The Center for the Arts and Humanities sponsored a talk last week on "The Urgency of Equity in Higher Education" (L-R) Margaret M. Russell (School of Law), Omar Davila Jr. (Child Studies), Maggie Hunter (Sociology), Allia Griffin (Ethnic Studies). Watch the video.

Dear College Faculty and Staff,

This month, SCU celebrates its 2nd annual Gratitude Month! The College is partnering with the Provost’s Office to host a few stations where our students, faculty and staff can show their gratitude to each other and the community. You’ll find post-it stations throughout our spaces—specifically the lobbies of Vari, Dowd, Kenna, and SCDI—and we are hosting two Thank-You card stations this month as well. Look for more information on our digital signage and social media platforms, and please share what you’re grateful for!

My 2020 AJCU dean colleagues and I have published another essay, Why we do the work: Academic leaders discuss what matters most. After our first two joint essays these past three years, “we decided to write one final essay together in the hope of inspiring others to lead while providing guidance to those who hire and support leaders.” I do hope you’ll enjoy the quick read.

Sincerely, 

Daniel

Highlights

Organized by SCU's Jesuit School of Theology, and USF's Joan & Ralph Center for Catholic Social Thought and the Ignatian Tradition, Jesica S. Fernandez (Ethnic Studies) was invited to present themes from her book, Growing Up Latinx (NYU Press, 2021) as part of a "conversatorio" (dialogue) event with Victor Carmona (University of San Diego). The event, "Caminando con la Juventud Hispana en la era de Familias de Estatus Mixto" / "Walking with Latinx Youth in an era of Mixed Status Families," sought to bring together a reflection on Catholic social teachings of social justice with immigration justice, whilst centering the voices and experiences of youth as described in Jesica's book, as well as her recent testimonio interview with Sophie Cruz and her family. Sophie is a youth activist who in 2015, at the age of 5, approached Pope Francis to deliver a letter and drawing advocating for immigration reform.

Tom Plante (Psychology) published a new book: Health Behavior Change: Proven Strategies for a Longer and Healthier Life. San Diego, CA: Cognella.

Behavior is hard to change, especially when habits are well-ingrained into our daily lives and lifestyle. Yet, many people are desperate to change their behaviors, especially when it comes to health-related habits that can contribute to significant health problems.

Health Behavior Change: Proven Strategies for a Longer and Healthier Life presents readers with a wide variety of evidence-based best practices in cognitive behavioral therapy that can help individuals change their health behaviors for good. Dedicated sections of the workbook tackle individual behaviors—including diet, exercise, alcohol, smoking, sleep, and more—allowing readers to focus on topics that are of interest to them. Principles and tools for health behavior change are outlined in each chapter, providing readers with the tools they need to initiate long-term behavioral transformation.

Based on his experiences teaching health psychology to college students for over 30 years and treating clinical patients struggling with health behavior efforts for over 40 years, Health Behavior Change is an ideal resource for anyone interested in improving their health and well-being through evidence-based best practices.

Di Di (Sociology) attended the 2023 Annual Meeting for the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion (SSSR) and Religious Research Association (RRA) in Salt Lake City, Utah, October 20-22. She presented her research, “Being Non-Religious in Tech: How Do Tech Workers in China and the U.S. Relate to Religion?”

In addition, she was invited to serve as a critic in the SSSR book panel on Pew Research Center’s recent report on measuring religion in China. She was also invited to talk about what scientists think about religion in the RRA religious leader track. Presentations in the religious leader track were tailored to leadership in faith communities with an intention to promote dialogues between science and religion.

"Convergence" by Pancho Jiménez, Ceramic, 24x24x24 inches

Pancho Jiménez (Art and Art History) exhibited his art work in a solo exhibition at the Grand Theatre Center for the Arts Art Gallery in Tracy, CA. In addition, he exhibited work in a national juried exhibition at San Joaquin Delta College in The Horton Art Gallery.

Andrea Pappas (Art and Art History) embarked on a research trip for her new project, "Representing Enslavement in 18th-Century Embroidery" at the American Antiquarian Society (AAS), where she held the Jay and Deborah Last Fellowship this summer. In addition to examining the embroidery holdings of the AAS, she traced the provenance of specific textiles, examined archival material such as diaries, church records, tax records, letters, wills, and probate inventories to trace the lives of the enslaved persons depicted in two pictorial embroideries that have descended in the two branches of a prominent New England family. She also visited the Worcester Art Museum for its archival material, art, and household objects once belonging to that same family. Following her tenure at AAS, she spent a week in Boston, where she worked at the Massachusetts Historical Society examining the papers of an important collector of embroidery, and at the Fine Arts Museum, Boston, examining textiles and other objects such as family silver, portraits, and mourning jewelry.

Tripp Strawbridge (Modern Languages and Literatures) recently gave an invited presentation to the Cluster on Language Research graduate student group at the University of California, Davis. The talk, titled "If they jumped off a bridge: The influence of social networks on language learning in study abroad," presented findings from his work on second language acquisition among university students studying abroad in Spain. After the talk, Tripp had the opportunity to sit down with the graduate student group to discuss dissertation development and navigating the job market.

(L-R): Jaden Chong, Alisha Burch, Eric Tillman, Danielle Otero, and Alexis Coronado '26 (Biochemistry). Note that Alexis just began research this academic year and was not part of this work.

Eric Tillman (Chemistry and Biochemistry) and students from his research group, Jaden Chong '23 (Neuroscience), Alisha Burch '24 (Chemistry), and Danielle Otero '25 (Bioengineering), published a paper in Journal of Polymer Science describing developments in nickel-catalyzed reductive coupling applied to polymer synthesis. Three undergraduate research students are coauthors on the manuscript, and these student collaborators carried out all the reactions described in the paper. The nickel-catalyzed process they introduced was shown to be capable of manipulating polymer shapes and sizes via carbon-carbon bond forming reactions that occur at room temperature in under 2 hours.

Lindsay Halladay (Psychology, Neuroscience) published a paper in Genes, Brain, and Behavior, which tackles a basic but crucial question: are we using the best behavioral assays to conduct studies that translate to the human clinical population? For many decades a set of behavioral tests has been used to quantify a rodent analog of anxiety, which the Halladay lab uses to measure effects of early life stress on various neural and behavioral outcomes. Despite criticisms of these behavioral models, no research group yet had done the legwork to compare purportedly improved assays with the traditionally used ones - this publication is the culmination of a multi-year effort including hundreds of hours of behavioral testing conducted by five undergraduate co-authors. The influences of genetic and environmental factors were measured using five different behavioral assays per research subject, which ultimately helped demonstrate nuanced implications for each behavioral test that depend upon the research question at hand. This important work will inform the experimental design of many future studies in our field.

SCU undergrad co-authors include: Janet Ronquillo '23 (Neuroscience), Michael Nguyen '24 (Neuroscience & Music), Linnea Rothi '23 (Biology & Neuroscience), Danny Bui-Tu '22 (Neuroscience), and Jocelyn Yang.

Will they bring back the woolly mammoth from extinction?

Virginia Matzek (Environmental Studies and Sciences) recently participated as an invited panelist to the National Academy of Sciences' Board of Life Sciences on the topic of de-extinction and resurrection biology. She appeared with representatives from biotech companies attempting to bring the woolly mammoth and other species back from extinction, as well as academic experts in paleogenetics and bioengineering ethics. Virginia's presentation and the roundtable discussion following highlighted the uncertainty around the release of de-extincted species, leaning heavily on what we know from reintroduction of endangered and threatened species that are still extant. For more on this Jurassic-Park-y topic, you can read her Thought Leader piece in SCU's Illuminate series.

Catherine Montfort (Modern Languages and Literatures) is happy to announce the publication of “From Page to Screen: Irène Némirovsky’s Le Bal” in Impressions from Paris: Women Creatives in Interwar Years France, Vernon Press. The volume invited scholars to offer their perspectives on women artists-journalists, writers and painters, photographers of the Interwar Years. Beyond Némirovsky, it includes Josephine Baker, Colette, Lucie Delarue-Mardus, Sonia Delaunay, Janet Flanner, Francoise Gilot, Anaϊs Nin, and Doria Shafik. In the article on Némirovsky and the cineast Wilhelm Thiele, she shows that the short story and the film are very different in scope, themes or ending. Both criticize the nouveaux riches, but Thiele appears as an entertainer who fits in the zeitgeist of the time, endorsing the tenets of the patriarchal system that promote the “angel in the house” as the ideal for women. His film is light and happy. Némirovsky was very pleased with the film that brought her short story in the limelight, and yet her vision was different: she struggled with her obsession with her loveless childhood dominated by a selfish mother. Writing for her became the way to affirm her independence. The word became a weapon, writing the search for identity. As early as 1933 she said in a radio interview, "what interests me is to catch the human soul, to unmask, in a word, the deep truth that is almost always in opposition with the appearance”, Le Bal encapsulates Némirovsky’s world in the 30s.

Map of nitrate contamination in the Modesto and Turlock priority basins developed by the team.

Iris Stewart-Frey (Environmental Studies and Sciences) and community partner California Rural Legal Assistance, Inc. (CRLA) are using science-based advocacy to advance the human right to water in disadvantaged California communities. This project will collect and analyze data on the presence and changes in shallow groundwater contamination that will increase CRLA’s capacity to advocate for safe, sufficient water and ultimately policy change alongside the communities they serve. In addition, this project builds capacity for community-based data collection and spatial data analysis and visualization, and will result in a locally relevant environmental justice data repository to support our work advocating for equitable development, promoting environmental justice, building leadership capacity within the community, and engaging in public decision-making processes to improve neighborhoods. The contributions of Jake Dialesandro (Environmental Studies and Sciences) and several undergraduate student researchers who are participating in this work, as well as work by the Environmental Justice and the Common Good Initiative, are also funded by this grant.

Heather Noel Turner (English) published an article titled “Community-Engaged User Experience Pedagogy: Stories, Emergent Strategy, and Possibilities” in Communication Design Quarterly, a journal of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). Co-authored with Soyeon Lee (University of Texas at El Paso) and Emma Rose (University of Washington-Tacoma), the article shares three pedagogical models for teaching user experience in community contexts. Each model features voices from community partners, collaborators or students engaged in the projects.

Amy Lueck (English) published a chapter titled "Entangled Remembrance: Indigenous Representation and Settler Colonialism at an Unlikely Memory Site" in the Rhetoric Society of America's publication of selected essays from the 20th Biennial Conference, A Charge for Change, published by Parlor Press. The chapter overviews the concept of entangled remembrance, applied to analysis of the Winchester Mystery House, which is the subject pursued in greater depth in her next book manuscript, currently under consideration with Parlor Press as well.

College of Arts and Sciences Calendar