By Jonathan Morales

2024年4月10日

The values are deeply embedded into 萨克拉门托 State’s mission: Serve the community. 打破障碍。 促进股权。

Faculty across campus already live out those values every day, but this academic year the College of Arts and Letters has doubled down, recruiting and hiring five new faculty members whose backgrounds are related to the concept of “social practice.”

The so-called cluster hire speaks to many of the college’s priorities, including a commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and justice, Dean of Arts and Letters Sheree Meyer said.

“We wanted to encourage these new faculty members to create curricula and community projects that focus on working with and in the community,” Meyer said. “We also wanted social practice to be the means by which faculty collaborate with each other regardless of their specific artistic medium or practice.”

“A cluster hire provides faculty members with a ready-made affinity group of like-minded colleagues who can find support and opportunities within their cluster that helps empower them and the students they teach to enact their socially engaged practices." ——Sheree Meyer，艺术与文学学院院长

5名教员分别是美术系助理教授Rey Jeong、传播学助理教授Rodrigo Ojeda-Beck、设计系助理教授Marcy Wacker、美术系助理教授Adero Willard、戏剧系助理教授Darius Williams。 现在是他们在校园的第二个学期，他们已经找到了作为新教师的立足点，并正在探索如何将社会实践课程和活动融入到他们的课程中。

社会实践的定义可能有点模糊，但迈耶和新教员一致认为，社会实践是通过让社区参与到他们的工作中来促进公平和包容。

“A cluster hire provides faculty members with a ready-made affinity group of like-minded colleagues who can find support and opportunities within their cluster that helps empower them and the students they teach to enact their socially engaged practices,” Meyer said.

新教师往往在意识到这是一个概念之前就已经从事社会实践工作了。 然而，不管他们是如何达成共识的，他们的共同目标在他们不同的学术和艺术领域以多种方式表现出来。

对郑某来说，社会实践就是把与人打交道作为艺术的媒介。 It’s collaborative and communicative, she said, and strives to work not for the community but with the community.

“Artists have power, and they have vision,” she said, “我该如何利用我的力量，不是引导我的视野，而是鼓励人们把他们的想法想象成我的结构，就像脚手架一样？”

At last fall’s U-Nite event at the Crocker Art Museum, Jeong led a prayer circle where people of different faith traditions whispered prayers into a tape recorder. She has assigned her students to remake classic childhood stories or board games, using those students’ perspectives to challenge stereotypes and create something new.

“(Students) need to think about the impact they're creating,” Jeong said. “(I’m) not only asking my students to think about how to be an artist, but how to be a responsible citizen artist, because they're influencing other people with their work."

Ojeda-Beck takes a similar approach to his documentary filmmaking, often waiting until he’s already begun filming and interviewing locals before deciding what the story will be. That shifts the film’s perspective from that of an outsider to the community members’.

奥杰达-贝克最初采用这种非正统的风格是为了在低成本下运作，他与学生们分享了这种非传统的电影制作方式，作为他们可以在自己的职业生涯中使用的一个例子。

"I'm trying to show students that low production is possible,” he said. “Not having a lot of money presents challenges, but there's a lot of rich traditions to work from that really make that a strength. 看到自己的经历和社区的美丽和独特性，这是我经常尝试和强调的事情。”

“Artists have power, and they have vision. 我该如何利用我的力量，不是引导我的视野，而是鼓励人们把他们的想法想象成我的结构，就像脚手架一样？ ——郑雷(美术系助理教授

Wacker had worked as a graphic designer for more than two decades when she decided she wanted to teach and earned her master’s degree at UC Davis. 在她的专业和学术生涯中，她注意到设计行业，尽管多年来一直宣称致力于多元化，但仍然以白人男性为主，并以西方的价值观和观点为基础。

She has focused her teaching on diversifying the field, such as by asking students to research designs utilized by grassroots organizations such as the Black Panther party that challenge entrenched ideas of “good design.”

“If students don't see themselves in the examples you're using in the classroom, they don’t really know where they fit,” Wacker said. “You really are saying, without saying, they don't fit. I want to explore how we can teach design through a richer variety of cultural lenses and influences.”

这五位教员至少每月会面一次，分享想法，讨论潜在的合作。 他们有一些资金和一些工作空间，但郑说，他们的第一年没有具体的期望。 他们讨论的想法包括在他们之间成立一个小型读书俱乐部，或者一起记录他们的旅程，以便其他人可以复制他们的过程。 Jeong还希望举办一次社会实践会议，让其他人更好地熟悉这个概念。

此外，能够定期与志同道合的同事更密切地联系，也让我更容易适应校园生活。

“I feel very fortunate to be working with the people I'm working with,” Ojeda-Beck said. “They’ve just been very thoughtful and nice. Being new to the University, it's nice to feel like you have people around you and (to create) that sense of community within our own space.”