. Nevertheless, the Hens persevered and cleanly won the tiebreak to bring the dual match’s score to 2-1.

The competitiveness of doubles play only continued into singles. The most commanding victory saw P-P’s top singles player, Zhou, return to Court 1 and achieve a measure of revenge against Chulani. After suffering doubles decimation just minutes prior, Zhou returned to the court to take down Chulani, one of CMS’s top players, in straight sets.

Zhou explained how Markey helped set her up for success in singles against such a tough

opponent.

“After the match [Markey and I] were briefly able to talk about … what we can improve on, but we never really made it a place of negativity, which allowed me to [stay] positive going to singles,” Zhou said. “Knowing how important every singles match was [after] going down 1-2, I think we were all able to … focus on our current matches, which was really helpful for me.”

The Zhou and Chulani matchup was the only singles meeting to not feature either a tiebreak or go into a third set, highlighting an incredibly evenfought battle between the two squads that saw Sixth Street splitting singles 3-3. Athenas’ captain Audrey Yoon CM ’24 took the clinching victory for CMS, defeating Georgia Ryan PO ’23 7-6, 6-4. As a result, the Athenas narrowly won the dual match 5-4, taking the SCIAC regular season title in the process.

With all of the singles matches occurring simultaneously, the production process proved to be an interesting challenge for Bissett. He explained his approach to filming everything with just three cameras.

“I was literally walking around all the courts just trying to track what was going on,” Bissett said. “[We’re] doing our best to try to follow things as they’re happening in real time. There was a point when Audrey was about to [clinch the dual match] where all three cameras went to that court … So we had to sacrifice some of the middle game for those matches … That was the big fun puzzle for me to solve.”

In many ways the documentary process highlighted everything the players love about the rivalry. For Chulani, having an elite competitor right across the street provides constant motivation throughout the season.

“Having such a good team next door just pushes us to be better because we know that every time we have to play them, it’s gonna be a tough battle. It just makes us train harder, makes us work harder and makes us compete better. And I think it’s good preparation for both of us in the postseason,” Chulani said. Yoon shared a similar sentiment, speaking on the intensity and drive that the rivalry provides.

“[The rivalry] adds a sense of intensity to our practices and our matches, because we know [P-P] is just across the street practicing and playing matches, just like us,” Yoon said.

Despite their fierce rivalry on the court, Yoon maintains that seeing her competitors in the classroom is no different from seeing any other classmates.

“When people show up to watch us, they only see the competitive side of the rivalry,” Yoon said. “Off the court we’ll still see our opponents … we’re still friendly, we’ll still say hi. We’re all still students at the five colleges, so that’s always important to remember.”

The Sixth Street episode of “The Rivals,” which Bissett revealed is already in post-production, is set to release in mid-May on the NCAA Championship channel on LG TVs and on YouTube a week later.

Meanwhile, both teams will be competing in the SCIAC playoff semifinals this weekend. Both teams will be competing at home at 2:00 p.m. on Saturday, with CMS facing Chapman and P-P going against Redlands. If both teams win, there will be a Sixth Street final on Sunday.

Stags soccer looks to make a comeback following their suspension

SENA SELBY

With a new head coach on their staff, the Claremont-MuddScripps (CMS) men’s soccer team is shooting for a fresh start. Currently in their non-traditional season, having won their lone game in the spring against Azusa Pacific University 4-0 on April 15, the Stags are rebuilding their team culture and looking to the fall.

Last fall, the latter half of the mens’ soccer team’s season was canceled due to a hazing incident that occurred on Oct. 1, 2022. The Stags, who went all the way to the SCIAC finals the previous year, did not compete in their final five games, including the Sixth Street Rivalry match-up against Pomona-Pitzer.

Following the incident, Dianna Graves, Claremont McKenna College’s associate vice president and dean of students, stated, “the team is grappling with that loss, has taken accountability and will be working with CMS Athletics to restore and amplify the values of the program.”

Following the departure of head coach Trevor Swartz this offseason, CMS athletics announced on March 23 that Edward Cartee, a former assistant coach at Trinity University, is taking on the role in 2023.

The addition of Cartee presents an opportunity for the soccer team to further work to restore their team culture and move past the failures of the fall season. According to team member Walsh Kern CM ’25, Cartee is working to ensure that the team improves on the soccer field but also improves their relationship and bonds with each other off of it.

“[Cartee] is very detailoriented and you can tell that he really knows what he’s doing,” Kern said. “He’s been helping us get back on track both in terms of our actual soccer but also organizationally as a culture. We’d been playing without a coach for months, so it’s been really refreshing to actually get someone in who’s gearing us towards next fall and actually [becoming] better soccer players.”

Jake Allmon CM ’24 said that out of the four head coaches he has had during his time at CMS, Cartee has made the quickest

impact on himself and on the team.

“[Cartee] already has a ton of respect from the team mainly because he runs practices really efficiently,” Allmon said. “He’s very well-organized and also a really good communicator. He already let us know about our fall schedule — I think we have three 6:15 a.m. practices a week during the season, which is pretty crazy, but I think it’s good because it’s clear he’s trying to get us to be disciplined and focused on the greater goal, which is winning SCIACs and making it to NCAAs.”

As part of fostering a closer and healthier team environment, Cartee has continued the Stags’ involvement with the Team IMPACT program. Team IMPACT matches children with serious illnesses and disabilities with college sports teams, instilling motivation and support within these children. Through the program, the team has formed a relationship with a young boy named

Matthew. According to John Laidlaw CM ’26, on April 20, the team went to Matthew’s soccer game in Ontario where they were able to cheer him and his teammates on.

“It was a really fun experience for us, and it was probably really encouraging [for Matthew] to see so many people watching him so intently,” Laidlaw said. “Our time off the field has given us an opportunity to do more events like that and really become involved in [Matthew’s] life, which has really brought us closer as a whole team. I think it’s also made us step back and realize what’s really important in life and how much the little things that we do outside the field … can have such a positive impact on others.”

Although his first season was not the one he was expecting, Laidlaw is still grateful for the relationships he has made on the team. He is hopeful that under Cartee’s guidance, the team can bounce back and perform well next fall.

“I think that the best thing that came out of the fall and after what happened was being able to connect with my teammates,” said Laidlaw.

“They’ve really helped me in multiple ways, especially off the field, and I think that our new coach has also helped me a lot as well. Cartee’s main goal is not only to have a successful soccer program, but also to have molded 30 people each year to be respected individuals who go out in the world and make any environment that they’re put in better.”

As the team is set on returning to powerhouse status in the SCIAC, Kern said that they are treating this nontraditional training season as a way to prepare mentally and physically for the fall.

“Our actions hurt not only everyone in the soccer program, but also everyone in the whole CMS athletic program, so our focus [from now on] is to right that wrong as much as we can,” Kern said. “We’ve been super

positive and fully committed to rebuilding the team culture from the bottom up, all the way down to how we warm up, how we practice and how we interact as a team on the field. We’re kind of treating this season as part of the preseason for next year.”

As a senior, Allmond is looking forward to being a leader on the team. Reflecting on his team’s actions last season, he said that a large part of moving forward is owning up to their actions.

“I think it’s obvious that we made a mistake,” Allmon said. “We were honestly unaware of what we were really doing and we kind of justified it under the guise of having fun and carrying on a tradition that all of us had participated in. But in reality, [what we were doing] really wasn’t okay and we know that [hazing] is a serious issue. As much as [the cancellation of the season] was a really difficult thing to have happened to [us], we just have to deal with the ramifications of it and [we] will do better next year.”

Audrey Yoon CM ‘24 returns a shot during her clinching 7-6, 6-4 singles victory over Georgia ryan pO ’23 to give the Athenas the 5-4 dual match win over the Sagehens.

COUrTESY: CMS ATHlETiCS

COUrTESY: CMS ATHlETiCS

Following their suspension in 2022, with a new coach in tow, Stags soccer is hoping to rebuild their culture and push for a SCiAC title in 2023.

Roasts, toasts and a celebration of Stags and Athenas athletics at the annual CMSPYs

BEN LAUREN & ANSLEY WASHBURN

Adorned with Cardinal and Gold, Roberts Pavilion almost out-dressed the Stags and Athenas that gussied up for the annual CMSPYs (a parody of the ESPYs) hosted last Thursday night.

Each spring, the ClaremontMudd-Scripps (CMS) Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC) puts together an awards dinner to celebrate their athletes and programs. The event is light-hearted and, in addition to awards, includes trivia games, roasts and lots of laughs.

Baseball team member and emcee of the event Paul Roche CM ’23 said he took the position after friends on the SAAC board asked him to step up. Roche said he went into the night with the goal of keeping it enjoyable and amusing.

“It’s the end of the year; we wanted to have a good time and highlight some good moments,” Roche said. “I just wanted to have fun, maybe have some people laugh and try not to cross too many lines.”

Awards such as Best Moment, given to Stags basketball for their victory over No. 2 ranked Mary Hardin-Baylor, and Breakthrough Athlete of the Year, won by basketball’s James Frye CM ’26, highlighted the event. Athletes from each class were additionally honored with Cate Lewison HM ’26 claiming Freshman of the Year. Lewison, a two-sport athlete for CMS in soccer and lacrosse, took home the SCIAC’s Newcomer of the Year award in the fall for Athena’s soccer. Now in the spring, Lewison is currently

the lacrosse team’s leading goal scorer. Still, Lewison made sure to credit the people around her as the ones who helped her reach such high heights early on.

“I’m super grateful for all my teammates and coaches and I know my teammates who are SAAC reps put a lot into this event, so I was just honored that they wanted to nominate me and recognize me to represent our team”

Despite earning a collection of hardware just one year into her career at CMS, Lewison

believes the focus should be on the team as a whole.

“I don’t like to think about it.

I don’t think it means anything. As long as my teams and our programs continue to be successful, that’s what matters in the long run and this year I’ve been able to support that”

The first and only speech of the night from a recipient was given by assistant Athenas soccer coach Mikey O’Connor. After just one year on staff, O’Connor was honored as Behind the Scenes MVP (Coach) of the Year. In his speech,

Sagehens’ women’s golf on par to bring home a national title

AWARDS

Breakthrough Athlete of the Year: James Frye CM ’26 (Stags Basketball)

Comeback Athlete of the Year:

Jake Tracey CM ’24 (Stags Baseball)

Freshman of the Year: Cate Lewison HM ’26 (Athenas Soccer & Lacrosse)

Sophomore of the Year: Justin Edwards CM ’25 (Stags Football)

Junior of the Year: Jenna Holmes CM ’24 (Athenas Volleyball)

Senior of the Year:

Josh Angle CM ’23 (Stags Basketball)

Best Moment: Stags Basketball beating No. 2

Ranked Mary Hardin-Baylor

AUDREY SAWYER

The Pomona-Pitzer (P-P) women’s golf team are SCIAC Champions and currently ranked sixth in Division III. They consistently compete against other top 25 ranked teams and are set apart from their competition with one unique feature — there are no seniors on the roster.

For many teams, the absence of a senior class might hinder their success, but the Sagehens’ women’s golf team seems to be an exception. Captain Katelyn Vo PO ’24 said it has opened up leadership opportunities for underclassmen that would have otherwise not existed.

“We have three captains this year, two juniors and a sophomore, which is really unique for this program,” Vo said. “Having so many people in leadership roles promotes a positive environment for everyone because everyone realizes that they have the opportunity to have a leadership role early in their collegiate careers.”

One of these leaders, captain Claire Whisenant PO ’24, said that even though captains play a large role in the team’s success, she attributes a lot of it to a sense of individual responsibility that she feels is present on the team.

“Even though by title we’re captains, a lot of [what makes us successful] is self-accountability of being at practice and holding yourself accountable to the standards that you need to hold

yourself to in order for our team to be successful,” Whisenant said.

Vo said that the Sagehens aim to promote healthy competition, while also creating a fun, welcoming environment. As a small team lacking senior leadership, Vo said that the captains have placed a lot of emphasis on strengthening personal relationships and creating a positive environment for everyone. According to her, one way the team has worked to create this environment is by supporting the freshmen on the team throughout their transition into college.

“All year we’ve been trying to acclimate the freshmen into this new setting. When there’s three new freshmen on a team of eight, nearly half of the team is new,” Vo said. “We wanted to ensure that everyone felt at home here at Pomona [College] and Pitzer [College].”

First-year Jessica Mason PO ’26, who has won three straight individual titles and helped lead the team to a third-place finish at SCIAC No. 1, attributes some of her success to the support she has received from her fellow teammates. Mason said that the team chemistry and love they have for each other translates to their performance on the course.

“As a first-year, the team has been super welcoming and they have supported me through school, missing my parents and

competitions,” Mason said. This week, the Sagehens defended their position as SCIAC Champions, coming back from 10 strokes down on the final day. They defeated previously No. 1 ranked Redlands and No. 8 ranked Claremont-MuddScripps (CMS) to earn their automatic bid to the NCAA DIII Championship. As the team nears the end of the season, Mason said she is hopeful for the future. Whisenant, who was part of the 2022 team that won SCIAC and made it to nationals for the first time in program history, said that the team has put themselves in a good position to win it all.

“Last year we had a really successful season where we won SCIAC and placed at nationals,” Whisenant said. “We have a lot of momentum from that and seeing us be so successful last season has built our confidence that we’re a really capable team and we can have big goals.”

With a positive attitude and big goals for the team, Mason said that she knows the team is capable of big things and she is looking forward to seeing what the team will do during the remainder of the season.

“When we come together as a group and all play really well, we’re capable of being the best … I know we can win nationals if we all play well,” Mason said.

O’Connor praised CMS for its close-knit community.

“I want to appreciate everybody here; you guys have been awesome,” he said. “CMS is a big family — from anybody on the coaching staff to all the players and athletes.”

O’Connor ended his speech by giving a shout-out to his team and left Roberts with a hopeful message for the future.

“Athenas, you guys rock; you guys are the best,” O’Connor said. “2023-2024 we’re gonna have awesome seasons here for all our athletes. I can tell.”

Behind the Scenes MVP (Athlete): Jesse Beyer SC ’23 (Athenas Water Polo)

Behind the Scenes MVP (Coach): Mikey O’Connor (Athenas Soccer)

Coach of the Year: Marvin Sanders (Stags Football)

Team of the Year: Athenas Tennis and Stags Baseball

Stagethena Briefs

BEN LAUREN & ANSLEY WASHBURN

Many decades ago, a weekly column titled “Sagehen Briefs” discussing the various comedic musings of the resident sports editor was a mainstay of TSL’s Sports section. Now for the final issue of the 2022-2023 school year, Sagehen Briefs has returned, but because we love Claremont-Mudd-Scripps (CMS) so much, it has been transformed into a wonderful new 5C monstrosity titled “Stagethena Briefs.” We hope to bring this tradition back to TSL as a regular feature for the future of the Sports section.

What a wonderful year for 5C sports. 10 SCIAC championships between both programs, and likely more to come in May. Special shoutout to CMS men and women’s swim and dive who did not get the recognition they deserved — according to their parents in our very own comment section.

The only minor hiccup was the goldfish-gate incident by the team-that-shall-not-benamed and that also shall-notshow-up to their program’s award ceremony in fear of being held accountable — something CMS does not pride itself on.

This really was the year of cancellations: Who knew the biggest scandals in sports would be about a goldfish and a school bus? Luckily for the Ski and Snowboard Club, they won’t have to worry about it — or anything — at least until the spring of 2024.

Pomona-Pitzer (P-P) football shocked the world — actually just the around 50 fans who only showed up as an excuse to day-drink — and won its first SCIAC title in program history. Despite spending the remainder of Pitzer College’s

endowment to charter a flight to their first ever playoff game, the flood of men in bright blue and orange crop tops next to the Sixth Street trophy on everyone’s Instagram feed couldn’t save the team from falling apart in the fourth quarter. Good thing no one on campus realized their season was still going.

Athenas volleyball followed up their run of SCIAC dominance, claiming their fifth straight conference title. Interestingly, the CMS team looked like a group of Pitzer students in the playoffs, as they had a strong display of environmental sustainability in that their lack of playoff wins meant they didn’t have to take any air travel.

This year was filled with Sixth Street battles for the SCIAC conference title, giving 5C students lots of exciting games and Division III athletes more fans than ever — approximately 5-10. P-P and CMS men’s basketball followed up their intense clash for the regular season title by losing immediately as soon as the lights were on. Reports say the Sagehens’ loss to 8-8 Cal Lutheran had Gregg Popovich yelling at his SCIAC Network stream so loudly you could hear it in Claremont.

Once a Sagehen, always a Sagehen. With the No. 1 seeded Milwaukee Bucks falling apart against the No. 8 Miami Heat in the NBA Playoffs, it appears there’s still a little Claremont left in Bucks head coach Mike Budhenholzer PO ’93. If P-P is looking for another assistant coach, it seems like Bud might be missing his college days.

Overall, the 2022-2023 athletic year has been one of great successes, with even better coverage by yours truly. It has been an honor stealing all of our content from the sole person who runs SCIAC.com.

Until next year, Ben Lauren and Ansley Washburn.

BEllA pETTENGill • THE STUDENT liFE

Members of the p-p women’s golf team hold the trophy after winning their second consecutive SCiAC Championship on April 25th 2023.

COUrTESY: SAGEHEN ATHlETiCS