25-March-21

Dear Colleagues,

Here we are at the end of winter quarter already! While a lot has been happening in recent months nationally, I hope you have felt productive and supported on our campus. Between wrapping up any last finals, submitting grades, and preparing for the start of Spring quarter, please be sure to carve out time for yourself to relax and reset.

I wanted to offer a big congratulations to Associate Dean Kathy Aoki (Art and Art History) who recently received a Creative Capital grant to support her project Koons Ruins Atlas! As one of 49 projects to receive the award nationally, the grant will provide essential funding and mentorship to bring her ambitious vision to life. Her work will also be displayed on the top of Salesforce tower in May – How cool!

On a sadder note, we bid farewell to Noreen Golden, here in the Dean’s Office, who will shortly retire after over ten years of service to Santa Clara University – we will all miss her very much, but no one more than me!

In honor of Noreen, today’s poem is by the Irish poet Eavan Boland, who was a major pioneer of feminist 20th century Irish poetry.

Sincerely,

Daniel

Mother Ireland
By Eavan Boland

At first

I was land.

I lay on my back to be fields

and when I turned

on my side

I was a hill

under freezing stars.

I did not see.

I was seen.

Night and day

words fell on me.

Seeds. Raindrops.

Chips of frost.

From one of them

I learned my name.

I rose up. I remembered it.

Now I could tell my story.

It was different

from the story told about me.

And now also

it was spring.

I could see the wound I had left

in the land by leaving it.

I travelled west.

Once there

I looked with so much love

at every field

as it unfolded

its rusted wheel and its pram chassis

and at the gorse–

bright distances

I had been

that they misunderstood me.

Come back to us

they said

Trust me I whispered.

Got IT Questions or Issues?

Stop by the virtual IT drop-in sessions with Charles Deleon! These sessions are designed to provide faculty and staff in the College of Arts and Sciences a friendly and casual setting for addressing general IT questions and concerns. Feel free to drop in and out at any time during the scheduled session, whether you have a quick question, need assistance with something and don't know where to start, or simply want to learn more about our IT resources.

Biweekly. Next session: Friday, March 28, 11:30 am-12:30 pm.

Zoom link

(L-R): Roman Junes, Leo Illing, Bachana Lomsadze.

Bachana Lomsadze (Physics) along with undergraduate students Leo Illing ’25 (Physics) and Roman Junes ’26 (Electrical Engineering), Physics minor, published an article, “Digitally controlled optical sampling in dual-comb spectroscopy” in Optics Continuum.

SPSP_2025_Annual_Convention logoid:117829

Birgit Koopmann-Holm (Psychology) chaired a symposium titled "Facing Discrimination: The Importance of Emotion Regulation and Emotional Goals" during the 2025 Annual Convention of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology in Denver, Colorado, during which she also presented her own work on this topic.

Past work on discrimination and racism has often neglected the role of different aspects of emotions such as emotion regulation and emotional goals. The symposium highlighted recent research that demonstrates the importance of these aspects of emotions. Jose Soto (Penn State) revealed that the emotion regulation strategy of positive reappraisal, which is often associated with positive outcomes, is less effective in the context of discrimination. Birgit Koopmann-Holm showed that the emotional goal of wanting to avoid feeling negative can be a barrier to changing the status quo, as the more people want to avoid feeling negative, the less they acknowledge systemic racism. Julian Scheffer (University of Western Ontario) showed that Black Americans have different goals when they share their emotional experiences with discrimination with Black or White Americans. Black Americans prefer to share their experiences with fellow Black Americans and they feel more authentic when doing so. Taken together, this symposium underlined the importance of taking different aspects of emotions into account when trying to understand how people face discrimination and racism.

Irina Raicu (Markkula Center), Ryan Carrington (Art & Art History),Iris Stewart-Frey (Environmental Studies),Karen Peterson-Iyer (Religious Studies) (L-R): Irina Raicu, Ryan Carrington, Iris Stewart-Frey, Karen Peterson-Iyer.

Ryan Carrington (Art and Art History), the Center for the Arts and Humanities Urgency of Now series coordinator, hosted a compelling panel discussion featuring three guests: Irina Raicu (Markkula Center for Applied Ethics), Iris Stewart-Frey (Environmental Studies and Sciences), and Karen Peterson-Iyer (Religious Studies). The discussion offered insights into the ethical considerations of AI.

Brita A. Bookser (Child Studies) and Chan Thai (Communication) presented their research conducted in collaboration with Kyle Amore (Educational Assessment) at the First Year Experience Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana in February. Their research project, "Wellbeing Across 8 Dimensions: First Year Seminars Delivered in Residential Learning Communities," is based on their work as Faculty Directors and focuses on an Undergraduate Studies First Year Seminar pilot program delivered through the Residential Learning Communities (RLCs) in Winter and Spring 2024. The seminar promoted students' resilience and connections to the campus community by aligning with SAMHSA’s Eight Dimensions of Wellbeing and the ongoing campus-wide "Winter of Wellness" initiative. The Seminar created a co-curricular space for students to practice the Jesuit value of cura personalis, care for the whole person. Students demonstrated statistically significant growth in areas of intellectual and financial wellbeing, confidence in building relationships with faculty, and their ability to balance life responsibilities. The conference presentation included examples of seminar lesson plans and assessment tools, which the scholar and practitioner audience members showed great interest in, particularly to address students’ ongoing needs in a post-COVID-pandemic world.

Image: Brita Bookser (left) and Chan Thai (right) present their research at the conference.

Still image of Naomi Levy in The New Narrative mini-documentary. Still image of Naomi Levy in The New Narrative mini-documentary.

A short documentary about the work Naomi Levy (Political Science) did last summer in collaboration with Oakland's Department of Violence Prevention has been released by the Possibility Lab. This work is part of Levy's research initiative, the Firsthand Framework for Policy Innovation. She began in spring 2022 by partnering with six community based organizations and talking to hundreds of residents in the City of Oakland. Together, they asked the question: How do YOU know if your community is safe or unsafe? The answers provide “firsthand indicators” of safety that reflect the expertise of residents who have historically been both overpoliced and underserved. Last summer, Levy teamed up with the city’s Department of Violence Prevention to create and implement solutions based on the Firsthand Framework. Working with eight of their former life coaching clients, who named themselves The New Narrative, they used the Firsthand Framework to illustrate how communities and government can work in meaningful and sustained partnership, to co-create real and lasting change.

Jesica Fernández (Ethnic Studies) was invited by the National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (NCPTSD) to offer a webinar workshop on "Decolonizing Psychology: Four Strategies toward a Decolonial Research Praxis." In January, the webinar highlighted Jesica's ongoing scholarship on the importance of developing and fostering a decolonial praxis in psychology. The purpose of the workshop was to consider how the four strategies Jesica named can be engaged in relation to research and practice in the goal of fostering more relational just, equitable and liberators psychologies that can sustain and move beyond notions of diversity, equity and inclusion.

John S. Farnsworth (Environmental Studies and Sciences, Emeritus) published his third post-retirement book in early March, Reading Nature: The Evolution of American Nature Writing. John will be giving a talk highlighting his current conservation work and the writing process for this book in Nobili Hall on Earth Day, April 22, sponsored by the Retired and Retiring Faculty group, at 3:30 pm. An ESS colloquium on the evolution of American nature writing will be held at 11:45 am in the St. Clare Room of the Learning Commons on April 23rd. Both events are open to the public. The Bronco Corner Bookstore will have books available for signing at both events, and the author's royalties from those sales will be donated to the Center for Sustainability.

Image: John birding near his home in the San Juan Islands.

John Hawley (English, emeritus) has published a chapter, "Diasporic Trans/Forming in Diriye Osman's The Butterfly Jungle, Afdhere Jama's Being Queer and Somali, Tofik Dibi's Djinn and Lamya H's Hijab Butch Blues," in Transafrica: The Languages of Postqueerness, eds. Chantal Zabus and Chris Dunton (Zed: 61-76).

On February 8, Matt Harrigan (Political Science) presented a paper titled "Infusing the Political Science Curriculum with Considerations of Power and Identity" at the American Political Science Association's Teaching & Learning Conference in Alexandria, Virginia. The paper details the political science department's initiative to provide students with more opportunities to concentrate attention on the structural nature of discrimination and its sprawling effects. It describes the process through which the department developed their Power & Identity course designation, the learning objectives that unify these courses, and the committee-based process the department developed for encouraging and assisting course design and implementation. To date, this initiative has led to the creation or revision of 12 courses that help students 1) understand how power and identity interact to shape politics, 2) analyze how political institutions and culture create and maintain power inequalities, and 3) explore diverse perspectives on the relationship between power and identity.

Yujie Ge standing next to he presentationid

Yujie Ge (Modern Languages and Literatures) presented at the California Language Teachers Association spring conference on March 8-9 in San Diego. Her presentation, "Incorporating AI into Chinese Language and Culture Learning," emphasized how to use AI tools to enhance teaching efficiency and enrich students' learning experiences. Practical examples included using AI tools to create role-play dialogues, design rubrics, analyze cultural images, research specific cultural topics, and use the "voice mode" feature of the AI tool for interactive speaking practice. This feature provides great flexibility for students to practice speaking outside the classroom. In addition, she introduced how to use AI tools to create videos, audio files, and cultural images to serve as resources for class activities and assessments. However, the findings indicate that support for integrating the target language into these creations using AI tools is still underdeveloped. On the other hand, a positive aspect of using AI tools to create Chinese songs seems to be quite successful.

Dr. Margo McBane speaks in LC 129 to an audience of SCU community members on local history. Dr. McBane speaks in LC 129 to an audience of SCU community members on local history.

On March 3, the Silicon Valley Studies Initiative hosted the talk "Before Silicon Valley: Mexican Agricultural and Cannery Workers of Santa Clara County, 1920-1960" by Margo McBane, Ph.D., emeritus faculty from San José State University. Dr. McBane discussed the history of these workers in our region as well as the act of preserving this history for the public.

Group photo of student presenters for SCU Psych Winter Lab Blitz Student presenters for SCU Psych Winter Lab Blitz.

SCU Psychology had another fantastic Lab Blitz! We are so lucky to have such amazing students who put in the work and show up for science! Congratulations to all of the students who presented projects they have been working on in our labs this quarter: Jon Robins ’25 (Psychology), Gia Patel ’27 (Neuroscience), Lindsey Kendall ’26 (Psychology), Alejandra Quintero ’28 (Psychology, Political Science), Faith Fitzpatrick ’26 (Psychology), Cate Eigen ’26 (Psychology, Child Studies), Lauren Delman ’25 (Psychology), Anjoli Zanger ’25 (Psychology), Hydeia Wysinger ’25 (Psychology, Public Health Science), Emeline Siberell ’26 (Psychology, English), Macey Pizitz ’26 (Psychology), Anu Malhotra ’26 (Psychology, Public Health Science), Remy Schneider ’25 (Psychology), Andrea Villacis ’25 (Psychology), James Shepard ’25 (Psychology, Spanish Studies), Alicia Nelson ’26 (Psychology), Cece Fox-Middleton ’26 (Psychology), Madeleine Beecher ’25 (Psychology), Charlene Agbayekhai ’25 (Neuroscience), Gina Hack ’26 (Psychology), and Tehya West ’25 (Psychology)!!! Shout out to faculty lab mentors Lisa Whitfield, Patti Simone, Giselle Laiduc, Birgit Koopmann-Holm, Katy Bruchmann, Jui Bhagwat, and Tim Urdan.

Got IT Questions or Issues?

Highlights

College of Arts and Sciences Calendar