Events

UCSC Summer Academy on Artificial Intelligence for High School Students
2026-07-06 00:00 - 2026-07-30 23:59 (America/Los_Angeles) | 3175 Bowers Avenue Santa Clara, CA 95054, 3175 Bowers Avenue, Santa Clara, CA, 95054, United States
UCSC’s Summer Academy on Artificial Intelligence is a four-week, in-person program for talented and motivated high school students who are interested in exploring artificial intelligence (AI) in a university setting. Hosted at the UCSC Silicon Valley Campus, the program offers an immersive learning experience that combines foundational AI concepts with hands-on, research-inspired work. Students learn from UCSC professors and active PhD researchers, gaining advanced problem-solving skills, research-oriented thinking, and a deeper understanding of how AI is applied in cutting-edge innovations.
Application Deadline: April 24, 2026

Engineering Teaching Community (Faculty)
2026-07-08 12:00 - 13:00, 2026-07-22 12:00 - 13:00 | Jack Baskin Engineering, Baskin Engineering 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
During the chaos of a quarter, is it hard to find time to reflect and improve as an instructor? Would you like to be a part of an inclusive, supportive group of engineering instructors who do this in community? ETC is for sharing teaching experiences, classroom ideas, research on learning, and methods that support instructors and students. All are welcome, and lunch is provided. Please reach out to Jenny Quynn with questions.

Visualizing Abolition Screening Series: Beyond Access
2026-07-08 12:00 - 17:00, 2026-07-09 12:00 - 17:00, 2026-07-11 12:00 - 17:00, 2026-07-12 12:00 - 17:00, 2026-07-15 12:00 - 17:00, 2026-07-16 12:00 - 17:00, 2026-07-18 12:00 - 17:00, 2026-07-19 12:00 - 17:00 and 4 more dates | Institute of the Arts and Sciences, 100 Panetta Ave, Santa Cruz, United States
On view in the IAS Screening Room is a selection of short films curated by Visualizing Abolition Visiting Faculty Fellow Dr. Pooja Rangan.
Prisons deny and censor the access of those trapped inside them—to information, to intimacy, to community, to meaningful work, to nourishment of all kinds, and perhaps most cruelly, to care. This program assembles a series of films, including works by filmmakers incarcerated in California as well as others without that lived experience. Together, these works confront the debilitating impacts of these restrictions and reveal how the disabling logic of the prison is extended to other institutional spaces (the hospital, the university), turning access into a scarce commodity by enclosing what should be held in common. Questioning the carceral and state-sponsored productions of disability and accessibility, the short films together reveal the courage of people working despite limitations to produce collective access for one another, described simply and beautifully by disability justice activist Leah-Lakshmi Piepzna Samarasinha as “revolutionary love without charity.”
Thanh Tran
Dying in Prison, 2022
HD Video (color, sound), 3 minutes
Courtesy of the artist
Carolyn Lazard
Pre-Existing Condition, 2019
HD video (color, sound), 6 minutes
Courtesy of the artist and Trautwein Herleth3
Anthony Alejandrez
Another Rainy Day, 2023
Phone video (color, sound), 3 minutes
Courtesy of the artist
Jordan Lord
After…After… (Access), 2018
HD Video (color, sound), 16 minutes
Courtesy of the artist
Rahsaan “New York” Thomas
Friendly Signs, 2023
Video (color, sound) 21 minutes
Courtesy of Tommy Wickerd, Empowerment Ave & System Impact Media

Spring Exhibitions at the Institute of the Arts and Sciences
2026-07-08 12:00 - 17:00, 2026-07-09 12:00 - 17:00, 2026-07-10 12:00 - 17:00, 2026-07-11 12:00 - 17:00, 2026-07-12 12:00 - 17:00, 2026-07-15 12:00 - 17:00, 2026-07-16 12:00 - 17:00, 2026-07-17 12:00 - 17:00 and 6 more dates | Institute of the Arts and Sciences, 100 Panetta Ave, Santa Cruz, United States
Visit the IAS, UCSC’s premier art galleries, for our spring exhibitions. On view April 10–August 16, 2026 are three diverse and interdisciplinary shows: Libia Posada: Everything is Going Right, the first US solo exhibition by the Colombia-based artist and medical doctor; Gina Athena Ulysse: A Redwoods Rasanblaj, a site-specific and immersive exploration of the Haitian kreyol conception of rasanblaj; and Ronaldo V. Wilson: There Are No Words, But Melodies, a mixed-media exhibition emerging at the intersections of Black poetics, performance, and visual art.
The IAS Galleries are open Wednesday-Sunday, 12 pm – 5 pm. Admission is free to the public.
Libia Posada: Everything is Going Right
Libia Posada’s first solo exhibition in the United States features installations, sculptures, and drawings meticulously constructed from surgical instruments, gauze bandages, crutches, used books, and domestic picture frames. The new and existing works in the exhibition powerfully stitch together the personal, social, and political disorders and afflictions that currently trouble the world, from the wars that resonate across the globe to the violences of aging in US prisons.
Gina Athena Ulysse: A Redwoods Rasanblaj: Origins & Disentanglements
The internationally-lauded work of humanities professor Gina Athena Ulysse is on view as a premier Faculty Spotlight Exhibition. The site-specific installation, produced in community from things collected, found, purchased and donated, centers on the Haitian concept of rasanblaj, a form of assembly and collage that transcends the formal use of materials to draw together people, spirits, and ideas.
Ronaldo V. Wilson: There Are No Words, But Melodies
Collage is both a material practice and a structural interrogation in the Faculty Spotlight Exhibition artworks by literature professor Ronaldo V. Wilson. In video, painting, and installation, layers and folds conceal and reveal, delving into the experience, both bodily and emotive, of living in times of violence.

The Dickens Universe featuring 'Bleak House'
2026-07-26 01:00 - 2026-07-27 00:59 | Humanities and Social Sciences Facility, 2 Hagar Drive, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064
The Dickens Universe is a unique cultural event that brings together scholars, teachers, students, and members of the general public for a week of stimulating discussion and festive social activity on the beautiful Santa Cruz campus of the University of California—all focused on one or two Victorian novels, usually (but not always) one by Charles Dickens. In 2026, the Dickens Universe will feature Bleak House by Charles Dickens.
Dickens’s ninth novel, published between 1852-1853, shines a light on social injustice and the devastating effects of a corrupt legal system, following the entangled lives of those caught in the never-ending Jarndyce and Jarndyce case. Told in alternating narrative voices, this rich literary experiment plays with a variety of genres from detective fiction and social realism to melodrama and satire. As characters move from city to suburb, from mansions to slums, we discover unexpected connections among classes, plots, and characters.
Now in its 46th year of operation, the Dickens Universe combines features of a scholarly conference, a festival, a book club, and a summer camp. Participants include people of all ages and walks of life—distinguished scholars, graduate students, undergraduates, retirees, young professionals, high school teachers, and anyone who loves reading and enjoys long Victorian novels.
Here are some things that make the Universe such a special experience.

The college lifestyle: participants live on campus, eat together in the student dining hall, and have time to meet and come to know each other in different ways.
Everyone is reading the same book. We all have this one important thing in common.
The activities include formal lectures, small discussion groups, films, daily Victorian teas, performances, and Victorian dancing.

The Universe offers a week of total immersion in the world of Victorian fiction with friendly, like-minded colleagues in a beautiful setting. Whether we’re returning to a Dickens novel that everyone knows and loves, or branching out into a Victorian novel by another author who might be less familiar, during the Universe we build a community out of our passion for reading, talking with one another, and bringing Victorian culture to life.

View the complete schedule
Registration options
Plenary Lecturers and Guest Scholars
