Sustainability

Helping Rural Communities Thrive

Anna Tolette — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 18:27:13 +0000

Helping Rural Communities Thrive Anna Tolette Mon, 11/10/2025 - 11:27

In rural Colorado, outdoor recreation is a powerful tool for economic development as it encourages visitors to spend more time and money in local communities. But developing these assets can be an arduous process.

The Rural Technical Assistance program (RTAP) provides pro bono assistance to these small towns with the help of graduate students and faculty in CU ��’s Masters of the Environment (MENV) program, federal and state agencies and other higher education partners. Together, they offer community workshops and goal-oriented action plans centered on boosting outdoor recreation.

In the close-knit Colorado community of Beulah, located southwest of Pueblo, neighbors Linda Overlin (Edu’71) and Joel David May (Arch’80) saw the potential of outdoor recreation to enliven their 600-resident town. Supported by the RTAP program, including a two-day graduate student-facilitated workshop, the community prioritized ways to develop its outdoor recreation economy.

Already, they’ve created partnerships with a land conservancy and private landowners to explore how conservation easements and trail developments could help preserve Beulah’s rural ranchlands. The goal is to provide greater connectivity between downtown and Pueblo Mountain Park, which consistently draws many tourists and visitors.

Eight other communities — Keystone, La Junta, Huerfano County, Lake City, Rangely and Dinosaur, Leadville, Hayden, and Cripple Creek — have participated in RTAP.

“Beulah has taught me so much about what ‘community’ means,” said Emily Glass (MEnv’25). “When designed meaningfully,community-engaged work is an opportunity to weave together different perspectives, ideas and expertise that otherwise may not have come together.”

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Photo courtesy Raven Maps & Images

Outdoor recreation can bring more people to small Colorado towns.

CU ��’s Rural Technical Assistance Program helps small Colorado towns like Beulah leverage outdoor recreation to boost their local economies.

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Spruce Gulch: Grounds for Discovery

Anna Tolette — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 18:23:57 +0000

Spruce Gulch: Grounds for Discovery Anna Tolette Mon, 11/10/2025 - 11:23

Jess Winterley

It was a hot summer day in the early 1990s when Linda Holubar Sanabria (A&S’67) spied the enemy. Tall and deceptively pretty, bearing its hallmark lavender-colored, black-tipped flowers: the spotted knapweed. This noxious weed had quietly claimed Holubar’s family ranch as its home, and she soon discovered it was taking up residence on at least 50 acres of the sprawling 493-acre property — of which 476 acres are now known as the Spruce Gulch Wildlife and Research Reserve — which Holubar inherited from her family in 1994.

For the next 15 years, Holubar dedicated the quiet of dawn and the cool of dusk to eradicating the invasive plant, which arrived via contaminated batches of grass seed dispersed by the U.S. Forest Service after a 1988 fire. Leaving the knapweed unchecked was not an option for Holubar and her spouse, Sergio Sanabria (A&S’66; Arch’70; MArtHist’75), as they knew this would result in soil erosion, displaced vegetation and overall devastation to the land. So, for thousands of hours, Holubar labored over the acreage.

“At first, I felt very small as I began removing one plant after another from an endless sea of them,” said Holubar. “They ranged from taller than me to tiny seedlings.”

Though she made substantial progress, the effort needed a boost — not from harmful herbicides, which would contaminate the water and land, but from a more creative (and hungry) solution: weevils.

A Symbiotic Friendship

In 2001, during the thick of her weeding efforts, Holubar learned about a successful experiment at CU ��’s Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR). The project demonstrated that biocontrol insects (in this case, weevils) could greatly reduce densities of an invasive knapweed — similar to the unwelcome foe on Holubar’s land.

Putting her hope in these knapweed-eating weevils, she called the lead scholar of the experiment, ecology and evolutionary biology professor (now emeritus) Tim Seastedt.

“Field ecologists don’t pass up opportunities to leverage a new field site, and Spruce Gulch is special,” said Seastedt. He noted that the innovative insect approach, in addition to preserving good vegetation, could save landowners thousands of dollars in management costs.

Through a combination of hungry weevils and volunteer weeding efforts, the project proved successful over time and demonstrated the effectiveness that non-chemical methods can have on an invasive plant species.

The experiment also opened the door for additional ecology projects on the property — marking the start of what would become a 24-year symbiotic friendship between the university and land, and what would eventually result in a landmark gift.

Volunteers from a co-sponsored U.S. Forest Service event remove invasive spotted knapweed from an upland meadow on the Spruce Gulch Reserve.

Inheriting a Legacy

Holubar’s connection to the wildlife reserve began nearly a century ago, when her maternal grandmother, Irma Freudenberg, purchased part of it in 1927. With the help of her children, Freudenberg established a ranch on the picturesque land that Holubar’s parents, Alice (A&S’33) and LeRoy Holubar (ElEngr’36), later expanded in 1962.

��’s mountainous terrain fostered the family’s passion for the outdoors. Holubar’s parents were pioneers in developing and sourcing climbing and expedition gear through their business, Holubar Mountaineering (which an interim owner later sold to The North Face). LeRoy Holubar, a CU mathematics professor, also helped establish the Rocky Mountain Rescue Group and the first �� climbing school.

Upon Freudenberg’s death, Holubar’s parents inherited part of the land and expanded it to what is now the Spruce Gulch Reserve. The site has been sculpted by history — from serving as hunting grounds for Indigenous peoples like the Arapaho, to sustaining mining and logging operations, grazing and agriculture, plus wildfires and floods.

“Having grown up on this land and having it be a part of my family for almost a century, I view it as my heart and soul and want nothing more than to protect it,” said Holubar.

Her love for the reserve and dedication to conservation meant diligently seeking out its next caretaker — a role that, after withstanding weeds and weevils together, CU �� was ready to undertake.

Acres for Academics

Primed to steward Holubar’s family legacy of environmentalism into the future, CU �� assumed ownership of Spruce Gulch in June of 2025. Holubar’s generous 476-acre land donation was accompanied by endowment funds, as well as a conservation easement with �� County.

The site and funds, valued at a combined $10.4 million, are managed by INSTAAR and support studies across the sciences, humanities and fine arts. From biologists to visual artists, the reserve and its endowment will enrich and support studies by academics from many departments, opening new educational possibilities across disciplines.

“Sergio and I wanted to discourage an inevitable disciplinary blindness by opening the site to as many different worldviews as possible,” said Holubar.

For her commitment to conservation and ensuring the protection of the wildlife reserve, Holubar received �� County’s 2025 Land Conservation Award. And, for their outstanding community partnership and collaboration on the Spruce Gulch project, �� County Parks & Open Space was awarded the Blue Grama Award by the Colorado Open Space Alliance.

A living laboratory, Spruce Gulch features canyons and cliffs intermixed with forest, savanna and prairie meadows. Its abundance of research opportunities has already aided CU faculty and students in producing 29 scholarly publications, plus chapters in six doctoral dissertations, three master’s theses and four undergraduate honors theses.

“The acquisition of Spruce Gulch allows us to pursue essential science relevant to the grasslands and foothills region, where most of us live,” said Seastedt, director of the reserve. “Therein lies the magnitude of this gift.”

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Photos courtesy Tim Seastedt

Ecology and evolutionary biology professor (now emeritus) Tim Seastedt.

Linda Holubar Sanabria gave a $10.4 million donation to CU ��, creating a 476-acre wildlife and research reserve.

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Fruits of History and Sustainability

Anna Tolette — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 18:22:49 +0000

Fruits of History and Sustainability Anna Tolette Mon, 11/10/2025 - 11:22

April Driver

The seeds of history took root in the �� Apple Tree Project and are now blossoming in the Buffs Backyard Orchard.

In 2017, the �� Apple Tree Project began as a way to locate, catalog and preserve the rich apple history of the city, dating to before the turn of the twentieth century, when Colorado ranked as one of the top apple-producing states. To support the project, community members share the location and photos of �� apple trees through an app, and the information is cataloged in an online database, complemented by an interactive map.

Within a year of launching, students and researchers identified more than 200 types of apples in ��, and each species was sequenced using the trees’ DNA.

Today, the project has grown. “We have sequenced another 75 apple specimens, with a big push this summer to add 200 more,” said Katherine Suding, CU �� ecology professor. “I am also proud that we have tagged over 1,200 trees from the area in our database.”

This effort provides training for CU ��’s budding scientists. Over the past eight years, 160 students have contributed to the project, ranging from first-year science students to those completing honors theses and several graduate students.

Last spring, students inspired by the project obtained a $93,000 sustainability grant that has funded the Buffs Backyard Orchard at CU ��’s 30th Street greenhouse. The vision for the orchard, which was planted by volunteers, is to create a living lab combining history and sustainability by conserving heirloom trees and developing regenerative orchard systems. The orchard is home to 15 varieties of apples, according to Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine, including Wolf River and Colorado Orange.

For Suding, the core of the project is the people.

“Having students and community members jointly doing research reflects a shared commitment to ecological stewardship,” she said. “It has been a lesson in the power of people working together.”

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Photo courtesy Matt Talarico

The �� Apple Tree Project has grown into the Buffs Backyard Orchard, a student- and community-driven living lab.

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Blazin’ Joe: Brewing a Sustainable Startup

Anna Tolette — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 18:20:32 +0000

Blazin’ Joe: Brewing a Sustainable Startup Anna Tolette Mon, 11/10/2025 - 11:20

Julia MacLean

Maddie Cataldo and Maya Nefs with their Blazin' Joe firelogs

In 2019, when freshman Maddie Cataldo (Mgmt’23) showed up to her first CU �� club hockey practice, she didn’t know anyone. But a spontaneous locker room conversation about skydiving ignited a friendship.

Maya Nefs (Mgmt’23), then a sophomore and fellow Leeds School of Business student, didn’t hesitate: “What are you doing next week? Let’s go.”

They went, tumbling into the air over Longmont, Colorado.

Years later, that same adventurous spirit fuels their company, Blazin’ Joe, which transforms coffee waste into sustainable firewood alternatives. Their business started in a college oven and now operates out of Nefs’ garage in Golden, Colorado.

Cataldo and Nefs’ journey as business partners is rooted in their shared CU experiences: business classes, a love for the outdoors and hockey.

“Being teammates really helped us work together,” Cataldo said. “We’re both super competitive, and there’s a level of bluntness that’s good and healthy to have. You could yell at each other on the ice and grab a beer right after.”

They’re also candid about the challenges of going into business together.

“I wouldn’t say it’s super easy going into business with a close friend,” Cataldo said. “We have a contract that tells us we need to spend a certain number of hours not talking about Blazin’ Joe, but just hanging out.”

Nefs added: “We’ll go play tennis or grab a happy hour drink. One of the most important aspects of the business is keeping our friendship healthy.”

It’s a priority that pays off personally and professionally.

“I wouldn’t be doing this with anyone else,” Nefs said. “Maddie has such a positive attitude, and I definitely find myself aspiring to carry the same positivity.”

The idea for Blazin’ Joe began in Cataldo’s senior capstone course, the New Venture Launch, taught through the business school’s Deming Center for Entrepreneurship. Her class project pitch centered on a fire log made from used coffee grounds, which was inspired by her father’s entrepreneurial research in biofuels.

Blazin' Joe firelogs

“I remember using the oven in my college house 24/7 to dry coffee grounds,” said Cataldo. “My roommates were awesome because the house always smelled like coffee — even our clothes.”

Cataldo’s professor, Brad Werner, saw something unique in her.

“She wasn’t just presenting a business idea — she was sharing something she truly believed in,” Werner said. “I look for students who demonstrate genuine customer obsession — not just talking about their product, but showing they truly understand their customers’ pain points.”

Cataldo’s team won the pitch at the end of the capstone class, impressing Werner with their compelling presentation, and walking away with first-place recognition.

After graduation, Cataldo tried running the business alone until Nefs stepped in.

“She was thinking of putting it on pause,” Nefs said. “I told her, ‘Don’t do that. I’ll work on it with you.’ The company had so much potential, and people were buying the product; it just needed two people behind it.”

Today, Blazin’ Joe makes fire logs and fire starters from coffee chaff — the light, flaky skin of the coffee bean discarded during roasting. It burns clean, hot and efficiently, without the toxic chemicals found in traditional fire-related products.

“We started out using coffee grounds,” Cataldo said, “but realized drying them used too much energy. Chaff was the game-changer: it’s dry, burns well and it’s a huge waste stream in the industry.”

They now collect chaff from local Colorado roasters like Sweet Bloom Coffee, Otis Craft Collective and Copper Door Coffee Roasters. They use about four pounds of chaff per log, Cataldo said, and grind it down and press it to shape in Nefs’ garage.

“I’m grateful for the setup,” Nefs said. “We’re not paying rent on a space, and for a small startup, that’s critical. We’re growing sustainably, on our own terms.”

Since launching into retail in January, Blazin’ Joe has found traction in farmers markets and local stores like McGuckin Hardware and Lucky’s Market. In May, they also won the Next Cycle Colorado Pitch, which supports companies repurposing waste streams in Colorado.

Cataldo is eager to grow the business more.

“Our ultimate goal is to work towards making the coffee industry circular,” she said. “We’d love to partner with bigger roasters on a larger scale and repurpose as much waste as possible.”

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Photos courtesy Graham Gardner (Sparrow Creative)

Maddie Cataldo and Maya Nefs turned a shared love of adventure and entrepreneurship into Blazin’ Joe, a sustainable startup that transforms coffee waste into firelogs and fire starters.

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The Reaches of CU �� Research

Anna Tolette — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 18:17:21 +0000

The Reaches of CU �� Research Anna Tolette Mon, 11/10/2025 - 11:17

Kelsey Yandura

At its core, research is the disciplined pursuit of a single question: “What if?”

What if measuring space dust could tell us something about our place in the cosmos?

What if we could grow whole human organs from just a few cells?

What if we could transform plastic into fertilizer?

These are the kinds of questions driving work within and among CU ��’s 12 research institutes and more than 75 research centers, employing 3,000 researchers, students and staff whose fields span environmental studies to cognitive science. In 2024, their work contributed to more than $742 million in research support, including nearly $500 million in federal funding.

When paired with time, attention, resources and a serious tolerance for failure, these seeds of curiosity can develop into something revolutionary, sometimes well beyond their original vision. And while some of the finer points may be hard to grasp, the reach of this research is not abstract — it can be traced, quite literally, through the layers of our world. It moves inward, reshaping the delicate architecture of the human body. It arcs out into space, collecting data from distant planets. It extends downward, into the soil and water systems that sustain our ecosystem.

To capture even a hint of the scope of research taking place at CU ��, we explore three different research projects that showcase a unique dimension of impact, both on campus and beyond.

At A Glance

>>One of 38 U.S. public research institutions in the Association of American Universities

>>5 Nobel Laureates since 1989

>>Only university to send space instruments to every planet in the solar system

>>12 research-based institutes and 75+ centers

>> 3,000+ faculty, researchers, students and staff support the institutes

Journey of New Horizons

>>Past

2006 _ Launch

2015 _ Pluto flyby

2019 _ Arrokoth flyby

2024 _ 60 AU milestone

>>Future

2050 _ Edge of heliosphere

>>The onboard Student Dust Counter is the farthest-operating dust detector in history

Exploring New Horizons <LASP>

When it comes to measuring the reach of research, the vision behind the New Horizons mission has always been far-flung.

Launched in 2006, the New Horizons spacecraft spent nine years hurtling through the darkest reaches of our solar system to capture the first-ever recorded glimpse of Pluto and its moons up close.

“The expectation was that it was going to be a boring chunk of dark ice,” said Mihály Horányi, physics professor and LASP scientist. “But we were in for a big surprise. It’s very active. It has flat regions, mountain regions and floating icebergs...all kinds of unexpected things.”

But for New Horizons, Pluto was just the beginning. The spacecraft pressed deeper into space. In 2019, the Hubble Space Telescope onboard captured what would become the most distant and primitive object yet to be explored by a spacecraft: a reddish, oddly snowman-shaped object called Arrokoth. Nothing like it has been found anywhere else in the solar system.

And it’s still going. As of October 2024, New Horizons passed 60 times as far from the Sun as Earth is — twice as far out as Pluto was in 2015.

But the reach of New Horizons takes on another dimension than just physical distance. Onboard the spacecraft is nestled a device called the Student Dust Counter (SDC), the first NASA science instrument ever designed, built, tested and operated almost entirely by students. Its impact has been both interstellar and interpersonal.

“At the time, the idea was unconventional,” explained Horányi, who has served as the instrument’s principal investigator for more than two decades.

Approval required long rounds of advocacy up and down NASA’s decision-making chain. The condition? Students would be held to the same rigorous standards as the professionals.

From the outset, students at CU rose to the challenge. In 2002, about 20 students (both undergrad and graduate) worked to design, engineer and build every piece of the dust counter, from building to testing to calibration.

When the time came for delivery and testing, the SDC was the first instrument completed and delivered to New Horizons. It underwent the same demanding NASA design reviews as veteran instrument teams.

“Sometimes,” recalled Horányi, “the students performed better than the professionals.”

Today, the spacecraft is over 60 astronomical units from the Sun — more than 5.5 billion miles away — making SDC the farthest-operating dust detector in history. And it is still operated by students.

The measurements have been full of surprises. Dust densities in the outer solar system turned out to be higher than expected, prompting new debates about the structure and extent of the Kuiper Belt, which contains Pluto, other dwarf planets and comets. SDC data now informs studies on whether there’s a “second belt” beyond Pluto, how far the Kuiper Belt extends, and how our solar system’s dust environment compares to those around other stars.

And while the science is groundbreaking, Horányi is just as proud of the human impact.

More than 30 students have served as SDC team members since its inception. Many went on to prestigious graduate programs and major research institutions. Others have followed entirely different paths, including one electrical engineer who became a Buddhist priest.

“They all did something important,” Horányi said. “Something bigger than getting an A in a class.”

The current lead, Alex Doner (Physics’26), will soon hand the reins to Blair Schultz (Physics’28), who will guide the mission’s next phase. The instrument will likely operate into the early 2050s, potentially detecting the edge of the Sun’s influence — the heliosphere — and the transition to true interstellar space.

Engineering Organoids <BioFrontiers Institute>

Meanwhile, across campus at CU’s BioFrontiers Institute, scientists are working to explore and traverse the limits of a different kind of landscape: the inner workings of the human body. The questions they’re asking sound like science fiction, but have immediate and vital application — what if we could reliably make miniature, lab-grown versions of human organs? The results could change the medical world as we know it, offering new ways to test drugs, study disease and someday possibly replace failing organs.

“There’s been a lot of excitement in the past few years about being able to take a patient’s stem cells and grow them into a miniature version of one of its tissues or organs,” said Kristi Anseth (PhDChemEngr’94), a CU �� professor of chemical and biological engineering who is leading the organoid research. “Making complex mimics of organs would open doors for screening new types of drugs or trying to better understand the evolution of diseases, like cancer.”

One of the trickiest parts of growing organoids is their three-dimensional shape — they tend to grow unpredictably.

“It is a stochastic, or random, process,” said Anseth. “We were talking to clinicians and biologists who were growing these organoids, but each looked a little different, and these differences can lead to different behavior or function.”

This “snowflake problem” has been a major roadblock against some of the most exciting possibilities of organoid research — transplants, for example, wouldn’t work if the organ couldn’t be reliably grown to fit the patient.

Anseth’s team, in collaboration with stem cell biologist professor Peter Dempsey at the Anschutz Medical Campus, set out to make this random process into a predictable one, designing biomaterials — specifically, highly tunable hydrogels — that serve as scaffolds for these cells to grow in three dimensions.

“Being engineers, we thought, ‘Well, it’s going to be really important for the usefulness of these [organs] to make them the same way.’”

They started with the human intestine, where these hydrogel scaffolds successfully helped guide organoid growth into precise, reproducible sizes and shapes. That consistency means researchers can run large-scale, apples-to-apples experiments in a way that’s reliable enough for both science and medicine.

“We’re taking something that’s been unpredictable and making it precise, scalable and useful,” said Anseth. “You could use it to screen for new ways to deliver drugs. Wouldn’t it be great if you could take more drugs orally? Or get diagnosed at an earlier age?”

And while the team has made exciting progress, the crux of this work is still on the horizon. The ultimate goal of creating full-size replacement organs from organoids is likely years away.

“Now, we’re thinking of all the ‘what if’s,’” said Anseth. “It’s time to start solving the more complicated problems.”

For now, Anseth’s “mini-intestines” are helping illuminate a path toward more efficient drug testing and more accurate disease models. But she sees this as just the beginning.

“We already have ways to repair cartilage, to heal bones faster — things that didn’t exist a decade ago,” she says. “Now, the next direction is targeting complex diseases that happen in our hearts, our brains, our livers. That’s the promise of organoids...We’ll find interventions that can both improve and save lives.”

It’s time to start solving the more complicated problems.
Kristi Anseth, CU �� professor of chemical and biological engineering, who received the National Academy of Engineering’s 2025 Simon Ramo Founders Award.

Organoids

Miniature versions of human organs grown from stem cells in labs

>>Goal

Improve and save lives by targeting complex diseases in vital organs

>>Uses

Drug testing, disease modeling, regenerative medicine

>>Challenges

Inconsistency in shape, behavior and function

The Plastics Problem

>> Part of nearly every aspect of modern life

>> 400M+ tons produced globally each year

>> About 11M tons end up in lakes, rivers and streams annually

>> Microplastics found in human tissue, oceans and soil

>> Most compostable plastics require industrial facilities

Plastics to Fertilizer <ATLAS Institute>

At CU’s interdisciplinary ATLAS Institute, researcher and assistant professor Carson Bruns is proving that the insights gleaned from the tiniest of molecules can change the very ground beneath our feet.

At Bruns’ Laboratory for Emergent Nanomaterials, the building blocks get the spotlight. By examining and structuring materials at very small scales, the team designs what he calls “molecular machinery” — new materials that, when scaled up, have the potential to display novel properties and functions.

Currently, thanks to a Research & Innovation Seed Grant, the team is applying these methods to one of the most controversial materials of our time: plastics.

From grocery bags to medical packaging, petroleum-based plastics are woven into nearly every aspect of modern life. But their convenience comes at a staggering cost.

“I believe we’re in a plastics crisis,” said Bruns. “We need to shift to a new paradigm, and the more people working on solutions, the better.”

Bruns explained that microplastics show up everywhere, even in human tissue. Plus, most plastics, even the “greener” compostable ones, are carbon-based — which means that, upon breaking down, they release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Most also require specialized, high-temperature industrial composting facilities to break down properly. In ��, these shortcomings prompted the city’s main composting partner, A1 Organics, to stop accepting biodegradable plastics altogether.

“Our aim is to create plastics that can safely biodegrade — eliminating the microplastics problem — but without heavy CO2 emissions,” said Bruns.

True to nanoengineering form, the team is rethinking the entire process, starting with source materials.

“We’re looking at agricultural waste as a raw material source,” said Bruns. By using runoff from vegetable washing or ash from burned plant matter, these new and improved plastics would biodegrade into elements like nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and sulfur that already have value in the soil, releasing minimal carbon dioxide. The solution is cost-efficient, to boot.

“We know how to make high-performance plastics, but they’re too expensive to scale,” said Bruns. “Our goal is to make eco-friendly plastics that are as strong, tough and flexible as petroleum plastics.”

This research is still in its early stages, and collaboration has been key. To test biodegradability and soil impact, Bruns partnered with ecology professor Merritt R. Turetsky, director of arctic security. This cross-disciplinary work — melding nanotechnology, materials science and environmental biology — has already yielded promising early results.

“I’m excited about the collaboration,” said Bruns. “I think this problem requires many perspectives. Nobody can solve it alone, so working together across fields is really energizing.”

The team’s goal for the 18-month grant period is to develop at least one material that not only holds up in everyday use, but also demonstrably fertilizes soil. If successful, the applications could range from packaging films and plastic bags to plates, utensils and even foams that mimic Styrofoam.

In the long term, Bruns envisions a circular system: after use, the plastic could enter a specialized recycling stream for processing into fertilizer — or, ideally, degrade naturally in a backyard compost heap. Either way, it would close the loop between creation and decomposition, consumption and renewal.

“It’s about finding a better ending for these materials,” he said. “If we can make something useful in life and beneficial in death, that’s a win for both people and the planet.”

Our Shared Future

“My little part today, or this week or this month, is part of a bigger picture,” said Andrew Poppe (Phys’06; PhD’11) a research scientist at the Space Sciences Laboratory at the University of California Berkeley who worked on the Student Dust Counter as both an undergraduate and graduate student.

“Do we want to be the type of society that just wakes up in the morning, goes to work, does the work, comes home, has dinner and repeats? Or do we want to be the type of society that is naturally curious about the world around us, whether that is the smallest things you put under a microscope or the biggest things that you can see through a telescope?”

These research projects are just a glimpse into the scope and scale of innovation taking place around campus. Individually, each has its own trajectory of impact. Together, they create a mosaic of possibilities for our shared future.

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Illustrations by John Provencher

CU researchers across space science, bioengineering and nanomaterials are turning “what if” questions into transformative discoveries.

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Andrew Mayock Joined CU to Accelerate Climate Solutions

Anna Tolette — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 18:08:00 +0000

Andrew Mayock Joined CU to Accelerate Climate Solutions Anna Tolette Mon, 11/10/2025 - 11:08

Christie Sounart

In March 2025, Andrew Mayock joined CU �� as its first vice chancellor for sustainability. Mayock previously served as chief sustainability officer for the United States government, where he led the Biden administration’s efforts to decarbonize federal operations and accelerate clean energy adoption.

What spurred you to work in higher education?

I see it as a really critical piece of my work to help grow the next generation of leaders in climate sustainability. At CU ��, it is a great opportunity to do that at scale. In considering this role, I found CU has an extraordinary foundation of sustainability work that goes back decades, and pent-up demand to build on that legacy.

Where do you see CU �� already excelling in sustainability?

We have extraordinary existing efforts and assets across research, education, operations and community engagement — for instance, the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research’s (INSTAAR) work in critical longitudinal atmospheric carbon studies, the Mountain Research Station, the two sustainability master’s degrees recently approved through engineering and business, eliminating single-use plastic beverages campuswide and much more. Also, the kind of progress we’re making in embedding sustainability in the curriculum is taking it right back to where it all belongs — with the students.

What opportunities do you see for improvement?

There were places where we were once at the frontier, but we haven’t kept pace. It’s time for a recharge in these areas, so we can be a leader again. And then there’s areas where we’re at the frontier, and we need to accelerate and define a new frontier. The newly created Buckley Center for Sustainability Education is redefining leadership opportunity, for instance. The Buckley Center is going to help us respond to student demand for more sustainability in the curriculum and experiential learning, and it is also going to serve students interested in non-sustainability-related majors and disciplines across campus.

How do you see CU �� leading the way in sustainability to become recognized globally?

One clear initiative is to gain more recognition in work that we’re already doing. I’m thinking of engineering professor Evan Thomas (AeroEngr, Jour’06; MEngr’06; PhD’09) and the Mortenson Center in Global Engineering & Resilience’s work improving clean water supply in east Africa, for example. Here, through many others’ work, we’re having an outsized global impact across the planet, and we plan to amplify this work in places such as November’s COP 30 climate conference in Brazil and September’s Climate Week NYC.

What role do students have in CU sustainability?

Students are at the center of the efforts. My draw to �� included seeing the efforts already underway by the student community, like Ralphie’s Green Stampede or the EcoVisits. Now, it’s time to take it to the next level. The vision is to make this university more of a living lab, bringing research to education on campus and enabling students to help make progress on the Climate Action Plan.

Are there specific innovations or technologies you’re excited to explore at CU?

�� startups are moving cutting-edge research from lab to market, like the carbon-negative cement company Prometheus Materials. Their innovation and dynamism are helping solve the climate crisis through research-driven products. [Bill Gates’] Breakthrough Energy’s selection of the university as a new partner is another example of this work. �� is approaching the quality and vibrancy of Stanford.

What else should we know about campus sustainability?

It’s a top priority of the chancellor and our office to double down on how CU �� delivers sustainability solutions for Colorado communities. We have an ability and obligation, due to the talent and programming we have here, and we have a need in this urgent moment to be an even stronger partner to our state communities.

What are your interests outside of work?

I generally try to keep up with my 10- and 12-year-olds in their many pursuits, like soccer and the arts. We’ve also had the opportunity to get to the mountains, including Eldora and Snowmass, and experienced some of the great hiking and birding and rafting Colorado has to offer.

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Photos by Glenn Asakawa

Andrew Mayock has joined CU �� as the university’s first vice chancellor for sustainability, aiming to elevate its global leadership in climate action.

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CU �� in the Spotlight: Rankings, Research and Innovation

Anna Tolette — Mon, 10 Nov 2025 18:06:50 +0000

CU �� in the Spotlight: Rankings, Research and Innovation Anna Tolette Mon, 11/10/2025 - 11:06

Julia MacLean

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A Leader in Free Speech

CU �� ranked fifth nationally for its free-speech climate, the highest in the state. The assessment, based on input from more than 68,000 students, comes from the 2026 College Free Speech Rankings by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and its survey partner College Pulse.

Authors Earn Spotlight

Historical horror novel The Buffalo Hunter Hunter by CU �� English professor Stephen Graham Jones made former President Obama’s 2025 summer reading list. Meanwhile, Ann Schmiesing’s The Brothers Grimm: A Biography earned acclaim as one of The New Yorker’s Best Books of 2024 and a New Statesman Best Summer Read of 2025. Schmiesing is senior vice chancellor for strategic initiatives and professor of German and Scandinavian Studies.

Water Reckoning

Emerging CU �� research shows that human pollution, including greenhouse gases and aerosol emissions, has been driving the prolonged megadrought in the U.S. Southwest by altering the Pacific Ocean’s natural cycles that normally bring rain to the region. As a result, the Southwest is experiencing its driest period in over 1,000 years. Study author Jeremy Klavans, a postdoctoral researcher in the atmospheric and oceanic sciences department, suggests that water planners need to prepare now by building stronger water systems and exploring new options, such as desalination plants.

Campus Talk

“I want people to understand that a first-gen student like me — who didn’t have much — can do it if [they] bring passion, grit and skills to the table.”

-Marco Campos (CivEngr’98) and the Campos Foundation donated $5 million to support the Campos Student Center, formerly the BOLD Center, in the College of Engineering and Applied Science. The gift will secure the center’s long-term future and bolster its programming to help amplify student success.

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Photo by Casey A. Cass

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Elimination of Plastic Single-Use Beverage Containers

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Start of CU ��’s elimination of plastic beverage containers from campus

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All single-use, sealable plastic beverage containers to be eliminated from campus, including vending machines

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Pouring agreement with PepsiCo Beverages

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Intended percentage of campus emissions by year 2050, per the CU Climate Action Plan

CU �� news on free speech, faculty author recognition, megadrought research and sustainability initiatives.

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Fall 2025

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Chancellor Schwartz on What Makes Buffs Bold

Anna Tolette — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 20:13:24 +0000

Chancellor Schwartz on What Makes Buffs Bold Anna Tolette Mon, 07/07/2025 - 14:13

Maria Kuntz

Chancellor Schwartz at the AAPI graduation ceremony this spring.

Coloradan editor Maria Kuntz sat down with Chancellor Justin Schwartz to gather his perspective on what makes Buffs so extraordinary and bold.

You’ve worked and studied at several of the nation’s most respected institutions. What is it about CU students and faculty that sets them apart?

They’re not only focused on their disciplinary interest but also deeply committed to using whatever disciplinary expertise they have to create real impact on the world. In particular, [there’s] a core underpinning — a commitment to sustainability that is really genuine. It’s not an item on a list. It’s very much embedded into the culture of our community.

Alumni are leading space missions, launching startups and advancing climate science. What do you think is happening here that produces such bold, purpose-driven people?

Decades ago, a culture of excellence, doing big things and taking on leadership roles developed in ��. And it’s just continued to feed on and develop itself. Now, we naturally attract people with that mindset and core values so that the culture becomes self-propagating.

Tell me about a moment from this past year, maybe involving a student, alum or a faculty member, that genuinely surprised or moved you.

One of the moments that stands out was the first time [my spouse, Dr. G, and I] worked out with the Ralphie handlers in the gym. We witnessed how much camaraderie and esprit de corps there was between them, and then they brought us in seamlessly and naturally. It’s a truly energetic, dedicated and ridiculously hard-working culture.

You’re a year into your tenure. What’s your boldest hope for what people will say about CU �� five years from now? Not just as a university, but as a force in the world.

Five years from now, we want to be known for having transformed how higher education institutions across the country approach sustainability in terms of academics, implementation and knowledge transfer. I hope we will become a resource for our peers across the country.

When you’re talking to someone who’s never been to ��, what do you say to help them understand what’s special about this place?

I would start by saying: Until you’ve experienced it, it’s hard to explain. There are so many people I’ve heard say, ‘I came to visit and knew right away that this is where I was going to stay.’ These are alums who are now 70, who came from out of state 50 or 60 years ago. It’s not just the natural beauty of the environment. There is something energetic and inspiring about the community itself.

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Photo by Glenn Asakawa

Chancellor Justin Schwartz shares how CU ��’s culture of boldness, sustainability and community drives students and faculty to make a meaningful impact on the world.

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Summer 2025

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Kale, Yeah! CU ��’s Sustainable Dining

Anna Tolette — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 20:08:37 +0000

Kale, Yeah! CU ��’s Sustainable Dining Anna Tolette Mon, 07/07/2025 - 14:08

Sarah Kuta

It’s a chilly, overcast spring day in �� — but you wouldn’t know it from inside the greenhouse at Village Dining Center, where the temperature is always a balmy 65 degrees.

Clad in a baseball cap and an oversized T-shirt, CU �� junior Tessa Dempster (EnvSt, Geog’26) is harvesting kale from one of the 137 hydroponic towers that fill the temperate 2,700-square-foot room. She carefully pulls a handful of leafy greens from a vertical stand, snips off the stems and tosses the tender leaves into a plastic bin.

When she’s all finished, this kale — grown in just a few weeks using a water-based nutrient solution — will be washed, spun dry and added to the salad bar in the adjoining dining hall.

“We go, like, 15 feet and — boom! Food production ... done,” she said, grabbing another handful of kale. “It’s definitely lessening the environmental footprint, and it makes you feel like you’re working toward a higher purpose.”

Healthy and Delicious

College food can conjure images of gristly “mystery meat” and suspicious-looking casseroles bathed in the glow of buffet heat lamps. CU �� offers a different vision, providing sustainable, nutritious and delicious meals to students — greenhouse-grown lettuces, colorful vegetables, luscious fruits, scratch-made soups, stone-fired pizzas, hearty grain bowls and fresh-baked breads.

The world is taking notice. This year, CU �� was rated the No. 1 post-secondary institution for plant-based dining and sustainability on the Humane World for Animals’ 2025 College and University Protein Sustainability Scorecard. In addition, CU was the only university on the list with more than 50% plant-based meals on its menu.

And CU is aiming higher: The university has set a goal of boosting its plant-based menu offerings to 75% by the end of 2025.

Supreme Greens

Campus Dining & Hospitality dishes up an estimated 3.5 million scratch-made meals each year, and vegetables play a starring role in several of them. Veggies are a sustainable option since they tend to use less energy, land and water than animal-based foods, and they also produce significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions. They also bring vibrancy, color and freshness to campus dining, according to Eliah Golden, associate director for residential dining and culinary operations for Campus Dining & Hospitality.

“This is what allows us to offer so much variety,” said Golden. “I actually shudder at the thought of what a buffet line would look like without vegetables — it would be pretty boring.”

In addition, the university works with local growers and suppliers to reduce the carbon footprint of its meals and support the local economy. CU �� prepares 5,000 to 6,000 pounds of dried pinto beans each year (farmed just a few miles away in Longmont) and spotlights seasonal Colorado produce like organic apples from Ela Family Farms, a fourth-generation orchard on the Western Slope.

“We’re supporting great farms and educating students about local agriculture and seasonality — it’s a win-win,” said Billy Kardys, senior executive chef for Campus Dining & Hospitality.

Preparing Future Consumers

With healthy offerings on campus, students can make lifelong food choices that are better for themselves and the planet.

This philosophy is shared by members of the Menus of Change University Research Collaborative, a group of colleges and universities using campus dining halls to help shape the food system of the future. CU �� has been a member since the collaborative’s inception in 2014, and Golden serves as co-chair of the executive chefs committee.

“We make a huge impact on these incoming ‘consumers,’ as I like to call them,” said Kardys. “When students go out into the world and they’re no longer eating with us, we want them to take these values with them.”

Campus chefs also introduce students to cuisines from around the world.

“We’re with these students at a very formative time in their lives,” said Golden. “Our hope is that they’re going to expand their palate so they have a joy about food, that they’re excited to try new things and international flavors.”

Dining Options for Everyone

For diners with dietary restrictions, allergies, intolerances, religious customs or food preferences, eating out can be a stressful experience.

CU �� accommodates many diets, from halal and kosher to vegan, vegetarian and gluten-free. Campus Dining & Hospitality also has a registered dietician who can help students — and reassure parents — with dietary questions and concerns.

In 2022, CU �� unveiled Libby on the Run, a reimagined version of the Libby Hall dining facility. It’s a full-service, grab-and-go venue that caters to students with four major food allergies: peanuts, tree nuts, gluten and wheat.

“We don’t want anyone feeling like they can’t have a happy and healthy college experience because of food,” said Golden. “We wanted to offer a completely safe zone for folks with those allergies.”

“Continuous Improvement”

Dining will continue to play a vital role as CU �� works toward its campus master plan goal of adding 4,400 to 6,000 on-campus beds over the next 15 to 30 years.

Residence One, a new apartment-style residential building under construction north of �� Creek, and proposed sister property Residence Two will feature all-electric food service facilities — the first of their kind at CU ��. Farrand Hall is also slated for an upcoming renovation, allowing campus dining leaders to reimagine the on-site dining venue, The Alley.

Billy Kardys and Eliah Golden

“We’re going to kick it up like 10 gears and offer a really awesome, quick-service, restaurant-style environment that would be competitive with anything on The Hill or Pearl Street,” said Golden.

In the meantime, Campus Dining & Hospitality is experimenting with its first-ever food trailer, a 36-foot-long mobile eatery called “Roaming Ralphie.”

CU �� dining staffers also hope to expand their educational offerings, including cooking classes offered out of the teaching kitchen at Village Center. They’re also exploring new sustainability initiatives, such as reusable to-go boxes.

“We have a culture of continuous improvement,” said Golden. “We like to set our own bar, and we always want to be better.”

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Photos by Glenn Asakawa; Styled by Chris Caldes

Vegan Coconut Bread (CU Dining’s most-requested recipe from alumni)

Makes 1 Loaf

Ingredients:

2 teaspoons ground flaxseed

2 tablespoons water

½ cup vegetable oil

1 cup coconut milk

1 ¼ cups sugar

¼ cup (packed) medium firm tofu (crumbles)

1 ½ cups (packed) all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

½ teaspoon baking soda

1 ¾ cups shredded sweetened coconut

½ teaspoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon salt

Prep: Spray a 9x5 inch loaf pan and preheat oven to 350°F.

Wet mix: In a bowl, mix flaxseed and water. Stir in oil, coconut milk, sugar, and crumbled tofu.

Dry mix: In another bowl, whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, coconut, salt and cinnamon.

Combine: Gently fold dry into wet until just mixed.

Bake: Pour into the pan and bake approximately one hour, or until a toothpick comes out clean.

At CU ��, innovative hydroponic farming and plant-based, locally sourced meals are transforming campus dining into sustainable, fresh and delicious food.

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Summer 2025

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The Stories that Sustain Us: Phaedra Pezzullo's Unique Approach to Sustainability

Anna Tolette — Mon, 10 Mar 2025 20:30:53 +0000

The Stories that Sustain Us: Phaedra Pezzullo's Unique Approach to Sustainability Anna Tolette Mon, 03/10/2025 - 14:30

Joe Arney

When you’re trying to change the world — in Phaedra C. Pezzullo’s case, by improving the environment — you need more than scholarly publications to create impact.

It’s why one of her favorite stories involves the fact that her first solo-authored book, Toxic Tourism, inspired the lyrics to a punk-rock song by the band The Holland Dutch.

“Something like that reaches people in more profound ways than just talking about policy or politics,” said Pezzullo, CU �� communication professor in the College of Media, Communication and Information (CMCI).

In early 2025, Pezzullo opened CMCI’s Sustainability and Storytelling Lab. And while an academic lab in a formal university setting may sound out of step for someone whose work galvanizes protesters and inspires musicians, she sees it as an exciting next step in the shifting conversation around sustainability.

“The lab is already becoming a space where people from a range of disciplines who study sustainability — students, staff, faculty and community partners — can build relationships and consider the role of storytelling in the field,” she said.

“Something like that reaches people in more profound ways than just talking about policy or politics.”

As with any university lab, creating high-impact learning opportunities for students is key.

Activist Becomes Academic

Pezzullo’s formative educational experiences inspired her teaching philosophy. While a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, she interviewed activists and community members in Warren County — known as the birthplace of the environmental justice movement — where landfill toxins were poisoning the water source serving a predominantly Black community.

Listening to their voices and adding her own to the cause helped Pezzullo to see how a single story could unlock millions of dollars to clean a landfill. Cleanup work began as she completed her studies.

“I became hooked on stories,” she said. “When we put storytelling into practice in service of complex problems, like sustainability, we discover why communication is captivating.”

It’s part of why Pezzullo doesn’t limit her storytelling to scholarly publications. Her public-facing work on sustainability includes a podcast, Communicating Care, where she explores sustainability issues like plastic bag bans, disability justice and environmental treaties with other voices from the field.

One of these voices was Emy Kane (IntlAf’13), managing director of Lonely Whale, an organization that raises awareness about and offers alternatives to problematic plastics through partnerships with brands and engagement with companies, scientists and the global youth movement.

“When we put storytelling into practice in service of complex problems, like sustainability, we discover why communication is captivating.”

“What inspired me most about Phaedra is her commitment to sharing stories borne from empathy and action,” said Kane. “I’m thrilled to see my alma mater support her platform and research so that the next generation of leaders are equipped with the stories they need to reimagine the systems that run our world.”

Conversations on the podcast helped inform Pezzullo’s 2023 book, Beyond Straw Men: Plastic Pollution and Networked Cultures of Care, which won three national book awards. Highlighting success stories, she said, is important to counteract the defeatism and fatalism that typically accompany sustainability stories — and she’s seeing such sentiments rising, even in her classroom.

Oftentimes, in the wake of a victory, “people point out just how much is still wrong with pollution, with our climate, with the world,” she said. “Success isn’t that there won’t be more disasters — it’s that, with more thoughtful choices, future disasters may be less impactful. And that is a more challenging story to tell.”

Science Demands Better Stories

Amid news of rising temperatures, invasive microplastics and melting glaciers, it might seem frivolous to talk about sustainability in terms of good storytelling. But experts argue that we’ve struggled to make progress on environmental issues because the deeply scientific nature of these problems makes it hard for the general public to relate.

Robert Cox — Pezzullo’s mentor at UNC Chapel Hill, where he remains an emeritus professor — credited his protégé with laying the basis for how understandable stories can change the course on climate.

“All the work being done to communicate climate science in the public sphere is now being talked about in terms of relatable stories that demonstrate the impact of climate change,” said Cox, a three-time president of the Sierra Club environmental organization and co-author (with Pezzullo) of a textbook on the discipline. “Those stories resonate far beyond just the pages of an academic article. Phaedra’s work really laid the basis for the importance of narrative, of storytelling, to make complex environmental issues approachable.”

“Success isn’t that there won’t be more disasters — it’s that, with more thoughtful choices, future disasters may be less impactful. And that is a more challenging story to tell.”

In her lab, Pezzullo is searching for that impact by forging partnerships within CMCI and CU �� to bring different kinds of expertise to the challenge of impactful storytelling — something she’s already doing as director of the university’s graduate certificate in environmental justice. She’s lectured at universities across the globe and has collaborated extensively with Colorado’s Department of Public Health and Environment on climate change. In the meantime, she and her students build digital “story maps” that illustrate how Colorado communities are affected by environmental and climate injustice.

Pursuing Stories with Confidence

Independent reporter Anthony Albidrez (MJour’24) took a foundational course in environmental justice with Pezzullo to better understand how journalism supports sustainability through storytelling and rigorous news reporting standards.

Because of his class experiences, Albidrez turned a course project about a stream cleanup in Honolulu, where he lives, into a report detailing how the local unhoused population was blamed for a mess that, when cleaned, amounted to 16 tons of trash being removed from the Makiki Stream.

“I don’t think a group of homeless people can drag tons of trash into a streambed, but from my research, they were receiving the brunt of the blame,” Albidrez said. “Phaedra’s course helped give me the confidence to go beyond the government numbers and explanations and find the real story.”

Pezzullo’s ability to encourage that sort of intellectual curiosity is what Cox most appreciates about her impact. Though he’s quick to credit her with pushing the boundaries of their field, Cox most admires how Pezzullo has guided the next generation of thinkers as they seek to advance sustainability through storytelling.

“So many of her students are pursuing academic, business and nonprofit work in this area, and that speaks to her strength as a mentor,” Cox said. “She is such an unselfish person in terms of contributing her labor to the field of environmental communication — and that’s the kind of champion a story like this needs.”

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Illustrations by Scott Bakal

Professor Phaedra Pezzullo aims to make sustainability issues more relatable by integrating storytelling into environmental communication.

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Spring 2025

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Sustainability

Helping Rural Communities Thrive

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Spruce Gulch: Grounds for Discovery

A Symbiotic Friendship

Inheriting a Legacy

Acres for Academics

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Fruits of History and Sustainability

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Blazin’ Joe: Brewing a Sustainable Startup

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The Reaches of CU �������� Research

Exploring New Horizons <LASP>

Engineering Organoids <BioFrontiers Institute>

Plastics to Fertilizer <ATLAS Institute>

Our Shared Future

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Andrew Mayock Joined CU to Accelerate Climate Solutions

What spurred you to work in higher education?

Where do you see CU �������� already excelling in sustainability?

What opportunities do you see for improvement?

How do you see CU �������� leading the way in sustainability to become recognized globally?

What role do students have in CU sustainability?

Are there specific innovations or technologies you’re excited to explore at CU?

What else should we know about campus sustainability?

What are your interests outside of work?

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CU �������� in the Spotlight: Rankings, Research and Innovation

Herd

A Leader in Free Speech

Authors Earn Spotlight

Water Reckoning

Campus Talk

Digits

Elimination of Plastic Single-Use Beverage Containers

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Chancellor Schwartz on What Makes Buffs Bold

You’ve worked and studied at several of the nation’s most respected institutions. What is it about CU students and faculty that sets them apart?

Alumni are leading space missions, launching startups and advancing climate science. What do you think is happening here that produces such bold, purpose-driven people?

Tell me about a moment from this past year, maybe involving a student, alum or a faculty member, that genuinely surprised or moved you.

You’re a year into your tenure. What’s your boldest hope for what people will say about CU �������� five years from now? Not just as a university, but as a force in the world.

When you’re talking to someone who’s never been to ��������, what do you say to help them understand what’s special about this place?

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Kale, Yeah! CU ��������’s Sustainable Dining

Healthy and Delicious

Supreme Greens

Preparing Future Consumers

Dining Options for Everyone

“Continuous Improvement”

Ingredients:

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The Stories that Sustain Us: Phaedra Pezzullo's Unique Approach to Sustainability

Activist Becomes Academic

Science Demands Better Stories

Pursuing Stories with Confidence

Off

The Reaches of CU �� Research

Where do you see CU �� already excelling in sustainability?

How do you see CU �� leading the way in sustainability to become recognized globally?

CU �� in the Spotlight: Rankings, Research and Innovation

You’re a year into your tenure. What’s your boldest hope for what people will say about CU �� five years from now? Not just as a university, but as a force in the world.

When you’re talking to someone who’s never been to ��, what do you say to help them understand what’s special about this place?

Kale, Yeah! CU ��’s Sustainable Dining