Dear Alumni and Friends,
As the fall quarter wraps up and holiday preparations begin in earnest I want to take a few moments to acknowledge some of the extraordinary accomplishments within the College of Arts and Sciences during 2016. Individual achievements of our faculty, students, and alumni are truly too numerous to detail here, but more broadly we have witnessed amazing accomplishments, collaborations, and celebrations this year. Here is our short list:
• The College launched the Center for the Arts and Humanities with Salon 2016, (in)humanity. The inaugural event was a collaboration with Montalvo Arts Center to produce XLIII: A Contemporary Requiem in Mission Santa Clara.
• The Board of Trustees approved Ethnic Studies and Women's and Gender Studies as stand-alone majors and changed their designations from "Program" to "Department."
• The Board of Trustees also approved a new interdisciplinary Neuroscience major.
• The College and the University made enormous strides on the STEM front. Architects and lab planners have been selected. The College and the School of Engineering are now collaborating on facility design, and curricular and operations planning.
• The Vari Italian Studies Initiative and the DeNardo Lectureship offered several well-attended events throughout the year.
• The College launched its digital humanities initiative, which included extensive collaboration with faculty throughout the College and staff from the University Library.
• The College proudly hosted the 2016 College Showcase, which highlighted teaching innovation, faculty scholarship and creative expression, faculty-mentored student scholarship and creative work, and student-faculty collaboration.
• An anonymous – and very generous – donor contributed $500K to support an Exceptional First-Year Student Experience for mathematics students.
• The Edward M. Dowd Art and Art History building officially launched with a series of events, culminating with a fun-filled "Celebrate the Arts" day in October.
Looking forward, we will begin 2017 with our Frank Sinatra Artists-in-Residence, Anna Deavere Smith and Silk Road Ensemble, appearing on campus to share their talents and engage our students and community.
I wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.
Debbie Tahmassebi, Dean
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