When he retires at the end of this academic year, UC Davis music professor Christopher Reynolds will leave a rich legacy. After 33 years of scholarship, service and artistry in the College of Letters and Science’s Department of Music, his accomplishments abound:
The annual Templeton Colloquium in Art History at UC Davis will journey across oceans and centuries for “The Power of Color: Polychromy and Pigments in Ancient Mediterranean And Latin American Art.”
The UC Davis Department of Music’s Revision/s Festival has brought together eight emerging composers and top professional ensembles – including the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra – for a six-months-long collaboration culminating in three concerts.
Internationally renowned artist Lynn Hershman Leeson, UC Davis professor emeritus, is receiving major awards from the College Art Association and the Women’s Caucus for the Arts.
Dust off your favorite flannel and Nirvana tee. Professor Robert Newcomb of the Department of Spanish and Portuguese has found a way to bring grunge – its music and culture – to UC Davis with his class, “Smells Like Teen Spirit: Grunge and the Seattle Sound.”
The “Experimental Games” class is a cacophony of light and sound as students move around the room playing one another’s games, sharing ideas and just having fun.
In her native India, recent Department of Design MFA graduate Nikitaa Sivaakumar saw people struggling with inadequate lighting and noxious fumes from kerosene lanterns. Her solution is MakeGlow, a lantern made from a small solar panel, rechargeable battery, LEDs and recycled cardboard.
Finding one's way around the city of Davis is getting easier thanks to a joint effort by the Department of Design and the city. What started as an environmental design class project has turned into an easy-to-understand sign system for the city’s bicycle pathways.
For 35 years, the UC Davis Department of Theatre and Dance has invited guest artists, many with international reputations, to work on productions and provide students with insights into careers in the performing arts.
In “BioDesign Theory and Practice,” students get hands-on experience with materials like kombucha culture to learn about sustainable design practices that explore alternatives to the use of plantand animal-based materials, which can take a toll on the environment through energy, water and pesticide use.
Graduates of the UC Davis English department’s creative writing program have scored back-to-back wins of the Flannery O’Connor Award for Short Fiction. Winners have a short story collection published by the University of Georgia Press.
Old blue and gold banners around the UC Davis campus are getting new life thanks to Christina Johnson (B.A., design, ‘14) of Upcycle It Now. The company owned by Johnson and her mother Liz Bordessa recently started transforming the banners into bags and wallets.
“UC Davis reached out several years ago and kept reaching out to make it work,” said Johnson, who lives and works in Long Beach. “We’ve had lots of people getting excited about it and some sales are starting.”
Elana Kuczynski Arnold (M.A., English, ‘98) is a finalist for the National Book Award in the Young Adult category. Her novel What Girls Are Made Of is one of five books shortlisted for the award.
In Spring 2017, Lucky Brand CEO Carlos Alberini and his family pledged a $300,000 gift to fund the Alberini Family Speaker Series in Design at UC Davis.