Campus Updates: August 24, 2026
Campus updates for community members for the August 24 edition of CampusMemo.
Academic Technology updates for fall 2026
The Academic Technology (AT) team provides information and resources to help students and instructors this fall, including new design tools for instructors in Canvas, artificial intelligence (AI) opportunities for students and creative tools in the Digital Media Studio and MakerSpace. AT continues to offer workshops, tutorials, and consultations to assist in working with technology and get help whenever you need it.
AT has resumed extended hours to support evening classes. Semester operating hours are Mondays – Thursdays, 8 a.m. – 8 p.m., and Fridays, 8 a.m. – 5 p.m. Visit AT in Library 80 or contact the team by phone at (415) 405-5555 or by email at at@sfsu.edu.
Study Abroad classroom presentations are available
Would you be willing to let the study abroad team visit your class this semester for a 5 – 10-minute presentation about study abroad?
SF State Abroad wants students to know that studying abroad is possible if they are interested and the study abroad team is here to support them.
On SFSU Study Abroad Programs, students:
- Pay the same SFSU tuition while participating in our exchange programs.
- Use their financial aid.
- Enjoy a cost of living that is often less expensive than in San Francisco.
- Earn SFSU resident credit toward their degree.
The spring 2027 application deadline is Tuesday, Sept. 15. Students can learn more at the Study Abroad Fair on Tuesday, Sept. 8, and Wednesday, Sept. 9, 11 a.m. – 2 p.m., on the Quad.
CEETL’s Writing Meetups are back this semester | Sept. 1 – Dec. 15
The Center for Equity and Excellence in Teaching and Learning (CEETL)-organized faculty writing meetups provide opportunities for faculty to check in briefly about their writing and ample time to quietly work on individual writing projects. The meetups are scheduled for every first and third Tuesday (via Zoom and in Library 242) and every second and fourth Friday, 1 – 3 p.m. (via Zoom). The first meetup is Tuesday, Sept. 1, 1 – 3 p.m., in Library 242 and via Zoom. Snacks will be provided.
Participants who have attended in the past will receive a calendar invite. Please accept to indicate your continued interest. Let CEETL know if you’d like to be removed from the list.
To be added to the calendar invite, please sign up via Qualtrics for faculty writing meetups.
In memoriam: Abdiel Oñate
Professor Emeritus of History Abdiel Oñate passed away on July 30. Born and raised in Mexico, Oñate was a specialist in Latin American history, including the Caribbean.
At SFSU, where he began teaching in 1986, he became the first director of the Latin American Area Studies program and also served as a Social Sciences/History Teaching Credential adviser.
Oñate’s Ph.D. was from El Colegio de Mexico, Universidad Autonoma de Mexico, in 1985; he had received a diploma in history from the University of East Anglia (Great Britain) in 1975. His B.A. was in Economics, from the National University of Mexico in 1971. His teaching and publications reflected his broad and well-informed perspective on local, national and international history, politics and economy. His books, “Razones de estado: estudios sobre la formación del estado mexicano moderno” (Raison d’état: Studies on the Formation of the Modern Mexican State, Plaza y Valdés Editores, 2006) and “Banqueros y hacendados. La quimera de la modernización en Mexico (Bankers and Landowners: The Chimera of Modernization in Mexico)” (Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana Press, 1992), remain key texts in the field. His articles exploring the political, historical and economic ties and parallels between modern Latin America and Western countries, particularly Spain, France and Britain, appeared in journals and anthologies published in Mexico and the U.S. Until his passing, Oñate continued to be called upon to give guest lectures about his research.
As a member of the SFSU Academic Senate, Oñate was a strong defender of the principles of shared governance. He served on and often chaired all departmental committees and also took an active part in professional associations.
“Abdiel was a superb officemate,” History Professor Trevor Getz said. “I learned a great deal by listening to and witnessing the extraordinary patience with which he treated students who were facing difficulties, whether academic or in real life. He was an absolute gem of a human being.”
Professor Emerita of History Julyana Peard recalls: “Abdiel was really appreciated by his students. As a fellow Latin Americanist, I had many students who took Abdiel’s courses, and I was always hearing how much they learned in his classes. For me personally, he was an excellent colleague, who was very helpful and kind when I first joined the department. One of the things I most enjoyed about Abdiel was his hilarious sense of humor with a totally deadpan delivery.”
One of Oñate’s former students, Griselda Jarquin Wille, is now an assistant professor. “I credit my understanding of economics, Marxism and dependency theory to him,” she said. “I always mention him to my students whenever they ask how I came to be a Latin American historian.”
Oñate’s constant curiosity led to his having deep knowledge of many fields, from environmentalism to space exploration, and he remained a voracious reader and avant-garde thinker, with a keen wit, to his last day.
In memoriam: Whitney Chadwick
Professor Emerita of Art Whitney Chadwick, an accomplished academic and influential art historian who brought centuries of women artists full credit for what they had achieved, died on Aug. 6 in Berkeley. The cause of death was Alzheimer’s disease. Her husband of 38 years, the realist painter Robert Bechtle, preceded her in death in 2020.
Chadwick’s first major publication, “Women Artists and the Surrealist Movement,” published in 1985, explored the role of women, their partners and muses in the development of the surrealist movement, a cultural transformation that ultimately brought women artists into the limelight. Frida Kahlo, photographer Dora Marr, painters Leonora Carrington and Lee Miller were among the first to be accepted for their, then startling contributions to the art world.
After investigating the roles these and other women played in the arts, that world expanded with the publication of Whitney’s second major investigation, “Women, Art and Society.” Published in 1990, it quickly became the textbook of choice for many college-level courses in an area long ignored. Books, articles, catalogue essays, reviews and anthology chapters followed in profusion. A prolific researcher and writer, Chadwick teamed with numerous art historians and feminist scholars to investigate the contributions of women artists across the globe.
As a change of pace, Chadwick also wrote, in 1998, her only novel, “Framed,” a historical crime novel, published in London by Macmillan.
Having earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Fine Art from Middlebury College in 1965, Chadwick went on to earn a Master of Art and a Ph.D. in Art History from the Pennsylvania State University in 1968 and 1975, respectively. Her doctoral dissertation, “Myth in Surrealistic Painting, 1929 – 1939: Dali, Ernst, Masson,” formed the basis for many of her subsequent explorations.
Her professional teaching career began at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1972, as a lecturer, then assistant professor (1973 – 1977) and, finally, associate professor in 1978. A stint as visiting assistant professor of Art History at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1977, spurred a permanent relocation to California. In 1978 she joined the faculty at SFSU, with short periods at Stanford University, Williams College in Massachusetts and the University of Uppsala in Sweden, sparking a lifelong interest in and association with that country.
In 2003 she was awarded an honorary degree (Doctor Honoris Causa) by the University of Gothenburg in Sweden. Research grants and fellowships followed in abundance. She was a fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University (2011 – 2012); The Institute for Advanced Study in Arts, Literature and Theology at Uppsala University in 2006; The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute at Williams College (2002); and the Mary Ingraham Bunting Institute, Radcliffe College (1993). She received research grants from The Institute for Advanced Study in Arts, Literature and Theology at Uppsala University (Sweden); Ulster University in Belfast; the National Endowment for the Humanities; and the American Council of Learned Societies, among others. She also received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Women’s Caucus for Art in 2012. Other awards included an Award of Distinction from the National Council of Arts Administrators in 1999, and a Certificate of Honor for Outstanding Service to the People of the City and County of San Francisco in 1994.
Though born in the East, Chadwick came to love California’s Bay Area with all it had to offer. She and Bechtle enjoyed equally their summers in Westport Point, Massachusetts, where she wrote and Bechtle painted in a custom-built studio on the property, and they both sailed and entertained their Westport friends. Travel was important to both, and Chadwick especially covered swaths of Europe as part of her research gathering. She and Bechtle also spent time together in Greece, on the island of Paros.
She will be remembered for her intellect, her mentorship skills and her love of and ease at entertaining. A prolific researcher, writer and teacher, Chadwick death leaves the art world bereft of one of its most ground-breaking and prolific art historians.
Chadwick is survived by her sisters, Linda (and husband William Byrn) of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Sara, of Middletown, Rhode Island, and her late husband’s children, Anne (and Kevin) Higgins of Sacramento and Max Bechtle and his wife Kara of Sonora. She also leaves four beloved grandchildren: Brendan, Aidan and Declan Higgins, and Allison Bechtle.
A celebration of Chadwick’s life will be held at a date and location to be announced.