Art, Access, Inclusivity

A significant part of my leadership and service, in addition to my two years with the UC Systemwide Senate, has focused on issues of art, access, and inclusivity.

For over two decades I have served on the Board of the MultiCultural Center and supported UCSB Arts and Lectures at UCSB attending and organizing a number of featured artistic and academic events. In addition, our collaborations with graduate and undergraduate communities resulted in an “Alternative Fashion Show,” which played to large audiences. Audience members remarked how much they learned from and developed empathy from witnessing third world women's lived experiences sewing haute couture in factories in China, the models who strut elaborate catwalks, designers’ anxieties, and the yearning for clothes that express complex identities.

During the 2015 academic year, our team collaborated with artists and campus electricians to install motion-sensitive fairy lights as an artistic answer to campus nighttime safety, organized a community planting of constellation-inspired solar lights throughout campus lawns, and formed a community-University coalition to refurbish the Isla Vista water wheel with the UCSB College of Engineering.

The positive reactions, camaraderie, and student utilization of these art-based projects have refueled my optimism that universities can be effective custodians for the communities of which they are a part. In so doing, they can help steer the world in the direction of equity, true diversity and respect.

Select Service

University of California Systemwide Senate

  • Chair, September 2019 to September 2020

  • Vice Chair, September 2018 to August 2019

Arts and Lectures at UC Santa Barbara

  • Interviewed

    • (now President) Joseph Biden

    • Jhumpa Lahiri

  • Seminar with

    • Salman Rushdie

    • Angela Y. Davis

  • UC Regents Lecturer included Raoul Peck, Michael Apted, and Gurinder Chadha, (film directors),

  • Vandana Shiva, Ecologist, Right to Live Award

  • Mohammed Yunus, Founder, Grameen Bank

  • Introduction and Interview with Hari Kondobolou Carsey Wolfe Center

Other Service

  • September 2018 A Special Film Screening of Lutah (2014) at a private home in Atherton, California for Society for Art & Cultural Heritage of India (SACHI).

  • February 2017 TEDx UCSB “Why We Need to Feel Angry” Kum-Kum Bhavnani

  • July 2016 Consultant to Sara Miller McCune Public Policy Center for Spring 2017 International conference

  • November 2016 Key note Speaker, Dining For Women, Santa Barbara

  • July 2016 Consultant to Sara Miller McCune Public Policy Center for Spring 2017 International conference

  • July 2015 Rockefeller Foundation, Rockefeller Centre, Bellagio, Italy Research Workshop Conference Climate Futures: Reimagining Climate Justice 19 participants, 17 countries, 6 continents Co-PI

  • April/May 2015 “Inspirational Women of the Year” Awarded by Board of the Women’s Radio Network

  • 2014-2015 Selection Committee, C. Wright Mills Book Award SSSP

  • 2014 to present Associated Fellow, The Critical Institute, Critical Knowledge in Practice http://www.criticalinstitute.org/about/fellows/

  • 2011 for 2013 Annual Meeting Member, Programme Committee, Society for the Study of Social Problems Annual Meeting

  • 2010 to present Board member for MultiCultural Center Board

  • 2009 to 2012 SWS Mentorship Awards Committee

  • 2007 to present Subjectivity: A Journal

  • International Advisory Board Member and Reviewer

  • 2007 Caribbean Gender Review International Advisory Board Member and Reviewer

  • 2006 to present Ms. magazine Annual meetings to discuss trajectory for Ms. plus reviewing and related activities in an ongoing way

  • October 2006 Sponsored Johanna Demetrakis as Artist in Residence UC Institute for Research in the Arts

  • 2005 Feminist Africa Member, International Advisory Board

  • 2002 Meridians: feminism, racism transnationalism Advisory Board member and reviewer

  • April 1994 International Observer for First Democratic Elections, South Africa

UC Santa Barbara General Campus Service

  • 2017-18 Co-chair (with AVC Herrera-Sobek) UCSB Task Force on Childcare

  • 2012-18 Co-Chair Design Review Committee

  • 2012-18 Chancellor's Co-ordinating Committee on Isla Vista

  • Collaborative Public Art Projects including community planting and IV-Pardall Tunnel motion/light installation

  • Isla Vista Water Wheel: engineering students rebuilt the defunct water wheel

  • 2012-18 Mentoring four+ faculty of colour at request of the Office of the Social Sciences Dean

  • 2016-17 Search Committee member, UCSB Vice Chancellor for Research

  • 2016-17 Search member, UCSB Dean for the Social Sciences

  • 2012 to 2016 Chancellors’ Coordinating Committee for Budget Strategies

  • 2011 Member, San Joaquin Apartments & Precinct Improvements, UCSB

  • 2011-2012 Member, Architect Selection, IEE Building