Physics faculty with students (L-R): Riley Carpenter ’25 (Engineering Physics), Ariana Riofrio ’26 (Physics, Mathematics), Chris Weber, Anna Kavanagh ’27 (Physics), Andrew Cates ’26 (Physics), Max Gertner ’26 (Electrical Engineering), Leo Illing ’25 (Physics, Mathematics), Joey Vollert ’25 (Engineering Physics), Emily Scott ’27 (Physics), Bachana Lomzadze, Renee Chapla ’26 (Engineering Physics), Betty Young, Kristin Kulas, Shuzhi Zhu ’26 (Physics), Shan Wu. Not pictured: Isabella Camacho ’26 (Physics), Ava Brouster ’27 (Mechanical Engineering), Roman Junes ’26 (Electrical Engineering).

The Physics Department held its annual Student Research Symposium last Saturday, October 5. Students presented their research results from summer 2024. Some of the topics discussed were me V-scale dark matter detector fabrication, asymptotic giant branch stars and their interstellar interactions, and high-duty cycle spectroscopy and microscopy.

Dear Colleagues,

October always turns out to be a busy busy month. This weekend, we welcome back alumni from across the University for our annual Grand Reunion weekend. I know a number of you are planning to attend either department-related events throughout the weekend or our College reception on Saturday evening. Thank you for engaging with our alumni and keeping the Bronco spirit alive!

Next weekend, SCU will open up campus for our annual Open House geared towards prospective students who are considering applying to Santa Clara. We’ll have academic overviews, tabling, and will be opening up our showcase spaces to demonstrate to future Broncos what life in the College could be like. If you encounter any prospective families on campus, please show them why it’s so great here on campus.

Campus events aside, I will be traveling in the coming weeks, particularly to meet with donors and do some fundraising in Washington DC, Philadelphia, and Seattle. While I’m across the country, I’ll also be attending the AJCU Arts and Sciences Dean’s meeting in St. Louis.

Happily, my travels this month will not take me to the poor Southeastern US, so battered by hurricanes this month. Out of solidarity to our friends there, I offer you this well-known hurricane poem by Mary Oliver.

Daniel

Hurricane

It didn't behave

like anything you had

ever imagined. The wind

tore at the trees, the rain

fell for days slant and hard.

The back of the hand

to everything. I watched

the trees bow and their leaves fall

and crawl back into the earth.

As though, that was that.

This was one hurricane

I lived through, the other one

was of a different sort, and

lasted longer. Then

I felt my own leaves giving up and

falling. The back of the hand to

everything. But listen now to what happened

to the actual trees;

toward the end of that summer they

pushed new leaves from their stubbed limbs.

It was the wrong season, yes,

but they couldn't stop. They

looked like telephone poles and didn't

care. And after the leaves came

blossoms. For some things

there are no wrong seasons.

Which is what I dream of for me.

Highlights

Former Dean Joseph L. Subbiondo (1979-89) and his wife stopped by the Dean's Office earlier this month for a visit and spent some time catching up with Daniel. Subbiondo started as Dean of the College of Humanities and oversaw the transition to the College of Arts and Sciences in 1981 when John B. Drahmann stepped down as Dean of the College of Sciences.

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Thank you to all who are leading important equity work across the College. The College has a new DEI webpage to highlight all of our collective work in this area. Maggie Hunter (Strategic Advisor to the Dean for Faculty DEI Initiatives, Sociology) has created a “just in time” set of tips and strategies for equitable searches coming directly to the inbox of search committee members this fall. The College of Arts and Sciences JEDI Council welcomes three new members this year: Kai Harris (English), Cory Gong (Environmental Studies and Sciences, Public Health) and Julia Voss (English). And we offer deep thanks to members Linda Garber (Gender and Sexuality Studies) and Katy Korsmeyer (Biology) for their service on the council as they step down.

The HSI Initiative has formed a working group on pedagogy and curriculum which is charged with creating a set of recommendations for the university about how to best prepare to become a Hispanic Serving Institution. We have a wonderful set of members who you should reach out to with ideas. They are: Maggie Hunter (chair), Loring Pfeiffer (English), Christelle Sabatier (Biology), Nicole Branch, Pedro Nava, Chris Bacon (Environmental Studies and Science), Chris Tirres (Religious Studies), Francisco Jiménez (Modern Languages and Literatures, Emeritus), Grace Stokes (Chemistry and Biochemistry), Horacio Enriquez, Marco Murillo, Natalie Linnell (Mathematics and Computer Science), Omid Ahmadi-Gorgi (Physics), Amy Lueck (English), Lang Chen (Psychology), Divya Behda and Provost Jim Glaser. Joining in January are Sonia Gomez (History), Abel Cruz (Modern Languages and Literatures) and Jimia Boutouba (Modern Languages and Literatures).

The Black Justice Studies Collaborative was launched in May of 2024 and will be led by the Inaugural Director, Harry Odamtten (History), Department of History. Stay tuned for events this fall.

Looking for additional resources? Check out this NSF-funded research article on creating inclusive STEM departments. And here is a short blog post about the unique role faculty play in creating an inclusive environment at HSIs.

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Jesica S. Fernández (Ethnic Studies) attended the 10th International Conference in Community Psychology (ICCP) biennial in Montevideo, Uruguay where she led two sessions: "Landscapes of Rooted Resistance and Transnational Solidarity: Reforging Home and Belonging on Our Own Terms" with colleagues Urmi Dutta (U-Mass Lowell), Shahnaaz Suffla, Tinyiko Chauke and Puleng Segalo (University of South Africa), and Patrizia Meringolo (University of Florence); "Navigating the Age of Polycrisis: Epistemic Justice, Decoloniality, and Solidarities for Liberation and Wellbeing" with colleagues Chris Sonn (Victoria University) and Marianne Daher (Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile). In addition to participating in the conference as lead speaker and facilitator, Jesica also led a virtual webinar, "Humanizing Education: Developing Classroom Community Agreements," at Syracuse University's Center for Teaching & Learning Excellence. The webinar features her scholarship on the science of teaching and learning (SoTL), and is published in the journal, Radical Teacher.

Image: Patrizia Meringolo (University of Florence), Tinyiko Chauke and Puleng Segalo (University of South Africa), Jesica S. Fernández (Santa Clara University), and Fairuziana Humam Hamid (University of Miami).

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Takeshi Moro (Art and Art History) is exhibiting his historic Japanese American bonsai photographs at Palo Alto Art Center, Sept. 21-Dec. 15, 2024. It is part of an exhibition that is exploring the gardens from our memories and the green spaces that we share, to the gardens that grow us towards a better future. The group exhibition features works from twenty-one artists in diverse mediums to consider history and memory; sustainability, labor equity and climate change; as well as our unique connections with the natural world, our well-being and pleasure. This project is supported in part by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Image: "Untitled Bonsai"

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On Sunday, September 22, David Gray (Religious Studies) gave an invited lecture at the Metropolitan Museum of Art entitled "Mandalas: Buddhist Contemplative Art," in conjunction with the recently opened "Mandalas: Mapping the Buddhist Art of Tibet" exhibit.

 

 

 

 

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Kirsten Read (Psychology) was invited to give a pair of presentation workshops at the Hawaii Island Early Childhood Conference in Kona, Hawaii. The theme of the conference was "Manaʻolana: Rebuilding the Village that Nourishes our Keiki." Kirsten's presentations, based on the early educational applications of her research at SCU, were entitled, "Nourishing Young Learners' Pre-Literacy Skills through Shared Book Reading" taking a deeper dive into the benefits of reading aloud with young learners in the home and the early childhood classroom, and evidence-based best practices for how to support learning and engagement during those shared reading experiences.

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Cruz Medina (English) had his book Sanctuary: Exclusion, Violence, and Indigenous Migrants in the East Bay released on Sept. 27 from Ohio State University Press. Sanctuary comes from the three years that Medina conducted participant-observer research at a Spanish-speaking church in the East Bay, where he volunteered as a teacher of English as another language from 2013-2016. Medina concluded his time at the "Sanctuary" church during the lead up to Donald Trump's successful presidential campaign. Applying decolonial theory to issues such as the displacement experienced by the predominantly Guatemalan Maya adult student population, Medina also includes critical theory to account for issues related to linguistic and racial discrimination once these displaced migrants arrive in the US, seeking refuge from violence and destabilized governments related to US intervention.

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(L-R) Kai Wong '27 (Computer Science & Engineering), Olivia Preston '27 (Psychology), Gabe Symkowick '26 (Communication, Management), Zoe Kurup '25 (Psychology, Communication), Nick Caldon (ITV), Editor of "Good Morning Britain," Zach Carlson '26 (Management), Vir Suri '25 (History, Communication), Valerie Braylovskiy '26 (Communication), Bergin Russell '26 (Communication), Katie Heintz (Communication) at the ITV Studios.

Katie Heintz (Communication) led a Global Explorations course in London with 8 SCU undergrads during Summer 2024. The group participated in a 3-week intensive version of COMM 50 - Media and Technology Studies - with a British twist! The group explored British media and how they are funded and regulated; analyzed content and audience usage trends; and immersed themselves in British culture. We toured ITV studios, attended a lecture on music in film at the British Film Institute, visited the studio of a professional recording artist, toured The Guardian newspaper office and had a Q&A with a culture reporter, learned from an award-winning podcaster, tracked down Banksy graffiti, explored the history of communications technology at the Tate Modern Museum and the Design Museum, took walking tours of Central London, Olympic Park, and Cardiff, Wales. We watched the King, Queen, and Prince William accompany the Emperor and Empress of Japan in a carriage procession on Pall Mall; experienced the election of a new Prime Minister; cheered for England in the EuroCup Tournament; and saw Hamilton on the eve of U.S. Independence Day.

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Workshop participants at the online orientation.

After participating in SCU's Sustainability and Justice across the Curriculum workshops this summer, 18 SCU faculty members earned stipends for integrating new material on sustainability and justice into their courses, which will reach hundreds of students per year in Philosophy; English; Critical Thinking and Writing; Studio Art; Italian; Environmental Studies and Sciences; Political Science; Mathematics and Computer Science; Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering; Computer Science and Engineering; Information Systems and Analytics; Finance; Management; and the Jesuit School of Theology. Faculty from the College were joined online by 31 educators from 26 other institutions across the country. The workshops are offered each summer by SCU's Center for Sustainability and SCU's Environmental Justice & the Common Good Initiative, and taught by Chad Raphael (Communication), Leslie Gray (Environmental Studies and Sciences), and Lindsey Kalkbrenner and Veronica Johnson (Center for Sustainability). The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) recognizes SCU's leadership as a national curriculum training center for other colleges and universities. SCU faculty members interested in joining next summer’s workshops should look for an email inviting applications in January or contact Chad Raphael.

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Mathew Gomes's (English) article "Localizing Labor-based Contract Grading for a Community-engaged UX Course" was published in Communication Design Quarterly. The article focuses on the SCU English course, ENGL 111 Writing for Social Change, which was taught as a user experience (UX) course in partnership with the Northern California Innocence Project (NCIP). The article considers alignments between UX principles and contract grading. The article is a self-study and found that labor-based contract grading helped de-center instructor and peer evaluation and foreground user, client, and stakeholder priorities in community-engaged work. The grading model also supported engagement in a process of connected UX activities. However, the grading model also presented challenges for accommodating flexible UX processes, and the course engagement model could have further maximized access to UX process opportunities. The article concludes with a heuristic to guide the design of grading models for UX courses.

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Rohit Chopra (Communication) was one of the 2024-2025 awardees of the Strengthening Democracy in the Indian Diaspora Fellowship, a competitive fellowship award offered by Bard College, New York and the School of Oriental African Studies, UK, to promote democracy and counteract the spread of authoritarianism and communalism within the Indian diaspora. Rohit will be working in collaboration with the India Hate Lab, also a recipient of a fellowship award. The India Hate Lab is an initiative of the Center for the Study of Organized Hate. Rohit's work with the India Hate Lab for the fellowship will focus on researching and analyzing hate speech against minorities in the global Indian diaspora using qualitative and quantitative methods, facilitating diasporic Indian inter-faith community conversations and engagements to strengthen democratic values, developing a multimedia archive of stories of diasporic Indian inter-community solidarity, and preparing a counter-hate speech training manual. This work will build on and extend Rohit's research on global Hindu nationalist and other right-wing communities, online hate speech, and human rights in South Asian and global contexts.

Rohit was also appointed as an advisory board member of the Center for the Study of Organized Hate, a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, D.C. whose mission is to understand, prevent, and combat the organized hate against any group defined by characteristics such as religion, race, nationality, caste, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation.

And Rohit has been appointed as a Visiting Scholar for the Center for South Asia at Stanford University, the central forum at Stanford University for the study of South Asia. During the year, Rohit will have an opportunity to present his research on media, memory, and sectarian violence in Bombay in the 1990s as well as other South Asia-centered projects to the community of scholars affiliated with the Center. Rohit has collaborated with the Center in the past to jointly organize events with the Communication department at Santa Clara. He has previously presented his research at several conferences organized by the center. He also held the position of Visiting Scholar at the center for Fall 2014 and Spring 2015 quarters.

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Sonja Mackenzie (Public Health), along with co-author Rachell Sánchez-Rivera (University of Cambridge, UK), published their paper, “Queering COVID-19: A Synergistic Approach to Theorizing Pandemic Inequalities” in the journal Sociology. This paper builds on Sonja’s research on viral politics and analyzes the social and sexual inequalities exacerbated by the pandemic drawing on decolonial thought, Critical Race Theory, and queer theory. COVID-19 has amplified social, economic, racial, gendered and sexual inequalities from its earliest days, and theorists have identified the disparate impact of COVID-19 on LGBTQ+ communities in varied global contexts. The paper suggests the key theoretical intervention of queering COVID-19 as a stance that de-centers heteronormative and binary-gendered social structures. This framework illuminates – and calls into question – the embeddedness of dominant forms of gendered power in the Covid-19 pandemic, and its attendant forms of oppression in and through systems of biomedicine, public health and the political economic and racialized parameters of these operations. The paper considers the role of collective forms of queer resistance in COVID-19 social movement building, offering a case study of queer lived experiences foregrounding grief and emotion in the pandemic. This research was funded by an SCU Research Award for Mackenzie’s project, COVID-19 and the Common Good.

Image: Sonja and Rachell working on their next project at Gonville & Caius College, Cambridge UK, Summer 2024.

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In June 2024, Barbara Burns (Child Studies), Romina Miller (Psychology), Veronica Amador, Maria Gallardo, Roberto Gil, Ana Morante and Marita Zavaleta (Sacred Heart Community Service, San Jose) presented a poster at the US Department of Health & Human Services’ National Research Conference on Early Childhood (NRCEC) in Washington, D.C. The poster, titled “A Community Program to Foster Nurturing Caregiving for Young Children and Prevent Child Maltreatment,” showed significant changes in caregiver strengths and resilience of Latino families experiencing economic and community adversities following their participation in a Promotores-led caregiver education program based on the science of resilience. These findings provide more evidence for the adoption of 'community-healing-community' approaches in child welfare to promote resilience, and have the potential to help improve other programs offered at community centers designed to increase healthy family functioning and prevent child maltreatment.

Image: Veronica Amador and Maria Gallardo sharing research findings at the NRCEC Conference in Washington, D.C.

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Students and teachers at the NCA Thespian Leadership and Tech Conference.

On Saturday, October 5 the NCA Thespian Leadership and Tech Conference was held at Mayer Theatre, hosted by Erik Sunderman, Heather Kenyon and Katie Dowse (all Theatre and Dance), and coordinated by Theatre alumnus Jeff Bengford '89, Director of Performing Arts at Westmont High School, Campbell. Two hundred and twenty-nine students attended from 27 different schools from all over Northern California. They each participated in our annual Thespade, took workshops in four different facets of Leadership and/or nine sessions of Technical Theatre, plus an Advanced Leadership class for returning students! And Theatre teachers even had their own workshop covering Principles of Lighting Design with industry professional, Ed Hunter. The day ended with a Keynote Conversation with Jackie Montellato, VFX Senior Production Coordinator at Industrial, Light and Magic.

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Francisco Jiménez (Modern Languages and Literatures, Emeritus) was the keynote speaker for the NASA Ames Research Center in celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month, Sept. 17. He also made a presentation on his book, Breaking Through, to all first-year students at Los Gatos High School on Sept. 19. (His book was selected for their summer reading.) In addition, his book, The Circuit Graphic Novel, published by HarperCollins this year, has been chosen for inclusion in the Society of Illustrators Original Art Show. Celia Jacobson, the illustrator, received the prestigious Founders Award for her work on the book.

Image: Francisco Jiménez answers questions after his keynote speech at NASA.

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Michael Whalen (Communication) will explore documentary styles, techniques, and ethical considerations while analyzing how the truth is constructed in this type of filmmaking. The class will watch a weekly documentary and discuss how the film was made, the connection to the topic, and discussing issues of truth, subjectivity, and advocacy. The role of documentaries as witnesses will also be considered in films such as Nanook of the North and Bowling for Columbine.

OLLI@SCU will be featuring notable instructors periodically in the College Notes. The average course ranges from 4 to 10 hours of instruction per quarter. We hope this will inspire you to stay updated on OLLI news and possibly teach a class for our members. OLLI instructors are compensated for their time and knowledge; to learn more about the joy of teaching adult learners, contact olli@scu.edu.

College of Arts and Sciences Calendar