Archives: Articles

Sharing the Lessons Learned during the 2013 Colorado Flood

What can a historian do in response to life-threatening flooding like we’ve seen in Northern Colorado? Quite a lot it turns out. By documenting the communication, cooperation, and activity of  disaster responders, historians capture the knowledge and information-sharing process that is so crucial to future response and recovery.

Spring 2019

Building Maps of the Past with New Technologies

Robert Ower (’18) uses the research skills from history classes to build maps and create ‘mappable data’ for high tech industries. Ower’s path from work to college to a meaningful career reflects the maps that he makes with ArcGIS. Layers of skills, research, patience, effort and luck are the mappable data. His emerging career is a world of his own creation.

Winter 2019/Spring 2020

Walk and Talk: ‘Camino Abroad’ immerses students in Spain

The Camino de Santiago is a popular, centuries-old route in Spain for religious pilgrims. For the past four years, CSU students have taken a four-week journey along the Camino, discovering the historic, linguistic, and cultural offerings that immerse them in a different place and time.

Winter 2020

The Wicked Problem of Artist Wellness

Avoiding burnout and prioritizing wellness is an important and new effort of SMTD, who has just started a class on self-care for creative arts majors. While most performers have a deep emotional investment in very personal work, the faculty are trying to teach students that sacrificing for your art doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice your body, mind, and spirit. 

Spring 2021

Together, we research and conserve

In the Department of History, together we conserve, research, engage, and understand. From sharing stories of WWII survivors to the architectural history of Windsor, Colo., from working in the Smithsonian to working at Rocky Mountain National Park, history students and faculty explore our past in order to understand our present.

Winter 2021

Climate Impact on People, Place, and Policy

Growing up in Guatemala, Diego Pons, climatologist and assistant professor of geography, couldn’t help but recognize that climate had a remarkable impact on local environments, farms and people. Pons wants to make large-scale climate science work for local farms and communities facing tough decisions. 

Spring 2022

Telling Untold Stories: A profile of Kristy Ornelas, first-year student in the history graduate program

Kristy Ornelas is inspired to tell the histories of diverse communities through public history. She is pursuing a master’s degree in the CSU Department of History because of the program’s emphasis on public history and established relationship with the National Parks Service.

Winter 2022

Wildfire Risk Mitigation and Environmental Justice in Colorado’s Forest Landscapes

Undergrad Aidan Lyde worked on the Community Networks in Fire-Environment Resilience (CoNIFER) Project to improve the understanding of wildfire risk mitigation planning based on wildfire protection plans in Colorado during a CSU Extension summer internship. 

Spring 2023

The Political Perception Gap and the Role of Higher Education

Are we as polarized as the media tell us we are? What do we really think of our neighbors and community? Recent research shows that multiple things influence our politics and perceptions of others, and that engaging in cross-partisan discussions can change those perceptions.

Winter 2023

Amplifying Public Voice: CSU’s Center for Public Deliberation

Katie Knobloch’s work through CPD involves the design of community engagement programs and how they impact public participation and deliberative democracy.

Winter 2024/Spring 2025

Bringing the Liberal Arts to Management Consulting

Smith’s double major in geography and economics helped him get accepted to the London School of Economics, a leading program in the world. He’s now a consultant at KPMG.

Music alumni are guiding a new generation of leaders and musicians

CSU Music alumni are shaping their communities and inspiring students through adaptability, innovation, and leadership.

Winter 2018

Slow, Still, Defiant: A poet meditates on water

In his latest book of poetry, Walks Along the Ditch, Bill Tremblay (CSU Professor of English, 1973 to 2006) introduces us to the flow that has long provided a cadence to his life: poetry, water, t’ai chi.  The poems walk us along the ditch with the poet: the water, the familiar Mountain West geography, the “smell of money” from Greeley, the morning song of meadowlarks.

Spring 2019

Rhetoric and Risk: From firefighter to digital rhetorician

Tim Amidon is both a firefighter and a rhetorician, examining the ways in which communication, literacy, and technology are used in high-risk, high-stress situations. Amidon’s research investigates how communication and the various technologies we use help us to create and participate in the world around us.

Winter 2019/Spring 2020

Something You Won’t Find in the Archives

Most of us are looking for the wildlife, admiring the foliage, and navigating trails when we visit Rocky Mountain National Park. But for a group of CSU students in the Parks as Portals to Learning program, they’ve been challenged to look for – and document –  the park’s history.

Winter 2020

Surviving an Invasion during a Pandemic in the 14th Century

The people of Provence were undergoing multiple crises of war, famine, and plague in 1360. Their stories about a miracle woman, collected during an inquest considering her for sainthood in the Catholic church, helped them understand what was happening, and gave them ideas for how to recover from these devastating issues.  

Spring 2021

Together, we connect and serve

In our interdisciplinary programs, together we adapt, discover, connect, and serve. From mentoring programs to cultural exploration, our students and faculty are building relationships and understanding around the world.

Winter 2021

Planting a Vision

Emeritus professor and former VP Lou Swanson receives the Yellow Mountain Foreign Advisor Award – a high recognition for work done in China. The award recognizes Swanson’s and other sociology professors’ work to improve food systems and rural development in China, an effort decades in the making. 

Spring 2022

JMC Ph.D. student explores brain-computer interface technologies as an art therapy resource

Ph.D. student Stephanie Scott is investigating how to integrate art therapy and other creative expression into discussions around brain-computer interface (BCI) technologies. Her research explores how BCIs can be more inclusive for neurodiverse users and communication recovery. 

Winter 2022

Closing Language Barriers in Healthcare for Spanish Speakers

For a new program called Spanish in Professional Environments, Abi Tekeste and Giselle Alpizar-Calixto use their summer internship with CSU Extension to understand the language barriers to healthcare, and to provide information and resources, in rural Colorado. 

Spring 2023

Perceptions of a Premiere

2020 was a year of tragedy, including the Cameron Peak and East Troublesome Fires. Composer James David used the devastation around him as inspiration for a new composition, Troublesome Fire.

Winter 2023

Underrepresented and Unequal Voices in Democracy

CSU political science professors share examples of how some voices aren’t considered in political representation and policy outcomes.

Winter 2024/Spring 2025

Shaping Fort Collins Through Civic Innovation

Emily Myler works on the problem of housing and population growth in the city of Fort Collins using her communication studies degree and experience with the CPD.

Winter 2018

Water takes center stage in CSU Theatre’s latest production

Big Love by Charles Mee has been called a big, beautiful, fantastic mess. Just like love, or perhaps like water. Water plays a major role in the on-stage dynamic, and the key to success is collaboration between the multiple theatrical shops. From the set designer to the technical director, all members of CSU’s Theatre worked together to make the production a success (and not a mess!)

Spring 2019

Healthcare, social media, and a web of moral issues

The Internet has changed the landscape in which we, as humans, relate, and ethicists need to keep pace. With increases in anxiety and depression, the creation of echo chambers of information, and access to tele-medicine for rural communities, bioethicists like Dr. Moti Gorin are now looking at how online technologies affect human health and well-being.

Winter 2019/Spring 2020

The University Center for the Arts: Honoring the Past, Inspiring the Future

The University Center for the Arts is a historic place of learning and a celebrated artistic venue with museums, dance halls, and performance spaces.

Winter 2020

Balancing our bodies: How people in early modern Spain approached health and medicine

Our ideas about what health is and what sickness and disease mean are big questions about what kind of society we want to live in, what it means to have a good life, and what it means to be living as you believe is most appropriate or best. In early modern Spain notions of health and healthcare changed due to religious expulsion or conversion, colonialism, and more.  

Spring 2021

Together, we investigate and advocate

In the Department of Journalism and Media Communication, together we adapt, understand, and advocate. From hands-on music videos to measuring air quality to alumni entrepreneurship, students and faculty are exploring the ways communication transfers between people. 

Winter 2021

Latin American women writers’ voices crossed borders, platforms

María Inés Canto Carrillo,  Assistant Professor of Spanish, has focused on how the pandemic has encouraged Latin American female writers to use social media to amplify their voices, bringing forth taboo topics, feminist concerns, and their stories to the forefront.

Spring 2022

Researching Spanish language needs at veterinary clinics

Through a grant from PetSmart Charities, Edward Sarasty Salazar is working as a graduate research assistant to improve access to veterinary care for Spanish-speaking pet owners. His work will contribute to the development of a curriculum of Spanish for Veterinarians. 

Winter 2022

Searching the Archive: Engaging History through a Social Justice Lens

Senior Peter Wilson prepares for graduate school by spending six months on an internship with Professor Zach Hutchins doing archival research and looking at original sources for Hutchins’ book project about Harriet Beecher Stowe’s A Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin. 

Spring 2023

Centering Student Choices: Why Linguistic Justice is a Pivotal and Empowering Pedagogical Framework

Three programs—the University Composition Program, TEFL/TESL, and English Education—are challenging a monolingual expectation of language and the idea that there is only “right” way to speak and write in academia. 

Winter 2023

Upholding Democracy through Procedural Justice

CSU sociology faculty employ procedural justice, an inclusive and deliberate approach to decision-making, as a way to value multiple voices, fair processes, and transparency.

Winter 2024/Spring 2025

Tackling human trafficking

Edna Muñoz uses her sociology training to stop human trafficking in Boulder County.

Winter 2018

Walking Up Stream: sleeping rough on the banks of the South Platte River

Chris Conner (M.A. ’11) has spent the majority of his career working to improve the lives of those experiencing homelessness in Denver. Inspired by the rhetorical traditions of his communication studies degree, Conner recently helped one man share an unlikely story of living and sleeping rough on the banks of the South Platte River.

Spring 2019

The Sound of Technology

While recorded sound was the ‘first big thing’ as far as technology’s impact on music, everything from the synthesizer to the computer and composition software has had an impact on how music is composed, created, and shared. Modern technologies in the classroom and in the performance halls at the University Center for the Arts allow music students and music patrons to experience state-of-the-art music performances.

Winter 2019/Spring 2020

Finding economic connections in the urban/rural divide

Identifying rural solutions to urban needs, and vice versa, has been a big part of Professor Stephan Weiler’s work for decades. With the Regional Economic Development Institute, Weiler and others are examining the many ways to bridge the urban-rural divide. Whether it’s malting barley, charter school supply and demand, or poverty and incarceration, rural and urban communities can learn from and benefit one another and provide opportunities for more people to succeed.

Winter 2020

Mental health, community-building, and the challenges of a global pandemic

In the Department of English at CSU, initiatives that seek to bolster mental health, such as reading, writing, and thinking reflectively, creatively, and critically have long played an important role among students and the broader community: Initiatives that include the Writing Center, the Veterans Writing Workshop, and Speak Out! These opportunities to explore both joyous and difficultexperiences require an emotional labor, a re-tooling during pandemic times, and an awareness that not all mental health healing can come from the mind. 

Spring 2021

Together, we investigate and communicate

In the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, together we discover, engage, and learn. From understanding a river along the Camino de Santiago in Spain to teaching language skills to elementary students and exploring better ways to serve Spanish-speaking pet owners, students and faculty are applying their global perspectives and linguistic knowledge to understand and help others.

Winter 2021

“Being Okinawan” – An examination of Okinawa’s history and resiliency

International Studies student Caroline Dunphy reflects on her study abroad trip to Okinawa and the history that has informed the culture today, including its culinary specialty, taco rice. 

Spring 2022

Philosophy + Medicine: Two alumni discover the prescription for a successful career

Ethical questions in the medical field have challenged practitioners since the age of Aristotle. With the focus and training in applied ethics, alumni Eli Weber and Gwendy Reyes-Illg use their graduate philosophy education in their careers as a bioethics director for Kaiser Permanente and a practicing veterinarian.

Winter 2022

Helping Preserve the History of Routt and Grand Counties

Two history graduate students, Dale Mize and Addie Brian, help preserve the history of Routt and Grand Counties in the face of land development by creating oral histories of farming/ranching populations and interactive maps for the Colorado Encyclopedia through CSU Extension summer internships. 

Spring 2023

Popular Culture Obscures and Reveals: A Look at Korean Film and Queer Rhetoric

Korean cinema and queer rhetoric have both been brought to the forefront of U.S. culture in recent years, and Communication Studies professors help show us how and why. 

Winter 2023

Echoes of past promises: democracy and the National Park Service

Ruth Alexander’s research into the history of climbing at Rocky Mountain National Park revealed important stories to tell about access to our public lands.

Winter 2018

Water lessons from the Syrian Civil War

For millenia, water scarcity and security has caused both wars and international cooperation. But with increasing populations, precipitation changes due to climate change, and unbalanced resource allocation, water issues are becoming more and more relevant to global stability. Case in point: the Syrian civil war. CSU alumnus David Bonomo provides a look into the issue.

Spring 2019

Technique and Technology In Art

Technology has always been fundamental to the crafts which are rooted in the use of some tool. The Greek root tekhne— an art, skill, craft in work; method, system, an art, a system or method of making or doing — is about systematizing, standardizing, and organizing. For Del Harrow, associate professor of pottery, throwing on the wheel is about practice and a development of skill, repetition of movements, and involvement in a kind of ritual practice.

Winter 2019/Spring 2020

Sowing the seeds of scrutiny: Are GMOs good, bad, or in between?

Debates around the risks and benefits of genetically modified organisms (GMOs) have been going on for decades, yet opinion remains divided. As the second African nation to commercialize GM crops, and the first to involve significant numbers of small-scale farmers, Burkina Faso has become the focus of this debate. Jessie Luna examines the impact and the effects of GMOs as well as how their usage has been portrayed in the media.

Winter 2020

Art is an Essential Part of the Human Experience

Art-making is one of the many means of expression that humans engage with to understand and interpret the world around them. Community based art education is a collaboration between students and their teacher, tailored to the students’ needs. CSU art education students and teachers craft meaningful visual art experiences for students throughout Fort Collins. 

Spring 2021

Together, we examine and apply

In the Department of Philosophy, together we lead, connect, and engage. From community marches to community service to better understanding our relationship to the natural world, the students and faculty are applying theory to practice.  

Winter 2021

Navigating Science and Public Boundaries and Broadening Student Horizons

Joe Champ, journalism associate professor of science communication, works tirelessly to connect excellent students with amazing opportunities in the Forest Service, National Park Service, and beyond. The students’ experience with CSU’s Center for Science Communication (and a network assisted by Champ) lead to internships, jobs, and unimagined careers. 

Spring 2022

Politics and Policy: A graduate student’s approach to climate change in developing nations

Julia Choolwe Munsaka’s interest in international relations stems from her Zambian roots. She is now pursuing her Ph.D. at CSU to focus on environmental policy, particularly how climate change is considered in diplomatic discussions in the developing world.  

Winter 2022

Archiving 150 Years of Agriculture in the Centennial State

Tobin Gold documents the agricultural history of the Sterling Irrigation Company and Aubree Vecellio helps with geolocation and visualizing historic images of the Colorado River Compact for CSU Extension summer internships.

Winter 2023

How Journalists Pursue and Preserve Democracy

A videographer, a publisher, and a high school journalism teacher advocate for the importance and role of journalism in preserving and enhancing our democracy.

Winter 2024/Spring 2025

A Life in Radio: Marty Lenz (’90) lives his childhood dream

Ram fan, student-athlete, donor, and radio personality Marty Lenz (’90) receives the College of Liberal Arts Honor Alumnus Award in 2024.

Winter 2018

Water as Science and Art

Water plays many roles in our lives: from nourishment to relaxation to destruction. Its captivating qualities provide fodder for painters and photographers.

Spring 2019

Technology provides new ways to teach languages and cultures

In an increasingly connected global society, fluency in a second language is an important skill in both the job market and for the cognitive benefits reaped by the language learner. Through technology and increased access to authentic language materials such as manuscripts, music, film, and video, students have greater opportunities to access many learning styles and engage with a language and culture more creatively and deeply.

Winter 2019/Spring 2020

The Value of Place and Space: Two philosophers seek a moral dimension to our current views

Katie McShane is an ethicist; Idris Hamid is a metaphysician. She studies a love of place; he investigates dimensions of space.  She tackles environmental policy discourse; he’s enveloped in Islamic cosmology. Although these thinkers come from different worlds personally and philosophically, they do share a common perspective on what’s lacking in modern conceptions of place and space—a sense of value.

Winter 2020

COVID-19: Stories from CSU Abroad

Students from the International Studies program recount the stories of exchange students and people native to Japan, the UK, and China to better understand the experience of this global pandemic around the world and to recognize the commonality of hardship across borders. 

Spring 2021

Together, we inspect and explore

In the Department of Political Science, together we discover, protect, advocate, and understand. From learning abroad to advocating at home, from environmental justice to state politics, our students and faculty expand their boundaries to better understand the challenges and opportunities for cultures and countries.

Winter 2021

Finding Home Beyond the Binary

Both the terms non binary and transgender work for this Women and Gender Studies student who has confirmed their social and gender identity while studying at CSU. Gender theory provided the words and the support they needed for this transformation. 

Spring 2022

The future of Emerging Music Courses in Colorado

CSU music education master’s student Maddy Cort focused her graduate research on contemporary music courses that music teachers are often requested to teach as a part of their course load in Colorado secondary schools, including guitar, piano, and electronic music.

Winter 2022

Understanding Hesitancy of Routine Vaccinations

PhD student Joy Enyinnaya researches trends surrounding COVID information and vaccine hesitancy, providing education about herd immunity and documenting parents’ hesitancies about routine vaccinations in a summer CSU Extension internship in El Paso County. 

Spring 2023

New interactive digital project reveals what’s hidden in the prison agriculture system

At first look, the prison agriculture system might sound like a benefit to community and prisoner, but a dive into the program’s history, cost, and output reveal a more complicated and challenging issue.

Winter 2023

Alumni Give Voice to Students Who Might Not Have One

Liberal Arts alumni provide voice to students from rural or underrepresented communities by creating scholarships.

Winter 2018

Irrigation, Recreation, and Conservation: Water’s importance in life

Zak Danielson has always loved water: growing up on a farm, fishing in the Laramie River, or working with water at a brewery and in gardening. As a student at CSU, he has used an interdisciplinary approach to study sustainability so that he can continue his work with water conservation efforts.

Spring 2019

Technology’s Hand in Interdisciplinary Studies

We are living in a tech age that grants us access to more information than ever before, but we can also find ourselves overwhelmed by that very same material. A major in interdisciplinary liberal arts helps students see the connection between all of the information they absorb and a type of systems thinking that guides interdisciplinary work, teaching students how to manage the flow of information and find connections where none before existed.

Winter 2019/Spring 2020

The Land Holds Memories

CSU is situated on the historic lands of the Apache, Arapaho, Ute, Cheyenne, and Pueblo. CSU’s 150th anniversary is a cause for celebration and a critical opportunity to reflect upon the dire cost paid by the original people of this place and these lands. A new land acknowledgment recognizes that the founding of the university came at a grave cost and recognizes the original stewards, knowers, and protectors of this place.

Winter 2020

COVID-19 and Health: Why We Need an Interdisciplinary Approach to a Global Pandemic

An interdisciplinary approach to the economic, mental, social, and even environmental debris left in this pandemic’s wake is the best way of understanding its impact. The theoretical and methodological stances of multiple disciplines helps break down disciplinary walls and open up a new space in which we can better understand our current health crisis. 

Spring 2021

Together, we adapt and perform

In the School of Music, Theatre, and Dance, together we persevere, discover, investigate, connect, and engage. From concerns about human bioaerosol emissions to finding new spaces and ways to perform, faculty and students in the performing arts have been challenged to find new ways to express themselves and the human condition.

Winter 2021

The legacy of Quitobaquito Springs, a tiny place with a long history

On the border between Mexico and Arizona is the postage stamp-sized oasis of Quitobaquito. But while the pond itself is tiny, what it holds is immense.

Spring 2022

Graduate Teaching Instructors diversify Sociology’s classrooms

In the Department of Sociology, Graduate Teaching Instructors (GTI) provide skilled and innovative teaching in undergraduate sociology courses. GTI have years of training and experience, and they offer a diverse, deep pool of expertise along with an ability to connect with students in the classroom.

Winter 2022

Listening to Neighbors and Documenting Change

Axel Sandoval Bravo, interdisciplinary liberal arts student, and geography professor Carrie Chennault, head to southwest Denver to record the stories of longtime residents experiencing redevelopment and gentrification in their neighborhoods. 

Spring 2023

North America’s First City: 20,000 people in 1050 C.E.

Ed Henry and colleagues receive $312K NSF grant to investigate the mounds at Cahokia, the largest and most influential urban settlement of the Mississippian culture in 1050 C.E., using magnetometry instruments that are non-invasive and non-destructive. 

Winter 2023

CSU team launches online tool to help prepare for, adapt to climate changes in African forests

A NASA-funded team of Colorado State University researchers traveled to Kenya to unveil a new interactive, online tool to help land managers and foresters working in Kenyan and African forests. 

Winter 2018

A Response for the Decades: a disaster response plan for the museum

As part of their national accreditation, the Gregory Allicar Museum of Art prepared an emergency response plan, identifying which pieces they would ‘rescue’, in case there is a flood or other natural disaster affecting the collection. “As a land-grant institution, our collection is part of the public trust and we hold it and care for it for everyone. We have to protect the collections from all forms of water for ten more years and beyond.”

Spring 2019

Arts Management in the Digital Age

Arts Management programs began in the 1970s, following the establishment of the National Endowment for the Arts in 1965, which stressed the need for leaders in the arts. Since then, technological advances have led to improvements in understanding and building audience engagement and navigating the necessity of marketing for artists in the 21st century.

Winter 2019/Spring 2020

Order, Authenticity, and Context Collapse: Life in virtual space

The idea that virtual space is a space is much easier to grasp in immersive worlds such as virtual reality (VR), but is that possible when looking at a flat screen with images and text? When you are in a digital conversation with friends or strangers, one-on-one or in a group, supportive or combative, does it feel like a space is holding you all there? 

Winter 2020

In A Year of Challenges, SMTD Experiences Great Support

It’s been a very tough year for the performing arts, but donor support has not wavered. The School of Music, Theatre, and Dance received $20M in support in 2020, including the upgrade and naming of the Instrument Rehearsal Hall, thanks to Cindy Haraway “Boomer.”

Spring 2021

Together, we investigate and advocate

In the Department of Sociology, together we learn, investigate, discover, advocate, and solve. From food systems to food insecurity, cotton in Africa to water on the Western Slope of Colorado, students and faculty are engaged in understanding the structural, societal, and cultural issues that impact people.  

Winter 2021

Rivers Across Borders: Environmental Justice in the Rio Grande Basin

The Rio Grande River Basin is a non-renewable resource that supports millions of human beings and tens of millions of species. The Center for Environmental Justice at CSU studies the lives and systems that the river impacts.   

Winter 2022

Out of the Classroom and into the Community

Putting communication theory into practice, three PhD students in Communication Studies engage in Extension internships that result in a Middle Eastern cookbook, updated curricula for a local 4-H program, and increased awareness of Extension and the Colorado State Fair. 

Spring 2023

Changing people’s perceptions of museums

Who goes to museums? Who are they designed for? At the CSU art museum, the staff extend invitations to anyone to engage with art and one another through their choices of exhibits, displays, and programming. 

Honoring a maestro’s legacy

Wes Kenney, CSU maestro of the symphony for 20 years, retires, leaving a legacy in his conducting and his support for students.  

Winter 2018

Not Your Everyday Priest, Not Your Everyday Gift

Fr. Don Willette is not your everyday Catholic priest. So, appropriately, his gift to create an endowed faculty position at Colorado State University is anything but every day. The Father Don Willette Professorship for Theological Studies will encourage students, faculty, and staff at CSU to engage in academic pursuits and open conversations about the history and theological traditions of Christianity.

Spring 2019

The intersection of art and technology

At the Gregory Allicar Museum of Art, art and technology continually intersect. The spring 2019 exhibition, Off Kilter, On Point: Art of the 1960s from the Permanent Collection, encapsulated ways in which technology and art are interrelated by featuring a decade where that idea came into focus.

Winter 2019/Spring 2020

A History of Selfies: Year Two of Social Justice Thru the Arts

Colorado high school students have a creative way to explore social justice and life at CSU through the Social Justice Thru the Arts institute. The students explored the theme of “self and community” through a variety of interdisciplinary activities, including poetry, theater of the oppressed, dance, music, creative writing, journaling, talking circles, and mindfulness.

Winter 2020

College of Liberal Arts Winter 2020/Spring 2021 News

New programs, alumni spotlights, retirements, and other recent news from the College of Liberal Arts.

Winter 2021

An International Perspective: Faculty Donors Support Students Becoming Global Citizens

Emeriti faculty Jim Boyd and Sue Ellen Markey embody the term “global citizen.” Having lived, worked, and studied in countries around the world, these two embrace and advocate for students to enter another worldview through the establishment of a new scholarship. 

Winter 2022

Building Bridges to Better Communities

Ph.D. students Emilia Ravetta and Milagro Núñez-Solis connected food pantries with gardeners and youth with opportunities to strengthen their local communities in their CSU Extension summer internships with Grow and Give and the Family Leadership Training Institute. 

Spring 2023

The Mistakes We Make and the Errors that Make Us: Perception and Imagination in the Liberal Arts

Perception, and the cultural and sociopolitical influences on it, is what allows us to define a problem or determine right and wrong. In the art world, what constitutes art is regularly a matter of perception.

Winter 2018

Alumni Impact – Winter 2018

From fighting crime on the streets of Houston to telling refugee stories in Iraq, these Liberal Arts alumni used their degrees to make a real impact on the lives of people around the world and on the lives of CSU students. Read more about what a degree in the liberal arts and a passion for service can really do.

Spring 2019

The Stories Behind the Seats

The Name A Seat campaign at the University Center for the Arts raises scholarship funding for Music, Theatre, and Dance students. Meet some of the alumni and friends who have named a seat in honor of their educational experience, their loved ones, and as a tribute to faculty.

Winter 2019/Spring 2020

From Nomad’s Land to No Man’s Land: The Historic Transformation of Mediterranean Space and Place

At the beginning of the nineteenth century, the Mediterranean world was a haven for nomads. They lived side-by-side with farmers and played a prominent role in regional agro-pastoral economies. But mobile pastoralism gradually faded from the Mediterranean landscape of Provence, French colonial Algeria, and Ottoman Anatolia. This new book shows the unlikely role of French scientific foresters, whose efforts at conservation had mixed results for Mediterranean forests and spelled ruin for Mediterranean nomads.

Winter 2020

Guest Column: Reaction to the Assault on the U.S. Capitol

CSU Professor Greg Dickinson reflects on the attack on the US Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, identifying how the attack was on democracy itself. It is the impact and power of higher education that can help us to think about and to teach ways to keep our democracy intact.

Winter 2021

College of Liberal Arts 2021 News

From our faculty securing prestigious grants to our alumni making a significant impact on local communities, the College of Liberal Arts has great news to share. 

Winter 2018

College of Liberal Arts Winter 2018 News

Recently published books from faculty, new interdisciplinary approaches to learning and teaching, and awards, events, and other goings-on at the College of Liberal Arts.

Spring 2019

Changing Lives Through Law

Political Science alumnus, Bill Leone (’78), came to CSU for the debate program and has built a career in law, including civil trial attorney, federal prosecutor, and United States Attorney for the District of Colorado. He received the Career Distinction in Law Award from his peers in Feb. 2019.

Winter 2019/Spring 2020

College of Liberal Arts Winter 2019/Spring 2020 News

Updates, retirements, alumni spotlights, and award winners from the College of Liberal Arts.

Winter 2021

Art museums make connections across borders

By prompting dialogue about what museums do, who they are for, and how they teach us, the Gregory Allicar’s exhibitions and programming illustrate how borders are never as clearly defined as they might seem. Art museums bridge divides – catalyzing visual literacy by sparking conversation between differing ideas. 

Spring 2018

Listening to the Past and Looking to the Future: the value of the liberal arts

“The liberal arts aren’t just a field of study. They are a living thing, a thread that connects us all.” And it is through our learning, scholarship, and engagement that we advance the human experience.