Shannon Stevens

Dr. Shannon Stevens, Associate Professor of Journalism in the Department of English at California State University, Stanislaus, is the adviser to the student newspaper and co-director of the new interdisciplinary Creative Media major that she co-created. A feminist rhetorician who researches media, popular culture, and policy, Dr. Stevens worked as a journalist prior to her career in academia. She has worked in reporting and editing roles at a variety of news outlets, including Bloomberg News, American City Business Journals, and the Las Vegas Sun. Most recently, she co-authored a book about pervasive misogyny and the backlash to women-strong films, scheduled for publication this year by Routledge.

Musician draws on diversity of influences as a teacher, performer and composer

By Shannon Stevens | June 10, 2021

Christian Cruz, 30, is a musician, composer, and second-generation American who lives in Los Angeles. When not teaching guitar lessons or playing gigs, Cruz, who holds two master’s degrees in the field (USC and Fresno State), finds his talents best satisfied with project-based music composition. He also looks forward to teaching this fall with Lead Guitar in Los Angeles, a non-profit that takes music education into schools with low access to the arts. He took some time to tell part of his story to Borderzine from the home base of his “Caucasian family” in Denair, a small town in California’s Central Valley. Cruz was visiting, along with his spouse and fellow musician, Erin Young, who he met in USC’s music program.