Dear College Faculty and Staff,

Greetings from late summer in Santa Clara, where, apparently, you can grow just about anything! No wonder Silicon Valley was previously called the Valley of the heart's Delight. This picture is of my melon patch – these are a first for me and they turned out beautifully. I hope that you all have enjoyed summer's bounty of fruits and vegetables.

Beyond the gardens, it has been a very busy summer. Many of our children are back in school, with a somewhat disorienting mixture of relief and anxiety. And our colleagues continue to excel, as this College Notes can attest. One highlight of the summer has to be moving into our new SCDI building, which involves literally moving thousands of pieces of equipment and supplies. I'm grateful to the enormous work faculty and staff are doing to get ready for fall quarter in the new building. And on the topic of SCDI, check out our introduction to Ricky Padilla, who has served as the School of Engineering’s Programs Director for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in STEM. He will be setting up and helping students launch our new Diversity and Inclusion Student Center (DISC), which will be housed in the new building.

I hope to see many of you at our annual fall convocation, which will be held outdoors on September 14th at the Mission Garden, as well as live-streamed.

Finally, if you have not been on campus lately, a reminder: as we prepare for the new academic year - SCU has changed the main WIFI network for campus to eduroam. Next time you’re on campus, be sure to switch your wireless devices to the new network if you haven’t already.

Enjoy the last bit of summer before fall quarter, see you soon!

Daniel

New Grant

Mustafa Hajij (Mathematics & Computer Science) has received a $212,506 award from the National Science Foundation to support his project entitled "Collaborative Research: A Unifying Deep Learning Framework Using Cell Complex Neural Networks".

This project proposes (i) to unify and deepen our understanding of deep learning on structured topological and combinatorial data; (ii) to use the topological data analysis tools to better characterize deep networks in terms of overfishing, generalization, and transferability. In the light of these established theoretical foundations, we offer practical methods to expand the applicability of topological and combinatorial deep learning and ultimately leverage them to understand deep learning itself. This project interlaces theoretical and experimental findings with their mutual reinforcement through three main objectives.

Highlights

Image: Artifacts from SCU, view 3d models.

Amy Lueck (English), Matt Kroot (Anthropology), and Lee Panich (Anthropology) published an article, "Public Memory as Community-Engaged Writing: Composing Difficult Histories on Campus," in the spring issue of Community Literacy Journal. The article uses their own institution and the authors' work with Ohlone community members as a case study to argue that students and faculty can employ community-engaged, public-facing, digital composing projects to intervene in public memory discourses on college campuses and promote meaningful student rhetorical learning in courses across disciplines.

Tom Plante (Psychology) published a new book along with Paul Schultz (Religious Studies) and former SCU Arrupe Partnership director, Catherine Wolff, who both contributed chapters to the project. 

Plante, T. G. & Schwartz, G. E. (Eds.). (2022). Human Interaction with the Divine, the Sacred, and the Deceased: Psychological, Scientific, and Theological Perspectives, New York: Routledge/Taylor & Francis. ISBN: 978-0-367-61620-5.

Human Interaction with the Divine, the Sacred, and the Deceased brings together cutting-edge empirical and theoretical contributions from scholars in fields including psychology, theology, ethics, neuroscience, medicine, and philosophy, to examine how and why humans engage in, or even seek spiritual experiences and connection with the immaterial world.

Plante also presented a paper at the 129th annual convention of the American Psychological Association (virtual due to COVID-19): Separating facts from fiction regarding Catholic clerical abuse.

The sexual abuse crisis in the Roman Catholic Church has made headline news across the globe for years. Yet, even with such remarkable publicity, so much misinformation and myths about the problem persists. Those impacted by clerical sexual abuse not only include clerical abuse victims, their families, and clerics themselves, but also Catholics in general who may be troubled and demoralized by the crisis and related media attention. The presentation discusses the most common myths about clerical abuse and present the evidence-based facts as they are known now.

Paul J. Schutz (Religious Studies) published a chapter in Human Interaction with the Divine, the Sacred, and the Deceased: Psychological, Scientific, and Theological Perspectives, a volume of essays edited by SCU colleague Thomas G. Plante (Psychology). Entitled "'God saw...and God knew...': Science, Divine Action, and Un/answered Prayers," the chapter explores the question of how God acts—or can be said to act—in response to prayer if one accepts contemporary scientific insights into the nature and function of physical reality. Using Jesuit astronomer William Stoeger’s retrieval of Thomas Aquinas’s theology of divine action by primary-secondary causality and Johann Baptist Metz's theology of suffering, Schutz proposes a theology of prayer that flows from a vision of creation as the self-expression of God. As such, God—acting through the processes and relationships that constitute reality—manifests Her/His will to life, flourishing, and communion in each moment of existence. This model of divine action provides the basis for a richly relational theology of prayer, wherein prayer provides a channel for the realization of God’s will through creaturely discernment in the concrete circumstances of everyday life.

Grace Stokes (Chemistry & Biochemistry) published a book chapter in the American Chemical Society Symposium Series book entitled "Teaching Programming across the Chemistry Curriculum." Since 2018, Grace has incorporated Python coding exercises into her upper-division Chemical Thermodynamics (Chem 152) and Quantum Chemistry (Chem 151) lectures in order to help students visualize key equations and gain a better understanding of challenging chemical concepts. In 2020-2021, she worked with Dr. Korin Wheeler, Dr. Hoda Mirafzal, Dr. Megan McLean Tichy, Dr. Steven Suljak to incorporate Python-based coding exercises into online general chemistry labs (Chem 12, Chem 14, and Chem 50)! She, Dr. Mirafzal and Dr. Tichy are building upon this work with their newly awarded Enhanced Teaching with Technology grant from the Faculty Collaborative for Teaching Innovation with their project “Integrating Interactive Python Coding Labs into General Chemistry.”

Image: Jessica Eastburn, "Undertow" 2021. Gouache and airbrush on paper. 12" x 18".

Jessica Eastburn (Art and Art History) has paintings featured in an exhibition titled "Imagery Overload" at Maude Kerns Art Center (Eugene, OR). The exhibit also features the work of Don Manderson and Elizabeth Magee. The artwork in the exhibit highlights how each artist "responds to the multifaceted barrage of social and commercial imagery of contemporary life." Eastburn's work was created with the generous support of a Lecturer Professional Activity Grant from Santa Clara University. The exhibition runs from July 30th through August 27th, 2021.

Margaret McLean (Religious Studies) published a chapter in "Geoethics: Status and Future Perspectives," a Geological Society of London Special Publication. Entitled "Reaching out from Earth to the stars," this chapter proposes a set of ethical reasoning tools to guide scientists, the public, and policy-makers in creating an ethical framework for spacefaring and potential planetary colonization. Given the ambitions of NASA, Blue Origin, SpaceX, and Virgin Galactic, now is the time to think about the short-term and long-term consequences of reaching out from Earth to the stars and to reconsider our obligation to make Spaceship Earth habitable for the long haul by prioritizing protection and preservation of our planetary home.

Image: Roots & Routes of Decoloniality in Community Psychology Research Project Collaborators

Jesica Siham Fernández (Ethnic Studies), in collaboration with Drs. Geri Palmer (Adler University) and Dominique Thomas (University of Michigan), co-edited a special issue in the Global Journal of Community Psychology Practice on Anti-Racist and Racial Justice Praxis in Community Psychology. The special issue features the scholarship of international and national scholars engaged in racial justice research, theory and practice. It is a two-part special issue, and a major contribution to the decolonization of community psychology scholarship, as well as the expansion of the discipline toward a more critical engagement with critical race and ethnic studies that aim to unsettle hegemonic standpoints. The first part of the special issue is accessible via this link.

Additionally, Jesica presented parts of this edited special issue at the Society for Community Research & Action (SCRA) biennial virtual conference with Drs. Christopher Sonn (University of Victoria, AU), Monica E. Madyaningrum (Sanata Dharma University, Indonesia), and James Ferreira Moura Jr. (University for International Integration of the Afro-Brazilian Lusophony, Brazil). To learn more about our collaborative transnational research project you can view the website.

Kirstyn Leuner (English) published an article in Studies in English Literature 1500-1900 titled “Locating Women’s Book History in the Stainforth Library of Women’s Writing”. This article introduces scholars to Francis Stainforth (1797–1866), a British Anglican curate who owned the largest private library of Anglophone women’s writing in the nineteenth century, comprised of works published between 1546 and 1866. A study of Stainforth’s 746-page manuscript library catalog, and the thousands of rarely studied works and authors within it, recovers women’s book history from a historical perspective. Further, digital humanities methods, like mapping, are especially useful for studying and recovering women’s book history at scale, as demonstrated by The Stainforth Library of Women’s Writing DH project.

Alma M. García's (Sociology) memoir Club Oasis: Childhood Memories (2020) has received the "Best Young Adult Nonfiction Book 2021" from the International Latino Book Awards that recognizes the Best Achievements in Latino Literature. Alma states that "this award is particularly meaningful to me since my Club Oasis is my first creative writing publication. My memoir covers my childhood/early years growing up in El Paso, Texas during the 1960s." In one review, Norma Elia Cantú, Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Trinity University, describes García's memoir as "a series of linked coming-of-age stories that harken back to an almost idyllic time in El Paso. Now and then, glimpses of the racist and discriminatory border world tell a more nuanced and complicated narrative than the apparent calm existence gleaned from the child's perspective." 

Image: Alma M. García's award-winning memoir

The new Sobrato Campus for Discovery and Innovation will be the location of SCU's new Diversity & Inclusion Student Center (DISC). DISC will affirm the Jesuit vision of social justice and cura personalis, promoting diversity in STEM and creating a safe space in which all STEM students feel heard, represented, and included. Serving our underrepresented student population, in both the College and the School of Engineering, DISC is a location where all student organizations in STEM can reserve to host meetings, events, etc. The space will also host trainings, office hours, workshops, and events from various offices across campus like LEAD, MCC, OML, Career Center, Cowell Center, Wellness Center, ODI, and faulty planned events.

Ricardo Padilla, Jr., Programs Director for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in STEM, will be overseeing this new Center. Mr. Padilla joined the School of Engineering staff in 2019. He has a background as an educator, community volunteer, counselor, and manager. As he prepares the new space, he will be reaching out to CAS student organizations and faculty to introduce himself and the role he will be playing. If you have any questions or ideas related to this new Center, feel free to reach out to introduce yourself, as well.

Have you always wanted to teach a summer short course with no pressure? Have you wanted a way to engage and recruit high school students? Do you have an existing course that can be easily adapted to be fun and educational for high schoolers? The university is piloting a Young Scholars summer enrichment residential program for Summer 2022 and is looking to gauge interest and collect ideas for short 2 week non-credit courses (with compensation).

If interested, please fill out this form with your fun creative ideas that would engage and inspire high school students. Deadline for submissions is September 15. Contact Katy Korsmeyer for any questions.

College of Arts and Sciences Calendar