Joe Blake Center for Engaged Humanities

Formally named the Joe Blake Center for Engaged Humanities in 2024, the Blake Center’s mission is to support and cultivate the humanities at Colorado State University such that the university intensifies its national and international recognition as a leader in fundamental, public, and engaged humanities and as a leading voice in humanities and critical social science approaches to democracy.

Research

Blake Research Fellows

The Blake Research Fellows programs provides funding for course releases and other research support fostering basic and engaged humanities research. Research fellows are expected to meet regularly to build research community.

2026-2027 Fellows

Maura Velazquez-Castillo

  • Professor

Languages, Literatures and Culture

Dr. Velazquez Castillo’s research interests include functional and cognitive linguistics applied to Spanish and the pedagogy and acquisition of grammar in a second language. Her proposed project is part of a larger effort to uncover the nature of Spanish language barriers that impact interactions between English-speaking criminal defense lawyers and their Spanish-speaking clients in the US. It aims to improve language access in the criminal justice system in partnership with the Fort Collins Public Defender’s office.

Sarah Cooper

  • Assistant Professor of English

English

Dr. Cooper’s interdisciplinary research resides at the intersection of archives, rhetoric, gender and queer theory, and sexuality studies. Dr. Cooper’s proposed project will rhetorically analyze how queer, feminist, and progressive communities in Northern Colorado expressed their values through print culture between 1994 and 2007. It also aims to learn how those lessons can help us build community today.

Nabile Galvan Garcia

  • Assistant Professor of Music Education

Music and University Center for the Arts

Dr. Galván Garcia’s research and teaching interests include bilingual music education, string pedagogy, preservice teacher experiences, and advocacy for the Latiné music education community. Her proposed project will illuminate the professional lives and potential challenges of Latiné music educators and will inform efforts to support their persistence in the profession.

Johnny Plastini

  • Associate Professor of Printmaking
  • Graduate Advisor of Printmaking

Art and Art History

Plastini employs sustainable printmaking, papermaking, and book arts processes to meaningfully link the arts and sciences together. In his proposed fellowship project, Plastini will partner with the City of Fort Collins Forestry Division to poetically document fallen trees within our community and host a series of public participatory workshops on campus and in the regional Fort Collins community to demonstrate how individuals and collectivities can reimage their connections to climate change.

Previous Research Fellows

Center Leadership

Director

Greg Dickinson

  • Morgan Chair for the Liberal Arts
  • Professor, Communication Studies

greg.dickinson@colostate.edu

Governance Board

Board Chair

Board Member

Tobi Jacobi

  • Professor
  • Director of Community Literacy Center
  • Program Director of Writing, Rhetoric, and Literacy (B.A. concentration)
  • Program Director of Writing, Rhetoric, and Social Change (M.A.)

tobi.jacobi@colostate.edu

Board Member

Ex Officio Board Member

Ann Claycomb

  • Director of Strategic Research Initiatives
  • Fulbright Liaison

ann.claycomb@colostate.edu

Mission & Goals

Mission

The Blake Center advances the power of humanistic research to address pressing societal challenges and enrich our understanding of self, society, expression, knowledge, and built and natural environments. As a collaborative research hub, the Blake Center brings together scholars, teachers, students, and community members across Colorado to explore, imagine, and co-create a more just and sustainable future. Through dynamic partnerships and inclusive dialogue, the Center fosters innovative solutions that bridge the academy and the public, ensuring the humanities remain a vital force for meaningful change.

Goals

Support and expand humanistic research in the College of Liberal Arts and Colorado State University.

Enhance faculty’s understanding and capacity in engaged humanities scholarship, both on campus and in the field and wider community.

Encourage a robust humanities research culture at Colorado State University via programming, grants, fellowships, guidance, encouragement, advocacy, and recognition.

News

CSU’s Joe Blake Center for Engaged Humanities Announces 2026-2027 Faculty Fellows

April 27, 2026

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.

CSU’s Joe Blake Center for Engaged Humanities Announces 2025-2026 Faculty Fellows

April 24, 2025

The Joe Blake Center for Engaged Humanities at Colorado State University has named four faculty members as Faculty Fellows for 2025-2026: Abraham Khan, Nina McConigley, Brittney Sly, and Jonna Yarrington.

A sneak peek at what the renovated, expanded Clark Building will feature

February 24, 2025

SOURCE talked with project manager Tony Flores of Facilities Management and others to discuss the various features and improvements being made in the A Wing and the new four-story B Wing.

CSU’s Joe Blake Center for Engaged Humanities Announces 2024-2025 Faculty Fellows

August 30, 2024

The Joe Blake Center for Engaged Humanities at Colorado State University has named five College of Liberal Arts faculty members as Faculty Fellows for 2024-2025: Kari Anderson, Carrie Chenault, Jessica Jackson, Tobi Jacobi and Emily Moore. The Faculty Fellows Program is designed to support and promote humanities-oriented scholarship and to foster fellowship among humanities faculty who either already conduct engaged research or are interested in doing so.

Ethnic Studies Associate Professor Ray Black selected as fellow in Mellon-funded humanities leadership program

June 6, 2024

Dr. Ray Black, an associate professor of Race, Gender, and Ethnic Studies, will represent CSU in the Humanities Academy as our WICHE Fellow for 2024-2026.

New Joe Blake Center for Engaged Humanities to foster faculty, student and community excellence

February 8, 2024

The center, part of the revitalization of the Clark Building, will focus on the  excellence within CSU’s educational mission.

Facilities

The Blake Center for Engaged Humanities will move into its purpose-built space on the top floor of the new Ann Gill Hall in June, 2027. The Center space will included a 100-person, multi-purposed space ideal for research presentations, community meetings, and donor functions. This meeting room opens onto a west-facing deck, provided outdoor gathering spaces. There will be catering kitchen offering coffee and tea throughout the day and offering ideal space for before or after presentation receptions and offering a space for caters to stage meals. The Center will also have a library, smaller meeting spaces, and offices that will house Center staff and the staff and faculty of associated centers.

A computer-generated image of a building
Joe Blake

History

In 2023, the National Endowment for the Humanities stamped the approved Center’s early plans, awarding CSU a $500,000 Infrastructure and Capacity-Building Challenge Grant to help build the physical space of the Blake Center on the fourth floor of the reimagined Clark B Building. The College of Liberal Arts is raising funds to match the NEH grant. The first $500,000 comes from a $5 million gift from former Chancellor Joe Blake and an additional $1.25 million has been placed in an endowment as seed funds for the Blake Center’s programming.

Joe Blake was the Chancellor of Colorado State University from 2009-2011. He continued to serve as Chancellor Emeritus until 2022 advocating for CSU until his death in 2022.