This post was updated Oct. 26 at 9:09 p.m.

Four months into her new position, Dean Celine Parreñas Shimizu is leading her school to be “socially responsible” and “aesthetically innovative.”

A distinguished scholar and award-winning filmmaker who previously worked for four years as dean of the division of arts at UC Santa Cruz, Shimizu began her current role in Westwood on July 1. Named the new dean of the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television in March, Shimizu has wasted no time setting goals and organizing programs to kick-start the school year with profound tenacity – notably through her inaugural TFT convocation Sept. 25. With a keen understanding of the importance of arts and education – as well as a soft spot for her alma mater – Shimizu’s friends, family and colleagues all agree she is perfect for the job.

“I take it very seriously to lead one of the most important cultural institutions of higher education,” Shimizu said. “I want to do right by the people who came before me.”

With a master’s degree in film directing and production from UCLA in 1996, Shimizu said she spent the first 15 years of her career as a professor at UC Santa Barbara before she relocated to San Francisco State University to be the director of the School of Cinema. Despite living in Massachusetts after her family emigrated from the Philippines when she was young, Shimizu said she was called to be in California – a dream that came to fruition when she began her academic pilgrimage studying ethnic studies at UC Berkeley. There, she said she met Viet Thanh Nguyen – a New York Times bestselling author, Pulitzer Prize winner and professor of 28 years at the University of Southern California.

Nguyen said Shimizu has always been committed to the principles that the UC system aims to represent ever since their time together as students at UC Berkeley. Sharing similar experiences with Shimizu as refugee students, Nguyen added that their undergraduate school’s commitment to diversity and students from varying backgrounds impacted their time there – a multiplicity which is now mirrored by the diverseness of the student body at today’s UCLA.

“As a dean who came out of that (UC) environment herself, she will have a lot of empathy for what the students are undergoing personally, but also as students who probably need encouragement – some of them – to assert themselves,” Nguyen said.

[Related: School of Music appoints Michael Beckerman as new dean, plans for more unity]

A prolific author recognized internationally for her scholarship on race, sexuality and transnational popular culture, Shimizu boasts an illustrious career and uniquely prosperous lineup of degrees. With articles in top journals and documentaries that garnered multiple film festival awards, UCLA has gained a top-notch leader who possesses a multitude of skills up her sleeve. Rhacel Salazar Parreñas, a sociology professor teaching gender and sexuality studies at Princeton University, said her sister succeeds at promoting diversity of experience and believes that the more diverse the perspectives are at the table, the more people can learn and gain as students.

A staunch believer in learning, Shimizu said she applied to her doctoral program in modern thought and literature at Stanford University to understand the history of spaces and grasp how to implement the practice of her master’s with theories of cinema’s role in perpetuating injustice. Parreñas said her sister – leading the school with two terminal degrees – is committed to different forms of communication and knows not to compromise the needs of any type of scholar.

“Her vision is less partial than others, and she’s able to then acknowledge and respect different forms of teaching and communication and learning,” Parreñas said. “That kind of wide-ranging vision and perspective that she brings to the table is what makes her ideal to become a dean.”

[Related: UCLA TFT alumni spotlight community at LA Shorts International Film Festival]

With plans to advance technology through partnerships, fund renovations for the Experimental Design Room on campus, foster expert-led sessions on grant-writing culture and offer community activities such as yoga, Shimizu said in her convocation speech that TFT leadership will focus on independence in voice, innovation in form and impact in society. Nguyen said he sees Shimizu cultivating her students and supporting faculty by offering them resources – a sentiment which was echoed by Parreñas, who said that Shimizu excels most at community-building and mobilizing.

The TFT dean must know how to deal with the different aspects of not only art but also the institutional issues of funding, power and politics, Nguyen said Nguyen. Prioritizing the resources at TFT and making them known to everyone through systems like the brand new newsletter, Shimizu said, are some of the many fresh interventions being installed since her commencement.

“What I hope to teach our students, or enable them to access, is the right to determining their own narrative and having a sense of self-sovereignty,” Shimizu said. “For many, institutions can be a place where their voices are suppressed – institutions like higher ed right now are so maligned – when it’s actually … the greatest place to figure out what makes you tick and what you’re obsessed with.”

Shimizu said she aims to resurface the LA Rebellion legacy and recover its inheritance and look into the newer ripples that have formed decades later. The new dean will also begin the Next Generation Speaker Series and LA Rebellion Legacy Alumni Screenings, which Shimizu said will connect Bruins across eras and reclaim the importance of the LA Rebellion.

Josslyn Luckett – an associate professor at the New York University Tisch School of the Arts and good friend of the dean – recently published her book “Toward a More Perfect Rebellion: Multiracial Media Activism Made in L.A.” about TFT in the 1970s, which Shimizu said she bought 150 copies of to give to her faculty once it hit bookshelves. Luckett said she and Shimizu interacted with notions of rebellion during their time at UC Berkeley together and added that she sees in Shimizu this cognizance of the connections between community, arts, politics and organizing today.

“You could arguably say that UCLA is responsible for the diversification of Hollywood, unlike any other school,” Shimizu said. “And we have the evidence … now with Josslyn Luckett’s book, you can trace it.”

[Related: Alumnus Aidan Vass’ composing career blooms in new recording “Cello Sonata”]

Shimizu said her second son – who died when he was eight – would now be 20 years old and likely attending university. As a grieving mother, she added it is both “awesome” to be working directly with students and “awful” to remember her son didn’t get to grow up while his friends did – two of whom now go to UCLA and visit her regularly. Through reminders such as this, Shimizu said she feels especially accountable to her students and wants them to always have opportunity and access.

Nguyen said Shimizu is always smiling and working to inspire people toward collaboration by building a supportive community, which Parreñas and Luckett attested to.

“I want to use the language of cinema to uplift and empower communities that have been hurt and harmed,” Shimizu said. “We can deploy that language – that seductive, joyful language, the pleasurable language that is cinema and theater – and use it to give other voices access … We have not yet seen the full power of cinema and theater unless everyone has access to it.”