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2009 Report of Excellence

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College

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Mission Statement

Pitzer College produces engaged, socially responsible citizens of the world through an academically rigorous, interdisciplinary liberal arts education emphasizing social justice, intercultural understanding and environmental sensitivity. The meaningful participation of students, faculty and staff in college governance and academic program design is a Pitzer core value. Our community thrives within the mutually supportive framework of The Claremont Colleges, which provides an unsurpassed breadth of academic, athletic and social opportunities.

Educational Objectives

As a liberal arts college with a strong curriculum in the social and behavioral sciences, Pitzer presents a unique opportunity for self-exploration and for exploration of the world. The College expects students to take active part in planning their course of study, bring a spirit of inquiry and adventure to planning that course of study and to work hard to meet the intellectual goals of a Pitzer education. To guide students and their advisers, the College has six educational objectives.

Breadth of KnowledgeUnderstanding in DepthCritical Thinking, Formal Analysis and Effective ExpressionInterdisciplinary PerspectiveIntercultural UnderstandingConcern with Social Responsibility and the Ethical Implications of Knowledge and Action

Pitzer College Core Values

Academic Excellence Social Responsibility Diverse Community Intercultural Understanding

Founded1963 by Russell K. Pitzer, citrus rancher and philanthropist

PresidentLaura Skandera Trombley

A Member of The Claremont Colleges

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Pitzer’s Study Abroad Program was named an outstanding academic program by the 2010 US News and World Report.

Pitzer was listed as one of the nation’s best colleges by the 2010 Princeton Review.

100% of Pitzer’s tenured/tenure-track faculty hold a PhD or the terminal degree in their field.

Seventy-four percent of Pitzer students study abroad, compared to under 2% nationwide.

Pitzer students donate over 100,000 hours annually to community service.

The Sagehen women’s water polo team are five-time Collegiate III Champions.

Pitzer’s Center for California Cultural and Social Issues was named to the Community Service Honor Roll.

The Sagehen men’s soccer team were 2009 SCIAC Conference Champions.

In this decade, Pitzer College won more Fulbright Fellowships per capita than any other college or university in the US.

In the last 15 years, Pitzer students and alums have won, amongst others:

87 Fulbright Fellowships 9 Gilman International Scholarships 9 McNair Scholarships 8 Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholarships 7 Watson Fellowships 6 Kemper Scholarships 5 Coro Fellowships 5 European Union Center of California Scholarships 5 Public Policy and International Affairs Fellowships 4 American Sociological Foundation Minority Fellowships

Pitzer was named the ninth most selective liberal arts school by the 2010 US News & World Report.

Only 20% of applicants to the Class of 2013 were admitted.

Pitzer was ranked in the top 50 of US liberal arts colleges by the 2010 US News and World Report.

Pitzer was ranked 17th for faculty commitment to teaching among 266 liberal arts colleges nationwide.

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Nearly half of Pitzer students live in Gold LEED-certified residence halls, which won two, and were finalists for two, design awards.

Two additional LEED-certified residence halls will open in the next two years.

Most of Pitzer campus landscaping is native/low-water, and dining hall waste is composted and used to fertilize campus.

The dining hall is trayless, to reduce waste and water consumption.

Pitzer’s Firestone Center for Restoration Ecology in Costa Rica is home to science and research programs for students, faculty and alumni.

The National Wildlife Foundation cited Pitzer as one of the best schools in the country for environmental studies.

The 2010 US News & World Report ranked Pitzer fifth among liberal arts colleges nationwide for

racial diversity.

Pitzer’s Green Bike Program provides students and community members with free loaner bikes and free/low-cost bike repairs.

ZipCars are available on campus for student, faculty and staff use.

Bottled water is not sold on campus, and dining hall beverages are supplied by a local natural foods company.

Pitzer was named a Best College for Asian American Pacific Islander Student Activism.

The John R. Rodman Arboretum is a collection of 13 gardens and areas across the campus, which feature low water and native plants like white sage, coastal sagebrush, white alder and mountain lilac.

As of fall 2009, 46% of Pitzer’s faculty are women and 38% are people of color, making Pitzer the most diverse liberal arts college in the top 50.

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2009 Faculty Publications

Brent Armendinger (English and World Literature)Archipelago. Las Cruces, NM: Noemi Press, 2009.

Nigel Boyle (Political Studies)“The Malleable Politics of Welfare-to-Work Reform: Germany’s ‘Hartz’ Activation Compared with the Dutch, British and Irish Cases,” American Consortium on European Studies Cases Series, 2009. With W. Schunemann.

Stacy Brown (Mathematics)“Reconceiving Fidelity of Implementation: An Investigation of Elementary Whole-Number Lessons,” Journal for Research in Mathematics Education, vol. 40, No. 4 (2009).

Ciara Ennis (Art)“Sick-Amour, Kunstwerken voor de publieke ruimte /Artworks for Public Space” in Karin Christof (ed.), Podium for Architecture Haarlemmermeer, 2009.

Paul Faulstich (Environmental Studies)“Notes on Memetics,” Rock Art Research, vol. 26, No. 1 (2009).

Judith V. Grabiner (Mathematics)“Why Did Lagrange ‘Prove’ the Parallel Postulate?” American Mathematical Monthly, vol. 116, No. 1 (2009).

“Who Gave You the Epsilon? Cauchy and the Origins of Rigorous Calculus,” in M. Anderson, V. Katz and R. Wilson (eds.), Who Gave You the Epsilon? And Other Tales of Mathematical History, Mathematical Association of America, 2009.

Melinda Herrold-Menzies (Environmental Studies)“Boating on the Sea of Grass: Western Development, Ecotourism and Elite Capture in Guizhou, China,” Asian Geographer, vol. 25, No. 1-2 (2009).

“The Post-Collective Village: A Tale of Two Transitions,” World Development, vol. 37, No. 1 (2009).

Tessa Hicks (Center for California Cultural and Social Issues)Afterword. Howard L. Bingham’s Black Panthers, 1968. Los Angeles: Ammo Books, 2009.

Jim Hoste (Mathematics)“Torus Knots Are Fourier-(1, 1, 2) Knots,” Journal of Knot Theory and Its Ramifications, vol. 18, No. 2 (2009).

Alex Juhasz (Media Studies)“MP:Me: Variant of a Manifesta,” in Lucas Hilderbrand with Lynne Sachs, (eds.) Millennium Film Journal, No. 51 (2009).

Barry Sanders (History of Ideas)Green Zone: The Environmental Cost of Militarism. Oakland: AK Press, 2009.

Laura Skandera Trombley (President/English and World Literature)Mark Twain’s Other Woman: The Hidden Story of Mark Twain’s Final Years. New York: Knopf, 2010.

Rudy Volti (Sociology)Society and Technological Change. New York: Worth Publishers, 2009.

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Andre Wakefield (History)The Disordered Police State. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.

Kathleen S. Yep (Asian American Studies)Outside the Paint: When Basketball Ruled at the Chinese Playground. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2009.

Brian Keeley (Philosophy)“The Early History of the Quale and Its Relation to the Senses,” in J. Symons and P. Calvo, (eds.), Routledge Companion to Philosophy of Psychology. London: Routledge, 2009.

Leah Light (Psychology)“Effects of Age and Study Repetition on Plurality Discrimination,” Aging, Neuropsychology and Cognition, vol. 16, No. 4 (2009). With C. Chung.

“Discriminating Semantic from Episodic Relatedness in Young and Older Adults,” Aging, Neuropsychology and Cognition, vol. 16, No. 5 (2009). With M.M. Patterson, J.C. Van Ocker and D. Olfman.

Ronald Macaulay (Linguistics)“Warm Climates and Sonority Classes: Not Simply More Vowels and Fewer Consonants,” Cross-Cultural Research, vol. 43 (2009). With R.L. Munroe and J.G. Fought.

Ntongela Masielela (Creative Studies)“The Historical and Literary Moment of Njabulo S. Ndebele,” English in Africa, vol. 36, No. 1 (2009).

“The Historical Matter of Nontsizi Mgqwetho: Thunderous Woman’s Voice,” South African Labour Bulletin, vol. 32, No. 5 (2009).

Lee Munroe (Anthropology)“Warm Climates and Sonority Classes: Not Simply More Vowels and Fewer Consonants,” Cross-Cultural Research, vol. 43 (2009). With R. Macaulay and J.G. Fought.

Adrian Pantoja (Political Studies, Chicano/a Studies)“Pursuit of Inclusion: Citizenship Acquisition among Asian Immigrants,” in John Mollenkopf and Jennifer Hochschild (eds.), Immigrant Political Incorporation in Europe and the US, Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2009. With J. Wong.

Katie Purvis-Roberts (Chemistry)“Atmospheric Formation of 9,10-Phenanthroquinone in the Los Angeles Air Basin,” Atmospheric Environment, vol. 42 (2008). With A. Eiguren-Fernandez, A.H. Miguel, R. Lu, B. Grant, P. Mayo, E. Di Stefano, A. Cho and J. Froines.

Andre Wakefield (Political Studies)The Disordered Police State: German Cameralism as Science and Practice. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009.

Burke Scott Williams (Chemistry)“Reversible Carbonylation of an [NCN]PtMe Pincer Complex and Direct Evidence of Migratory Deinsertion,” Organometallics, vol. 28 (2009). With M.L. Scheuermann and A.L. Rheingold.

“Reductive Elimination and Dissociative ß-Hydride Abstraction from Pt(IV) Hydroxide and Methoxide Complexes,” Organometallics, vol. 28 (2009). With N.A. Smythe, K.A. Grice and K.I. Goldberg.

“IONiC: A Cyber-Enabled Community of Practice for Improving Inorganic Chemical Education,” Journal of Chemical Education, vol. 86, No. 123 (2009). With E. Benatan, H.J. Eppley, M.J. Geselbracht, A.R. Johnson, B.A. Reisner, J.L. Stewart and L. Watson.

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“JCE VIPEr: An Inorganic Teaching and Learning Community,” Journal of Chemical Education, vol. 86, No. 766. (2009). With E. Benatan, J. Dene, H.J. Eppley, M.J. Geselbracht, E.R. Jamieson, A.R. Johnson, B.A. Reisner, J.L. Stewart and L.A. Watson.

Phil Zuckerman (Sociology)“Why Are Danes and Swedes So Irreligious?” Nordic Journal of Religion and Society, vol. 22, No. 1 (2009).

“Aweism,” Free Inquiry, vol. 29, No. 3 (2009).

Faculty 2009 Awards & Honors

Bill Anthes, art history, received the Project Pericles Civic Engagement Course Development Award. He was awarded a Creative Capital | Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant.

“Wood Shop” by Brent Armendinger, English and world literature, won first prize at the 2009 Chroma International Queer Writing Competition. His chapbook, Undetectable, was a finalist in the 2009 Chapbook Contest.

David Bachman, mathematics, won a three-year National Science Foundation grant.

Alicia Bonaparte, sociology, received the Nicholas R. Doman Fellowship in the Social Sciences.

Stacy Brown, mathematics, won the Best Paper Award from the SIGMAA on Research in Undergraduate Mathematics Education.

José Z. Calderón, sociology, received the 2009 Dreamkeeper Award from the Los Angeles Chapter of the California Alliance of African American Educators.

Ciara Ennis, art/art history, was awarded a curatorial residency by the VIR Viafarini-in-Residence Program. She was also selected to attend the Third Annual European Course for Contemporary Art Curators.

Melinda Herrold-Menzies, environmental studies, was invited to join the Committee on United States-China Relations.

Susan Phillips, anthropology, was awarded a Soros Justice Fellowship.

Laura Skandera Trombley, president/English and world literature, received a Chief Executive Officer Leadership Award from District VII of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education.

Dragon’s Child, by Kathleen Yep, Asian American studies, was named a Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choice for 2009.

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English Teaching Assistantship to MalaysiaJeffrey Bandler ’09

English Teaching Assistantship to PortugalTara Beatty ’08

English Teaching Assistantship to IndonesiaLaura Beck-Pancer ’08

English Teaching Assistantship to MacauAustin Brawner ’09

English Teaching Assistantship to TaiwanOwen Brewer ’09

Research Award to the PhilippinesMagee Clegg ’09

Research Award to NepalRoxanne Cruz de Hoyos ’09

Research Award to IndiaBrian Dolphin ’09

English Teaching Assistantship to IndonesiaMichele Hatchette ’08

English Teaching Assistantship to MalaysiaAlex Kenyon ’09

English Teaching Assistantship to South Korea Joshua Lo ’09

Research Award to ChinaFrancine Mireles ’09

English Teaching Assistantship to SpainJason Morales ’09

English Teaching Assistantship to South Korea Yasuhiro Sekiyama ’09

Barry M. Goldwater ScholarAllen Chen ’09

Bank of America Student Leadership AwardJemima Barrios ’13

Collaboration FellowMarie Claire Burt ’12

Critical Language Enhancement AwardOwen Brewer ’09Francine Mireles ’09

European Union Center of California ScholarsYigit Canay ’09Alexandra Carswell Engle ’09

Gilman ScholarChristopher Young ’11

Japan Exchange and Teaching Program AwardAustin Brawner ’09Owen Brewer ’09

Kemper ScholarChristopher Thomas ’12

Princeton in Asia Teaching FellowOwen Brewer ’09

Robert Day ScholarshipMelanie Gularte ’10

Rotary Ambassadorial ScholarSonya Fierst ’09

Smiley 100 Young Leader of theDecadeKymberli Corprue ’13

Thomas J. Watson FellowshipBrian Dolphin ’09

Other 2008-09 National Award Winners2008-09 Fulbright Fellows

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Notable Pitzer College Alumni

Sekou Andrews ’94, Award-Winning Spoken-Word Poet

Bridget Baker ’82, President, NBC Universal Television Networks Distribution

Amber Carrow ’03, 2010 California Teacher of the Year

Sue Celniker ’75, Co-Director, Drosophila Genome Center, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories

JoAnn Copperud ’73, CEO, RGA Environmental

Todd Eachus ’85, Majority Leader, Pennsylvania House of Representatives

Kevin de Leon ’03, Member, California State Assembly

Susan Feniger ’76, Chef/Owner, The Border Grill, Street, Ciudad Restaurants

Rod Fujita ’78, Director, Ocean Innovations, Environmental Defense Fund

Mary Beth Garber ’68, Named one of the “25 Most Influential Women in Radio”

Stuart Goldstein ’86, Director, Rental Dialysis Unit, Texas Children’s Hospital

Steve Gonzalez ’85, Judge, King County Superior Court

Susan Hollander ’79, Partner, Manatt, Phelps & Phelps

Jessica Hurley ’92, Emmy Award and Gold Mike Award Winner

Jordan Kurland ’94, Owner, Zeitgeist Artist Management; Co-Founder, Noise Pop

John Landgraf ’84, President and General Manager, FX Networks

Hunter Lovins ’72, Time Magazine “Hero of the Planet”

Matt Nathanson ’95, Billboard Hot 100 Singer/Songwriter

Susan Patron ’69, Winner, John Newbury Medal

Yvonne Sanchez ’77, Judge, Los Angeles Superior Court

Tim Schifter ’80, CEO, Schifter + Partners

Deborah Shelton ’78, Winner, National Headliner Award

Emily Stevens ’71, Judge, Los Angeles Superior Court

Debra Yang ’81, First Asian American Woman US Attorney; Los Angeles Police Commissioner

Pitzer Alumni Top Five Careers After Graduation

Broadcasting, Media Productions12%

Education, Teaching, Administration38%

Arts, Entertainment21%

Social Science or Services16%

Government, Politics, Public Policy 13%

Printed on Recycled Paper