SCU Chamber Singers with Scot Hanna-Weir (Music) backstage at the Golden State Warriors game on November 16. As part of SCU Night at the Warriors, the Chamber Singers sang the National Anthem at center court before the game.

Dear College Faculty and Staff,

December! As you reach the last big push of the quarter, I wish for you much energy and sustained good health. Coming off of a Thanksgiving week break, it can feel hard to ramp up for finals, so I am very grateful to all of you, for your fortitude and sustained commitment to our students!

For those who may have missed yesterday’s announcement, I would like to congratulate Brian Thorstenson (Theatre and Dance) on his appointment as the 2023-25 Frank Sinatra Chair in the Performing Arts. As SCU’s first internal Sinatra Artist-in-Residence since the program was revitalized in 2016, Brian will be developing and implementing a Devised Theater project with visiting artists—a well-respected Bay Area devised dance-theater ensemble.

Good luck during Finals Week!

Sincerely,

Daniel

Highlights

Frederick J. Parrella (Professor Emeritus, Religious Studies) has published a new book, The Idea of the Church: Historical and Theological Perspectives, with Mercer University Press. The book presents an historical sketch of how the Church defined itself in its two millennia. These self-definitions—in Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, the medieval and modern papacy, and the 20th century—are as diverse as its history. Popes Innocent III, Pius IX, and Francis are microcosms of different ecclesiologies. Likewise, the Protestant Church’s self-understanding in the writings Calvin and Zwingli varies significantly from that of Barth and Tillich. The Catholic Church’s ecclesiology at the Council of Trent—the “perfect society”—and at the Second Vatican Council—“people of God”—are dissimilar in both style and substance. In the twentieth century, the “century of the Church,” ecclesiology became, in the words of Henri de Lubac, the “meeting place of all mysteries.” This book will give the theology of the church an historical context, and prepare the Christian community for future self-reflection.

Michael Weatherford '23 (Environmental Science), Sebastian Acevedo '23 (Biology, Environmental Science), and Gabe Rodkey '23 (Environmental Science), with mentors Iris Stewart-Frey (Environmental Studies and Sciences) and Dan Wenny and Katie LaBerbera (San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory, SFBBO) presented a poster at the annual Ecological Society of America meeting. The work the students presented grew out of a senior capstone project, and analyzed 40 years of mist net and climate data collected at SFBBO. The analysis found that the timing of the migration of yellow-rumped warblers has been shifting towards later in the year, with the bulk of the birds arriving in the Bay Area closer to December, as opposed to October in prior years. This timing shift is consistent with a statistically significant shift towards later freezing temperatures in their northern breeding grounds. In addition, the number of individual warblers passing through SFBBO has substantially declined, adding to widespread concerns of bird declines that have been linked to habitat loss, pollution, and climate change. We gratefully acknowledge support for the students from SOAR funding.

Amy Lueck (English) published an article in a special issue of Peitho Journal dedicated to Coalition as Commonplace: Centering Feminist Scholarship, Pedagogies, and Leadership. The article, "More Than Empathy: Transnational Feminist Mentoring Practices for Solidarity Building," co-authored with a graduate student and another faculty mentor of that student, analyzes the co-authors' experiences of mentoring across difference and applies the concept of rhetorical empathy as a resource for approaching mentoring as mutual aid and solidarity building.

Image: Cover art for Peitho special issue on Coalition as Commonplace.

Hsin-I Cheng (Communication) published an article titled "Cartography of Afro-Asian relations in America: Co-racialization and nanohealing" in Communication, Culture & Critique. Attending to what Omi & Winant described as "racial projects," this research focuses on Afro-Asian co-racialization processes from a communicative and relational perspective through the lens of first-person experiences. These co-racialization processes involved institutionalized racism buttressed by global capitalism and the everyday gendered and classed racist acts perpetuating the racial hierarchy. The article proposes the concept of nanohealing as the communicative acts to thicken these groups' relationality and disrupt practices that perpetuate the existing racial order.

On November 5, a group of professional actors, including Aldo Billingslea (Theatre and Dance), performed a Zoom reading of a play by Lawrence Nelson (Philosophy) entitled Cross My Heart. The play explores the Dutch practice of voluntary active euthanasia of persons with terminal physical illnesses as well as those with longstanding suffering from psychiatric disorders. It contains the texts of (anonymous) letters actually written to a Dutch physician seeking his help in ending their lives. Brian Thorstenson (Theatre and Dance) has served as Prof. Nelson's playwriting teacher and mentor for the writing of this play. The performance was supported by a Hackworth Grant from the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics.

Tom Plante (Psychology) and Elena Peng '25 (Psychology) published an article titled Use of the MMPI-3 with Catholic and Episcopal seminary and religious life applicants in Pastoral Psychology. 
   
Abstract: Psychological evaluations and testing using the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) among other instruments have been used to screen clerical and religious life applicants for decades. While much research has been conducted and published regarding these evaluations, the newer MMPI-3 has not been examined among this population. This study reviewed MMPI-3 results from 18 applicants to seminary and religious life from the Roman Catholic and Episcopal faith traditions to determine if the participants are generally psychological healthy and if they have any consistent elevations in their MMPI-3 testing scores. Additionally, we examined MMPI-3 differences among Catholics versus Episcopal applicants. Our preliminary results using a small sample suggest that applicants to seminary and religious life are generally psychologically healthy but tend to be defensive, presenting themselves in a favorable and virtuous manner. Additionally, Catholics tend to score higher on inconsistent responses but lower on psychoticism than Episcopalians. Further research should use larger and more diverse sample sizes to better understand how the MMPI-3 performs among this population.

Felix Houphouet-Boigny University - Main campus

Jimia Boutouba (Modern Languages and Literatures) has been invited to the University of Félix Houphouët-Boigny (FHBU), a leading research institution in West-Africa, as a short-term Visiting Research Scholar to pursue her current CAH research project which investigates the history of African soldiers who served in the first Vietnam war and their Afro-Asian children. This invitation is effective for the period of November 29, 2023 to December 20, 2023. Jimia will be hosted by the Department of African Literatures and Civilization and its affiliated Research Center, Littératures et Écritures des Civilisations. She will also be interacting with faculty in the History Department as well as conducting research in the Archives of the Ministry of Defense. This is a unique opportunity to broaden her research endeavors, access resources unavailable in the French Colonial Archives, and forge global connections. Host faculty: Dr. Léontine Gueyes and Dr. Marie-Clémence Adom, Director of Littératures et Écritures des Civilisations.

Isabella Gomez (top left), Yuka Mizutani, Amy Lueck, and students in Japan attending the presentation.

Isabella Gomez '27 (Philosophy), accompanied by Amy Lueck (English), presented, on Zoom, her Ohlone heritage to undergraduate and graduate students at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan. The talk, invited by Professor Yuka Mizutani, covered Muwekma Ohlone ethnohistory, their fight for federal recognition, and some of the heritage projects at SCU dedicated to amplifying and supporting the Tribe, which Isabella has contributed to since she was a high school student. Students in the class asked questions of Isabella and shared about their own experiences learning about Native American and global indigenous heritage in Japan.

Apara Nanda with the dean, faculty, and students at the University of Nairobi, Kenya.

Aparajita Nanda (English, Ethnic Studies) recently delivered a lecture on "Defining Afrocentricity: John Mbiti and Octavia Butler." Her talk drew on Tobe Melora Correal's Finding Soul on the Path of Orisa and "The Nature of God" from Mbiti's African Religions and Philosophy as she spoke about Butler's works.

Apara also worked at the National Archives, Nairobi, Kenya researching newspaper clippings, published critical reviews and some personal letters of John Mbiti.

SCU Physics group photo from the American Physical Society Far West Section 2023 Annual Meeting held in San Diego. L-R: Joey Vollert '25 (Engineering Physics), Leyang Ding '24 (Physics), Riley Carpenter '25, Leo Illing '25 (Physics, Mathematics), Ivar Rydstrom '24 (Physics), Isa Camacho '26, Renee Chapla '26 (Engineering Physics), Ariana Riofrio '26 (Physics, Mathematics), Serena Thompson '25 (Physics, Mathematics).

Big congratulations go to Physics majors Riley Carpenter ’25 (Engineering Physics) and Isa Camacho ’26 (Engineering Physics) for their award-winning research presentations at the American Physical Society Far West Section 2023 Annual Meeting held in San Diego! Riley won 2nd place for the Steven Chu Undergraduate Research Award (experimental) for his presentation: "Low-temperature circuit component characterization and nanofabrication process tuning for cryogenic dark matter detectors”, based on summer research with Betty Young (Physics). Isa Camacho won 1st place for the Helen Quinn Award for Undergraduate Research (theory) for her presentation: “Testing Fluorescent Protein Sequence Entropy for Correlation with Protein Properties”, based on summer research done with Shyam Gajavelli (University of Florida). There were many excellent talks at the conference, making these awards all the more impressive. Congratulations, Isa and Riley!

C.J. Gabbe (Environmental Studies and Sciences) taught his first course for OLLI@SCU this Fall on "Sustainable Urban Planning and the South San Francisco Bay Area." The course provided a survey of urban planning topics related to land use, transportation, housing, and environmental planning. Course content included a combination of overarching concepts, empirical evidence, and case studies from the South Bay.

College of Arts and Sciences Calendar