The Early Bird shines a spotlight each month on the accomplishments of Metropolitan State University of Denver faculty and staff members and University partners.
Congratulations to our community for these recent achievements.
Publications
Nima Bahrehmand, Ph.D., assistant professor, Department of Art
Bahrehmand co-authored a contribution to the Journal of Media Art Study and Theory with collaborators Laurids Sonne and Eric Coombs Esmail from the University of Colorado Boulder. The team has a media artwork and accompanying text in the latest issue of the Journal of Media Art Study and Theory. This special issue focuses on media art and archaeology, and the piece is titled “Unearthed Objects: S3026 and Michael Marder’s object earth.”
Brendan Fry, Ph.D., professor, Department of Mathematics and Statistics
Fry, with co-authors, published “Predicting the impact of retinal vessel density on retinal vessel and tissue oxygenation using a theoretical model” in Mathematical Biosciences.
Co-authors: Croix Gyurek, Amanda Albright and Julia Arciero, all of Indiana University Indianapolis; George Eckert, Indiana University School of Medicine; Janet Coleman-Belin, Alice Verticchio, Brent Siesky and Alon Harris, all of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
Debbie Gilliard, Ph.D., chair and professor, Department of Management; Lynn Hoffman, Ph.D., professor emeritus, Department of Management; and Sally Baalbaki-Yassine, Ph.D., chair and professor, Department of Marketing
Their paper titled “Zillow Group, Inc.: Changing the Way Americans Buy Homes” has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Marketing Development and Competitiveness.
Sandra Mizumoto Posey, Ph.D., associate professor, Gender Institute for Teaching and Advocacy
Posey had two peer-reviewed articles published in a special double issue of Western Folklore that she co-edited with Heather Joseph-Witham of Otis College of Art and Design. The articles, “Reimagining Memory” (co-authored with Joseph-Witham) and “A World More Beautiful: Recognizing Art All Around Us” (a graphic essay) appeared in Western Folklore Volume 83 issue 3/4 Summer/Fall 2024.
Engaging with the next generation of learners
Cheers to all employees who supported Denver Public Schools-UPrep in May, including School of Hospitality and Campus Recreation employees who hosted a rocket-launching and dance party.
In July, MSU Denver hosted two CyberPatriot summer camps for local K-12 students. A beginner team of four students representing Devlen, Cherry Creek and Mount Vista high schools won first place among 250 competitors from across Colorado, including students hosted through the University of Colorado Colorado Springs. The advanced-level team placed fourth out of 120 competitors. The CyberPatriot camp is designed to introduce K-12 students to the fundamentals of cybersecurity and encourage them toward cybersecurity careers. The camp boosts community engagement, outreach and recruitment and is led by MSU Denver lecturer Klaus Streicher.
Award-winning hospitality
SpringHill Suites Denver Downtown, which offers learning opportunities to School of Hospitality students, has been granted the prestigious Gold Circle Award for guest satisfaction for 2023. This achievement highlights the dedication and exceptional service of the SpringHill Suites team. Congrats to the entire team for its hard work and commitment to excellence.
MSU Denver faculty and staff on the go
LoriMarie Huertas, assistant director, Industry DEI Partnerships, C2Hub
Huertas represented Colorado at a Faculty Development International Business Research Trip in Ireland during the summer semester. The program is designed for educators interested in developing a greater understanding of doing business in Ireland and included special lectures delivered by local scholars and networking with other educators to explore collaborative curriculum development and research interests.
Huertas also presented “The Five Love Languages: Nurturing Relationships in Educational Settings” at the most recent Carnegie Project on the Education Doctorate conference, hosted by the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa. By attending, she learned how to design policies that govern learning, develop and support structures that promote equity while addressing current and historical inequalities, and design learning to successfully help all types of people transform into social-justice spaces. This aligns with the four goals in MSU Denver’s Diversity Strategic Plan area:
- Goal 1: Inclusivity and Campus Climate Cultivation
- Goal 2: Community Connections and Engagement
- Goal 3: HSI Servingness
- Goal 4: Recruitment, Retention and Success
Additionally, the Denver Public Library recently honored Huertas with the 2024 Lena L. Archuleta Community Service Award at the Latino Community Service Awards. This year’s celebration was held at the Westwood Community Center.
Shawn Meek, associate professor, Communication Design program coordinator
Meek recently returned from speaking at the DEL 24 (Digitally Engaged Learning) conference in Singapore (Sept. 26 and Sept. 27).
DEL is unique in that it’s an international design conference that brings in a global audience of educators and students working in the digital space. The organizing schools consist of Parsons, The New School, Penn State University, Texas State University, University of the Arts London, as well as Royal College of Art & Design. This was the first time Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts, part of the University of Singapore, hosted the conference.
Outside of the conference activities and presentation, Meek found himself in cultural immersion of Singapore, visiting neighborhoods such as Little India and Chinatown, among others. He also visited temples from various traditions, including Hinduism, Taoism and Buddhism.
Eric Olson, Ph.D., associate professor in the School of Hospitality
Olson received a Fulbright Specialist award to spend two weeks for a Capacity Building and Curriculum Development Project hosted by Ammon Applied University’s College of Hospitality and Tourism Education in Jordan. He is aiming to cultivate an international relationship between the School of Hospitality and Ammon Applied University.
Erin Seedorf, Ph.D., assistant chair, associate professor, Department of Health Professions and Nona Shipman, co-director of the One World, One Water Center
In July, Seedorf and Shipman attended a faculty-development seminar in Mongolia to study and visit with public-health and climate-change experts in the region. Seedorf and Shipman also attended an international security conference discussing climate change and visited city and rural health and climate organizations to learn about the drastic impacts on the local people and their nomadic lifestyles.
Departmental success stories
Center for Teaching, Learning and Design
Accessibility Success Story
When courses go through the process with CTLD to convert to online delivery, the team looks for items that cannot be made digitally accessible. Many times, they can fix them. When they can’t, they prepare an accessibility outlier memo that describes the issue and includes a promise to check back in two years to see if technological changes solved the problem. One of the outliers is no longer an outlier because of technological advances in the past two years.
100 Canvas Spotlights
Through quiet, dilligent work the CTLD has written and published 100 Canvas Spotlights in the Early Bird.
Submit a story idea for an award, accolade or opportunity to celebrate an accomplishment big or small.
