The Joe Blake Center for Engaged Humanities at Colorado State University has named four faculty members as Faculty Fellows for 2026-2027: Maura Velazquez Castillo, Johnny Plastini, Nabile Galván Garcia, and Sarah Cooper.
Tara Opsal, a professor and current chair of the Department of Sociology in the College of Liberal Arts, has been named the William E. Morgan Endowed Chair in the College. A nationally respected public sociologist, Opsal advances community-engaged reform in the criminal legal system, examining how it produces harm and inequality and developing pathways for change. She is also the director of the Criminal Justice and Victimization Institute at Colorado State University. As Morgan Chair, Opsal will use dedicated time and resources to expand CJVI as a hub for community-engaged, interdisciplinary justice research across Colorado.
Xinran Yuan is the new senior director of visual arts programming and engagement and managing director of the Gregory Allicar Museum of Art.
CSU Cello Professor, Meredith Blecha-Wells, releases Beyond Words: A Collection of Art Songs for Cello and Piano on Navona Records.
John Pippen, an associate professor of music in the College of Liberal Arts’ School of Music, Theatre, and Dance, has been selected to spend a month at the National Humanities Center this summer.
Beginning in January 2027, CSU students can quaff Belgium’s brewing culture in a new Anthropology class that takes students across Belgium for two weeks as part of an education abroad course experience.
Colorado State University Theatre students and faculty were widely recognized at the annual American College Theatre Festival regional competition in Pasco, Washington.
Ed Barbier, a University Distinguished Professor of economics at Colorado State University, has been honored with the 2026 Planet Earth Award hosted by the Alliance of World Scientists. He is the first economist to win the award.
Abigail Rolbiecki has been named the director of the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences at Colorado State University. An internationally recognized expert in meaning-centered narrative interventions and trauma-informed therapeutic processing, Rolbiecki has overseen more than $8M in funded research and led both interdisciplinary teams and multi-institutional partnerships that integrate the social sciences into ambitious, transformative scientific and scholarly projects.
Featuring works selected from more than 100 years of Colorado’s poet laureateship, Begin Where You Are: The Colorado Poets Laureate Anthology was published by CSU’s Center for Literary Publishing.
