In March, the Santa Clara University Chamber singers were to perform Saunder Choi's magnificent setting of the Emma Lazarus poem that sits at the base of the Statue of Liberty as part of their "Where are we from? Where are we going?" concert. Unfortunately, the global pandemic of COVID-19 cancelled this performance. The choir felt the piece was too important not to perform, and so they created this virtual version as their final project of the 2019-2020 academic year.

Dear College Faculty and Staff,

Happy July! Last week, my family and I moved to Santa Clara from Santa Cruz, just "over the hill.” We love foggy Santa Cruz, but are also re-discovering the joys of a warm summer. 

Just about every day since we moved, I have walked around our beautiful campus (properly masked, of course) and am struck by the progress of the Sobrato Campus for Discovery and Innovation. It is moving along quickly, with beautiful stone facing already in place and the roof getting tiled this week. If there had been no pandemic, I would be reaching out to many of you for walks, chats, and visits to your labs, studios, and classrooms. Unfortunately, all that will have to wait, but I will do my best to learn about and support you in the challenging months ahead.

Summer is a quiet time, especially during a pandemic, but there's lots to report, below. I wanted to give a special shout-out to Mythri Jegathesan (Anthropology) who received a $140,000 grant from the National Science Foundation. Her work takes place in Sri Lanka's Northern Province and investigates plantation histories that have direct links to America’s current conversations and movements around racial justice. I also want to congratulate Kathy Aoki (Art & Art History) and Craig Stephens (Biology and Public Health) on their newly endowed chairs!

On the student side, we have a new Beckman Scholar, chemistry major Adriana Gutierrez Ramirez ’22. Over the next 15 months, Gutierrez Ramirez will be conducting research on cancer cells under the mentorship of Paul Abbyad (Chemistry & Biochemistry). 

Last, but certainly not least, I was thrilled to hear that the English Department has been ranked 4th nationally for the earnings potential of its graduates. Compiled by Grad Reports, the ranking combines Department of Education data on debt and earnings with tuition data from the National Center for Education Statistics to rank the “25 Best Colleges for English Majors.” Kudos to our English Department!

Be well, stay safe, and keep sending in your notes so we can include it in our next edition!

Best,
Daniel

Newly Endowed Chairs

Kathy Aoki
Art & Art History

Lee and Seymour Graff Professor

Craig Stephens
Biology and Public Health

Sanfilippo Family Professor

Reappointed Endowed Chairs

Barbara Molony
History

Walter E. Schmidt, S.J. Professor

Paul Soukup, S.J.
Communication

Pedro Arrupe, S.J. Professor

Eric Tillman
Chemistry & Biochemistry

Fletcher Jones Professor

Betty Young
Physics

Lee and Seymour Graff Professor II

Highlights

Mythri Jegathesan (Anthropology) has received a $140,000 grant from the National Science Foundation to support her project "Community Drivers Influencing the Effectiveness of Transitional Justice." This project involves research on land and labor dynamics among minority Northern Hill Country Tamils in Sri Lanka's Northern Province.

Di Di's (Sociology) proposal, titled “A Capital-Driven Science? Religion and Science in For-Profit Tech Companies,” was awarded a grant in the amount of $77,579. This project is part of a re-granting initiative at Rice University and the University of California, San Diego, “The Sociology of Science and Religion: Identity and Belief Formation,” funded by the Templeton Religion Trust. This research will examine the intersection between religion, ethics, and the application of sciences in tech companies. Funding will be used to support data collection and data analysis.

Naomi Levy (Political Science) published an article entitled "The Impact of Aid Dynamics on State Effectiveness and Legitimacy" in the peer-reviewed journal, Studies in Comparative International Development. The article, written with coauthors Naazneen Barma and Jessica Piombo of the Naval Postgraduate School, draws on field research in Cambodia, Laos, and Uganda to advance a typology of aid dynamics that helps us understand how development assistance for public service provision interacts with internal governance processes in recipient countries. This work was supported by a grant from the Minerva Initiative.

Amy Lueck (English) has been nominated by the Modern Languages Association (MLA) for a Whiting Public Engagement Fellowship for her work with Lee Panich (Anthropology), Ohlone tribal members, and other campus partners on using VR/AR technologies to engage public audiences with the Ohlone past, present, and future of our campus. The Public Engagement Fellowships are intended to celebrate and empower early-career faculty who embrace public engagement as part of their scholarly vocation. Amy was one of only four scholars to be nominated by the MLA for this fellowship, the finalists for which will be announced this winter.

Madres, and mural making support team, from Guadalupe Washington posing before their community mural, "Madres Emprendedoras: Mosaicos de la Comunidad."

Jesica Siham Fernandez (Ethnic Studies) and Laura Nichols (Sociology) in co-authorship with Alma R. Orozco '17 (Psychology and Liberal Studies), Patricia Rodriguez (Guadalupe Washington), and Irene E. Cermeño (Thriving Neighbors, Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education) published an article, entitled "Madres Emprendedoras, Entrepreneurial Mothers: Reflections From a Community-Based Participatory Action Research Course With Mexican Immigrant Madres in the Silicon Valley" in the Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology. Their work is featured as part of a special issue, “The Challenge of Being Latina: Personal, Political, and Economic: Social Justice Edition," edited by Jasmín D. Llamas (SCU Counseling Psychology) and Kipp Pietrantonio (University of Texas, Southwestern). The article features the implementation of a community-based participatory action research (CBPAR) university course, and corresponding action projects, developed in collaboration with 11 Mexican immigrant madres (mothers) in the Greater Washington community. All three projects were tied to the madres’ community experiences, which reflected their personal, political, and economic challenges. Via these projects, the Mexican immigrant madres demonstrated their leadership, agency, hope, and resilience in the face of increasing systemic inequities, and gained an increased ability to address long-standing issues in their community, culminating in the creation of a community mural.

Mathew Gomes (English) published "Engaging expectations: Measuring helpfulness as an alternative to student evaluations of teaching" with co-author Wenjuan Ma in the journal Assessing Writing. The article proposes an alternative to student evaluations of teachers (SETs), arguing that writing programs can use the SET moment to share responsibility for student expectations and course experiences. They argue studying student perceptions can help writing programs generate research for localizing engagement and aiding professional development. Studying the helpfulness of first-year writing (FYW) program experiences for students at a large, doctoral-granting research institution in the Midwest, they engage the expectation disconfirmation paradigm, which posits both expectations and experiences contribute to satisfactory outcomes. Analyzing two semesters of survey data using structural equation modeling, they find helpfulness varied directly with disconfirmation, suggesting students found courses more helpful when their experiences exceeded locally defined expectations, and less helpful when experiences did not meet expectations. Program and instructor variables may have also influenced student attitudes. Male instructor gender identity associated with greater helpfulness ratings. Additionally, enrollment level had an indirect effect on helpfulness ratings. They describe implementations for professional development and offer directions for future research.

Tom Plante (Psychology) published a paper, "A review of spiritual development and transformation among college students from Jesuit higher education," in Religions.

The American Anthropological Association's Society for the Anthropology of Work (SAW) has recognized Tea and Solidarity: Tamil Women and Work in Postwar Sri Lanka by Mythri Jegathesan (Anthropology) as the Honorable Mention selection for the 2020 SAW Book Prize. The SAW Book Prize recognizes single or coauthored monographs or edited collections published within the past three years. The criteria are the significance of the research, relevance for the anthropology of work, clarity and effectiveness of the presentation, and appeal to a wider audience in anthropology and beyond. 

College of Arts and Sciences Calendar