John Marx Blog

John Marx Blog

In December of 2019, UC Davis Provost and Executive Vice Chancellor Ralph Hexter announced that John Marx, professor and chair of the department of English and 2018-2019 ACE Fellow, will serve as Faculty Adviser to the Provost — Academic Planning, Aggie Square. Marx's academic work focuses on the role that universities play as institutional anchors for their neighborhoods. In this blog, he will share more about the collaborative efforts involved in launching new research and teaching programs at Aggie Square. 

 

John Marx smiling with hands clasped in front

Asking — and Answering — What Aggie Square Can Do For You

By John Marx

Faculty have a lot of questions about how Aggie Square is evolving. The most challenging ones come from faculty who are curious but may not see how exactly they fit into a new campus with the emerging themes of translational research, experiential learning and community engagement. 

The opportunity to work differently in some key area — whether research or teaching or service — is clearly a motivating factor for curious faculty who take me up on the invitation to explain where we are in the project’s evolution. 

John Marx posing with hands behind back

Aggie Square Puts the Focus on Talent

By John Marx

Although there are lots of ways that UC Davis makes a difference in the greater Sacramento region, probably our biggest impact derives from the talented graduates educated in our academic programs. 

Architect's rendering of Aggie Square

Two New Building Projects and the Future of Research    

By John Marx and Paul Hastings

In 2021, faculty and staff are looking ahead, planning two new UC Davis building projects that will shape the future of research at our university. Aggie Square in Sacramento and the Grand Challenges Building in Davis will be devoted to bringing faculty and students together from multiple colleges, schools, and departments to generate new knowledge, to address the most complex challenges facing our world at this time, and to educate the next generation of researchers. 

Professor John Marx

Building on Virtual Aggie Square

By John Marx

Sometime in the spring of 2020, School of Medicine Dean Allison Brashear started using the term “Virtual Aggie Square” to describe the teamwork between UC Davis faculty and staff involved in COVID-19 research. That pathbreaking, cross-causeway collaboration captured the spirit of Aggie Square, since one of the project’s fundamental goals is making it easier for all of us to work across the university’s disciplines, departments and schools. 

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