Campus Events
April 22
Christian Parenti: “Afghanistan, Iraq & Journalism for Social Change”
Christian Parenti led a
workshop designed for students to engage
in small-group discussion and activities on
how to make social change through investigative
journalism. He also gave a presentation
on what is happening on the ground
with the U.S. in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Parenti has authored many articles and
three books: The Freedom: Shadows and
Hallucinations in Occupied Iraq, The Soft
Cage: Surveillance in America from Slavery to
the War on Terror and Lockdown America:
Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis.
April 28
Sheryl Oring: “I Wish to Say”
Members of the Pitzer community
had the opportunity to
express their
political opinions in an election year as
Sheryl Oring, a Brooklyn-based artist and
author, typed verbatim their messages to
American's next president as part of her I
Wish to Say art project. The 2008
I Wish to Say tour includes stops on
university campuses across the country and
Oring will collect and forward all typed
statements to the White House after the
inauguration in January 2009.
April 29
Estela Roman
Curandera (healer) Estela Roman
demonstrated hands-on techniques
based on indigenous knowledge and
healing practices from Mexico.
April 30
David Leland
Pitzer's Adjunct
Assistant Professor of
Psychology David
Leland led a roundtable
discussion on science and social
responsibility at his faculty-in-residence
home in Pitzer Hall.
March 11
Day at the Capital Event:
Pitzer Representatives Lobby for the Cal Grant Program
Associate Director of Financial
Aid Yvonne Gutierrez-
Sandoval '03 and Melissa
Macias '08 traveled to
Sacramento, California, to
participate in the Association of Independent Colleges and
Universities Day at the Capital event. The purpose of the event was
to lobby the state legislature to restore funding for the competitive
Cal Grant program, which is slated to be eliminated in Governor
Arnold Schwarzenegger's proposed state budget and would cause a
$57.4 million decrease in funding. As part of the event, Gutierrez-
Sandoval and Macias also met with Assemblyman Kevin de León ’03
to discuss the proposed elimination.
April 1
Gender Teach In
Pitzer students and faculty members staged a teach-in to increase
dialogue around issues of gender, feminism, diverse masculinities,
intersecting identities, and connections between difference and power.
March 24 - April 4
Gilbert “Magu” Lujan: Inaugural Murray & Vicki Reynold Pepper Visiting Artist and Scholar
Members of the Pitzer
community collaborated
daily with celebrated
Chicano artist Lujan to
design his eco-mobile art project,
Cultural Vehicle. Lujan, who helped define
Chicano Art as the founder of “Los Four,” is
best known for creating works that express
appreciation and joy of the multicultural
experience of the Los Angeles aesthetic.
March 27 - April 5
American Indian Film Festival
The festival featured screenings of
Doughboy, Four Sheets to the Wind, Trudell,
Trespass, The Walk, and Visiting Professor
Victoria Mudd's Academy Award-winning
Broken Rainbow. Traditional Ohlone dancing
was featured between Saturday's films, as well
as speakers Ohlone Tribal Chair Tony Cerda
and Spiritual Adviser Robertjohn Knapp.
March 27
Dolores Huerta
Dolores Huerta, co-founder
of the United Farm
Workers of America, spoke
at Pitzer College as part of
a week-long César Chávez
Celebration at The
Claremont Colleges. The event included student
presentations, a buffet lunch and entertainment.
March 29
Latino Rockabilly Festival
Pitzer College's Latino Rockabilly
Festival was designed to celebrate a
unique Chicano/Latino cultural
expression and was part of a weeklong
César Chávez Celebration at
The Claremont Colleges.
The word “rockabilly” describes a '50s musical genre that fuses rock ‘n’ roll with country (hillbilly) music. Southern singers such as Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Buddy Holly and Jerry Lee Lewis popularized the music. Rockabillies were known for their greased pompadour hairstyles, rolled-up jeans, biker boots, leather jackets, custom rods and tough attitudes. Most were working-class kids who were regarded by the mainstream as outsiders. In the American Southwest, Chicanos and Latinos have embraced rockabilly style and music and have infused it with their own cultural elements.
The event drew a crowd of more than 400 Latinos from the surrounding communities. People of all ages listened to Latino rockabilly bands and admired more than forty custom cars representing car clubs from Los Angeles and the Inland Empire. “The event was a huge success and there is talk among the Latino Student Union, faculty and administrators to make this an annual event. We hope next year's event will be even better,” Associate Professor of Political Studies and Chicano Studies Adrian Pantoja (a Chicano Rockabilly) said.
April 9
“Re-Work”
In conjunction with the exhibition Allan
Kaprow-Art as Life at the Museum of
Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, Pitzer
College Art Galleries recreated Kaprow's
happening Work (1969).
In Kaprow's original Work, a hallway was repeatedly painted and repainted by professional contractors. The action was videotaped and transmitted live to three distinct viewing venues: art house theatres, pornographic theatres and mainstream theatres.
In keeping with Kaprow's collaborative and participatory philosophy involving art and the non-art public, the artist collective Industry of the Ordinary's re-make involved the hiring of two Hollywood-based sex workers for eight hours at their standard rates to repaint Atherton Hall's lobby in colors of their choice. The resulting documentation was distributed to hardware stores and art venues in the Hollywood area.
In honoring Kaprow's original intent to recontextualize an ordinary activity into an art-making gesture by extending the audience beyond traditional outlets, Industry of the Ordinary created a piece that maintains the spirit and humor of Kaprow's original proposal while overlaying its own personality on the performance.
April 12
The Shakedown turns one
Pitzer's student-founded
and student-run
organic eatery,
the Shakedown
Café, celebrated
its one-year anniversary with a barbecue,
pool party and a variety of entertainment.
April 17
The Honorable Kimba Wood
The final speaker for this
year's Dining with
Democracy lecture series
was the Honorable Kimba
Wood, a U.S. District Judge
for the Southern District of
New York since 1988.
April 18
Transformation in Native American Art
This half-day symposium on issues
in Native American contemporary
art featured conversations with
scholars and artists in the field.
April 21 - 25
Earth Week at Pitzer
Low Carbon Diet Day: On April 22 all Bon Appétit
Management Company cafés, including
Pitzer's McConnell Dining Hall,
were transformed during lunch to
illustrate the ways one can reduce climate
change through food choices.
Each station highlighted a principle of
the low carbon diet in addition to a
low carbon food choice. Bon Appétit’s
Low Carbon Diet program is the first
national program to highlight the significant
connections between food and
climate change.
Earth Day Celebration: Pitzer community members joined together on April 25 to clear trails in the Outback and garden. A discussion was led at the outdoor classroom that addressed what food means in society, how to eat healthy and why organic gardening is important. Reggae band Full Wattz played outside the Grove House as attendees learned about Pitzer’s gardens and how to get involved. Throughout the day community members decorated reusable tote bags and obtained fresh produce from the fruit and vegetable stand.
April 23 - 25
“Made in L.A.”
Following a screening of the documentary
Made in L.A., a Q&A with the director
Almudena Carracedo as well as workers
in the film was held. Pitzer students also
participated in a panel presentation titled
“Women Behind the Label: Los Angeles
Workers' Experiences.” Miriam Ching Yoon Louie, author of
Sweatshop Warriors: Immigrant Women Workers Take on the
Global Factory, and Associate Professor of Gender & Feminist
Studies and Chicana Studies Maria Soldatenko led another
panel discussion on Latinas and Asians in sweatshops.
April 29
Njabulo S. Ndebel: “The Transformation of the University in Post-Apartheid South Africa
and the Challenges of an African University”
The Annual Glass Humanities
Lecture honors the contributions
of Pitzer College's John
A. McCarthy Professor of
Classics Stephen Glass and
Dr. Sandy Glass to The
Claremont Colleges community,
and annually
showcases a leading
international figure in the humanities.
This year's speaker was Professor Njabulo Ndebele who has been vicechancellor of the University of Cape Town since July 2000. Ndebele is the author of Fools and Other Stories, which won the Noma Award for best book published in Africa in 1983, The Cry of Winnie Mandela, Bonolo and the Peach Tree, and South African Literature and Culture: Rediscovery of the Ordinary.
April
Asian Pacific American Heritage Month
In 1990, the month of May was designated
as APA Heritage Month to commemorate
the immigration of the first
Japanese to the U.S. on May 7, 1843,
and to mark the anniversary of the
completion of the transcontinental
railroad by Chinese laborers in May
1869. Based on the academic calendar
of The Claremont Colleges, APA
Heritage Month is celebrated in the
month of April.
The month's highlights included a trip to L.A.'s Little Tokyo on April 5 to enjoy the Cherry Blossom Festival; a performance on April 16 by Cold Tofu, an Asian American comedy improv and sketch group; and workshops focused on organizing communities as well as politics and strategies for effective coalition building.
May 2
March for Peace and Justice
Members of the Claremont
community united to
demand an end to war
and oppression. May 2
marked the five-year
anniversary of President
Bush's declaration of an
“End to Major Combat
Operations” on the deck of
the USS Abraham Lincoln.
The march was also conducted in solidarity
with May 1 actions around the world for
International Worker's Day. Participants congregated
at Pitzer College and marched a route
through the town of Claremont and The Claremont Colleges,
culminating at the Mounds with live music and speakers.
May 13
Student Exchange Program with Lingnan University
President Laura Skandera Trombley and
President Yuk-Shee Chan signed a memorandum
of understanding to create a student exchange program between Pitzer College and
Lingnan University in Hong Kong that will begin in the
2008-09 academic year.
Spring 2008
Pitzer's Residential Life Project Celebration & Dedication Event Wins National Award
The judges for the national Council of Advancement
and Support of Education (CASE) Circle of Excellence
Awards have selected Pitzer's Residential Life Project
Celebration & Dedication Event and its accompanying
materials to receive a silver medal in the Individual
Special Events category. The “green” event, which was
held on September 24, showcased the opening of
Pitzer's three new sustainable residence halls.