Outreach

Reducing violence, with help from The Bard

Anonymous — Tue, 23 May 2023 16:55:16 +0000

Reducing violence, with help from The Bard Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 05/23/2023 - 10:55

Sarah Kuta

Colorado Shakespeare Festival staffers share Shakespeare & Violence Prevention program with scholars and practitioners in England, including at Shakespeare’s Globe theatre

Scientists largely understand what contributes to violence in schools and communities—and how to stop it. But actually putting that research into practice can be challenging.

Live theater can help.

That was the message the Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s Amanda Giguere and Heidi Schmidt shared with an array of Shakespeare scholars and practitioners during a weeklong outreach tour in England in early May.

During their trip across the pond—funded by grants from the Office for Outreach and Engagement and the Center for Humanities & the Arts—Giguere and Schmidt met with experts at Shakespeare's Globe, the Royal Shakespeare Company, the Shakespeare Institute and the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust.

They gave presentations on CU Boulder’s innovative Shakespeare & Violence Prevention program in hopes that other theater companies and related organizations might one day implement similar initiatives to help prevent bullying, mistreatment, self-harm and violence in schools.

Amanda Giguere (left) and Heidi Schmidt (right) outside Shakespeare’s Globe.

“We have the research, but the science alone is not enough,” says Giguere, the festival’s director of outreach. “We really need engaging, human-focused storytelling and art to solve the problem of violence.”

Becoming an ‘upstander’

Founded in 2011, the Shakespeare & Violence Prevention program aims to help students recognize harmful or potentially unsafe situations and take steps to intervene. This interdisciplinary initiative is a collaboration between the Colorado Shakespeare Festival and the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence.

Through the program, actors visit various Colorado elementary, middle and high schools to perform abridged versions of Shakespeare plays. (During the most recent school year, they performed The Tempest and The Merchant of Venice, and next year they’ll be touring and presenting Romeo and Juliet and The Comedy of Errors.)

Afterward, the actors invite students to role-play moments of conflict or violence from the play and ask them to propose an alternative strategy to help reduce or prevent some of the harm.

“This is all rooted in the power and efficacy of the ‘upstander,’ also known as an ally or active bystander,” says Giguere. “It can be extremely effective when one person decides to take action if someone is being bullied or if they are aware of planned violence, rather than passively sitting by. Sometimes all it takes is one person to say, ‘Hey, that’s not cool,’ and usually the mistreatment stops right away.”

Giguere and Schmidt along with the staff of Globe Education.

To help conceptualize violence, researchers often use the metaphor of an iceberg. Although really big acts, such as school shootings, are the ones that make the news, they are just the tip of the iceberg, says Giguere. Those acts are typically rooted in a broader culture that tolerates and even perpetuates bullying, microaggressions and general mistreatment. The violence iceberg also includes self-harm and suicide.

In the long run, the program’s organizers hope that cultivating a robust community of upstanders among students will help reduce small acts of violence and, ultimately, will help foster more positive, supportive school climates. Together, those changes should, in turn, help prevent even larger, more devastating incidents in the future.

And just as rehearsing helps actors polish a performance, practicing can help students become more comfortable and familiar with an array of upstander strategies.

“We’re using Shakespeare’s plays to give the kids a fictional metaphor they can step into and practice their own upstander strategies,” says Giguere. “We practice so many things in this world that we want to get better at—we practice tying our shoes, we practice CPR, we practice active shooter drills. All of those things don’t come easily, and they take practice. The same goes for upstander behavior.”

Borrowing from The Bard

Shakespeare’s plays—particularly the tragedies and history plays—are brimming with conflict. And while the words may be more than 400 years old, the themes remain relevant today.

“Many of these stories are rooted in a lot of what still shapes violence today, which is deep pain, deep trauma, deep division, deep disconnection,” says Giguere. “As I’ve been investigating these plays over the years, I really do think Shakespeare was trying to figure out something about why humans are so violent with each other.”

His plays also contain multiple perspectives—sometimes even within the same character—which helps students think about the complexity and messiness of the human experience. People are not all bad or all good, but some mix of both.

Schmidt (left) and Giguere (right) seated inside Shakespeare’s Globe.

Role-playing also helps students develop empathy because it encourages them to step into a character’s shoes and consider the scene from their point of view, Giguere says. That’s a useful skill for responding calmly and compassionately during a heated moment, rather than reacting with additional anger or violence.

“Taking time to pause, take a breath, think about the world from another person’s perspective is one of the key building blocks of a safer community,” Giguere says.

The power of interdisciplinary collaboration

During the past 12 years, the program has reached 126,000 students across the Front Range, with a goal of spreading into other parts of the state in the near future. Collaborating with other university departments has been a major driver behind that success, says Giguere.

In addition to drawing on evidence-based research from the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence, the program has collaborated with numerous other partners, including the Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance, the School of Education and the Department of Theatre & Dance.

As the program has demonstrated, bringing together experts from across campus—then sharing that combined knowledge with the public—can produce powerful results.

“Synthesis of knowledge across disciplines and fields is one way that such knowledge becomes more meaningful and more connected to social practice and everyday life,” says David Meens, director of the Office for Outreach and Engagement.

To learn more or support the Shakespeare & Violence Prevention program, follow this link.

Colorado Shakespeare Festival staffers share Shakespeare & Violence Prevention program with scholars and practitioners in England, including at Shakespeare’s Globe theatre.

Off

Traditional

White

Teen birdwatchers turn research into performance art

Anonymous — Tue, 03 Aug 2021 16:34:12 +0000

Teen birdwatchers turn research into performance art Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 08/03/2021 - 10:34

Kenna Bruner

The Side by Side project teaches high school students about local birds’ ecosystems through performative arts and scientific observation

Barn swallows nesting under a bridge near CU Boulder’s East Campus swoop and dive for insects to feed their chicks, unconcerned by a group of high school students noting the birds’ movements in their arts and sciences field journals.

Through a grant provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF), this group of 11 high school students in STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) spent their summer days observing the birds interacting with the environment through the guided arts and sciences approach of the Side by Side project.

An outreach project, Side by Side was created by Beth Osnes, professor in theatre, and Rebecca Safran, professor in ecology and evolutionary biology, for underserved female-identifying or nonbinary students. Osnes and Safran hope that educating and empowering these students in STEM fields and in the arts will diversify approaches, perspectives and solutions to environmental challenges.

“We want young people to notice there are fascinating ecosystems even in the most ordinary spaces,” Osnes said. “At first glance, that underpass where the swallows’ nest seems unremarkable when you look at it from above. But when you get underneath and start spending time and engaging in scientific and artistic observation, a thriving ecosystem is revealed to us.”

At the top of the page: Ting Lester as Hummingbird. Photo by Bex Anderson. Above: Filming at South Mesa Trail. Photo by Bex Anderson

Sofie Wendell, one of the high school participants, describes the impact of this project on herself and our future: “Here, protected by tall pine trees, surrounded by strong mountains, and among such beautiful individuals, I feel as though I belong,” Wendell wrote.

“Here my ideas hold weight, they matter. Here I am not judged or overlooked. Here I am given the opportunity to connect not only with nature, but with new friends and unique ideas. Together we are building the bridge to an equitable, survivable and thrivable future through science, art and love. I know I belong because this feels like home.”

Here, protected by tall pine trees, surrounded by strong mountains, and among such beautiful individuals, I feel as though I belong.

Safran and Osnes developed Side by Side to enhance the strength of arts and sciences crosstalk and to merge storytelling with scientific data through the creation and performance of large-scale puppets of many local birds.

“Their enthusiasm, hard work and pure engagement speak volumes about how each individual student experienced this summer's iteration of Side by Side,” Safran said. “We saw a lot of personal pride associated with the work they did both individually and as part of the group. To witness each participant really stretching themselves to take flight was amazing.”

After weeks spent observing the barn swallows, each student was encouraged to choose a different type of bird within that same environment, such as great blue herons, red-winged blackbirds, or crows, to observe, research and embody through puppetry.

“I wanted them to feel like they had something in common with the birds,” Safran said, “so I asked them questions about their favorite colors, habitats and diet. It was a fun way to interact with each student and to help them find a bird species they could feel connected to.”

The youth partnered with scientists, artists and CU Boulder graduate students who guided them through observations of the natural world, especially the variety of birds in different habitats.

By combining science and art in their observations, Side by Side was intended to build confidence in young STEM scholars and provide opportunities for falling in love with, and thus wanting to save, the natural world.

The goal for the participants was an increased feeling of belonging in nature; as part of a local community engaged in action for climate solutions; and in the STEM and artistic community focusing on climate solutions.

Journal notes and sketches from their time spent in the field have been developed into a script for a public performance to be held Aug. 16 on Boulder’s Open Space Mountain Parks (OSMP).

This summer’s project continues one started in 2018 in partnership with Molly McDermott, now a PhD candidate in ecology and evolutionary biology, and Aaron Treher (MFAArt’18). Chelsea Hackett also partners with this project through SPEAK, an organization to support and celebrate the voices of young women and girls.

Side by Side is sponsored by the NSF, Inside the Greenhouse and NEST Studio for the Arts, and has previously partnered with the sculpture and post-studio practice area of the Department of Art and Art History, and the Art and Rural Environments Field School.

Osnes and Safran are also cofounders of Inside the Greenhouse, an initiative within the newly formed Center for Creative Climate Communication and Behavioral Change that focuses on developing creative, effective climate communication. They are trying to put into practice the best of the social sciences, grounding it in the physical and life sciences and then expressing it through the arts.

“It’s about inspiring young people to choose careers that matter and can make a difference and helping them realize they can do it from different perspectives,” Osnes said. “If you care about climate change, you don’t have to just be a scientist, you can also make a difference through performance and theatre.”

Two filmmakers have made films of this summer’s art hikes on open space that include the art and poems created by the youth. The art hikes were filmed at three OSMP hiking locations: South Mesa near Eldorado Springs, Sawhill Ponds east of Boulder and Artist Point on Flagstaff Mountain. The videos will be posted on the Boulder OSMP website and linked to QR codes posted at the trailheads.

“We need a new story to get us through this climate crisis and so we need new storytellers. This focus on barn swallows is serving as a portal to our larger relationship to the natural worlds as we claim our responsibility to heal the planetary ecological crisis (that) we all face,” Osnes said, adding:

“Artistic and science-based voices are underrepresented in authoring our cultural story of how we will approach this greatest challenge humanity has ever faced.”

For information on the performance, go to the City of Boulder’s Nature Hikes and Programs website.

The Side by Side project teaches high school students about local birds’ ecosystems through performative arts and scientific observation.

Off

Traditional

White

Budding Ciceros and Roman circusgoers unite

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Oct 2020 01:29:53 +0000

Budding Ciceros and Roman circusgoers unite Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 09/30/2020 - 19:29

Virtually, that is, as the CU Boulder Classics Department and Colorado Classics Association turns young people on to ancient Greece and Rome.

The Classics Department at the �鶹��Ƶ will (virtually) host students from across the state for Colorado Classics Day from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday, Oct. 3.

As many as 250 middle school and high school students and teachers who share an interest in the ancient Greek and Roman worlds plan to attend. The event is designed to broaden students' horizons on the world of classical language and culture along with its intellectual challenges and enduring relevance to the modern world.

Dimitri Nakassis, chair of the CU Boulder Classics Department, said the event will include “a lively and diverse set of classes for the students.” The virtual format allows organizers to include expert colleagues from institutions across the state, including Colorado College, the U.S. Air Force Academy and Regis University.

Sessions topics and presenters include:

A Day at the Roman Circus, Isabel Köster, CU Boulder;
(in)Famous: Actors and Acting in Ancient Rome, Andrew Lund, Colorado College;
Write like Achilles, Elizabeth Bowman, CU Boulder;
The Art of Speaking Out: From Rome to Colorado, Brittney Szempruch, U.S. Air Force Academy;
Coquamus: Puls! Tim Smith, Loveland Classical Schools/Colorado Classics Association;
Riddles of the Sphinx, Travis Rupp, CU Boulder;
Classics...in Space!!!!! Clayton Schroer, Colorado College;
It’s Not Easy Conquering the World: The Roman Legions and the Second Punic War, Ian Oliver, Regis University;
Majoring in Classics... It’s Pretty Major, panel discussion.

This event is partly funded through a CU Boulder Outreach Award, which support research, teaching and creative work that connects with communities around Colorado and beyond. For more information, see the Classics Department’s schedule of events.

Virtually, that is, as the CU Boulder Classics Department and Colorado Classics Association turns young people on to ancient Greece and Rome

Off

Traditional

White

Mediterranean studies seminar booms despite pandemic

Anonymous — Thu, 21 May 2020 21:07:41 +0000

Mediterranean studies seminar booms despite pandemic Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 05/21/2020 - 15:07

Clint Talbott

After seminar moved online, enrollment more than doubles

The pandemic did not cut enrollment in a summer seminar hosted by the CU Mediterranean Studies Group and the Mediterranean Seminar. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Brian Catlos

The summer skills seminar, held from May 12-14, is dedicated to the study of Mediterranean societies and cultures and their role in World History and the History of "the West." It was originally planned as an in-person event at the �鶹��Ƶ but was quickly reconfigured as an online, remote learning experience in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Rather than cancel, I moved it onto an online platform,” said Brian A. Catlos, CU Boulder professor of religious studies. “The result was that enrollment more than doubled.”

Twenty-five faculty members and graduate students from 23 universities from around the world (including CU Boulder) took the four-day course.

Noting the high praise he received from the seminar participants this year, Catlos said, “It would be no exaggeration to say this program reflected very well on CU Boulder and enhanced its reputation among scholars on three continents.”

It would be no exaggeration to say this program reflected very well on CU Boulder and enhanced its reputation among scholars on three continents"

This year’s edition, “Introduction to the Archive of the Crown of Aragon (documents in Latin to ca. 1350)” was taught by Catlos, who has researched at the Archive of the Crown of Aragon for the last 25 years.

Over the course of four days of intensive collaborative learning, participants were introduced to the collections of the historical archive, the fundamentals of reading and analyzing unedited Latin diplomatic (administrative) documents, as well as research techniques and document editing.

The Archive of the Crown of Aragon is one of the largest and most important medieval archives in Europe, with a volume and variety of documentation for the 11th to 13th centuries that is rivalled only by the Vatican, and includes hundreds of thousands of documents that have not been edited or catalogued in modern times.

The Crown of Aragon was a major political entity that spanned the medieval Mediterranean (including parts of Italy, North Africa and the eastern Mediterranean) and had substantial populations of Muslims and Jews.

The archive’s documentation can be used to study a gamut of themes, including political and institutional history, economics, culture, art history, literary history, history of science, social history, legal history and religious history.

The Summer Skills Seminar is organized by the CU Mediterranean Studies Group through the Mediterranean Seminar. Based at CU Boulder and housed in the Department of Religious Studies, the seminar is the leading initiative in the emerging interdisciplinary field of Mediterranean Studies and has more than 1,600 scholarly associates in more than 40 countries.

Circumstances permitting, the fourth Summer Skills Seminar will be held at CU Boulder in May 2021 on the same topic; this year’s participants will be eligible to attend at no cost.

Previous editions of the Summer Skills Seminar focused on reading Aljamiado (late medieval Spanish written with Arabic characters) and Ladino or Judezmo (late medieval Spanish written with Hebrew characters).

For more information, see www.cumediterranean.info and www.mediterraneanseminar.org.

Off

Traditional

White

CU Boulder bipolar clinic will close after 17 years

Anonymous — Fri, 29 Nov 2019 07:00:00 +0000

CU Boulder bipolar clinic will close after 17 years Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 11/29/2019 - 00:00

A �鶹��Ƶ center that in its 17 years of operation helped more than 2,100 Coloradans affected by bipolar disorder will close its doors in May 2020.

Earlier this month, the Robert D. Sutherland Memorial Foundation concluded that the current funding model of CU Boulder’s Sutherland Bipolar Center is no longer sustainable.

The Sutherland Center, housed on campus and supported by private funds, has provided diagnostic evaluations, evidence-based psychotherapy (individual, family and group), medication management, healthy lifestyle coaching, and community education to people regardless of their ability to pay for services.

The Sutherland Center has also helped to train the next generation of clinical psychologists, providing intensive training to 38 graduate students and post-doctoral therapists.

The RDS Foundation has remained the primary funder of the Sutherland Center, providing approximately 80% of the center’s operating budget.

Psychology graduate students at the RDS Center discuss bipolar treatment options.

“We have worked tirelessly, applying for grants from foundations, hosting fundraising events, and nurturing relationships with potential and repeated donors. Despite our dedication and hard work, we have struggled each year to raise enough money to support the essential operations of the center. Without adequate funding from the RDS Foundation, the Sutherland Center cannot continue to effectively provide treatment to our community members who are impacted by bipolar disorder,” said the clinic’s director, Alisha Brosse.

The center is primarily funded through the Robert D. Sutherland Memorial Foundation and also receives funding through a CU Boulder Outreach Award. The announcement came as a shock to many people in the community.

“What sad news we have received from you today. The Sutherland Center fills such an important role in this community,” said Cindy Cohagen, director of community relations & philanthropy at Mental Health Partners, Boulder County’s main source of mental health services. Another psychotherapist echoed the sentiment, calling the closure “enormously sad.”

One client at the Sutherland Center said, “It is the only place in the country to get affordable, full, specialized bipolar services, to have a chance to have a manageable life, to thrive and to get back to a normal life.”

In a statement, the RDS Foundation board said it was still very committed to the mission of improving the lives of people impacted by bipolar disorder and is exploring new ways for the nonprofit to be viable beyond May 2020.

“We welcome anyone in the community who would like to assist our board as we ‘re-group’ and restructure our program,” said Rachel Cruz, RDS Foundation executive director.

The RDS Foundation was established in 2001, and the clinic opened its doors in 2002, to honor Robert D. Sutherland Sr., a successful businessman and philanthropist who had bipolar disorder.

The center is affiliated with the CU Boulder Raimy Psychology Clinic, which has been providing affordable psychological treatment for over 40 years to adults in the Boulder County area.

The Department of Psychology and Neuroscience maintains the Raimy Clinic as a training site for graduate students in the clinical psychology PhD program. Graduate student therapists provide therapeutic services and are supervised by licensed psychologists and other experienced mental health professionals.

The Sutherland Bipolar Center has helped more than 2,100 Coloradans affected by bipolar disorder, regardless of their ability to pay.

Off

Traditional

White

Theater professor examines political pendulum from vantage of the stage

Anonymous — Fri, 08 Nov 2019 03:48:14 +0000

Theater professor examines political pendulum from vantage of the stage Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 11/07/2019 - 20:48

Laura Hiserodt

Before the current far-right government took charge of Brazil, there was the far-left Workers Party.

The Workers Party, one of the largest political movements in Latin America, governed Brazil from 2002 until 2016, when it abruptly fell from power due to a series of large-scale scandals that involved individuals from every political party in Brazil.

Marcos Steuernagel

The media and congress focused their attention on the limited involvement of the Workers Party in these scandals, leading to the ultimate downfall of the party’s leaders, Dilma Rousseff and Lula de Silva. From that fall, a seismic political change happened: the rise of current far-right Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro.

Professor and author Marcos Steuernagel hopes to better understand the complexity of this shift, which took place while the Workers Party was in power, through specific theater and dance productions. Steuernagel will speak on the subject as part of the CU on the Weekend series on Nov. 16 at 1 p.m. in the Butcher Auditorium at the Jennie Smoly Caruthers Biotechnology Building at 3415 Colorado Ave.

Steuernagel’s presentation, “Performance and Politics: The Rise and Fall of the Brazilian Left,” reflects his research, which examines how rising political polarization not only in Brazil but transnationally, has affected society.

“There is a tax not only on political positions but on the very concept of diversity itself. That’s kind of the sign of fascism. This idea that you can't think differently, otherwise you’re excluded from a conversation. This has been happening everywhere, and it happened very strongly in Brazil.”

Steuernagel holds an MA and a PhD in performance studies from New York University. He holds a specialization in cinema and video as well as a BA in theater directing from Faculdade de Artes de Paranà Brazil. Steuernagel is co editor of the digital book What is Performance Studies, and his upcoming monograph follows the relationship between politics and aesthetics within contemporary Brazilian theater and dance.

Researchers studying the political climate of a country tend to focus on factors that exclude discourse and narrative, Steuernagel notes. He contends that by examining the work of various theater and dance groups that experienced some of these political issues while they were occurring, the stories and narratives that drove this political shift can become clearer.

“Looking at this is not just a call toward certain political positions or certain ways of understanding, but toward the possibility of diverse ways of understanding and seeing the world.”

The Brazilian theater and dance groups Steuernagel will discuss are prominent within Brazilian theater and dance. They are aesthetically experimental and politically engaged. Steuernagel argues that Brazil’s unique performance traditions are what makes these types of groups not only possible but important when considering Brazilian politics.

“Performance is not just an object of study but a way of knowing,” says Steuernagel. “You’re able to process and understand political issues through the body and performance differently than you’d be able to do just by talking about it.”

The CU on the Weekend series is sponsored by the CU Office for Outreach and Engagement. Reservations are not needed for the event, but attendance is limited to the first 200 people.

Steuernagel will speak on the subject as part of the CU on the Weekend series on Nov. 16 at 1 p.m.

Off

Traditional

White

Hip-Hop event aims to get Boulder moving

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Sep 2019 00:22:40 +0000

Hip-Hop event aims to get Boulder moving Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 09/16/2019 - 18:22

Laura Hiserodt

Museum of Boulder teams up with CU Boulder faculty to host rooftop dance party

The Museum of Boulder is joining forces with the �鶹��Ƶ RAP Lab and Theater & Dance Department to bring The Museum of Boulder Event: Hip-Hop on the Rooftop to the Boulder museum on Sept. 19 from 7 to 9 p.m.

Ondine Geary, at left performing, and Adam Bradley. At the top of the page is Australian hip-hop artist Nelson Dialect.

The event, which features Australian rapper and DJ Nelson Dialect and hip-hop dance pioneers Rennie Harris and Larry Southall, aims to provide Boulder’s thinkers and artists a space to party, dance and network on the museum’s rooftop at sunset.

“Hip-hop is a unifying force,” says Adam Bradley, English professor, Museum of Boulder board member, founder of CU Boulder’s Laboratory for Race and Popular Culture—better known as the RAP Lab—and an organizer of the event. “The museum helps us celebrate the spirit of the community, and that’s what Hip-Hop on the Rooftop is all about.”

During the event, Dialect will play new and classic hip-hop, reflecting both hip-hop’s past and its future.

Dialect is in his second year of a three-year residency in the United States, during which he has spent time in New York recording music, and in Boulder working closely with Bradley and the RAP lab.

The two have known each other since Dialect was launching his career over seven years ago, and their collaboration sprang from a shared connection over Dialect’s old school vision of hip-hop. Dialect will perform “music that makes you want to move, music that will be familiar and music that speaks to our global reality of living on a hip-hop planet,” according to Bradley.

Bradley hopes the event helps communities who love hip-hop, dance, or who are just curious about either, to gather and enjoy the art forms together.

Bradley worked with Ondine Geary, the outreach and engagement liaison for the Theater & Dance Department, along with Erika Randall, the chair of the department, to launch the event.

If you go

What: Hip-Hop on the Rooftop
Where: Museum of Boulder, 2205 Broadway
When: Sept. 19, 7-9 p.m.
Tickets: $15, includes a complimentary drink, alcoholic or non-alcoholic

Geary found the museum’s rooftop to be a beautiful and culturally significant setting and had a vision of a dance party there. Bradley was the perfect person for Geary to partner with to make the event a reality, she says. Geary believes that realizing her vision will raise the visibility of Boulder’s vibrant hip-hop community, and deepen ties between the hip-hop community and the broader dance and art communities.

Hip-Hop on the Rooftop “feels like a really rich partnership with a lot of potential for a fun and engaging starting point for something more,” says Geary.

“We hope to achieve what hip-hop at its best achieves,” Bradley concludes, “both knowledge and entertainment, both an emerging political awareness and a party.”

Museum of Boulder teams up with CU Boulder faculty to host rooftop dance party

Off

Traditional

White

Immigration is central issue for new state historian

Anonymous — Sat, 31 Aug 2019 20:29:48 +0000

Immigration is central issue for new state historian Anonymous (not verified) Sat, 08/31/2019 - 14:29

Clint Talbott

The topic is timely and important, but discussions about it are mired in ideology and falsehoods, says William Wei, CU Boulder and state historian

For William Wei, the past is a very vivid prologue, and he hopes to bring that perspective to Colorado in the coming year.

William Wei says the symbol of the American West should be the immigrant miner rather than the cowboy. At the top of the page is an image of the Red Cross combing the aftermath of the Ludlow Massacre, in which the national guard in 1914 slaughtered striking coal miners, many of whom were immigrants, in southern Colorado. Photo courtesy of History Colorado.

Wei, professor of history at the �鶹��Ƶ, has been named the state historian by History Colorado, an arm of state government whose aim is to help residents understand what it means to be a Coloradan “by sharing powerful stories, honoring our state’s treasured memories and creating vibrant communities.”

Wei, who is also editor in chief of the Colorado Encyclopedia, an online reference on the Centennial State, has focused much of his scholarly energy on modern China and on Asian America, specifically on Chinese Americans in the context of the Chinese diaspora.

In recent years, he has focused on Colorado, and his most recent book is Asians in Colorado: A History of Persecution and Perseverance in the Centennial State. He recently answered five questions about state history and being the state historian:

1. You’ve said you hope to use the role of state historian as a bully pulpit to address important contemporary issues and provide historical context, to improve the quality of public discourse. What issues in Colorado history do you see as most relevant today?

The issue that most concerns me is immigration, which, as you know, is a major topic in our national discourse, one with significant implications for Colorado’s future development. Yet discussions about it are mired in ideology and politics without being based on real knowledge about immigration to our country and to our state.

People have been recycling the usual tropes about immigrants. One of the things that people would learn from knowing the history is that what is being said about immigrants today has been said about past immigrants. It hardly matters which group of immigrants they are: Irish, Italian, Greek, Jewish, Mexican, Central American, Chinese, etc.

By the way, the immigrant miner should be the symbol of the American West rather than the romanticized cowboy, given their relative contributions to the development of the region. Immigrant miners did the hard work in unearthing Colorado’s mineral riches. They dug up the gold and silver that helped create the state’s wealth.

I would tell the room full of high-school students that they are likely to see future cycles of persecution when the country experiences crises. The reason is, whenever socioeconomic or political crises arise, people look for scapegoats, and they find them among our most vulnerable citizens.

Another issue of great concern is how Coloradans have exploited our precious natural resources in the past. They are precious because they are finite and we may very well exhaust them at the current rate of use.

Take water, for instance. Without it, Coloradans would be left high and dry, literally. Historically, we have exploited the state’s resources for mainly for short-term economic gain, a practice that has led to the state’s well-known boom-and-bust economy.

This approach may have seemed reasonable at the time, but we now know it has left a costly legacy for later generations of Coloradans. Knowing how we have dealt with our natural resources in the past and its consequences, good and bad, can guide how we use them in the future. It is in our self-interest to manage these resources intelligently.

2. You’ve said the most significant artifact in the History Colorado “Zoom In” exhibition is the 1894 ballot box from El Paso County because voting is central to a democratic society, and 1894 was the first election in which women were able to vote in statewide elections. Do you believe Coloradans are as committed to universal suffrage and election integrity now as they apparently were then?

Yes, I believe Coloradans are committed to universal suffrage and believe in the equality of women, at least when it comes to voting and having women hold public office. We have 47 women serving in the State Legislature, which is higher than any other state except for Nevada.

More needs to be done to attain equality for women, however. As long as women only make 78 cents for every dollar men make for doing the same job, then there is inequality. And as long as women face a glass ceiling preventing them from holding positions that they are entitled to because of merit and experience, then there is inequality. Such gender inequality is detrimental to us all.

I also believe Coloradans are committed to election integrity. Colorado has earned the reputation of being one of safest places to cast a vote. However, we must never become complacent.

America’s adversaries are relentless. We need to be constantly vigilant against cyberattacks designed to undermine our electoral process and democratic society.

3. Next year will mark the 75^th anniversary of the closing of the Amache internment camp; to what extent does that chapter in our history inform our discussion of civic issues today?

Fortunately, Colorado social studies teachers discuss Amache and America’s other concentration camps during World War II as part of the regular high school curriculum. So students know that the imprisonment of an estimated 120,000 Japanese Americans, most whom were citizens of the United States, was unjust.

Colorado Gov. Ralph L. Carr welcomed Japanese Americans to the state and opposed FDR's internment camps. His principled stance cost him his political career.

They know that Japanese Americans were found guilty and sent to prison because of their race rather than anything they had actually done. They know that the federal government had committed the most blatant mass violation of civil liberties in American history and it should not be repeated.

Some of our leaders have pointed to this tragic chapter in our history to teach people that it is wrong as well as illegal to call for mass incarceration or violence against an ethnic group.

The 75^thanniversary of the closing of the Amache concentration camp is an opportunity to reiterate this important lesson in civics.

It is also be an opportunity to express pride in the fact that Ralph L. Carr, Republican governor of Colorado, did the right thing in standing up for the Japanese Americans at the cost of his political career. Carr welcomed Japanese Americans to come and resettle in Colorado and help build up the state’s economy—in contrast to all other Western governors who did everything they could to keep Japanese Americans out.

He was a real profile of courage, which is sorely lacking today among many of our political leaders.

4. Your latest book, Asians in Colorado: A History of Persecution and Perseverance in the Centennial State, is said to offer a fresh perspective on how cycles of persecution are repeated. If you were to tell a room full of high-school students briefly what this means, what would you say?

I would tell the room full of high-school students that they are likely to see future cycles of persecution when the country experiences crises. The reason is, whenever socioeconomic or political crises arise, people look for scapegoats, and they find them among our most vulnerable population.

When the cycle starts again, it is important that students are prepared to guard against such unjust actions. As Dr. Martin Luther King said, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

5. Why is it important for Coloradans to know Colorado history?

Knowing Colorado history and by extension U.S. history is important because people will learn that they are a product of the past, and that their identity and values have been shaped by what has gone before.

Understanding this whole process gives us a choice that we don’t have otherwise to affirm ideas we have inherited or to challenge them.

As history shows, nothing is immutable. It’s liberating to have this perspective. And exhilarating, because knowing the different choices people before us made and seeing how those choices turned out, opens up a whole world of possibilities in the future. We can imagine a future that’s right for us.

This is part and parcel of the Colorado ethos. Colorado has always been a place where people have had the chance to make, or remake, themselves as they wish.

The topic is timely and important, but discussions about it are mired in ideology and falsehoods, says William Wei, CU Boulder and state historian.

Off

Traditional

White

A place for ‘Los Seis’

Anonymous — Mon, 19 Aug 2019 17:44:26 +0000

A place for ‘Los Seis’ Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 08/19/2019 - 11:44

Clay Bonnyman Evans

CU Boulder grad student, community members, survivors, create mosaic to memorialize Chicano activists killed in 1974

In the span of less than 48 hours in May 1974, the city of Boulder was shattered when six Chicano activists were killed in two horrific car bombings.

On May 27 at Chautauqua Park, a ferocious explosion rattled windows miles away and left remains of three activists—�鶹��Ƶ law school graduate Reyes Martinez, 26; former Ignacio homecoming queen and CU junior Neva Romero, 21; and Una Jaakola, a double major graduate of CU Boulder—scattered over a huge swath of the normally bucolic park.

Jasmine Baetz talks to CU Science �鶹��Ƶy campers about one of the mosaic portraits. Photo by Lisa Schwartz, CU Boulder. At top of the page, community members piece together a mosaic of Neva Romero, one of Los Seis, now memorialized in sculptures on CU Boulder's campus. Photo by Lauren Click.

Two days later, a second bomb ripped through a parking lot at a fast-food restaurant on 28th Street, instantly killing CU Boulder alumni Florencio Granado, 31, Heriberto Teran, 24, and Francisco Dougherty, 20, who planned to transfer to the school in the fall. A fourth man, Antonio Alcantar, was seriously injured and later lost his leg to amputation.

Nearly a half-century later, the deaths of “Los Seis de Boulder” remain unsolved. And, except for a 1987 mural in the University Memorial Center — later removed — and a small plaque buried deep in Boulder Canyon, the victims have not been memorialized on campus or in town.

Until July. That’s when a large, freestanding ceramic mosaic memorializing Los Seis was unveiled in front of Temporary Building No. 1, adjacent to Sewall Hall, the result of a two-year creative process led by MFA ceramics student Jasmine Baetz and involving the hands of hundreds of students, faculty, staff, community members and family members of Los Seis.

“I’m interested in what we often call ‘socially engaged art.’ There are lots of good intentions that don’t necessarily contribute to tangible change, and sometimes even do damage,” Baetz says. “So I’ve tried as much as possible to anticipate and center on impact rather than intention.”

Learning the tools of community-engaged research

Baetz, from Ontario, Canada, arrived at CU Boulder in 2017. She had never heard of Los Seis until she saw the documentary, “Symbols of Resistance: Martyrs of the Chican@ Movement in Colorado,” on campus that fall.

“I couldn’t believe this happened here; six students died, and they weren’t memorialized on campus,” Baetz says. “I compare it to Kent State (Ohio, in 1970) where students, both activists and bystanders, were killed, and are widely remembered and memorialized.”

She wanted to change that, but believed that any project would have more meaning if it included participation by the broader community. For the first year, she set the groundwork for the project, engaging in extensive research in the archives of the University Libraries. Then she worked with campus, community and family members, and UMAS—United Mexican American Students—and MEXA, Movimiento Estudiantil Chicanx de Aztlán, to create the 6-foot-tall sculpture, with its 4-by-7-foot footprint.

During the process, Baetz was an Engaged Arts and Humanities Student Scholar, a program run by Lisa Schwartz, community outreach program manager for the Office for Outreach and Engagement. The program teaches students how to use the tools of their academic discipline to develop community-engaged projects.

“The most important thing about the project is that it was done with the community,” Baetz says. “I struggle with what word to use to describe my role … but I tried to set up conditions so other people could create the work.”

Creating community through a memorial

It was a complex process requiring careful attention and coordination. Clay had to be rolled out, pieces cut, and corners smoothed by human hands before being placed in a kiln for firing. Each fired piece then had to be glazed and re-fired. Pieces were laid out on printouts of portraits of Los Seis and some were repositioned dozens of times.

I couldn’t believe this happened here; six students died, and they weren’t memorialized on campus. I compare it to Kent State (Ohio, in 1970) where students, both activists and bystanders, were killed, and are widely remembered and memorialized.”

Even the overall design was a collaborative process. On some days, 50 or more members of the community were working full days, side by side, in the ceramics studio.

“Jasmine wasn’t just saying she wanted community involvement; she really created community,” says participant Michelle Jaakola Steinwand, 71, of Boulder, sister of Los Seis victim Una Jaakola. “Jasmine has even facilitated the (survivor) families being in touch. … The whole experience was magical, part of a bigger healing and connecting.”

Baetz and those she has worked with feel strongly that the installation should be made permanent in its now-temporary location: in front of the building that Chicano activists occupied for nearly three weeks in May 1974 to protest the administration’s restructuring of programs and revoking financial aid to students who had come to campus through the United Mexican American Student Program and Migrant Action Program. Members of Los Seis participated in the occupation, and Romero was last seen waiting outside the building just prior to being picked up for her fatal ride to Chautauqua.

After working for two years and making a case for the importance of the sculpture to the Public Art Committee, Baetz secured a six-month temporary installation for the piece.

“The people I encountered have been supportive and really feel this is an important thing to have on campus,” she says. “Installing a permanent sculpture on campus can be difficult, but I am confident that our community values how the sculpture provides space for including and respecting the histories of all CU Boulder students.”

Providing a place of healing

Baetz acknowledges that there is sensitivity, even controversy, about the tragedy of Los Seis.

Police and FBI agents investigating the crimes claimed that the activists were building bombs as the next step in months of rising tension between the university and Chicano activists. However, a grand jury investigation later found insufficient evidence to file charges against Alcantar, the only survivor.

Many friends, family and community members found it implausible that six previously peaceful student activists would suddenly turn to terrorism and that all were killed in two nearly identical, but separate, bomb “accidents.” Critics said the crime scene was contaminated and the truncated investigation was botched. Some speculated that the six were targeted as part of the U.S. government’s notorious Counter Intelligence Program, or COINTELPRO, which conducted sometimes illegal covert operations against activist groups in the 1960s and ‘70s, though no evidence has ever surfaced to support that theory.

If you go

What: Dedication of mosaic memorial to “Los Seis de Boulder”
When: Friday, Sept. 6, 2-8 p.m.
Where: Various locations, CU Boulder campus
Details: Events include dedication at sculpture, exhibition at the CU Boulder Visual Arts Complex, dinner and a screening of the documentary, “Symbols of Resistance: Martyrs of the Chicano Movement in Colorado”
Tickets: Free and open to the public.
Information: los6bouldersculptureproject@gmail.com

“It’s never been crystal clear to me, one way or the other,” says Steinwand, sister of one of the bombing victims. But, she adds, “Two accidental bombings? (The law enforcement case) falls apart at that point for most logical people.”

For Baetz, the lack of resolution in no way diminishes the lives and deaths of Los Seis.

“These were students, activists, people,” she says. “It’s important to both remember the contributions they made to this campus and that they were people who were loved by their families and communities.”

In addition, she believes memorializing Los Seis fits with the more enlightened ethics of 2019 and honestly reckons with a difficult, but critical, historical moment.

“CU Boulder was an important site of student activism in the 1960s and ‘70s, and holds the legacy of Los Seis de Boulder, but you wouldn’t glean this from its built space,” she says. “Literal and symbolic space must be established for minoritized students, communities, and histories on campus for an equitable future.”

For Steinwand, the fact that there is a physical place memorializing her sister has helped her to re-establish their “heartfelt connection.”

“My sister was cremated, her ashes scattered. This gives me a place to go, and it will have different meaning for different people,” she says. “To educate and celebrate, create a space that’s really significant to this story, that’s part of what Jasmine is trying to do.”

CU Boulder grad student, community members, survivors, create mosaic to memorialize Chicano activists killed in 1974.

Off

Traditional

White

Correcting the record on Mediterranean history

Anonymous — Thu, 11 Apr 2019 16:07:31 +0000

Correcting the record on Mediterranean history Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 04/11/2019 - 10:07

James McCurdy

Europe is often thought of today as a center of cultural and technological advancement. Brian Catlos would tell you that such important advancements actually began centuries ago in the Mediterranean with Islamic culture and that many modern commentators have their history wrong.

Catlos is a professor of religious studies at the �鶹��Ƶ specializing in the history of medieval Europe and Islamic culture, particularly in Islamic Spain and the Mediterranean.

Brian Catlos

He will speak on "Christians, Muslims and Jews in Medieval Spain" Saturday, April 13, at 1 p.m. in the Jennie Smoly Caruthers Biotechnology Building's Butcher Auditorium, on the university’s east campus. The event is part of CU On the Weekend, a series of free, public lectures given by some of CU’s most dynamic faculty.

Catlos studies the economic and social histories of the peoples of the pre-Modern Mediterranean, specifically relations between Muslims, Christians and Jews.

“A lot of people don't realize it, but in the Middle Ages, particularly in the Mediterranean region and very much so in Spain, it was a very diverse and mixed society in which Christians and Muslims and Jews lived together,” explains Catlos.

“What interests me is, under what circumstances they got along, which they usually did, and what circumstances would lead them to suddenly perceive each other as enemies.”

Catlos is a leading scholar of Mediterranean studies. This emerging field seeks both to uncover and to emphasize the role of the Mediterranean region in the development of Western culture, correcting myths regarding the predominance of Europe in cultural and technological development in the Middle Ages.

In his April 13 talk, Catlos will look at Christian-Muslim-Jewish cultural relations in Medieval Spain—discussing the impact they had on European culture and debunking popular myths.

Although the talk is focused on the Middle Ages, Catlos emphasizes that the issues he will discuss are relevant today:

“You can turn on the news, and you can hear newscasters talking about ‘civilizational struggles’ or ‘thousand-year-old conflicts.’ And the fact is, that that's just not the way it happened. I think this is really important because we base the way we think about today on our understanding of the past. And if our understanding of the past is not correct, that doesn't put us in a good position to solve the problems that we need to solve.”

The CU on the Weekend talk, which is sponsored by the CU Office for Outreach and Engagement, is free and open to the public. Attendance will be limited to the first 200 attendees. No advanced registration is required.

Europe is often thought of as a center of cultural and technological advancement. Brian Catlos would tell you that such important advancements actually began centuries ago in the Mediterranean with Islamic culture.

Off

Traditional

White