Far left: MSIII Nathan Real, SCU, received the Reserve Organization of America (ROA) Award presented by CWO4 Ron Garcia, USMC (Ret). Middle: MSI Evan Muller, SCU, and MSII Erin Troiano, SCU, received the U.S. Army Cadet Command Superior Cadet award and celebrated this meaningful achievement with family. Far right: MSIII Koen Carston, SCU, received the Sons of the American Revolution, The Silicon Valley Chapter Award, presented by Adam Capell, SVSAR Vice President of Programs.

This month, our Military Science Program proudly recognized outstanding Bronco Battalion Cadets during this year’s award ceremony, honoring those who demonstrated excellence, leadership, commitment, and achievement throughout their participation in the program. Each award reflects specific standards of distinction and celebrates the dedication these Cadets bring to their academic, military, leadership, and personal development.

Dear College Faculty and Staff,

It’s hard to imagine a new academic program for Santa Clara University that is as impactful as a new school of medicine. The U.S. is facing a critical shortage of MDs in the next decade, and far too many Californians have to go out of state for their medical training. Imagine a medical school infused with Ignatian pedagogy and Jesuit values! Moreover, I hope and expect the medical school to be terrific for the College, especially if we succeed in creating undergraduate-to-medical school pipelines for some of our students.

This week I was proud to attend a Santa Clara City Council meeting at which our three Silicon Valley Power Partnership fellows presented their policy recommendations following their year-long research. Ximena Garcia-Isabelli presented on mitigating heat islands in the city, Isabella Gomez made recommendations for using native plants in future landscaping, and Gigi Jones offered policy recommendations for transitioning from gas to electric cooktops within the city. All three made excellent presentations and were warmly congratulated by the mayor and city council members.

In honor of the warm, sunny month of May, I offer this poem by Aimee Nezhukumatathil, who lives and teaches in Mississippi.

Best,

Daniel

HELOPHILIA
Desire to stay in the sun / love of sunlight
By Aimee Nezhukumatathil

Don’t call it an affliction –
call it affection. I’d stay under
the sun all day, never hiding
under a copse of trees if I knew

I wouldn’t burn, but isn’t it
more accurate – that I burn
for the sun? To be pulled to the light
is nothing to be ashamed of: look

at flowers, butterflies, seals lounging
on a rock. Rhubarb sings in dark gardens
but truth be told it sounds more like
a wet cracking and popping. I think

it secretly counts the hours till it can turn
towards the sun again. For me, the sun
has always been easy to love, as easy
as it is to love whatever small light

bees bestow on fallen leaves – easy
to love the light they give just before
they crawl into a honey-hungry sleep,
just before the first fall of snow.

Highlights

SVPSF Fellows and mentorship team take a photo with City of Santa Clara Mayor Gillmor and Council after the fellow's presentations in the Council Chambers at City Hall.

On May 19, the Santa Clara City Council recognized the Silicon Valley Power Sustainable Futures (SVPSF) Program 2025-26 Fellows from SCU. Ximena Garcia-Isabelli ’26 (Environmental Science), Isabella Gomez ’27 (Philosophy), and Gigi Jones ’26 (Environmental Studies) shared their policy recommendations surrounding urban heat islands, native plant implementation, and electric stove retrofitting.

Their recommendations were well-received by Mayor Lisa Gillmor and Council Members. Suds Jain, Councilmember for District 5, shared that “it's tremendous to be able to work with Santa Clara University. We [the City of Santa Clara] have a very aggressive Climate Action Plan... It's really great that we can support students in things like cook tops, native plants… and the heat island effect is absolutely critical. We have brilliant students at SCU, and we need to take advantage of them to help us achieve our climate goals."

The Fellows are supported by faculty mentors Jake Dialesandro (ESS), Nicolas Hernandez (ESS), and Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences Daniel Press. Center for Sustainability mentors included Director Lindsey Kalkbrenner '04 (Biology), Academics & Engagement Program Manager Veronica Johnson, Faculty Associate Chris Bacon (ESS), and SVPSF Postbaccalaureate Fellow Leonie Casper ’25 (Environmental Science).

The Fellows' full policy briefs will soon be available on Scholar Commons. View the recording of their remarks at the City Council Meeting.

Sonia Gomez (History) has been selected as a 2026-2027 Joy Foundation Fellow by the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. From their website: Sonia C. Gomez is a 20th-century US historian and the author of Picture Bride, War Bride: The Role of Marriage in Shaping Japanese America (NYU Press, 2024), which won the Organization of American Historians’ 2025 Mary Nickliss Prize. At Radcliffe, she will complete her second book, “Dear Mollie: Friendship Across Barbed Wire and Racial Lines,” a history of Japanese American incarceration during World War II that focuses on the friendship of an interracial group of teenage girls from Boyle Heights, Los Angeles.

Eric Yang's (Philosophy) book Monotheism and the Trinity was published in May through Cambridge University Press, by their Cambridge Elements series Religion and Monotheism.

Jesica S. Fernandez (Ethnic Studies), in collaboration with Michael Lerma, Nicholas L. Baham, III, and Mario Obando, recently had a chapter, entitled "Spiritual Activism," in the recently published first edition textbook Introduction to Comparative Ethnic Studies: Decolonial Love, Knowledge (Routledge, 2026). The chapter highlights decolonial love and liberation through spiritual activism, featuring the life stories and contributions of Safiya Asya Bukhari and Gloria E. Anzaldua to movements for freedom and justice. Anchoring the chapter in decolonial love as a form of spiritual activism, Jesica and colleagues write, "decolonial love requires a willingness to let go of preconceived notions;" it is a praxis where one is seen and sees others as human. At a time when ethnic studies are under siege, it is a humbling and affirming, meaningful experience to have such work published.

On Friday, April 24, Department of English faculty Matt Driscoll, Jackie Hendricks, and Maria Judnick hosted "Fire, Forests, and the Santa Cruz Mountains: Reimagining and Regenerating Community after CZU" at the University Library. Offered as part of this Spring's tUrn Week, this daylong symposium included a keynote address from Margo Robbins (Cultural Fire Management Council, Yurok Nation), panel discussions with artists and land stewards/foresters, and a film screening of Giants Rising. The program was organized in response to the 2020 CZU Lightning Complex fires, which were woven into discussions throughout the day.

The events fostered opportunities for reflection, dialogue, and community-building. The SCU community demonstrated openness to learning about cultural fire and prescribed burning, artistic engagement with fire and Santa Cruz Mountain forests post-CZU, and perspectives on forestry and stewardship in the Santa Cruz Mountains from the non-profit, public, and private sectors.

Image: Matt Driscoll, Jackie Hendricks, and Maria Judnick.

Tiffany Yu and Maddie Wong stand with the student artwork on display at the SCU Department of Art and Art History Ceramic Exhibition during the California Conference for the Advancement of Ceramic Art.

This spring, Pancho Jiménez (Art and Art History) organized an exhibition featuring the artwork of nine Santa Clara University students, Lana Greenberg ’29 (Engineering Undeclared), Nina Huaracayo ’27 (Studio Art), Burke Jarrett ’27 (Environmental Studies), Marisol Lopez ’26 (Biology), Tristen Lujan ’27 (Studio Art), Penelope Markopoulos ’28 (Studio Art), Thea Phillips ’27 (Mathematics), Maddie Wong ’29 (Studio Art), and Tiffany Yu ’26 (MIS), at the California Conference for the Advancement of Ceramic Art (CCACA). CCACA is an annual conference held in Davis, California, featuring demonstrations and talks by professional artists, as well as professional and student exhibitions. A hallmark of the conference is the student ceramic art exhibitions, which showcase colleges and universities from across California.

Micah Lattanner (Public Health) and Maya Barrett '26 (Psychology) recently presented their research to the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health Sexual Orientation and Gender Expression Health Equity Research Collaborative examining the impact of structural stigma on LGBTQ+ health outcomes. The talk synthesized findings from multiple large-scale reviews and meta-analyses conducted by Micah showing that structural stigma is consistently linked to experiences of interpersonal discrimination, poorer mental health, substance use, and adverse physical health outcomes among LGBTQ+ populations. Maya also presented on her work through the DeNardo Fellowship, advancing the development of measures of LGBTQ+ campus climate from a structural stigma perspective. Together, their research talk highlighted important future directions for understanding and addressing stigma-related health disparities among LGBTQ+ populations through structural and institutional change, at Universities and more broadly.

Tom Plante (Psychology), along with SCU students Trinity Lopez ’26 (Psychology), Andrew Joseph ’26 (Public Health, Psychology), Bella Gustavel ’25 (Psychology), and Katie Ioffe ’26 (Communication), published the article Can we prime for compassion? The impact of the Good Samaritan parable in Pastoral Psychology.

Abstract: Can we prime for compassion and other prosocial values? This study sought to determine if strategic priming and exposure to the Good Samaritan parable might result in more compassion as well as ethical, religious, and sacredness endorsement. The study included 334 participants (229 females, 102 males, 2 nonbinary; 216 Caucasian, 118 BIPOC), with a mean age of 51.8 (SD = 23.4). Data were collected through online surveys after participants were randomly assigned to one of four priming video conditions that included (1) a religious version of the Good Samaritan parable, (2) a secular version of the Good Samaritan parable, (3) a video on how to make more money, and (4) a control video of wheat swaying. Results revealed that those who identified with a faith group tended to score higher on measures of sacredness and compassion relative to those who did not. This study highlights the potential educational and social-emotional benefits of exposure to materials that demonstrate altruistic behavior as a means to increase prosocial interests and engagement. 

On April 25, SCU Letterpress hosted an exhibit table at the 11th Annual SF Bay Area Printers’ Fair and Wayzgoose in History Park, San Jose. We, Kirstyn Leuner (English) and Maria Judnick (English), joined many other book artists and printers at the Fair to share our love of printing, presses, and making art with the community. Matt Kelsey ’84 (Multi-Disciplinary Studies) is one of the event organizers, a lead member of the San Jose Printers’ Guild, and a professional fine letterpress printer. We were proud to have a busy table all day, where visitors could ink up the type and make a print to take home. We debuted our new Book Beetle press at the fair, a table-top version of an 18th-century Common Press that is perfect for teaching and transport, since it is made of wood, not iron, and a single person can carry it. See this blog for a full photo gallery from the event.

Kathy Aoki (Dean's Office, Art and Art History) printed our revised SCU Letterpress “calling cards,” and students in Kirstyn’s Winter Letterpress Composition course (ENGL 116AW, “Writing with Heavy Metal”) helped with design revisions. For information about bringing a letterpress printing experience or project to your event, email kleuner@scu.edu.

Image: Kirstyn Leuner and Maria Judnick at the 2026 SF Bay Area Printers' Fair and Wayzgoose.

On May 1, Lissa Crofton-Sleigh (Classics), with Em Dang ’20 (Computer Science and Engineering) of the Imaginarium, published a piece in the Peopling the Past, an international, award-winning podcast and blog site. The post celebrated the public launch of Lingua Vitae (“Language of Life”), a virtual reality (VR) experience to supplement the teaching of Introductory Latin. Set in 46 BCE, the six chapters follow Titus, a broke poet, as he searches for a patron through his writing about Julius Caesar's Gallic triumph and interacts with everyday Romans along the way. Research and development began in 2018, leading to nearly eight years of interdisciplinary collaboration among more than twenty faculty, students, and staff at SCU, who fulfilled a number of different roles in the project. All of our primary researchers and developers were undergraduates, from departments across CAS, including Classics, History, Mathematics and Computer Science, Studio Art, and Communication, as well as students from the Leavey School of Business and the School of Engineering. Students were paid through 2FURS grants and/or external grants from the Society for Classical Studies, or by serving as lab workers for the Imaginarium.

If you own a VR headset, you can try Lingua Vitae out for yourself through free downloads on itch.io. Even better, go visit the Imaginarium in Heafey 237 and check out the experience there!

Image:  Users play the role of Titus and engage with ancient Romans like Lucius in Latin, while standing in and around the ancient Roman Forum and learning more about the history and culture of Rome.

The entire SCU Psychology delegation at a celebratory dinner in Tacoma, Washington

The Psychology Department recently staged its annual benevolent takeover of the 106th Annual Meeting of the Western Psychological Association in Tacoma, Washington, where 23 Psychology and Neuroscience majors from six faculty labs showcased 15 distinct poster presentations. The diverse array of research featured projects about body dissatisfaction from Anu Malhotra ’26 (Psychology, Public Health Science), Marissa Mansour ’26 (Psychology), Madeleine Maestre ’27 (Psychology), Haley Brinker ’27 (Psychology), and Audrey Weaver ’25 (Psychology), mentored by Katy Bruchmann; studies on language, empathy, and emotional reactivity from Gina Pai ’26 (Psychology), Cate Eigen ’26 (Psychology, Child Studies), Lindsey Kendall ’26 (Psychology), and Faith Fitzpatrick ’26 (Psychology), mentored by Jui Bhagwat; and investigations into testing behaviors and learning by Sydney Kostal ’27 (Psychology), Ashna Nayak ’27 (Child Studies, Psychology), and Malia Hardy ’26 (Psychology, Child Studies), mentored by Michelle Rivers. Further contributions included research on bereavement and emotional avoidance by Lia Henkelmann ’26 (Psychology), Evita Morales ’26 (Psychology), and Jack Tillman ’26 (Psychology), Cece Fox-Middleton ’26 (Psychology), and Desmond Lai ’27 (Neuroscience, Psychology), mentored by Birgit Koopmann-Holm; a study on romantic jealousy by Melissa Zales ’26 (Psychology), mentored by Kieran Sullivan; and neuroscientific analyses of ASD, ADHD, and EEG learning by Zhizhen Tao ’26 (ECP), Sofia Messersmith ’26 (Neuroscience, Biology), Olivia Rennie ’26 (Neuroscience), Karis Huh ’26 (Neuroscience), and Zoe Park ’26 (Biology, Neuroscience), mentored by Lang Chen.

At the conference, multiple students received the Regional Research Award by Psi Chi, the International Honor Society in Psychology. The purpose of this prestigious award is to recognize excellent abstracts of empirical research authored by Psi Chi members to promote student authors’ careers in psychology, and comes with a $400 prize.

Psychology majors Marissa Mansour ’26, Madeleine Maestre ’27 and Haley Brinker ’27, mentored by Katy Bruchmann (Psychology), received the award for their presentation entitled “Buzzword or Belief: A Qualitative Analysis of Undergraduate Women’s Perceptions of Body Positivity Content.” Their presentation, which was based on Marissa Mansour’s senior thesis, provided a qualitative analysis of what “body positivity” on social media means to women, navigating a landscape where content ranges from inspirational quotes to performative inclusivity from clothing brands. Existing evidence for the effects of Body Positivity is mixed; some studies suggest that body positivity can boost mood, but other research finds that body positivity can inadvertently increase appearance-focus in women; thus, this important work sheds light on how social media users actually perceive and internalize these messages.

Psychology major Lindsey Kendall ’26, mentored by Jui Bhagwat (Psychology), received the award for developing an intervention program that aims to encourage empathy in elementary school-aged children. The program includes activities aimed to highlight and apply empathetic behaviors, and is currently being tested with 3rd graders at a school in the Santa Clara community. This project is also part of Lindsey's thesis for the University Honors Program.

Naomi Levy (Political Science) and her colleagues at UC Berkeley's Possibility Lab released a new report, "Feeling at Home?" detailing a collaborative research project to understand wellbeing from the perspective of people with lived experience of homelessness in the Bay Area. Along with the report, they published an interactive website where the findings can be explored.

Brita A. Bookser (Child Studies) and coauthor Timothy J. Williamson (Loyola Marymount University) recently published "Picture Book Diversity Deserts: Sociodemographic and Geographic Trends Across Public Libraries in Los Angeles County" in Public Library Quarterly. This paper introduces “diversity deserts” to describe how diverse picture books are unevenly accessible in public libraries according to community geographic and sociodemographic characteristics. Using a critical geospatial approach, the study analyzed the prevalence of 96 picture books recommended by the California Department of Education across 158 public library branches in Los Angeles County, finding that libraries in communities with larger populations, family sizes, prevalence of children under 18 years old, prevalence of non-English and Spanish household languages, and Hispanic/Latino, American Indian/Alaska Native, “other” race, and multiracial populations had lower prevalence of recommended picture books in their collections. Geographically, libraries with higher proportions of recommended picture books were clustered in coastal areas and west of downtown, and libraries with lower proportions were concentrated in southeastern and northeastern areas of the county. This study is important because it highlights that variations in library collections are structurally determined, and it holds implications for equitable, community-responsive library practices.

College of Arts and Sciences Calendar

Got IT Questions or Issues?

Stop by the virtual IT drop-in sessions with Charles Deleon! These sessions are designed to provide faculty and staff in the College of Arts and Sciences a friendly and casual setting for addressing general IT questions and concerns. Feel free to drop in and out at any time during the scheduled session, whether you have a quick question, need assistance with something and don't know where to start, or simply want to learn more about our IT resources.

Biweekly. Next session: Friday, May 29, 11:30 AM–12:30 PM.

Zoom link

Faculty Development