CC’s 14th annual State of the Rockies Conservation in the West Poll reveals public lands issues like threats to wildlife habitats, water pollution, and the loss of natural areas are highly important to voters in the West and play a key role in how they will vote in 2024.

The poll, which surveyed the views of voters in eight Mountain West states (Colorado, New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming, Arizona, Idaho, Montana, Nevada), found 67% of voters are worried about the future of land, water, and wildlife. The majority of voters view issues like loss of habitats and declining fish and wildlife populations, inadequate and polluted water supplies, microplastics, uncontrollable wildfires, air pollution, loss of pollinators, and loss of natural spaces as extreme or very serious problems in their state. 66% of voters think the effects of climate change in their state over the past 10 years are significant. The levels of concern about climate change, wildlife habitats, water supplies, pollution, and the loss of natural areas are at all-time highs over the poll’s history.

Against that backdrop, conservation is top of mind with Westerners ahead of the 2024 elections. Compared to other issues like the economy, health care, and education, 85% of voters in the West – including 74% of Republicans, 87% of Independents, and 96% of Democrats – say issues involving clean water, clean air, wildlife, and public lands are important in deciding whether to support an elected official. 37% of voters describe those issues as “very important” and the “primary factor in deciding whether to support an elected official.”

An Honorary Degree is the highest honor CC can bestow. Degrees are conferred to selected individuals at Opening Convocation in the fall and at Commencement in the spring. Degree recipients are chosen with care, following thorough evaluation by the Academic Events Committee (AEC), the President's Cabinet, and the Board of Trustees. The honor is awarded to individuals who have rendered distinguished service to society or made extraordinary achievements in their own profession.

The AEC is currently soliciting nominations from members of the CC community for Opening Convocation and Commencement for the 2024-25 academic year. Nominations may be submitted at any time, but because the vetting process takes time, we encourage you to do so as soon as possible, especially for Opening Convocation. Please note that only CC alumni are honored as degree recipients at Opening Convocation, while individuals honored at Commencement need not be CC alumni. Other criteria for Honorary Degrees are detailed on the AEC website.

If you have any questions, please contact John Horner, Chair of the AEC, 2023-24.

As part of the FAC’s First Friday, please help us celebrate the opening of Ungrafting, Hương Ngô’s first solo exhibition in Colorado on Friday, March 1, at 5:30 p.m. Guests will be invited to engage in an informal conversation to discuss the exhibition and its connection to topics such as intergenerational knowledge transmission, the importance of land in anti-colonial movements, and the role of the archive in artistic production. Joining the artist are Chadwick Allen, Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement and Russell F. Stark University Professor of English at the University of Washington; Aline Lo, Assistant Professor of English at CC; and Justin Phan, Assistant Professor of Global Asian Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago. This event is free and open to the public; RSVPs are requested.

Ngô's exhibition displays early twentieth-century photographs of foreign trees and tree grafts planted in Vietnam by the French. For her, grafting—a procedure that involves cutting and splicing different species into a single plant—serves as a powerful metaphor for the physical violence inherent in colonialism. Ngô reproduces the archival photographs using the Van Dyke method, altering the fixing process to make the images gradually deteriorate and darken.

Accompanying the photographs are other new works by Ngô, including altered reproductions of plants that were catalogued in 1919 for a French herbarium and hanging fabric works with visible sutures, as well as a selection of cultural heritage items from the FAC’s permanent collection that further speak to the history of the region.

The exhibit runs through July 24, 2024.