activities in the 1920s, and switched to a beach trip during a period of low snowfall in the 1940s, before later combining the two. In its current form, students board a bus in the morning and are driven to a local ski resort where they ski or snowboard. After lunch, they are bused down to an Orange County or Los Angeles County beach for the rest of the day. Sponsor groups All incoming students are placed into a sponsor group, with 10–20 peers and two or three upperclass "sponsors", who are tasked with easing the transition to college life but not enforcing rules (a duty given to resident advisors). The program dates back to 1927 for women, and was expanded in 1950 to include men. Sponsor groups vary in their level of social cohesion, with some becoming friend groups. They often share activities such as fountaining, a tradition in which sponsor groups carry someone to a campus fountain on their birthday and throw them in. Members of one's sponsor group are referred to as "spiblings". Through the gates Walker Wall In 1956, Pomona constructed a curved , cinder block wall along a portion of the northern edge of its campus as a flood barrier. In the early 1970s, students began painting messages on the wall, and Pomona recognized it as a free speech wall in 1975 after the message "Free Angela" was painted on it, referring to the imprisonment of Angela Davis. Over the years, provocative postings on the wall have spawned a number of controversies. In recent years, sponsor groups have painted the wall during orientation, and since 2009 the Queer Resource Center has painted the entire wall annually for Gaypril. Defunct traditions College songs A number of songs written by Pomona students and faculty have been associated with the college. The college's alma mater, "Hail, Pomona, Hail", was written by student Richard Loucks in 1910. In 2008, it was discovered that it may have been originally written to be sung as the ensemble finale to a student-produced blackface minstrel show performed on campus. A commission recommended that it be replaced, but many alumni argued against its retirement, noting that the lyrics themselves are not objectionable. Additionally, research from Rosemary Choate (class of 1963) concluded from primary materials that Loucks likely did not actually write the song for the show and was misremembering when he recalled having done so