Auraria As We Remember It is part of a larger movement by universities, including Brown, Georgetown, and the University of Minnesota, to confront their own historical legacies of harm. Collectively reframing and re-telling the multiple histories of the Auraria campus and the surrounding underserved communities will support an emphasis on racial equality while creating new connections between the university’s current diverse student body and Auraria’s past residents.
This research will allow us to address the missing history of residents of the Auraria neighborhood that have been subsumed in institutional and celebratory accounts. This archival research falls under two areas. First, we will research the untold history of students in a Chicano Studies course on campus in the 1980s who worked to conduct oral interviews of the Auraria neighborhood. Second, the team will compile and synthesize information from the local activist newspaper The Westside Recorder (held at the Denver Public Library) in order to construct a detailed narrative of community resistance that includes both activist leaders and the main organizations involved.
The medical profession continues to make key scientific and clinical advances toward understanding what gives rise to mental disorders and how we can care for those suffering. And, gratefully, the broader public is chipping away at the stigma surrounding mental illnesses suffered by 60% of college-aged students, 26% of all Americans and the more than 40 million people worldwide who suffer from bipolar disorder. But among those who suffer, more than half of adults do not receive treatment for their mental illness. And for those who do, the estimated gap between the onset of diagnosable symptoms and care is eleven years.
This transdisciplinary exploration of the interior mind of those suffering from bipolar disorder brings together artists, educators, mental health professionals, and communities with a shared vision of closing the 11-year care gap by deepen our understanding of those who suffer, destigmatize mental illness, and build empathy, so
that we might: combat suicide rates (most people who commit suicide have a diagnosable mental disorder), decrease the ravage experienced by families (impact dimensions include health, economic and social domains, and children’s education and nutrition), and allow those suffering to live more joyful, productive, and connective lives.
For over a century, the American Academy in Rome has awarded the Rome Prize to support innovative and cross-disciplinary work in the arts and humanities. Each year, the Rome Prize is awarded to about thirty artists and scholars who represent the highest standard of excellence. The Rome Prize states that, “The jurors’ primary criterion is excellence. They will … select candidates who are not only outstanding in their respective fields, but also at a point in their careers where the Rome Prize is likely to be crucial to their future growth and development.” One can submit an application to the Rome Prize Fellowship online. There is a fee to submit the application and excellence must be demonstrated. Similarly, artists can apply to the Pollock-Krasner Foundation by submitting an online application. The foundation states that, “Professional exhibition history will be taken into consideration. Artists must be actively exhibiting their current work in professional artistic venues, such as gallery and museum spaces.” It is my intent to utilize these funds to produce new work as well as to put up exhibitions at multiple international and national exhibition spaces and disseminate these creative ideas through publication, talks, workshops and other opportunities.
Older Black and Latino vs. White adults have faster rates of cognitive decline and dementia prevalence. But, older adults who manage mild cognitive impairment (MCI) through meaningful social activities, bringing purpose to their lives, may improve their quality of life. Employment promotes purpose in life, physical activity, and social support, while reducing cognitive declines and dementia risk. However, we do not know if employment can slow cognitive declines for older adults with MCI and dementia and reduce racial/ethnic disparities. My aim for this research stage is to explore mental distress associated with employment and/or job cessation perceptions and experiences of older adults aged 55+ with MCI or early-stage dementia, if they vary by race/ethnicity, and how these issues impact their cognitive functioning over time. The research questions include:
1) Do participants experience mental distress in their jobs, possibly impacting their desire to work? If so, how?
2) Are they more likely to quit their jobs after their diagnosis? If so, what are their reasons for job cessation?
3) Do they believe their employment experiences and perceptions help maintain cognitive functioning or prevent further cognitive declines over time? If so, how?
4) Do the prior experiences vary by race/ethnicity for Black and Hispanic vs. White older adult workers?
Lanthanides and Actinides make up the bottom two rows of the periodic table, and due to their complex arrangement of electrons, exhibit some unusual chemical properties. They have many and varied applications, from novel power sources to optical devices, but could be underutilized due to how dicult they are to study. Most Actinides do not occur naturally, and both species are dicult for theorists to model due to their heavy nucleus and large number of electrons. One computational method which shows promise in tackling this problem is the Dirac B-Spline R-Matrix suite of codes, a world-leading method in determining the atomic structure of complex atoms, and modelling electron collisions with them. Motivated by the desire to produce more atomic data related to Lanthanides and Actinides, the purpose of this Seed Grant proposal is to obtain funding for CU Denver undergraduate students to generate atomic data for Lanthanum and Actinium, which can be used in future grant proposals. Target funding agencies include the National Science Foundation and United States Department of Energy, who will have interest in this data from either a fundamental physics (NSF) or applications (DOE) perspective.
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