Now on exhibit at the de Young Museum: Works by Art & Art History faculty Kathy Aoki (left), Ryan Reynolds (top right) and Jessica Eastburn (bottom right).  See below for more details.

Dear College Faculty and Staff,

With the holiday around the corner, I wanted to keep this short – Wishing you and your families a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday.

Sincerely,

Daniel

Highlights

Art & Art History faculty Jessica Eastburn, Ryan Reynolds, and Kathy Aoki are currently exhibiting their work at the de Young Museum as part of the de Young Open, on now through January 3, 2021. The jurying panel included three prominent Bay Area artists, Mildred Howard, Hung Liu, and Enrique Chagoya, as well as four Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco curators-in-charge. They selected two works by each of our three artists from a pool of 11,514 pieces submitted by 6,188 Bay Area artists. Jessica Eastburn notes, “It’s so wonderful of the de Young to have this exhibition for the Bay Area art community right now. It’s almost unheard of for such a prestigious museum to host a show like this.” Ryan Reynolds remarks, "What an honor to be showing work in the same building as Frida Kahlo!" Although Eastburn, Reynolds, and Aoki have shown their work at art institutions throughout the Bay Area and beyond, this is their first exhibition at the de Young.

The de Young Open is a salon-style exhibition available for in-person viewing (by appointment) or online. The de Young Museum currently offers free entry to Bay Area residents on Saturdays. Weekdays at the de Young are recommended for better social distancing.

Michelle Mueller (Religious Studies) gave virtual presentations for the 3rd International Conference on Gender and Sexuality and for the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality Annual Meeting. The work is titled, “Polyamory as Religious Sexual Counter-Culture: The New Charmed Circle," and is a summary of a chapter from Mueller’s book manuscript (in preparation for Routledge). The work interprets links between polyamory and alternative spiritual practices of Paganism and (Neo)Tantra through Gayle Rubin’s theory of the Charmed Circle and its Outer Limits. Mueller pushes beyond existing researcher interpretations about the reasons for shared membership across polyamory and alternative religions and argues that combining consensual non-monogamy with alternative religions, as well as non-conforming gender identities (genderqueer and non-binary) and sexual orientations (pansexual, omnisexual, queer, and kinky), is an act of re-territorializing on the sexual values system map. The paper seeks to critically examine implicit relationships between sexual orientation, racial expression, religious affiliation, and political identity using a queer theoretical lens.

Photo (pre-COVID-19): Club members partnered up with the Silicon Valley Section of the ACS to help prepare workshop materials for an annual "Teach the Teachers" workshop in February 2019. Volunteers prepared goodie bags of workshop materials for participating local K-12 STEM teachers to bring back to their local institutions to use in recreating workshop experiments with their students.

The Chemistry and Biochemistry Department is proud to announce that its American Chemical Society-affiliated “Chemistry Club” was selected as an Outstanding Student Member Chapter of the Society. ACS student chapters are organizations for undergraduates with an interest in the chemical sciences. Members participate in a wide range of programs and activities that enhance their college experience and prepare them for successful careers. Each year, the ACS selects student member chapters to receive special recognition on the basis of their programs and activities. Awards are classified as outstanding, commendable, and honorable mention. There are more than 1000 student member chapters worldwide. This year 72 chapters were selected as Outstanding Chapters. Activities that earned the SCU group this recognition include organizing a speed-networking career event that brought in a dozen prominent local science professionals for an evening of discussions about careers in STEM, carrying out hands-on science demonstrations at the Martin Luther King Jr. Library with experiments for all ages during National Chemistry Week, and hosting a series of live-streamed webinars on topics ranging from “Marvelous Metals” to “What Makes Beer Cloudy?” Professor Linda Brunauer (Chemistry & Biochemistry), who has been the club faculty advisor for over 30 years, noted that this is, in fact, the 28th consecutive year that the SCU chapter has been recognized by the ACS, the world’s largest professional scientific society.

Robin Tremblay-McGaw's (English) poem "Archive" appears in the special issue on "Writing in the Pause" of Plumwood Mountain: an Australian Journal of EcoPoetry and EcoPoetics.

Linda Burks (Mathematics and Computer Science and Director of SCU’s Mathematics Learning Center) will be providing extensive professional development to participants in a program run by SCU's School of Education and Counseling Psychology. This program is sponsored by a $3 million grant from NSF’s Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program, for which Ed Schaefer (Mathematics and Computer Science) is a co-PI. This award will provide a full scholarship and stipend to earn a California Single Subject Mathematics Teaching Credential and Master’s Degree in one year. Linda will mentor the graduates while they teach in a local high-need secondary school in East San Jose. Learn more about the grant and what SCU is doing with it here.

Meg Gudgeirsson (History) was interviewed by the San Jose Spotlight to provide historical context for the current political divisive climate, especially following the 2020 election results.

Justin Boren serving as Chairperson during a recent Zoom meeting of the Human Rights Commission

Justin Boren (Communication) was elected by the Santa Clara Human Rights Commission as the Vice-Chairperson of the Commission. He previously served in the role of Chairperson for the past two years, which is the maximum term limit. Commissioners are appointed to the HRC by the County Board of Supervisors and serve to advise the Board on matters relating to social justice, equity, and inclusion in the County.

Danielle Morgan's (English) new book Laughing to Keep from Dying: African American Satire in the Twenty-First Century, was featured in the New York Times' New & Noteworthy book review section. The book was launched on November 18 in a virtual event with Morgan and former Sinatra Chair W. Kamau Bell. Her book was also featured in The Atlantic in a piece about the long tradition of Black American humor.

College of Arts and Sciences Calendar