Ryan Suleiman, a doctoral student in music composition at UC Davis, has long been concerned with the environment, nature and climate change. Over the past few years, Suleiman has written works titled Drought, Skies of Smoke and Burning. In the spring he reached out to other musicians to see what they had to say about music that explores the natural environment, with an emphasis on climate change, for a series of YouTube interviews.
When UC Davis students were calling for more student and faculty diversity and culturally inclusive programs, Robert Stanley Oden was on the front lines. One of only 40 African American students on campus in 1967, he was a founder of the Black Student Union, the first such group on campus, and wrote a column for The California Aggie called “The Dark Side.”
