News

Toast of the town

The Colorado Restaurant Association in October recognized Chef Jackson Lamb with its Lifetime Achievement Award. The beloved professor in Metropolitan State University of Denver’s School of Hospitality joins the ranks of luminaries in the association’s Colorado Foodservice Hall of Fame.

In his nearly 20 years at MSU Denver, Lamb has taught future hospitality professionals with passion and enthusiasm. Colleagues and students describe him as a consummate educator, lauding his commitment to service-based learning and hunger-related issues.

NEWS

Colorado Latinos hit hard by Covid-19

COVID-19

The Covid-19 pandemic has had a widespread and devastating impact on Colorado Latinos, according to a new statewide survey that highlights significant economic hardships that Colorado’s Hispanic population has suffered.

The study polled 1,000 Latino adults on a wide range of topics, including issue priorities, policy preferences and political values. But the survey’s findings on Covid-19 impacts are particularly alarming, said Rob Preuhs, Ph.D., chair of the Political Science Department at Metropolitan State University of Denver, which co-sponsored the project.

Colorado Latinos were hard-hit by the economic recession caused by the pandemic, according to the survey, which was also co-sponsored by the Colorado Organization for Latina Opportunity and Reproductive Rights (COLOR), the Colorado Democratic Latino Caucus, Voces Unidas de las Montañas and Protégete of Conservation Colorado.

“Covid and the pandemic manifested in a range of hardships, including not having enough food; difficulty paying bills, rents or mortgages; losing a job or having work hours reduced,” Preuhs said. “There was a wide impact on the Latino community, and those impacts, while varying to some extent, were fairly consistent.”

Survey results showed that 33% of Colorado Latinos have not had enough food to eat while 56% have had difficulty paying their bills or utilities. Half of Colorado Latinos have had difficulty paying their rent or mortgage, the survey found, and 60% have had their work hours or pay cut or had someone in their household lose their job.

And many Latino households remain vulnerable to future financial challenges. Forty-two percent of Colorado’s Hispanic population has $1,000 or less for financial emergencies, and 20% has just $100 or less, according to the survey. Only 37% of those polled are “very confident” that they can pay for basic living expenses such as food, housing and utilities.

The survey results will help inform the state’s newly formed Economic Recovery and Relief Task Force, which is charged with developing recommendations for how the state should distribute its share of American Rescue Plan Act funds, projected to be $700 million.

Alex Sánchez, executive director of Voces Unidas de las Montañas, a Latino-led advocacy nonprofit in the central mountain region of Colorado, said the Covid-19 data from the survey reflects what the organization is seeing and hearing from Latinos. He said the survey will help identify barriers that Latinos face and will also help identify solutions that are communityinformed.

“Latinos know what they need and want,” Sánchez said. “As an organization, we believe that policy should be shaped and informed by those who are being impacted by inequities.”

During the coronavirus pandemic, Latino families in Colorado experienced the following:

60%

Nearly two-thirds lost a job or had their work hours cut or reduced.

50% 46% 33%

Half of Latinos had difficulty paying their rent or mortgage. Nearly half had a family member or a friend who died due to Covid-19. One out of every three Latinos did not have enough food to eat.

Finding a ‘Pathway to Possible’

INNOVATIVE PROGRAMS

Despite Luis Angel Hernandez’s good grades and strong desire for more education, college appeared to be out of reach in May for the 2021 graduate of the Denver Center for International Studies at Montbello in Denver.

“I really wanted to go to college, but as I looked at the tuition for different schools, it didn’t look like I could afford it,” he said. “I definitely fell into the low-income category.”

That outlook brightened when Hernandez learned of Pathways to Possible (P2P), a program at Metropolitan State University of Denver that creates a path to and through college for students from rural and underserved communities.

With financial support, counseling and other P2P support services, Hernandez enrolled in an introductory General Studies course and an MSU Denver orientation class in July. A month later, the recent high school grad became a full-fledged member of the University’s freshman class.

“The program gave me the exact kind of help I needed,” said Hernandez, who is among the first generation in his family to attend college.

Pathways to Possible is funded by Colorado’s Response, Innovation and Student Equity Fund, a state initiative that allotted millions of federal CARES Act dollars to address K-12 and higher education equity issues caused and exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.

MSU Denver received $2.38 million, “Everybody which provides P2P students with a $1,000 annual stipend, leadership development, has to eat.” campus employment, career counseling and other support.

“We’re seeing an immediate impact for the students,” said P2P Director Eric Silva. “We’re helping them enter college and start off on the right foot.”

CLARAN c ALYSON M

After admission, the program keeps students connected with the University and helps them progress toward their degrees. P2P also offers employment support by building bridges to companies and organizations that can help participants find jobs and thrive in their careers.

“We know that for many underserved students, it isn’t just the path through college that matters, but also the path into their professional careers,” Silva said.

“I really wanted to go to college, but as I looked at the tuition for different schools, it didn’t look like I could afford it.”

— LUIS ANGEL HERNANDEZ

NEWS

Testing the science in sci-fi

When Vincent Piturro, Ph.D., first launched the summertime Science Fiction Film Series in Denver, his idea was ingeniously simple: Team up with local experts to explore the intersection where scientific fact meets cinematic fiction.

Now, the English and Film professor at Metropolitan State University of Denver has turned more than a decade’s worth of the popular events into a unique book: “The Science of Sci-Fi Cinema.” Each chapter features an artistic and a scientific analysis of a particular movie.

“We decided to make a permanent record of our favorite collaborations,” Piturro said. “Putting the book together was a challenge — herding scientists can be like herding cats — but great fun, and we’re all pleased with the result.”

Piturro said it’s enlightening to see how films stack up against real-world science. Spoiler: not too well.

“Once you start looking at them through a scientific lens, guided by reallife scientists, it’s surprising how badly off the mark most movies are,” he said.

But he emphasized that the science in films doesn’t need to be accurate. “Film is first and foremost an entertainment medium,” he said. “So your movie absolutely should be engaging, well-structured and wellexecuted, but it doesn’t need to be accurate.” Among the most scientifically precise films in the collection, he noted, is one of the oldest: “2001: A Space Odyssey.” “It’s always fascinating to hear scientists talk about this movie,” he said. “So many of director Stanley Kubrick’s details — concerning space travel and survival, and right down to the instructions for the zero-gravity bathroom — were spot-on.” Piturro said he is most drawn to “near-sci-fi” movies — those set in

“So many of director the not-too-distant future — because you can recognize yourself in those situations. Stanley Kubrick’s details — “Near-sci-fi movies that address ecological themes are often so powerful concerning space travel and because the distance between their survival — were spot-on.” fictional worlds and what we see on the news is constantly shrinking,” he said.

— VINCENT PITURRO, Ph.D.

Stanley Kubrick’s masterwork “2001: A Space Odyssey” is among the most scientifically accurate films examined in Piturro’s book.

U.S. AIR FORCE PHOTO

CONVERSATION

Crisis in Afghanistan

An expert panel gathered Sept. 14 at Metropolitan State University of Denver to discuss the grim situation in Afghanistan since the U.S. military withdrawal and subsequent seizure of power by the Taliban militant group in August.

Panelists at the “Crisis in Afghanistan” town hall detailed the situation on the ground in the country, shared potential resources for those still trying to flee and gave suggestions for how Coloradans can assist with relief efforts.

Metra Mehran, an Afghan refugee and activist, said Afghanistan feels “like a graveyard.” Mehran decried the fact that where women and men previously mingled at schools, universities and workplaces, the Taliban have barred women from working.

The activist added that schools have been destroyed and some residents have been instructed to leave their homes. Taliban militants have also carried out targeted killings. Mehran was joined by panelists Richard Mac Namee, director of the Cybersecurity Center at “Treat them MSU Denver; Nike Pulda, an activist volunteer who has helped support evacuation and resettlement of as your Afghans; and Atim Otii, director of the Denver Office of Immigrant and Refugee Affairs. friends.”

Mac Namee, a former British Army officer who — NIKE PULDA, REFUGEE served as a Special Operations commander in ADVOCATE Afghanistan from 2009 to 2011, is assisting nonprofit No One Left Behind in evacuation efforts. At MSU Denver’s Cybersecurity Center, he and his colleagues are collecting information about at-risk groups in Afghanistan, such as activists and journalists who are still stranded.

“I’d like to think one day we could just hand this (data) over to the government and say, ‘Look, this is the problem; we’ve done our piece, now go and fix it,’” he said.

Pulda, a refugee advocate from Austria, said one way that Americans can make refugees feel welcome is to talk to them as normal people.

“Treat them as your friends,” she said. The U.S. Senate on Aug. 11 unanimously confirmed Lieutenant General Laura Richardson (pictured) to lead the U.S. Southern Command, making the alumna of Metropolitan State University of Denver the second Army woman to achieve the rank of four-star general.

General Ann Dunwoody first achieved the rank in 2008 and retired in 2012.

Richardson also became the second female four-star general in charge of a combatant command and the first woman to lead the Floridabased post responsible for U.S. military operations in Central America, South America and parts of the Caribbean.

“We draw upon the strength in the Western Hemisphere from partner nations who share our values of freedom, democracy, respect for human rights and the rule of law,” Richardson testified at her nomination hearing Aug. 3 before the Senate Armed Forces Committee. “We cannot, however, take these relationships for granted or let our guard down as our competitors vie for influence.”

Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III announced March 6 that President Joe Biden had nominated Richardson for the promotion. A 1986 graduate of MSU Denver’s Psychology program, Richardson took a path to the Army that went through the Auraria Campus and the ROTC.

“If you don’t know where you’re going, it will be hard to get there,” Richardson told an audience gathered in March 2019 for the 50th anniversary of the city of Northglenn, her hometown.

On International Women’s Day, March 8, Biden recognized Richardson’s distinguished Army career and “barrier-breaking accomplishments” in a White House ceremony that also included Air Force General Jacqueline Van Ovost, whom the president nominated to lead the U.S. Transportation Command, another unified combatant command.

He described both women as “outstanding and eminently qualified warriors and patriots” when nominating each of them to four-star commands.