Dean Daniel Press introduced the "Ask Us Anything (About AI)" panel at Family Weekend last Friday. Panelists are (l-r): Brian Green, Markkula Center for Applied Ethics; Tammy L. Madsen, Leavey School of Business; Susan Kennedy (Philosophy), College of Arts and Sciences; Yi Fang, School of Engineering; Sanjiv Das, Leavey School of Business. Photo by Charles Barry. View more photos

Dear College Faculty and Staff,

We had a successful Family Weekend last weekend - thank you to everyone who participated and made our Bronco Families feel at home on campus!

It is truly amazing the work our community accomplishes throughout the quarter. This issue of College Notes is filled with multiple examples of faculty and students who are teaching and learning while also finding the time to go to conferences, publish articles and books, and provide truly meaningful experiences for our students.

Just imagine the logistics of teaching multiple days a week (with all the prep, grading and student/office hours), and fitting around that a trip with students to a conference or field site. Our students see their mentors performing their multiple roles simultaneously – that is great modeling and inspiration.

You all make me proud to work here.

I love seeing your updates each week. Please continue to submit your notes!

Warmly,

Daniel

Highlights

Maggie Hunter (Sociology, Strategic Advisor to the Dean for Faculty DEI Initiatives) is pleased to share that the College was awarded $22,000 from the Inclusive Excellence Division to support equity work at the department level. This has allowed us to offer more than a dozen mini-grants to departments who are doing inclusive teaching workshops, curriculum revision, student surveys and more. The College's DEI Implementation Plan is posted on the DEI website. For those departments getting ready to hire more faculty, check out this powerful article containing eight practical strategies for hiring a diverse faculty. Thanks to everyone for your work in this area and don’t hesitate to reach out to her for any support.

Birgit Koopmann-Holm (third from left) with colleagues at the Annual Convention of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology in San Diego, CA.

Birgit Koopmann-Holm (Psychology) attended the Annual Convention of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology in San Diego, CA. She presented her latest work she conducted with former undergraduate student Sofia Sandoval Larco '21 (Psychology). In this work, using both quantitative and qualitative methods, they explore the mechanism through which affective goals such as wanting to avoid feeling negative predict different aspects of a compassionate response. They find that the more people want to avoid feeling negative, the less they consider emotion sharing to be an aspect of a compassionate response. Furthermore, the less people consider emotion sharing to be an aspect of a compassionate response, the more people think a compassionate face is one that expresses a kind smile rather than one that mirrors someone’s distress. This work is important as it demonstrates how culturally shaped views of emotions are related to what people consider to be compassionate, which has implications for cross-cultural communication and counseling.

José Ortigas (Modern Languages and Literatures) published an article, “A Hard-Boiled Hero in an Atomized World: Manuel Vázquez Montalbán’s El hombre de mi vida and Milenio Carvalho Lament Neoliberal Alienation,” in Neophilologus. The article examines how the last three novels of Manuel Vázquez Montalbán’s (Barcelona, 1939 - Bangkok, 2003) Pepe Carvalho detective series chronicle one of the deleterious effects of free-market rationality: The increasing personal alienation that has come to characterize modern neoliberal societies. As the Carvalho character evolves throughout the series and neoliberal capitalism achieves cultural hegemony, the depiction of the solitary protagonist in the final novels denounces the growing isolation of the individual in a transnational society. This is reflected in the trope of the voyage, Carvalho’s nostalgic melancholia, and the progressively alienated condition of the marginalized detective as his relationships with others, tenuous in the best circumstances, begin to fully disintegrate.

Tom Plante (Psychology) co-presented "Responding to Antisemitism on University Campuses: Strategies for Coping" hosted by the American Psychological Association's Psychologists Against Antisemitism on January 22.

English & LEAD students and faculty outside San Quentin State Prison.

On January 28, Maura Tarnoff and Cruz Medina (English) led a trip for first-year LEAD students and English majors to San Quentin State Prison where they engaged in a theatre and social justice workshop alongside incarcerated actors from the Shakespeare at San Quentin prison performing arts program. Facilitated by members of the Marin Shakespeare company, the workshop explored the intersection of social justice and the arts, specifically how the study and performance of Shakespeare can contribute to both personal healing and social change. Through theater exercises as well as dialogue, SCU participants and the members of Shakespeare at San Quentin discussed the crisis in mass incarceration, as well as how artistic expression can be used to cultivate empathy and to advocate for more socially just and compassionate systems. José Villagrana (English), as well as Veronica Villa (Associate Director of Curricular and Co-Curricular Engagement, LEAD) and Sarah Dagnino (LEAD Operations Manager) also participated in the trip and workshop. Support and funding for this event was provided by the Department of English, the LEAD Scholars Program, the Office for Diversity and Inclusion, the Core Committee, and the College of Arts & Sciences.

Brigid Kelleher '11 (History) was recently referenced in an article in Yahoo about a new Netflix series, "Alexander: The Making of a God". Her publication referenced is “Acceptance through Restriction: Male Homosexuality in Ancient Athens,” Historical Perspectives: Santa Clara University Undergraduate Journal of History, Series II, vol. 16, no. 1, 2011.

Francisco Jiménez (Modern Languages and Literatures, Emeritus) wrote the foreword to Anna María Magallón’s autobiographical book Un Poquito de Everything: A Little Bit of Todo,‎ published by Rosales Mavericks Publishing. He was interviewed by Spectrum News1 about the short dramatic movie, The Unbroken Sky, based on his award-winning memoir. He was a keynote speaker at the California Association of Latino School Administrators on the theme, “Adelante: Affirming & Empowering our Community,” in San José, California on February 2. Approximately 300 people attended including school principals, superintendents, and educational program directors from throughout the State of California. On January 30, the short film, The Unbroken Sky, was streamed at Modesto Community College. It was followed by his presentation on the importance of story-telling. In addition, he made presentations on the power of education and on his writing for six classes over a two-day period at Christopher Grant High School in Gilroy, February 7-8. His book, Breaking Through, is part of the school’s English I (freshman) curriculum. The Pacific Conservatory for the Performing Arts’ (PCPA) production of Breaking Through, based on his book by the same title and adapted for the stage by Leo Cortez, won the Broadway World Santa Barbara 2023 Award for Best Theater Production for Young Audiences. The play was performed throughout the Central Coast.

Kolkata University Lecture on the Legacy of Octavia Butler.

Aparajita Nanda (English, Ethnic Studies) gave a talk on the legacy of Octavia Butler, titled "Anachronistic Interventions: Trauma and Healing in the Works of Octavia Butler." This was an invited lecture for graduate students and faculty of Kolkata University, West Bengal, India.

Asian Americans have become more visible in popular media over the past few years in movies such as Everything Everywhere All at Once and Crazy Rich Asians. In her first course for OLLI@SCU,  Juliana Chang (English) discussed how race is portrayed in popular media and explored the history and context of Asian and Asian American representation in U.S. film and media.

OLLI@SCU will be featuring notable instructors periodically in the College Notes. The average course ranges from 4 to 10 hours of instruction per quarter. We hope this will inspire you to stay updated on OLLI news and possibly teach a class for our members. OLLI instructors are compensated for their time and knowledge; to learn more about the joy of teaching adult learners, contact olli@scu.edu.

College of Arts and Sciences Calendar