News - College of Liberal Arts, Colorado State University

Together, we Connect

In a 2021 monthly series, we share stories that reflect our curiosity, ability to adapt, engagement with the community, and research and creative expertise. In April, we focused on community engagement.

Together, we Persist

In a 2021 monthly series, we share stories that reflect our curiosity, ability to adapt, engagement with the community, and research and creative expertise. In March, we focused on our determination and flexibility.

Together, we Explore

In a 2021 monthly series, we share stories that reflect our curiosity, ability to adapt, engagement with the community, and research and creative expertise. In February, we focused on our curiosity.

Tackling human attitudes and behaviors to address wicked environmental problems

Finding solutions to global environmental challenges such as climate change and growing threats from wildfires requires the perspectives of the liberal arts.

Inclusion, identity, innovation: Tackling the wicked problem of racism and exclusion

“Too often diversity issues are seen in a quantitative way, like we just need to add more people of color, and that will solve the problem. That might be part of the solution, but it’s also about addressing the systems and structures that created the problem in the first place.”

Us versus Them: The 'wicked problem' of how we talk to each other

Political polarization in an election year is nothing new, but in 2020, when you add to the mix deep divisions over the handling of a pandemic, addressing systemic racism and stopping racially motivated violence, it seems as if we’ve forgotten how to talk to each other about what is ailing society and how to fix it.

Addressing society’s ‘wicked problems’

Some may assume that dealing with the “wicked problems” of our age, like climate change or world hunger, only requires technical solutions from hard sciences like engineering. But there is growing recognition that persistent social challenges are intrinsically tied to human emotions and behavior, and can be effectively addressed only by incorporating the liberal arts.

College of Liberal Arts Latest News

Cameron Peak Fire: One year later

Read several stories taking a look at the people, facilities and research affected by the Cameron Peak Fire.

CSU Mountain Campus update: research, facilities and classes resume

The Cameron Peak Fire passed through the campus in Oct. 2020, burning nearly 620 acres.

CSU named an Age-Friendly University by AFU Global Network

Colorado State University has become Colorado’s first member of the Age-Friendly University Global Network, an international group of colleges and universities that are committed to championing the needs of older adults in higher education.

CSU receives $2 million grant to help prevent future pandemics

Building on its response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Colorado State University has received a $2 million commitment from The Anschutz Foundation to further the development of new solutions for building resilience and agility in stopping infectious disease transmission among animals and people.

Dr. Jess Rushing is joining CSU Music Therapy this fall

The School of Music, Theatre, and Dance is pleased to announce that Dr. Jess Rushing is joining Colorado State University’s outstanding music therapy faculty. Dr. Rushing comes to CSU following three years at the University of Louisville as an assistant professor of Music Therapy, and receiving her Ph.D. in Rehabilitation Sciences from the University of Kentucky and a Master of Music Therapy from Florida State University.

Charging forward: CSU community excited for in-person learning this fall

Charging forward. That’s what Rams do, and that’s the theme as Colorado State University prepares for a Fall 2021 semester that will feature in-person experiences and a more vibrant college life in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Together, We

Learn more about our curiosity, ability to adapt, engagement with the community, and research and creative expertise in the Spring 2021 issue of the College of Liberal Arts Magazine.

Together, We Celebrate Earth Day

This Earth Day, view some of the many ways the College of Liberal Arts focuses on environmental sustainability.

Together, We Connect

In a 2021 monthly series, we share stories that reflect our curiosity, ability to adapt, engagement with the community, and research and creative expertise. This month, we are focusing on community engagement.

Together, We Persist

College of Liberal Arts Community

Still time to help School is Cool help PSD students start the year right

Colorado State University’s signature program that provides K-12 students in need in the Poudre School District with the tools for success kicks into high gear the first full week in August, and there are plenty of ways for CSU employees to be part of the effort.

A reason to smile: CSU Dreamers to receive dental assistance from KIND

Too often, Dreamers – undocumented young people who came to the U.S. as children – face significant challenges in college, grappling with anxieties over an uncertain future and access to basic needs such as health care in the only country they have ever known as home.

Provost reappoints Deans Jan Nerger and Ben Withers, Vice Provost Kelly Long

All will serve extended five-year terms.

Dr. Jess Rushing is joining CSU Music Therapy this fall

New experimental course teaches students about the history, meaning and art behind books

ART 280A3, Books Arts: History, Meaning and Form, is an experimental, first-of-its-kind book arts and history course this summer taught in the Department of Art and Art History.

Faculty Friday: Jill Stilwell

Former Fort Collins Director of Cultural Services Jill Stilwell brings 25 years of arts management experience to the classroom.

Research & Creative Scholarship

CSU student and alumni films to screen online for inaugural film festival

The inaugural edition of CSU’s Through the Student Lens Film Festival is scheduled to premiere online at 6 p.m. on May 3.

CSU faculty launch Center for Environmental Justice to tackle access and inequality

Colorado State University has a long history of commitment to environmental initiatives and sustainability. In March 2020, CSU expanded their environmental expertise to include social justice with the formal creation of the Center for Environmental Justice.

Bunn and team win NASA grant to forecast conservation futures in South Africa

Colorado State University Geography Professor David Bunn and his research group have won a $750,000 award from NASA to develop an “ecological forecasting” system for South Africa’s Kruger National Park and the surrounding region.

CSU economists: Investment in education would reduce financial inequality in Colorado

If Colorado wants to proactively decrease poverty levels and the income gap between white communities and communities of color, it should invest in education, the judiciary, health care and human services, according to CSU researchers.

CSU music professors John Carlo Pierce and Joel Bacon release new CD

Colorado State University voice professor, tenor John Carlo Pierce, has released "Songs of Wintter Watts" on Centaur Records. Dr. Pierce is accompanied on piano by Dr. Joel Bacon, Stewart and Sheron Golden Chair in Organ and Liturgical Studies at CSU.

For the Love of Clark: A presentation by history graduate students

History graduate students explore the architecture and history of the Clark Building, a fixture on the CSU campus since 1968.

The Conversation

How 'In God We Trust' bills are helping advance a Christian nationalist agenda

City vehicles in Chesapeake, Virginia, will soon be getting religion.

‘Megadrought’ along border strains US-Mexico water relations

When American and Mexican engineers drafted the 1944 water treaty, they did not foresee today’s prolonged megadrought.

What the Ottoman Empire can teach us about the consequences of climate change – and how drought can uproot peoples and fuel warfare

While severe droughts, hurricanes, rising oceans and climate migration can seem new and unique to our time, past crises carry important lessons about how changing climates can destabilize human societies.

Why it matters that 7 states still have bans on atheists holding office

Tennessee’s Constitution includes a provision that bars three groups from holding office: atheists, ministers and those engaging in duels.

Events

Osborne’s ‘Reclamation’ exhibit offers hopeful vision of humanity, planetary future

Complex problems require creative solutions, and artists are visionaries by nature.

‘Dionne Lee: A Muscle Memory’ opens at Gregory Allicar Museum of Art

The American landscape is often portrayed as a place for contentment and peace, even as it preserves a history of trauma and violence.

CSU student and alumni films to screen online for inaugural film festival

The inaugural edition of CSU’s Through the Student Lens Film Festival is scheduled to premiere online at 6 p.m. on May 3.

CSU faculty launch Center for Environmental Justice to tackle access and inequality

Ke-Schutte navigates the “Angloscene” in Afro-Chinese relations in March 31 lecture

Postdoctoral fellow Jay Ke-Schutte will share their research and personal experience with navigating the "Angloscene" in Afro-Chinese relations in a colloquium on March 31 at 11:30 a.m.

College of Liberal Arts Magazine

Together, We

Learn more about our curiosity, ability to adapt, engagement with the community, and research and creative expertise in the Spring 2021 issue of the College of Liberal Arts Magazine.

Lenses of the Liberal Arts: Health

The focus of our majors in liberal arts - culture, politics, communications, economics, and the like - intertwine with health challenges worldwide that range from pandemics to affordable housing, air quality to spiritual health. Learn more about how the liberal arts approach the topic of health in the Winter 2020/Spring 2021 issue of the College of Liberal Arts Magazine.

Lenses of the Liberal Arts: Space and Place

In the Winter 2019/Spring 2020 issue of the Liberal Arts Magazine, we apply the lenses of the liberal arts to place and space. Colorado State University and the Clark Building are both spaces located in Fort Collins, along the Front Range, in the Mountain West. But they are also places -- made meaningful by the people attached to them and the memories created within, through, and because of them.

Lenses of the Liberal Arts: Technology

In the Spring 2019 issue of the Liberal Arts Magazine, we approach the topic of technology through our disciplines. The specific skills and tools unique to the liberal arts can provide understanding and a way to navigate the ways technology does (or doesn't) advance the human experience.