Summer 2018

Scholar recognized for math-education excellence

Anonymous — Fri, 27 Apr 2018 15:50:07 +0000

Scholar recognized for math-education excellence Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 04/27/2018 - 09:50

Durango Jenkins

Eric Stade is the newest recipient of the American Mathematical Society’s Award for Impact in the Teaching and Learning of Mathematics.

This prestigious award, which began in 2013, recognizes Stade, a �鶹��Ƶ professor of mathematics, for not only his sustainable and replicable contributions to the mathematics education of students in the first two years of college, but also his work with improving high school math education.

Eric Stade working with students at Lafayette's Pioneer Elementary School. File photo.

“This particular award is an honor to me because this award is meant to recognize those teaching lower division mathematics and to teach people who will go on to teach elementary mathematics, and this has always been very important to me,” says Stade.

Over the past 10 years, Stade has worked with the Department of Mathematics to reform the way professors teach conventional mathematics. In pre-calculus and calculus, Stade, along with other faculty, have shifted the curriculum to a discovery-based program, which replaces some traditional lectures with interactive problems.

“I like to think of it as guided discovery,” says Stade. “Students are really taking responsibility over their own learning and taking the lead on creating their own knowledge instead of having it fed to them through a lecture.”

Stade is not only responsible for teaching, but also instructing future teachers. He works as the director of the Sewell Residential Academic Program, which serves students who want to pursue teaching.

And, as a part of his work with teachers, Stade has led a service-learning project called “A Community of Mathematics Teachers and Learners,” which is supported by a CU Boulder Outreach Award, partners with the Boulder Valley School District to improve the teaching of mathematics.

“A Community of Mathematics Teachers and Learners” recruits undergraduate and graduate students go into schools to help out with various academic programs, such as math club, presentations and tutoring.

“A Community of Mathematics Teachers and Learners” also works with high school teachers to enhance mathematics instruction to help get low-income and under-represented students to better prepare them for college. The largest aspect of good teaching is meeting people where they are, Stade explains. An effective teacher must figure out what material is close to the student’s knowledge base in order to make that next jump.

Stade began to focus on teaching future educators in the early 2000s when he was assigned to teach the elementary mathematics education course at CU Boulder.

“I found that the challenge of teaching mathematics to future elementary school teachers—many of whom were not mathematics majors, and, indeed, often afraid of math—was rewarding. After I helped turn people around and help them realize that mathematics was a beautiful subject, instead of one to be feared, I really began to be interested in teaching future mathematics teachers.”

Judith Packer, a CU Boulder professor of mathematics who was one of three fellow faculty members who nominated Stade for the award, says it is well deserved: "Eric is an absolute rock star of a teacher and mentor at all levels, and for many years has served as an inspiration by example to all educators in our department. Not only students in CU Boulder, but also all of us in the Department of Mathematics, CU Boulder and the community at large are fortunate that he is our colleague."

Alexander Gorokhovsky, professor and chair of math, concurred, notes that Stade was one of the architects of a plan that replaced almost all of the department’s large lecture calculus classes with small sections. “He has long worked to change the landscape of teaching throughout the department, improving all of our instruction,” Gorokhovsky says.

Eric Stade is the newest recipient of the American Mathematical Society’s Award for Impact in the Teaching and Learning of Mathematics.

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Making the case for diversity and inclusion

Anonymous — Thu, 26 Apr 2018 22:52:34 +0000

Making the case for diversity and inclusion Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 04/26/2018 - 16:52

James W.C. White

Diversity and inclusion are not important just because they are useful; they are good because they are right

Broadly speaking, praising diversity and inclusion is about as provocative as espousing apple pie and the flag. But the conversation can be more challenging when it becomes more specific, particularly in these highly polarized times.

James W.C. White

This truth has become clear this school year, during which I have distributed six college-wide communiques highlighting specific issues of diversity and inclusion. I’ve hoped to spawn critical thought and discussion about these topics, and judging from your feedback, I’ve had some success in that. Here’s what I’ve talked about:

Respectful discourse in fractious times: On issues such as immigration, we will encounter ideas we do not share and beliefs we do not hold. Let us listen with open minds. Where there is discord, let it be harmonious.
One veteran’s take on diversity: Jackson Reinagel is a Navy veteran, a non-traditional student and a transgender man. Reinagel exemplifies the fact that people should not be pigeonholed and that we are all mosaics with multiple, intersecting identities that comprise who we are.
Harassment and abuse flout our core values: Alexander Hamilton said the first duty of society is justice. And the first step to justice is truth. As we join the national conversation about gender probity, equity and dignity, we shouldn’t underestimate the power of honest discourse among people of good will.
Title IX, #metoo and you: Eradicating sexual harassment and violence will not be easy, and will require that we keep diligently discussing, reporting and confronting harassment and assault. Equal opportunity is part of our Buff DNA. Striving to end abuse is what we do and who we are.
In praise of diverse intellectual traditions: The university hired its first visiting scholar in conservative thought and policy in 2013, and next year will host two visiting scholars. This is just the latest move by a university that has long championed the unifying power of diversity, even when such moves were unpopular.
Remembering Lucile and our rectitude: Slavery is America’s original sin, and sinners can be slow to repent. At CU Boulder, we hope to heed our better angels and to make amends for one of our notable shortcomings.

Beyond a desire to stimulate some thought and discussion, my objective with each message was this: to emphasize the college’s commitment to diversity and inclusion.

That commitment underlies and justifies a new leadership position in the college. This month, the College of Arts and Sciences is interviewing finalists to be its first associate dean of inclusive practice. The dean will be responsible for supporting and advancing a culture of diversity, equity, inclusion and cultural competence.

We are pleased to launch this new position, and it is worth noting that there are purely pragmatic reasons for it. A body of peer-reviewed research shows that, while it can be a source of friction, diversity makes us smarter, makes teams more effective and makes innovation more likely.

But diversity and inclusion are not important just because they are useful. As I have tried to make clear, they are good because they are right.

James W.C. White is interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences.

From the dean: Diversity and inclusion are not important just because they are useful. As I have tried to make clear, they are good because they are right.

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Three degrees of success

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Apr 2018 23:31:52 +0000

Three degrees of success Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 04/25/2018 - 17:31

Clay Bonnyman Evans

T. Noel Osborn credits CU Boulder for the ‘synergy’ in his 45-year career

Upon graduating cum laude from Jesuit High School in New Orleans in 1958, (Thomas) Noel Osborn’s father said he’d pay for him to attend any university that accepted him. That left him with pretty impressive choices between Rice, Stanford and the �鶹��Ƶ.

As it happened, the first prospective school he visited with his father was CU Boulder, and like so many before and after him, he had made up his mind before even setting foot on the campus.

“We came up the Denver-Boulder Turnpike (now U.S. 36) and drove over that crest and saw the Flatirons. I said, ‘Dad, I don’t need to see any place else,’” recalls Osborn, 77.

T. Noel Osborn holds a bachelor's, master's and PhD in economics from CU Boulder. He says he learned to be an "economist and a productive contributor to society" at the university. Photos courtesy of T. Noel Osborn.

He didn’t know it at the time, but that first glance at the Flatirons would set the course for the rest of his life.

“Everything I did at CU helped build a career that has been greatly beneficial to me, and hopefully to others, too” says Osborn, an economist who has held a tenured position at one university in Mexico, directed a study abroad program for CU students at another university and been a pioneer in the field of delivering leadership development for nearly 40 years.

Not that there weren’t a few hitches along the way.

Osborn dropped out of CU during his sophomore year and took a job at Sherwin-Williams Co. in New Orleans, rising to become an accounting and sales-floor manager. But he realized he wanted to cover more in his life and returned to Boulder after a year to major in economics. He also started taking Spanish courses, “to get an easy A,” and minored in psychology.

Upon graduation in 1963 his student draft deferment ended and he enlisted with the U.S. Navy to attend the officer candidate program. He spent the first part of his career at sea while based in Newport, Rhode Island. Then, in 1966, he learned that he was going to be sent on his destroyer to Vietnam.

“I remember saying, ‘Well, I’m going to vote for Lyndon Johnson (in 1964). He says he’s not going to send me overseas to fight a war for Asian boys,’” Osborn recalls. “A few months later we had the Gulf of Tonkin (resolution in Congress). That was my first lesson in realpolitik.”

He spent two and a half years shipboard as an anti-submarine and gunnery officer before being transferred to a cruiser bound for an extended tour around South America. There, thanks to his Spanish training at CU, reinforced by a summer session at Mexico City College, he became “an unofficial translator” for the presiding admiral at some of the ports of call.

“That was good experience and it helped me to decide what I wanted to do: work in economics in Spanish,” he says.

He returned to CU in 1967 to earn a PhD in 1973 (while also pursuing an MA in 1970 as a “stopgap”) and started working in Mexico in 1970 using a Fulbright grant. His dissertation examining the economics of education in that nation was eventually picked up by Texas Western Press.

“I never imagined my dissertation would be published. But it was a bit different from the library-grown norm and was interesting to a lot of people,” he says.

He caught the attention of some scholars and policymakers in Mexico by arguing that the government’s longstanding tradition of charging just $16 to every student at the national university, regardless of ability to pay, was a relatively poor use of resources. He argued for boosting tuition to some multiple of that, and then and providing subsidies to those who needed them.

“My thesis was that there are recoverable costs of going to university. People receive a value when they go to college, and tuition ought to be in some way connected to the value when you get out,” he says. “Why give a virtually free ride to the relatively well-off sons of doctors and lawyers?”

We worked under the concept that a leader that does not know his impact on his people is doomed to failure."

A Mexican publisher bought rights to the book, but the 5,000 copies never made it out of the warehouse, likely due to the “political incorrectness” of raising tuitions at public universities in the country—another lesson in realpolitik.

Osborn first joined the faculty at the Autonomous University of Guadalajara through the Fulbright program, where he helped continue a fruitful exchange program with CU Boulder. Professors from CU lectured in Mexico, and more than 600 Mexican students studied in Boulder. He later helped bring the program to Mexico’s National University, where he also earned tenure at age 39.

“Many of the students came to Boulder and other campuses for graduate work, and then went back to Mexico, where they made names for themselves in the public and private sector and academic framework, including top jobs in economics and finance, and even one president of the Republic of Mexico,” Osborn says.

Noel also took a sabbatical to help Banamex, Mexico’s premier commercial bank, to set up a banking and finance institution. Then, at age 42, he decided to buy out his time at the university and go to work with the North Carolina-based Center for Creative Leadership, which was founded in 1970 to study and improve leadership at American corporations and nonprofits.

“We worked under the concept that a leader that does not know his impact on his people is doomed to failure,” he says.

Osborn is now president and chief facilitator of San Antonio-based TEAM International, which operated for many years as a licensee of the CCL and went independent in about 2010.

Osborn says the market for leadership development training has declined since he first got into the business. He faults conglomeration of large corporations; the outsourcing of many functions, which reduces a company’s need to develop people; and the continual shrinkage of employee numbers that has left many managers with barely enough time to take a vacation, much less a leadership course. It’s just one more symptom of a disturbing de-emphasis on human resource-building in much of the economy, Osborn argues.

“It’s like the old story of the woodsman sawing with a blade that is getting duller and duller, but he doesn’t want to pause to sharpen it because he’s too busy sawing,” he says.

Osborn says he “learned to be an economist and a productive contributor to society” at CU, and that his three degrees have provided him with “a lifetime of synergy.”

His lesson for today’s students is, “You need to follow what really turns you on. Whatever you are really passionate about, go to school to deepen that, and look for a job that develops you in that field,” he says. “That’s the best way to have a productive career.”

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Physician’s gratitude, desire to help is bone deep

Anonymous — Wed, 25 Apr 2018 21:38:27 +0000

Physician’s gratitude, desire to help is bone deep Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 04/25/2018 - 15:38

Clay Bonnyman Evans

Orthopedist honors his CU Boulder advisor with undergrad biology scholarship

One visit to a hospital operating room was all it took for Alex Meininger to choose a career path.

Perhaps surprisingly—given the fact that the Denver native had been skiing since age 4, racing mountain bikes since age 13 and playing on the lacrosse team at Regis Jesuit High School—he was not there because he’d shattered a bone. Rather, he’d scrubbed up and put on a gown to watch a pediatric orthopedic surgeon on career day.

Alex Meininger and his wife, emergency physician and fellow CU Boulder alumna Angela Alexander, enjoy outdoor living, which he says is "not only good for business, but good for us." Photos courtesy of Alex Meininger.

“As a high-school student seeing a spine fusion, that was all the seed I needed. From that day, I knew I wanted to be an orthopedic surgeon at a ski resort,” says Meininger (MCDBio ’97), president and CEO of Steamboat Orthopedic Associates in Steamboat Springs.

He made the first steps along the road to achieving his dream by majoring in molecular, cellular and developmental biology at the �鶹��Ƶ. A member of the Kittredge Honors Program, he says he benefited both from the resources of a large university and a small-group experience.

“I was doing microtubular assays and staining antibodies using fluorescent microscopes as a freshman and sophomore in (Professor Mike) Klymkowsky’s lab,” Meininger says. “I had Tom Cech as my organic chemistry professor—a Nobel Prize winner teaching an undergraduate class.”

And when the going got rough, he knew he could depend on Professor Nancy Guild, who taught his freshman biology course and became his academic advisor.

“As the trenches got deeper with organic chemistry and other challenges, I relied on her pretty heavily,” he says. “She also helped guide me on scholarships and financial aid.”

Which is why Meininger decided to honor his former adviser with the establishment of the Nancy Guild, PhD, Endowed Scholarship Fund for undergraduate molecular, cellular and developmental biology students.

“I have a notable debt of gratitude to CU, and one of my career goals all along was to re-establish my connections and contribute back. … Nancy Guild is an advocate for students, especially the financially needy, and it was instrumental that I crossed paths with her,” he says.

Like Meininger, she benefited from financial aid and scholarships during her education.

Nancy Guild made a big impression on Alex Meininger.

“This scholarship means so much to me because I was one of those students who could not have gone to college without the assistance of scholarships, loans and a work-study job,” says Guild, director of introductory undergraduate molecular, cellular and developmental biology education.

“I know on a very personal level how important it is to have an opportunity like this—that financial assistance made all the difference in my life. And now Alex is going to make a difference in other students’ lives and allowing me to be a part of that. It does not get any better than that.”

Meininger met his wife, emergency physician Angela Alexander (Bus ’96), when they were members of CU’s freestyle ski team. Both went on to study medicine in Chicago.

“She was living at her folks’ place in Winter Park by the time I had started medical school” at Rush University, Meininger says. “My enrollment inspired her, so she took the MCAT and also got accepted at a school in Chicago.”

Avid outdoor athletes, neither was thrilled by the idea of leaving the Rocky Mountains for a big Midwestern city. But, in the end, Chicago provided a broader array of opportunities for medical training and experience than most cities. Meininger was a resident at the University of Illinois Medical Center and was a fellow at the University of Chicago. He also was team physician for the Chicago Fire professional soccer team and Chicago Sky Women’s National Basketball Association team.

Despite graduating in the midst of a serious economic downturn, the couple landed jobs at a new hospital in Moab, Utah—a pretty good landing for a couple of outdoor enthusiasts. While in Moab, Meininger was a physician for the Canyonlands Professional Rodeo Cowboys Association Rodeo.

Then, in 2013, the senior partner in the Steamboat Springs practice called to offer him a job.

“We said, ‘Let’s give it 12 months,’” Meininger recalls. “We are now approaching our sixth anniversary.”

Meininger is also a physician for the US Ski Team and Grand County High School’s athletic programs and a consulting physician with Velo News, the competitive-cycling journal. He and Alexander continue to enjoy mountain biking, skiing and hiking.

“In sports medicine, staying active in the community is not only good for business, but good for us,” he says. “We are very lucky to have what we have out our back door. That’s one reason we left Chicago: You can’t wake up there and go Nordic skiing or mountain biking.”

One visit to a hospital operating room was all it took for Alex Meininger to choose a career path.

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‘Great themes of civilization’ launched an unplanned career

Anonymous — Tue, 24 Apr 2018 18:12:20 +0000

‘Great themes of civilization’ launched an unplanned career Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 04/24/2018 - 12:12

Clay Bonnyman Evans

History, classics guided Stan Garnett toward success in law and politics

When Stan Garnett (Hist’78) came to the �鶹��Ƶ in the fall of 1974, he planned to study classics, then become an ordained Presbyterian minister. His time at CU, however, would eventually yield a different path built on the great themes of civilization.

His parents—who grew up, respectively, in the now-abandoned mining town of Gilman and Brush, on the eastern plains, and first met at CU in 1949—were deeply conservative. Garnett was born in 1956 in Salt Lake City and raised mostly in Denver and Boulder.

Stan Garnett planned to enter the seminary but ended up joining and succeeding in the public eye, in the realms of politics and law. Images courtesy of Stan Garnett.

“My parents were very traditional Presbyterians,” says Garnett, 62, who recently stepped down as district attorney of Colorado’s 20th Judicial District (Boulder County) to rejoin the private Denver law firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck. “We went to church all the time, every Sunday and a couple of times during the week. Our social lives revolved around the church.”

But he also developed an interest in that worldliest of worldly pursuits, politics, and won his first election—head boy—as a senior at Boulder’s Fairview High School. Studying the Greeks and Romans at CU, he began to see beyond the narrow worldview of his upbringing.

“I was accepted to the ministry program at Princeton Seminary,” he says. “But halfway through the ‘70s, suddenly that didn’t seem like such a great idea.”

He switched to his major to history, dropped the idea of going to seminary, and became a member of one of the school’s first President’s Leadership Class, a program sponsored by the conservative Coors brewing family that sought to expose arts and sciences students to business. He also took a junior year abroad in England, where he studied medieval history and read “War and Peace,” twice.

“I can still see his young face in my mind's eye … he always sat close to, but not up front, and near the middle of the room,” recalls Barbara Engel, distinguished professor emerita of History. “He was a good and serious student (and) approached his work with considerable diligence and thoughtfulness.”

Though Garnett’s plans to become a minister weren’t even a speck in the rear-view mirror when he graduated from CU in 1978, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to do next. He was recently married, and his wife was not eager to support a graduate student for many years.

“She was a teacher and she owned a house. I owned a typewriter,” he says.

The goal of a liberal arts education is to ground you in the great themes of human civilization. And that helps you figure out how your life fits in, what you want the trajectory of your life to be."

He drove a school bus for two years before he took the Law School Aptitude Test and won admission to the CU Law School.

Studying law was yet another “eye-opener,” Garnett says. But he also found that it bore some similarities to his religious upbringing, with its emphasis on strict study and interpretation of texts and constant consideration of “how the world should be vs. how it really is.”

In his second year, he was chosen to be a member of the school’s national trial competition team, a prestigious competition meant to expose law students to the nature of trial practice, along with former Denver DA and Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter and Craig Silverman, former chief deputy for the Denver DA’s office. They later helped recruit Garnett as an intern at the Denver office and he took a job as a deputy DA there upon graduation in 1982.

After trying more than 100 jury trials in four years, he joined what was then Brownstein, Hyatt & Farber, where he remained for 22 years before winning election as Boulder’s DA in 2008.

In 1997, while still at Brownstein, Hyatt & Farber, Garnett’s record in elections improved to 2-0 when he was elected to the Boulder Valley School District board as part of a slate of candidates that swept out a controversial conservative majority.

By the time he left the Boulder DA’s office at the end of February, halfway through his third term, he had been in elected office for 17 years.

Garnett turned down offers from several law firms after voters rejected a measure to extend the Boulder DA’s term limit to four in 2016 (he believes the effort failed in part because it shared the ballot with a term-limit-extension measure for Boulder City Council members). But in the fall of 2017, a new management team at Brownstein persuaded him to return.

“There is a real demand for senior experienced trial lawyers who know how to manage teams of young lawyers,” he says. “So, it’s the opposite of age discrimination.”

Garnett says he also hopes his fluency in Spanish will help the firm in its outreach to Spanish-speaking business clients.

Although Garnett lost his first bid at statewide office in 2010 (attorney general), seasoned political observers have long expected him to try again. Many even thought he’d enter the race to succeed Jared Polis as Colorado’s 2nd Congressional District representative to Congress. He says he declined because he didn’t relish the prospect of “duking it out” in a primary with people he likes and admires.

He also wanted a break from that scourge of the modern politician: constantly asking for money.

The prosecutor enjoys a moment outside the courtroom. Photo courtesy of Stan Garnett.

“When I turned 60, I told my kids I’ve probably got 15 years of work life left, and I’d like to spend as little time asking my friends to give money to my political campaign as possible,” he says. “The folks in the (2nd Colorado District) race have been on the road raising money raising money pretty much nonstop for a year already.”

Still, he makes a point of noting that “there are positions I would enjoy at both the state and national level,” clearly leaving the door open for a future bid for higher office.

He credits his CU liberal arts education not just with broadening his intellectual horizons, but also expanding his notions of justice and equality.

“Studying the ancient classics, not just the myths but histories from the Greeks and Romans was wonderful,” he says. “One of the problems growing up in an intensely religious home, especially Christian, was that I was raised with a sense of exceptionalism—we were ‘chosen.’ It’s not intended to be hostile to others, but what was great for me about my educational experience at CU—Shakespeare, classics, lots of European history, U.S. history, philosophy — made me want to become more involved with the world.”

Garnett says he finds the current political trend of “treating college like it’s a trade school” troubling.

“The goal of a liberal arts education is to ground you in the great themes of human civilization. And that helps you figure out how your life fits in, what you want the trajectory of your life to be,” he says. “Above all, college should teach you how to continue learning for the rest of your life.”

When Stan Garnett (Hist’78) came to the CU Boulder in the fall of 1974, he planned to study classics, then become an ordained Presbyterian minister. His time at CU, however, would eventually yield a different path built on the great themes of civilization.

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Actor finds a way to shine and Rise

Anonymous — Tue, 24 Apr 2018 17:29:50 +0000

Actor finds a way to shine and Rise Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 04/24/2018 - 11:29

Clay Bonnyman Evans

CU Boulder’s BFA performance ‘boot camp’ molded actor Sergio King for success

Sergio King may now have a regular role in NBC’s hot new high-school musical drama series, Rise, but the truth is, he really tried not to become an actor.

Growing up on Colorado’s Front Range, from Colorado Springs to Longmont, he was mostly into sports—football, hoops, golf. He took piano lessons and performed in church programs, but he dreamed of Friday night lights, not footlights.

Sergio King. Courtesy photo. At the top of the page, King appears in an episode of "Rise" on NBC. Getty Images.

“Freshman year, I wanted to play football,” says King, 25 (BFA Theatre, ’15). “Unfortunately, everybody had grown bigger than I was, so sports was kind of off the table.”

When band didn’t pan out either, a counselor at Westminster’s Mountain Range High School suggested he try drama. Initially failing to shine there, as well, he was grateful when a teacher offered him extra credit if he would simply audition for the musical, “Bye, Bye Birdie.” To King’s — though perhaps not his astute teacher’s—surprise, he landed a major role.

“I found I loved the atmosphere of performing, and I continued to audition and perform throughout high school,” King says.

When it came time to go to college, he decided it was time to put away youthful things, and he entered the �鶹��Ƶ as an engineering major. Midway through his freshman year, he couldn’t shake a nagging lack of fulfillment.

“I couldn’t figure out what it was until I joined an a cappella group called In the Buff,” he recalls. “That got me back into performing, and I realized that’s what I was missing.”

He traded engineering for acting and auditioned his way into the Theatre and Dance Department’s challenging, highly regarded BFA performance program, in which students not only must keep up with their regular slate of classes, but often rehearse four hours a night for months at a time, even as they are auditioning for their next part.

Some graduates have likened the program to a kind of boot camp for the stage—that has paid off handsomely for its most illustrious graduates.

“We were pulling 15- and 16-hour days all the time. Coming out of that program, you viewed that as normal,” recalls Brian Dietzen, 40, a 2000 graduate who has played Dr. Jimmy Palmer on the long-running CBS series NCIS since 2004.

“Out here (in Hollywood), there comes a time when there’s a dude who looks just like me, is the same age and has the same training, and a lot of times the X-factor isn’t necessarily who is a better-looking guy, but who’s going to bust their butt more. If you see 14-hour days as normal, you are a step ahead of your competitors.”

King took the stage numerous times at CU, from his foppish, critic-and-crowd-pleasing turn as King Herod in 2015’s sold out Jesus Christ Superstar to roles in Our Town, Tartuffe and As You Like It. He also appeared in three small roles with CU Boulder’s professional Colorado Shakespeare Festival.

“Colorado Shakespeare Festival was the first time I really got to learn from people in the industry. It was incredible working alongside them and picking their brains, just seeing how they lived the life of an actor,” he says.

King also took advantage of the department’s Senior Showcase, which sends students to New York City over spring break to gain real-world experience auditioning for agents and casting directors, attend workshops, and, well, schmooze.

This was unlike anything I’d ever done. It required a lot of stamina. CU did a really good job of prepping us for that kind of environment and setting the work ethic that I have.”

“I went there kind of wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, not really expecting anything,” he says. “I was really blessed that a couple of agents were interested in me.”

King eventually signed with Barry Kolker of the Carson-Kolker Agency and moved to the city after graduating. He performed up and down the East Coast for six months with Theatre Works USA, a family-friendly touring company, and auditioned for the Broadway sensation Hamilton, Lin-Manuel Miranda’s rap-infused, Tony Award- and Pulitzer Prize-winning musical.

King made it to the fourth round of callbacks, but ultimately did not win a role.

“At the time I said, ‘Oh well, you can’t win ‘em all,’” he says.

What he didn’t know was that one of the producers of Hamilton, Jeffrey Sellers, was also co-producing Rise, and King was invited to audition.

The show, written by Jason Katims (a long-time producer whose credits include head writer and showrunner for the NBC high-school football drama, Friday Night Lights), Rise follows in the grand tradition of such wildly successful TV high-school dramas about, well, drama, such as Fame and Glee. The series revolves around theater teacher Lou Mazzuchelli (Josh Radnor) and his students at fictional Stanton High School.

This time around, King did win: He was cast in as Clark Howard, a new student who is drawn to the school’s close-knit theater community. He appears in nine of the first season’s 10 episodes, acting, singing and dancing, with small speaking roles in several.

“You really never know what will lead to what,” King says.

Doing what amounts to musical theater on a TV production schedule was a little like BFA boot camp on steroids. King says the production schedule weeks of long days that might run him through music and dance rehearsals, pre-track recording, scene shooting, and still more rehearsing, before he could take the train uptown and tumble into bed late each night.

“And then you do it the next day all over again,” he says, laughing. “This was unlike anything I’d ever done. It required a lot of stamina. CU did a really good job of prepping us for that kind of environment and setting the work ethic that I have.”

King is hopeful—and confident—that Rise will earn a second season from NBC.

“We are making really big waves,” he says. “Rise is a show that I think the younger generation needs to see. It talks about issues that are very prevalent in our society and how to deal with them. It’s about how to keep your sense of self when all this chaos is going on, when things don’t seem to be going your way, and how important friends and family are in those times of trouble.”

CU Boulder’s BFA performance ‘boot camp’ molded actor Sergio King for success, which he's now enjoying on new NBC series.

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Program puts prehistoric sandals through the paces

Anonymous — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 19:55:32 +0000

Program puts prehistoric sandals through the paces Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 04/20/2018 - 13:55

Lauren Massie

CU Boulder outreach initiative gives public chance to weave, wear replica Native American sandals

An extensive collection of Southwestern prehistoric sandals is housed in the Museum of Natural History at the �鶹��Ƶ. Because the sandals are ancient artifacts, researchers can’t just strap them on to see how well they wear.

But a team of scholars in classics and anthropology—with help from the public—is doing the next best thing. An outreach program called “Walking in Another’s Shoes” is bringing together hand-weavers, runners and a range of scholars.

Erin Baxter

Last fall, CU Boulder students and local artisans learned to weave these sandals, attempting to replicate the weaving styles of prehistoric Native Americans. Archeologists familiar with this footwear hosted webinars to convey the techniques used by the ancients.

This spring, students and runners from the general public have been able to create their own sandals and wear them -- running around the Boulder foothills to test durability. Using various phone applications, such as Pacer, allows participants not only to track the time and distance walked, but also analyze the type of terrain they traverse.

The project, which is supported by a CU Boulder Outreach Award, is helping unlock mysteries of the sandals. The project is led by Erin Baxter, a lecturer in the Departments of Classics and Anthropology who holds a PhD in anthropology and a master’s degree in museum studies from CU Boulder.

In the early 1900s, archeologist Earl H. Morris gathered the collection of ancestral Pueblo sandals housed in the CU Boulder Museum of Natural History. These shoes contain stylistic variations and tread patterns that once identified various tribes.

Although most of this footwear did not stand the test of time, the articles that did survive can unfold mysteries of the labor investment needed to make them, as well as their creators’ identities.

While these ancient shoes exist, it is hard to glean information from them. Baxter said she began researching the sandal collection after wondering, “What’s the deal with all these sandals?”

By having participants actually make and wear the sandals, Baxter will gain a better understanding of the amount of labor it took to weave a pair and the durability of the footwear.

Because scholars can’t just stomp around the foothills in ancient artifacts, “Nobody has been able to figure out how long they are able to last,” making this project pertinent to the understanding of ancient Pueblo peoples.

When first learning to make these shoes, participants wove with commonly manufactured textiles. However, to maintain authenticity, the final products will be made with yucca fibers collected by a group of Apache students. While the weavers will never be able to make exact replicas of these sandals, the goal is for them to come close.

This venture includes the departments of anthropology, classics and art history, and one goal is to give students interdisciplinary, hands-on experiences.

Collaborating groups include the Handweavers Guild of Boulder, which meticulously wove the shoes specific stylistic components, and the Barefoot Running Club of Boulder as well as the CU Running Club, which has tested the footwear in the Boulder-area foothills. Native American nations have also been consulted to on accuracy of the weaving, and they have collected yucca for the shoes.

“Walking in Another’s Shoes” is also collecting information about the identity and social structure of these Pueblo people. At the project’s end, there will be a “publishable paper that will include the names of the 200-plus authors, because lots of people will have collaborated on it,” Baxter said.

Elspeth Dusinberre, a professor in the classics department of the College of Arts and Sciences, shared high praise of Baxter. “She is probably the best and most creative teacher I have met,” Dusinberre said. “She is wonderful.”

At the top of the page: An image of analysis of a Pueblo III sandal (about AD 1200) that students and handweavers are trying to emulate because it is one of the simpler designs. Photo by Benjamin Bellorado.

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Wave of good will and art helps heal flood-ravaged Jamestown

Anonymous — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 16:53:40 +0000

Wave of good will and art helps heal flood-ravaged Jamestown Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 04/20/2018 - 10:53

Durango Jenkins

Jamestown Anvil Picnic Table Project is helping to bring a community and CU Boulder together

Artists, engineers, designers, chefs, elementary school students and teachers do not often work together. But Martha Russo, art instructor at the �鶹��Ƶ, has found a way to get all sorts of people involved in a public art project centered on building a picnic table.

Students take a moment to relax as they build a picnic table shaped like an anvil for Jamestown, which has a tradition of launching an anvil into the sky each Fourth of July. Photo courtesy of Martha Russo.

Last fall, CU Boulder offered a class called “Art: Aesthetics to Engineering” that combined student artists, engineers and environmental designers to encourage cross-disciplinary collaboration. As a part of the class, students Graham Thompson, Laura Smith, Julie Stauffer and Natalie Bognanno worked with Michael Beitz, an assistant professor in the art and art history department, to build a picnic table shaped like an anvil for Jamestown, a small mountain town 10 miles northwest of Boulder.

The inspiration for the table, Russo explains, comes from the Jamestown tradition of shooting an anvil into the sky every Fourth of July. The student artists, designers and engineers from CU Boulder worked on the table itself, and Jamestown Elementary School added the final touches. Under the guidance of the art teachers Beth Brotherton and Lee Massey-Heekin, the 23 elementary students painted the benches that surround the table.

The table was made possible by with private support after Boulder County’s 2013 floods, which hit Jamestown particularly hard. The funding was intended to help the town to make something that would help the community heal.

And the Jamestown community has embraced the project. The CU Boulder students worked with Boulder artist Rebecca DiDomenico and the chef of the Mercantile Cafe, Rainbow Shultz, to organize a sit-down dinner for 55 members of the Jamestown and CU Boulder communities.

“Your students gave our town such a gift… one that we really needed as we have make our way back since the flood,” said Val Fike, a Jamestown resident.

This project is one in a series of artistic tables designed and made under the direction of Beitz. His art practice focuses on ideas about tables, space and bringing communities together. His large-scale works are exhibited nationally and internationally, including in Europe, South America and Russia.

A sketch of the anvil table.

For the CU Boulder students, by the end of the semester-long class, the artists, designers and engineers began to better appreciate each other’s fields.

“When everyone came to class the first day, we were all a bit nervous,” says Russo. “The artists and designers haven’t been around many engineers, and the engineers haven’t been around many artists. By the end of the class, the students realized that their worlds are not all that different. The common denominators are that everyone likes to problem solve, make stuff and, ultimately, work together. I feel very fortunate to have the opportunity to bring this type of curriculum to CU Boulder and out into the community at large.”

Russo received her bachelor’s degree in developmental biology and psychology from Princeton University before earning a MFA from the �鶹��Ƶ in 1995. She is a practicing visual artist and a CU instructor who teaches interdisciplinary classes with students from the Art and Art History Department, College of Engineering and the Environmental Design Program.

The anvil picnic table will be placed in Elysian Park, the big park in the heart of Jamestown, on May 21.

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Alum follows blind kayaker down the Grand Canyon

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Apr 2018 23:22:44 +0000

Alum follows blind kayaker down the Grand Canyon Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 04/18/2018 - 17:22

Jeff Thomas

Filmmaker Michael Brown, a three-time Emmy winner, is putting the final touches on his latest film about Erik Weihenmayer

Michael Brown (Geog’90) was in Skywalker Ranch in early April, putting the final touches on the audio track of his new adventure film, “The Weight of Water”—and he wasn’t taking the trip to the legendary Marin County, California, recording center lightly.

Michael Brown. Photo: Tim Reese Photography. At the top of the page, Erik Weihenmayer takes on the rapids. Image by Michael Brown.

“The Weight of Water” follows the blind adventurer Erik Weihenmayer as he kayaks the Grand Canyon. And, for Brown, the sound is a vital element of that experience.

The roar of upcoming wild water is often reflected in the anxiety on Weihenmayer’s face as he prepares to tackle the rapids, Brown said. However, even before the filming began, the blind adventurer’s intensity, commitment and response to challenges were already well known to Brown, who also filmed Weihenmayer summiting Mount Everest in 2001 for the film “Farther Than the Eye Can See.”

“It’s the lead up that’s really intense; when you come on the horizon, and it goes from smooth and glassy to the rapids. That’s when you can hear the roar from the rapids, especially in the Grand Canyon where it’s echoing off the canyon walls. That’s where it really gets you in the guts and all your instincts say, ‘stop,’” said Brown.

The soundtrack will also incorporate the radio instructions to Weihenmayer telling him how to tackle the rapids, so with an original score and dialogue to fit in, that’s no small order for the audio editing. However, Brown, the University of Colorado’s 2012 George Norlin Award winner for his extensive contributions to adventure filmmaking, said film’s visual appeal is every bit as captivating.

“We had a lot of fun with the graphics,” said the three-time Emmy winner. He said graphics editor Barry Thompson contributed some “crazy animation,” and 3D modeling of the Grand Canyon.

Beyond that, of course, there’s the canyon itself, an environment that rapidly changes human perception during the 277-mile voyage from Lee’s Ferry to Pearce Ferry. “After you’ve been in the canyon for four or five days, your short-term memory changes,” Brown said.

It’s the lead up that’s really intense; when you come on the horizon, and it goes from smooth and glassy to the rapids. ... That’s where it really gets you in the guts and all your instincts say, ‘stop.’”

You are no longer processing information about your telephone or cars. Beyond that, there’s this incredible sense of space.”

Brown is acquainted with all types of wilderness expeditions, having summited Everest five times and made more than 50 expeditions to all seven continents, capturing film ranging from the Arctic and Antarctic to the world’s most dense jungles and even some of the world’s deepest caves. His work has appeared on ABC, CBS, NBC, the �鶹��Ƶy Channel, National Geographic Television, ESPN, IMAX theaters and the BBC.

Still, he admits that with a growing family, this picture almost didn’t make it past the filming. While the filming was completed in September 2016, the unedited film sat for some time until David Holbrooke, the former director of Telluride Mountainfilm, talked Brown into finishing the project.

The film may be released soon, though Brown isn’t planning any big adventure films in the near future.

“I’ve been shifting my focus from this to being a dad for a while—making sure that my kids have a chance to do the things in life I’ve loved,” he said. “I’d like them to see Everest, though not climb it, and I’d especially like them to experience other cultures.”

While Brown has no immediate plans to complete another film with Weihenmayer, he said they share far more than a sense of adventure.

“I like to get shots when he’s just sitting there,” Brown said. “I quickly forget that he’s blind, and that’s not the first thing that his friends think about either. He’s got brothers. He likes giving people a hard time and being a bit ornery.”

[video:https://vimeo.com/113723356]

Learn more about Serac Adventure Films, which Brown founded, at its website.

“The Weight of Water” follows the blind adventurer Erik Weihenmayer as he kayaks the Grand Canyon. And, for Michael Brown, the sound is a vital element of that experience.

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Spelling bee winner says bilingual home honed his skills

Anonymous — Fri, 13 Apr 2018 23:20:37 +0000

Spelling bee winner says bilingual home honed his skills Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 04/13/2018 - 17:20

Clay Bonnyman Evans

CU Boulder College of Arts and Sciences supports family’s travel to national finals

Bao Pham, his parents, Thuy Nguyen and Huy Pham, and his two older brothers, ages 19 and 24, were all born in Vietnam, and came to live in Colorado 10 years ago.

But Bao, 10, is an outlier: Unlike the rest of his family, his first language is English.

Bao Pham.

“I was born in Vietnam and speak Vietnamese, but I’m not fluent,” says the fifth grader at Broomfield’s Birch Elementary School. “At home, my parents talk in Vietnamese and my brothers and I respond in English.”

Bao credits growing up bilingual with helping him to hone his English skills and win the Barnes & Noble 2018 Regional Spelling Bee for Colorado’s Front Range in February.

“My parents don’t speak English very well, so I’ve mostly learned by myself. That makes me a curious person,” he says. “Of course, I did study for the spelling bee. I practice a lot and try to memorize how to spell words. I try to learn the difference in endings, such as ‘tion,’ ‘cion’ and ‘sion.’ I’ve also worked on the etymology of languages, since I never know what words are coming at me.”

On Feb. 10 at Nevin Platt Middle School in Boulder County, Bao took the prize by correctly spelling “pyroclastic,” after breezing through each succeeding challenge, from “drumlin” to “democracy.” It was only his third spelling bee.

Bao’s favorite subject in school is math. “I’m pretty profound in it,” he says. He’s no fan of social studies, and English falls somewhere in the middle. But he does love to read, citing C.S. Lewis’ “Chronicles of Narnia” and “Room One,” a mystery by Andrew Clements, as a couple of favorites.

Now he will travel to Washington, D.C., with his parents to participate in the National Spelling Bee at the end of May. The �鶹��Ƶ College of Arts and Sciences will pay the family’s travel expenses.

“Thanks to the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Colorado because they give my son the opportunity to travel to Washington, D.C.,” says Nguyen, who with her husband works at Lafayette-based Rocky Mountain Instruments, a manufacturer of precision optical components.

Long interested in aviation, Bao is especially looking forward to visiting the National Air and Space Museum of the Smithsonian Institute when in the nation’s capital.

“I’ve thought of being in the aviation industry, but I’m a bit of a klutz, so I don’t know,” he says. “So, the job I’m thinking of now is becoming a doctor.”

Bao Pham credits growing up bilingual with helping him to hone his English skills and win the Barnes & Noble 2018 Regional Spelling Bee for Colorado’s Front Range in February.

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