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Kudos: April 30, 2024

Read about students traveling the country, a national award and a successful Dialogue and Civic Engagement Week.

Roadrunners are always doing spectacular things around campus and across the community and deserve recognition for their achievements and contributions. Congratulations to the following employees, students, teams and programs for their recent successes: 

Professional Selling students head to national convention 


Professional Selling students pose in front of the St. Louis ArchSixteen students from the Center for Professional Selling traveled to St. Louis for the Pi Sigma Epsilon National Convention and Competition from April 10-13. The convention is for students who want to build a strong professional network, learn from industry leaders, showcase accomplishments, compete in a variety of individual and group competitions and connect with employers. Pi Sigma Epsilon is the only national professional fraternal organization in sales, marketing and management that is open to everyone. 

Congrats to these Roadrunner students for prestigiously representing Metropolitan State University of Denver! 

Researching Roadrunners get their hands on art  


An art student looks at a sculpture.Over Spring Break, Art History Professors Jessica Weiss, Ph.D., and Jillian Mollenhauer, Ph.D., took five research assistants to conduct research in collections and archives across New York City and Washington, D.C. Students helped to conduct research at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Smithsonian Anthropological Archives, the Morgan Library, the Princeton Library and the Dumbarton Oaks Museum. During the trip, students had the chance to practice art handling and documentation and meet with and ask questions of curators, collections managers and museum fellows. Funds for the trip were provided by the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences Innovations Grant. 

Shoutout to these researching Roadrunners who gained art-handling experience! 

Changemakers Wanted campaign wins national award 

MSU Denver’s Advertising team, along with Denver advertising agency Karsh Hagan, brought home the 2024 Internet Advertising Competition Award for the Changemakers Wanted campaign. 

“The ‘Changemakers Wanted’ campaign that launched in spring 2023 was bold, authentic and compelling as a peer-to-peer recommendation and endorsement,” the Web Marketing Association said. “It also encouraged parents, families and advocates to picture their own college-bound children in the shoes of the MSU Denver students as well as encouraged adults to come back to school for a fresh start or upskill for promotions.” 

Congratulations to the University’s Advertising team for its award-winning work! 

MSU Denver hosts another successful Dialogue and Civic Engagement Week 


Two people pose in front of the Auraria Votes table.In the second annual Dialogue and Civic Engagement Week, the Dialogues program and MSU Denver Community and Civic Engagement program sponsored 10 events that drew more than 460 participants. The events were organized by nine faculty members and students in their classes, covering the environment, housing instability and homelessness, and strengthening democracy.

The event-filled week promoted dialogue related to community engagement, civic engagement and service learning, which are considered high-impact practices that help students reach graduation. The practices also support many essential skills post-graduation and help build stronger communities and democratic governance. The MSU Denver Dialogues program also centers intergroup dialogue, which helps facilitate communication across social-identity differences.  

“This year’s Dialogue and Civic Engagement Week gave us the chance to explore issues that matter and how to build a better democracy and community,” said Caylee Steenbock, student marketing intern for Dialogue and Civic Engagement Week. “It enabled students to explore the many forms of civic engagement and hopefully inspired them to take active roles in their communities.” 

Congratulations to the Dialogues program and the following faculty members for another successful week of events! 

  • Brian O’Hara, Ph.D., assistant professor of Sociology 
  • Tsehai Johnson, professor of Art 
  • Christina Foust, Ph.D., associate professor of Communications 
  • Richard Wagner, Ph.D., professor of Meteorology 
  • Vincent Piturro, Ph.D., professor of English 
  • Eric James, Ph.D., chair and associate professor of Communications 
  • John Rief, Ph.D., assistant professor of Communications 
  • Christopher Garris, Ph.D., professor of Psychological Sciences 
  • Barbara Decker, interim BSSW program director and senior lecturer in Social Work 

Have some good news you’d like to share? 

If you have someone or something you would like to shine a light on, view this Early Bird article, determine the best place for submission and share your accomplishments