Print magazine 2023

Making Hellems open and inclusive

Anonymous — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 21:24:26 +0000

Making Hellems open and inclusive Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 06/11/2024 - 15:24

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ half of first-year students take a course in the Hellems Arts and Sciences building, and by the time they graduate, almost 85% of all undergraduates take at least one course there. On this campus, Hellems has an academic leading role. Lately, however, it can seem a bit weathered in the spotlight.

That’s because the building was built in 1921, when the U.S. president was Warren G. Harding and 28-year-old Babe Ruth was a baseball superstar. A lot has changed since then, but the building itself remains largely vintage.

The 95,000-square-foot facility is now undergoing health and safety improvements, accessibility improvements and energy-efficiency upgrades that will help it attain a LEED Gold rating. The renovation, which is guided in part by student input, also will make the space more functional, open and inclusive.

A survey of students’ views of Hellems found that students like and want to preserve the building’s historical character, the Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre and the ALTEC language facilities.

However, students also cited several things that need to be improved, including study space, restrooms, light, furniture, classroom space, Americans with Disabilities Act compliance and graduate-student space.

Hellems is part of the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder campus’s Norlin Quadrangle Historic District and was the first building designed by architect Charles Klauder in the now-iconic University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Tuscan Vernacular style.

Just as the National Mall in Washington, D.C., is a focal point of the U.S. capital, the Norlin Quad is a focal point of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder. Macky Auditorium and Hellems bookend its north and south, and to the east, Norlin Library, with its historic façade, frames the third side of the quad.

As planners note, though, all the “energy” emanating from the quadrangle terminates in the front of a building, Hellems, whose front entrance is not “accessible” as defined by the Americans with Disabilities Act. Further, the front entrance leads students into a dimly lit stairwell and a hallway of doors, many closed, and observers say the entrance to this important building is neither grand nor inviting.

The renovation will “reclaim the dean’s office,” which you face upon entering Hellems. The office was initially occupied by the building’s namesake, Fred Burton Renney Hellems, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences from 1899 to 1929.

What was once the dean’s office will be removed and turned into a common area. The renovation will give the space “back to the students,” removing a wall, filling the room with natural light, adding comfortable furniture and opening the ceiling to the second floor.

In the drawings shown here, you can see a bird’s-eye view of the proposed visual connection from the front of Hellems to the Rippon Theatre, a connection that students currently cannot see when entering the building. Also seen is an artist’s rendering of what the newly opened area will look like, encompassing sitting areas for students.

On this campus, Hellems has an academic leading role. Lately, however, it can seem a bit weathered in the spotlight.

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Graduate finds her way in the ‘uncontrollable motion of life’

Anonymous — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 21:07:12 +0000

Graduate finds her way in the ‘uncontrollable motion of life’ Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 06/11/2024 - 15:07

Jaxon Parker

Ava Altenbern, who double-majored in biochemistry and art history, reflects on charting her path through a pandemic

In December 2020, in the midst of a pandemic lockdown, Ava Altenbern, then a sophomore, penned a film review of I’m Thinking of Ending Things for the online student magazine The Bold. She praised its experimentation with nonlinear storytelling and depiction of the “uncontrollable motion of life.”

At the time of Alternbern’s review, the film’s theme of disjointed temporality reflected her experience of COVID-19 disrupting her life at the University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder, where she hoped to pursue biochemistry and art history and make friends on campus.

Ava Alternbern

“When the pandemic hit, it was a really hard time because I felt like I was going backwards,” Altenbern says. As a freshman living in the dorms, she had to return home to Arizona. “I think it definitely contributed to people feeling alone; that they didn’t have a handle on what was going on in their lives.”

Like countless other students, Altenbern initially struggled with the topsy-turvy world of lockdowns and online learning. However, she ended up charting a prolific undergraduate career in biochemistry and art history at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder, graduating summa cum laude in May 2023. She is heading to Bethesda, Maryland, this fall for a postbaccalaureate research program at the National Institutes of Health.

Blurring the arts and sciences

When Altenbern arrived at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder in fall 2019, she didn’t know she would double-major in the arts and sciences. As an incoming biochemistry student, she immersed herself in the world of molecular interactions, eventually pursuing laboratory research on riboswitches, which are segments of messenger RNA molecules, for her honors thesis.

However, “I missed the side of being able to write analytical essays like I did in high school,” Altenbern says. “During COVID, I just flipped to art history on a whim and decided to commit to it as a second major. I ended up loving it.”

Although Altenbern faced a massive workload from her biochemistry and art history classes, she found that the two disciplines complemented each other as well as her interest in human anatomy and medicine.

“People don’t think that science and art cross over at all, but it’s all part of the human experience,” Altenbern says. “They’re different lenses of looking at the world.”

Altenbern credits her brother, who attended Columbia College Chicago to study film directing and animation, for her parallel interest in the arts and humanities. “Whenever I’d visit him, I’d cruise through The Art Institute of Chicago,” Altenbern says.

Altenbern was especially impressed by “The Art That Made Medicine” exhibit at the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Art Museum, which showcased how medical representations of the human body are embedded in the cultural ideals of their historical moment.

“A lot of people don’t realize how expansive art history is,” Altenbern says, adding that the interpretation of art must also consider its historical and social backgrounds. “You’re not just looking at paintings, but you’re looking at clothing, artifacts and medical textbooks.

“I always knew I was going to go into the sciences in high school, but I surprised myself that I chose art history as my second major. But I think it’s all connected; doing one has helped me develop the other.”

Chasing the sun

In spring 2021, after her film review was published, Altenbern faced a daunting requirement for her biochemistry major: Experimental Physics I.

“I was doing some really hard classes at that time,” Altenbern says. “I’m not a physics person at all.”

However, that class turned out to be “the perfect example of how to adapt your class to online learning,” Altenbern says. She was tasked with analyzing data from solar flares. Her instructor “made it so much more interactive than it could’ve been.”

Heather Lewandowski, a professor of physics at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder who taught the class, conducted a study with the help of nearly 1,000 undergraduate students to solve a mystery about the sun that has puzzled astrophysicists: Why is the sun’s corona millions of degrees hotter than its own surface?

Altenbern was one of the students who contributed to Lewandowski’s study. “You got put in a team, and (the team members) taught you some Python coding, which is something I thought I’d never learn,” Altenbern says.

Along with 994 other students, Altenbern’s data analysis of solar flares helped dispute a prevailing theory about the sun’s atmospheric temperatures. Researchers previously thought that nanoflares, which are solar flares much smaller than what sophisticated telescopes can capture, were behind the dramatic difference in the sun’s temperatures.

After students spent a collective 56,000 hours analyzing the data, however, they found that nanoflares aren’t powerful enough to make the sun’s corona hotter than its surface. Although this mystery remains unsolved, their work shed light on other theories, including magnetic waves transferring energy from the sun’s core to the atmosphere.

“All the undergrads got to be coauthors on the paper,” Altenbern says. “I think that was a perfect way of how people adapted to pandemic conditions.”

Making research strides

Later, as pandemic restrictions eased, Altenbern returned to campus to conduct research at the Batey Laboratory on riboswitches. The laboratory’s principal investigator, Robert Batey, a professor of biochemistry, became Altenbern’s advisor for her honors thesis her senior year.

“I wanted to become a forensic pathologist,” Altenbern says. “So, during my junior year, I really wanted to get into research.”

She interviewed with a few labs at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder, but found that Batey’s research team “really intrigued me just because of how the lab was set up, it’s a bit unconventional,” Altenbern says. “Batey made this structure where it was a bunch of undergrads working collaboratively on one project.”

Each team of undergraduates was paired with one specific part of the genomic library, and experimented with how nucleotides revealed the structure and function of riboswitches.

Altenbern also ventured into a novel, eight-month autopsy internship program at the Denver Medical Examiner’s Office. The hands-on program was very rewarding for Altenbern’s interest in forensic pathology.

“You learned a lot of evisceration techniques and general morgue operations,” Altenbern says. “I learned how to remove a brain in under seven minutes.”

But Altenbern’s favorite part of the internship was learning from the doctors, pathologists and autopsy technicians who guided her through the nitty-gritty of forensic pathology, allowing her “to see that I’m actually interested in it.”

Light at the end of the tunnel

Despite Altenbern’s busy schedule as a biochemistry and art history student, she also was an active presence in the campus community as a student ambassador, club organizer and lead student manager at The Connection, the campus bowling, billiard and game center.

“Especially after the pandemic, I really needed to talk to people face-to-face,” Altenbern says. “It pushed me to become really involved in campus events. A lot of my closest friends I met through being a student ambassador or working at The Connection.

“My advice to anyone is just get involved. A lot of people are nervous about taking that step, but everyone feels that way. I think being involved in the arts and sciences naturally led me into being involved in so many different jobs and clubs across campus.”

After graduating with her double major, a minor in sociology and certificate in public health, Altenbern will conduct laboratory research this fall at the National Institutes of Health, focusing on RNA viruses and viral assembly mechanisms.

Altenbern believes that medical school or a PhD program is just on her horizon. However, remembering her undergraduate experience, she says there’s no way to know where her path will go next.

“I really want to continue doing research, but maybe I’ll go into forensic pathology. Everything is always changing all the time,” Altenbern says. “I have no idea where I’m going to end up, but it’s just one step at a time.”

Ava Altenbern, who double-majored in biochemistry and art history, reflects on charting her path through a pandemic.

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Grad two-steps away from college with training in astronomy, physics and dance

Anonymous — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 21:01:04 +0000

Grad two-steps away from college with training in astronomy, physics and dance Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 06/11/2024 - 15:01

Bradley Worrell

“Versatile” is an apt, if succinct, way to describe Harshini Sinul.

The native of Wayzata, Minnesota, graduated in May from the University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder with majors in physics and astronomy with cum laude honors, plus a minor in dance.

Harshani Sunil

Originally an astrophysics major, Sunil decided when she was a sophomore to instead pursue a double major, with the goal of having more options when it came time to pursue a master’s degree in physics. Fortunately, there is a good amount of crossover in the coursework required to earn separate majors in astronomy and physics, Sunil says, but not so much when it comes to the sciences and dance.

“There’s definitely not any big intersections between dance and astronomy and physics,” she says with a laugh. “But I’ve been doing dance since I was young, so it’s a big passion of mine and a way to stay active.”

Attending ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder combined the best of both worlds, allowing her to get a degree from a university with a nationally ranked physics department that also happens to be known for its dance program.

“One of my memorable dance memories comes from a Transnational dance course taught by Brittney Washington. This was my first class back in person after COVID,” Sunil recalls. “My peers and I would reserve dance rooms and practice together, laugh, give feedback and often get coffee or dinner afterward. This was one of my core memories with the dance community. I was building a community and practicing dance—two of my favorite pastimes.

She adds, “The feeling of support and community is a common theme at the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ dance department. …The community is supportive and creates a welcoming environment that I will remember forever.”

The fact she was able to get a scholarship to attend ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ, and her love for ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ, were two strong added bonuses.

Despite carrying a full course load, Sunil found time to pursue other activities that interested her. Her freshman year, she participated in the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ marching band.

“I was in marching band in high school, but I wasn’t sure if I would participate in college. But I spoke with the marching band director and some of the students and decided to give it a go,” she says. “I loved it, and I made a lot of friends.”

Unfortunately, the COVID-19 pandemic and its restrictions on mass gatherings put the kibosh on the rest of the season.

Subsequently, Sunil took on several university jobs, including one as an assistant for Zach Berta-Thompson, a professor in the astrophysics department, for which she used her advanced computer software skills to create two-dimensional images of stars outside the solar system.

Sunil became a research assistant for Berta-Thompson after taking his astronomy course her freshman year and being impressed with his passion for science. Interacting with members of the astronomy department during the COVID-19 lockdown “really allowed me to have some people to converse with and depend upon, and it opened my eyes to different possibilities within the department and how academia really works,” she says, adding that Berta-Thompson became a mentor.

Other important mentors included Betsy McIntosh, Laurie Langdon and Grace Rexroth in the Learning Assistant program, where Sunil served as a learning assistant and later as a mentor to other learning assistants.

“Being an LA mentor opened me to a supportive community and a plethora of life skills that I use every day,” she says. “Having the support and opportunities the LA program offered, I was able to establish a leadership role in the community.”

Later, while working as a research assistant for the physics department, Sunil created a study with Bethany Wilcox, assistant professor of physics, to detect and characterize burnout among university physics students.

“We basically designed our study from the ground up and created our own version of an interview study,” says Sunil, who presented her findings at a July research conference in Sacramento. The study found that lots of physics students suffer from burnout at one time or another, but the severity of the symptoms varies greatly.

She hopes to continue her work in physics education research with a professor at Miami University in Ohio, where she will pursue her master’s degree this fall.

At ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder, Sunil also served as a volunteer on a diversity, equity and inclusion committee for the astrophysics department. The group hosted a DEI seminar for grad students and worked on overall efforts to create a more inclusive and welcoming environment for all students. This year, the group also worked to create a special fund to aid students studying astronomy or astrophysics who need emergency financial assistance.

Sunil says she’s grateful for the many connections she made at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder, the experiences she had and the skills she gained. Now, as she embarks on the next chapter in her life, she says she feels prepared to tackle whatever comes next.

“I feel very set up to be successful as I start my master’s program as well as continuing research,” she says. “That’s the biggest thing I’m taking away from ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ—feeling prepared to move forward.”

“Versatile” is an apt, if succinct, way to describe Harshini Sinul.

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Fight for the honey bees

Anonymous — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 20:31:43 +0000

Fight for the honey bees Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 06/11/2024 - 14:31

Jaxon Parker

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder entomologist studies how to protect nature’s most important pollinators from deadly parasites

Samuel Ramsey, an assistant professor of evolutionary biology at the University of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder, is renowned for his expertise and effervescent enthusiasm for everything related to bugs. He's made a cicada music video on his “Doctor Buggs” YouTube channel and appeared on CBS Mornings to warn the public about spotted lanternflies, a destructive invasive species.

Samuel Ramsey

But perhaps Ramsey’s most important contribution to science has been his groundbreaking research on deadly parasites causing a steep decline in the honey bee population. Through his public appearances and nonprofit, the Ramsey Research Foundation, he’s also raising awareness about how we can change our international response to help nature’s most important pollinators survive.

The importance of bees to life on Earth can’t be overestimated. Through pollination, they help sustain the life cycles of wildlife habitats and produce one-third of the global food supply, including apples, coffee, nuts and potatoes.

“With the sheer number of people and the amount of food that we want to grow on a regular basis, it requires us to dramatically increase the efficiency of agricultural systems, and that is what honey bees are built for,” Ramsey says. “It’s important for how we do life.”

Studying a deadly parasite

Ramsey made his first splash in the scientific community when he was a doctoral candidate at the University of Maryland, where he researched the deadly bee parasite Varroa destructor. Entomologists had long held that Varroa fed on bees’ blood, but Ramsey realized that this picture of Varroa’s feeding habits was incomplete.

“My path to studying honey bees is a bit circuitous because I became obsessed with the Varroa mites before I became obsessed with honey bees,” Ramsey says. “Part of what drew me to them was the fascinating history of how they got here and how they became such a dominating parasite on this planet.”

When Ramsey finished his dissertation, he presented a new picture of Varroa: Imagine a tick as large as a Frisbee lodged onto your body, transmitting crippling viruses; but instead of sucking your blood, it dissolves and feasts on your liver. This is what the Varroa destructor mite does to honey bees, and the mites have spread from Southeast Asia to the rest of the globe in a matter of just decades.

“There was a time where Varroa was restricted to just a tiny region of the world. But there was a host shift several decades ago when people started sharing brood from Apis cerana (the Eastern honey bee) with Apis mellifera (the Western honey bee) to make the Western honey bee colonies “stronger” in the area, Ramsey says.

“Southeast Asia is the only region of the world where every single honey bee species exists. That's the cradle of civilization for them, except for the Western honey bee, which was brought back in” by humans, Ramsey explains. When the Western honey bee branched off and evolved outside of Southeast Asia, “they lost a lot of their parasite suppression genes.”

The Western honey bee now lives on every continent except Antarctica as a domesticated insect. “And so now Varroa, as of last year, fully has a cosmopolitan distribution by having finally reached Australia,” Ramsey says. The losses have been devastating: Last year, North America lost 48% of its honey bees, with Varroa as the main driving force.

Ramsey’s discovery of Varroa’s food source being bees’ fat body tissue, and not their blood, helped generate a new understanding of how Varroa thrives across the globe, which could chart new paths to protecting Western honey bees.

A new mite emerges

Since his dissertation, Ramsey’s research has shifted to a new parasite threatening Varroa’s global dominance over bees—one that is even faster and more efficient in invading colonies and reproducing its species: Tropilaelaps.

Like Varroa, Tropilaelaps was originally contained in Southeast Asia until it jumped hosts from the giant honey bees to Western honey bees. It emerged later than Varroa and is currently spreading around the planet in a similar pattern.

“The possibility that Tropilaelaps can take over is quite substantial,” Ramsey says. “While honey bee losses for some countries they’ve entered were around 2% or 4% per year, those losses have now gone up higher than 64%. That is really devastating for the beekeeping industry, economy and ecology of those areas.”

Although Tropilaelaps poses a new threat to the global honey bee population, many nations have shown reluctance to tracking its spread.

“No one wants to be blamed for Tropi mites going from their country to another. So, for some of these regions, it has been difficult to convince people to do proper reporting of whether those parasites have been in their borders. They might not be able to trade bees and bee products freely to other countries because of the concern,” Ramsey says. “There are geopolitical concerns that are all pulled into that.”

Another major obstacle to international research has been the hesitance of wealthier nations to invest resources in other countries to study and manage the transmission of Tropilaelaps.

“So little research was conducted on this organism when it was transiting through what we call ‘developing nations,’ which is not my favorite term in the world, because these organisms were not impacting major economies,” Ramsey says. “Unfortunately, that particular way of looking at things reduces people down to just their GDP. It doesn’t account for the importance of those human beings, their livestock and their bees.”

When Tropilaelaps reached Pakistan about three decades ago, the country experienced a 100% loss of its western honey bee population. “We have ignored it knowing it has the capacity to do that kind of damage,” Ramsey said at the 2023 American Beekeeping Federation Conference.

Making research progress

Despite these challenges to international research on Tropilaelaps, Ramsey and other entomologists have made recent headway in conducting research on the mite in Thailand. With donations to the Ramsey Research Foundation, Ramsey was able to fund his investigation into the behaviors of Tropilaelaps inside highly protective honey bee brood cells. This work is currently in review for publication.

“Inside the colony, there are these hexagonal cells that can be used to either store food or store the developing bees,” Ramsey says. “Nurse bees will create a wax covering over the cells when their larva reaches a certain age and starts to transition towards being a pupa. It’s at that time that Tropi mites are able to smell the age of the immature bees and jump into the cell.”

Once inside the wax-sealed cells, mites are protected “from basically everything,” including pesticides and the adult bees themselves. “I quickly realized anything that won’t penetrate that wax capping is not going to be effective at controlling those mites,” Ramsey says.

“So we started looking at different forms of treatments that could penetrate the capping and go after them, Ramsey says, adding that in the United States, a substance called formic acid has been shown to reduce the mite’s population substantially.

Ramsey and other scientists have been experimenting with other possible treatments that include applying heat to the brood cells to control Tropilaelaps. “It could potentially be a promising nonchemical means of treating this set of organisms,” Ramsey says. “We’ll have to see more data.”

Learning pandemic lessons

Although Ramsey thinks the international response has been timid in solving the growing crisis, perhaps some lessons have been learned from the COVID-19 pandemic.

“When COVID-19 hit, I think it laid bare just how unprepared many of us have been for something like this,” Ramsey says. “So, thankfully, groups like the United States Department of Agriculture APHIS (Animal & Plant Health Inspection Service) and National Geographic have partnered with me, noticing that I have a lot of passionate for this subject and optimism that we can win this time! I’ve already built out infrastructure in my research apparatus in Southeast Asia to study these things, so all the pieces are there.”

Those partnerships support research about these organisms and contribute data to emergency response plans, Ramsey says. “We’ve picked up the pace and I think before the Tropi mites arrive, we will have a solid emergency response plan in place.”

Much remains unknown about Tropilaelaps, but Ramsey is currently raising funds through his Fight the Mite Initiative to conduct more research on the parasite across the globe. The Ramsey Research Foundation shares critical data with experts and the public alike to help stop this mighty mite.

“We are working really hard to make sure the general public has greater access to this kind of information,” Ramsey says. “(I try) to do everything I can to make sure that I’m holding the door for others.”

“It is my sincere hope that as we try to make research more broadly available, as we try to find funds to build up these communities, more and more of the general public will be behind us in these initiatives and provide their support whenever possible.”

_______________

Ramsey is the Marvin H. Caruthers Endowed Chair for Early Career Faculty at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder. You can learn more about his research and initiatives at the Ramsey Research Foundation.

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder entomologist studies how to protect nature’s most important pollinators from deadly parasites.

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ANDing links you to everything, and to your true self

Anonymous — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 20:26:12 +0000

ANDing links you to everything, and to your true self Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 06/11/2024 - 14:26

Erika Randall

When I see the humans who make up the college, I witness a unifying theme of connection—to ideas, people, communities and the world. From classrooms to the quad, I find incredible humans making connections across concepts and within themselves, and when talking with prospective students and their families, I hear their excitement about all the things!

Erika Randall

“I want to study psychology, and I’m also really into technical theatre and community outreach.”

“I’m going to be a philosophy major, and I write poetry, and I want to minor in geography.”

“I’m committed to social justice and plan to double-major in Spanish and integrative physiology with a minor in women and gender studies.”

The array of combinations and curiosities is dazzling. It is also exactly who we are—a community of folks who, effectively, use “AND” as a verb.

What I call the alchemy of ANDing was born by witnessing the world around me over 16 years as an A&S faculty member, and it was fostered in partnership with poet, producer and A&S director of marketing, Tim Grassley.

The AND neologism highlights the dimensions of who we are, individually and collectively. I am stirred by the amazing work and wondering done by our students, faculty, staff and alums. I see how we are thinking in new ways, AND we are taking action with those ideas to find our now and our next.

Although ANDing as a verb seemed so obvious to me and Tim, it needed an introduction, and thus, The Ampersand podcast was born. An ampersand is the typographical symbol of connection and the “shift 7” character between Arts & Sciences.

On our podcast, producer Tim and I welcome ANDers of all flavors—humans who study bugs, question Russian politics, investigate gut micro-biomes, reimagine film, recover the stories of Filipino rough riders and swan dive at Casa Bonita.

We talk with folks who are sparked by the need to understand how the seven or 17 things they care about can come together to change their lives and, quite possibly, the world.

Our guests from A&S find ways to connect, overlap and recuperate through ANDing. The Ampersand revels in and reveals the myriad ways that we show up as a complex community of scholars, makers and humans.

Never have I so discretely seen the differences and the resounding alignments of the people from our college. Our humans are incredible.

The secret wish for the podcast is one I have for all of us—that we pause to look at the seemingly disparate aspects of who we are inside ourselves and in the world, and we make connection. It is through these connections that we will become our better selves, a stronger college AND a healthier community. In these pages, we tell some of these stories.

Erika Randall is associate dean for student success and a professor of dance in the Department of Theatre and Dance. She strives to create a learning environment in which all students can fulfill their potentials and achieve their goals.

When I see the humans who make up the college, I witness a unifying theme of connection—to ideas, people, communities and the world.

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Helping students harness the power of fusing multiple interests

Anonymous — Mon, 10 Jun 2024 20:18:28 +0000

Helping students harness the power of fusing multiple interests Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 06/10/2024 - 14:18

Glen Krutz, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, sees the power and promise of an expansive, liberal-arts education. Traditionally, this concept has been referred to as “breadth.”

Glen Krutz

Now, though, the college is framing this time-tested concept with a new (to the college and to the language) term: ANDing, which can be a noun, an adjective or verb that describes the practice of studying a divergent pair (or series) of interests, even combining them.

So, ANDing could describe someone who fuses the study of sociology and physics (a social science and a natural science) or who studies neuroscience and dance. And so on.

Krutz shared some thoughts about ANDing, higher education and his view of the college itself. That exchange follows.

Question: The college’s heralding of “ANDing” as a concept involves a kind of wordplay that might prompt people to ask what, exactly, it is. How do you define “ANDing”?

Krutz: To me “ANDing” is about finding and linking your multiple interests to find your passion. Rather than narrow-casting on any specific topic, we are encouraging students, staff and faculty to think creatively about what makes them tick intellectually. It is often multiple topics that converge, hence the powerful notion of “ANDing.”

What kinds of reactions have you observed to the ANDing campaign?

Krutz: Everyone wants to tell me about their “AND.” People say, “I like that; I’m an AND-er.” We are getting nice responses from students, staff, faculty, prospective students and their parents, and fellow deans (the latter of whom see it as a signal that the College of Arts and Sciences wants to be a partner, which we do).

Across the country, higher education is facing some challenges—some emerging from state legislatures—and some opportunities; as a political scientist, how do you view the challenges and opportunities for higher education?

Krutz: Over the past three decades, public higher education in ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ and across America has had to be resilient. As states reduced their share of the cost of university education, which was accelerated by reduced sales tax revenues owing to the growth of internet commerce, universities have had to turn to other revenue sources, including tuition and fees, private donations and research grants.

The downside to relying more on tuition and fees to fund public higher education is that the cost to students and families has increased sharply, which can pinch access to post-secondary opportunities. We want college to be a right, not a privilege.

Therefore, we have invested considerable effort in raising donations for student scholarship and need-based aid. The opportunity of a higher education remains a powerful lever in American society, and a college degree for first-generation students can change the economic trajectory of a family forever.

The other challenge from state legislatures over the past decade relates to what we might call “input” from public officials about what we teach subject-wise in public universities. With increasing partisan polarization in American politics and the accompanying social media vitriol, it is not unusual today to hear some question how we teach in universities. Accusations of indoctrination of students by universities are not unusual to see these days.

However, this fear is unfounded, in my view. The reality is that students are being exposed to more, not fewer, perspectives on a university campus than when I was a student in the 1980s. The sum of all the different perspectives is a group of graduates ready to engage in society, who are empathetic and who will contribute to the public good in America.

As a seasoned university administrator who is relatively new to ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ, what is your assessment of the strengths and areas of potential growth of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder’s College of Arts and Sciences?

Krutz: A&S is a wonderful college and ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ’s largest. Virtually all ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder students take classes with us, especially in their first year. The staff and faculty of A&S are incredibly dedicated to student access and success, intellectual discovery and community engagement.

The sheer amount of excellence in our staff and faculty truly runs the gamut; it is not located in just a few crown-jewel departments. ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ in general is a sticky institution, which means that staff and faculty want to stay here. That said, we need to continue working hard to be more welcoming to BIPOC staff, faculty and students to make A&S and ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder more representative of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ as a whole.

Our emphasis on student success and research/creative activity excellence is quite apparent. We will continue to work on that. We have two key areas where we have significant potential to grow. First, as I alluded to above, we need to be more accessible to BIPOC students, staff and faculty. I believe strongly that ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder, as a public institution, is a provider of opportunity, and that that opportunity should be available to all.

Second, in A&S, we need to continue to innovate in online education. I don’t ever see a day when online will eclipse our in-person approach on the beautiful Boulder campus. However, students today like flexibility in instruction, including having occasional classes online, and especially at the graduate level, there is demand for high-quality online master’s degrees. The key word there is “quality.”

I have done a lot of online teaching myself, and it can be quite interactive and feature depth and analysis just like a face-to-face class. We are not talking about the correspondence classes of yesteryear.

Is there anything you’ve found surprising or especially gratifying about living in the Centennial State?

Krutz: As a person who grew up in the West (Reno, Nevada) and later spent 25 years on the central plains, living on the Front Range, at the intersection of the high plains and the Rocky Mountains, I find so compelling. There is beauty and wonder looking in both directions, and there are students, families and communities that need us in both directions.

I have also been impressed with how engaging and friendly Coloradans are, the multitude of live music options and the local breweries! A highlight of last fall was driving up to see the aspens changing color over four consecutive weekends.

Glen Krutz, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, sees the power and promise of an expansive, liberal-arts education. Traditionally, this concept has been referred to as “breadth.”

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