Día de los Muertos

First off, hope you all had a safe and FUN Halloween! The only time of the year (well for the most part) that you can dress up as someone/something else and nobody can say a word about it! Cecil sure had his share of fun this past weekend. He Helped out with candy at the Office of Admission (and by help I mean he consumed most of it).

With Halloween comes another celebrated holiday, Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). Día de los Muertos is celebrated throughout Mexico and the Southwest states, and coincides with the Christian All Souls and All Saints Days. On November 1st & 2nd people remember those who are deceased. November 1st is considered the Dia de los Angelitos—the day to remember children that have died, November 2nd is the traditional Día de los Muertos (day of the dead). Pictures of the deceased are placed on Día de los Muertos altars with their favorite food and drink. Candles to light their way home, and soap and water to freshen-up after their long trip back are also often placed on altars. Trinkets they were fond of, symbols they would understand, and gifts are left to communicate to them that they are always in the hearts of those they left behind, and that they are still part of the family even though they are not physically with us any longer.

Every year the Latina/o Student Union at Pitzer College puts on an amazing benefit dinner and altar presentation, complete with music from the Claremont College Mariachi group, Mariachi Serrano de Claremont, along with traditional danza azteca (Aztec dancing). This year all proceeds from ticket sales will benefit an AB540 art student scholarship provided by Im: Arte, an art collective based in Los Angeles. Students attending the Fall 2010 Diversity Program will have the opportunity to join the Pitzer community for this much anticipated event!

For more information on Im: Arte visit their website at www.imarte.org


Oh and by the way... this week is the first Fall Preview Pitzer Day (along with the Diversity Program) this Friday November 5th and then again next Friday, November 12th. Check back soon for coverage of the preview days by our one and only exclusive reporter; Cecil T. Sagehen as he takes us behind the scenes of the day's activities.

Pictures from Fall Preview Pitzer Days!

Admission Fellows Joahna Ruffin, Suhail Sheikh, and Misa Kabashima join Admission Counselor Danny Irving by the pool in front of our Gold LEED certified First-Year residence halls. Not bad for November, eh?
Families arriving on a beautiful Southern California morning!
That's me in the purple, just gushing with enthusiasm to some prospective families!


Here are some of our dedicated student-workers laboring away to inflate biodegradable balloons early in the morning.
Emma and Chris, Office of Admission student-workers, welcoming prospective families to campus. Cecil, do you feel left out?

Turn, Turn, Turn

As the seasons change, so do our jobs. With Fall rapidly giving way to Winter the admission staffs at colleges across the country are returning home from the road, unpacking their roll-aboard suitcases, and settling back into their offices on campus. Those of you who have been following along know that I have been living in Boston for about a year, since I graduated from Pitzer. Well, California, I'm back!

The month of November brings several important events to Pitzer College. Last week we brought more than 40 students from across the nation who come from underrepresented ethnic backgrounds to the Claremont Colleges to gain greater knowledge of Pitzer the Claremont Consortium as part of our Fall Diversity Program. Pitzer Diversity Interns Alyshia Silva, Jose Barriga, and Maricela Ledezma worked with Graduate Admission Fellow Fernando Calderon and Assistant Director of Admission Constance Perez to plan travel logistics, meals, residence hall hosts, a five-college scavenger hunt, and capped the program with attendance at SCAMFest (the Southern California A Capella Music Festival, hosted by the Claremont Colleges).

Alyshia Silva '12 reflected on the program after saying goodbye to our prospective students: “As tiresome as it most undoubtedly was, I cannot express the great pleasure it was to see all 43 students bond and fall into the place that I call home. Whether seeing them take their facebook photos together and asking for each other’s numbers, nothing can beat the pure satisfaction at seeing their faces when it came time to say goodbye to Pitzer and each other. Afterwards, via email, facebook, and phone calls, Constance received plenty of gushing from the Diversity Participants who swear to see us in little less than 8 months…”

The program coincided with the first of two Pitzer Preview Days this semester. Pitzer Preview Days are an opportunity for studentsto visit us and hear more about our community from students, staff, and faculty as well as to see the campus for yourself. Our last Preview Day of the semester is this coming Friday, November 16. If you would like to attend our next Preview Day, please call the Office of Admission at (909) 621-8129.

So what's up next, you might be wondering? This week we'll be reading and deliberating on our Spring Transfer applications. As soon as that's done, our Early Decision applications will be ready to read, followed by all of our Regular Decision candidates; and so the Winter reading cycle goes.

In a few days I'll be back with the next installment of Beyond Buzzwords (stay tuned to see which one we'll be tackling). Leave me a comment or send me an email if there's a topic that you'd like me to write about as well. I don't do it for my health...it's all for you!

Congratulations to Emily Kleeman of Chicago for identifying the great Buddy Guy as the singer in the video from last week's blog post. This is the last installment of Where in the World is Cecil the Sagehen (for a while, at least). As usual, if you can figure out where Cecil has traveled from the pictures below, we'll send you a prize. Email me at adam_rosenzweig@pitzer.edu with your answers.

Enjoy the turning of the seasons!

Happy Turkey Day

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!!!!!

So it is official! Mark your calendars! November 26!
Winter has begun in Southern California
(Isn’t life grand)

Today was our first heavy day of rain. I am a little confused though. It was pouring when we came back from lunch, but now it is sunny, lightly showering and about 72 degrees outside.

Weather be damned, our tour still left on time. Chris, our tour guide, was loving the rain and started off without using his umbrella. Isn’t he great?

So to sweeten your Thanksgiving feast, we in the Pitzer Admission Office have decided to hold a competition. This competition was Justin’s idea, so we let him write the introduction.

Cecil the Sagehen
Haiku contest on the blog
Best counselor wins

That’s right boys and girls we are having a haiku competition.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the art of haiku, a haiku is a form of Japanese poetry consisting of seventeen syllables in three metric phrases of 5, 7 then 5. In Japanese they are written in a single vertical line, while in English they are broken down into three sentences.
For example

Haikus are super
Five, seven, five syllables
Danny is the best J

And since I don’t want Justin to become the center of the blog…. I figured I would include another haiku of my own and this time it’s seasonal.

Turkeys taste good
Cecil is not a turkey
Don’t eat the Sagehens

So next week each counselor will write their own haiku and I will anonymously post them to the blog. The winner will be decided by you, the students, and whichever haiku receives the most votes wins bragging rights and the ultimate respect of the office. (we might have to make a crown)

Now that I have given you something to look forward to, here are some pictures from the second Preview Pitzer Day on Nov 14.

(President Trombley's Speech)

Well before you go enjoying your turkey, lets play another round of

Where in the World is Cecil the Sagehen.

This week is extra hard so double points if you get it correct.

Where is Cecil this Week?

I'm Back

Hello again! So I know I haven’t posted in a while, life has been super hectic, but I have a long post to make up for it. The last time you heard from me I was off to Miami and it great. Unfortunately the weather didn’t seem to follow me from California and it was a bit rainy and humid, but Cecil and I didn’t let that spoil our adventures

(Bienvenidos a Miami Cecil)

I went to a number of college fairs while in Miami and Cecil got front row seats for all of them.

Really what has been keeping me busy was Preview Pitzer Days. These events both went extremely well and I just want to say thank you to everyone that worked hard to put these events together. Every prospective student I talked enjoyed the events thoroughly.

The first Preview Pitzer Day coincided with our fall Diversity Program, which was also a smashing hit if I do say so myself.

The arival time was a little bit crazy, as you can see.

Say hello to some of the students from the program
And we can't forget our fabulous overnight hosts.

Unfortunately, these are all the pictures I have from the program at the moment, but if anyone from the program has pictures please email them to me.

We did have one snag in the program though. On Friday night we went out to Universal City Walk, outside of Universal Studios. It seemed like everyone was having a great time, the three interns, Constance and I went out for dinner at Bubba Gump Shrimp, I watched some break dancing, and went shopping, when I got a phone call from one of the students about curfew. Now excuse my ignorant San Diegan background because in SD our curfew basically means as a minor you can’t be loitering or hanging out at the beach after a certain time. Apparently in LA it means that after 10:00pm you can’t be out at all. So as I ran out of City Walk trying to find all of the prospective students I figured out that at City Walk 5 Curfew Squad officers walk shoulder to shoulder and kick out anyone under 18 who wasn’t with a guardian. Fortunately there weren’t any issues with the Curfew Squad and it turned out our bus had shown up early so everything worked out, but I nearly had a heart attack when I got that phone call.

The November 7th Preview Pitzer Day was also a smashing hit. For those of you who don’t know, Preview Pitzer Days are special days for students to come check out campus.

We had a talk from the president
(Sorry the pictures didn't come out)

Faculty Panels

(Students watching the faculty Panel)

A Student Panel

(Parents questioning the students)

(Prospective students questioning the student panel)

We had tours and financial aid presentations

(There are no pictures of these sorry)

Refreshments

(Brunch)

(Lunch with the parents, faculty and staff)

And of course Cecil made his Rounds

And he even got some refreshments

If you didn’t have a chance to check out the Preview Pitzer Days we also do two days during the spring for admitted students, so you still have a second chance.

In terms of my life I am down to my last two days of school visits, Whooohoooo, one in the Inland Empire and the other in Long Beach. Even though it makes me sad that I won’t be visiting your high schools for another year, we still have a number of saved up pictures so we can keep playing

Where in the World is Cecil the Sagehen?

Where is Cecil this time?