innovation

Awards recognize innovation in research, education and inclusivity

Anonymous — Fri, 08 Mar 2024 17:45:01 +0000

Awards recognize innovation in research, education and inclusivity Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 03/08/2024 - 10:45

Second-annual Dean’s Innovation Fund awards a total of $200,000 to projects spanning the College of Arts and Sciences

For the past two years, Dean Glen Krutz has asked the college for innovative ideas, and this semester he announced eight winners of the second annual Dean’s Innovation Fund awards, with funding totaling $200,000, at the �鶹��Ƶ’s College of Arts and Sciences.

Krutz created the Dean’s Innovation Fund in late 2022 with the goal of funding new ideas and innovations for the college. He solicited proposals related to spawning new cross-disciplinary research projects, ventures to develop and retain faculty and staff, projects that link more strongly to the community, fresh thinking about how A&S might reduce its carbon footprint, and projects promoting justice, equity, diversity and inclusion efforts to improve student, staff and faculty access to and/or retention in A&S.

“I was thrilled with the applications we received in this second cycle of the A&S Dean’s Innovation Fund, and I was equally impressed with the first round,” Krutz said, adding:

“We had an overwhelming response, with applications from across the college. The response and the innovations were truly inspiring! The proposals were universally strong and worthy.” Selecting the second slate of projects was extremely difficult, and the college encouraged applicants to reapply in the next cycle, Krutz said.

This year, one-time awards range from $3,500 to $40,000.

Projects receiving 2024 funding from the Dean’s Innovation Fund are:

$40,000 for Nature Based Solutions via Community-Engaged Research and Education, from ecology and evolutionary biology.
$39,286 for Studio Lab for Undergraduate Research, from political science.
$38,720 for Research beyond borders: Poster Symposium and Research Fellowship for Underrepresented and Minority Groups in STEM, from physics, mathematics and astrophysical and planetary sciences.
$30,000 for Failure reframed: Supporting STEM students in developing productive coping skills through scientist narratives of failures, from ecology and evolutionary biology and academic advising.
$26,494 for CU Boulder Powwow, from art and art history and theatre and dance.
$12,000 for International Graduate Students' Access to Denver Area International Supermarkets, from psychology and neuroscience, chemistry, political science and JEDI (Justice, Equity, Inclusion and Diversity).
$10,000 for Reducing Barriers to Equitable Access to Transformative Field Education via Microgrants, from geology.
$3,500 for Neurodiversity Training for Supervisors, from international affairs.

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Second-annual Dean’s Innovation Fund awards a total of $200,000 to projects spanning the College of Arts and Sciences.

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The right zinc levels are key to human health, researchers find

Anonymous — Mon, 24 Jul 2023 17:39:30 +0000

The right zinc levels are key to human health, researchers find Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 07/24/2023 - 11:39

Rachel Sauer

Using innovative fluorescent sensors and computational modeling, CU Boulder biochemistry researcher Amy Palmer tracked naturally cycling cells to better understand an essential micronutrient

Zinc is one of those micronutrients that many people know they need but are otherwise a little vague on the particulars.

Unlike, say, calcium, which most people know can be gained from a glass of milk, or the potassium found in a banana, sources of zinc sometimes aren’t as well-known.

The unknowns about zinc further extend to how it works in the body. While research has demonstrated that zinc is essential for a host of vital functions—from cell growth and proliferation to DNA creation, immune system support, building proteins and many others—not much has been known about how zinc does its work. In fact, a lot of what scientists know about how zinc functions in the body, especially its role in growth, has been learned by studying its absence in cases of zinc deficiency.

Amy Palmer, professor of biochemistry, developed innovative technology to measure zinc in naturally cycling cells over 60 hours.

However, newly published research led by Amy Palmer, a professor in the �鶹��Ƶ Department of Biochemistry, sheds new light—fluorescent light, in fact—on zinc’s role in cell growth. The research shows that when zinc levels are too low or too high, all cell proliferation stops until zinc levels come back into an acceptable range. It also revealed a phenomenon the researchers called a “zinc pulse"—right after a cell divides, it experiences a transient increase in zinc that comes back down after about an hour.

Palmer and her research colleagues, post-doctoral research associate Ananya Rakshit and graduate student Samuel Holtzen, were able to arrive at this new understanding of zinc’s vital role by using genetically encoded fluorescent sensors that change color and give off light when zinc binds to them.

“For the field, these fluorescent sensors were a big breakthrough because they allowed us to measure and quantify zinc in individual cells over many hours,” Palmer explains. “We can watch the zinc as the cell gets ready to divide, as it divides and as the two daughter cells go through the same process.

“We need to understand at the cellular level why is it that zinc is required, where is it required, how much is required. One missing piece of the puzzle, particularly when we think of zinc supplementation, is understanding and knowing when cells need zinc and how much they actually need.”

Using fluorescence

Palmer, who is internationally recognized for her work in developing the fluorescent sensors that detect metals in cells without disrupting cell function, and her research colleagues used a bit of biochemistry and a bit of engineering to create a sensor that will bind to zinc and only zinc.

“These fluorescent reporters are less perturbing to cells, letting them naturally cycle, and they’re really the wave of the future for this field of research,” Palmer says. “My colleague Sabrina Spencer really pioneered the approach of studying naturally cycling cells, and we learned a lot from her and her lab. Our angle was to take these fluorescent reporters and create some specifically for zinc.”

When Palmer initiated her lab at CU, she and her colleagues began developing these fluorescent sensors, building on post-doctoral research that Palmer completed with her advisor, Roger Tsien. Tsien won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for discovering and developing the green fluorescent protein, which he and other scientists used to track when and where certain genes are expressed in cells.

“What’s really fun about these fluorescent sensors is they’re made out of proteins that are genetically encoded,” Palmer says. “They have a DNA sequence, and that one piece of DNA encodes a protein that will bind to zinc.

“This color switch when it binds to zinc specifically, this was a big breakthrough. It’s easy to get a very small response, but it’s harder to get a really big, robust response that can be used to track cells over 60 hours. We went through a lot of iterative optimization of our tools to get them to work the way we want.”

The effort paid off, though, because a lot of previous research added chemicals to cells to stop them from dividing or removed their growth serum—a process that could also remove zinc. Then, removing the chemical or adding the growth serum reinitiated cell division, aligning the cells so that they were all doing the same thing at the same time. That scenario, however, is not representative of what happens in a human body.

By introducing the fluorescent reporters to cells, Palmer and her colleagues could not only measure zinc levels, but also track each individual cell over 60 hours. Working with naturally cycling cells allowed the cells do their normal business in real time. Then, the researchers computationally figured out what state each cell was in and how much zinc it contained at each point during that time.

Implications for nutrition and disease

Palmer’s research was not only important because of the innovative tools being developed and used to study the cell cycle, but because zinc’s essentiality is not widely known yet the impacts of zinc deficiency can be significant. �鶹��Ƶ 17% of the world’s population is zinc deficient and zinc deficiency represents a public health crisis in some parts of the world.

Palmer and her co-researchers found that a cell experiences a “zinc pulse" right after it divides and has a transient increase in zinc that comes back down after about an hour.

Severe zinc deficiency can result in slowing or cessation of growth and development, delayed sexual maturation, impaired immune function and wound healing and many others. However, scientists are just now beginning to understand when cells need zinc and how much of it they need.

By using fluorescent sensors to track zinc uptake in individual cells over 60 hours, Palmer and her co-researchers were able to discover the zinc pulse that occurs right after a cell divides.

“We don’t yet know exactly why that happens, but we speculate that the two new daughter cells need to bring in a lot of zinc to set up growth in the individual cell,” Palmer says. “If they don’t have that pulse then they can’t keep going and they have to pause.”

The researchers also saw that zinc levels need to be just right—if they’re too high or too low then cell function pauses until zinc levels return to normal. During that pause, they observed that cells struggled to make DNA.

Building on the results of the recently published study, undergraduate researchers in Palmer’s lab are studying the very high levels of zinc often found in breast cancer cells and why those cells don’t pause in response to high zinc levels the way healthy cells would. It’s almost as though cells have a safety switch that cancer is somehow able to bypass, Palmer says.

Digging deeper into when and why cells need zinc and how much of it may “have implications for understanding human nutrition at the whole-organism level, implications for understanding zinc dysregulation or dysfunction in disease,” Palmer says. “We’re really working to understand that set point and that fundamental mechanism that each cell has where it senses its zinc status and how, within a certain range, it can regulate how much zinc it has.

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Using innovative fluorescent sensors and computational modeling, CU Boulder biochemistry researcher Amy Palmer tracked naturally cycling cells to better understand an essential micronutrient.

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Not your parents' business course

Anonymous — Wed, 12 Apr 2023 22:12:14 +0000

Not your parents' business course Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 04/12/2023 - 16:12

Bradley Worrell

The Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainability class focuses on using business innovations to address real-world needs

If tomorrow’s college graduates can successfully marry profit and purpose to address real-world problems, the sooner they can start the better.

That’s the premise behind the Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainability (SSIR 1010) class for first-year students, part of the one-year Stories and Societies Residential Academic Program (RAP) at Sewall Hall on the �鶹��Ƶ campus.

At first blush, the class sounds a bit like a business course with a dash of social responsibility, but there is much more to it than that, according to Laura DeLuca, instructor for the course.

Mallory Fahey (in green hat and white sweater), the sustainability coordinator for the Patagonia store in Boulder, talks with students in the Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainability class about the company’s commitment to environmental causes. She noted that Patagonia provided $220,000 in grant funding to 16 environmental groups in Colorado in 2022.

“Whereas Leeds (School of Business) has a bit more of a technical business focus, this class is more on the stories and human dimension—understanding the motivations of entrepreneurs and the issues they sought to address,” she says. “And then at the end of the course, students create a social innovation project solving a problem they care about. So students use lessons from real-life entrepreneurs to apply to their own projects.”

This course counts toward the arts and sciences certificate in social innovation run by Don Grant in the Sociology Department.

DeLuca says the course is appealing to students in part because of the “immersion learning” aspect of learning directly from entrepreneurs and hands-on activities, rather than rote academic teaching in a classroom. Additionally, the course is appealing to students because of the individualized attention they receive, thanks to the small class size, according to DeLuca. This semester’s class comprises 19 students, reflecting a roughly even number of men and women.

Students have taken field trips to several local businesses that operate at the intersection of innovation and social entrepeneurship, including the Patagonia store on Pearl Street.

A big part of the course, DeLuca says, is helping students to develop a problem-solving skills using an entrepreneurial mindset. Another important goal is to learn more about the “innovation and entrepreneurship” ecosystem on the campus and in the local community.

Boulder is an innovation hub

Boulder is fertile ground for businesses operating at the intersection of innovation and social entrepreneurship, DeLuca says, noting the community’s reputation as “the Silicon Valley for natural foods” as well as an adventure hub for exploring the great outdoors.

Students have been fortunate to be able to tap into that expertise, as many local entrepreneurs have been happy to share their stories during in-person visits to the classroom or on student field trips to businesses in the community, according to Deluca.

Recently, Pemba Sherpa, who immigrated from the mountain kingdom of Nepal to Boulder when he was just 19, shared his story with the class of founding Sherpa Chai Tea Co., Sherpa’s Adventure restaurant and Sherpa Ascent International, a climbing expedition business in Nepal.

After spending part of an afternoon learning about employee-owned Trident Booksellers & Café, students had the opportunity to enjoy a cold beverage on the company’s front patio.

Along the way, Pemba Sherpa has used his success in business to help his native village in remote, rural Nepal by funding the construction of a bridge to connect it to nearby communities and a hydroelectric plant to provide power. Next up is the construction of a medical clinic to serve his community.

A recent field trip featured a visit to the Boulder Patagonia store, an outdoor gear and clothing manufacturer and retailer that began as a humble, family-owned business in the 1970s but has since grown into a powerhouse in the outdoor market, with estimated yearly revenues of $1.5 billion.

The company also is widely recognized for annually pledging 1 percent of its sales for the preservation and restoration of the natural environment, which Patagonia says has netted $140 million in contributions to environmental causes to date.

Students toured Patagonia’s store and learned from its sustainability coordinator, Mallory Fahey, about the company’s commitment to “People, Planet, Profits.”

Not every organization that students are exposed to during the course have achieved the financial heights of Patagonia, but then success looks different to individual entrepreneurs, DeLuca says, pointing in example to the owners of Bobos Bakery, which makes sustainably sourced, gluten-free snack bars and pastries while supporting a variety of charities; Nude Foods Market, which runs a zero-waste grocery store; and Trident Booksellers and Café, a 40-plus-year-old business started by two local Buddhists that is an employee-owned company and which supports a variety of community activities. Students will take a field trip on April 11 to see Trident’s operations for themselves.

DeLuca says one of her goals with the class is to expose students to a diverse group of entrepreneurs, including women, people of color and others from different races, ages, ethnicities and backgrounds. She says she also attempts to expose students to business owners who are different stages in their careers and different ages, although most of them tend to be people who are in the 40s or 50s and are at a point in their lives where they are happy to share reflections on their lives and careers.

For example, David Secunda, founder of Advid4Adventure, shared his story of launching an outdoor adventure company for youth. Avid4Adventure offers day and overnight summer camps in California, Colorado, and Oregon that reconnect kids with the natural world. Another outdoor innovator, Lisa Smith of Women’s Wilderness, shared her story of leading women of color on outdoor adventures in Colorado through the Trailblazer program.

DeLuca also includes younger innovators, such as Rob Dodge, water quality specialist and logistics specialist for Epic Water filters, as well as Sophie Skogaard and her partner, Howard Gibbs-Hobgood, who make flavorful raw vegan desserts and meals. These 20-something entrepreneurs are recent CU-Boulder grads who are easier for students to relate to in terms of life stage, given that they are only four or five years older than them.

Asking thoughtful, ‘hard questions’

While students are respectful, DeLuca says she encourages them to ask the entrepreneurs thoughtful, “hard questions” about their business practices regarding sustainability and to share their failures as well as successes. Students are expected to do a bit of research on the companies and their founders in advance of meetings so they can ask thoughtful questions, she notes.

Laura DeLuca, the instructor for the Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainability class for first-year students, says that one of her goals with the class is to expose students to a diverse group of entrepreneurs, including women, people of color and others from different races, ages, ethnicities and backgrounds.

DeLuca describes the interactions between students and entrepreneurs as a “win-win,” noting that business owners sometimes get ideas on how to improve or expand upon their operations in speaking with students.

For their part, the first-year students who take the class gain an appreciation of the local business community that they might not otherwise see, she says, noting students tend to spend most of their time on the campus.

After meeting with entrepreneurs, students are tasked with writing one- or two-page reflection papers where they are expected to offer their assessments of the business’s operation, share any “aha moment” takeaways and offer any possible thoughts they had about the presentation.

For the final class assignment, students will present a social-innovation plan that’s designed to address a need that they see on a topic that is important to them. For example, Lily Patrick is working on an initiative she calls “Unforgotten,” which would collect and share the stories of senior citizens at nursing homes, so the stories of their lives are not forgotten; Camden Horner is working on a venture plan to fund performing arts education in Colorado public schools; and Tony Puthuff is working on an initiative to address the high cost of mental health counseling.

Summing up the class, DeLuca says, “The students gain fluency not only in researching and writing, but also come away with an appreciation for what it takes to create, organize and manage an enterprise to achieve social change.”

The Social Entrepreneurship and Sustainability class focuses on using business innovations to address real-world needs.

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Innovation Incubator helping transform teaching, learning

Anonymous — Mon, 06 Mar 2023 21:32:51 +0000

Innovation Incubator helping transform teaching, learning Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 03/06/2023 - 14:32

Bradley Worrell

After a successful three-year trial run, the program is being made permanent with the goal of further innovating cross-discipline teaching in the College of Arts and Sciences

Collaborative scholarship that spans academic disciplines has proved to be a difficult goal—until now. A relatively new program at the �鶹��Ƶ, called the Innovation Incubator, is working to tear down traditional siloes between the arts and humanities, natural sciences and social sciences with the goal of transforming teaching and improving undergraduate education.

The Innovation Incubator is hosted by CU Boulder’s Arts and Sciences Support of Education Through Technology (ASSETT), which works with faculty and students to develop innovative ways to use technology in teaching and learning.

“The idea for the Innovation Incubator dates back about four years ago. The project was instigated by the question: How might we improve the undergraduate learning experience by engaging students in active learning with technology?” says Blair Young, who serves as the innovation catalyst with ASSETT.

Blair Young serves as the innovation catalyst with CU Boulder’s Arts and Sciences Support of Education Through Technology (ASSETT), which oversees the Innovation Incubator.

In a nutshell, Young describes the incubator as a “safe, resourced space to grow new ideas.”

ASSETT took an unconventional approach to garner those ideas. Instead of asking faculty for highly detailed research grant proposals, it instead asked them for simple, one- or two-page pitches outlining their overall objectives.

Once the ideas were submitted, ASSETT once again took an unconventional approach. Rather than simply approving a few of the 48 submitted proposals and rejecting the rest, ASSETT staff combed through each submission looking for commonalities among the proposals.

“As we spent time going through proposals, we started to see what we call affinity groups. We were seeing people who didn’t even know about each other, but they were submitting ideas that were really focused on some of the same things,” Young says.

From the submitted ideas, ASSETT staff concentrated on four core areas: focused and inclusive data science, multi-modal participatory publishing, metacognition and wellbeing, and the broad category of student success (see the short article, Learn more about the 2019-2022 ASSETT Innovation Incubator teams, for more details).

Ultimately, about 30 faculty members participated in the three-year trial run of the Innovation Incubator initiative, which kicked off in 2019 and wrapped up in the fall of 2022, according to Young.

Breaking down barriers

CU Boulder English Professor David Glimp was one of several faculty members from across disciplines who joined the Inclusive Data Science team, which worked together to develop a new introduction to data science course incorporating humanistic perspectives.

“Most of the people in this collaboration I had not met before,” he says. “The Interdisciplinary Data Science team gave me the opportunity to meet colleagues from applied math, ecology and evolutionary biology, geological sciences, and writing and rhetoric, who all had shared interests, so it was a remarkable experience—really an unprecedented opportunity to work with colleagues across divisions where we don’t normally work together.”

Partly because the group was diverse—but mostly because the endeavor was brand new—it did take a bit of time for team members to formalize a plan, according to Glimp.

CU English Professor David Glimp volunteered to participate in the trial run of the Innovation Incubator. He taught the inclusive data science courses in collaboration with faculty from other academic disciplines.

“We probably spent six months or so just brainstorming, trying to identify shared interests and campus needs and how to capitalize on the growing interest in data sciences while recognizing the ongoing importance of the humanities,” he says. “So, there were a lot of meetings in the beginning where progress was not apparent, but with the assistance of ASSETT, things came together in terms of what our project could be.”

Glimp, who has been teaching English at CU Boulder for 17 years, describes his experience of working with the Inclusive Data Science team as “transformative.”

“It’s provided me with a new set of collaborators, and it’s helped me develop my own research and my teaching skills,” he says.

In addition to providing $200,000 in funding that was split among the four initiatives, ASSETT provided human resource support and guidance for the teams.

“Each team was co-facilitated by me, and one other ASSETT staff member who had expertise in the particular focus of each team,” says Young. “We worked with them early on regarding the idea conception and what success would look like over the three-year arc of the initiatives.”

In addition to physical resources, Young says one of the most valuable assets for the four teams was the time afforded by multi-year funding to refine their ideas and make adjustments as they rolled out their initiatives.

“It’s really hard to launch an innovative idea and implement that idea in one year. So, I think our teams really benefitted from a three-year cycle, especially in higher ed, when you are asking folks who are often teaching and researching largely on their own to break out of their typical way of work,” she says.

Bringing inclusivity to data science

Young gives high marks to the inclusive data science endeavor.

“They (team members) set out with really big aspirations—to really transform the culture of data science on our campus, which they saw as very siloed,” she says. “They wanted to create an inclusive environment for data science and to really bring a lot of disparate data science initiatives on campus together.”

The ASSETT Innovation Incubator is designed to promote interdisciplinary teaching in the College of Arts & Sciences and making use of technology with the goal of transforming teaching and improving undergraduate education.

Specifically, Young says there was a desire to offer a program making use of data science for students who are historically underserved in the areas of science and technology, such as first-generation college students, students of color, women, and students focused on the humanities.

“The course Interdisciplinary Data Science for All has succeeded on several fronts," according to Young, who notes the program attracted 67 students its first year and more than twice that number its second year. Interdisciplinary Data Science for All also has received funding from the National Science Foundation for its continued development. The team also joined forces with other faculty on campus to develop new interdisciplinary coursework that combines the humanities and data science; this latter initiative received funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Glimp says the increased student interest in interdisciplinary data science courses and the additional funding are positive developments, while adding that it’s important to evaluate success on several criteria.

“I think the incubator should have many metrics of success—and the primary metric should be its impact upon students and new student opportunities for learning,” he says. “Another metric should be the project’s success in encouraging faculty interest in pedagogy and pedagogical innovation, which it did in my case.”

Meanwhile, the other Innovation Incubator initiatives funded by ASSETT also achieved success by their own metrics and will continue, thanks in part to bridge funding ASSETT is able to provide, according to Young.

Innovation incubator’s mission is continuing

What’s more, after performing a detailed evaluation of the Innovation Incubator, Young says the decision was made to adopt it as a permanent ASSETT program. Plans call for a fresh cycle of incubator awards every three years, providing opportunities for new interdisciplinary teams of faculty, staff and students to grow innovative ideas for teaching with technology to improve the undergraduate experience in the College of Arts and Sciences.

The Innovation Incubator kicked off in 2019 with faculty brainstorming ideas for cross-disciplinary education. ASSETT took those ideas to come up with four core areas: focused and inclusive data science, multi-modal participatory publishing, metacognition and wellbeing, and the broad category of student success.

ASSETT is seeking ideas for the Innovation Incubator 2023-2026 idea submission process. A total of $200,000 is available to award up to four interdisciplinary teams over the three-year funding period. ASSETT is encouraging interested parties to submit their ideas by this Thursday (March 9) so that others can add comments to the idea or make a bid to join their team.

Final idea submissions, which are expected to run about 1,000 words, should be submitted by Tuesday, April 11.

There is a notable change in the coming innovation incubator cycle.

“For the next cycle, we’ve actually put out the call to faculty and students. So, students can be the lead submitters on ideas for the new cycle of the incubator,” Young says. “We are really emphasizing students as partners in the framework for the next cycle.”

Additionally, while the lead people for any incubator projects must be representatives of the College of Arts and Sciences, Young says those A&S college representatives can elect to bring in someone from a different CU college—the College of Engineering, for example—if they believe it would help their project.

Young says ASSETT will judge projects using four criteria: 1) Is the idea student centered? 2) Does it break down disciplinary barriers within the college? 3) Is it actionable? 4) And is it scale-able?

Young says she is not aware of any other university supporting an incubator or lab with the same focus as the one at ASSETT, which she says reflects the innovative nature of CU’s program.

Glimp says the College of Arts and Sciences deserves credit for supporting the efforts of the Innovation Incubator.

“It’s to the college’s credit that they’re funding this kind of investment and making it possible for colleagues to engage in such collaborations,” he says. “It’s a unique approach to funding faculty efforts and I think it’s visionary.”

Learn more about the 2019-22 ASSETT Innovation Incubator teams

• The CAMPP team investigated opportunities to establish a peer-to-peer support environment for faculty and students by creating a multimodal publishing collective (aka, CAMPP) that produces projects that meet academic standards and are open and accessible to the community at large. Click here to listen their recorded accounts of this work.

• The Metacognition & Wellbeing team developed resources and learning objects that encourage students’ awareness and understanding of their thought processes and learning strategies, as well as their mental, emotional, and physical well-being —(including mindfulness and contemplative practices). Click here to listen to their podcast recording on student metacognition.

• The Student Success team worked broadly to create an understanding about gamification pedagogy among faculty. Their specific focus is on a role-playing pedagogy called Reacting to the Past (RTTP). Click here to listen to a podcast about how RTTP invigorates the classroom at CU Boulder.

• The Inclusive Data Science team integrated data science methods and tools across the curriculum via a new team-taught introduction to data science, “Inclusive Interdisciplinary Data Science for All,” that weaves together the teaching of statistical reasoning, basic coding, and humanistic forms of inquiry. Click here to explore a student facing website about the course.

After a successful three-year trial run, the program is being made permanent with the goal of further innovating cross-discipline teaching in the College of Arts and Sciences.

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Dean’s Innovation Fund awards $317,896 in grants

Anonymous — Thu, 12 Jan 2023 22:26:08 +0000

Dean’s Innovation Fund awards $317,896 in grants Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 01/12/2023 - 15:26

Inaugural group of proposals was ‘universally strong and worthy,’ Dean Glen Krutz notes

Dean Glen Krutz recently asked the college for innovative ideas, and this week he announced 17 winners of the first Dean’s Innovation Fund awards, with funding totaling $317,896, at the �鶹��Ƶ’s College of Arts and Sciences.

“I was thrilled with the applications we received in this first cycle of the A&S Dean’s Innovation Fund, which will be an annual process,” Krutz said, adding:

“We had an overwhelming response, with 74 completed applications from across the college. The response and the innovations were truly inspiring! The proposals were universally strong and worthy.” Selecting the initial slate of projects was extremely difficult, and the college encouraged applicants to reapply in the next cycle, Krutz said.

This year, one-time awards range from $2,500 to as much as $40,000.

Projects receiving 2023 funding from the Dean’s Innovation Fund are:

Uplift: A STEM Research Scholarship for Underprivileged Undergraduates at CU; submitted by Edward Chong and Lee Niswander: $40,000.
Creating a New Curriculum for Latinx in Colorado and Beyond; submitted by Leila Gomez, Arturo Adama, Gerardo Gutierrez, Natalie Avalos, Doris Loayza, Lorraine Bayard de Volo, Gabriela Rios, Jessica Ordaz, Betty Leonard, Celeste Montoya, Marcos Steuernagel, Tracy Quan, Kristie Soares, Elika Ortega, Maria Windell and Megan K. Friede: $40,000.
Racial Literacies; submitted by Kirk Ambrose, Jennifer Ho and John-Michael Rivera: $39,767.
Building Inclusive Pathways: A Collaboration Between MASP and the Natural Sciences, submitted by Celeste Montoya, Katherine Semsar and Stephanie Montoya: $39,560.
Belonging as a Protective Factor for Minoritized Identity Students, submitted by Chelsea Killmnick, Donna Mejia, Teresa Wroe and Julie Volckens: $35,750.
Partnership with BVSD: Supporting and Mentoring Students of Color, submitted by Aun H. Ali, Stephanie Su, Cecilia J. Pang, William Wei, Celine Dauverd, Kieran Marcellin Murphy, Enrique Sepulveda, Marissa Ehringer and Benjamin Brown: $35,500.
New Frontiers in Teaching Public Health: Innovative Course Design and Community Engagement in Public Health for CU Students, submitted by Colleen Reid, June Gruber and Maureen Floriano: $21,149.
Staff Professional Development Fund, submitted by Bernadette Stewart: $10,000.
Protest Through Poetry-Boulder, submitted by Marisa Tirado and Laurie Gries: $10,000.
Peer Mentoring Pilot Program, submitted by Angela Watts: $8,980.
Improved STEM Mentoring for Under-Represented Graduate Students at CU-Boulder, submitted by Andrew Cowell, Christopher Lowry, Dana Stamo and Saydie Sago: $8,440.
Mathematics Preliminary Exam Mentoring Program, submitted by Rachel Chaiser and Kyle Luh: $7,000.
My Voice Matters: Program for Underrepresented Students to Serve as Mentors and Leaders in the Office of Pre-Health Advising, submitted by Katie Chang: $6,000.
Helping Them Get Started: Funding Entry-Level Allied Health Professions Exam Fees for Pre-Health Students, submitted by Dana Parcher: $6,000.
Disability Symposium, submitted by David Braz and Gavin Lang: $5,000.
Address the Lack of Support for, and Attention to Undergraduate Students in Arts & Sciences from Rural and Small Towns, submitted by the CU Boulder Rural Network: $4,250.
Staff Innovation Spot Awards, submitted by Jessica Brunecky: $2,500.

Inaugural group of proposals was ‘universally strong and worthy,’ Dean Glen Krutz notes.

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Xenna the service dog helps Navy vet do laboratory research

Anonymous — Mon, 09 Dec 2019 18:28:10 +0000

Xenna the service dog helps Navy vet do laboratory research Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 12/09/2019 - 11:28

Kenna Bruner

Along the way, both of them, with help from CU Boulder, pave the way for greater accessibility

Canine support companions help people with disabilities succeed in many environments, and at the �鶹��Ƶ, a service dog is enabling a wounded military veteran to pursue his dream of hands-on research in neuroscience.

Xenna is a service dog for Navy veteran Jon Coulson. The 1 ½-year-old dog with a sable-colored coat helps Coulson manage his severe pain and anxiety. She will soon be allowed in neuroscience labs at CU Boulder, paving the way for service dogs in the future.

Coulson is a senior with a double major in neuroscience and molecular, cellular and developmental biology who works in the neuroscience lab of Distinguished Professor Linda Watkins.

“People with service animals have typically shied away from a STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) degree because of potentially dangerous lab environments,” Coulson said. “But a STEM environment is why I decided to come to CU. I want to solve the (accessibility) problem or at least have a hand in it.”

There are times just the sheer pain makes me want to isolate and not have any interaction with people,” he said. “Having Xenna in the lab with me means everything to me.”

Xenna became Coulson’s service dog a year ago when she was six months old. She is a second generation Shepinois (a Belgian Malinois and German Shepherd mix). Wherever Coulson goes, Xenna is by his side, providing constant emotional support. She is trained to call Coulson’s attention to signs of an imminent seizure or a rise in his anxiety by nudging his leg or touching his foot with her paw.

The idea that Coulson might have to be separated from her while working in the labs was unthinkable.

“There are times just the sheer pain makes me want to isolate and not have any interaction with people,” he said. “Having Xenna in the lab with me means everything to me.”

To be able to stay together in chemistry and neuroscience labs, Coulson and Xenna went through specialized training. Xenna had to learn to stay still and quiet, since sudden barking could startle researchers, causing them to drop chemicals they might be working with.

“Xenna is paving the way for others,” Coulson said. “A lot of people who have disabilities that require a service animal are often eliminated from the possibility of pursuing a lab environment. Dr. Watkins and her team have welcomed us with open arms. It’s about changing the culture to accept us into the environment.”

Navy veteran Jon Coulson (center) with his service dog, Xenna, along with Linda Watkins (far right) and the laboratory research team at the �鶹��Ƶ. Note: Xenna is appropriately dressed for the neuroscience research lab. CU Boulder Photos by Patrick Campbell.

In 2010, Coulson injured his back on an overseas mission. The injury caused an almost total paralysis of his left leg that is only partly relieved.

He has seizures and neuro-disabilities. He also has Ankylosing spondylitis (AS), a rare type of arthritis that causes pain and stiffness in his spine, which is causing some vertebrae to fuse. Changes in temperature and barometric pressure exacerbate the pain. The Veterans Administration considers him to be 100% disabled.

After leaving the Navy in 2012, Coulson got a job with Concur, a travel and expense management company coding software. When sitting for hours working at a computer exacerbated his back and leg injuries, Coulson’s doctor advised him to change careers. Wanting to understand his disabilities, Coulson enrolled at the University of Mississippi. In 2018, he transferred to CU Boulder for the neuroscience program.

While taking Watkins’ introductory neuroscience class, Coulson became interested in her research and asked to join her research group, which works to develop novel therapies for pain. He was particularly excited about Watkins’ work on chronic pain in dogs with osteoarthritis and how her research team’s new therapeutic approach was having positive results.

Xenna, a service dog, in her lab-approved protective gear standing next to her owner, Navy veteran Jon Coulson. Note: Xenna is appropriately dressed for the neuroscience research lab.

To join Watkins’ research group, Coulson and Xenna went through an approval process with the building manager and campus veterinarian to determine where the service dog could and could not go in the labs. For Xenna to be with Coulson in the lab for general chemistry and organic chemistry courses, she has to wear a specially made lab coat that covers her from head to tail, special booties and eye protection (dog goggles).

During Xenna’s initial training, Coulson worked outside the research lab in the “people area” of the building. He helped enter and analyze canine chronic pain data from their studies of a new therapeutic for osteoarthritis in dogs, leading to his upcoming co-authorship on a manuscript.

He also worked with data on a project testing efficacy of oral CBD (cannabidiol) in a pilot study for dogs in pain. Coulson will also help with a project on canine atopic dermatitis that’s about to begin.

Now that Xenna is set up for accompanying Coulson into the tissue analysis (“wet” lab) areas, Coulson is training on rodent tissue preparation assay and photomicrographic analysis involving him in several ongoing projects in the lab.

“We’re grateful to the chemistry department,” Watkins said, “as they—for good reasons given what the labs involve—required Jon to have protections for Xenna.”

Since Watkins’ grant-funded neuroscience research lab is not a course lab like general and organic chemistry, Xenna isn’t in danger from the chemicals used in those labs. And since her fur could contaminate various tests that take place, the lab coat also helps to minimize dog hair in neuroscience labs.

The nature of general and organic chemistry labs is quite different from neuroscience labs; hazards in chemistry labs include toxic chemicals, potential glass breakage, possible spills and greater numbers of people. When Xenna is in those labs, greater personal protective equipment is required for her.

She also has a bed where she can rest and still stay near Coulson while he’s working.

Thanks to the accommodations made for Xenna, she will remain at Coulson’s side as he earns his bachelor’s degree.

“Xenna is such a benefit to me because she can tell me if I’m about to have a seizure,” Coulson said.

“Chronic pain and the mental health challenges it poses, coupled with a lack of a solution, becomes a bleak existence. The work that Dr. Watkins’ team has been advancing is incredible and has completely changed my outlook on life.”

Along the way, both of them, with help from CU Boulder, pave the way for greater accessibility in laboratory research

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Hip-hop dance class lets engineering students turn tables

Anonymous — Tue, 12 Nov 2019 23:39:01 +0000

Hip-hop dance class lets engineering students turn tables Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 11/12/2019 - 16:39

Kenna Bruner

‘Learning hip-hop can give engineering students an opportunity to get out of the lab and use a different part of their brain,’ instructor says

Students in the College of Engineering and Applied Science looking for a fun way to take a break from math and science have a new opportunity: Hip-hop.

Engineering students can now enroll in a new hop-hop class being offered by the CU Boulder Theatre and Dance department where they can learn hip-hop dance moves and get in shape while earning two hours of humanities & sciences credit.

Larry Southall, right, gives pointers to a hip-hop class. At the top of the page, some of his students puts his lessons literally into action. CU Boulder photos by Patrick Campbell.

Rhonda Hoenigman, senior instructor in computer science and an associate dean in engineering, and Larry Southall, instructor of dance, developed the hip-hop technique course, which is a special section of an existing course. Other sections will be taught next semester that aren’t restricted to engineering students.

The class starts in the spring 2020 semester. The instructors created the class exclusively for engineers to make hip-hop dancing a less intimidating experience. Engineering students won’t be dancing next to dance majors and will have the opportunity to interact with other engineering students in a different context.

“The idea for this class started because I took a hip-hop class as a faculty member,” Hoenigman said. “I have no dance experience, but I saw the class as great exercise and a way to try something that was completely unfamiliar to me. Learning hip-hop can give engineering students an opportunity to get out of the lab and use a different part of their brain.”

This is the second hip-hop class for Kevin Yang, a senior in computer science. Last semester he had some open slots in his schedule and looked around for a new class.

“This class is unique,” Yang said. “It’s a lot different from an engineering class. Collaboration with other students is strongly encouraged. It’s a fun way to meet people. I feel a sense of closeness to my classmates where I don’t necessarily feel that in a traditional class. Other people in class might be able to see the moves one or two times and get it. I go home and have to think about how (Southall) did that move. You have to put in the time, but I find it rewarding.”

Southall was born in the Bronx borough of New York. He has an MFA in dance from CU Boulder and is on the dance faculty. He teaches traditional hip-hop, different styles such as locking, popping, b-boying, b-girling, hip-hop party dance, and its history and multifaceted culture.

In addition to learning the dance, in his class students also learn about hip-hop’s origins, evolution, and the social, economic and political environment where it began.

“When we talk about hip-hop here, it’s different from what you see on TV,” Southall said, addressing students. “That’s rap culture. Rap is something you do. Hip-hop is something you live and breathe. I’m asking you to use the other part of your brain to stimulate and grow and make yourself stronger.”

Hip-hop emerged in the economically depressed South Bronx section of New York City in the late 1960s and early ’70s, as a response to dramatic socio-economic changes. When the white, middle-class population moved out of the area and into the suburbs in the 1950s and ’60s, the remaining population was primarily black and Hispanic.

Learning hip-hop can give engineering students an opportunity to get out of the lab and use a different part of their brain.”

The construction of the Cross Bronx Expressway that runs through minority neighborhoods devastated the inner-city areas in its path from 1948 to 1963. In the late ’60s and ’70s, an arson epidemic swept through the Bronx, leaving burned out buildings in its wake.

Urban decay, rising crime and poverty spurred young people in the South Bronx to look for creative ways to express themselves through art, music and dance as a way to find wellness for themselves.

“Hip-hop came out of the South Bronx with people trying to get out of gangs and avoid that violent lifestyle,” Southall said.

“There were no social services; Mother Teresa came to visit the children. So, people at that time wanted something to keep themselves from falling through the cracks. Hip-hop was it. I want students to understand the difference between what you see commercialized and commodified versus real hip-hop culture. Within that context, I teach the culture of the dance. I tell my students it’s OK to come in and struggle, because hip-hop is hard, but you will get there. Students coming in think we’re just going to dance, but no, they’re going to learn where it started, who started it and why we do this.”

For more information, contact Rhonda.Hoenigman@colorado.edu or Erika.Randall@colorado.edu. To enroll, contact Stacy.Norwood@colorado.edu.

‘Learning hip-hop can give engineering students an opportunity to get out of the lab and use a different part of their brain,’ instructor says.

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With empathy in decline, program builds scholarly community through difference

Anonymous — Tue, 05 Nov 2019 15:45:22 +0000

With empathy in decline, program builds scholarly community through difference Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 11/05/2019 - 08:45

Tim Grassley

The Miramontes Arts and Sciences Program teaches students to listen to, understand and connect with one another across backgrounds, values and experiences

When Kellie Lam walks into the small offices of the Miramontes Arts and Sciences Program (MASP) at the �鶹��Ƶ, she feels a part of the campus community.

“I have a place on campus that I can go to every day and say hi to someone,” says Lam, who is majoring in ecology and evolutionary biology. “Walking in (to MASP), it doesn't feel like I'm in a room full of strangers.”

Celeste Montoya, Karen Ramirez and Kate Semsar. At the top of the page are student participants in the summer program.

Through evidence-based programming for traditionally underrepresented and/or first-generation students, MASP fosters a high achieving community of capable scholars who are dedicated to their pursuit of academic excellence.

“We’ve worked really hard to make this a rigorous, intellectually rich environment,” says Celeste Montoya, MASP’s director and an associate professor in the Department of Women and Gender Studies. “Building an inclusive academic community, which requires teaching (students) to work across difference, is a powerful tool and resource for them to draw from in their academic and life endeavors.”

MASP’s work continues in a time in which Americans’ ability to understand one another is declining. Despite unprecedented access to one another’s stories through social media and the internet, studies show that empathy is rapidly decreasing. In fact, one University of Michigan study found the average American college student in 2009 was less empathetic than 75 percent of Americans 30 years before.

MASP is striving to change this. Their faculty and staff have added opportunities in their summer program, academic programming, mentorship training, classes and graduation ceremony for students to develop their identities on campus and navigate their differences.

Many students in MASP say these programmatic changes allow them to be better seen and understood, which makes the program’s participants feel like their campus family.

“Everyone is always here for you, no matter what it is about,” says Paulina Armendariz, who is majoring in integrative physiology. “It can be personal, it can be about school, it can be about anything. They'll help you out.”

Building a high achieving, inclusive community

Since 2000, MASP students’ retention rate through their second year averages roughly 95%, and around 85% of the program’s students graduate within six years. By comparison, the retention rate is 10% higher and the graduation rate is 20% higher than traditionally underrepresented and/or first-generation students in arts and sciences who do not participate in the program.

While 96% of MASP students cite the program as a primary reason for their academic success and ability to overcome their greatest college-experience challenge, Montoya specifically attributes much of their success over the last four years to MASP’s programming that combines high standards, a culturally engaging curriculum, scholarly identity and helping students feel valued within a supportive community.

The goal is to boost students’ sense of belonging by “giving (them) the tools to build the community that they want,” says Montoya. “They're not just joining a community that already existed, but they are, on a day-to-day basis, building the community that they want to be a part of.”

MASP faculty and staff look for opportunities to help students develop innovative methods to make higher education accessible and inclusive for everyone. For example, faculty members Karen Ramirez, assistant director of arts, humanities and social science education, and Kate Semsar, assistant director of STEM education, drew on their research on higher education to create the class Student Ambassadors for Inclusive Education, whose goal is to help students think critically about their college experiences.

They are not just surviving at CU. They are changing it.”

“We’ve drawn on each of our backgrounds and strengths to think through how students experience education in inclusive and non-inclusive ways, and the impacts of that on their education,” says Ramirez.

Students in the course critique alternative models and teaching practices that can improve the classroom experiences of a more diverse student body. Along the way, students “recognize that you have voice and that your voice matters. And your experience matters,” says Ramirez. “And it may have been defined (by someone else) in ways you don’t have to take on. You don’t have to use somebody else’s language for your experience.”

In MASP’s classes and programming, students learn more about themselves, their fellow high achieving peers in MASP and the manner each individual navigates CU Boulder. Kelsey Rickert, who is majoring in sociology as well as women and gender studies, notes that MASP’s classes have especially helped students have authentic discussions that build trust.

“(My MASP class) really helped me consider where everyone was coming from and how we can have a genuine conversation about (any topic) without being hurtful.”

Jaela Zellars, who is majoring in integrative physiology, says this allows her to feel truly seen. “(MASP) provides me with a place to really be able to be myself and to express my most authentic self.”

Assessment that sees the whole person

To deepen their understanding of the factors that lead to students’ achievements and challenges, MASP’s faculty and staff are developing innovative ways to measure success.

Throughout the academic year, MASP collects student feedback and adjusts programming based on the findings. They also gather an overview of each student’s experience, including their GPA, sense of belonging, degree of growth or fixed mindset as well as each student’s belief that they have the tools to succeed in college.

The wider perspective creates a stronger understanding of the experiences that boost students and of the barriers that prevent them from being as successful as they could be. This strategy considers each individual’s abilities in a broader, supportive group of students, faculty and staff.

“I always go in assuming that each student is (at CU Boulder) for a reason and they did really well to get here,” says Semsar, who manages their assessment strategies. “But if they are not finding success, is there something about their environment that is getting in their way? Are they a part of a community that can work together to solve (those problems)?”

Toward an empathetic community

MASP’s programmatic and assessment choices allow them to “not just notice differences and commonalities,” says Montoya, “but also really try to listen and hear and understand those different experiences.”

Students note that a community built on empathy both widens their points of view and offers them tools to step into difficult conversations.

“I come into the office, and I get to experience a lot of different people's perspectives on things,” says Rickert. As a result, she sees “what's going on for them on campus that I might not be experiencing.”

Giovanni Venzor Melendez, who is majoring in molecular, cellular and developmental biology, agrees. “We can have a serious and good conversation with people who have different beliefs (than) us. At the end of the day, we are still going to support one another in our endeavors in life.”

That ability to bridge differences and empathize helps students collaborate on complex problems and find original solutions. As a result, of the 96% of MASP students who participate in campus community groups outside of MASP, 72% are in leadership roles.

“I am continually amazed by the talents that [our students] bring,” says Montoya. “Their strength and resiliency. Their agency. They are strong and capable.”

“They are not just surviving at CU. They are changing it.”

Learn more about MASP at this link; support the program at this link.

The Miramontes Arts and Sciences Program teaches students to listen to, understand and connect with one another across backgrounds, values and experiences.

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Dance and tech do a pas de deux on NSF-funded project

Anonymous — Mon, 28 Oct 2019 21:23:36 +0000

Dance and tech do a pas de deux on NSF-funded project Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/28/2019 - 15:23

Kenna Bruner

One goal is to increase the diversity of STEM fields by emphasizing that ‘we need to stop trying to get girls to act like boys in order to be part of the math world’

Under-represented students in STEM are about to get a leg up, thanks to a new project merging dance and technology from the �鶹��Ƶ and New York University.

Michelle Ellsworth, Ben Shapiro and Edd Taylor

The cross-disciplinary project, which was awarded a $1.1 million grant from the National Science Foundation, will examine how to integrate machine learning, data science and physical computing in the context of movement-based learning to expand the scope and relevance of creative computing into established dance practices.

“Cross-disciplinary collaborations open up many doors you wouldn’t expect,” said Michelle Ellsworth, professor in the Department of Theatre and Dance and interim director for the Center for Media Arts and Performance in the university's ATLAS Institute.

On the team are Ben Shapiro, assistant professor of computer science at CU Boulder, Ellsworth and Edd Taylor, assistant professor in STEM education, who also has a background in cheerleading. Mary West, doctoral student in computer science with experience as a performance artist, is also part of the team.

“What’s unique is that none of us has just one neighborhood of expertise. We’re not just the dancer, the education specialist,” Ellsworth said.

“Rather than making the existing clubhouse of computer science more friendly, (we sought) to build a new kind of clubhouse which goes to the dancers’ space, to the dance studio. It’s tapping into their existing interest and knowledge. To have dancers and cheerleaders feel they legitimately and inherently have access.”

An image from a performance-art piece by Michelle Ellsworth called "Post Verbal Social Network," which was supported by a Guggenheim Fellowship, typifies the kind of transdisciplinary work she does. That work, she said, shows what a "physically productive, non-language based, non-mediated, pre-industrial, 3D dance/communication looks and feels like.” Photo by Nicholas Caputo. At the top of the page is an image of student Emily Daub, who fuses dance and technology. Photo courtesy of ATLAS Institute.

The research project, which is titled Integrating Physical Computing and Data Science in Movement Based Learning, will focus on the design of science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) learning-environments for an underrepresented group: female high school students who are dancers or cheerleaders in Colorado and New York.

Working with a step team, two cheerleading teams and the New York City nonprofit, STEM From Dance, researchers will explore how established practices and knowledge of dance can support learning about computing.

“This is about finding ways to connect computer science and education with dance and cheerleading,” Shapiro said.

“Young women who are dancers or cheerleaders are members of the same population that have been for many years systematically excluded from the field of computer science. The vision for this project is to ask what are the ways we can bring computer science to dance and cheerleading. The idea is to use technology to improve your athletic skills or enhance your performances. For example, costumes that react to movement.”

As part of the project, students will create computing systems with programmable electronics worn on the body (physical computing) and use those systems to create statistical models of movement and gesture (data science and machine learning), and then apply the models in a “digital experiential learning environment,” or a digital environment where students learn by doing.

Working closely with physical education teachers and participating students, researchers will produce design principles, curricula, new educational technologies and comparative analyses.

Some of the questions the research team will address include:

How can computing be leveraged to build expertise in dance and cheerleading?
How can dance and cheerleading be leveraged to build expertise in computing?
What are the challenges and opportunities of integrating computing into physical education practices?

The research will be conducted in three parts. Phase one will consist of conducting interviews and observations at three sites—New York and two locations in Colorado. Phase two involves design sessions with physical educators and computing educators to better understand how physical movement and computing can complement both. Phase three will entail piloting the integrated physical education and computing curricula across the three sites.

“Something I think about is identity,” Taylor said. “The argument is that we need to stop trying to get girls to act like boys in order to be part of the math world. We’re not asking them to do things they would not normally do or are interested in. By integrating this type of work within a context they are confident in and that is consistent with their identity has some interesting identity play and a lot of cool learning.”

One goal is to increase the diversity of STEM fields by emphasizing that ‘we need to stop trying to get girls to act like boys in order to be part of the math world.’

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Instructors improve the accessibility of geology

Anonymous — Thu, 10 Oct 2019 16:38:23 +0000

Instructors improve the accessibility of geology Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 10/10/2019 - 10:38

Lucas Joel

CU Boulder geologists are addressing one of their field’s big struggles, accommodating people with physical limitations

Emily Fairfax fainted when she started her PhD in geology at the �鶹��Ƶ in 2015.

She was out in the field near Boulder, and it was a hot day. “We were standing and walking to another stop, standing and walking to another stop,” she said.

Megan Brown and Emily Fairfax stand in front of a Stegosaurus skeleton in CU Boulder’s Jerry Crail Johnson Earth Sciences & Map Library. Photo by Lucas Joel. At the top of the page, reserchers on Vesuvio Crater in Italy check instruments and a solar panel to take data for geological science. iStockphoto.

Then she zonked out.

It was Fairfax’s first brush with geology, and it was after she fainted that she had the realization, in conversation with her then-fellow graduate student, Megan Brown, that geology has a problem:

It can be adventurous, like a series of posters in a travel agency that advertise exotic getaways—Trek the depths of an active volcano, Hike the Himalayas—and it can also be inaccessible for those for whom going to such places is, for whatever reason, impossible. The thought that they must be able to take these journeys to study geology can stop a budding career in its tracks.

And, for that reason, the geosciences have the lowest enrollment among the physical sciences of students with physical disabilities, one researcher reported

“How does one change culture?” asked Fairfax, who is now an assistant professor at California State University Channel Islands—particularly when the outdoors form the bedrock of geology’s culture.

Her answer and Brown’s: By changing it where students first meet that culture, in the classroom with a teacher. According to Fairfax and Brown, who detailed their field’s accessibility problem in May in the Journal of Geoscience Education, instructors like teaching assistants and professors do not get the training they need to showcase geology as the kind of field that takes all kinds.

We all lose out when we have a prescribed norm for what a geologist looks like or does.”

Geology, though, is not just about daring fieldwork. Brown, now an assistant professor at Northern Illinois University, studies hydrogeology, and she spends much of her time creating models on a computer. Students interested in the geosciences, she thinks, need to understand that there are valuable contributions that a geologist can make without ever donning hiking books or holstering a rock hammer on their belt.

Students who can’t trek into a volcano are not anomalies; they are an asset waiting to study the volcano or mountain from a different vantage, according to Brown.

And instructors, she and Fairfax explained, need to introduce this view of geology before students learn to view it in a less inclusive way, which is why the duo advocate for designing curricula and teaching classes in a way that shines a light on all students and their diversity of abilities.

The two trained instructors using scenarios stemming from actual experiences, like when Fairfax taught a geology class where students needed to get outside and go to Boulder Creek, where they needed to wade into the water to take measurements.

One student, she found, had a fear: getting into the running water. It was Fairfax’s fainting moment, but in a different guise, and she didn’t have a plan. (Must be able to wade into rushing water, the travel poster read.)

The main thing, said Fairfax, is for instructors to ask themselves what in this class might be inaccessible and, if anything inaccessible arises, then, “TAs need to have a contingency plan.” For the creek scenario, an adjustment could be to create a new part of the assignment that involves collecting data from the shore, and that new part of the assignment must be an option for all students—not just those who can’t go in the creek.

After they trained accessibility to the instructors in CU Boulder’s Department of Geological Sciences, Fairfax and Brown surveyed students and found that the number of students approaching instructors about accessibility needs increased compared to previous years. This could be a sign that those students will be less tempted to drift away from the field.

“We all lose out when we have a prescribed norm for what a geologist looks like or does,” said Brown. After all, it took someone fainting—not someone summiting some high peak—for a field to reexamine itself, and to evolve.

CU Boulder geologists are addressing one of their field’s big struggles, accommodating people with physical limitations.

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