War

Campus News Briefs - Fall 2017

Anonymous — Fri, 01 Sep 2017 18:54:01 +0000

Campus News Briefs - Fall 2017 Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 09/01/2017 - 12:54

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Herbarium

A botanical library of dried plants, some dating back centuries.

1902

Year founded

535,000

Plant specimens, lichens and mosses in collection

1862

Date on one of the oldest specimens

Years into digitization of collection, housed in Clare Small

Percent of plants digitized so far, approx.

Four

Days open to public each week

One

New book about ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ flora published with help from the Herbarium

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Brings Back Fraternities

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder has established its own Interfraternity Council (IFC), allowing Greek social fraternities to affiliate directly with the university for the first time since 2005.

Two fraternities are on board for the 2017-18 school year: Phi Delta Theta and Sigma Tau Gamma.

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ is in talks with others. ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ severed ties with social fraternities after pledge Lynn “Gordie” Bailey Jr. died from alcohol poisoning in 2005. Fraternities formed their own off-campus councils but were denied university privileges.

“We know that, for some students, being a member of a fraternity or sorority builds community, provides a support network and frames lasting friendships well beyond their college years,” said ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ vice chancellor of student affairs Christina Gonzales.

Members of the new ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Interfraternity Council must sign an agreement requiring them to follow all university policies.

Heard Around Campus

The functioning of our society is based in large part on our ability to transport food, fuel and other goods — activities that would be severely affected by a nuclear war."

— ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder physicist Brian Toon on his latest study concerning nuclear war’s agricultural and oceanic impacts.

What Lives in Your Showerhead?

It’s a fine time to clean your showerhead — you’ll find an entire microbial ecosystem living there.

But Noah Fierer wants a sample first.

The ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Boulder ecology and evolutionary biology professor and colleagues sent 1,500 kits to willing “citizen scientists” in nearly every state, Puerto Rico and parts of Europe, enlisting regular folks to swab their showerheads and return the slime samples to ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ for DNA testing.

The researchers are trying to develop a more complete picture of showerhead bacteria communities and the conditions that allow them to thrive. They’ll pay special attention to microbes that cause non-tuberculous mycobacterial disease (NTM).

For more on this study, click here.

Fraternities, nuclear war and showerhead ecosystems.

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A Pact with the Living

Anonymous — Fri, 13 Jan 2017 22:35:47 +0000

A Pact with the Living Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 01/13/2017 - 15:35

By Dan Eberhart (Edu'76)
(AuthorHouse, 351 pages; 2016)

Buy the Book

There is a fine line between those who go to war and those who vow to keep them from going. Supporting them on both sides of the divide are the loved ones left behind. A Pact with the Living is about war but is not a war story. It explores how--after all the battles, sacrifices, and loss--survivors on both sides of the divide carry on and come to peace with their grief.

On a cold December night in 1969, all American men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-six had their destinies decided by a small piece of paper pulled from a blue capsule, the first selective service lottery. Two men and a woman watching the event will cross paths for the first time. Their journeys through life will clash along the way then unite after going through hell and back.

A Pact with the Living will bring the reader to the Vietnam War Memorial and ask two questions. Are 58,000 names on a wall a just price to pay for a cause? What is the cost to avoid being a name on that wall? In the end, A Pact with the Living will show that the dead on either side of the divide never leave us. They will tell us that the soldier and the pacifist have more in common than not.

There is a fine line between those who go to war and those who vow to keep them from going. Supporting them on both sides of the divide are the loved ones left behind.

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Selling War: A Critical Look at the Military's PR Machine

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Jun 2016 21:16:41 +0000

Selling War: A Critical Look at the Military's PR Machine Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 06/14/2016 - 15:16

By Steven J. Alvarez (Jour'99)
(Potomac Books, 384 pages; 2016)

Buy the Book

In the spring of 2004, army reservist and public affairs officer Steven J. Alvarez waited to be called up as the U.S. military stormed Baghdad and deposed Saddam Hussein. But soon after President Bush’s famous PR stunt in which an aircraft carrier displayed the banner “Mission Accomplished,” the dynamics of the war shifted.Selling War recounts how the U.S. military lost the information war in Iraq by engaging the wrong audiences—that is, the Western media—by ignoring Iraqi citizens and the wider Arab population, and by paying mere lip service to the directive to “Put an Iraqi face on everything.” In the absence of effective communication from the U.S. military, the information void was swiftly filled by Al Qaeda and, eventually, ISIS. As a result, efforts to create and maintain a successful, stable country were complicated and eventually frustrated.

Alvarez couples his experiences as a public affairs officer in Iraq with extensive research on communication and government relations to expose why communications failed and led to the breakdown on the ground. A revealing glimpse into the inner workings of the military’s PR machine, where personnel become stewards of presidential legacies and keepers of flawed policies, Selling Warprovides a critical review of the outdated communication strategies executed in Iraq. Alvarez’s candid account demonstrates how a fundamental lack of understanding about how to wage an information war has led to the conditions we face now: the rise of ISIS and the return of U.S. forces to Iraq.

In the spring of 2004, army reservist and public affairs officer Steven J. Alvarez waited to be called up as the U.S. military stormed Baghdad and deposed Saddam Hussein.

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Then: February 1968

Anonymous — Sun, 01 Dec 2013 07:00:00 +0000

Then: February 1968 Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 12/01/2013 - 00:00

The last U.S. troops left Vietnam on March 29, 1973, in the wake of the cease-fire agreement engineered at the Paris Peace Accords. An estimated 58,000 Americans and 2 million Vietnamese died during the war. Sobering images like this one in the 1970 yearbook of the Khe Sanh airstrip fueled anti-war sentiment.

In 1975, Vo Nguyen Giap, the ruthless general who led the North Vietnamese guerilla army, toppled U.S.-backed South Vietnam. Giap died in Hanoi last month at the age of 102.

Photography by David Douglas Duncan, 1970 Coloradan Yearbook

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WWII - Women at War

Anonymous — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 07:00:00 +0000

WWII - Women at War Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 12/01/2011 - 00:00

Clay Evans

How did World War II fuel a surge in opportunities for women?

When Tom Brokaw wrote his paean to the Greatest Generation, he left them out. Filmmaker Ken Burns skipped them when he documented The War.

They are the estimated 100,000 women who joined the military during World War II. The Navy Women Accepted for Voluntary Emergency Service (WAVES), their Coast Guard counterparts, the SPARS, and the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) provided critical support to the American war effort.

“It’s really a shame,” says Margaret Thorngate, 88, who served as a WAVES yeoman, or secretary, in San Francisco. “Nobody under the age of 60 has even heard of the WAVES.”

But ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ journalism associate professor Kathleen Ryan hopes to ensure the women’s contributions are never forgotten with her documentary and multi-platform media project, Homefront Heroines.

“Part of the appeal of the story is that it’s a largely untold history,” says Ryan, who joined the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ-Boulder faculty in 2010. “They really have not received the recognition they deserve.”

Ryan, whose mother served in the WAVES, spent 20 years working in television before going to graduate school at the University of Oregon. There, she decided that the Navy women would make the perfect subject for her dissertation.

The documentary is based on interviews with 52 WAVES and SPARS she did for her doctoral project, focusing on three women, including Thorngate. The film also makes use of five rolls of 16-millimeter film of female vets that have “never seen the light of day.”

Last summer Thorngate, who helped paint the USS Missouri during the war, visited the venerable battleship in Hawaii with Ryan for the documentary.

“When people aboard the Missouri heard I was a World War II vet, they were all very interested,” Thorngate says. “They start realizing that this is a generation that is passing by.”

The film is currently in post production. Ryan plans on pitching it to public television, cable channels and film festivals when it’s completed.

But she’s also pushing the story out on newer media platforms with the help of intern Laura Hampton, a 22-year-old ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ journalism student. Besides leveraging such “old school” media as Facebook and Twitter, Hampton is using a “geotagging” smart phone application to “tag” physical locations with stories, photos and videos related to WAVES history.

“Kathleen is sharing a part of history that a lot of people don’t know,” Hampton says. “It’s really cool being a girl and seeing these women take that role, which was really unheard of at the time.”

The WAVES program began in 1942. The strictly male hierarchy imagined the “gals” could handle a few basic but crucial tasks — secretarial work, storekeeping, decoding messages.

But it didn’t take long, Ryan says, for women to move into other, more critical roles. They got into weather forecasting and helped repair planes. They trained pilots and served as gunners’ mates teaching seamen how to shoot moving targets from moving vehicles.

Many of the WAVES, especially those in instructional positions, had been teachers before the war.

“Early on, men were skeptical, but very quickly it became evident that women were more successful in training competent pilots than men,” Ryan says. “And so [men] pushed to be trained by women.”

Virtually all male trainers, by contrast, had come up through the Navy without previous teaching experience. Simply put, many of the women were better teachers.

Becoming a WAVE was no easy task. While the Navy accepted most able-bodied men, women had to be at least 20 years old, have finished high school and spent time on the job or pursuing higher education. To become an officer, women had to have completed at least two years of college.

“Initially, a lot of the women who came through had gone to teachers’ colleges,” Ryan says. “They had taught, they were a little older, they were good at this . . . This was their skill.”

The pioneer WAVES also had to fight ugly prejudice. World War II marked the first time women were allowed in the military.

Ryan says men often resented their presence, as women entering the military were initially pitched as freeing men to fight overseas, but there was a perception that women were taking men’s jobs.

“Therefore, there were lots of derogatory rumors out there saying that the only women who joined were either prostitutes or lesbians,” Thorngate says. “But after a year or two the women proved themselves to be able to do the job without any ‘immoral conduct.’ ”

Ryan says the women she interviewed said they wanted to serve the country during a time of need, but that was far from their only motivation. Many joined because it was a steady job and an avenue for more education, although the G.I. Bill did not pass until 1944.

And then there were the uniforms. Designed by the famous French-American fashion designer Main Bocher, the Navy’s female togs were much coveted following the privation of the Depression years. With blue serge jackets and skirts in a classic cut, white or light blue blouses and a silky tie, the uniforms stood in stark contrast to the dowdy khaki outfits worn by women in the Women’s Army Corps, also known as WAC.

Ryan initially suspected the notion that women joined for the uniforms was a case of gross stereotyping. But she found all of her interview subjects “mentioned it — unsolicited — how gorgeous the uniforms were and how important that was.”

Thorngate is pleased that Ryan’s work will preserve an important part of American history, especially as her generation dies.

“Kathleen has been very instrumental and helpful in really bringing us back to life,” says Thorngate, who lives in Florence, Ore. “We are not dead! There is something to be appreciated in what we did.”

A snapshot of ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ-Boulder student soldiers today

Total student veterans and ROTC participants on the campus: 1,239
Veterans on campus: 797
Women: 92
Men: 705
Enrollment in an ROTC program on campus: 442
Women: 94
Men: 348
Students on active duty: 92

How did World War II fuel a surge in opportunities for women?

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Buff Tribute: Edward Rozek 1918-2009

Anonymous — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 06:00:00 +0000

Buff Tribute: Edward Rozek 1918-2009 Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 06/01/2009 - 00:00

Jim Sheeler

Edward Rozek

Near the end of World War II, a young Polish soldier, temporarily blinded by an anti-tank mine, began his new life in the dark.

By 1945, Edward Rozek had fled his homeland and spent time in a Nazi slave labor camp. He had fought his former captors in France and Germany, earning numerous medals. Then, as he spent nearly a year recovering from surgery on his eyes, he made a decision.

“Because he couldn’t see, he had plenty of time to think,” says Rozek’s wife, Elizabeth Rozek. “He began thinking, ‘Why is it that every generation or so the old men of one country send their young men to fight against the young men of another country?’ He decided that there had to be a better solution, and that started with teaching young people.”

Rozek died Feb. 19 in Boulder. He was 90.

When Rozek arrived in the United States, he carried $50 and a drive to find the best education in the country, his wife said. He worked on a dairy farm and in an auto shop to save enough money for tuition to Harvard, where he soon earned scholarships that carried him through advanced degrees.

For the next several decades, Rozek concentrated on studying his way into the top tiers of academia, earning a place as an international relations expert and vehement anti-communist. On campus, in the classroom and even in retirement, he consistently set sparks of debate and reveled each time they caught fire.

Rozek joined the ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ political science in 1956. Soon afterward, one of his students was an accounting major named Hank Brown (Acct’61, Law’69).

“I remember in the first class I had from him I missed the third lecture,” says Brown, who served as ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ president from 2005-2008. “And in a class of more than 250 he noticed I’d missed one lecture and he announced to the class that whoever knew me should tell me that I was to come to his office immediately…he made it clear to me that it was inexcusable that I miss a single class.”

During his 43 years at ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ, Rozek chaired the Institute for the Study of Comparative Politics and Ideologies and directed the Central East European Studies Program, among others. He was known to spend days preparing for a single lecture, and quickly earned a reputation for classes as riveting as they were demanding.

“He took great delight in engaging with people who would debate with him – especially those who disagreed with him,” said Brown, who now teaches in the same department where Rozek taught. “People who did that would often get the best grades in the class.”

Throughout the years, Rozek never wavered in his staunch warnings about what he saw as the constantly lingering threat of communism and in 1980 was tapped as an advisor to Ronald Reagan’s presidential campaign.

Following his retirement in 1999, Rozek focused his ire at university bureaucracy and what he saw as a lack of intellectual diversity, barraging local newspapers with editorials. He even trained his poison pen on a former student.

“Administrators were not his favorite group of people,” Brown says, in a not-so-subtle understatement. “I suspect that I was a bit of a disappointment to him in that regard.”

In 2008, Rozek bought a full-page advertisement in the Boulder Camera alleging a disparity between registered Democratic and Republican professors, claiming the university suffered from “ideological incest.”

“Ed’s view was that the purpose of an education is to get people to think, and if they don’t think they just accept,” says Elizabeth Rozek, to whom he dictated most of his op-ed articles. “He maintained that the purpose of education is not just ingestion of information. It’s learning to think for yourself.”

Despite his intimidating reputation, Rozek’s wife says he also remained guided by a compassion ingrained as he recovered from the injury that nearly blinded him in the war that shaped so much of his life. On his first visit back to Poland after the fall of communism, he spent hours at a Polish orphanage for blind and deaf children. After his death, his family directed all donations to the orphanage in his name.

“He was always mindful,” his wife says, “that there but for the grace of God, he could have gone.”

<p>Blindness leads to clarity.</p>

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War

Campus News Briefs - Fall 2017

ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Herbarium

ŷ���ڱ���Ƶ Brings Back Fraternities

Heard Around Campus

What Lives in Your Showerhead?

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A Pact with the Living

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Then: February 1968

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WWII - Women at War

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Buff Tribute: Edward Rozek 1918-2009

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ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Herbarium

ŷ��ڱ��Ƶ Brings Back Fraternities