Photo provided by Mike Shum ’07

By Alexa Gromko

CC is pleased to announce that acclaimed independent filmmaker and journalist Mike Shum ’07 will deliver the keynote address at the 2025 Commencement Ceremony on Sunday, May 18, at Ed Robson Arena.

A distinguished storyteller known for his powerful documentaries and in-depth journalism, Shum has reported from around the world, covering critical social and political issues. His work has been featured in major media outlets including PBS, The New York Times, and National Geographic, earning him recognition for his compelling and thought-provoking narratives.

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Photo provided by EmRhys Jenkins ’26

By Zara Zafar ’27

In a remarkable achievement that speaks to their exceptional dedication to community service and social justice, CC’s EmRhys Jenkins ’26 has been named one of this year’s recipients of the prestigious Campus Compact Student Leadership Award. This national recognition celebrates Jenkins’s outstanding contributions to civic engagement and their tireless efforts to address homelessness in the Colorado Springs community.

As the founder of Allies of Unhoused Youth at CC, Jenkins has transformed their personal experiences with homelessness into a powerful force for change. Their organization works closely with The Place, a local homeless shelter, creating vital connections between campus resources and community needs. “The Place and my freshman year roommate, Melanie Robertson, have been my catalysts that drive me,” Jenkins reflects, acknowledging the crucial role that both engagement with community organizations and personal relationships have played in their journey.

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Dr. Katlin Okamoto ’07. Photo provided by Okamoto.

By Megan Clancy ’07

As a student at CC, Dr. Katlin Okamoto ’07 was the prime example of a CC student-athlete. She was a leading member of the Women’s Soccer team, serving as captain her senior year, and majored in Biology and minored in Asian Studies. She was also a member of the Student Athlete Advisory Committee, serving as Secretary and Co-President respectively in her final two years, and participated in multiple campus activities and Intramural sports. When she graduated, she wasn’t exactly sure what she wanted to do, but she knew sports, and soccer specifically, would be involved.

“I knew I was still interested in sport and it all looped back to my own experience as a young person growing up in Taos, NM. My interaction with the sport over time was pretty unique,” says Okamoto. “I always thought I’d be back in kinesiology. That was sort of my path. But I ended up in a social work program that had an embedded youth work program.”

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Save the Date for Monday, Mar. 24 from 11:15 a.m.-noon in Kathryn Mohrman Theatre for the rescheduled Sonderman Presidential Symposium event with Pulitzer-Prize-winning journalist Wesley Lowery, “Building a Multiracial Democracy.”

In the 1960s, the Civil Rights marchers in Selma created a multiracial democracy. For the first time in American history, democratic participation was not limited based on racial caste. In the half-century since, our nation has grappled with what it wants to be. Do we want to embrace our newfound status as a multiracial democracy, or do we want to return to a racial caste system as we were for most of our history? Lowery will speak on the work of building a multiracial democracy amid the rise of nativism and racial division, looking at the unique tensions of this moment and how they correspond with similar periods throughout American history.  

Wesley Lowery is one of the nation’s leading reporters on issues of race and justice. He is the executive editor of The Investigative Reporting Workshop, a journalist-in-residence at the CUNY Newmark Graduate School of Journalism, and a contributing editor at The Marshall Project. He began his career covering politics, but was sent to Ferguson, MO in 2014 to cover the police killing of Michael Brown for the Washington Post. In the years since, he’s chronicled the early years of the Black Lives Matter movement, writing a bestselling book and launching Fatal Force, a Pulitzer-Prize-winning real-time national database of people shot and killed by the police. 

This event is sponsored by CC’s Department of Political Science, and is the final event in the 2024 Sondermann Presidential Symposium: Democracy in This Moment. Thank you to the Fred A. Sondermann Memorial Fund, Marianne Lannon Lopat Memorial Lecture Fund, and McHugh Fund for their generous support of this event. For more information, visit our webpage. 

Video by Ray Bailey

Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed: The Rock Experience, running through Sunday, Mar. 20, is a hit! A rock ‘n roll parable with a significant message for today’s audiences, based on the hit children’s book by Mo Willems, Wilbur and all his fellow naked mole rats in the Tunnel have always been, well… naked. Wondering what other possibilities are out there, Wilbur discovers a love for clothing and style. When word of his new passion turns the Tunnel upside down, he proves to everyone that there’s no need to be just like everyone else. Tickets start at $18, and CC students get free tickets the day of the performance!

Luca Zoeller ’27 plays bass outside Packard Hall for Music at Midday on Wednesday, Feb. 5. Photo by Jamie Cotten