The College of Humanities community is profoundly saddened by the loss of two of its students in a traffic collision Thursday night near the U of A campus. Sophia Akimi Troetel, a double major in Spanish and Psychology, and Josiah Patrick Santos, who was majoring in Theater Arts with a minor in Japanese, died at the scene, while a third student, Katya Castillo-Mendoza, died later from her injuries. They were all incredibly engaged and beloved members of the campus community. 

Everyone in the College of Humanities sends condolences and deepest sympathies to Sophia’s, Josiah’s, and Katya’s families, friends and classmates during this extraordinarily difficult time. 

“Sophia and Josiah were at the Dean’s List reception — arm in arm, smiles wide, glowing with pride and love. Her Dean’s List honor was more than an achievement—it was a reflection of her brilliance, her effort, her heart. Sophia treats every soul with respect, compassion, and care. To know her is to be changed by her,” said advisor Rae LaBar Palmer. 

Advisor Vanessa Valenzuela said Sophia was “a sweetheart and full of light. She had a way of brightening every room she entered with her kindness, laughter, and warmth.”

A memorial to Sophia has been added to the communal ofrenda for Día de los Muertos hosted by the Department of Spanish and Portuguese in the hallway outside of Modern Languages Room 545. 

Josiah is remembered by instructor Daiki Suematsu as “a warm-hearted, respectful, and hardworking student who always brought a bright smile to class. His gentle smile and positive presence encouraged everyone around him. He will be remembered with deep respect and affection by everyone in our class.”

“Although my time with Josiah was short since meeting him this summer, it was truly an honor to have been his teacher. I will always remember how his smile, humor, and creativity brought warmth and joy to everyone around him. He will be deeply missed and fondly remembered by all of us,” said Atsuko Uemura, another instructor. 

If you or others you know need support, please connect with Campus Health's Counseling & Psych Services (CAPS). For guidance on how to address this tragedy in your classes and other spaces, resources are available on the CAPS website. Please do not hesitate to reach out for help or to encourage others to do so.  

Dr. Andres D. Onate, who received his B.A., M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Arizona and went on to become a foreign service officer, professor and department head, died in November. 

Onate published his first book right after completing his dissertation and subsequently he became an assistant professor and later department head of Oriental Studies from 1974-1978, said Chia-lin Pao Tao, Professor Emerita in the Department of East Asian Studies, who first met Onate in 1976 when she arrived at the U of A from Taiwan. 

“Not only was he a diligent scholar, but also an inspiring teacher. Even today we could find students now in their 60s reflecting how great a teacher he was in those years,” she said. 

Onate secured federal funding from the then U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare to support programs in the Department of Oriental Studies, which later became the Department of East Asian Studies. He and Tim Light were instrumental in securing the external and institutional support in establishing the East Asian Center at the U of A in 1970s. 

Onate later left the university after accepting an offer from the U.S. Department of State. When Onate was assigned to be the Culture Attache in the American Embassy in Beijing, he continued to do his best to assist U of A faculty and students. 

In 1979, he wrote the book Chairman Mao and the Chinese Communist Party, published by Nelson-Hall, which analyzed the evolution of the Chinese Communist Party under Mao Zedong’s leadership. 

“When a faculty friend encountered difficulty in China, it was Andy who provided him with the best advice. When an engineering student, now a great scholar in the energy field, failed to get a visa to study here it was Andy who helped him secure the F-1 Visa,” she said. 

At the State Department, Onate wore many different hats, even serving in the White House with the National Security Council during President Ronald Reagan’s term, said his wife, Annie Reed. 

After retiring from the State Department in 2015, Onate led the U of A Study in China Program headquartered in Nanjing and served as an adjunct professor in the Department of East Asian Studies. 

“He was dedicated in sharing his knowledge with students who were interested in Chinese political theories, Chinese history, U.S.-China international relations or classical Confucianism. He was so proud of being a U of A professor,” she said. 

The Department of East Asian Studies, in collaboration with the Center for East Asian Studies, celebrated its 7^th annual East Asian Language and Culture Festival on Wednesday, February 18, 2026. 

As the department’s signature event of the year, the festival highlighted cultural traditions from the Chinese, Japanese, and Korean language programs. Students participated in activities such as anime character cosplay, Chinese calligraphy, and traditional Korean games, including Gonggi, a popular children’s game involving five small pebbles or plastic stones. These hands-on experiences provided students with opportunities to connect with faculty, graduate students, and peers across the department.

The festival also featured an exciting lineup of performances by guest groups and student organizations. Highlights included the Sakura Tea Circle's calligraphy and Japanese tea ceremony demonstration; the Purple Bamboo Ensemble's vibrant traditional Chinese music; the Yosakoi club's energetic Japanese dance performance and engagement with the crowd; the VSA Lion Dance club with their masterful lion dance performance, performed in tandem with the Chinese Language Program's red ribbon dance performance; and Heart 'n' Seoul's wonderful cover performance of the K-pop girl group NMixx's latest hit song, Blue Valentine.

Leading up to the festival, the department held a social media photo contest where students submitted pictures of their time abroad in East Asia for a chance to win prizes. The following students were selected as winners of the photo contest:

1^st place: Bianca Garcia, Buddha's Birthday

2^nd place: Colin Koprowski, The Oriental Pearl Tower

See highlights of the event here!

The Department of East Asian Studies is pleased to congratulate Dr. Scott Gregory on his selection to the Community of Practice (CoP) for Academic Success Goals, a university-wide initiative supporting the implementation of the University of Arizona’s Academic Success Goals (ASGs).

The ASGs provide a framework for advancing the university’s academic mission—supporting student success, driving future-shaping research, and strengthening community engagement. Developed by Provost Prelock and campus leaders, the goals reflect insights gathered from faculty, staff, students, alumni, tribal partners, and community stakeholders.

The CoP brings together faculty and staff from across campus to help further these goals. As a CoP member, Dr. Gregory will help serve as a campuswide resource by providing informed feedback, identifying promising practices, and strengthening connections across colleges and departments. Participants may also contribute to a forthcoming white paper documenting lessons learned throughout the process.
 

What should we eat? As basic nourishment, food is part of daily life everywhere. But food is also inextricably linked to culture and as such, the questions of eating right quickly become complex. 

In search of a broader understanding of food and culinary cultures, Joshua Schlachet, faculty member in the Department of East Asian Studies, developed a new project that expands on more than a decade of research into the history of Japanese food culture to create a global framework for examining food and culture. 

“This project will try to recenter the conversation on global healthy eating on humanistic terms,” Schlachet said. “Questions of what to eat and why require humanistic answers.” 

The 2025-26 recipient of the Dorrance Dean’s Award for Research & Entrepreneurialism, Schlachet is awarded $20,000 for his project, “Eating Right Everywhere: Towards a Unified Program for Culinary Humanities.”

Part of the Fearless Inquiries Project, the Dorrance Dean’s Award for Research & Entrepreneurialism recognizes faculty and staff in the College of Humanities whose work is groundbreaking, and that dramatically demonstrates new ways of thinking in, through, and with the humanities. The future-focused DARE Program encourages research-oriented initiatives that are fantastic yet achievable, and that build on past failures and successes to imagine new approaches to improving our increasingly galactically aware planet.

The Eating Right Everywhere Initiative unites cutting-edge research in health humanities and cultural studies with perspectives from nutritionists, industry professionals, and community stakeholders to reimagine healthful consumption in a global, humanistic framework. The project integrates public humanities scholarship with curricular development and global partnerships in a bold, sustainable, evidence-based initiative.

Schlachet, a historian of early modern and modern Japan, specializes in the cultural history of food and nourishment, and teaches the popular course “The Culture of Food and Health in Japan.” His first book, Nourishing Life: Cultures of Food and Health in Early Modern Japan, will be published in April by the University of Hawai'i Press. 

But Schlachet has long sought to build a bridge from his own work toward a holistic and multicultural theory of food and health. This first-of-its-kind project conceptualizes a global approach, rooted in particular places or times, but putting those specifics into conversation with each other to consider the cultural implications of food in the broadest sense. 

The project will combine academic voices from different global regions, but also diasporic and indigenous communities, along with nutritionists, dieticians, chefs, restauranteurs and other industry professionals. Tucson, recognized as the nation’s first UNESCO City of Gastronomy in large part because of its culinary heritage, is a fitting location to launch not only the project, but other cutting-edge approaches to culinary humanities, Schlachet said. 

The project has three pillars: Academic, which will include a research symposium on campus next year, with participants contributing to an edited volume; Programmatic, which will establish a cluster of culinary humanities faculty and develop new undergraduate courses; and Collaborative, centered on community engagement events on eating right, indigenous foodways and sustainable agriculture, and talks or seminars showcasing the work of culinary humanities faculty. 

Schlachet said he often thinks of the famous quote, “First we eat, then we do everything else,” attributed to food writer M.F.K. Fisher. And food is a fundamental precursor to everything else we do, but from a cultural perspective, it’s so much more. 

“This is a great place to develop collaborations with food studies in a way that will recenter cultural studies approaches to human experience and food as both deeply personal and global,” he said.