As members of an academic community, we strive to continually better ourselves and the world through learning and education. These books, recommended by academics and experts all around the world like Ibram X. Kendi, Director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University, may help you challenge your own internalized biases and understand the pervasiveness of racism in history that colors society to this day.
We continue to seek your stories of what this time has been like for you with the goal of staying connected as a community. Now that we have begun to receive submissions, we’d like to feature some from those in the 2020 graduating class and encourage more to submit their stories! Capture a 1-3 minute reflection of your experience during this time, and your narrative will become part of Seton Hall history.
Every year the Walsh Gallery hosts CommArts’ Annual Student Art & Design Exhibition. This year, despite the closure of the gallery due to COVID-19, we still want to honor the work of our students, especially some selections from students of the graduating class of 2020.
Jonathan Petiote (SHU 2020) Bioluminescent Jellyfish
Class: Drawing As Design
Professor Kolankowski
This project was to use Prismacolor colored pencils and create a luminescent bright colored environment in black paper. My focus was to have a setting of sea creatures such as jellyfish.Jellyfish are the types of sea life that makes colorful lights at the ocean.
Andrew Cates (SHU 2020)
Design Practicum
Professor Krus
This self-portrait series stemmed out of frustration with not being able to have a traditional graduation in May. I wanted to try and capture some of the emotion that myself and some other graduates would be feeling, and also show what a graduation would look like if it did happen right now. I hope I’ve showed some of the longing our graduating class feels for the reward of hearing your named called and walking across the stage with my current events take on the classic graduation portrait.
Claire Evans (SHU 2020) Cooped Up
Social Impact Design
Professor Lhowe
Cooped up is a project visually and interactively communicating the plight of industrially farmed chickens. The aim is to bring the audience face to face with uncomfortable truths, inspire action, and promote awareness.
Luis Barreiros (SHU 2020) Light in a Bottle
Design Practicum
Professor Krus
In this assignment I was tasked with making a design of anything I wanted while 3D modeling and render it with an animation. For this I chose to model a particle effect going into a bottle, once the light effect from the particles I was creating reached the bottle I made it so that it would “over flow” increasing the light intensity and basically “burn” the screen to end the animation.
Walsh Gallery recently added three major collections to Google Arts and Culture, the D’Argenio Coin Exhibit 1 (Early coins), the D’Argenio Coin Exhibit 2 (Roman coins), and an exhibit of Native American Basketry. Google Arts and Culture is a rapidly growing site that displays highlights from over 2,000 museums and private collections. Its app, which can be downloaded from Google Play or the Apple Store, allows the visitor to interact with the artwork through AI features like virtual tours and exhibits.
The D’Argenio Collection, which consists of 427 rare coins from ancient Greece, the Roman Republic, the Roman Empire and Byzantium was donated to the university by Ronald D’Argenio MS’76/JD’79. The collection allows us to trace the relationship of the earliest Roman coins of the Republican period to its immediate Greek predecessors. It includes coins with images of Julius Caesar, the first Roman leader to have his portrait represented on a piece of currency.
We also see his imperial successors over the next three centuries represented, including the infamous Caligula and Nero. Byzantine coins in the collection from the fourth to fourteenth centuries AD demonstrate the changes in design –including the introduction of full-faced portraits– once the capital of the Roman Empire shifted from Rome to Constantinople. The exhibit can be accessed through Google Arts and Culture Walsh Gallery’s main page and the coins can be found through searches in Google Arts and Culture’s main interface, allowing the coins from Seton Hall’s collection to be seen in the context of numismatics collections around the world.
Google Arts and Culture also displays highlights from Seton Hall’s one-time University Museum of Anthropology and Archaeology Collection, now stewarded by Walsh Gallery. This museum contained an extensive collection of Native American material culture, collected and sometimes excavated by archaeologist J. Kraft. Kraft was an expert in the Lenape tribe of New Jersey, but his collection encompassed materials from Native American peoples across the Americas. The basket exhibit shows some of the finest examples of the craft in Seton Hall’s collection.
Political Analysis Journal Surpasses 21,000 Downloads During COVID-19
By Lisa DeLuca and Marlene Da Cruz
Political Analysis Editor in Chief, senior Marlene Da Cruz, describes her experience of pulling this journal together during COVID-19
Political Analysis is a student-run journal that is managed through the Department of Political Science and Public Affairs and funded by the political science honor society, Pi Sigma Alpha (PSA). Articles from 2013-present have been downloaded over 21,600 times with over 6500 downloads in 2020 from 152 countries and 2141 institutions worldwide. The journal is published by the PSA Editorial Board in the University Libraries Institutional Repository.
Political Analysis Editor in Chief, senior Marlene Da Cruz, describes her experience of pulling this journal together during COVID-19. Da Cruz and the Pi Sigma Alpha editorial board began early preparation of the 2020 issue at the end of the 2019 fall semester. Once the spring semester began in January, emails were sent out to students and faculty within the Political Science Department for paper submissions.
Coming back to campus after spring break, everything changed. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, classes were switched to online, yet this student team was still responsible for creating the annual issue of Political Analysis. The editorial process of the journal was challenging but the editorial board worked closely through email with political science faculty members. Despite the challenge that the virus perpetuated with students moving off campus, in some cases abruptly, this year’s issue of the journal was a success. In fact, the journal issue was published earlier than expected in April, instead of May. Instead of working on campus, the editorial board was working between South Orange, Upstate New York, and Jersey City where students had relocated to.
As of April 22, Da Cruz’s article already has 47 downloads in 13 countries including China, Austria, Canada, United Kingdom and Turkey. The articles were posted and archived in Google Scholar a few weeks ago.
The statistics gathered from the journal analytics dashboard can help guide the direction of the journal, according to Da Cruz. These statistics include the country, the institution and the number of times a specific article was downloaded. This information is valuable for the future of Political Analysis because it gives the next Editorial Team the ability to have statistical metrics regarding article readership. Additionally, these statistics provides valuable knowledge that can be utilized to create a strategic plan to increase worldwide readership of Political Analysis in the future.
Da Cruz stated that acquiring paper submissions for Political Analysis has been the most challenging aspect of the journal. This is not because students do not want to submit their papers, but often times students are unaware that the opportunity to get published at the undergraduate level exists. What has helped solicit submissions from students is by advertising the journal within the Political Science Department and within the College of Arts and Sciences. Reaching out to professors, posting flyers on campus, and speaking to students individually have become successful strategies to encourage students to submit their papers to the journal.
Da Cruz is graduating with a Bachelors in Political Science in May 2020. After graduation, she plans to work and then plans to apply to law school. She is thankful to have had the opportunity to serve as both President and Executive Editor in Pi Sigma Alpha. She collaborated with her editorial board that included political science majors, Patrick Carr, also graduating in 2020 and Stephen Hoffman, who will graduate in 2021. These positions have contributed to Da Cruz’s professional and personal growth at Seton Hall. Da Cruz has learned that hard-work, cooperation, and teamwork are the pillars that contributed to a successful publication and editorial team success these past two years while she was Executive Editor.
Da Cruz and the editorial team are thankful to the faculty and staff within the Political Science Department for all their encouragement and guidance with Political Analysis. Da Cruz states that the department encompasses extraordinary professors who care about the growth and success of their students. She wants to thank her professors for their kindness, support, and advice. More specifically, she wants to give a special thank you to her advisor, Dr. Terence Teo, who has helped make this journal a success.
Dr. Terence Teo had high praise for Marlene. “Marlene is a bright, independent, and motivated student. I’m proud of the hard work she has put it to make the journal a success in her two years as Editor in Chief, especially during this time. She leaves behind a journal in outstanding shape, which showcases work that blends careful analysis with contemporary practical relevance. Students like Marlene make teaching fulfilling and worthwhile, and it’s my pleasure to have had the opportunity to know her.”
Those interested in starting an academic e-journal can email eRepository@shu.edu or contact Sebastian Derry, Assistant Dean for Public Services, University Libraries at sebastian.derry@shu.edu or 973-275-2058.
As a result of the stay at home orders implemented by the state of New Jersey, we have all been forced to work from our houses or apartments. We miss working with and seeing our colleagues and students on campus. One way for us to connect with you is through social media. Please follow us on Facebook,Instagram and Twitter so we can keep you updated about online library services and how we are making out with our new coworkers.
One of the most popular memes circulating throughout social media is people joking that pets are their new coworkers. We wanted to share some of the fun we are having with our new furry coworkers. Visit the post on our Instagram page here.
#SHU_Libraries The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted life at Seton Hall as it has for millions of others around the country and the world. In the name of saving lives by practicing social distancing, it has scattered us into our homes around the region and the country. Although we are now physically distant from one another, we remain united as Pirates through our connection to Seton Hall.
Seton Hall Commencement, 1885
To reconnect as a community, we seek your stories of what this time has been like for you. We have established a website to submit short personal narratives. We hope that sharing these stories with one another will bring us back together in a new way, through sharing our personal experiences of this moment. When we move forward, because there will be a time when we move forward, we plan to listen to these stories together as a community, reflect on what we have learned, and let them guide us into the future.
To participate, please record a 1-3 minute narrative about your experience, using any video or audio equipment available to you, and submit the file to our e-Repository. Please also submit an image that represents your narrative, which will appear next to your recording in the published archive.
Questions to guide your response:
What is your day to day life like? What would you want people in the future to know about what things are like for us now?
What has been most challenging about this time? What do you miss about your life before the pandemic? Are there specific places or things on campus that you miss?
Essential is a word we are hearing a lot right now. What does essential mean to you? Who is essential? What are we learning about what is essential?
What is COVID-19 making possible that never existed before? What good do you see coming out of this moment? How can we re-frame this moment as an opportunity?
What is it you want to remember about this time? What have you learned?
After this pandemic ends, will things go back to the way they were? What kinds of changes would you like to see? How will you contribute to rebuilding the world? What will you do differently?
Choose the one that speaks to you, or address more than one if you wish.
With thanks to the scholars and librarians who came together to create this project: Professors Angela Kariotis Kotsonis, Sharon Ince, Marta Deyrup, Lisa DeLuca, and Alan Delozier, Technical Services Archivist Sheridan Sayles and Assistant Deans Elizabeth Leonard and Sarah Ponichtera.
#SHU_Libraries Kanopy, our on-demand streaming video platform, has provided a collection of films the SHU community can watch free of charge for the next 30 days.
Kraft was an expert in the Lenape tribe of New Jersey, but his collection encompassed materials from Native American peoples across the Americas. The basket exhibit shows some of the finest examples of the craft in Seton Hall’s collection.
