Alumni

Press Releases

Alumni With Passions for Health and Educational Equity Named 2024 Alumni Award Recipients

Susan Warren and Cesar Vargas NunezPitzer College announces the selection of Susan Warren ’78 P’01 as the 2024 Distinguished Alumni Award recipient and Cesar Vargas Nuñez ’14 as the 2024 Young Alumni Achievement Award recipient.   Warren and Vargas Nuñez will be honored during a special awards reception held later this month during Pitzer’s Alumni Weekend 2024, April 26–28. Each year, the College honors [Read More...]
April 3, 2024
Press Releases

Irvine Foundation Presents Leadership Award to Michele Siqueiros ’95 for Her Educational Access Advocacy

Michele Siqueiros ’95 has been selected as a recipient of a 2024 James Irvine Foundation Leadership Award. The award recognizes leaders in California whose innovative solutions to critical state challenges are improving lives and creating opportunities throughout the state. Siqueiros serves as the president of The Campaign for College Opportunity, a nonprofit policy advocacy and [Read More...]
March 5, 2024
Spotlights

Hayley Blain-Weinstein ’91 Makes Game Show Dreams Come True 

Hayley Blain-Weinstein ’91 wears a headset and takes a selfie in front of the studio audience at The Price is Right.From Love Connection to Extreme Makeover to My Feet Are Killing Me, Hayley Blain-Weinstein ’91 has met many kinds of people in her reality television casting career. Who would live on a remote island or race around the world for a cash prize? Who has a rare illness in need of treatment? Who would look for love in front of millions of viewers? Blain-Weinstein’s job has been to find people who fit those bills. 
February 20, 2024
Spotlights

Beihua Guo ’21 Unearths L.A. Aqueduct’s Dark History Through Photography

Black and white photo of Beihua Guo standing beside a camera on a tripod on a lakeside with mountains in the background.Photographer and Pitzer alum Beihua Guo ’21 has received $5,000 as a finalist for The Aftermath Project’s 1492/1619 American Aftermaths grant. Guo’s project, “Water Is Thicker Than Blood,” illustrates the ignored and forgotten history of the Los Angeles Aqueduct and the California water wars. According to its website, The Aftermath Project is a nonprofit that supports photographers “to [Read More...]
February 16, 2024
Press Releases | Spotlights

Arts Council Fellow Micah Huang ’13 to Continue His Sonic Exploration of Injustice at Los Angeles Festival 

Micah Huang has long black hair in a braid and wraps red tulle fabric around his shoulders while looking intensely at the camera. Huang is wearing a black shirt and jeans and stands against a dark gray background.Micah Huang’s ’13 work as a composer, musician, and sound artist exposes social injustices as well as explores music’s ability to heal and transform.  As a Fulbright fellow, Huang visited Hungary to work alongside the marginalized Roma people to amplify and help preserve their musical traditions. Two of his recent pieces, Blood on Gold Mountain, [Read More...]
December 13, 2023
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

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
Press Releases | Spotlights

Crystal Rodriguez ’23: Artist, Community Advocate, and New Resources Student

Claremont, Calif. (July 28, 2023)—Meet Crystal Rodriguez ’23, a New Resources student who graduated as a studio art major and is the new Hecker Community Fellow at Pitzer’s Community Engagement Center (CEC). The CEC utilizes institutional power, partner collaboration, faculty expertise, and student action to advance social justice on campus and in the surrounding community.
July 28, 2023
Press Releases | Sagehen Athletics

From All-Star to Coach: Madison Quan ’22 Makes a Slam Dunk

Madison Quan wears black graduation robe with a purple lei, a gray stole, and an orange and blue stole. Quan holds up the diploma from CGU and tucks a bouquet of red roses in her left arm. Quan has long straight dark brown hair.Claremont, Calif. (July 20, 2023)—Madison Quan ’22 can boast many firsts. She became the first in her family to graduate from college and the first to graduate from grad school. She earned the first SCIAC Player of the Year title in Pomona-Pitzer women’s basketball history. She joined the first SCIAC women’s basketball team to play internationally against pro teams. Quan keeps her love for the sport alive by coaching her former team and designing team culture workshops at the Hive.
July 20, 2023