All Along Walker Wall: Pomona Wants to Be Original

In this edition of “All Along Walker Wall,” Emilio Bankier turns to Pomona College’s recently launched incomprehensible comprehensive fundraising campaign, “Originals.” 

The Originals Festival on Pomona's Marston Quad.

“Originals: The Campaign for Pomona College” is now public. The college’s most ambitious fundraising campaign ever, “Originals” is ripe with goals, well-choreographed promotional videos, and vague statements about the future of Pomona College. At its core, the campaign says less about Pomona and its future and more about how out-of-touch the college’s leaders are with their own institution, something you can see clearly by asking of their campaign: What’s original about Pomona College?

The “Quality of Mind”

When “original” is used in description, it is either literally, as in, the first of something, or as a pseudo-compliment given when there are no better compliments available. (‘Oh, your banana-carrot-cake recipe is so… original!’) When “original” is used to describe someone, it is almost always in the latter sense.

“Pomona has always been a place for originals,” a spokesperson for the College explained to me in an email. “But the word ‘originals’ is not meant to suggest being different simply for the sake of it. Originals describes a quality of mind that is deeply Pomona: curious, independent, courageous and willing to follow ideas wherever they lead.”

“Pomona students question boldly and test assumptions,” the spokesperson continued. “They cross disciplines, learn from people whose experiences differ from their own and recognize connections and possibilities others might miss. They leave prepared not only to understand the world as it is, but to imagine what it could become.”

One could debate the extent to which Pomona students do all of the above—they may “question boldly and test assumptions,” but never their own beliefs or assumptions—but what’s hardly debatable is that this is not a novel—or original—concept. Indeed, this is what any small liberal arts college (and most other universities) train their students to do. Not much originality here, then.

The Campaign

In an Oct. 1 presentation to the faculty titled “Realizing Pomona’s Strategic Vision through Philanthropy,” Pomona’s vice-president for advancement, Maria Watson, explained how Pomona would require “significant resources beyond its capacity” to fulfill the goals of its Strategic Vision.

What resources? $530 million. That is how much Watson hopes to raise over the course of the campaign, which the College has characterized as “comprehensive.” 

Planning for the campaign began in 2021, before the “quiet phase” launched in 2023. The quiet phase is when “lead gifts,” donations from trustees, and the “top 200 prospects” are solicited, so that the campaign formally launches with a solid base. ($247 million, or 47%, have already been raised.)

In the presentation, Watson explained that the college “evaluated every option” when it was considering how to raise the funds. “We could raise tuition, but that puts an undue burden on our students,” the presentation states. Pomona tuition costs have risen faster than inflation since 2020. “We could cut expenses, but that erodes the student experience,” it continues. No comment.

Instead, Watson believes that through a “recommit[ment] to a culture of philanthropy,” Pomona can raise the $530 million through the “comprehensive campaign.” Before we all recommit, what’s the state of Pomona’s philanthropy culture?

Pomona’s current annual alumni giving rate is 19.4%, well below its peer schools. Raising this number is one of Watson’s goals. By 2031, she hopes to bring it up to 30%, putting Pomona in line with most of its competitors, which currently boast rates of 28.4% (Claremont McKenna) to 31.9% (Carleton). The goal is still lower than Bowdoin’s 36.1% or Williams’s 43.7%.

When I asked Watson in an interview why Pomona had such a low alumni giving rate, she did not give a specific reason, instead pointing to a “nationwide trend” of lower alumni giving over the last two decades. Here, “original” Pomona does appear to lead the way.

What Pomona is focused on now, she told me, is “how to strengthen overall alumni engagement,” which, according to the presentation, includes things like attendance at regional events, volunteering, and “two-way” communication.

The college anticipates that “30% of the total funds raised in this campaign will be from non-affiliated sources (individual donors and institutions),” a spokesperson told me. 

While not a majority, 30% is a rather substantial portion of the campaign. Why, then, should donors with no affiliation to the college donate to Pomona and “Originals” instead of one of the 20-odd Pomona-like small liberal arts colleges in the US, like Swarthmore or Williams or even Claremont McKenna across the street?

After asking Watson why a donor should give to Pomona and not somewhere else, I had to repeat the question before she paused to give the following answer: “Pomona College has been built generation and generation by alumni and donors who have been committed to the deeply special liberal arts education and residential liberal arts education that we continue to offer and are continue [sic] to commit to moving forward. And in this campaign, we will see our community of alumni and families who have so deeply benefited by that experience, giving back to ensure that today's students and faculty and future students and faculty will benefit from the same, if not better, experience.”

So, not much originality there, either.

The Money

The golden rule of journalism—and criminal investigations—is “follow the money.” So where will Pomona’s $530 million end up? 

Much will go to “Global Pomona,” President G. Gabrielle Starr’s longtime passion. Though construction is estimated to cost over $120 million, $50 million of the campaign is designated for Pomona’s 110,000 square-foot Center for Global Engagement, where Starr hopes Pomona students will learn to tackle the world’s most pressing challenges. 

Having seen how Pomona students handled the Israel-Palestine question, it is understandable that considerable capital is being allocated to initiatives like “Global Gateways”—opportunities for professors to take groups of students on three week adventures across the world that count for a full course credit—and “Global Collaborative,” an initiative “designed to address complex problems through hands-on learning and faculty-driven inquiry,” according to a Pomona spokesperson. 

Applying “interdisciplinary approaches, diverse individual perspectives, creative thinking and collaborative curiosity,” Global Collaborative will see Pomona students “examine the most urgent and pervasive challenges of our time—climate change, artificial intelligence, and public health, among others.” I’m not sure what’s more troublesome here: the substanceless hazy language, or the implication that Pomona is only just beginning to teach its students to think about problems in the world.

To better guide students in their new "interdisciplinary approaches,” $15 million will go to new endowed faculty positions in interdisciplinary fields—another Starr passion project, though she prefers the term “transdisciplinary”—with an extra $70 million (roughly a seventh of the campaign) going to nebulous “further investment in academic excellence.”

To ensure this excellence remains inclusive, $9.5 million will go towards the “Institute for Inclusive Excellence,” Pomona’s hub for diversity, equity and inclusion. $1.4 million will go towards “Dialogue,” an initiative whose telling lack of buy-in from students will be the subject of a future column. 

If all this global thinking and problem-solving is too strenuous for Pomona students, they will be healed by a $7 million investment in the “Health and Wellness Initiative.”

Only $1.4 million has been allotted to a “Career Development Initiative,” a laughably small number given the lackluster state of the college’s Career Development Office. In the event they don’t get a job, $3.5 million has been allotted to give alumni jobs teaching for a semester at Pomona as part of the “Return to Pomona Scholars” program. 

Other major commitments include expanding Pomona’s “accessibility,”  the College’s commitment to need-blind financial aid and further measures to ensure socioeconomic equity. $60 million will fund Starr’s initiative to open Pomona’s ever-more-expensive education to students from middle-income families and $30 million will go toward expanding existing financial aid programs. 

How much of this is “original?” The language is mildly inspiring, but also so vague and abstract that it fails to describe anything concrete enough to qualify as original. The most concrete items are either continuations of existing programs (Inclusive Excellence, CDO, Return to Pomona), or expansions of things the college is quite good at (need-blind admissions), but none of them are particularly unique to Pomona. 

The Vision

A campaign like “Originals” does not come from nowhere. I alluded earlier to the “Strategic Vision” the campaign is set out to fulfill. The Strategic Vision and its three pillars, “Transformative Knowledge and Creativity, Equity and Access, and Flourishing and Inclusion” were created in a two-year long process and adopted in 2020. 

Surely nothing in the world has happened since 2020 that might at least somewhat alter the Strategic Vision, right? Oh—a pandemic, you say? Affirmative action gone? Trump reelected? Artificial Intelligence? War in Europe and the Middle East, and even against higher education? 

Thankfully, the Strategic Vision was so vague and airy in the first place that none of these bombshells could affect it, because, like a desert mirage, there wasn’t anything real to blow up. 

The actual tangible things come to life through a “multiyear implementation process,” a college spokesperson reassured me, which “began to take shape” just as the Strategic Vision was adopted. “This process focused on defining and operationalizing specific initiatives that would support the Strategic Vision and help bring it to life.”

While multiple projects have taken form under the auspices of the “multiyear implementation process,” Pomona has also been undertaking a few major projects in recent years that don’t appear in the Strategic Vision—and aren’t even mentioned in “Originals.”

Notably, the Strategic Vision at no point makes any mention of assuming control of a failing graduate school, which Pomona College still appears very likely to do in its impending “partnership” with Claremont Graduate University (which it would very much like you not to call an acquisition.)

Ignoring the obvious tensions in an elite small liberal arts college acquiring a middling graduate school on the verge of bankruptcy, the CGU acquisition actually may play a significant role for “Originals.”

Multiple people familiar with the CGU acquisition and the campaign hinted that some donations and pledges originally made to CGU would be re-booked as donations to Pomona instead. 

“We have currently not booked any pledges,” Maria Watson told me. “There are no CGU gifts currently reflected in these campaign numbers.”

“Would any be counted?” I asked.

“It’s hard to predict the future, Emilio.”

The Future

“Originals” offers much fodder for imagination with its nonspecific messaging and vague aspirations of fostering “creative thinking and collaborative curiosity,” but if the campaign exists to fulfill a vision, there shouldn’t be all that much room for imagination, should there? 

After a campaign launch event in Edmunds Ballroom on Saturday, Oct. 10, the entire Pomona College community was invited to the “Originals Fest” on Marston Quad. The festivities were originally promoted by Advancement through an obviously AI-generated poster.

The Originals Festival was promoted using an AI-generated poster.

Surrounded by catered food, at the heart of Marston Quad sat three tables, the “Originals lounge.” Here attendees could come and ask questions about the main campaign initiatives. Throughout the afternoon, I counted maybe eight students who actually went up to the tables to talk with the staff members manning them. 

Elsewhere, attendees were invited to vote for their favorite Pomona tradition. Of seven options, current students could only really choose five. MUFTI, the College’s secret society, died out not long after Covid, and “food traditions” like Frary Snack and Harry Potter dinner have suffered the same fate. Of the remaining traditions, "Through the Gates” and “Sponsor Groups” are both school-orchestrated, leaving “47,” fountaining, and painting Walker Wall as Pomona’s last organic traditions.

"THE" lies on the ground next to "ORIGINALS" shortly before the opening of the Originals Festival.

“Originals,” right? Someone in the events office was also a little confused: during preparations for the event, big white “The” letters had been set up to precede “Originals” before being hastily removed. Multiple faculty members theorized to me in the days before the campaign’s launch that they thought the “originals” theme might be a subtle jab at those uppity CMCers. It was Pomona, after all, that founded the consortium a century ago when it decided to remain a small liberal arts college instead of growing into a university. There was a simple vision: Oxford in Southern California. And for a time, it worked.

100 years later, Pomona’s vision has become clouded and untethered. While it eagerly opens its doors wider and wider, it has no clear idea of what it wants to do with these students other than “teach them about the world’s problems.” At a time when America is facing unprecedented challenges and a crisis of polarization, Pomona wants to go global instead of investing in civic education. At a time when the liberal arts are threatened by artificial intelligence and a trend toward pre-professionalism, Pomona wants to annex a grad school instead of strengthening its founding principles. At a time when Pomona’s young rival CMC ties it in national rankings and raises over a billion dollars, Pomona believes the best it can do is half that amount in the same period of time.

Pomona chases “original” because it has forgotten why it exists in the first place. Every campaign initiative pulls the college outward instead of investing back into its slowly shrinking heart. While Pomona goes all-out on “wellness,” it fails to offer its students the third spaces vital to creating a strong community. While it goes global, it barely tries to address the toxic political monoculture on its own campus. While it creates new “interdisciplinary” positions, it struggles to serve existing curricular needs.

Pomona’s vision has become so filled with abstractions that it lost all meaning. The decision makers in Alexander Hall have put so much distance between themselves and the college’s realities that, far from having just a hazy, buzzword-laden vision of the future, they also have no vision of the present. So what did they do when they realized they didn’t know what to call their campaign? They went with the fall-back compliment you use when there’s nothing better to say, and called it “Originals.”