A Midsummer Night's Dream with William Webb '22 (Theatre Arts) as Oberon, Emma Lenza '22 (Theatre Arts, English) as Titania, and Ivy Janes '22 (Psychology) as Moth. (Photo by Adam Hays).

Dear College Faculty and Staff,

May the blessings of Diwali shine brightly for you!

Next week, the University is celebrating first-generation college students, faculty, and staff as part of the National First-Gen Celebration. I invite you all to join us on Tuesday, Nov. 9 at 4:30 PM in the Vari Hall Foyer for a reception we’re hosting as part of the week’s events. This is a good chance to show our appreciation for the incredible social mobility that a college education can provide; my family would certainly still be struggling on many levels were it not for their access to higher education.

I am also preparing for the College’s Leadership Board meeting, taking place next week. I have asked them to meet with our recently assembled Student Advisory Council to discuss ways to work together and move the College forward, and am very much excited to see how the two groups will collaborate. In addition to getting terrific advice and feedback from alumni and current students, I also hope that bringing these two groups together will provide valuable mentorship opportunities for Broncos in the College.

All that is in the future -- today I wish you a restorative, bright fall weekend...and don’t forget to wind back your clocks on Sunday for Daylight Savings Time!

Sincerely,

Daniel

Highlights

Image: Politifest Summit on Law and Justice, racial and ethnic disparities in sentencing panel

Elsa Chen (Political Science) is one of 12 experts appointed to the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s ad hoc multidisciplinary committee on Evaluating Success Among People Released from Prison. This committee’s charge is to undertake a critical analysis and produce a report on the strengths and limitations of current measures of recidivism, as well as the correlates of positive outcomes for individuals who do not return to incarceration and corresponding measures of reentry from prison that go beyond the avoidance of negative outcomes. She was also an invited participant on a panel discussing racial and ethnic disparities in sentencing at the Politifest Summit on Law and Justice, produced by Voice of San Diego.

Image: Flyer for the webinar

Jesica Fernández (Ethnic Studies) presented highlights from her forthcoming chapter "Decolonizing Participatory Action Research in Community Psychology." The presentation took place in an international virtual webinar, entitled "Troubling Psychology in Troubled Times," which was organized by the Psychological Society of South Africa (PsySSA). This chapter will be featured in the fourth book of the Springer Community Psychology series, "Decolonial Enactments in Community Psychology," co-edited Shose Kessi, Shahnaaz Suffla, and Mohamed Seedat (University of South Africa).

Danielle Morgan (English) published an essay on Vulture entitled "Dave Chappelle the Comedy Relic." In this essay, she discusses Chappelle’s changing significance from the perspective of both comedy scholarship and fandom. In particular, she addresses his latest stand-up special, The Closer, and the real-world impact of his “punching down” and transphobic rhetoric. Ultimately, she argues, this contributes to his fading relevance among college students and original fans and has undone the legacy of a one-time great comedian.

Neil Ferron '05 (English) won the 2021 Slamdance Screenplay Competition Grand Prize for his an original horror screenplay Fishmonger, selected from among 5,000 entries. The judges explained that Fishmonger's "disgusting, weird, hilarious, and heartfelt script made an instant impression on every reader who saw it. It's a story that defies easy explanation, but in Neil's own words: ‘Fishmonger is a swirl of a lot of things--my childhood love of mythology, my Catholic upbringing, my time living in Ireland, my Uncle Tom’s suicide—but I think the core of Fishmonger is rooted in my struggles with anxiety, shame, and suicide. So—amidst all the tentacle sex, exploding hell-blisters, and musical numbers—it’s actually one of the most personal stories that I’ve ever told.’” In his acceptance speech, Ferron thanked Simone Billings (English), among others, for her support and mentorship over the years.

The Slamdance Screenplay Competition is dedicated to discovering and nurturing emerging screenwriters who take risks, refuse compromise, and go places where Hollywood hacks fear to tread, and has a strong track record for introducing new writers to the entertainment industry.

Kai Harris's (English) debut novel, What the Fireflies Knew, was featured on Marie Claire's list of "2022 Book Releases to Get Excited About." What the Fireflies Knew is the first fiction title from Phoebe Robinson's imprint, Tiny Reparations Books, a highly curated imprint dedicated to publishing works that highlight and amplify unique and diverse voices. Available now for preorder, the novel will debut on February 1, 2022.

After her father dies of an overdose and the debts incurred from his addiction cause the loss of the family home in Detroit, almost-eleven-year-old Kenyatta Bernice (KB) and her teenage sister, Nia, are sent by their overwhelmed mother to live with their estranged grandfather in Lansing. Over the course of a single, sweltering summer, KB attempts to get her bearings in a world that has turned upside down—a father who is labeled a fiend; a mother whose smile no longer reaches her eyes; a sister, once her best friend, who has crossed the threshold of adolescence and suddenly wants nothing to do with her; a grandfather who is grumpy and silent; the white kids across the street who are friendly, but only sometimes. And all of them are keeping secrets. Pinballing between resentment, abandonment, and loneliness, KB is forced to carve out a different identity for herself and find her own voice. As she examines the jagged pieces of her recently shattered world, she learns that while some truths cut deep, a new life—and a new KB—can be built from the shards.

Tom Plante (Psychology) co-edited and co-wrote an introductory paper for a special issue on Prayer and Communication with the Divine, the Sacred, the Departed, and the Demonic in Spiritually Oriented Therapy in Spirituality in Clinical Practice highlighting scholarly articles featuring the psychology of communication with the divine, the sacred, the departed, and the demonic.

Abstract: Since the dawn of time, people from around the globe have tried to communicate with the divine, the sacred, the saints, and deceased ancestors, family, and friends. Most people have prayed and many have reported experiences that make them believe that communication with the immaterial spirit world, broadly defined, is possible. Given the universality of these behaviors, beliefs, and practices, it is surprising that the psychological literature on these phenomena is so limited. The purpose of this special issue is to explore available research and practice in this area that may be useful for researchers and clinicians a like in their work with those impacted by attempts to communicate with those who are unseen. We hope that this issue will stimulate further research and writing about this topic to move the literature forward in an evidence based manner.

The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra (Alberta, Canada) will present the World Premiere of Anthony (Tony) Rivera's (Music) "sparkling new arrangement for winds, brass, and percussion of familiar music from Mozart’s lovable opera Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute)."

The suite will include, Der Vogelfänger bin ich ja, Isis und Osiris, Ein Mädchen oder Weibchen, and Pa-Pa-Pa-Papageno. Although the suite features the simple folk-like arias of Papageno longing for peace, love, and good food, the Aria Isis und Osiris eloquently expresses Sarastro's sage words, "The spirit of wisdom...you who guide the wanderers steps, Strengthen them with patience when in danger!

Performances will take place at The Francis Winspear Centre for Music on November 26 and 27, 2021.

Amy Lueck (English) and Chris Bachen (Communication) published their findings from a three-year study of students using the College of Arts and Sciences' Imaginarium lab to engage Extended Reality (XR)—which includes virtual reality, augmented reality, and other 3D immersive data visualization projects—in their courses. The article, "Composing (with/in) extended reality: How students name their experiences with immersive technologies," published in Computers and Composition, discusses the variety of terms and metaphors used by students to name the act of creating XR projects, and makes suggestions about how to enhance critical digital literacies through engaging students in reflection on these terms.

Image: Figure from article showing a web of connections between the three most common terms (keywords) and their “collocates” (words found in proximity of each keyword) that are associated with “producing VR” from the whole corpus.

Image: Previous Frank Sinatra chair Taye Diggs visiting Medina's Rhetoric of Storytelling class in 2019

Cruz Medina (English) had a piece published about his advanced writing course in a special issue themed "Diversity is not Justice" in the recent issue of Composition Studies journal. In his piece "Advanced Core Writing: Rhetoric of Storytelling," Medina discusses how his advanced writing course normalizes BIPOC scholarship by centralizing African American, Indigenous, Latin American, and Latinx writers who demonstrate how storytelling can create knowledge, make arguments, and speak back to dominant narratives. Medina also discusses how the incorporation of Indigenous scholarship and texts like Tommy Orange's There, There helps to address SCU's past as a site of colonialism.

College of Arts and Sciences Calendar