University of Colorado at Boulder Address: Boulder, Colorado 80309 Phone: 303-492-1411 Fax: 303-492-5105 Web Site: http://www.colorado.edu University of Colorado at Boulder admission closing date: January 15 Does University of Colorado at Boulder offer Associate's degrees? No Does University of Colorado at Boulder offer Bachelor's degrees? Yes Does University of Colorado at Boulder offer Master's degrees? Yes Does University of Colorado at Boulder offer Doctoral degrees? Yes University of Colorado at Boulder graduation rate: 68% University of Colorado at Boulder retention rate: 83% University of Colorado at Boulder average high school GPA: 3.52 University of Colorado at Boulder average ACT score: 25 University of Colorado at Boulder average SAT score: 1175 University of Colorado at Boulder tuition cost (estimate): $5,643 University of Colorado at Boulder room & board cost (estimate): $7,980

Is University of Colorado at Boulder a private college? No Is University of Colorado at Boulder a coed college? Yes University of Colorado at Boulder school calendar: Semester Is University of Colorado at Boulder a 2 year or 4 year college? 4 Years University of Colorado at Boulder enrollment: 28,624 Students Percentage of applicants accepted to University of Colorado at Boulder 88% Percentage of students at University of Colorado at Boulder receiving financial aid: 52% Percentage of African American students: 1.7% Percentage of Native American students: 0.7% Percentage of Asian students: 5.6% Percentage of Hispanic students: 5.6% Percentage of Caucasian students: 79.2% Percentage of students living on campus: 95% Percentage of students living off campus: 5% Other Activities Nearby: Golf Courses in Boulder

Data provided by Data-lists.com Universities and Colleges Database. Data last updated on 2007-10-18.

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER IN COLORADO GRANTS, SCHOLARSHIPS AND FINANCIAL AID INFORMATION

Federal Pell Grants

Academic Competitiveness (AC) Grant Program

Federal Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant (FSEOG) Program

Grants and Scholarships available in Colorado

UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT BOULDER NEWS

CU-Boulder study shows global glaciers, ice caps shedding billions of tons of mass annually
Earth’s glaciers and ice caps outside of the regions of Greenland and Antarctica are shedding roughly 150 billion tons of ice annually, according to a new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder. The research effort is the first comprehensive satellite study of the contribution of the world’s melting glaciers and ice caps to global sea level rise and indicates they are adding roughly 0.4 millimeters annually, said CU-Boulder physics Professor John Wahr, who helped lead the study. The measurements are important because the melting of the world’s glaciers and ice caps, along with Greenland and Antarctica, pose the greatest threat to sea level increases in the future, Wahr said. The researchers used satellite measurements taken with the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment, or GRACE, a joint effort of NASA and Germany, to calculate that the world’s glaciers and ice caps had lost about 148 billion tons, or about 39 cubic miles of ice annually from 2003 to 2010.  The total does not count the mass from individual glacier and ice caps on the fringes of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets -- roughly an additional 80 billion tons. “This is the first time anyone has looked at all of the mass loss from all of Earth’s glaciers and ice caps with GRACE,” said Wahr.  “The Earth is losing an incredible amount of ice to the oceans annually, and these new results will help us answer important questions in terms of both sea rise and how the planet’s cold regions are responding to global change.” A paper on the subject is being published in the Feb. 9 online edition of the journal Nature.  The first author, Thomas Jacob, did his research at CU-Boulder and is now at the Bureau de Recherches Géologiques et Minières, in Orléans, France.  Other paper co-authors include Professor Tad Pfeffer of CU-Boulder’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research and Sean Swenson, a former CU-Boulder physics doctoral student who is now a researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder. “The strength of GRACE is that it sees everything in the system,” said Wahr. “Even though we don’t have the resolution to look at individual glaciers, GRACE has proven to be an exceptional tool.”  Traditional estimates of Earth’s ice caps and glaciers have been made using ground-based measurements from relatively few glaciers to infer what all of the unmonitored glaciers around the world were doing, he said. Only a few hundred of the roughly 200,000 glaciers worldwide have been monitored for a decade or more. Launched in 2002, two GRACE satellites whip around Earth in tandem 16 times a day at an altitude of about 300 miles, sensing subtle variations in Earth’s mass and gravitational pull. Separated by roughly 135 miles, the satellites measure changes in Earth’s gravity field caused by regional changes in the planet’s mass, including ice sheets, oceans and water stored in the soil and in underground aquifers. A positive change in gravity during a satellite approach over Greenland, for example, tugs the lead GRACE satellite away from the trailing satellite, speeding it up and increasing the distance between the two. As the satellites straddle Greenland, the front satellite slows down and the trailing satellite speeds up. A sensitive ranging system allows researchers to measure the distance of the two satellites down to as small as 1 micron -- about 1/100 the width of a human hair -- and to calculate ice and water amounts from particular regions of interest around the globe using their gravity fields. For the global glaciers and ice cap measurements, the study authors created separate “mascons,” large, ice-covered regions of Earth of various ovate-type shapes. Jacob and Wahr blanketed 20 regions of Earth with 175 mascons and calculated the estimated mass balance for each mascon. The CU-led team also used GRACE data to calculate that the ice loss from both Greenland and Antarctica, including their peripheral ice caps and glaciers, was roughly 385 billion tons of ice annually. The total mass ice loss from Greenland, Antarctica and all Earth’s glaciers and ice caps from 2003 to 2010 was about 1,000 cubic miles, about eight times the water volume of Lake Erie, said Wahr. “The total amount of ice lost to Earth’s oceans from 2003 to 2010 would cover the entire United States in about 1 and one-half feet of water,” said Wahr, also a fellow at the CU-headquartered Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. The vast majority of climate scientists agree that human activities like pumping huge amounts of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is warming the planet, an effect that is most pronounced in the polar regions. One unexpected study result from GRACE was that the estimated ice loss from high Asia mountains -- including ranges like the Himalaya, the Pamir and the Tien Shan -- was only about 4 billion tons of ice annually.  Some previous ground-based estimates of ice loss in the high Asia mountains have ranged up to 50 billion tons annually, Wahr said. “The GRACE results in this region really were a surprise,” said Wahr.  “One possible explanation is that previous estimates were based on measurements taken primarily from some of the lower, more accessible glaciers in Asia and were extrapolated to infer the behavior of higher glaciers.  But unlike the lower glaciers, many of the high glaciers would still be too cold to lose mass even in the presence of atmospheric warming.” “What is still not clear is how these rates of melt may increase and how rapidly glaciers may shrink in the coming decades,” said Pfeffer, also a professor in CU-Boulder’s civil, environmental and architectural engineering department. “That makes it hard to project into the future.” According to the GRACE data, total sea level rise from all land-based ice on Earth including Greenland and Antarctica was roughly 1.5 millimeters per year annually or about 12 millimeters, or one-half inch, from 2003 to 2010, said Wahr. The sea rise amount does not include the expansion of water due to warming, which is the second key sea-rise component and is roughly equal to melt totals, he said. “One big question is how sea level rise is going to change in this century,” said Pfeffer. “If we could understand the physics more completely and perfect numerical models to simulate all of the processes controlling sea level -- especially glacier and ice sheet changes -- we would have a much better means to make predictions. But we are not quite there yet.”   Contact: John Wahr, 303-492-8349John.Wahr@colorado.edu Tad Pfeffer, 303-492-3480Tad.Pfeffer@colorado.edu Jim Scott, CU media relations, 303-492-3114Jim.Scott@colorado.edu“The Earth is losing an incredible amount of ice to the oceans annually, and these new results will help us answer important questions in terms of both sea rise and how the planet’s cold regions are responding to global change,” said CU-Boulder physics Professor John Wahr, who helped lead the study. Natural Sciences, Engineering, Environment, Institutes GRACE mission measures global ice mass changes Discovery & Innovation, Discoveries & Achievements, Research Collaborations, Student Researchvar switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'});


GRACE mission measures global ice mass changes
An animation shows the location of mountain glaciers and ice caps around the world with data from the GRACE mission to show recent trends in ice mass loss or gain. (Courtesy NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio)   Topic: Academics, Natural Sciences, Engineering, Environment, InstitutesRelated stories: CU-Boulder study shows global glaciers, ice caps shedding billions of tons of mass annually


CU-Boulder Sources on Feb. 7 Colorado Republican Caucus
TIP SHEET Jan. 30, 2012 CU-Boulder Sources on Feb. 7 Colorado Republican Caucus Ken Bickers, professor and chair of the University of Colorado Boulder political science department, can comment on the U.S. presidential race in Colorado and nationally. He can be reached at 303-492-2363 or bickers@colorado.edu. Scott Adler, associate professor of political science, can comment on the U.S. presidential race in Colorado and nationally. He is best reached by email at e.scott.adler@colorado.edu. His office number is 303-492-6659. Leaf Van Boven, professor of psychology, can discuss how Americans generally overestimate the degree of polarization between Democrats and Republicans, and what influences that overestimation. He is best reached by email at vanboven@colorado.edu. His office number is 303-735-5238. Elizabeth Skewes, associate professor of journalism and mass communication, can speak about media coverage of the candidates this electoral season. Skewes can be reached at 303-735-1096 or elizabeth.skewes@colorado.edu. Mike McDevitt, associate professor of journalism and mass communication, is available to comment on the role of media, schools, peer groups and families in the campaign engagement of youth and young adults. McDevitt can be reached at 303-735-0460 or mike.mcdevitt@colorado.edu.  Or for assistance contact Peter Caughey in the CU-Boulder Office of Media Relations and News Services at 303-492-4007 or caughey@colorado.edu. -CU-  var switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'});


Americans overestimate political polarization
With the presidential election right around the corner and politically charged TV and radio ads hammering away at the major differences between the parties, Americans these days appear to see the nation as divided between Red and Blue. But new research from Professor Leaf Van Boven shows that many people overestimate the degree of polarization between Democrats and Republicans, and this misconception is associated with citizens’ voting behavior and their involvement in political activities. “It is clear that Americans see themselves as very sharply polarized,” Van Boven said. “And that the degree of perceived polarization dramatically overstates the actual degree of polarization.” Van Boven of CU-Boulder’s psychology and neuroscience department and Professor John Chambers of the University of Florida recently presented findings of two studies on political polarization at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. In one study, which included a nationally representative sample of 1,000 voting age respondents during the 2008 presidential campaign, Van Boven and his colleagues found that individuals with more extreme partisan attitudes perceived greater polarization than those with less extreme partisan attitudes. For example, in the 2008 presidential election, people who strongly supported either Obama or McCain perceived Americans as more divided than did those whose support of either candidate was more moderate. In another study, which included an analysis using a subset of 26,000 respondents from three decades of surveys of Americans, the researchers determined that the gap between Republicans and Democrats on five-point scales regarding different issues such as the death penalty and abortion was approximately three-quarters of a point. However, people believe there is a scale difference of two points or more between the two parties. And it’s not just politics, it’s also the case with other issues such as the death penalty or the abortion issue. “The more strongly people feel about an issue, the more divided they see other Americans,” Van Boven said. The misperception of American political polarization The misperception of American political polarization Feb. 6, 2012                                                Leaf Van Boven            The American flag is red, white and blue but when it comes to politics Americans see the nation as Red and Blue. News outlets such as CNN and The New Yorker describe the growing political polarization between Republicans and Democrats. But according to Leaf Van Boven, a psychologist at CU-Boulder who just completed a study on polarization, data shows Americans are much less polarized politically then many people believe.Topic: Academics, Social Sciences, Psychology, Political science, Research & Creative Works, Social Sciences Social Sciences, Social SciencesDiscovery & Innovationvar switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'});


Americans overestimate political polarization, according to new CU-Boulder research
  Many Americans overestimate the degree of polarization between Democrats and Republicans, and this misconception is associated with citizens’ voting behavior and their involvement in political activities, according to new findings from the University of Colorado Boulder. “It is clear that Americans see themselves as very sharply polarized,” said Professor Leaf Van Boven, who led the research efforts. “And that the extent of perceived polarization dramatically overstates the actual degree of polarization.” Van Boven of CU-Boulder’s psychology and neuroscience department and Professor John Chambers of the University of Florida presented findings of two studies on political polarization last month at the annual meeting of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology in San Diego. In one study, which included a nationally representative sample of 1,000 voting age respondents during the 2008 presidential campaign, Van Boven and his colleagues found that individuals with more extreme partisan attitudes perceived greater polarization than those with less extreme partisan attitudes. For example, in the 2008 presidential election, people who strongly supported either Obama or McCain perceived Americans as more divided than did those whose support of either candidate was more moderate. In another study, which included an analysis using a subset of 26,000 respondents from three decades of surveys of Americans, the researchers determined that the average gap between Republicans and Democrats on five-point scales regarding different issues such as the death penalty and abortion was approximately three-quarters of a point. However, people believed there was a scale difference of two points or more between the two parties. “The more strongly people feel about an issue, the more divided they see other Americans,” Van Boven said. The data also suggest that the people who perceive the most division among Americans are also the most likely to vote in elections. “It seems that the people who see the most polarization are also more likely to engage in various kinds of political activities, including joining campaigns, persuading other people and contributing to PACs,” Van Boven said. He expects that both major political parties may try to benefit from the perceived polarization of voters during the current presidential election year. “If I were a strategist and I saw that maybe I could get a 5 percent increase in turnout on my side by increasing people’s perceptions of polarization, I know exactly what I would do,” he said. “I would push toward increased perceptions of polarization. “There certainly is a sound scientific basis for the strategy of making the other side seem very strong, very extreme and very active,” he said. “If I think the other side is really fired up and they are going to turn out the vote, that becomes a threat to me. So that might motivate me to vote.” CU-Boulder Professor Charles Judd of the psychology and neuroscience department and Professor David Sherman of the University of California, Santa Barbara, were co-authors with Van Boven on the paper titled “False polarization of the American electorate.” Van Boven, CU-Boulder doctoral candidate Jacob Westfall and Professor John Chambers of the University of Florida co-authored the other paper titled “Political polarization projection.” Contact: Leaf Van Boven, 303-735-5238vanboven@colorado.edu Greg Swenson, CU media relations, 303-492-3113“The more strongly people feel about an issue, the more divided they see other Americans,” said Leaf Van Boven of CU-Boulder’s psychology and neuroscience department.Social Sciences The misperception of American political polarization Discovery & Innovation, Discoveries & Achievements, Graduate Education, Research Collaborations, Student Researchvar switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'});


The misperception of American political polarization
The misperception of American political polarization Feb. 6, 2012                                                Leaf Van Boven            The American flag is red, white and blue but when it comes to politics Americans see the nation as Red and Blue. News outlets such as CNN and The New Yorker describe the growing political polarization between Republicans and Democrats. But according to Leaf Van Boven, a psychologist at CU-Boulder who just completed a study on polarization, data shows Americans are much less polarized politically then many people believe. brightcove.createExperiences(); Topic: Academics, Social Sciences, Psychology, Political science


CU-Boulder facilities and programs reopen following "snow day"
Following a one-day closure due to a winter snowstorm, the University of Colorado Boulder is reopening Saturday, Feb. 4 with the majority of facilities and programs on normal operating weekend hours. The CU Recreation Center will be on a delayed opening time of 9 a.m. and then will resume regular hours. The Office of Admissions daily tour for today has been cancelled. See http://admissions.colorado.edu for upcoming visit opportunities. The CU Men's Basketball game, the CU Museum Family Day, performances in the University Theatre and the ATLAS black box theatre and other events planned for this afternoon and evening are scheduled to proceed. Visit www.colorado.edu/events for more information.var switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'});


CU-Boulder to be closed Friday, Feb. 3
The University of Colorado Boulder campus will be closed on Friday, Feb. 3, for all but essential employees due to hazardous weather conditions. All on-campus housing and dining facilities currently are open as usual. The CU Buff Bus is running until midnight. It is operating with fewer buses, however, so users may experience some delays. According to the campus closure policy, "essential services" are those functions and personnel required to maintain or protect the health, safety, or physical well being of campus personnel (students, staff, and faculty), academic mission, and facilities (including research projects). Employees should contact their supervisors if they have questions about whether or not they are considered "essential services" personnel. The policy on Campus Closing Procedures During Emergencies is located at http://www.colorado.edu/policies/campus-closing-procedures-during-emergencies. Changes in information will be on the CU-Boulder Web site at www.colorado.edu and updated on the Emergency Information Line at 303-492-INFO (4636). For updates on scheduled campus events check the Web site at http://www.colorado.edu/events/. For media inquiries contact: Malinda Miller-Huey, 303-999-7808var switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'});


CU-Boulder-led effort to reduce youth violence in Denver’s Montbello neighborhood kicks off Feb. 16-17
  A five-year project to improve the lives of youth in Denver’s Montbello neighborhood will kick off Feb. 16-17 with public meetings on the Evie Garrett Dennis Campus. Community members and key leaders will gather in the community room at 4800 Telluride St. in Denver to discuss efforts to reduce youth violence to be led by the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence. The public is invited to attend. Two boards will be launched at the meeting. The Key Leader Board, consisting of influential community leaders, will convene on Feb. 16 from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The Community Board, a coalition of community stakeholders, will also attend the meeting with the Key Leader Board from 8:30 to 12:30 on Feb. 16. The Community Board will continue to meet the afternoon of Feb. 16 until 4:15 p.m., and on Feb. 17 from 8:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Breakfast and lunch will be served both days. The CU-Boulder center will work closely with the two boards and residents of Montbello to reduce levels of youth violence among those aged 10 to 24. The project aims to reduce rates of serious violent crime and gang-related violence, in addition to rates of drug and alcohol abuse, gang participation, fighting, and bullying or being bullied in schools. Partnering with CU-Boulder on the project are the Lowry Family Center, University of Colorado School of Medicine, Children’s Hospital Colorado, The Foundation for Educational Excellence, the Denver Crime Control and Prevention Commission, Denver Police Department and the Denver Safe City Office. The project is funded by a $6.5 million cooperative agreement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The principal investigator on the project is Delbert Elliott, director of the Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence and a nationally recognized expert on juvenile violence and school safety. Dr. Eric Sigel, an associate professor of pediatrics at the CU School of Medicine, and fellowship director of Children’s Hospital Adolescent Medicine Clinic, will serve as a co-investigator. In addition to reducing juvenile violence, the project will work with the CU School of Medicine to train future youth violence prevention researchers in the areas of behavioral science, public health and adolescent medicine. In the first year of the project researchers will collect baseline data in the Montbello community and in the comparison neighborhood of Northeast Park Hill. After data collection, the Montbello Community Board will create a community action plan. Montbello has more than 30,000 residents and is located northeast of I-70 and Peoria Street and south of the Rocky Mountain Arsenal National Wildlife Refuge. The second through fifth years will involve implementing evidence-based programs and strategies chosen by the community board, monitoring the programs’ implementation and evaluating impacts. The Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence is part of CU-Boulder’s Institute of Behavioral Science. The center provides information on the causes, consequences and prevention of youth violence in addition to conducting research and providing technical assistance. CDC has designated CU-Boulder’s Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence a National Academic Center for Excellence in Youth Violence Prevention. For more information on the CU-Boulder center visit http://www.colorado.edu/cspv or call 303-492-1032.   Contact: Delbert Elliott, CU-Boulder, 303-735-2146delbert.elliott@colorado.edu Dr. Eric Sigel, CU School of Medicine, 720-777-6133 Peter Caughey, CU-Boulder media relations, 303-492-4007caughey@colorado.edu  Social Sciences, Civic EngagementServing Colorado. Engaged in the World., Community, Outreach, Research & Creative Worksvar switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'});


Did the Little Ice Age start with a big bang?
Scientists have disagreed for many years over the precise cause for a period of cooling global temperatures that began after the Middle Ages and lasted into the late 19th century, commonly known as the Little Ice Age.  Now, a new study led by CU-Boulder Professor and Institute for Alpine and Arctic Research (INSTAAR) Fellow Gifford Miller indicates that the Little Ice Age began abruptly between A.D. 1275 and 1300, triggered by repeated, explosive volcanism and sustained by a self-perpetuating sea ice-ocean feedback system in the North Atlantic Ocean. “This is the first time anyone has clearly identified the specific onset of the cold times marking the start of the Little Ice Age,” said Miller.  “We also have provided an understandable climate feedback system that explains how this cold period could be sustained for a long period of time.  If the climate system is hit again and again by cold conditions over a relatively short period—in this case, from volcanic eruptions—there appears to be a cumulative cooling effect.”   Most scientists believed the Little Ice Age was caused either by decreased summer solar radiation, erupting volcanoes that cooled the planet by ejecting shiny aerosol particles that reflected sunlight back into space, or a combination of both, said Miller.  The new study, funded by the National Science Foundation and the Icelandic Science Foundation, suggests that the onset of the Little Ice Age was caused by an unusual, 50-year-long episode of four massive tropical volcanic eruptions. Climate models used in the new study showed that the persistence of cold summers following the eruptions is best explained by a sea ice-ocean feedback system originating in the North Atlantic Ocean. "Our simulations showed that the volcanic eruptions may have had a profound cooling effect,” says NCAR scientist Bette Otto-Bliesner, a co-author of the study. “The eruptions could have triggered a chain reaction, affecting sea ice and ocean currents in a way that lowered temperatures for centuries." The researchers set the solar radiation at a constant level in the climate models, and Miller said the Little Ice Age likely would have occurred without decreased summer solar radiation at the time. “Estimates of the sun’s variability over time are getting smaller, it’s now thought by some scientists to have varied little more in the last millennia than during a standard 11-year solar cycle,” he said. One of the primary questions pertaining to the Little Ice Age is how unusual the warming of Earth is today, he said.  A previous study led by Miller in 2008 on Baffin Island indicated temperatures today are the warmest in at least 2,000 years.Photo Gallery: Little Ice AgeNatural Sciences, Research, Environment, Institutes, Natural SciencesDiscovery & InnovationSupport INSTAARvar switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'});


CU Board of Regents expands in-state tuition status for military families
CU System news release The University of Colorado Board of Regents today authorized a new systemwide program that will offer in-state tuition to dependents of military veterans, students who have attended at least two years of high school in Colorado while their families lived in the state. The pilot program expands on 2009’s Colorado House Bill 1039, which established in-state tuition status at state higher education institutions for honorably discharged veterans, but did not require the same status be granted to dependents of those veterans. The state law also did not allow for students whose families are transferred out of state for military service before completing the final year of high school. The resolution passed unanimously at today’s board meeting at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs also asks university leadership to pursue state legislation that would expand in-state tuition status to include students in similar situations who are dependents of active duty service members. Regent Sue Sharkey said she proposed the action because the transitory nature of military service makes it difficult for Colorado military families to establish resident status during their time living here. “The University of Colorado demonstrates strong support of our nation’s military through various programs within the university campuses,” Sharkey said. “CU, as well as the citizens of Colorado, recognize and appreciate the sacrifice of our military personnel and their families, and the significant contributions they bring to our state and nation.” CU campuses in Boulder, Colorado Springs and Denver all ranked on the 2012 list of Military Friendly Schools compiled by GI Jobs magazine, which recognizes the top 20 percent of colleges, universities and trade schools that do the most for service members and veterans. The Board of Regents consists of nine members serving staggered six-year terms, one elected from each of Colorado's seven congressional districts and two from the state at-large. The board is charged constitutionally with the general supervision of the university and the exclusive control and direction of all funds of and appropriations to the university, unless otherwise provided by law. The University of Colorado is a premier public research university with four campuses: the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, the University of Colorado Denver and the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Some 60,000 students are pursuing academic degrees at CU. Academic prestige is marked by the university’s four Nobel laureates, seven MacArthur “genius” Fellows, 18 alumni astronauts and 19 Rhodes Scholars. For more information about the CU system and to access campus resources, go to www.cu.edu.  “The University of Colorado demonstrates strong support of our nation’s military through various programs within the university campuses,” said Regent Sue Sharkey. “CU, as well as the citizens of Colorado, recognize and appreciate the sacrifice of our military personnel and their families, and the significant contributions they bring to our state and nation.”Serving Colorado. Engaged in the World.var switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'});


Alumni Profile: Judd Rogers
Alternative energy in Chile? That's the unique focus of Judd Rogers' work after a diverse set of experiences at CU-Boulder. brightcove.createExperiences(); Topic: Academics, Business, International Business, Admissions, Global Engagement, Research & Creative Works, Energy, Wind electricity, Sustainable transportation & fuels


Student Profile: Kathleen Majewski
Kathleen Majewski values her CU journalism mentors and the fun she's had on the track and field team, but she says there's one event on campus when she always feels the most Buff pride. brightcove.createExperiences(); Topic: 


Student Profile: Dustin Farivar
Dustin Farivar found many leadership opportunities at CU-Boulder. brightcove.createExperiences(); Topic: 


Alumni Profile: Judge Christine Arguello
Years before she was confirmed by the U.S. Senate, Federal Judge Christine Arguello got her start in education at CU-Boulder. brightcove.createExperiences(); Topic: 


Alumni Profile: Astronaut/Instructor Jim Voss
Jim Voss is one of 18 NASA astronauts who've attended CU-Boulder. Now he shares his experiences as an instructor on campus. brightcove.createExperiences(); Topic: 


Finding compounds that can help fight cancer
SuviCa Inc. of Boulder and CU-Boulder completed an exclusive license agreement for a CU drug screening technology to identify novel therapies for cancer.  The patented drug discovery tool, developed by Professor Tin Tin Su of the molecular, cellular, and developmental biology (MCDB) department, uses a genetically modified Drosophila fruit fly model to screen for compounds effective against various types of cancer, either alone or in combination with existing therapies.  The screening technique will be used to identify new clinical candidates using a methodology that is both time efficient and cost effective. Because it uses a whole-animal screening model, the technique can more easily eliminate drug candidates with undesired toxicity. SuviCa Inc. is an early-stage cancer drug discovery and development company co-founded by Su, who now serves as its chief science officer.  Working in collaboration with scientists at CU-Boulder, the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, and Colorado State University, SuviCa is pursuing a promising discovery process based on several small molecules identified using its proprietary screening technology and targeted to a distinct cellular process. SuviCa researchers hope to discover and develop novel drugs used as standalone therapies or to prevent tumor recurrence following treatment with a variety of approved anti-cancer therapies. SuviCa recently received funding from Colorado’s Bioscience Discovery Evaluation Grant Program, an initiative launched in 2007 by the state of Colorado’s Office of Economic Development and International Trade to provide early-stage, matching seed grants to enable the development and commercial validation of promising technologies that are licensed from Colorado research institutions. SuviCa also received a grant from the Internal Revenue Service through the Qualifying Therapeutic Discovery Project Program aimed at small businesses. Current and future efforts will focus on identifying and optimizing additional lead compounds to enter into formal clinical testing. Give to MCDB researchvar switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'});


CU-Boulder doctoral student wins 2012 Thomas Jefferson Award
CU system news release Five members of the University of Colorado community – leaders among faculty, staff and students at four campuses – have been named recipients of the 2012 Thomas Jefferson Award, among the highest honors given at CU, the state’s flagship university.   Award winners are those who embody and advance the ideals of Jefferson, the third U.S. president and a Founding Father whose influence shaped American arts, sciences, education and public affairs. The Jefferson Award recognizes CU faculty, staff and students who demonstrate excellence in the performance of regular academic responsibilities while contributing outstanding service to the broader community. The honorees are: Angie White, M.A., doctoral candidate in the Department of Communication at CU-Boulder. She studies issues of community building, experiential education and poverty. Her research explores how communication strategies may be used to help people in poverty empower themselves and move toward self-sufficiency. Andrea O’Reilly Herrera, Ph.D., director of the Women and Ethnic Studies (WEST) Program at the University of Colorado Colorado Springs (UCCS). The poet and author is regarded as a leading scholar of the Cuban diaspora, and her work bridges art, literature, literary criticism, creative writing and history. She partners with local libraries and schools in developing writing and art programs. Thomas Huber, Ph.D., professor of geography and environmental Studies at UCCS. An alumnus of the University of Colorado Boulder (CU-Boulder), he has worked on such projects as habitat mapping of the Prebles meadow jumping mouse in El Paso County, vegetation mapping of large portions of Colorado for the Division of Wildlife, and mapping and analyzing elk habitat in the Pikes Peak region. Philip Zeitler, M.D., Ph.D., professor of pediatrics and clinical sciences at the University of Colorado School of Medicine. He is an internationally known expert in the field of pediatric endocrinology. His rigorous focus on top-quality research has contributed greatly to the world’s understanding of pediatric Type 2 diabetes and pediatric obesity.  Linda Theus-Lee, M.S., program assistant and event coordinator for the University of Colorado Denver (CU Denver) Business School. She is a versatile professional, artist, counselor, teacher and entrepreneur. A CU Denver alumna, her volunteerism includes developing and implementing a reading program at the Ford Warren Library, and mentoring girls at the Gilliam Youth Services Center and the Jefferson County Correction Facility. Honorees have demonstrated a strong commitment to the advancement of higher education, a deeply seated sense of individual civic responsibility and a profound commitment to the welfare and rights of the individual.  “The winners of the Thomas Jefferson Award show how the CU community adds value not only to our institution, but throughout the state and beyond,” said CU President Bruce D. Benson. “By teaching, doing research and providing service, our people have a profound effect on improving quality of life for countless others.” A committee of CU faculty, staff and students selects winners. Recipients receive an engraved plaque and a $2,000 honorarium, and are recognized by the CU Board of Regents. The Thomas Jefferson Award was established at the University of Virginia in 1951 by the Robert Earll McConnell Foundation to honor teaching faculty who exemplified the humanistic ideals associated with Jefferson. By 1962, six other institutions – including CU – had established a Jefferson Award. In 1980, the university added a student category; in 1988, the staff category was approved. Funding for the awards is derived from earnings on an endowment provided by the McConnell Foundation and from a bequest by Harrison Blair, a CU alumnus. The University of Colorado is a premier public research university with four campuses: the University of Colorado Boulder, the University of Colorado Colorado Springs, the University of Colorado Denver and the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus. Some 60,000 students are pursuing academic degrees at CU. Academic prestige is marked by the university’s four Nobel laureates, seven MacArthur “genius” Fellows, 18 alumni astronauts and 19 Rhodes Scholars. For more information about the CU system and to access campus resources, go to www.cu.edu.   Contact: Jay Dedrick, 303-860-5707, Jay.Dedrick@cu.edu      “The winners of the Thomas Jefferson Award show how the CU community adds value not only to our institution, but throughout the state and beyond,” said CU President Bruce D. Benson. “By teaching, doing research and providing service, our people have a profound effect on improving quality of life for countless others.”Community Outreach, Civic EngagementCommunity & Culture, Civic Engagement, Community Outreach, Serving Coloradovar switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'}); Photo: Caption: Angie White


New CU-led study may answer long-standing questions about enigmatic Little Ice Age
A new University of Colorado Boulder-led study appears to answer contentious questions about the onset and cause of Earth’s Little Ice Age, a period of cooling temperatures that began after the Middle Ages and lasted into the late 19th century. According to the new study, the Little Ice Age began abruptly between A.D. 1275 and 1300, triggered by repeated, explosive volcanism and sustained by a self- perpetuating sea ice-ocean feedback system in the North Atlantic Ocean, according to CU-Boulder Professor Gifford Miller, who led the study. The primary evidence comes from radiocarbon dates from dead vegetation emerging from rapidly melting icecaps on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic, combined with ice and sediment core data from the poles and Iceland and from sea ice climate model simulations, said Miller. While scientific estimates regarding the onset of the Little Ice Age range from the 13th century to the 16th century, there is little consensus, said Miller.  There is evidence the Little Ice Age affected places as far away as South America and China, although it was particularly evident in northern Europe. Advancing glaciers in mountain valleys destroyed towns, and famous paintings from the period depict people ice skating on the Thames River in London and canals in the Netherlands, waterways that were ice-free in winter before and after the Little Ice Age. “The dominant way scientists have defined the Little Ice Age is by the expansion of big valley glaciers in the Alps and in Norway,” said Miller. “But the time it took for European glaciers to advance far enough to demolish villages would have been long after the onset of the cold period,” said Miller, a fellow at CU’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research. Most scientists think the Little Ice Age was caused either by decreased summer solar radiation, erupting volcanoes that cooled the planet by ejecting shiny aerosol particles that reflected sunlight back into space, or a combination of both, said Miller. The new study suggests that the onset of the Little Ice Age was caused by an unusual, 50-year-long episode of four massive tropical volcanic eruptions. Climate models used in the new study showed that the persistence of cold summers following the eruptions is best explained by a sea ice-ocean feedback system originating in the North Atlantic Ocean. “This is the first time anyone has clearly identified the specific onset of the cold times marking the start of the Little Ice Age,” said Miller.  “We also have provided an understandable climate feedback system that explains how this cold period could be sustained for a long period of time.  If the climate system is hit again and again by cold conditions over a relatively short period -- in this case, from volcanic eruptions -- there appears to be a cumulative cooling effect.”   A paper on the subject is being published Jan. 31 in Geophysical Research Letters, a publication of the American Geophysical Union. The paper was authored by scientists and students from CU-Boulder, the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, the University of Iceland, the University of California, Irvine, and the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. The study was funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the Icelandic Science Foundation. As part of the study, Miller and his colleagues radiocarbon-dated roughly 150 samples of dead plant material with roots intact collected from beneath receding ice margins of ice caps on Baffin Island.  There was a large cluster of “kill dates” between A.D. 1275 and 1300, indicating the plants had been frozen and engulfed by ice during a relatively sudden event. Both low-lying and higher altitude plants all died at roughly the same time, indicating the onset of the Little Ice Age on Baffin Island -- the fifth largest island in the world -- was abrupt. The team saw a second spike in plant kill dates at about A.D. 1450, indicating the quick onset of a second major cooling event. To broaden the study, the team analyzed sediment cores from a glacial lake linked to the 367-square-mile Langjökull ice cap in the central highlands of Iceland that reaches nearly a mile high. The annual layers in the cores -- which can be reliably dated by using tephra deposits from known historic volcanic eruptions on Iceland going back more than 1,000 years -- suddenly became thicker in the late 13th century and again in the 15th century due to increased erosion caused by the expansion of the ice cap as the climate cooled, he said. “That showed us the signal we got from Baffin Island was not just a local signal, it was a North Atlantic signal,” said Miller.  “This gave us a great deal more confidence that there was a major perturbation to the Northern Hemisphere climate near the end of the 13th century.” Average summer temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere did not return to those of the Middle Ages until the 20th century, and the temperatures of the Middle Ages are now exceeded in many areas, he said. The team used the NCAR-based Community Climate System Model to test the effects of volcanic cooling on Arctic sea ice extent and mass. The model, which simulated various sea ice conditions from about A.D. 1150-1700, showed several large, closely spaced eruptions could have cooled the Northern Hemisphere enough to trigger Arctic sea ice growth. The models showed sustained cooling from volcanoes would have sent some of the expanding Arctic sea ice down along the eastern coast of Greenland until it eventually melted in the North Atlantic.  Since sea ice contains almost no salt, when it melted the surface water became less dense, preventing it from mixing with deeper North Atlantic water.  This weakened heat transport back to the Arctic and creating a self-sustaining feedback system on the sea ice long after the effects of the volcanic aerosols subsided, he said. "Our simulations showed that the volcanic eruptions may have had a profound cooling effect,” says NCAR scientist Bette Otto-Bliesner, a co-author of the study. “The eruptions could have triggered a chain reaction, affecting sea ice and ocean currents in a way that lowered temperatures for centuries." The researchers set the solar radiation at a constant level in the climate models, and Miller said the Little Ice Age likely would have occurred without decreased summer solar radiation at the time. “Estimates of the sun’s variability over time are getting smaller, it’s now thought by some scientists to have varied little more in the last millennia than during a standard 11-year solar cycle,” he said. One of the primary questions pertaining to the Little Ice Age is how unusual the warming of Earth is today, he said.  A previous study led by Miller in 2008 on Baffin Island indicated temperatures today are the warmest in at least 2,000 years. Other co-authors on the paper include CU-Boulder's Yafang Zhong, Darren Larsen, Kurt Refsnider, Scott Lehman and Chance Anderson, NCAR's Marika Holland and David Bailey, the University of Iceland's Áslaug Geirsdóttir, Helgi Bjornsson and Darren Larsen, UC-Irvine's John Southon and the University of Edinburgh's Thorvaldur Thordarson. Larsen is doctoral student jointly at CU-Boulder and the University of Iceland.   Contact: Gifford Miller, 303-492-6962Gmiller@colorado.edu Bette Otto-Bliesner, NCAR, 303-497-1723 Jim Scott, CU-Boulder media relations, 303-492-3114 Kate Ramsayer, AGU media relations, 202-777-7524 David Hosansky, NCAR/UCAR media relations, 303-497-8611 Cheryl Dybas, NSF communications, 703-292-7734“This is the first time anyone has clearly identified the specific onset of the cold times marking the start of the Little Ice Age,” according to CU-Boulder Professor Gifford Miller, who led the study. “We also have provided an understandable climate feedback system that explains how this cold period could be sustained for a long period of time. If the climate system is hit again and again by cold conditions over a relatively short period -- in this case, from volcanic eruptions -- there appears to be a cumulative cooling effect.”Natural Sciences, Environment, InstitutesDiscovery & Innovation, Discoveries & Achievements, Research Collaborations, Student Researchvar switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'}); Photo: Caption: University of Colorado Boulder Professor Gifford Miller is shown here collecting dead plant samples from beneath a Baffin Island ice cap. A new study led by Miller indicates the Little Ice Age began roughly A.D. 1275 and was triggered repeated, explosive volcanism that cooled the atmosphere. Photo courtesy Gifford Miller, University of Colorado.


CU-Boulder ranked No. 1 for Peace Corps volunteers
For the second straight year, CU-Boulder is ranked No. 1 in the nation for graduates serving as Peace Corps volunteers with 112 undergraduate alumni currently serving around the world. brightcove.createExperiences(); Topic: Interdisciplinary, Peace Corp, International, Outreach, Outreach, Global Engagement, Civic Engagement


CU-Boulder names former CU President ‘Sandy’ Bracken to Newton Chair in Leadership
The University of Colorado Boulder today announced the appointment of former University of Colorado President Alexander E. “Sandy” Bracken to the Quigg and Virginia S. Newton Endowed Chair in Leadership at the University of Colorado Boulder. Bracken, who served as the 19th president of the University of Colorado in 2000, succeeds former CU President Hank Brown as the Newton Chair. Brown held the inaugural chair from 2008-10. The Newton Chair supports and helps to coordinate the activities of several marquee leadership programs at CU-Boulder, including the Presidents Leadership Class, the Chancellor’s Leadership Residential Academic Program and the Leadership Certificate program. The chair also helps to bring experienced leaders from government, business, higher education, the military and the public sector to campus to interact with students and faculty and advise students on leadership paths. Overall, the chair serves as a catalyst to expose more students campuswide to leadership training and development. “I am delighted that former President Bracken has accepted the appointment to serve as our next Newton Endowed Chair in Leadership,” said CU-Boulder Chancellor Philip P. DiStefano. “He is both a scholar of leadership and an accomplished leader himself. His long record of public service has given him vital insights that will help guide our students and faculty in their studies of leadership.” Bracken most recently served as executive director of the Bard Center for Entrepreneurship at the University of Colorado Denver’s School of Business from 2001-07. Prior to his service as interim CU president in 2000, he served as vice president for public affairs for 19 years with Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., and before that, as assistant professor of history at Anderson College in Anderson, Ind. He currently serves on the board of directors for the Robert H. and Beverly A. Deming Center for Entrepreneurship at the Leeds School of Business and the board of directors for the Presidents Leadership Class, both at CU-Boulder. He also serves as chair of the Imagine! Foundation board and is a board member of The Community Foundation Serving Boulder County. Bracken also has been affiliated with several state commissions, including the Colorado Commission on Higher Education. He also served on the board of Boulder Community Hospital. “It is an honor and a privilege to accept this appointment as the Newton Endowed Chair,” said Bracken. “Leadership is a key resource for Colorado and the nation, and I look forward to continuing the work of President Brown, Chancellor DiStefano, and the faculty and staff of CU-Boulder in elevating the campus’s leadership programs to new levels of success.”  Contact: Bronson Hilliard, CU-Boulder spokesperson, 303-735-6183“I am delighted that former President Bracken has accepted the appointment to serve as our next Newton Endowed Chair in Leadership,” said CU-Boulder Chancellor Philip P. DiStefano. “He is both a scholar of leadership and an accomplished leader himself. His long record of public service has given him vital insights that will help guide our students and faculty in their studies of leadership.”BusinessServing Colorado. Engaged in the World., Campus, Communityvar switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'}); Photo: Caption: Alexander "Sandy" Bracken.


CU-Boulder No. 1 for Peace Corps volunteers for second straight year
For the second straight year, CU-Boulder is ranked No. 1 in the nation for graduates serving as Peace Corps volunteers with 112 undergraduate alumni currently serving around the world. “Our No. 1 Peace Corps ranking for volunteer service is tangible evidence of something we have always known: our students and graduates are service-oriented and down-to-earth, working tirelessly to benefit communities around the globe,” said Chancellor Philip P. DiStefano. “It emphasizes how CU-Boulder’s civically engaged students go on to become service-oriented citizens at home and abroad.” Each year since 2004, CU-Boulder has ranked in the top three schools in the nation for Peace Corps volunteers -- three times as the No. 2 school and four times at No. 3. “We have a track record of attracting adventurous students who also have a hunger to serve, particularly in underdeveloped nations,” said Peter Simons, director of CU-Boulder’s Institute for Ethical and Civic Engagement. The Peace Corps is one of 12 programs overseen by CU-Boulder's Institute for Ethical and Civic Engagement. In 2010, CU-Boulder became part of the Peace Corps Master’s International program, which allows volunteers to combine Peace Corps service with a master’s degree program and receive credit for their Peace Corps service abroad. In the 50 years since the Peace Corps was founded, more than 200,000 volunteers have fanned out across the globe working on everything from AIDS education to information technology and environmental preservation. More than 2,300 CU-Boulder alumni have served as Peace Corps volunteers, No. 5 all-time.Photo Gallery: CU-Boulder and the Peace CorpsGlobal Engagement, Civic EngagementServing Colorado. Engaged in the World., Outreachvar switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'});


CU-Boulder-led team to assess decline of Arctic sea ice in Alaska's Beaufort Sea
  A national research team led by the University of Colorado Boulder is embarking on a two-year, multi-pronged effort to better understand the impacts of environmental factors associated with the continuing decline of sea ice in the Arctic Ocean. The team will use tools ranging from unmanned aircraft and satellites to ocean buoys in order to understand the characteristics and changes in Arctic sea ice, which was at 1.67 million square miles during September 2011, more than 1 million square miles below the 1979-2000 monthly average sea ice extent for September -- an area larger than Texas and California combined. Critical ocean regions north of the Alaskan coast, like the Beaufort Sea and the Canada Basin, have experienced record warming and decreased sea ice extent unprecedented in human memory, said CU-Boulder Research Professor James Maslanik, who is leading the research effort. The team will be targeting the Beaufort Sea, considered a “marginal ice zone” where old and thick multiyear sea ice has failed to survive during the summer melt season in recent years, said Maslanik of CU-Boulder’s Colorado Center for Astrodynamics Research in CU’s engineering college. Such marginal ice zones are characterized by extensive ice loss and a strong “ice-albedo” feedback. “Sea ice is lost when the darker ocean absorbs more sunlight in the form of heat in the summers, resulting in potentially thinner sea ice that re-forms the following winter,” Maslanik said.  “This positive feedback between heat absorption by the ocean and accelerated melting becomes reinforcing in itself.” Marginal ice zones also are characterized by significant human and marine mammal activity, he said. There was a record loss of sea ice cover over the Arctic in 2007, he said. “In some areas of the Arctic Ocean the multiyear ice rebounded, but in the Beaufort Sea we did not see that kind of multiyear ice persistence like we used to see,” said Maslanik, who also is a research professor in the aerospace engineering sciences department. “The biggest question is whether places like the Beaufort Sea and adjacent Canada Basin have passed a ‘tipping point’ and now are essentially sub-Arctic zones where ice disappears each summer,” he said.  Such ice loss could be causing fundamental changes in ocean conditions, including earlier annual blooms of phytoplankton, which are microscopic plant-like organisms that drive the marine food web. The vast majority of climate scientists believe shrinking Arctic sea ice in recent decades is due to rising temperatures primarily caused by human activities that pump huge amounts of heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The new $3 million study led by Maslanik, “The Marginal Ice Zone Observations and Processes EXperiment,” or MIZOPEX, is being funded by NASA. The team will undertake extensive airborne surface mapping using a variety of Unmanned Aircraft Systems, or UAS, comparing the results with data collected by a fleet of satellites from NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Japanese space agency.  Unlike satellites, small, unmanned aircraft can fly below the clouds, observe the same location continuously for hours and make more precise measurements of sea ice composition and sea surface temperatures.  Maslanik and his CU-Boulder team previously used unmanned aircraft to assess ice conditions both in the Arctic and in Antarctica. The MIZOPEX arsenal also will include floating buoys that measure ocean temperatures. CU-Boulder engineering faculty members Scott Palo and Dale Lawrence and their graduate students are converting miniaturized versions of dropsondes -- standard weather reconnaissance devices designed to be dropped from aircraft and capture data as they fall toward Earth -- into the buoys that will be deployed by the UAS. The modified dropsondes, which were developed at CU-Boulder for use in Antarctica, will be combined with CU-designed miniature unmanned aircraft that will land on the ocean near sea ice floes. Such floes are critical to several species of Arctic wildlife, including polar bears, walruses and seals. The buoys and unmanned craft will collect sea surface and subsurface temperatures to about a meter deep, while the overflying unmanned planes and satellites measure temperatures at the surface, Maslanik said. “We want to know if the warming is just at the ocean surface or if there is additional heat getting into the mixed layers of the upper ocean, either from absorbed sunlight or from ocean currents, that could be contributing to sea ice melt.” The team plans to gather information over 24-hour cycles to determine how the ocean and ice are reacting to atmospheric changes. “Understanding what’s happening in the water is critical to forecasting what will happen to ice in the near term, as well as in the decades to come,” said MIZOPEX team scientist Betsy Weatherhead of CU-Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences. “We’ve never had the data before,” Weatherhead said. “With this new instrumentation, we’ll be able to ask questions and test theories about the drivers of ice melt.” The MIZOPEX effort involves CU-Boulder, NASA, Fort Hays State University in Kansas, Brigham Young University, the University of Alaska-Fairbanks, NOAA, the University of Washington and Columbia University.  Ball Aerospace Systems Group of Boulder also is collaborating on the project. Other MIZOPEX project scientists from CU include Brian Argrow, Sandra Castro, Ian Crocker, William Emery, Eric Frew and Mark Tschudi.  Argrow directs the CU-headquartered Research and Engineering Center for Unmanned Vehicles, a university-government-industry partnership for the development and application of unmanned vehicle systems. For more information on MIZOPEX visit http://ccar.colorado.edu/mizopex/index.html. For more information on CU-Boulder’s Research and Engineering Center for Unmanned Vehicles visit http://recuv.colorado.edu/.   Contact: James Maslanik, 303-492-8974James.Maslanik@colorado.edu Betsy Weatherhead, 303-497-6653Betsy.Weatherhead@noaa.gov Jim Scott, CU media relations, 303-492-3114Jim.Scott@colorado.edu“The biggest question is whether places like the Beaufort Sea and adjacent Canada Basin have passed a ‘tipping point’ and now are essentially sub-Arctic zones where ice disappears each summer,” said CU-Boulder Research Professor James Maslanik, who is leading the research effort.Engineering, Environment, InstitutesDiscovery & Innovation, Discoveries & Achievements, Research Collaborations


CU-Boulder ranked No. 1 for Peace Corps volunteers for second straight year
For the second straight year, the University of Colorado Boulder is ranked No. 1 in the nation for graduates serving as Peace Corps volunteers with 112 undergraduate alumni currently serving around the world, the Peace Corps announced today. CU-Boulder is ranked the No. 5 all-time school for volunteers with 2,317 alumni who have served in the Peace Corps since it was established in 1961. “For the second year in a row, CU-Boulder has produced more Peace Corps volunteers than any other university in the nation,” said Peace Corps Director Aaron S. Williams. “CU fosters civic engagement and participation, and students graduate from CU with the language and cross-cultural skills necessary to make them successful during their 27 months of Peace Corps service.” The University of Washington ranked No. 2 for large schools this year with 110 undergraduate alumni serving. Also in the top five, in descending order, were the University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of Florida and the University of Michigan. “Our No. 1 Peace Corps ranking for volunteer service is tangible evidence of something we have always known: Our students and graduates are service-oriented and down-to-earth, working tirelessly to benefit communities around the globe,” said Chancellor Philip P. DiStefano. “It emphasizes how CU-Boulder’s civically engaged students go on to become service-oriented citizens at home and abroad.” The Peace Corps ranks its top volunteer-producing schools annually according to the size of the student body. Large schools have more than 15,000 undergraduates, medium-sized schools have between 5,000 and 15,000 undergraduates, and small schools have fewer than 5,000 undergraduates. The George Washington University ranked first among medium-sized schools with 78 undergraduate alumni currently serving and the University of Mary Washington ranked highest among small schools with 29 undergraduate alumni serving. The University of Florida ranked as the top producing school for graduate school alumni volunteers with 30. Each year since 2004, CU-Boulder has ranked in the top three schools in the nation for Peace Corps volunteers -- three times as the No. 2 school and four times at No. 3. “We have a track record of attracting adventurous students who also have a hunger to serve, particularly in underdeveloped nations,” said Peter Simons, director of CU-Boulder’s Institute for Ethical and Civic Engagement. In 2010, CU-Boulder became part of the Peace Corps Master’s International program, which allows volunteers to combine Peace Corps service with a master’s degree program and receive credit for their Peace Corps service abroad. For more information about the Peace Corps at CU-Boulder, call the campus recruiting office at 303-492-8454 or visit http://www.colorado.edu/iece/peacecorps/.   FACT SHEET CU-Boulder Peace Corps Volunteers -- CU-Boulder is ranked No. 1 in the nation for graduates serving as Peace Corps volunteers with 112 undergraduate alumni currently serving. -- CU-Boulder is ranked the No. 5 all-time school for volunteers with 2,317 alumni who have served in the Peace Corps since it was established in 1961. -- Each year since 2004, CU-Boulder has ranked in the top three schools in the nation for Peace Corps volunteers -- two times as the No. 1 school, three times as the No. 2 school and four times at No. 3. -- The Peace Corps is one of 12 campus programs overseen by CU-Boulder’s Institute for Ethical and Civic Engagement. -- The CU-Boulder academic experience stresses rigorous coursework and hands-on research opportunities, enabling undergraduate and graduate students to put their knowledge to use through a variety of critical thinking, leadership development and service-learning opportunities. -- CU-Boulder is one of a select group of public and private universities nationwide participating in the Peace Corps Master’s International program. Contact: Peter Simons, 303-492-1962 Greg Swenson, CU media relations, 303-492-3113“Our No. 1 Peace Corps ranking for volunteer service is tangible evidence of something we have always known: Our students and graduates are service-oriented and down-to-earth, working tirelessly to benefit communities around the globe,” said Chancellor Philip P. DiStefano. “It emphasizes how CU-Boulder’s civically engaged students go on to become service-oriented citizens at home and abroad.”Academics, Outreach, Global Engagement CU-Boulder and the Peace Corps CU-Boulder has a long history of alumni joining the Peace Corps Photo: Caption: Kristen Mayer graduated from CU-Boulder with a bachelor's degree in French and anthropology in 2009. She was a Peace Corps volunteer in South Africa from 2009-11 as a health educator. Photo: Caption: Evan Taylor worked as the CU-Boulder Peace Corps coordinator from 2009-10. He volunteered as a Peace Corps health educator in Mali, Africa from 2006-08 Photo: Caption: Fishing boat in Mali Africa, where CU-Boulder Peace Corps coordinator Evan Taylor volunteered as a Peace Corps health educator from 2006-08. Photo: Caption: Julie Fast graduated from CU-Boulder in 2008 with a bachelor's degree in integrative physiology. She worked as a Peace Corps community health volunteer from 2008-10 in Cajamarca, Peru. Photo: Caption: CU-Boulder Peace Corps coordinator Alea Richardson worked in Ecuador as a Peace Corps community health volunteer from 2008-10. Photo: Caption: Kevin Wheeler (left) graduated from CU-Boulder with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering in 1997, before returning to complete a master's degree in the same field in 2000. He served in the Peace Corps in the Dominican Republic working on water purifying systems from 2002-04. Serving Colorado. Engaged in the World., Outreach, Research & Creative Works, Teachingvar switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'});


Peace Corps director to visit CU-Boulder Jan. 25
  Peace Corps Director Aaron S. Williams will give a short presentation at the University of Colorado Boulder on Wednesday, Jan. 25, to share stories of CU alumni who are currently serving overseas and discuss the importance of the Peace Corps in the world today. The presentation will begin at 1:30 p.m. in Old Main Chapel and is free and open to the public. Nominated by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the U.S. Senate in 2009, Williams is the 18th director of the Peace Corps and the fourth director to have served as a Peace Corps volunteer. Williams served as a volunteer from 1967 to 1970. He served two years in a training program for rural teachers in Monte Plata, Dominican Republic, and then extended his service for a third year to work as a professor of teaching methods at the Universidad Catolica Madre y Maestra in Santiago, Chile. After completing his service, he became coordinator of minority recruitment and project evaluation officer for the Peace Corps in Chicago from 1970 to 1971. For the first time in its history, CU-Boulder was ranked No. 1 in the nation for graduates serving as Peace Corps volunteers last year with 117 undergraduate alumni serving around the world. Overall, CU-Boulder is ranked the No. 5 all-time school for volunteers with 2,369.   Contact: Peter Simons, 303-492-1962 Greg Swenson, CU media relations, 303-492-3113  Academics, OutreachGlobal engagement, Serving Colorado. Engaged in the World.var switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'});


Nutrition labels can lead even most health conscious consumers astray
Jan. 2010                                                                   Donald Lichtenstein Your food choice may not be as healthy as you think. New research by Donald Lichtenstein, CU-Boulder professor of the Leeds School of Business, reveals how food manufacturers are trying to make their products appear more nutritional.  It’s a tactic he calls the “Health Framing Effect. brightcove.createExperiences(); Topic: Academics, Business, Marketing


Nutrition labels can lead even the most health-conscious consumers astray, study finds
People who made New Year’s resolutions to eat healthier or lose weight might also want to brush up on their math skills, according to Professor Donald Lichtenstein of the University of Colorado Boulder’s Leeds School of Business. In a study appearing in this month’s edition of the Journal of Marketing, Lichtenstein and his colleagues found that nutrition labels on packaged food products in the United States can lead even the most health-conscious consumers astray, if they don’t “do the math.” The study was co-authored by marketing instructor Gina Mohr of Colorado State University and marketing Professor Chris Janiszewski of the University of Florida. While the “Nutrition Facts” printed on food labels are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, companies are given some freedom to present food packages as a single serving or as smaller serving sizes within a package, according to Lichtenstein, chair of the Leeds School marketing department. Through this practice, referred to in the study by Lichtenstein and his colleagues as “health framing,” companies can present smaller serving sizes so that a food’s negative nutrients -- calories and fat -- on a nutrition label show up as a lower number per serving. “The take-away message is when you look at the calories per serving on a candy bar or a can of soup at the grocery store, be sure to look at the serving size too,” Lichtenstein said. “Surprisingly what we found was those people who are health conscious and are concerned about nutrition fall prey to health framing effects more frequently. “The problem comes when people do pay attention, but they only pay attention to the calorie information and not the serving size,” Lichtenstein said. “And that’s what we find in study after study. Those consumers who are more health conscious pay attention to the calorie information, but they don’t take the extra step to look at the serving size. So they are duped, if you will, by a health framing effect.” This is where the math part comes in. For example, if a candy bar is 2 ounces and has 200 calories for a whole bar, it might be labeled as one serving or two servings. If the manufacturer decides to make the serving size of 1 ounce it cuts the calories per serving in half. “We found that many consumers only pay attention to the calorie information and don’t look to see exactly what the serving size is,” he said. “When you present a smaller serving size, it cuts down the calories per serving, which makes consumers feel less guilty about consuming the product, and that affects not only their purchase intentions, but actual choice.” To ensure more informed consumer choices, Lichtenstein recommends reducing the latitude manufacturers have in setting serving sizes, requiring manufacturers to report nutrient information on a per unit weight basis -- calories per ounce -- and increasing consumer education about manufacturer use of health framing. Without any changes to policy, Lichtenstein said, consumers need to put the onus on themselves when it comes to food labels. “In the absence of any changes, public policy officials should encourage consumers to calculate negative nutrients for a reasonable serving size, so they know the health benefits and detriments of the foods they eat,” Lichtenstein said. Contact: Donald Lichtenstein, Leeds School, 303-492-8206 Greg Swenson, CU media relations, 303-492-3113“The problem comes when people do pay attention, but they only pay attention to the calorie information and not the serving size,” said Professor Donald Lichtenstein of the University of Colorado Boulder’s Leeds School of Business. “And that’s what we find in study after study. Those consumers who are more health conscious pay attention to the calorie information, but they don’t take the extra step to look at the serving size. So they are duped, if you will, by a health framing effect.”Business Nutrition labels can lead even most health conscious consumers astray Discovery & Innovation, Discoveries & Achievements, Research Collaborationsvar switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'});


Trying to eat healthy? Read those nutrition labels carefully
People who made New Year’s resolutions to eat healthier or lose weight might also want to brush up on their math skills. In a new study, marketing professor Donald Lichtenstein found that nutrition labels on packaged food products in the United States can lead even the most health-conscious consumers astray, if they don’t “do the math.” While the “Nutrition Facts” printed on food labels are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, companies are given some freedom to present food packages as a single serving or as smaller serving sizes within a package, according to Lichtenstein, chair of the Leeds School marketing department. Through this practice, referred to in the study by Lichtenstein and his colleagues as “health framing,” companies can present smaller serving sizes so that a food’s negative nutrients -- calories and fat -- on a nutrition label show up as a lower number per serving. “The take-away message is when you look at the calories per serving on a candy bar or a can of soup at the grocery store, be sure to look at the serving size too,” Lichtenstein said. “Surprisingly, what we found was those people who are health conscious and are concerned about nutrition fall prey to health framing effects more frequently. “The problem comes when people do pay attention, but they only pay attention to the calorie information and not the serving size,” Lichtenstein said. “And that’s what we find in study after study. Those consumers who are more health conscious pay attention to the calorie information, but they don’t take the extra step to look at the serving size. So they are duped, if you will, by a health framing effect.” This is where the math part comes in. For example, if a candy bar is 2 ounces and has 200 calories for a whole bar, it might be labeled as one serving or two servings. If the manufacturer decides to make the serving size of 1 ounce it cuts the calories per serving in half. “We found that many consumers only pay attention to the calorie information and don’t look to see exactly what the serving size is,” he said. “When you present a smaller serving size, it cuts down the calories per serving, which makes consumers feel less guilty about consuming the product, and that affects not only their purchase intentions, but actual choice."   Nutrition labels can lead even most health conscious consumers astray Jan. 2010                                                                   Donald Lichtenstein Your food choice may not be as healthy as you think. New research by Donald Lichtenstein, CU-Boulder professor of the Leeds School of Business, reveals how food manufacturers are trying to make their products appear more nutritional.  It’s a tactic he calls the “Health Framing Effect.Topic: Academics, Business, Marketing Business, Social SciencesDiscovery & Innovation, Serving Colorado. Engaged in the World.var switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'});


Deepwater Horizon lessons are subject of Jan. 26 lecture at CU-Boulder
  The University of Colorado Boulder will host a free public lecture this month illuminating the lessons learned from the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion that killed 11 workers and resulted in the largest accidental oil spill in U.S. history. Called “What Happened at Deepwater Horizon?” the event will be presented Jan. 26 from 6:30 to 9 p.m. in the Mathematics Building auditorium, room 100. Donald Winter, former secretary of the Navy, professor of engineering practice at the University of Michigan and chair of the National Academies committee that wrote a report on the Deepwater Horizon accident, will be the first of two guest speakers.   The report, issued last month, points to multiple flawed decisions leading to the blowout and explosion, and calls for a new “system safety” approach to anticipating and managing possible dangers at every level of operation. A second guest speaker will be Paul Hsieh, a research hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Survey who was named 2011 Federal Employee of the Year. Hsieh performed the crucial calculations on pressure that deemed it safe to cap the oil well in mid-July without causing it to rupture from beneath the seabed and result in a bigger disaster. Two CU-Boulder environmental engineering faculty who have been researching the aftermath of the incident also will present their findings at the event. Fernando Rosario-Ortiz will discuss the environmental fate of dispersants used in the disaster response and Alina Handorean will present information on air quality impacts of the oil spill. “I was really jarred by this event because it was so preventable,” said event co-organizer Jana Milford, professor and director of the Environmental Engineering Program at CU-Boulder. “By learning more about what happened, I think we can encourage a stronger culture around safety.” The event is presented by the College of Engineering and Applied Science, the BOLD Center, the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Environmental Engineering Program. For more information or to request accommodations for disabilities call 303-492-4774.   Contact: Jana Milford, 303-492-5542jana.milford@colorado.edu Roseanna Neupauer, 303-492-6274Roseanna.neupauer@colorado.edu Carol Rowe, 303-492-7426carol.rowe@colorado.edu  “I was really jarred by this event because it was so preventable,” said event co-organizer Jana Milford, professor and director of the Environmental Engineering Program at CU-Boulder. “By learning more about what happened, I think we can encourage a stronger culture around safety.”EngineeringCommunity & Culture, Arts & Culture, Lectures & Seminarsvar switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'});


Get involved, get connected, get inspired
First semester of freshman year, the majority of your time was probably devoted to getting lost around campus, making friends in your dorm, figuring our your major, and surviving finals. Now that you have a whole semester under your belt, it’s time to get involved and find your niche at CU. Getting involved makes the large CU student population seem much smaller as you get to know more people and take part in the network of groups and organizations on campus. With so many opportunities and different ways to contribute, there’s no excuse to not find something. But more importantly, the significant impact getting involved can have on your education here at CU can create, change, and carve your future path in ways far beyond what a textbook and lecture ever can. For a comprehensive listing of CU-Boulder resources and services for students, check out the Division of Student Affairs website. Volunteer your time Now that we are college students, it truly is our duty to give back to the community we have gained so much from. Whether you want to help animals or children, advocate for the environment or for social change, it doesn’t matter—just find something you can support, and do it. Not sure where to volunteer? Try the Volunteer Resource Center, Volunteer Connection, VolunteerMatch, or the Institute for Ethical and Civic Engagement. “I like being in GlobeMed because I have met a bunch of people who have a similar passion for promoting global health equity.” – Ashley Armstrong Join a student activity or organization No matter what your interests or passions are, there is a group of students for you. From intramural and club sports, to Anime Anonymous, to Sports Marketing Club, to the Extreme Measures, to Gay Straight Alliance, to Boulder Freeride, there are countless student groups you can join. Becoming involved in an organization is a great way to pursue interests outside of the classroom. Can’t find the group your looking for? Create your own! “Doing school activities not only allows you to make new friends, but also allows you to find yourself and your potential career path.” – Elle Aud Find a leadership position A foundation in leadership not only helps you excel in academia and in the work world, but also enriches you personally. CU GOLD, Chancellor’s Leadership Studies Program, and CU Student Government (CUSG) are only a few leadership-based groups on campus. Reaching a leadership position in any student organization can also be just as rewarding as participating in a group meant specifically for developing leadership skills. “Student Ambassadors is really about bringing the best and brightest students to the CU campus. Being a student ambassador gives me the chance to be make a difference in the lives of incoming freshmen by sharing all of the wonderful opportunities CU offers.” – Andi Hudler Go Greek Getting involved with the Greek community on campus is another great way to get involved. Panhellenic Sororities and Multicultural Greek Organizations are both affiliated with the university, and provide students with opportunities to participate in community service, develop leadership skills, and expand socially. The Interfraternity Council also provides students with academic support, leadership skills, lifelong friends, and a network of opportunities. “The Greek community is an excellent source to meet other students from different backgrounds whether they’re from out-of-state or different majors. It’s a great way to get involved with a large community that shares the same motivation to help other organizations like charities and local student groups.” – Brett Forrest These are only a few options of how you can get involved on campus; so if you don’t see anything you like, start looking for other opportunities. Becoming active on campus allows you to be a contributing member of the CU and Boulder communities, helps you meet people and find your place on campus, and can inspire interests and passions outside of the classroom. But let’s be real—another huge perk of becoming active on campus is that it’s a major résumé-builder. The truth is, thousands of students graduate every year across the country with your same degree—so what you do outside of the classroom sets you apart and distinguishes you as the most valuable candidate to employers. Most companies and organizations don’t care about your GPA, how many credits you graduated with, or even what your specific major is (sorry to break it to you). What makes you unique are the groups and organizations you belong to, positions you hold, and the overall good you’ve contributed to the community. Also, employers love to see long-term commitment—so if you start now, you’re ahead of the game.  So get involved today! var switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'});


CU wins EPA challenge to divert most gameday garbage from landfills
The University of Colorado Boulder topped two leader boards in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 2011 Game Day Challenge -- a national competition to eliminate waste generated at college football games. CU won the 48-school “Diversion Rate” and 17-school “Organics Reduction” categories in the EPA’s NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision contest. “Our achievements toward zero-waste reflect the efforts of an outstanding team committed to this initiative,” said CU Athletic Director Mike Bohn. “Being a national leader in the EPA challenge would not have been possible without the dedication and tireless efforts of campus leaders and the cooperation of event sponsors and vendors. The enthusiasm and willingness of fans, led by our students, has been key in driving the success of this endeavor.” Data for CU’s competition in the EPA challenge was taken from the Oct. 22, 2011, home football game against the University of Oregon. Measures that marked CU as the division winner in “Diversion Rate” and “Organics Reduction” included diverting nearly 88 percent of total gameday waste from landfills. Also, about 2.5 ounces of organic materials per person were diverted from landfills and composted or donated instead. “One of the most exciting aspects of this whole effort has been the reduction in overall waste generated despite record attendance and food sales,” said Edward von Bleichert, CU-Boulder environmental operations manager. “Compared to 2008, the 2011 season produced 21 percent less total waste per game and sent 44 percent less trash to the landfill per game due to aggressive composting and recycling efforts.” According to the EPA, 2.7 million game-goers involved in the 2011 challenge from 78 participating colleges and universities diverted more than 500,000 pounds of waste from football games, preventing nearly 810 metric tons of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere. That is the equivalent of the annual emissions from 159 passenger vehicles. CU also competed in the EPA’s 2009 inaugural Game Day Challenge against seven other schools, winning in the “Diversion Rate” and “Waste Reduction” categories. In 2008, CU became the nation’s first major college football program to commit to zero-waste at football games through its own Ralphie’s Green Stampede initiative, later extending the same efforts to all athletics events. “We would be remiss if we did not salute Boulder County’s own White Wave Foods for its inspiration and support in creating Ralphie’s Green Stampede,” said Bohn. For more information on Ralphie’s Green Stampede visit http://www.cubuffs.com/ViewArticle.dbml?SPSID=4457&SPID=274&DB_OEM_ID=600&ATCLID=1549954. For more information on the EPA Game Day Challenge visit http://www.epa.gov/epawaste/partnerships/wastewise/challenge/gameday/index.htm.   Contact: Mike Bohn, 303-492-7930mike.bohn@colorado.edu Edward von Bleichert, 303-735-3627edward.vonbleichert@colorado.edu Dave Newport, 303-492-8308dave.newport@colorado.edu Elizabeth Lock, 303-492-3117elizabeth.lock@colorado.edu“One of the most exciting aspects of this whole effort has been the reduction in overall waste generated despite record attendance and food sales,” said Edward von Bleichert, CU-Boulder environmental operations manager. “Compared to 2008, the 2011 season produced 21 percent less total waste per game and sent 44 percent less trash to the landfill per game due to aggressive composting and recycling efforts.”Campus Sustainability, EnvironmentCommunity & Culture, Athletics, Sustainabilityvar switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'}); Photo: Caption: A CU game-goer uses a recyclables and compostables sorting station -- available instead of trash cans through the Ralphie's Green Stampede zero-waste initiative.


As Voyager 1 nears edge of solar system, CU scientists look back
CU-Boulder planetary scientist Larry Esposito remembering the Voyager mission. brightcove.createExperiences(); Topic: Academics, Natural Sciences, Astrophysical and Planetary Sciences, Research & Creative Works, Natural Sciences


CU-led study pinpoints farthest developing galaxy cluster ever found
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/.   Contact: Michele TrentiMichele.Trenti@colorado.edu Michael Shull, 303-492-7827Michael.Shull@colorado.edu Ray Villard, STScI media relations, 410-338-4514villard@stsci.edu Jim Scott, CU-Boulder media relations, 303-492-3114Jim.Scott@colorado.edu  “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.”Natural Sciences, Research Galaxy Cluster Photo: Caption: Courtesy NASA Photo: Caption: A team led by a CU-Bulder astronomer has discovered the earliest and most distant developing galaxy cluster ever. Image courtesy NASA, ESA, M. Trenti (University of Colorado Boulder and Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, U.K.), L. Bradley (Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore), and the BoRG team Photo: Caption: The orbiting Hubble Space Telescope was serviced for the fourth and final time by NASA astronauts in 2009. Image courtesy NASA Photo: Caption: NASa's Hubble Space Telescope, which is carrying an instrument designed by CU-Boulder, has been used to make thousands of important astronomical discoveries in the past two decades. Image courtesy NASA Discovery & Innovation, Discoveries & Achievements, Research Collaborationsvar switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'}); Photo: Caption: The composite image above, taken in visible and near-infrared light, reveals the location of five tiny galaxies clustered together 13.1 billion light-years away. The circles pinpoint the galaxies. The Wide Field Camera 3 aboard NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope spied the galaxies in a random sky survey. The developing cluster is the most distant ever observed. Credit: NASA, ESA, M. Trenti (University of Colorado Boulder and Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge, U.K.), L. Bradley (Space Telescope Science Institute, Baltimore), and the BoRG team


Caution: early galaxy cluster under construction
An astronomy team led by the University of Colorado Boulder using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has zeroed in on a wild intergalactic construction project -- a cluster of early galaxies just starting to assemble only 600 million years after the Big Bang. The five small galaxies clustered together, about 13.1 billion light-years away, are among the brightest galaxies at that epoch and represent the most distant such grouping ever observed in the early universe. 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 study leader Michele Trenti, a research associate at CU-Boulder’s Center for Astrophysics and Space Astronomy.  “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.” Most galaxies in the universe live in groups and clusters, and astronomers have probed many mature “galactic cities” in detail as far away 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.” Trenti’s team used the 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.” 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. Simulations show the galaxies will merge in time to form the brightest central galaxy in the cluster. 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. 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 Hubble Space Telescope is a project of international cooperation between NASA and the European Space Agency.Natural SciencesDiscovery & Innovation, Discoveries & AchievementsNews releasevar switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'});


Some earthquakes expected along Rio Grande Rift in Colorado and New Mexico, new study says
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. Contact: Anne Sheehan, 303-492-4597Anne.Sheehan@colorado.edu Jane Palmer, CIRES media relations, 303-492-6289Jane.Palmer@colorado.edu Jim Scott, CU-Boulder media relations, 303-492-3114Jim.Scott@colorado.edu    “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.Natural Sciences, Institutes, Natural Sciences Rio Grande Rift Photo:  Photo:  Photo:  Photo:  Photo:  Photo:  Photo:  Photo:  Discovery & Innovation, Discoveries & Achievements, Graduate Education, Research Collaborationsvar switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'}); Photo: Caption: 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. Photo courtesy Anne Sheehan, University of Colorado.


Some dating websites do not remove GPS data from photos, CU-Boulder students find
  While the majority of dating websites do a good job of managing the privacy of their users, a class research project at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Leeds School of Business found that 21 of 90 dating websites the class examined did not properly remove location data from pictures uploaded by their users. As a result of people taking more photographs with cameras and cell phones containing Global Positioning System chips, some dating website profile pictures contain GPS coordinates showing where a picture was taken, said Associate Professor Kai Larsen, who taught the class on Privacy in the Age of Facebook. When such information is not removed by the dating website, commonly available tools can be used to detect the location of a person’s residence or other locations frequented by the user. This gap in privacy protection leaves women users especially vulnerable to online predators, the CU-Boulder student researchers said. Users of dating websites share a plethora of private details but generally will not share their addresses or real names unless a stronger relationship develops through multiple online and offline interactions. The largest dating sites, such as Match.com and PlentyofFish.com, were found to remove location metadata from user profile pictures. But 23 percent of the 90 websites were found to leave metadata attached to the profile photo. All of these specialized dating sites were based on such attributes as age, disability, hobby or religion. Twelve of the 21 websites were run by a single Canadian company, SuccessfulMatch.com. According to the SuccessfulMatch website, the company runs 24 dating websites on the same platform, 12 of which were not examined as part of the research project. “While we were pleased to see such a high level of responsible behavior by online dating companies, an online predator would require no more than one website to act irresponsibly,” Larsen said. “The fact that we found more than 20 websites that do not carefully maintain user privacy is cause for concern, in that individual users are left to maintain their own privacy by carefully confirming that any uploaded picture does not contain GPS coordinates.” Metadata is “a set of data that describes and gives information about other data,” Larsen said. Such information that can be derived from online photos includes camera type, date of capture, whether the picture has been altered and GPS coordinates of where the photo was taken. Dating websites have the ability to “scrub” or eliminate such metadata from their member photos and most do because misuse of the information could compromise the safety of their users, Larsen said. The research method of the study included the creation of user profiles of two individuals, the personal information of which was fabricated except for the photos, which contained location information and other metadata, Larsen said. The photo uploaded by one user then was downloaded by the other user and the existence of the location information confirmed. The websites found not to remove location metadata were contacted on Dec. 29, 2011, and the Leeds School team has since worked with several of those dating website companies to ensure that location metadata is removed before the survey results were publicly announced. “It was clear that some companies did not know about this issue,” Larsen said. “The feedback ranged from appreciative to reluctantly removing the metadata to no response.” Several of the companies immediately reported that they were taking action to resolve the issue, including SuccessfulMatch and the companies behind CatholicSingles, DeafSinglesMeet and MeetingMillionaires. A company that tracks online consumer behavior, Experian Hitwise, recently listed more than 1,100 websites in its “lifestyle dating” category. “Technology is so important today and many companies deal with very private data,” Larsen said. “Company decisions about how to deal with data privacy can affect their valuation.” The information management class was offered jointly by the Leeds School’s Division of Management and Center for Education on Social Responsibility. Dating websites that did not remove location metadata from photographs during the 2011 fall semester class’s research period were the following: Agematch.com Bikerkiss.com Casualfriends.com Catholiccupid.com Catholicsingles.com Churchfriends.com Deafsinglesmeet.com Interracialmatch.com Jromances.com Largeandlovely.com Latinfriends.com Ldate.com Matemakers.com Meetingmillionaires.com Militaryfriends.com Millionairematch.com Seniorscircle.com Sexsearch.com Singleparentmatch.com Sugardaddyforme.com Passionsearch.com A complete list of all the websites examined by the class is available at http://leeds.colorado.edu/im/.     Contact: Kai Larsen, Leeds School, 720-938-2436kai.larsen@colorado.edu Peter Caughey, CU media relations, 303-492-4007caughey@colorado.edu  Dating websites that did not remove location metadata from photographs during the 2011 fall semester class’s research period were the following: Agematch.com Bikerkiss.com Casualfriends.com Catholiccupid.com Catholicsingles.com Churchfriends.com Deafsinglesmeet.com Interracialmatch.com Jromances.com Largeandlovely.com Latinfriends.com Ldate.com Matemakers.com Meetingmillionaires.com Militaryfriends.com Millionairematch.com Seniorscircle.com Sexsearch.com Singleparentmatch.com Sugardaddyforme.com Passionsearch.com A complete list of all the websites examined by the class is available at http://leeds.colorado.edu/im/. “While we were pleased to see such a high level of responsible behavior by online dating companies, an online predator would require no more than one website to act irresponsibly,” Kai Larsen of the Leeds School of Business said. “The fact that we found more than 20 websites that do not carefully maintain user privacy is cause for concern, in that individual users are left to maintain their own privacy by carefully confirming that any uploaded picture does not contain GPS coordinates.”BusinessDiscovery & Innovation, Discoveries & Achievements, Student Achievements, Undergraduate Researchvar switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'});


First class of CU-Boulder undergrads enrolls in new Journalism Plus program
As a new year and the spring semester begin, the University of Colorado Boulder is welcoming the first class of journalism students entering under a new undergraduate degree structure called “Journalism Plus” that CU officials say will create better journalists, better news content and, over time, a more informed society.  Currently, more than 45 new students are expected to enroll for spring semester under the new Journalism Plus requirements. Journalism Plus stipulates that students supplement their journalism degree requirements with an additional field of study in a specific arts and sciences discipline, an approach that Journalism Director Chris Braider says will make better journalists and communication professionals, better university students and better citizens. “Journalism Plus ensures that the journalists and communicators CU produces will not only possess the updated skills they need to create and deliver messages, but will also possess the analytical abilities, research tools and knowledge of a subject to communicate something of value in those messages,” Braider said. “Our students will understand, with depth and context, the content they will create as journalists. We think this will set them apart from other journalism programs across the nation.” Journalism and Mass Communication will continue to grant the Bachelor of Science degree in one of five sequences:  advertising, broadcast news, broadcast production, media studies, and news-editorial. Under the new requirements, students also will enroll in a 30- to 33-credit-hour additional field of study, the equivalent of work in a major in a discipline of their choice – anything from English, physics and history to political science, environmental studies or film studies. Journalism Plus at CU-Boulder CU-Boulder faculty members discuss the Journalism Plus curriculum and how it prepares studentsTopic: Academics, Journalism, News JournalismLearning & Teachingvar switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'});


Study indicates hail may disappear from Colorado's Front Range by 2070
Summertime hail could all but disappear from the eastern flank of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains by 2070, says a new study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the University of Colorado Boulder’s Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences and the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Less hail damage could be good news for gardeners and farmers, said lead author Kelly Mahoney, a research scientist at CIRES, but a shift from hail to rain can also mean more runoff, which could raise the risk of flash floods.  “In this region of elevated terrain, hail may lessen the risk of flooding because it takes awhile to melt,” Mahoney said. “Decision makers may not want to count on that in the future.” For the new study, published this week in the journal Nature Climate Change, Mahoney and her colleagues used “downscaling” techniques to try to understand how climate change might affect hail-producing weather patterns across Colorado. The research focused on storms involving pea-sized and smaller hailstones on Colorado’s Front Range, a region that stretches from the foothill communities of Colorado Springs, Denver and Fort Collins up to the Continental Divide. Colorado’s most damaging hailstorms tend to occur further east and involve larger hailstones not examined in this study. In the summer in Colorado’s Front Range above about 7,500 feet, precipitation commonly falls as hail. Decision makers concerned about the safety of mountain dams and flood risk have been interested in how climate change may affect the amount and nature of precipitation in the region. Mahoney and her colleagues began exploring that question with results from two climate models, which assumed that levels of climate-warming greenhouse gases will continue to increase in the future, from about 390 parts per million in the atmosphere today to about 620 parts per million in 2070. But the weather processes that form hail, like thunderstorms, occur on much smaller scales than can be reproduced by global climate models. So the team “downscaled” the global model results twice: first to regional-scale models that can take regional topography and other details into account, then again to weather-scale models that can resolve individual storms and even the cloud processes that create hail. The regional-scale topography step was completed as part of NCAR’s North American Regional Climate Change Assessment Program.  Finally, the team compared the hailstorms of the future, from 2041 to 2070, to those of the past, from 1971 to 2000, as captured by the same sets of downscaled models. Results were similar in experiments with both climate models. “We found a near elimination of hail at the surface,” Mahoney said. In the future, increasingly intense storms may actually produce more hail inside clouds, the team found. However, because those relatively small hailstones fall through a warmer atmosphere, they melt quickly, falling as rain at the surface or evaporating back into the atmosphere. In some regions, simulated hail fell through an additional 1,500 feet of above-freezing air in the future as compared with the past. The research team also found evidence that precipitation events over Colorado become more extreme in the future, while changes in hail may depend on the size of the hailstones -- results that will be explored in more detail in ongoing work. Mahoney’s postdoctoral research was supported by the Postdocs Applying Climate Expertise, or PACE, program administered by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research and funded by CIRES Western Water Assessment, NOAA and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. PACE connects young climate scientists with real-world problems such as those faced by water resource managers. Co-authors of the new paper include James Scott and Joseph Barsugli of CIRES and NOAA, Michael Alexander of the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory and Gregory Thompson of NCAR. CIRES is a joint institute of CU-Boulder and NOAA.     Contact: Kelly Mahoney, 303-497-5616Kelly.Mahoney@noaa.gov Jane Palmer, CIRES media relations, 303-492-6289Jane.Palmer@colorado.edu  “In this region of elevated terrain, hail may lessen the risk of flooding because it takes awhile to melt,” said Kelly Mahoney, a research scientist at CIRES. “Decision makers may not want to count on that in the future.”Environment, Natural SciencesDiscovery & Innovation, Discoveries & Achievements, Research Collaborations


First class of CU-Boulder undergraduates enrolls in new ‘Journalism Plus’ program
As a new year and the spring semester begin, the University of Colorado Boulder is welcoming the first class of journalism students entering under a new undergraduate degree structure called “Journalism Plus” that CU officials say will create better journalists, better news content and, over time, a more informed society. Currently, more than 45 new students are expected to enroll for spring semester under the new Journalism Plus requirements. Journalism Plus stipulates that students supplement their journalism degree requirements with an additional field of study in a specific arts and sciences discipline, an approach that Journalism Director Chris Braider says will make better journalists and communication professionals, better university students and better citizens. “Journalism Plus ensures that the journalists and communicators CU produces will not only possess the updated skills they need to create and deliver messages, but will also possess the analytical abilities, research tools and knowledge of a subject to communicate something of value in those messages,” Braider said. “Our students will understand, with depth and context, the content they will create as journalists. We think this will set them apart from other journalism programs across the nation.” Journalism and Mass Communication will continue to grant the Bachelor of Science degree in one of five sequences: advertising, broadcast news, broadcast production, media studies and news-editorial. Under the new requirements, students also will enroll in a 30- to 33-credit-hour additional field of study, the equivalent of work in a major in a discipline of their choice -- anything from English, physics and history to political science, environmental studies or film studies. Students admitted prior to spring 2012 have until May of 2016 to earn a degree under the former requirements, or they can elect to complete the Journalism Plus degree requirements. The changes, say CU-Boulder Provost Russell L. Moore, were deliberate and in line with CU’s larger goals for its students. “We want CU-Boulder students to be both knowledgeable and engaged in the world they live in,” said Moore. “So the goal for us was never to make journalism go away, but to pair it with a discipline that would add the depth of knowledge of a liberal arts degree to the skills developed in a journalism curriculum. I think this is going to answer a call we’ve heard from media professionals -- don’t just send us skilled graduates, send us graduates who can interpret and understand the information they gather with some depth and context.” At a practical level, Braider says, this will mean better, more contextual reporting to inform and shape our democratic society. “In this model, science writers will possess first-hand knowledge of the sciences they report on,” Braider said. “Reporters covering government or business will bring an in-depth knowledge of political science and economics to the events they chronicle. Advertisers and graphic designers will explore the full range of expressive arts on which their professions rely.”  As Journalism Plus is implemented, more students will be admitted directly to Journalism and Mass Communication as freshmen. The university is continuing on a path to creating a new interdisciplinary college or school of information, communications, journalism, media and technology, which will one day house journalism and companion disciplines in an environment of sharing, innovation and scholarship. Journalism and Mass Communication continues to be accredited by the Accrediting Council on Education for Journalism and Mass Communications. In two years, the accrediting council will make a determination on accreditation for the following four years.    Contact: Christopher Braider, 303-492-4364 Bronson Hilliard, 303-735-6183  Journalism and Mass Communication will continue to grant the Bachelor of Science degree in one of five sequences: advertising, broadcast news, broadcast production, media studies and news-editorial. Under the new requirements, students also will enroll in a 30- to 33-credit-hour additional field of study, the equivalent of work in a major in a discipline of their choice -- anything from English, physics and history to political science, environmental studies or film studies.“Our students will understand, with depth and context, the content they will create as journalists," said Journalism Director Chris Braider. "We think this will set them apart from other journalism programs across the nation.” Journalism Journalism Plus at CU-Boulder Learning & Teaching, Teaching Innovation, Undergraduate Educationvar switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'});


Journalism Plus at CU-Boulder
CU-Boulder faculty members discuss the Journalism Plus curriculum and how it prepares students brightcove.createExperiences(); <!-- Start of Brightcove Player --> <div style="display:none"> </div> <!-- By use of this code snippet, I agree to the Brightcove Publisher T and C found at https://accounts.brightcove.com/en/terms-and-conditions/. --> <script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript" src="http://admin.brightcove.com/js/BrightcoveExperiences.js"></script> <object id="myExperience1325817204001" class="BrightcoveExperience"> <param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /> <param name="width" value="720" /> <param name="height" value="405" /> <param name="playerID" value="1265500576001" /> <param name="playerKey" value="AQ~~,AAAAAGp_KKo~,YReCpgy2R8rllX8CzAqLpOUckyR8QFpJ" /> <param name="isVid" value="true" /> <param name="isUI" value="true" /> <param name="dynamicStreaming" value="true" /> <param name="@videoPlayer" value="1325817204001" /> </object> <!-- This script tag will cause the Brightcove Players defined above it to be created as soon as the line is read by the browser. If you wish to have the player instantiated only after the rest of the HTML is processed and the page load is complete, remove the line. --> <script type="text/javascript">brightcove.createExperiences();</script> <!-- End of Brightcove Player -->Topic: 


All hail: by 2070, icy pellets hitting state's mountain flanks may be a thing of the past
If you are college-age or younger, you might just live to see the day when hail disappears from the eastern flanks of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains.   A new modeling study involving the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, a joint institute of the University of Colorado Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, indicates hail will likely cease to fall in those locales by the year 2070, a result of rising temperatures.   Less hail damage could be good news for gardeners and farmers, said lead author Kelly Mahoney, a CIRES research scientist, but a shift from hail to rain can also mean more runoff, which could raise the risk of flash floods.  “In this region of elevated terrain, hail may lessen the risk of flooding because it takes awhile to melt,” Mahoney said. “Decision makers may not want to count on that in the future.”   For the study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, Mahoney and her colleagues used “downscaling” techniques to try to understand how climate change might affect hail-producing weather patterns across Colorado.     The research focused on storms involving pea-sized and smaller hailstones on Colorado’s Front Range, a region that stretches from the foothill communities of Colorado Springs, Denver and Fort Collins up to the Continental Divide. Colorado’s most damaging hailstorms tend to occur further east and involve larger hailstones not examined in this study.   In the summer on Colorado’s Front Range above about 7,500 feet, precipitation commonly falls as hail. Decision makers concerned about the safety of mountain dams and flood risk have been interested in how climate change may affect the amount and nature of precipitation in the region.   Mahoney and her colleagues began exploring that question with results from two climate models, which assumed that levels of climate-warming greenhouse gases will continue to increase in the future, from about 390 parts per million in the atmosphere today to about 620 parts per million in 2070.   But the weather processes that form hail, like thunderstorms, occur on much smaller scales than can be reproduced by global climate models. So the team “downscaled” the global model results twice: first to regional-scale models that can take regional topography and other details into account, then again to weather-scale models that can resolve individual storms and even the cloud processes that create hail.   Finally, the team compared the hailstorms of the future, from 2041 to 2070, to those of the past, from 1971 to 2000, as captured by the same sets of downscaled models. Results were similar in experiments with both climate models. “We found a near elimination of hail at the surface,” Mahoney said.   In the future, increasingly intense storms may actually produce more hail inside clouds, the team found. However, because those relatively small hailstones fall through a warmer atmosphere, they melt quickly, falling as rain at the surface or evaporating back into the atmosphere. In some regions, simulated hail fell through an additional 1,500 feet of above-freezing air in the future, compared to the past.   Co-authors of the study include James Scott and Joseph Barsugli of CIRES and NOAA, Michael Alexander of the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory and Gregory Thompson of the National Center for Atmospheric Research.InstitutesDiscovery & Innovation


Engineering team supports green energy in Haiti
test, test, testvar switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'});


CU engineering team to support green energy in Haiti
A team of University of Colorado Boulder engineers will travel to Haiti this month to support the growth of green energy on the two-year anniversary of the country’s devastating earthquake.  Engineering professors Alan Mickelson and Mike Hannigan and graduate student Matt Hulse will be in Haiti Jan. 8-16 to collaborate with the Neges Foundation school at Leogane to create a vocational training program on the installation, operation and maintenance of renewable energy systems.    “I’m eager to learn about the people of Haiti and the services that they would like energy systems to provide,” said Hannigan, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering. “Historically, the development of energy systems has shaped nations and economies, so the timing is right to pass along what we have learned about those energy systems that are sustainable.” The Jan. 12, 2010, earthquake that struck Haiti destroyed what little electricity infrastructure had existed in the country, plunging towns across the country into total darkness and forcing households to rely on high-cost diesel generators for power, according to news reports. As a result, families are unable to study or work at night, and the number of assaults, particularly against women and girls, has increased.  Studies point to Haiti’s great potential for renewable energy, including solar, hydro and wind power. “The present lack of a Haitian power grid cries out for a distributed solution -- that is, one that grows from small, localized, renewable energy sources,” said Mickelson, associate professor of electrical, computer and energy engineering. To address these issues, the Engineering for Developing Communities project will: Develop a curriculum for vocational training on the operation and maintenance of self-contained, adaptable power sources, and electrical operations and maintenance with a focus on green energy systems. Build local capacity to provide vocational training on renewable energy systems using a “train-the-trainers” approach. Identify a viable system to create sustainable access to renewable energy that will meet basic household energy needs. Develop a strategy for the sustainable scale-up and replication of energy and infrastructure vocational training to support reconstruction efforts, with a focus on private sector investment. About $35,000 has been provided for the initiative by CU-Boulder’s Mortenson Center for Engineering in Developing Communities, the IEEE Foundation and the CU-Boulder Outreach Committee. The Mortenson Center is seeking additional funding to build upon the initiative and develop additional vocational training curriculum on sustainable and disaster-resistant design and construction. The Mortenson Center was founded to promote integrated, participatory and sustainable solutions to the engineering challenges of the developing world, with a focus on clean drinking water, sanitation and hygiene; energy; sustainable and disaster-resistant building materials and shelter; and cook stoves and indoor air quality. For more information, go to http://ceae.colorado.edu/mc-edc.   Contact: Anna Segur, Mortenson Center, 303-492-5606anna.segur@colorado.edu Bernard Amadei, Mortenson Center, 303-492-7734 Carol Rowe, engineering communications, 303-492-7426      “I’m eager to learn about the people of Haiti and the services that they would like energy systems to provide,” said Mike Hannigan, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering. “Historically, the development of energy systems has shaped nations and economies, so the timing is right to pass along what we have learned about those energy systems that are sustainable.”Engineering, Outreach, Global Engagement, OutreachCommunity & Culture, Community Outreach, Sustainabilityvar switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'}); Photo: Caption: The Jan. 12, 2010 earthquake destroyed Haiti's electrical infrastructure. (Photo by Matt Jelacic, University of Colorado Boulder)


Colorado business leaders optimistic going into first quarter, says CU Leeds School index
Colorado business leaders' optimism has resumed going into the first quarter of 2012 after a dip in confidence last quarter, according to the most recent quarterly Leeds Business Confidence Index, or LBCI, released today by the University of Colorado Boulder's Leeds School of Business. For the first quarter of 2012 the LBCI posted a reading of 54.7, up from 47.3 last quarter. Business leaders are optimistic about all of the metrics measured by the quarterly index, which include industry sales and profits, capital expenditures and hiring plans, and national and state economic growth. "The first quarter index is much more positive than the fourth quarter index of 2011, and that's obviously a good thing," said economist Richard Wobbekind, executive director of the Leeds School's Business Research Division, who conducts the quarterly survey. "It portends high levels of activity in all of the categories, including most importantly sales and profits and capital expenditures and hiring plans. There's quite a bit of enthusiasm being exhibited in this survey." Hiring and capital expenditures had readings of 52.7 and 52.8 respectively, up from 46.8 and 46.7 last quarter. Thirty percent of respondents said they planned to hire in the coming quarter, and another 45 percent said they planned to hold steady. "You put these numbers together and that means that 75 percent of businesses are either planning to hire or remain stable -- they aren't letting employees go," Wobbekind said. "I think that's very bullish in terms of the employment picture." Since last quarter, many economic indicators have begun to suggest that the U.S. economy is in a slow, sustained recovery, according to Wobbekind. "As we see these metrics come in, business people start to feel better about the economy going forward and that there is going to be sustained growth," he said. An index reading of 50 is neutral. A reading greater than 50 indicates positive expectations, while one lower than 50 indicates negative expectations. Overall, business leaders in Colorado believe the state's economy is in better shape than the national economy, but more importantly, their optimism for the national economy also increased. The first quarter index measuring the prospects for the state economy rose nearly 10 points from 49.0 to 58.4 in the fourth quarter, while the national index rose more than 10 points from 40.4 to 51.0. "The national number went from negative to positive in terms of expansion, so our business leaders are suggesting that they believe that the national recovery is sustainable and that's clearly very important for the Colorado economy," Wobbekind said. Business leaders' sales expectations for the first quarter increased to 58.3 from 51.2 in the fourth quarter, and their profit expectations increased from 49.5 last quarter to 54.7. To access the complete report visit leeds.colorado.edu/publication/261.Businessvar switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'});


Glory, Glory Colorado
A video tour of Boulder and surrounding area. brightcove.createExperiences(); Topic: 


CU-Boulder by Air
brightcove.createExperiences(); Topic: 


Learning assistant helps transform classes
Over the past decade, the University of Colorado Boulder has established itself as a national leader in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics, or STEM, education. Through its Learning Assistant and CU Teach programs and Integrating STEM initiative, CU-Boulder is making great progress on its goal of improving introductory math and science classes and recruiting and training future K-12 science teachers. The Learning Assistant program, which was created in 2003 and is now a model for schools throughout the nation, hires dozens of undergraduate learning assistants each semester. The assistants help faculty in departments such as physics, chemistry, astrophysical and planetary sciences and mathematics to make changes in their large undergraduate classes, some of which have as many as 200 students in them. By employing undergraduate students as learning assistants, the program aims to both improve introductory math and science classes and recruit and train future K-12 science and math teachers. "One exciting aspect of this program is that these undergraduate learning assistants are the pool from which we recruit new teachers, which is one of the four main goals of our Learning Assistant model," said Valerie Otero, director of the Learning Assistant program and an associate professor in the School of Education. Learning assistants have helped transform nearly 60 courses on campus, she said. One thing they do is break the large classes into smaller learning groups that are led by learning assistants. One of those assistants, Emily Quinty, is now a teacher at Mapleton Expeditionary School of the Arts in Thornton. She worked as an assistant in the LA program for two semesters before graduating from CU-Boulder with an astrophysics degree in May 2007. "Teaching was not on my radar at all," Quinty said. "But after I was introduced to the Learning Assistant program and became involved in the process of teaching, I decided that I wanted to go into teaching after college. The program really sparked that interest in me." As an LA program assistant, Quinty worked as what she described as a "facilitator" in class rather than standing up in the front of the room teaching. It was really a different model for her, she said, and it was hard for the other students too. "At first the students were really uncomfortable," Quinty said. "They said, 'you want me to work with three students who I don't know and talk about physics? I'm here because I don't understand it.'" Seeing the students overcome that fear and really gain from it was rewarding for Quinty, and she saw a new model for teaching that she really believed in and wanted to try. "I saw their understanding of physics explode, while my understanding of physics concepts also improved tremendously," she said. "I became a big believer that teaching as a student helps you understand the material better because when you have to articulate something all of the holes in your understanding become clear, and you have to figure out other ways to explain it, so you have to have a solid understanding of it." It's a model she now uses in her own high school classroom. "One of the most significant things I learned from the Learning Assistant program is that my role as a teacher is not the traditional stereotype of a teacher who stands up at the front of the classroom and dumps knowledge on kids and they learn it," Quinty said. "Rather, it's me facilitating interactions with the kids so they can create their own understanding of a topic, whether it's through an activity or a simulation in a lab. The important thing is they are able to bounce their ideas off each other, teach each other and really hone their understanding based on their interactions with each other."EducationIntegrating STEM Educationvar switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'});


Listen up: crickets have had ears on their legs for more than 50 million years
How did insects get their hearing? A new study of 50-million-year-old cricket and katydid fossils sporting some of the best preserved fossil insect ears described to date are helping to trace the evolution of the insect ear. According to University of Colorado Museum of Natural History paleontologist Dena Smith and University of Illinois Professor Roy Plotnick, who collaborated on the new study at the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center, or NESCent, in Durham, N.C., insects hear with help from some very unusual ears. Grasshoppers have ears on their abdomens. Lacewings have ears on their wings. The ears of the tachinid fly are tucked under the chin. “Insects have ears on pretty much every part of their body except on their head proper,” Plotnick said. Insects have evolved ears at least 17 times in different lineages, said Smith, also an assistant professor in CU-Boulder’s geological sciences department. Smith and Plotnick are trying to figure out when different insects got their ears, and whether predators may have played a role. “The big evolutionary trigger for the appearance of hearing in many insects is thought to be the appearance of bats,” Plotnick said. “Prior to the evolution of bats we would expect to find ears in relatively few insects, but after that we should see ears in more insect groups,” he explained. Did insect ears get an upgrade when bats came to be? To find out, Plotnick and Smith turned to remarkably well-preserved fossils from a series of lake deposits in Wyoming, Utah and Colorado known as the Green River Formation, where some of the earliest bats are found. “You can see every tiny feature down to the veins in their wings and the hairs on their legs,” said Smith, who has been studying Green River fossils for more than 15 years. The researchers also scoured more than 500 museum drawers of Green River fossils for crickets and katydids — which have ears on their front legs just below the knees — looking for telling evidence. They found it. “You can just make them out with the naked eye,” Plotnick said of the insect ears. “They look like the eye of a needle.” The fossil ears measured half a millimeter in length, and were virtually identical in size, shape and position to their modern counterparts. The findings suggest that this group of insects evolved their supersensitive ultrasonic hearing long before bat predators came to be, the researchers say. “Their bat-detecting abilities may have simply become apparent later,” Smith said. “The next step is to look for ears in other insect groups.” Crickets, moths and other flying insects have ultrasound-sensitive hearing and can hear bats coming, diving or swerving in midflight to avoid being eaten. Insects that evolved such supersensitive hearing would have had a crucial survival advantage, the researchers said. In crickets and katydids living today, the ear is a tiny oval cavity with a thin membrane stretched over it that vibrates in response to sound, much like our own eardrum.Natural Sciences, Social SciencesDiscovery & Innovation, Research Collaborations, CU Museum of Natural HistoryNews releasevar switchTo5x=true; stLight.options({publisher:'dr-ab13ac53-73e2-de14-de15-814771a7bbf3'});


Nap-deprived tots may be missing out on more than sleep, says new CU-led study
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.


50-million-year-old cricket and katydid fossils from Colorado hint at origin of insect hearing
How did insects get their hearing? A new study of 50-million-year-old cricket and katydid fossils sporting some of the best preserved fossil insect ears described to date are helping to trace the evolution of the insect ear.


Colorado business leaders optimistic going into first quarter, says CU Leeds School index
Colorado business leaders' optimism has resumed going into the first quarter of 2012 after a dip in confidence last quarter, according to the most recent quarterly Leeds Business Confidence Index, or LBCI, released today by the University of Colorado Boulder's Leeds School of Business.


Boswell named CU-Boulder vice chancellor for diversity, equity and community engagement
University of Colorado Boulder Provost Russell L. Moore today named Robert Boswell as CU-Boulder vice chancellor for diversity, equity and community engagement effective Jan. 1, 2012.


Coffin named CU-Boulder vice chancellor for student affairs
University of Colorado Boulder Provost Russell L. Moore today named Deborah J. Coffin as CU-Boulder vice chancellor for student affairs effective Jan. 1, 2012. Coffin has served in the post in an interim capacity since July 2011.


CU-Boulder to be closed Thursday, Dec. 22
The University of Colorado Boulder campus will be closed on Thursday, Dec. 22, for all but essential employees due to hazardous weather conditions, according to Chancellor Phil DiStefano.


CU-Boulder responds to Kappa Alpha Theta fire
The University of Colorado Boulder is assisting the Kappa Alpha Theta sorority in the aftermath of a fire late Monday night that severely damaged the sorority's house at 1333 University Ave., adjacent to the CU-Boulder campus.


As Voyager 1 nears edge of solar system, CU scientists look back
In 1977, Jimmy Carter was sworn in as president, Elvis died, Virginia park ranger Roy Sullivan was hit by lightning a record seventh time and two NASA space probes destined to turn planetary science on its head launched from Cape Canaveral, Fla.


CU professors can comment on Lobato school funding case
Kevin Welner, professor of education and director of the National Education Policy Center at the CU-Boulder School of Education, can speak to most elements of the Lobato litigation and its implications.


CU-Boulder lab experience launches career path for graduating senior
After two years of working in a University of Colorado Boulder laboratory that recently gained international media attention for its work with snakes and heart disease, graduating senior Ryan Doptis has set his sights on becoming a research scientist.


Robert Boswell named sole internal finalist for CU-Boulder vice chancellor for diversity post
University of Colorado Boulder Provost Russell L. Moore today announced that a search committee has named Robert "Bob" Boswell the sole internal finalist for the post of vice chancellor for diversity, equity and community engagement.


CU-Boulder to hold winter commencement Dec. 16
The University of Colorado Boulder will hold its winter commencement ceremony on Friday, Dec. 16, in the Coors Events Center on campus.


Coffin named sole finalist for vice chancellor for student affairs post at CU-Boulder
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.


USAID, CU-Boulder partner to study water resources in Asia mountains
A University of Colorado Boulder team is partnering with the United States Agency for International Development to assess snow and glacier contributions to water resources originating in the high mountains of Asia that straddle 10 countries.


Economic Outlook Forum presented Dec. 5 by CU's Leeds School of Business
The University of Colorado Boulder Leeds School of Business will present its annual Colorado Business Economic Outlook Forum on Monday, Dec. 5, at 1 p.m. at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in Denver.


CU students to demonstrate engineering and sustainability projects at three events
University of Colorado Boulder students will demonstrate innovative ideas and projects ranging from a safer climbing helmet to robot butlers at three expos over the next week. All of the events are free and open to the public.


CU's Williams Village North earns platinum rating in LEED certification
Williams Village North, the University of Colorado Boulder's newest residence hall, has received a LEED platinum rating from the United States Green Building Council. The 500-bed residence hall is the first of its size in the nation to rank platinum -- th


Early Earth may have been prone to deep freezes, says CU-Boulder study
Two University of Colorado Boulder researchers who have adapted a three-dimensional, general circulation model of Earth's climate to a time some 2.8 billion years ago when the sun was significantly fainter than present think the planet may have been more


Slow, steady job growth forecast for Colorado in 2012, says CU Leeds School of Business
Colorado will continue on the road to recovery and add jobs in 2012 following a positive year in 2011, according to economist Richard Wobbekind of the University of Colorado Boulder's Leeds School of Business.