Spotlights

Guiding Light: Residence Director Tasmia Moosani Helps High School Students Navigate the College Application Process

In high school, Pitzer College residence director Tasmia Moosani dreamed about going to college but didn’t know how to get there. As a first-gen, low-income Pakistani Muslim student, resources in her home, community my school were minimal. Ultimately, she found her way to college and beyond, graduating from the University of California, Irvine, with a degree in business economics and international studies and earning her master’s degree in student development administration at Seattle University.
November 30, 2021
Spotlights

Alumna Diane Shammas ’75 Honored with the Alex Odeh Memorial Award

Pitzer College alumna Diane Shammas ’75 received the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee’s Alex Odeh Memorial Award on October 9, 2021. The ADC honored Shammas as an activist, scholar, and philanthropist, citing her work in Gaza, her research on the experiences of Arab and Muslim American college students, and her generosity as a donor to a variety of causes.
October 29, 2021
Spotlights

Driving Historic Legislation for Higher Education

Michele Siqueiros has long wavy brown hair and wears a white blazer over a white shirt.On October 6, 2021, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed two bills into law that will make it easier for students to transfer to a four-year university in California. Pitzer College alumna and trustee Michele Siqueiros ’95 was with the governor when he signed the bills at California State University, Northridge. As president of the Campaign for College Opportunity, Siqueiros was part of a coalition that brought the bills to the governor’s desk. The Campaign for College Opportunity, a nonprofit policy advocacy and research organization committed to increasing college access and success, co-sponsored the bills.
October 22, 2021
Spotlights

Senior Gurmukh Singh’s Global Journey to Pitzer

Pitzer College senior Gurmukh Singh ’22 grew up on the move. He lived in India, Romania, and the Philippines, relocating with his family as his parents’ careers required. Repeatedly introduced to new cultures and environments, he had to integrate into new schools and new social circles again and again. Those places and stages shaped his worldview and remarkable adaptability and resourcefulness.
October 15, 2021
Spotlights

Writing to Restore Faith in Government

Alumna Emilie Karrick Surrusco’s journey from studying politics at Pitzer to joining the Biden administration as a speechwriter has taken her from a career that started in Costa Mesa to Capitol Hill.
October 14, 2021
Spotlights

Fighting for True Public Welfare

Gabriela Ornelas '17Pitzer College alumna Gabriela Ornelas ’17, a capital defense investigator for the Habeas Corpus Resource Center, is heading to Columbia Law School this fall as one of only two incoming law students to receive Columbia’s highly selective Public Interest Fellowship.
August 27, 2021
Spotlights

Professor José Z. Calderón Co-authors Paper on Intersectional Solidarity

José Z. CalderónPitzer Professor Emeritus of Sociology and Chicano/a-Latino/a Studies José Z. Calderón recently co-authored an article that explores how movements predominately focused on one issue can coalesce across causes. The article, “Intersectional Organizing and Educational Justice Movements: Strategies for Cross-Movement Solidarities,” appeared in a special spring 2021 issue of The Assembly: A Journal for Public Scholarship on Education, published by the University of Colorado at Boulder’s School of Education.
June 17, 2021
Spotlights

Bird Pairs Practice Mind-Control to Create Dovetailing Duets

Melissa Coleman, Keck ScienceNew research from Professor of Neuroscience Melissa J. Coleman and a team of scientists explores how the brains of plain-tailed wrens keep the duet-singing birds from missing a beat. They may be talking about birds, but their research has evoked analogies to Simon and Garfunkel.
June 7, 2021