Dear College Faculty and Staff,

We welcomed a number of tenure track applicants to campus this week - the first time we’ve been able to do interviews in person in two years! I enjoyed my conversations with the candidates and look forward to more over the next few months. We are currently hiring for 12 tenure track positions and three lecturer positions across 14 departments in the College. We’re also pleased that seven of these positions comprise our cluster hire in Race, Inequality and Social Justice.  

It was great to hear from first-generation students, faculty, and staff in the College at our First-Gen Celebration reception earlier this week. Thanks to those who attended, and also to the LEAD Program for organizing the week’s activities around recognizing and celebrating our first-gen students.

Sincerely,

Daniel

Highlights

Daniel Press (Dean) co-authored a paper, “The landscape of climate change adaptation aspirations in the US non-profit conservation sector” in Conservation Science and Practice with a graduate student he mentored while at UC Santa Cruz. This is one of the first studies done in the conservation science field that looks at conservation practices related to climate change in particular, rather than a specific endangered species or ecosystem. Dean Press served on the dissertation committee of the lead author, Sarah Skikne.

Image: Screen capture of Lingua Vitae, the Latin Virtual Reality game 

Lingua Vitae, the Latin Virtual Reality (VR) game developed by Lissa Crofton-Sleigh (Classics), Mohammed Khadadeh '21 (Computer Science, Studio Art), Isabel Wu '21 (Studio Art, Marketing), Vicki Lim '19 (Computer Science), Dani Demeter '19 (Computer Science, Mathematics), and Alexis Miller '20 (English, French & Francophone Studies, Individual Studies), has been restored and is now again available for users to test out in the WAVE+Imaginarium lab. With the move to a new space in Heafey and the new HP headsets now in use, the lab lost access to a lot of excellent faculty and student VR projects. However, lab staff and student volunteers are working hard to restore these projects, and the Latin VR game is just one of the first to be fully made available. The current version of the game has one playable module that can be tested, in which users can try out their conversational and vocabulary skills with ordinary Roman citizens in the late 1st century BCE in the Roman Forum. All SCU affiliates are invited to the WAVE+Imaginarium lab in Heafey 237 to view this and other VR experiences during our regular operating hours.

Image: Rachel Zhang and Natalie Kennedy

Rachel Zhang '21 (Public Health Science, Neuroscience) and Natalie Kennedy '20 (Public Health Science), along with Jamie Chang (Public Health), presented their research entitled, "'There is nowhere to go': The Impact of COVID-19 on Access to Health Resources Among Unhoused People" at the American Public Health Association Annual Meeting in Denver, Colorado (virtual). Rachel and Natalie continued the work started by two quarters of Senior Public Health Capstone students, who conducted zoom interviews on pandemic-related health experiences with people who were unhoused, as well as local service providers. The Public Health students (now alum) involved in data collection and analysis included: Lori Chang '20 (Biology, Public Health Science), Quinn Gonzales '20 (Public Health Science), Bianca Herres '20 (Individual Studies), Jodie Iha '20 (Public Health Science), Sophie Marts '20 (Public Health Science), Allison Milbrath '20 (Public Health Science, Spanish Studies), Silvana Procida '20 (Public Health Science), Jenna Rodriguez '22 (Public Health Science), Hana Seastedt '20 (Public Health Science), Julien Valverde Twiggs '20 (Public Health Science), Kristen Albi '21 (Neuroscience, Public Health Science), Sydell Bonin '21 (Public Health Science), Elli Cooney '20 (Individual Studies), Tia Halsey '21 (Public Health Science, Anthropology), Pearl Heumann '21 (Public Health Science, Psychology), Grace Lin-Cereghino '21 (Public Health Studies, Italian Studies), Tera Lloyd '20 (Biology, Public Health Science), Emma Mallas '21 (Public Health Science), Isabel Michael '21 (Public Health Science), Nicole Nelson '21 (Public Health Science, Political Science), Nicolette Nuzzi '20 (Public Health Science), Matt Rizzo '21 (Public Health Science), Madison Rodriguez '21 (Public Health Science, Anthropology), Katy McMillan '21 (Public Health Science), Hannah Rubens '21 (Public Health Science), Victoria Salcedo '21 (Biology, Public Health Science), Faizah Shyanguya '21 (Public Health Science, Spanish Studies), Anne Vasquez '21 (Public Health Science), Amelia Wheaton '21 (Public Health Science), and Beth Williams '21 (Neuroscience, Public Health Science).

Linda Garber (Women's & Gender Studies) presented a paper and spoke on the closing roundtable at the online conference "Women's Historical Fiction Across the Globe." Organized by the Institute of Modern Languages Research, School of Advanced Study, University of London, the conference gathered scholars from 16 countries on six continents. The paper, about lesbian pirate adventure novels, was drawn from Linda's forthcoming book Novel Approaches to Lesbian History (Palgrave).

Rohit Chopra (Communications) was an invited speaker at a congressional briefing on November 3, titled "Facebook Platforms Hate in India: Haugen Revelations." The briefing addressed Facebook's central role in enabling hate crimes against minorities, especially Muslims, Christians, and Dalits, in the Indian context. Rohit's talk focused on the longer history of the internet in India as a tool for persecuting minorities and the weaponization of social media by Hindu rightwing and supremacist groups, since the BJP's election victory in 2014.The briefing was organized by a host of international civil society organizations, including Amnesty International, India Civil Watch International, New York Council of State Churches, Dalit Solidarity International, and the Indian American Muslim Council. 

An extract from Rohit's recent book, The Gita in a Global World: Ethical Action in An Age of Flux, was featured in the Canopy Forum, an initiative of the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory University School of Law.

Paul Soukup, S.J., (Communication) presented the keynote address for "The Digital Pastor Amid the Covid-19 Pandemic," an international zoom conference on communication in the Catholic church as countries recover from the pandemic. The conference, sponsored by the communication office of the Federation of Asian Catholic Bishops' Conferences and the Veritas Asia Institute of Social Communication, took place on November 6 at 6:30 pm Manila time (or 3:30 am Pacific time!) and attracted almost 200 participants from a dozen countries.

College of Arts and Sciences Calendar