Arts Community Ensures That CSTEM Feels the Love
By Brian Hiro
It’s a tough time to be a scientist.
The National Science Foundation has made drastic cuts to research funding, with hundreds of grants terminated and the proposed budget slashed by more than half. The National Institutes of Health has been hit equally as hard.
Few universities have been spared from such reductions, including Cal State San Marcos.
As the dire headlines piled up this semester, a group of faculty members in the School of Arts began conversing about what they could do to show solidarity with their science colleagues.
“The real-life impact of cutting scientific research and inquiry will reverberate for generations,” music professor Merryl Goldberg said. “We feel that being silent equates to complicity.”
Rather than marching in angry protest with bullhorns, the arts faculty opted to take a more positive, life-affirming approach. They chose love.
In March, the professors – a group led by Lucy HG Solomon, Goldberg, Judy Bauerlein and Karen Schaffman – began holding events called “Love Letters to Science” that involved exactly that: faculty, staff and students writing letters in which they expressed their admiration for scientists and the vital work they do for the world.
“The arts have always been first on the chopping block, and that vulnerability makes us sensitive to the extraordinary, arbitrary and indeed existential threat facing the sciences,” said HG Solomon, an art, media and design professor. “At the same time, some of our students shared that they did not feel that they had a positive outlet for responding to those same threats to their education.”
The meetings took place weekly, with some letter-writing sessions occurring in the Arts Building and some at The Makery in CSUSM’s library. Sometimes they intersected with other events, as when the Office of Safety, Health and Sustainability co-hosted a table outside the University Student Union on Earth Day because, as HG Solomon put it, “climate science matters.” Sometimes science faculty would stop by to express their gratitude for the effort.
Some members of the campus community wrote letters to science in general while others addressed them to specific scientists at CSUSM. Student Melanie Wollrabe, for instance, wrote to Heather Cook, a lecturer in the chemistry and biochemistry department who Wollrabe said has been a source of constant support.
“I have a lot of friends studying STEM, so it was important for me to write letters to them to let them know that their area of study is still important and appreciated,” said Wollrabe, a liberal studies major and STEAM ambassador who’s graduating this month.
“I haven’t had a lot of science classes, but the few ones that I have had, instead of feeling intimidated, the professors made me feel included and not inferior to my classmates.”
The “Love Letters to Scientists” campaign culminated on Wednesday afternoon, when arts faculty led a final writing session in The Makery. Then they took a brimming box of letters compiled over the last two months and – holding posters decorated with messages like “Science Rules,” “Science is Real!” and “Dear Scientist, Your research sustains me. Love, The Planet” – paraded across campus to the USU Ballroom, where the College of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics was holding its annual Celebration of Achievement. The worlds of art and science melded as the letters – along with buttons for CSTEM faculty, personalized according to research interests – were delivered to an emotional audience.
“I think this initiative had great meaning for our faculty, our community guests and our student awardees,” CSTEM Dean Jackie Trischman said. “What a great group of colleagues!”
Media Contact
Brian Hiro, Communications Specialist
bhiro@csusm.edu | Office: 760-750-7306