It is with great enthusiasm that I write this letter of nomination in support of Raven Moffett for the CFA Outstanding GTA award. Raven was named the School of Art Outstanding GTA after the School of Art Honors & Awards Committee voted unanimously in support of her nomination.

Raven is a graduate student in the School of Art’s Photo / Video / Imaging program and her current GPA is 4.0. I have worked closely with Raven throughout the last three years as her Professor and as her direct supervisor for her several of her Graduate Teaching Assistant positions in the First Year Experience program. Needless to say, working with her in these capacities has given me a very thorough understanding of her dedication to our students as well as the depth of her involvement in our program. In addition to the pursuit of her MFA in Studio Art, Raven has completed a Museum Studies Graduate Certificate.

My first encounter working with Raven was in the 2019 Fall Semester. She was a teaching assistant for my course, Experience (an introductory course). This is where I first witnessed her confidence and agility leading a group of students. Following that, Raven taught numerous ART100C Gaze courses in the First Year Experience (8 total) and one Digital Photography course for the Photo / Video / and Imaging program. Our teaching appointments are competitive, and Raven always received the top ranking from the appointment committee.

Raven’s identity as a “third culture, biracial and diasporic ᖹᐟᒧᐧᒣᑯ/ (Blackfoot) white queer artist” is deeply tethered to her research and scholarship—which she shares with her students— establishing a role model for many of our underrepresented students. Raven has worked hard to become a part of the broader art academic community, sharing her research with that community as well. This includes her participation in the following panel discussions:

• Raven was a panelist at an online webinar at the Turchin Center for the Visual Arts called To Remain Connected
• Raven was a panelist at the Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Conference, speaking on the panel, Indigenous Adaptation. Raven is also scheduled to present at the 2022 Southwest Popular/American Culture Association Conference
• Raven has been a participant at three Society for Photographic Education Conferences

Raven has had consistently strong Student Course Surveys that illustrate her student’s confidence in her leadership. The students not only clearly communicated that they felt respected and learned a lot about the subject, but additionally, produced high-quality portfolios of photography under Raven’s steady tutelage. The artwork produced by the students in her courses consistently illustrates a dedicated and expert teacher stewarding her students through conceptual development and technical expertise. Raven includes examples of her student work
on her website. 

Because some of our critiques occur in the hallway near my office, I have frequently been able to observe Raven teaching. She is a high-energy teacher, articulate, supportive, and keeps the class moving. She is a thoughtful teacher and an excellent gateway into the School of Art for our undergraduate freshmen.

Always a leader, Raven has been an active representative for the School of Art graduates on the Graduate Representative Council. She is also is the graduate representative on the Visiting Artist and Scholar lecture series committee. She sets an example, and this extends into her private life as a citizen, where she volunteers at Tucson Food Share.

Raven is one of our most experienced GTAs and has long been a clear leader of her cohort of Graduate Teaching Assistants. She was always quick to offer her time to our less experienced teachers—always offering her guidance and feedback on classroom issues, syllabi structure, and projects. Many of them were taken under her wing and we will miss the positive impact she has had on our program and its students.
In addition to receiving the School of Art Outstanding GTA award, Raven was awarded a Museum Studies Research Prize in 2021. She also was the recipient of the very competitive University Fellows Award in 2019.

I am proud of everything that Raven has accomplished, and I know that her successes here only mark the beginning of what will invariably be an exciting career. Her work here, in all regards, has been above and beyond. From my description above, I think that you will find it only natural that I recommend Raven Moffett for the Outstanding Graduate Teacher award. Raven has been an extremely devoted teacher for the School of Art, and she is a fantastic representative of the University. Her incoming cohort was the first class directly impacted by the pandemic, the impacts of which have carried through her entire career here. In the face of these unprecedented times, she has excelled with grace. Her determination is unflappable. If you should have any further questions regarding Ms. Moffett, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Sincerely,
Gary Setzer
Professor & Program Chair, First Year Experience School of Art

I write this letter of nomination for Xuxiang Zou for the Outstanding GTA Award and I am pleased to do so. I have known Xuxiang since she began her doctoral studies in choral conducting at UA in fall 2020. This year her graduate teaching assistantship included leadership of Treble Glee and assistance with Arizona Choir. Xuxiang is an exceptional student, a masterful conductor and an outstanding GTA. She is most worthy of this award.

In the 2020-21 academic year, Xuxiang studied remotely, from China, taking her courses and lessons in the middle of the night. Her motivation and desire to learn and grow as a choral conductor were remarkable. In her lessons we worked through a major work, with profound analysis and also focus on gesture. The most impressive aspect of Xuxiang’s work in this capacity was her ability to deeply understand and integrate each concept into her work as a conductor, and to come back the next week able to apply what she had learned to new materials. During the 2020-21 year, Xuxiang submitted an audition for the ACDA National Graduate Student Conducting Competition and she was awarded one of the four spots for this high honor. The master class was presented online and she represented herself, the choral program and the University of Arizona in excellent fashion on this national stage.

Based on her exceptional work, I awarded Xuxiang a GTA and leadership of Treble Glee for the 2021-22 academic year. At the beginning of the fall semester Xuxiang also was assigned to prepare and perform a program with Recital Choir. This is a lab ensemble and in every rehearsal, as I worked with Xuxiang, she added to the skills and abilities we had worked on the previous year. She grew exponentially through this process in her ability to internalize the score, plan effective rehearsals, really hear and appropriately respond to what was happening in rehearsals, and to adapt subsequent plans. I have never seen a student grow as much as she did in such a short time. She came into our program having masterful gestural language and she applied it with great power and beauty on the recital. The well-prepared performance jumped considerably in confidence, artfulness and expression based on her conducting, and her peers were effusive in their admiration of her gesture.

In the fall, the numbers for Treble Glee were understandably quite low. This ensemble is made up of non music majors and is open to anyone, regardless of whether they read music or have been in choir before. Xuxiang applied all the things she had learned from the previous year and all the new things she learned from her Recital Choir experience as well. In this small, inexpert group, she fostered beautiful, healthy singing; part independence, confidence, unified sound, balance, good pitch and expressive performing. The ensemble grew substantially and presented a beautifully performed program at the end of the semester. Through this process, Xuxiang also learned about how best to serve a population of students who were in choir to form bonds and to have an outlet from their other courses. She learned how to balance her own desire for them to succeed musically at a high level with their needs for fun and community. I was very pleasantly surprised by the level of performance she was able to achieve with this small group, and the amount of growth that each individual in it showed as well. They were fittingly proud of and delighted by their performance.

The program featured a good range of repertoire to help the students succeed but also grow, and to encounter music from different eras and traditions, including “classical” works like the medieval music of the Llibre Vermell, William Boyce’s Alleluia canon, and a partsong by Fanny Hensel; contemporary works featuring women’s voices including the poetry of Emily Dickinson and the music of Susan LaBarr, and works representing Black and Latin American voices and traditions as well. The concert was a collaboration with the 40-voice Arizona Women’s Chorus, and Xuxiang conducted two pieces performed by the combined choirs. She worked with the two groups on the dress rehearsal to improve and elevate their music-making, and again conducted with clear, artful and compelling gesture on the performance, inspiring the best of all the singers. Xuxiang is off to a wonderful start with her singers again in this spring semester, and I look forward to experiencing the concert at the end of the semester, this time a collaboration with Arizona Women’s Chorus and Tucson Women’s Chorus.

In addition to her work with this ensemble, Xuxiang has provided capable leadership and support in the administration of Arizona Choir this year, keeping attendance records and keeping track of communication from students – a complicated task in this particular year. During the beginning of the spring semester, when I became ill with COVID myself, I asked Xuxiang on very short notice to take over rehearsal of two new pieces for soprano and alto sectionals. Xuxiang is not one of the section leaders for the choir, but I only found out at 10 am that someone would need to take rehearsal at 2 pm that day so I asked her. The section leader gave a glowing review of Xuxiang’s work and asked that she lead again the next day. On the third day, I asked Xuxiang to rehearse both works with the full choir. Her exceptional work in her lessons and with the other two choirs made me confident that she would succeed and help the choir on track in my absence.

Xuxiang’s work as a GTA has been a vital and remarkable part of the success of the choral program. I’m so honored and grateful to have her as a student and to know her. She is positive, kind, funny, generous and supportive. She is a curious and critical thinker, very bright, disciplined and hard-working. I give her my highest and unqualified recommendation for this award.

Thank you for your consideration,
Elizabeth Schauer

We are pleased to congratulate Ryann N. Squires as the recipient of the Outstanding Senior Award for

May 2022 in the School of Art and present her as an excellent candidate for the College of Fine Arts’ Outstanding Senior Award. Ryann is the finest Art History undergraduate major the current Art History faculty has had the pleasure of teaching and mentoring in recent memory. Professor Paul Ivey affirms she has the potential to be one of the best of visual culture scholars of her generation as she leaves UA to enter an art history PhD program (with acceptance at one major program and waiting to hear from others). She is a remarkable young scholar of great intelligence, creativity, and energy, with superb analytical skills, and a drive to understand complex theoretical and historical materials inside and outside the art history discipline. In addition, Ryann is an outstanding leader among her peers and is actively engaged with the UA and Tucson communities.

Ryann is an Honors College student with a 4.0 GPA, majoring in Art History and on the Dean’s List with distinction since her first year at UA. She has demonstrated her commitment to interdisciplinarity by augmenting her major area work with two minors in English Literature and Classics and with language competency in Latin and French. She is currently writing an Honors Art History thesis on “Museums as Sites of Protest” under the direction of Professor Irene Romano. She comes to every meeting prepared with insightful comments and probing questions, having delved into the literature on various topics related to politics, social history, the history of museums, theories of institutional change, protest movements, and art as a form of protest. We anticipate that this thesis will be an important, well-researched, and beautifully written contribution, worthy of an emerging scholar in art history. In December 2021

Ryann’s paper entitled “No Justice, No Peace”: The Black Lives Matter Movement and the Repatriation of African Art and Artifacts was selected for first prize in a Museum Studies Research Paper competition hosted by the School of Art, but open to students from across the university. She presented her paper before an audience of faculty, students, museum curators, and the general public in a professional manner, confidently and articulately fielding questions. She is an excellent researcher and writer, authoring outstanding research papers in various classes, including one of the best Professor Ivey has read in the past 25 years, entitled “Abandoning Idealist Notions of Art: The U.S. AIDS Epidemic and the Art of Activism.” In an Independent Study with Professor Stacie Widdifield, Ryann designed a module for an ideal art history platform for undergraduates, entitled: Artlamatio: An Engaging Approach to Art History, showing her commitment to and interest in art history pedagogy and digital modalities for 21^st century scholarship and teaching.

Ryann has shown an exemplary commitment to social justice issues, especially LGBTQ+, women’s rights, and civil rights, displayed in nearly every research paper she has written and in her extracurricular activities.

The planned focus area of her PhD research in art history is queer studies and museum studies, as she aspires to a museum curatorial career. She is an engaged thinker and an empathetic listener, serious about the impact of visual culture on society.

In addition to her impressive scholarship, Ryann has demonstrated outstanding leadership skills and has participated as an engaged citizen of the UA community as founder and now President of the Feminist Literary Society at UA. She is an officer of the undergraduate Art History Club, is a volunteer writing tutor in the UA Think Tank, leading a team of peer tutors through weekly trainings and discussions and acting as the site supervisor for weekly shifts, and is a College of Fine Arts Ambassador, volunteering at events throughout the arts community. She is also engaged with the Tucson museum community, and has held internships in the University of Arizona Museum of Art, the Museum of Contemporary Art, and, currently, in the Tucson Museum of Art. After her Museum of Contemporary Art internship, her faculty representative wrote: “She was focused, professional, and helped create databases in support of the museum’s mission and interfaced with the public with respect and ease. I could not have been more impressed.”

We in the School of Art are equally impressed! The School of Art enthusiastically endorses Ryann N. Squires as a most worthy recipient of the College of Fine Arts’ Outstanding Senior Award for May 2022.

Sincerely,
Irene Bald Romano, Ph.D.
Professor of Art History, School of Art

The Film and Television Program in the School of Theatre, Film and Television is honored to present the Film & Television Outstanding Senior: Nika Bogorad. As a distinguished BFA student in Film and Television and a minor in Psychology, Nika excels through a perceptive intelligence, diligence, and authenticity. Faculty concur that Nika is a superior scholar, a campus leader in and outside her courses, and actively involved in impressive service activities.

Nika’s industriousness and work ethic have positioned her as a classroom leader in engaging discussions with faculty and peers. With a 4.0 GPA — Dean’s List with Highest Academic Distinction every year at the University — she is slated to graduate summa cum laude. Moreover, Nika’s scholarly accomplishments resulted in her being a 2020 Finalist for the Undergraduate Research Symposium, as well as being honored with multiple scholarships, such as the Albert Haldemann, Eirene Lamb Memorial, Lorena DeSanctis McDuff, and Wildcat Excellence.

Nika is an inspiring example of UA citizenship, enthusiastically involved in leadership roles for service activities. She is a notable member of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee, liaising between students and faculty to help craft a DEI statement for the TFTV department, as well as creating and marketing the first of its kind art salon by and for marginalized students to showcase their work. Additionally, Nika was a leader on the Executive Board for the Delta Kappa Alpha Cinematic Society, where she helped organize philanthropic events to introduce and educate other students in the diverse offering of film and television employment, including trips to Los Angeles to tour studios and meet with executives. She wore multiple hats on the Executive Board, including Programming Chair, Fundraising Chair, and Retreat Chair. Nika has also collaborated on numerous student productions in a myriad of roles, including Writer, Director, Producer, Editor, Sound Mixer, and Assistant Director.

Nika is well-regarded amongst the TFTV faculty and staff as the go-to student when a superior volunteer is needed, whether its meeting with prospective students or simply moving chairs for an event. Impressively, Nika was also selected to be a preceptor, where she further enhanced her academic career via researching clips for class screenings, providing feedback on scripts and screen studies, and compiling valuable production resources for her peers. Her unending community spirit and outstanding leadership have made her a celebrated fixture of our School.

Nika has balanced a rigorous academic schedule with active job experiences, including working as a writing and language tutor for C.A.T.S. Academics, where she aided in developing literacy skills through individual and group tutoring. She has also worked as a personal caregiver for elderly clients, helping them with daily living activities, as well as chaperoning clients to medical visits where she often serves as a translator between Russian and English. Additionally, Nika worked in the University of Arizona Bookstores as a Textbook Buying Assistant.

Laying the groundwork for a future Hollywood career, Nika also secured a prestigious internship with the celebrated management company, Luber Roklin Entertainment Company. For that internship, she was first vetted and selected by FTV faculty to be a representative of University excellence.

Impressively, Nika will be a first-generation college graduate. She was raised in poverty by a single mother who was a non-English speaking immigrant. Moreover, many of Nika’s creative projects have centered on the voices of LGBTQ people — and she hopes to bring her unique perspective to film and television, highlighting stories of those who might not otherwise have a voice.

The Film & Television faculty is extraordinarily pleased and honored to have Nika in our program. Not only is she a determined go-getter, but she also routinely demonstrates an impressive intellectual drive — a student who epitomizes the teaching ideal. Her scholarship, leadership, and citizenship make Nika a model student of distinction at the University of Arizona. Nika will not only excel wherever her career takes her, but she will also elevate any company or organization fortunate to have her.

Best,
Shane Riches
Professor of Practice, TFTV