Faculty

Byron Au Yong, MFA, Director, MFA in Arts Leadership and Interdisciplinary Arts-Arts Leadership, Associate Professor, Performing Arts and Arts Leadership, had music included in the production I Ching 20: On Seeing and Being Seen, a collaboration with Li Chiao-Ping Dance, in March 2024, at the University of Wisconsin—Madison. This is part of research for the NEA-funded Dirty Laundry project, a multimedia dance performance work that explores the history of Asian immigration, culture, identity and experience created in collaboration with Li and visual artist Hong Huo.

Jackson Cooper, MFA, Adjunct Faculty, Arts Leadership, spoke about his new book, A Kids Book About Kindness, on Fox13 Seattle. 

Elizabeth Dale, PhD, Director and Associate Professor, Nonprofit Leadership, was interviewed by The Chronicle of Philanthropy for “MacKenzie Scott: Look for a More Active Year after Quiet 2023.”

Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs, PhD, Professor, Modern Languages and Women Gender, and Sexuality Studies, is one of 11 poets included in a new anthology in India edited by Dush Yant: Sanobar Ki Pattiyan, 2024, Pustaknama (India). She has been invited to CSU Channel Islands to give a series of readings and presentations for students and faculty on March 26 and to present at the In Celebration of the Muse Event in Santa Cruz, California on April 26. Her work is included in a forthcoming anthology of poets from all over the world, edited by Rei Berroa, George Mason University. She is the organizer of readings for International Poetry Day, every year on March 21. They have had readings with hundreds of poets from the global communities, including a 24 hr. reading for the last two years, during the entire day. Her work was recently published in two publications from Cascadia Poetics Lab: Cascadia Zen and Cascadian Prophets: Interviews 1999-2023, Eds. Sharon Thesen and Paul Nelson, the first an edited collection of poetry, art and photography, and the second a collection of interviews with major authors, including her.  Both of these books were published by Watershed Press. She and her fellow authors recently gave readings to launch both books at Columbia City Library and Elliott Bay Book Company.

Sonora Jha, PhD, Associate Dean for Academic Community and Professor, Department of Communication and Media, was a featured author at the Jaipur Literature Festival in India (February 1-5), which brings together writers and thinkers from across the world. Dr Jha was in conversation with author and academic Susanna Torres Prieto of IE University, Madrid about Dr. Jha's 2023 novel The Laughter. She was also invited to speak at the inaugural Ceylon Literary Festival in Colombo and Kandy, Sri Lanka, Feb 8-12. The latest review of The Laughter appears in one of India's leading English-language newspapers, The Indian Express.

Tonya Lockyer, MFA, CLMA, Adjunct Faculty, Performing Arts & Arts Leadership, was named as a 2024 United States Artists Fellowship Panelist. Tonya Lockyer will bring her “Knowledge, Criticality and Insight” to help select six awardees from a pool of artists nominated from across the U.S. USA Fellowships are annual $50,000 unrestricted awards recognizing the most compelling artists working and living in the United States, in all disciplines, at every stage of their career. 

Kira Mauseth, PhD, Teaching Professor, Psychology, was recently in Hawaii where she partnered with the Hawaii Center for Children and Families, and specifically Dr. Jana Ortiz and Dr. Leihua Edstrom, to provide two Health Support Team (HST) "Train the Trainer" workshops for clinicians on Oahu and Maui in support of the families in recovery from the Lahaina fire.  Both were "train the trainer" meaning that I was training people with a background in behavioral health of some kind: teachers, therapists, pastors, and other clinicians- in how to provide HST training to community members.  HST is designed to provide the science of disaster behavioral health to members of the impacted survivor community and facilitate them training others as well as providing direct non-professional support, to extend healing from within their communities in a culturally appropriate way. More on HST here: 

Quinton Morris, DMA, Professor, Violin, was named as “Most Influential: Education” by Seattle Magazine. He was also featured on the “Beats Working” podcast. 

Alexander Mouton, MFA, Associate Professor, Department of Visual Arts, During the international CODEX IX Art Book Fair in the San Francisco Bay Area (Feb 4-7, 2024), my limited-edition photo book archive, To A Place of Time, Held Within Four Walls, was selected for purchase by the School of the Museum of Arts at Tufts University’s W. Van Alan Clark, Jr. Library. To A Place of Time, Held Within Four Walls, is an archive of 13 different formatted photo books that juxtapose text and image according to their structure.  The archive’s focus is new perspectives on the murderous regimes of Hitler and Stalin and the way the current landscape reflects these overlapping histories.  Also, it reverberates with current nationalist movements both here and abroad.

Patrick Schoettmer, PhD, Associate Teaching Professor, Political Science, appeared in several interviews recently:

• KING TV: “According to Uncommitted Delegates Washington, they're calling for this protest vote because of President Joe Biden's handling of the Israel-Hamas War”
• Sky News: “Trump and Biden ran into turbulence during Michigan primaries”
• Sky News: “Mitch McConnell became increasingly out of step with Republican party”
• Eric Severson, PhD, Associate Teaching Professor, Philosophy, gave a paper entitled "Catholicity Before, and After, Whiteness,” at the Wesleyan Theological Society annual meeting in Nashville.

Kirsten Moana Thompson, PhD, Professor and Chair, Film Studies, and Theiline Pigott-McCone Endowed Chair (2022-24), attended the 7th Color Conference in Vienna, Austria Dec 10-13, 2023, and wrote “Report of the 7th Color Conference, Vienna, Austria”, Color and Film British Association of Film, Television and Screen Studies: Special Interest Group. She also commenced work in 2023 as an External Research Evaluator on the Creative and Performing Arts Panel for the Tertiary Education Commission (TEC), Performance Based Research Fund (PBRF), a 7-year assessment for all faculty at all New Zealand tertiary institutions. She previously served on the Pacific Island Panel 2017-2019. This is a time-intensive process and equivalent to a full tenure review for all scholars in New Zealand, assessing portfolios of 4 research articles each, and 15 other nominated research outputs for each faculty member, analogous to REF in UK.

Charles M. Tung, PhD, Professor, English, was invited to give a paper at “Mediating Deep Time,” this year’s conference hosted by the Carsey-Wolf Center for Media Studies at UC Santa Barbara, Feb. 1-3, 2024.  Tung’s paper, “Viral Cultures and Media Epidemiology in Second Modernity,” focused on cultural objects that not only attempt to mediate large timescales at a moment when the present is defined by the long-term byproducts and hazards of modernity, but also highlight their own location in a transmission system or infrastructure that an alien geologist in the far future might detect as the cause of a global viral catastrophe.

Alumni

Jen Cruz, Psychology ’16, is now a PhD candidate at Harvard, where her dissertation combines social epidemiology, qualitative approaches, and community-engaged research to find solutions for reducing inequities in breast cancer screening across rural settings. She is featured in the Harvard Gazette article, “Her friends’ parents were dying of cancer. Then her mom got sick.”

Taylor Date, BA Strategic Communication ‘18, was featured on Hawaii News Now in “Slow Your Scroll: This social media influencer is on the hunt for the ‘perfect date night’.”

Shawn K. Richard-Davis, BA Criminal Justice ‘83, published Setting Aside Silence (One Word At A Time), a faith-based, interactive book for domestic violence survivors and their families. She was featured in the South Seattle Emerald.

Students

Our Ethics Bowl team participated in the national competition at the end of February and came home with two wins, one tie, and one loss, an excellent showing for a team of sophomores. We'll share more details soon. Read the Newsroom story about the team.

Amanda Morgan, Interdisciplinary Arts, specialization in Arts Leadership, and her dance organization's upcoming performances were featured in the Seattle Times article, “New show celebrates Seattle dance scene’s past, present and future.” Amanda is earning her BA through Second Stage, our partnership with Pacific Northwest Ballet for their dancers.

Kevin Ruiz Rodriguez, third year Journalism student, is the new Adopt-a-Street intern at the City of Seattle.