alumni Sam ’04 and Emily ’04 Glick have pledged a $2.47M gift to support financial aid and other crucial resources for future students from middle-income families. Sam and Emily are long-time supporters of the College; Sam is the outgoing chair of the Board of Trustees, and together they have taken on volunteer leadership roles to help advance Pomona’s strategic vision.
In 2002, Pomona junior Emily George, now Emily Glick, asked to borrow an economics textbook from her classmate Sam Glick. Sam was happy to lend the book – especially to Emily – and they became fast friends. The two started dating three weeks before graduation and ultimately married in 2006.
From the outset of their marriage, Sam and Emily have been committed to philanthropy, believing that giving to worthy causes should be a priority that grows along with their personal means. “We asked ourselves, ‘What causes will we support that will help others go on and get the best out of life?’ For us, one of the answers was education, and no place provides a better education than ,” says Sam.
“We are deeply grateful for Sam and Emily’s generosity in establishing the President's Fund for Middle-Class Access,” says President G. Gabrielle Starr. “Their support will provide more than scholarships; it will provide access and opportunity to pursue life-changing work and invaluable academic experiences for students who often don’t consider Pomona. The gift is a powerful investment with resounding impact for the College, our students, their promising futures and the many who will follow.”
As alumni, Sam and Emily know firsthand the power of a Pomona education. After graduating and moving into their careers, they increasingly realized how profoundly the skills and opportunities they gained through Pomona had impacted their lives. “Pomona taught me how to listen deeply, think critically and communicate compellingly,” says Emily. “Those skills have served me well in my career, and more students deserve access to the kind of education Pomona provides.”
Pomona has made great strides in diversifying the student body, but there is still work to be done to achieve a student community that accurately reflects the full economic spectrum of the United States. Growing the number of middle-income applicants and admitted students will be a significant step toward that aim.
In 2022, only 17% of Pomona’s domestic first-year students came from families in the middle-income range – $75,000 to $150,000 for a family of four – compared to 30% of high school graduates nationally. The majority of Pomona students – 55% – came from households with incomes of $150,000 or more, compared to only 25% nationally.
In a recent , Sam noted, “Someone described (the income distribution of students) to me as a ‘whale’ distribution. If you imagine what the silhouette of a whale looks like, that’s about right. When you have that kind of ‘whale’ distribution, it changes the environment on campus, in that it creates a polarized environment of haves and have-nots. And I think that’s important to address.”
To help offset this trend, the Glicks’ gift will support amplified outreach and engagement for students from middle-income families – many of whom never consider applying to because the cost seems out of reach. Their gift will also help the College provide more robust financial support for middle-income students who are admitted. For those who enroll, the fund will support targeted programs and resources for career development and academic enrichment. The Glicks hope that, with such resources in place, more students from middle-income families will see a education as their reality.
The $2.47 million gift – to be precise, $2,474,747.47, a nod to the College’s longstanding association with the number 47 – expands the reach and impact of the Glicks’ 2019 investment, a $625,000 gift to create the endowed Faculty Fund for Creative Collaboration, which supports cross-disciplinary research collaborations among faculty from distinct departments. The Glicks’ renewed support is among the highlights of a banner year for Pomona fundraising, which saw record levels of alumni support and participation, outpacing peers and besting many of the College’s historical watermarks.
For the Glicks, expanding educational access and faculty research are innately intertwined. “You come to Pomona to be changed,” says Emily. “That doesn’t happen only with somebody lecturing at the front of a classroom or telling you to read a chapter in a book. It happens with individual conversations between students and faculty and through once-in-a-lifetime experiences with your peers.”
“Expanding access to Pomona is a critically important part of the mission of the College,” says Sam. “Emily and I were incredibly fortunate to have received the kind of education that we did at Pomona. Doing something to help make Pomona available to more people, we hope, in a small way, makes the world a better place.”