Student Creativity Grants

Chi Adi
Celine Bernhardt-Lanier
Pitzer
CMC
Org Sigma!
Students revive, relaunch, and design a physical and intellectual space for an organization using an alternative, non-hierarchical approach to student governance. Organizational Studies students create an online resource base and promotional materials to engage and inform students, as well as train with organizational consultants who specialize in sociocracy, a decentralized, peer-to-peer governance with an emphasis on equitable and collective decision-making. Org Sigma! Is a 5C Club open to everyone, fosters a community of Organizational Studies students and practitioners, conducts leadership workshops, and provides organizational framework modeling for those interested in adopting the sociocratic method.

JT Bard
Carter Amaden
Adam Dieck
Pitzer
Pomona
Scripps
Coyotes
This psychological thriller is a short film project set in the desert, where a border patrol agent is stranded after his truck breaks down. The agent spirals out of control as xenophobic radio chatter from his fellow officers and eerie sounds from the desert elicit paranoia. Convinced he's being hunted by migrants, the agent descends into madness, only to realize the real threat was his own mind.

Celine Bernhardt-Lanier
CMC
The Living Classroom: Weaving Biophilia Into Learning Spaces
This project bridges the gap between humans and nature by exploring the concept of biophilic design and its impact on educational spaces in three Scandinavian cities – Copenhagen (Denmark), Oslo (Norway), and Stockholm (Sweden) – renowned for their innovative efforts in integrating nature into their educational systems. How do the spaces we design shape our learning experiences? How can nature be seamlessly integrated into educational settings? What specific biophilic elements are most effective in enhancing student creativity and the overall learning experience? This project delves into the intricate relationship between nature, architecture, and pedagogy and explores how nature-inspired classrooms can become more than just a learning space; how they can nurture a dynamic, student-centered learning culture. By examining how nature can be mimicked in classroom design, this student discovers how classrooms – the very roots of our learning – can evolve from static, conventional settings to flexible, vibrant hubs of learning and well-being for both teachers and students.

Dante Christian + 9 cast members
Pomona
CMC
Scripps
Entangoment
5C’s Dance Departmental Show, “In the Works,” features Entangoment, choreographed in the dance style of Argentine tango, while adding influences from contemporary, modern, and paso doble. The dance piece explores various forms of entanglement found throughout nature and culture, and how these aspects become more rigid and stable through creating knots. The piece plays with architectural curiosity, using a spider web to explore the sonic structure of webs while harp playing is overlaid.

Nico Cid
Eli Protas
Pomona
Isles of Odd
Isles of Odd is a dynamic and replayable pirate adventuring board game for up to four players. In this imaginable, fictional universe, players collect gold, discover new map tiles to add to an ever-expanding ocean, and pick up crewmates from the islands scattered around Odd to aid in the quest. There is naval warfare, lurking monsters, divine intervention once in a while, and an incredible amount of possible combinations of tiles and characters (both random and strategic) that make each game feel like it has been played on a unique version of the Isles.

Isabel Ferrell + cast + crew
Scripps
A Chance of Worms
This project is an experimental short film about the phenomenon of meaning-making that occurs when a viewer is exposed to media at random. It involves stop-motion animation, puppetry, and many different variations of worms/worm-like creatures. The narrative framework of the film is centered on a television that displays three distinct programs meant to emulate familiar formats but with absurd twists. Within each program some form of a worm will appear, in one as a fuzzy rainbow puppet, another as a fleshy stop-motion science experiment, and another as the living creature itself. The common occurrence of the worm represents how an audience might trace an idea or theme through different contexts.

Elizabeth Flores
Scripps College
Claremont Clean Air Project
Students create and artistically design corsi-rosenthal (CR) boxes, DIY air purifiers using a box fan and air filters. When infectious diseases circulate within the community, one layer of protection is having clean air to breath. During Southern California’s fire season, combating poor indoor air quality is also a concern. This team makes air purifiers for closed and windowless classrooms, to be used by faculty, students, and staff. Without damaging the efficacy of the filter, the boxes are decorated to become an aesthetic piece in the room they are purifying.

Leah Gorence + 120 Environmental Justice club members
Scripps
Pomona
HMC
CMC
Pitzer
Riding to the Future of Food Distribution in Claremont
The 5C Environmental Justice club strengthens food distribution efforts in the cities of Pomona and Claremont by decentralizing food and waste systems and bringing much-needed supplies to local communities. In the past, Food Cycle Collective serviced Claremont and its neighboring towns, but they are moving their base and the 5C Environmental Club will fill the gap created by their loss and maintain what they created for the local unhoused population.

Climate justice is important to the 5C Environmental Justice club, believing that environmentalism is meant to be good for the planet, the economy, and the people. This group project studies what went well for Food Cycle Collective and what could be improved on. One of the strengths of the Food Cycle Collective program was the emphasis on bikes because bikes are easily recognizable to people on the street, make whatever is being distributed easily accessible, and decrease power distance. The first step of this project is purchasing and “branding” a bike trailer to deliver necessities in the community, making the 5C Environmental Justice club visible and recognizable to people they serve, as well as adding a bit of beauty to the world.

JaQ Lai
Adam Dieck
Pomona
Instrument Design Lab
Instrument Design Lab is a research project and series of workshops focused on the exploration of human movement as it relates to musical expression. Building on Unfold (this student’s deep-sensory installation project and community gathering from last year), Instrument Design Lab pursues enduring questions around improvisation and co-production and retains the commitment to building a community of collaborative sonic innovation at the 5Cs. This project revolves around the ideation, prototyping, and eventual creation of mid-to-large scale digital musical instruments. These instruments combine fabricated physical parts with Arduino electronics that are tuned for sonic expressivity. The prototyping phase is open to the community and engages with various spaces at the Hive—most directly with the Toolbox and Soundbox—as a series of workshops. The instruments themselves will be designed to be operated as part of an ensemble—to be experienced in a community gathering final presentation.

Isabel Li
Oriole Song
Brandon Isem Cáceres
Kishore Rajesh + 10 crew members
Scripps
HMC
CMC
Play, Then
Play, Then is a bilingual drama short film following Lucas, a 17-year-old Chinese American cellist, who must reconcile his relationship with music when asked to play for his grandmother. The film integrates intergenerational conflicts, language barriers, and classical music while adopting animations and experimental storytelling techniques. This film project is also part of a larger exploration into the culture of classical music and APIDA identities, acknowledging that classical music is an art form enjoyed by many members of the Asian American community and tapping into its universality as a medium for identity, self-expression, and emotions. The cast and crew integrate a research-based framework and analysis in their creative endeavors, such that the final presentation combines both research in film theories and Asian American studies.

Serena Lin
Designing for Intergenerational + Cross Cultural Communication
to build memories and improve wellbeing 
Pomona
Uplift Notes, which empowers individuals to start and engage in meaningful intergenerational conversations, was built by this student as an independent study project, undergoing a memorable journey during the final pre-market stage. Uplift Notes was launched in Spring of 2024 to favorable reviews, purchased by individuals as well as groups, and word-of-mouth led to its increasing popularity, generating much feedback from end users. Although its intended use is for a general audience, people reported how they used this product to connect with loved ones under heartwarming circumstances. From the feedback, an immense need called for a separate rendition of Uplift Notes, specifically for those who have memory or movement challenges. Several people who used the Uplift Notes 1.0 edition gave feedback on how it may help address the daily challenges faced by Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s patients and their caregivers. This project iterates on Uplift Notes to develop a “Memory Edition,” which entails building a customized set of accessories to make the Uplift Notes Original Edition more accessible for caregivers and individuals affected by Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s Disease.

Yaodong (Donny) Lu
Larry Liu
Pomona College
Autonomous Rescue Vehicle Robot
This is the fourth year of this team’s self-directed learning of electrical engineering, with this part focusing on development of a fully functional autonomous rescue vehicle ready for deployment in real-world scenarios, significantly contributing to disaster response efforts. The vehicle navigates rough terrains such as earthquake zones and war zones, equipped with autonomous navigation, remote control, and rescue operation sensors and tools. Plans are underway to transform this project into a robotics startup focused on developing technology to assist in rescue operations within disaster zones through collaborations with several global rescue organizations. These students are also mentors for other students wanting to create and build self-directed learning of electrical engineering.

Mari Nishitani
Alyssa Marie Hernandez
Shamiya Morajeune
Pomona
Scripps
People of Color Outside
People of Color Outside is an organization providing a safe space for people of color to explore a variety of places and environments, with this particular project centering on healing with nature. Students take a trip to an outdoor area to reflect on their own relationships with nature and the kind of environment they heal within while engaged in making activities. The group creates a multimedia collage compiled in a zine as an artifact of their experience, filled with healing creations from the natural world. Their journey is documented through film, to be shared via social media, to further awareness of the creative space the group offers to all 5C students.

Alexandria Nyx + 8 cast and crew members
Pitzer
Pomona
Scripps
Home is Never Just a Place
This film project explores themes of grief, death, loss, and healing, showcasing a story not typically seen in mainstream media. When Nyx finds out that she's pregnant shortly after her fiancé’s death, she has to come to terms with the grief and make a choice to keep the baby or not to keep the baby. In this powerful film, we follow Nyx as she goes on a journey of sorrow and healing, and love.

Alexandria Nyx
Pomona
Joy as Resistance
This black and white photography exhibit centers around queer, trans, BIPOC, and APIDA Claremont Colleges students, looking at how movement and dance intersect with identities, and is used as a form of resistance. The joy of movement and dance is a small act of resistance to the hatred, racism, and bigotry in the world, and this project displays the meaning and joy of living a life of resistance.

Theresa Provasnik
Alyssa Hernandez
Lena Farley
Ella Piersma
Claire Bell
Scripps
Pomona
Pitzer
Potluck Zine
This annual two-issue zine project encompasses a collection of artwork from people around the globe. Students are encouraged to create art in a low-stress, low-stakes environment during meetings of the Potluck group, and much of that art is submitted to the zine for publication. Contributing artists (family members contribute too!) create a collection of artwork that represents the Potluck group and beyond. Artists from every study and discipline are encouraged to create and submit: drawing, painting, collage, poetry, abridged academic writing, video art, embroidery, and sculpture. The Potluck group curates, designs, and produces the zine for markets, events, and the local and global community.

Jay Renaker
Nicole Kerschner
Ceci Wade
Yaw Danquah Acquah
Diya Gangwar
Hanna Kenyatta
Sofia Robertson
Scripps
Pomona
Pitzer
HMC
Revamping Scripps Data Science
An academic website is developed that is a fun place to be and provides a centralized place for resources and a sense of asynchronous community for students in Scripps Data Science and adjacent, interconnected 5C communities of Math, Computer Science, and Engineering. The community aspect of the website is created by student quotes, photos, and a Living Wall page (a cross between a dorm room white board and a Miro board for doodling, sharing inspirations and frustrations, and asking questions). The Living Wall is a place where all who visit the site feel engaged and connected to other visitors and members of the 5C community.

A secondary aim of this project is developing and documenting effective ways to foster an engaged, supportive, and caring team environment. Strategies are built for encouraging accountability, tracking progress, and ensuring team members truly care about this project and each other. Creating good team dynamics, giving members autonomy and a sense of ownership in the project, and creating connections across campuses is explored and emphasized.

Riley Thibodeau
Pitzer
Respect This Land Sign 
Respect This Land project encourages users of Pitzer's Outback preserve to take responsibility for their waste. This student curates litter (defined as human-made garbage without clear ownership or artistic value) left in the Outback and creates a publicly visible sign placed by the Outback’s entrance. People’s awareness to the issue will be heightened as they enter this space, discouraging littering and leaving garbage in the Outback, and encouraging a quick glance at the space before leaving to ensure that garbage is picked up. Once the project is complete, the student will monitor the sign and its impact, the left garbage, as well as continue to pick up litter left in the Outback.

Ambika Tiwari
Emilio Esquivel
Jason Gounder
Miranda Yee
Scripps
Pomona
HMC
Pitzer
Fragrance Symposium + Scent Opera Performance
This event starts with a Fragrance Symposium where discussions explore whether scent as a medium, like paint, words, pitches and rhythms, can be used to create original works reflecting the personality of a human perfumer. The symposium seeks to answer the question of works of olfaction obtaining legal protection as copyrightable original authorship, like literary, visual, and musical works.

The event’s second part is a Scent Opera Performance where a recorded performance of Richard Strauss’ “Alpine” Symphony syncs visuals and scent releases in a Wagnerian attempt to engage various senses of the audience. The “Alpine” Symphony is a tone poem with 22 “chapters” of music that evoke phenomena encountered during a day-long journey in the Alps. The playing of each chapter starts without visual cues of the imagery the music is intended to evoke, only music and a particular scent designed to evoke the scene. During the performance, audience members will assess the imagery they’re experiencing based on the scents they’re smelling. After the performance, audience assessments will be shared and the Fragrance Symposium will discuss with audience members how fragrances sharpened the accuracy of their perception of the phenomena depicted in Strauss’ work.

Sara Wexler
Marika Ragnartz
HMC
JulieTEC Cooling Necklace
Started as a summer project from HMC’s E-Ship Studio, this student team researched and designed prototypes for a wearable cooling device to help individuals with multiple sclerosis. For the next iteration, the team designs and prototypes a cooling necklace for individuals with MS, women with hot flashes, and other heat-sensitivity scenarios. The cooling necklace uses Peltier junctions and applies an electrical current, a design that the entrepreneurial team hopes to obtain a provisional patent for, take to market, and establish a company.

Total Proposals Submitted = 25
Total Grants Awarded = 20
Total Grant Projects Iterating on Initial Award = 6
Total Students Awarded = 193

Timi Adelakun + 24 crew and cast members
Pomona
Pitzer
Scripps
HMC
CMC
Testing Free Will (docu-series)
Our Place (stage production)
Testing Free Will is a docu-series exploring the production of Terry Gabbard’s play, Our Place, by a student with limited knowledge of the production process. The series chronicles the entire creative process of producing the play: finding designers, casting the show, the rehearsal process, marketing, and engaging the audience. The docu-series experiments with free will within the Claremont Colleges community, celebrating human potential and embracing challenges. The live performance of the Our Place play is in the Allen Theatre, and a separate screening of the Testing Free Will docu-series is in the Rose Hills Theatre, both followed by engaging talkbacks.

Chi Adi
Celine Bernhardt-Lanier
Sofia Presser
Pitzer
CMC
Org Sigma!
Students revive, relaunch, and design a physical and intellectual space for an organization using an alternative, non-hierarchical approach to student governance. Organizational Studies students create an online resource base and promotional materials to engage and inform students, as well as train with organizational consultants who specialize in sociocracy, a decentralized, peer-to-peer governance with an emphasis on equitable and collective decision-making. Org Sigma! Is a 5C Club open to everyone, fosters a community of Organizational Studies students and practitioners, conducts leadership workshops, and provides organizational framework modeling for those interested in adopting the sociocratic method.

Celine Bernhardt-Lanier
The Living Classroom: Weaving Biophilia Into Learning Spaces
This project bridges the gap between humans and nature by exploring the concept of biophilic design and its impact on educational spaces in three Scandinavian cities – Copenhagen (Denmark), Oslo (Norway), and Stockholm (Sweden) – renowned for their innovative efforts in integrating nature into their educational systems. How do the spaces we design shape our learning experiences? How can nature be seamlessly integrated into educational settings? What specific biophilic elements are most effective in enhancing student creativity and the overall learning experience? This project delves into the intricate relationship between nature, architecture, and pedagogy and explores how nature-inspired classrooms can become more than just a learning space; how they can nurture a dynamic, student-centered learning culture. By examining how nature can be mimicked in classroom design, this student discovers how classrooms – the very roots of our learning – can evolve from static, conventional settings to flexible, vibrant hubs of learning and well-being for both teachers and students.

Claudio Castillo
Tara Mukund
Pomona College
Computer Science Yearbook
Students document, archive, highlight, and celebrate the largest and fastest-growing department at Pomona College with a yearbook that includes photos, memories, and profiles of students, faculty, and staff. This project is circular, so that the next generation of students have a process and product to use for future academic years, while being inspired by how computer science has evolved. It is also replicable as a template for other departments to engage with faculty, students, and staff outside the classroom, while also highlighting and memorializing their academic community.

Betsy Ding
Pomona
Connecting with our Roots: Farm-to-Table and Third Culture Cuisines as Modalities of Community Building 
This project features a tasting menu of five dishes of third-culture cuisines, utilizing ingredients from farmer's markets and the Pomona farm. The relationship between nativity, our roots, and a modern, ever-changing world is explored through the lenses of evolving cuisines, farming, and agriculture. The project examines how industrialization and cultural exchange can develop and/or erase critical historical and cultural human practices. In the form of a dining experience, diners are empowered to reflect and share their own relationships with the dishes and what eating and consumption means.

Justin Guo
Pitzer
Stupid Shit No One Needs + Terrible Ideas Hackathon
Have you ever been to a hackathon and seen a profoundly useless or terrible project? This event is like that, but for every project. Participants make whatever they want, as long as it works and contributes nothing whatsoever to the world. Teams create stupid, terrible ideas that nobody needs and bring those bad ideas to life!

Kayla Hankins + 10 cast and crew members
Pomona
Heart^2
This low fantasy short film follows twins who get into a fight, which unleashes an ancient curse. The two must work together to stop the curse before it's too late. This project dives into various African diasporic theories surrounding self, duality, and family, while aiming to display the life and beauty of African-American ancestry.

JaQ Lai
Ian McClure-Chute
Aiden Karpf
Pomona
Unfold: A Multisensory Series of Workshops + Community Gatherings
This interactive audio/visual series of workshops and events inspires deep listening and embodied experience, and provides a regenerative community space for the 5Cs. The project offers accessible exploration and improvisation, and a communal deep-sensory (listening, watching, feeling) experience through pop-up workshops leading up to a final event. The final installation is a shared, communal experience (co-listening and co-creation) and features a co-operative sound system in tandem with a fiber art installation and light show.

Aisulu Malik
Pomona
Scents of Our Earth: Homemade Potpourri from Campus Plants
This is an experimental project centered on a desire to bring the beautiful aromas of the natural world into our living spaces, which are often filled with artificial scents. Ingredients will be foraged from across the 5Cs, using materials that would otherwise be disposed of, supporting and encouraging the use of sustainable natural scenters. The project is focused on researching economical and efficient ways to assemble potpourri entirely at home, with the findings shared with students to use in scenting their own living spaces.

Jason Nguyen
Alex Chun
Sebastian Fish Mathurin
Sidney Tchanyoum
Anna Beattie
Joey Cacciarelli
Michele Tang
Pomona
Pitzer
HMC
My Beautiful Rainbow Trout
This science fiction short film, distinctly told through a queer lens, follows two 20-something fishmongers, who unearth a magical rainbow trout. Unaware of the dangerous forces trailing them and the challenges ahead, the fishmongers bring the mythical glowing fish home, only to realize the true nature of this magical trout.

Mari Nishitani
Alyssa Marie Hernandez
Shamiya Morajeune
Pomona
Scripps
People of Color Outside
People of Color Outside is an organization providing a safe space for people of color to explore a variety of places and environments, with this particular project centering on creativity. Students visit the Getty Museum to reflect on their own relationships and the kind of environment they thrive in while engaged in making activities. While at the Getty, the group creates a multimedia collage compiled in a zine as an artifact of their experience. Their journey is documented through film, to be shared via social media, to further awareness of the creative space the group offers to all 5C students.

Alexandria Nyx + 17 cast and crew members
Pitzer
Pomona
Lost at Sea
This film project explores themes of grief, death/loss, healing, trans resilience, and childhood trauma, showcasing a story not typically seen in mainstream media. Queer characters typically look like a Hollywood stereotype or die off for no reason, but this film shows a queer, trans person of color discovering love in a world built against them, finding people who have their back throughout life, and suffering great loss and recovering from it.

Alexandria Nyx
Pomona
Joy as Resistance
This black and white photography exhibit centers around queer, trans, BIPOC, and APIDA Claremont Colleges students, looking at how movement and dance intersect with identities, and is used as a form of resistance. The joy of movement and dance is a small act of resistance to the hatred, racism, and bigotry in the world, and this project displays the meaning and joy of living a life of resistance.

Gerrit Punt
Pomona
Gargoyle
This short gothic horror film is in the style of German Expressionist cinema, and a second creative project from a celebrated Hive student user. Gargoyle follows a young man, disillusioned with the state of the world and frightened for the future, who finds himself haunted by strange voices from a creature from the past.

Total Proposals Submitted = 20
Total Grants Awarded = 14
Total Students Awarded = 78
Total Grant Awards = $14083