We’re delighted to congratulate the following faculty and staff who are retiring from the College of Liberal Arts. We thank them for their dedication to students and to their fields, and we wish them the best.
Kirk Hallahan, Journalism and Media Communications, 21 years
Kirk Hallahan has been a faculty member at CSU since 1996, and retired in 2017. Prior to his work at CSU, Hallahan was a public relations/communications executive at a major national agency, two banks and a statewide trade association in California for 19 years. He has taught undergraduate courses in public relations, digital promotion management, social media management, as well as graduate courses in research design, public communication campaigns, public relations management/strategic communications, and managing communication systems. He was faculty advisor to PRSSA club until 2014. He was recipient of the PRSA Educator of the Year Award in 2010 and also received awards from the Institute for Public Relations (2001), the PRSA Foundation (2007), and the AEJMC Public Relations Division (2009). In 2015, he was given the Oliver P. Pennock Distinguished Service Award from Colorado State University.
Doug Murray, Sociology, 24 years
Professor Doug Murray joined the Department of Sociology in 1992 and retired at the end of 2016. As an internationally known applied research sociologist, Murray has engaged in path-breaking research, outreach and engagement in areas of International Development; the Sociology of Agriculture and Food; and Fair and Alternative Trade Studies. He co-founded the influential CSU-based Center for Fair and Alternative Trade Studies, an interdisciplinary research group that has won over $1 million dollars in grant support. Murray was an influential international development advisor, and worked for several years with the City of Fort Collins on local sustainable development programs. In addition, he helped develop Sociology’s current undergraduate and graduate teaching programs and has been a key person in building and strengthening the current nationally-ranked MA and Ph.D programs in the Sociology of Social Change. The department looks forward to continuing to work with emeritus professor Doug Murray although we recognize that discussions may be combined with fishing.
Bruce Ronda, English and the College of Liberal Arts, 26 years
Bruce Ronda is a scholar of 19th century American literature. He joined the English department in 1991 as visiting faculty, and became a full-time member in 1995. He was the department chair for English from 2001 to 2011. Before becoming chair, he created and ran the American Studies program in the department. As department chair, he made efforts to make the English department more interdisciplinary. He also oversaw the creation of many new initiatives and programs, such as joining the National Writing Project, establishing the Community Literacy Center, expanding the Center for Literary Publishing, and creating the Changing Climates program. Opportunities for non-tenured faculty to participate in the running of the department were also increased. After leaving his position as department chair, he became an associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts, the position he’ll be retiring from this year. Among the many duties he had as associate dean, he oversaw the renovation of the Eddy building.
Linny Frickman, Art and Art History and the Gregory Allicar Museum of Art, 29 years
Founding Director and Chief Curator of the CSU Gregory Allicar Museum of Art, Linny Frickman, will retire in June of this year. Frickman, now a senior lecturer in modern and contemporary art, began her career as an instructor at CSU in 1988. She served as the director of the Clara Hatton Gallery (located in the Visual Art building) for 18 years and became the founding director of CSU’s first art museum in the University Center for the Arts in 2009. In 2016, what was known as the CSU Art Museum transitioned into the renamed and greatly expanded Gregory Allicar Museum of Art. Frickman’s hard work and dedication led to this expansion, in addition to significant growth in the museum’s permanent collection. Throughout the years, Frickman organized and curated numerous exhibitions, facilitated many community-based initiatives and events, as well as founded and coordinated the Critic and Artist Residency Series at the museum. She has been honored with a number of awards including a College of Liberal Arts Excellence in Teaching Award and the Award for Distinction in Advancement.
Phil Risbeck, Art and Art History, 52 years
University Distinguished Professor Phil Risbeck retired at the end of the 2017 spring semester. After 52 years of service to CSU and the Art & Art History department in the area of graphic design, he will be greatly missed. He has contributed to the lives and careers of scores of students and has seen many become very successful. Risbeck’s creative work has never slowed. His artistry and expertise has taken him around the world to exhibit his work, participate in residencies, and serve as a juror and keynote speaker in places such as China, Bulgaria, Brazil, Columbia, Ukraine, Mexico, and Russia. Notably, he was included in a two-person retrospective in 2016 at the Denver Art Museum entitled, Performance on Paper – Posters by Phil Risbeck and John Sorbie. The posters in this exhibition are now part of the Denver Art Museum permanent collection. Risbeck also has work in the permanent collection of the CSU Morgan Library Special Collections, the Library of Congress in Washington D.C., and the Lenin Library, through the Union of Soviet Artists in Moscow, Russia. Among many contributions to CSU and his field, Risbeck was a co-founder of the Colorado International Invitational Poster Exhibition (CIIPE). Impressively, in the fall of 2018, the Art & Art History Department will host the 20th CIIPE bi-annual poster exhibition. Risbeck intends to continue his involvement with CIIPE after his retirement, and we will be very happy to see him there!
Note: Some names have been omitted per request.