Press Releases

Press Releases | Spotlights

Incarceration to Reintegration: Kenneth Butler ’22 Helps Pilot Program in Uganda 

Kenneth Butler stands in front of a class while reading from a paper in his hand. Butler wears a black polo shirt with the yellow logo for PEP-Uganda on the upper left corner. To his right is a black banner for the Reintegration Academy with the statement “Education is liberation, a commitment to commitment, change agents making change, forgiveness & healing, restorative justice, inspire empower.”When Kenneth Butler ’22 was released in 2021 after 15 years of incarceration, he was on his way to a bachelor’s degree from Pitzer College. However, he didn’t yet know how to rebuild his place in the community and start his career.  Butler turned to the Reintegration Academy, an eight-week program that teaches formerly incarcerated individuals about life skills, career development, and vocational education. Now, Butler is helping expand the academy in Uganda as part of his Fulbright.
November 8, 2023
Press Releases

Pitzer College Welcomes New Faculty in the Humanities and Sciences  

Andrea Acosta has dark wavy hair with blond tips pulled up in a bun. Acosta wears gold dangling earrings and a black dress with colorful intricate patterns in gold, red, white, and blue.Five new tenure-track faculty have joined the Pitzer community of scholars with the start of the academic year. Their fields include anthropology, media studies, economics, English and world literature, and environmental analysis, and each brings expertise in research and scholarship that reflects their engagement with contemporary issues. In addition, several current professors also received promotions this fall.
November 3, 2023
Press Releases

Pitzer Professor Expands Mental Healthcare Globally With Friendship Bench Zimbabwe

Marcus Rodriguez on the far right sits on a wood bench with a sign for Friendship Bench on the back rest. A Friendship Bench worker sits on the opposite side of the bench and other workers gather behind the bench.“Why I train grandmothers to treat depression”: This 2018 TED talk by Dixon Chibanda about Friendship Bench Zimbabwe planted a seed that Associate Professor of Psychology Marcus Rodriguez has brought to fruition in a new cross-cultural partnership. Chibanda founded Friendship Bench Zimbabwe to bridge the country’s mental health treatment gap through community-based psychological intervention. Rodriguez [Read More...]
October 24, 2023
Press Releases

Strom C. Thacker Inaugurated as Pitzer College’s Seventh President

CLAREMONT Calif. — October 20, 2023 — Strom C. Thacker was inaugurated as Pitzer College’s seventh president Friday in a ceremony that highlighted his Claremont roots and his vision of Pitzer as a steadfast model for other institutions of higher education. Students, faculty, staff, alumni, trustees, college and university delegates, and other guests gathered on [Read More...]
October 20, 2023
Press Releases

Pitzer College Among Top Schools in Rankings

Claremont, Calif. (September 18, 2023)—Pitzer College again appears in the rankings released today by U.S. News & World Report. In the category of Best National Liberal Arts Colleges, U.S. News ranks Pitzer at No. 39 among 204 colleges in a tie with Denison University, Kenyon College, Spelman College, and others. U.S. News also ranks Pitzer [Read More...]
September 18, 2023
Press Releases | Sagehen Athletics

Sagehen Athletics Leads in Academic Rankings Across Divisions

The women's lacrosse team embrace each other and cheer victoriously on the field. They wear blue Sagehens uniforms with white and orange accent colors.Claremont, Calif. (September 18, 2023)—For Pomona-Pitzer student-athletes, what happens in the classroom is just as important as what happens on the court, field, pool, or track. According to recent results from several nationwide collegiate athletic organizations, our swimming and diving teams led all divisions with women earning the highest GPA and men the second-highest GPA—outperforming Division I teams including Harvard, Stanford, and Yale. Women’s lacrosse also dominated all divisions with the top GPA. Men’s track & field ranked with the second-highest GPA in Division III, while women’s track & field earned fourth in Division III. Women’s softball came in third for Division III.
September 18, 2023
Press Releases | Spotlights

After Two NSF Fellowships, Teo Cooper ’24 Seeks to Balance People and Nature 

Teo Cooper takes a selfie in a laboratory. Cooper wears a white lab coat and has short curly dark hair. Behind Cooper are tables and shelves with tubes, bottles, and equipment.Pitzer senior Teo Cooper ’24 has completed not just one but two fellowships funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF). In summer 2022, they worked in a UC Berkeley biogeochemical lab and studied soil carbon sequestration. This summer, they joined The Leadership Alliance and Harvard University’s Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology. In this spotlight, Cooper also recalls the racial justice series that brought them to Pitzer and looks ahead to studying abroad in Southern Africa. 
September 11, 2023
Press Releases

Julia Haft-Candell’s “The Yet To Be” Explores the Infinite at Pitzer College Art Galleries

Julia Haft-Candell, ceramic sculpture and details, 2023. Image courtesy of the artist and Night Gallery, Los Angeles. (Photo: Nik Massey) Artist Julia Haft-Candell’s mixed-media work reflects her concept of The Infinite—a philosophy of rethinking and creating new systems. Haft-Candell will further this exploration with related exhibitions, “The Yet To Be,” opening this fall at Pitzer [Read More...]
September 8, 2023
Press Releases

Joel Harper ’95 and Marcia J. Withers ’74 Honor Musician Bill Withers and Grandmas Everywhere

Joel Harper holds up the book Grandma’s Hands with one hand and points to the cover with the other hand. The front cover features an illustration of a little boy with his grandmother’s arms embracing him. Harper has short dark hair and wears sunglasses and a long-sleeved blue shirt.In 1971, Grammy-winning musician Bill Withers wrote the song "Grandma’s Hands" in honor of his maternal grandmother. The heartwarming musical tribute reached No. 18 on the Best-Selling Soul Singles chart and No. 42 on the Billboard Hot 100. Fifty years later, two Pitzer alumni have helped adapt it into a children’s book. Joel Harper ’95 and his company, Freedom Three Publishing, collaborated with the late Bill Withers’ wife, Marcia J. Withers ’74, and illustrator R. Gregory Christie to bring the song alive in a picture book of the same name.
August 31, 2023