Steven Brint, Professor of Sociology, Co-Chair
CIVIC co-chair Steven Brint is a Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Public Policy at UCR and Director of the Colleges & Universities 2000 Project. His studies of higher education have been funded for more than two decades by the National Science Foundation and four philanthropies. He is the author of five books and editor of three others and has published more than 80 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. He has also written for The American Prospect, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Los Angeles Review of Books, and The Washington Post, among other publications. His recent book, Two Cheers for Higher Education, won an honorable mention for the American Sociological Association’s Pierre Bourdieu Award, was co-recipient of the Emory Elliott Book Prize, and was named one of the top 10 books on higher education for 2019 by Forbes. He is an elected fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Sociological Research Association. Brint serves on the Advisory Council of FIRE (the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression), a leading civil liberties organization involved in the protection of academic freedom. A native of Albuquerque, NM, Steven Brint received his BA in sociology with highest honors from the University of California, Berkeley, and his Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard University.
Amir Zaki, Professor of Art, Co-Chair
CIVIC co-chair Amir Zaki, Professor in the Art Department, has been teaching at UCR since 2000. Zaki is an Egyptian-American artist based in Southern California. Zaki makes photographs of California landscapes and architecture, re-envisioning the world before him and creating a tension between the functional and the dysfunctional. Aside from his career as an artist, Zaki is deeply interested in philosophical and contemplative histories and ideologies of the world, including issues about identity, ethics, existential questions, and mind/body meditative practices. Born and raised in Beaumont, California, Zaki received his BA from UC Riverside (1996) with a major in Art and a minor in Philosophy, and MFA from UCLA (1999). He has received solo exhibitions from the MAK Center for Art and Architecture, ACME, Diane Rosenstein Gallery, and Edward Cella Gallery, all in Los Angeles; and James Harris Gallery in Seattle. Zaki is the author of four monographs, most recently a 22 year survey entitled Building + Becoming. Amir Zaki’s photographs were included in The New City: Sub/urbia in Recent Photography at the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY (2006); Golden Hour: California Photography from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Vincent Price Art Museum (2022), Something About A Tree (curated by Linda Yablonsky), Flag Art Foundation, NY (2013); and the 2006 California Biennial, Orange County Museum of Art, in Newport Beach, CA. His work is in the permanent collection of The J. Paul Getty Museum, The Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; The Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Orange County Museum of Art, and the Henry Art Gallery at University of Washington in Seattle; among others.
