Be sure to check out Convergence - The Limitless Potential of a Multidisciplinary Education near the cafe in SCDI.  Find QR codes that lead to short videos of each influential figure and keep your eyes out for some hidden ones too! Photo by Adams Hays.

Dear College Faculty and Staff,

Early March!

Soon, Winter quarter instruction will be over, then finals and then Spring Break… Well, a break for students, but faculty who have experience in the quarter system know quite well that late March is all about grading and prep for Spring quarter, which comes all too soon.

This time of year is also when the chairs, department managers and colleagues in the Dean's Office are busy crafting the curriculum plans for next year – for the College, that's more than 2,100 classes! We are also close to hiring a lot of the new faculty that will help us deliver that new curriculum; we’re not quite done, but getting close. I am so grateful to everyone for all their work on these “behind the scenes efforts!"

This week I had a chance to attend the first joint ASG/MCC Diversity Forum – I was very impressed by how much the students focused on turning the breakouts into three real work sessions, covering accessibility, student organization funding and reimbursement processes, and student well-being. Thank you, students!

I leave you with a poem, written in the 1980s by Sevag Yaralian, who (I think) was from the Fresno area.

Warmly,

Daniel

WINTER RAIN

I dream for awhile now in California,
Only it is raining differently
From what I have ever seen before
The orchard, lake-like, as if swelled by snow
And will not stop until it's flooded.
I dream the plum trees are alive,
But the return of the birds can't save them.
And the clouds are edging my mind in gray,
Though I am asleep, and my eyelids
Cannot push them away.
I dream I am walking through the rows,
Under a lattice of leaves and branches.
I feel the rain come down as if it were dying,
I hear the sounds that grow behind me,
And see footprints in the water for the first time.
I dream the weight of the trees on my chest,
And each breath grows less than the rain it's timed to.
I push the trees into the air with the strength
Of my hands. I see my feet sinking,
And the birds are circling, but will not land.

– Sevag Yaralian, Poetry, 1986

Highlights

Veronica Miranda (Anthropology) recently published an article titled “Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorder in Times of COVID” in the journal Commoning Ethnography. The article addresses how COVID-19 further exacerbated the negative impacts of Perinatal Mood and Anxiety Disorders (PMAD), largely because of disruptions of social support networks and health care resources. The article uses testimonio and autoethnography to discuss the stress, abandonment, and feeling of loss associated with the disruption of access to postpartum mental health care and support. While such feelings of loss and abandonment may feel personal, this article argues that it is critical to recognize the structural dimensions of perinatal mental health and postpartum care. Miranda concludes that misrecognition of the structural dimensions of PMAD contributes to structural violence.

Kai Harris (English) recently announced her second book deal for a young adult novel titled Any Other Place, about a high school student who becomes the reluctant leader of a school-wide crusade for Black justice after witnessing a school security guard's brutal assault on a classmate. This novel is slated to be published with Nancy Paulsen Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House, in 2026.

Elyse Raby (SCU Religious Studies), Rachel Bundang (SCU GPPM), C. Vanessa White (Catholic Theological Union, Chicago), Elsie Miranda (Association of Theological Schools)

On Thursday, February, 29th, the Markey Center for Leadership and Ministry—a program of the Graduate Program in Pastoral Ministries (GPPM)—held an event entitled "Women Speak on the Synod: A Conversation about Ministry, History, Culture, and Practice." The event gathered four outstanding scholars to discuss the "synodal" process (a process of collective discernment and decision-making) that is currently happening in the Roman Catholic Church from the standpoint of race, gender, culture, and ministry.

While expressing appreciation for the opportunity for synodal discernment and hope about where the Synod may lead, each presenter also raised questions and concerns about whose voices have been included and excluded, recognizing that Catholics "mileage may vary" with respect to a process that is intended to be open to every voice. In addition to in-person attendees, over 150 people attended virtually from their homes and "watch parties" across the regions in which the GPPM offers programs (Santa Cruz, Monterey, Seattle, Sacramento, and beyond). Watch the video recording.

Sofia Molina Perez and Chan Thai

Chan Thai (Communication) and Sofia Molina Perez '23 (Communication) presented their paper titled "Focus Groups about Oral Health Care with Medicaid-Eligible Parents/Caregivers of Children Aged 0-5" at the Western States Communication Association Conference in Reno, Nevada in February. Through a partnership with San Mateo County Health's Oral Prevention Program, focus groups in English and Spanish were conducted with 18 low-income caregivers living in San Mateo County. The thematic analysis of the data revealed five key themes with accompanying recommendations. One theme revealed that health promotion materials targeting this audience tend to focus only on one or two topics, like brushing your teeth or flossing, but the caregivers wanted to learn more about complex topics like fluoride and gum disease. The paper offered the recommendation that oral health promotion materials developed for a non-English speaking audience should focus on tackling complex topics while keeping the language and design simple. The focus group report is available on the County's website in English and Spanish and the manuscript is currently under review for publication.

Daniel Morgan (right) with Professor Abhishek Kaicker at UC Berkeley's The Institute for South Asia Studies.

On February 29, Daniel Morgan (Religious Studies) delivered a talk based on his current book project at The Institute for South Asia Studies at UC Berkeley. The paper was entitled, "Of Paper and Pineapples: Sufi Letters and Intellectual History in Eighteenth Century India".

Abstract: Letters play a central role in histories of early-modern Islamic reform in South Asia. Without the Maktūbāt of Shaykh Aḥmad Sirhindī or the so-called “political letters” of Shah Wali Allah Dihlawi, our understanding of reformist thought in this period would be quite different. And yet, there has been remarkably little scholarship that considers the letters in themselves, as letters – not as abstract statements of religious or political ideology but, rather, as exchanges between two individuals at particular moments and for particular purposes. This inattention to genre and form has resulted in understandings of reform that are shorn of any contextual specificity beyond timeworn stories of Mughal decadence and decline.

The paper considers the letter-writing practices of two major Delhi Naqshbandīs, Shāh Walī Allāh and Mirzā Jān-i Jānān, to attempt a rather different story of Islamic reform. It argues that close attention to fragmentary evidence found in letters allows us to view reform not merely as the movement of dematerialized ideas through disembodied networks but rather as a set of practices rooted in very specific social, intellectual and material contexts.

College of Arts and Sciences Calendar