Spark Seminars are a unique opportunity for SCU undergraduate students to engage with interested peers around challenging questions, learn with faculty they may not otherwise meet, and get to know a University leader outside of their formal role on campus.
How can students participate?
Spark Seminars are open to all undergraduate students at SCU. We hope the wide range of disciplines and topics offered will provide opportunities for students to explore social justice topics that capture their imagination.
Spark Seminars are listed in Workday under UGST 100.
Seminars will meet once each week during weeks 2, 3, 4, and 5 of spring quarter 2025.
This seminar will explore the current political campaign of censorship that threatens our access to information and knowledge. The right-wing project to ban DEI work, critical race theory and books about racism and the LGBTQ+ experience, has gained momentum all across the country. Why is this happening now and how are people fighting back against it? How does this affect U.S. democracy? Join us for a lively, interactive discussion-based seminar.
Thursdays, 2:00 to 3:40 PM, in Learning Commons 203
April 10, April 17, April 24, and May 1
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Margaret Hunter Professor, Department of Sociology Strategic Advisor to the Dean for Faculty DEI Initiatives. |
Dr. Maggie Hunter is Professor of Sociology and Strategic Advisor to the Dean for Faculty DEI Initiatives. She specializes in research on race and gender discrimination and focuses on colorism in Black and Latiné communities. Dr. Hunter also studies the politics of race in higher education. She is currently leading a team of student researchers who are studying Gen Z and their experience in college and with social activism. Finally, Dr. Hunter researches racial and gender representations in hip-hop and how women of color are represented in the media. |
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Nicole Branch Dean, University Library |
Nicole Branch received her Master’s in Library and Information Science at San Jose State University and a BA in Anthropology with a minor in African American Studies from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Prior to her current role, Nicole held various leadership positions in the SCU Library and served as Librarian for Research & Digitization at Holy Names University in Oakland, California. Nicole’s decade-long experience working in non-profit organizations advancing educational justice in public schools and districts informs her approach to librarianship, leadership, and scholarship. Nicole’s current research focuses on the intersections of critical theory, research methodologies, and information literacy, with an emphasis on diverse college student populations. |
In this seminar, we analyze structural factors that generate educational injustice with emphasis on the inequitable experiences of Black, Latinx, Asian American, and Polynesian students in schools. In particular, we will scrutinize school-based punishment and the school-to-prison pipeline as systems connecting America’s educational and legal systems. Understanding educational and carceral systems as complex and entangled, we (re)consider issues of educational equity, belonging, and accessibility. We will also interrogate the relationship between "progressive" education and carceral control, and discuss the importance of youth-led activism for educational justice.
Tuesdays, 12:10 - 1:50 PM, in Charney Hall 202
April 8, April 15, April 22, and April 29
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Brita Bookser Assistant Professor of Early Childhood / Anti-Racism, Department of Child Studies |
Brita Bookser is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Child Studies with expertise in early childhood, educational (in)equity, and antiracist and liberatory pedagogies. She completed her B.S. in Psychology with a concentration in Counseling and Family Psychology at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo; M.A. in Infant Mental Health at Mills College; and Ph.D. in Social Welfare at the University of California, Berkeley. With students, Brita co-creates a learning community where all belong, and where standpoint, personal testimony, and transdisciplinary scholarship bear shared importance. Brita’s research investigates hidden dimensions of exclusionary discipline in early childhood contexts; structural factors that explain educational exclusion; and early childhood antiracist and liberatory pedagogy and praxis frameworks. |
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Michael Kaufman Dean, SCU School of Law |
The dean of Santa Clara Law since July 2021, Michael J. Kaufman is a nationally renowned educator, scholar, and expert on education law and policy. Kaufman joined Santa Clara Law after serving for 35 years at Loyola University Chicago School of Law. Kaufman is an award-winning teacher, public servant, beloved teacher, and distinguished scholar who has published more than 40 books and numerous law review articles in three key areas: education law, equity, policy, and pedagogy; securities regulation and litigation; and civil procedure and dispute resolution. Kaufman graduated from Kenyon College and earned his J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School. |
Drawing on the instructor’s training in public health, health psychology, and communication, this seminar will use SCU campus data to expose students to ways in which different identity groups may experience vastly different outcomes, spanning the topics of public health policies, health disparities, and student mental health.
Tuesdays, 3:50 - 5:30 PM, in Dowd 206
April 8, April 15, April 22, and April 29
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Chan Thai Associate Professor, Department of Communication Faculty Director, Cura RLC Chair, RLC Faculty Directors |
Chan Thai joined the Department of Communication at Santa Clara University in 2016. She teaches courses on communication and technology, health communication, and the strategic design of communication campaigns to promote behavior change. Her areas of research include measuring the effectiveness of media literacy interventions, designing and evaluating nutrition education interventions, cancer communication, and using national data sets to understand population level health behaviors. Thai has a Ph.D. in Communication from the University of California, Santa Barbara and was a postdoctoral fellow at the National Cancer Institute. She received the College of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Service Award in 2018. |
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Kyle Amore Associate Director of Co-curricular Assessment |
Kyle Joined the SCU community in March of 2022 as the Associate Director of Co-curricular Assessment. Kyle comes from a student affairs background where he worked to build meaningful co-curricular programs for students - connecting classroom learning to real world experiences. In his role, Kyle helps offices across SCU to develop learning outcomes, program objectives, and assessments to improve student learning, services, and impact on campus. As part of his support of SCU, he works on analysis of some of the large surveys that get administered at SCU, specifically he did extensive analysis on the National College Health Assessment, administered through Student Life, the National Survey of Student Engagement, and the Belonging Study. Connecting data across campus has helped the SCU community learn more about who our Broncos are and how the institution can better serve them. Turning this data into action is a key driver and Kyle is excited to share his experience working across campus with students in this SPARK seminar as they think about the health outcomes of their peers and how data can influence change. |
The Jesuit tradition has a powerful history of advocating for justice, flourishing, and transformative social change. From the radical peacebuilding efforts of Dan Berrigan, SJ, to the Martyrs of El Salvador, who were murdered for lifting up the poor, the Ignatian tradition has much to say in a world marred by oppression and socio-ecological degradation. This Spark Seminar will discuss this history and consider what the Jesuit tradition has to say about specific social justice issues today, including economic justice, gender and racial justice, and environmental justice, as well as how the Ignatian vision of justice and flourishing bears on life at SCU today.
Tuesdays, 2:00 - 3:40 PM, in Dowd 206
April 8, April 15, April 22, and April 29
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Paul Schutz Associate Professor, Religious Studies |
A native of Evansville, IN, Paul Schutz received his B.A. in English, Music, and Film Studies from Boston College and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Systematic Theology from Fordham University in the Bronx, NY. His research focuses on the relationship between religion and ecology, with an emphasis on how contemporary scientific knowledge grounds and informs humanity's relationship with the natural world and other-than-human creatures. A longtime liturgist and musician, his work also addresses the potential of Christian worship and biblical accounts of creation, life, and love for cultivating a robust praxis of ecological and social justice. |
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Maria Autrey Associate Director for Community Engaged Student Learning, Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education |
Maria Autrey serves as the Associate Director for Community Engaged Student Learning. In this role Maria oversees immersions, fellowships and student leadership. Maria has a B.A. in History from Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City a M.A. in Education and a Doctorate in Human Rights Education from the University of San Francisco (USF). Maria has over a decade in experiential learning, having worked as a Program Director for Immersions at the Ignatian Center and as the Education and Engagement Coordinator for Immersion at the University of San Francisco, as well as ample experience in grass-roots and digital community organizing around women and LGBTQIA+ rights in Mexico and the U.S. Maria brings a passion for social justice and human rights advocacy through community building and engagement, and is committed to inspire and empower individuals to become change-makers in the pursuit of a more humane just and sustainable world. |
In his landmark 1951 doctoral dissertation, Kenneth Arrow proved that no non-trivial social welfare function can satisfy Unanimity, Non-Dictatorship, and Independence of Irrelevant Alternatives at the same time. This amounted to a mathematical proof that there is no way to combine individual preferences (about candidates, wages, etc.) into shared societal preferences without violating one of three seemingly non-controversial fairness criteria. In this seminar, we will analyze Arrow’s ground-breaking theorem (now called Arrow’s Impossibility Theorem) and discuss some of its philosophical and economic implications. In particular, we will discuss ways in which notions such as “fair prices,” “just wages,” and “the common good” break down when defined hyper-mathematically. Finally, we will brainstorm ways to expand these notions beyond a mathematical framework and avoid the paradoxes that Arrow’s Theorem leads to.
Mondays, 3:30 - 5:15 PM, in Dowd 122
April 7, April 14, April 21, and April 28
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PJ Jedlovec Associate Teaching Professor, Mathematics and Computer Science Department |
PJ Jedlovec earned a B.A. in Mathematics and Economics from Vanderbilt University and a Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of Notre Dame. He then joined the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at SCU in 2018. He loves thinking about questions within math, philosophy, theology, social choice theory, decision theory, pedagogical theory, and the ethics of technology. In his teaching, he loves to talk about how the study of mathematics can make us wiser and more virtuous human beings. In his free time he loves playing guitar, doing Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and hiking as many California mountains as he can. |
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Aaron Willis Director, Ignatian Formation and the Bannan Forum |
Aaron Willis received his B.S. in political science from Santa Clara and then went on to earn a Ph.D. in history from the University of Notre Dame. He returned to Santa Clara in 2015 to teach in the history department and is now the Director of the Bannan Fourm and Ignatian Formation. He works to make the comprehensive humanism of the Jesuit intellectual tradition accessible to faculty, staff, and students and to deepen the engagement with the Jesuit, Catholic character of Santa Clara University in order to build a more humane, just, and sustainable world. |
In this seminar, we will explore how the Japanese-American community has lived through the legacies of historical injustices and discrimination. We will hear the stories of tragedies, perseverance, and triumph — not necessarily in that order. Through discussions and reflections, we explore how this history relates to us in Santa Clara and beyond. We will consider cultural influences such as food and art in the SF Bay Area.
Thursdays, 3:50 to 5:30 PM, in Dowd 310
April 10, April 17, April 24, and May 1
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Takeshi Moro Associate Professor, Art and Art History |
Takeshi Moro was born in Japan, raised in the U.K. and currently works in the San Francisco Bay Area. Moro studied photography at Rhode Island School of Design and holds a B.A. in Visual Arts from Brown University. He completed his M.F.A. graduate studies at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Moro’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago and Serlachius Museot, Finland. His work resides in the permanent collection at the Museum of Contemporary Photography, as well as in various private collections. Moro was named a Faculty Fellow in the SCU Center for Arts and Humanities in 2017. |
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TBD |
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In this seminar, we will explore the benefits of gardening, including growing delicious vegetables, fostering community, and boosting wellbeing. Access to fresh food is a matter of public health and social justice, so we will discuss ways to support sustainability and empower people to grow greener. Let's meet at The Forge Garden, get our hands in the soil, tell stories, and share what we harvest.
Tuesdays, 10:20 AM to 12:00 PM, in the Forge Garden
April 8, April 15, April 22, and April 29
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Melissa Donegan Teaching Professor, |
Melissa Donegan earned a degree in English from Bates College in Lewiston, Maine, and received her M.A. and Ph.D. in Nineteenth-Century British Women’s Literature from the University of Iowa. She has been teaching at Santa Clara since 2010. Her Critical Thinking and Writing classes investigate themes of home, stuff, and sustainability with an emphasis on epistolary texts. She also teaches “Writing Well(ness): Narratives of Illness, Loss, and Recovery,” an Advanced Writing course. She completed a year-long course in Effective Teaching Practices with ACUE in 2018-19. She enjoys hiking in the foothills of South San Jose, where she relishes seeing bobcats, coyotes, quails, Cooper’s hawks, and rattlesnakes, who remind her to slow down and pay attention. |
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Toby McChesney Vice Provost for Graduate Programs Instructor, Marketing |
As Vice Provost for Graduate Programs, Toby has oversight of recruiting, marketing, branding, and the development of innovative graduate programs across SCU. He plays a crucial role in steering the direction of 50 diverse graduate programs, catering to a dynamic community of over 3100 graduate students. Additionally, he is currently an instructor in the Department of Marketing, where he teaches to both undergraduate and MBA students in business communication courses. Toby holds a bachelor's degree from American University, a master's degree in higher education from George Washington University, and a doctorate degree in higher education. Toby serves a Board Member, Secretary, and Chair of the Fundraising Committee for Veggielution, a community farm in the Mayfair neighborhood of East San José. |
2021 marked the 50th anniversary of America’s “war on drugs”, and the impact this policy has had particularly on the incarceration of black and brown Americans is substantial. This seminar focuses on the impact of drugs of abuse and policies related to these drugs on individuals, groups and society.
Thursdays, 2:00 to 3:40 PM, in Dowd 210
April 10, April 17, April 24, and May 1
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Patti Simone Professor, Psychology |
Patti Simone received her Ph.D. from University of California, San Diego and has been a member of the Psychology Department at Santa Clara for more than 25 years. Some of her earlier research examined the effects of various drugs on behavior including the effect of scopolamine, an anticholinergic and psychedelic, on memory and attention. In addition to teaching several classes in psychology, she also has taught courses in Public Health and Neuroscience at SCU. By far her favorite class to teach is psychopharmacology, where she gets to engage in conversations with students about the effects of drugs on the brain, behavior, and society. |
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Hon. Risë Jones Pichon Member, SCU Board of Trustees |
Judge Pichon is Chair of the Santa Clara University Board of Regents. She is also a member of the Law School Advisory Board and the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics Advisory Board. Judge Pichon was a superior court judge for the County of Santa Clara from 1998 until her retirement in 2019. She was elected to serve as presiding judge of the Santa Clara County Superior Court in 2015 and 2016, and she is the first minority judge to serve in this position. Judge Pichon earned her Bachelor of Science degree in Mathematics and her Juris Doctor degree from Santa Clara University. She received an honorary doctorate from SCU in 2020. |
Downtowns play a central role in socially equitable, environmentally sustainable, and economically prosperous cities. However, the city of Santa Clara has been without a downtown since the 1960s, when it was demolished as part of “urban renewal.” To rectify its missing center, the city government recently adopted a bold plan for a new downtown adjacent to SCU’s campus. In this Spark Seminar, we will examine the city’s downtown plan in its larger context. We will explore topics including planning for climate change, transportation options beyond the automobile, affordable housing strategies, and university-city partnerships. This course will have a strong experiential element, as we conduct field work in the future downtown area and take one or two field trips to older downtowns (e.g. Campbell, Mountain View) and newer walkable areas near campus (e.g. Santana Row).
Wednesdays, 3:30 to 5:15 PM, in Alumni Science 220
April 9, April 16, April 23, and April 30
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CJ Gabbe Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at SCU |
C.J. Gabbe is an Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at SCU, where he has taught since 2016. He has a Ph.D. in urban planning from the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs and a Master of Urban Planning degree from the University of Washington. He brings more than ten years of professional urban planning and public policy experience to his research and teaching. |
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Khanh Russo Vice President for Policy and Innovation, San Francisco Foundation Member, College of Arts and Sciences Leadership Board |
Khanh Russo's commitment to social justice is demonstrated through his professional experience in the public, private and social sector. He has held leadership positions with San Jose Mayor’s Sam Liccardo’s Administration, Cisco Systems, Silicon Valley Community Foundation, Kaiser Permanente, Ford Foundation and The Forbes Funds. As Vice President of Policy and Innovation for the San Francisco Foundation, he leads efforts to innovate and design public systems that center racial equity and economic opportunity. As part of Mayor Liccardo’s administration he established strategic partnerships and advanced innovation and data initiatives that improved education outcomes, workforce training, service and volunteerism, performance management and budget management. Khanh obtained a Master of Science in Public Policy and Management from Carnegie Mellon University, Bachelor degrees in Political Science and Religious Studies from Santa Clara University, and was a Coro Public Affairs Fellow. |