Sacramento State - College of Arts & Letters

04/28/2026

PergolARTs Series!

“Erased Histories” brings light to all of the important work the history department brings to Sac State and the College of Arts and Letters. Our students are dedicated to researching and preserving history, and it was amazing to see them in their element at the pergola!

Outdoor pergolas across campus are transformed into spaces for pop-up performances, installations, demonstrations, and creative expression. Free for all, no registration required, and all outdoor spaces are ADA accessible.

* Tuesdays and Wednesdays in April from noon - 2pm
* Various pergolas and open spaces across campus

Join Us!

04/21/2026

Arts & Letters Launches our first PergolARTs Series!

In this showing, students learned Middle English and Norse Languages to perform in front of an audience at one of the Sac State Pergolas. This showcase reminds us to be bold, to be present, and to be confident. Our students are passionate, driven, and dedicated to their craft and it amazes us everyday!

Outdoor pergolas across campus are transformed into spaces for pop-up performances, installations, demonstrations, and creative expression. Free for all, no registration required, and all outdoor spaces are ADA accessible.

* ��Tuesdays and Wednesdays in April from noon - 2pm
* ��Various pergolas and open spaces across campus

Join Us!

04/17/2026

Arts & Letters Launches our first PergolARTs Series!

In this art installation, “Crossing Illegal” showcased student made ceramic birds that shared a bit about who they are and where they come from.

The sheer talent and creativity that our students hold manifests into the magic of our campus and the College of Arts and Letters!

Outdoor pergolas across campus are transformed into spaces for pop-up performances, installations, demonstrations, and creative expression. Free for all, no registration required, and all outdoor spaces are ADA accessible.

• Tuesdays and Wednesdays in April from noon - 2pm
• Various pergolas and open spaces across campus

Join Us!

04/17/2026

Arts & Letters Launches our first PergolARTs Series!

Join for a new way to experience PergolARTs celebrating student creativity with our beautiful campus as the backdrop!

Outdoor pergolas across campus are transformed into spaces for pop-up performances, installations, demonstrations, and creative expression. Free for all, no registration required, and all outdoor spaces are ADA accessible.

• Tuesdays and Wednesdays in April from noon - 2pm
• Various pergolas and open spaces across campus

We look forward to seeing you!

04/02/2026

Celebrating Historic Success from Sacramento State’s Hornet Forensics TOPSS Team

We are thrilled to share an extraordinary accomplishment from our Hornet Forensics Team, specifically the students participating through the Transforming Outcomes Project Sacramento State (TOPSS) program at Mule Creek State Prison.

This semester, these students competed in the Asynchronous Speech Championship (ASC), a national invitational tournament and the culminating event of the speech competition season.

Their participation alone marks a historic milestone:
✨ This is the first time in the history of collegiate forensics that a team of incarcerated students has competed at a national ASC tournament.
And they didn’t just show up, they excelled.
Among:
- 49 schools across the country
- 291 competitors
- 789 speeches submitted
- And a highly competitive field where divisions were collapsed (meaning novices competed directly against seasoned champions)

Sacramento State placed 27th in the national Team Sweepstakes, ahead of several long-established programs.
Even more impressively:
🏅 Two TOPSS students were selected to the National Novice Team, an honor granted to only 14 students nationwide.

Only three schools in the entire tournament had more than one student recognized, and Sacramento State was one of them.

Behind this achievement is the remarkable leadership of Dr. Christine Miller, whose dedication to inclusive, transformative education continues to open doors that once seemed unimaginable.

To our TOPSS students:
Your resilience, discipline, and brilliance have lifted the Hornet community. You remind us what access to education makes possible, and you demonstrate the transformative power of communication, creativity, and human potential.

Stingers Up! 🐝

02/27/2026

Arts and Letter in Guadeloupe! We are so proud of our students and faculty!

02/04/2026

🎨 Student Art with Statewide Impact: A College of Arts & Letters Success Story

We are proud to celebrate an outstanding achievement from the Sacramento State Art Department in the College of Arts & Letters.

Myrisa Mock, an Art student at Sacramento State, has been selected as the winner of a statewide design contest hosted by Keep California Beautiful, a nonprofit organization working in partnership with Caltrans and the Office of the Governor to promote environmental stewardship across California.

Myrisa’s winning character designs featured a California poppy, a Valencia orange, and the sun, all reimagined as volunteers picking up litter. They were created to engage and educate young audiences about the importance of keeping California clean and beautiful. Her work will soon appear in Keep California Beautiful promotional materials across the state, bringing student creativity into public spaces and civic education.

This accomplishment reflects the power of an arts education grounded in creativity, public engagement, and real-world impact. We congratulate Myrisa on this well-deserved recognition and commend the Art Department faculty for fostering opportunities that connect student work to meaningful community and statewide initiatives.

Congratulations, Myrisa!

Rachel Miller

02/03/2026

Sacramento State is joining the top-ranked multi-award winning group “Double Face” in the Caribbean for Carnival 2026!

01/27/2026

✨ Honoring Indigenous Creativity: Dominick Porras Exhibits at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. ✨

We are thrilled to celebrate the remarkable achievement of Dominick Porras, lecturer in both the Design and Art Departments at California State University-Sacramento, whose work is featured in a solo exhibition at the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C.

On View: Dominick Porras
January 9 – February 15, 2026
Stuart and Mimi Rose Rare Book and Manuscript Exhibition Hall
Folger Shakespeare Library

Professor Porras’s interdisciplinary practice foregrounds Indigenous methodologies, intertribal collaboration, archival research, and Chicano/Coahuiltecan heritage. His featured triptych, de Bry’s Slipstream, offers a powerful reimagining of Theodor de Bry’s 16th‑century colonial engravings through digital intervention and Indigenous futurist perspectives. His work interrogates the visual politics of early colonial representation while restoring Indigenous ecological and cultural knowledge systems to the forefront.

This exhibition is part of the Folger’s Contemporary Art at the Folger initiative, highlighting artist fellows whose creative work is grounded in deep research and engagement with the library’s extensive collections.

Please join us in congratulating Dominick Porras on this extraordinary and well‑deserved recognition. His work embodies the creativity, critical inquiry, and cultural leadership that define the College of Arts & Letters at Sacramento State.

Rachel Miller

07/16/2025

Congrats to COMS Alumn Christine Shelby 🤩🎉

“I’m not a journalist,” Christine Shelby said when the publisher of the Sacramento Observer told her she had received a fellowship to write one article a month. She was a digital strategist – managing social media, web and other online platforms.

But she drew on her education from Sacramento State, where she got an undergraduate degree in 2006 and a master’s in Communication Studies in 2023, for the skills and confidence she needed.

Now she’s an award-winning journalist. Shelby’s November article about a Black entrepreneur who invented a digital license plate received two first-place awards, one from the California News Publishers Association (CNPA) for technology reporting, and another from the National Newspaper Publishers Association for business reporting.

Congratulations and Stingers Up, Christine!