Center News

By Patty Limerick

Published February 27, 2009 at 12:05 a.m.
In the Rocky Mountain News
Read original article here

The death of a newspaper hits me as hard as the death of a friend.

Every now and then, a platitude captures reality, and the old saying – that newspapers are the first draft of history – is one of those high-performance cliches. And this first draft involves a lot more than record-keeping.

We all run around in the course of a normal day, trying to make the world a better place, snarling ourselves up in detail, misunderstanding each other and inadvertently stirring up trouble, doing our best to remember our principles and to steer by them if we can manage, in the midst of frenzied activity, to remember what they were. (Read on …)

February 25, 2009
Public News Service – CO
By Eric Mack
LISTEN to the original podcast

Denver – The question of balancing energy policy so that it is humane, economically sound and environmentally responsible is the gist of a report released today by the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado-Boulder. Researcher Jason Hanson says they looked at a number of “green” energy solutions and found that such balance is possible, but will take a mindful approach from lawmakers. (Read on …)

By: Business Wire
February 23, 2009
CNBC Article

The Center of the American West at the University of Colorado at Boulder is releasing its latest report, “High Energy Prices & Low-Income Americans, Reducing the Risk of Unintended Injury” at a Tuesday evening reception in Denver. Energy Outreach Colorado funded and provided information for the report, which outlines the challenge of transitioning to a “new energy economy” while avoiding a negative impact on lower-income households’ ability to afford home energy. (Read on …)

Doug Fabrizio – Radio West
SALT LAKE CITY, UT
2/18/09

LISTEN NOW to Patty Limerick’s interview about Wallace Stegner

Wednesday on RadioWest we’re celebrating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Wallace Stegner. Stegner was one of the most important writers of the American West – probably not overstating it to say his book “Angle of Repose” is a masterpiece. Stegner reworked the myth of the West and brought the lives and the landscape of this place into a new focus. We’ll talk about his life and his work, his time here in Utah and how his writing still influences our impressions of the West.

Kirk Siegler
February 23, 2009
KUNC – Public News Room Audio

LISTEN TO WILLET KEMPTON’S INTERVIEW
BOULDER, CO (2009-02-20) University of Delaware Professor and wind energy expert Willet Kempton is visiting the University of Colorado’s Center of the American West this week. Professor Kempton is out to rebuke popular assertions that the United States is a long way off from transitioning to a renewable-energy based system. He also sat down for an interview with KUNC’s Kirk Siegler.

On Science, History and Exploration
February 17, 2009
By Michael Robinson
Read the Blog

The word “Frontier” lives a double-life. In the public world of bookstores and Star Trek episodes, it carries itself with bearing, symbolizing something wild and lawless, a place of promise, adventure, and renewal. Within the Academy, however, “frontier” carries the whiff of the disreputable, a word that has fallen into disuse. Once praised and powerful, it now stoops on stair-landings to rest.

The decline of the “frontier” within the Academy has been long and precipitous. Made famous by Frederick Jackson Turner’s 1893 essay “The Significance of the Frontier in American History,” it’s been the inspiration of dozens of books and hundreds of articles. (Read on …)

McGuane honored with 2009 Wallace Stegner Award

Colorado Daily Article
By Amy Bounds (Contact)
Originally published 05:20 p.m., February 16, 2009
Updated 05:20 p.m., February 16, 2009

Western author Tom McGuane is the recipient of the 2009 Wallace Stegner Award, the Center of the American West at the University of Colorado announced Monday.

McGuane is best known for his novels “The Sporting Club,” “The Bushwhacked Piano” and “Ninety-Two in the Shade.”

The Stegner award, named for the American historian and writer, is presented every year by the Center of the American West to “an individual who has made a sustained contribution to the cultural identity of the West through literature, art, history, lore or an understanding of the West.”

McGuane’s award ceremony, which is open to the public, will be at 7 p.m. Feb. 26 in Room 100 of the Mathematics Building on the CU-Boulder campus.

CU Boulder News Center Article
February 16, 2009

The Center of the American West at the University of Colorado at Boulder announced today it will present its 2009 Wallace Stegner Award to author Tom McGuane, best known for his novels “The Sporting Club,” “The Bushwhacked Piano” and “Ninety-Two in the Shade.”

“Tom McGuane has been a spectacular ‘participant-observer’ in the changing world of the American West,” said Patty Limerick, chair of the board and faculty director of the center. “With equal grace, he reckons with the tragic and comic dimensions of human nature. Looking at the West through his eyes gives your habits of mind a productive shaking.” (Read on …)

The Standford Daily
By Liz Stark
February 9, 2009
Original Article

Lane Center hosts conference on Lincoln and the West

Stanford’s Bill Lane Center for the American West played host on Friday to a discussion of Abraham Lincoln and his legacy in an all-day conference at the Schwab Residential Center, featuring five of the nation’s preeminent Civil War-era scholars.

Friday’s lectures and panel followed Pulitzer Prize-winner James McPherson’s keynote address, which took place on Thursday.

The series was funded by Bill Lane ‘42, former publisher of Sunset Magazine. Lane, in his opening speech on Friday, described the root of his interest in Lincoln and the West. (Read on …)

University of Colorado
News Center Press Release
February 5, 2009

The University of Colorado at Boulder’s Center of the American West will host a talk by a national leader in the cause of renewable energy, University of Delaware Associate Professor Willett Kempton, on Feb. 19.

The talk titled “What Most Analysts Tell You About Renewable Energy is Wrong: Rethinking Energy, Power and Policy in the Context of Climate Change,” will take place at 7 p.m. in Eaton Humanities Building room 150 on the CU-Boulder campus. (Read on …)