Shannon Steen, associate professor in Theater, Dance, and Performance Studies and American Studies, has been appointed associate dean for programs and planning by the College of Letters & Science at UC Berkeley.
As associate dean, Steen will help manage, strengthen, and grow academic programs and enrichment experiences for students across L&S. She will collaborate with the L&S executive committee, deans, students, department chairs, advisors, and other key staff to review current academic engagement opportunities and develop new ways to improve student experience, potentially including proposals for curricular change in the college.
Steen's scholarship connects theater to social and political life. Her 2010 book Racial Geometries explores race and performance in the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries, primarily in the intersection of the African American and Asian American worlds. Her newer scholarship addresses the contemporary institutional life of creativity, including in the world of education. She has just completed a new monograph, entitled The Creativity Complex: Art, Tech, and the Seduction of an Idea. Steen also has an important record of accomplishment as active and versatile leader in TDPS and in the academic senate, including roles as chair of the curriculum committee, placement director, head graduate advisor, department vice-chair, and member of divisional council.
