PACES original content

Maintaining the Balance: Investigating the Language of Political Extremism on the Western Slope

Arielle Wiedenbeck — Wed, 30 Apr 2025 17:14:16 +0000

Maintaining the Balance: Investigating the Language of Political Extremism on the Western Slope Arielle Wiedenbeck Wed, 04/30/2025 - 11:14

Elaina Caywood

Amid rising political polarization, a team of CU Boulder researchers partner with community organizations on Colorado’s Western Slope to examine how language, activism and civic engagement intersect in the fight against political extremism.

A study by David Rozado and Eric Kaufmann shows that U.S. news outlets increasingly use terms that denote far-right and far-left extremists, regardless of their political leanings. News outlets have increasingly used extremist terms and language since 2015, with a rapid increase since 2019. The study demonstrates a strong polarizing dynamic regarding how news outlets discuss political extremism. Polarization can result in a communicative standstill.

How can people discuss politics without falling into extremist language? And how can news outlets and public forums maintain their neutrality when referencing instances of political extremism? These are tough questions, but we can look to the work of Leah Sprain and her team, who conduct community-engaged research surrounding the language of political extremism on Colorado’s Western Slope.

The work originated during Sprain’s fellowship with the Office for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship’s Higher Education and Democracy Initiative (HEDI) and community partners on the Western Slope. One group that particularly interested Sprain and her team was Restore the Balance.

Restore the Balance is a group with members from across the political spectrum. According to its website, the group works together for the purpose of “building an alternative to political extremism” through their political candidate rankings, petitions and letters to the editor, which can be found on their website.

Leah Sprain speaks to former congressional candidate Adam Frisch and PACES executive director David Meens at the Upper Colorado River Basin Water Forum at Colorado Mesa University, Oct. 30-31, 2023.

“They [Restore the Balance] try to bring together a group of people to think differently about how they engage in politics,” explained Sprain. “That effort really sparked this research project—thinking about how to make sense of when community groups try to call out things in their community.”

Calling out extremism within the Western Slope resonated with the community, drawing people to Restore the Balance meetings and encouraging responses to their petitions. Since its inception in 2022, Restore the Balance has gained 2,974 signatures for their pledge to address political extremism. However, the universal approach of Restore the Balance didn’t so easily “jibe with local politics.” The more the group tried to call out extremism, the more critics called them extremists.

Sprain’s research provokes questions surrounding the trade-offs of calling out extremism. While the effort deeply connects with many people, it also faces certain types of politicization, which could dampen the message. Should people accept this, or are there ways to work against these phenomena without using the language of extremism?

By analyzing Restore the Balance and Letters to the Editor in Grand Junction’s The Daily Sentinel, Sprain expands her view into the community’s conversation. These differing media outlets help frame research questions about what political extremism means to people on the Western Slope, what it means to address it, and more broadly, “how people think about democracy in times of crises.”

Given the nature of political communication, the research team takes an interdisciplinary approach. Professor of Journalism Mike McDevitt focuses on media aspects of communication, Associate Chair of Political Science Janet Donovan examines the political aspects, and Associate Professor of Communication Leah Sprain leads the team. The team also studies political theory approaches and measures laid out by Rod Hartin his book Civic Hope to compare Hart’s observations with their own observations made on the Western Slope.

“We look at the language of extremism and the dynamics within Restore the Balance and the Letters to the Editor,” said Sprain. “We can trace how people discussed political extremism before and after the creation of Restore the Balance and how the community reacted. From those reactions, we explore who gets called an extremist, the discursive practices around it, and what it means to think of political extremists as a category.”

To better understand some of these issues, the team engaged the CU Boulder community. By directly involving students, they gained valuable insight into the opinions of a younger generation of politically-engaged people. During Donovan’s fall 2024 class focused on civic engagement, political science students reacted to some concepts of civic hope and political extremism, analyzed Letters to the Editor and even wrote their own letters. By comparing the ideas generated by CU Boulder students with those in the Letters to the Editor—written primarily by older, white men—the team observed different perspectives about civic engagement. From this, new questions arose, such as: What makes a good community member or political conversation? Are these ideas tied to generational aspects? Connecting this back to the political situation in Grand Junction, these insights sparked discussions about which political theories are most relevant and useful when tackling political extremism today.

“We’re trying to take the research through all the ways in which students can help us think about these concepts and how we can generate pedagogical insights from that engagement,” explained Sprain.

CU Boulder students both challenged and affirmed the concept of civic hope, which contributed to their development of the concept. In turn, they learned about the relationship between internal efficacy — the extent to which people think they can make a difference in politics — to the broader notion of civic hope. These pedagogical and political insights from the students will be presented by Donovan at a regional political science conference this April.

Sprain’s previous work with Restore the Balance, during her HEDI Fellowship, examined what organization members were trying to accomplish, how they had responded to political events in their community and how best to communicate their responses. The team’s current research seeks to further understand the organization’s goals and develop approaches to addressing political extremism.

“Restore the Balance is deciding what kind of organization they want to be. So, thinking about this research might help them figure out their own issues. We’re asking questions they might not immediately consider,” said Sprain.

Through this model of community engagement, Sprain’s team collaborates with other groups on the Western Slope, such as the League of Women Voters. “Community-engaged research keeps us from being narrowly focused and allows us to think about how this research might address broader questions surrounding strategies for organizing and conducting civic work,” Sprain reflected.

Another aspect of this project involves writing workshops with people at Restore the Balance. In April, the team shared initial findings with the Restore the Balance board to observe their reactions, creating a reciprocal exchange in which the researchers learned more about community perspectives while those at Restore the Balance enjoyed a conversation that helped inform their ongoing civic work.

Following the success of their April workshop, the team will continue to plan more workshops for the fall. Their goal is to share their empirical research while involving the community, gauging reactions, and generating a productive conversation about the language of political extremism.

These conversations will help situate political dynamics within the community context so that academic insights don’t stand alone but become part of the communal conversation, all while maintaining an open, bipartisan attitude.

“The workshops will bring people together and allow them to talk across different perspectives,” Sprain described. “As researchers, we sincerely hold space for a broader range of reactions, as our research can benefit from these different perspectives, much like how democracy can benefit from multiple perspectives.”

This work raises big, important questions. While the research remains in the question-asking phase, the most important part is asking these questions and learning how to best engage communities in political conversations.

“So many parts of civic life and community democracy feel difficult and fraught. Because of what’s happening on the national level, many people are turning locally,” reflected Sprain. “I hope this effort provides research that helps people think about which types of civic action respond most effectively to what’s happening in their communities.”

As Sprain and her team continue researching political extremism on the Western Slope, we can all meditate on how best to participate in civic action without resorting to political extremist language. This engaged research is ongoing but will hopefully result in valuable insights that can help us navigate daily, changing political interactions.

To stay informed about Sprain’s work on political extremism on the Western Slope, visit the project website, Overcoming Extremism: Visibility and Voice on the Western Slope.

Amid rising political polarization, a team of CU Boulder researchers partner with community organizations on Colorado’s Western Slope to examine how language, activism and civic engagement intersect in the fight against political extremism.

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Members of the Restore the Balance board. Photo Credit: Restore the Balance

Outdoor Recreation Offers a Path to Community Resilience

Arielle Wiedenbeck — Wed, 30 Apr 2025 12:54:33 +0000

Outdoor Recreation Offers a Path to Community Resilience Arielle Wiedenbeck Wed, 04/30/2025 - 06:54

Arielle Wiedenbeck

CU Boulder’s Rural Technical Assistance program helps rural Colorado towns use their natural assets to strengthen local economies, deepen partnerships and define their own futures.

In small towns across Colorado, where economic challenges and limited resources often run deep, a new kind of planning is taking root — one that blends grassroots visioning with technical support, and centers outdoor recreation as a tool for long-term resilience.

The Colorado Rural Technical Assistance Program, or RTAP, was informed by a growing interest in outdoor recreation as a driver for rural economic development — an interest reflected in national-level programming, such as the Recreation Economy for Rural Communities (RERC) planning assistance initiative. More than 100 communities applied for the RERC pilot program in 2019, with many Colorado communities among them. While several were strong candidates, the program aimed to achieve a broad geographic distribution with only a limited number of spots available. As a result, many Colorado applicants were not selected despite the strength of their proposals.

This information was shared with the Colorado Outdoor Recreation Industry Office (OREC) and Natalie Ooi, a teaching associate professor in the Masters of the Environment Graduate Program (MENV), who saw an opportunity to create a Colorado-specific initiative that could support more communities across the state. In partnership with Matt Nuñez, senior program manager at the OREC, RTAP began to take shape. Using RERC as a model, they designed an accelerated timeline that enables MENV graduate students to co-create, facilitate and execute a community action plan with a community-driven process in a one-semester course.

“It kind of came together sort of perfectly,” Ooi said.

Although the course lasts one semester for students, for Ooi and her partners, it’s a yearlong endeavor. From July to December, they work closely with the selected communities to lay groundwork before students begin. This includes building relationships, forming a steering committee and completing a self-assessment.

“Communities need time to decide if this program is right for them. This isn’t a marketing plan; it’s not a trails development plan,” Ooi said. “At a broad level, we’re really focused on what outdoor recreation means to the community and what they would like to see in terms of tying together outdoor recreation and economic development. We want to give every community the attention they need.”

Emily Glass, a graduate student in her final year of the MENV program, said she joined the 2025 RTAP cohort after many recommendations from peers.

“I have always been intrigued by how durable outdoor recreation can be in the midst of the complex social and environmental issues we find ourselves facing,” Glass said. “I believe that a love of being in nature can be a universal human experience, and the joy from that helps bridge our own divides.”

Community members from Lake City, CO, attend RTAP's two-day community visioning workshop in 2024. Photo credit: Natalie Ooi

In Colorado, outdoor recreation is a powerful tool for economic development, Ooi explained. Outdoor recreation assets and amenities encourage people to spend time and money in these communities — but it’s not a one-size-fits-all solution. According to Glass, this makes outdoor recreation “a great moldable option for rural communities to build resilience around.”

In the workshops, which were held in mid-March, topics such as community-identity, sustainable development and responsible recreation, environmental concerns and infrastructure capacity often underpinned the conversations about outdoor recreation development. Sometimes, the focus was on better aligning economic development and tourism initiatives to avoid duplicative efforts.

“In Leadville, one of their biggest challenges was that it’s a really dedicated bunch of people. But … it’s the same group of 20 to 30 people who do everything,” Ooi said. “Some of our focus was on how do we better coordinate [everyone] to come together and identify who is doing what?”

In La Junta, RTAP helped connect community organizations with regional partners working toward similar goals, like the broader Regional Partnerships Initiative from Colorado Parks and Wildlife. In Rangely and Dinosaur, RTAP facilitated a joint effort to organize a clean-up day and strengthen the towns’ relationships with the Bureau of Land Management.

“Part of the work we did was bringing key stakeholders from across the two communities into the same room … and realize, ‘Hey, we have common aims and interests and previous misunderstandings,’” Ooi said. “It’s helped to establish kind of this precedent of ‘we work together out here, even if we’re in different counties.’”

Now in its third year, Ooi said she is blown away by how communities have shown up to the workshops.

“We’ve had the best attendance at our community workshops than we’ve had historically,” Ooi said. She credits the rise in attendees to improvements in RTAP’s process and more engaged community contacts.

Despite strong engagement, Ooi said gaining community trust remains an ongoing challenge — one RTAP is uniquely positioned to meet.

“The key point of difference [for RTAP] is this plan is entirely community-driven,” Ooi said. “The graduate student team and our partners, we’re just facilitators. We’re not here to say, ‘this needs to go in the plan.’ Nothing should be in there that the community or someone in the community isn’t passionate about.”

Although not every community member attends the meetings, Ooi said the steering committees are composed to provide a “broader and more representative cross-section" than what is typical in community planning.

One of the most frequent questions RTAP gets is about funding. While RTAP currently doesn’t have the capacity to provide funds to implement the community action plans, the team hopes to work with OREC to establish seed funding in the future. For now, representatives from Great Outdoors Colorado, Colorado Parks and Wildlife’s Regional Partnership Initiative and other state agencies attend workshops to help guide long-term funding strategies. In addition, the community action plans developed by students include tools and tips for finding funding and resources, setting priorities, measuring impact and identifying timelines. Colorado State University Extension has recently partnered with RTAP to provide implementation support for the following 12-24 months.

Despite the challenges, community feedback has been overwhelmingly positive.

“It has brought communities together. It has gotten them to understand what meaningful stakeholder engagement can look like, and it’s helped them go for other grants in areas they otherwise wouldn’t have,” Ooi said.

Like the communities they serve, RTAP has had a lasting impact on students.

“The RTAP project directed my career after school,” said Conner Borkowski, former MENV student who worked with Leadville in 2023. Borkowski now works as the program and special projects coordinator with the Pikes Peak Outdoor Recreation Alliance.

Glass shared that working with the Beulah community shaped her understanding of what impactful community-engaged scholarship looks like.

“When designed meaningfully, community-engaged work is an opportunity to weave together different perspectives, ideas and expertise that otherwise may not have come together … the backbone of community-engaged work is collaboration.”

The Colorado Rural Technical Assistance Program is funded in part by the Office for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship. Applications for the 2025–26 cohort open Summer 2025.

CU Boulder’s Rural Technical Assistance program helps rural Colorado towns use their natural assets to strengthen local economies, deepen partnerships and define their own futures.

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MENV graduate students Abigale Purvis, Emily Palanjian, Jessica Hertzberg and Sarah McLaurin help facilitate the Keystone Workshop, March 12-13, 2025. Photo Credit: Natalie Ooi

Announcing the Spring 2025 Tier 1 and 2 Grantees

Arielle Wiedenbeck — Tue, 18 Mar 2025 19:32:03 +0000

Announcing the Spring 2025 Tier 1 and 2 Grantees Arielle Wiedenbeck Tue, 03/18/2025 - 13:32

Arielle Wiedenbeck

From an AI literacy platform to a community short film, 13 total projects received over $50,000 in funding. See the full list of grantees below.

Tier 2 (formerly Community Impact Grants)
Spring 2025 Recipients

Colorado Climate Seal & Resilient Futures Teacher Workshop
Tory Nau, Program Manager for the We Are Water Project
CIRES Center for Education, Engagement, and Evaluation (CEEE)

Community-Driven LGBTQ+ Creative Technology Workshops
Shaz Zamore, Assistant Teaching Professor
The ATLAS Institute

Co-designing Compassion & Dignity Professional Learning for PK-12 Educators
Ashley Potvin, Research Associate
Renée Crown Wellness Institute

Toward Community-Informed Science Teaching & :earning
Erin Marie Furtak, Professor
School of Education

Building a Tangible Platform for AI Literacy
Krithik Ranjan, PhD Student
The ATLAS Institute

Cognitive Health and Aging: A Multi-generational, Community-based Study
Analicia Howard, Predoctoral Trainee
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience

Mentoring Indigenous Students in Wolf Conservation Research
Alma Rose Sanchez, PhD Student
Department of Environmental Studies

Building Community Capacity to Reduce Heat & Smoke Risks
Valentina Serrano Salomon, PhD Student
Department of Sociology

Tier 1 (formerly Micro Grants)
Spring 2025 Recipients

Cherry Yogurt: An integrated community short film
Francesca Hiatt, Undergraduate Student
Cinema Studies and Moving Image Arts

Community Roundtable on Indigenous Reparations and Restoration
Christina Stanton, Clinical Associate Professor
School of Law

Evaluating water lead risks in transitional housing communities
Riley Mulhern, Assistant Professor
Department of Environmental Studies, Institute for Arctic & Alpine Research (INSTAAR)

Public Art Event at National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR)
Hanna Shell, Professor
Department of Art & Art History

Rendered Embodiment of Social Interaction (RESI)
Cass Bliss, Undergraduate Student
Creative Technology & Design

From an AI literacy platform to a community short film, 13 total projects received over $50,000 in funding.

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Application Process: Carnegie Elective Classification for Community Engagement

Arielle Wiedenbeck — Mon, 24 Feb 2025 20:17:01 +0000

Application Process: Carnegie Elective Classification for Community Engagement Arielle Wiedenbeck Mon, 02/24/2025 - 13:17

Gretchen Minekime

At Chancellor Schwartz’s request, the Office for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship and the Research and Innovation Office are co-leading CU Boulder’s first application for the Carnegie Elective Classification for Community Engagement.

The application committee appreciates the deans, chairs, and directors who are currently responding to the survey request sent on Feb. 11 by the Chancellor’s Office. As a reminder, survey responses are due on Feb. 28.

Applying is a significant milestone, as the Carnegie classification is the national standard by which higher education community engagement is assessed and recognized. Campuses that receive the classification are nationally recognized leaders in community engagement and exemplars of higher education’s mission of contributing to the public good.

Please direct questions to Co-chairs Katie.Kleinhesselink@colorado.edu and Alicia.Adelman@colorado.edu.

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Graduate Students Benefit as Engaged Arts and Humanities Scholars

Arielle Wiedenbeck — Fri, 21 Feb 2025 20:20:59 +0000

Graduate Students Benefit as Engaged Arts and Humanities Scholars Arielle Wiedenbeck Fri, 02/21/2025 - 13:20

Alexandra Wilson

Since its launch in 2018, the Engaged Arts and Humanities (EAH) Graduate Student Scholars Program at CU has given 40 students the opportunity and resources to combine their academic disciplines, the tools of the arts and humanities, and their unique individual interests and apply them to public and community-engaged scholarship projects.

“I believe the program’s focus on lived experience, equity-oriented partnerships and mutually beneficial community-engaged scholarship has been key in creating an inclusive community of learners,” said Lisa Schwartz, Office for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship Program Manager and EAH founder.

The two-year fellowship, now co-administered by the Office for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship (PACES) and the Center for the Humanities & the Arts (CHA), encourages students to work collaboratively with communities to create meaningful, lasting change and allows students to broaden their networks on and off campus. Students co-design mutually beneficial projects with community partners, receiving a $5,000 stipend over two years and up to $1,000 in project funding.

Professor Jennifer Ho, CHA’s faculty director, works with the CHA team and Schwartz to oversee and implement the program. “I’m thrilled that the CHA is partnering with PACES on this program. When Lisa Schwartz first told me about the program, I could see the vitality and mutual intellectual and creative aims of having graduate students use their expertise in service to community-engaged projects. Lisa’s leadership of the program is part of the secret sauce to its success, as is the passion of the EAH scholars for work outside the traditional walls of academia.”

EAH Fellow Amy Hoagland’s 2021-22 project with CU Science Discovery and Cal-Wood Education Center serves as a prime example of the program’s impact on the surrounding community and her future as an artist and advocate for environmental justice. Combining her passions for art and science, Hoagland initiated a series of outdoor events with youth and families, providing opportunities for the “mourning, celebration and collective recognition of the impact of climate change.”

Hoagland creates artwork to “provoke thought and change in people’s relationship with the surrounding landscape.” While continuing her work inspired by EAH Scholars, Hoagland received a 2022 Windgate Fellowship for sustainable art presented by Honoring the Future.

“I cannot express my gratitude for EAH Scholars and Lisa Schwartz’s mentorship. It has all been incredibly impactful on my practice. It will positively impact my future projects, too,” said Hoagland.

A key aspect of EAH Scholars is the experience of selecting, interviewing and developing a relationship with a mentor who is a community-engaged scholar within the university or broader community (Read the EAH scholar mentor interviews here). PhD student Idowu Odeyemi shared his experience working with Professor Briana Toole, founder and director of the Corrupt the Youth program.

“Professor Toole’s community greatly intersects with mine; it was very easy to form a connection with her. She was helpful in terms of how I can develop my ideas for the sort of community work that I want my project to be about,” said Idowu.

A number of scholars have incorporated their work with EAH into their MFA thesis and PhD research. Brenda Aguirre Ortega is one such student. Through sharing and developing her ideas with members of the EAH cohort, as well as securing additional funding, Aguirre-Ortega’s multitude of interests evolved into her establishing and co-facilitating an after-school program at Columbine Elementary School, combining her passions of teaching, music composition and mathematics. In an interview discussing her experience with community-engaged scholarship, Aguirre-Ortega emphasized the program’s impact on her.

“At first, I only knew that I wanted to create a project in a school and that it would have something to do with music production,” said Aguirre-Ortega. “The idea became more tangible when I started sharing it with the EAH cohort. We were all beginning projects, and we helped each other develop ideas.”

EAH Scholars is now welcoming new graduate students for the 2025-2027 cohort. Visit the program’s webpage to learn more about deadlines, eligibility and the application process.

Since 2018, the Engaged Arts and Humanities Graduate Student Scholars program has given 40 students the opportunity and resources to apply tools of the arts and humanities to public and community-engaged scholarship projects.

The program is now welcoming new graduate students for the 2025-2027 cohort. Visit the program webpage.

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Harveen Gill leads a group meditation during a presentation on her work as an Engaged Arts and Humanities Scholar at Research and Innovation Week.

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Harveen Gill leads a group meditation during a presentation on her work as an Engaged Arts and Humanities Scholar at Research and Innovation Week. (Photo Credit: Arielle Wiedenbeck)

Announcing the Data + Art + Science for Youth Fellow Teams

Arielle Wiedenbeck — Tue, 28 Jan 2025 20:24:20 +0000

Announcing the Data + Art + Science for Youth Fellow Teams Arielle Wiedenbeck Tue, 01/28/2025 - 13:24

Gretchen Minekime

The Office for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship and CU Science Discovery are pleased to announce the 2024-25 cohort of Data + Art + Science for Youth Fellows.

The fellows consist of teams of K-12 art and STEM teachers and university scientists. Teachers will lead teams to develop data-driven art and science activities for K-12 classrooms and for the public in partnership with museums or libraries.

Learn more about the program and teams of fellows here.

K-12 Teacher and Scientist Fellows

Byers

Natalia Chavez
PhD Student
Department of Biology, University of New Mexico

Tiffeny O’Dell
High School Teacher, CTE Health Science Coordinator
Byers Jr/Sr High School

Emily Reynebeau
PhD Student
Department of Biology, University of New Mexico

Shatzie Wardall
Family and Consumer Science, Digital Photographer
Byers Jr/Sr High School

Carbondale

Tayla Dornbush
Art Teacher
Carbondale Community School

Ben Livneh
Associate Professor
Civil, Environmental and Architectural Engineering

Cyndy Miller
Math & Science Teacher
Carbondale Community School

Colorado Springs

Cathy Banoczi
Art Teacher
Bristol Elementary School

Jared Collins
PhD Student
Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR)

Michael Gooseff
Professor
Department of Civil Environmental and Architectural Engineering

Cherie Lane
Teacher
Bristol Elementary School

Anna Wright
PhD Student
Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR)

Gunnison

Rain Bodine
1-5th STEAM Teacher
Gunnison Community School

Noah Molotch
Associate Professor
Geography Department

Sarah Strong
Teacher
Gunnison Elementary School

Longmont

Amanda Aves-Linder
Photography Teacher
New Meridian High School

Brandon Grossman
Science Teacher
New Meridian High School

Keith Musselman
Assistant Professor
Geography Department

Lyons

Bryan Gager
Undergraduate Student
Geography Department

Adeline Kelly
Professional Research Assistant
Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR)

Baiba Lennard
Media Tech, Blended Library
Lyons Elementary School

Isabelle A. Oleksy
Assistant Professor
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Abby Ross
PhD Student
Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR)

Sarah Wegert
STEM Coordinator/Teacher
Lyons Elementary School

Northglenn

Brittany Brewer
5th Grade Teacher
North Mor Elementary

Edgart Flores
Post-Doctoral Student
Department of Geological Sciences

Danielle Scotland
K-5 Visual Arts Teacher
North Mor Elementary

Julio Sepúlveda
Associate Professor
Department of Geological Sciences

Salida

Holly Barnard
Professor
Geography Department

John Callen
Educator
The Crest Academy

Samantha Lane Bahn
Educator
The Crest Academy

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Applications Now Open for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship Grants, Tiers 1-4

Arielle Wiedenbeck — Mon, 13 Jan 2025 19:13:32 +0000

Applications Now Open for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship Grants, Tiers 1-4 Arielle Wiedenbeck Mon, 01/13/2025 - 12:13

Gretchen Minekime

Applications open on Mon., Jan. 13 for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship (PACES) Grants, Tiers 1-4.

PACES funds public and community-engaged scholarship that connects CU Boulder research, teaching and creative work with partners in Colorado communities and beyond.

Tier 1 grants are for public outreach events and partnership development and will be awarded on a rolling basis until funds have been expended this semester. Faculty, staff and all students are eligible to apply.

Tier 2 grants are for seeding or extending public and community-engaged scholarship. Faculty, staff and graduate students are eligible to apply. Applications will be due Sun., Feb. 16.

Tier 3 and 4 grants are for faculty-led public and community-engaged scholarship and support individual or group projects. Applications will be due Fri., April 18.

See our website for more information and application deadlines.

PACES funds public and community-engaged scholarship that connects CU Boulder research, teaching and creative work with partners in Colorado communities and beyond.

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PACES Reading Group Kicks Off Jan. 30

Arielle Wiedenbeck — Tue, 17 Dec 2024 19:18:32 +0000

PACES Reading Group Kicks Off Jan. 30 Arielle Wiedenbeck Tue, 12/17/2024 - 12:18

Gretchen Minekime

Start off the new year by joining the Office for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship (PACES) for the inaugural meeting of our monthly reading group.

Connect with colleagues for an in-person kick-off with food, drink and good company.

Our first article will be “Re(building) Trust with Indigenous Communities: Reflections From Cultural Brokers” (Riley & Kaneakua), from The Journal of Higher Education Outreach and Engagement (JHEOE), Special Issue – Volume 28, Number 3, 2024. We will discuss how boundary spanner identity and intersectionality impact research collaborations with community partners. Our own Associate Director Jeanne McDonald was among the guest editors for this special edition of JHEOE.

Subsequent readings related to the themes of boundary spanning, reciprocity and mutual benefit—key concepts in community-engaged scholarship—will be selected by group members.

We’ll meet from noon to 1 p.m. on the last Thursday of each month.

Please respond before Jan. 23.

Start off the new year by joining the Office for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship (PACES) for the inaugural meeting of our monthly reading group.

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Higher Education and Democracy Fellows Lead Election Education Efforts

Arielle Wiedenbeck — Wed, 20 Nov 2024 19:22:58 +0000

Higher Education and Democracy Fellows Lead Election Education Efforts Arielle Wiedenbeck Wed, 11/20/2024 - 12:22

Gretchen Minekime

This month special recognition goes out to the PACES Higher Education and Democracy Fellows for their phenomenal work leading up to and following the election.

Current fellows Janet Donavan, Leah Sprain and Christina Stanton, and former fellows Doug Spencer and Matt Burgess, dedicated many hours each to help inform students, faculty, staff and members of the public about election-related issues and to encourage voting. Here are some of their accomplishments within CU Boulder’s election engagement efforts.

Donavan and Sprain organized watch parties for the presidential and vice-presidential debates, including a pre-vice-presidential-debate panel, which was coordinated with the Chancellor’s Office, student government, the College of Media, Communication and Information (CMCI), the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Conference on World Affairs. The panel and the debate were livestreamed and available to the public. Colorado Mesa University in Grand Junction and Fort Lewis College in Durango organized watch parties on their campuses for the panels and vice-presidential debate.

Under Stanton’s leadership, Colorado Law’s American Indian Law Clinic traveled to South Dakota to conduct voter protection activities. Donovan, Stanton, and Sprain also served on CU Boulder’s All-in Challenge Committee and organized public events, in multiple Colorado locations, about voting rights and Constitutional Law.

Back on campus, Stanton recruited student volunteers who conducted voter education classroom visits, with an emphasis on first-year students and others who have historically registered and voted at lower rates than our campus average. These visits, alongside the efforts of non-profit partner New Era Colorado, ultimately reached more than 12,000 students.

Past fellow Doug Spencer joined county clerks from Boulder and Weld Counties for a special filming of the PBS program Colorado Inside Out at Mackey Auditorium.

Past fellow Matt Burgess, who has since moved to the University of Wyoming, continues to coordinate a monthly polarization dialogue series, which includes CU Boulder representatives along with others from colleges, universities and communities around the Rocky Mountain West.

During an election year filled with particularly strong emotions, a sense that civil discourse is more challenging than ever and a lack of confidence in media and information, the fellows’ leadership was indispensable.

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Higher Education and Democracy Fellows 2024

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Community-Engaged Scholarship: A Pillar of the School of Education

Arielle Wiedenbeck — Thu, 14 Nov 2024 19:26:38 +0000

Community-Engaged Scholarship: A Pillar of the School of Education Arielle Wiedenbeck Thu, 11/14/2024 - 12:26

Alexandra Wilson

On the afternoon of Oct. 4, CU Boulder’s School of Education’s building dedication and open house brought together over 300 people to honor the school’s research, student work, donor support and community impact. Alumni, donors and K-12 partners joined university faculty, staff and students to celebrate the achievements and future goals of the school with an afternoon of dedications, building tours, activities and a showcase displaying the school’s community-engaged research.

“In an applied field like education, we can’t build knowledge in the abstract or in an isolated ivory tower,” said Joseph Polman, associate dean for research at the School of Education. “We need to be working with and in communities and sites where powerful educational practices and policies are being developed, tested and refined, to serve the needs of actual people.”

Faculty and students present their projects at the community engagement showcase in the new Ofelia Miramontes and Leonard Baca Education Building, Oct. 4, 2024.

Patrick Campbell Photography

The school’s devotion to supporting its students, and its commitment to advancing public understanding of education, shone through at the open house poster session where faculty members and graduate students showed their community-engaged research. The showcase highlighted how community-engaged scholarship not only enriches the educational experience of CU Boulder students but also bridges the gap between the university’s academic research and community education needs.

“Throughout history and even to the present day, far too much research based out of universities has been extractive, and only of benefit to the academic researchers. To work toward a more just and humane world, university-based scholars must seek to build equitable partnerships with stakeholders that serve the needs of communities, not the needs of researchers,” said Polman.

The faculty and students’ commitment to social justice is evident throughout their research, which strongly reflects the school’s values in promoting and facilitating equal opportunity for all students throughout the country. Their research explores and confronts a range of systematic issues present in the education system, such as language barriers within classrooms, ethnic and racial discrimination within school systems, economic disparities leading to a lesser quality of education, and the rights of LGBTQ+ students.

The research of faculty members and graduate students continues to lead to an array of impressive project outcomes, including a documentary by A Queer Endeavor, CU Boulder’s nationally recognized center for gender and sexual diversity in education. Created in partnership with Denver Public Schools, Reclaiming the Narrative focuses on LGBTQ+ students’ intersectional experiences within schools, giving queer students a platform upon which to share their experiences and thus promote social change. You can discover more about their work.

Undergraduate members of Puksta Scholars, a scholarship program focused on civic engagement and facilitating positive change on campus and within external communities, presented their community-engaged project that tackles systematic barriers in education. Through a partnership with the Longmont Latino Chamber of Commerce, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Color) K-12 students, along with their guardians, are invited to participate in workshops that provide the necessary tools to assist them in their journey to college. Puksta Scholars intend to provide a ‘first-generation scholar guide’ to help high school students reach their potential and fulfill their dreams of a high-quality college education. Visit their website for more details on this project and the continuing work of the Puksta Scholars.

The School of Education and University Hill Elementary School presented the outcome of their five-year-old weekly after-school mentoring program. The Cultural Mentoring Program joins together Education and Ethnic Studies majors with 5^th graders belonging to the Latinx community. The program strengthens cultural identity among underrepresented students and fosters relationships between CU Boulder and University Hill students.

These projects are just a few examples of the School of Education’s collective humanitarian approach towards community engagement. Through striving to build equitable partnerships that prioritize the needs of the community, and with the help of funding from the Office for Public and Community-Engaged Scholarship, the School of Education continues to raise awareness and inspire change on a national level.

“The School of Education has a shared commitment to democracy, diversity, equity and justice. To live this out, we absolutely need to be doing community-engaged scholarship,” said Polman.

CU Boulder’s School of Education’s building dedication and open house brought together over 300 people to honor the school’s research, student work, donor support and community impact.

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