page_title: Pomona College
section_title: South Campus
hierarchical_section_title: Pomona College / Campus / South Campus
caption_attribution_description: English: The gates of Pomona College, with Pearsons Hall in the background
context_page_description: Pomona College is a private liberal arts college in Claremont, California. It was established in 1887 by a group of Congregationalists who wanted to recreate a "college of the New England type" in Southern California, and in the 1920s, it became the founding member of the Claremont Colleges consortium.
  Pomona is a four-year undergraduate institution, and enrolled approximately 1,700 students as of fall 2019. The college offers 48 majors and 600 courses, though students have access to more than 2000 additional courses at the other Claremont Colleges. The college's 140-acre main campus is in a residential community near the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains.
  Pomona has the lowest acceptance rate of any U.S. liberal arts college, and is ranked among the top five liberal arts colleges in the country by Forbes, U.S. News & World Report, and the Wall Street Journal/Times Higher Education ranking. It has an endowment of $2.33 billion as of June 2019, giving it the seventh-highest endowment per student of any college or university in the U.S.
context_section_description: South Campus consists of mostly first-year and sophomore housing and academic buildings for the social sciences and humanities. Among the notable dormitories are Harwood Court, originally a women’s dorm built in 1921, and Oldenborg Center, a foreign language housing option for students that includes a foreign language dining hall. Sumner Hall, Pomona’s first building and the home of admissions, financial aid, and housing, is directly across from the dormitories.
  Bridges Auditorium (referred to as "Big Bridges" to distinguish it from the smaller Bridges Hall of Music) is used for concerts and speakers and has a capacity of 2,500. Bridges Hall of Music ("Little Bridges"), to the east of the department of music, is a concert hall built in 1915 with seating for 600. On the western edge of campus is the Benton Museum of Art, which has a small collection of European, pre-Columbian, and American works along with a gallery for traveling exhibitions. The Carnegie Building houses the Politics and Economics departments. It was built in 1929 as a library for the college. Marston Quadrangle serves as a central artery for South campus facilities and is between the Carnegie Building and Bridges Auditorium. It is one of two quadrangles on campus.
  Along the south side of Sixth Street are buildings central to the campus. Smith Campus Center is home to many student services, including a mailroom, a recreation room, The Coop Store, and two restaurants; Alexander Hall houses administrative offices.
  At the intersection of 6th St. and College Ave. are the college gates, built in 1914, which mark the historical northern terminus of the campus. They bear two quotes from Blaisdell. On the north is "let only the eager, thoughtful and reverent enter here", and on the south is "They only are loyal to this college who departing bear their added riches in trust for mankind". Per campus tradition, enrolling students walk south through the gates during orientation and seniors walk north through the gates shortly before graduation.
  The less-developed eastern portion of campus is known as the Wash (formally Blanchard Park), and contains a large grove of coast live oak trees, as well as many athletic facilities. It is also home to the Sontag Greek Theatre, an outdoor amphitheater; the Brackett Observatory; the Pomona College Organic Farm, an experiment in sustainable farming; and the Seaver Theatre Complex, built in 1990 with a 335-seat auditorium, 100-seat experimental theater and several other studios and rehearsal spaces. The Studio Art Hall, built in 2015 to Leed Gold Certification, is behind the Oldenborg Center, and garnered national recognition for its steel-frame design.
  The athletic facilities are to the south of Sixth Street and to the east of Smiley Hall. The Rains Center is the main athletic facility with a fitness center, gym and locker rooms. Adjacent to Rains Center is Merritt Football Field, Alumni Baseball Field and Haldeman Pool. A parking structure on First Street serves as a parking space for 600 vehicles and a soccer and lacrosse field.
  The southern side of campus is next to the Claremont Village, the city's main commercial district, and two blocks north of the Claremont Metrolink Station.
caption: The college gates historically marked the northern edge of Pomona's campus.
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