The Fort Report: Connecting Fort Lewis College
Image shows man and woman.
V  I  D  E  O   O  F   T  H  E    W  E  E  K
 Powered by mountains, mesas, and the Animas River, educational opportunities at FLC are shaped by the land, people, and culture of the Southwest.

State-of-the-art sports medicine and performance center coming to FLC

Centura Health committed $4 million to the FLC Foundation and FLC for a 10,000-square-foot renovation of the Aquatics Center to transform the space into a cutting-edge performance, rehab, and wellness center for student-athletes and students. 

Celebrating Indigenous design: a conversation with V. Barney

Many students, staff, and faculty noticed the vibrant poster reminding the FLC community of Native American Heritage Month. The poster’s design is the work of V. Barney, a senior studying Communication Design and Sports Administration. 

Nearly 200 students graduate from FLC

FLC celebrated a cohort of nearly 200 FLC students during Fall Commencement. Hundreds of friends, family members, and staff packed into Whalen Gymnasium to show their love through posters, cheers, and thunderous applause.

From the San Juan Mountains to the San Juan Islands

Meet sailor, teacher, mathematician, and weekend philosopher Nicholas Canaparo (Adventure Education, '15). With voyages from Puget Sound to Amsterdam Harbor, Canaparo has lived as a globetrotter aboard world-class vessels. 

FLC pursues inclusive undergraduate science education with the support of a major funder

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute announced FLC as one of 104 colleges and universities receiving a six-year grant through HHMI’s Inclusive Excellence 3 initiative to continue their critical work to build capacity for the inclusion of all students in science.

VoFLC: Elaine Severson

This week on VoFLC, tune in to hear FLC stories from Elaine Severson (English-Communications, '16), event and conference coordinator. 
M  O  R  E    N  E  W  S    F  R  O  M    F L C

  • The Stories We Wear, an exhibition curated with the help of the Center of Southwest Studies, opened on November 30. The installation honors Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives. To complete the project, 31 dedicated student contributors attended multiple workshops throughout the semester. The exhibition is now housed at Reed Library for public viewing.

  • Jen Rider, director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, and Mark McCormick, senior director of Research and Insights at Educause, share the current state of FLC's digital learning strategy through a case study in the Educause Review.

  • The Animas High School building on the FLC campus will be completed on January 3. Designed by Anderson Mason Dale Architects, the building's features are conducive to Animas’ project-based education model and will accommodate about 400 students. 

  • The FLC Police Department participated in the annual Durango “Shop with a Cop” event. A 30-year-old holiday tradition, the event pairs children and families in need with law enforcement officers who walk the store shopping with a family. This year, 150 excited children from 55 families each received $150 for shopping and participated in the event.

  • Alana Romans, director of Strategic Initiatives, competed at the USA Pickleball Diamond Amateur Championships in Daytona, Florida, and won gold in the 4.5 division for players 19-34 years old. Romans, who plays pickleball four days a week, is now qualified for the USA Pickleball National Championships next year in Indian Wells, California.

  • Durango Theatreworks staged A Christmas Carol: A Radio Play for a limited one-weekend run. Directed by Michael McKelvey, assistant professor of Musical Theatre, the fast-moving adaptation of Charles Dickens’s classic by Nathan Jerkins was set in the 1940s as a radio show with a narrator, multiple actors, an applause meter, and a wonderful foley effects team.

  • The FLC men’s basketball team upset Colorado State University-Pueblo, 69-65, in a Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference game in Massari Arena. After trailing by 14 points, the Skyhawks cinched the lead.

  • Charlie Rogers (Exercise Physiology, ‘22) and his brother Ben (ATT '19-20) walked 24 hours straight to benefit the Fistula Foundation. The foundation is a nonprofit focused on fighting obstetric fistula, a deadly condition that results in 6% of all maternal deaths.

  • Writing for The Durango Herald, Andrew Gulliford, professor of History, recounts the Bluff, Utah, Balloon Festival. Gulliford commands the imagination with images of balloons gracefully gliding over a reddish desert at the mercy of the wind.

  • The FLC cycling team finished second in the collegiate team omnium competition at the USA Cycling Cyclocross National Championships in Connecticut. FLC and Colorado Mesa University dominated the top spots in the varsity women’s and men’s championships. The Skyhawks finished second in the team relay to secure second in the omnium race.

  • Southwest Regional Law Enforcement Academy graduated its latest batch of cadets at the Mancos Community Center. Brett Deming, FLC chief of police, delivered the commencement address, noting that the graduates can change the perception of law enforcement for the better.

  • Water managers grapple with understanding how our forests and snowpack interact amid the worst drought in more than 1,000 years. Michael Remke, a lecturer of Biology, said that the only way to do this is to engage in “snowtography,” a novel way of tracking snowpack by monitoring varied sites with game cameras to measure snow depth.

  • Andy Sovick (Sociology,’04) honed skills at FLC that would lead him to a career writing and publishing some of the best backcountry skiing guidebooks. Sovick founded Beacon Guidebooks publishing nine atlases for different areas around the country, nine topo maps to accompany the books, and an avalanche rescue guidebook.

  • Erika T. Wurth (English, '97) sat down with Lit Reactor to discuss her recent publication White Horse: A Novel. Wurth shared her writing process, thoughts on the novel, and advice she would give new writers. 

  • Writing for The Durango Herald, Lacey Donley, assistant professor of Accounting, shines a light on the hypocrisy of crypto lenders. She claims there is a genuine irony in cryptocurrency denouncing centralized governmental authority while also applying for Chapter 11 protections.

  • Three exhibits continued the spirit of November’s Native American Heritage Month: As Seeds, We Grow: Student Reflections on Resilience, Roots of Wisdom: Native Knowledge, Shared Science, and the Art Gallery at FLC’s Native American Artist in Residence installation. Two installations are housed at FLC and one at the Powerhouse Science Center.

  • An ambitious new educational project, Slide With Respect, overseen by Tom Miaskiewicz, associate professor of Marketing, asks students to determine how many skiers know about the Your Responsibility Code, their feelings about its recommendations, and the role safety plays in their decisions about what resorts to visit.
Copies of Ruckus on a table.

That's hawksome

IMAGES Magazine, FLC’s literature, art, and music journal, has released Ruckus, a disgruntled collection of student and alumni poems, musical pieces, photographs, art, and stories. It is the first fall issue to go to print in six years. 
IMAGES, founded in 1968, is staffed and published by a team of talented, multi-disciplinary FLC students each year. 
Copies of Ruckus may be found in the Ballantine Media Center inside the Student Union Building. 

SUBMIT A STORY IDEA
Fort Lewis College logo
A publication of the
Fort Lewis College
Marketing & Communications
Department
powered by emma
Subscribe to our email list.