This week, the Pomona Student Union (PSU) held the event “Consider
the Sponsor Group: Asking the Hard Questions.” In keeping with this theme,
this week’s Ye Olde TSL article comes from an issue published Sept. 21, 1927—the first
year of the Sponsor Group. Much has changed within the system, but some of the
main tenets—“to stress strongly the intellectual and cultural sides” of the
college—remain today.
SPONSOR SYSTEM NEW THIS YEAR
By Florence Wilkie ’31
One
of the new movements started among the women this year is the sponsor system.
This idea was brought to Pomona by Elizabeth Dimock ’27, from the convention of
Associated Women Student leaders held last year in the east.
The
object of this system is to center responsibility on a group of ten selected
senior women. These women attempt to initiate the freshman women not only into
the social life of the school, but to stress strongly the intellectual and
cultural sides. Not only during Freshman Week, but all through the year these
leaders try to establish the true Pomona spirit in the old as well as new
students.
The
meetings are held the first Monday night in each month, usually in the room of
the sponsor. The first meeting was held last Monday night and Miss Gibson was
an informal visitor at each meeting. Throughout the year the women members of
the faculty will come in closer contact with the girls through these groups.
The
sponsors chosen to serve for this year are Betty Bode, chairman, Betty Pease, Dana
Newberry, Jean Strong, Kathleen Strong, Ruth Gunther, Peg Osborne, Betty
Pauley, Augusta Clements and Betty Cooper. At present Betty Crowe is serving
for Betty Cooper who returns from the east the last of next week.
As
the system grows, the honor of being one of these leaders will be more
established. It is hoped that in the near future the position of sponsor will
be the highest honor a woman student may hold.
At
present the women of Stanford will give up living in a sorority house or
various honors to live in the dormitory and have the honor of being a sponsor.
Although it is a new thing at Pomona the women here hope that the sponsor
system will soon have the same place here.