It may come as a surprise to learn that Alicia González is not a native speaker of Spanish—the language she has taught to thousands of students over the last 25 years at Occidental. She majored in international studies and Spanish at Stanford before pursuing graduate work in linguistics at UCLA.
When Jan Lin first saw a faculty opening in the Sociology Department at Occidental, he had never heard of the College. Yet the position offered exactly what he had been looking for. After teaching at Amherst College and the University of Houston, he wanted to return to a major city without giving up the close relationships with students that define a liberal arts education.
Discovering new career paths, uncovering fresh research project ideas, and dancing on stage at the Hollywood Bowl would be a lot to expect from any summer internship, let alone one that’s in its first year. But 10 Oxy students participating in the new LA Phil-Occidental College Internship Program came away with all that and much more.
On the eve of Commencement in May, a select group of guests gathered at the Wallis Annenberg President’s House for a concert celebrating the music of Curb Records founder and chairman Mike Curb.
The calendar says July 31, but it’s mid-August hot (temperature: mid-90s; humidity: likewise) as Barack Obama ’83 steps from his RV in small, union-friendly Ottawa, Ill., about 80 miles southwest of Chicago. The hot dogs and corn on the grill go untasted as the boyishly handsome politician—fresh from his career-making speech at the Democratic National Convention—slowly moves through the parking-lot crowd of 350, which reluctantly parts to allow him to reach the stage where two-term U.S. Senator Dick Durbin awaits.
Bryan Scott ’17 may have never played football at Oxy were it not for Brett Kassel, who would become his future roommate. Newly hired football coach Doug Semones had ventured to the West Torrance Lions Club All-Star Football Game at Mira Costa High School in South Bay to recruit Kassel as a long snapper for the Tigers—which he did. But Scott, who had to wait until his senior year of high school to start his first varsity game, was making a pretty good showing himself.
Of the countless social gatherings he organized over his lifetime, Larry Layne ’71 may be best remembered for his legendary opening day outings to Dodger Stadium—a ritual that was born during his time at Oxy sitting in the cheap seats at Chavez Ravine with his rugby buddies. In decades to follow, the guest list grew to encompass hundreds of acquaintances from every facet of his life: athletes, artists, politicians, and more.
As a bright-eyed Occidental sophomore in 2002, I enrolled in Professor Derek Shearer’s Politics 231 course covering the foreign policy of the Clinton presidency because I heard Shearer brought interesting guest speakers to class. On the first day of class, Shearer handed out the syllabus and told us the first speaker would be Bill Clinton himself—little over a year removed from leaving the White House.
Be well-versed in current events. Dress professionally. Learn how spreadsheets work. These were among the practical tips shared by students from Occidental’s fall 2025 cohort of the Kahane U.N. Program as they advised incoming participants during a candid panel discussion about their semester working with United Nations agencies in New York City.