Archives: Articles

Should I Stay or Should I Go? How people make decisions about disasters

When a disaster threatens, how do people decide whether to stay or to evacuate? To rebuild or relocate? How to restore their lives? Prof. Kate Browne’s work with survivors of Hurricane Harvey explores the decisions people make using a novel “assemblage” technique.

Connected by Water: Semester at Sea illuminates our cross-cultural connections

Eleanor Moseman, associate professor of art history, studies the role women artists play as cultural producers. Her experience teaching on Semester at Sea brought a global comparative element to her courses Intro to Visual Art and Women in Art History, encouraging students to compare art in Spain, Japan, and Ghana.

Lenses of the Liberal Arts: How we identify, analyze, and understand our world

How we understand water – its flow, its place and purpose, how it forms our identities, how it’s used and routed, how it destroys – and our relationship to it provides us insight into politics, economics, art, ourselves, and life itself. In this issue, we apply the lenses of the liberal arts to this most important resource.

Spring 2019

A liberal arts lens: technology’s role in society past, present, and future 

We’re aware of the role technology plays in shaping our individual lives, but how does technology affect and influence our society and our future? The specific skills and tools unique to the liberal arts can provide understanding as well as a way to navigate the ways technology does (or doesn’t) advance the human experience.

Winter 2019/Spring 2020

Lenses of the Liberal Arts: Place and Space

We all inhabit spaces, whether regularly (our homes) or infrequently (a certain coffee shop), but those spaces become places when we attach meaning to them, when we build experiences and memories through them, and when we understand that what we know is based on those places.

Winter 2020

Navigating the Complex Terrain of Life

Health isn’t solely the purview of hard science. Politics, economics, rhetoric, art, and history all provide essential perspectives on what it means to be healthy. This issue gives a liberal arts perspective on health.

Spring 2021

Letter from the Dean: Silver Linings

Could it be that a silver-lining among the dark clouds of COVID is our rediscovery of how much we depend on, rely on, and relish time with each other? Based on our experiences here in Fort Collins, I’d say that this is true.

Winter 2021

Letter from the Dean: Invisible Lines

A border can be so many different things and have so many different implications once it is drawn. Borders define culture, opportunity, and identity. Some borders are visible and tangible while others are conceptual and symbolic.

Spring 2022

CLA Graduate Students: Thinkers, Makers, and Leaders of Tomorrow

Graduate students provide teaching, research, creative artistry, and other support to the College of Liberal Arts and to CSU.

Winter 2022

Letter from the Dean: Connecting Knowledge with Career Experiences

Internships are one way that we teach our students to both think and do. As the 21st century progresses, both forms of knowledge are as important as ever, both to individuals and to society. 

Spring 2023

Letter from the Dean: Perception and the Liberal Arts

The intersection of perception – the process by which we perceive, interpret and make sense of the world around us – and the liberal arts offers a rich terrain for exploration and analysis, as both seek to understand the human condition and our place in the world.

Winter 2023

Letter from the Dean: Voice

This issue’s theme of voice elevates the voices we may not hear so that collectively we gain broader awareness of the world around us.

Winter 2024/Spring 2025

Letter from the Dean: Winter 2024/Spring 2025

Meet our new dean Kjerstin Thorson, read her reflections from her first semester at CSU, and get an update on the Clark project.

Spring 2019

This Content Is Not Available in Your Country (Yet)

Getting locked out can happen not just from your car or your home. Getting locked out can happen online when you’re not able to view certain films or media. Geoblocking, or regional lockout, is a way that media distribution companies protect their films. While we may think that the internet and other technologies have created a global village, media distribution practices and other uses of technology have prevented that global interconnection.

Winter 2019/Spring 2020

Eddy Hall and the Clark Building: from the 1960s to the present, and beyond

What would CSU be without the workhorse of Eddy Hall and massive edifice of the Clark building? Former president Bill Morgan guided the development of the modern campus by focusing on a library and the buildings of the liberal arts starting in 1963. These buildings, which sit in the heart of campus, have undergone some renovations since then.

Winter 2020

Mapping People and the Environment

Students in the course Geography of Global Health had a unique opportunity to study the global health lesson of the COVID-19 pandemic as it unfolded across the world in Spring 2020. Learning about inequalities, vulnerabilities, and human-environment relations that shape the disease dynamics, outbreaks, and incidence taught students to investigate the social and systemic interactions of the virus. 

Spring 2021

College of Liberal Arts Spring 2021 News

Read the latest news in the College of Liberal Arts, including faculty and staff awards, alumni stories, a giving update, research and scholarship stories, and retirement announcements.

Winter 2021

Navigating borders: Could water be a bridge between U.S. and Mexico?

Because both the Rio Grande and Colorado rivers’ headwaters begin in the U.S. and flow across the border, both sides depend on the other for the water. Since the 1990s, getting enough of that water has been a problem compounded by a booming population and climate change. The common problem has forced the two countries to find common ground, says Stephen Mumme. 

Spring 2022

College of Liberal Arts Spring 2022 News

Read the latest news in the College of Liberal Arts, including faculty and staff awards, alumni stories, a Clark renovation update, research and scholarship stories, and retirement announcements.

Winter 2022

College of Liberal Arts Winter 2022 News

Read the latest news in the College of Liberal Arts, including alumni stories, research and scholarship stories, and retirement announcements.

Spring 2023

College of Liberal Arts Spring 2023 News

Read the latest news in the College of Liberal Arts, including alumni stories, research and scholarship stories, and retirement announcements.

Winter 2023

College of Liberal Arts Winter 2023 News

An update on the Clark Revitalization, faculty achievements, alumni spotlights, and other recent news from the College of Liberal Arts.

Winter 2024/Spring 2025

College of Liberal Arts Winter 2024/Spring 2025 News

An update on the latest research, faculty achievements, alumni spotlights, and other recent news from the College of Liberal Arts.

Spring 2019

Recognizing and reporting signs of terrorism can help prevent attacks

Technology has played a large role in the growth of terrorism through recruitment of terrorists worldwide or through cyberattacks on critical infrastructure. Jordan Clark (’11) trains people to recognize warning signs of possible terrorist or criminal acts on social media and in other settings through the Community Awareness Program at the CELL in Denver, Colo.

Winter 2019/Spring 2020

The visual arts evolution at CSU

The evolution of Colorado State University’s Art and Art History department is tied to the space it is housed in. At first, art classes were held in Old Main and all across campus. But since 1974, the Visual Arts building has housed all disciplines from art history to printmaking to electronic art. The painted cinderblock functions as a blank canvas for students, faculty, and staff to create art and is a place to work, learn, create, collaborate, and grow.

Winter 2020

The Health, Strength, and Vitality of a Democracy

Can a democracy be healthy or unhealthy? Political science professors weigh in on how democracies are created and the work required to maintain them. 

Spring 2021

Fascinating and full of enthusiasm: Alumna and husband give $1M in honor of emeritus English professor

Linda Randall (’68) and her husband, Gerald Hazelbauer, both professors emeriti of biochemistry at the University of Missouri, have given a $1M bequest and annual cash support to the English department via the Marty Bucco Award for Creative Teaching & Scholarship fund.

Winter 2021

Shifting Boundaries in the Frontier Zones of South China and Southeast Asia

How do borders get defined, and who defines them?   As recently as the 1960s, China’s Yunnan province has been a transnational crossroads; in one case in Ruili County a village was sliced right in half with one part in China and the other in Myanmar. Eli Alberts explores a unified nation composed of 55 ethnic minorities, specifically the Yao people and how they have been identified and grouped since the 12th century. 

Spring 2022

Encouraging Creative Writers: Former faculty support graduate students in the English department

Several former faculty in the creative writing program at CSU are investing in the next generation of creative writers by funding fellowships that support those students who do not have a GTA position. 

Winter 2022

Alumna creates scholarship for student facilitators in public deliberation

When Linda Cates – a two-time alumna and long-time donor – learned about the Center for Public Deliberation in 2014 she immediately wanted to support students who were learning deliberative dialogue skills – much-needed skills in today’s society. 

Spring 2023

Where the Digital and Physical Collide

Cy Tornatzky uses electronic art and virtual reality to explore artistic expression and to train future veterinarians in anesthesiology basics using VetVR.

Winter 2023

Stewarding Art, Creating Dialog

CSU students in ‘Arapaho & Cheyenne Art and Historyʼ used anthropology, museum studies, history, and ethnic studies to provide a more holistic view of Indigenous arts.

Winter 2024/Spring 2025

Hollywood Ending: Anthropology alum works at new Lucas Museum

Anthropology alum Jerry Smith (’13) catalogues the props and artwork of LucasFilm storytelling: that’s right, Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and more.

Winter 2018

Unusual Spanish connection brings together the humanities and sciences

A mutual friend, a beer, and a river — all in Spain, 5,000 miles from Colorado — have brought together two CSU faculty members from very different fields, as well as a couple of their students. Jonathan Carlyon, who teaches Spanish language, literature, and culture, and Steve Fassnacht, who teaches watershed science, have come together to provide a comprehensive look at the history and environment of the Camino de Santiago in Spain.

Spring 2019

Artificial Intelligence, the Future of Work, and Inequality

One of the most spectacular facts of the last two centuries of economic history is the exponential growth in GDP per capita in most of the world. This economic progress, unprecedented in human history, would be impossible without major breakthroughs in technology. Many believe we are on the verge of a new technological revolution that will see Artificial Intelligence (AI) automating a majority of tasks that are currently performed by humans. Should we see AI as liberating or as a destructive force?

Winter 2019/Spring 2020

The Liberating Arts: Studying leadership, civic engagement, creativity, and innovation at CSU

Chancellor Emeritus Joe Blake has established the Blake Leadership Scholars Program in the College of Liberal Arts to bring the brightest, most engaged minds to campus to learn with and from our expert faculty.

Winter 2020

Understanding the Invisible: Air Quality and Health

A citizen-science project aims to see if the act of measuring air quality influences how we understand and think about the air from a day-to-day standpoint. Journalism professors and students are working with air quality scientists to incorporate the social sciences—or the human element—in to their investigation.   

Spring 2021

Together, we protect and discover

In the Department of Anthropology and Geography, together, we imagine, solve, protect, discover, and understand. From youth outreach to ethnography, ecological forecasting to excavation, students and faculty share what it means to be human in the past and in the present.

Winter 2021

Crossing National Borders to Bolster Democratic Engagement through Film and Media

Professors Hye Seung Chung and Scott Diffrient are spending time in South Korea exploring film and its use in government, human rights, and policy as Fulbright Scholars. Their goal is to bolster understanding of and appreciation for democratic principles such as free speech and human rights by critically engaging historical and contemporary Korean films. 

Spring 2022

Professional master’s programs empower grad students to work while they earn their degree

Students in the College of Liberal Arts’ professional master’s programs – Public Policy and Administration, Sport Management, and Arts Management – are using the flexibility of their programs to gain internship and work experience while they complete their degrees.  

Winter 2022

Collections Management – Learning the skills to package and conserve works of art

Michelle Malenfant learns skills in collections management through her summer internship with the Gregory Allicar Museum of Art that she can apply to her future career at an art gallery. 

Spring 2023

Seeing the Whole Person: How Using Virtual Reality to Learn Spanish Better Meets the Needs of Spanish-Speaking Populations

How do we offer students more real-life experiences to try their language skills? By using virtual reality to put them into linguistic and cultural scenarios.  

Winter 2023

Advocating for a human-centered approach to teaching

MFA alum Caleb Gonzalez is a PhD candidate whose research about first-year writing programs at Hispanic-Serving Institutions got him an invitation to VP Harris’s home.

Winter 2024/Spring 2025

Pulling the Pieces Together

Curiosity and adaptability are cornerstones of alumnus, tattoo artist, and advocate Cei Lambert’s career.

Winter 2018

Sociologists ensure water equity flows near and far

Water equity is one of the 21st century’s key environmental justice issues. Sociologists work directly with water stakeholders, including farmers, engineers, urban developers, conservationists, lawmakers, and more to bridge communication gaps and ensure that legal, economic and social barriers are considered when policies and collaborative efforts are designed and implemented.

Spring 2019

Understanding identity in online worlds

What is the difference between ‘real life’ and ‘virtual life’? How do we construct identity? How do we create social norms? For many years, experts have studied how social norms are created, and with the advent of the internet and online gaming, researchers are now exploring the way people interact with, use, and respond to technology as they perform and craft those identities.

Winter 2019/Spring 2020

Cannibalism, Ritual, or both: The Neanderthal debate continues at Krapina Cave

A cave site in hilly, northern Croatia may offer clues about the rituals and sacred spaces of the Neanderthals, an Ice Age human population. Anthropology researchers Mica Glantz, Michael Pante, and Connie Fellman are working to determine whether ritual, survival – or a serving of both – account for one of the world’s largest collection of Neandertal remains. 

Winter 2020

Lead exposure study shows how economics leads to understanding health at another level

Chris Keyes, Ph.D. candidate, has discovered not just a correlation, but a causal relationship, between a region’s level of lead and the degree to which the people who grew up there suffered adverse health and cognitive effects from elevated levels of lead in their blood. 

Spring 2021

Together, we explore and create

In the Department of Art and Art History, together, we discover, imagine, engage, solve and express. We make, teach, and interact with art that helps us explore and challenge our world.

Winter 2021

Navigating Border Economies

The border cities of El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico – both big industrial hubs – exist specifically because the border exists, characterized by a tension that fuels economic activity. Professor Anita Pena and PhD student Adam Walke explore the complexities of interconnected economies and the economics of immigration, which is inevitably about people. 

Spring 2022

Heading off vaccine hesitancy

CSU Professor Emeritus Kate Browne recruited anthropology graduate students Joshua Bauer and Shadi Azadegan (M.A. ’21) for a FEMA-funded project focused on reducing barriers and misperceptions surrounding COVID vaccines in marginalized communities.

Winter 2022

Clinical skills and client setting: Internships launch careers in music therapy

Using guitar, piano, and voice talents, Sydney Steffen observed, co-treated, and led sessions with children and adults with varying intellectual and developmental disabilities for her music therapy internship. 

Spring 2023

CSU economist wants to change how you see economics and the people who study it

Alex Bernasek wants to change the perception of economics from a science of numbers to a science of people. She studies gender and economics as it relates to inequality, such as the wage gap and the motherhood penalty, and works to bring more women to the fore in the discipline. 

Winter 2023

Creating a common narrative for a color-blind democracy

CSU professor Andre Archie advocates a color-blind approach to race relations, emphasizing individual character, family, and economic class for a shared American identity.

Winter 2024/Spring 2025

On the Road to Becoming a U.S. Foreign Service Officer

Veteran Justin Frigault (’23) secures a prestigious Rangel Fellowship on his journey to become a U.S. Foreign Service Officer.

Winter 2018

Water Wise: working across disciplines to solve problems of scarcity and contamination

From scarcity and drought, to equitable distribution across a growing population, to contamination from mining and other extractive industries, water in Colorado is the nexus for interdisciplinary research that fulfills CSU’s land grant mission.

Spring 2019

Using Geography to Explore Land Policy and Management

Geographers use a variety of technologies to investigate human-environment interactions: remote sensing data, satellite imagery, aerial photographs, lidar, GIS, and fieldwork. But they also engage collaboratively with communities to understand the impact of land-use and land-cover changes, all of which can assist with land policy and management decisions.

Winter 2019/Spring 2020

In Poems: Claiming a culture

In her thesis and poetry debut, Abigail Chabitnoy explores assimilation, acculturation, and a disconnected past with her Alaskan Aleut heritage. This work seeks to redefine history through family, Aleut culture and story to address questions of the relationship of culture, place, and the individual.

Winter 2020

A Spotlight on the Mental Health Struggles of Students of Color at CSU

The pandemic has impacted everyone, but students of color experience particular stresses that negatively affect their mental health. A variety of units on campus – B/AACC, the Health Network, and the Ethnic Studies dept are providing resources, support, and education to help students navigate this difficult time. 

Spring 2021

Together, we imagine and engage

In the Department of Communication Studies, together, we imagine, adapt, engage, and lead. From the ACT Human Rights Film Festival to the Center for Public Deliberation, we engage with the personal and the structural to understand one another better. From student recruitment to student success, we create opportunities for first-generation students to find a place and build their impact. 

Winter 2021

Clay is a Border of Nature, Time, and Space

Sanam Emami and students have been digging in the dirt along the Poudre River, exploring the possibilities of local clay. Local clays differ from commercialized, highly processed clays that are sourced from manufacturers. Using local clay to make functional objects ties its utility to place and provides a richer understanding of the connection between humans, place, and Earth.  

Spring 2022

Liminal Spaces: Nostalgia and the Borderland in Vicente Delgado’s prints

Vicente Delgado is a second year Master of Fine Art student studying printmaking. Inspired by his upbringing blending American and Mexican culture, Delgado’s work explores themes of childhood, nostalgia, consumerism, the borderland, and immigration.

Winter 2022

Making sense of messy data sets to help Routt County economics

Joanna Mosley participates in the Economics undergraduate research internship program with faculty mentor Stephan Weiler to add information about small business in Steamboat Springs to an economic dashboard for rural Colorado counties. 

Spring 2023

Filming Blind: CSU alumna pursues her passion after losing her sight

Steve Weiss documents alumna Taylor Aguilar’s journey in filmmaking after she becomes blind, helping to break down barriers about disability in film. 

Winter 2023

Voice and Sustainability

Ed and Jo Barbier examine what democratic societies can do to give a greater “voice” to underrepresented groups and safeguard the well-being of people and the planet.

Winter 2024/Spring 2025

A Life of Service: US diplomat Hannah Fowler credits philosophy for directing her path

Two philosophy degrees and a passion for positive change leads Hannah Fowler (’11) to the U.S. State Department.

Winter 2018

Working toward water resource sustainability

Jake Adler, political science graduate, is at a fellowship with the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education at the EPA’s Office of Water working on issues of resource recovery, water monitoring, innovation, and reuse. Adler’s team’s research and work focuses on the whole water cycle and follows the One Water concept, thinking more broadly about the entire water cycle, in a collaborative manner, to work toward water resource sustainability.

Spring 2019

Toward a New Economy: Cryptocurrency and International Development

Bitcoin, the most popular cryptocurrency, has been touted as an amazing solution for those without easy access to a traditional bank. While it certainly opens up opportunities for people in developing nations who otherwise have to rely on third parties to help them receive and transfer money, it is not a cure-all. Plus, there are environmental implications to running all of the servers needed to mine Bitcoin. So, are cryptocurrencies worth it?

Winter 2019/Spring 2020

The Rhetoric of (Re)development

With the redevelopment of the National Western Center in Denver came the opportunity to research issues of urban growth, rural constriction, and the forces that make, break, and re-create communities. An undergraduate research academy explores these issues by exploring the concept of place and space, diversity, power, and community at I-70 and the Elyria and Swansea neighborhood in Denver.

Winter 2020

Community Guide Project amplifies housing’s impact on health for Fort Collins residents

How can a city encourage participation in a critical topic such as sustainable, affordable housing? Call on a variety of agencies and the Center for Public Deliberation to solicit people from a wide spectrum and teach them how to engage in productive community conversation. The result is a successful first step toward meeting people’s physical and mental health needs related to housing. 

Spring 2021

Together, we investigate and learn

In the Department of Economics, together, we investigate, imagine, lead, learn, and solve. From innovative teaching approaches to increased gender representation, the value of charismatic wildlife to a green economic recovery, students and faculty are exploring issues of inequality and sustainability in a variety of ways.  

Winter 2021

Archeo-phonics: Music, Memory, & Preserving What We’ve Lost

Part poem, part sound-art, part architectural experiment, part foray into literary theory – The Aylesworth Suite, a collection of three pieces of music, each seeking to preserve not simply the memory but the sonic imprint of the now destroyed Aylesworth Hall, is a work that unexpectedly always adds up to more than the sum of its parts. 

Spring 2022

With a new Ph.D., three reasons to celebrate

After the program’s launch in 2017, the first three graduates of the Ph.D. in Communication earned their doctorates in 2021. The entire cohort, including two students still working on their dissertations, accepted competitive job offers inside and outside academia— everywhere from liberal arts colleges to the City of Fort Collins. 

Winter 2022

BBB Ethics Scholars bring philosophical analysis to the corporate world

Recent alumni Walker Urban and Molly Moxness applied philosophy to business when they were Ethics Scholars interns for the Better Business Bureau in northern Colorado, helping local businesses with their application for the Torch Awards, and proving that philosophy has very tangible real-world applications. 

Spring 2023

Coming Together to Build Tools of Resistance: New Undergraduate Courses Expand Perceptions of Protest

Protest can occur in many forms. Recent students in ethnic studies and women’s and gender studies are finding alternative ways to protest: through satire and irony, and through creative and cultural production. 

Winter 2023

Using the stage to engage societal challenges and democracy

CSU Theatre explores democracy with productions that address community building, fighting injustice, representation, and humor to engage with societal challenges.

Winter 2024/Spring 2025

Building a Technical and Creative Storehouse of Skills

From filming collegiate basketball to the Paris Olympics, Megan Rakoczy (’16) is a jack of all video trades.

Winter 2018

The Demand For Water: policy reform and new technologies offer solutions

Renowned CSU economist Edward Barbier has a few ideas about the world’s increasingly serious water crisis. He says we have mismanaged our freshwater supplies by not charging enough for the natural resource and by sticking to an antiquated system of determining water rights. By looking at governance, policy reform, and new technologies we could protect our freshwater ecosystems and secure sufficient water for our world’s growing population.

Spring 2019

Drone-captured protest art about social inequality in the Choice City

Fort Collins is often called the “Choice City,” but for whom? In Dr. Josh Sbicca’s Social Movements course, students are asked to look at the social inequalities in Fort Collins and create protest art as a result. By using drones to capture images, sounds, and voices and editing software to create meaning, tell a story, and call for social change, students are using technology to take a new look at the Choice City.

Winter 2019/Spring 2020

The Legislative Internship: A Tale of Two Vans, a Tale of Connection

Though CSU’s Legislative Internship program began in 1974, John Straayer took over in 1980, driving one of two 12-passenger vans to the state capital every Tuesday and Thursday. More than 1,100 students have gone through the internship program, each student getting the unique opportunity to work directly with a legislator or lobbyist.

Winter 2020

Economic viability and the health of a community: Tackling wicked problems begins at the kitchen table

What’s a small town to do when their economic breadwinner – oil and gas – disappears? Some towns consider hosting a prison, but the environmental, economic, and community impact is significant and can drive townspeople apart. Through stories and anecdotes, criminologists and environmental sociologists study the community conversations and outcomes of such a vexsome issue. 

Spring 2021

Together, we examine and create

In the Department of English, together, we investigate, engage, persevere, and adapt. From communicating the invisible and abstract to receiving a poetry award, from a new first-year student symposium to responding to pandemic-induced mental health concerns in students, faculty and students are moving beyond traditional boundaries and paths that help us understand our lives.

Winter 2021

The Thing Itself: Navigating the borders of concept to performance

Choreography translates the border between the emotional concept and the physical moves themselves, and allows an audience to hold their own perceptions and their own story. Three CSU Dance majors produce their senior capstone, taking  their initial idea or concept and translating it into a performance, moving the idea from an internal realm to an external one.  

Spring 2022

Making Economics more Feminist: Spotlight on Ph.D. Candidate Sarah Small

Economics Ph.D. candidate Sarah Small was attracted to CSU’s unique coursework in feminist economics and political economy. After six years in the program, Small has thrived in policy-focused research and has enjoyed teaching economics to underrepresented students, making economics more accessible.

Winter 2022

Fostering a Culture of Care: Restorative Justice Education Creates Space In the Classroom

Lula Tewolde and Olivia Lynch join Dr. Tom Cavanaugh at Restorative Justice Education to create a “culture of care” that trains educators how to foster culturally appropriate relationships and interactions built on equity with students in the classroom.

Spring 2023

Why the Public Lands History Center is changing its name

Name change! The Public Lands History Center changes its name to Public Environmental History Center to better reflect the connection between humans, their environment, and public lands, acknowledging 16 years of great work and an exciting future ahead. 

Winter 2023

Approaching democracy differently: Western and Indigenous approaches

CSU students redefine democracy by using western and Indigenous principles and ultimately crafting a manifesto that emphasizes communal responsibility over individual rights.

Winter 2024/Spring 2025

From CSU to the National Park Service

Talking to locals and hiking the backcountry of the Mountain West, Poppie Gullett loves her job as national historic landmarks historian.

Crafting Global Fluency: From CSU to IMF

A love of K-Pop started Grace Tiberi’s (’22) interest in international studies, leading her to a job with the International Monetary Fund.

Winter 2018

The Meaning of Water: Identity, Place, and Purpose

Water lies at the heart of what it means to be human and what it means to flourish in our own place in the world. From a philosophical and ethical perspective, our particular understandings and interpretations of water reveal our sense of identity (the who), our sense of place (the where), and our meaning and purpose in the world (the why).

Spring 2019

How We Do Data in the City of Kansas City

Eric Roche (B.A. ’11) has a C-level job at a city that many people have never heard of: Chief Data Officer. Roche’s job is to uncover data that is valuable in decision making, and empower the city’s staff and leadership to make quick, data-informed decisions resulting in employees that are more efficient at their jobs and residents get better services delivered.

Winter 2019/Spring 2020

All-ages DIY music venues – a place for incubation

Fort Collins has the spirit of the west and Colorado embedded in its residents. From its origins as a frontier town, to its current status as a city boasting a major university, a thriving music scene, and a cluster of craft brewers, Fort Collins has emerged as a creative city where the arts often catalyze space into place. But one thing yet remains: an all-ages DIY music venue.

Winter 2020

Finding Purpose: The Discipline of Spiritual Health

Pursuing a monastic, religious, and spiritual life isn’t available to everyone. But for Mac McGoldrick, philosophy instructor, the pursuit of questions about spiritual practice and self inquiry have informed his own life, his teaching, and his consulting with tech companies on mindfulness and resiliency training. 

Spring 2021

Together, we advocate and engage

In the Department of Ethnic Studies, together we adapt, advocate, engage, and learn. From celebrating the harvest to the emancipation of the enslaved, from clothing drives to an engaged art walk, we connect with our communities to celebrate and to educate. 

Winter 2021

Bridging Two Worlds

Inspired by author Gloria Anzaldua’s  advocacy of coalitions and the nurturing of allyship, because “we need to know the history of [others’] struggle and they need to know ours,” philosophy student Maeve interviews philosophy student Weston about Native American life, different ways of knowing, and the interconnections that bind us together. 

Spring 2022

Expanding the Boundaries: Bringing science into the English classroom

Embracing interdisciplinary studies, graduate students in the Department of English are bridging divides between the humanities and sciences through coursework and research opportunities.  

Winter 2022

Rain Garden Summer: Sourcing plants and installing gardens with Colorado Stormwater Center

Riley Lynch, anthropology graduate student, worked with the Colorado Stormwater Center on the Rain Garden Pilot Program sourcing plants, communicating with residents, teaching a course, and installing the gardens with volunteers. 

Spring 2023

Music and Emotional Perception

How can we all experience similar emotions when we hear a piece of music played? What makes the tones and tempo of music universal? Domenica Romagni investigates the aesthetics of music and how it can arouse emotion and strengthen empathetic connection. 

Winter 2023

Multilingual voices in a small town

CSU Extension intern and French major Abi Somers is creating a medical guide for French-speaking residents in Fort Morgan, Colo. to improve access to healthcare.

Winter 2024/Spring 2025

From the Classroom to the Capitol

Rachel Pratt (’23) uses her political science, legal studies, and criminology degree to make her mark at a prominent government relations and public affairs firm based in Washington, D.C.