For the 6,000-plus residents of Gunnison and the many tourists and truckers alike who travel to or through the small Colorado city along U.S. Highway 50, Tenderfoot Mountain is best known for the big “W” marked on it facing town. Many Gunnisonians know it only as W Mountain.
The Environment & Sustainability (ENVS) program as a whole has seen terrific growth over the past few years. SES now includes a growing array of diverse academic programs, community events and a center for internal and external environmental problem-solving.
Eleven Experience, Crested Butte Mountain Resort and West Elk Lodge all attended the fair, which was held in the Borick Business
This year is the first year that Western is affiliated with IACURH and the National Association of College and University Residence Halls (NACURH). This gives students on campus the opportunity to attend national and regional conferences.
Natalie Anderson (Women’s Cross Country/Track), Katelynn Martinez (Women’s Basketball), Benjamin Price (Men’s Wrestling), David Traynor (Men’s Wrestling), Pete Kadushin, Ph.D. (assistant professor of Exercise & Sport Science) and Kim Miller, Ph.D. (associate director of Athletics) made the trip to the APPLE Training Institute.
Educating and promoting student athlete health and wellness and drug use prevention were the main topics of this event.
On the recruiting process: “Western brought me to campus for the first official visit. They were definitely interested, and I was interested in them as well. It showed me they actually wanted me to be on their team. On the first official visit, I’m the running back that they’re bringing in. That was special for me. That went a long way for me. No other school had me for their first official visit.”
Take, for instance, his first game in the backfield against West Texas A&M in the 2013 season opener. Ekeler started as a true freshman for Western State Colorado University before the home crowd at the Mountaineer Bowl in Gunnison. It was an inauspicious start.
“My first college game ever, as a freshman,” Ekeler said, “I had 10 carries for 10 yards.”
It’s pretty easy to do the math there on yards per carry.
The Gunnison Arts Center held a charity auction and presented a short play written by Calvin Curry and adapted by Michael Callihan titled "Murder From the Past," a wry murder-mystery thriller set in the 1920s. The Coldharbour and I Bar ranches also set up booths near the arts center to promote upcoming events to pedestrians and Art Walk attendees.
The rain and wind showed up just in time for the start of Western's Homecoming Parade on Friday, Sept. 29.
APIC recently hosted its first Bistro Hour of the year. The clubs members all shared their excitement of making Bistro Hour a monthly event. The group is also interested in hosting other events, such as smoothie days and sushi nights.
The first Bistro Hour was Korean barbeque, with fried rice and veggies. A bowl with meat was $6 and a veggie bowl was $4. If students brought their own bowl they got $1 off.
While Harris is a Tucson, Ariz. native, she says she doesn’t much mind the snow; she actively skis and snowboards when time allows. She does, however miss the regular, more temperate seasons of her home state.
“[Tucson] was a good place to grow up—as a parent it would be an easy place to live," Harris said. "I liked growing up there—it doesn’t feel like home now that I’ve lived up here for two years … I step into [my parent’s] world. It’s not my world anymore.”
Professor Duane Vandenbusche, Ph.D., will kick off the evening with a slide show on the history of the mining towns. Emeritus Professor Bruce Bartleson, Ph.D., will join him to discuss the geology of the region.
In the second half of the evening, CLCD Productions’ Cathy Carpenter Dea will join the group. Cathy will discuss her film team’s amazing experiences shooting footage of Vandenbusche and Bartleson during the San Juan Mining Tour for an upcoming documentary entitled “Breaking the Mold, Colorado Contemporaries.”
Senior Canyon Mueller and junior Jorge Zarate Aguirre represented Western at the 42-school competition. Other competitors hailed from institutions including Baylor University, Utah State University, Pennsylvania State University, University of Central Florida and University of Texas Dallas.
At the competition, Mueller and Zarate Aguirre participated in two types of events:
Students increase their understanding of the issues facing public land managers through hands-on experiences that allow for the application of skills developed in the classroom. The land-management agencies benefit from the completion of necessary project work, and the agency will be served long-term as diverse students pursue diverse careers. The benefits to the university include support of curriculum and out-of-class learning opportunities in partnership with the agency experts.
Bingham also received a sub-award from the University of Colorado Boulder on a collaborative award from the National Science Foundation for a digitization project using herbarium data to document plant niches in the high peaks and high plains of the southern Rocky Mountains. Western is one of several institutions in the partnership.
In related news, Sam Van De Velde, a graduate of Western’s High Altitude Exercise Physiology graduate program, had his thesis project published in the August 2017 issue of ACE’s Certified magazine. Van De Velde’s project concerning the performance benefits of training with a sauna suit was funded by ACE.
Salsbury and Pete Sherman, Dean of the Business School, co-teach the Honors Program class, which focuses on aligning spending habits with spending desires.
Read more (with a Gunnison Country Times e-subscription) on their website.
The Western State Colorado University Chamber Orchestra and String Ensemble, under the direction of Kenneth Todd, is to perform an evening of chamber string music from a variety of musical styles and periods for string orchestra this Thursday.
The concert will feature the works of J.S. Bach, Antonio Vivaldi and Edvard Grieg as well as transcriptions and adaptations of compositions by Gruselle, Joseph Brackett and Sergei Rachmaninoff. Soloists Natasha Pratt (violin), Jannett McBride (violin) and Jo Raetzel (cello) will be featured on Vivaldi’s L’Estro Armonico, Op. 3, No. 11.
The forum, which will be in the University Center South Ballroom at 7 p.m., is free and open to the public.
Smith served as CFO of HealthSouth Corporation where he was involved in a 15-year, $3 billion fraud. He voluntarily exposed the scandal, worked with authorities and accepted the repercussions.
At the forum, Smith will discuss his experiences dealing with value conflicts and ethical dilemmas in the workplace.
Professor Anderson has more than 140 books to his credit, 56 of which have appeared on national and international bestseller lists, including many of the novels in the “Star Wars” series. There are more than 23 million copies of his works in print, in thirty languages. He and his wife also own and operate WordFire Press in Colorado Springs.
Levin has shot, edited, directed and produced documentaries across the globe, in North America, the Middle East, Europe and Asia. These works have been shown at New York’s Museum of Modern Art, The San Francisco Art Museum, several U.S. Embassies, The Society for Applied Anthropology, The American Anthropology Association, and The Society for Cinema and Media Studies, as well as on PBS and other broadcast outlets and in theaters.
She is a member of the U.S. Department of State Speakers Bureau and is a former president of the University Film and Video Association.
Western fielded 13 athletes to compete across five disciplines: cross county, short track, downhill, dual slalom and the team relay. Western accumulated 399 points over the course of the three-day event, beating the 2016 defending DII champion, Warren Wilson College, and 2015 DII Champion, King University. Western has been runner up in three of the past four years.
Earlier this month, tens of thousands of Dreamers throughout America missed the Oct. 5 renewal deadline.
First, five students gain invaluable hands-on experience in their chosen field of study by helping to treat GVH patients between the physical therapy clinic, cardiac rehabilitation program and Senior Care Center. For this work, they are paid a monthly stipend to offset the cost of tuition.
Secondly, the students conduct research and collect data to complement classwork, including theses.
Tickets for the performance will be available at the door: $20 general admission, $10 students.
VOCES8 takes pride in inspiring people through music and sharing the joy of singing. Touring extensively throughout Europe, North America and Asia, the British group performs repertoire from Renaissance polyphony to contemporary commissions and arrangements. Versatility and a celebration of diverse musical expression are central to the ensemble’s performance ethos.
The performance will take place at 7:30 p.m. in Quigley Hall's John and Georgie Kincaid Concert Hall on the Western campus. The concert is free and the public is cordially invited to attend.
The agreement widens the options for treatment and rehabilitation, ensuring that injured student-athletes are afforded the best possible care by a collective of three local orthopedic-care providers working in concert.
“This will be an inclusive care system, leveraging the incredible resources we are fortunate enough to have in Gunnison and Crested Butte,” Alpine Orthopaedics Director Bonnie McDonald said.
Western pitched the idea this year as part of its ongoing efforts to forge balanced partnerships that benefit both the college—particularly its students—and the community.
The free three-day conference features community tours and workshops, poetry readings, a dance performance, a keynote address and a panel titled “Wild Justice.” Plus, in a new addition this year, children ages 5-15 are invited to attend a Headwaters for Kids camp at the Coldharbour Ranch, an environmental education center.
Seth Adams, professor of Biology at Western State College from 1968 to 1998, passed away on September 18, 2017 at his home in Gunnison at the age of 85.
Adams was born in 1931 on a cotton farm in Hamlin, Texas. After graduating from high school there, he went to Abilene Christian University in Abilene, Texas on a football scholarship. After two years at Abilene Christian, he transferred to Eastern New Mexico University and played his final two years of football there.
Taylor, who has an art forensics laboratory in New York, was invited to speak about science and art—specifically issues of art forgery, which are analyzed in his lab. Taylor was invited to be a keynote speaker at the All-Russia Science Festival.
Organized by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation, the science festival is held in many regions throughout Russia with thousands of scientifically oriented events and approximately 2 million attendees.
At the seventh annual conference, Marissa Krupa of Helena, Mont., presented “Perceived Emotional Support in the Teacher-Student Relationship,” the capstone project for the recent graduate of Western’s online M.A. in Education program. The conference was first recommended to Krupa by Western Lecturer Kim Silbaugh, Ph.D., as a way to receive feedback on the project for future publishing
“It was a crowning moment for me to bring all my skills from business and education together in this presentation,” Krupa said. “Everyone was wowed. Winning the award is an incredible honor!”
Celluloid Cinema is a screening series put on by Mountaineer Media, a Film Studies co-curricular. Students who assist with Celluloid Cinema are all members of Mountaineer Media, and these students all have a lot of love for old film. Last year was Celluloid Cinema's first; the new series was an idea that came together based off old 16 mm films in Taylor Hall.
“The beer garden was an initiative that a lot of universities have been starting to do in the last few years. [We want fans] to have a great game day atmosphere but more of a controlled atmosphere as well,” said Miles Van Hee, Western’s athletic director.
The beverages offered at the MountainBeer Zone included: Coors, Coors Light, Budweiser, Bud Light, Blue Moon, Stella Artois and an assortment of wine.
Western’s Program Council is a group of students who come together to plan events.
This year, they've hired Adam Parks and Spencer Shiplett as tech coordinators, Liz Beggs as marketing coordinator, Jae Seurer as event coordinator and Katelyn Swartz as publicity coordinator. The team also hired Syd Saltalamacchia as assistant director and Chris Doucet as director. Lauren Echevarria serves as their advisor.
The articles “Topology” and “Posthuman Suffering” were published on the website Critical Posthumanism.
Both articles were peer reviewed by an international editorial board before being accepted.
First a reporter for the Korean arm of Mademoiselle Magazine, a now-shuttered women’s magazine, Park’s focus soon turned to research with the MIC, a Korean government program responsible for research into media development.
“I researched New Media and Telecom policy,” Park explained.
This research has continued through her education at the University of Michigan and Penn State, the latter of which she earned her doctorate from. Her research on New Media has flourished over the past 10 years as she's had a number of papers published in the field.
Starting this year, there has been more involvement from the Gunnison community and Western students to help restore the growth of small plants and to slow the growth of cheat grass, an invasive species in the Gunnison Valley. The cheat grass is especially dangerous to the sage brush.
The Hurst Quad and Quigley Band Shell were filled with students eager to learn how to fly fish, students who have been fly fishing for years and even a few who just stopped by for free hot dogs and live entertainment. Along with traditional hot dogs and hamburgers, the BBQ also featured wild-caught geese, a big hit. Club officers showed new members how to properly fly-cast rods (which can be rented out from Wilderness Pursuits) on the Hurst quad.
That’s what Resident Advisor (RA) Amber Butler of Ute’s ground floor proudly states about her community: “It’s so cool walking by the lounge and seeing 18 people playing Cards Against Humanity, or walking by on a Sunday morning and seeing people playing Risk!”
Athletics 5K Fun Run at Mountaineer Bowl. Get your day started right with this fun run. $25 gets you entered into the run, a ticket for the football game and a T-shirt. All are welcome!
Alumni Visitation. Stop by the Alumni Center now located in the Aspinall-Wilson Center. Check out old yearbooks, chat with friends and make sure your alumni contact info is up to date. We'll have coffee and cookies.
Alumni Golf Outing at Dos Rios Golf Course.
The new class, which is twice the size of last year’s cohort, gathered in Quigley to socialize amongst themselves as well as with the president and faculty members.
After Salsbury introduced himself and shared a bit of Western history with the group, the new students shared their undergraduate history and what drove them to take on this next academic and artistic challenge. They also discussed what they plan to gain from the MGES program and how they will use those skills moving forward.
In October, Western introduced its first student members (15 in all) to Omicron Delta Kappa, a national leadership honor society with chapters (“circles”) at approximately 300 colleges and universities across the United States. After merely eight months, the circle at Western, which introduced a second class of OΔK students (14) in April, was recognized this summer as a 2016-17 Circle of Distinction by OΔK national headquarters.
This May, seven students had the opportunity to investigate the topic of sustainable and resilient living throughout the Rocky Mountain region in an Environment & Sustainability (ENVS) special topics course called Mountain Resiliency.
Led by Brandon McNamara ’17, Mountain Resiliency immersed students in the world of sustainability through hands-on service activities. The class included a lecture and project preparation component, but the majority of the course took place in the field.
The conference, running Nov. 8-12, will highlight faculty and student research; provide development training for administrators; and focus on issues of technology, equity and access.
Bennett has organized a panel, “Asking Enduring Questions in Honors.” In this presentation, she and other recipients of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) will discuss various models of NEH-funded honors courses—and how these courses can increase students’ understanding of the humanities, regardless of majors.
Escalante, Moffat/Mears and Ute/Robidoux will each boast their own council. As part of this initiative, students holding positions will plan, promote and advocate for programs and events within the halls.
The Sierra Club recognized Western as one of the top 200 for schools in the nation for on-campus sustainability and sustainability education programs.
In May, sustainability leaders at Western applied for the raking with the Sierra Club. The Sierra Club then examined aspects of each university and what schools are doing to help the community be more sustainable on campus and beyond.
The new MGES class, which is double the size of last year’s inaugural class, will meet with faculty, staff and the president over coffee in the art gallery of Quigley Hall.
The MGES students will also have an opportunity to meet with Ethel Rice, benefactor for both the Art and MGES programs at Western.
The class, which is double the size of last year’s inaugural class, will get acquainted with each other during the event, which precedes a two-week, on-campus orientation. The on-campus residency provides students with an introduction to the master’s program, including: a one-day program orientation; practicum instruction in on-site gallery and studio classroom settings; field trips; and workshops with arts professionals.
The MGES students will also have an opportunity to get acquainted with Ethel Rice, benefactor for both the Art and MGES programs at Western.
