Occidental College

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Occidental College

Occidental College Seal
Motto Occidens Proximus Orienti - Where East Meets West
Established 1887
Type Private
Endowment $269,900,000 (2004)
President Susan Westerberg Prager
Faculty 145
Undergraduates 1,839
Location Los Angeles, CA, USA
Campus Urban
Colors Orange and Black
Mascot Tiger
Website www.oxy.edu

Occidental College, located in Los Angeles, California, is a small private coeducational liberal arts college.

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Occidental College (commonly referred to as Oxy) was founded in 1887 by a group of Presbyterians and became independent of the church in 1910. Initially located in Boyle Heights, the College moved to Highland Park in 1898 and then to the current campus in 1914 after outgrowing the Highland Park campus. The Eagle Rock campus covers over 120 acres (0.5 km²), much of it undeveloped land on a hill known on campus as "Mt. Fiji."

In U.S. News and World Report's 2007 rankings of American liberal arts colleges, Occidental is tied for 36th with Bard College (NY), and Whitman College (WA).

Johnson Student Center and Freeman College Union
Johnson Student Center and Freeman College Union
Johnson Hall, one of the three original buildings of the 1914 campus
Johnson Hall, one of the three original buildings of the 1914 campus
Herrick Interfaith Center, built 1964
Herrick Interfaith Center, built 1964

Architect Myron Hunt, who also designed the Rose Bowl Stadium, designed Oxy's original buildings in a Mediterranean style, with covered walkways and tile roofs. Currently, there are 11 on campus residence halls with one more hall under construction. The three original buildings of the 1914 campus still stand today, although seismic concerns have limited them to classrooms and academic offices. Most of the rest of the buildings match the original style with a few exceptions. Indeed, the Arthur G. Coons Administration Building has been dubbed "the Chrysler Showroom" by campus wags--a reference to its boxy glass lobby. As the seat of power, Coons has also been compared to Foucault's "panopticon." The most notable aberration, however, is Stearns Hall, which has been described as "Barbie meets Escher" for its angular, post-modern style and its shrunken scale (it is supposedly built at 90% of scale, an idea supported by the feeling of claustrophobia often encountered there). Occidental's newest building, the Hameetman Science Center was built in 2003 to provide new research facilities for Occidental's geology and physics departments. A new residence hall (name is still unknown), scheduled to open in the spring of 2008, is under construction.

The College is a member of the Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SCIAC) and NCAA Division III. All intercollegiate athletic sports play as the Tigers. Occidental also has a number of club sports teams including Men's and Women's Lacrosse, Ultimate Frisbee, Karate, and Rugby.

The campus has been used for various television and movie shots:

Thorne Hall appeared in the film The Holiday.

Aldous Huxley was close friends with college president Remsen Bird during Huxley's time living in Southern California. He spent much time at the college during this period and college is portrayed under the name of Tarzana College in his 1939 satircal novel After Many a Summer. Huxley also incorporated Bird into the novel.

Gary Shteyngart's novel, Absurdistan, is partly set at the apocryphal "Accidental College," which is clearly a rip on Occidental's name, though its Midwestern setting is more akin to Shteyngart's alma mater, Oberlin.

Several Occidental professors have received awards in recent years and some have held prominent positions in government and the private sector:

  • Larry Caldwell, Professor of Politics, has served in the Office of Soviet Analysis at the CIA, as Director of European Studies at the National War College in Washington D.C., and as Research Associate at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London
  • Martha Ronk, Price Professor of English Literature, is a 2005 PEN American Center Literary Award winner in poetry.
  • Derek Shearer, Stuart Chevalier Professor of Diplomacy and World Affairs, was U.S. Ambassador to Finland from 1994 to 1997 and was formerly an aide to Bill Clinton.
  • Bob Sipchen, Adjunct Assistant Professor of English Writing, teaches journalism classes at Oxy. He is currently an editor at the Los Angeles Times, as well as a novelist. In 2002, he and colleague Alex Raksin were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Writing.
  • John Hirsch, Adjunct Professor of Diplomacy and World Affairs, was the former U. S. Ambassador to Sierra Leone and Vice President of the International Peace Academy.
  • Robby Moore, Elbridge Amos Stuart Professor of Economics, was the originating editor of the Teaching Tools Section of Economic Inquiry and has taught Bill Gates.

  1. ^ Gordon, Larry. "Occidental remembers ‘Barry’ Obama", Los Angeles Times, Tribune Publishing, 2007-01-28. Retrieved on 2007-01-28. “Obama said had "fond memories" of Occidental. "It's a wonderful, small liberal arts college. The professors were diverse and inspiring. I ended up making some lifelong friendships there, and those first two years really helped me grow up."”


Southern California Intercollegiate Athletic Conference
Caltech • California Lutheran • Claremont-Mudd-Scripps • La Verne • Occidental • Pomona-Pitzer • Redlands • Whittier
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