Visit the College's Class of 2023 web page.

Dear College Faculty and Staff,

Big congratulations to all of our graduating students this year! This class, in particular, deserves recognition. Their first year was hugely disrupted (we all know why), followed by two years of hybrid learning. Not until their senior year did they get a full year of in-person classes and on-campus activities. And yet, they are still here, completing their degrees and joining the ranks of alumni, just as every other class before them has done. Kudos! And kudos to all of you for shepherding them through these incredibly challenging years.

This will be my very first commencement in the traditional format at Santa Clara. I look forward to saluting our seniors as they cross the stage in Stevens Stadium tomorrow.

Good luck finalizing grades in the coming week and take some time to enjoy the Juneteenth holiday.

Sincerely,

Daniel

Highlights

David Jeong (Communication) published a chapter titled "Social Presence in Human–Machine Communication" in the SAGE Handbook of Human-Machine Communication. 

Francisco Jiménez (Modern Languages and Literatures, emeritus) was honored at the San José Earthquakes Cinco de Mayo festival for his “work in helping drive change in our community.” A Certificate of Recognition was given to him at the event by Alejandra Bologna Zubikarai, Consul General of Mexico in San José, and Cindy Chavez, Member of the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors.

Francisco made in-person presentations on his work, followed by Q&A, for students at Sacred Heart Schools in Atherton on April 26, and for Tokay High School students, at SCU, on May 10. On May 23, he made a virtual presentation for a school-parent book club at Foothill High School in Bakersfield. His memoirs The Circuit, Breaking Through, Cajas de Cartón, and Senderos fronterizos were selected for their Foothill Reads program for 2023. In addition, he made virtual presentations for students and faculty at the Upper Merion Area Middle School, King of Prussia, Pennsylvania (The Circuit is part of the school’s curriculum.), and for students, faculty and staff at Pacific High School in Ventura on June 5. The public continuation high school selected Reaching Out and Taking Hold for this year’s common, school-wide curriculum.

Rohit Chopra (Communication) was invited to participate in a day-long hybrid symposium, "Outsourcing democracy: What does advisory do to political parties and governance in South Asia?," on June 2 at Stanford University, co-sponsored by the France-Stanford Center for Interdisciplinary Studies and the Center for South Asia. The symposium focused on the role of intermediaries, such as political consultants, think tanks, and experts in influencing governance and democracy in South Asia, as examined from a range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary perspectives.

In addition to chairing one of the two panels in the symposium, Rohit also presented a paper, "Think Tanks, Technocratic Legitimacy, and White-Collar Populism in Modi’s India," as part of the second panel. Rohit's presentation addressed the role of think tanks and political consulting firms that emerged around 2010 in enabling the Hindu nationalist BJP's victory in the 2014 and 2019 Indian general elections. The presentation offered a genealogy of the emergence of these intermediaries, identified and analyzed their key strategies, including the highly effective use of social media, in securing widespread legitimacy for the Hindu nationalist BJP and Narendra Modi among the elite group of Indian white-collar professionals (about 13-18 million) and a wider middle-class population (roughly a third of India's population).

Chad Raphael (Communication) and co-author Martha Matsuoka (Occidental College) co-published an article in the journal Social Sciences, “Aligning Community-Engaged Research Methods with Diverse Community Organizing Approaches." The article notes that community-engaged research (CER) and organizing each aim to mobilize people and resources to produce actionable knowledge that builds grassroots power. Thus, CER collaborations can benefit by carefully matching the choice of research methods with community partners’ organizing strategies to ensure that research aligns with and supports organizing goals. After summarizing the many ways in which collaborative research can support organizing efforts, the co-authors argue that different CER methods align best with widely-used organizing approaches, including Alinskyite, Freirean, feminist, community building and resilience-based, and transformative approaches. This discussion is illustrated with examples of research conducted by and with organizations rooted in the environmental justice movement, including a case study of research methods used by the Environmental Health Coalition over several decades on the San Diego-Tijuana border.

John C. Hawley's (English, emeritus) book, Islam in Contemporary Literature: Jihad, Revolution, Subjectivity (2021), has been reissued in paperback.

John also presented a paper, "Postcolonial Ecocriticism and the Recovery of Hope: Okri, Dangarembga, and the Spiritual," at the European Association for Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies triennial conference, at the University of Paris. The conference theme was "Imagining Environmental Justice in a Postcolonial World."

Anna Sampaio (Ethnic Studies) and Jesica Siham Fernández (Ethnic Studies) published a co-authored chapter, “Interrogating Vulnerability Within the University: A Case Study of Undocumented/DACAmented Students at a Jesuit Institution,” in the anthology Young People Shaping Democratic Politics: Interrogating Inclusion, Mobilising Education (2023, Palgrave MacMillan), edited by Ian Rivers and C. Laura Lovin. The chapter makes use of critical intersectional ethnography to examine the strategic mobilization of undocumented and DACAmented students after the 2016 election and specifically how students challenged university’s practices that advanced vulnerability while sustaining their political agency and collective action in alliance with the DREAM movement. The chapter also highlights recommendations and structural changes that universities can implement to include, support and sustain undocumented students and their organizing efforts in meaningful ways.

Image (l-r): Jessica Siham Fernández and Anna Sampaio.

Alberto Ribas-Casasayas (Modern Languages and Literatures) chaired the panel "Visualizing the Entanglement of Rights, Conflicts, and Struggle in Latin American Cultures" at the 2023 Latin American Studies Conference in Vancouver.  He also presented the paper "Technocratic Neoshamanism in Edmundo Paz Soldán's La mirada de las plantas."

On June 8, the Digital Humanities Initiative (DHI) hosted the 8th Annual Digital Humanities Student Showcase in the Benson Parlors. Overall, 16 groups presented projects stemming from their classes in the departments of English, Art & Art History, History, and Anthropology. Eight projects were awarded prizes.

Congratulations to all the students who presented: Cassie Blake '25 (Biology, Public Health Science), Bella Burleigh '25 (Political Science, Psychology), Chisomaga Nlemigbo '25 (Public Health Science, Political Science), Nora Reder '25 (Public Health Science), Grace Roy '26 (Ethnic Studies, Communication, French and Francophone Studies), Kathryn Burris '23 (Anthropology, History), Kyara Garner '25 (Studio Art), Naomi Sneath '25 (Political Science, History), Naomi Yang '24 (Sociology), Julia von Gersdorff '25 (Anthropology), Joey Bresette '25 (Finance), Eloise Daniello '26 (Management, Psychology), Shaan Samra '26 (Business undeclared), Daniel Martinez '24 (Religious Studies), Alex Pérez ’23, (Public Health Science, Political Science, Women’s and Gender Studies), Hannah Trillo '23 (Marketing), Megu Kanzawa '26 (Computer Science, Web Design and Engineering), Cindy Feng '24 (Economics), Thomas Mathew '26 (Biology), Janhvi Gidha '24 (Bioengineering), Ariana Tabrizi '23 (History, Ethnic Studies), Lily Stoll '23 (English), Kelsey Le '25 (Psychology), Daniel Baltz '26 (Economics), Jacqueline Lemus '26 (Economics), Mitchell Park '24 (Computer Science), Maddie Moran '24 (English), Natalia Cantu '24 (English), Alex Halsey '25 (English), Megan Milligan '25 (English), Ainsley Mowers '23 (Marketing), Francesca D'Urzo '24 (English), and Maggie Pollard '24 (English, Child Studies).

Check out many of the student projects in this slideshow. The event was co-organized by Kirstyn Leuner (English), Kelci Baughman McDowell (SCU Library), Meg Eppel Gudgeirsson (History), and Lissa Crofton-Sleigh (Classics).

To include YOUR class project in next year's annual DH Student Showcase, contact DHI Coordinator Kirstyn Leuner, kleuner@scu.edu.

College of Arts and Sciences Calendar