CAS Associate Dean Kathy Aoki (Art and Art History) moderated a discussion on "Jumping into Hands-On Learning: Research and Internships in the College of Arts and Sciences" with CAS Student Ambassadors, Samuel Cao '25 (History, English, Religious Studies), CJ Jenkins '26 (Psychology), David Tang '25 (Biology), and Jerry Wang '26 (Computer Science), during one of the three Welcome Weekend 2024 student panels.

Dear College Faculty and Staff,

I hope your first week of classes has gone smoothly and you’re finding your way back into the groove. We had a great Welcome Weekend with a lot of interest in the Research and Multidisciplinary student panels we held for incoming students. Vari was buzzing with the energy of new beginnings at both of our Dean’s Receptions. Thank you to all the faculty, staff and students who came to engage with our new students and parents!

This fall, we celebrate the 2024 Opus Prize being hosted at Santa Clara University. As part of that, all Broncos are invited to submit original works of art, music, and writing to be displayed on campus during Opus Prize Week in November! Prizes will be awarded in 3 categories - art, writing, and music - for entries that most convey the values or impact of the Opus Prize theme: Faith Makes Wonders Work. Please consider submitting your own work and encourage your students to submit as well! Submissions are due on October 1.

I’m thinking of you parents as your children resume daycare, pre-school, K-12, college and beyond, so here is a poem by the contemporary poet Li-Young Lee that might resonate.

Happy Fall!

Daniel

 

The Gift

To pull the metal splinter from my palm
my father recited a story in a low voice.
I watched his lovely face and not the blade.
Before the story ended, he’d removed
the iron sliver I thought I’d die from.

I can’t remember the tale,
but hear his voice still, a well
of dark water, a prayer.
And I recall his hands,
two measures of tenderness
he laid against my face,
the flames of discipline
he raised above my head.

Had you entered that afternoon
you would have thought you saw a man
planting something in a boy’s palm,
a silver tear, a tiny flame.
Had you followed that boy
you would have arrived here,
where I bend over my wife’s right hand.

Look how I shave her thumbnail down
so carefully she feels no pain.
Watch as I lift the splinter out.
I was seven when my father
took my hand like this,
and I did not hold that shard
between my fingers and think,
Metal that will bury me,
christen it Little Assassin,
Ore Going Deep for My Heart.
And I did not lift up my wound and cry,
Death visited here!
I did what a child does
when he’s given something to keep.
I kissed my father.

Highlights

Sophie McCreary, Mariyam Lokhandwala, Melanie Rayas, Karina Martinez, and Andrew Agustin. Not pictured: Mark Sobol.

This summer's DeNardo Lab Rotations program provided six LEAD and transfer students–Sophie McCreary '25 (Biology), Mariyam Lokhandwala '26 (Neuroscience), Melanie Rayas '26 (Psychology), Karina Martinez '26 (Biology, Neuroscience), Andrew Agustin '26 (Biology) and Mark Sobol '26 (Biology)–with hands-on lab research experiences for 10 weeks in nine faculty labs. Funding from the DeNardo Education and Research Foundation and a contribution from LEAD made this on-ramp introduction to mentored research possible. Students reported feeling welcomed and confident in their learning and accomplishments. Everyone says the best part was getting to know faculty and other Broncos doing research!

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Mateo J. Carrillo (History) had an article published this past June in the Latin American Research Review (LARR) entitled "The Communal Roots of Mexico's Maquila Industry: Urbanization, Land, and Inequality in Ciudad Juárez, 1960-2000." The article analyzes the urbanization and privatization of communal land grants (ejidos) in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico via a computer vision model that utilizes Google Street View and Geographic Information System imagery. The innovative methodology of "Communal Roots" demonstrates how processes of ejidal urbanization in Mexico’s northern borderlands during the latter half of the twentieth century contributed to the rise of multinational factories (maquiladoras) and geographies of inequality and gendered violence.

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Chan Thai, Alex Varni, and Sandra Jamaleddine.

Chan Thai (Communication), Alex Varni '21 (Communication, Environmental Studies; lead author), and Sandra Jamaleddine '21 (Communication, Psychology) recently published their paper, "Using an Instagram campaign to influence knowledge, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and behavioral intentions for sustainable behaviors" in Frontiers in Psychology. This study describes the positive impact of a virtual campaign executed in partnership with the Center for Sustainability to encourage sustainable behaviors among SCU students during the Winter Quarter of 2021 when we were still learning remotely. Those who reported seeing the campaign showed higher rates of knowledge about and intentions to perform sustainable behaviors compared to those who did not see the campaign. This project was the result of a 2-quarter Capstone course taught by Thai in the Communication Department where students design a theory-driven, evidence-based health campaign in the first course, then implement and formally evaluate the campaign during the second course.

 

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Erin Bradfield (Philosophy) presented her paper, “A Tale of Two Cults: The Popular and Isolationist Aesthetic Communities of Twin Peaks” at the third annual meeting of the International Society for Philosophy in Film Conference in London, England (August 2024). The theme of the conference was “Borders and Frontiers in Philosophy and Film.” Her essay analyzes the shifting ground of David Lynch’s reception and endeavors to categorize the different aesthetic communities it has generated over time. Erin’s particular focus in this essay regards the television and film projects related to Twin Peaks. First, she analyzes the reception of Twin Peaks to argue that the show spurred two different aesthetic cults – one popular and the other isolationist. Then, she provides a brief coda tracing the reception of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. Understanding and perhaps deliberately thwarting the expectations of the popular cult, Erin argues that Lynch refused easy “fan service” in favor of staying true to his artistic vision. While the darker tone frustrated some viewers, she argues that Fire Walk With Me is essential to the Twin Peaks canon because Laura Palmer finally gets to tell her own story in this film. Erin further claims that Fire Walk With Me is consistent with rather than a departure from the original series’ exploration of the “evil that men do,” because it unflinchingly lays bare the abuse and subsequent trauma of Laura Palmer.

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“Media and Modernity” conference panel at Zhulin Temple, Wutai shan, Shanxi province.

In August, Heather Clydesdale (Art and Art History) participated in two intensive Buddhist-studies institutes and conferences that brought together scholars from Asia, Europe, and the United States. They were held at the ancient monasteries of Zhulin Temple on the sacred site of Wutai shan in the mountains of north China, and Nanputuo Temple in Xiamen, a lively seaport on the southeast coast. At the first conference, the “Canonical, Non-Canonical and Extra-Canonical: Interdisciplinary and Multi-media Studies of the Formation, Translation and Transmission of Buddhist Texts,” Heather chaired a dual-language panel on “Media and Modernity.” At the second, “Microcosm Holds Mountains and Seas: The Sinicization of Buddhism in the ‘Multi-layered Contextualization’ from Local to Global History,” she chaired the Chinese-language panel “Expansion and Contraction of Dharma through State-church Interactions” and presented a paper “The Eternal in the Contemporary: Manifesting Buddhist Doctrine in Architecture Today” as part of a dual-language session on “ Media in the Transmission of Sacred and Secular Knowledge.”

Participation in the institutes and conferences were supported by the Glorisun Global Network of Buddhist Studies. In addition to scholarly inquiries and exchanges, the experience revealed shifting intersections between organized religion, academia, and local politics in China today.

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Francisco Jiménez (Modern Languages and Literatures, Emeritus) received a Certificate of Recognition from the California State Assembly for his “contributions to academics and Mexican American Literature. …and for being an inspiration to young readers, scholars, and the immigrant community.” Students and teachers from Quinto Municipio, a grammar school in Rosarito, Baja California, held an event in honor of Jiménez after they finished reading two of his books, Cajas de cartón and Senderos fronterizos.

His books have been a favorite with the children of Rosarito since 2014 when they were introduced by Friends of the Library as part of the Rosarito Lee Program. He also reviewed the documentary film “Where Can We Live in Peace?” for Bullfrog Films, the oldest and largest publisher of videos and films about the environment in the United States. The film spotlights the work of Pastor Ignacio Ramírez at the ABBA migrant shelter in Celaya, Mexico, which helps migrants fleeing violence, poverty and climate change.

Image: Certificate of Recognition from the honorable Roberto Rivas, Speaker of the California State Assembly.

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Di Di (Sociology) has published an article titled "Cross-National Variations in Scientific Ethics: Exploring Ethical Perspectives Among Scientists in China, the US, and the UK" in Science and Engineering Ethics. Using a dataset comprised of 211 interviews with scientists working in China, the United States, and the United Kingdom, the study seeks to explain whether and in what manner physicists conceptualize scientific ethics within a global or national framework. These cross-national variations underscore the moral agency of physicists as they navigate the ethical standards embraced by the global scientific community vis-à-vis those that are specific to their respective national contexts. The study’s empirical insights may carry significant implications for both policymakers and ethicists, underscoring the imperative of soliciting and acknowledging the perspectives of academic scientists working and living in disparate national contexts when formulating comprehensive science ethics frameworks.

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The Aare river in Bern, Switzerland.

Tim Urdan (Psychology) presented two papers and also served as a discussant for a symposium at the International Conference on Motivation (ICM) in Bern, Switzerland at the end of August. Both papers were from data collected during his sabbatical last year. The first paper was a comparison of the motivation and identity of teachers in Greece and Germany and was written with colleagues from Augsburg, Germany. The other paper compared the motivational profiles of middle school students in Germany and Greece. In that paper, we found that students in Greece had more adaptive motivational profiles than did students in Germany, even though the German students spent more time with their teachers. This was written with colleagues from Thessaloniki, Greece.

Tim also participated in an "experimental" interactive symposium at the American Psychological Association conference in Seattle earlier in August. This session explored teacher identity development.

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American Art, the scholarly journal published by the Smithsonian American Art Museum, has appointed Andrea Pappas (Art and Art History) to its Editorial Board. American Art is the leading peer-reviewed journal for American art history and related visual culture. In addition to screening manuscripts, she will contribute to the journal's Dedalus Foundation-funded initiative, Toward Equity in Publishing, "designed to remediate the inequitable conditions that precede and impede publication in the field of American art history." Through editorial mentorship and workshops, the program demystifies scholarly publication processes and helps scholars revise manuscripts for submission and publication." She will also serve on the jury for the annual Patricia and Phillip Frost Prize, given for the best feature article of the year and will chair the committee in 2028. Her four-year term begins October 1.

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Monet Oosthuizen, Alex Beccari, and Birgit Koopmann-Holm

Together with alumnae Alex Beccari ’24 (Psychology, Management) and Monet Oosthuizen ’24 (Psychology, Communication), Birgit Koopmann-Holm (Psychology) published an invited review article, "Individual and cultural differences in compassion, noticing suffering, and well-being: Consequences of wanting to avoid feeling negative," in Social and Personality Psychology Compass about the research she has conducted with her students over the last eight years. Across many studies conducted in various cultural contexts including Ecuador, Mexico, China, Japan, Germany, and the United States, Birgit's lab finds individual and cultural differences in which responses are considered to be most compassionate and helpful. Additionally, people differ in how much they notice and acknowledge others’ suffering (including systemic racism). These differences are related to the degree to which people want to avoid feeling negative. This work has important implications for cross‐cultural counseling, anti‐racism trainings, and conflict resolution. Noticing others' suffering and understanding what compassion entails for different people in different settings can result in treating others the way they want to be treated.

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CJ Jones (Gender and Sexuality Studies) published an article titled, "Gender Critical Feminism and Trans Tolerance in Sports." Through a systematic review of gender critical feminist rhetoric in the realm of sports, CJ's article excavates a rhetorical strategy of what the author calls “trans tolerance,” a strategy that is at once trans-affirming and trans-exclusionary. They argues that three themes run across three gender critical feminist organizations: (a) nonpartisanship, (b) biofeminism, and (c) trans tolerance. In a sports world that desperately needs transformation, scholars and activists alike must sharpen analyses of violent transphobic rhetoric in a way that moves beyond a “pro-trans versus anti-trans framework.” The article was published in a special issue of Sociology of Sport Journal titled “Sports and the Limits of the Binary: Trans and Nonbinary Athletes and Equity in Sport”

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Robin Tremblay-McGaw (English) had three poems—"To host an Acoustic Body," "Precipice," and "I woke Among the Words of Others"—published in the July/August issue of The Brooklyn Rail, a print and digital journal published out of New York City.

 

 

 

 

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Eric Yang (Philosophy) has produced an edited volume, Exemplars, Imitation, and Character Formation: A Philosophical, Psychological, and Christian Inquiry, through Routledge. The volume collects paper from philosophers, theologians, and psychologists, offering an interdisciplinary engagement into the practice of imitation and the role and value of exemplars in moral development and character formation.

 

 

 

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Abel Cruz (Modern Languages and Literatures) published an article titled “Expressing diminutive meaning in heritage Spanish: linking the heritage experience to diminutive use in everyday speech” in Frontiers in Language Sciences. Spanish and English employ different linguistic strategies to express diminutive meaning: English prefers analytic diminutives like ‘a little tired,’ whereas the diminutive morpheme -ito (i.e., ‘despacito’) is overwhelmingly preferred in Spanish. And thus, this study addressed two central questions: (i) how do Spanish–English bilinguals express diminutive meaning in their Spanish discourse and (ii) what pragmatic force does the diminutive convey in the everyday speech of Spanish–English bilinguals? Abel analyzed 49 sociolinguistic interviews from a Spanish–English bilingual community in Southern Arizona and 18 sociolinguistic interviews from a Spanish monolingual community in Mexicali, Mexico. The study revealed that the diminutive morpheme -ito/a is a productive morphological device in the Spanish discourse of Spanish–English bilinguals, but bilinguals are more likely to express an affective evaluation (i.e., primito/a ‘little cousin’) through this morpheme compared to their Spanish monolingual counterparts. This research suggests that bilinguals adhere to the sociocultural norms of their speech community when creating sociocultural meaning in their heritage language.

College of Arts and Sciences Calendar