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Dear Campus Community,
Arts Dean and Distinguished Professor of Film and Digital Media Celine Parreñas Shimizu will become the next dean of the School of Theater, Film, and Television (TFT) at UCLA. She will step down from her position at UC Santa Cruz in June 2025. Dean Celine, as she is known on campus, has led the Arts Division with strength, collaboration, and compassion, building a “beloved community” that empowers individuals and enables and amplifies the collective capabilities of faculty, staff, and students. Under her leadership, the division revised five undergraduate majors to reflect a more global curriculum. She secured a $500,000 University of California Office of the President grant for Advancing Faculty Diversity through Curriculum Reform in the Arts, and under her leadership, faculty and staff diversity increased. Under her leadership, Creative Technologies, the first online undergraduate major program in the UC system, was launched in Fall ‘24. In addition, the Arts Division gained several state-of-the-art facilities, including a media lab, the first climate-controlled collecting gallery at UCSC, new graduate student art studios, and an Arts and AI Lab. She advanced fundraising efforts highlighted by two new endowed chairs and several student scholarships including her family’s donation to honor her son, the “Lakas Shimizu Memorial Scholarship.” With the support of her Arts Dean’s Advocacy Council, she hosted alumni and donor events in Los Angeles, New York, and Silicon Valley to bring alumni into the fold (especially recent alumni) and welcome new supporters. On campus, Dean Celine has served as convenor of the Divisional Deans, co-chaired the Strategic Planning Committee for an Inclusive and Thriving Campus Community, and served on the Budget Advisory Committee and the Revenue Augmentation Committee. Systemwide, she has served on the Advancing Faculty Diversity Board and the inaugural Asian American Pacific Islander (AAPI) Leadership Council and represented the system at the state legislature on the importance of the arts in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math (STEAM). During her tenure in the Arts Division, she has completed a new book, titled The Movies of Racial Childhoods: Screening Self-Sovereignty in Asian/America (2024), as well as two award-winning films, So to Speak (2025) and 80 Years Later (2022). I will share plans for interim divisional leadership later this quarter. Please join me in thanking Dean Celine for her service to UC Santa Cruz, and congratulating her on this new chapter in her career. I am thrilled she will remain our colleague at the University of California. Sincerely, Lori Lori Kletzer Campus Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor |
UCSC Arts Dean Celine Parreñas Shimizu to join UCLA
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