Susan Phillips
Academic Director, Pitzer in Ontario Program
Assistant Professor, Environmental Analysis
Holden L145
909.607.1268

Tessa Hicks Peterson
Assistant Vice President of Community Engagement
Assistant Professor, Urban Studies
Avery 106
909.607.3061

Tessa Hicks Peterson is the Assistant Vice President of Community Engagement at Pitzer College and as such acts as the faculty director of the Community Engagement Center as well as an Assistant Professor of Urban Studies. Before arriving to Pitzer five years ago, Tessa worked with communities throughout Southern California on human relations and civil rights issues as Associate Director at the Anti-Defamation League and, prior to that, as the Youth Programs Director at the National Conference for Community and Justice. She has a Masters and PhD in Cultural Studies from Claremont Graduate University and a BA in Psychology, Sociology and Spanish from UC Santa Cruz. She has traveled widely, lived in Brazil and Spain, and has led seminars and trainings nationally and internationally on issues ranging from hate crimes and race relations to empowerment through movement and art. Her scholarship includes the study of social movements, intercultural relations, indigenous studies, border studies, poverty, and community-based pedagogy involving participatory-action research and civic engagement. She currently teaches courses in Social Change and Community-based Research within the Pitzer in Ontario program. Aside from dancing, yoga and hiking, Tessa finds her ultimate peace and joy with her new love, Isaiah James, born in spring of 2011. Tessa and her husband, John, along with baby Isaiah and their old Lab, Chaney, reside in the canyon of Sierra Madre.

Tom Dolan
Executive Director, Inland Congregations United for Change
Adjunct Professor, Ontario Program
Ontario House
909.659.2400

Tom Dolan has worked in community organizing efforts in Latin America and the US for more than 30 years and has been teaching in the Ontario Program since 2008. A professor of community organizing at Pitzer College, Tom has a PhD in Education from Claremont Graduate University and San Diego State University. Tom and his wife Cecilia live in San Bernardino with their four children. During his tenure as an organizer in the Inland Empire, Tom has led efforts to build youth civic engagement, provide opportunities for positive youth development, support job development, improve high school graduation rates, stop predatory towing in the city of San Bernardino, expand health care coverage for families and to engage civic leaders in efforts to address the air pollution caused by the BNSF railway.

Lucy Block
Urban Fellow
Holden K132 / Ontario House
909.607.9402 / 909.283.0833

Lucy Block graduated from Pomona College in 2011 with a B.A. in Environmental Analysis—Human Behavior and the Environment. Her interests in food equity and building healthy communities led her to working with the Asociación de las Madres contra el Paco in Buenos Aires to introduce a rooftop garden into their newly formed drug treatment center and helping run Slow Food NYC’s Neighborhood Farms summer program for Brooklyn youth at the McLeod Community Garden. Working for Pitzer in Ontario, Lucy now hopes to solidify connections between PIO and community partners to build a regional food equity movement in the Inland Empire.  In her free time, Lucy likes playing beach volleyball and cooking unnecessarily elaborate meals.

 

Max Estela
Urban Fellow--Ontario Wheelhouse Coordinator
Holden K132/Ontario House
909.256.9715