Pandemic Perspectives from an Assistant Professor

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In this episode you’ll hear about: Dr. Piña’s path through higher education, the importance of mentors and coaches in achieving personal and professional success, how he found his current job, some of the concerns of first gen and of working class students, student grief, the complexity of using campus resources in a pandemic, and what he’s hopeful about.

Our guest is: Dr. Ulices Piña, an Assistant Professor of History at California State University, Long Beach. A native of Long Beach and a product of the California public school system, his teaching and research interests include Mexico, Modern Latin America, revolutions and social movements, and social activism. He is currently writing a book tentatively titled Rebellious Citizens: Democracy and the Search for Dignity in Revolutionary Mexico. The book places the roles of ordinary people in the country’s long fight for democracy, front and center, to tell the story of how they actively shaped the political process and struggled for equality and dignity in the decades following the Mexican Revolution of 1910. He also has a forthcoming article in the Journal of Social History titled “Rebellion at the Fringe: Conspiracy, Surveillance, and State-Making in 1920s Mexico.

Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, a historian of women and gender. She heard Dr. Piña’s presentation about pandemic pedagogy lessons at the recent WAWH conference, and invited him to share this on the Academic Life.

Listeners to this episode might be interested in:

• H-LatAm
• The History Teacher
• Zapata and the Mexican Revolution by John Womack
• Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo
• The TV Series: Ted Lasso
• The History Department at California State University Long Beach
• The Latino Studies Channel on NBN
• There’s a Revolution Outside, My Love: Letters from a Crisis edited by Tracy K. Smith and John Freeman
• Resources for College Students Dealing With Grief
• Resource List for First Gen Students