“Oxy Live!”—a conversation series highlighting a diverse lineup of cultural luminaries at the forefront of their fields—launched its inaugural season October 3 with internationally celebrated writer, artist and nonbinary activist ALOK (above, talking to interviewer and cultural interlocutor Paul Holdengräber). Upcoming guests include sociologist Ruha Benjamin (11/20), historian and activist Rebecca Solnit (11/28), visual artist Julie Mehretu (2/21/24), and multimedia artist Laurie Anderson (spring 2024).

Professor of Biology Shana Goffredi has used submersibles for almost 25 years as part of her work in marine biology. “There is really no substitute for seeing the ecosystems with your own eyes, making observations, conducting seafloor experiments, and selecting samples,” she says.

Adam Kinzinger, a former congressman and member of the Select Committee to Investigate the January 6, 2021, Attack on the U.S. Capitol, made his case for the protection of democracy and stressed the importance of the 2024 presidential election in a spirited address as Occidental College’s 2023 Jack Kemp ’57 Distinguished Lecturer.

After a four-year hiatus, Occidental inducted four new members—three individual icons and a tandem of basketball titans—into the Athletics Hall of Fame on October 22 as part of Homecoming and Family Weekend.

Addressing the Sunday-morning gathering in Cannon Plaza, Director of Athletics Shanda Ness said, “I’m sure you all realize that we’re standing on the old Taylor Pool. Needless to say, athletics has changed a bit at Oxy since you were here. But one thing that never changes is the lifelong friendships and amazing memories that stick with you.”

Onward to Chicago: Freedom Seekers and the Underground Railroad in Northeastern Illinois, by Larry A.

For the Class of 1977’s 45th reunion in June 2022, Joe Rohde ’77 (and Mel Malmberg ’79) and Cheri (Eichen) Steinkellner ’77 (Sister Act, Summer Stock) wrote and performed a mini-musical, the lyrics to which appear below. (Next stop: the Pantages!) You’re invited to hum along.

Professor of History Emeritus Brice Harris Jr., who taught at Occidental from 1965 to 2003, died July 8, 2023, at his home in Pasadena, one day after his 91st birthday.   

When it comes to his research, Roland R. Griffiths ’68 leaves no detail to chance. Harriet de Wit, director of the Human Behavioral Pharmacology Laboratory at the University of Chicago, recalls Griffiths checking inside subjects’ mouths to be certain they had swallowed pills given them as part of a drug study on which the scientists had collaborated. Very few researchers, she says, would be quite as thorough.

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Not long after he was caught and tagged by wildlife biologists in 2012, P-22—a mountain lion who migrated from the Santa Monica Mountains to Griffith Park, a 20-mile odyssey that crossed the 405 and 101 freeways—became the face of urban wildlife in Southern California. Photographer Steve Winter’s photo of the big cat walking in front of the Hollywood sign, published in National Geographic in December 2013, cemented his iconic status.

In the fall of 1970—one year after New York City police raided the Stonewall Inn, a bar frequented by a queer clientele, sparking protests nationwide—a group of gay and lesbian Oxy students organized the Gay Liberation Front. In a statement of purpose, “GLF members explained that ‘gay lib’ is a process involving individuals and groups coming together to join hands in the common struggle for freedom and to join hearts in the common spirit of love and honesty,” the Occidental newspaper reported.