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In the spring this year Staff Council (SC) conducted our annual survey asking staff for feedback about SC’s performance, staff concerns and other important issues. Thanks to staff’s feedback in the past SC has been able to improve in some key areas including better representation of staff issues and serving as an effective liaison between staff and administration.

Sierra Nevada Corp. news release Sierra Nevada Corporation’s (SNC) Space Systems is pleased to announce it is expanding its relationship with the Â鶹ӰԺ (CU-Â鶹ӰԺ) through the signing of a letter of cooperation with CU-Â鶹ӰԺ’s BioServe Space Technologies (BioServe). Through the cooperation, SNC and BioServe will jointly explore ways the Dream Chaser ® Space Utility Vehicle (SUV) can serve as an orbital platform for scientific experiments in microgravity and space life science research.

Kill Paris will headline the annual Welcomefest Concert taking place on Farrand Field on Saturday, Aug. 23. The doors open at 5:30 p.m., and the show begins at 6 p.m. The annual Welcomefest Concert is sponsored by Program Council.

By the end of last spring, Jessica Van der Linden was behind on credit hours -- just two courses shy of being a junior as her sophomore year at the Â鶹ӰԺ came to a close -- because she had taken family leave during the school year.

Members of the Â鶹ӰԺ Chamber, a nonprofit business support and advocacy organization, visited CU-Â鶹ӰԺ July 29 to learn about the university’s latest advances in space science and aerospace. The Aerospace Industry Insights event, held at Fiske Planetarium, brought together local, state and federal officials; CU-Â鶹ӰԺ faculty, students and administrators; and leaders from the local business community. The purpose of the event, the first in a series sponsored by CU-Â鶹ӰԺ and the Â鶹ӰԺ Chamber, was to highlight for the business community CU-Â鶹ӰԺ's research and innovation in order to foster continued partnership and economic growth.

Three of the 62 scientists from around the world elected this week as American Geophysical Union Fellows are from the Â鶹ӰԺ, tying the university for the most fellows elected in 2014 with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts and Oregon State University in Corvallis. The CU-Â鶹ӰԺ honorees include Professor Anne Sheehan of the Department of Geological Sciences, Professor Shijie Zhong of the Department of Physics and Senior Research Associate Tom Woods of the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics.

Ruth Ellen Kocher, professor of English and director of the creative writing program at the Â鶹ӰԺ, has won a prestigious PEN Literary Award. Kocher was a co-winner of the PEN Open Book Award for her book of poems titled domina Un/blued. The award recognizes an exceptional book-length work of literature by an author of color. Also winning the award was Nina McConigley for Cowboys and East Indians .

Fiske Planetarium is much more than a cool place to explore the universe in high definition picture and sound. It’s helping prepare CU-Â鶹ӰԺ students for careers in a wide range of professions, and it is allowing faculty across disciplines--not just astrophysics--to create engaging educational experiences for their classes.

A program designed at the Â鶹ӰԺ to teach kids to code using video games is being introduced into New York City public schools as part of an initiative to give every student access to computer science education. Scalable Game Design is a program developed over two decades by CU-Â鶹ӰԺ computer science Professor Alexander Repenning to spark an interest in coding among kids by allowing them to design and build their own video games. The idea behind the program, which uses drag-and-drop programming tools, is to combat the widely held notion that computer programming is hard and boring.

Steve Hillard ('76) knew he wasn't done giving back to the University of Colorado Law School. He had donated generously to the capital campaign for the Wolf Law Building, but he had bigger plans. "I had a still-unfulfilled obligation to Colorado Law," said Hillard. "I am humbled by the fact that I have had some success in my career, and I definitely believe in giving back."