College of Liberal Arts Winter 2018 News

Interdisciplinary efforts

By nature, the College of Liberal Arts is interdisciplinary in its approach to studying the human experience. Recently, a few efforts were formalized to provide students an opportunity to integrate their learning.

  • LB393 - a team-taught interdisciplinary course offered each semester by a different team of faculty. Fall 2018 was Cultural Extraction in the Humanities, a collaboration of English and Art & Art History. Spring 2019 will be The Thinking Hand, a collaboration of poetry and pottery.
  • Liberal Arts & Community Engagement in Todos Santos - an Education Abroad experience for students at the CSU Todos Santos, Mexico campus. Students will study Spanish, ethnic studies, history, art, and English over a 16-week semester.

Award winners

Ed Barbier, professor of economics, received the 2018 Scholarship Impact Award, one of the University’s highest honors for accomplishment in research.

Kate Browne, professor of anthropology, received the Franz Boas Award for Exemplary Service to Anthropology.

A poem by Camille Dungy, poet and professor of English, was selected by New York Times Magazine as 'poem of the week'.

The National Communication Association has honored Thomas R. Dunn with its 2018 Outstanding Book Award for his book, Queerly Remembered: Rhetorics for Representing the GLBTQ Past.

Katie Gibson, associate professor of communication studies, received an Outstanding Book Award for her scholarship on Ruth Bader Ginsberg.

Ann Little received the 2018 Albert B. Corey Prize/Prix Corey awarded jointly by the American Historical Association and the Canadian Historical Association for her book The Many Captivities of Esther Wheelwright.

Laura Raynolds, professor of sociology, received the 2018 Rural Sociological Society Excellence in Research Award for contributions her work has made to understanding global commodity networks, certification systems, and food production and consumption.

Stephan Weiler was one of about a dozen people selected as a Fulbright Distinguished Research Chair. The director of the Regional Economic Development Institute (REDI), Weiler holds the William E. Morgan Endowed Chair as Professor of Economics at CSU.

The Center for Public Deliberation, housed in the Department of Communication Studies, received a Civvy Award.

 

Alumni & Giving

Great Conversations

In the second year of a public kickoff for the season, Great Conversations opened with a conversation about the importance of rigor and imagination in the liberal arts and in life. Faculty speakers Dan Beachy-Quick (English), Madeline Harvey (Dance), and Sammy Zahran (Economics) provided thoughtful perspectives on how their disciplines approach the issues of today and the importance of incorporating those multivalent views to problem solving.

Name A Seat

In celebration of the 10th Anniversary of the University Center for the Arts at Colorado State University, alumni and friends can add their name to the history of this community treasure by naming a seat. Name a Seat gifts support School of Music, Theatre, and Dance scholarships, which helps attract the finest artistic talent to CSU and enables students to pursue their dreams of artistic and academic excellence. Name a Seat after your loved one for the perfect holiday or graduation gift to celebrate their special connection to Colorado State University.

Recently published

Sharing expertise: Many faculty are writing for The Conversation, an independent, not-for-profit publishing platform that highlights the vital role of academic experts in the public arena, by writing general interest articles about their areas of expertise - from the environmental impact of fracking, to journalism is North Korea, to the stock market and the Great Recession. Many times, these articles are picked up by news sites around the country and world.

See a variety of recent publications on topics ranging from comedy studies to Alaska's totem poles, written by faculty in the College of Liberal Arts at https://www.libarts.colostate.edu/research/faculty-scholarship/

Terre objective : Essais d'éthique environnementale.  This volume of collected essays by Holmes Rolston, CSU philosopher and University Distinguished Professor, has just been published by Éditions Dehors, a French publisher.  The translators are Pierre Madelin and Hicham-Stéphane Afeissa.  There are eight essays, featuring Rolston’s arguments about objective value on natural landscapes, and how this is needed, beyond resource values for people, in environmental ethics. A copy is available at the CSU Morgan Library and the book may be ordered through www.amazon.fr.

Retirements

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

Masako Beecken, instructor of Japanese and creator of the Japanese program at CSU, retired after 30 years. She and her husband, Tim, recently created the T & M Beecken, Alumni and Friends Scholarship Endowment to support students pursuing their studies of Japanese.

Sociology

Michael Lacy, professor of sociology, retired after 28 years. He helped to build strong sociology undergraduate and graduate programs, providing key required courses, including research methods, statistics and computer methods. He's been in high demand for many years across campus as a statistical and quantitative expert, and consequently as an important contributor to interdisciplinary research at CSU.  He also served for 15 years as the department's Director of Graduate Studies and has helped build a graduate program recognized nationally for its specialized strengths.

In Memoriam

Philosophy

Grant Lee, emeritus professor, passed away on Oct. 11, 2018. He was 91.

 

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

George R. McMurray, a beloved emeriti professor, passed away peacefully in his sleep July 8, 2018 in Bigfork, Montana.

 

More Stories