CAMPUS NOTES
The Office of the President will also be hosting a Coffee Break in Rose Hills Patio (in front of the Bookstore) ahead of Convocation. Enjoy coffee and pastries beginning at 9:30 a.m.
All faculty and staff are invited to the Convocation ceremony on Monday, August 26, at 10 a.m. in Thorne Hall. The brief ceremony will welcome the Class of 2028 to the beat of the Taiko ensemble (back by popular demand) and will include messages from members of the community and a performance by the Occidental Glee Club, led by Professor Desiree LaVertu.
Have a newsworthy Occidental story to share? Need new business cards, letterhead or a College photo for your oxy.edu webpage? You will find request forms for a number of marketing assets and projects on the Office of Marketing & Communications webpage, as well as Zoom backgrounds and a College style guide. Make sure to bookmark oxy.edu/omc for future needs.
OXY NEWSMAKERS
Occidental Launches 4-3 Pathway to Doctoral Degree in Physical Therapy
Through a new partnership, aspiring physical therapists can complete their bachelor’s degree at Occidental and earn priority consideration for a three-year graduate program at the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy & Health Sciences (MCPHS).
The Vanishing Half Selected for Occidental’s Community Book Program
Occidental College has selected Brit Bennett’s novel The Vanishing Half for its 2024-25 Community Book Program.
Occidental Faculty to Share Their Research on The Academic Minute
This past July, five Occidental faculty members shared their expertise on The Academic Minute, a nationally broadcast daily radio segment that highlights researchers from colleges and universities around the world.
Occidental Canine Cognition Lab Studies Social Relationships Between Humans and Dogs
Assistant Professor of Psychology Zachary Silver has launched a canine cognition laboratory to study how dogs make sense of the complicated human social world in which they live—and he’s inviting the community to participate.
HR CORNER
Photos from the 2024 Employee Recognition Awards are now available to view. Enjoy!
Here is the latest list of arrivals and departures from June 14-August 16:
Arrivals:
Kent Abacan, Advancement Services, Salesforce Technical Solution Engineer/Developer
Ayla Ahmad, Athletic Trainer
Aileen Bustos, Human Resources Staffing Specialist
Junie Chen, Registrar's Assistant
Blair Fong, Athletic Trainer
Paloma Franco, Emmons Counseling Services Staff Psychologist and Training Coordinator
Andrew Guerrero, JEID Education Specialist
Lauren Guillen, Advancement Services Manager, Gift Processing and Data Management
Evelyn Hermosillo, Business Office, Accounts Payable Manager
Tajuna Hilton Paige, Campus Safety Officer
Nathan Martinez, Campus Dining, Director of Culinary Services
Bryan Mecina Guatierrez, Neighborhood Partnership Program Academic Advisor
Lindsay Nyquist, Office of the President, Chief of Staff
Sarah Pickle, Librarian and Director of Academic Commons
Taisandra Robles, Child Development Center, Associate Teacher
Lucia Maria Sapphire Pier, Arts Programming Administrative Coordinator
Danielle Sharkey, Admissions Coordinator, Admissions Operations
Tom Stritikus, Office of the President, President
Matthew Villongco, Admission Counselor
Departures:
Sindy Ayala, Neighborhood Partnership Program, Academic Advisor
Maryo Botros, Library Materials, User Services Specialist
Peter Campbell, Associate Director of Human Resources
Joaquin Caro, Project SAFE Prevention Education Coordinator
Yolanda Cisneros, Admissions Operations Coordinator
Jasmine Delgado, Neighborhood Partnership Program, Academic Advisor
Thomas Jansen, Assistant Coach, Swimming & Diving
Jackson Kuo, Business Office, Associate Controller
Rodney Leveque, Marketing & Communications, Vice President
Alvaro Loya Villalpando, Physics Research Scientist
Carol Milki, Advancement Services, Manager of Gift Processing & Data Management
Tia Phillip, Library Materials, Resource Sharing Specialist
Christopher Remmers, Human Resources, Talent Acquisition Specialist & Recruiter
Chelsea Santiago, Senior Assistant Dean of Admissions
Steve Solorio, Structural Maintenance, Plumber
Kamille Stafford, Campus Safety Officer
David Strauss, Business Office, Accounts Payable Manager
Wendy York, Child Development Center, Lead Teacher
SHOUTOUTS
From Jessie Fontana-Maisel '16, Senior Assistant Dean of Admission: A huge thank you to Catering and Facilities from Jessie, Courtney, and the entire Admissions Team! We could not have pulled off our Summer Open House event without you. This was our first time hosting a Summer Open House, and it was thanks to your team that we had such a successful event. We also really appreciate Marie Mawji and the Theater Department for troubleshooting a huge Thorne event in the middle of their busy Summer season of Occidental Children's Theater.
From Joan A. Brewer, Office Manager, REHS: I would love to give Monica Jones and her team in the Tiger Cooler a HUGE SHOUT OUT for having such great choices in the Cooler this summer. The food was great. I loved her menu posts so we knew what was being served for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I have not had to cook dinner at all. I just stopped by the Cooler and picked up dinner. THANK YOU!
From Vivian Garay Santiago, Interim Vice President for Student Affairs & Dean of Students: A special shout out to all of the Student Affairs colleagues who helped to organize and pull off the wonderful CHAS (Consortium of High Achievement and Success) Conference in June. Our Student Affairs presenters WERE AWESOME and we could not have pulled this off without all of you!
From the Media Arts & Culture Department: The MAC Department would love to give a shout out to the Office of Institutional Advancement's Development Writer Suzanne Rivecca and her team for all their hard work collaborating on a successful grant application!
From Lan T. Chu, Professor of Diplomacy & World Affairs and Faculty Director for Equity & Justice: Huge thanks to Andrew Guerroro, JEID Education Specialist, who hit the ground running after joining Oxy in June 2024. Andrew played an integral role in revamping the training for the search representatives of the Faculty Search and Equity Committee.
KUDOS
Broderick (Brody) Fox, James Irvine Professor of Media Arts & Culture, has been awarded a Fall 2024 residency fellowship at the Bogliasco Foundation in Italy. During his residency, Fox looks forward to completing principal editing on his latest documentary "Through Flood and Fire," in which a group of queer American teenagers seek out LGBTQ+ community elders to imagine more inclusive futures.
Assistant Professor of Computer Science Teddy Pozo and co-PI Ari Gass were awarded an ACLS Digital Justice Seed Grant to pilot a new digital publication, the "Trans Games Digital Zine Project." This project is a platform co-designed by transgender, nonbinary, genderfluid, and gender non-conforming game developers, scholars, and gamers, to share and create games and games criticism.
Assistant Professor of Geology Nikki Seymour and her collaborators have been awarded an NSF grant to study the metamorphic history of the Pelona-Orocopia-Rand schist, an enigmatic rock found in the Mojave Desert. She and Oxy undergraduates will use the mineral garnet to better understand the geologic history of the western United States.
Seymour has also been awarded a New PI grant to study the factors that lead to the breakup of continents. She, along with two Oxy students, will travel to southern Italy to sample the deep crust brought to the surface by rifting. They will then apply geochemical techniques to determine whether and to what degree increased heat flow aided in the breakup process.
The search for paradise is often tinged with melancholic ambivalence: we may hope to reach arcadian lands, but they invariably slip beyond our reach. In a new article, Assistant Professor of Art and Art History Yurika Wakamatsu investigates how artists in 19th-century Japan discovered a real-world idyll in the plum-filled valley of Tsukigase, high in the mountains of today's Nara Prefecture.
Associate Professor of Diplomacy & World Affairs Igor Logvinenko co-edited a special issue in the journal Law & Policy titled "Global Perspectives on Judicial Politics and Democratic Backsliding". The issue includes ten articles by fifteen scholars, providing an in-depth analysis of the judicial politics in the context of democratic backsliding. Logvinenko co-authored two articles in the issue.
Professor of Diplomacy and World Affairs Anthony Chase and Gaea Morales ’18 published a report in Open Global Rights on how locating pushes for human rights at the city level opens possibilities to push back against attacks against human rights by nation-states. The report can be accessed in English and in Spanish.
Associate Professor of Biology Amanda J. Zellmer published a new article in Urban Ecosystems investigating variation in co-occurrence of three tree squirrel species across multiple cities in the United States. The results demonstrate variation across cities in how squirrel species respond to canopy cover and similarly in patterns of co-occurrence. These results suggest that tree squirrels vary across different urban landscape contexts and provide recommendations for managing urban trees.
Professor of Sociology Dolores Trevizo published a new article comparing two armed vigilante movements against criminal cartels in Mexico. She finds that their leaders and organizations differed in ways that affected their tactics and targets, as well as timing of de-escalation. Trevizo also co-authored a chapter with Neil Harvey featured in the book Frustrated Nationalism. In the chapter, they re-examine Mexican nationalism and the category of the mestizo to identify who it includes, excludes, and why.
In a new article in Developmental Psychology, Assistant Professor of Psychology Jamie Amemiya and co-authors find that children can recognize similar causal structures, such as a causal chain structure, across superficially distinct events. They show that this ability emerges around six years of age and discuss how this understanding may help children reason about scientific concepts.
Associate Professor of History Jane Hong previewed her forthcoming book in a printed conference presentation, titled "How Post-1965 Asian Migration Changed U.S. Protestant Christianity". The presentation was delivered at Princeton Seminary's 2023 Asian American Theology Conference and published as part of a special journal issue on "Multiple Belongings in Transpacific Christianities".
In July, Hong also led a two-week National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Institute for 6th-12th grade teachers titled "Pacific Crossings: Asian American and Pacific Islander Histories, 1870s to the Present". This was one of the first NEH seminars hosted by Oxy and the second K-12 teachers' history institute Hong has brought to Oxy in partnership with the Gilder-Lehrman Institute of American History.
In a new article, Associate Professor of Cognitive Science Sasha Sherman and co-authors demonstrated that several factors related to art engagement foster a greater sense of meaning in life: having a sustained interest in the arts, experiencing a spiritual or religious connection around arts, and especially having experiences of awe in the presence of art.
In a new article in Communications in Information Literacy, First Year, Transfer, and Student Success Librarian Samantha Hilton and co-author detail how they built an asynchronous choose-your-own-adventure-style tutorial that guides undergraduate students through the iterative research process.
Professor Emeritus of Cognitive Science and Philosophy Saul Traiger published a new book titled “Twilight Zone Reflections”. The book introduces the reader to philosophy through all 156 episodes of the original “Twilight Zone” (1959-1964) television series. Traiger explores the show's themes in metaphysics, epistemology, moral and political philosophy, and cognitive science in a way that is accessible to both seasoned philosophers and those outside academia. The book grew out of Traiger's use of the “Twilight Zone” series in his introductory philosophy courses at Oxy.
Jean Wyatt, Professor of English Emerita, has edited a book collection of essays on global Black women writers with co-editor Sheldon George. The volume, “Experimental Subjectivities in Global Black Women’s Writing: Race and Narrative Innovation” explores the inventiveness of contemporary Black women’s novels as they break with convention to reimagine Black female subjects and to pioneer new styles of narration.