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Wildfire’s toll on animals went largely unreported, researchers show

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 27 Apr 2026 18:10:13 +0000

Wildfire’s toll on animals went largely unreported, researchers show Rachel Sauer Mon, 04/27/2026 - 12:10

Clint Talbott

After the Marshall Fire, researchers at CU ��ý�� and Western Washington University muse on why animals disappear from disaster stories and suggest a remedy

When the Marshall Fire swept through ��ý�� County on Dec. 30, 2021, it killed two people and destroyed 1,084 homes. Colorado’s governor called the relatively modest loss of human life a “New Year’s miracle.”

As ��ý�� sociologist Leslie Irvine later found, however, the wildfire also killed more than 1,000 companion animals who were trapped in homes that rapidly incinerated while their people were at work, traveling or stuck in evacuation traffic.

New research from Irvine and Cameron Whitley, a sociology professor at Western Washington University, quantifies the extent to which the loss of sentient animal life was overlooked by public officials and the news media.

In recently published research, CU ��ý�� sociologist Leslie Irvine and colleague Cameron Whitely quantify the extent to which the loss of sentient animal life was overlooked by public officials and the news media following the Marshall Fire.

For many residents, the toll was devastating but largely invisible.

Out of 981 news stories published in the two months after the fire, only 16% mentioned animals at all. Fewer than 5% focused on animals in their coverage. Government officials mentioned animal loss in less than 1% of public statements.

“What surprised me most wasn’t just what showed up in the media,” Whitley says of the research, which was recently published in the journal Anthrozoös. “It was what didn’t—especially considering how many people think of their animals as family.”

For Irvine, now retired from CU ��ý�� but still deeply engaged with the work, the Marshall Fire reopened questions she had hoped never to revisit.

Two decades earlier, after Hurricane Katrina, Irvine wrote Filling the Ark: Animal Welfare in Disasters, a groundbreaking book documenting how disaster-response systems failed people with pets—and how those failures increased human risk as well. After Katrina, Congress passed the PETS Act, requiring emergency plans to account for companion animals.

“I said I would never study disasters and animals again,” Irvine recalls. “It was too devastating.”

Then the Marshall Fire struck ��ý�� County “right in my backyard,” she says. Whitley, who grew up in nearby Lafayette and earned his BA from CU ��ý��, came to the project with both scholarly training and knowledge of personal loss.

“As people were grieving animals—pets, wildlife, livestock—they kept telling me the same thing,” Whitley says. “They weren’t seeing that grief reflected anywhere.”

Using systematic content analysis, Whitley and his co-authors coded every Marshall Fire news story published by local, state and national outlets in the fire’s immediate aftermath. They tracked when animals appeared, how they were framed, and—critically—when entire categories of loss vanished.

Domestic pets received the most attention, but usually as side notes to evacuation instructions or “feel‑good” reunion stories. Agricultural animals were typically counted collectively—horses evacuated, livestock lost—rarely described as individuals. Wildlife barely appeared at all.

“The default hierarchy is still very clear,” Irvine says. “Humans first. Then property. Animals come after—if at all.”

When the ‘hierarchy’ obscures the truth

“The only thing some families have left of their animals is a burned‑out food bowl. That alone should tell us something about what we’re failing to see,” says CU ��ý�� researcher Leslie Irvine. (Photo: Patti Benninghoff-Lawson)

That hierarchy persists despite decades of research showing that people routinely risk their lives for animals during disasters. Some refuse to evacuate without them. Others re‑enter burn zones to try to rescue them—sometimes requiring rescue themselves.

In fact, one of the two human fatalities in the Marshall fire was Edna Turnbull, who died while trying to rescue her dogs. “Turnbull’s refusal to leave without making sure her companion animals were safe is not unique,” Whitley and Irvine write.

From an economic or safety standpoint alone, Irvine argues, ignoring animals is irrational. She contends: “If government officials took animals seriously in disasters, they would reduce risks to first responders, reduce chaos and improve outcomes for everyone.”

One consequence of invisibility is what Whitley calls unrecognized grief. He cites research showing that losing a companion animal can provoke grief comparable to losing a human family member. But when that loss is absent from public discourse, grieving people also feel isolated, he observes, adding:

“In the LA County fires we’re studying now, people talk about losing their home as something they could move past. Losing their animal, or being forced to give that animal up months later because of housing instability, that’s what they say they’ll never recover from.”

That secondary grief rarely appears in disaster coverage. Nor do the long‑term consequences that follow fires even after humans rebuild.

Irvine points to toxic exposure as an underreported crisis. Dogs in burn zones may now need booties and paw decontamination. Outdoor cats may carry contaminants inside. Veterinarians report increases in respiratory illness and unexplained deaths among animal patients months or years later.

Merlin, a cat injured during the Marshall Fire, has since recovered. (Photo: Shelby Davis/Soul Dog Rescue)

“These aren’t dramatic images,” Irvine says. “They don’t fit into breaking news. But they shape everyday life for years.”

“We tend to act as though a disaster ends once people rebuild their homes. But for people with animals, the disaster often continues for the rest of those animals’ lives—through toxic exposure, long‑term illness and ongoing grief.”

Why journalism struggles with animals

The researchers note the challenges facing journalists. Disaster coverage focuses on what can be confirmed quickly, counted easily and tied to economic loss.

“Homes and infrastructure are quantifiable,” Whitley says. “Animals aren’t, unless they’re agricultural, and even then, they’re usually listed as numbers, not lives.”

The media also gravitate toward redemptive narratives—pets reunited with families, miraculous survivals—rather than mass loss without resolution.

“There’s a kind of collective discomfort with stories that don’t offer closure,” Irvine says.

Whitley notes that journalists are reporting statements of public officials, whose focus is on humans and property. “Less than 1% of official government statements mentioned animals at all. That’s not just a media problem; that’s a policy failure.”

But when animals disappear from disaster coverage, so do the people who love them.

The study offers a suggestion on disaster reporting: prioritize sentient life—human and nonhuman alike—before property loss.

“This isn’t about placing animals above people,” Whitley says. “It’s about telling the whole story.”

As climate‑driven disasters become more frequent, these questions will arise more frequently, the researchers note.

“The Marshall Fire taught us that firestorms are no longer remote or rare,” Irvine says. “And it showed us something else—that we are still failing to see whole parts of our communities when disaster strikes.”

Whitley adds: “When we talk about disasters, we celebrate the minimal loss of human life—while thousands of animals die without acknowledgement. For the people who lost them, that silence matters.”

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After the Marshall Fire, researchers at CU ��ý�� and Western Washington University muse on why animals disappear from disaster stories and suggest a remedy.

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Artist encourages talking with your mouth full

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 17 Apr 2026 21:06:15 +0000

Artist encourages talking with your mouth full Rachel Sauer Fri, 04/17/2026 - 15:06

Kayleigh Wood

As the featured artist at a recent Black Cube event, CU ��ý��'s Alvin Gregorio emphasized how getting primal and getting to know each other—and yes, sharing meals—makes better people

Alvin Pagdanganan Gregorio understands the value of a shared meal. The ��ý�� professor of drawing and painting and associate chair for art practices was the recent featured artist and host of Talk With Your Mouth Full, a series of free, artist-led community potluck brunches organized by Black Cube, a nomadic art museum based in Englewood.

Artists invited to host Talk With Your Mouth Full select one ingredient for a main dish prepared by a local chef. Participants are encouraged to bring a dish as well, although it is not required, nor must it include the selected ingredient. After food and conversation, the artist leads a simple activity with the aim of fostering discussion.

For Gregorio, the choice of ingredient was simple: “Immediately I thought of ube, which is the purple yam of the Philippines,” he says. “It’s one of the most striking colors in Filipino food.”

Alvin Pagdanganan Gregorio, a CU ��ý�� associate professor of art and art history, was the featured artist at a recent Black Cube Talk With Your Mouth Full potluck event, which featured ube cheese pandesals. (Photo: Alvin Gregorio)

To take on the challenge, Black Cube enlisted the help of Cakeheads Bakery, a family-owned Filipino American bakery in Centennial that created ube cheese pandesals: deep purple bread rolls filled with melted cheese and topped with golden breadcrumbs.

The artistry of the pandesals parallels Gregorio’s art, which features vibrant, eye-catching palettes and diverse textures. Through an unrestricted practice transcending any one technique, material or form, Gregorio creates drawings, paintings, installations, sculptures, performance and audio pieces that explore immigration, family, war, spirituality and defense mechanisms.

Sharing meals, lowering your defenses

Talk With Your Mouth Full addresses an assumption to which Gregorio is particularly adverse: the role of food in the studio and museum space (or lack thereof). Generally, exposing art to food and drink can threaten the quality of the work or destroy it entirely.

Yet Gregorio welcomes food in both the studio and his classroom. “I’m into [the potluck], much in the same way I am in class,” he says. “I want people to eat. As long as you clean up after yourself, I want you to eat in class too, because then you know you’re at home and safe. You’re in a place where you [can] put your guard down.”

In addition to allowing his students to eat in class, Gregorio aims to incorporate shared meals into his teaching practice. “College students aren’t great at feeding themselves,” he says. “Even the best of us get busy, so that’s one of things I want to include in the classroom. If there’s a 12-12:30pm break between all of our classes, then, all right, [every] Wednesday, let’s see everyone. Let’s do a community meal. When you start feeding people, people are like, all right, these people do care about me.”

In the classroom, Gregorio says he’s “trying to do it the right way, you know, where people aren’t being vulnerable [with] people they don’t trust.” Many art classes at the ��ý��, including Gregorio’s, hinge on portfolio-building and periodic critiques, which are structured opportunities for a student’s peers to evaluate and analyze their work and share feedback, often requiring a degree of vulnerability from the student.

He sees shared meals as a tool to ease the pressure of critiques and to build trust, because “eating with other people is grounding, talking about things you love is grounding… It’s kind of hard [to] keep your guard up when [you have] powdered sugar all over your face.”

Caring for the person–not just the portfolio

As art practitioners rely heavily on critiques to improve, Gregorio insists that the most important aspect of his teaching practice is earning trust from his students by prioritizing their safety and comfort. “That has to be first,” says Gregorio. “If we’re talking about Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, at the bottom there’s safety . . . If people don’t feel safe there (in the classroom), then they can’t get to the top, and the top is generosity and creativity.”

To encourage trust, Gregorio gives social homework, or what he calls “fake homework.” These “fake homework” assignments range from suggestions to hang out with a peer over the weekend to long-term collaborative assignments that occur during class, like starting a “band” with a group of peers, carefully curating a vibe and designing an album cover over the course of a semester. Gregorio also often assigns “docu-buddies,” which are groups of peers responsible for photographing each other’s work in progress throughout the term.

"Plush Safe, We Think," by Alvin Pagdanganan Gregorio, mixed media on paper

While these simple, unserious social assignments may seem menial, Tyson Tieu, a senior in the Department of Art and Art History and a former student of Gregorio’s who attended Talk With Your Mouth Full, says he misses the social activities. In most studio art classes, Tieu says, “you’re in your own little bubble, like you’re doing your own thing and you’re at your table, whereas with Alvin, it could be annoying, but, yeah, he does force to you to, like, get up and move and work outside your comfort zone… if you’re [having] art block or something, it just helps you get your hand moving.”

Gregorio says, looking back, “It’s always been that first—people. I’m [only] able to get [my students] to trust me when we’re doing really hard things if I earn it along the way. . . . So then, if I say something that I need to say to make the work better, it’s a little bit easier for people to accept, because I earn the trust through caring for the whole person rather than just the portfolio.”

‘Art shifts the vibe’

The same ethos of security and companionship helped Gregorio shape his activity for Talk With Your Mouth Full, for which he was intent on addressing the current moment: “I didn’t want to do anything so escapist. I wanted [to] acknowledge that [we’re] living through a weird time.”

For his exercise at Talk With Your Mouth Full, Gregorio started by admitting to his audience: “I hate violence, I hate war . . . I hate Donald Trump and all that he stands for . . . One of the things I hate about right now is [that] I’m living in a time where I feel like there’s a lot of hate in the world, and it’s f***ing exhausting.”

To combat this exhaustion, Gregorio reorients his mindset by wishing the person or thing that angers him well. He asked his audience at Talk With Your Mouth Full to do the same thing, first by offering his own example. “Hi, Donny,” he said to President Trump, “I wish that something great would happen for you today, so that you can have what I have. So that you can feel love in your life that I have. I hope that someone does something for you today.”

Alvin Gregorio (seated, black cap) leads an art project during a recent Talk With Your Mouth Full event at which he was the featured artist. (Photo: Alvin Gregorio)

For Talk With Your Mouth Full, he prepared print outs of his own work for participants to collage onto manilla envelopes he’d spray painted and signed, in the hopes that they could make something beautiful and flip difficult things into positive ones, in collaboration with others, during a time of tension and political unrest. “It’s just to try to remind people that art can help change perspective,” says Gregorio.

Before beginning the art activity, Gregorio explained the significance of the manilla envelopes: to pay for his undergraduate degree, Gregorio worked early mornings as a janitor on his college campus. During his shifts, he plucked used manilla envelopes and other discarded material found in the trash cans of professors and faculty members, a foundation which he transformed into some of the first works he ever sold.

A thread through Gregorio’s work is using art to address difficult things head on and “shift the vibe.”

As the grandson of a Filipino World War II guerrilla sniper, Gregorio spent most of his life hating the soldiers that came to the Philippines and killed his family. Eventually, he says he realized how exhausting that was. “Instead of expelling their ghosts,” Gregorio says, “I want to enlist them. And I think to myself, like, hey, they’re just f***ing teenagers too, [and] their government forced [them] to go to another country and do these things. They're just working-class people, too. So, I started to think, hey, instead of hating the Japanese that came to my village– those soldiers were just like my grandfather. They were sent to do something they couldn’t handle.

“Then I found in my practice that I could truly change my perspective, change my life. I don’t have to hate anymore. I like using art to think of a different way, like, hey, I genuinely want the offspring of those people to [be] happy and safe and peaceful.

‘The best part of my week’

In 2015, Gregorio was diagnosed with Chronic Inflammatory Demyelinating Polyneuropathy (CIDP), a rare autoimmune neurological disorder affecting the myelin, or protective covering, of peripheral nerves, preventing them from conducting electricity in the way they should.

“Every Friday, Mary [Gregorio’s partner] gets my shots,” Gregorio told his Black Cube audience. “Three [shots], and it lasts three hours. And it’s the worst part of my week, and I’ve been doing it for 10 years.

“I want you all to consider the power we have in reframing the things that we do, and [how] art does that,” Gregorio tells the Black Cube audience. Asking them to hold him accountable, he says, “from here on out, I want you to remind me that [these shots are] the best part of my week. That is the part of my week that helps me be [around] for our continuum… So in front of you all, I’m going to try to change that.”

“I could do the opposite and just talk s*** on everything,” he says, admitting that it would probably be easier. Sharing his mother’s advice, he says, “If you’re not going to do it out of love, don’t do it. And growing up, I was like, are you trying to tell me that I have to be in a good mood about all the things that I have to do? And what I realized is that what I [think] she’s saying now that I look back, is like, if you could figure out how to find the good in it, it’s going to be better for everybody. You’ll enjoy it, the product will be better… that’s art, right? Trying to shift the perspective. Like, hey, you have the ability to shift your perspective… we have the power to reimagine the way we see things.”

At Talk With Your Mouth Full, in his classroom and his day-to-day life, Gregorio says, “I hope to remind people that creativity is an awesome tool. Art is an awesome tool.”

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As the featured artist at a recent Black Cube event, CU ��ý��'s Alvin Gregorio emphasized how getting primal and getting to know each other—and yes, sharing meals—makes better people.

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Top image: Alvin Gregorio (front row, black cap) with attendees at the recent Talk With Your Mouth Full event organized by Black Cube

Debating America’s power—and peril—in a time of instability

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 14 Apr 2026 16:59:45 +0000

Debating America’s power—and peril—in a time of instability Rachel Sauer Tue, 04/14/2026 - 10:59

Bradley Worrell

Veteran national security advisors John Bolton and Susan Rice sparred over whether America is committing “superpower suicide,” headlining the Conference on World Affairs week

“The United States is not committing superpower suicide,” veteran national security advisor John Bolton told a capacity audience gathered Monday evening in the ��ý��’s Glenn Miller Ballroom. He paused, then added a qualifier, “So far.”

Seated a few feet away, veteran national security advisor Susan Rice offered a very different take.

“Sadly and dangerously,” she said, “the United States, under the current administration, is indeed in the process of committing superpower suicide.”

Susan Rice (left) and John Bolton (second from right) with Jennifer Schubert-Akin (second from left), chairman and CEO of The Steamboat Institute, and Chancellor Justin Schwartz (right).

The stark disagreement between the two policy experts set the tone for a wide-ranging debate, during which the pair clashed over the extent to which America’s status as the world’s sole superpower has been damaged. Monday’s debate, sponsored by The Steamboat Institute and the Bruce D. Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization, headlined CU ��ý��’s 78th Conference on World Affairs week.

While the debate’s title—“Is the United States is in the process of committing superpower suicide?”—was deliberately provocative, what emerged during the roughly two-hour debate was a respectful disagreement on certain subjects and a fair amount of common ground between Bolton, a staunch Republican, and Rice, a lifelong Democrat.

Bolton and Rice both have extensive experience shaping American foreign policy for U.S. administrations. Bolton was a national security advisor during President Trump’s first term in office and was U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from 2005 to 2006. Rice’s previous roles in government include serving as a U.S. national security adviser (2013–17), U.S. ambassador to the United Nations (2009–13) and domestic policy adviser (2021–23).

Opening salvos contrasted views

In her opening remarks, Rice issued a sweeping indictment of the Trump administration. She accused the administration of undermining the “five key pillars” of America’s postwar superpower status: military strength, economic power, alliances, domestic resilience and soft power.

“On each of these five dimensions, we are far weaker today than we were even 18 months ago,” she argued. She specifically accused the administration of politicizing the Pentagon and purging senior officers, implementing an unpredictable tariff policy, damaging the European alliance and openly threatening allies. She also took the administration to task for making cuts to research funding, attacking universities, expressing hostility to public health institutions, dismantling USAID and rolling back environmental protections.

Bolton did not dispute that American foreign policy under Trump—as well as previous administrations—had gone badly wrong. What he rejected was the claim that the damage was fatal.

“We have made multiple mistakes since the end of the Cold War,” he said, arguing that both political parties share responsibility. After the Soviet Union collapsed, Western leaders mistakenly believed history ended and rapidly reduced military spending, he told the audience, adding, “we have never recovered from that mistake.”

Bolton said U.S. leaders misunderstood Russian nationalism and ignored Vladimir Putin’s warnings that he viewed the Soviet collapse as a geopolitical tragedy. Failures to deter Russian aggression in Georgia and Ukraine flowed from that misreading, he said.

John Bolton (left) and Susan Rice (right) discussed whether the United States is committing "superpower suicide" during a Conference on World Affairs event Monday evening.

Meanwhile, China represents another long-running error, Bolton said. American officials assumed economic integration would produce political liberalization, but “we were wrong on both counts,” he said, warning that China today is more autocratic and more aggressive.

Yet Bolton insisted these failures—serious as they are—do not mean America’s greatest days are behind it.

As for President Trump, Bolton said, “We are suffering undeniably by his mistakes, but it is not superpower suicide. He is an aberration and will pass from the scene.”

United on alliances and the UN

Despite their opposing conclusions, Rice and Bolton did find agreement on the importance of alliances.

“NATO is the greatest alliance in human history,” Rice said, emphasizing its deterrent value and reminding the audience that Article 5, which regards an attack on one NATO member as an attack on all, had only been invoked once—following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. Undermining NATO, she warned, benefits Russia and China.

“NATO is the envy of Russia and China, which is why they are trying to subvert it,” she said.

Bolton largely agreed.

“What has provided peace and security in the world since 1945 was American power and the system of alliances that we built,” he said. He dismissed the idea of a “rules-based international order” as a myth, arguing that stability came from American strength.

Their disagreement was on tone and trust. Rice said Trump’s threats regarding his desire to see the U.S. acquire Greenland and annex Canada and his transactional rhetoric have damaged allies’ confidence in America, while Bolton emphasized the long-standing failure of European allies to meet defense commitments, acknowledging that Trump’s confrontational style prompted allies to increase defense spending.

Bolton and Rice also agreed that the United Nations is largely dysfunctional, but disagreed about whether it can be fixed.

“The UN’s main political bodies are broken beyond usefulness,” Bolton said, while acknowledging some of its specialized agencies do valuable work.

“The UN is a mess, but we would be worse off without it,” Rice said. “The challenge is reform—not abandonment.”

As for China and its aspirations to reclaim Taiwan, Bolton argued that the United States should abandon its policy of “strategic ambiguity” regarding the island nation in favor of a stated commitment to defend Taiwan to deter possible Chinese aggression.

“I think if we lose Taiwan, even slowly, to China … all of East Asia and Southeast Asia are in real jeopardy, because our credibility would be shot beyond repair,” he said.

Rice did not offer an opinion as to whether the U.S. should formally commit to defend Taiwan but she said Trump’s foreign policy regarding Asia is distracted.

Susan Rice (left) and John Bolton (right) during Monday night's Conference on World Affairs discussion.

Experts divided on Iran

Iran exposed the deepest philosophical split between the two national security experts.

Bolton argued that a hostile regime bent on acquiring nuclear weapons and supporting terrorist networks ultimately leaves America with only one option: “If a regime that’s hostile to the United States can’t be persuaded or forced to change its behavior, regime change is the only option.”

Rice forcefully disagreed.

Noting that she would welcome regime change in Iran, she added, “Regime change through the barrel of a gun virtually never works … and it definitely never works without a ground invasion.” Preventing Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons was best pursued through diplomacy rather than sustained military escalation, she argued.

Bolton said he believes that, as a result of recent U.S. strikes on Iran’s leadership and military sites, the Iranian regime is at its weakest point since it took power in 1979 and it could experience a “slow-motion collapse” before the end of the year if the U.S. applies sufficient pressure.

Rice countered that by taking out the country’s leadership in a U.S.-Israeli first strike, Iran’s new leaders are now willing to do whatever they believe is necessary to remain in power—which has made Iran more dangerous.

What Bolton and Rice did agree on is that the United States currently has not clearly improved its strategic position against Iran.

“That spirit—open inquiry, civil discourse and the exchange of ideas across differences—is the fundamental role of universities in the United States and exactly what the Conference on World Affairs was created to advance."
Chancellor Justin Schwartz

The U.S. and Iran are now engaged in brinkmanship, waiting to see if their opponent blinks, Rice and Bolton agreed. “If it depends upon Trump’s resilience, we’re screwed,” Bolton said, drawing laughter from the crowd. Trump fired Bolton during the president’s first term due to sharp disagreements over foreign policy.

The Steamboat Institute allowed those in attendance and watching online to take a poll as to whether they believe the United States is committing superpower suicide. Before the night’s debate, 77% of those casting votes said the country is committing superpower suicide, 9% said it is not and 14% were undecided. After the debate, 75% of respondents said the country is committing superpower suicide, 13% said it is not and 12% were unsure.

CWA designed to foster civic debate

Kicking off Monday’s debate, CU ��ý�� Chancellor Justin Schwartz noted that higher education is often criticized for failing to platform diverse political opinions.

“Tonight, we are here and we are pushing back on that perception,” he told the audience, adding,

“That spirit—open inquiry, civil discourse and the exchange of ideas across differences—is the fundamental role of universities in the United States and exactly what the Conference on World Affairs was created to advance. At the ��ý��, we believe democracy depends on our willingness to debate hard questions with rigor and with civility. Tonight, that belief is alive and visible.”

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Veteran national security advisors John Bolton and Susan Rice sparred over whether America is committing “superpower suicide,” headlining the Conference on World Affairs week.

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Top image: Susan Rice (left) and John Bolton (right) during Monday night's Conference on World Affairs discussion. (All photos by Glenn Asakawa/CU ��ý��)

‘A home for the humanities, a home for the liberal arts’

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 22:55:07 +0000

‘A home for the humanities, a home for the liberal arts’ Rachel Sauer Fri, 04/10/2026 - 16:55

Rachel Sauer

Hellems Arts and Sciences building reopens Friday following an almost three-year renovation that enhanced its accessibility, sustainability and role as the heart of the arts and humanities at CU ��ý��

A while back, third-year student Natalie Cleary was on her way to a Shakespeare class in the Engineering Center when she bumped into a friend—an engineering major—who was perplexed by her presence and asked her, “What are you doing here?”

It’s not that she wasn’t welcome, but she’s an English creative writing major, and she was far from the Hellems Arts and Sciences building—the heart of arts and humanities at the ��ý��. In a way, she was far from home.

"For most students, Hellems is literally where their CU ��ý�� journey begins," said Daryl Maeda, interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Friday afternoon, then, was a homecoming, as Hellems officially reopened following an almost three-year renovation that saw the 105-year-old building become more accessible, more sustainable and more welcoming and expand its role as “a home—a home for the humanities, a home for the liberal arts and for the unending work of understanding the human experience,” said Daryl Maeda, interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, during a reopening ceremony on the steps in front of the Hellems main entrance.

“We do live in a moment that sometimes questions the value of a liberal arts education and the profound thinking that this building represents. I want to say very clearly that the questions explored here have never been more important: How do we understand our history to help us navigate our future? How do we find common cause across cultures and languages? How do we reason thoughtfully about what is right and what is true and what is ethical and what has integrity? These are the questions the world urgently needs answered, and Hellems is where CU ��ý�� says, ‘We believe in these questions, we invest in them and we honor the people who ask them.’”

More than just a building

Hellems’ reopening Friday was imbued with particular significance because it happened during CU ��ý��’s 150th-anniversary year, a time to celebrate the university’s past and to envision its future. Hellems plays a significant role in both.

When it opened in 1921, it was the first campus building designed by architect Charles Klauder in what has become the university’s signature—and iconic—Tuscan vernacular style, which has aesthetically defined the university for a century. It was named in honor of Fred Burton Renney Hellems, who served as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences for 30 years, beginning in 1899.

Maeda noted that about 85% of undergraduate students take at least one class in Hellems during their time at CU ��ý��, and 56% of all first-year students take a class at Hellems during their first semester, “so for most students, Hellems is literally where their CU ��ý�� journey begins. It’s a shared experience that unites students and alumni across many generations.”

Chancellor Justin Schwartz observed that there are moments on a university campus when a building reopening feels like something much more. Hellems, he said, is not just where a student's experience at the university begins, “but where the ideas of the university take root, where perspectives are challenged and where intellectual confidence begins to take shape.”

Schwartz praised the state of Colorado, whose leaders committed 40% of the funds for the $105.2 million total renovation cost. That public investment, he said, affirms that the humanities and the liberal arts are a public good, essential to civic life, economic vitality and a society that is capable of making thoughtful, informed decisions.

The Hellems renovation "demonstrates that we can honor the character of a place while dramatically improving how it performs for the future,” said Chancellor Justin Schwartz.

Further, Schwartz praised the renovation’s significant improvements in sustainability, which reduce the building’s energy use by 68% while still adding air conditioning for the first time in its history. The renovation also preserved more than 80% of the building’s original clay roof tiles, which “demonstrates that we can honor the character of a place while dramatically improving how it performs for the future,” Schwartz said.

“Taken altogether, these choices reflect something larger than just a renovation. They reflect our commitment to stewardship—stewardship of the public investment that made this happen, stewardship of this historic space that all of you who had a class in here previously can reflect on and stewardship of our core academic mission that defines CU ��ý��. It also reflects a clear belief that the significance of a building isn’t just the building; it’s what happens within it.”

Schwartz noted classrooms designed for flexibility, shared spaces that invite students to stay and greatly increased accessibility that reflects a commitment to dignity, independence and ensuring that everyone can participate in the life of the university. “This is a renovation guided by the idea that we put students first,” he said.

‘A home away from home’

As the center of arts and humanities on the CU ��ý�� campus, Hellems is home to the departments of history, English, linguistics and philosophy, as well as the Anderson Language and Technology Center and the Colorado Shakespeare Festival. In fact, Klauder returned to campus in 1938 to design the building wings framing the courtyard that’s home to the Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre, where Colorado Shakespeare Festival performances happen.

The Hellems renovation also reflects a commitment to the arts in the four commissioned works of original art now on display.

For Cleary, “Hellems has been the breath of fresh air I needed on campus this semester,” she said, adding that before it reopened, her study spots were growing stale, and she was zig-zagging all over campus to attend classes and meet with professors. Now, she said, she’s at home in the building’s wide-open spaces and natural light and is there most days—often making a beeline for the cozy new study booths.

“Hellems is a home away from home,” she said, “and the heart of the College of Arts and Sciences is beating stronger than ever.”

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All photos by Glenn Asakawa/CU ��ý��

Students create better ways to communicate science

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 10 Apr 2026 15:58:11 +0000

Students create better ways to communicate science Rachel Sauer Fri, 04/10/2026 - 09:58

Rachel Sauer

In a program with Northglenn High School students, Institute for Behavioral Genetics researchers ask for creative and innovative ideas on how to talk about science

With all due respect to the dedicated and passionate scientists at the ��ý��, but Northglenn High School students Joseph Zuniga and Alecsander Morain’s main goal was to “convert this study into a manageable format for normal people,” Morain explains.

The study in question was a recently published paper finding that children’s early interactions with music shape—but don’t determine—their musical lives decades later. The research, based on 40 years of data from surveys of 1,900 people in The Colorado Adoption/Twin Study of Lifespan Behavioral Development and Cognitive Aging (CATSLife), also considered shifting genetic and environmental influences.

Northglenn High School senior Carla Camacho holds the graphic novel that she and her fellow students created from an Institute for Behavioral Genetics study.

“It took quite a few readings to understand what the study was saying,” Zuniga says, and Morain adds, “and even then, we get to the results and there’s this graph that makes zero sense.”

Daniel Gustavson, first author of the study and a CU ��ý�� assistant research professor in the Institute for Behavioral Genetics (IBG), was standing fairly near as Zuniga and Morain expressed their honest opinions, but no hard feelings. That insight was why the two young men, along with more than 100 of their fellow Northglenn High School students, were gathered at the Sustainability, Energy and Environment Complex (SEEC) Thursday morning.

They were participating in a program envisioned and led by Analicia Howard, a psychology and neuroscience PhD student and Gustavson’s research colleague at the IBG. The program, which is funded by a Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship grant, is part of a broader research study called Comunidad, which is centered at IBG but has collaborators across campus and at Washington University.

“We were designing this study so that the community we’re most interested in, which is here in Colorado, is more involved in that development part of the study—that they are engaged in every aspect of research,” Howard explains, adding that a lot of effort in the first several years of community-based research like theirs should be focused on building partnerships.

“An issue with academia in general is there’s such a tough history with a lot of scientific research, especially if it includes human subjects in marginalized communities. So, we’re wanting to connect with the community in a way that’s mutually beneficial and leverage community partnerships in the future with established, trusted organizations. Schools felt like a natural segue to reaching broader audiences and meeting our goal of communicating science better. We were asking, ‘How do we communicate in a way that’s engaging, in a way that reaches the communities we’re interested in reaching?’”

They thought: Let’s ask the students.

Explaining science better

The idea is straightforward: select a handful of IBG research papers and ask students, working in groups, to choose one and create a project focused on how to better communicate the science to their broader community.

Howard and Gustavson approached Northglenn High School because CU Science Discovery and the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research had previously worked with students and faculty there, “so there was already an established relationship and trust,” Howard says.

As a STEM high school, Northglenn requires every class to have an aspect of STEM, “but we were still thinking in terms of the accessibility of the science when we were choosing the papers, because the theme of genetics can be difficult to parse if you’re fairly new to it,” Gustavson says.

Meet the student award winners

Award for scientific accuracy

Ricardo Ayala
Brandon Diaz Renteria
Maddy Duncan
Alex Dunn
Caleb Ewudzi-Acquah

Award for innovation

Alex Trillo Salais
Will Watt
Joey Marquez
Angel Mendoza Maldonado
Frankie Pillar Cornell

Award for accessible presentation

Carla Camacho
Jane Heslop
Kimberly Olivas
Aylin Ramirez

The IBG scientists selected six of their papers that centered on topics that might be interesting to teenagers—video games, music, mental health—and presented them to Amy Murillo’s and Cheyenne Rost’s multicultural literature classes.

“Every year we incorporate a practice-based learning project into the curriculum, and we thought this was a real-world opportunity that the kids could grab onto,” Murillo says. “It’s been part of our research and analysis unit, so for the first few weeks we were talking about things like misinformation and fake news and why it’s important to read these studies.”

Then Murillo and Rost and about 120 students—all seniors except for one junior graduating early—arrayed across four classes spent a week reading a practice study.

“We were going through it step by step, learning how to read a scientific paper and trying to give them the autonomy to make mistakes and learn from them,” Rost says. “We were talking about things like how to understand results and how a layman would understand the jargon.”

Howard and Gustavson also visited the classes to answer questions once students had chosen the papers on which they’d focus their projects.

Thinking creatively about science

As for the projects, “we knew we had to make the paper simpler,” says Joselyn Ramirez, who along with classmate Genessis Garcia chose an IBG-led study finding that playing video games didn’t show consistent associations with impulsivity, but rather screentime in general is associated with impulsive tendencies in adulthood.

“There was a lot of stuff where I had to go back and go back and go back because I didn’t understand it,” Ramirez says, and Garcia adds that if they, as students at a STEM high school, had such difficulty understanding the study, what would it be like for a non-scientist community member to try reading it?

So they created interactive videos, which they showed on a screen they set up on their display table Thursday morning.

Joselyn Ramirez (left) and Genessis Garcia (right) with an interactive display board based on Institute for Behavioral Genetics research finding that playing video games doesn't show consistent associations with impulsivity.

Zuniga and Morain also thought to adapt the music research to a format Murillo and Rost teach their students—a recipe, with ingredients, steps and finished product. Students also were encouraged to think creatively and in multimedia terms as they designed their projects, so Zuniga and Morain created a survey on a poster board on which event attendees could mark the kind of instrument they’d like to play.

For Carla Camacho, Jane Heslop, Kimberly Olivas and Aylin Ramirez, thinking creatively about communicating the science meant writing, designing and drawing a graphic novel. They also chose the video games and impulsivity research and created a story about two twins, Samantha and Sammy, and how each is affected by screen time.

“The study is based on twin research, so we thought that’s where we should start,” says Camacho, who drew the final graphic novel.

“There was a lot of rewriting and rewording, because we were summarizing and trying to use simpler words,” says Heslop, who drew the original storyboards for the novel. “But I think I have better time management and better communication skills now, because we had to think about what we really needed to say and how we should say it in a way that people would understand.”

The students’ projects were judged Thursday by volunteer IBG faculty members and graduate students, and part of the judges’ assessment was how clearly students expressed their ideas on how to communicate science better.

“Definitely more visual appeal,” says Chloe Ibarra, who with classmate Alejandra Franco also chose the video games and impulsivity study. “If you look at the study, there’s nothing that really catches your eye, but if you look at ours,” and she indicates a poster on an easel behind them that takes a vision board approach to communicating the science, “there’s color everywhere and it’s interesting to look at.”

For Isaac Aranda and his project partners Josue Sanchez and Leo Lin, who also chose the video games and impulsivity study, a key to communicating science is using language that people will understand: “We had to look a lot of stuff up,” Aranda says, “and I don’t know if everyone would have the patience to do that.”

But it’s important to find the right words and the right way to talk about the science, Sanchez says, because “this study isn’t saying video games are bad, it’s really saying we shouldn’t be on our phones all the time.”

Alejandra Franco (left) and Chloe Ibarra (right) with their project that emphasizes the need for visual interest when communicating science.

Institute for Behavioral Genetics scientist Daniel Gustavson (right) talks with Northglenn High School students about their science communication project.

IBG research associate Jeff Lessem (left) talks with Kimberly Olivas (center) and Carla Camacho (right) about their science communication project, which won the award for most accessible presentation.

Alecsander Morain (left) and Joseph Zuniga (right) with their project communicating research finding that children’s early interactions with music shape—but don’t determine—their musical lives decades later.

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In a program with Northglenn High School students, Institute for Behavioral Genetics researchers ask for creative and innovative ideas on how to talk about science.

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Top image: Northglenn High School students explain their science communication project to IBG judges. (All photos by Arielle Wiedenbeck/PACES)

How local journalists help Brazil’s favelas endure

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 09 Apr 2026 20:12:09 +0000

How local journalists help Brazil’s favelas endure Rachel Sauer Thu, 04/09/2026 - 14:12

Cody DeBos

CU ��ý�� sociologist Molly Todd finds that community newspapers were vital for people living in Brazil’s favelas during the COVID-19 pandemic

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit Rio de Janeiro in early 2020, residents of the favelas Maré and Rocinha faced a crisis of communication. Public health messages in Brazil were contradictory—including the government’s denial of COVID-19. Like so many under-resourced and overlooked communities, the roughly 210,000 residents of these favelas received information laden with jargon, misinformation and directives that did not align with their daily realities.

Fortunately, inside the favelas, local newspapers like Maré de Notícias and Fala Roça were picking up the slack. They offered readers humor and solidarity while providing their communities with a shared sense of direction that helped them survive the pandemic.

For Molly Todd, an assistant teaching professor in the ��ý��’s Department of Sociology and the International Affairs Program, this grassroots journalism stood out.

Molly Todd, a CU ��ý�� assistant teaching professor of sociology, and her research colleagues found that community newspapers were an important source of information in Brazil's favela neighborhoods during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We really wanted to understand what it was they were doing in the face of a global pandemic that made them such important pillars of their communities,” she says.

Todd and an interdisciplinary team of co-authors recently published a study in the Journal of Urban Affairs examining how these two community-run newspapers helped guide residents through the pandemic and endure it with dignity. The project, which included scholars from Brazil and the U.S., offers a new lens on crisis response and who gets to tell the ensuing stories.

City within a city

Brazil’s favelas are often misrepresented in the media. They tend to be depicted as chaotic and dangerous places that tourists to sunny Rio de Janeiro should avoid. While favelas do struggle with crime and drug trafficking, they’re also rich with social networks, political activism and neighborhood pride.

Speaking of the teams behind Maré de Notícias and Fala Roça, Todd says, “These are journalists who are rooted in the places they report on. They’re talking about things that are very much on the minds of folks living next door in these communities.”

Residents of Maré and Rocinha, which are densely populated urban areas often excluded from formal infrastructure, have long relied on information from community sources. When COVID-19 arrived, this network became even more critical.

“In many cases, favelas are characterized by both hyper surveillance and neglect. The state is failing to meet the basic needs of its residents while disproportionately policing them—even though they’re Brazilian citizens who should have the full rights that other citizens have,” Todd says.

During the pandemic, state-led responses were lacking. Official communication was slow and often misleading. Moreover, widely shared health advice was rarely tailored to the unique realities of favela life.

That’s where the community newspapers stepped in.

“They were very clear about the fact that they wanted to be sources of credible information, sources of timely information and sources of information that were contextualized for the community,” Todd says.

Stay safe, stay sane

Todd and her team of researchers collaborated to analyze how Maré de Notícias and Fala Roça responded to the pandemic. One team member, Vanessa Guerra, was interested in a central theme early on: resilience.

Fala Roça is one of the community newspapers that served as a vital source of information during the COVID-19 pandemic for people living in Rio De Janeiro's favela neighborhoods. (Photo: Fala Roça)

“We often talk about resilience as if it’s just ‘bouncing back,’ but that misses a lot of the bigger story behind-the-scenes of how people survive,” Todd says. She adds that discussions of resilience need to include a critique of the systemic oppression that produces the need to be resilient in the first place.

Informationally, the favela newspapers filled gaps left by the state. They ran myth-busting columns, answered readers’ questions and provided updates on local infection rates. They provided regular COVID updates and used WhatsApp to circulate infographics, FAQs and emergency contacts.

But information was just the start. The papers also nurtured archives of community culture and memorials for those who didn’t survive. One article collected portraits of neighbors lost to the virus. Another ran a photo series of the newly empty public spaces in Maré paired with poetic reflections from the community.

“They were doing this work of archiving sort of how a community comes through a moment like this together,” Todd says.

Who gets to speak?

Mainstream coverage of Brazil’s favelas often skews toward the negative, focusing on issues like violence and poverty. During the pandemic, that narrative sharpened to portray the neighborhoods as volatile, ungovernable zones where health guidance was ignored.

The favela newspapers told a different story—one of hope, community and organizing for a future. That was something Todd and her fellow researchers wanted to capture and preserve.

Todd has continued to explore questions of representation, voice and power in other projects related to Maré. At CU ��ý��, she organized an interactive visual and textual library exhibit called Maré from the Inside. Hosted in Norlin Library from September 2025 to February 2026, the exhibit was intended to “[c]enter and display the intellectual and artistic production of the mostly Black and indigenous residents of Complexo da Maré. . . . The project leverages art’s pedagogical potential with the hope to contribute to a more nuanced public understanding of favelas.”

“There’s so much history of academics just extracting from communities, writing about them and then leaving. It’s not really been a reciprocal process,” says CU ��ý�� scholar Molly Todd, emphasizing the importance of collaborating with local communities on projects that benefit their interests. (Photo: Wolf Schram/Unsplash)

Reflecting on the work her team put in, Todd asks, “How can we produce a memory of a place marked by so many erasures? Can this memory help us imagine a different future? How do we encounter unfamiliar places in ethical ways and relate across our differences?”

Visitors were able to walk through a favela story on their own terms, feeling immersed in the ways neighbors cared for each other and allowed creativity to thrive even in an incredibly dark time. They also took in workshops, panels and tours hosted by artists in residence surrounding the exhibit’s opening.

Artists participating in the exhibit included Henrique Gomes da Silva, Andreza Jorge, Paulo Vitor Lino, Wallace Lino, Dayana Sabany, Francisco Valdean and Antonello Veneri. Exhibit organizers included Nicholas Barnes, Andreza Jorge, Henrique Gomes da Silva, Desirée Poets and Molly Todd.

What we can learn from favela newsrooms

Though Todd’s study and the Maré from the Inside exhibit focus on Brazil, she believes the lessons within apply far beyond the borders of Latin America.

“If we want people to feel safe and informed in a crisis, we need to think about trust,” she says.

Top-down communication often fails to resonate with marginalized communities, breeding distrust and false narratives. Local journalism led by people with lived experience can be the link that builds enduring relationships in their communities.

As for her involvement, Todd reiterates the importance of collaborating with local communities on projects that benefit their interests.

“There’s so much history of academics just extracting from communities, writing about them and then leaving. It’s not really been a reciprocal process,” she says.

“To be fair, our project still wasn’t reciprocal in the sense that we have our names on the article and the journalists don’t. In my eyes, I would like to see even more collective kinds of scholarship in the future.”

Looking ahead, Todd hopes this work starts deeper conversations about collaborative knowledge production and whose voices shape our collective memory. In a world facing climate disasters and political upheaval, she sees an urgent need for models that put local knowledge and lived experiences front and center.

“If we’re going to build more just societies,” she says, “we need to pay attention to … people telling stories about their own communities and find ways to amplify their voices.”

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CU ��ý�� sociologist Molly Todd finds that community newspapers were vital for people living in Brazil’s favelas during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Top photo courtesy Maré de Notícias

Remembering victims of the Holocaust by speaking their names

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 08 Apr 2026 21:01:42 +0000

Remembering victims of the Holocaust by speaking their names Rachel Sauer Wed, 04/08/2026 - 15:01

Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Yom HaShoah, will be observed on CU ��ý�� campus Tuesday with a public reading of the names of Jews killed in the Holocaust

The ��ý�� community will observe Yom HaShoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day, on campus Tuesday with a public reading of the names of European Jews murdered by the Germans and their allies during the Holocaust.

Chancellor Justin Schwartz will begin the reading at 10 a.m. at the Dalton Trumbo Fountain Court in front of the University Memorial Center, and the reading will continue until 3 p.m.

Event organizers encourage members of the campus and broader communities to participate in the readings. Prospective participants may sign up here.

In 1980, the U.S. Congress established the Days of Remembrance, an eight-day period which includes Yom HaShoah, as the nation’s annual commemoration of the Holocaust. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., which opened in 1993, leads the nation in observing Days of Remembrance and encourages observances throughout the United States.

Holocaust Remembrance Day

What: Public readings on Yom HaShoah

When: Tuesday, April 14, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.

Where: Dalton Trumbo Fountain Court in front of the University Memorial Center.

The main event takes place at the U.S. Capitol, often attended by the president. In Israel, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah in Hebrew) is a national day of commemoration on which the 6 million Jews murdered in the Holocaust are memorialized.

It begins at sunset on the 27th of the month of Nisan, the first month of the Jewish calendar, and ends the following evening, according to the traditional Jewish custom of marking a day. Established in 1953 by a law from the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, it falls close to the anniversary of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

The central ceremonies, in the evening and the following morning, are held at Yad Vashem, Israel’s official memorial to victims of the Holocaust.

During Yom HaShoah ceremonies in the United States, Israel and elsewhere, people read the names of Jews murdered by the Germans and their allies during World War II.

“The events of the Holocaust are given meaning only by remembering the individuals who died during that time,” writes Sharon L. Sobel, a Reform rabbi currently serving Temple Beth Or in Raleigh, NC. “We gather as a community, we remember the names of those who died, and we affirm their lives by how we choose to lead our lives. So, names, indeed, are very powerful. ... we honor those who came before us and those who perished during the Holocaust by giving our names—and their names meaning through our actions and aspirations and the way we fulfill them.”

The CU ��ý�� event is presented by the Program in Jewish Studies. It is co-sponsored by the CU ��ý�� Department of History and Center for Humanities and the Arts.

Though the reading of names occurs each year, those names “have not lost any of their meaning and significance,” says Thomas Pegelow Kaplan, the Singer Endowed Chair in Jewish History. “On the contrary.”

For more information on the Days of Remembrance and Yom HaShoah commemoration, please contact Pegelow Kaplan at thomas.pegelow-kaplan@colorado.edu.

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Holocaust Remembrance Day, or Yom HaShoah, will be observed on CU ��ý�� campus Tuesday with a public reading of the names of Jews killed in the Holocaust.

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Under the dome: Why two longtime ��ý�� residents keep coming back to Fiske Planetarium

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 30 Mar 2026 23:49:30 +0000

Under the dome: Why two longtime ��ý�� residents keep coming back to Fiske Planetarium Rachel Sauer Mon, 03/30/2026 - 17:49

Bradley Worrell

Although Drew Simon and Ron Marks did not attend CU ��ý��, they have a deep appreciation for the university—and for Fiske in particular

When Drew Simon and Ron Marks walk out of Fiske Planetarium after a show, they intuitively know what’s coming next. It’s not applause or conversation or even a specific memory of a particular song or image.

It’s a feeling.

As the two longtime friends step back into the ��ý�� night, eyes adjusting, ears recalibrating, both of them are grinning from ear to ear. That part never changes.

“Every time we went,” Simon says, “we knew we’d walk out smiling.”

Longtime friends and ��ý�� residents Ron Marks (left) and Drew Simon are avid fans of the Fiske Planetarium, having attended dozens of shows over the past five years. They’ve seen some shows multiple times.

That quiet certainty—more than any single performance—is what has kept Simon and Marks returning to Fiske for years. Not because they planned to. Not because either of them studied astronomy or worked in the arts or even attended the ��ý��.

And not because they expected to find something transformative inside the planetarium they had driven past many times. Instead, it began with curiosity and a misunderstanding.

Deep roots in the community

Marks, 80, and Simon, 71, have been friends for more than two decades, both with deep roots in the ��ý�� community stretching back at least four decades. Introduced to each other through a mutual friend—Marks’ housemate—they bonded over shared interests, which include hiking, live music, art and cultural events.

“There was a time when we were probably hippies, or hippie‑adjacent,” Simon says with a laugh. Over that time, CU ��ý�� has been a constant presence in their life—even though neither man attended the university.

Marks has been retired for several years from a career as an electric engineer for Lefthand Design in Niwot. Simon recently retired from his job as a principal at BSW Wealth Partners in ��ý��. Like many longtime ��ý�� residents, Simon’s relationship with the university grew organically, through connections to the Leeds School of Business and the Conference on World Affairs. Also, his oldest son attended CU ��ý��, further weaving the university into his family’s life.

Yet none of that connected either man directly to the Fiske Planetarium. Neither of them had a lifelong fascination with celestial mechanics or immersive films projected on a dome ceiling. Their first visit came the way meaningful discoveries do: by accident.

“As for Fiske specifically, we didn’t have some grand plan. It was probably curiosity,” Simon says, reflecting back. “We may have seen a flyer for the planetarium or something in ��ý�� Weekly back when that still existed. Or we may have simply asked, ‘What’s going on at the planetarium?’”

Whatever the case, Simon and Marks decided to check it out.

All the pretty lights

Their first show at Fiske remains memorable largely because of how unprepared they were for it. The show listing read “Pretty Lights”—and Simon assumed that meant exactly what it sounded like: a show featuring visually pleasing lights. He had never heard of the musical act called Pretty Lights and didn’t realize it was the stage name of the performer.

“That probably shows how naïve we were at the beginning,” Simon says with a laugh. That misunderstanding says something about where Simon and Marks were at the time. Not insiders. Not trend hunters. Just two curious locals trying something unknown to them.

They saw that first show more than five years ago—and since that time the two men have made up for lost time by seeing as many shows as possible. Still, an exact count is difficult to quantify, Simon says, because the experience resists counting. Some nights, they attend two shows, back to back. At dome film festivals hosted by Fiske, the two men might watch eight or more short films in a day. So, does that count as one event—or eight?

Simon says he’s never kept track “because it never occurred to me that one day someone would ask.” He estimates today that it could range anywhere between 30 and 60 shows.

What he remembers clearly is that—especially in the early years—he and Marks went a lot. They were enthralled.

So many shows to choose from

Marks says the variety of the programming offered by Fiske is a big part of the draw.

“We’ve done all of them,” Simon agrees. “We’ve attended traditional planetarium shows focused on astronomy—black holes, galaxies and large-scale maps of the universe. We’ve done laser shows and we’ve attended a lot of Liquid Sky performances.

“Early laser shows were sometimes underwhelming,” he confesses, “but the technology and the people running it have improved dramatically. Today, I wouldn’t dismiss a laser-only show the way I might have several years ago.”

“We’ve done all of them. We’ve attended traditional planetarium shows focused on astronomy—black holes, galaxies and large-scale maps of the universe. We’ve done laser shows and we’ve attended a lot of Liquid Sky performances," says Drew Simon. (Photo: Fiske Planetarium)

For Simon and Marks, Liquid Sky performances—the hybrid music-and-visual experiences—have remained their favorite over the years. Simon says that’s because these shows are not canned visuals synced to a soundtrack but instead are created in real time by artists operating sophisticated software during the performance.

Watching the artists (who refer to themselves as “navigators) felt like watching someone paint while the painting formed—”except the brush was digital and the canvas was the dome itself,” Simon says.

Over time, Marks and Simon became familiar faces at Fiske events. After shows, they stayed behind to talk with the navigators, who would ask what they liked about the performance and what might make the event even better. Did a sequence move too fast? Did a visual linger too long? Was there enough variety?

In an informal way, Marks and Simon became in-house critics, always with a focus on helping the experience become better. That sense of exchange and mutual engagement with the navigators deepened their connection to Fiske.

Music was the thread that tied many of these performances together. Simon and Marks say they’ve seen many Fiske shows more than once.

“We’ve seen a lot of Grateful Dead shows—probably more than any other artist. Pink Floyd would be second,” Simon says. “Some of that has to do with our musical preferences, and some of it has to do with relationships with navigators, who would tell us, ‘I’m navigating this show tonight—you should come.’”

“Each performance—even with the same music—felt different,” Marks adds. “The visuals changed. The pacing changed. The interpretation changed, so it was never the same twice.”

A place of musical discovery

Fiske also became a place of musical discovery. Simon says he and Marks had never heard of Tame Impala before attending a Liquid Sky show featuring the band’s music. Since then, they’ve seen that program at least three times.

The planetarium didn’t just reinforce existing preferences—it expanded them, Simon says.

At one point, Simon’s involvement with Fiske crossed a small but meaningful threshold. During conversations with one of the navigators years back, he mentioned that the program could benefit from different music. One idea that emerged from that discussion was a Jimi Hendrix show—and the navigator asked Simon if he’d curate the music. He agreed.

Simon says selecting the tracks, shaping the flow and keeping the program within the typical Liquid Sky timeframe gave him a new appreciation for the craft behind the scenes. The Hendrix show doesn’t run often, but Simon says he considers it a personal footnote in Liquid Sky history.

Film under the dome

If Liquid Sky showed Simon what live‑generated visuals could be, a single dome film revealed what else was possible. That moment came for Simon when Fiske hosted Samskara, a fully produced film by the visual artist Android Jones. Unlike the performances Simon had seen before, Samskara was created specifically for dome presentation. Although the film was only about 35 minutes long, the experience was, in Simon’s words, like going from black‑and‑white TV to color. It completely reframed his understanding of the medium.

“At its heart, Fiske isn’t just about astronomy or music—it’s an immersive experience. It’s an art form that’s still finding its full expression.”

The two men have seen Samskara at least three times. While it was more expensive compared to standard Fiske programming, Simon says he never questioned whether it was worth it.

The film demonstrated that the dome wasn’t just a venue for live experimentation; it was also a legitimate canvas for fully realized cinematic works. That realization carried forward into other film experiences, including Mesmerica and Beautifica by James Hood and collaborators, both of which Simon and Marks saw multiple times.

Then there was Dome Fest West, a judged film festival dedicated entirely to dome films. Fiske hosted it for multiple years, and Simon and Marks attended at least two full festivals, spending entire weekends immersed in the medium. Some films were short and abstract, others narrative or technically focused. There were panel discussions, awards and artists present. For Simon, it was one of the best experiences money could buy.

Fiske audience also evolves over time

Meanwhile, the audience has changed over time.

“When we first started going, there might be 10 people in the entire theater. And sometimes, we were the only ones there,” Simon says. “Now, shows sell out.”

Also, audiences now often applaud between songs—something Simon says would have felt out of place in a traditional planetarium setting.

The environment remains distinctive: everyone seated, the room dark and quiet, eyes turned upward. Simon says he always appreciated when navigators asked people not to use their phones, knowing how disruptive even a small phone screen can be in that darkness. While that messaging has become less consistent, Simon says he finds that audiences are generally respectful and engaged.

So why keep coming back?

Part of the answer is simple: Simon and Marks say they love the planetarium as a resource. Living in a university town is often talked about in abstract terms, but Simon says Fiske represents a tangible way to engage with CU ��ý��. Simon and Marks also regularly attend performances through the CU School of Music, and Simon says Fiske feels like a natural extension of that cultural life.

Another part is commitment. Marks and Simon became Fiske members because they wanted to support the planetarium. Membership made them feel connected, not just as consumers of entertainment but as participants in a community invested in what Fiske could become.

And finally, there is fascination.

“At its heart, Fiske isn’t just about astronomy or music—it’s an immersive experience,” Simon says. “It’s an art form that’s still finding its full expression.”

Each visit to Fiske carries the quiet promise that something new will unfold overhead.

“The people at Fiske are wonderful and the programming is thoughtful. And every time we go, we leave smiling,” Simon says. “It’s not hard to say, ‘Let’s go to a planetarium show tonight,’ because we know it will be a meaningful experience.”

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Although Drew Simon and Ron Marks did not attend CU ��ý��, they have a deep appreciation for the university—and for Fiske in particular.

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Study probes the ‘new normal’ for older adults, post-COVID

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 16 Mar 2026 14:30:42 +0000

Study probes the ‘new normal’ for older adults, post-COVID Rachel Sauer Mon, 03/16/2026 - 08:30

Bradley Worrell

Researchers from CU ��ý�� find that the pandemic reshaped how people age 55 and older interact with their communities while highlighting the importance of ‘social infrastructure’

The COVID-19 pandemic reshaped how people interact with their communities, but its effects on older Americans have been especially complex—altering daily routines, social connections and how people move through their communities even years later.

Those changes are at the center of a five‑year longitudinal study led by researchers at the ��ý�� and the University of Michigan. Hayes Hart‑Thompson (they/them), a graduate student and researcher in the CU ��ý�� Department of Geography, helped analyze how older adults adapted their lives during and after the pandemic.

In a recent paper, “A New Normal. Not Bad, Just Different,” Hart-Thompson and study co-authors provided a long-term view of how disruption turns into adaption, based upon survey responses from the same study participants since early 2020, all of whom are 55 or older.

Hayes Hart-Thompson is a graduate student in the CU ��ý�� Department of Geography whose recently published research helped analyze how older adults adapted their lives during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

“What really stood out,” Hart‑Thompson explains, “was that people weren’t just responding to COVID itself. They were responding to the after‑effects—how the world had changed and how their routines had to change with it.”

Following routines over time

The study began in the early months of the pandemic, when participants were surveyed every month. As the crisis continued, Hart-Thompson says the research shifted to annual surveys, allowing researchers to track how people’s habits, perceptions and social lives evolved. The research focuses primarily on data from the fourth year of the study, although the research team has since received a fifth year of responses.

That fifth year added a reflective dimension, says Hart-Thompson. Participants were asked to look back over the previous five years and consider what they had learned, what they wished they had done differently and how their relationships with their neighborhoods and communities had changed. Hart‑Thompson says many people used that opportunity to rethink whom they spend time with, how they engage socially and what they value most.

“It gave us insight not just into what people are doing now,” they say, “but how they understand those changes in hindsight.”

What is social infrastructure?

A key concept in the research is “social infrastructure”—a term that Hart-Thompson says goes beyond physical buildings to describe the places that support social interaction and community life.

“A library is a great example,” they say. “It’s a physical space but it also supports relationships, routines and access to resources. The same can be true for community centers, parks or even coffee shops. They’re physical spaces where relationships happen and routines take shape.”

The idea overlaps with what geographers and sociologists often call “third places”—spaces that are neither home (first place) nor work (second place) and that support community, connection and informal care. Third places captures both public and private spaces and reflects the full range of places people mentioned when describing how their routines changed during the pandemic.

Faith‑based organizations, in particular, played an important role for many participants, Hart-Thompson says.

“Especially with this older population we surveyed, churches provide consistent, low-cost—or no-cost—opportunities to see the same people regularly, which is incredibly important for maintaining social routines,” they say. “When concerns about disease spread or mobility made returning difficult, that loss was significant—even if services moved online.”

Aging: not a one-size-fits-all experience

The study focused on adults 55 and older, but Hart-Thompson says the researchers found that age alone did not determine how people experienced the pandemic. Instead, perception mattered just as much as chronology.

“How people felt about their age really shaped how they talked about their lives,” Hart‑Thompson explains. “Someone who felt old at 60 described their experiences very differently from someone who felt young at 80.”

Retirement status also made a major difference. Hart-Thompson explains that participants who were still working navigated different social environments than those who were retired. Health, mobility and daily obligations also influenced how much choice people felt they had in shaping their routines, they add.

Rather than finding a clear age‑based trend, Hart-Thompson says the researchers saw a mix of social and structural factors shaping each person’s experience.

Health, mobility and daily obligations also influenced how much choice people felt they had in shaping their routines during and following the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, says CU ��ý�� researcher Hayes Hart-Thompson.

Not all changes were negative

“COVID-19 reduced in‑person social interaction for many older adults—but the impact was not uniformly harmful,” Hart-Thompson says. In fact, some participants described positive or neutral changes, particularly when technology expanded access.

For individuals with limited mobility, tools like Zoom opened doors that hadn’t existed before. Others found new routines they enjoyed, such as online exercise classes or increased time for solitude.

“At the same time,” Hart‑Thompson says, “there was a lot of avoidance—people staying away from spaces because of health fears or political tensions. It really depended on the activity and the individual.”

In many cases, they say, declining health or aging‑related challenges were already influencing routines even before the pandemic. “COVID-19 just intensified those trends and brought them into sharper focus,” Hart-Thompson adds.

A specific, but meaningful, sample

The study’s participants were predominantly white, female and college educated, with many living in the Midwest. While the sample included both rural and urban residents across the United States, study participants are not representative of the population as a whole, Hart-Thompson acknowledges.

They emphasize that the research team is mindful of those limitations. Rather than treating the data as universally generalizable, the focus is on what this specific group can tell researchers, particularly as an important group of voters. That’s because, in the fifth year of the study, researchers added questions about democracy and political perceptions to explore that dimension more directly.

“There’s also a real issue of privilege in survey research,” Hart‑Thompson says. “Who has the unpaid time to respond year after year? That shapes who shows up in the data.”

Politics, isolation and policy lessons

One unexpected finding was the degree to which the study retained participants from across the political spectrum, Hart-Thompson says. Despite the politicization of COVID-19 and growing mistrust in institutions, respondents with very different views continued to participate in the research, they add

That diversity complicated the narrative. Participants disagreed sharply on whether COVID-19 was a serious health threat, but those disagreements didn’t erase shared concerns about isolation and access.

Hart‑Thompson sees a clear lesson for policymakers: Adaptability matters more than uniformity.

“There’s never going to be a one‑size‑fits‑all solution,” they say. “But universal access to social spaces—both physical and digital—is crucial. Isolation is harmful regardless of political ideology.”

Hybrid events, online access and inclusive design can help ensure people aren’t left behind during future crises—particularly those who are older or immunocompromised, Hart-Thompson adds.

Living in a new normal

Perhaps the clearest conclusion from the research is that most older adults have not returned to their pre‑pandemic routines—and many don’t expect to, Hart-Thompson says.

“There’s never going to be a one‑size‑fits‑all solution. But universal access to social spaces—both physical and digital—is crucial. Isolation is harmful regardless of political ideology.”

They say participants frequently described living in a “new normal.” Some realized they value solitude more than they once thought. Others became more intentional about spending time with close friends and family. Even when routines resembled the past, people understood that the world had changed.

“There wasn’t this expectation that things would go back to exactly how they were,” Hart‑Thompson says. “Adaptation is the reality.”

That perspective, they believe, challenges the idea that recovery means returning to a previous state. Instead, it highlights how people reshape their lives in response to long‑term change—especially later in life.

Offering support in crisis . . . and in everyday life

As the research team begins analyzing five full years of data, Hart‑Thompson is particularly interested in how overlapping crises—also known as “polycrises”—shape everyday life. That’s because COVID-19 did not happen in isolation—and neither do its effects, they add.

Across all of it, one theme remains constant: the importance of adaptable, accessible social infrastructure.

“If we center access and adaptability,” Hart‑Thompson says, “we’re better equipped to support people—not just in crises, but in everyday life.”

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Researchers from CU ��ý�� find that the pandemic reshaped how people age 55 and older interact with their communities while highlighting the importance of ‘social infrastructure.'

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Don’t just explain the science, dance it

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 12 Mar 2026 16:14:04 +0000

Don’t just explain the science, dance it Rachel Sauer Thu, 03/12/2026 - 10:14

Rachel Sauer

Asia Kaiser, a bee researcher and ecology and evolutionary biology PhD candidate, is named social sciences category winner in the international Dance Your PhD contest sponsored by the journal Science

There’s a lot going on with bees right now. Because it was an unseasonably warm winter, queens may be emerging from hibernation and beginning to lay the eggs of their first broods. And since queens can choose the sex of their offspring, they are now or soon will be producing daughters.

It’s fascinating information about one of the planet’s most complex and charismatic insects, but how to convey it in dance?

PhD candidate Asia Kaiser (in a scene from her Dance Your PhD entry), studies how human land use affects different insect groups and, consequently, the ecosystem services they provide in coupled human-natural systems.

Start with a shimmy—reminiscent, perhaps, of the movement of bees’ wings or the vibration of their flight muscles. Then weave undulating patterns with fellow dancers, gliding and twirling in a choreography of bees in motion. And bring it home with a question about what happens when we remove native flowers from urban environments or destroy bee habitat to build roads or houses (answer: nothing good).

In short, dance your PhD. So, that’s what Asia Kaiser did.

Kaiser, a PhD candidate in the ��ý�� Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology (EBIO) and researcher in the Resasco Lab, this week was announced the social sciences category winner in the international Dance Your PhD contest sponsored by the journal Science and the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Now in its 18th year, Dance Your PhD seeks, through a spirit of fun and of marrying art and science, to address a scenario that scientists commonly experience: “The party is just getting started when the dreaded question comes: ‘So, what’s your PhD research about?’ You launch into the explanation, trying to judge the level of interest as you go deeper. It takes about a minute before someone changes the subject,” contest organizers explain.

“At times like this, don’t you wish you lived in a world where you could just ask people to pull out their phones to watch an online video explaining your PhD research through interpretive dance?”

“I was a dancer all through college, so I have a background in belly dance and Latin dance,” Kaiser explains. “And I like to make music, so I thought this could be a really fun way to explain my research.”

Learning to dance

And what is that research? Bees. Specifically, how human land use affects different insect groups and, consequently, the ecosystem services they provide in coupled human-natural systems. Her research aims to improve the resilience of urban agroecosystems, increase equitable access to fresh produce and promote environmental justice in cities.

As for the dancing, Kaiser had wanted to take dance lessons while growing up in Philadelphia, but there wasn’t room in the budget for them. So, after graduating high school she took a gap year in Brazil to do service work and finally began learning dance. She started with belly dance, then branched into samba and other Latin styles.

When she began her ecology and evolutionary biology undergraduate studies at Princeton University, “I thought, ‘I’m going to invest in my secondary dream,’” Kaiser recalls, which meant stepping away from the books sometimes to immerse herself in the vibrant dance scene in Princeton and the broader New York City and Philadelphia area.

She also is a cellist, so when she came to CU ��ý�� to pursue her PhD she began making music with other people in her department.

When she heard about Dance Your PhD, it dovetailed with so many of the things she loves: dance and music and science. However, the deadline to submit entry videos was Feb. 20, and she decided to enter the contest a mere two weeks before then.

She started with the music, composing a piece to score the story in her mind: “I wanted to tell a story of bees emerging in early spring in your backyard and what they’re up to. People know a lot about honeybees, but not other bee species, so I wanted to highlight how important they are to urban ecosystems.”

Kaiser put out a call for dancers and fortunately, the response from her fellow PhD students and candidates was abundant and eager. Then she and Ella Henry, a violinist and EBIO PhD student, recorded the music.

Science as art

Because of the quick turnaround, the troupe had time for just two rehearsals before their afternoon of filming in front of the EBIO greenhouses on 30th Street in ��ý��. It was an EBIO community collaboration. PhD students Manuela Mejía, Lincoln Taylor, Gladiana Spitz, Kaylee Rosenberger and Ella Henry danced Kaiser’s choreography alongside her. PhD student Luis de Pablo helped with sound engineering and Scott Taylor, EBIO associate professor and director of the Mountain Research Station, was cinematographer. Kaiser’s husband, John Russell, provided voiceover narration for the final video.

And despite the extremely short timeframe, it all came together, Kaiser says. For example, she happened to have a pair of gold Isis wings, a traditional belly dance prop, that Lincoln Taylor wore “to depict the fact that male bees spend their lives flying around,” she says.

The dance, music and costumes united in a science-as-art visualization of her PhD, which she uploaded to YouTube and clicked submit on her Dance Your PhD entry. She was up against scientists from around the world, so learning that she won her category was especially significant.

“Obviously, I love bees,” she says, “and I love to dance and make music, so it was a really cool experience to create this piece with my friends and find a different way to talk about my research.”

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Asia Kaiser, a bee researcher and ecology and evolutionary biology PhD candidate, is named social sciences category winner in the international Dance Your PhD contest sponsored by the journal Science.

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