James M. Lind, D.M.A., regularly performs Principal Trumpet with the Pueblo Symphony, a position he has held since 2017. He recently performed at a concert in February, which featured Beethoven Symphony no 7 and Brahms Symphony no 1.
Brooke Miller, D.M.A., assistant professor of woodwinds and music education, has two upcoming conference performances, in Reykjavík, Iceland. Dr. Miller, in collaboration with Garrison Gerard, Ph.D., will perform the world premiere of a new work for clarinet and electronics, at Ice and Water: Circular Thinking on Cultural and Environmental Sustainability, on May 23-25, 2024; and they will perform the work again at the Nordic Society for Aesthetics, June 13-15, 2024.
NSF HSI STEM Grant Project Director Aaron Montoya, Ph.D., and Activity Coordinator of the Title III HSI STEM Grant El Centro Sierra Blanca Sarah Noller presented at the 2024 16th Annual AHSIE Best Practices Conference in Monterey, CA on the Adams State STEM Mentoring Program. The presentation addressed institutional intersectionality– collaborations across diverse peoples and sectors– to create a nested and multidimensional approach to building community through a mentoring program. They addressed how to collaborate among multiple federal grants and work with students, staff, and faculty to “nest” a mentoring program within first-year seminar courses and other curricular locations. The presentation also addressed the intersectionality of student identities in rural HSIs and the unique challenges these rural locations present in terms of programming and design.
Four STEM students: Amanda Sparks, Caro Plascencia Benavides, Cole Haight, and Nohemi Rodarte Reyes also presented the conference. They shared their stories of resilience and persistence in STEM as students at an HSI in rural Colorado. They explored the value of storytelling and elaborated on how they were encouraged to create stories about themselves through courses in STEM. They created presentations about their personal and scientific selves in a STEM mentoring program and then shared those stories in first-year STEM courses. In their stories, they elaborated on challenging themes that helped them and their mentees to better make sense of the struggles they face and the strengths that they possess.
Bill Tite, M.F.A., assistant professor of art and design; and Inclusive Excellence Liaison Heidi Schneider, Ph.D., associate professor and Department of Sociology chair; and Black Student Union Student President Rudy-Criss Bukassa, collaborated to create a mural emulating the Black Arts Movement, during the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s. Bill Tite photographed students and integrated them into the mural design influenced by a Barbara Jones-Hogu painting, Relate to Your Heritage, 1971. Art students, guided by Mary Wilhelm, M.F.A., assistant professor of art, expect to complete the mural by April. Dr. Schneider received financial assistance from a Adams State alumnus to create the mural. School of Humanities and Social Sciences Director of the and Chair of the Psychology Department Colleen Schaffner, Ph.D., approved the location of the mural on the third floor of McDaniel Hall.
