Hey guys sorry for the delay. For those of you who haven't met me on the road, my travel season has begun. It is official, I love my job. Getting to visit 4 different high schools every day is a lot of fun, but I am surprisingly wiped out at the end of the day. I spent the last week in Texas, 3 days in Dallas, 2 in Austin, 1 in San Antonio and 2 in Houston. It was a new experience for me, but fortunately I had Cecil with me to keep me company.

He liked our rental car.

Speaking of rental cars, I already have my first funny, embarrassing story for you. I finished my first day of visits in Dallas and somehow managed to make it to every school without getting horribly lost. However, after finishing my last school visit I was able to turn a 15 minute drive back to my hotel, into an hour long loop around Dallas. Needless to say, I was a little frazzled when I got back. After relaxing for a little bit I decided to go out to dinner, but wanted to get my directions first. It was then that I realized that my car keys were no where to be found. I spent a good 15 minutes tearing my hotel room apart before I went to see if I had left the car unlocked and was able to see the faintest outline of my keys on the back floor on the car. My rental car was a Yarris and for those of you who haven't seen one, it looks like a blown up hotwheels car (I mean it makes me feel tall). So I am assuming that since my briefcase was sitting right above where my keys rested, they must have fallen out of my pocket when I went to grab my bag. At this point I stopped panicking and went into problem solving mode. By the time the AAA guy showed up, forgot his tools and showed up a second time, there was no way I was going out to dinner. Fortunately the hotel served one of the best tortilla soups I have ever had. l
Not only was the food in the hotel great, but it provided amenities above expectations.I mean they even had friends for Cecil

Well I now have a full two days in my bed until I take off on my next trip, but since I made you wait so long for this post, I will be adding a special installment of where in the World is Cecil the Sagehen. Since this is a harder picture to identify, the first person to respond will win a fabulous Pitzer T-Shirt. You have to post your response on the blog this time, so no emailed guesses will count.
As well, last week's winner was Janelle Alexander, and since I forgot to mention that you need to post your answers online, we have a runner up who also gets a point Jacey Rubenstein.
As well, Cecil is starting to get lonely, so officially follow this blog, by becoming one of Cecil's Comrades on the side of the page and don't forget you can post any questions you have about Pitzer under the comments section of the most recent post.

Where in the World is Cecil the Sagehen

So I have been a little behind on posting (which I will talk about later today) but figured I would catch up with a new installment of

Where in the World is Cecil the Sagehen.

Please post your guess in the comments section.

Where is Cecil this time?

Lions and Sagehens and Gender Neutral Dragons… OH MY!

Just kidding…….about the lions at least.

So for those of you who don’t know, Pitzer shares all of our athletic teams with Pomona College. Together we make up the mighty, fighting Sagehens.

To clear up a bit of uncertainty…..the answer is yes. The Sagehen is a desert chicken. To be more specific a species of Grouse and has a diminishing population, but is not listed as an endangered species due to political reasons (which have nothing to do with Pitzer College). There are many rumors of why the Sagehen is endangered. Most of these have to do with what the animal does when threatened, which ranges from running in fear, running in circles to plucking out its own feathers. Although my favorite theory, and the one most backed-up by internet research, is that the Sagehen population is diminishing due to global warming.

All of our sports teams are D3 and we compete against our feared rivals the CMS (Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd and Scripps) Stags (men’s teams) or Athenas (women’s teams). This means we can have a home game and an away game on campus at the same time. This leads to a big school rivalry at a small school that lasts for all of, I don’t know…….1 day and then you go back to class with the people you were cheering against the night before.


There is something a little off putting about that Sagehen picture, so I decided to post one that is a little more friendly.

Meet Cecil the Sagehen. He is our official mascot.

He tends to spend a good chunk of his time roaming the admission office grazing and stealing name tags

Despite the diminishing Sagehen population, we have seen a recent boom in our local population.
Hopefully you are all slightly amused by these plushies because now we get to our contest.

Where in the World is Cecil the Sagehen

This small army of Cecil dolls will be accompanying us on our travels. Throughout the fall I will be posting pictures of Cecil in different cities around the U.S. If you guess where the picture was taken you get a point. The 6 Pitzer applicants with the most points win a Cecil plushy and the applicant with the most correct guesses will win a plushy and a t-shirt. To qualify for this game you must be a prospective Pitzer student (either in high school, a transfer applicant or a new resource student). Parents I encourage you to read and comment, but please, in the spirit of competition, don't fill in answers to the game.

So now that you know the rules lets start playing!!!!

Since we are just starting out, this week’s picture will be an easy one.

Can you guess where Cecil is??????

Lions and Sagehens and Gender Neutral Dragons… OH MY!! PART 2

I am sure some of you are curious about how gender neutral dragons are relevant to Pitzer College and to this blog, and rightly so.

This summer one of our tour guides embarked on a crafts project of epic proportions and recycled old file sections into an art project. And thus Rudi the gender neutral dragon was born.
Say hi to Rudi. We loved Rudi so much that he has become sort of an unofficial mascot for the admission office.

Rudi’s creator, Tim Campos, is a Junior at Pitzer and is double majoring in Sociology and Chicana/o Studies. On top of being a tour guide, Tim is one of our Diversity Interns. You can find out more about our diversity program on our website http://www.pitzer.edu/admission/diversity/index.asp.

Tim has been working hard and winning major points in the office, right now he is so hot that he is on fire! (Sorry I couldn’t resist the pun)

The fact that Rudi happens to be gender neutral happens to give me the opportunity to shamelessly tell you about Pitzer’s new housing policy. Starting this year, Pitzer has begun a gender neutral housing system. You may ask why and so I shall tell you.

Gender-neutral housing provides a living environment where student housing is not restricted to traditional limitations imposed by gender and/or sex definitions. This option is ideal for students whose gender expression, gender identity and/or biological sex varies from the standard paradigm and for students who believe that their gender and/or biological sex should not be limiting factors in roommate decisions. No student will be restricted by traditional limitations of gender identity, gender expression, biological sex or other identities pertaining thereto. All students will have the option to participate in, or opt out of, gender-neutral housing.


To completely change the subject I am going to be leaving for Texas tomorrow. So there probably won’t be any posts till later in the week. This will be my first trip for Pitzer!!! I am excited. If anyone has read this from Texas and they see me at a school visit point it out and give me any feedback you like. If you aren’t from Texas please feel free to post any comments about the blog or questions you may have about Pitzer in the comments section.
Wish me luck!

A Few Introductions

Now that you have found our blog, you need to know how to find our office.

We are located at
1050 N Mills Ave.
Claremont CA. 91711
and our phone number is 1(800)PITZER1

(800)748-9371

After entering Pitzer’s Campus, you can find our office on the bottom floor of Pitzer Hall directly North of the East Mesa Parking lot.

Meet Gabe. He is one of our fantastic tour guides.

Lets follow him inside and meet the staff.

When you enter our office the first faces you will see are Lesley Malinoski (right) and

Cathy Shadowens (Left).

If you follow Gabe down the hall you can meet the counselors .

Arnaldo Rodriguez is the Vice President of Admission and Financial Aid at Pitzer College and the most important man in our office!

Second comes Gloria Romo, Executive Assistant to the Vice President.

The next office belongs to the Director of Admission Angel Perez.

Sitting next to Angel you will find Constance Perez, Assistant Director of Admission.

After Constance's office we come to Justin Voss, Associate Director of Admission. Just for a change of pace I made him juggle for you!

After Justin we come to our Operation's Manager Donna Zinser's office.

Right across from Donna we have Lydia Plasencia, Admission Assitant for Data and File Management.

After Donna and Lydia you will find the most important office....MINE.

In case you already forgot, I am Danny Irving, Admision Counselor.

Last but not least we come to the office of Jasmin Escobar, Associate Director of Admision.

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So now you know a little bit about our team. Tune in tomorrow to find out about our mascot and a fun game to play throughout the fall. (Intrigued, aren't you?)

Welcome to Pitzer Unpeeled

Have you ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes in a college admission office? Even if you haven’t, you now have the chance to find out. Pitzer Unpeeled is a brand new blog that gives you the opportunity to get to know the Pitzer Admission staff and to find out what everyday life is like for us. You can read about our travels across the country, ask us questions about Pitzer or the college admission process in general and just get to know Pitzer and our office a little better.

My name is Danny Irving and I am the newest Admission Counselor at Pitzer College as well as an alumnus. I am a proud Sagehen from the class of ’08 and double majored in Economics and Organizational Studies. I am originally from San Diego and graduated from Francis W. Parker High School. My territories for Pitzer include; the San Fernando Valley, Long Beach, the Inland Empire, Arizona, Florida, Missouri, Minnesota, Michigan , Nevada, Texas and Utah.

I am going to be your guide for your blogging adventure so please come visit us frequently and join me for my travels across the country.