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| April 1, 2021 | Submit a Note |
 Sobrato Campus for Discovery and Innovation. Photo courtesy of Sean Collins.
Greetings from the first week of Spring quarter! We are nearing completion of the Sobrato Campus for Discovery and Innovation which is on track to open this Fall. Below is an update from University Operations of the construction progress and the plans for moving in. SCDI Construction Progress Exterior landscaping is nearly complete -- in true Santa Clara University fashion, fully mature palm and olive trees greet you as you approach the building. Inside, all labs are complete with their base infrastructure. Flooring on the first and second floors is complete. Lab fume hoods, benches, tables and shelving are being installed on all floors. Building mechanical systems are complete. SCDI Move SCDI is on track for opening come Fall 21. Occupants will be able to start moving after August 1 when we expect to achieve occupancy of the building. Lab equipment will start moving in mid-June. The emphasis on move-in will prioritize student centric and supporting spaces first - classrooms, teaching labs and offices. Research labs will follow suit. Rafael Ulate is the move contact for the College and he will interface between the project move team and the designated department move contacts. A detailed communication on move schedule and packing instructions for offices and labs will be distributed in early spring quarter. More to come. If you haven’t yet, I encourage you to watch the eWeek virtual tour to get an understanding of what the entire building looks like. The start of this year's Spring quarter coincides with Good Friday, Easter and Passover -- I wish you and yours a holiday season of renewal and hope! Sincerely, Daniel
Highlights
Child Studies hosted its first "Annual Conference on Anti-Bias Goals in Early Education and Learning Stories" on March 17, 2021. The conference began with experts Brett Solomon (Child Studies) and Soobin Oh (Education at Portland State University) describing the urgent need for anti-bias education in early childhood. Six teams of students then presented findings from storytelling projects designed to promote understanding of anti-bias goals related to culture, racial identity, gender, economic class, different abilities or family structure. Based on family storytelling sessions using anti-bias children's books, students wrote "learning stories" to capture what was observed and created extended play activities to further engage children and families. The conference concluded with a mindful art activity led by Vivian Cho '21 (Psychology and Child Studies), peer educator for CHST 101, to deepen awareness of the need for an anti-bias lens in early education (see illustration created by Cho). Child Studies wishes to recognize the generous guidance given to our students by the Kids on Campus (KOC) early childhood teachers and the support from KOC Director Debbie Gray. We are also grateful to the children and families who participated in these storytelling experiences. Image: A representation of our anti-bias lens in early childhood education (created by V. Cho).
Lindsay Halladay (Neuroscience & Psychology) published an article in Behavioural Brain Research, "Sex- and ontogenetic-dependent effects of low dose ethanol on social behavioral deficits induced by mouse maternal separation." The paper details research investigating the lifelong behavioral effects of chronic postnatal stress, and the examination of potential mitigation of those effects by alcohol. The Halladay lab used a behavioral mouse model to find that not only does early life stress increase anxiety- and depressive-like behaviors across the lifespan, but it leads to social deficits in both females and males, which persist through adolescence and adulthood. These effects were counteracted by low dose alcohol administration, but only in adolescent females. Overall, the study provides insight into the complex interplay of neural circuits mediating the effects of alcohol and those modulating social motivation, which appear to be both age- and sex-dependent. These findings have clinical relevance toward understanding mechanisms underlying "self-medication" in individuals experiencing social anxiety disorder. Co-authors include SCU students: Hannah Henderson '20 (Neuroscience), Gigi Etem '20 (Neuroscience), Max Bjorni '21 (Neuroscience and Biology), Malia Belnap '19 (Neuroscience), and Bryce Rosellini '21 (Neuroscience). Image: The Halladay lab uses mouse models to investigate neural mechanisms producing behavior. Mouse pups are highly dependent on their mother during the postnatal period, so inadequate care can lead to an array of lifelong behavioral deficits, such as the social impairment described in the Halladay Lab's recent publication.
Kathleen Maxwell (Art & Art History) was an invited speaker at the Virtual Encounters on Book History celebrating two publications based on the extensive collection of Greek manuscripts at the University of Michigan Library: Nadezhda Kavrus-Hoffmann, Catalogue of Greek Manuscripts at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Vol. 1. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2021; and Julia Miller, Tradition and Individuality: Bindings from the University of Michigan Greek Manuscript Collection. Ann Arbor, MI: The Legacy Press, 2021. Kathleen’s presentation is “Michigan MS 34 and Athens, Benaki 69 (Vitr. 34/4): Patrons, Scribes, Texts, and the Palaiologina Group” and begins near the 48:30 mark of this video link.
Santa Clara University's Bronco Battalion 8th Brigade is one of eight winners of the MacArthur Award for the school year 2019-2020. The award recognizes the eight schools, selected from among the 274 senior Army Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) units nationwide, as the top programs in the country. Past winners are the most successful of the Commands’ units in accomplishing their mission of training and commissioning the majority of the lieutenants entering the Army each year. “The ROTC motto is leadership excellence, and these programs exemplify that ethos through their hard work and dedication. Being named a MacArthur award winner acknowledges that these programs are going above and beyond to train the next generation of Army officers. They are the best in the nation, and it gives me great pleasure to recognize their leadership excellence!” said Maj. Gen. John Evans, commander of U.S. Army Cadet Command and Fort Knox. Cadet Command and the General Douglas MacArthur Foundation have given awards each year since 1989. The award is based on a combination of the achievement of the school's commissioning mission, its cadets' performance and standing on the command's National Order of Merit List and its cadet retention rate. The awards, presented by Cadet Command and the Gen. Douglas MacArthur Foundation, recognize the ideals of “duty, honor and country” as advocated by MacArthur. Congratulations Bronco Battalion for being a top-performing program! Always Forward!
With the mask mandate at the beginning of the pandemic, Mitch Grieb (Art & Art History) has been sewing reusable fabric masks for family members, friends of family members, work colleagues, friends of work colleagues, a person in need on the corner—anyone who wanted or needed a mask, she gave them one for free. She packed kids’ masks in baggies and kept a bunch in her car, and every time she saw a child with a disposable mask, she gave them a baggie with a kid’s size mask. She also packed an adult mask and five dollars in a baggie for those in need, and every time she saw a person who looks like they could use help, she handed them a baggie with a mask and five dollars. She made dozens of masks for the employees at a friend’s restaurant in Willow Glen. She made masks for entire families. People commissioned her to sew them sports masks of their favorite football team. She made Halloween masks, Thanksgiving turkey masks, festive Christmas design masks, Valentine's masks, St. Patrick’s Day Shamrock masks and, just recently, she made Easter masks, which were snapped up right away. People wanted to pay her for them, so she accepted donations to cover shipping and sewing supply expenses. Mitch’s masks are worn by family and friends across California, Nevada, Seattle, Texas, Idaho, Ohio and as far away as Hawaii. She has sewn and given away hundreds of masks not only because wearing a mask is required, but because she cares. She keeps a small inventory in case someone needs a mask, so if you need a mask, just ask. Image: Mitch's great-nephew Dominic and great-niece Amaia from Hilo, Hawaii.
Mythri Jegathesan (Anthropology) published an early view peer-reviewed article, "Black Feminist Plots before the Plantationocene and Anthropology’s 'Regional Closets'" in Feminist Anthropology. The article, featured in a special issue on #CiteBlackWomen, engages Black feminists Sylvia Wynter, Katherine McKittrick, and Black feminist anthropologists to situate new research on transitional justice for Tamils in Sri Lanka and to question the citational paths of plantation studies in Anthropology and South Asian studies.
Sonja Mackenzie (Public Health) published a piece, Bloodlines and/at the Border: The Structural Intimacies of LGBTQ Transnational Kinship, through the Department of Sociology's Reproductive Sociology Research Group at Cambridge University, where she is currently on sabbatical. This article brings Sonja's optic of 'structural intimacies' from her 2013 book, Structural Intimacies: Sexual Stories in the Black AIDS Epidemic, to consider transnational LGBTQ kinship, considering how the border becomes a literal and figurative space for the re/production of (heterosexual, bio-genetic) family forms. Image: Heading to Cambridge UK: Sonja Mackenzie with her family at SFO leaving for sabbatical research, December 27, 2020.
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