Print Edition 2021

Students opening doors

Anonymous — Wed, 22 Jun 2022 22:15:56 +0000

Students opening doors Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 06/22/2022 - 16:15

Tim Grassley

Meet three CU Boulder students who are creating supportive, stronger communities by improving understanding, accessibility

The COVID-19 pandemic demanded that University of babyֱ��app Boulder students change the way they interact. They took classes at home and had limited student group contact. On-campus students followed tight schedules to reduce the virus’ spread.

While the pandemic’s restrictions were isolating, students sought stronger, inclusive communities and, in many cases, used creative means to generate understanding and connection with others in need.

What follows are three profiles of CU Boulder students who strive to make their communities stronger: an anthropology PhD student who researches the experiences of people with blindness, a philosophy major who uses a website and social media to connect with fellow cancer survivors, and a graduate student in religious studies who encourages students to expand what they believe they can accomplish.

When people give you grace, in the end it motivates you.”

Blind grad student works to improve CU Boulder’s vision

Kevin Darcy grew up in blue collar, manufacturing communities in Massachusetts and Florida that valued independence and masculinity. In his junior year of high school, he lost his vision.

“For a long time, like 15 years, I had a lot of perceived and actual stigma that I internalized, and I refused to accept the idea that I was blind,” says Darcy, now a PhD student in anthropology at CU Boulder. “The way I think about it now is that, when I lost my vision, I was afraid that the image I have about myself wouldn't align with the image that other people create about me when they see me.”

At age 27, Darcy, a first-generation student, began attending Metropolitan State University in Denver and studied biological anthropology. While on a research trip to Peru his senior year, he faced the fact that his blindness would limit his ability to study historical health and disease. But that moment also opened another career path.

“I realized two things: If I stayed in biological anthropology, someone is always going to have to look over my shoulder and confirm my analysis,” Darcy says. “But I also realized that living people had a lot more to say, and they’re more fun to hang out with.”

He enrolled in a medical anthropology program at CU Denver, where he earned his master’s in anthropology. His research focused on health and the environment, as well as immigration and food systems. In 2015, Darcy enrolled in CU Boulder’s PhD program in anthropology, intending to continue studying immigration, food and the environment.

Early in his studies, he felt frustrated by implicit bias.

Kevin Darcy is a PhD student in anthropology.

“I think I was feeling the discriminatory experiences more because, as a first-generation student, I was already feeling like an outsider,” Darcy says. “Everyone seemed to know what to do as a graduate student except me.”

In 2017, Darcy nearly left the university because he had experienced several acts of overt discrimination. He was shocked to be publicly singled out for his disability. However, when he expressed his intent to leave, a babyֱ��app member and his Digital Accessibility Office supervisor offered him an opportunity to make CU Boulder more inclusive.

In his research for the Digital Accessibility Office, Darcy discovered an outsized reliance by babyֱ��app and staff on students with disabilities, whom they expected to function as experts in particular technologies.

“The assumption behind this is that people have been blind for a long enough period to learn how to use the technology, and that they have the socio-babyֱ��app resources to purchase it and get trained on it,” Darcy says. “There is a push for people with disabilities to advocate for themselves, which is great, but oftentimes that advocacy shifts to individual responsibility.”

In anthropology, a babyֱ��app member offered to become his dissertation advisor, and Darcy began to focus his thesis on market-oriented incentives in universities, like academic tenure and intellectual property, which solidify a hierarchy in which certain groups are given preference at the expense of people with disabilities, he says.

Darcy is still gathering data, but his early findings suggest a need to improve communication about disability and strengthen training for babyֱ��app, students and staff to support students with disabilities so they finish their degrees. While there are clusters of disability experts across campus, these groups have not effectively shared their information or found ways to deliver training, Darcy contends.

“I just don't want the knowledge that I produce to sit up in the ivory tower,” Darcy says. “I want to make a positive impact for the people I do research with. Hopefully, I can make some changes.”

Student leverages website and social media to support fellow cancer survivors

In 2020, Aspen Heidekrueger launched a blog documenting her experience surviving leukemia at age 12 and the challenging aftermath. Now, she seeks to bring people with chronic illness together through social media and her website.

Heidekrueger’s blog, called Complicated Cancer, focuses on continuing health issues related to her chemotherapy, which lasted two-and-a-half years. By blending pop culture, memes, philosophy and her reflections to give insight into the experience of surviving cancer, Heidekrueger offers advice and encouragement to readers.

“When I was struggling with debilitating, chronic health problems, I felt so alone and so misunderstood,” says Heidekrueger, who is pursuing a bachelor’s in philosophy. “It was so difficult to connect to people, and I had no one telling me that what I was feeling was normal. I never want anyone else to feel that way, if I can help it.”

In 2021, Heidekrueger began creating content for TikTok, Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram, which she hoped would reach more people undergoing cancer treatment and clarify the experience for a larger audience. She did not anticipate the commonality of her experience and those of people with other chronic health issues, already gaining more than 210,000 followers on TikTok alone.

“I have been able to connect with so many people struggling with cancer or chronic illness,” Heidekrueger says. “Because all those people are experiencing similar things—lots of days of feeling sick, countless doctors, hospitals and physical limitations—it all manifests the same way emotionally and mentally.”

The growing audience is an exciting opportunity for Heidekrueger to offer support for people who might struggle finding understanding communities. While her mother has helped her overcome barriers, she knows that during hard times people on whom survivors relied in the past might be less dependable.

Aspen Heidekrueger, a philosophy undergraduate student, discusses her experience with cancer in her blog, Complicated Cancer.

“When I got cancer, my dad left because it was too much for him,” Heidekrueger says. “That, unfortunately, happens a lot with chronic illness issues like cancer—one parent will leave if they can't handle it. It’s awful.”

Because of that fragile support system, even one babyֱ��app or staff member who expresses concern offers students an advocate who helps them persist in their studies and recognizes their humanity. For Heidekrueger, that person was Dom Bailey, an associate professor of philosophy.

“At office hours, I told him the bare bones minimum about some of the stuff that was happening with my health and cancer at the time,” Heidekrueger says. “He immediately said, ‘That is so much. Do you have a good support system? What can I do for you?’ And that was from just telling him the smallest details.”

From Heidekrueger’s point of view, Bailey’s expression of concern and follow-up helped her feel that someone at CU Boulder was available and understood the challenges of trying to complete a college degree while dealing with chronic illness. That readiness to help and be empathetic reflect what she seeks to accomplish on her website and social media.

“To have someone I knew who was there, who really cared about me, was invested in my well-being, could help me through any hard course material and connect me with other professors—it was a lifesaver,” Heidekrueger says. “If I can do small things that help make people feel infinitely better, I want to do that, too.”

To foster a supportive community like the one she had, Heidekrueger plans to expand Complicated Cancer by creating chatrooms where cancer survivors can share their experiences and give support and advice.

“I want them to have someone who can say, ‘This is what it's like. You might feel this way, and that's normal. Here's how you can get through it,’” Heidekrueger says.

“Everyone deserves to have some hope, some encouragement, someone to connect to their pain and give them reasons to move forward.”

Faculty approachability strengthens students’ work

Graduate school appeared impossible for first-generation student Blake Trujillo.

Only certain types of people went on to continue their education—and he, the first person in his family to complete a bachelor’s degree at a university, did not see himself as one of them. At least at first.

“That's something that is often neglected,” says Trujillo, a master’s student in religious studies. “If you don't have someone with you who's been (through the application process), then it becomes a much more difficult experience, especially at the graduate level.”

Born in Wheat Ridge, babyֱ��app, Trujillo moved to Silverdale, Washington, at a young age. He attended Central Washington University (CWU) in Ellensburg, where he was a middle-distance runner and studied political science.

After completing his bachelor’s degree in three years, he wanted to stay at CWU and continue to run track. On a whim, he decided to take a few religious studies classes and fell in love with the subject.

“It opened my eyes,” Trujillo says. “I realized that maybe the world isn't exactly how I picture it and there are new aspects to religion that we can explore and discover.”

Blake Trujillo is a master’s student in religious studies.

Of particular importance was his undergraduate advisor, Lily Vuong, whose dynamic lectures and mentorship encouraged Trujillo to reframe what he believed possible in religious studies. Vuong, who is an associate professor of religious studies at CWU, also encouraged Trujillo to consider pursuing a graduate degree.

Vuong helped Trujillo put together a compelling application with which he gained admission to CU Boulder and, just as important, earned a strong financial aid package.

With high expectations for his first year, Trujillo hoped to enjoy the best of Boulder’s residential experience, spend time digging through the library’s vast access to primary texts and explore his research interest in Gnosticism, or a set of religious beliefs in some early Christian and Jewish sects that emphasizes personal spiritual knowledge over orthodox teachings and traditions. He also wanted to replicate the mentorship he received at CWU.

Trujillo is excited to practice being an approachable scholar, replicating the mentorship he received. He hopes the informal manner with which he interacts with students encourages them to seek him out. In conversations with students, he wants to help them see themselves at their best and create an environment that gives them opportunities to become that person.

“Professors are brilliant, and at the same time, this is an avenue that anyone can pursue and should believe that they can pursue. If I can do it, anyone can,” Trujillo says.

Trujillo believes leveling his position of influence and power as much as possible makes him appear more human. That effort creates familiarity with students, which he hopes leads to more students seeking out mentorship.

“Some babyֱ��app seem like mythical figures who went to mythical universities, and it can be tough to want to approach someone like that,” Trujillo says. “I want students and professors to know they can approach me and talk.”

Trujillo argues that if babyֱ��app maintain distance to give the appearance of expertise, they might inadvertently encourage their students to submit work that is not their best. Instead, he believes intimidated students try to simply meet the established requirements. In his experience, when you give students the benefit of the doubt and make yourself available, they meet even higher expectations.

“After I built a connection with Dr. Vuong, my advisor for undergrad, I felt much worse turning in something that I thought was bad,” Trujillo says. “I knew she had given me a certain amount of grace and kindness, so I felt like I needed to step up to the plate.”

“When people give you grace, in the end it motivates you.”

(Header image illustration by Alex Steele)

Meet three CU Boulder students who are creating supportive, stronger communities by improving understanding, accessibility.

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Geology undergrads are rocking graduate-style research

Anonymous — Wed, 20 Apr 2022 22:07:46 +0000

Geology undergrads are rocking graduate-style research Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 04/20/2022 - 16:07

Kenna Bruner

Seminar in geological sciences helps prepare undergrads—particularly low-income and first-generation students—for graduate-level research

To make undergraduate research in geological sciences more approachable for students at the University of babyֱ��app Boulder, Lon Abbott, teaching professor, and Jennifer Stempien, senior instructor, designed the Geology Majors Research Seminar. The multi-semester seminar exposes students to research experiences they usually don’t have until graduate school.

In the seminar, students read and discuss papers from peer-reviewed literature, which gives students practice thinking like a professional scientist, grappling with and critiquing cutting-edge science. Participants are strongly encouraged to pursue individual Undergraduate Research Experiences, which almost all of them do.

At the top of the page: Now-alumnus Noah McCorkel collects samples for his honor’s thesis in thermochronology on Whiterock Mountain in babyֱ��app’s Elk Range near Crested Butte (Photo by Lon Abbott). Above: For Jennifer Stempien and Lon Abbott, their work isn’t just about engaging current students—it’s also about bringing in the next generation. Here, some of their students to Northglenn High School students in November 2019 (Photo by Jennifer Stempien).

Students who engage in an Undergraduate Research Experience chat informally about their work with their seminar colleagues and present their findings in the seminar, which provides a tangible link between the Geology Majors Research Seminar and Undergraduate Research Experiences.

Providing this opportunity for undergraduate research is a department-wide endeavor. Twelve geology babyֱ��app members and professional researchers have served as Undergraduate Research Experiences research mentors for seminar students, as have several graduate students.

The idea for the seminars came about when Stempien and Abbott wanted to provide a support system for students who are interested in research but are hesitant to try, or who might not have considered themselves qualified to consider research.

This seminar is more approachable for students in that they are not expected to immediately know what research topic to pursue. They can explore any number of topics. It’s the initial exposure to research possibilities that’s important, Abbott and Stempien say.

“A lot of research programs that accept undergraduates are only for juniors and seniors,” Stempien says. “For some students who are unsure about whether they want to go into research, waiting to choose a topic can actually leave the decision too long. Our goal is to try to identify interested students as they’re going through the 2000-level (sophomore) classes to minimize that pressure to know what project to do and if they want to do an honor’s thesis.”

As babyֱ��app mentors who teach several lower-division classes, Stempien and Abbott can meet potential candidates suitable for the seminar before students begin taking upper-division classes.

Drawing from their own undergraduate experiences and challenges, Abbott and Stempien want to improve access for students in geology.

Students Anna Todd (left) and Spencer Zeigler (right) visit the Paint Mines Interpretive Park in El Paso County near Calhan, a town east of babyֱ��app Springs (Photo by Lon Abbott).

“I was not successful in obtaining the formalized summer undergrad research opportunities that were available when I was an undergrad,” Stempien says.

“I tried to approach a babyֱ��app member about working for them my senior year, but I was unsuccessful in all of my attempts to get the geoscience babyֱ��app at the time to take me on. I am quite sure I would have not gone for my graduate degrees if it were not for the support of my parents, who were working on their graduate degrees.”

“That is one reason why this project has been a highlight for me. I’m passionate about creating a supportive community to let students build their confidence as future scientific researchers,” Stempien adds.

The story is similar for Abbott.

“When I was an undergrad moving into graduate school, I had no real opportunity to do undergraduate research. It wasn’t as critical then as it is now,” Abbott says. “But now a lot of babyֱ��app won’t consider a student for graduate school unless they have undergraduate research experience. When we’re selecting students and inviting them to come into the seminar group, it’s more about their engagement with the material and their curiosity than their GPA.”

While not specifically intended exclusively for low-income and first-generation students, many have participated in the seminar and have gone on to graduate school or STEM careers.

And the program is not solely about engaging CU Boulder undergraduates with research opportunities. Abbott and Stempien have taken some of their seminar students to Northglenn High School, which has a large and robust geology program, to give presentations about the seminar, their experience with undergraduate research, scholarship information and perspectives about college in general. The program helps plant the seeds for younger students interested in geology to start pursuing it.

Stempien and Abbott have also received two microgrants, including one from CU’s Office of Outreach and Engagement, to take those high school students out into the field to visit babyֱ��app geologic sites.

“If a student is eager to learn and wants to do this, we’re excited to work with them,” Abbott says.

Seminar in geological sciences helps prepare undergrads—particularly low-income and first-generation students—for graduate-level research.

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Program for historically excluded students gets big boost, more space

Anonymous — Wed, 06 Apr 2022 22:53:37 +0000

Program for historically excluded students gets big boost, more space Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 04/06/2022 - 16:53

A sense of community is key to higher graduation rates and other measures of academic success, participants in MASP say

When it was launched in 1993, the Miramontes Arts & Sciences Program—or MASP—aimed to retain students of color in biology through graduation. Soon, the program expanded to help first-generation and other historically excluded students from all disciplines.

The program works so well and has grown so much that in early 2022 it is moving out of its cramped and hard-to-find facility in the Porter Biosciences building into newly remodeled, larger and more visible digs in the Lucile Berkeley Buchanan Building, which has long housed the School of Education.

At the top of the page: Blueprints of the new MASP space in the School of Education. Above: MASP provides traditionally underrepresented or first-generation students access to resources, enrichment opportunities and academic support and guidance.

Since 2016, MASP has doubled the number of students it serves and is projected to keep growing. The new space, which will span about 2,930 square feet, will be more noticeable to passers-by and will be 75% larger than the original space.

The space will occupy much of the Buchanan building’s first floor and will include a large community room, quiet study space, meeting rooms, babyֱ��app and staff offices, and a revamped computer and printing lab. The building will also house the Office of Undergraduate Education’s Student Academic Success Center—which also support first-generation and historically excluded students.

“As we continue charting forward and planning for MASP’s future, we are so excited for this new chapter and look forward to showing off the space at our grand opening celebration” next spring, a MASP newsletter recently noted.

The program’s success and its scheduled move are due in no small part to the help of donors.

Donors who are also CU Boulder alumni made a $1 million gift in September 2020. In supporting MASP, these donors are not alone. Since MASP’s inception, 254 individual donors have made 593 gifts totaling $2.6 million. Since September 2020 alone, donors have given a total of $1.3 million. The College of Arts and Sciences’ Dean’s Advisory Board is also heavily invested in the program.

The enthusiastic support reflects the program’s striking success, observers say.

The six-year graduation rate for full-time first-year students entering CU Boulder in 2014 was 72%. The rate for students of color in the same cohort was 66%, and for first-generation students, the rate was 65%.

But students in MASP do better, in recent years showing six-year graduation rates of 75% to 85%.

Our students are so bright and talented; having a supportive academic community helps them to reach their potential.”

These results reflect MASP’s mission, which is to provide a supportive environment for students with an emphasis on matriculation, retention and postgraduate success.

The program focuses on two main goals: providing students with a “sense of belonging” through the support of an inclusive academic community on campus, and ensuring they are aware of and are able to take advantage of opportunities to enhance their education outside the classroom, such as internships, education abroad and undergraduate research opportunities.

Celeste Montoya, associate professor of women and gender studies and director of MASP, expressed gratitude for the support and the new space.

“Our students are so bright and talented; having a supportive academic community helps them to reach their potential,” Montoya said, adding:

“We’re so grateful for this investment in their future and the opportunity it provides us to reach even more students.”

A sense of community is key to higher graduation rates and other measures of academic success, participants in MASP say.

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In rap music, alumnus pens lyrical prophecies

Anonymous — Mon, 28 Mar 2022 22:07:07 +0000

In rap music, alumnus pens lyrical prophecies Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 03/28/2022 - 16:07

Clay Bonnyman Evans

CU Boulder graduate Alexander Williams is working to raise the profile of rap and hip-hop scholarship

Growing up in a family with nine children in a Southern California desert town, Alexander Williams experienced a lot of what he calls “fracture and fragmentation in my family.” But from very early on, he found that music gave him a sense of hope, possibility and agency.

“Some of my earliest memories were of me bouncing on my dad’s knee, listening to his big stereo system, artists like Miles Davis and Lauryn Hill, and feeling like I was learning so much about not only this other person’s viewpoint, but about my community—insights I couldn’t get anywhere else,” says Williams (MEngl’21), a PhD student at the University of California, Los Angeles. “As a kid, music was something I had a palpable relationship with. It moved me in a way nothing else could.”

That love of music never stopped giving shape and energy to his life, whether it was playing bass drum in his eighth grade drumline, eagerly delving into myriad genres, from classical to metal core, or his discovery, at age 17, of rapper Childish Gambino, stage name of actor and musician Donald Glover.

“I saw the music video of Freaks and Geeks, and it changed my life. I saw Gambino being so passionate about what he was rapping about, being called gay slurs because he was sensitive, being too white for Black kids, and too Black for the white kids,” Williams says. “I thought, ‘If he could use rap to resist all that, that’s what I want, too. Because of Gambino’s passion, I decided rap was going to be my thing.’”

At the top of the page: Alexander Williams looks over a city skyline (Photo provided by Alexander Williams). Above: Alexander Williams hopes to create a RAP lab “trifecta” wherever he goes after his PhD program (Photo provided by Alexander Williams).

That night, he stayed up late to plunge into Childish Gambino’s discography. Soon, he was creating his own music with the help of beat-making software.

Two years later, as a literature major focused on creative writing and poetry at the University of California, Santa Cruz, Williams saw his educational and musical journeys begin to intertwine, “making me a better writer, a better rapper and a better producer.”

“I learned more about African and African American culture and just how deeply disruptive slavery was as an institution. I got to make those connections and see that what rap comes from is hundreds of years old,” he says.

Years after Williams wrote a rap album as his senior thesis at UCSC, a colleague introduced him to Adam Bradley, then professor of English and founding director of the Laboratory for Ritual Arts & Pedagogy, or RAP Lab, at the University of babyֱ��app Boulder.

“He was doing exactly what I wanted to do,” Williams says. “We had a long conversation, and he said, ‘Come to CU Boulder. Let’s work together. I want to support and mentor you.’ . . . I went to CU Boulder with the express intent of working with the RAP Lab, its program, its vision and its influence.”

He soon became a jack-of-all-trades as a research assistant in the lab, where he did everything from help rebuild and expand its studio to creating relationships with other campus organizations such as the newly created Center for African & African American Studies, and work on project management and budgets.

During his master’s program, he served as a teaching assistant for Bradley’s hip-hop studies class and co-founded the Lyripeutics Storytelling Project, which explores and promotes “hip-hop artistic practice as a tool for youth to tell stories about their community cultural wealth.”

He also went even deeper in his explorations of the artist who had sparked his imagination at 17, writing a master’s thesis titled I AM JUST A RAPPER: A Lyrical and Cultural Analysis of Childish Gambino’s Rise from Outcast to King.

“A formidable force against social oppression and oppressors, the archetype of the rapper operates as a messiah, superhero and social pariah weaving through different social and cultural spheres,” he wrote. “At his conception, Childish Gambino was an outcast shunned by both mainstream and African American media outlets alike, but through lyrical and intellectual prognostication, the persona blazed a new trail into the fabric of American pop culture. As an outcast, Childish Gambino has the unique position to critically analyze the American social, cultural and literary climate.”

“Childish Gambino realizes that Black men are perpetuated as thugs and oversexualized, stereotypes forced upon them because the color of their skin,” Williams says. “Because of that, Gambino says, ‘You want to see me as these things? OK, I’m going to project a persona that taps into these things, but I’m going to achieve status in a way that I can’t be oppressed for it. I’m forcing you to see me and interact with me in a different way.’”

This space represents the importance of hip-hop in scholarship, not just as an art form, but a form of cultural agency and visibility.”

After graduating from CU Boulder in May, Williams followed Bradley to UCLA, where he is working on a doctorate and deeply involved in the creation of the world’s second RAP Lab.

“When I’m finished (at UCLA), wherever I go on a tenure track, I’m going to create another one, completing a trifecta,” he says. “This space represents the importance of hip-hop in scholarship, not just as an art form, but a form of cultural agency and visibility.”

Williams also is working to create a national conference for rap scholars and hopes to turn his work on Childish Gambino into a book, including interviews with Glover. He’s been invited to present his master’s thesis at the 118th annual Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association—PAMLA—Conference in Las Vegas, and he and Bradley are working to host a special session at next year’s conference, to be held at UCLA.

At UCLA, Williams continues to develop his creativity, using writing, music and scholarship to explore his assertion that “life is art” through “haunted poetry and the archetype of the Black male rapper.”

“I don’t see a lot of difference between Lord Byron and myself. Byron was someone whose poetry existed as way of detailing a lot of things about his own life that he could correlate to other people, historical movements and events,” he says.

To illustrate the concept of “haunted poetry,” Williams points to the 1781 Zong massacre, in which British slave traders threw 130 enslaved Africans overboard in Jamaica to cash in on an insurance policy, and a case in which a woman born under China’s “one child” policy was abandoned to the streets by her parents.

“They were stripped of their names, their cultural functions, their social roles, and they leave behind ghosts that demand their humanity be granted,” Williams says. “A ‘haunting’ is an engagement with these ghosts and the things they leave behind.”

CU Boulder graduate Alexander Williams is working to raise the profile of rap and hip-hop scholarship.

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‘She is gold’

Anonymous — Fri, 18 Mar 2022 21:43:22 +0000

‘She is gold’ Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 03/18/2022 - 15:43

Clay Bonnyman Evans

CU Boulder graduate Rose Ann Bershenyi’s ‘gifts are transformative’

The list of Rose Ann Bershenyi’s significant gifts to the University of babyֱ��app Boulder is impressively long.

Bershenyi (Art’66; MFA’69), who grew up in Boulder and spent her career as an art teacher specializing in jewelry and metalsmithing at then-Baseline Junior High School, has focused her many gifts over the years at arts programs.

“I wanted to make a difference for programs that don’t always receive gifts and students who may have a hard time getting a scholarship. Too often moneys aren’t available to the arts and people in the arts,” says Bershenyi, whose mother was a scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder.

Beyond art, Bershenyi has also given to Inside the Greenhouse Project, which works to deepen our understanding of how climate change-related issues are and can be communicated. The project does this by creatively communicating the complex topic through interactive theatre, film, fine art, performance art and television programming.

At the top of the page: Rose Ann Bershenyi meets with a few recipients of the many gifts she’s provided over the years at the College of Arts & Sciences Scholarship Brunch in 2018. Photo by Amber Story. Above: The Martyr, from the series Unofficial Portraits by Hung Liu, is part of the Sharkive, whose presence at CU Boulder was made possible in part through a gift by Rose Ann Bershenyi.

She has created endowed scholarships for students in art and art history, theatre and dance, the CU in D.C. program, and the Miramontes Arts & Sciences Program (MASP), which is an inclusive academic community for traditionally underrepresented and/or first-generation college students.

Bershenyi’s gifts have helped many individual students, as well as numerous institutions on campus.

Bershenyi has supported the CU Art Museum’s acquisition of artworks, including a quilt by Gina Adams and the Sharkive, an internationally important collection of prints created in the studio of Bud and Barbara Shark.

“Having (the Sharkive) materials on campus for class use, exhibition and research means that we can offer our visitors access to artwork by internationally known artists made in our own backyard,” says Hope Saska, curator for the CU Art Museum, noting just one example of Bershenyi’s legacy. “The acquisition offers numerous pedagogical opportunities, not only in the range of artists the Sharkive encompasses, but in the way the materials demonstrate artistic process.”

Bershenyi’s generosity was essential in making sure that two important funds reached endowment status: the Art and Art History Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Endowed Scholarship Fund to provide scholarships for students who help diversify the student body, and a fellowship in the dance program to provide support for MFA candidates.

She recently gave to the Center for Native American and Indigenous Studies (CNAIS), and she helped to fully endow two funds that support students of dance.

“I’ve never had a donor like her,” says Amber Story, associate director of development in the Office of Advancement for the College of Arts and Sciences. “Her gifts are transformative. She doesn’t want it to be about her; she just wants to help. She loves CU, loves Boulder, and she trusts the university to do the right thing. She is gold.”

Bershenyi, who now lives in Aurora, is hesitant to put herself in the spotlight, preferring to let her gifts speak for themselves. She says she seeks guidance from Story and others to determine where her donations will have the most impact and expects to continue giving into the foreseeable future.

“I give when I’m inspired, where it’s needed the most, with guidance,” she says.

CU Boulder graduate Rose Ann Bershenyi’s ‘gifts are transformative.’

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The Bangladesh miracle

Anonymous — Wed, 09 Feb 2022 21:46:45 +0000

The Bangladesh miracle Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 02/09/2022 - 14:46

Lisa Marshall

Decades-long CU Boulder-led study shows access to family planning shapes lives for generations

On a sweltering July day in 1984, Jane Menken stepped off a plane in the teeming capital city of Dhaka, Bangladesh, boarded a van for a dusty, four-hour journey to the remote villages to the south and embarked on a decades-long quest to answer a question of global importance:

What happens when women gain the ability to control their reproductive destiny?

Just 13 years earlier, U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had written off the newly born nation of Bangladesh as a famine-stricken and insolvent “basket case.” With 64 million people in a region about the size of Wisconsin, it was the most densely populated non-island country on the planet. And with a fertility rate of seven children per woman, about 14% dying before their first birthday, it was considered the poster child for those warning of an impending “population bomb.”

At the top of the page: Jane Menken during her time in Bangladesh. Photo provided by Jane Menken/Glenn Asakawa. Above: Jane Menken, now a Distinguished Professor at CU Boulder, is considered a pioneer in her field and one of the first researchers to prioritize women and their desires about childbearing. Photo by Glenn Asakawa.

But by the time Menken arrived, a transformation was quietly brewing—one woman at a time.

In the conservative Muslim district of Matlab, where she was headed, a nongovernmental organization had begun to provide free, in-home contraceptive access to tens of thousands of women, otherwise secluded due to religious customs that require women to segregate themselves from men.

Menken, a mathematician-turned-social-demographer with a focus on public health, had been crunching numbers about the initiative from afar since its inception. With her own children now grown and her classes dismissed for summer, she had the chance to see things for herself now.

“I didn’t want to just be a tourist,” recalls Menken, a Distinguished Professor of sociology at the University of babyֱ��app Boulder, in her home adorned with hand-stitched pillows, silver jewelry molds and decorative bowls collected during her time in what became a second home.

“I wanted to see how the people behind the numbers lived, and I wanted to use those numbers to benefit society.”

She would return for months every year for more than three decades, bringing along protégés from Boulder and beyond to spearhead one of the longest and largest studies of family planning ever conducted.

Today, Menken, who served as director of the Institute of Behavioral Science from 2001 to 2015, is considered a pioneer in her field—one of the first to prioritize women and their desires about childbearing as a central focus of research.

And Bangladesh, which turned 50 this year, is now viewed as a model of progress, with a booming economy and a fertility rate of just two children per woman—most of those kids far better off than their predecessors.

“We cannot say that family planning alone caused Bangladesh’s positive development story,” Menken stresses, noting that the country was also remarkably supportive of girls’ education and vaccination. “But the Matlab study shows that a family planning program, even in a region that is desperately poor, illiterate and isolated, can lead to early adoption of contraception and smaller family size. It can change a mindset, and that can have sweeping, lasting effects.”

Bringing contraception to women where they are

Launched in October 1977 by the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, now known as icddr,b, the program hinged on the idea of empowering women to help women. Trained local women went door-to-door each month, discretely providing access to a variety of birth control measures, including injections (which were immensely popular due to their lack of evidence). babyֱ��app half of the 150 villages, constituting about 100,000 households, were included, providing a natural experiment with a built-in control group.

In 1982, the program added other family health services, including vaccinations.

By 1989 it was scaled up to include other parts of Bangladesh.

Jane Menken worked with local Bangladeshi women to spearhead one of the longest and largest studies of family planning ever conducted. Photo provided by Jane Menken/Glenn Asakawa.

All the while, icddr,b conducted painstakingly detailed household surveys, tracking births, deaths, migrations and marriages monthly. When Menken and her team arrived, they added to the massive dataset with follow-up surveys, working with residents to ask women questions about everything from their children’s health and cognition to what they did for a living when they grew up.

Menken, with her blazing red hair and boundless energy, became a fixture in Matlab, pitching in to help when historic floods in 1988 shredded tin-roofed homes and buried rice fields in feet of sand. When she returned nine months later, villages that had been wiped out were rebuilt.

“The resilience of the people there still just amazes me,” she says.

Tracking long-term effects

How, if at all, did the lives of early participants in the family planning project turn out differently? A series of studies now beginning to be published offers insight.

It (a family planning program) can change a mindset, and that can have sweeping, lasting effects."

The women had fewer children, spread farther apart, more of whom survived.

And in having fewer children, mothers seemed to be able to invest more time and resources in those they did have.

“We found that by the time these children reached 8 to 14 they had significantly higher cognitive functioning, were about a centimeter taller and were better educated” than those in the comparison group, says Tania Barham, an associate professor of babyֱ��apps who came to Boulder in 2005 to work with Menken and has written several papers on the Matlab project.

As families got smaller, public investments in education and public health went further.

And as local resources improved, the inclination for those adult children to leave declined. Barham’s research shows that sons of women in the family planning group were less likely to move away, and daughters were more entrepreneurial.

“Instead of moving away and taking a not-so-nice or dangerous job, they are staying closer to home and starting their own businesses,” Barham says.

A lesson for the world?

Surprisingly, according to a study published this summer in the journal PNAS, the women in the family planning group were no healthier or richer 35 years after their participation. In fact, because they were slightly heavier, their metabolic health was slightly worse.

“I would have loved to have found that there was a long-term positive effect on their health, but I am a scientist,” Menken says. “I accept.”

Jane Menken holds a statue she brought back from Bangladesh, which she traveled to frequently during the course of her research. Photo by Glenn Asakawa.

Today, she notes, Bangladesh as a whole is undoubtedly healthier: Life expectancy is 72 years, up from 47. Infant mortality has declined to 2.6%. And nearly 100% of children complete primary school.

Family planning, while not a silver bullet, played no small role, she says.

At 81, she has no plans to retire anytime soon.

She intends to return to Bangladesh for more research when possible.

But she also believes other regions around the world, including places in sub-Saharan Africa, and even here in the United States, can benefit from the “basket-case-turned-babyֱ��app-powerhouse.”

“Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg once wrote that a woman’s ability to realize her full potential is intimately connected to her ability to control her reproductive life,” Menken says. “This study provides solid evidence to back up that statement.”

Decades-long CU Boulder-led study shows access to family planning shapes lives for generations.

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CU Boulder race scholar reframes Du Bois’ scholarly legacy

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Oct 2021 00:05:00 +0000

CU Boulder race scholar reframes Du Bois’ scholarly legacy Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 10/27/2021 - 18:05

Cay Leytham-Powell

New Book on W.E.B Du Bois explores the contribution the scholar had on the origins and evolution of intersectionality

W.E.B. Du Bois is considered one of the most influential thinkers of the modern era—and yet, most of his legacy has been confined to his scholarly work within racial studies. A new book from a CU Boulder professor, though, challenges that narrative, instead reframing Du Bois as a foundational figure in an important modern topic: intersectionality.

Intersectionality is the study of how social groupings like gender, race and class intersect and overlap, especially as they pertain to systems of oppression. This new book, Du Bois: A Critical Introduction, examines William Edward Burghardt (or W.E.B.) Du Bois’ life and legacy and argues that, while not fully formed and a bit disjointed, Du Bois’ work was undeniably foundational for this contemporary concept.

At the top of the page: Civil Rights leader W.E.B. Du Bois (Library of Congress/Flickr). Above: Reiland Rabaka, a professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies and the founding director of the Center for African & African American Studies, is the author of Du Bois: A Critical Introduction.

“When taken together and ample attention is given to his contributions to the critique of racism and sexism and capitalism and colonialism, Du Bois’ corpus registers as both an undeniable and unprecedented contribution to the origins and evolution of what scholars currently call intersectionality,” said Reiland Rabaka, the book’s author.

Rabaka is professor of African, African American and Caribbean Studies in the Department of Ethnic Studies and the founding director of the Center for African & African American Studies at CU Boulder. He is also a research fellow in the College of Human Sciences at the University of South Africa (UNISA). Rabaka has published 16 books and more than 75 scholarly articles, book chapters, and essays, including most recently The Routledge Handbook of Pan-Africanism (Routledge, 2020).

We recently asked Rabaka a few questions about his new book:

Question: The summary for your book mentions that you look at Du Bois’ multidimensional legacy. How would you describe that legacy for the everyday reader?

Answer: W.E.B. Du Bois was born in 1868 and died in 1963. In essence, his life was bookended by the Civil War and the Civil Rights Movement. In the period between the aftermath of the Civil War known as the Reconstruction era (1865-1877) and the Civil Rights Movement years (1954-1968), Du Bois altered American history, politics and society by aligning himself with many of the most cutting-edge and controversial causes of his epoch.

Over time Du Bois shifted his political position from social reform to social revolution and desperately searched for bottom-up solutions to social and political problems. In this regard, his intellectual and political evolution holds many lessons we could learn from and use today in our efforts to make sense of our epoch: from the contentious centrality of race, gender and class in U.S. politics to popular revolutions across the Global South (i.e., formerly colonized or “Third World” countries) to recent worker uprisings in the U.S., Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Du Bois began his career a dedicated elitist but, after many missteps, evolved into a committed radical democratic socialist by his later years. He came to understand the carnage of world wars, race riots, lynchings, racial segregation, the disenfranchisement of women, colonialism and imperialism as serious indictments of the triumphalist narratives of spreading democracy that Europe and the United States have propagated for centuries. It was Du Bois’ search for solutions to the problems of racism, sexism, colonialism and capitalism that forced him to gradually move beyond reformism and embrace radicalism, and eventually revolution.

Ultimately, Du Bois’ legacy is his incredible evolution from bourgeois social scientist to revolutionary internationalist. His legacy is also bound up in what his trajectory teaches us about oppressed peoples’ awesome ability to transcend and try new things when deeply committed to transforming themselves and the world.

Q: Why do you think it's important to study Du Bois?

It is important to study Du Bois’ life and work because when it is objectively engaged and fully understood, it provides us with a framework for not only identifying problems but developing viable solutions to them."

A: It is important to study Du Bois’ life and work because when it is objectively engaged and fully understood, it provides us with a framework for not only identifying problems but developing viable solutions to them. Whether we turn to the resurgence of global racism and xenophobia, misogyny and gender injustice, the neocolonial conditions of the wretched of the earth and the Global South, the constantly changing character of capitalism and the misinterpretation of Marxism, or the seemingly never-ending imperialist wars, W.E.B. Du Bois’ discourse offers us both extraordinary insights and cautionary tales.

To access the lessons Du Bois’ legacy may teach us we must ask a set of crucial questions: Why is it imperative for us to know who Du Bois was and what he contributed to contemporary thought? Even more, and methodologically speaking, why is it important to not only know what but how, in his own innovative intellectual history-making manner, Du Bois contributed what he contributed to contemporary thought?

The real answers to these questions do not lay so much in who Du Bois was, but more in the intellectual and political legacy he left behind. Which is to say, the answers lie in the lasting contributions his discourse has historically made and is currently making to our critical comprehension of the ways the social inequalities and injustices of the 19th and 20th centuries have informed and morphed into the social inequalities and injustices of the 21st century.

Q: What got you personally interested in studying Du Bois? Was there something that instigated your interest?

A: I was in junior high school the first time I read, or rather attempted to read, the weighted words of W.E.B. Du Bois. The book was, of course, The Souls of Black Folk. I will never, ever, forget it. It was the cover of the book that drew me to it, that soulfully summoned me in a special, almost alchemic way.

Du Bois: A Critical Introduction focuses on the life and legacy of W.E.B. Du Bois.

I feel sort of embarrassed saying it, but The Souls of Black Folk is the first book with a Black person on the cover that my 12-year-old eyes had ever seen. Sure, my mother read me fiction and poetry by Black writers growing up, and she certainly encouraged me to read books by Black authors, but their pictures weren’t on the covers of their books.

Something happened to me when I saw Du Bois and, as I felt back then and still feel now, he saw me. I stared at him and studied that determined look on his face and the fire in his eyes, and he stared back at me, I imagined, with wild wonder. We went on like this for what seemed like a lifetime, and then at last I opened the book. Along with Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells, With Head and Heart: The Autobiography of Howard Thurman, The Autobiography of Malcolm X, Angela Davis: An Autobiography and Assata: An Autobiography, all of which I read the summer before I began high school, The Souls of Black Folk is a touchstone in my life and has traveled with me from adolescence to adulthood.

Growing up in a poor and extremely poverty-stricken family, and being the son of a Southern Baptist minister, I was immediately taken by the candid discussion of racism and Black spirituality in The Souls of Black Folk. Du Bois, it seemed to me, was writing about my life just as much as he was writing about his, and he did so in such an extremely eloquent and lyrical manner that I found myself in his words. I too lived behind “the Veil,” and pondered the world beyond it. I was all too familiar with that omnipresent question, which liberal and well-meaning White folk always seemed to ask more with their actions than their words: “How does it feel to be a problem?”

Certainly, my life stands as a testament to the fact that Black people at the dawn of the 21st century are still approached more as problems than as persons—that is, human beings with rights to be respected and protected. From my point of view, The Souls of Black Folk is an early articulation of, and clear contribution to, the ideals and ethos of the Black Lives Matter Movement.

When and where I read Du Bois’ blistering criticisms of racial domination and discrimination in The Souls of Black Folk, I found myself thinking, even in junior high, that finally I had found someone who not only lived through the horror and harrowing experience of what it means to be Black in an utterly anti-Black world, but who unequivocally advocated anti-racist resistance in thought and action. He articulated, what appeared to me at 12 or 13 years of age, some special secret truth to which only he and I were privy.

I did not know it then, but what Du Bois shared with me in that initial encounter, in those tattered and repeatedly read pages of The Souls of Black Folk, would alter my intellectual and political life forever.

New Book on W.E.B Du Bois explores the contribution the scholar had on the origins and evolution of intersectionality.

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Lab turns critical eye on itself, aims to retain diverse voices

Anonymous — Mon, 27 Sep 2021 06:00:00 +0000

Lab turns critical eye on itself, aims to retain diverse voices Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 09/27/2021 - 00:00

Cay Leytham-Powell

Through a survey and 'living document,' a trailblazing STEM lab group hopes to make all members feel that they belong and are valued

It’s said that a diversity of voices promotes a diversity of solutions, but retaining those diverse voices remains a challenge for science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) fields. A new project at the University of babyֱ��app Boulder, though, hopes to target that need at the most accessible level: the lab group.

This project, out this past week in a new article in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution, is a two-step iterative process that seeks to figure out if members of a lab or other small group feel that they belong or are valued through a scientifically sound survey—and then provides guidance about how to improve.

The researchers hope this tool, created in collaboration with the Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance (OIEC) at CU Boulder as part of continuing efforts to understand the campus culture, will be something that any lab or small unit uses to understand their culture and see how to help everyone feel they belong and are valued.

"We are increasingly reckoning with the lack of diversity in science and recognizing that it is not enough to address diversity through hiring and recruitment. We need to take a hard look at the experiences of minoritized individuals once they are in an academic setting—and, too often, these experiences are lonely and difficult," said Molly Mcdermott, a PhD candidate in ecology and evolutionary biology (EBIO) and one of the paper’s authors.

"I see it (this project) as a way to address the gap of 'what comes after' when academic groups are diversifying. It is not enough to just get people in the door; everyone needs to feel like they belong in order to stay in the room and keep trying to open the next door."

In STEM, those of different gender, racial and ethnic backgrounds remain underrepresented compared to other industries, according to the Pew Research Institute. For Rebecca Safran, an EBIO professor who has had her own struggles as a woman in STEM, this wasn’t just an issue of recruiting more students from underrepresented backgrounds—it was also about making sure that everyone in the lab community felt valued and had a sense of belonging.

So Safran and her lab asked: What could they do in their sphere of influence to address this issue?

The retention of diverse voices in STEM is a huge problem, but Safran's lab (above) has created a two-step iterative process to try and make those voices heard and valued.

"We are truly trying to revise the way that we work as a scientific entity, as the prevailing, hierarchical model is not working and has to change," said Safran.

"We're trying to change the whole culture here (in the lab) so that everyone is encouraged to contribute in areas where they shine most brightly and feel valued because of their different skills and talents while also feeling supported managing the various balancing acts we all experience in our lives."

babyֱ��app this time, Safran met Julie Volckens, who is OIEC director of assessment. They hit it off right away and began chatting about doing a small survey in Safran’s lab to assess the cultural climate.

Volckens agreed to talk to the group, discussing what would—and wouldn’t—be feasible with this survey. Altogether, they then created a survey and iterative process that they hoped would accomplish their goals.

"This was the most directly collaborative project I’ve worked on, with everyone getting ideas in at every stage and a very 'all-hands-on-deck' mentality throughout the process. This was especially gratifying, given the subject of the paper," said Drew Schield, a postdoc in Safran’s lab and one of the paper’s co-authors.

The group ended up creating a survey that, in many ways, is an extension of the Campus Culture Survey, which Volckens and her team also created, using many of the same rigorously tested questions but more targeted for the smaller lab group context.

We are truly trying to revise the way that we work as a scientific entity, as the prevailing, hierarchical model is not working and has to change."

The Campus Culture Survey, which will be distributed to all babyֱ��app, staff and students the week of Oct. 18, came out of the Inclusion, Diversity and Excellence in Academics (IDEA) Plan. According to the OIEC website, the survey’s goal is to, “gather anonymous feedback from students, babyֱ��app and staff related to their sense of belonging, experiences of incivility, classroom and babyֱ��app culture, and protected-class harassment (including sexual harassment), and discrimination”—all of which help predict whether people will stay or leave.

“When people are treated like they belong, they fit in, they’re valued, those are the components of feeling like this is my place, my people, my passion,” said Volckens.

These factors also mirrored the goals of Safran’s lab, where they wondered if those in the lab felt like they belonged, mattered or were respected.

“We all decided that a lab group is a great target for rapid cultural change, and Julie helped us sort out what response variables would help us meet our goals of having everyone feel valued. It was exciting to realize that we really can study and attend to the climate in our lab in ways that we know that have been demonstrated through social science research that actually mean something important,” said Safran.

In addition to the survey, the group also advises other groups in the article to work to change the behaviors or community norms flagged as points of concern with the survey in whatever way works best for them. For Safran’s group, they did this by creating a “living document” in which lab members can anonymously contribute thoughts. Time is then set aside each term to discuss the lab’s community values and goals.

“The idea is that everyone can help co-create our lab climate and that we can iteratively check in to see whether how we are doing is commensurate with our goals. If not, we can discuss soft spots and experiment with different interventions,” Safran explained.

Julie Volckens is OIEC director of assessment and helped Safran's lab create the survey.

Which, Volckens says, is exactly how it’s supposed to work.

“Groups take the survey to get a sense of where they are, where they’re growing, where they may have new concerns. It’s a little bit of going in and having your blood pressure checked,” said Volckens. “These two things go together. This survey is a snapshot, and then that living document is what you’re going to do about it.”

For Safran’s lab, that living document proved crucial for everyone.

“This document helped me understand what I could expect from Dr. Safran, the PI, and what, in turn, was expected from me as a student. Reading the document made clear that the Safran lab values a lab culture which is respectful and supportive, and contributing to the document made me feel like a valued member of the lab,” said Sage Madden (EBIO’21) who was a part of the lab as an undergraduate and is now a PhD student at the University of California Davis.

Together, the researchers argue, the two tools are something that any small group can use—and they hope they do.

“My hope is that many small groups will use this framework to improve sense of belonging and community connection, and that through many iterations, these small units will aggregate to form a larger system of support, resilience and innovation,” said Avani Fachon, an EBIO undergraduate student and a co-author.

And Heather Kenny, a second-year graduate student and a co-author on the paper, agrees:

“I suspect many people have recently been feeling motivated to take action to improve the diversity and equity of our society as well as our smaller social circles. The societal problem feels too immense to really be tackled by a single individual, but assessing belonging and sense of value in a small lab group is a space where a single individual can create change,” Kenny said, adding:

“Hopefully if enough people change the attitudes in their small circles, the larger society will begin making progress in the right direction.”

Before labs or other groups use this survey, though, the researchers advise them to work collaboratively to reach consensus about confidentiality, open-mindedness and making sure everyone has an equal opportunity to have their voice heard.

“I think the beauty of what we propose lies in the intuition it follows. We so often refer to academic lab-based research groups as ‘families,’ yet it is relatively rare that we put deliberate time and effort into fostering the connections among our members in a transparent, inclusive way,” said Mike Gil, a University of babyֱ��app chancellor's fellow who’s currently a postdoc in Safran’s lab but will join the EBIO babyֱ��app next fall.

“I think we show here that the family analogy can be powerful when acted upon, and the that the buy-in is relatively inexpensive relative to the potential payoff.”

Through a survey and ‘living document,’ a trailblazing STEM lab group hopes to make all members feel that they belong and are valued.

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