To celebrate a new academic year, faculty and staff from UC Santa Cruz’s Division of Social Sciences gathered at the Cowell Ranch Hay Barn on October 15th for the division’s annual fall breakfast, which features an awards ceremony honoring faculty and staff achievements.
Attendees enjoyed a breakfast buffet and live music and caught up with colleagues from across the division. Social Sciences Dean Katharyne Mitchell welcomed new faculty and staff, recognized faculty promotions and staff anniversaries, and thanked department chairs for their service. The dean and representatives from awards committees for the Division of Social Sciences also announced the recipients of four major divisional faculty and staff awards.
Golden Apple Teaching Award
Associate Professor of Politics Megan Thomas received the Golden Apple Teaching Award in recognition of her classroom innovations, curricular contributions, and exceptional mentorship for students. Thomas has designed a new course aimed at addressing equity gaps in students’ analytical and writing skills and a politics course on the Philippines that is popular with Philipinx students. Colleagues also praised how she creates a flexible, empathetic, supportive, and accessible learning environment in her classes. As a mentor, Thomas attracts and works closely with undergraduate and graduate students and teaching assistants and writing tutors to support their success, growth, and professional development.
Martin M. Chemers Award for Outstanding Research
Psychology Professor Jean M. Fox Tree received the Martin M. Chemers Award, which recognizes a senior faculty member whose research has had a substantial cumulative impact on their discipline. Professor Fox Tree, an internationally acclaimed cognitive scientist, studies spontaneous written and spoken communication in face-to-face situations and over communicative media, and she focuses particularly on aspects of language that have long been ignored by other researchers. Her highly cited scholarship is published in a cross-disciplinary range of fields, including linguistics, psychology, sociology, computing, and cognitive science and often garners mainstream media attention.
Staff Award for Outstanding Achievement
This year the review committee selected two highly deserving recipients for the Division's Staff Award for Outstanding Achievement. In their deliberations, the committee considered the breadth of nominations, the quality of service, the impact the staff member had on their unit, and the years of service to the division and university.
Hollie Clausnitzer, Politics Department and Legal Studies Program manager, was selected to receive the Staff Award for Outstanding Achievement. Hollie’s nominators celebrated her creativity and ability to build community within the department and program and how frequently she goes “above and beyond” on behalf of students, faculty, and staff.
Barbara Laurence, faculty services coordinator in the Sociology Department, also received the award and was repeatedly lauded by her nominators for being both an extraordinarily compassionate person and a consummate professional, motivated by a deep, radical sense of care that is rooted in her commitment to justice for everyone who learns and works at UCSC.
Distinguished Social Sciences Emeriti Faculty Award
Professor Emerita of Anthropology Carolyn Martin Shaw received the Distinguished Social Sciences Emeriti Award. Shaw joined the UC Santa Cruz faculty in 1972, with a focus on political economy, women and gender, and colonial discourse in Africa. In her retirement she has continued to make extraordinary contributions, like her 2015 publication of the book Promises of Feminism: Women and Power in Zimbabwe, her graduate-level grant writing course that is much beloved by students, and her constant willingness to share insights with current faculty members and emeriti alike.
See more photos from the event.
