Curricular Support
The Claremont Colleges Library (TCCL)
The Claremont Colleges Library partners with the colleges in learning, teaching and research. Library resources are available to all members of colleges’ academic community. Librarians and staff provide assistance with locating information in all formats, including print and electronic sources. TCCL also offers research assistance via in-person consultation, email and instant messaging. One of the major activities of the library is teaching students how to find, evaluate and effectively use information. Research instruction for classes and other groups, as well as individual appointments for instruction and research assistance, may be scheduled with any of the librarians. Classes in Honnold/Mudd Library are held in the Keck Classroom or Keck 3. The Collaborative Commons provides space for group study and projects.
The joint library resources of The Claremont Colleges include 1.3 million volumes. TCCL also has extensive holdings of journals, magazines and newspapers, provides online electronic access to more than 50,000 titles and receives many current magazines and newspapers. The library’s large collection of electronic resources provides ready access to a wide variety of bibliographic, full-text and multimedia information. Through TCCL’s Search, it is possible to access the library’s books, journals and hundreds of databases including full text. Database subscriptions include services such as Lexis-Nexis Academic and ISI Web of Knowledge. Full-text resources include electronic books and journals, as well as specialized resources such as the ACM Digital Library, Congressional Quarterly Library and Grove’s Dictionary of Art Online. The Claremont Colleges Digital Library (CCDL) provides access to a growing number of digital collections from The Claremont Colleges, as well as from the library’s Special Collections. Digital collections such as Early English Books Online and North American Women’s Letters & Diaries make available thousands of additional primary source materials. Most of these resources are accessible via the internet to students, faculty and staff of The Claremont Colleges in their dorms, labs, offices and homes, as well as in the library.
TCCL is a depository for United States government publications, with a collection of historic documents dating to the late 1700s and many recent publications in electronic formats. The government publications collection also has extensive holdings issued by the State of California, the United Nations, other international agencies and Great Britain. The Asian Studies Collection in Honnold/Mudd has a collection of materials in Chinese, Japanese and Korean languages. TCCL has newspapers, early printed books from England and the United States, and anthropological source materials in the Human Relations Area Files.
Among the holdings in TCCL’s Special Collections are the Oxford Collection (books about the university and the city of Oxford) and the Renaissance Collection (volumes about the Italian Renaissance focusing on the life and work of Angelo Poliziano). The Westergaard and Bjork collections complement one another in providing important materials on Northern Europe, primarily Scandinavia and the Baltic area. Western Americana and Californiana are represented in several collections: the William Smith Mason Collection, the Wagner Collection of History and Cartography of the North Pacific, the William F. McPherson Collection of Western Americana, The Claremont Colleges Archives, a Claremont collection focusing on the city of Claremont, and a collection of materials on the water resources of Southern California. The Norman D. ‘35 and Geraldine Womack ‘36 Philbrick Library of Dramatic Arts and Theatre History is one of the world’s largest private collections chronicling the history of theatre from the 17th century to modern times. The Robert Burton Collection includes various editions of his Anatomy of Melancholy and most of the sources cited by Burton in his work. The John Dryden Collection features early editions of the author’s plays, poetry, criticism and works that he translated or to which he contributed a preface or commentary. The McCutchan Collection contains many rare books on American hymnology. The Irving Wallace Collection includes extensive materials used by the late author for his writings. Pomona collections in Special Collections include the Mason, Wagner, McPherson, Westergaard and Philbrick collections.
TCCL’s Resource Sharing Program provides access to books, articles and other materials held in other academic and research collections. The library is a member of the Center for Research Libraries (CRL). All the collections of CRL are available for extended periods of time through resource sharing.
The Ida Rust Macpherson Collection at Denison Library on the Scripps College campus features books on the history and achievements of women. Collections in Denison’s Rare Book Room focus on the history of the book, book arts, printing and literary presses. Contemporary fine printing collections include the archives of the Scripps College Press.
Close working relationships are maintained with the George C. Stone Center for Children’s Books, a division of Claremont Graduate University’s Center for Developmental Studies in Education, and with the libraries of affiliated institutions in Claremont. The Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden maintains a large botanical and horticultural library, as well as two large herbaria.
Oldenborg Center for Modern Languages and International Relations
The Oldenborg Center for Modern Languages and International Relations at Pomona College was dedicated in 1966 and remains unique among language house models in terms of its centralized structure, size and the breadth of its campus programming. The Center’s composite identity of residence hall, dining hall, and hub for internationally minded instructional and co-curricular programs is rich and complex.
Approximately 129 sophomores, juniors and seniors typically live in Oldenborg, divided into six major language wings: Chinese (Mandarin), French, German, Japanese, Russian and Spanish. Depending on need, rooms may be made available for students demonstrating proficiency in other languages; recent examples include Korean, Arabic and Hindi-Urdu. Students apply to live in Oldenborg; the selection process is competitive and is based on demonstrated language proficiency and faculty recommendation. The six major language wings reflect the six language programs of Pomona College and are mentored by the Language Residents, native speakers of that section’s language. Language Residents are young professionals from abroad who hold either a B.A. or M.A. from an institution in their home country and show interest in a future teaching career. They are recruited, hired, and trained by Oldenborg and come to Pomona College as non-degree student Exchange Visitors with part-time instructional staff responsibilities. In many ways the Language Resident program constitutes the heart of Oldenborg: Language Residents teach stand-alone conversation classes for partial academic credit in lounges inside the Oldenborg residence; they serve as teaching assistants within their respective language departments; they mentor daily language tables in the Oldenborg dining hall; they coordinate or promote any number of activities—both on and off campus—that serve to promote the target language and culture to students both in and outside Oldenborg.
Oldenborg’s dining hall serves lunch and is open each day that classes are in session on the Pomona campus. It houses Oldenborg’s most visible programs: the daily foreign language tables and the Oldenborg Luncheon Colloquium (OLC). Anywhere from 150 to 300 students, faculty and staff from across The Claremont Colleges typically participate daily in these two programs. Tables in the six Pomona languages (Chinese, French, German, Japanese, Russian, and Spanish) meet daily whereas others (Swedish, Korean, Vietnamese, Arabic, Swahili, Persian, etc.) meet once or twice each week, depending on student interest. Language tables are mentored by Language Residents or other staff/faculty mentors and no English is permitted. Students are recognized each semester at the Holiday and Closing lunches for their table attendance; some go an entire semester without missing a single lunch at Oldenborg. The Oldenborg Luncheon Colloquium (OLC) runs concurrently with the language table program on the dining hall’s south side; each semester Oldenborg works with campus faculty to invite noted scholars, writers, artists and other professionals to speak on topics of international interest. Approximately 20-25 presentations take place each semester.
Oldenborg further supports language instruction on campus via the Foreign Language Resource Center (FLRC), housed in Mason Hall 101. The FLRC provides instructional language technology support and other services for language faculty. Faculty may reserve the computer area for their classes or special projects. Language tutoring takes place there several evenings each week, and the space also hosts language-oriented receptions and workshops.
Additionally, Oldenborg administers the Exchange Visitor Program (J visa) for the campus, offers elementary coursework for credit in Swahili and Persian (SILP program), and manages the Oldenborg International Research and Travel Grant, which allows rising seniors to undertake pre-thesis research abroad in the summer before their senior year.
Language houses are generally thought to be sites of language exclusivity and language immersion. Specific sites within the Oldenborg building, such as target language classrooms and the dining hall, honor these concepts. However, Oldenborg strives to make all interested parties feel welcome, and to rally campus partners in promoting the importance of the teaching and learning of foreign languages and international studies. Oldenborg reports to the Vice President and Dean of the College and is staffed by a director, assistant director, language instructional technologist, administrative assistant and the seven language residents.
Pacific Basin Institute
A nonprofit, public foundation established in 1979, the Pacific Basin Institute (PBI) is dedicated to improving communication among the peoples of the Pacific Basin and to increasing knowledge of the cultures, as well as the politics and economics, of the Asia/Pacific nations. PBI moved to Pomona College in 1997. The Pacific Basin Archive of film and documentary video, greatly expanded from the footage used for PBI’s television series, “The Pacific Century,” puts at the disposal of Pomona students and faculty, as well as community members, a wealth of documentary and archival film and video material. These materials are also used by students and faculty from the other Claremont Colleges as well from institutions beyond Claremont. In cooperation with the Media Studies Department, the archive affords interested students opportunities to assist its work in film-editing, cataloguing and documentary film production. Notably, PBI sponsors a Student Summer Research Video Project which sends students abroad to film their video documentaries (available for viewing on our PBI website). In addition to its film production activities, PBI sponsors a continuing series of conferences, workshops and lectures, featuring scholars, authors and public figures from the Asia Pacific region.
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