An Arts Renaissance
The Right to Rise
The Future of Cities
Five far-reaching ways the arts are flourishing at UC Davis. Page 4
How the College is building a more diverse and equitable community. Page 6
Is this a historic opportunity to reimagine our urban spaces? Page 8
FALL 2021
From the
DEAN Dear alumni and friends, When I joined the Aggie community last August as dean of the College of Letters and Science, I knew I was joining an impressive liberal arts and sciences institution. Yet, in my first months here, the innovation, discovery, brilliance and commitment to students that I’ve experienced have far surpassed my initial perceptions. This College, this community, is a powerhouse. As the heart of UC Davis, I can unequivocally say that our work lays the foundation for UC Davis consistently being ranked a Top 10 national public university. This issue of Letters & Science Magazine sheds light on just a handful of the thousands of College of Letters and Science students, faculty, alumni and donors who put the “power” in powerhouse. The past year and its challenges inspired our top minds to ask, “Where do we go from here? What important lessons have we learned from the pandemic? And how do we reimagine the future of the College?” Ever forwardlooking, ever focused on changing our world for the better, their stories examine how we can adapt to today’s most pressing issues.
Get to Know Dean
Our feature story, “The Future of Cities” on page 8, focuses on how remote work and shifting urban demographics are fast-tracking the reimagination of cities. In “The Right to Rise” on page 6, we reflect on our steps to become a more diverse and equitable College. On page 12, an alumna shares her fight to close the digital divide in several rural towns. And “An Arts Renaissance” on page 4 highlights our College’s work to revolutionize the arts. There is much to be proud of. And still lots of work to do. As dean, my goals are to enhance the visibility of our College, amplify the College’s existing strengths while generating new ones, ensure our students succeed, and champion diversity and inclusion. Together, we have many exciting opportunities to make Letters and Science shine. I hope you and your family enjoy the magazine, and I wish you much health and happiness in the coming year. Sincerely,
Estella Atekwana Dean
Atekwana
Background • Born in the Republic of Cameroon and immigrated to the U.S. at the age of 19.
Education • Is a renowned interdisciplinary geophysicist with degrees from Howard University (B.S. and M.S.) and Dalhousie University (Ph.D.). • Was a first-generation college student. • Credits a high school teacher for inspiring her to pursue geology when he suggested that girls weren’t suited for field work.
What makes her excited to get up each day “The privilege of helping to shape the lives of our students for a better future, and the potential to elevate the national profile of our departments and programs.”
LEARN MORE
about Dean Atekwana
FALL 2021
Published by: College of Letters and Science University of California, Davis One Shields Avenue Davis, CA 95616
CONTENTS 4
Estella Atekwana, Dean Kristin Ede, Director of Strategic Communications Editors: Kathleen Holder, Editor Heidi Sciutto, Assistant Editor
An Arts Renaissance Visual and performance artist Raúl de Nieves taught and worked with students this fall. Read about The California Studio artist residencies program and other ways UC Davis is expanding its impact on the arts.
Writers: Jeffrey Day, Kristin Ede, Kathleen Holder, Becky Oskin Photographers: Hector Amezcua, Beth Ferguson, Karin Higgins, Gregory Urquiaga
The University of California does not discriminate in any of its policies, procedures, or practices. The university is an affirmative action/ equal opportunity employer. Comments? Comments and questions about this issue can be sent to the editor at lettersandscience@ucdavis.edu. Update your information To update your contact information, or if you would prefer not to receive the magazine, please email lsdevelopment@ucdavis.edu or visit lettersandscience.ucdavis.edu/ form/stay-in-touch.
Floto+Warner
Design: Steve Dana, Joelle Tahta ’22
FEATURES
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8
12
Faculty, staff and students across the College are taking steps to build a more diverse, equitable and inclusive community.
Do the crises facing our cities present an opportunity to re-envision our urban centers? Read what two visionary scholars have to say.
When the pandemic closed her rural school, teacher Alena Anberg ’15 launched a campaign to get internet access for her town and six others.
The Right to Rise
lettersandscience.ucdavis.edu
The Future of Cities
Wi-Fi Warrior
facebook.com/ucdavis.ls @UCDLandS UC Davis College of Letters and Science @UCDLandS UC Davis College of Letters and Science
Cover: Design by Steve Dana/UC Davis Photo by Gregory Urquiaga/UC Davis
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE Pride Points. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Trailblazers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Community Connections. . . . . . . . 6
Alumni in Action. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Support for Innovation. . . . . . . . . 16 End Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
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$1.7M
Total of grant funds the Department of Native American Studies has received for projects on dam removal, return of lands to tribes, Inuit food insecurity and Indigenous fire practices.
What’s turning heads
Where the College’s earth science, history and political science studies stand in the latest U.S. News & World Report graduate program rankings.
46M
1
#
$
across 413 projects Total College research awards for faculty and researchers’ activities across campus.
2
UC Davis’ ranking (tie) for diversity and internationalization (QS World University Rankings: 2021 USA).
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College renovation projects in the works, such as adding new labs and classrooms for chemistry, physics, mathematics, cinema and digital media, and design, plus a new home for our contemporary Indigenous art museum.
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Dave Brenner/Getty Images
PRIDE POINTS
in the College of Letters and Science
6
Number of MacArthur Fellows from the College — three faculty and three alumni, with the 2020 selection of Mary Gray (B.A., anthropology and Native American studies, ’92).
19
Total College faculty who have received the UC Davis Prize for Undergraduate Teaching and Scholarly Achievement since its 1986-87 inception.
Trailblazers
MOORE TRUTH BY BECKY OSKIN
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hen the COVID-19 pandemic hit, communication major Mahiri Moore Jr. harnessed the power of his nonprofit foundation to help vulnerable kids. Volunteers mobilized a book drive and donated 1,516 books to children in Victorville, California. A Marvel fan, Moore also dressed up as Black Panther to deliver books in Davis. Moore founded his nonprofit, Moore Truth More Change, as a high school senior to empower and inspire underprivileged and underrepresented youth. “I hope to become a role model for kids who think the only way out of their environment is through sports,” he said. Now a college sophomore, he also produces a podcast that features interviews with successful professionals who came from an underprivileged background. His efforts were recognized this year by Chancellor Gary S. May and the Sacramento Kings. May received one of the team’s 2021 Dream All-Star Awards honoring Black community leaders during Black History Month, and chose Moore to share the honor. Moore said that growing up in Southern California’s Inland Empire, he and his friends idolized basketball players and dreamed of going pro themselves. Now, Moore says, he can tell people, “You don’t have to dribble a basketball to make it to the NBA.”
LISTEN TO Moore Truth More Change podcast
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Trailblazers Trailblazers
An Arts
RENAISSANCE
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Floto+Warner
BY JEFFREY DAY
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n the last several years, UC Davis arts have flourished thanks to generous donors, expanding facilities, new programs and a bold vision for UC Davis to become an artistic incubator. Although the pandemic initially took a toll on the arts at UC Davis, the creative approaches developed to present virtual concerts, exhibitions, plays and more will inform programming and research for the future. Here are a few ways that UC Davis is sure to have a large and far-reaching impact on the arts world for decades to come. The California Studio
Visual and performance artist Raúl de Nieves (pictured opposite page) is one of five acclaimed visiting artists teaching and working with students this year as part of The California Studio: Manetti Shrem Artist Residences at UC Davis. The newly launched Department of Art and Art History program is believed to be one of the most expansive artist residencies in the nation.
Templeton Endowed Chair
A decade in the making, the Alan Templeton Endowed Chair in the History of European Art, 1600–1830, was recently filled with the hiring of Michael Yonan. His most recent book explored the strange “character heads” created by Franz Xaver Messerschmidt in the mid-18th century. The chair was made possible by alumnus Alan Templeton, a devoted supporter of arts and humanities at UC Davis (see page 14) who has funded an annual art history colloquium, lectures in literature and languages, and other programs.
Thiebaud Lecture Series
Thanks to a $500,000 gift from the Wayne Thiebaud Foundation, a lecture series featuring acclaimed artists, curators and art historians will be expanded. The series is named in honor of Thiebaud, who taught at UC Davis for 40 years, and his late wife, Betty Jean.
The Department of Design is one of the largest in the College, with programs ranging from fashion to lighting to biodesign. The Department of Cinema and Digital Media is one of the smallest, but a hub of innovation for digital tools in the arts. Students in the programs, the campus and the larger community will benefit from the recently completed expansion of Cruess Hall, including screening rooms, a gallery for pop-up exhibitions and a prototyping lab.
Franz Xaver Messerschmidt, Austrian, 1736–1783 A Hypochondriac Object Place: Europe, Austria, about 1775-80 Lead Overall: 42.6 x 25 x 23 cm (16 3/4 x 9 13/16 x 9 1/16 in.) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston William E. Nickerson Fund, No. 2 57.117
DLR Group
Cruess Hall
C.N. Gorman Museum
The C.N. Gorman Museum is on the move and taking its collection of contemporary Indigenous art and exhibitions from Hart Hall to a new campus home with three times the gallery space in the former Nelson Hall. Near the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, the Robert and Margrit Mondavi Center for the Performing Arts and the Wyatt Pavilion Theatre, the new space will expand the arts gateway to campus. FALL 2021 LETTERSANDSCIENCE.UCDAVIS.EDU
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Not all students have easy access to the experiences and networks that foster social mobility and success in college.
Community Connections
BY BECKY OSKIN
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n response to social justice movements that defined 2020, faculty, staff and students in the College of Letters and Science took action toward building a more diverse, equitable and inclusive community. “We want to attract underrepresented students to stay and finish degrees with us,” said Rena Zieve, chair of the Department of Physics and Astronomy. Here are a few of the innovative ways our community is tackling inequalities and disparities.
Closing the gaps
In late 2020, the Department of Physics and Astronomy conducted an independent survey to identify strengths and weaknesses in its climate for diversity, the first of its kind at UC Davis. Most striking were the negative equity gaps reported by transfer students on issues such as mentoring and emotional support, said department chair Zieve. (Equity gaps are disparities in outcomes across demographic traits, such as 6
socioeconomic status and gender.) In response, the department overhauled its advising process to spark deeper connections between faculty and undergraduates, even generating a list of questions for faculty to ask students to make sure meaningful conversations take place. Faculty and students also raised $200,000 for the new Physics and Astronomy Opportunity Award, which will eliminate or reduce teaching responsibilities for a doctoral student from less privileged groups — freeing them to focus on research. The Department of Physics and Astronomy has also reached partnership level in the American Physical Society Bridge Program, a national effort that provides students in master’s degree programs with research experience, advanced coursework and coaching to prepare them for a doctoral program.
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Other departments, including math and chemistry, have added more discussions and problem-solving in large introductory courses that are critical for STEM degree pathways — methods shown to improve the success of students from underrepresented groups.
Greater access to opportunity
Not all students have easy access to the experiences and networks that foster social mobility and success in college. To help put everyone
Design major Giselle Jimenez-Martinez talks with classmates during a 2019 seminar for firstyear students.
on equal footing, the Department of Anthropology launched a first-year professional development seminar for graduate students. “We are trying to demystify academia,” said Professor Teresa Steele. The department also expanded its diversity, equity and inclusion efforts by sponsoring talks addressing microaggressions, race and perception, fieldwork and sexual harassment, policing on campus, pedagogy and grading. n
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The Department of English is revamping its doctoral program’s admissions criteria as part of an effort to attract students of diverse backgrounds. The Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences received a $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation to bring more underrepresented students into the geosciences.
“We created a safe space for vulnerable populations.” – Ana Peluffo
A sense of belonging
Faculty and staff from underrepresented groups already do much of the heavy lifting for diversity and inclusion work, from helping students find community to serving as advocates on issues of racial or cultural conflict. “We created a safe space for vulnerable populations, particularly during the Trump years,” said Ana Peluffo, chair of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese. As UC Davis moves toward achieving federal Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI) designation, the
department is diversifying its teaching with perspectives beyond the languages’ traditional Eurocentric curriculum. “We are giving value to the many ways Latinx people speak Spanish,” Peluffo said. n
The Department of Economics launched a group for underrepresented minority students and their allies, modeled off the department’s ongoing program for women in economics. The group meets monthly to provide a space where students can check in with faculty and feel safe.
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Community Connections
THE FUTURE OF BY KATHLEEN HOLDER
T
he recent pandemic set new demographic trends in motion for cities around the globe as offices closed down and remote work became widespread. Downtown business districts in cities like San Francisco and New York were hit hard as affluent residents, remote workers and the newly jobless left for smaller communities or to live closer to friends and relatives. One study found that high-income areas in large U.S. cities lost 15% to 20% of residents in the pandemic’s early months. Cities in the San Francisco East Bay Area and Sacramento, on the other hand, saw more people move in than leave — a pattern that some migration experts say predates COVID-19, but has since accelerated. Overall, people are moving from major metro areas to the suburbs and beyond. Is this the moment to reimagine our urban environments? We asked two scholars in the College of Letters and Science for their perspectives on the state of cities and the prospects for creating spaces that, rather than divide us, build community and provide safer places to work, live and play. Here are excerpts from interviews with: n
Simon Sadler, professor and chair of design who studies the history and theory of architecture, design and architecture.
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Julie Sze, a professor of American studies whose research focuses on environmental justice and inequalities and the relationship between social movements and policy implementation.
SIMON SADLER
Planning for diversity
A big takeaway from the pandemic, and the associated strife that we’ve seen over the past year or two, is a heightened awareness of the intersecting crises of climate change, structural racism and cultural division. A famous book — which, thanks to the pandemic, we will be reading yet again — is Jane Jacobs’ 1961 The Death and Life of Great American Cities. It seems so obvious in retrospect, but Jane Jacobs said all these things we’re doing with cities — zoning, displacing people, making way for highways — are crazy, unjust and killing cities. Urban 8
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design has been wrestling with the consequences of that for the last halfcentury. After the pandemic, we’ve finally caught up, and you’ll start to hear even hard-bitten business types and city leaders conceding that Jane Jacobs was right. We can see it — central business districts over the last year have died. I think we will be looking at ways of mixing things up, getting away from zoning, getting away from urban monoculture. Economically, we double down on thinking about cities as places where people live, and rest and play and work. There’s also an opportunity to think about the same thing socially, where different generations, different modes of disability, different races get back together. And as well, let’s be less spatially distanced, as counterintuitive as that is to think in a pandemic. The chance to rethink all of this stuff, the urgency of it, is absolutely electrifying.
An echo of history
We’ve seen this once before in the most critical, early days of the modern city. In the mid-19th century, London had grown out of control to become far and away the biggest city the world had ever known. And it was a crisis. As we now know, in retrospect, it wasn’t the exception. It was the new rule. This was going to be the modern world. By the mid-1840s, it was also clear that there was something dramatically inviolable about London, and it was disease and the speed with which it spread. Tuberculosis and cholera routinely killed tens and hundreds of thousands of people. Moreover, disease didn’t discriminate between rich and poor. Queen Victoria’s husband Prince Albert was killed by cholera. It was a universal problem. Getty Images
This leads to the birth of modern epidemiology. Dr. John Snow traced cholera back to the water supply. Within 10 years, London had a new water supply, new systems for waste, parks, public fountains, bathhouses, streets, housing — all built on the single unequivocal truth that cholera was spreading through the water. Science had come through, and it led to a program of universal reform. We’ve been reminded again that we can plan for the future of cities. We can have discussions, we can touch the third rail. We don’t necessarily have to just leave it to the market. We’ve got to figure this out together.
A window for transformation
Social movements ask us to imagine futures that people in their particular present never quite imagine. I think this is one of those convulsive historical moments. There are certain times where there’s alignment between convulsions and critique and transformation. A kind of utopianism plays itself out, not just in an urban or spatial context, but in all kinds of ways — and I think that’s what we’re in. It’s really exciting and terrifying, but there’s a lot of possibility.
JULIE SZE
Urban flight
Historically cities have been places where labor is organized in service of capital. You can see this idea in the media that wealthy people are leaving. That’s not new. Rich people have always tried to insulate themselves from poverty and violence. But remote work makes it pretty obvious in a different way. Now, what’s the rationale for the city? Places like New York and San Francisco are really grappling with that question. Is this a reality point that intensifies and magnifies what was already happening — extreme income inequality and racial divide — or is there some kind of opening, something different? Nobody knows. People like to prognosticate, but it’s got to be different in every city. New York’s different than New Orleans, Philadelphia and Detroit. Global elite playground cities like New York and Shanghai are very different from cities like Vallejo or Stockton. Vallejo boosters were trying to make this argument, ‘You can live in Vallejo and then go work in San Francisco.’ That thinking is going to accelerate processes of inequality, racial and economic inequality.
A New Commons What form might a multiracial disability community take today? That’s a question that two UC Davis design faculty — Javier Arbona and Brett Snyder — and colleagues in the San Francisco Bay Area are exploring in a design proposal for several blocks in Berkeley, California. The team includes designers, artists and theorists with varying disabilities, architects and community-engaged designers, and historians of utopian communities. Their project will be featured in an exhibition “Reset: Towards a New Commons,” which opens February 2022 at the Center for Architecture in New York City and explores how environments foster cooperation and inclusion. Arbona, Snyder and colleagues said they chose Berkeley because it’s the birthplace of the independent living movement, the free speech movement and the Black Panther Party, as well as single-family zoning in the United States, which is being dismantled there and in other cities.
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Community Connections
BY JEFFREY DAY
Project explores Asian food heritage and farming footprint
T
he 6 million people of Asian and Pacific Islander descent in California — 15% of the population — influence many aspects of the state’s culture. Nowhere is that more apparent than in food. But while Asian cuisine plays an outsized role in California, growers face obstacles in bringing the ingredients to the table. “In spite of these amazing contributions to California agriculture and cuisine, it is still called ‘ethnic food’ and a diverse range of ingredients is hard to find,” said Ga Young Chung, assistant professor in the Department of Asian American Studies. “The farmers often encounter systematic barriers like language differences, cultural appropriation, and lack of access to capital, resources and technical assistance. Because Asian crops are still often considered specialty and exotic, Asian American farmers have enjoyed only a very tiny space in the market.” Chung is working to change that as part of an interdisciplinary project involving researchers across UC Davis. The project, titled Culturally Diverse Participatory Public Plant Breeding: Supporting Farmers of the Asian Diaspora, was launched in 2020 by Katharina Ullman, director of the UC Davis Student Farm. The core team includes Ullman, Chung, Charles Brummer, a professor and director of the Center for Plant Breeding in the College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences, and Kristyn Leach of Namu Farm in Winters, California. 10
“This is a great opportunity to bring people together from different disciplines,” said Ullman, who wants to involve more College of Letters and Science students and faculty in the Student Farm. “The campus is culturally diverse and everyone brings their own knowledge, background and experience.”
Stories and seeds
The project will gather stories of history, immigration, language, racism and economics, exploring issues ranging from laws that barred Asians from owning land in California to the impact of COVID-19 on small farmers to recent violence against Asian Americans. The team will develop a publicly available cultural “memory bank” archive, expand the diversity of plants grown though breeding and seed banks, and create a distribution network to make the crops more widely available. UC Davis undergraduate and graduate students will participate in gathering oral histories and crop development. “I was very thirsty to know more about our community beyond campus and to see what we can do as a public university in solidarity with these passionate Asian farmers,” said Chung, a native of South Korea who came to UC Davis in 2019. “We hope to bring this less-documented history to a wider audience and explore the farmers’ dreams and hopes for a better future.”
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A taste of home
Leach and Chung find deep personal and political meaning in Korean foods and farming. Leach first became involved with farming through Food Not Bombs, an international organization that collects food that would have been thrown away by stores and restaurants. Born in South Korea, Leach was adopted by an American family, first tasted Korean food at 19, and found a connection to her roots through food and farming. Chung’s research has focused on immigration, undocumented Asian youth and Korean activism in the United States. Her interests in the people’s connectivity to the land and culture led her to pay attention to the power of food and seed, she said. Chung’s grandfather was a farmer and along with rice grew perilla, butterbur, minari, sangchu, crown daisy and other vegetables common on Korean tables, but not easy to come by in the U.S. “The Asian vegetables I grew up with connect me to my family, memory and home,” said Chung. “They are meaningful to me and always brought me some comfort. “Food helps us remember and reimagine the home that we want to live in. Through this project on Asian vegetables, I hope our team can support the racially and culturally othered community during these challenging days.”
Ga Young Chung, an assistant professor of Asian American studies, is working with the UC Davis Student Farm and a farmer in Winters, California, to expand knowledge about and availability of Korean vegetables.
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Alumni in Action
BY KATHLEEN HOLDER
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“I want some justice for our rural people. They need internet ... and it’s not there.” – Alena Anberg
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efore the pandemic, Alena Anberg (B.A., communication and sociology, ’15) knew little about America’s digital divide. The shutdown changed all that — transforming the third grade teacher into a champion of internet access for her hometown of Arbuckle, California, and other rural communities in the Sacramento Valley. When Arbuckle Elementary School closed its classrooms in March 2020, Anberg went door-to-door to ask how many families had the internet connection needed for remote lessons. She found that nearly all of them — 1,300 school families in total — lacked reliable access. As a first step, she collected old smart phones and installed SIM cards to create Wi-Fi hotspots for them. Anberg quickly expanded her efforts beyond students to help connect other residents of her hometown, about 45 minutes north of Sacramento. “People were losing their jobs and had to file for unemployment and couldn’t because all of the public offices were closed,” she said.
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Lagging behind rural Georgia
In the ensuing months, she collected data on internet coverage block by block in Arbuckle and got up to speed on federal programs and efforts by small towns nationwide to improve broadband access. “I discovered that we’re about eight years behind rural Georgia,” she said. “And we’re just a few hours from Silicon Valley.” Arbuckle’s longtime provider Frontier Communications filed for bankruptcy protection in April 2020. As part of her efforts, Anberg testified against Frontier’s successful Chapter 11 reorganization. She also shared data she had collected with the Federal Trade Commission, which joined six states last May in suing Frontier for allegedly misrepresenting internet speeds. “I want some justice for our rural people. They need internet, and they do their part, subscribe and pay for their service — and then it’s not there.” Internet access lags in rural communities nationwide. According to a White House fact sheet released in July as part of President Joe Biden’s infrastructure plan, more
than 35% of rural and tribal communities in America lack wired access to broadband at acceptable speeds. Anberg launched a dogged search for a new provider for her community. After learning that no large companies service her area, she tracked down phone numbers for the owners of smaller providers and called them. She struck out until she reached the last company on her list: Succeed.net. She sent a message to owner Robert Lavelock on Facebook. “He answered me and said, ‘Alena, we can talk about this.’ That was my favorite sentence to have ever fallen on my ears.” To help expand service, Anberg identified tall structures in her community and negotiated with 12 property owners to install Wi-Fi gear. As a result of her efforts, service has expanded in Arbuckle and six other nearby rural towns — Grimes, Dunnigan, College City, Williams, Maxwell and Willows.
The world as classroom Anberg said her experiences as a UC Davis student prepared her for getting her community connected. She was a mother of two and working as an insurance
Julia McEvoy/KQED
broker when she began her college education — first at Woodland Community College, then transferring to UC Davis. Anberg had to use her mobile phone to connect to the internet and complete her homework from Arbuckle. UC Davis opened doors beyond courses needed for her double major in communication and sociology and three minors (global and international studies, professional writing and education) — allowing her to study inequality in a graduate economics course and participate in two study abroad programs.
During a summer program focused on housing and urbanism in Barcelona, Spain, Anberg and other students talked to residents of a Roma community about buildings constructed for them without their input. “That taught me to go to the people to see what they need.” That program and another she did in Geneva expanded her notions of education. “When we got to Barcelona, someone asked ‘Where’s our classroom?’ and our professor said, ‘The city is your classroom.’ Now I have an Arbuckle travel group of kids — we go to the beach
and to the snow. I’ve had parents go too that have never seen snow before in their lives. Education is not just the curriculum in the classroom. The world is where it’s at.” After graduating from UC Davis, Anberg earned a teaching credential and a master’s degree in education from Chico State University. She is pursuing an administrative credential to become a school principal or district administrator. “The internet project really opened my eyes to having a larger impact,” she said. “I feel led to transform rural schools.”
Teacher and Aggie alumna Alena Anberg shows a student and his mother how to connect their Chromebook to their Wi-Fi hot spot.
If you, like Alena, wish to support the basic needs of students, consider making a gift to the College of Letters and Science’s Beyond the Classroom fund.
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Alumni in Action
Cultural Ambassador University’s highest honor awarded to arts and humanities champion BY JEFFREY DAY
“Everything I’ve supported for the past 25 years is an attempt to connect more deeply with the humanities.” – Alan Templeton
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lumnus Alan Templeton recently received the highest honor the university bestows: the UC Davis Medal. Templeton (B.A., art history and psychology, ’82) reflects on his contributions to the College of Letters and Science and university in big and small ways. “I’ve been fighting my whole life to show that it is fundamental that we start taking the arts and humanities more seriously,” he said. “Everything I’ve supported for the past
25 years is an attempt to connect more deeply with the humanities.” Templeton is also modest about his contributions, dubbing them “the Templeton travel agency” because at the core they simply bring together scholars, students and the public — near and far — to share knowledge and make connections. His efforts have made a significant impact on the humanities at UC Davis. A generous philanthropist, Templeton created the Templeton Colloquium in Art History; the Templeton Endowment for the Arts and Letters, which supports research for graduate students in humanities, arts and social science programs; a languages and literatures speaker series; and the Templeton Endowed Chair in the History of European Art, 1600–1830, a prestigious faculty position.
“Alan has been a tremendous contributor to the thriving culture and rising importance of the arts and humanities at UC Davis.” – Gary S. May, UC Davis Chancellor
“Everyone learns something, it’s morale boosting and creates excitement,” Templeton said, adding that the programs also put UC Davis on the map in arts and humanities research. “Alan has been a tremendous contributor to the thriving culture and rising importance of the arts and humanities at UC Davis, which continues to grow to this day,” said UC Davis Chancellor Gary S. May. “He has helped make these fields increasingly accessible to faculty, graduate students and the public.” Those he has worked with at UC Davis appreciate his financial support as well as his deep understanding of the areas he is passionate about. “I was privileged to come to know Alan as a humanist with expansive interests and profound literary sensibilities and talents,” said Emily Albu, professor emerita of classics. “Alan has enriched our community in more ways than he can realize, deepening the bonds among language faculty as we conspired to animate his vision.” Talinn Grigor, co-chair of the Department of Art and Art History, said Templeton is “not just an abundantly generous patron of the arts, but also a renaissance man with a deep understanding of the arts and their place in human history.” As a UC Davis student, Templeton studied art history and psychology, finding that
each provides an insight into the other. His love of European art and culture blossomed while his family lived in France when he was a child. Specifically, he feels the art of 18th-century Europe has much to teach us about the world today, and that its impact isn’t acknowledged enough. Along with UC Davis, Templeton has worked with the Berkeley Art Museum/ Pacific Film Archive, the Crocker Art Museum and the Art Institute of Chicago on projects of the period. “I was looking for where I could make a difference and, as a whole, improve the cultural life of Northern California,” said Templeton, who works primarily as an investor, but has also worked at museums, for a labor union and as a teacher. Templeton learned about giving back from his parents, David and Lieselotte, who were faculty members at UC Berkeley. After his mother’s death in 2009, his father created a chemistry professorship with a preference that it be filled by a woman with children. “It is a wonderful honor to be recognized in this way,” Templeton said about receiving the UC Davis Medal. “I hope it may bring more attention to all the great research and teaching being done in the arts and humanities at UC Davis.”
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Majed Photography
Support for Innovation
With helium prices rising, department ensures a reliable supply BY BECKY OSKIN
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iquid helium is vital to many cutting-edge experiments but has become increasingly expensive and difficult to acquire. Its unique cooling ability — down to almost absolute zero — chills magnets for research on superconductivity, nanotechnology and particle physics. Companies also rely on liquid helium to manufacture MRI machines, semiconductors and flat-screen displays. Peter Klavins (pictured above), a research specialist in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, has watched liquid helium prices balloon from around $5 per liter a decade ago to more than $17 per liter today. And
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in 2019, a global supply shortage forced scientists in the United States to ration liquid helium, he said. Spurred by the uncertainty and price fluctuations, Klavins oversaw construction of a helium recovery system in the Physics Building to capture and recycle approximately 90% of the helium used for research. Financial support for the new Helium Lab comes from faculty research funding and a $10,000 gift from Klavins and his spouse, Distinguished Professor of Chemistry Susan Kauzlarich, along with gifts received through the department’s Liquid Helium Laboratory Fund. Now, instead of paying $1,700 for 100 liters of liquid helium every week,
UC DAVIS COLLEGE OF LETTERS AND SCIENCE
research groups buy a few $200 cylinders of helium gas each month. The new facility can liquefy up to 500 liters per week. “This will pay for itself,” Klavins said. “I’m proud of it.” The recovery system also advances the College’s commitment to sustainability, Klavins noted. Helium gas is a nonrenewable resource — a product of natural radioactive decay — extracted from natural gas fields. When released into the air, helium escapes Earth’s gravity and is forever lost to outer space. Support physics and astronomy students.
End Notes Data Science
The Department of Statistics will debut its new interdisciplinary data science major in fall 2022. A collaborative effort between the College of Letters and Science and the College of Engineering, the major provides a pathway to one of the fastest-growing careers in the U.S. The data science major is unique due to its integration across disciplines, said department chair Alex Aue.
Autism Advocate
Susan Rivera, professor and chair of psychology, will have a voice in shaping federal autism research, services and policy as a member of a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services advisory panel. Rivera was appointed by Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra in July to a three-year term on the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee.
Cleaner Biofuels
Chemistry professors Shota Atsumi, Louise Berben and Justin Siegel are taking part in clean energy grants totaling nearly $4.5 million. The grants, announced in spring 2021 by the U.S. Department of Energy, aim to make production of biofuels more efficient, thus reducing waste and carbon dioxide emissions.
Hipolito Angel Cerros is both a student and Lindsay City Council member.
Aggies in Office
A student and two alumni of the College joined the ranks of elected public officials this past year: science and technology studies major Hipolito Angel Cerros on the city council of the Tulare County community of Lindsay, and Alex Lee (B.A., political science, ’17) and David Cortese (B.A., political science, ’78) in the California Legislature. Lee is an assembly member and Cortese is a state senator. LISTEN TO
The Backdrop Podcast
A new UC Davis humanities podcast, The Backdrop, hosted by public radio veteran Soterios Johnson, features College scholars on topics including conspiracy theories, humanizing deportation, supply chain bottlenecks and more.
The Backdrop podcast
HIGH HONORS Distinguished Professor Emeritus William Jackson received a 2021 Public Service Award from the National Science Board for improving public understanding of chemistry and increasing minority participation in science. Two mathematicians received 2021 Sloan Research Fellowships from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation: Laura Starkson for her research on fourdimensional spaces, and Rishidev Chaudhuri, who builds mathematical models of brain function.
Guggenheim Fellowships will support two professors’ work on new books: Ali Anooshahr (history) on the life and times of a 16th-century slave in India; and L.M. Bogad (theatre and dance) on current-day political theatre surrounding global climate change. Two faculty — Monique Borgerhoff Mulder (anthropology) and Isabel Montañez (earth and planetary sciences) — were elected as members of the National Academy of Sciences.
Professors Robert Feenstra (economics), Andrés Reséndez (history) and Geerat Vermeij (earth and planetary sciences) were elected as members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Annabeth Rosen (art and art history) received a UC Davis Chancellor’s Lifetime Achievement Award in Innovation for her work as an artist and educator.
FALL 2021 LETTERSANDSCIENCE.UCDAVIS.EDU
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College of Letters and Science Office of the Dean University of California One Shields Avenue Davis, CA 95616-8572 (4342)
Give a Boost to Students Shooting for the Moon Becoming a scientist has been Alexandria Adams’ dream since she was 10 and got her first glimpse of the moon through a telescope. As a chemistry major in the College of Letters and Science, Adams ’22 (pictured above) is well on her way thanks to hands-on opportunities beyond the classroom. She’s conducted award-winning research in the lab of Professor Alan Balch and co-authored papers in two prestigious journals, a rare accomplishment for an undergraduate student. She also works as a peer advisor for fellow chemistry students. “My research experience motivates me to pursue graduate school, where I aim to become a chemistry professor,” says Adams. “As a Filipina woman, I hope to help increase diversity within academia.”
If you would like to support life-changing opportunities for students like Alexandria, scan the QR code and make a gift to the College’s Beyond the Classroom fund.
