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Focus on Faculty
UCSB Film and Media faculty members Lisa Parks and Anna Everett have launched a campaign to improve on the underrepresentation of people of color working in the news business — and featured on camera. They spoke in a recent webinar about how American media scholars can work to influence news executives to improve coverage of race issues in the news.
Thanks to UC Santa Barbara’s Creative Computing Initiative, graduate student Kevin Whitesides incorporated hands-on multimedia projects in his Linguistics course Memes: When Language and Culture Go Viral . Donor Ross Dowd ‘94, has provided funds for Humanities and Fine Arts instructors and students to apply computer technology and digital tools to their areas of study.
UC Santa Barbara historian John Majewski explains how the artistic and literary creative works of Black abolitionists in the 1840s and 1850s acted as a critical catalyst for the abolition of slavery, and compares the creative political action of then to that of 2020.
New faculty member Iman Djouini shares her work and interests in the the first Art Colloquium presentation of the fall, hosted by the UC Santa Barbara’s Art Department.
Over four decades, UCSB theater professor William Davies King has collected things of no commercial value. These items include 25,000 food product labels, 10,000 business cards, 2,300 cereal boxes, 1,400 bottle caps, 800 envelope linings, and other everyday items. A portion of King’s collection has been curated into an exhibition, located at UCSB Library’s Mountain Gallery and available online.
Steven Gross, a professor of French Horn who heads the Woodwind, Brass and Percussion program at UC Santa Barbara, is currently the only full-time horn professor within the University of California system. In a recent phone interview, he discussed the career journey that led him to UCSB, as well as his latest projects.
Jesse Miller, a postdoctoral fellow of English and medical humanities at UCSB, is teaching an English course this spring called U.S. Cultures of Mental Illness. In a recent interview, Miller discussed his goals in designing the course and its relevance in the current social climate that has resulted from the coronavirus pandemic.
The Academic Senate has recognized Art professor Kip Fulbeck’s many achievements with the 2019-2020 Faculty Diversity Award. Fulbeck is renowned for his groundbreaking exhibition and book “The Hapa Project,” which ran for 15 years and featured raw portraits of multiethnic individuals and their personal stories about being mixed-race.
This spring, UCSB English lecturer Brian Donnelly is teaching a course on dystopian fiction with themes that apply to the conditions students face during the COVID-19 crisis. In a recent Zoom interview, he said his initial apprehension proved unfounded as the course created a place for students to creatively engage with this time in their lives.
A shout-out to the department of History of Art and Architecture for its recent awards and achievements, including a teaching award, a grant, and book publications.
UC Santa Barbara sociology major Olivia Roberts reflects on her discovery of the Linguistics Department and how the culture of language applies to her experience as an out-of-state college student.
UC Santa Barbara’s music department is adapting online teaching methods to create virtual solo and chamber music sessions in light of COVID-19 social distancing measures.
At her virtual Friday evening book launch, UC Santa Barbara writing lecturer and former ballerina Ellen O’Connell Whittet spoke to over a hundred colleagues, friends, family, and students over Zoom about her new memoir: What You Become in Flight. O’Connell Whittet described how ballet normalizes “sacrificing the body, to contort it into something perfect” and why a career-ending injury made her consider how this principle impacted her life.
Since 1998, Pastor Victor Bell has been leading the Gospel Choir at UCSB. In an interview, he speaks about his career, his passion for gospel music, and his relationship with his students in the UCSB Gospel Choir.
UC Santa Barbara's Philosophy Department boasts the fastest growing Humanities major among undergraduates. Along with three recent faculty hires, new courses such as the Philosophy of Economics have been added to the curriculum and there are plans to keep expanding. In this video by HFA intern Calvin Bruhns, faculty and students describe how Philosophy has become a go-to major to prepare for post-graduate work and professional schools.
Small, individual acts of environmental consciousness ─ while worthwhile for the planet ─ are nothing compared to the massive policy change needed to solve the climate crisis, Northwestern University religion and culture professor Sarah McFarland Taylor told a UCSB audience earlier this month. The Walter H. Capps Center for the Study of Ethics, Religion, and Public Life hosted Taylor, who discussed her book Ecopiety: Green Media and the Dilemma of Environmental Virtue.
UCSB Theatre and Dance professor Delila Moseley gives us a first look into the UCSB Dance Company’s 30th anniversary international tour, in spring 2020.
UC Santa Barbara students have seen the History of Public Policy as a a good major to prepare for law school. Now, starting later in 2020, students will be able to major in the History of Public Policy and Law. Program director Randy Bergstrom explains in an interview.
UC Santa Barbara English professor Ken Hiltner sat down to discuss NXTerra, an online archive with tools for educators to teach climate change.
As the number of international students at UCSB have doubled over the past 5 years, Kristen Dunkinson works specifically with international students at Campus Learning Assistance Services (CLAS) in order to help them with their writing.
