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Feature Stories

Associate Professor Edward Shanken’s distinguished career in both arts and academia has led him to take on the exciting role of Director of the Digital Arts and New Media (DANM) MFA program.

Professor Elizabeth Stephens

Santa Cruz Arts Division’s Professor Elizabeth Stephens and her partner Annie Sprinkle were recently awarded the prestigious Eureka Fellowship, the largest cash prize for individual artists in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Elizabeth Swensen, photo by Julie Rogge

Elizabeth Swensen’s expertise at producing innovative digital games propelled her career from studying the past to creating the future.

Karolina Karlic, photo by Julie Rogge

Assistant Professor Karolina Karlic is no stranger to adapting to new situations – the Polish born, American educated photographer moved to the states at a very young age.

Cynthia Ling Lee

Being raised in Texas by parents who were immigrants from Taiwan, newly appointed UC Santa Cruz Assistant Professor of Dance, Cynthia Ling Lee, never dreamed as a child that she would one day become immersed in North Indian classical Kathak dance.

Getty Logo

The prestigious Getty Research Institute has invited Carolyn Dean, professor, and Albert Narath, assistant professor, both from UC Santa Cruz’s History of Art and Visual Culture department, to join other scholars in residence at the Institute.

Ren Klyce

With five Oscar nominations for film sound editing and mixing, UC Santa Cruz alumnus Ren Klyce’s career has taken a sky-rocket climb since he decided to major in music back in 1983.

Michelle Aguilar

Having just graduated in 2015 from UC Santa Cruz’s SocDoc program in the Film and Digital Media department with an MA in Social Documentation, Michelle Aguilar has already led a life dedicated to working for social justice.

Arts Dean's Award Winners

The UC Santa Cruz Arts Division was very proud to present the following, very talented students with this year’s awards on June 1, 2016. Congratulations to all of our awardees!

Hollywood's Best-Kept Secret: UCSC Alums in Hollywood

If we inadvertently left your name off the list, please forgive us and contact 
Erica Gerard Di Bona, Kresge '73-'75
    edibona@ucsc.edu 

John Jota Leaños

As a social activist, filmmaker, artist, photographer, composer, and performer, Associate Professor John Jota Leaños, who teaches Social Documentation at the UC Santa Cruz Film and Digital Media department, is not afraid to take on hot-button topics via his art – topics that... [more]

Listening Water
The White Stripes have appeared in a Saskatoon bowling alley, the Grateful Dead rocked out at the Giza pyramids, and Rage Against the Machine caused a bit of a stir when they played in front of the New York Stock Exchange, but what about a concert that’s performed underwater to an underwater... [more]
Scott Lord

Thanks to his voracious love of reading combined with some stellar Trivial Pursuit game skills, UC Santa Cruz alumnus and generous supporter of the university’s opera program, Scott Lord was destined to put his knack for knowing a bit of something about almost... [more]

In junior high school while many other kids her age were watching Full House and fixating on NSYNC, UC Santa Cruz Arts Division IT Manager, Angie Steele, was crushing on computers. So by the time she was in high school, she’d already been offered her first computing job.

Never in a million years did Dee Hibbert-Jones imagine that she would be getting ready to walk down the iconic red carpet at the Academy Awards.

Dividing his time between such divergent places as Barcelona, Cairo and Oakland, transdisciplinary artist-theorist Ian Alan Paul is currently a PhD candidate in UC Santa Cruz’s Film and Digital Media program, and has recently received acclaim for his virtual exhibit, The Guantanamo Bay Museum of... [more]

In April 2013, an international group of documentary scholars and scholar-practitioners assembled at Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland to participate in the first Poetics and Politics of Documentary Research Symposium.

Since he was a young boy, Billy Woo has had a fascination with museums, and that interest is what eventually lead him to a journey of a lifetime as he now gets ready to do research at the Vietnamese Women’s Museum in Hanoi, and the Southern Women’s Museum in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) during the... [more]

As Ted Warburton, Professor of Dance, anticipates his new role as Associate Dean of the Arts Division at UC Santa Cruz, he is looking forward to working on a wide variety of issues including academic personnel, budget and research.

As the only active foundry left in the entire University of California system, the foundry at UC Santa Cruz is especially significant, offering students a rare sculptural experience not usually found in university art programs.

As UC Santa Cruz continues to lead the way in the evolution of the theory and practice of games development, the Art Department has developed a new B.A. in Games and Playable Media that is launching this coming fall.

From the beginning of her distinguished career, B. Ruby Rich’s path to success has consisted of a series of incredibly fortunate and interesting connections and circumstances. But as Ernest Hemingway so famously said, “You make your own luck, Gig.” And Rich is no exception.

It’s been quite a journey for Terre Lee, now in her final quarter at UC Santa Cruz, as she contemplates graduating in June and thinking about what lies ahead in her future.

UC Santa Cruz Professor Emeritus, Chip Lord (Film and Digital Media) and Visiting Conductor and Professor Emeritus Nicole Paiement (Music) were recently given Edward A.

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