Participants will be randomly assigned to the yoga class or a treatment as usual group.

Participants in the study will be asked to fill out questionnaires, take part in weekly classes, and complete an interview.

If you are interested in learning more about the study please contact our participant coordinator!

Contact Information

Participant Coordinator: Kyle Davis
Email: campstudy@colorado.edu
Phone: 303-735-1394

Nearly 80 Top Colleges Vying for Award Celebrating Love for College Hoops

CU hoop fans encouraged to vote in Naismith student section of the year

BOULDER – The University of Colorado has been nominated as one of the top college basketball student sections in the country and is asking for fan support to help win the prestigious title.  Buff fans will now have a say in determining the most deserving student section by voting for the Naismith Student Section of the Year Award.
 
By visiting www.facebook.com/ILoveCollegeHoops, Colorado fans can vote for the C-Unit as the top student section in college basketball. The Naismith Student Section of the Year Award, which is presented through a partnership of The Collegiate Licensing Company (CLC), a division of IMG College, and the Atlanta Tipoff Club, administrators of the Naismith Awards, is dedicated to celebrating fans that love college hoops and provide support to their college basketball team with devotion and passion.
 
“I told them they are the heartbeat of this arena, they are the difference makers,” said CU head coach Tad Boyle of the Coors Events Center crowd after a recent home victory. “The community has been great all year when the students were gone on break. To have that (student) section full was key and I just want them to know that we appreciate and we need them.”
 
Nearly 80 schools representing 21 conferences are vying for the title.
 
The Naismith Student Section of the Year Award will be determined through two rounds of public votes, combined with a scoring of finalists by the Naismith Awards Board of Selectors, which will review criteria such as the student section’s name and attendance, as well as photos, video, and a write-up submitted by the nominating school.
 
Complete details on the selection process can be found here.
 
The top 16 institutions from the public vote will move to a final round of public votes, which will occur February 13 – 24, 2012. The top eight recipients of public votes will be sent to the Naismith Awards Board of Selectors for a final vote.  The only way for your school to win is for your fans to vote.
 
The winning student section gets bragging rights, while the winning school will receive $5,000 for its athletic association.

On Jan. 28, the champion children of the Children’s Hospital will join students at Dance Marathon to celebrate their lives and the money we have raised. Please take out your phones and text MIRACLE to 27722 to support your Student Body philanthropy. Learn more at www.cudancemarathon.org.

 Oedegaard’s win along with senior Vegard Kjoelhamar’s fifth place and senior Reid Pletcher’s sixth place finish enabled the Buffs to win the men’s 15K freestyle race.  But Utah was almost as equally impressive, finishing second, third and seventh to finish just two points behind the Buffaloes, 126-124. 

 Paced by senior Eliska Hajkova’s runner-up finish in the women’s 10K freestyle race, the Buffaloes did outscore Utah by 13 points, 97-84, but it wasn’t enough as the Utes had built up a 72 point lead entering the day and ended up winning by 57 points, compiling 902 points to CU’s 854 when it was all said and done. 

 Alaska Anchorage scored an impressive 133 points in the women’s race to overtake host Denver and finish third with 770 points.  The Pioneers finished fourth with 752 points while New Mexico also hit the 700-point plateau with 705, good for fifth place. 

 “This was a good weekend,” CU Nordic coach Bruce Cranmer said. “Not killer. But not something that I feel like we’re way out of contention, either. I feel like we’re moving in the right direction, we see glimmers of really solid performances so hopefully those will be more consistent and come together nicely.”

 Oedegaard won the men’s race by a much narrower margin than Friday’s 10K classic race, which he captured by 32.8 seconds.  Saturday his winning time of 48:14.5 seconds was just 4.1 seconds ahead of Utah’s Didrik Smith (48:18.6) and 4.7 ahead of the Utes Miles Havlick (48:19.2) as the podium finishers were all within five seconds.  Montana State’s Tyler Reinking finished fourth in a time of 48:27.8, ahead of Kjoelhamar’s fifth-place time of 48:48.0. 

 “My body felt a lot better today than yesterday,” Oedegaard said. “I tried some techniques today, I wanted to be in second place and then on the first lap I let Reid go and made the others catch up to him.  On the second lap I let Vegard go, the same thing, he got maybe a 20 second lead and the other guys had to work hard to catch him again.  I knew when the pack caught Vegard on the last lap that the other guys were tired and I had just been cruising.  I knew I had very good skis that when I made it to the top of the final hill that I would be the first one to the finish line.”

 “I felt good about the men’s race,” Cramner continued. “Obviously it was another great race for Rune.  And it was a great race for Vegard; he led a good chunk of the race and finished fifth and like yesterday, another solid performance at altitude. I think he’s coming into form and that’s helping his confidence with where his fitness level is. For Reid, that was a solid race for him.  I’m not expecting him to light it up completely yet.  All of these solid performances that are in the top 10 are pluses for him.  The other guys weren’t that far behind.”

 Pletcher’s sixth place time stood at 48:01.7 while sophomore Andreas Hoye also had an impressive day, taking home 11th place in a time of 50:09.3.  Hoye was the first racer across that wasn’t part of the top three of their respective teams accumulating team points while Ian Mallams was the second such skier across the line in a time of 50:24.4, good for 17th place.  Freshman Arnaud Du Pasquier, who finished the last part of the race with just one poll, managed a 23rd place finish in a time of 51:28.8. 

 “At the start of this race, I was leading the first 2K,” Pletcher said. “It wasn’t my plan but there wasn’t much I could do about it.  Rune was in second and he was just sitting back and he was letting me go.  I had a 15-20 meter lead which I wasn’t planning on but my teammates wouldn’t chase me and wouldn’t catch me, they were making the other teams do the work.  We’ve had some really good teamwork in the past I think we work well together and pace ourselves and use each other.”

 “It was kind of how the raced worked out,” Kjoelhamar continued. “I was first, Rune was second.  He left me a gap and I kept it and got bigger and the other teams understood they had to close it.  When they closed it, I was tired, but held on.  That’s smart skiing; the other guys have to use energy instead of us.”

 At the moment the pack caught Kjoelhamar and Oedegaard pushed on for his race victory, Pletcher also made a decision that enabled him to hold onto sixth place.

 “I started fading at the end of the second lap and the top five guys had me by 5-10 seconds,” Pletcher explained. “My goal after that was to stay with them, because there were four or five guys that could’ve caught me if I didn’t.  I saw Vegard, he was leading and got caught.  I spent a lot of the last lap trying to catch Vegard and I did right before a long hill and at that point my goal was just to stay with him so I settled in behind him and wouldn’t let him go.”

 Hoye was also the first finisher in a pack of five skiers.  Just before the skiers made a nearly 180 degree turn into the finishing lines, Hoye stood in 15th place and picked off four racers down the final straight-away. 

 Oedegaard is the first Nordic skier in the Rocky Mountain Intercollegiate Ski Association to pull off a double victory in one meet since the end of last year when Hajkova accomplished the feat on the women’s side at the RMISA Championships.  He is the first men’s skier to do it since former Buff Matt Gelso accomplished the feat the previous season at the 2010 RMISA Championships in the midst of a five-race win streak. 

 “Rune is amazing,” Pletcher said. “I’ve been training with him all fall.  Just watching him train and do the intervals; it’s hard to keep up with him most days.  I was pretty excited to see where he was going in the race season and I think the first weekend he just had to get into it and get used to it. He’s figured it out, he knows how to pace himself, he’s getting used to altitude, which is big for him he’s used to sea level.  He’s definitely a top skier and I’m impressed to see how consistent he has been so far.”

 “Last Saturday I knew I was good enough to win, but with my pole trouble, I really wanted to show this weekend that I would’ve been there last weekend,” Oedegaard explained.

 In women’s action, Alaska Anchorage’s Jaime Brogna won the women’s race in a sprint, overtaking Hajkova just before the final turn into the finishing lines, finishing the two laps in just under 37 minutes (36:59.5) who Hajkova’s time of 37:05.1.  For Hajkova, it was her first podium appearance since winning the classical race at NCAA Championships last season, as she hasn’t had quite the start of the 2012 season as she had hoped. 

 “It was a better race for Eliska,” Cranmer said. “She was out in front for a long time and said she was feeling better, she just didn’t have the final push there.  In the high altitude races, she’s never had a great one, so this was a good performance.  Everybody wants to win, but it was a good race.”

 “It was still pretty hard,” Hajkova said. “I have problems racing at this altitude when you compare my results here with lower altitude races.  Especially without Joanne (Reid) this weekend, I had high expectations and I get tight.  Today, I just tried to relax, the first lap I skied for my dad and the second lap for Bruce, it always helps me when I think about what I’m doing and not just ski like crazy.”

 Hajkova’s worst performance a season ago was a fourth place finish and Saturday’s second place finish was her first result this year better than fourth. 

 “This helps my confidence for sure,” Hajkova said. “After yesterday, I wasn’t sure if I could even ski as fast as last season.  Yesterday I had bad luck with skis; I had no kick and was getting frustrated.  At the end of the day when I was thinking about everything, I ended up just getting mad and that gave me energy for today’s race, it helped me a lot and I feel a lot better now.”

 En route to their dominant performance, the Seawolves also took home third and fifth place, third being Laura Rombach (37:23.6) while Steffi Hiemer (37:53.9) was edged out by New Mexico’s Clara Chauvet (37:32.4) for fourth place. 

 Junior Mary Rose finished in 16th place in a time of 39:19.8, earning 25 team points for the Buffaloes while senior Katie Stege finished 24th in a time of 41:28.6.  Freshman Marianne Madsen finished 29th in a time of 44:00.2. 

 “It was a good race for Mary with where she’s been in the past,” Cranmer said. “She’s still in the middle of the pack and I want her to bust through and make a race like today a top 10 finish.  But it’s not like she’s just going to start finishing in the top five, it’s a step-by-step process.  We’re certainly looking for her to be a qualifier, but I’m sure she will have to have some better finishes than around 15 to make that happen.”

 Next up for all the RMISA skiers will be a pair of meets in Alaska over eight days from February 4-11.  The Nordic teams will begin the action with a 5K interval start freestyle race for both genders on Feb. 4 at Kincaid Park in Anchorage.  Nordic teams will also be in action Feb. 6, Feb. 10 and Feb. 11 while the alpine teams will race four straight days from Feb. 8-11.  At that point the regular season will be finished, minus an RMISA Alpine Qualifier race on Feb. 23 the day before the start of the RMISA Championships. 

 The Buffs will look to get a good solid week of training in and then rest a bit in preparation for their trip to sea level in Anchorage.  But for the most part the Buffs are looking forward to continue their season in Alaska. 

 “I raced in Alaska three years ago,” Hajkova said.  “The trails are hard and there are a ton of ups and downs.  At sea level, your muscles don’t hurt, you can just go for it.  Plus there’s one place on the trails where you can see the ocean and if feels like you’re skiing on the beach and I love that.”

 “We need to stay healthy or get healthy and do some training, but not too hard,” Kjoelhamar said. “I usually get in better shape at lower altitude, so I want to use those races to get in better shape and then hopefully I’m peaking for the two races in Montana (at NCAA Championships) to end the season.” 

 “We need to rest and get some volume in and try not to peak right now performance wise,” Pletcher added.  “It’s January and we’re looking for March.  We’ll keep training and resting and work our way into peaking hopefully in March.”

DU INVITATIONAL TEAM SCORING (FINAL)—1. Utah 902; 2. Colorado 845; 3. Alaska Anchorage 770; 4. Denver 752; 5. New Mexico 705; 6. Montana State 643; 7. Westminster College 346; 8. Wyoming 120; 9. Colorado Mountain College 87.

MEN’S 15K FREESTYLE (34 College Finishers)—1. Rune Oedegaard, CU, 48:14.5; 2. Didrik Smith, UU, 48:18.6; 3. Miles Havlick, UU, 48:19.2; 4. Tyler Reinking, MSU, 48:27.8; 5. Vegard Kjoelhamar, CU, 48:48.0; 6. Reid Pletcher, CU, 49:01.7; 7. Michael Schallinger, MSU, 49:16.7; 8. Tom Smith, UU, 49:34.0; 9. Andrew Dougherty, DU, 49:37.9; 10. Lukas Ebner, UAA, 49:43.5.  Other CU Finishers: 11. Andreas Hoye, 50:09.3; 17. Ian Mallams, 50:42.4; 23. Arnaud Du Pasquier, 51:28.8.

WOMEN’S 10K FREESTYLE (30 College Finishers)—1. Jaime Brogna, UAA, 36:59.5; 2. Eliska Hajkova, CU, 37:05.1; 3. Laura Rombach, UAA, 37:23.6; 4. Clara Chauvet, UNM, 37:32.4; 5. Steffi Hiemer, UAA, 37:53.9; 6. Kate Dolan, DU, 37:58.4; 7. Rose Kemp, UU, 38:01.4; 8. Makayla Cappel, DU, 38:04.9; 9. Casey Kutz, MSU, 38:06.2; 10. Linn Klaesson, UNM, 38:19.0. Other CU Finishers: 16. Mary Rose, 39:19.8; 24. Katie Stege, 41:28.6; 29. Marianne Madsen, 44:00.2. 

Aaron S. Williams

Peace Corps director Aaron Williams will be on campus Jan. 25. He will speak for 10 minutes to announce CU-Boulder’s Peace Corps ranking this year, following by a video and a volunteer sharing her/his experience. All welcome at 1:30 to hear him in the Old Main Chapel.

Contact Peter Simons at peter.simons@colorado.edu for more details.

PLEASE NOTE – THIS NEWS ITEM IS FOR THE 2012 SPRING SEMESTER.

Go here for most-current information.

Are you a Colorado resident 55 and over?  Satisfy your curiosity and learn something new with the Senior Auditors Program at the University of Colorado Boulder.

The program, sponsored by the CU-Boulder Alumni Association, allows seniors to audit CU-Boulder classes tuition-free.  Registration for CU-Boulder spring semester courses will take place Monday, Jan. 23 from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Tuesday, Jan. 24  from 8 a.m. to noon at the Koenig Alumni Center, 1202 University, at the southeast corner of Broadway and University.  Free parking is available on a limited basis in the Koenig lot.

Although tuition is free, there is a $25 fee to defray the Alumni Association’s administrative expenses. Participants do not need to be CU graduates.

This program gives Colorado’s senior citizens the opportunity to attend classes on the CU-Boulder campus. Participants should check online first for the list of CU-Boulder classes offered for spring 2012 at http://www.colorado.edu/academics/coursesearch/.

Auditors must obtain permission from professors to audit courses. Classes began Jan. 17, so the Alumni Association recommends auditors attend classes to obtain permission to audit from professors at that time. Spanish, Chinese, Arabic, Korean, Farsi, Portuguese and Hindi courses cannot be audited. Please check with the Alumni Association for the complete list of classes not available. Regular tuition-paying students have priority over auditors.  Senior Auditors do not earn academic credit for courses taken.

The Senior Auditors Program was established by the Board of Regents in 1973 and has grown to involve about 500 participants annually.  For more information, call the Alumni Association at 303-492-8484 or visit www.cualum.org/seniorauditor/.

Anne Sheehan, a CU-Boulder professor and fellow of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, monitors a GPS station near Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve in Colorado. A new study shows that the the Rio Grande Rift that extends through Colorado and New Mexico is seismically active and could lead to earthquakes. Photo courtesy Ane Sheehan, University of Colorado

The Rio Grande Rift, a thinning and stretching of Earth’s surface that extends from Colorado’s central Rocky Mountains to Mexico, is not dead but geologically alive and active, according to a new study involving scientists from the University of Colorado Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences.

“We don’t expect to see a lot of earthquakes, or big ones, but we will have some earthquakes,” said CU-Boulder geological sciences Professor Anne Sheehan, also a fellow at CIRES. The study also involved collaborators from the University of New Mexico, New Mexico Tech, Utah State University and the Boulder-headquartered UNAVCO. The Rio Grande Rift follows the path of the Rio Grande River from central Colorado roughly to El Paso before turning southeast toward the Gulf of Mexico.

Sheehan was not too surprised when a 5.3 magnitude earthquake struck about 9 miles west of Trinidad, Colo., in the vicinity of the Rio Grande Rift on Aug. 23, 2011. The quake was the largest in Colorado since 1967 and was felt from Fort Collins to Garden City, Kan.

Along the rift, spreading motion in the crust has led to the rise of magma — the molten rock material under Earth’s crust — to the surface, creating long, fault-bounded basins that are susceptible to earthquakes, said Sheehan, a study co-author and also associate director of the CIRES Solid Earth Sciences Division. The team studied the Rio Grande Rift region to assess the potential earthquake hazards.

Using Global Positioning System instruments at 25 sites in Colorado and New Mexico, the team tracked the rift’s miniscule movements from 2006 to 2011. “Questions we wanted to answer are whether the Rio Grande Rift is alive or dead, how is it deforming and whether it is opening or not,” said Sheehan.

The high-precision instrumentation has provided unprecedented data about the volcanic activity in the region. Previously, geologists had estimated the rift had spread apart by up to 2 inches or 5 millimeters each year, although the errors introduced by the scientific instruments were known to be significant. “The GPS used in this study has reduced the uncertainty dramatically,” Sheehan said.

Using the latest high-tech instrumentation, the scientists found an average strain rate of 1.2 “nanostrain” each year across the experimental area, the equivalent of about one-twentieth of an inch, or 1.2 millimeters, over a length of about 600 miles. “The rate is lower than we thought but it does exist,” Sheehan said.

The researchers also found the extensional deformation, or stretching, is not concentrated in a narrow zone centered on the Rio Grande Rift but is distributed broadly from the western edge of the Colorado Plateau well into the western Great Plains. “The surprising thing to come out of the study was that the strain was so spread out,” Sheehan said.

Results of the study are published in the January edition of the journal Geology.

The team plans to continue monitoring the Rio Grande Rift, probing whether the activity remains constant over time, said lead study author Henry Berglund of UNAVCO, who was a graduate student at CU-Boulder working at CIRES when he completed this portion of the research. Also, the team may attempt to determine vertical as well as horizontal activity in the region to tell whether the Rocky Mountains are still uplifting or not, Berglund said.

“Present-day measurements of deformation within continental interiors have been difficult to capture due to the typically slow rates of deformation within them,” Berglund said. “Now with the recent advances in space geodesy we are finding some very surprising results in these previously unresolved areas.”

As far as the potential for future earthquakes in the region, the study’s results are unequivocal, however. “The rift is still active,” Sheehan said.

The new study also is co-authored by CU-Boulder Associate Professor and CIRES Fellow Steven Nerem, Frederick Blume of UNAVCO, Anthony Lowry of Utah State University, Mousumi Roy of the University of New Mexico and Mark Murray of New Mexico Tech.

The National Science Foundation provided the funding for this study and the NSF-funded EarthScope program and UNAVCO provided instruments, equipment and engineering services. The Boulder-headquartered UNAVCO is a nonprofit, university-governed consortium that facilitates geosciences research and education.

A team of researchers led by the University of Colorado Boulder has used NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope to uncover a cluster of galaxies in the initial stages of construction — the most distant such grouping ever observed in the early universe.

In a random sky survey made in near-infrared light, Hubble spied five small galaxies clustered together 13.1 billion light-years away. They are among the brightest galaxies at that epoch and very young, living just 600 million years after the universe’s birth in the Big Bang. One light-year is about 6 trillion miles.

Galaxy clusters are the largest structures in the universe, comprising hundreds to thousands of galaxies bound together by gravity. The developing cluster, or protocluster, presumably will grow into one of today’s massive galactic “cities” comparable to the nearby Virgo cluster, a collection of more than 2,000 galaxies.

“These galaxies formed during the earliest stages of galaxy assembly, when galaxies had just started to cluster together,” says the study’s leader, Michele Trenti, a research associate at CU-Boulder’s Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy and a newly appointed scientist at the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom. “The result confirms our theoretical understanding of the buildup of galaxy clusters. And Hubble is just powerful enough to find the first examples of them at this distance.”

Trenti will present his results Jan. 10 at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Austin, Texas. The study will appear in the Feb. 10 issue of The Astrophysical Journal.

Most galaxies in the universe live in groups and clusters, and astronomers have probed many mature “galactic cities” in detail as far as 11 billion light-years away. But finding clusters in the early phases of construction has been challenging because they are rare, dim and widely scattered across the sky.

“Records are always exciting, and this is the earliest and the most distant developing galaxy cluster that has ever been seen,” said CU-Boulder Professor Michael Shull of the astrophysical and planetary sciences department, a member of the observing team. “We have seen individual galaxies this old and far away, but we have not seen groups of them in the construction process before.”

Last year, a group of astronomers uncovered one distant developing cluster. Led by Peter L. Capak of NASA’s Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, the astronomers discovered a galactic grouping 12.6 billion light-years away with a variety of telescopes, including Hubble. Spectroscopic observations were made with the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii to confirm the cluster’s distance by measuring how much its light has been stretched by the expansion of space.

Trenti’s team used the sharp-eyed Wide Field Camera 3 to hunt for the elusive catch. “We need to look in many different areas because the odds of finding something this rare are very small,” Trenti said. “It’s like playing a game of Battleship: The search is hit and miss. Typically a region has nothing, but if we hit the right spot we can find multiple galaxies.”

Because these distant, fledgling clusters are so dim, the team hunted for the systems’ brightest galaxies. These bright lights act as billboards, advertising cluster construction zones, according to the team. Galaxies at early epochs don’t live alone. From simulations, the astronomers expect galaxies to be clustered together.

Because brightness correlates with mass, the most luminous galaxies pinpoint the location of developing clusters. These powerful light beacons live in deep wells of dark matter, which form the underlying structure in which galaxy clusters form, Trenti said. The team expects many fainter galaxies that were not seen in these observations to inhabit the same neighborhood.

The five bright galaxies spotted by Hubble are about one-half to one-tenth the size of our Milky Way, yet are comparable in brightness. The galaxies are bright and massive because they are being fed lots of gas through mergers with other galaxies, Trenti said. The team’s simulations show that the galaxies will eventually merge and form the brightest central galaxy in the cluster, a giant elliptical similar to the Virgo Cluster’s M87.

The observations demonstrate the progressive buildup of galaxies and provide further support for the hierarchical model of galaxy assembly, in which small objects accrete mass, or merge, to form bigger objects over a smooth and steady but dramatic process of collision and agglomeration. Astronomers have likened the process to streams merging into tributaries, then into rivers and to a bay.

Hubble looked in near-infrared light because ultraviolet and visible light from distant objects have been stretched into near-infrared wavelengths by the expansion of space in these extremely distant galaxies. The observations are part of the Brightest of Reionizing Galaxies or BoRG survey, which is using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 to search for the brightest galaxies around 13 billion years ago, when light from the first stars burned off a fog of cold hydrogen in a process called reionization.

The team estimated the distance to the newly spied galaxies based on their colors, but the astronomers plan to follow up with spectroscopic observations to confirm their distance.

Without spectroscopic observations, it’s not clear whether the observed galaxies are gravitationally bound yet. The average distance between them is likely comparable to that of the galaxies in the Local Group, consisting of two large spiral galaxies, the Milky Way and Andromeda, and a few dozen small dwarf galaxies.

These observations are pushing Hubble to the limit of its ability. This region, however, will be prime country for future telescopes such as NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, an infrared observatory scheduled to launch later this decade. Webb will see farther into the infrared, allowing it to hunt for even earlier stages of galaxy assembly within 300 million years of the Big Bang.

Shull, also a faculty member at CU-Boulder’s Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy, said the research team will receive an additional 260 orbits of observation time on Hubble to continue the search for more of the fledgling galaxy clusters as part of the BoRG survey. “There is high interest right now in learning if Earth is unique in the universe in its ability to host life,” he said. “Similarly, we are interested to see if these ancient, forming galaxy clusters we have identified are unique, or if there are others out there. I expect that we may find a few more.”

The Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency. NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center manages the telescope. The Space Telescope Science Institute, or STScI, conducts Hubble science operations. STScI is operated for NASA by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc., in Washington, D.C.

For more information on the galaxies visit the news center at http://hubblesite.org/. For more information on CU-Boulder’s CASA visit http://casa.colorado.edu/.

Exhibit by internationally recognized artist

brings together art, science, lichens and “footprints of the sky”

Jan. 17-Aug. 8, 2012

Boulder, CO.– Art, science, lichens, smog, a 16’ video wall, emissions testing, paintings, photographs, puzzles, sculpture, stickers, statistics, and metaphors come together in a timely and thought-provoking exhibit “the invisible connectedness of things,” January 17 – August 8, 2012. The exhibition was created by internationally recognized, Los Angeles-based visual artist Kim Abeles, whose work has been shown in 22 countries.

This multi-faceted art/science/transportation exhibit explores the impacts that our transportation choices have on Boulder’s air quality. It was inspired by the spectacular structure, colors and longevity of lichens and the fact that they are biomonitors of pollution. Abeles notes that lichens are collected and studied in the lab to compare carbon, lead, and other pollutants and she writes, “Once you really look at lichens, you never see the world the same again.”

The project has been created over the last year in collaboration with atmospheric scientists, emissions specialists, lichenologists, transportation professionals and middle and high school students, among others. The exhibit is commissioned by EcoArts Connections (EAC) and co-presented by the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History and EAC in collaboration with Envirotest – Air Care Colorado, Manhattan Middle School and Spark: UCAR Science Education at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR).

Patrick Kociolek, director of the University of Colorado Museum of Natural History, explains, “The museum is excited to provide the venue for Kim Abeles’ work. She has an extraordinary ability to make the invisible, visible, and to make what we take for granted appear freshly before our eyes.” Marda Kirn, EAC Executive Director, adds “Connecting Abeles over this past year with community participants, and seeing the works she has created, I am constantly amazed at how she captures the essence of complex topics so deeply, and with such a wry, mischievous sense of humor and compassionate love of life.”

To create the invisible connectedness of things Abeles gathered information from science experts and the community, she experienced Boulder’s transportation choices first hand, by riding the bus, morning and night, and observing walkers, biker and sk8ers. She chose the RTD 206 bus route because it includes a stop at Manhattan Middle School, and gave her the opportunity to study riders of all ages as they rode through urban, suburban, and rural areas. With Abeles’ guidance 80 Manhattan Middle School science and art students created many of the “smog collector” plates for the exhibition.

The smog collector process

“Smog collectors” create images from polluted air. A stencil is created and placed on plates and then exposed to the air. When the stencil is removed an image is revealed from collected smog. Manhattan Middle School students’ plates were placed on top of the school roof for seven months, collecting particulate matter from Boulder’s air.

The plates will be on display, divided among the various exhibition sites. Photographs of all of the plates will be published together in a book created by Abeles and available at all the exhibition sites. As the Green Museum website explains of Abeles’ past work, “Smog Collector images have been described by others as ‘footprints of the sky.’ Since the worst in the air can’t be seen, Smog Collectors are both literal and metaphoric depictions of the current conditions of our life source.”

Through the invisible connectedness of things, Abeles hopes to “inspire people to be more attentive to nature, to see the links between art and science, and to encourage people to use their sustainable transportation options.” With her artwork deeply rooted in facts and observable evidence, she says, “sometimes if you think of things in a more poetic sense, it affects you more deeply.”

Learn more.

About Kim Abeles

Kim Abeles’ installations and community projects cross disciplines and media to explore broad social issues. Her work brings together biography, geography and environment. She has created artwork in conjunction with a unique range of collaborators such as the Bureau of Automotive Repair, Santa Monica Bay Restoration Project, California Science Center, Natural History museums in California and Colorado, and the Lakota Indians of South Dakota. In 1987, she innovated a method to create images from the smog in the air, and Smog Collectors brought her work to national and international attention.  

A new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder could be a wake-up call for parents of toddlers: Daytime naps for your kids may be more important than you think.

The study shows toddlers between 2 and a half and 3 years old who miss only a single daily nap show more anxiety, less joy and interest and a poorer understanding of how to solve problems, said CU-Boulder Assistant Professor Monique LeBourgeois, who led the study. The results indicate insufficient sleep alters the facial expressions of toddlers — exciting events are responded to less positively and frustrating events are responded to more negatively, she said.

“Many young children today are not getting enough sleep, and for toddlers, daytime naps are one way of making sure their ‘sleep tanks’ are set to full each day,” she said. “This study shows insufficient sleep in the form of missing a nap taxes the way toddlers express different feelings, and, over time, may shape their developing emotional brains and put them at risk for lifelong, mood-related problems.”

LeBourgeois and her colleagues assessed the emotional expressions of healthy, nap-deprived toddlers one hour after their normal nap time, and tested them again on another day following their normal nap. The study, believed to be the first to look at the experimental effects of missing sleep on the emotional responses of young children, indicates the loss of a nap — in this case in just 90 minutes — may make toddlers unable to take full advantage of exciting and interesting experiences and to adapt to new frustrations, she said.  

“Just like good nutrition, adequate sleep is a basic need that gives children the best chance of getting what is most important from the people and things they experience each day,” said LeBourgeois of the integrative physiology department.

In the study, the toddlers’ faces were videotaped while they performed “kid-friendly” picture puzzles, including those of farm animals, sea creatures and insects.  One puzzle each child worked had all of the correct pieces, which gave him or her the opportunity to experience and express positive emotion, she said.  A second puzzle had a “wrong” piece and therefore was frustrating to the toddlers in the study because it was unsolvable.

Facial expressions of the toddlers were coded on a second-by-second basis for emotions like joy, interest, excitement, sadness, anger, anxiety, disgust, shame and confusion.

The study showed nap-deprived toddlers completing the solvable puzzles had a 34 percent decrease in positive emotional responses compared to the same children completing similar puzzles after their usual midday naps. The study also showed a 31 percent increase in negative emotional responses of nap-deprived toddlers when they attempted to complete unsolvable puzzles when compared with puzzle-solving attempts after they had napped.

In addition, the study found a 39 percent decrease in the expression of “confusion” when nap-deprived toddlers attempted to put together unsolvable puzzles. “Confusion is not bad — it’s a complex emotion showing a child knows something does not add up,” said LeBourgeois. “When well-slept toddlers experience confusion, they are more likely to elicit help from others, which is a positive, adaptive response indicating they are cognitively engaged with their world.”

A paper on the subject recently appeared online and will be published in an upcoming issue of the Journal of Sleep Research.  Co-authors included Rebecca Berger and Ronald Seifer of Bradley Hospital in East Providence, R.I., Alison Miller of the University of Michigan School of Public Health and Stephanie Cares of Boston College. The study was funded by the National Institute of Mental Health.  The study participants were from Providence, R.I.

“The non-adaptive emotional effects we saw in toddlers who missed a single nap make us wonder how young kids who consistently don’t get enough sleep deal with their complicated social worlds,” said LeBourgeois, who undertook the study with colleagues while at Brown University.

The toddlers were kept on a strict sleep schedule of at least 12 and a half hours of nighttime and daytime sleep for at least five days before the emotion-testing sessions. Having children follow a set sleep schedule before testing is important because it synchronizes their circadian cycles and makes sure the participants are well-slept prior to the nap and no-nap emotional assessments.

“A sleepy child in a classroom or daycare environment may not be able to engage with others and benefit from positive interactions,” she said. “Their coping skills decrease and they may be more prone to tantrums or frustration, which would affect how other children and adults interact with them.  This study shows that missing even a single nap causes them to be less positive, more negative and have decreased cognitive engagement.”

Similar interactions in the home setting could affect parent-child relationships and a child’s quality of life, LeBourgeois said.

The toddlers in the study all wore devices on their wrists that measured their sleep patterns. The parents also kept daily diaries documenting their toddlers’ sleep.

“The goal of our study was to understand how losing sleep affects the way young kids respond emotionally to their world,” said LeBourgeois. “This is important because toddlerhood is a sensitive period for developing strategies to cope with emotions and a time children naturally lose some sleep as they begin giving up their daytime naps.”

Le Bourgeois and her colleagues are now recruiting 40 families with 2-year-olds from the Boulder area for a toddler-sleep study that involves how sleep restriction may affect not only emotion, but also higher levels of cognition known as executive function, which includes working memory and inhibitory control. “These are the building blocks for lifelong learning,” she said.

LeBourgeois currently has eight undergraduates working in her CU-Boulder lab. “My students are incredible,” she said. “The work we do here gives them a hands-on opportunity to learn about research with children and families, to think critically, and to analyze and present their findings at scientific meetings. They are very important to me, and their insight and passion keep me young.”

Whether you live in Shanghai or San Francisco, there are many ways to engage with CU-Boulder and our 270,000-strong Forever Buffs family. Get involved in the following ways:

• Network with other Forever Buffs through our dozens of alumni groups around the nation and world and online through Facebook and Twitter at www.cualum.org/social;
• Celebrate your CU pride by attending our events and pregame parties before athletic games in Boulder and throughout the West as we travel to Pac-12 territory;
• Gain career guidance from our alumni career counselor, Lea Alvarado, through workshops, one-on-one counseling and teleclasses. Or seek advice and share jobs with 14,000 Forever Buffs in our LinkedIn group. We just launched our first topical group focused on sustainability. More to come!

As a reminder, under our Forever Buffs initiative, all alumni and students are members of the Alumni Association without paying annual dues. That’s right! You receive a lifetime of services and programming.
 
So, grow your Buff family and shrink the world. Take a look at www.cualum.org and find a variety of ways to engage with alumni, students and CU. Thanks for being a Forever Buff!

Here’s our photoset from the event.
 
Read Alumni Association board chair Karin Rutstein’s (Bus’87) speech to the grads on Friday, Dec. 16 during winter commencement:

Karin Rutstein speaks at winter commencement 2011

You stand today on the shoulders of thousands of accomplished CU-Boulder alumni. Like you, they walked in sight of the majestic Flatirons to attend this ceremony as students and leave as graduates.

They include 18 astronauts, Chipotle founder Steve Ells, Oscar-winning co-producer Sarah Siegel-Magness, South Park creators Matt Stone and Trey Parker, ambassador Vicki Huddleston, professional football player Alfred Williams and thousands of Peace Corps volunteers.

You are one of them now, part of our 270,000-strong Forever Buffs family that aims to help students and alumni build robust professional and social networks while celebrating their CU pride. It is made up of outstanding people who are shaping the world in which we live.

Whether you move to Shanghai or San Francisco or stay in the Boulder area, there are many ways to engage with our Forever Buffs family to find job leads, make friends and possibly even find a date. Here’s how:

• Network with other Forever Buffs through our dozens of alumni groups around the nation and world through local events and online through Facebook and Twitter.

• Celebrate your CU pride by attending our events and pregame parties before athletic games in Boulder and throughout the West.

• Gain career guidance from our alumni-only career counselor, through alumni career workshops and one-on-one counseling. Or seek advice and share jobs with 14,000 Forever Buffs in our LinkedIn group.

Being a part of the Forever Buffs family means you receive a lifetime of services and programming.

But it comes with a responsibility. Be true to yourself. Remember the people, the memories, the mistakes and successes you experienced here as they will shape your future. Stand for things of the spirit, as CU President George Norlin once wrote. Give back to the university with your time and money. Have a heart large enough to match your successes. Because life will continue to test your heart and challenge your mind. 

And lastly, take the buffalo by the horns and stay connected with other Forever Buffs ─  students and alumni alike.

Congratulations on all of your wonderful accomplishments during your CU career and know, as you go forth in life, you will always be a reflection of the university’s soul.

Happy holidays wherever you may roam.

See the holiday card here.

University of Colorado Boulder Provost Russell L. Moore today announced that a search committee for the vice chancellor for student affairs has named Deborah J. “Deb” Coffin the sole finalist for the position. Coffin has served in the post in an interim capacity since July 2011.

“The search committee has forwarded Deb’s name to me as sole finalist,” said Moore. “I want to congratulate the committee on its good work. Deb is an outstanding colleague, a highly qualified and talented administrator, and a person who brings student, campus and community stakeholders together in everything she does.”

Coffin on Monday, Dec. 12, will meet with various campus constituent groups in a series of five sessions to outline her vision for the post and to answer questions. The provost will be soliciting feedback from the groups on her candidacy.

The 10-member internal search committee was chaired by Anne Heinz, associate vice chancellor for summer session, outreach and engagement and dean of continuing education. The committee represented constituencies that included Parent Relations, Housing and Dining Services, Intercollegiate Athletics, the Office of Diversity, Equity and Community Engagement, University of Colorado Student Government and the Office of Student Affairs.

“The committee was unanimous in its selection of Deb Coffin as a finalist,” said Heinz. “Her performance in previous key CU posts – including as interim vice chancellor for student affairs – has created a record of high achievement and success that has transformed our Student Affairs division. The committee believes it is vital to continue this important work under her vision and leadership.”

Prior to her service as interim vice chancellor for student affairs, Coffin served as associate vice chancellor for student affairs and dean of students from 2008-11, assistant vice chancellor for student affairs and executive director of Housing and Dining Services from 2006-08 and executive director of Housing and Dining Services from 2001-2006.

Coffin also served in various housing leadership capacities at the University of Northern Colorado (1982-95; 1998-2001) and the University of Wyoming (1995-98).

She earned a Bachelor of Science degree in community health education (1977), a Bachelor of Arts degree in biology education (1985) and a Master of Arts in human communication theory from the University of Northern Colorado.

She also served a mission in the United States Peace Corps (1977-78) in the Philippines.

Do you sing, do you dance, do you entertain? Do you know someone who entertains with world-wide flair? Would you/they like to do this for students? CU Dining Services is hosting a series of World Street Food events and they are looking to schedule entertainment in the new Center for Community dining facility through April 2012. If you have a specialty in Italian, Latin, Asian, Persian or just love to perform, please contact Janice Torkildsen. Learn more about the dining services in the Center for Community on their Facebook page.

As part of the Forever Buffs initiative, the CU-Boulder Alumni Association is beginning a new tradition by providing “legacy cords” to graduating students whose parent(s) and/or grandparent(s) is a CU alum. The black and gold cords will be worn with the student’s graduation gown to recognize his or her tie to a CU legacy family.

Graduating students can pick up their complimentary legacy cord at the Koenig Alumni Center, on the northwestern edge of campus, December 5 – 15. For more information, contact Clark Oldroyd at 303-492-5640 or at clark.oldroyd@colorado.edu.

Eight Buffs Named To All-Pac-12 Teams

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. — University of Colorado Cross Country coach Mark Wetmore has been named the 2011 Pac-12 Men’s Coach of the Year, announced by the conference on Tuesday afternoon. CU also placed eight Buffs, four men and four women, on the All-Pac-12 First and Second Teams.

Wetmore coached the men’s team to a third-place finish at the NCAA Championships on Nov. 21. Colorado finished just five points behind Oklahoma State at the championship (139-144). The Buffs placed second to BYU (49-55) at the NCAA Mountain Region Championships after winning the Pac-12 Championship on Oct. 29. CU defeated Stanford by seven points to capture the inaugural conference title (46-53).

Richard Medina and Andy Wacker were named to the All-Pac-12 First Team while Joe Bosshard and Christian Thompson earned second team honors. Medina finished eighth at the NCAA Championships and Wacker took 20th overall. Bosshard placed 24th overall and Thompson was the 49th overall runner to cross the finish. Medina, Wacker and Bosshard each earned All-American honors as they finished in the top-40.

On the women’s side Shalaya Kipp and Emma Coburn picked up first team honors. Lara Darco and Rachel Baptista were second team selections. Kipp and Coburn finished 19th and 20th, respectively, at the NCAA Championship to each earn All-American status. Darco placed 97th and Baptista took 170th at nationals.

The complete Pac-12 release can be viewed at Pac-12.org.

2011 All-PAC-12 Men’s Cross Country Teams

Coach of the Year

Mark Wetmore

First Team

Richard Medina
Andy Wacker

Second Team

Joe Bosshard
Christian Thompson

2011 All-PAC-12 WOMEN’S CROSS COUNTRY TEAMS

First Team

Shalaya Kipp
Emma Coburn

Second Team

Lara Darco
Rachel Baptista

Anthony Hull (PolSci’11), featured in the March 2011 Coloradan, appears in a cell phone commercial. Check him out:

Click here to view the embedded video.

SALT LAKE CITY – Black Friday? How about Black and Gold Friday?

The Colorado Buffaloes snapped their horrendous 24-game out-of-state losing streak here Friday afternoon, dominating the first half then holding on to defeat Utah 17-14 in Rice-Eccles Stadium.

Read more at CUBuffs.com

Richard Medina (above) Finishes Eighth Overall

Men Place Third At NCAA Championships

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — Senior Richard Medina raced to an eighth-place finish on the cross country course as the No. 6 University of Colorado men’s team placed third overall at the 2011 NCAA Cross Country Championships on Monday.

“Third is a very good run for the men,” coach Mark Wetmore said. “I can’t think of anyone who had a bad race. That is very nearly the highest we could have hoped for. We were just five points out of second, which is really just a blink of an eye in this race, so that was very good run for them.”

The men recorded 144 points in the team race and finished just five points behind No. 2 Oklahoma State (139) at the La Vern Gibson Championship Cross Country. No. 1 Wisconsin won the meet with 97 points. The No. 6 CU women finished 11th overall with a team score of 335. Georgetown took the women’s title with 162 points and Washington was second (170).

Medina crossed the 10k finish in 29 minutes, 27.8 seconds for his first All-American cross country finish, improving from a 57th-place finish in 2009. Medina led CU in four of the five varsity meets this season.

“Richard has looked very good since the middle of last spring,” Wetmore said. “He’s had no interruptions, just banking his training. I knew he was a top-10 guy here today. I’m not sure he knew it, but he found it out. It was a great run for him.”

“I’m happy to end my cross country career at CU on this note,” Medina said. “To do well individually and as a team is a great feeling. I’m so proud of my team and everything we have accomplished.”

Two other Buffs, Andy Wacker and Joe Bosshard, earned All-American honors as well. Wacker placed 20th overall (29:44.8) and Bosshard was 24th (29:53.7). This was the second honor for Wacker and Bosshard as both finished in the top-40 at last year’s championships. Wacker was 37th and Bosshard was 26th.

“You can’t argue with a guy like Andy who keeps getting better year after year after year,” Wetmore said. “Joe improved a couple of positions from last year. He had a viral infection that cost him five or six weeks early in the season so we knew that he was just doing team duty, but he bite the bullet and did a great job.”

Christian Thompson just missed his first All-American honor, placing 49th in 30:22.3 as CU’s No. 4 scorer. Ammar Moussa was CU’s fifth harrier. He was 88th overall (30:42.4) in his first NCAA meet.

The CU women were led by Shalaya Kipp and Emma Coburn. Kipp was 19th overall to earn her second All-American cross country certificate and Coburn was 20th to earn her first honor. Both finished the 6k course with a time of 20:08 but Kipp was just ahead of Coburn at the finish line. Kipp improved from a 40th-place finish last season and Coburn improved from 53rd a year ago.

“I’m very happy with my race today,” Kipp said. “I’ve been working all year for this and to improve from last year is a great feeling. We would have liked to finish higher as a team, but I’m excited about the future since we will have a great team again next year.”

Lara Darco was CU’s third scorer, finishing 97th in 21:00.3. Katie Cumming had her best finish at nationals, crossing the line in 137th (21:17.8). Camille Logan rounded out CU’s score by taking 165th (21:28.9).

“We aren’t ecstatic about the women finishing 11th,” Wetmore said. “We know they are a better team than that, but those two front women had real good runs. Despite Emma’s track credentials she has never been a stellar cross country runner, and also in her case she had a very long last 14-16 months. They both equaled our highest expectations. Behind them it wasn’t a great day. It is an inexperienced team. Some of them had never been here before. This meet is very intimidating from the time you arrive to the middle of the race.”

The Buffs did come away from the meet with the highest combined team score (14). The second best team was Stanford (15). The Cardinal men finished fifth and the women were 10th.

CU graduates three men (Richard Medina, Andy Wacker and Christian Thompson) and two women (Emma Coburn and Lara Darco) from this year’s team.

2011 NCAA Division I Cross Country Championship

Monday, November 21
Lavern Gibson Cross Country Course
Wabash Valley Family Sports Center, Terre Haute, Ind.

MEN’S TEAM TOP-10 10K RESULTS (of 31 teams):

1. Wisconsin, 97; 2. Oklahoma State, 139; 3. Colorado, 144; 4. BYU, 203; 5. Stanford, 207; 6. Oklahoma, 213; 7. Indiana, 257; 8. Portland, 259; 9. Iona, 265; 10. North Carolina State, 282

MEN’S TOP-10 INDIVIDUAL FINISHERS:

1. Lawi Lalang, Arizona, 28:44.1; 2. Chris Derrick, Stanford, 28:57.5; 3. Leonard Korir, Iona, 29:02.5; 4. Cameron Levins, Southern Utah, 29:04.8; 5. Mohammed Ahmed, Wisconsin, 29:06.7; 6. Luke Puskedra, Oregon, 29:09.3; 7. Diego Estrada, Northern Arizona, 29:24.7; 8. Richard Medina, Colorado, 29:27.8; 9. Henry Lelei, Texas A&M, 29:29.1; 10. Colby Lowe, Oklahoma State, 29:31.4.

OTHER COLORADO FINISHERS:

20. Andrew Wacker, 29:44.8; 24. Joseph Bosshard, 29:53.7; 49. Christian Thompson, 30:22.3; 88. Ammar Moussa, 30:42.4; 173. Martin Medina, 31:26.9; 183. Blake Theroux, 31:31.4.

WOMEN’S 6K RESULTS (of 31 teams):

1. Georgetown, 162: 2. Washington, 170; 3. Villanova, 181; 4. Florida State, 189; 5. Oregon, 281; 6. Vanderbilt, 282; 7. Iowa State, 290; 8. West Virginia, 297; 9. New Mexico, 322; 10. Stanford, 332. 11. Colorado, 335.

WOMEN’S TOP-10 INDIVIDUAL FINISHERS:

1. Sheila Reid, Villanova, 19:41.2; 2. Jordam Hasay, Oregon, 19:41.8; 3. Abbey D’Agostino, Dartmouth, 19:42.9; 4. Emily Infeld, Georgetown, 19:44.3; 5. Alex Banfich, Princeton, 19:45.0; 6. Bogdana Mimic, Villanova, 19:45.7; 7. Katie Flood, Washington, 19:47.9; 8. Kate Harrison, West Virginia, 19:49.5; 9. Betsy Saina, Iowa State, 19:50.7; 10. Tara Erdmann, Loyola Marymount, 19:51.3.

OTHER COLORADO FINISHERS:

19. Shalaya Kipp, 20:08.1; 20. Emma Coburn, 20:08.6; 97. Lara Darco, 21:00.3; 137. Katie Cumming, 21:17.8; 165. Camille Logan, 21:28.9; 169. Rachel Viger, 21:33.5; 170. Rachel Baptista, 21:34.3

Oklahoma State University women’s basketball coach Kurt Budke and assistant coach Miranda Serna were killed when their plane crashed on the way to a recruiting trip in Arkansas, university officials said Friday.

Read more at CNN.

Just as codes once were developed for public safety communication via citizens band radios, a common language now is being formulated for disaster communication via Twitter — posing a challenge for people who haven’t yet learned or can’t recall it.

Daniel Schaefer, a University of Colorado Boulder doctoral student in communication, recently created a solution to this problem in the form of a software application, or app, for mobile devices. It turns everyday language into a Twitter syntax used during disasters through a special smart phone keyboard.

“Twitter has become popular during disasters because it offers a concise and efficient communication medium,” said Schaefer, who was inspired by the 2010 Fourmile Canyon Fire near Boulder. “However, a need to standardize the syntaxes used on Twitter has surfaced particularly for the emergency personnel, affected individuals, concerned loved ones, information officers and journalists who use it to provide and monitor information and collaborate on rescue efforts.”

The free app, called the Bucket Brigade Keyboard, is designed for Android devices. It transforms the standard smart phone keyboard display into a keypad of 12 message choices such as “help,” “location” and “request.” When these messages are selected, corresponding tweets — about one’s status, needs and offers to help — are queued for posting online.

“In a disaster, communication and working together can save lives,” said Schaefer. “Just as a bucket brigade fills and passes buckets of water to help put out a fire, this app allows people to fill and pass buckets of tweets to help during a disaster.”

The syntax used in Schaefer’s app — which turns an “I’m Ok” key into “#imok” — is based on a concept devised in 2009 by doctoral student Kate Starbird of CU’s Project EPIC (Empowering the Public with Information in Crisis) research group. The streamlining of disaster-related Twitter communication through Starbird’s idea, called “Tweak the Tweet,” makes the information computationally easier to extract and collate, which can help connect people with needs to responders.

Nearly 3,000 tweets using the Tweak the Tweet syntax were posted in the weeks following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti. More than 500 tweets using the syntax were posted in the wake of the 2011 tornado in Joplin, Mo.

During those instances, users manually entered text that now can be deployed with the touch of a button through the Bucket Brigade Keyboard.

The app not only empowers people with a standard language, but also is designed for convenience using accessible technology, according to Schaefer.

“People are going to be holding smart phones during disasters,” he said. “They’re not going to be going to laptop computers or cafés with time to look up the syntax.”

Schaefer entered the Bucket Brigade Keyboard in the Federal Communications Commission’s Apps for Communities contest. The challenge calls for apps that help local government deliver quality-of-life-improving information to populations that are typically disenfranchised or disconnected from broadband communications.

The Bucket Brigade Keyboard has been downloaded in 20 countries.

Schaefer says a planned update to the Bucket Brigade Keyboard will add more Twitter shortcuts to the app, as well as auto-fill and auto-correction features.

More information on the Bucket Brigade Keyboard. For information on the Apps for Communities challenge visit http://appsforcommunities.challenge.gov/.

The CU-Boulder cross country teams will be competing for the national title in Terre Haute, Ind., and we need your help cheering them on Monday, Nov. 21.

On Monday, the  women’s and men’s cross country teams will compete in the 2011 NCAA Cross Country Championships. Pick up a cow bell from Doug Nelson (Anth’77) under the CU tent, stretch your vocal cords and sing the CU Fight Song as our runners battle for the title.
 
Our men and women’s teams captured CU-Boulder’s first Pac-12 championship title in Arizona in October. Last Saturday, the  women’s cross country team tied for first at the NCAA Mountain Region Championships to automatically qualify for the NCAA Championships, while the men’s team placed second, also earning a trip to nationals.
 
The awards ceremony will be at 1:45 p.m. Our student runners would love your support.

Race times:
12:08 p.m. EST – men’s 10k
12:58 p.m. EST – women’s 6k

Cost: $5 admission, which includes parking. Children 2 and under are free.
 
Location: Lavern Gibson Championship Cross Country Course  at the Wabash Valley Family Sports Center
599 S. Tabortown Rd.
Terre Haute, Ind. 47803
 

Purchase your spectacular 2012 CU wall calendar with large campus photos displayed in a much larger format than in recent years.

This year’s calendar runs from January 2012 through December 2012 with unparalleled photography that reflects the changing seasons on the Boulder campus. Keep track of your schedule on this large 12” by 12” calendar or buy one as a gift for the Buff in your life. It costs $15.

For those who purchased last year’s August 2010 through July 2011 calendar, we have produced a free bridge edition that will take you from August through December when you purchase your 2012 calendar. Please check the box that asks if you would like a bridge edition to carry you to the 2012 calendar.

As in the past, Lifetime and Directors Club members will receive complimentary calendars to thank them for their service to the university.

Buy your calendar here.

Please call our main office at 303-492-8484 with any questions.

See all the images from the calendar here.

“Managing Stress and Creating Your Next Career,” three Thursdays, Dec. 1, 8 and 15, 6-9 p.m. (free), led by two of Denver’s most well know job-seeking consultants: Linda Sollars and stress management expert Dr. Sandra Thébaud. Series includes three sessions:

“Stress Management,” Dec. 1: This workshop is designed to clarify the myths which keep people from effectively reducing their stress. It will help participants create an individual plan for dealing with stress and understand how to make stress management a habit rather than just some knowledge.

“Personal Branding” Dec. 8: This workshop will teach you how to develop your personal brand. You will be able to articulate your strengths and develop these into clear, positive and personal responses to interview questions and resume profiles.

“Informational Interviewing Skills”, Dec. 15: This workshop is designed to help individuals identify contacts and develop accurate informational interviewing skills that clearly state objectives and skills. Check out Sandra Thebaud’s book, “The Art of Loving Life.”

Get more information and register through CSO.

The CU-Arizona football game this Saturday, Nov. 12, features a Student Veterans of America pregame party to honor all military, veterans and family members. It goes from 10 a.m. to noon on the south patio of the University Memorial Center. There will be a live band and door prizes. Pregame tickets $10; football game are also $10. Promo code here.

Here’s more information.

Veterans Day 2011

Friday, November 11
University Memorial Center

Featured Guests and Speakers

• ROTC Color Guard
  
• Tiffanie Battram, UMC Board Chair and CU Student
• Philip P. DiStefano, Chancellor, University of Colorado Boulder
• Major David M. Rozelle, Commanding Officer and Professor of Military Science for Army ROTC, University of Colorado Boulder
• Carlos Garcia, Director, University Memorial Center

Major David M. Rozelle

Major Rozelle is a proud Texas native and an adopted son of Colorado after an assignment at Fort Carson. He initially enlisted in the North Carolina National Guard in 1992 and earned his commission through ROTC at Davidson College in 1995. He has served as an officer in the United States Army in Kentucky, Texas, South Korea, Colorado, Washington D.C., Kuwait, and Iraq.

A veteran of three combat tours in Iraq, Major Rozelle was wounded in 2003 by a land-mine which resulted in the loss of his right foot. He refused to let his injury stop him. After months of rehabilitation, he earned recertification as “Fit for Duty” and redeployed to Iraq in 2004,
becoming the first amputee in recent military history to return to active command on the same battlefield.

Major Rozelle founded, participated in, and served as an advisor to a wide variety of programs and charities to support wounded warriors and first responders. He was appointed by the Vice Chief of Staff of the Army to help create the Amputee Care Center at Walter Reid Army Medical Center, and then returned to Iraq in 2009-2010 for his third deployment. Additionally, he served as an advisor to the creative board of PBS’s Sesame Street Workshop “Talk, Listen, and Connect;” which produced “When Parents Are Deployed” and the “Coming Home” Project. Major Rozelle consulted on two children’s books, and is the author of the New York Times Bestseller “Back in Action: An American
Soldier’s Story of Courage, Faith and Fortitude” published in 2005.

A decorated battlefield leader with three campaign ribbons, recipient of the Purple Heart and two Bronze Star Medals, one with a “V” for valor in Combat, Major David Rozelle is the Commanding Officer and Professor of Military Science for Army ROTC at the University of Colorado Boulder.

Veterans Day History

Veterans Day, formerly Armistice Day, is a holiday observed annually in the United States in honor of all those, living and dead, who served with the u.s. armed forces.

University of Colorado and UMC History

In 1947, enrollment at CU was 8,747 students, and 4,607 of those students were WWII veterans, many of them using the GI Bill. That year, 80% of enrolled students requested (via petition) that a $12 fee per year be assessed to help finance the construction of a new student union building, which
would also serve as a memorial building. Soon after, Colorado Governor Knous issued a proclamation stating that “the memorial center at the University of Colorado shall be the official state memorial to those who served and to those who died in these great wars to preserve our democratic freedom:’

The UMC was completed and held its first Veterans Day dedication ceremony in 1953. We thank you for joining us in this tradition of remembering those brave men and women who have served in the u.s. Military.

Tony Monell, a CU alum who works for the White House, traveled to Boulder for the USC game Friday night.  He sent us a photo of him with his Buff flag. Go, Tony!

Attend the road trip to the Nov. 30 CU vs. CSU basketball game. Tip-off is at 6 p.m. in the Moby Gym in Fort Collins.

Sign up early as this trip will be first come, first serve.
Contact Josi Carlson with CU Special Events at 303-492-3213 to make a reservation.

Buses will pick up and drop off in Denver and Boulder areas. Buses will depart at 4pm from the first pick up location in Denver and Boulder. $30 per person that includes game ticket, round trip transportation, boxed dinner compliments of Blake St. Tavern for Denver buses, Blackjack Pizza compliments of Boulder Buff Club for Boulder buses, Pepsi products compliments of Pepsi.

Denver Locations:

Blake Street Tavern located at 2301 Blake Street 2nd stop (approx. 4:30pm) at I-25 & Hwy 7 at the Village Inn Restaurant (east of I-25)

Boulder Locations: 28th & Iris at the Sports Authority parking lot (Boulder) 2nd stop (approx. 4:15pm) at Highway 119 & Hover at the Sports Authority parking lot (Longmont)

CU linebackers coach Brian Cabral (Rec’79), center, shakes the hand of President Barack Obama at the White House during a visit with the president to celebrate the Chicago Bears win in the 1986 Super Bowl. Former Buff player Emery Moorehead (Comm’77) also was at the reunion. The Bears didn’t go to the White House that year because of the space shuttle Challenger explosion.

Friday night marks her last assignment as a Denver Post reporter, as long-time college beat writer Natalie Meisler is retiring this weekend and asked that her last assignment be from the Fred Casotti Press Box and to write a sidebar about the CU-USC game.  A CU journalism graduate (’73), she joined the Post in 1977 and will conclude her career after 34 years, 10 months and one day at the paper.  She started out like many, covering preps (including writing about CU athletic director Mike Bohn leading Boulder High School to the ’79 state boys basketball title), and through the years covered Colorado and Colorado State in all sports, area bike races like the Red Zinger and Coors Classic, and the Bolder Boulder.  She kids that she wanted the late Frank Haraway’s seat at CU men’s basketball games in Balch Fieldhouse when she worked as the sports editor at the Colorado Daily as an undergraduate, and also that she finished last in the only Count Casotti Classic she played in.  Good luck in your retirement, Natalie!