Spiller currently dean at Virginia Tech, previously served as associate dean at Florida State

Interim Chancellor Ralph J. Hexter announced Elizabeth Spiller as the new appointed dean of the College of Letters and Science on Feb. 2. Spiller is currently an English professor and dean at Virginia Tech’s College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences. She previously served as associate dean in the College of Arts and Sciences at Florida State.

Spiller received a Bachelor of Arts in English literature at Amherst College and a Master of Arts and Ph.D. in English and American language and literature at Harvard University. She specializes in early modern literature and culture, with an emphasis on the history of reading and on literature and science.

Spiller has written two novels, one in 2004 entitled Science, Reading and Renaissance Literature: The Art of Making Knowledge, 1580-1670 and another — Reading and the History of Race in the Renaissance — which was published in 2011. She also edited a two-volume collection entitled Seventeenth-Century English Recipe Books: Cooking, Physic and Chirurgery.

She has been awarded two fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities and is the recipient of a Fulbright Fellowship.

Spiller has accomplished much in her career while working as a dean, having established the Destiny Scholars program, a four-year scholarship for underrepresented and underserved student populations at Virginia Tech and having led a committee charged by the provost that created a system to provide salary raises to nationally distinguished faculty across the university at Florida State.

Spiller looks forward to coming to UC Davis to interact with students, faculty and staff.

“A university is never a set of buildings or a place, but a community of people who share a vision about the humanly transformative nature of education and knowledge,” Spiller said. “I am looking forward to meeting and working with students, faculty and staff, and the alumni of the College to learn more about that vision and how best to expand upon it.”

Current interim deans Susan Kaiser, Alex Navrotsky and Li Zhang, of the three Letters and Science divisions, agreed to continue serving as vice deans through the first months of the transitional period after Spiller’s arrival. They wished her a smooth transition and believe that the college will continue to thrive under her leadership.

“We look forward to welcoming Elizabeth Spiller to the College of Letters and Science and ensuring a smooth transition to a new leadership model for the college,” Kaiser, Navrotsky and Zhang said in a joint statement.  “We are confident the College will continue to thrive under Dean Spiller’s tenure. She is a respected scholar and experienced administrator. And she will bring a new vision and vigor to the college, creating new opportunities for scholarship and learning among our faculty, staff and students.”

Hexter also released a statement to UC Davis Dateline regarding Spiller’s appointment.

“We have found the ideal candidate to serve as our Letters and Science dean as we move back to a single-dean model,” Hexter said. “A distinguished scholar and accomplished administrator, Elizabeth has a deep understanding of the history of the liberal arts and sciences and their place at heart of the modern research university.”

Spiller will begin her tenure as dean on March 6.

Written by: Demi Caceres — campus@theaggie.org

News in Brief — UC Davis School of Education announces new dean

In February, interim Chancellor Ralph J. Hexter announced to UC Davis Dateline that Lauren E. Lindstrom will be the new dean of the School of Education. Currently, Lindstrom is the associate dean of Research and Faculty Development in the College of Education at the University of Oregon. She will begin her post at UC Davis on June 1, succeeding interim Dean Paul Hastings.

The UC Davis School of Education was founded in 2002. According to its website, the school is ranked number 51 out of more than 250 schools, as of 2017. The majority of students are pursuing teaching credentials or Masters of Arts in education. 222 undergraduate students are also currently enrolled in the education minor program.

Lindstrom served at the University of Oregon for 25 years and received three degrees: a Bachelor of Science in human services, a Master of Science in special education and a Ph.D. in educational leadership.

“As a researcher, she is recognized internationally and nationally for her work in special education, in particular in assisting youth with disabilities in making the transition from high school to employment and post-secondary education opportunities,” Hexter said to Dateline.

Hastings explained that the School of Education was looking for a leader in educational research who would be a strong proponent of the research in education being conducted by the school’s faculty. The school required a leader who understands the breadth and diversity of the field of teaching across all ages and communities. It was important to find someone who would work to make high-quality education accessible for all.

“Dr. Lindstrom, with her outstanding experiences in teaching, research and administration, fits all of the goals for the School in our hopes for a new dean who could help us advance our work,” Hastings said via email. “We’re very excited that we’ll have such a recognized leader in education taking us into our next chapter as a school.”

In addition to serving as the associate dean at the College of Education, Lindstrom is also currently conducting research. She has several active research grants and is planning to continue and extend her research program when she joins UC Davis.

According to a statement from Dateline, as an associate dean, Lindstrom provided leadership and strategic direction for all externally funded research operations in the college and coordinated faculty orientation, tenure and promotion. She was also the director of the Center at Oregon for Research in Education, overseeing and coordinating externally-funded research and outreach centers focused on improving educational outcomes for children and families. She communicated vital information about research and outreach activities to various audiences.

“Dr. Lindstrom’s record of being an engaged and active education researcher, as well as her leadership roles in the University of Oregon’s large and multi-faceted College of Education, have given her a depth of understanding and appreciation for the breadth of research that is being conducted at the UC Davis School of Education,” Hastings said.

Written by: Jayashri Padmanabhan — campus@theaggie.org

Concerns raised over new presidential administration’s control of research

Since the inauguration of President Donald Trump, researchers and scientists have expressed concern about a series of removals of publicly funded information and data on official government websites. These researchers have attempted to salvage pieces of digital information that might be suppressed by the new administration.

“The new administration — the new federal administration — was broadcasting pretty broadly a certain approach to issues like climate change to issues like the environment, and whenever there is a shift of administration, there’s the risk of budgets being reduced in certain areas — there’s a risk of neglect with certain websites,” said Kevin Miller, the UC Davis university archivist. “I think what most people fear is the very direct kind of removing of easy access to certain types of data on government websites, and we saw that on day one — we saw that on Jan. 20.”

Earlier this month, Shields Library hosted the #DataRescueDavis event, in which community members from UC Davis could help archive scientific data related to climate change and the environment. The event, sponsored by DataRescue, a project by the University of Pennsylvania, is only one in a series which plans to address concerns about the removal of federal climate and environmental data by the new administration.

Miller, who also leads the Archives & Institutional Assets Program at UC Davis, a project that works with university staff and faculty to collect and preserve their research, noted the new efforts to preserve data.

“Again, agnostic of politics our principal is that lots of copies keep stuff safe,” Miller said. “And so, the more that we back up this data, the more legitimate and well-organized access points that we create for the data, the more that it’s backed up on servers that are under different control, the better it is for the life of the data and the better it is for the public in terms of their access.”

Nicole Karsch, a campus organizer for CALPIRG, said that, since noticing the removal of public information, organizations like hers have found new ways to combat the suppression.

“One of the things that has been of attention especially since this election has been the data that has been taken off of the websites of our government or other attacks to government data like regulating the EPA or overseeing scientist reports before they release them,” Karsch said. “So all of those kind of concerns of having one elected official who’s not a scientist per se or an expert in their field, kind of having power to regulate the information that’s released is of concern to the public interest and so research fellows of ours are working to preserve data and make sure people know that the data being taken away is happening.”

Since the removal of climate and environmental data, other researchers have scrambled to preserve data that might go against the new administration’s interests, including UC Davis’ Violence Prevention Research Center, which has downloaded data related to gun violence.

For Karsch, who is currently working with CALPIRG to ban fracking, the various issues faced by the new administration are better fought against in a concerted effort.

“I think I’ve more than before, a coming together of groups from different communities who recognize the need to preserve [data],” Karsch said. “So partnering with groups that maybe haven’t worked together so much before to recognize the need to have a concentrated effort, and partnerships and movements to do things, everything from preserving data to recognizing different groups being affected by different policies, it’s all kind of one group of people who, I think if we can align all of our problems, […] can fight together as a group against many issues.”

Diana Zaragoza, a third-year psychology and Chicano/a studies double major, said that witnessing the removal of scientific data has prompted her concerns over who controls publicly-funded information.

“Giving [Trump] full control is giving him the ability to censor,” Zaragoza said. “I know that when he censored these pages, his excuse was that they were going to review them and publish new information, but I don’t necessarily buy into it. I don’t think that it’s fair to anybody. When you google ‘White House’, that’s one of the first pages that comes up, and I think it should be available to everybody, it’s really the layout of the American government.”
Written by: Ivan Valenzuela — campus@theaggie.org

Summer fellowship promotes sustainable energy solutions

Dysmus Kisilu fulfilled his dream of becoming an Aggie by participating in the Energy Institute for Young African Leaders at UC Davis in the summer of 2016. Now, Kisilu is working closely with farmers to reduce food waste in Kenya.

After a successful program last summer, students interested in addressing energy problems in their countries will have the opportunity to participate in the Mandela Washington Fellowship by attending the second Energy Institute at UC Davis from June 16 to July 30.

The six-week program will welcome 25 fellows, aged anywhere from 25 to 35, from sub-Saharan Africa to engage in workshops and coursework to improve their home countries’ energy conditions. These fellows have already made large environmental impacts in their home countries, but the program will boost their leadership skills within the energy sector of their career paths by enabling them to collaborate with the UC Davis community.

For Kisilu, a fellow from Kenya, the institute gave him the tools he needed to tackle food misuse.

“One-third of the world’s available food either spoils or gets thrown away — that’s enough to feed everyone in the world for two months,” Kisilu said via email. “[With] a population expected to increase [by] two billion by 2050, we cannot afford to allow these losses to continue.”

Jennie Konsella-Norene, the institute’s administrative director, said that competition for the fellowship is immense; there were 60,000 applicants this year, but only 1,000 will be accepted. Fellows will then be divided among the 38 institutes around the U.S., and 25 leaders will be allotted to each. At the end of the program, fellows will travel to Washington, D.C. to network and participate in discussion panels with U.S. leaders.

There are three themes for applicants to choose from: civic leadership, public management and business and entrepreneurship. Recently established as the most sustainable university in the world, UC Davis was selected to be a public management institute, but it was also awarded a concentration in energy policy. Academic director Peter Hartsough does not consider the special curriculum to be a coincidence.

“The strength of our renewable energy sector expertise [is] a big part of why we are the only institute that has an energy focus,” Hartsough said.

Hartsough added that the U.S. Department of State and International Research and Exchanges Board support the Mandela Washington Fellowship within the Young African Leaders Initiative.

“Two out of every three people in sub-Saharan Africa lack access to electricity,” Hartsough said. “So it’s a broad public diplomacy program.”

Konsella-Norene said that the fellows will participate in various projects, volunteer work and visits to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the California Lighting Technology Center, West Village and the UC Davis Solar Farm. Fellows will also collaborate with the UC Davis community by working with graduate students, undergraduate interns and policy-makers in Sacramento.

“[The program] gives [fellows] an opportunity to talk amongst themselves and compare how things are done within their own countries,” Konsella-Norene said. “So they gained a lot just from talking with each other.”

Hartsough said the interaction between the fellows and the UC Davis community has natural benefits, as their alliance enhances “global awareness” and forms long-lasting bonds.

“When people return home they always think of themselves as Aggies,” Hartsough said. “[Fellows] think of UC Davis when [they consider] collaborating with a university in the future.”

Upon returning to Kenya, Kisilu began executing a Zero Energy Cool Chamber (ZECC) and training women to operate and preserve the ZECC.

“The impact of this will be a reduction in post-harvest loss from 60 percent to less than 10 percent,” Kisilu said. “I am [also] working to reduce marginalization by creating jobs and fostering the next generation of young women entrepreneurs in Kenya.”

Hartsough and Konsella-Norene encourage UC Davis students to interact with the fellows this summer to strengthen their global relations. Kisilu said that he was inspired by the “power of youth to imagine, innovate and make a difference” as a result of connecting with the other fellows.

“The 24 young African leaders I met challenged me to dream bigger and aim higher,” Kisilu said. “Both ladies and men are working on solutions to change the energy situation in Africa. It’s so motivating to know that you are not alone.”

Written by: Jeanna Totah — campus@theaggie.org