If you were tempted to try to save the Oldenborg Center at Pomona College in Claremont, you’re too late. Demolition crews have reduced them to rubble.
Resistance, in other words, is futile.
If that phrase rings a bell, that’s because it was the matter-of-fact warning of the Borg, a race of alien antagonists on “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and later Trek shows.
As the Borg declared in the 1996 movie “Star Trek: First Contact”: “We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.”
What’s the connection between the Borg and Oldenborg? A “Next Generation” writer, Joe Menosky, is a 1979 alumnus of Pomona College. He is reputed to have lived in the Oldenborg dorm, whose campus nickname was simply Borg.
“Though it has never been confirmed (or denied), the connections are too strong to ignore,” Lorraine Wu Harry, a 1997 alum, contends in her history of Oldenborg.
“When he became a writer for the show, the Borg collective was created,” she writes. In what might be supporting evidence, she continues, “the cube where they reside is notoriously isolated, insular and full of maze-like hallways,” a defining feature of Oldenborg.
The building’s maze-like design is believed to have been intended to naturally segregate male and female students before the dorm went co-ed.
Wu Harry’s article, “60 Years of Oldenborg,” appeared in February in Pomona College Magazine. As the demolition wraps up, 60 years of Oldenborg is where its history will end.
Its official name was the Oldenborg Center for Modern Languages and International Relations, endowed by a $1.1 million gift from Diederick C. Oldenborg and wife Maisie.
At its opening in November 1966, the Brutalist building had a dining hall, classroom wings organized by five languages (Chinese, French, German, Russian and Spanish) and dorms for 144 students.
In the 2025-26 year, Oldenborg’s last, tables set aside for six languages – the original five, plus Japanese – allowed for linguistic and cultural exchange during the noon hour. Twenty other languages would rotate in throughout the week.
Considered physically outdated, Oldenborg was eliminated this summer — perhaps after lowering its shields.
Its replacement, the Center for Global Engagement, will continue the mission, only on a modern and somewhat larger scale. It will boast 200 dorm rooms and a dining hall, with 25 languages represented daily, and add a conference center. It’s due to open in August 2028.
Another of the Borg’s famous threats may apply, but in a positive way.
It’s as if the Center for Global Engagement is assuring Oldenborg, “You will be assimilated.”
‘Trek’ and 47
Wu Harry’s article notes that when Menosky was on the “Next Generation” writing staff, the number 47 showed up often when a random number was needed: say, as the number of a sick ward, the year of a vintage wine or the number of minutes until docking.
What’s the significance of 47? It’s a Pomona College in-joke that originated in the 1960s. The college, with tongue in cheek, has promoted the notion that 47 is the universe’s most common random number. It’s been adopted in a much bigger way in recent years by the campus as a marketing gimmick.
(I think of 47 as the Pomona College version of today’s “6, 7″ — meaningless but fun.)
By making it into “Star Trek,” though, 47 may truly have become the most common random number in the universe.
Easy peasy
Scanning the candidate list for the Nov. 3 election, one aspect I noticed was city council races in which there are no challengers.
Ray Marquez, for instance, is seeking another term in Chino Hills with no opponent. The lack of competition couldn’t have come at a better time for him, as he’s laid up for the next month after foot surgery. As the Chino Valley Champion joked: “Luckily, he won’t have to walk door-to-door for his Nov. 3 re-election bid. He is running unopposed.”
Incumbents Paul Barich and Mario Saucedo in Redlands are assured of victory too after no other candidates stepped forward. (Meanwhile, their colleague Denise Davis has two challengers.)
The most surprising situation might be in Upland.
Jim Breitling, Carlos Garcia and Rudy Zuniga are all unopposed for re-election to the once-contentious City Council. And on the Upland Unified school board, incumbents Chris Cruz, Wes Fifield and Mary Locke are all likewise running solo.
Steady as she goes, Upland.
In the chips
The foul ball that bounced into a reader’s handbag reminds John Fay of Riverside of the time at an Angels game when a foul ball landed on the seat next to him, dropping into his bag of snacks.
Any excitement on his part was short-lived. Reports Fay: “A teen girl ran up, snatched the ball from my bag and made off with it.”
In a small consolation, she didn’t swipe his snacks.
brIEfly
Pine trees drip a sticky substance. On Pine Street in Upland, lined on both sides by the namesake tree, someone recently posted a small sign on each trunk reading “Caution Pine Sap,” Joe Blackstock tells me. It was a way, he says, of warning unwary motorists who might park along the curb that their decision might carry “aerial consequences.”
David Allen goes out on a limb Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Email dallen@scng.com, phone 909-483-9339, and follow davidallencolumnist on Facebook or Instagram, @davidallen909 on X or @davidallen909.bsky.social on Bluesky.