Student Spotlight

A Walk in Two Worlds

Anonymous — Thu, 18 Mar 2021 06:00:00 +0000

A Walk in Two Worlds Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 03/18/2021 - 00:00

Daniel Strain

American Indians and archaeologists have had a long and often fractious history. Carlton Shield Chief Gover is trying to change that.

Just after World War II, Carlton Shield Chief Gover’s (PhDAnth’22) grandfather was facing an uncertain future in Oklahoma. Philip Gover was a member of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma, an American Indian nation outside Tulsa. He had lost his arm fighting in Italy and was struggling to complete his undergraduate degree.

That’s when one of his professors pulled him aside and delivered the blunt assessment: “What is a one-armed Indian going to do without an education in this country?”

Philip Gover doubled down on his studies. He finished his degree in elementary education, then went on to teach English to Navajo children — carving a path between the worlds of the Pawnee, or Chaticks-si-Chaticks (which translates to “Men of Men”), and the Chaticks-Taka (“white man”).

“My grandfather was born in a tent in 1906, wasn’t even a U.S. citizen until the 1920s,” Shield Chief Gover said. “My family has always strived to be worthy of his sacrifices.”

It’s a tightrope act that Shield Chief Gover continues to walk two generations later. He’s a PhD student in the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder anthropology department. The researcher is among the first Pawnee citizens to ever pursue graduate training in archaeology.

The road hasn’t always been easy. As Shield Chief Gover explained: “Archaeology is an inherently colonial practice.” But the young researcher joins a growing number of Indigenous archaeologists who are working to change that — embracing knowledge from both Indigenous communities and the halls of American academia.

Archaeology has also given Shield Chief Gover a way to connect with the past, present and future of his people. Since coming to ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder, for example, he’s worked at the Lynch Site, a 13th-14th century town in eastern Nebraska that was once home to the ancestors of today’s Pawnee.

“I get to walk on the same surfaces that my people walked on and pick up their things,” Shield Chief Gover said.

Stories of the Past

Born in New Mexico, Shield Chief Gover moved to the suburbs of Washington, D.C., when he was in second grade.

“As a young kid, I was always doing Indian stuff like going to powwows,” Shield Chief Gover said. “I never saw myself as different until I moved to Northern Virginia.”

Today, he sees that difference as an asset. As a graduate student in Wyoming and now at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ, he’s made the case that archaeologists need to do a better job of incorporating Indigenous oral traditions into their research.

He touched on the Pawnee story of Closed-Man — a leader who, according to tradition, gathered communities of American Indians in what is today Nebraska to found the Skidi Federation, one of the four tribes that comprise the modern-day Pawnee Nation.

Archaeologists have unearthed evidence of the cultural shift that followed roughly 600 years ago at places like the Lynch Site. It’s marked by a transition from communities living in small, squareshaped homes to much larger earth lodge towns. But spoken stories fill in details that are beyond the scope of those chronological records: the names of people like Closed-Man, why the groups came together to form a federation and, even more broadly, what these early Americans thought and what motivated them.

“Archaeology is really about trying to figure out human behavior,” Shield Chief Gover said. “But people’s thoughts and beliefs, their dreams, don’t preserve in the archaeological record. If we talk to the descendants of these communities, we can find a modern analogue for those questions.”

Two Worlds

Roger Echo-Hawk (Hist’90; MA’94), a Pawnee citizen and historian living in Boulder, agreed. He’s collaborated with Shield Chief Gover, and they both argue that taking oral traditions seriously can make archaeological research better.

“The more we know about history, the more ways we have to be ourselves,” EchoHawk said. “If we just have the archaeology or oral traditions, those are interesting insights. But together they tell a richer story.”

As Shield Chief Gover has pursued his graduate training, he’s also tried to spend more time in Oklahoma visiting his relatives. He sits on the board of directors for the Museum of the Pawnee Nation in Pawnee, Oklahoma. And his family, motivated by the life of his grandfather, has been supportive of his choices.

On one such visit, Shield Chief Gover’s uncle gave him a piece of advice that the young researcher has taken to heart.

“You come from two worlds,” his uncle told him. “Archaeology has taught you the Chaticks-Taka way, the white man way. You need to come back home to Pawnee to learn about the Chaticks-si-Chaticks way, the Pawnee way.”

Photos by Matt Tyrie

American Indians and archaeologists have had a long and often fractious history. Carlton Shield Chief Gover is trying to change that.

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Class of 2020 Spotlight: Josh Ney

Anonymous — Thu, 30 Apr 2020 18:29:34 +0000

Class of 2020 Spotlight: Josh Ney Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 04/30/2020 - 12:29

Josh Ney (Fin, Mgmt'20) was born and raised in the small mountain town of Coal Creek Canyon, ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ. During his freshman year at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder, Josh joined the Herd Leadership Council. He since has held multiple leadership positions on the council, including business relations chair and executive advisor. Josh also has served as president of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ's student government, executive board member of Leeds' student government and chair of the Council of Colleges and Schools, to name a few.

Josh helped execute The Herd's migration to a dues-free organization and played a critical role in the expansion of the Leadership Council from 11 to 23 student leaders. At student Alumni Association events, he was the first to show up (always wearing a Herd shirt), and the first to crack a joke when things became too serious.

We sat down with Josh over Zoom to hear more about his time at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ and what is next for him.

What are some highlights from your ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ experience?

I have been very fortunate to have had many opportunities and have learned a ton from my experiences. Leading the legislative branch of student government was an incredible leadership experience and I learned so much about how organizations work, conflict resolution and representation. Another highlight was on the Herd Leadership Council — I was able to establish connections between the Alumni Association and local Boulder businesses by working directly with companies to create partnerships that would benefit students. A final highlight is serving as a Leeds Ambassador to share my experiences with incoming students and show them why ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ is a great place to go to college.

You gained a great depth of knowledge about this institution’s inner workings. Do you have any points of reflection to share about ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder?

Having the privilege of meeting many university staff, administrators and faculty, one thing I always enjoyed is how much they all care for students. Each has a role to play at the university, but the core value driving these people is the students. The school also has so many resources for students, ranging from personal well-being to a vast wealth of knowledge students can dive into. It is quite amazing to have been able to take advantage of these resources while I have been here, and I wish I had more time as there are a ton more things I never had the chance to do.

What makes you the most excited about being a Class of 2020 Buff?

Being a Class of 2020 Buff is definitely a special thing and I am excited to join a network of hundreds of thousands of people who have gone through the same university, yet have had completely unique experiences. Despite the current circumstances and disappointment of not being able to walk with my fellow graduates, I am looking forward to life beyond this pandemic. It will be an odd time to transition between phases in our lives, but I know we will make it through and come out stronger on the other side.

What’s next for you after leaving ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder?

After graduating, I plan to spend the summer hiking and backpacking and aspire to finish all of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ’s majestic fourteeners. Come August, I am extremely excited to start my career as a financial analyst at a large aerospace company, and am extremely grateful to ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ for preparing me with all I need to begin the next phase of my life there.

What are two interesting things we should know about you?

I am an avid lover of the outdoors and my passions revolve around hiking, snowboarding, climbing and just enjoying nature. I really enjoy college as it provides a platform for me to learn and I hope to continue learning as long as I live.

Josh served on the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Herd Leadership Council and as president of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ's student government.

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Q&A: Emily Fairfax Wants You To Appreciate Beavers

Anonymous — Tue, 16 Apr 2019 21:29:42 +0000

Q&A: Emily Fairfax Wants You To Appreciate Beavers Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 04/16/2019 - 15:29

Ula Chrobak

[video:https://youtu.be/IAM94B73bzE]

In February, Emily Fairfax (PhDGeol’19) made a 44-second video about beavers. To her suprise, the video blew up on twitter, with about 5,000 shares and 15,000 likes. Here, Fairfax explains what captivates her about wetlands and beavers, what she’s learned and why we all should see beavers in a positive light.

How did you get interested in beavers?

In elementary school [in Indiana], we had musicals about wetlands and we did field trips to wetlands and I always thought they were the greatest. Then in college I led wilderness trips up in the Boundary Waters of Minnesota with canoes. There’s tons of beaver dams up there. It was really impressive being so far out there and seeing these carefully engineered structures that were holding back water.

After college, I was working and I wasn’t a huge fan of the subject matter of my job. I was watching documentaries about wetlands, and I got to this one about beavers. All of my old interests resparked, and I was just, like, ‘I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna be a beaver researcher.’

How are you making the beaver research happen?

My adviser told me that if I won my own money for my projects, I was welcome to study whatever interested me. So I got a large fellowship that funded most of my research.

How widespread are beavers?

They're everywhere! Beavers have been in North America for millions of years. We know that the dam-building species or behavior is at least seven million years old, because that’s the oldest fossil dam we’ve found.

Before the trapping boom [which peaked in the 1800s], there was somewhere between 60 and 400 million in North America, or about a beaver per kilometer of stream. Then we trapped them down to almost nothing. Today there are somewhere between 10 and 15 million. They’re everywhere from Northern Mexico all the way to the Arctic, coast to coast. I study them in deserts and dry environments.

Tell me about your research.

I use remote sensing data to look at creeks in Nevada that have pockets of beaver damming, so that I'm able to compare the sections that have beavers to the sections that don't have beavers. I looked over four years: Three drought years and one wet. Over all those years, the beaver areas had a much lusher wetland.

Between drought years and non-drought years, the areas that had beavers didn’t really respond differently, which indicated that [the wetland plants] don’t really feel a multiyear drought in the beaver ponds. But in the areas of the creek that didn’t have beavers, the riparian wetland [wetland adjacent to the creeks] was really hit hard during the drought years, so it’s much more sensitive to multiyear droughts.

Was your study the first to look at that effect?

Yeah, there was [no research] directly tying beavers to that ecosystem impact.

What’s the significance of making wetlands more resilient?

Wetlands are extremely biodiverse. In the beaver wetlands I was studying there are threatened trout species, threatened frog species. A lot of insects will breed there, birds come there to nest. If you’re putting these systems into drought, those species are going to be hit hard. But if you can maintain these pockets of habitat [with the help of beavers], even when you have something like a drought that disturbs that ecosystem, it can still make it. It’s putting life support on the ecosystem.

A beaver dam in ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ. (Photo courtesy Emily Fairfax)

What are you working on now?

The wildfire project, which was the subject of that video.

I saw these beavers maintaining ecosystems through drought and I wanted to see how far it can go. What’s more extreme than a drought? A fire! It's hotter and drier.

During fires, are these [beaver areas] actually staying green and wet? And how big of fires can they actually persist through? I imagine a wetland of any kind is going to make it through a little brush fire, but we're talking about big crowning ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ [which spread at treetops independent of the ground fire].

I have data from five states that have five really big fires [and] also have beaver dams in them. I looked at each creek and compared where it stayed green to where there were beaver dams, and it’s an extremely tight correlation.

So, even with big fires, the dams helped the wetlands stay green.

Yeah, they were still preserved.

How does climate change tie into your research?

Most places where I look at beavers are getting increasingly hotter and drier.

I think that looking to things like beavers — ecosystem engineers that would be there anyway — is going to be a more sustainable way than trying to continue to manage every single wetland ourselves.

Does that mean reintroducing them to areas?

It means reintroduction and then also protection. A lot of states are starting to make more steps toward things like installing beaver dam analogues, which is when people build fake beaver dams, but also reintroduce beavers. And then, ultimately, putting policies into place where people can’t trap and shoot beavers without a permit. I think that’s going to really help their population grow and be more stable.

Tell me about the video you made.

Yeah! The base of the video is corkboard, and I covered it with green construction paper. And then I cut all the little pieces out of felt. The flames in the video are felt clumps that I sewed together, and for the dam I was just laying felt on top of itself to get a little more height. I already had the little beaver toy — I have lots of beaver toys.

I used my phone and an app to take about 300 pictures and stitch them all together to make the stop-motion. Between every picture I’d push the beaver toy and move the flames. I took it all and added the sounds in iMovie. All in all, it was about 2.5 hours of work.

Have you done other creative science communication projects?

I participated in a contest to haiku my research. I was one of the winners.

[The winning haiku:
Vanishing wetlands
Wilderness scarred by drought, fire
Beavers save the day]

Tell me about the reception the video had.

It exploded. I put it on my Twitter and I went for a hike and I didn’t have cell reception. When I got back from the hike my phone pinged and it was my friend. She was like “yo, your tweet blew up.” I was not expecting that, but it reached a really broad audience.

One of the coolest things was seeing it get retweeted in so many different languages and all around the world. I think it helped a lot that there was no speaking in the video.

I think if you can just think about how to take your science and distill it down into something really digestible, then you can actually reach a really broad audience.

What do you hope the impact will be?

First, I hope that other scientists think about how they can also get their research out there. There’s so much cool science going on and I think everyone should hear about it. It’s on the scientists to take it to a level where it is digestible by the general public.

And then, I hope people like beavers more. They’ve struggled with PR. They are 70-pound rodents, which can be hard for some people to enjoy. I wanted [the video] to be a resource for people, so if they're confronted with a beaver they can think, “Ok, I did learn about this, they're not bad, they are good.”

Here, Fairfax explains what captivates her about wetlands and beavers, what she’s learned through her research and why we all should all see beavers in a positive light.

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Dreamers Among Us

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Jun 2018 15:10:00 +0000

Dreamers Among Us Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 06/01/2018 - 09:10

Eric Gershon

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ 100 ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder students are undocumented immigrants with federal DACA status. They’re doing amazing things. But planning for the future isn’t easy.

Alan Sanchez thinks far ahead in time and far away in space.

With one course to go for a joint bachelor’s-master’s degree in aerospace engineering, the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder student has set his sights on a career in spacecraft propulsion. Long-term, he’s ready to ride all the way to Mars to help develop a viable human habitat there.

Here on Earth, he’s been doing all the right things to cultivate the hard and soft skills that will come in handy as a member of high-stakes technical teams.

Besides immersing himself in physics, fluid dynamics and philosophy, he’s worked a series of paid jobs while attending school full-time, including roles with the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ-based National Snow and Ice Data Center and the engineering college's Precision Laser Diagnostics Lab. He’s been a resident adviser in Libby Hall, a private tutor and a childcare provider at a Boulder school where immigrant parents learn to speak and read English.

Sanchez (AeroEngr’17; MS’18) has an internship with Tesla now. On the side, he’s a competitive breakdancer.

But more than time and space stand between him and his ambitions.

I have lived most of my life in a state of limbo.”

“I’m not a U.S. citizen or a permanent resident,” he said.

Sanchez, 23, is one of an estimated 1-4 million people in the United States born in a foreign country, brought to the U.S. as children and raised here without legal immigration status, often referred to as “Dreamers.” He came to ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ from Mexico at 8 months old and grew up in Denver, the youngest of three children of undocumented immigrant parents. His father operates an HVAC repair business, his mother runs a liquor store.

At ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder, Sanchez is one of about 100 undocumented students with temporary relief from deportation under the federal Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, or DACA, established in 2012. It also offers a Social Security number and permission to work.

Without work, most DACA students couldn’t afford to attend ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ, given family circumstances and their ineligibility for federal financial aid. Even with multiple jobs and in-state tuition, many can barely afford it.

“I always had at least one job,” Sanchez said. “There were periods when I had three.”

DACA helps, but hardly resolves the predicament of students like Sanchez and Shiyan Zhang (Acct, Fin’18), who met through the Inspired Dreamers, a campus advocacy group founded by DACA students. DACA doesn’t make them citizens or provide a pathway to legal status, and it’s valid for two-year stretches only, leaving them perpetually in limbo.

“You cannot plan for the future,” said Zhang, a Grand Junction (Colo.) High School graduate whose parents brought her to the U.S. from China via Botswana when she was 5 years old. “So you learn to live in the moment.”

That doesn’t make the moment comfortable: In September, the Justice Department said it would end DACA.

Federal courts have temporarily blocked the plan, allowing individuals with existing DACA protections to renew. The government stopped taking first-time applications, but a separate court ruling in April could force it to resume.

Were DACA to go away, ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ students like Sanchez and Zhang could be subject to arrest and deportation to countries that are as foreign to them as ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ is familiar.

Besides the personal cost to students and their families, the U.S. would lose the benefit of the skills they acquired here, said Violeta Raquel Chapin, a clinical professor at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Law School who co-advises the Inspired Dreamers with David Aragon, assistant vice chancellor for diversity, learning and student success.

“And I think we lose any kind of moral authority to say that we try to do things that are right and decent,” Chapin said.

You cannot plan for the future. So you learn to live in the moment.”

For Sanchez, his immigration status has complicated the pursuit of internships in his chosen field, even with firms eager to have him: In many cases, federal rules forbid aerospace and defense contractors from employing foreign nationals.

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder, like many universities, has publicly declared its support for DACA and taken steps to help DACA students navigate the extreme uncertainty of life amid shifting federal immigration policies.

Chancellor Philip P. DiStefano joined more than 700 university leaders who signed an open letter drafted by Pomona College declaring that “DACA should be upheld, continued and expanded,” calling the policy “a moral imperative and a national necessity.” ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ has started a relief fund to help students meet emergency expenses, including $495 DACA renewal application fees, and expanded financial aid for tuition. Chapin said she and her ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ law students have helped at least 50 students fill out and file renewal applications.

She also lends her ear to students wrestling with fear and frustration as they try to set a course for their lives amid national discord over immigration policy. She’s invited all of them to her home for a barbecue in June.

“It’s a little bit of a social worker aspect, which I’ve always embraced as a defense lawyer,” said Chapin, a former Washington, D.C., public defender. “You meet with people in the most challenging moments in their lives. You listen to them, hear feelings, anxieties and emotions. I try to do that as often as I can.”

Sanchez isn’t the sort to dwell on negative thoughts. He’s an engineer, and engineers are pragmatic. He’s got problems to solve and an opportunity at Tesla to seize, an opportunity that could spawn others.

There’s meanwhile the business of living and making plans amid profound uncertainty. Sanchez wants financial security, so he’s been looking into Roth IRAs. He’s working to set up a scholarship for first-year ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder students who can’t afford to live on campus, as he once couldn’t. He tries to make time to dance.

Sanchez worries less about himself and his siblings, he said, than about his undocumented parents, who are ineligible for DACA.

“There’s nothing to protect them,” he said.

It weighs on him.

The needs of Shiyan Zhang’s younger siblings in Grand Junction add urgency to her own search for stability. Their parents have divorced. From Boulder, Zhang helps look after the kids, taking responsibility even for registering them for school, she said.

Zhang must look out for herself, too, of course. She wants to move up in the world, and has been offered a summer internship with a Denver firm she’d like to join full-time. But she doesn’t know if she’ll be able to take it, given her immigration status.

“You feel so helpless,” she said.

One thing Sanchez and Zhang can do is share their stories, two among millions.

Twice in recent months Sanchez has addressed ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder alumni audiences, once in Los Angeles, once in Washington, D.C.

“I have lived most of my life in a state of limbo, not knowing exactly where I stand and who around me would like to see me fall,” he said at the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder Next conference in Los Angeles. “It means the world to me that ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder is openly supportive of DACA students, and I can’t thank them enough for that.”

Afterward, an alumnus approached him and offered a ring as a token of solidarity.

“When you graduate, give this ring to the next DACA student you think should have [it],” Sanchez said the man told him.

Soon Alan Sanchez will have two degrees from a leading American aerospace engineering program. He’d like to put them to work for America.

Photos by Glenn Asakawa

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ 100 ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder students are undocumented immigrants with federal DACA status. They’re doing amazing things. But planning for the future isn’t easy.

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