On the morning of May 18, as Oxy seniors and faculty lined up along Bird Road for the Commencement procession up to Hillside Theater, Professor of Kinesiology Stuart Rugg was in his element. “I kept teasing my students that it took me 38 years to get my diploma, compared to four for them,” he recalls. “I didn’t know the College actually gave emeriti faculty the equivalent of a diploma—which was kind of cool.”
Every spring, the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy hands out student awards for community service—and this year the department named a new award after Professor Peter Dreier, who retired in June after 32 years at Occidental. “They wanted to call it the Troublemaker Award,” he says. “I said, ‘Call it the Public Service and Community Organizing Award or something like that.’” (Ultimately, the Peter Dreier Community Organizing and Public Service Award was presented to Emma Galbraith ’25 on April 30.)
Alexandra Puerto came to academia later than most. “I went to graduate school in my early 30s,” says Puerto, who joined Occidental as an adjunct lecturer in Latin American history in 2004 and recently was awarded emerita status as an associate professor of history and Latina/o and Latin American studies. “I was at Oxy long enough to retire but still young enough to have a last chapter.”
(Editor's note: After 35 years, Glenn A. Elmer Griffin retired from Occidental last December as professor emeritus in the Department of Critical Theory and Social Justice. A three-time recipient of the Donald R. Loftgordon Award for Distinguished Teaching, he was profiled in Occidental magazine in Fall 2001. A tribute by Jill Normington ’94 follows the article.)
Every dorm room tells a story—and depending on the temperature, it can be a horror story. Arriving at Chilcott Hall as a first-year from Boston, “I thought I’d landed in hell,” Amy Forest Montgomery ’96 recalls. “Opening those crazy windows only let in more heat.” After calling her uncle, William Sherinyan ’58, in tears, “He had a massive fan overnighted to me,” she adds. “I kept that fan for at least 15 years.”
Out of Air, by Rachel Reiss ’99 (Macmillan). Recent high school graduate Phoebe “Phibs” Ray is never more at home than when she’s underwater. And while she and her four closest friends are taking one last summer trip to a distant Australian island to do what they love most—scuba dive—Phibs discovers a spectacular underwater sea cave, rumored to be a lost cave with a buried treasure. But after she and her buddy Gabe surface from the cave, they’re undergoing strange changes: oozing gashes that don’t heal; haunting whispers in their heads.
My favorite part of summer at Occidental is the opportunity to hear from students who’ve chosen to spend it here on campus, pursuing their academic and career passions. The Summer Research Program, InternLA, and Justice Summer Internship program are all in full swing through June and July, and the work accomplished is always impressive.
The Occidental College Board of Trustees welcomed seven new members to its ranks on July 1. In addition, the Board reappointed two long-serving trustees to new four-year terms. Collectively, they bring skills and expertise as well as passion for Occidental’s mission.
Biology major Mariah Rutiaga Amaya ’22 discovered a passion for healthcare at Occidental during the COVID-19 pandemic through an internship focused on urban agriculture and food studies. For the first-generation college student, the experience highlighted the interconnectedness of environmental justice, food sovereignty, and health outcomes, which ultimately inspired her to help others by pursuing a career as a physician’s assistant after graduating.
Across the country, and particularly in the West, charred landscapes tell the stories of wildfires that are burning hotter, faster, and more often due to climate change. From 1992 to 2023, the United States saw an increase in annual wildfire acreage from 2.5 million to 7.5 million acres.