May 2020

Message from the Dean

Dean David V. Powers, PhD

Shared Governance

Executive Committee:  Recent Minutes

Faculty Staff Senate: Recent Minutes

David V. Powers, Dean, College of Arts and Sciences, Seattle University

Recruitment and Retention

Many thanks to all of our faculty and staff who are investing extra time and effort to connect with admitted and current students. Current research indicates that these students appreciate this. Here are a few examples; if you would like any assistance with developing tactics or materials, please contact Karen Bystrom by email.

Master of Social Work: "Professor Highlights" Campaign

The program hosted an admitted students reception with faculty introductions and a Q&A session. This is followed by monthly online gatherings, May through August, hosted by individual faculty members. During these 45 minute sessions, the faculty member will talk about their work and why they became a social worker. Students will have the opportunity to ask faculty members questions, too.

English Department: Student Facebook Features

The program is featuring "Senior Spotlights" and "Reflections in the Pandemic." Check out their Facebook page.

Admissions Videos

Admissions is sending messages to admitted students in a campaign designed to engage them and help ensure they choose Seattle U and that they register for Fall classes. We are working with them to recruit faculty and staff to film short (1-2 minutes) videos to let them know how much we look forward to seeing them in the fall. The videos will also by used on our A&S social media channels and on the Seattle U channels. Thanks to Rosa Joshi, Chris Paul, and Kirsten Thompson for these videos. We are happy to get more, so let Karen Bystrom know if you would like to film one. There are simple tips for filming on a smartphone here.

Rosa Joshi, MFA, Chair of Performing Arts and Arts Leadership, welcomes new students to Seattle University.

Christopher Paul, PhD, welcomes news students to Seattle University.

Dr. Kirsten Thompson, Film Studies, welcomes new students to Seattle University

Announcements

Save the date: Virtual Launch for SUURJ 2020

  • June 4, 6 p.m.

The newest issue of the Seattle University Undergraduate Journal will be released in a virtual event with the student editors and authors and others. Details for the celebration will come out soon.

Arts and Sciences Faculty Promotions

Congratulations to all of on all the hard work and accomplishments that led to this point.

Earning tenure and promotion to Associate Professor

  • Dr. Onur Bakiner, Political Science
  • Dr. Serena Cosgrove, International Studies
  • Dr. Michael Jaycox, Theology and Religious Studies
  • Dr. Claire LeBeau, Psychology

Promoted to Full Professor

  • Dr. Sven Arvidson, Interdisciplinary Liberal Studies and Philosophy
  • Dr. Kathy Cook, Psychology
  • Dr. Tanya Hayes, Environmental Studies and the Institute for Public Service
  • Dr. Matt Hickman, Criminal Justice
  • Dr. Sarah Shultz, Kinesiology
  • Dr. Charles Tung, English

Promoted to Associate Clinical Professor

  • Dr. Audrey Hudgins, Matteo Ricci Institute

Promoted to Senior Instructor

  • Dr. Henry, Kamerling, History

Fellowships Awarded

Congratulations to the awardees of the College of Arts and Sciences' Summer Faculty Research Fellowships, the Promotion Fellowship, and the Dean’s Research Fellowships for 2020.

Promotion Fellowship 

  • Alexander Mouton, Associate Professor, Fine Arts (Digital Design) - Nationalism on the March: Photographing the Legacy of Stalin and Hitler While Reflecting on the Current American Moment.  

Dean's Research Fellowship (includes student assistantship)

  • Maureen Feit, Assistant Professor, Nonprofit Leadership  - Advocate and Protect: Community-Based Organizations Negotiate the Promise and Peril of Collaboration with U.S. Census 2020  
  • Eric Severson, Instructor, Philosophy - Before Ethics

Faculty Research Fellowship 

  • Serena Chopra, Assistant Professor, English - Poetry: Dayawati, Of Mercy
  • Rashmi Chordiya, Assistant Professor, Institute of Public Service  Enhancing Performance-Oriented Management: The Promise of New Public Management Reforms 
  • Anne Farina, Assistant Professor, Master of Social Work - Perceptions of Resilience Among Salvadoran Women  
  • Allison Meyer, Associate Professor, English - Book Building and the Early Modern Construction of Religious Difference 
  • Jerome Veith, Senior Instructor, Philosophy -  Wide Trauma and Witnessing 

Our thanks to the members of the Committee that selected the awardees from a significantly large number of applicants this year. The Committee was made up of most of the awardees from last year - Drs. Victor Evans, Serena Cosgrove, Onur Bakiner, Helen Liu, Nova Robinson, Hazel Hahn, Jennifer Schulz, and Rick Malleus.

Kinesiology’s "Exercise in Motion" Fitness Challenge

Challenge yourself to walk 4-5 days a week while maintaining proper social distancing and accumulate the following steps 4-5 days each week:

  • Week 1 (5/3-5/9): 4,000 steps
  • Week 2 (5/10-5/16): 6,000 steps
  • Week 3 (5/17-5/23): 8,000 steps
  • Week 4 (5/24/-5/30): 10,000 steps

Students in the Kinesiology department with fitness certifications have volunteered to teach 30 minutes of classes such as Pilates, Yoga, and Strength that all can follow along over Zoom with no equipment necessary. This is a great way for us to all connect and move together. Join them on Fridays through May 29 at 4 p.m. for free Virtual Fitness classes you can do in the comfort of your home. No equipment needed. Zoom Code to Join: 990-9913-723. For more, follow Exercise in Motion on Instagram, @eim_seattleu.

Curve Conference

Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies hosted the first Curve Conference on April 23 and 24. Moving to an online format proved to be very successful. A total of 153 people registered to attend across the two days and each session had 15 to 20 participants watching the student presentations and interacting with them. The sessions were recorded and are in the process of being captioned. The videos of each session will be posted on the CurveCon website as they are completed. 

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Leadership Committee on Intersectionality and Justice

“Pandemics spread and exploit the fissures of society.  And the United States has many, many wounds, open wounds from our structural racism, and the criminalization of poverty, and the refusal to address poverty. And those realities make us and made us even more susceptible to the spread of this pandemic.”  -- Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II (April 2020)

  • Virtual Open House: College of Arts and Sciences' Leadership Committee on Inclusion and Justice [LCIJ]
  • Friday, May 15, 1 to 3 p.m.
  • Open to our College of Arts and Sciences community (i.e., students, staff, and faculty).

Zoom Meeting https://seattleu.zoom.us/j/95837084317

Meeting ID: 958 3708 4317

The committee will update the community about what the LCIJ has been up to this year. We also want to hear from you:  How might the LCIJ be a greater asset for racial justice, equity, and inclusion -- to our College community -- during this COVID-19 pandemic and beyond?

If you have any questions, please contact a member of the LCIJ.  We look forward to you joining us for this virtual open-house. 

LCIJ Committee:

  • Sarah Curtis-Tilton
  • Hye-Kyung Kang
  • Sonora Jha
  • Michael Ninen
  • Serena Oduro
  • Gary Perry
  • Jason Wirth

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Partnerships

SU ADVANCE is an NSF-Funded Institutional Transformation program intended to foster gender equity through a focus on the identification and elimination of organizational barriers that impede the full participation and advancement of all women faculty in academic institutions” (National Science Foundation)*. Since receiving the ADVANCE IT award in 2016, SU ADVANCE has been conducting a critical examination of faculty careers and expectations for advancing in the professoriate.

COVID-19 has upended all aspects of traditional university life. Faculty are scrambling to make huge adjustments in their professional lives, while also trying to balance unprecedented challenges at home. Amidst all the current uncertainty, one thing we know is that this global tectonic shift will have significant consequences for the ways in which we organize and balance our personal and professional activities going forward.  

To that end, SU ADVANCE is undertaking an “urgent response” exploration of the ways in which faculty are managing their lives during COVID-19.  We seek to explore your experiences as you juggle various professional and personal demands in this unique and unprecedented historical moment. This is a tremendous opportunity to reflect on your own unfolding experiences and to have them taken into account in the months and years ahead as academe adjusts to the considerable impacts of COVID-19. Our hope and aim is to chart your experiences with the intent of providing a solid empirically-based foundation on which to make decisions, as the university enters new chapters.

All faculty are eligible to participate and we would like to hear from as many of you as possible. Please email the SU ADVANCE Research & Program Coordinator, Sarah Trainer by email  for more information, including about our measures to maintain confidentiality of responses. On behalf of our SU ADVANCE team, we encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity to contribute input from your own experiences, while also using our platform to participate in reflection and contemplation of this unique experience.

 Thank you for your responses and insights,  

Jodi O’Brien, SU ADVANCE PI and Professor of Sociology

Jean Jacoby, SU ADVANCE Co-PI and Associate Dean of Science & Engineering 

*To learn more about SU ADVANCE and our activities and research into the longstanding disconnect between faculty careers and traditional institutional recognition and reward structures, please visit our website. Currently, based on the past three years of engagement and research with our SU community, we are moving forward with a proposal to Academic Assembly for revised guidelines for promotion to full professor. Commensurate training for holistic faculty formation is also in a pilot phase and will serve as the foundation for shifting our faculty culture toward recognition and reward of a more representative range of the activities that constitute a faculty career in a mission-focused university.

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Of Gifts and Gratitude

Reminder as departments eventually collect/sort mail, if donation related information is received, we ask that you please forward it to University Advancement. We have a process for receiving and securing donations during this time.

Again, if there are questions about donor-funded accounts for your department, please contact Katie Chapman by email for more information. Thank you.

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Faculty

Ken D. Allan, PhD, Art History, Department of Art & Art History, publishes review of new study of African-American art in 1960s Los Angeles; joins the board of the Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present (ASAP). Allan, a specialist on American art of the 1960s on the West Coast, was solicited to write a review of a major new book in his field by art historian and curator Kellie Jones, Professor in Art History and the Institute for Research in African American Studies at Columbia University.  His review of her South of Pico: African American Artists in Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s, (Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2017) appeared in The Art Bulletin, Vol. 102, No. 1, March 2020: 119-121. 

Allan also was appointed to the board of an interdisciplinary scholarly organization, the Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present (ASAP).  He will serve as secretary for a 4-year term.  The organization focuses on work on contemporary art, film, literature and performance.  It sponsors a yearly conference in the US and a bi-yearly international symposium as well as publishes a journal with the Johns Hopkins University Press.

Hazel Hahn, PhD, History, has joined the editorial board of the journal “French Historical Studies.” The appointment is for three years. Her essay, "Stumbling upon a Revolutionary monument during a pandemic" is on the Clio Speaks blog page of the Seattle University History Department website.

Marco Lowe, MPA, Institute for Public Service, talked to KING5 News about ” The Presidential race, the race to reopen, and blowback for Inslee.” Watch the interview here.

Caitlin Carlson, PhD, Communication, was interviewed by Wired for “Facebook’s AI for Hate Speech Improves. How Much Is Unclear.” The research project he mentions in the piece is from an article she published with Hayley Rousselle, a CMME major who graduated in ‘18 and just recently completed her first year of law school at Syracuse. Read the article here.

Serena Cosgrove, PhD, International Studies, was awarded a Fulbright to carry out research in Guatemala. Her project is entitled: “Indigenous Women’s Leadership to End Gender-Based Violence in Guatemala” and she hopes to travel to Guatemala in the 2020-2021 school year to teach and carry out research.

Alfred G. Pérez, PhD, Social Work, is featured in a new campaign by the Foster Care Alumni of America. In recognition of May, Foster Care Awareness Month, they are highlighting stories about adults with foster histories, beginning with Dr. Pérez. See the Facebook post here, and the Instagram post here.

Kira Mauseth, PhD, Psychology is the co-lead of the Behavioral Health Strike Team for the WA State Department of Health; she specializes in disaster relief work in her clinical role as a practicing psychologist. She participated in a press conference held by the state Joint Information Center on May 7.  She spoke on behalf of the team's work with forecasting and preparing guidance for the behavioral health issues associated with COVID19. Media coverage included stories with My Northwest, KOMO News, and The Spokesman-Review. (Links lead to the stories.)

Sofia Locklear, Sociology ’14, an Instructor in Sociology teaching Native American Studies, is a 2020 recipient of the prestigious American Sociological Association Minority Dissertation Fellowship for her dissertation, "Ethnic Identity and American Indian/Alaska Native Culture in the Pacific Northwest." Sofia is currently a PhD candidate at the University of New Mexico.

Mx WE King, an Instructor in Sociology teaching Gender and Sexuality has been awarded the highly competitive Louisville Institute Dissertation Fellowship studies in North American Christianity for their dissertation, "A Match Made in Heaven? Queer Christian Dating Apps." Mx WE is a PhD candidate in Information Studies at the University of Washington and was recently profiled in the UW Daily. Read the article.

Paul Kidder, PhD, Philosophy, published “What Can Existentialism Teach Us About Today?” online at Post Alley. Read the article.

Rachel E. Luft, PhD, Department of Anthropology and Sociology, will direct a National Hazards Center Covid-19 Working Group on Social Movements. One of 30 social and natural science national task forces created by the flagship disaster center, the Working Group on Social Movements brings together an interdisciplinary team of scholars to study the effects of Covid-19 on social movements, including social movement responses to the disaster. SU Philosophy Assistant Professor Natalie Cisneros, PhD, is a member of the group.

Jaisy Joseph, PhD, and Sharon Suh, PhD, are now advisors with the Harvard Pluralism Project. An ongoing research effort, the Pluralism Project studies and interprets religious diversity and interfaith relations in the United States. Learn more  here.

Caitlin Carlson, PhD, Communication, published a piece with Christopher Terry in the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society's Digital Beat.  Read the article.

Ted Fortier, PhD, and Jeanette Rodriguez, PhD, were just informed by their publisher, University of Texas-Austin, that their book, “Cultural Memory: Religion, Resistance and Identity”, is to be translated into Chinese.

Rosa Joshi, MFA, Performing Arts and Arts Leadership, directed an educational reading of Brighde Mullins translation of Shakespeare’s KING JOHN with Play On Shakespeare as part of their First Reads series. Seattle University faculty and upstart crow collective founding member, Kate Wisniewski, read the titular role of King John. The reading featured an all-female/non-binary cast and was streamed on YouTube on May 1. The reading was a collaboration between Play On, Oregon Shakespeare Festival and upstart crow collective.

Chris Paul, PhD, Communication,  will have his new book, “Free-to-Play: Mobile Video Games, Bias, and Norms,” published next fall. Learn more here.

Jacob Kysar, MS, Kinesiology, published a paper in Journal of Physiology,  “Unchanged Cerebrovascular CO2 Reactivity and Hypercapnic Ventilatory Response during Strict Head-down Tilt Bed Rest in a Mild Hypercapnic Environment,” in collaboration with colleagues at University of Oregon and aerospace groups KBR, NASA, German Aerospace Center.

Erica Rauff, PhD, and Sarah Shultz, PhD, Kinesiology, collaborated with researchers in New Zealand to publish a paper in International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, “Are all Sedentary Behaviors Equal? An Examination of Sedentary Behavior and Associations with Indicators of Disease Risk Factors in Women.”

Sarah Shultz, PhD, Kinesiology, created an accredited CME (continuing medical education) module on Exercise Prescription for Osteoarthritis and Weight Management, as part of her work and leadership within the Osteoarthritis Action Alliance.

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Alumni

Mariah Ribeiro, ’19, Art History with Departmental Honors, will be attending Syracuse University for an MA in Art History in Fall 2020. She was also accepted into very competitive MA programs at American University; Hunter College/City University of New York; the University of Chicago and the University of Washington.  Mariah’s honors thesis on indigenous art and contemporary museum practice may form the basis of her graduate work with Sascha Scott, a scholar of Native American and Indigenous Studies and director of art history graduate studies in Syracuse’s Department of Art and Music Histories. Mariah will be publishing a portion of her honor’s thesis in the upcoming edition of SUURJ, SU’s undergraduate research journal this spring.

Mary Lacey, Public Affairs '20, and project assistant for the Seattle University Project on Family Homelessness, wrote this blog entry about her experience with weighing the decision to vote in Wisconsin against her own safety. Read her entry here.

Sydney Thun, Film Studies with minor in Creative Writing, ’19, Sydney worked as an intern on the set of Universal's TV show Z Nation and on a Disney film shot in Seattle prior to graduation. Since graduation, Sydney has worked with A+E Networks on commercial shoots as a location scout, and as a set assistant, and recently accepted a very exciting job opportunity to create pitch decks and assist in selling scripts to networks and platforms such as Freeform, HBO, Netflix, and NBC.

Brandon Bassler, Film Studies ’19, has begun work at Lifetime Television as a Publicity Assistant.

Brennan Bunn, Film Studies ’19 has been splitting his days between producing short videos for the King County District Council and the Seattle Housing Authority.

Emma Cooney, Film Studies ’19, moved to NYC and is now working at an editing studio in Manhattan that specializes in documentary film and advertising. She plans to attend the School of Visual Studies for further graduate studies.

Kelly Hunt, Communication and Media, with a Spanish Minor, ’20, is featured in the April Issue of New England PGA's Full Swing News Magazine. Read it here.

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Students

Michael Ninen, ’20, will be in Mexico teaching English with the Fulbright Grant. He will be graduating with majors in International studies and Spanish, as well as a minor in Latin American Studies. Michael hopes to incorporate a culturally responsive pedagogy in the classroom to establish a common ground learning environment that serves all types of students. Upon returning to the United States, he would like to aim for a career with the foreign service as a public diplomacy officer.

Congratulations to junior Alyssa Gaston, who won seven debates in a row to place first at the online debate tournament hosted by University of Alaska earlier in the month—not a single loss. Alyssa was also fourth speaker.

Samantha Kielty, MNPL 2020, is deeply committed to food justice. She and her team at the Neighborhood Farmers Market Alliance are focused on ensuring that low income people have access to fresh, locally-produced food and that local farmers have a place to sell their food. When the pandemic hit and farmers markets closed, she and her colleagues worked quickly to find ways to support farmers and customers. Read about that work here.

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Events

Finding Hope in Times of Crisis through the Lens of History
May 14, noon-1 p.m., online
Dr. David Madsen, Professor Emeritus, History, hosts the inaugural Reading Redhawks program. Seattle University Alumni Association will be scheduling more events in the rotating series led by SU faculty, alumni, and staff. Free, online, Register here.

To Everything There is a Season . . . A Time for Every Purpose Amidst the Coronavirus Crisis and Beyond
May 15, 12:30-1:30 p.m., online
Whether you prefer it as an Ecclesiastes (3:1-8) scripture reference or the Pete Seeger and The Byrd’s song, “Turn, Turn, Turn” (1959), the message remains same. During our kaírós (opportune) gathering time together we will read the scripture and/or listen to the song, and then you will be invited to share any relatable aspect(s) of these paradoxical “times” in this present “season” of your life and to envision “seasons of purpose” beyond the pandemic.  Sponsored by Dr. Mary-Antoinette Smith, Ph.D., Rev. Louis Gaffney Endowed Chair [2018-2020]. RSVP by email to receive the Zoom link.

Abstractions of Black Citizenship: African American Art from Saint Louis May 18-August 2, online
A group exhibition of works by Dominic Chambers, Damon Davis, Jen Everett, De Nichols, and Katherine Simóne Reynolds, five Black Saint Louis, MO-based artists. The exhibition presents painting, photography, mixed media, works on paper, sculpture, and video. Programming starts on Monday, May 18 at 5 p.m. PT with a Virtual Opening for the Online Exhibition, and continues throughout May, June, and July 2020. Other events include pre-recorded artist Studio Visits (released over May 2020), a live/virtual Public Programming Artists Talk (Friday, May 29 at 3 p.m. PT), and tours of the online exhibition and educational programming. The exhibition is curated by Jasmine Jamillah Mahmoud, Assistant Professor in Arts Leadership. Find the full program of virtual events here.

The Death Penalty in the Age of Data, Science, and Abolition
May 22, 9 a.m.– 5 p.m., online webinar
Virtual continuing education event, featuring Sister Helen Prejean, author of “Dead Man Walking;” Kirk Bloodsworth, Death Row Exoneree and Executive Director, Witness to Innocence; Dan Satterberg, King County Prosecuting Attorney. Additional Speakers from the Washington Innocence Project, Seattle University Department of Criminal Justice and School of Law, and University of Washington Law, Societies & Justice. Register online here.

Marisol  by Jose Rivera, directed by Rosa Joshi
May 29, 7:30 p.m., livestreamed as a reading - more information to come
No one has seen the moon for months.  All the food has turned to salt.  God is frail and dying and the angels have gone to war.  This is the landscape in which we encounter Marisol, a young professional living in the Bronx, who is just trying to survive.  How will she survive a disintegrating world that has been thrown off its physical, ethical and spiritual moorings?  Initially written in 1992, Jose Rivera’s apocalyptic fantasia, -- part absurdist, part magical realism -- remains fiercely relevant as an exploration of homelessness and mental illness in a society facing ecological peril and deep civil discord.

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College and Academic Calendar

Please refer to the Office of the Registrar's website for the updated academic calendar.

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Graduate Program Information Sessions and Open Houses

The next deadline is June 1 for distribution the week of June 8, the final issue of the academic year.

The Dean’s Monthly Memo is published the second full week of the month, September through December and February through June. Send your updates to Karen Bystrom.