Alumni

CU grad Erin Macdonald makes it so

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 15 Apr 2025 22:18:50 +0000

CU grad Erin Macdonald makes it so Rachel Sauer Tue, 04/15/2025 - 16:18

Bradley Worrell

The 2009 math and astrophysics double major has successfully transformed herself from a scientist to an educator to a storyteller sailing with the enterprise known as Star Trek

As she worked toward completing her bachelor’s degrees in astrophysics and mathematics at the �� in the late 2000s, Erin Macdonald often enjoyed watching Star Trek: The Next Generation with her college friends. Today, she is a science advisor for the entire Star Trek franchise.

“I don’t think I could have ever conceived it, that being able to work in television and movies was a real thing that people could actually do,” Macdonald says in retrospect. “And if you told me that I would see my name in TV credits—not to mention in the Star Trek font with the Star Trek theme playing—it’s almost unbelievable.”

It’s been a remarkable journey from academia to Hollywood, Macdonald acknowledges. Still, she is quick to add that in a multiverse of possibilities, the outcome was never assured, and it did not happen at warp speed.

CU Boulder alumnus Erin Macdonald, who double majored in mathematics and astrophysics, is a science advisor for the Star Trek franchise and author of Star Trek: My First Book of Space. (Photo: Bradley Worrell)

Raised in Fort Collins, Colorado, Macdonald did not grow up watching Star Trek. However, she was deeply motivated to study science after being inspired by the protagonist astronomer Ellie Arroway in the movie Contact, as well as by fictional FBI agent and medical doctor Dana Scully in the popular TV show The X-Files.

“I watched The X-Files growing up, and Dana Scully for me was just the coolest woman who ever existed. That really sparked an excitement to be a scientist,” she says. “And then when Contact came out, watching Dr. Ellie Arroway use a telescope to find aliens, and seeing her legitimately work as an astronomer was the first time I ever saw that as a career.”

Still, there were some obstacles to overcome, Macdonald says, including the fact that math did not come naturally to her.

“In high school, I had friends who were taking classes that seemed to get it. And for me, I felt like I was trudging through mud trying to understand things—but knowing that I had to get through the math,” she says. Finally, when taking a Calculus 3 course at CU Boulder, she says she experienced a breakthrough when she came to understand how math worked with physics, and then “everything just clicked.” It prompted her to immediately declare a double major in mathematics and astrophysics.

Gaining another role model

It also was in college that Macdonald was first exposed to Star Trek through a tightknit group of fellow students who were big fans of the TV shows.

“In the Venn diagram of physics majors and Star Trek fans, there is a big intersection,” she says with a laugh. “I was in my early 20s and (fictional) Voyager Captain Catherine Janeway became my new Scully. She was someone who had gone from being a science officer to a captain. At that point, I knew I wanted to get my PhD, but I didn’t necessarily want to be a researcher as a career. So, Janeway was a role model, how she was a leader and a problem-solver and a mentor. It was something I aspired to.”

After graduating from CU Boulder in May 2009, Macdonald enrolled at the University of Glasgow in Scotland, where she earned her PhD in astrophysics in 2012. Normally, a master’s degree would be the next educational step after obtaining an undergraduate degree, but Macdonald credits the quality of the education she received at CU Boulder—and particularly the research opportunity and mentorship of astrophysics and planetary sciences Professor Jeremy Darling—with allowing her to immediately advance to working toward a doctorate.

After obtaining her PhD, Macdonald spent two years doing post-doctoral research at Cardiff University in Wales, United Kingdom. She later moved back to Colorado, where she worked as an adjunct professor in the community college system and as an educator at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science for about a year, then transitioned to work as an aerospace engineer for a contractor based in the Denver area.

“In the Venn diagram of physics majors and Star Trek fans, there is a big intersection,” says CU Boulder alumnus Erin Macdonald. (Photo: Bradley Worrell)

It was during her time working for the contractor, and while attending pop culture conventions for fun, that Macdonald hit upon the idea that she could combine her deep knowledge of astrophysics with her love of science fiction to give talks on the science of science fiction TV shows, movies and videogames at fan conventions.

“After a while in the private sector, I found I really missed teaching. I was already going to conventions, so I proposed giving talks,” she says, adding that event organizers were receptive to the idea. “For topics, a popular one is physics and Star Trek. I’d say, ‘I did my PhD in gravitational physics, so let me explain how (theoretically) warp drives work, because I actually know the science of how warp drives work.’”

To boldly go …

In 2017, Macdonald moved to the Los Angeles area, where she continued to work in the aerospace industry while also giving science/science fiction talks at fan conventions, or as she describes herself in that time: “rocket scientist by day, warp engineering expert by evening.” It was during that period that she began meeting actors and writers at fan events, which ultimately led to industry connections with executives at CBS, the producer of all things Star Trek.

Macdonald was initially hired to give talks at CBS-sponsored events, including Star Trek Cruises. That led to an introduction with the co-executive producer of Star Trek Discovery, who asked Macdonald to serve as a science advisor for the show as season 3 began production.

“I believe I did a good job on that season, so I think the executives saw value in hiring a science advisor to be available to all of their shows to maintain consistency across the franchise, to understand all of the made-up technologies that we have in Star Trek and to be able to communicate that to the writers as well,” she says. “That’s been going on since 2019, so almost five years now.”

Meanwhile, Macdonald has written four screenplays, and she has done voice acting for Star Trek Prodigy, an animated Star Trek show, during which she had the opportunity to work with Kate Mulgrew, the actress who played Captain Janeway on Star Trek Voyager.

“When I started working on Star Trek Prodigy, they were bringing Captain Janeway back as a teacher for young kids. I was going to help write some of her lines, and that was when I had this huge epiphany of—I’m not meant to become Captain Janeway; I’m meant to write Captain Janeway and create characters that inspire kids to become scientists.”

“When I started working on Star Trek Prodigy, they were bringing Captain Janeway back as a teacher for young kids. I was going to help write some of her lines, and that was when I had this huge epiphany of—I’m not meant to become Captain Janeway; I’m meant to write Captain Janeway and create characters that inspire kids to become scientists,” she says. “And so now, I find that storytelling lets me sort of inspire and motivate the next generation of STEM professionals, and that’s what I want to do as a career.”

Macdonald has found her voice as a storyteller in several different ways. In 2022, she published Star Trek: My First Book of Space, an illustrate children’s board book that uses Star Trek to talk about science, technology, engineering, arts and math (STEAM), and she wrote and narrated the Audible Original “The Science of Sci-Fi” in collaboration with The Great Courses.

Additionally, in 2021, McDonald created Spacetime Productions, a film development and production company devoted to giving representation to traditionally marginalized voices, including those in the LGBTQIA+ community. The company has produced two short films including Identiteaze, released on the streaming service Nebula earlier this summer.

Reflecting on her journey from scientist to educator to storyteller, Macdonald says her success is the result of recognizing good opportunities, trusting her instincts, perseverance and, most importantly, putting in the time and work to achieve her goals.

“You know, I didn’t quit my PhD and move to LA with no plan. I took those important steps in between,” she says. “And it took me until well into my 30s for me to realize what I wanted, to be a storyteller and create those Dana Scullys and Captain Janeways, as opposed to becoming one of those characters. And that’s OK. All of those steps along the way helped inform the work I do now.”

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The 2009 math and astrophysics double major has successfully transformed herself from a scientist to an educator to a storyteller sailing with the enterprise known as 'Star Trek.'

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CU alum Stephen Koehler enjoys high-flying career

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 09 Apr 2025 18:14:40 +0000

CU alum Stephen Koehler enjoys high-flying career Rachel Sauer Wed, 04/09/2025 - 12:14

Bradley Worrell

The ROTC cadet and physics major turned naval aviator turned admiral was appointed commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet in early 2024

�� grad Stephen T. Koehler (Phys’86) has a really, really big job.

How big?

It covers an area encompassing 100 million square miles—roughly half the earth’s surface—from Antarctica to the Artic Circle and from the western U.S. coast to the Indian Ocean. The job includes oversight of about 200 ships, 1,500 aircraft and 150,000 military and civilian personnel.

CU Boulder grad and U.S. Navy Admiral Stephen Koehler (Phys’86) was selected as the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet in April 2024, following a succession of leadership positions in the Navy.

Admiral Koehler is the commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, a position he assumed in April 2024 after a series of successive leadership positions during his 40-year career in the Navy. He became the 36th commander since Admiral Chester Nimitz assumed command on Dec. 31, 1941, at Pearl Harbor.

Koehler’s ascension to a top leadership post in the Navy is perhaps even more notable given that his initial goal was modest: He wanted to fly jets like his dad, who was a Navy fighter pilot.

“Honestly, I didn’t know I would stay in the Navy this long,” he says. “But from a very young age, I watched my dad go to work to fly airplanes and I just thought he was so cool, and I remember thinking, ‘I want to do what he does.’ My dad loved being a fighter pilot. So, I knew I wanted to fly jets and land them on ships.”

After being commissioned in 1986 through the Naval Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program at CU Boulder, Koehler became a naval aviator in 1989 and went on to fly more than 3,900 hours in the F-14 Tomcat and F-18 Hornet, with 600 carrier landings.

Koehler subsequently served in leadership positions that included commanding a fighter squadron, serving as the captain of a nuclear aircraft carrier, commander of a carrier strike group, commander of the U.S. Third Fleet and director for strategy, plans and policy for the Joint Staff in Washington, D.C., which was his last post.

Recently, Koehler spoke with Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine about how his time at CU Boulder helped him prepare for his career in the Navy, what it was like to be a naval aviator and what his job entails as commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet. His responses have been lightly edited and condensed for space.

Question: Why did you decide to attend CU Boulder? And why did you choose to get your degree in physics?

Koehler: The main reason I ended up applying to CU Boulder was that the summer before my senior year in high school, I was taking a Greyhound bus around the country, rock climbing with my cousin. We stopped in Boulder for a week and we stayed with this guy who was a friend-of-a-friend type thing. We climbed nearly every day.

One day it rained bad enough we couldn’t climb, so we heard there was a campus in town and we decided maybe we should walk around it. I picked up an application at the UMC (University Memorial Center), where it stayed in my backpack for the rest of the summer. Later, I filled it out and sent it in, and then I got accepted.

I saw CU had a physics major and it had ROTC, so I said, ‘I’ll give it a go.’

Admiral Stephen Koehler (right) with his father, who was also a naval aviator, following the younger Koehler’s commissioning in 1986 during a ceremony held at Old Main on the CU Boulder campus.

I knew I wanted to be as competitive as I could going into Navy flight school. And initially, I thought I might want to be a test pilot—and I knew you had to have hard-science capability for that, so that’s why I majored in physics. I was not a natural physics guy, so it was a slog for me, but I did it to keep my options open.

Question: Do you feel like your time at CU Boulder helped prepare you for entering the Navy?

Koehler: Yes. Certainly, the ROTC piece provided an understanding of the Navy even beyond what I learned as a child of a Navy parent, and it taught me about leadership.

The physics background proved very beneficial, not only for flight school, but it led to me being selected to be a nuclear-trained officer. There is a technical degree that’s required to do that, and so, yes, my time at CU set me up for that.

Question: When people think of naval aviators, they likely think of the movie Top Gun. What is it like to be a naval aviator in real life?

Koehler: People who watch Top Gun think you are all tan and spend your days playing volleyball at the beach, or they watch Top Gun: Maverick and think you’re all tan and you play football on the beach (laughs). And arguably, I would love to do some of that, but being a carrier-based fighter pilot is about being steeped in professionalism.

Naval aviators train and train so that they make the extremely difficult look easy and routine when it’s not. It takes skill to land a plane on a pitching (ship) deck, day or night, and it takes dedication to be a fighter pilot, to make sure that you are better than the adversary. It’s about having a warrior mindset and making sure you are good at it, because you’ve got to be better than your opponent.

Question: What is your call sign and how did you get it?

Koehler: It’s Web. I won’t go into the whole boring story, but it’s short for Webster’s Dictionary. I received it during a very public display for a lack of spelling prowess (laughs). And I’m actually not a bad speller, but I was on that day.

I wish it (the call sign) was for something cool, like ‘spiderweb,’ or ‘he’s on the web.’ That’s probably half the reason it stuck—because it sounds cool even though it’s not (laughs). …

Now, even at this level, people call me by that name instead of my (given) name. I was sitting in the situation room in the White House in my last job and people would call me Web—not Steve or Admiral Koehler. They would be like, ‘Hey, Web, what do you think about this?’ So, that’s just what ends up happening.

Question: How does one go from being a naval aviator to a command where you are responsible for hundreds of ships and planes and tens of thousands of sailors?

Koehler: So, it’s a process. The first step of it is staying in the Navy and being promoted to the command of a squadron, which is 12 planes and about 250 people. You’re evaluated and then there’s normally two paths after that. You either go the nuclear power route, which means you learn to drive aircraft carriers, or you stay in the air wing and you’re in command of an air wing on a carrier.

The U.S. Pacific Fleet (a portion of which is pictured here) encompasses 100 million square miles from Antarctica to the Arctic circle and from the west coast of the United States into the Indian Ocean. The U.S. Pacific Fleet consists of approximately 200 ships, 1,500 aircraft and 150,000 military and civilian personnel. (Photo: U.S. Navy)

I was chosen to go the nuclear power route, so my physics degree proved useful. I went to nuclear power school and then I was the No. 2 guy on an aircraft carrier, the USS Carl Vinson. I went on to command the USS Bataan, which is an amphibious assault ship, and then I was selected to be the captain of a nuclear aircraft carrier for two and a half years, which was the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower.

Pending your performance and time in service, you may be selected to the rank of rear admiral (or flag rank). If you are not selected, there’s mandatory retirement at 30 years.

I was selected after my command of the aircraft carrier and have progressed through operational and staff command that yielded additional flag rank promotions. There was a decision by Naval leadership at some point to promote me to full admiral and select me to be the Pacific Fleet commander. So, it was a natural progression, and I’m very honored to be here.

Question: Can you share the scope of your duties as Pacific Fleet commander and the role the position plays in the world today?

Koehler: The scope and scale of the Pacific Fleet, of the area I’m responsible for as far as naval interests, is from the coast of California to the west coast of India, and Antarctica to the Arctic. It’s a huge area. …

The Pacific Fleet command is of vital importance to national security, resulting from the economic ties and the commerce that travels on the ocean, for which I am responsible on the Navy side to be ready to respond. There’s just a real importance to the job and there’s a lot of work to do out there. We must continue to improve our position and capability to maintain and ensure the freedom of the seas. The intent is a ‘free and open Indo-Pacific,’ with freedom of commerce, sovereign rights and the ability to sail and operate in accordance with international law, and those things the Pacific Fleet works continuously to provide.

Question: What is the best thing about being Pacific Fleet commander? And what is the most difficult thing?

Koehler: The best thing is having the opportunity to lead all of these sailors. With sailors and civilians, there is on the order of 150,000 of them working toward a common goal, which is to achieve our national objectives. The opportunity to go out and see them and lead them is the best. That also delves into the challenge, which is that it’s a large scale and scope of operations that I oversee. The challenge is to be able to get out and see them as much as I would like and revel in the success they have. They are a pretty amazing group of people who do some outstanding work.

Admiral Stephen Koehler salutes during a 2024 ceremony at Pearl Harbor. (Photo: U.S. Navy)

Question: Do you still get to fly jets?

Koehler: I wish I did. I did get to fly as an admiral when I was the carrier strike group commander and we were on deployment in 2017. I got my last carrier landing in April of 2018.

Flying is a young person’s game. Not that I wouldn’t continue to go flying … but there’s no time to maintain my currency and while it would be fun for me, I’m not sure it would be the best use of my time now.

Question: With your four decades of service in the Navy, are there a few standout moments in your career?

Koehler: That’s a really hard one. First of all, it’s been 40 years, but it doesn’t seem like it. I got to Colorado (as a freshman) in 1982, and it feels like I was just there. …

There are all sorts of things I remember. Taking command of an aircraft carrier, with 3,000 people assigned to it, and with the air wing it’s 5,000 people. That was the first huge command for me, and you have all of these sailors that you get the privilege to lead.

Certainly, the news that I was going to be Pacific Fleet commander was memorable. That was something I would never expect. It’s the honor of a lifetime to do that, and to follow in the footsteps of some amazing people, starting with Admiral Nimitz in World War II.

Another standout thing was being the demonstration pilot for the F-14 at air shows and having the opportunity to fly in front of my family at the Miramar Air Show in 1996. It was an amazing day to fly for my dad that day.

Looking back, there are many memories, and it’s been nothing but a really fun, challenging, rewarding experience. I have been able to enjoy it with my wife, Gina, who’s been with me since college, where we met in 1983 in Boulder in the Baker Hall dorm. She’s been with me the whole time, which has just been amazing.

Question: Anything else you would like to add?

Koehler: Go Buffs!

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The ROTC cadet and physics major turned naval aviator turned admiral was appointed commander of the U.S. Pacific Fleet in early 2024.

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Top image: Admiral Stephen Koehler (green flight suit) was designated a naval aviator in 1989 and flew more than 3,900 hours in the F-14 Tomcat and F-18 Hornet, with 600 carrier landings.

Dropping perfectionism and embracing purpose and joy

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 07 Apr 2025 15:22:31 +0000

Dropping perfectionism and embracing purpose and joy Rachel Sauer Mon, 04/07/2025 - 09:22

Pam Moore

CU Boulder alumna Julie Chavez reflects on her new memoir, which chronicles her journey through a mental health crisis to finding a new motto: ‘Be adequate’

When Julie Chavez (Span’00) graduated from the �� with a major in Spanish language and literature, she didn’t see herself becoming an author. As a self-proclaimed “lifelong reader” who blogged for fun, she’d been told many times that she should write a book.

Although flattered, Chavez, who lives in Pleasanton, California, with her husband Mando Chavez, a 1999 CU Boulder graduate, and their two sons, was comfortable in her role as a librarian at her sons’ school. And besides, she says, “I didn’t know what I wanted my story to be.”

CU Boulder alumna Julie Chavez (Span’00) describes learning to advocate for herself and let go of her perfectionist tendencies, embracing the motto “be adequate,” in her memoir Everyone But Myself.

That is, until her story found her.

When anxiety and perfectionism culminated in a debilitating panic attack and a paralyzing sense that she was always falling short no matter how hard she tried, Chavez’s world irrevocably changed.

After navigating many obstacles to accessing mental health services, working with a therapist to put her own proverbial oxygen mask on before tending to her family and finally learning to advocate for herself and let go of her perfectionist tendencies, she emerged with a new motto— “be adequate”—and the idea for the book she needed to write.

Told with humor and honesty, Chavez’s new memoir, Everyone But Myself, released last year and named a Washington Post noteworthy book and a USA Today bestseller, chronicles her journey from the depths of a crushing mental health crisis to a life filled with joy and purpose. Chavez spoke with Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine to explain the story behind the story.

Question: What motivated you to write Everyone But Myself?

Chavez: I knew that if I was going to write a book, it would have to have value for readers. Even though I loved writing, I didn’t see myself as a fiction writer and I didn’t think I had a story to tell.

But then I had my annual review with my principal. Over the prior year, my mental health had taken a nosedive, and I thanked her for having shared her own struggles with me during that time. Her candor really helped me through what I call my ‘mid-mom crisis’—which I later learned is something that many over-extended working moms struggle with as our elementary grade kids grow into humans who don’t need us intensely as they once did.

She said, ‘That’s what you should write your book about.’ That was when I realized that my story could truly be helpful for someone else.

Question: Who is Everyone But Myself for?

Chavez: I wish it hadn’t taken debilitating anxiety for me to finally understand that my self-care and creating boundaries around my own happiness was not only good, but necessary.

So, I wrote this for all the readers who see themselves in my story. It’s for the perfectionist moms, the anxious moms, the moms who, in trying to do their best for their families, have inadvertently abandoned themselves.

In her memoir Everyone But Myself, CU Boulder alumna Julie Chavez chronicles her journey from the depths of a crushing mental health crisis to a life filled with joy and purpose.

It’s also for all the moms who feel they don’t ‘deserve’ help. I love my life and my family so much. I feel grateful that I get to live a relatively comfortable life. And yet, even with all the privilege I’ve been afforded, I was taken aback at how aggressively and how quickly my mental health declined—and how hard it was to find a therapist when I needed one.

We tend to put our suffering on a ‘sliding scale’ or to minimize it by comparing it to other people’s problems but the truth is, when it’s hard, it’s hard, and it’s OK to ask for help.

Question: What challenges did you encounter on the road to publication?

Chavez: The book you have in your hands is my fourth rewrite. I can’t tell you how many times I asked myself whether it was worth it.

I started writing in the spring of 2019 and by the end of the year I had 30,000 words, which I thought was a book. It wasn’t. Then, I attended a class on publishing, where I learned that without a platform, it would be extremely difficult to find a publisher, particularly for a memoir.

So, I started working with a hybrid publisher, who recommended a rewrite. Meanwhile, [publisher] Zibby Owens’ Book Club published an essay of mine, which was an excerpt from the book, which did really well. Zibby ended up taking me on as one of her first acquisitions, and I parted ways with the hybrid publisher.

Following advice from Zibby’s team, I started a fresh rewrite. Instead of a memoir, it was an essay collection, but it just didn’t work. So now, I had an agent and I was starting with a blank page, which is actually kind of backward. Usually you get an agent once you have a fully written manuscript. I finished that version in December of 2022 and the book was published just over two years later.

Through it all, I had to re-learn the same lesson I learned in the pages of my book—that I had to keep showing up, remember my “why,” and not be too attached to the outcome.

Question: What has surprised you over the course of your publishing journey?

Chavez: There’s been a surprising number of women who have said, ‘You are telling my exact story.’ So many have said that after reading my story, they understand what they’re going through, which has been wonderful.

That was always my hope—that my book could be a friend to them and to open the door to the kinds of conversations we need to have.

But my favorite thing is when someone says they’re giving it to a friend or asks me to sign it for their sister.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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CU Boulder alumna Julie Chavez reflects on her new memoir, which chronicles her journey through a mental health crisis to finding a new motto: ‘Be adequate.’

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Discovering Boulder County’s tiniest residents

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 24 Mar 2025 17:10:47 +0000

Discovering Boulder County’s tiniest residents Rachel Sauer Mon, 03/24/2025 - 11:10

Collette Mace

CU Boulder alum and experienced caver Dave Steinmann recently discovered a new species of pseudoscorpion in Mallory Cave, with a moniker honoring its namesake hometown

When Dave Steinmann (Phys’90) first started classes at the �� in 1984, he had never explored a cave before and never really thought much about caves. However, when his new dorm-mate suggested they try his dad’s favorite hobby of caving, what seemed at first like an adventurous new pastime soon turned into a lifestyle for Steinmann—one that he has continued for more than 30 years and leading to his discovery of almost 100 new cave-dwelling species.

Steinmann, now a research associate with the Denver Museum of Nature & Science’s Zoology Department, most recently discovered a new species of pseudoscorpion named after the city closest to where it was found—none other than CU’s hometown of Boulder. Steinmann said that he knew almost immediately that the critter that is now known as Larca boulderica was a new species.

Dave Steinmann (right) with his son, Nathan (left), and wife, Debbie (center), as they get ready to go caving. (Photo: Dave Steinmann)

When he first spotted it in Mallory Cave, one of Boulder’s most well-known cave systems thanks to its role in bat conservation, he immediately noticed its unique, almost lentil-shaped body and adaptations for cave living, such as its pale color. These specimens were later verified as a new species by Mark Harvey, a pseudoscorpion expert at the Western Australian Museum; Harvey and Steinmann recently published details of the discovery in ZooKeys.

Steinmann notes that it’s typically not difficult to discern when a specimen is a new species, as it happens pretty frequently in the ancient cave systems right below our feet.

“I always say that if I want to discover a new species, I just need to visit a new cave,” he says.

Why are caves such a great place to make new discoveries? The answer lies in their role as a sort of refuge from climate change, Steinmann notes. In caves, insects can hide from the effects of temperature, floral and faunal changes that happen more rapidly in the outside world, facilitating isolated evolutionary changes.

Changing cave life

However, even cave life is changing. Lately, the temperature inside of caves, typically very cold, has been observed to be rising on a minuscule scale. Although this may seem trivial, even a few degrees’ difference can have immeasurable effects on the delicate life structures within the caves.

Similarly, outside temperatures affect which species go in and out of the cave systems, most notably bats. With the recent spike in white-nosed syndrome in bat populations, the number of bats in cave systems has decreased dramatically, with disastrous effects on internal cave species such as Larca boulderica, who survive on organic material—most often wood brought into the cave—and guano (bat fecal matter).

These changes are slow to progress, though, and there is still time to save cave ecosystems like that of Mallory Cave, which is closed to the public to protect the bat population inside (although it’s still possible to hike up to the cave entrance, a pleasant and short hike for anyone hoping to get outside).

So, how did Steinmann spot these teeny tiny bugs who live on bat feces? Well, after more than 30 years of experience, he has some tricks up his sleeve. One of the easiest methods he uses to spot tiny critters is simply by turning over rocks or pieces of wood.

When species like pseudoscorpions are disturbed by the movement or sense the carbon dioxide released by human breathing, they tend to skitter in every direction, looking for a new spot to curl up and revel in the damp darkness. When they move around, according to Steinmann, it’s just a game of whether you can catch them quickly enough.

The newly described pseudoscorpion Larca boulderica is about the size of a sesame seed and is only known to live in Boulder, Colorado. (Photo: Dave Steinmann)

To catch samples, Steinmann usually brings simple tools along with him—a painter’s brush and some rubbing alcohol. When the brush is wetted with the alcohol, it’s easy to run it along a surface and pick up all of the tiny things residing there, including minuscule species of bugs like Larca boulderica.

From there, it’s also easier to see what he’s found, as cave species are usually albino due to the lack of melanin— they don’t need pigmentation when there’s no sunlight—and they stand out against the dark ground and hairs of the paintbrush.

Looking for a gold bug

Despite being at it for multiple decades, Steinmann has no plans to slow down his caving career any time soon. He’s even made it a family pastime, and often spends time caving with his wife, Debbie, and his son, Nathan. He keeps an ongoing list of caves he plans to visit in the future and looks forward to making even more discoveries.

“I’d really like to find some kind of gold-colored bug and name it after the university,” he says, “or maybe even Coach Prime!”

He’s also enthusiastic about getting more students involved in caving, including caver and photographer Andres “Andy” Better, who will be a CU transfer student next fall. Steinmann emphasized how many different opportunities lie in the caving experience and says students of any background could find a niche interest in the hobby.

He also mentions local groups and clubs for both new and experienced cavers, including the Front Range Grotto and the Colorado Grotto, which meets at the Colorado School of Mines. He says that while anyone is welcome in caving, experienced members of the clubs can sometimes be protective of the places they visit, as human disturbances can harm delicate cave ecosystems, and caving as a hobby can be dangerous in a lot of ways.

However, if you’re looking to learn about caving with curiosity and respect, any of these clubs are great ways to get involved in this adventurous and exciting hobby—just be careful not to step in the bat guano because there could be a new species in there!

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CU Boulder alum and experienced caver Dave Steinmann recently discovered a new species of pseudoscorpion in Mallory Cave, with a moniker honoring its namesake hometown.

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Spinning stories of birds, magic and 19th-century science

Rachel Sauer — Mon, 16 Dec 2024 14:30:00 +0000

Spinning stories of birds, magic and 19th-century science Rachel Sauer Mon, 12/16/2024 - 07:30

Cody DeBos

In new novel The Naturalist Society, CU Boulder alum Carrie Vaughn offers a fresh take on historical fantasy

For New York Times bestselling author and �� graduate Carrie Vaughn (MEngl’00), the boundary between science and magic is a playground.

Her latest novel, The Naturalist Society, released last month, transports readers to an alternate Victorian era in which scientific discovery and arcane magic coexist. Here, the Latin binomial nomenclature used to classify plants and animals grants extraordinary powers to certain scientists.

The novel is a departure from Vaughn’s usual urban fantasy or mystery settings, for which she's been nominated several times for the Hugo Award and won the 2017 Colorado Book Award in the genre fiction category. She recalls a friend joking, “Hey, you like birds, you should write a book about them!”

In her new novel The Naturalist Society, Carrie Vaughn (MEngl’00) explores an alternate Victorian era in which scientific discovery and arcane magic coexist.

From that comment, she spun a tale blending 19th-century Victorian science and a distinctive magic system—with a splash of romance added for good measure.

“I tend to do this a lot, take several different ideas and smoosh them together to see what happens,” Vaughn says. “The story developed pretty quickly and went in some unexpected directions. It’s not just historical fantasy, but also alternate history.”

When research meets imagination

Creating an immersive world for the protagonist of The Naturalist Society to traverse was more than a work of imagination. Vaughn immersed herself in research while preparing to write the novel.

“I read a bunch of history of the natural sciences, about Darwin and the impact of his ideas,” she says. “And I kept my Sibley Field Guide to Birds on my desk the whole time.”

Vaughn also drew inspiration from Victorian-era literature.

“I read some Edith Wharton to get that flavor of upper-class New York City in the late 19th century,” she says.

As any writer can understand, Vaughn’s work on The Naturalist Society didn’t come without challenges. Stepping away from her familiar urban fantasy worlds—she reached the New York Times Bestseller list with her long-running novel series about Kitty Norville, a Denver DJ who is also a werewolf—to tackle a historical setting took Vaughn on a lengthy fact-finding journey.

Despite completing extensive research, Vaughn admits the process felt never-ending. “As much research as I do, it never feels like quite enough. It’s impossible to be completely thorough.

“Using a concrete historical setting means I’m very aware of all the possible mistakes I could make. I’m waiting for readers to start emailing me about what I got wrong,” she jokes.

Still, Vaughn considers these trials part of the creative process. She strives to remain open to all ideas and let her stories evolve naturally—a tricky balance to strike while keeping The Naturalist Society grounded in history.

The Naturalist Society is a departure from the urban fantasy and murder mystery genres in which Carrie Vaughn has widely written.

Embracing the unexpected

For Vaughn, The Naturalist Society is more than just her latest novel; it’s part of a larger journey as a writer. Throughout her career, Vaughn has written more than 20 novels and 100 short stories spanning every genre from urban fantasy to murder mystery.

“I’m always looking for new stories to tell,” she says. “I go where the stories tell me to go. I like the challenge of trying new genres and tropes.”

Vaughn’s exploratory approach to storytelling is rooted in experimentation. She says she enjoys the surprising outcomes that emerge after taking time to reconnoiter new settings or blur the lines between genres.

This approach helps The Naturalist Society exist as a historical fantasy novel while also transcending the conventions of the genre.

From CU Boulder to a career of discovery

Vaughn’s ability to weave complex stories is no accident. She credits her time at CU Boulder for giving her a firm foundation in her craft.

“I need to give a big shout out to Professor Kelly Hurley,” Vaughn says. “Her seminars on Victorian and Gothic literature have stayed with me.”

She says these classes, among others, helped shape her understanding of storytelling. Time spent reading and discussing books and literature during her degree studies also played a pivotal role in Vaughn’s career.

“If I can write across genres and settings, it’s because I’ve read across genres and settings,” she explains. “I go back to Professor Hurley’s ideas and reading lists all the time. She helped fill a well that I’m still drawing on.”

Advice for writers

Every aspiring writer’s journey is unique, Vaughn says, and her experiences emphasize the value of exploration and risk-taking. Her advice to writers looking to try new genres or settings?

“Read widely! Look for inspiration in unlikely places.”

She also encourages writers to embrace bold ideas and trust their instincts.

“When I’m working on an idea and find myself thinking, ‘This is crazy, people will never go for this,’ I know I’m on the right track,” she says.

With The Naturalist Society, Vaughn has unlocked yet another creative direction for her work, but her latest novel is just the beginning of her foray into historical fantasy. She’s already working on a sequel and aims to build further on the world she created.

Learn more about Carrie Vaughn and The Naturalist Society on her website.

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In new novel The Naturalist Society, CU Boulder alum Carrie Vaughn offers a fresh take on historical fantasy.

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Veteran sees Vietnam the country beyond the war

Anonymous — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 17:30:37 +0000

Veteran sees Vietnam the country beyond the war Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 10/25/2024 - 11:30

Rachel Sauer

CU Boulder alum and regent emeritus Peter Steinhauer shares Vietnam experiences with students, to be featured in the in-progress documentary Welcome Home Daddy

Peter Steinhauer joined the U.S. Navy because that’s what young men of his generation did.

“I was brought up to finish high school, go to college, join a fraternity, get married, spend two years in the military, then work the rest of my life,” he explains. “Of everybody I went to high school with in Golden, most of the boys went in (the military).”

So, after graduating the �� in 1958—where he met his wife, Juli, a voice major—he attended dental school in Missouri, then completed a face and jaw surgical residency, finishing in 1965. And then he joined the Navy.

Peter Steinhauer (left) and Steven Dike (right) after Steinhauer's presentation during the Oct. 18 class of The Vietnam Wars, which Dike teaches.

He had two young daughters and a son on the way, and he learned two weeks after being stationed at Camp Pendleton that he’d be shipping to Vietnam, where he served from 1966-67.

“How many of your grandparents served in Vietnam?” Steinhauer asks the students seated in desks rimming the perimeter of the classroom, and several raise their hands. Steinhauer has given this presentation to this class, The Vietnam Wars, for enough years that it’s now the grandchildren of his fellow veterans with whom he shares his experiences of war.

Even though Steinhauer had given the presentation before, the Oct. 18 session of The Vietnam Wars, for students in the Honors Residential Academic Program (HRAP), was different: It was filmed as part of the in-progress documentary Welcome Home Daddy, which chronicles Steinhauer’s experiences during and after the war and his deep love for the country and people of Vietnam.

“Pete told me once that he dreams about Vietnam all the time, but they’re not nightmares,” says Steven Dike, associate director of the HRAP and assistant teaching professor of history, who teaches The Vietnam Wars. “He’s spent his life as a healer and an educator, and I think one of the values (for students) is hearing how his experiences in the war informed his life after it.”

‘An old guy there’

Steinhauer, a retired oral surgeon and CU regent emeritus, served a yearlong tour with the 3rd Marine Division, 3rd Medical Battalion in Da Nang, Vietnam. Lt. Cmdr. Steinhauer was a buzz-cut 30-year-old—“an old guy there,” he tells the students—with a Kodak Instamatic camera.

He provided dental care and oral surgery to U.S. servicemen and servicewomen as well as Vietnamese people, and he took pictures—of the rice paddies and jungles, of the people he met, of the nameless details of daily life that were like nothing he’d experienced before.

“This was the crapper,” Steinhauer tells the students, explaining a photo showing a square, metal-sided building with a flat, angled roof. “There were four seats in there and no dividers, so you were just sitting with the guy next to you.”

When the electricity went out, he and his colleagues worked outside. When helicopters came in with the wounded, it was all hands on deck.

Left image: Pvt. Raymond Escalera holds the since-deactivated grenade that Peter Steinhauer (to Escalera's left) removed live from his neck, in a photo that made the front page of The Seattle Times; right image: Peter and Juli Steinhauer (on right) visit Raymond Escalera (white shirt) and his wife in California.

“They’d be brought off the helicopter and taken to the triage area,” Steinhauer says, the photo at the front of the classroom showing the organized chaos of it. “A lot of life-and-death decisions were made there, catheters and IVs were started there. The triage area is a wonderful part of military medicine.”

Steinhauer also documented the casualties, whose starkness the intervening years have done nothing to dim. One of his responsibilities was performing dental identification of bodies, “one of the hardest things I did,” he says.

Then there was Dec. 21, 1966: “A guy came in—it was pouring rain, and we had mass casualties—and he came in with trouble breathing,” Steinhauer recalls. “We discovered he had an unexploded M79 rifle grenade in his neck. We got it out, but a corpsman said, ‘Doc, you better be careful with that, it can go boom.’”

Not only did Marine Pvt. Raymond Escalera survive a live grenade in his neck, but about 12 years ago Steinhauer tracked him down and visited him at his home in Pico Rivera, California. “We call four or five times a year now,” Steinhauer says.

Building relationships

Steinhauer and his colleagues also treated Vietnamese civilians. “One of the most fun parts of my year there was being able to perform 60 or 70 cleft lip surgeries,” Steinhauer tells the students, showing before and after photos.

Peter Steinhauer (left) and medical colleagues in Vietnam, with whom he worked during many of his 26 visits to Vietnam since the end of the war.

He then shows them a photo of the so-called “McNamara Line” between North and South Vietnam—a defoliated slash of brown and gray that looks like a wound that will never heal.

Healing, however, has happened, and continues to. “I was blessed by the ability to go back to a place where so many horrible things happened during the war and make something beautiful of it,” Steinhauer says.

In the years since he returned from war—and met his almost-one-year-old son for the first time—Steinhauer has gone back to Vietnam more than two dozen times. Acknowledging that his experience is not all veterans’ experience, he says he has been blessed to learn about Vietnam as a country and not just a war.

“How veterans dealt with the war, how they’re still coming to terms with it as we’re getting further away from it, are really important issues,” says Mark Gould, director and a producer of Welcome Home Daddy. “It’s not just a war that we quote-unquote lost, but it was the most confusing war the United States has ever fought. We never had closure, but that didn’t stop Dr. Steinhauer from reaching out. Our tagline is ‘Governments wage war, people make peace,’ and that’s what he stands for.”

The idea for the documentary originated with Steinhauer’s daughter, Terrianne, who grew up not only hearing his stories but visiting the country with him and her mom. She and Gould served in the CalArts alumni association together, and several years ago she pitched him the idea for Welcome Home Daddy, which they are making in partnership with producer Rick Hocutt.

Peter Steinhauer with his children upon his return home after serving in the Vietnam War; the "Welcome home daddy" message inspired the title of the documentary currently being made about Steinhauer's experiences during and after the war.

The documentary will weave Steinhauer’s stories with those of other veterans and highlight the relationships that Steinhauer has built over decades—through partnering with medical professionals in Vietnam and volunteering his services there, through supporting Vietnamese students who study in the United States, through facilitating education and in-person visits between U.S. and Vietnamese doctors and nurses. At the same time, Juli Steinhauer has grown relationships with musicians and other artists in Vietnam. Both parents passed a love for Vietnam to their children.

An ugly war, a beautiful country

The stories of Vietnam could fill volumes. In fact, Steinhauer attended a 10-week course called Tell Your Story: A Writing Workshop for Those Who Have Served in the Military in 2008—offered through the Program for Writing and Rhetoric and the Division of Continuing Education—and wrote Remembering Vietnam 1966-67, a collection of his memories and photographs of the war that he published privately and gives to family, friends and colleagues.

�� 10 years ago, Steinhauer asked to audit The Vietnam Wars—“wars” is plural because “we can’t understand the American war without understanding the French war,” Dike explains—in what was only the second time Dike had taught it.

“So, I was a little nervous,” Dike remembers with a laugh, “but he comes in and is just the nicest guy in the world. I asked if he’d be interested in sharing his experiences, and he’s given his presentation during the semester every class since.”

In the Oct. 18 class, Steinhauer shares stories of bamboo vipers in the dental clinic, of perforating vs. penetrating wounds, of meeting baseball legends Brooks Robinson and Stan Musial when they visited the troops, of a since-faded Vietnamese tradition of women dyeing their teeth black as a symbol of beauty.

“It was an ugly war, but it’s a beautiful country,” Steinhauer says. “Just a beautiful country.”

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CU Boulder alum and regent emeritus Peter Steinhauer shares Vietnam experiences with students, to be featured in the in-progress documentary Welcome Home Daddy.

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Flying with the man behind the capes

Anonymous — Wed, 18 Sep 2024 18:44:03 +0000

Flying with the man behind the capes Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 09/18/2024 - 12:44

Doug McPherson

CU Boulder alumnus Patrick Hamilton discusses his new book on influential comic book artist George Pérez during Hispanic Heritage Month

When alumnus Patrick Hamilton was growing up, he, like many kids, found comfort in comic books. “I’m an almost lifelong comics fan, and specifically a fan of ‘Avengers’,” Hamilton says.

As Hamilton continued enjoying comics and learning more about the people behind them, he eventually came across the name George Pérez. It’s a name you may not immediately recognize, and that’s a key point Hamilton makes in his new book, George Pérez, which hit shelves earlier this year.

“The main argument of the book [is] that Pérez had a larger impact on comics than he’s generally been given credit for,” says Hamilton, an English professor at Misericordia University in Pennsylvania who earned his PhD in English at the �� in 2006.

CU Boulder alumnus Patrick Hamilton (PhDEngl'06), a lifelong comics fan, highlighted the groundbreaking work of Marvel Comics and DC Comics artist George Pérez in an eponymous new biography.

But in the comic book world, the name George Pérez and his work turn heads—not just for his impact on the art, style and story structure of comics, but because he was one of the first Hispanic artists to become a major name in the industry and helped pave the way for greater diversity in the field.

Pérez, who worked both as an artist and writer starting in the 1970s, played a significant role in blockbuster series such as Fantastic Four and The Avengers for Marvel Comics. In the 1980s, he created The New Teen Titans, which became a top-selling series for publisher DC Comics. And he developed DC Comic's landmark limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths, followed by relaunching Wonder Woman.

Hamilton says Pérez is also “pretty synonymous” with large event titles, most prominently DC Comic’s Superman revamp in 2011 and Marvel’s Infinity Gauntlet.

“And he developed a reputation for a dynamic and hyper-detailed style, particularly in terms of the number of characters and details he’d put into a page, that was highly regarded and ultimately influential in the … 1970s and 1980s and beyond.”

Hamilton says he sees his book as attempting to expand Pérez’s legacy.

“Despite his acclaim and prominence, he hasn’t really been seen as an artist that contributed to the style and genre of comics in ways artists before him … are seen,” he says. “I argue in the book that Pérez made contributions to the style of comics, not only in the layout of the page and what effects that could achieve, but especially in his way of building what we would call the story world around the characters, where he embraced the possibilities for the fantastic within comics.”

Paving the way

The book also speaks to Pérez’s interest in representations of race, disability and gender, the latter of which Hamilton says Pérez consciously strove to improve in his art over his career.

Artist George Pérez was reknown for his work with both DC Comics and Marvel Comics. (Photos: DC Comics, left, and Marvel Comics, right)

Hamilton adds that he believes a lot of other Black, Indigenous and artists of color working today likely see Pérez as “an influence and as carving out a space” for them within the industry.

“I think you can look at the significant number of Hispanic and Latinx creators working in comics today—many of them as artists—and see them as following, in some cases quite consciously, in Pérez’s footsteps.”

He adds that Pérez did much to help define the look and feel of modern superhero comics in the 1970s and 1980s, as did another Latino artist, José Luis García-López.

“Garcia-Lopez, who, among other things, created the official reference artwork for DC Comics that is still much in use today. So, you have two Latino creators working in the late 20th century, when the comic book industry was even more predominantly white than it is today, and shaping the look of it.”

Hamilton says one of the more interesting findings about Pérez that meshes with how Pérez has been overlooked is a kind of “invisibility or transparency” in his art.

“It [his art] is never meant to overshadow and … is always in service to the story or narrative. What surprised me is how much this was a conscious choice on Pérez’s part, that he never wanted his art to draw attention to itself in a way that was detrimental to the overall storytelling. It’s kind of ironic, and … surprising, because Pérez does have one of the most recognizable styles in comics, but his goal as an artist was always to do what’s best for the realization of the story first.”

Perez died in 2022 at age 67. You can see examples of his Marvel Comics art here and his DC Comics art here.

Top image: A group scene of DC Comics characters drawn by George Pérez (Photo: DC Comics)

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CU Boulder alumnus Patrick Hamilton discusses his new book on influential comic book artist George Pérez during Hispanic Heritage Month.

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Professor Mary Rippon led a secret, separate life

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 21:31:39 +0000

Professor Mary Rippon led a secret, separate life Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 09/17/2024 - 15:31

Silvia Pettem

In book, CU Boulder alumnus Silvia Pettem details a little-known chapter of the trailblazing faculty member's story

As a student at the University of Colorado, I often passed through the Mary Rippon Outdoor Theater on the way to my classes. I had assumed Rippon was a woman associated with the theater department, but that was not so. I later learned that she had arrived in Boulder in 1878 and became the university's first female professor. After her death in 1935, then-President George Norlin named the theater (then under construction) in her memory.

Publicly, "Miss Rippon" was highly respected by students and faculty. However, unknown to Norlin and the others, she had a secret private life that would have been considered scandalous, had she not hidden her husband and daughter behind a Victorian veil of secrecy.

The long-concealed truth was revealed in 1986 when an elderly man donated Rippon's diaries, account books, and journals to the university's archives. He was Rippon's grandson and revealed that she had had a romantic relationship with one of her students, became pregnant in 1888, secretly married, and took a year's sabbatical in Germany to give birth.

CU Boulder alumnus and historian Silvia Pettem (left) wrote Separate Lives about a little-known chapter in the life of influential CU Boulder Professor Mary Rippon, namesake of the campus theater.

At the time, there was no rule concerning teacher-student relationships, as it never occurred to anyone to implement one. Rippon was 37, and her husband, Will Housel, was 25. When the baby, Miriam, was born, Housel was still at CU in his senior year.

After graduation, Housel joined his wife and daughter in Europe before Rippon returned to Boulder and continued to teach as if nothing in her life had changed. Housel and Miriam remained in Europe, where he attended graduate school. Initially, Miriam was placed in a series of orphanages. At the age of 4, she was taken to Rippon's extended family in Illinois.

At the time, Victorian-era society expected women with children to be supported by their husbands. If a professional woman married, she would have been accused of taking a job away from a man with a family to support. Rippon had to completely separate her public and private lives in order to keep her job. She continued to teach for 20 more years.

As a revered pioneer woman educator, Rippon appears to have valued career over family, but she may have, instead, realized that she needed to work to financially provide for her daughter's care.

Eventually, Rippon and Housel divorced. Housel remarried when Miriam was 8 years old and provided his daughter a home, but he lacked an adequate income. On a salary less than her male colleagues, Rippon continued to support her daughter, as well as her divorced husband, his second wife, and, eventually, their four children!

Meanwhile, Rippon was a role model for her female students, a full professor, and even chair of the Department of German language and literature. Except for confiding in two close friends, she took her secret to her grave in Boulder's Columbia Cemetery.

For decades, the only tangible evidence on the CU campus of Rippon's secret life was ivy that Housel had planted outside of Old Main, where Rippon held her classes. His sentiment was obvious in a poem he penned his senior year that read in part, "But the ivy is for friendship and it seemeth best of all; 'tis the rose of love and petals that will never fade or fall."

Silvia Pettem’s In Retrospect column appears once a month in the Daily Camera, where this first appeared. She can be reached at silviapettem@gmail.com. She will be signing copies of Separate Lives: Uncovering the Hidden Family of Victorian Professor Mary Rippon (Lyons Press, 2024) at the Boulder Bookstore on Oct. 22.

In book, CU Boulder alumnus Silvia Pettem details a little-known chapter of the trailblazing faculty member's story.

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Bringing multitudes to life

Anonymous — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 17:52:48 +0000

Bringing multitudes to life Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 08/28/2024 - 11:52

From Oprah to Wakanda, CU Boulder alum Aba Arthur has charted a career in which the most impressive thing isn’t necessarily the glow of Hollywood, but the joy of finding her voice in a new world that hasn’t been universally welcoming

Listen to The Ampersand

From a fairly young age, Aba Arthur watched movies and TV with a critical eye. If something happened in a show that she didn’t agree with, well, she just marched right upstairs and rewrote the scene.

That early confidence in her storytelling, in her writing, in her ability to breathe life into a character who previously only existed on a page in her journal has supported her through a career whose highlights include major Hollywood films, books and one-woman shows.

Arthur, who currently plays the character Samara in the show Bad Monkey on Hulu, also appeared in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and the 2023 film adaptation of The Color Purple musical.

Despite her success—the kind that justifies a certain confidence—she still sometimes finds herself in her car, staring out the window and breathing deep. It’s when she reminds herself “who I am, where I’m going. My words are valuable. I have something to say that matters, and I’m going to kill it.”

Arthur, a 2005 �� graduate in theater and dance, recently joined host Erika Randall, associate dean for student success in the College of Arts and Sciences, on The Ampersand, the college podcast. Randall—who also is a dancer, professor, mother, filmmaker and writer—joins guests in exploring stories about “ANDing” as a “full sensory verb” that describes experience and possibility.

Their discussion roamed from the red carpet to the couch with a bag of Cheeto Puffs, with stops in between for mentorship, nostalgia, the joy of making art and what it was like stepping off the flight from Ghana to Colorado.

Aba Arthur (right) on the set of The Color Purple with Oprah Winfrey (left). (Photo: Aba Arthur)

Arthur: I have such a vivid memory of getting off the plane. I'm coming from Ghana and I'm coming to Colorado Springs, Colorado. So, I had only seen on TV or in pictures these guys, and they wear jeans, and they have these big hats. But I didn't know anything about them, so they felt like fictional characters. And I remember so well getting off the plane at the airport and I saw these guys, which I later learned the term was "cowboy."

Randall: In their Wranglers.

Arthur: Yeah:

Randall: In the hats.

Arthur: And the boots. And I remember getting off the plane and just being like, something just happened. Because these people are not where I just came from, and now there are a lot of them. And I've been watching them. So, this is so cool. I've stepped into something new. I think that is the first big memory that I have, period.

Randall: Changed your life. That's incredible. You arrive in the Springs, all the things happen. Next moment, where's the next postcard to yourself that says, ah, Aba, here we go?

Erika Randall (left) and Aba Arthur (right) discussing Hollywood and mentorship and the joy of making art. (Photo: Timothy Grassley)

Arthur: Oof. Oof. It’s a tough one. My first experience with racism. A young boy in my school told me that my skin was dirty. Yeah. I went back to class, and I was crying. My teacher asked me what happened, and I told her, and then she disciplined me. I had to sit in the corner, and I had to face the wall, because she said I was being a distraction. My crying was distracting the class. Yes, this is a true story.

So, I had to sit in a corner of the room and face the wall. And I remember so vividly at some point they were just continuing with class. And I was like, what? I don’t know how old I am. Let’s pick an age.

Randall: Say, 8 or 9?

Arthur: I don’t know, 8? (Laughs)

Randall: All on the Wikipedia page I’m building for you. Age 8.

Arthur: This is still elementary school, though—too young.

Randall: Too young to hear that, to feel that, to be put in a corner.

Arthur: And I’m listening to the class continue. She’s teaching, and I’m in the corner of the room. And so, at some point I turned around and I’m watching them, and they’re just having class. Everybody’s just continuing on like everything is normal. And that was a strong memory.

Randall: Is that memory as yet in a film? Because I’m watching that movie.

Arthur: It’s just going to take a second. Probably. That’s a tough one for me. It’s going to take me a second to work through that. Because I have to watch that scene, if they’re going to do it.

Randall: And hearing that story, sharing that story, is a critical action of undoing racism. And the work that you choose, you are writing critical stories about undoing racism. You are ANDing with political science the way that you’re in theater and political science. But your body politic is your body showing up as representation. Does that feel true for you?

Arthur: Yes, I love ampersands. And multihyphenate is a term that it took me a while to sink into. So, for me, it was always “&.” This & this & this. And I’m equally all of them.

Randall: And with that is engaging those identities to then bring forth new character into worlds. I’m listening to you and I’m watching your reel, and I don’t think you need confidence. Do you need confidence?

Arthur: No.

Randall: No.

Aba Arthur on the set of Black Panther: Wakanda Forever. (Photos: Aba Arthur)

Arthur: I have a lot of it. (laughs)

Randall: Where did this come from, and can we bottle it?

Arthur: I wish. It comes from so many things. It comes from being the fourth-born child of a very high-achieving family. It comes from being the new kid a lot. You have to know who you are when you’re the new kid.

Randall: And in Hollywood, you’re the new kid in every room for a minute.

Arthur: Yes.

Randall: Are you not the new kid yet?

Arthur: I’m always the new kid, yeah. I’m the new kid a lot. And so, I didn’t realize at the time—another one of those life-changing things you don’t understand—as we were moving, I didn’t realize the effect that would have on my life in the future. The positive effect it would have on my life in the future. Because when you’re a kid, it’s hard. That stuff is difficult. And I didn’t want to be the new kid and I didn’t want to have to find that confidence. But I always felt like if I come in the room and I am as wonderful and as great as I am, the people that are supposed to be in my life will come to me.

Randall: You are a galaxy. Yeah.

Arthur: I really appreciate that. And I’m going to walk with that, because I feel like you have to protect your own peace and your own space. And coming into new environments over and over and over again, if you don’t know who you are, then you’ll get lost. And you’ll go with the trends and you’ll do what other people say, because it feels better to be a part than to be an outsider.

Randall: So be the new kid.

Arthur: I excel at being the new kid now. I excel because I’m coming in as who I am. So, rock with me or not.

Randall: That’s right. That’s right. Were you a journaler?

I excel at being the new kid now. I excel because I’m coming in as who I am. So, rock with me or not.”

Arthur: Uh-huh. Oh, my gosh.

Randall: Are you going to burn those or publish them?

Arthur: I have them all, yeah. You know why I have them?

Randall: I want to know.

Arthur: So, I would watch television and the audacity of myself as a child. I think about it now, I’m like, wow!

Randall: I love it.

Arthur: I would watch television, and I would be like, hmm, I don’t like the way that ended. And then I would go upstairs and I would rewrite it.

Randall: You would actually script it?

Arthur: Yes, I would rewrite it. I would write it like, hmm, “So, Chad walked in, and he saw Sarah, and then he walked over and kissed her.” But in the show, maybe he didn’t walk over and kiss her first. Maybe they just talked for a while. So, I just would rewrite it the way I wanted to see it. And I would do that a lot. I would write myself into the shows.

Click the button below to hear the entire episode.

Listen to The Ampersand

Top image: Photos courtesy Aba Arthur

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Remembering CU’s brave one from the Red Scare

Anonymous — Mon, 08 Jul 2024 20:16:09 +0000

Remembering CU’s brave one from the Red Scare Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 07/08/2024 - 14:16

Bradley Worrell

Caught up in anti-communist hysteria following World War II, former CU Boulder student Dalton Trumbo today is recognized as a fierce proponent of free speech, with a fountain outside the University Memorial Center named in his honor

This summer marks the 75th anniversary of a secret FBI file becoming public—one that named well-known Hollywood figures, including screenwriter and former �� student Dalton Trumbo (A&S ex’28), as members of the Communist Party.

Although Trumbo and several of his Hollywood colleagues had been accused of being communists and forced to testify before Congress’ House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) two years prior, the existence of the FBI file had been secret until its release during the espionage trial of Judith Coplon, an analyst with the U.S. Department of Justice. The file, based on information from confidential informants, named not only Hollywood writers, directors and actors, but also academics from universities across the United States. Its release set off a period of paranoia known as the second Red Scare.

The 1949 release of the formerly secret FBI report represented a continuation of a long-term investigation by the HUAC, which was first formed in 1938 to investigate individuals for subversive activities, particularly those related to the Communist Party. Widely publicized congressional hearings beginning in 1947 and focusing on the film industry ensnared several screenwriters and directors, the so-called Hollywood 10, which included Trumbo.

Bronson Hilliard, senior director, academic communications, for the Office of Strategic Relations and Communications at CU Boulder, wrote an editorial encouraging the CU regents to rename of the UMC fountain in honor of Dalton Trumbo.

Once Hollywood’s premier screenwriter, the author of such classics as “A Man to Remember,” “30 Seconds Over Tokyo” and “The Brave One,” Trumbo was forced into the shadows after being blacklisted. He continued to write scripts under pen names for years before escaping the blacklist in the early 1960s, finally able to take credit for such famous screenplays as “Exodus” and “Spartacus.”

Seeking to recognize Trumbo for his fierce defense of the First Amendment, as well as his talents as a lauded screenwriter, a group of CU students including Lewis Cardinal and Kristina Baumli petitioned the CU Board of Regents in 1993 to name the fountain in front of the UMC in honor of Trumbo.

As the entertainment editor of the Colorado Daily at the time, Bronson Hilliard wrote an editorial encouraging the regents to rename of the fountain. Hilliard, who has a 40-year association with the university, first as a student and then working in various editorial and communications roles with the university, now serves as the senior director, academic communications, for the Office of Strategic Relations and Communications at CU Boulder.

In a recent interview with Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine, Hilliard reflected on his admiration for Trumbo, his desire to see the CU regents recognize Trumbo, his recollections of meeting actor Kirk Douglas and notable entertainment figures who attended the fountain dedication ceremony, and his thoughts on why Trumbo’s legacy remains important today. His responses were lightly edited and condensed for space.

Question: Do you think it’s fair to call Trumbo the most prominent former CU student to find big success in Hollywood?

Hilliard: It would have to be Trumbo and Robert Redford together. Trumbo was certainly the first. All through the 1940s, it’s safe to say Trumbo was not only the best screenwriter in Hollywood, but he was the highest paid and he was one of the most prolific. He was the kind of guy who could write a screenplay in a very short amount of time, which made him in high demand. He was also a great re-writer of screen scripts. He was a feisty guy, but he was a brilliant writer.

Question: In 1947, Trumbo and other members of the Hollywood 10 got called before Congress for hearings on the supposed communist infiltration of Hollywood. Others in the entertainment industry cooperated with Congress; why do you think Trumbo and his compatriots refused to do so, even when faced with going to prison?

Hilliard: Some named names, and some didn’t. Trumbo wouldn’t have it. Trumbo, his value was, he’s not going to turn his back on his friends. He was loyal to his friends. I don’t think he was loyal to the Communist Party, although he was a member at one point. But Trumbo was not going to turn his back on his friends, so he basically told the committee they could stick it. …

The fountain court outside the CU Boulder University Memorial Center was renamed in honor of Dalton Trumbo in 1993. (Photo: Glenn Asakawa/CU Boulder)

Trumbo and the other Hollywood 10 had a code of honor with each other. They had a certain set of values they believed in as writers and as creative people. That’s what I admired him for, even though I didn’t agree with them (the Hollywood 10) about everything.

One of my other heroes is (actor and director) John Huston. He formed a group called the Committee in Support of the First Amendment. In his biography, Huston talked about the fact he didn’t agree with or like all of these guys—he thought some of them were very doctrinaire—but he thought they had a right to believe what they wanted to under the First Amendment without going to prison. He believed they had the right to believe whatever they believed, even though some of them were a pain in the ass.

Question: While Congress grilled the Hollywood 10 about their supposed communist sympathies, it was actually the Hollywood studio heads who had them blacklisted, correct?

Hilliard: Yes, and there’s an interesting story there. Most of the major film studio executives in the 1940s were Jewish, and they had to go the extra mile to show that they were true Americans, because of antisemitism and anti-immigration sentiments, which were alive and well then as now.

Some of the Hollywood studio heads held out for as long as they could to try to persuade Congress to back down a little bit. And then finally it was, ‘OK, let us handle this.’ And they handled it by creating the blacklist. …

This debate is an essential American debate, and it rises up at different times. And the rise of digital media culture has resurrected a whole new set of discussions about what are the limits of free speech. What are the limits of free expression? When does expression become conduct or does expression become conduct?

The blacklist raised the question for the first time on a large scale in American history.

Question: How did Trumbo overcome being blacklisted?

Hilliard: Kirk Douglas always said he broke the blacklist by crediting “Spartacus” to Trumbo. I actually think that’s not true; I think (director) Otto Preminger did it first with “Exodus.”

But a lot of Hollywood careers never recovered. And that’s also true of academics. A lot of academics were purged at that same time and were not able to return to academia. It was tragic. And none of these people represented a threat to the United States.

Blacklist history

Former CU Boulder Department of Physics faculty member Frank Oppenheimer was called before the HUAC in 1949 and eventually forced to resign his position at the University of Minnesota. Learn more about how CU Boulder supported him in joining the physics faculty.

Trumbo was luckier than others. He took his family to Mexico and worked there, and he ghost wrote low-budget films and was able to eke out a living during the blacklist.

Question: When the CU regents officially dedicated the fountain to Trumbo in 1993, you were there?

Hilliard: I was. On the day of the event, I met Kirk Douglas in the basement of the UMC over by the bowling alley. He was coming out of the bathroom, and some people were escorting him. I had been off doing some little task, and I literally just sort of bumped into him in the UMC.

I was introduced to him by one of the organizers of the event, and he actually called me by my first name—someone had apparently mentioned me to him. He said, ‘Bronson, it’s such a pleasure to meet you.’ He looked me right in the eye and he said, ‘Thank you so much for your efforts in advocating for this.’

Dalton Trumbo was renowned for writing in the bathtub. (Photo: Mitzi Trumbo)

And he said something very funny about Trumbo. A reporter asked him what Trumbo would think about all this. And he said, ‘Well, Trumbo would completely love this. He would be holding court with reporters, and he would immediately refer to it as ‘my fountain.’ …

And incidentally, Dalton Trumbo’s widow, Cleo, was there, and his son, Christopher, and one of his daughters. So was Ring Lardner Jr., who wrote the screenplay for “M.A.S.H.” the movie and also was blacklisted, and Jean Rouverol Butler, who was a screenwriter and who was married to (screenwriter) Hugo Butler—the couple were close friends and associates with members of the Hollywood 10.

But it was a magical day. Everybody got up and made speeches about Trumbo, about the importance of free speech, about the need to be vigilant about free speech and about the role Trumbo had played, along with the Hollywood 10, in defying congressional inquisitors.

I was greatly moved by the whole thing.

Question: Hollywood recognized Trumbo in 2015 with the film “Trumbo,” which examined his life and the sacrifices he made for his beliefs. What did you think of the film?

Hilliard: I loved it. I thought (actor) Bryan Cranston did a great job, based upon the two biographies of Trumbo that I’ve read. Cranston really captured both the idealism of Trumbo and the idea of Trumbo as a businessman. He was a wheeler dealer. He knew the Hollywood system and how to make money. The film captured the way he was hustling to write screenplays for the low-budget film company (after he was blacklisted).

Trumbo was this great coming together of the practical and the ideal. He knew the ins and outs of the business of Hollywood … but he also had a tremendous set of principles and ideals that undergirded it all. It was great to see those two qualities embodied in a single person.

Dalton Trumbo, seen here in his mugshot, served 10 months in the federal correctional institution in Ashland, Kentucky, in 1950; he was convicted of contempt of Congress. (Photo: Federal Bureau of Prisons)

Trumbo is truly one of my heroes. In fact, in my office, I have a picture of him on my bookshelf, so he’s with me every day.

What are your thoughts on how Trumbo is viewed today, in retrospect?

Hilliard: He’s a reminder that it takes a really tough and resilient person to carry forward your beliefs to the point of profound personal disadvantage. … I think today we have a lot of people who are keyboard warriors, and they want to get on social media and get outraged, but they don’t put any personal principles on the line to do that.

Trumbo was willing to go to jail and to endure not only personal sacrifice for himself, but his entire family. That was an ordeal for the Trumbo family to support him while he was in jail and to make ends meet. And then he had to rebuild his career.

But that’s what’s to love about the people who are willing to put their lives and their careers on the line for what they believe in and who are not willing to sell out their friends. Those are people worth admiring.

And the sad thing is, I don’t think people think about Dalton Trumbo today. I think they should. I think every activist, of any persuasion, ought to know the life of Dalton Trumbo.

And I think we could all, as Americans, use a dose of the fortitude that Trumbo had, and the combining of the practical and the ideal the way he did to me is just amazing. We could use more of that practical mindedness. Trumbo accepted the consequences of his politics and his idealism—and he set about trying to have a great life anyway. And he did it. That’s more than admirable.

Top image: Dalton Trumbo speaks before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in Washington, D.C. Oct. 28, 1947. (Photo: Bettmann Archive/Getty Images)

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