Features

Then and Now: Fall 2025

Amanda J. McManus — Mon, 17 Nov 2025 19:43:56 +0000

Then and Now: Fall 2025 Amanda J. McManus Mon, 11/17/2025 - 12:43

Ten years ago, CU ��ý�� embarked on an experiment.

"The potential is here to really rebuild those relationships between bodies of knowledge that we’ve somehow defined apart.
—Founding Dean Lori Bergen,
Daily Camera, April 8, 2015

Journalism, communication, advertising and computer science were undergoing tremendous upheaval, thanks to new tools, changing market forces and evolving consumer behavior. Should the models used to teach these disciplines also change, to better prepare students to confront disruption? Was there something to be gained by teaching, say, data science to a journalism student? Or media studies to a communication major?

We now have our answer. In the 10 years since its founding, the college has seen enormous gains in student and faculty size, with strong external and alumni support to advance our aims in education, research and creativity. We’re celebrating our first 10 years with a new name—we became the College of Communication, Media, Design and Information in July—and the strongest footing we’ve been on since the beginning of this experiment.

2015

Hard to believe, but when the college launched, you could fit everyone in a single room.

2016

Work begins on the Center for Academic Success and Engagement. It now houses the dean’s suite, communication department and more. Photo by Dena Heisner

2018

The Immersive Media Lab is a closet in the stadium when it first opens. It’s since become a high-tech hub for collaborations throughout the college.

CMDI by the numbers

$33 million

Total alumni support,
2015-2024

$14.9 million

Externally funded awards received
by CMDI researchers since 2015

151.9%

Growth in undergraduate
applications, 2015-2024

153%

Growth in graduate
applications, 2015-2024

132%

Increase in tenured and
tenure-track faculty, 2015-2024

104,496 ft²

Size of the college’s footprint across 12 buildings

813

Size of the spring 2025
graduating class

411

Students who studied abroad in 2024-25, nearly a 20-fold increase from 2015

2019

Students try out CMDI’s creative equipment at J-Day, held at Colorado State University. The signature journalism event returned to ��ý�� in 2024 for the first time in decades.

2021

Proving location is paramount: In the worst days of the pandemic, every university had Zoom. Few schools could encourage their grad students to take a hike.

2024

The college’s board of advisors tours a CASE renovation that added event space for CMDI.

2025

The college welcomes its largest class, with 548 new first-year students.

The college opened its doors a decade ago as a bold experiment to rethink how a college education can best prepare students for the future.

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On the fly

Amanda J. McManus — Fri, 14 Nov 2025 21:45:52 +0000

On the fly Amanda J. McManus Fri, 11/14/2025 - 14:45

Malinda Miller

Lori Ferguson Furth holds the script and her notes for a production of Back to the Future: The Musical outside Denver’s Buell Theatre. As a live audio describer, she uses her notes to ensure audience members who have low sight or are blind have a similar experience to other patrons. Photos by Hannah Howell.

In the darkened Buell Theatre, a scattering of patrons wearing headsets hears a voice describe a flashing screen onstage that reads “Oct. 25, 1985,” and “radiation source detected.”

The voice through the headsets belongs to Lori Ferguson Furth (Comm’85), who is in an audio booth behind the audience. She’s describing the set, costumes and action of Back to the Future: The Musical for patrons who have low sight or are blind.

A live audio describer, she prepares by “scribbling notes in the dark” at a preview to determine which nonverbal jokes, sight gags or visual details are pivotal for audience members who cannot see them. She also writes a preshow introduction for patrons who wear
the headsets.

During the performance, she keeps an eye on her notes while calling out the action as it happens, watching for things she may not have anticipated.

“You try to fill patrons in on any nonverbal thing that happens that the audience might react to, like a glance or a shrug,” Furth said. “But you would say ‘shrug’—you wouldn’t say ‘he’s bored,’ or however you might interpret it. That’s what the audience gets to do.”

"It was probably among the best performances I ever gave, because it was raw and unrehearsed—and my preparation paid off.

Lori Ferguson Furth (Comm’85)

As with most live performances, things don’t always go as planned. At a summer showing of & Juliet, the mic wasn’t working properly and had to be replaced midshow. A few days later, Furth left the printed script at home between performances. She pulled the script up on her phone—without her annotations—and used the show’s program and her memory to write a new introduction on the fly.

“I had some difficulty getting the document to scroll on my phone, so I gave up and just live-described in the moment,” she said. “It was probably among the best performances I ever gave, because it was raw and unrehearsed—and my preparation paid off.”

As more touring productions, like Back to the Future, rely on video and visual elements, describers like Furth provide the additional details needed to ensure patrons who have low sight enjoy an experience similar to other members of the audience.

Live audio description is available for designated weekend showings and on request at the Denver Center for the Performing Arts. During the 2024-25 season, 587 patrons and companions reserved tickets for the service.

A simple touch between actors “can show there’s a change in the relationship, and so you want to make sure you’re including something that might impart a little bit more information than they could hear,” she said.

“Lori is definitely one of our top describers,” said Aaron McMullen, Denver Center for Performing Arts’ patron experience manager on duty. “You have to know what is important and when to talk. You don’t want to interrupt what’s happening in the show or describe something that isn’t helpful.”

In each stage of Furth’s career—which has taken her to banking and corporate communications, in addition to voice acting—she’s relied on skills learned as a communication major, like speaking in public, working in small groups and communicating concisely.

"I heard about live theater, and I thought, ‘I can’t imagine anything more terrifying, there’s no possible way to do that comfortably’—which meant I had to try it.

Lori Ferguson Furth (Comm’85)

“Communication is about people and relationships, and how to make the most of the processes we all use every day,” she said. “It’s a valuable degree, and I use it all the time.”

She also continued to seek out workshops, which is how she found Roy Samuelson, an advocate for the blind and low-vision community.

“He does a lot of work in film and television, and I thought that was where I was headed,” Furth said. “And then I heard about live theater, and I thought, ‘I can’t imagine anything more terrifying, there’s no possible way to do that comfortably’—which meant I had to try it.”

She took classes with Samuelson and then Bonnie Barlow, who has described more than 260 plays for DCPA since 1992. When Furth left Los Angeles two years ago to be closer to family in Denver, Barlow connected her to DCPA.

Furth said her continued enthusiasm for her work comes from her flexibility and willingness to pivot—characteristics she also sees in CMDI.

“We need to pay attention to what’s going on and what’s changing, and we need to be able to react to it,” she said. “At CMDI, it’s the same kind of idea—that it’s embracing the cutting-edge stuff that’s happening and saying, we’re ready for the future.”

Malinda Miller graduated from the College of Arts and Sciences with a degree in English in 1992 and Masters in Journalism in 1998.

As more touring productions rely on video and visual elements, patrons who have low sight or are blind rely on Lori Ferguson Furth to describe the action onstage as it happens.

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Coloring outside the mines

Regan Widergren — Fri, 07 Nov 2025 00:27:14 +0000

Coloring outside the mines Regan Widergren Thu, 11/06/2025 - 17:27

Joe Arney

When you represent the interests of an industry like mining, you’re bound to make a few enemies.

In the case of PDAC—the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada—an increasingly sharp thorn in its side is a collective, Beyond Extraction, that finds creative ways to disrupt the mining group’s annual convention.

Its latest salvo? A coloring book that shows children a less-sanitized view of mining’s environmental impact than the industry acknowledges.

“All our projects seek to counter something PDAC is doing,” said Zannah Mae Matson, an assistant professor of landscape architecture at CMDI. A previous campaign, she said, involved creating an audio tour of the minerals exhibit at the Royal Ontario Museum, in Toronto, that drew attention to mining’s labor and environmental calamities.

For the coloring book, Beyond Extraction took aim at PDAC’s educational wing, Mining Matters, which builds lesson plans to extend the industry’s ideology into Canadian schools. Mining Matters also creates coloring books featuring kid-friendly characters who show that when mining companies complete operations, “they remediate everything, and everybody’s happy—the water’s clean, the trees are fine,” Matson said. “Whatever.”

The title Beyond Extraction selected for its book, What It Takes, counters Mining Matters’ message—that mines give jobs, technology, bicycles and so on. The project argues that the industry doesn’t give those things without cost. It explains technical concepts like free-entry staking and labor exploitation in ways that allow teachers and caregivers to start conversations with kids about adverse impacts of mining.

Simplifying the message

“The biggest challenge was simplifying,” Matson said. “The illustrations had to be colorable and fun, and the message had to be approachable.”

The book is not about ending mining; rather, it offers a more complete picture of mining’s human and environmental impacts. That’s crucial as the industry positions itself as a champion of the sustainability movement, since the metals miners unearth help power alternatives to fossil fuels.

“We don’t live in a world where nothing needs to be taken out of the ground—but there is this false dichotomy that if you don’t like mining, then you love oil,” Matson said. “We can’t fall into this trap of believing we all bear the same responsibility for mining because we all use a laptop computer.”

Instead, she said, we need to introduce lower levels of consumption while holding companies accountable to higher standards.

We need to create higher levels of standards to hold companies accountable, and introduce lower levels of consumption.”

Zannah Mae Matson, assistant professor

The Beyond Extraction collective has released a coloring book, which Zannah Mae Matson co-illustrated, in five languages. Its message is designed to disrupt the work mining organizations do to influence curricula and position themselves as champions of sustainability. Photos by Kimberly Coffin.

“As someone who’s been researching mining for a long time, and seeing how these companies cover up the problems they cause, I have serious doubts they will be the heroes of a green, more just future,” she said.

Matson’s research investigates how infrastructure impacts communities and the environment. That might mean what a road system in Colombia indicates about its colonial history, or how mining operations create lasting damage to nearby communities. It’s work that takes her around the globe but is especially prevalent in her native Canada, which has worldwide mining operations.

That’s a key reason Beyond Extraction is translating the coloring book into different languages. It launched last year, but this spring, translations into American English, French, Spanish and Portuguese came online—countering Mining Matters’ multilingual approach, which also has editions in Indigenous languages, like Inuktitut.

“It’s so problematic that these materials are presented in the languages of people that the mining industry has dispossessed,” Matson said.

The collective hopes to translate its coloring book into Dene, Inuktitut and Cree, but for now, it’s too costly for Beyond Extraction’s budget activism. The book relied on volunteer members’ expertise in media studies, landscape architecture and beyond; Matson also was one of two illustrators.

Like many researchers, Matson is used to collaboration. Beyond Extraction, she said, is next level.

“When you’re facing such complex problems, you need collective ways of resisting them and finding answers,” she said. “It’s nice to know you’re not alone, and feel your work is rising to meet those challenges.”

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.

Photographer Kimberly Coffin graduated from CMDI in 2018 with degrees in media production and strategic communication.

Mining companies are positioning themselves as heroes in the transition to sustainability. A coloring book illustrated by a CMDI professor is throwing shade on the idea.

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Building a case for A.I.

Regan Widergren — Thu, 06 Nov 2025 23:42:53 +0000

Building a case for A.I. Regan Widergren Thu, 11/06/2025 - 16:42

Joe Arney

Sandra Ristovska in the Wolf Law courtroom. Ristovska is spending the academic year at Stanford’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences as she fleshes out her research into visual evidence and the U.S. justice system. Photo by Kimberly Coffin.

I am surrounded by people who are at the top of their fields, working in areas like artificial intelligence, democracy and equality, immigration, the environment. It’s incredible.”

Sandra Ristovska

The first day of classes at CU ��ý�� this fall was also the day Sandra Ristovska got the keys to her office—or study, as such spaces are known at Stanford University’s Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences.

Unsurprisingly, she sounds much like a new student herself, excited about having so much to look forward to and full of energy and enthusiasm about what awaits her. (Like a new CU student, she’s quick to gush about the views, which in her case include forests, palm trees and dramatic overlooks of Silicon Valley.)

“I am surrounded by people who are at the top of their fields, working in areas like artificial intelligence, democracy and equality, immigration, the environment. It’s incredible,” said Ristovska, associate professor of media studies and director of the college’s Visual Evidence Lab.

Being selected as a fellow to the center is a high honor. Among its alumni, CASBS counts a host of Nobel, Pulitzer and MacArthur winners, along with such luminaries as Ruth Bader Ginsburg and George Shultz, U.S. secretary of state under Ronald Reagan.

Just being included in such company would be distinguished enough, but at the outset of the yearlong residency, Ristovska learned she was awarded the Leonore Annenberg and Wallis Annenberg Fellowship in Communication at CASBS.

It’s a full-circle moment for Ristovska, who earned her PhD from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania; she said it was “very meaningful and very special” to get an endowed fellowship from the family.

CASBS is renowned for providing a home for scholars engaged in pioneering research into complex contemporary problems. The interdisciplinary nature of each class of fellows encourages the kinds of stimulating conversations that help push researchers outside their niches and make broader connections to major societal challenges.

Ristovska is counting on that cross-pollination to help her in drafting her next book, tentatively titled Deepfaking Images, which will offer a legal and social history of the use of technology to manipulate evidentiary media.

New twist on an old problem

Although the use of generative A.I. to distort real images, or cook up fake videos, is certainly a contemporary challenge—the Visual Evidence Lab is examining this topic in depth—it’s just the latest tool in a problem going back more than a century. For instance, video can be sped up or slowed to distort its meaning, while photo manipulation is as old as photography itself.

What interests Ristovska about the use of visual assets in court is what such evidence indicates about access to justice.

“Oftentimes, the best-resourced party has the language and ability to use or challenge this type of evidence when it’s presented against them—or to hire videographers or software experts to present such evidence in the first case,” she said. “In criminal cases, this tends to tilt the scales in the prosecution’s favor.”

Published works of CASBS fellows are permanently stored in the center’s Tyler Collection; when completed, Ristovska’s book will be among them. It’s fitting, since already her work is benefiting from interactions with other fellows.

“We have lunch every day with the other fellows, and of course we all ask each other what it is we do,” she said. “It’s invigorating to tell people about my work, hear their excitement about it and also listen to their ideas for how the different things they focus on might get me to think differently about my book.”

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.

Sandra Ristovska’s research into video evidence and deepfakes is getting further refined during a prestigious fellowship at Stanford.

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Designer label

Amanda J. McManus — Tue, 01 Jul 2025 19:11:50 +0000

Designer label Amanda J. McManus Tue, 07/01/2025 - 13:11

Joe Arney

All things CMDI

Visit our CMDI resources page for more on the college name and FAQs about the opportunities this change will afford to students and alumni.

Photos by Kimberly Coffin (CritMedia, StratComm'18)

Art by Cuauhtémoc Campos

A childhood trek to visit Aztec temples in Mexico was the first time Cuauhtémoc Campos thought about a future in architecture.

It wasn’t the last.

Long before the first-year landscape architecture student set foot on the ��ý�� campus, Campos helped his father design a porch and a patio area for their home. Now, in his environmental design courses, he’s refining those skills and interests to bring his visions to life, from reusing physical space on campus to a design of his name that borrowed from those Aztec ruins that inspired him.

“Most of the projects we do are hands-on and challenge us to experiment with our creativity,” Campos said. “But also, we do a lot of presentations to prepare us for when we need to talk about our work publicly.”

He said he hopes to further strengthen his communication skills once the environmental design program becomes fully integrated with the College of Media, Communication and Information. On July 1, Campos and his peers will formally become part of CMCI, at which point the college will rebrand itself as the College of Communication, Media, Design and Information, or CMDI.

“I was a little shocked when I first heard we were becoming part of CMCI,” he said. “But I feel like the resources we’ll have from being part of the college will add more to what we’re able to learn, while hopefully introducing CMCI students to what makes ENVD special.”

An important charge for Lori Bergen, founding dean of CMCI, was structuring the integration in a way that added value for ENVD students, alumni, faculty and staff without disrupting the cultures of either entity. As a department within the college, environmental design will be able to retain its identity while benefiting from enhanced and expanded services and networks.

“When we created CMCI, we had three concepts that guided our vision—think, innovate and create,” Bergen said. “Now, as we become CMDI, those principles are just as relevant to our identity. If anything, the intensely hands-on nature of an ENVD education reinforces our mission as a college that brings different, but related, disciplines together, to help us bring interdisciplinary insights to increasingly complex problems.”

Azza Kamal, right, works with a student on a project to refresh the ��ý�� Dushanbe Teahouse.

First forays at collaboration

Faculty and staff from environmental design became part of the college in July 2024, so some collaboration has already begun. Azza Kamal, an associate teaching professor of sustainable planning and urban design, is working with Pat Clark, an assistant professor of critical media practices, to give her students access to the college’s Immersive Media Lab later this semester.

“In my studio, we’re working on a virtual reality/augmented reality model for retrofitting neighborhoods in Denver to comply with green building codes and emission reduction bills, and we’ll use his facility so that students can work on their models, but also to explore and get hands-on with the technology,” Kamal said. “I was going to buy the equipment, but then found out Patrick had everything we needed in his lab. And he’s just amazing—he works around our schedule, students will have access to the lab 24/7, I couldn’t ask for more.”

That kind of collaboration is something Stacey Schulte hopes faculty will build on as the players begin to work together.

“No discipline exists in a vacuum,” said Schulte, director of environmental design. “I am excited to see how environmental design will collaborate with communication- and media-related disciplines, and vice versa.

“As our students continue to create impactful work, they learn how to tell the story of their projects—the problems their designs are intending to solve, and how those solutions create positive community impact—in ways that resonate with stakeholders.”

CMCI's emphasis on communication and presentation skills has Ella Seevers excited about environmental design becoming part of the college.

Kamal said she’s still learning about the players in CMCI who would be good fits for collaboration, “but there is a lot of potential where technology meets storytelling.

“Communication has always been a challenge for architecture and planning students—how to communicate in lay terms. Helping students to take technical, complex designs and be able to tell a story through them—so their clients and the public can appreciate their vision—will be incredibly helpful in their careers.”

That’s a need students recognized, as well. Sophomore Ella Seevers, a landscape architecture student, got some professional communication experience last year, when she worked on a project for the city of ��ý�� and was challenged to make better use of sites along its creek path. Earlier this month, she went on a site tour and presented her vision to city officials and landscape architects working on a pop-up installation for the summer. Hers is one of three student projects that will influence the final design.

“It was an amazing experience to share our ideas and see that they were actually valued by professional designers who have been doing this for decades,” said Seevers, a teaching assistant in ENVD’s design studios and a mentor to first-year students. “So, I’ve had this opportunity to work with the city already, which is very exciting, because that usually doesn’t happen with a first-year project.

“If you can’t present your design well, and tell other people what you’re thinking and how it’s going to be implemented, then you won’t be a very effective designer,” she said.

Helping students to take technical, complex designs and be able to tell a story through them—so their clients and the public can appreciate their vision—will be incredibly helpful in their careers."
Azza Kamal
Associate Teaching Professor
Environmental Design

‘The story we live in’

While both entities value hands-on learning, critical thinking and creativity, at first glance, it may not be immediately obvious how ENVD and its four majors—architecture, environmental product design, landscape architecture, and sustainable planning and urban design—fit into CMCI. However, “when you think about the stories we hear, tell and watch, environmental design becomes another dimension of the story that we live in,” said Stephanie Marchesi, president of WE Communications, a global integrated communications firm.

“Storytelling is verbal, written and visual—but through their environmental designs, these talented individuals are bringing stories to life in 3D,” said Marchesi (Jour’85), who sits on CMCI’s advisory board. “This will be something very defining for the college, because it’s taking storytelling to new dimensions—literally.”

That’s something faculty in the college are excited to explore in depth.

“My initial reaction to the news was one of intense joy and excitement over what’s possible,” said Bryan Semaan, chair of CMCI’s information science department. “Design intersects so many different spaces. Environmental design researchers are looking at many of the same problems and topics as people across CMCI and within our disciplinary communities, but they’re operating on a scale of how humans will experience and be shaped by the natural and built environments in ways that are important to a sustainable future.”

That could be anything from a database that governs an algorithmic system to the impact of a data center on the environment and people who live nearby.

Elena Sabinson, an assistant professor of environmental design, said an important part of her program’s culture is recognizing and creating things that match the needs of their users. It’s something she works on very closely as director of the Neuro D Lab, which studies how design can trigger innovations that support wellbeing and accessibility to those who are neurodivergent.

“I would say my colleagues in ENVD are interested in bridging those mismatches between the environment and the needs of a user,” she said. “And I think CMCI is already doing a lot of that in its own way, whether it’s documentary or information science or any of those spaces.”

‘Who needs to learn about argument more?’

Alumni like Christopher Bell (PhDMediaSt’09) are watching to see how the college prepares students for the kinds of challenges he sees at work. Bell, a consultant and president of CreativityPartners LLC, said he’s excited to see student and alumni collaborations going forward, such as social media managers who can raise money and awareness for life-changing products coming out of environmental design.

“People who believe they are ‘just’ technically focused are the people who need the most instruction in communication,” said Bell, also a member of CMCI’s advisory board and an instructor who teaches courses in screenwriting and cultural studies. “Those are the people who need us the most, because they are making arguments and sending messages.

“Architecture and city planning are arguments. They’re arguments about what matters, who matters and doesn’t, how we see ourselves in relation to other people, and what is important to spend resources on. So, who needs to learn about argument more than environmental designers?”

When you think about the stories we hear, tell and watch, environmental design becomes another dimension of the story that we live in.”
Stephanie Marchesi (Jour’85)
CMCI Advisory Board member

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.

Photographer Kimberly Coffin graduated from CMDI in 2018 with degrees in Media Production and Strategic Communication.

Meet the College of Communication, Media, Design and Information.

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CMCI and ENVD share a tradition of hands-on learning, a thirst for innovation and a passion for solving problems in ways that move the world. Those shared values will guide them as they join together and CMCI renames itself the College of Communication, Media, Design and Information. Art by Ella Seevers.

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CMCI and ENVD share a tradition of hands-on learning, a thirst for innovation and a passion for solving problems. Those values will guide them as CMCI renames itself the College of Communication, Media, Design and Information. Art by Ella Seevers.

Spring 2025: 2 minutes with...

Amanda J. McManus — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 20:09:47 +0000

Spring 2025: 2 minutes with... Amanda J. McManus Wed, 02/26/2025 - 13:09

Max Pollak (Advert’10)
Creative Director, Deutsch LA

After years away from ��ý��, Pollak returned to CU for a collaboration between NerdWallet and Travis Hunter. Pollak and his team shot a video where Hunter talked about the “Smartest NIL” campaign and a giveaway where fans could win a collectible cutout piece of Hunter’s contract with the brand. The highlight for Pollak? A selfie with “Heisman” Hunter.

How did you land Travis Hunter? In his Heisman season, no less?
I’m a huge CU fan with season tickets, and it just so happens that NerdWallet already has a partnership with CU. I knew Travis Hunter would be a great brand ambassador, and we even sneaked into the Coach Prime documentary.

As to the Heisman, I thought he should win it and I thought there was a big chance. I’m happy it happened, but I can’t say I predicted it.

What’s the best advice you’ve been given?
Focus on what you love. Success comes out of that.

I’m actually stoked for what I get paid to do. I like advertising because it’s a puzzle to figure out—it’s both strategic and creative, and I like intertwining all that.

You used to be a firefighter. What’s something memorable about that job?
You never want something bad to happen—but there’s [an adrenaline rush] when you hear the bells and sirens.

My best friend—also a volunteer, now with FDNY—and I were driving to a car show when we got the page that his house went up in flames. We had to put out a fire that was going through his house, which we had played in as kids. It makes you sympathize with people.

Best compliment you’ve ever received?
I was at Barchetta recently and my wife was sitting there with our kid, and this guy walked up to me and said, “You have a great spot”—meaning the table in the restaurant. I thought it was weird, but I said, “Yeah, I know.” He was like, “Wow, how confident!” and walked away. I saw my wife was dying laughing, and she told me what he actually said was, “You have a great smile!”

Rory Fitzgerald Bledsoe
PhD Candidate, Media Studies

Rory Fitzgerald Bledsoe is a PhD candidate in media studies who runs a multimodal art gallery, Space__Space, in East ��ý��. Her first exhibition, “Phones are Heavy,” ran from November through January; “Archive Fever Dream” opens in March.

Why did you want to open a gallery?
This space is public scholarship. I’m interested in creating discourse on cultural issues that transcend the limits of the law. I also ran a gallery in Boston where I gave solo shows to artists who hadn’t had one before, and it’s gratifying to elevate emerging artists and underrepresented ideas.

Was there a gallery you had in mind as you envisioned what Space__Space could look like?
I did an artist/curatorial residency in New York, at Flux Factory, and that has been a big influence on my drive for cultivating experimentation and community.

Something you hope visitors notice as they walk through the gallery?
The work, of course. And maybe the sunset-pink trim. Pink has connotations of being frivolous, but I see it as subversive—a power color. So I put it in the bottom trim around the gallery, where it’s a secret signature that doesn’t get in the way of the work.

Tell me about those sunsets.
I’m used to underground, windowless art spaces in New York and Boston. From the back of Space__Space, you can see mountains, and from the front, you get the sunset. Someday, I want to do a site-specific installation that harnesses sunsets, because they are so spectacular.

Biggest surprise?
Being able to do it. Every time you take the risk of creating something—like in Boston, running Space 121 out of my apartment, I wasn’t sure what would happen. But I’ve started to believe if you build it, when there is a thirst, they will come.

Wait, the gallery in Boston was out of your apartment? What did your landlord say about that?
They never found out. (Laughs) We had openings; we just called them parties.

Last one. A favorite work from your first exhibit?
The brilliant Flora Wilds flew in to install her sculptures, which was a magical collaboration. But I will say everyone who came in had a different favorite, and that is a mark of a resonant and successful show.

A selection of works from Space__Space’s inaugural exhibit, which closed in January. From left, works by Maya Buffett-Davis, a CU ��ý�� graduate student; Ana González Barragán; Devon Narine-Singh; and Flora Wilds. Photos by Kimberly Coffin (CritMedia, StratComm’18).

A regular feature catching up with people in our community who are doing interesting and impactful work. In this edition, a commercial with Travis Hunter and a new art gallery in East ��ý��.

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Communication that moves

Amanda J. McManus — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 18:25:25 +0000

Communication that moves Amanda J. McManus Wed, 02/26/2025 - 11:25

Joe Arney

Photos by Jack Moody (StratComm’24)

The study of communication, as José G. Izaguirre III knows, is more than just interpreting the words. It’s also about how those words are heard—in a speech or an article, or in a post or on a poster.

It’s why he leans so heavily on showing communication in its original form, whether in the classes he teaches at CMCI or in a new book examining the formation of the Chicano movement.

“As I was analyzing these different texts, I was just struck by the intentionality to make things look a certain way, which really enriched the communication I was studying,” said Izaguirre, assistant professor of communication at the college, who goes by Joe. “It was clear that those aesthetics were part of the story, too—the degree to which photography, illustrations and designs played a significant role in movements.”

"It is possible for different people to come together around similar concerns, articulate different visions, but still try to work together to accomplish something good.
José G. Izaguirre III
Assistant Professor
Communication

Izaguirre’s book, Becoming La Raza: Negotiating Race in the Chicano Movement(s), traces the beginning of the movement—which originated among striking farm workers in California—through its early years. His research examines the communications that organized Latin American voices into a global political power.

“The book highlights how race is always implicated in different political circumstances—while demonstrating that however much we try to get away from the language of race, it’s always there,” he said. “I tried to show the inescapability of race as a part of communication through a story about how Mexican Americans navigated racial dynamics and promoted a racial identity.”

A good example: “Chicano,” once a pejorative label, was itself reclaimed by the organization as it rejected assimilation and sought to assert its Indigenous roots. But while the movement united under one banner, it was never a singular voice. Izaguirre’s book shows how activists created a political power against the backdrop of the Cold War.

“I think the book highlights the importance of everyday activist movements, or even politically interested individuals who have concerns that are part of a broader community or communal concern,” he said. “It takes seriously these moments of everyday communication and spotlights them in ways that are maybe not typical.”

“Everyday communication” in the 1960s was, of course, very different than today, when demonstrations largely exist and are communicated in ephemeral digital spaces—what’s trending today is tomorrow’s relic. Much of Izaguirre’s source material was donated documents—leaflets, photos, newspapers and so on—that made this project possible.

It’s how he was able to present so many period pieces in his book, alongside close readings of iconic artifacts like the National Farm Worker Association’s El Plan de Delano, or the poem “I Am Joaquin.” And there is value, he said, in seeing how those pieces are designed, even if it’s text-based, like the Delano document, co-written by Cesar Chavez, to guide their march through California. It contains a list of demands and concerns that, Izaguirre said, are valuable to see in their original context—and language.

Another level of engagement

“When I show these materials in classes, I want to show that communication as close as possible to what it would have been like to encounter it at the time,” whether that’s a picture, a pamphlet or a speech, he said. “I wouldn’t call it an epiphany, but there’s some level of understanding that happens when I show them the whole document. Because it’s not just text pulled out of somewhere—it’s communication they can see for themselves.”

That also means students encounter the original communication in its original language. For much of La Raza, of course, that’s Spanish.

“I do show them an English version, so they understand the meaning of the words, but seeing it in its native language, they get almost the emotion of the words,” Izaguirre said. “Seeing the original document puts it in that cultural or historical context.”

It’s something he hopes readers and students consider in the context of modern political movements, from the iconography at campaign rallies to how people find one another and organize digitally. But he also hopes those readers will be challenged to rethink the narrative that movements—or communities—can be viewed singularly. The Chicano movement is a prime example.

“It can be harmful, to see communities being labeled in such a way that they’re cast as the opposition,” he said. “It’s easy to consolidate groups and label them as friend or foe. What’s harder is politics—which is really about building partnerships and opportunities for equal engagement.

“What I hope the book shows is that it is possible for different people to come together around similar concerns, articulate different visions, but still try to work together to accomplish something good.”

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.

Photographer Jack Moody graduated from CMDI in 2024 with a degree in Strategic Communication.

A new book looks at the rise of the Chicano movement through the lens of communication, from speeches to newspapers.

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A better way

Amanda J. McManus — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 18:52:49 +0000

A better way Amanda J. McManus Tue, 02/25/2025 - 11:52

Joe Arney

Photos by Kimberly Coffin (CritMedia, StratComm’18)

There’s a brick paver walkway that crosses 18th Street on the CU ��ý�� campus by the ATLAS Institute. Thousands of pedestrians use it each day, crossing the brick path while cyclists, e-scooters, buses, emergency vehicles and the occasional car wend their way down the street.

“Design is a powerful tool to make an impact, because then we’re not telling certain people they’re functionally not correct. Instead, we’re saying, how do we create an environment that actually matches the needs of the user?
Elena Sabinson
Director
Neuro D Lab

Is it a crosswalk?

From the description above, you might assume so. But there’s no signage warning drivers of pedestrian activity, or telling them to stop or yield. And you’ll find none of the striping associated with crosswalks.

“When the students describe it, they’re like, ‘It’s basically Frogger out there,’” said Elena Sabinson, an assistant professor of environmental design at CMCI and director of the Neuro D Lab, which explores the intersection of design, neurodiversity, equity and innovation. “That space of ambiguity becomes a place where conflict or confusion happens. The lab looks at how that affects everyone, but especially neurodivergent folks who might rely on clarity and clear signage to understand how to navigate things.”

Neurodivergence has become a global point of conversation as a movement builds to both recognize that each brain functions differently and to better understand how to design products, services, buildings and so on that serve everyone, instead of asking people to conform to the built environment.

“Design is a powerful tool to make an impact, because then we’re not telling certain people they’re functionally not correct,” Sabinson said. “Instead, we’re saying, how do we create an environment that actually matches the needs of the user?”

Elena Sabinson crosses the street in front of the CASE building. While the brick paver walkway looks like a crosswalk, it lacks striping and signage indicating it's safe to cross, which can confuse both pedestrians and drivers. Part of Sabinson's research work involves assessing wayfinding on the CU ��ý�� campus for confusing design cues.

A new direction for her work

Sabinson is uniquely suited to such challenges. As a PhD student at Cornell University, she was studying self-soothing technologies—especially in the area of soft robotics, like breathing wall panels that help people regulate their biorhythms during stressful experiences—when she received a diagnosis of autism and ADHD.

“That changed the trajectory of my research,” she said. “I’m still focusing on emotional well-being, but with this environmental lens of how to create inclusive, accessible products that are centered around self determination, agency and empowerment.

“I make a choice to say I’m an autistic-led lab, and I invite this type of conversation in by making that choice, rather than just being an autistic person doing research.”

Bringing students into her lab and giving them opportunities to engage these challenges will, she said, push her to question some of her own assumptions developed after years of working in the field. But it’s also creating opportunities to potentially reshape the campus, such as the wayfinding project examining features like the ambiguous campus crosswalk.

That work is partially funded by an undergraduate research opportunities program grant issued by the university. Earlier this month, Sabinson’s work was accepted by EDRA56, the influential conference of the Environmental Design Research Association. She’s looking forward to presenting it this May, in addition to helping drive conversations around making the campus easier to navigate.

“One thing we have as a research lab is access to students who are really engaged and passionate about this work, and who want to take on projects that can’t always happen in industry, due to timeline and budgetary constraints,” she said.

Industry feedback

Another thing she wants through both the lab and her classes is the chance for ideas from industry to influence her students’ innovation. In a course she teaches on fidgets and stims, one student created the Cacti Clicker, a plastic cactus with moveable segments. When you twist it, it makes a clicking sound, which isn’t always acceptable in a work or school setting.

“So the student redesigned it so some of the spins make noise and some don’t, so you can still get the sensation if you’re in a crowded space,” Sabinson said. “That’s an example of how we field test these products with people, get feedback—and learn to take feedback—to make their products better.”

It also doesn’t look like a traditional fidget toy. That’s also by design—it just looks like a cactus statue on a desk in Sabinson’s office.

“A lot of what I consider in my work, and that we talk about in class, is the social stigma around using a fidget—that a lot of people might want to, but they’re considered to be toys,” she said.

The bigger goal is to eliminate that stigma altogether—but in the meantime, she said, this product is an option for people who need it, while “just living on your desk and looking like a decoration.”

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.

Photographer Kimberly Coffin graduated from CMDI in 2018 with degrees in Media Production and Strategic Communication.

Can design help those with neurodivergence be more comfortable in their environments? A new lab is searching for answers.

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Elena Sabinson demonstrates using an inflatable sensory band in her office. Part of Sabinson's research looks at inflatable surfaces and products that can be used by people managing anxiety to make them more comfortable in their environment.

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Foster figure

Amanda J. McManus — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 20:59:52 +0000

Foster figure Amanda J. McManus Fri, 02/21/2025 - 13:59

Hannah Stewart

As a kid, Joel Thurman decided that while he didn’t have the wit or wealth of Batman, he could still train and shoot a bow like the Green Arrow.

Now, as a comic book scholar, Thurman is more interested in the character’s role as a foster father.

As a long-time Arrow fan—and a high school history teacher of 10 years—Thurman thought he’d research history through comics for his PhD program in media studies. But that focus shifted when he and his wife became foster parents.

“I was walking with my wife when I had an epiphany: study foster care and superheroes, find those connections and do a history of both,” he said. “I absolutely adore the Green Arrow, which since the early 2000s really depicts him as a foster father. I have a completely different appreciation for Green Arrow now than I did, say, five years ago.”

Through his research, Thurman found that the success of superheroes—especially orphaned ones—reflect the myth that no matter how bad one’s situation is, it’s possible to overcome it. In reality, the myth is just that: Orphans are the least likely to graduate high school and maintain full-time jobs.

“I want to raise awareness of kids in foster care, and superheroes are a way to break the ice and have those difficult conversations with people who largely don’t know what the system is like,” he said.

Students in the media studies department at CMCI learn that pop culture is a place where people both tell their own stories while considering and challenging the expectations for how society is supposed to work.

Given how current events and societal shifts—not to mention changing perspectives, as new writers shape the voices of iconic characters—influence comic book writing, the medium itself becomes a unique way to examine the attitudes and norms of a given era.

“We train our students to think about other people and to consider positions of power, networks and social structure. Any of our students should be able to tell the stories of others,” said Rick Stevens, associate professor of media studies and Thurman’s mentor.

Stevens said that together, they focused Thurman’s interest in how foster children are represented in comics on how those stories can help people learn about their world.

“He has passion around some of the characters and stories in this space, but I’m really glad to see his interests expand beyond just what his desires and likes are,” said Stevens, who also is associate dean of undergraduate education. “And that’s the sign of a good media studies scholar.”

That growing interest now encompasses family dynamics and, even more broadly, industry trends such as readership changes, creator rights and consumer tastes.

“My research is so unique that, at the moment, I’m the only one who can write that particular narrative,” he said.

These other branches of research have taken him to conferences beyond ��ý��, which he said were incredible opportunities—not only to present his work at places like Venice and San Diego Comic-Con, but to meet writers and actors who’ve worked on series such as Batman, Spiderman, Daredevil and, yes, Green Arrow.

His favorite interview, though, was with actor Jon Cryer, who played Lex Luthor in the CW television series Supergirl. Not only did Thurman discover that Cryer is a massive comic book fan himself—he has a collection of original Marvel comic art that he showed Thurman during their interview—the pair also bonded over being foster dads.

“I didn’t realize we would connect the way that we did, and it was just absolutely fantastic,” he said. “I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunities the university has allowed.”

I love teaching and fostering students’ ideas. The comic book writing is for me—it’s a story I wanted to tell. The academic work is to make a difference."
Joel Thurman
PhD candidate, Media Studies

One such opportunity was meeting CMCI advisory board member (and “legend,” in Thurman’s words) Steven T. Seagle, partner at Man of Action Entertainment. Over dinner, he learned Seagle (Advert’88) got his start from writing comic books while in college.

“I was like, ‘That’s a dream of mine.’ And he said, ‘If you really want to do it, do what I did: Hire an artist and get it done,’” Thurman said.

He now has independently published a horror comic, Disinter, and is working on a sci-fi comic set to come out in April.

“I’m having so much fun writing comics, but I’ll probably dabble in both academia and comic writing, because I love teaching and fostering students’ ideas,” he said. “The comic book writing is for me—it’s a story I wanted to tell. The academic work is to make a difference.”

Whether in the panels of a comic book or the classroom, Thurman hopes to challenge creators and the community to reconsider how they think about children portrayed in and beyond comic book stories.

“Foster care is completely not discussed in comics, and I think that should change,” he said.

If Thurman is able to change that conversation, it will be at least in part due to his CMCI experiences. Stevens said when it comes to being a voice for the vulnerable, he wants his students “to be allies where we can, and to research more than just who we are and what we directly know.”

“Joel is really good at thinking outside himself, asking good questions, and interacting with people who create pop culture and their thought processes,” he said. “But he’s also really good at stepping back and looking at the effects, the structure, the consequences.”

Hannah Stewart graduated from CMDI in 2019 with a degree in communication. She covers student news for the college.

Joel Thurman loves everything to do with comic books—reading, researching and writing them. As a PhD student, he investigates representations of children and the foster system; and as a writer, he seeks to tell compelling stories.

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The race to make tech more equal

Anonymous — Wed, 14 Aug 2024 21:54:10 +0000

The race to make tech more equal Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 08/14/2024 - 15:54

Joe Arney

Photos by Kimberly Coffin (CritMedia, StratComm’18)

Back when Bryan Semaan’s mom had a Facebook account, doomscrolling wasn’t part of her vernacular.

The Iraqi culture she was raised in compels celebration of accomplishments and milestones, “so any time someone posted something, she felt she had to interact with it,” Semaan said. “That personal engagement runs very deeply through our culture.”

But it became exhausting for her to keep up as her network swelled into the hundreds, so she deactivated her account. For Semaan, it’s a fitting metaphor for his research—which challenges the assumptions tech developers make about the users of their products and services. And it’s the kind of problem he wants to study through the Center for Race, Media and Technology, which the ��ý�� unveiled in the spring.

“The people developing these technologies are in Silicon Valley—so, mostly male, mostly white,” said Semaan, director of the center and an associate professor of information science at CMCI. “A lot of the values we bake into these technologies are being forced onto people in different cultures, often creating problems.”

As a first-generation American, Semaan said he identifies with the liminal moments faced by others living between worlds—immigrants, veterans, refugees, people of color or Indigenous people—and the challenges of adopting to Western societal structures. Technology plays a big part, and the discipline’s blind spots are a key focus of Semaan’s research, which asks how these tools can create resilience for people in those liminal moments, such as a climate refugee fleeing disaster or a queer teenager anxious about coming out.

To kick off the center, in March, CMCI welcomed Ruha Benjamin, a professor at Princeton who’s developed her scholarship around what she calls the “New Jim Code”—a nod to both the Jim Crow laws that enforced segregation and the biases encoded into technology. Benjamin, he said, “focuses on how people consider technology to be a benign thing, when in fact it isn’t—tech nology takes on the values of those who create it.”

Fortunately, Semaan said, we’re at a moment when society is recognizing the importance of equity and justice, while seeing technology as a problem, a solution and a thread tying together the great challenges facing humanity—political polarization, disinformation, climate change and so on.

"These bigger challenges are going to require people thinking together at a much grander scale, which means changing how we work.

Bryan Semaan

He’s optimistic that the Center for Race, Media and Technology will collect the broad perspectives needed to make, as he put it, “the intractable problems tractable.”

“What I imagine for the center is encouraging collaborations among the experts we bring together,” he said. “And I’m really hoping my research direction changes as a result of getting to work with the amazing people I’ll meet.”

If it’s collaboration he wants to get out of the center, Semaan’s successes to date have been more about tenacity. Early in his career, he said, some of his colleagues tried to steer him from migrants and veterans, dismissing his interest in making technology equitable as “a diversity ghetto.”

That didn’t deter him—and, with the benefit of hindsight, those rejections made him a better scholar.

“In my research, the people you work with are incredibly vulnerable, or are so busy surviving that they can’t talk to you,” he said. “You have to be passionate about that work, and prepared for long-tail effort before you make progress.”

The work of the center will be a long game, but if successful, Semaan said, it will put CU ��ý�� at the center of the conversation around purposefully designed technology.

“It dovetails with the university’s broader mission around diversity,” he said. “It’s not just saying we’re going to increase diversity—it’s the issues we are approaching and the support we are building for different scholars across the university. Because these bigger challenges are going to require people thinking together at a much grander scale, which means changing how we work.”

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.

Photographer Kimberly Coffin graduated from CMDI in 2018 with degrees in Media Production and Strategic Communication.

A new center at CMCI is organizing faculty thought leadership to answer big, systemic questions about technology’s role in issues of social justice.

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Features

Then and Now: Fall 2025

CMDI by the numbers

$33 million

$14.9 million

151.9%

153%

132%

104,496 ft2

813

411

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On the fly

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Coloring outside the mines

Simplifying the message

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Building a case for A.I.

New twist on an old problem

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Designer label

All things CMDI

First forays at collaboration

‘The story we live in’

‘Who needs to learn about argument more?’

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Spring 2025: 2 minutes with...

Max Pollak (Advert’10)Creative Director, Deutsch LA

Rory Fitzgerald BledsoePhD Candidate, Media Studies

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Communication that moves

Another level of engagement

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A better way

A new direction for her work

Industry feedback

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Foster figure

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The race to make tech more equal

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104,496 ft²

Max Pollak (Advert’10)
Creative Director, Deutsch LA

Rory Fitzgerald Bledsoe
PhD Candidate, Media Studies