Dear College Faculty and Staff,

What a busy week on campus! Wednesday was SCU’s annual Day of Giving, and we had a great year. We don’t have the final numbers yet—those will take a few weeks—but we estimate we received about $195,000 in gifts and challenge dollars for the College! These funds will make a big impact on the quality of education and services we provide our students. Thank you to everyone who helped make this day a success!

Meanwhile, I started participating in one of our new Spark Seminars this week. Conceived as a way of building community between campus leaders, faculty and students, seven seminars were launched this quarter, pairing a faculty member in the College with a campus leader and a few students (mostly first years). I am enjoying “Sowing Stories” with the marvelous Missy Donegan, from the English Department. We meet in the Forge Garden, combining seminar discussions on gardening with hands-on work planting, weeding…and maybe harvesting!

As I mentioned last week, we are welcoming admitted students and their families to campus for SCU’s annual Preview Days tomorrow. I look forward to meeting our admitted students and hopefully playing a part in their decision to come to Santa Clara next year.

It should be a beautiful weekend - please get out and enjoy it!

Daniel

Highlights

Heather Clydesdale’s (Art & Art History) article “Objects of Fascination: Encountering Six Dynasties China through Material Culture” was published in Education about Asia’s special issue. "Asia in World History: Comparisons, Connections, and Conflicts.” Education about Asia is a publication of the Association of Asian Studies. Aimed at educators and college students, the article shows how material culture from the Silk Roads gives special insights into history and the diverse experiences of people in the past.

Jesica Siham Fernández was invited as the keynote speaker for the Community Research and Action in the West Conference, organized by Dr. Erin Ellison at CSU Sacramento. Jesica's talk, entitled "Abolitionist Visions: Reflections on Four Community Psychology Decolonial Orientations," features her scholarship within community psychology, and the need to engage in processes and practices that are oriented toward decoloniality and decolonization, and that work toward re-centering the power, agency and dignity of communities, and collectivities in struggle and for liberation. In addition to giving a keynote, she also gave a book talk on the themes from her recent publication, "Growing Up Latinx: Coming of Age in a Time of Contested Citizenship," at the University of California, Riverside. The event was organized with support from the Center for Ideas and Society, and the Latino & Latin American Studies Research Center, under the leadership of Dr. Adrian Felix.

Ricardo Cortez ’03 (Studio Art) has been named one of six new 2022 Creative Ambassadors by the City of San Jose. The City’s Department of Cultural Affairs appoints up to six ambassadors per year “to produce a creative project that engages the public in creative expression. The ambassadors will also … promote the importance of creative expression by utilizing social media, participating in interviews, and publishing articles as relevant.” Cortez notes, “Students are already registered for a program with a mix of sculpture, art history, and local culture incorporating much of what I learned in Professor Kathy Aoki’s classes through the Studio Art program at SCU.”

“My journey back to SCU has really been full circle. While an undergrad BA student, I gained skills in the digital art courses taught by Professor Aoki that landed me an internship as a designer for the Center for Science, Technology, and Society. This Center would eventually become the Miller Center for Social Entrepreneurship, where I am now the Director of Marketing. My unique background coupled with the foundations I learned at SCU truly changed the course of my life, allowing me to continue my creative journey as a professional and practicing artist. This year, I am fortunate to combine both of my passions into a community art program supported by the San Jose Office of Cultural Affairs as a Creative Ambassador to the City. I'll be hosting a series of workshops exploring themes of New Media art and diverse artists."

Early this winter Pancho Jiménez (Art & Art History) exhibited work at the de Saisset Museum in a show titled “Encounter: Executive Order 9066.” He also exhibited at the Triton Museum of Art in a show titled "Beyond 2D."

This month Jiménez is participating in two shows which are running concurrently with the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) conference taking place in Sacramento. He also has artwork at Benicia Arts in a show titled "Tap Roots" (March 10 - April 10). The show features ceramic arts educators from Northern CA. In this show, he is exhibiting a work titled "Defense?"

In addition, Jiménez was also exhibiting in a show titled "Real ID" (Feb 11- March 29) at the Cosumnes River College Gallery in Sacramento. In this show, he exhibited a work titled "Progression" among other works of his own.

Image: "Defense" by Pancho Jiménez

Don Fritz (Art & Art History) will be exhibiting new ceramics and drawings at the La luz de Jesus Gallery in Los Angeles, in an exhibition titled “Lexicon,” from March 26 through May 1, 2022.

Established in 1986 La Luz de Jesus Gallery is the brainchild of entrepreneur and art collector Billy Shire, considered primarily responsible for fostering a new school of California art and prompting JUXTAPOZ Magazine to dub him “the Peggy Guggenheim of Lowbrow.”

Showcasing mainly figurative, narrative paintings, and unusual sculpture, the exhibitions are post-pop with content ranging from folk to outsider to religious to sexually deviant. The gallery’s objective is to bring underground art and counter-culture to the masses. Past shows have been groundbreaking, exhibiting artists, such as Manuel Ocampo, Joe Coleman, and Robert Williams.

Image: "Boys Life" by Don Fritz

(L-R) Narine Kerelian, Gizem Arat, and Manoj Dhar

The College of Arts and Sciences has demonstrated support of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives through its various programs and practices at Santa Clara University. Academic research in this area serves to expand knowledge about a variety of topics housed under DEI: one of them being the understanding and implementation of multiculturalism.

Gizem Arat, Ph.D. (Lingnan University, SAR Hong Kong, China), Manoj Dhar (Co-Founder of Integrated Brilliant Education, SAR Hong Kong, China), and Narine Kerelian (Political Science) have had their article "Multiculturalism with Hong Kong Characteristics: A Qualitative Study" recently published in the Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race.

Their research examines heterogeneity in the conceptualization of multiculturalism, with a focus on East Asian contexts through the case of Hong Kong. This research aims to provide insights for future social policy and practice. Although the scholarship in this topic area has been largely grounded in the West, research on Eastern contexts can deepen our understanding and connect us to broader global efforts and approaches to DEI.

Karen Peterson-Iyer’s (Religious Studies) new book, Reenvisioning Sexual Ethics: A Feminist Christian Account, has just been released by Georgetown University Press, as a part of its “Moral Traditions” series. The book uses a feminist, Christian, justice-oriented anthropological framework to connect robust theological and ethical analysis to practical sexual issues, particularly those confronting younger adults today. In it she argues that “ethical” sex ideally expresses the fullness of human agency and confers a deep sense of possibility and wholeness upon all participants.

The Department of Chemistry & Biochemistry was well represented at the National meeting of the American Chemical Society in San Diego, California. Undergraduate student researchers presented posters to the large audience of chemists from around the world. Ella Basler '23 (Biochemistry), Jaden Chong '23 (Neuroscience), and Chloe Heath '23 (Biochemistry) presented their work with Eric Tillman (Chemistry & Biochemistry) entitled “C-H activation towards the preparation and modification of polymeric materials” and Brian Hong '22 (Biochemistry) and Erica Svendahl '23 (Environmental Science, Chemistry) presented their work with Korin Wheeler (Chemistry & Biochemistry) entitled “Expanding the protein corona across organisms.” Brian also shared SCU’s chemistry club’s community-building efforts during the pandemic.

Faculty also presented. Linda Brunhauer (Chemistry & Biochemistry) presented a poster on "Catalase purification from mammalian blood: Development of an intensive multi-week protein purification project lab for undergraduate laboratory courses in biochemistry and related disciplines." Eric Tillman gave an oral presentation on his upper-division advanced writing course entitled "Teaching scientific writing and communication through an undergraduate polymer chemistry course." Korin Wheeler gave an oral presentation on research entitled “Role of human serum and solution chemistry in fibrinogen peptide–nanoparticle interactions.”

Image: Student researchers in front of their posters at the ACS meeting. [top] Chloe Heath, Ella Basler, and Jaden Chong presented work from the Tillman Lab. Brian Hong and Erica Svendahl presented work from the Wheeler Lab.

Rob Cady '23 (Physics, Mathematics) and Michael Nguyen '24 (Neuroscience, Music) were named 2022 Goldwater Scholars! Click here for more information about these tremendously talented students.

Michelle Burnham (English) gave an invited lecture at the Lawrence Henry Gipson Institute at Lehigh University on March 29, titled "Cannibalism, Luxury, and Revolution: The 18th-Century Novel in the Global Pacific." She also chaired and presented at the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies conference in Baltimore on March 31, on a roundtable discussion of a new book by Lindsay DiCuirci on 19th-century antiquarianism and reprints of early American texts and manuscripts. Her article, "The Colonial Pacific," also appears in the just-published volume, The Cambridge Companion to Early American Literature, edited by Bryce Traister (2022, Cambridge UP).

Ana María Pineda (Religious Studies) was a presenter on the life of Blessed Rutilio Grande, S.J.—Salvadoran Martyr on March 15, 2022, as part of a webinar hosted by the University of Detroit Mercy. She was joined by José Artiga, Executive Director of SHARE FOUNDATION and Joseph Mulligan, S.J., author and activist who has ministered in Nicaragua for thirty-six years. Later in the month on March 31, 2022, Ana María delivered a lecture on Saint Archbishop Oscar Romero and Blessed Rutilio Grande as part of Seton Hall University’s Romero/King week celebration. In both presentations, she drew from her extensive research on both Salvadoran Martyrs and from her recent publication, Rutilio Grande: Memory and Legacy of a Jesuit Martyr.

College of Arts and Sciences Calendar