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Feature Stories

Lauren Scarff of Georgetown and Allison Dean of UCSC

The assignments in UC Santa Cruz Film Professor Sharon Daniel’s two-quarter undergrad course, FILM 171S-02, are not your typical film school fare.

Fritz Chesnut

A few years ago, we profiled artist and UC Santa Cruz alumnus Fritz Chesnut (Porter 1995) and with his new show, Floating Windows,... [more]

Susan Moren

Several years ago, finding herself on her own as a single mother, UC Santa Cruz Arts Division development assistant, Susan Moren, decided to take what for many would be an overwhelming situation and forge ahead to earn a degree in computer engineering.

Christopher Hackett

UC Santa Cruz alumnus Christopher Hackett didn’t intend to earn a degree in theater arts but fate had different plans for him. He was set on attending UCSC as a computer science major, determined to follow in his father’s footsteps as a computer programmer.

Playwright Trey Anthony

A bustling West Indian hair salon in Toronto, Canada is the setting for Trey Anthony’s 2001 award-winning play ‘da Kink in My Hair, coming this February 18-27 to UC Santa Cruz’s Theater Arts Main Stage, presented by the Department of Performance, Play & Design and the African... [more]

Women's Work is Never Done, 1995 screenprint by Yolanda Lopez

The Faculty Gallery at Porter College, UC Santa Cruz, is exhibiting for the first time a stunning display of ten prints by ten renowned contemporary women artists.

Professor Anna Friz

Advised by her teachers when she was a child that she didn’t have what it took to be an artist, Anna Friz took matters into her own hands and decided to do DIY art-related projects that later included street performance, cabaret and drag shows.

Kristen Gillette

Kristen Gillette’s first encounter with UC Santa Cruz happened when she made the trek up from UCLA to UCSC for a one-quarter UC Intercampus Exchange Program. The school and its beautiful surroundings turned out to have an impact that would charter the course of her future career.

Aja Bond

Loss and grief have turned out to be uncanny inspirations for artist and student Aja Bond, who is currently in her junior year, working towards earning a B.A. in art at UC Santa Cruz.

Assistant Professor in Music, Matt Schumaker

Connecting the recording of a Formula One racing car together with a Cathy Park Hong poem about a drive in California might not seem to most people like musical components, but for composer and Assistant Professor in Music, Matt Schumaker, these are the epitome of musical sounds... [more]

Acting Assistant Professor of Costume Design, Pamela Rodriguez-Montero

Citing nature as her inspiration, Acting Assistant Professor of Costume Design, Department of Performance, Play & Design, Pamela Rodriguez-Montero, grew up near the lushness of the rainforest in Barva de Heredia, a small town in the Central Valley of Costa Rica, where most... [more]

The convocation was more than just a celebration of music. It was also an impassioned defense of the arts.

Renowned conductor Kent Nagano (Porter ’74, music, sociology) made an impassioned defense of the arts last week after receiving the first-ever Distinguished Banana Slug Arts Award, recognizing his outstanding career as a conductor, musician, and mentor.

Janet Chen

Immigrating from Taiwan to the United States with her family when she was just nine years old, filmmaker Janet Chen learned to speak English by watching American television shows and movies.

Celine Parreñas Shimizu (Photo by Carolyn Lagattuta)

Award-winning film scholar and filmmaker joins campus on July 1

UCSC’s Institute of the Arts and Sciences to present ‘Music for Abolition’ artist panel featuring a dozen prominent musicians

Danny Scheie

UCSC’s Arts Division will present a live virtual reading of Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors on Friday, April 23, to honor Theater Arts professor Danny Sheie, who is retiring this year after three decades at the campus. 

Clint Ramos, visiting professor at UC Santa Cruz’s theater arts department, will be leading a lecture series for students featuring four of the costume and design industry’s top professionals.

Derek Conrad Murray

The late American photographer Robert Mapplethorpe first gained international attention due to his now infamous exhibition, The Perfect Moment (1988–90), which was initially held at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. 

The Arts Division is extremely proud to recognize that the 2020 Sammy Award for Graduate Student of the Year was presented to Arts Department student Yasheng She and the Sammy Award for Honored Administrator was given to Alison Trybom Lucas, chief of staff for... [more]

Jocelyn Lopez-Anleu; photo courtesy Spectrum News 1

As the daughter of parents who immigrated to the United States from Suchitepéquez, Guatemala, UC Santa Cruz recent alumna, Jocelyn Lopez-Anleu, is the youngest of three siblings and the first in her family to graduate from a four-year university. 

Growing up in Cebu, the Philippines surrounded by a close-knit extended family, Clint Ramos has fond memories of his childhood there.

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