HFA Celebrations

Professor J Pouwels, ART

At California State University, Chico, students in Professor J Pouwels’ Public Art Murals course are learning about how to take their art skills to rural communities. “Art is the best way to understand a culture. The history of art closely parallels the history of human kind,” Pouwels said. “Working with our partners in the North State, we hope the murals we create will reflect the faces of those communities.”

Recording Arts at Chico State- Recording arts brings out musicians’ best 

The Music Machine -  Many musical artists operate out of the limelight, through multiple layers of production, to ultimately create those final cuts. Such is the nature of the musical arts industry, an increasingly diverse field that relies as much on technological savvy as it does artistic talent.

Dr. Sara Pike, CORH

Published  For the Wild: Ritual and Commitment in Radical Eco-Activism, came out last fall (University of California Press).

Greg Cootsona, CORH 

Published Mere Science and Christian Faith: Bridging the Divide with Emerging Adults (InterVarsity Press). 

Matthew Teague Miller: DIRECTORS’ WORKSHOP MESMERIZES OLLI AUDIENCE

Humanities & Fine Arts faculty member and students demonstrate stage directing process

In early November, Assistant Professor Matthew Teague Miller and two students from the Music and Theater Department led a workshop for OLLI members. The workshop is part of a grant-funded partnership pairing CSU, Chico faculty and students from the HFA School of the Arts with OLLI members who plan to participate in the 2018 play festival or who simply have an interest in theater.

Mr. Miller’s workshop focused on how to direct a play and involved students, both sophomores, who performed a single scene from a play. Miller’s collaborative style drew audience members into the action by soliciting their feedback and explaining his notes and comments. As the scene developed and improved through Mr. Miller’s direction, OLLI members were enthralled. “I was surprised to learn so much just by watching them figure stuff out together,” said Pam Loyd, writer, director, and play festival founder. “It was like a little window into the director’s mind.” Watch a video and see Mr. Miller and his students in action.

The Directors’ Workshop is the first in a series of programs that HFA faculty, students, and alumni will be presenting as OLLI prepares for the 2018 play festival. The mentoring aspect of this new partnership appealed to the grantor and is clearly invigorating OLLI participants to aspire to new heights.

Dr.  Rachel Middleman (ART DEPT), Published Radical Eroticism Women, Art, and Sex in the 1960s.

In the 1960s, the fascination with erotic art generated a wave of exhibitions and critical discussion on sexual freedom, visual pleasure, and the nude in contemporary art. Radical Eroticism  examines the importance of women’s contributions in fundamentally reconfiguring representations of sexuality across several areas of advanced art—performance, pop, postminimalism, and beyond. This study shows that erotic art made by women was integral to the profound changes that took place in American art during the sixties, from the crumbling of modernist aesthetics and the expanding field of art practice to the emergence of the feminist art movement. Radical Eroticism  Women, Art, and Sex in the 1960s.

Ela Thurgood published "Generational changes in Iu-Mien prevoicing" in Acoustical Society and Technology. The Acoustical Society of Japan. Vol. 39, No. 2.

Spring–Fall 2017

"The Dao of Business" - published in the Business and Professional Ethics Journal

There has been a great deal of writing on Confucianism and business in the last fifteen years while Daoism has been neglected as a potential business ethic. Graybosch (CSU, Chico) and Romar (UMass, Boston) formulate a Daoist business ethic and illustrate it through application to three case studies: Anthem of the Seas, Grove Farm, and the 2016 contact reopener between the CSU and the California Faculty Association.

Chico State English Department Alumni

Chico State English Department alumni Nicholas Monroe (BA '13, MA '15), Nathan Sandoval (BA '13, MA '16), Matt Skipek (BA '13, MA '16), and Kris Wheat (BA '12, MA '14 recently released the inaugural issue of Weatherbeaten Literary Magazine. The publication states that if offers a timely and very necessary "refuge" for its world-weary readers "seeking asylum from the storm."

Dr. Saundra Wright (ENGL) and the ESL Resource Center

Dr. Saundra Wright (ENGL) and the ESL Resource Center were featured in a US News and World Report article entitled "U.S. College Tutoring Centers Help International Students." Chico State is mentioned alongside of the likes of University of Texas, Austin; Minnesota State University, Moorhead; University of Minnesota, Duluth; Northeastern University; and University of Pennsylvania. There's also a quote from one of our recent alums, Jaejoon Lim (Journalism, May '17). This piece speaks volumes to the incredible work being done by Dr. Wright and her student tutors.

C-SPAN airs interviews with three Chico State History faculty

In March, C-SPAN came to Chico and interviewed three specialists in American history about books they had authored. Bob Cottrell spoke about his book Sex, Drugs, and Rock 'n' Roll: The Rise of America's 1960s Counterculture, Mike Magliari spoke of the book he wrote with Mike Gillis titled John Bidwell and California: The Life and Writings of a Pioneer, 1841-1900, and Jeff Livingston was interviewed about his book Swallowed by Globalism: John M. Vorys and American Foreign Policy. The interviews, which aired in early April, can be viewed here.

Jer Xiong, student, Teach Back Award

The Teach Back Award recognizes the fact that while students most often learn from their professors, they also teach their instructors and peers. With this award we honor one of our students who has consistently been active either inside or outside of the classroom and contributed to diversity education on campus. The recipients will receive a $500 award, donated by SF Invest and Enterprise Rental.

Ayde Enriquez-Loya, Promising Newcomer Award

This award is presented to an individual whose fresh perspective and energy galvanize campus diversity work and facilitate new approaches to old problems. The award honors the newcomer's vision and invites a sustained commitment to its realization.

Sara Trechter, Behind the Scenes Award

Just as in a movie or in theatre, much of the diversity efforts, the real work, is conducted and maintained behind the scenes, out of public view. This award honors the individual behind the scenes, working diligently and often without recognition to ensure that the show goes on seamlessly and successfully.

Nathan Heggins Bryant and Hannah Burdette (ILLC), Walk the Line Award

The Walk the Line award recognizes that the work to achieve social justice is both demanding and risky. Risks include excessive scrutiny and burn out from juggling multiple roles (e.g., mentor, teacher, advocate). This award recognizes one who takes such risk without the protection of privilege and safety nets such as tenure or secure fulltime employment.

Tracy Butts, Pulling Us Together Award

Professor Tracy Butts was awarded the Pulling Us Together Award.

Rachel Middleman, Assistant Professor of Art History

Rachel Middleman presented two papers at national conferences this past October: Marjorie Strider: Pop, Feminism and All-Women Exhibitions at the Art Historians of American Art Symposium and Mom Art: Appropriation in the 1960s at the Southeastern College Art Conference. At the latter, she also co-chaired a session, Historicizing the Feminist Art Movement, bringing together new research on under-recognized artists and advocacy groups.

Lauren Ruth, Assistant Professor of Art

Lauren Ruth presented her new collaborative performance and installation, Dream Disaster, on November 12 as part of the "Working Forces" exhibition at the Soap Factory in Minneapolis, MN. The post-apocalyptic feminist work satirized humanity's collective indifference to climate change. In October 2016, Ruth presented the lecture "Sculpture as Social Object" on the topic of her creative research while serving as visiting artist at Cranbrook Academy of Art in Bloomfield Hills, MI. In September 2016, Ruth presented a solo exhibition entitled Wide Receivers and Near Misses at the Carlos Gallery at the University of the South in Sewanee, TN. Sculptures in the exhibition fuse the transient materiality of the body with commercial signage to question conventions of propriety and our subjective relationships to public and private space.

Nanette Wylde, Professor of Art

Nanette Wylde has produced a portfolio entitled Foodies: Seven West Coast Foodie Vignettes.The seven letterpress printed folios, each have a wood type printed cover, interior screen printed illustrations, and an original story which explores the diversity of meaning in food related language.

Kijeong Jeon, Professor of Art

Kijeong Jeon was the recipient of the 2016 International Interior Design Association Diversity Award. This prestigious award "recognizes and celebrates an educator who is representative of a diverse background and making a significant contribution to interior design education today." The award citation notes that Professor Jeon encourages his students to design with social responsibility in mind and that he models this behavior through his work designing for people with autism and other developmental disabilities.

Fall 2016

Julia Kobrina-Coolidge and Quirino DeBrito, Department of International Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

In May, Student Life and Leadership honored lecturers Julia Kobrina-Coolidge and Quirino DeBrito for being Outstanding Student Advisors. Ms. Kobrina-Coolidge received the 2016 Outstanding Student Organization Advisor award and was nominated by the Teaching International Student Association. Mr. DeBrito received the Myles Tracy Outstanding Student Advisor award and was nominated by Student Life and Leadership.

Katie Whitlock, former Associate Professor of Theatre

Dr. Whitlock was presented posthumously with the 2016 Oscar Brockett Outstanding Teacher of Theatre in Higher Education given by the Association for Theatre in Higher Education. The award "honors a college-level faculty member whose superiority as a teacher of theatre is recognized by students and colleagues, who has provided inspiration through instruction in theatre to students and teachers of theatre, who has promulgated and practiced high standards of teaching and theatre, and who has created strong and effective interpersonal communication in studios, shops, rehearsal halls, and/or classrooms through advising, mentoring and all aspects of the student/teacher relationship. " Katie's mother, Adele Bealer, accepted the award.

Hope Munro, Department of Music and Theatre

Associate Professor of Music Hope Munro recently celebrated the publication of her book, What She Go Do: Women in Afro-Trinidadian Music. The book examines how the increased access and agency of women through folk and popular musical expressions has improved inter-gender relations and representation of gender in the region.

Allison Madar, Department of History

This past summer, Assistant Professor Allison Madar of the Department of History received a Summer Stipends award from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Dr. Madar's proposal was selected from over 800 submissions by peer review panels for this very competitive program.

Bruce Grelle, Department of Comparative Religion and Humanities

Professor of Comparative Religion and Humanities, Bruce Grelle, recently published his book, Antonio Gramasci and the Question of Religion: Ideology, Ethics, and Hegemony with Routledge. The book shows that many of Gramasci's key ideas - hegemony, ideology, moral reformation, "traditional and "organic" intellectuals, were formulated with simultaneous considerations of religion and politics.

Department of Comparative Religion and Humanities

On campus, students from the Department of Comparative Religion and Humanities created the Death Café, a monthly student-led forum to talk about the issues surrounding death.

Sarah Pike, Department of Comparative Religion and Humanities

Comparative Religion and Humanities Professor Sarah Pike was a featured speaker at the "Wonder and the Natural World" conference sponsored by the Consortium for the Study of Religion, Ethics and Society at Indiana University.

Rob Burton, Department of English

Next month, English Professor Rob Burton will be presenting a talk on Multicultural and World Literature at Chiang Mai University in Thailand.

Rouben Mohuiddin, Art Department

Art Associate Professor Rouben Mohuiddin received a Chico State Research Stimulation Grant to support the work he and his students are doing on the Sneha Foundation Children's Home in Bangladesh.

Spring 2016

Sarah Pike, Department of Comparative Religion and Humanities

Sarah Pike gave the Presidential Address on "Mourning Nature: The Work of Grief in Radical Environmentalism" at the Tenth Anniversary Conference of the International Society for the Study of Religion, Nature and Culture at the University of Florida. She was elected President of the Society in 2015.

Peter Kittle, Department of English

Peter Kittle was awarded $10,000 from the National Writing Project in support of his proposal entitled "2016 Building New Pathways to Leadership Design Challenge Grant".

Marie Downing, Lecturer in the Department of Music and Theatre

Marie Downing has been designated the Assistant Conference Planner for VASTA 2016, the Voice and Speech Trainers Association's annual conference. As a member of the VASTA's Diversity Committee, Downing is focused on the conference topic: Politics of Race and Identity.

Marianna Chambard (MFA), Sean Peeler (BA-fall 2015) and Sam Rivera (BFA), all Photography students in the Department of Art and At History

Art Photography Students have all had photos selected from over 10,000 submissions for the Photographer's Forum magazine's "36th Annual Best of College and High School Photography 2016".

Seven HFA International Fellows projects were funded for Summer 2016.

• Quirino de Brito (ILLC) Urban Jungle: Social imagination and the (de)construction of the forest. Location: Manaus, Rio Branco and Porto Velho, Brazil
• Laird Easton (HIST) Research on Lou Andreas-Salomé for a forthcoming book. Location: St. Petersburg, Russia.
• Peter Kittle (ENGL) Making Connections in Chile: Language, Culture, and Literacy Learning. Location: Santiago, Chile.
• Julia Kobrina-Coolidge (ILLC) Research on the image of Berlin in the Russian novels of Vladimir Nabokov. Location: St Petersburg, Russia.
• Michelle McConkey (MUTA) Music Education in Tanzania, Africa. Location: Moshi, Tanzania.
• Sarah Pike (CORH) Ritual, Pilgrimage and Sacred Sties in Ireland. Location: Galway and throughout Ireland.
• Kate Transchel (HIST) Memory and the Politics of National Identity: WWII Monuments in the Heart of Europe. Locations: Munich, Budapest, Ljubljana and Maribor (Slovenia).
• Art History Professors Asa Mittmann and Sherry Lindquest

Art History Professors Asa Mittmann and Sherry Lindquest have been chosen to curate a show in June of 2018 at the prestigious Pierpont Morgan Library in New York. The show, entitled Medieval Monsters: Terrors, Aliens, and Wonders, draws upon the library's collection of manuscripts and Dr. Mittmann's earlier work with this subject.

Music Associate Professor Natalya Shkoda

Music Associate Professor Natalya Shkoda released the final CD in her three-volume compendium of the piano music of Ukrainian composer Viktor Stepanovych Kosenko. This Centaur Records CD, features the world premiere recording of his Eleven Etudes, Opus 8, and Twenty-Four Children's Pieces, Opus 25.

Philosophy Professor Troy Jollimore

Philosophy Professor Troy Jollimore's third collection of poetry, Syllabus of Errors, was selected by New York Times writer David Orr as one of the ten "Best Poetry Books of 2015". Orr describes Jollimore's poetry as "intelligent, soulful and amusingly self-aware".

International Languages and Literatures Professor Kimihiko Nomura

International Languages and Literatures Professor Kimihiko Nomura co-authored an article with Dr. Don Chu entitled "What Chairs can do to Increase Funding for Their Departments" which appeared on the front page of the Department Chair, Vol. 26, no. 3. The article discusses ways to increasing funds for departments in a sustainable manner.

Fall 2015

Department of History graduate student Rodney Thomson

Department of History graduate student Rodney Thomson won the 2015-16 Glenn and Dorothy Dumke Fellowship for his work on the history of activists and activism at Chico State in the 1960s and 1970s. The award is named after Dr. Glenn Dumke, who served as the CSU System Chancellor in its early years. Mr. Thomson's project is being completed under the guidance of Department of History Professors Jeff Livingston and Michael Magliari.

Professor Sara Cooper and Students from the Department of ILLC host Cuban author Maria Elena Llana

Students from the Department of International Languages, Literatures, and Cultures under the guidance of Professor Sara Cooper hosted Cuban author Maria Elena Llana as the keynote speaker of the Spanish Symposium of Literature and Hispanic Culture. The students from ILLC were part of Expresiones Literarias, Artisticas y Culturales di Chico (ELACC) and shared their research into Hispanic writing and in three panel discussions. See the News and Review article.

Philosophy Professor Troy Jollimore

Philosophy Professor Troy Jollimore has published his third volume of poetry through the Princeton University Press. Syllabus of Errors: Poems, is described on the Princeton University Press site as having "a voice that grown more urgent, more vulnerable, and more sensitive to both the inevitability of tragedy and the possibility of renewal."

Philosophy Chair Ed Pluth

Ed Pluth, chair of the Department of Philosophy, co-edited Neuroscience and Critique: Exploring the Limits of the Neurological Turn with Jan De Vos. The volume explores how neuroscience has changed the social sciences and humanities and draws upon perspectives from several disciplines.

Anita Rivas

Anita Rivas, a lecturer in the Music Industry program, is Co-Chair again this year for the USC Institute of Entertainment Law & Business conference. They are hosting Norman Lear as their keynote speaker for this years conference. She was interviewed in by the LA Times to comment on cultural issues and behaviors associated with EDM Concerts around the world. She is also serving as a judge for the 2nd Annual Grammy U Business Plan Competition where the winner has the opportunity to spend the day one on one with RCA Records President and COO, Tom Corson.

Sarah Pape

Sarah Pape, lecturer of English, was announced as a finalist for the Hillary Gravendyk Prize for her poetry manuscript "Foul Hook". The judge for the prize is poet Chad Sweeney.

Ela Thurgood

Ela Thurgood, Professor of English, presented her paper "Phonetic Variation in lu-Mien vowels" at the 18th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences this past August in Glasgow, Scotland.

Music and Theatre Arts students

Music and Theatre Arts students Cameron Hobbs and Tyra "Sugar" Vasquez were individually featured on the National Academy of Recording and Science (NARAS) GrammyU Instagram/Twitter accounts for GrammyU In Action. Sugar also held an internship position at Los Angeles radio station Power 106 where she assisted radio personality Yesi Ortiz.

Heather Altfield

Heather Altfield, lecturer of English, won 1st Prize in the nimrod Literary Awards: Pablo Neruda Prize in Poetry for her poetry manuscript "Two Pockets" and other poems.

English graduate student Sylvia Bowersox

English graduate student Sylvia Bowersox's chapbook of short contemporary narratives about Iraq, Triggers, came out in early September. The book is published by JerkPoet Press, which is sponsoring readings of the book in New York, Portland, and the Bay Area.

Natalya Shkoda

Natalya Shkoda, Associate Professor of Piano and Coordinator of Keyboard Studies, was invited to present a piano master class and to perform a solo recital at Saddleback College in Mission Viejo, CA, on October 17 and 18, 2015. She taught the works by L.V. Beethoven, Dmitri Shostakovich, Aram Khachaturian and Jeno Takacs. Her recital program included Pyort Illich Tchaikovsky "The Seasons," Op. 37b, and Viktor Kosenko "Twenty-Four Children's Pieces," Op. 25.

Asa Mittman, PhD

Asa Mittman, Professor of Art History, was awarded the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists Best Book Prize for a book he coauthored with Susan M. Kim entitled Inconceivable Beasts: The Wonders of the East in the Beowulf Manuscript (Tempe: ACMRS, 2013).

Recording Arts and Music Industry students

Recording Arts and Music Industry students Kimberly Pearson, Harrison (Polo) Hedriana, Spencer Hemstreet, Spencer Sargent, Sean Moore, David Hollenbeck, Max Besterman, Ian Roth, Brendan Ahlers and Sean Raeside participated as volunteers as part of the Audio Engineering and Stage Crew at the 39th Annual Telluride Jazz Festival in Telluride, CO this past summer.

David Dvorin

David Dvorin, Lecturer of Music, had the 4th edition of his book on Apple's Logic Pro, Apple Pro Training Series: Logic Pro X Advanced Audio Production: Composing and Producing Professional Audio (Peachpit Press) released in this past July.

ILLC Faculty

Sarah Anderson and Steve Lewis did research in Merida, Yucatan, Mexico; Denise Minor did research in Quebec, Cannada; and Char Prieto did research in Madrid, Spain under the auspices of the HFA International Fellows program this past summer.

Rouben Mohiuddin

Rouben Mohiuddin, Interior Architecture, is working with both current students and alumni are donating their time to work with the Sneha Foundation in Bangladesh. Their designs are for cottages and other structures to house 100 orphaned/abandoned at birth children in the country. Already their cottage design has been built. Check out the design and actual building on site below. The design and construction are eco-friendly and made with local materials.