Scripps College

The museum at Scripps College in Claremont enlisted a Los Angeles art dealer as co-curator of a Getty-funded Pacific Standard Time exhibition, violating a prominent ethics code that warns museums against allowing commercial interests to shepherd shows in nonprofit venues. "Clay's Tectonic Shift: John Mason, Ken Price and Peter Voulkos, 1956-1968" focuses on three artists credited with breakthroughs that transformed pottery from a studio craft to a sculptural form widely appreciated as fine art. The work of the trio being highlighted at Scripps' Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery has been cited as perhaps the first movement in postwar L.A. art to win renown in the wider world.

When Adrianne Wadewitz became a Wikipedia contributor 10 years ago she decided to use a pseudonym, certain that fellow scholars at Indiana University would frown on writing for the often-maligned "free encyclopedia that anyone can edit. " But Wadewitz eventually came out as a Wikipedian, the term the encyclopedia uses to describe the tens of thousands of volunteers who write and edit its pages. A rarity as a woman in the male-centric Wikipedia universe, she became one of its most valued and prolific contributors as well as a force for diversifying its ranks and demystifying its inner workings.

An attorney and high-ranking official at Dartmouth College has been appointed the first woman president in the 63-year history of Scripps College, a liberal arts school for women in Claremont, officials announced Monday. With the appointment of Nancy Y. Bekavac, 42, Scripps alumni won their campaign for a woman to succeed John H. Chandler, who resigned last year after heading the campus for 13 years.

Many colleges seek donations for new construction or scholarships. Pasadena City College, however, has an additional goal that was unthinkable before California's budget crisis forced community colleges to slash course offerings. The school is seeking donations from alumni and others to restore some of the 570 classes it planned to cut this academic year. The campaign, launched in April, has received about $89,400 in donations, and the school is also devoting $106,000 from savings resulting from some cost cuts, officials said.

Scripps College has launched a $41.4-million campaign to raise funds to finance student aid programs, faculty salaries and endowments and to renovate and construct buildings. Board Chairman Sidney J. Weinberg said approximately $13 million would be set aside for faculty salaries and an equal amount for erecting new buildings and renovating older structures, some of which date to the founding of Scripps in 1926.

Two Scripps College faculty members, associate professor of economics Patricia Dillon and assistant professor of psychology Mary Gauvain, have each received $6,000 grants from the Haynes Foundation. The foundation awards 15 faculty fellowship grants annually to members of social science faculties from colleges and universities in the Los Angeles area. Dillon will explore "A U.S.-Mexico Free Trade Agreement: Effects on the Southern California Economy."

Katharine Eleanor Howard Miller, vice chairwoman of the board of Scripps College and a civic leader in Santa Barbara, has died. She was 71. Miller died Sunday at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara of complications from leukemia. A native of Los Angeles, she was the great-granddaughter of both Gen. Harrison Gray Otis, the first publisher of the Los Angeles Times, and Volney P. Howard, one of Los Angeles' first Superior Court judges.

Nancy Y. Bekavac, president of Scripps College in Claremont for 17 years, announced Wednesday that she will step down June 30. Bekavac, 59, was the first woman president of the liberal arts school for women and is credited with helping to increase its enrollment from 600 students to 850 and in leading successful fundraising and campus construction efforts. An attorney with a law degree from Yale, Bekavac said she has no immediate plans for another job.

Mary Wig Johnson, 89, a longtime trustee of Scripps College, died Tuesday in Laguna Beach of complications from lung cancer. Johnson was born in Washington, D.C., and moved with her family at a young age to Southern California. She graduated from South Pasadena High School before going on to Scripps. She served as president of her class and played the violin and flute in various musical groups while a student. She was president of the Scripps College Alumnae Assn.

The Margaret Fowler Memorial Garden at Scripps College in Claremont is one of Southern California's least-celebrated but best-loved hideaways. Scripps students and alumnae know the walled retreat--with its cloisters, central pool, giant wisteria, tiny chapel and expansive mural--as the most beautiful place on an idyllic campus.

The museum at Scripps College in Claremont enlisted a Los Angeles art dealer as co-curator of a Getty-funded Pacific Standard Time exhibition, violating a prominent ethics code that warns museums against allowing commercial interests to shepherd shows in nonprofit venues. "Clay's Tectonic Shift: John Mason, Ken Price and Peter Voulkos, 1956-1968" focuses on three artists credited with breakthroughs that transformed pottery from a studio craft to a sculptural form widely appreciated as fine art. The work of the trio being highlighted at Scripps' Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery has been cited as perhaps the first movement in postwar L.A. art to win renown in the wider world.

$4-million ceramics gift Thanks to a grateful alumna from the class of 1949, Scripps College and the affiliated Claremont Graduate University are getting $4 million in dough to benefit art students learning to work with clay. The gift for ceramic art programs at the two institutions in Claremont comes from Joan Lincoln and her husband, David, who live in Paradise Valley, Ariz. It includes a $3.5-million pledge to Scripps, funding a new, 3,000-square-foot ceramics building and an endowment for various ceramic art studies programs and exhibitions, and $500,000 to establish an endowment for graduate student scholarships at Claremont Graduate University.

Nancy Y. Bekavac, president of Scripps College in Claremont for 17 years, announced Wednesday that she will step down June 30. Bekavac, 59, was the first woman president of the liberal arts school for women and is credited with helping to increase its enrollment from 600 students to 850 and in leading successful fundraising and campus construction efforts. An attorney with a law degree from Yale, Bekavac said she has no immediate plans for another job.

FOR those of us whose bright college years are a distant memory, a visit to a university campus is tinged with mourning for our lost youth and envy for those fresh-faced things preoccupied with final exams and whether the cute boy down the hall is interested. Alumni of certain local schools may beg to differ, but there is arguably no better place in the Los Angeles area to step into that universe of remembrance and regret than the Claremont Colleges.

Ceramist Tony Marsh has been thinking big. As a professor in the art department at Cal State Long Beach, Marsh directs the school's ceramics program. With kilns capable of firing mammoth-scale works and an exhibition area that replicates a commercial gallery, it has become a magnet for students and artists who want to work in new, experimental and often large ways in clay.

Katharine Eleanor Howard Miller, vice chairwoman of the board of Scripps College and a civic leader in Santa Barbara, has died. She was 71. Miller died Sunday at Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara of complications from leukemia. A native of Los Angeles, she was the great-granddaughter of both Gen. Harrison Gray Otis, the first publisher of the Los Angeles Times, and Volney P. Howard, one of Los Angeles' first Superior Court judges.

Back in 1954, when Fred Marer learned that something revolutionary was going on at Los Angeles County Art Institute's new ceramics department, he decided to check it out. Marer, a mathematics professor at Los Angeles City College, would stop by the institute (now Otis School of Art and Design), watch Peter Voulkos and his students throw pots in a basement studio, schmooze a while and occasionally buy a piece.

Scripps College recently received a $100,000 grant from Aoki Corp., the Tokyo-based parent company of Westin Hotels and Resorts. The grant, the first made by the corporation to a U.S. college, will support lectures by American and Japanese scholars and artists, exhibits of Japanese art, and other programs related to Japanese art and culture.

Mary Wig Johnson, 89, a longtime trustee of Scripps College, died Tuesday in Laguna Beach of complications from lung cancer. Johnson was born in Washington, D.C., and moved with her family at a young age to Southern California. She graduated from South Pasadena High School before going on to Scripps. She served as president of her class and played the violin and flute in various musical groups while a student. She was president of the Scripps College Alumnae Assn.

To paraphrase that famous line from "When Harry Met Sally," I would love to have whatever it is that drives the energetic Alyce Williamson, the Pasadena philanthropist who never seems to rest. Two weeks ago, she was chairwoman of the annual powwow sponsored by the Heritage of the Performing Arts Center of Los Angeles County, an organization of Music Center stalwarts.