Happy Friday. I hope all of you had wonderful winter holidays. I know some of you skied, others saw family, and still others were as quiet as possible.

Hey, lots to talk about from the last few weeks and as we look forward to spring semester.

Elizabeth W and her PRECIP team have a new publication from their work together. You can find the essay here: https://sigdoc.acm.org/publication/

Meanwhile just as Julia was heading out for her spring semester Semester at Sea voyage she learned that another book chapter has found its way to print: Julia Khrebtan-Hoerhager and Iuliia Kononenko,“Not the Last Resort At Last: Variation in the Practice of Detention of Unaccompanied Minors across the European Union” in Mary Grace Anthony and Ryan Thomas (eds.) Seen But Not Heard: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Child Migrants (Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2018): 179-195.

Tomorrow Martin will be presenting about deliberation and the CPD to more than 40 mayors in Denver. As Martin and Katie well know, folks in local and state government—that is people who have to get stuff done—know the power of deliberation in politics. Go Martin!

Then on Monday, CSU and the department will be an integral part of the MLK Day march. The ACT Human Rights Film Festival will be joining the march as we have for the past two years to raise awareness for the program. Cool new t-shirts—including long sleeved ones—for volunteers. Contact Lindsey (lindsey.neilsen@colostate.edu) if you want to join us.

After the march Elizabeth S will be, along with several others, leading small group dialogs engaging issues of diversity and difference. The hope, as I understand it, is to translate the energy of the march into productive conversations, conversations that themselves could continue beyond Monday. Join Elizabeth and others for these opportunities to take direct action in the world.

What else do I know?

I know that we have an amazing semester lined up for us.

February 7 is the Gravlee lecture with Chon Noriega. Please hold the date and expect more information from Evan regarding the lecture very soon.

The weekends of April 5-9 and 13 and 14 will be the ACT Human Rights Film Festival.

Many of us will be traveling to Santa Clara for WSCA the middle of February, to Toronto for SCMS in March, and then to Minneapolis for RSA in May.

We will host several more research brown bags (expect emails from Nick, Elizabeth, and Carl on those events).

The first brown bag, actually, is a guest hosted by JMC. Here is language from Nick regarding this opportunity.

Our first departmental research brown bag of the spring will be Friday, 1/26 from 11a – 12:50p.  Elizabeth Ellcessor, a media scholar studying access to digital media technologies and cultures, will join us from the University of Virginia.  We are also invited to join two events sponsored by our colleagues in the Journalism & Media Communication department: Liz’s colloquium Thursday 1/25 at 3p, and a social event Friday 1/26 at 3p.  Details forthcoming, but don’t hesitate to contact Nick (Nick.Marx@colostate.edu) in the meantime.

We will host more department teas and, at the end of the semester, our annual end-of-year soirée.

Well you can tell we have many cool things ahead of us over the next 5 months.

Just as important, of course, are the little daily actions we take to keep our community lively. The moments in the hallways where we check in on a colleague, the one extra effort with a student that gets them through the day and thus the week and the semester. We are successful because of the extra moments with our door open, our willingness to grab a coffee with a colleague. We make the world better with our smiles and our words and our commitment to self and other.

I hope you have been able to refresh and renew. For me a wonderful 36 hours in LA with the Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA exhibits and amazing meals with friends. And then 3 days in San Diego during the rain and then, on the last day, sun and sand.

Can’t wait to see all of you again over the next few days!

Yours,
Greg