The Colorado College antiracism, diversity, equity, and inclusion leadership team and Staff Council would like to thank all staff who participated in the recent racial climate survey conducted by the University of Southern California Race and Equity Center.

In total, 346 staff, or 64%, completed the survey. CC will receive the survey analysis and recommendations from the USC Race & Equity Center in November 2022.

CC students received the racial climate survey last fall; the college will receive students’ survey analysis and recommendations from USC in June 2022. Both surveys will inform the college’s commitment to becoming an antiracist institution and shape the implementation plan being guided by the Antiracism Commitment Committee.

Staff Council offered prize drawings for staff who completed the survey. Congratulations to the grand prize winners — Richard Bishop, Natalie Cepeda, Jeff Hartmann, and Kim Sweeney. Each received a prize package valued at over $300. The eight winners of the weekly drawings were Kate Carroll, Alie Ehrensaft, Nancy Heinecke, Jane Newberry, Meg Remple, Tara Thomas, Tulio Wolford, and Pirronne Yousefzadeh. Each of them received a $50 Downtown Partnership gift card.

Two Colorado College students, Rana Abdu ’22 and Aleesa Chua ’22, recently were recognized with awards by the National Science Foundation.

Rana Abdu ’22 won the National Science Foundation’s Graduate Research Fellowship Program award. Both graduate and undergraduate students apply for this award, which means Abdu was among the youngest of the applicants. In addition to the prestige associated with this achievement, Abdu will receive a $34,000 stipend for three years of graduate school. The school where Abdu will continue her studies, the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, will receive $12,000 for three years.

As an undergraduate, Abdu’s proposal was focused on continued studies in a field she had experience in from the past summer, during which she participated in a Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program. When working in a lab at Boston University with Chemistry Professor Linda Doerrer, Abdu studied the synthesis of complexes that have potential to turn carbon-hydrogen bonds into carbon-oxygen bonds.

Another Colorado College student, Aleesa Chua `22, was also recognized by the National Science Foundation. Chua received an honorable mention. Like Abdu, her proposal was based on work she did last summer. She studied with Heather Desaire at the University of Kansas, where she will be studying after she graduates. Chua’s work in data analytics, machine learning, and mass spectrometry earned her the honorable mention.

Abdu and Chua are close friends. Both wanted to recognize the Chemistry Department’s faculty. “The mentorship we have received has really helped us find confidence in ourselves to pursue opportunities like this and graduate school,” says Chua.

Kate Barnes ’19 hasn’t always seen science as her calling. Like many, she began her college career unsure of the path she would take. But the 24-year-old, who around a month ago received word she’d received a grant from the Fulbright Program to study and research network science in Hungary, is more prepared than most. 

This won’t be the first time Barnes has been in Hungary to work. She first researched and studied network science in the nation’s capital in 2020 on a Colorado College study-abroad semester with Budapest University of Technology and Economics Professor Roland Molontay. 

She described the field as a computer science methodology used to study complex, large-scale systems and applicable to many areas, including environmental systems, social networks, and even the human brain. 

During this next go-around, she hopes to improve that by including social networking features found to be “disproportionately important to the model,” like the subreddits, creators, and timing of published memes.

“This reflects other research that shows that those social network features are most important to determining the visibility that content gets rather than the content-based features,” she said. “Which is a little bit sad, because you want to believe in the merit of the art, right?”

Barnes said she’s ready to finish the research she started. “I’m really excited to be working with this professor again, and network science has been something that I wanted to study for a long time,” she said. “Academically, I think it’s definitely the next step that I’m wanting to take.”

Professor of English Claire Oberon Garcia was recently appointed to the State Historian’s Council, which works across the state to aid in interpretation of the history of Colorado and the West, providing opportunities to expand the understanding of the historical perspectives, cultures, and places of Colorado.

Garcia is particularly interested in the archives of the marginalized, the silenced, and the “expendable” who did not have access to official institutions and dominant power structures. “It is important to bring fresh and challenging perspectives to canonical and institutional narratives that may perpetuate inequities and oppression. There is much to be proud of in Colorado history, but also much to come to terms with as we think about various groups — women, immigrants, members of religious or racial minorities,” she says.

At the in-person cherry blossom festival, sponsored by the Japanese Program at CC, students of Japanese will be performing as singers, dancers, and in skits. Try your hand at games and quizzes, try on a Japanese summer kimono (yukata), and taste Japanese food. Festivities are Saturday, April 30, from 2-3:30 p.m. at Bemis Hall.