Staff Spotlight: Shantel Daniels
Get to know the people who help lead the school in this series of interviews with UCLA Arts staff members. Want to nominate a staff member for the series? Email communications@arts.ucla.edu.
Shantel Daniels is the Interim Director for the Office of Student Services for the School of the Arts and Architecture. A native of California, from a small farming town in the Central Valley, she is a first-generation alum of UCLA, with a B.A. in Art History. She has researched and presented on feminist theory in academic advising as well as on fighting burnout in academic advisors, and is passionate about helping work towards truly equitable higher education experiences for all.
What is the role of the arts—in all of their diversity—in the context of a research university?
As far as I’m concerned, the arts are integral to any university, and to the entire human experience, really. Too often, when people think of a research university, they think of the sciences: life, physical, social, all very important topics that can be life changing to people around the world. The thing is, research from those disciplines can be the most difficult for society at-large to comprehend. Explaining how viruses work, what dark matter is, the size of our universe, why our societies are structured the way they are; all that information is so specialized it’s difficult for our colleagues to spread the word of their importance in ways that are meaningful for people outside of their respective fields.
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Shantel Daniels
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That’s where the arts can come in. Graphic design that creates accessible and beautiful infographics that break down the life span of a virus and how it’s transmitted presented in ways that don’t require an understanding of microbiology. Immersive art installations that surround you in projections of the latest images captured by the Hubble telescope, while playing the music created naturally by sound waves that exist in space. A documentary film that shows an ethnographic study of a little-known society in Papua New Guinea. Art makes this research take on new life, by making it more personal. It can create opportunities for people to interact with it, and learn in new and exciting ways.
Even beyond what the arts can do in collaboration with other areas of study, is the fact that creating in general means that a person must be willing to research…the human experience. It’s about finding new and interesting ways to connect us, to inspire us, and to help us to take stock of historical moments, even personal moments, that otherwise would be too difficult to fathom. What’s more important than that?
What drives you to work at an art and architecture school?
The students. This is the easiest question to answer, hahaha. They are so inspiring, so kind, so courageous, so FUNNY. Helping them to achieve their goals as artists, as scholars, and as people, has been one of the greatest privileges of my life.
And then the cherry on top are the staff and faculty I get to work with as well. There’s a certain passion that exists within anyone who devotes themselves to a life working in the arts, I think, and it means that your day is always interesting. There’s also a built-in sense of community within the arts that’s really emphasized here in the school. It really is unlike any other work environment I’ve ever been part of.
Do you have a favorite memory or epiphany/a-ha moment from your time as a student at UCLA?
I think my biggest a-ha moment at UCLA came when I took an Art History course on Surrealism. I was an Art History major, and up until that point, most of the classes I had taken were very old school: western canon, survey courses of non-western art that lumped together huge swaths of the world, things like that. And then suddenly there was Man Ray, and Dali, and Andre Breton, and it was so much more exciting! Add to that the fact that I had a professor who worked hard to make sure that female artists were also included in the syllabus really lit a fire in me, and influenced my own research into the arts. Hearing about so many new-to-me artists that most people had never heard about and would never hear about was infuriating in the best way possible. It gave me a more critical eye for what gets prioritized in arts education, and has led to such interesting conversations with students.
Do you have a favorite artist or work of art?
So. Many. Stand out favorites would be Frida Kahlo, Claude Cahun, Yayoi Kusama, Carrie Mae Weems, and Kehinde Wiley.
What's your favorite place to visit in Los Angeles? Or on campus?
My favorite place on campus is the Sculpture Garden, so that’s another perk of working for the school. My favorite place in Los Angeles is The Last Bookstore. I really love reading and that place is like book nerd nirvana. It’s such a unique space, physically, and has such a wide variety of books and art – I literally spend hours there each time I visit.
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