College News

Documenting deportation as it comes to hospitals

Ellie Chase — Thu, 26 Mar 2026 16:15:49 +0000

Documenting deportation as it comes to hospitals Ellie Chase Thu, 03/26/2026 - 10:15

Hannah Stewart

Photos by Kimberly Coffin (CritMedia, StComm’18) and Jessi Sachs

Months before Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were going through Minnesota neighborhoods, Jessi Sachs was going through Reddit threads searching for a niche angle to investigate immigration under Donald Trump.

That was when she first learned about medical deportations.

Sometimes called medical repatriation, medical deportation is when hospitals and medical transport companies attempt to—or successfully—return an uninsured, noncitizen patient to their country of origin.

“Not only did we tell a story that was really impactful for Junior, but we spoke truth to power in the niche intersection of healthcare and immigration.”

Ann Marie Vanderveen (Jour'25)

“I found the post and thought how crazy it was,” Sachs, a senior majoring in journalism, said. “I didn't even know that people could be deported out of the hospital without the involvement of ICE in any way.”

Last year, Sachs and Ann Marie Vanderveen (Jour’25) participated in the prestigious Carnegie-Knight News21 Fellowship hosted by Arizona State University’s Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Their story about medical deportations was picked up by multiple outlets, including The Associated Press.

“It felt really impactful that it was picked up by so many media organizations once it went out on the AP wire,” Sachs said. “I wanted to write about something people weren’t super knowledgeable about and bring awareness to a unique facet of the immigration conversation.”

First launched in 2005, News21 is a two-semester intensive experience where student journalists investigate a topic such as hate groups, juvenile justice, gun rights and, last year, immigration under the Trump administration. In the spring, students attend weekly workshops and classes to develop knowledge around the theme before embarking on a 10-week reporting fellowship based in Phoenix that culminates in a published story.

Jessi Sachs, left, and Ann Marie Vanderveen, right. Photo taken by Kimberly Coffin and provided by Ann Marie.

Vanderveen wanted to be a journalist since she dressed up as a reporter for an elementary school career day, and she quickly found her people by joining the CU Independent in her first year, which is where she met Sachs.

The News21 piece wasn’t the first time the reporting duo worked together—at the CUI, they collaborated with another writer on a story about a sexual assault investigation involving a Ralphie handler. But covering medical deportations was definitely the most challenging piece either had written while still in college.

“It took a long time to find people to talk to us,” Vanderveen said, as they looked for sources on social media and GoFundMe. “Our breakthrough came when we found an activist coalition in Philadelphia, but it took time to build trust with them. Eventually, they connected us with other people.”

Legally, only the federal government can remove an individual from the United States, and Medicare-participating hospitals are required to treat people—including uninsured noncitizens—with emergency conditions. But federal cuts mean there’s less money to reimburse hospitals for costs associated with those treatments—and through their reporting, the pair learned some hospitals have been attempting to repatriate patients without searching for other pathways for medical coverage.

Vanderveen and Sachs spent one week in Philadelphia, eventually building their story around Junior Clase and his wife, who was being threatened with medical deportation. While in the field, they also spoke with attorneys and activists. By the time they returned to Phoenix they had copious notes and interviews, but between the training from News21 mentors and their own experiences reporting in Boulder, they felt prepared to take on such a delicate story.

“To be able to tell someone's story who doesn't normally get to speak in the media is exactly what I want to do with my life,” Vanderveen said.

According to student journalist Ann Marie Vanderveen, it took time to develop trust with sources, but their hard work paid off. She and her peer Jessi Sachs traveled to Philadelphia, where the duo spent time with Junior Clase and his wife, who was being threatened with a medical deportation. Photo by Jessie Sachs.

Within two weeks of publication by News21, it was picked up by The Philadelphia Inquirer, AP and others.

“When we saw our names published in the AP, Jessi and I dropped everything and went to get Champagne, because we were so overjoyed,” Vanderveen said. “It was definitely the hardest summer of my life, but it was also the best. Not only did we tell a story that was really impactful for Junior, but we spoke truth to power in the niche intersection of healthcare and immigration. It also gave me a lot of confidence for the future.”

Jessi Sachs in the field. Photo provided by Sachs.

Professor Patrick Ferrucci, chair of the journalism department, said he was impressed when he read the piece.

“Our students in News21 always do really good work, but this particular year—with the timeliness of the story and the story itself—they did an amazing job,” he said. “When you have students like Jessi and Ann Marie who are super involved in student media—really caring about journalism beyond what they're doing in a classroom—it sets a culture for the department.”

Vanderveen, now a reporter for The Journal, in Cortez, said News21 developed her technical skills, but her experiences with the CUI and networking opportunities with CMDI deepened her love for the craft.

Sachs, who will graduate in May, agreed.

“I felt very prepared going into News21 because of my classes, and especially the CUI,” Sachs said. “I walked away from the experience not only with an impactful story I was proud of, but also as a more mature writer."

“Wherever I end up, I have what it takes to find sources, be creative and get the story done.”

Hannah Stewart graduated from CMDI in 2019 with a degree in communication. She covers student news for the college.

Photographer Kimberly Coffin graduated from CMDI in 2018 with degrees in media production and strategic communication.

Two students collaborated on an investigative journalism project that was ultimately picked up by The Associated Press.

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Junior Clase spends all his free time caring for his wife, who is being threatened with medical deportation. Student journalists Jessi Sachs and Ann Marie Vanderveen traveled to Philadelphia to hear their story. Photo by Jessi Sachs

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An education in empathy

Joe Arney — Tue, 24 Mar 2026 07:00:00 +0000

An education in empathy Joe Arney Tue, 03/24/2026 - 01:00

Joe Arney

Ross Taylor, left, runs an on-camera interview as part of his latest documentary project, A Refuge of Scouting. The film, which has been screened around the country and will be on PBS in the fall, draws on the strong sense of empathy Taylor, an associate professor of journalism, brings to his work and his classes. Photo by Pat Clark.

By his own admission, Ross Taylor was not a very successful Boy Scout, having never advanced beyond second class.

“I went on one camping trip, and it rained a lot and I didn’t like that the weather was bad,” said Taylor, now an associate professor of journalism at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� College of Communication, Media, Design and Information. “So, I went home and complained to my parents and asked if I could stop.”

His own time with the Scouts may have been short lived, but he’s returned to the organization—not to tie knots or pitch a tent, but to tell the story of an all-refugee troop in Aurora.

“This film is about reframing how we see American identity through a traditional lens,” Taylor said. “Scouting brings with it a lot of traditional norms and preconceived ideas of identity in America. And this troop works within a lot of that framework, but helps expand our understanding of what it means to be an American.”

A Refuge of Scouting was accepted to, among others, the Maryland International Film Festival, which takes place this month, and, like Taylor’s other documentary work, will be shared via Public Broadcasting Service beginning in the fall.

The film, which Taylor co-directed with fellow CMDI professor Pat Clark, is a continuation of work he did with P.J. Parmar, a medical doctor who owns and operates Mango House, a shared space for refugees in the western United States. The property is run for, and by, refugees, and was the subject of Taylor’s 2021 documentary, Mango House.

“Parmar was a Boy Scout himself, and he often said scouting was a safe space from facing racism, and he wanted that experience for refugees,” Taylor said.

Building trust within refugee communities

“To engage in these spaces requires me to be a better person, a more empathetic person.”

Ross Taylor, assistant professor, journalism

Doing this kind of work, and immersing yourself in a community of refugees—especially children who have fled significant trauma—requires a special kind of personality. It’s an approach to work—and life—that Taylor brings to his projects and his classes from his nearly 20-year career as a photojournalist.

“Building trust within the populations I work with requires a high level of empathy—I’m working in spheres that involve traumatic events, or the aftereffects of trauma,” Taylor said. “To engage in these spaces requires me to be a better person, a more empathetic person.”

It’s a lesson he learned the hard way. As a photographer, Taylor was once scolded by a mother for taking a photo of a crying boy after striking out during a youth baseball game. He credits that experience with teaching him to bring a more empathetic perspective to what he’s capturing.

And in class, that means showing students they can be empathetic, but also confident in using their voices to tell important stories. It shows up even in the simplest acts, like opening classes by asking students to share something good in their lives.

“It really warms up a classroom environment, and it sets an example of how I conduct myself in the work that I do,” Taylor said. “I want them to see empathy in action and think about what it means for them when they become professionals and leaders.”

��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Chancellor Justin Schwartz, right, recognized Ross Taylor with an End Zone Innovators Award at a Buffs home game in the fall. Photo by Vivenne Malone.

Ross Taylor credits his sense of empathy with helping him build trust among the people whose stories he tells in his work, including his most recent documentary about a Boy Scout troop made up of refugees.

In A Refuge of Scouting, Taylor shows how the values of scouting look through the eyes of young refugees from around the world. Early work on the film began before Donald Trump returned to the White House, but it’s hard not to see this project as a rebuke of the othering that the federal government has engaged in, from Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids, to sealed borders, to deportations and mass incarceration.

“We are all much more alike than we are different,” Taylor said. “When you spend time with a young kid who’s a refugee from another country, you begin to quickly realize, they’re a kid just like any other kid you would know.

“Working within the refugee community has given me a lot more respect, care and admiration for the people I’ve met and the contributions they make to our culture. My hope for this film is to help more people have the same experience I’ve had, so that we have more compassion for each other.”

Clark, an award-winning filmmaker and assistant professor of critical media practices, joined the college at the same time as Taylor, and they’ve taught and collaborated before—but said seeing up close the sense of empathy and connection his colleague brings to his projects was inspiring.

A model for authenticity

“Ross, the journalist, is able to unpack all these threads and find the people who help tell the story,” Clark said. “But it’s his personality that makes him so good at what he does. I talk about it in my classes a lot—the more you spend time with the folks you’re working with on the film, the more authentic they will be on camera. And that’s who Ross is. He gets people comfortable, he brings them in close and he makes everybody feel good about him being there. That’s how you really tell the story.”

For his part, Taylor said he appreciated Clark’s immense technical knowledge. It’s part of what makes CMDI special—the encouragement of authentic collaboration between separate, but related, disciplines to create meaningful impact.

“We are stronger as a unit than as individuals, because some projects require a substantial amount of expertise that crosses departments,” Taylor said. “This is definitely an example of that.”

Taylor is already thinking about his next documentary project, though his immediate plans are more centered on photography projects. He remains in awe of the medium’s power to make the world a better place; A Refuge of Scouting is his third documentary.

“Documentary—and, by extension, journalism—is a wonderful way to see a shared experience,” he said. “And it can help break down the preconceived notions we have about each other, and help us care for one another as we navigate the very real and challenging daily life we all experience.”

Ross Taylor and Pat Clark are no stranger to classroom collaboration, but A Refuge of Scouting is their first documentary together. Here, Taylor, left, and Clark are kneeling in the front row, off to the right, with the scouts in a theater.

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.

A hard lesson from his days as a journalist has helped a CMDI professor tell moving stories through documentary.

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Seeking a sports media career? Don’t sit on the sidelines

Joe Arney — Mon, 23 Mar 2026 11:00:00 +0000

Seeking a sports media career? Don’t sit on the sidelines Joe Arney Mon, 03/23/2026 - 05:00

Iris Serrano

Alumni Michael Davies, a Fox Sports senior vice president, left, and X Games CEO Jeremy Bloom during a fireside chat at the CMDI Sports Media Summit. More than 200 students attended this year’s event. Photo by Hannah Howell.

Success, in sports, comes down to the athlete willing to go the extra mile and push the limits of endurance to accomplish what seems impossible.

Success in sports media often amounts to the same thing.

That was the lesson Izabelle Stewart-Adams took away from this month’s Sports Media Summit, hosted by the College of Communication, Media, Design and Information at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��.

“A dream job for me would be working anywhere in the sports events world—whether that's X Games, Olympics, World Cups,” Stewart-Adams said. “The biggest piece of advice that I've been given today is to show how hungry you are to stand out.”

“Find your tenacity, and show whoever you’re interviewing with, ‘I am here to work. I’m here to prove myself.’”

Jeremy Bloom (A&S ex’06), CEO, X Games

The senior journalism major was one of more than 200 students to attend the two-day event, which was supported by alumni Neal Scarbrough (Jour’84) and Michael Davies (Jour’94). As co-chairs, both brought alumni and industry professionals with distinguished careers in journalism, marketing, production, technology and more to the event.

The highlight of the summit was a fireside chat between Davies, a senior vice president with Fox Sports, and X Games CEO Jeremy Bloom (A&S ex’06), who played football for the Buffs and in the NFL, and was a three-time world champion skier.

Bloom talked about the drive and dedication it takes to make it in such a competitive field—but also the rewards and enjoyment he draws from his work.

“I want to find people who have passion and love for the product that is at our company, and somebody who's got that look in their eye that they're on a mission and they're going to do whatever it takes to help us become more successful,” he said. “Find your tenacity, and show whoever you’re interviewing with, ‘I am here to work. I’m here to prove myself.’”

‘When you are sitting down and that camera’s in front of your face, then you know it’s all worth it,’ Justin Adams (Jour’09), a reporter and sports anchor for CBS Denver, said at the event. Fellow panelist Cassidy Davis (StComm’23) listens in. Photo by Kimberly Coffin.

A full Touchdown Club at Folsom Field listens to a panel discussion on how media rights and streaming technologies are forcing journalists and others to reimagine fan engagement and attention. Photo by Hannah Howell.

Panel and networking sessions featured a mix of professionals in terms of their industries and experience levels—from reporters who cover games from the broadcast booth to Scarbrough, a vice president and general manager at Marketplace who’s worked in sports for ESPN and The Denver Post. During the main program day, discussions explored sports consumption, audience engagement and the growing impact of generative artificial intelligence and how it is changing the field, especially within marketing and fan engagement.

Students also took advantage of a new addition to this year’s program—an hourlong networking lunch where they were encouraged to ask questions and build meaningful connections to the invited panelists.

Passion, but pressure

Cassidy Davis (StComm’23) remembers attending the summit right after she graduated to get some motivation and perspective from speakers. Now, as a corporate partnerships coordinator for the Seattle Seahawks, she paid it forward by attending as a panelist and sharing her own experiences with students: An hour after the event ended, she was still fielding questions from attendees.

“These students are so interested in the sports industry, and they know that's where they want to be,” she said. “As alumni, we were in their exact shoes, so we can provide inspiration and hopefully answer some of those questions that they're hungry to learn more about.”

Davis said while students are passionate about the industry as a career, they’re also feeling pressure.

“Students are more concerned with how they stand out against all of these competitors they're going up against,” Davis said. “I've been telling them to find places where you can prove that you can provide value to a team, where you can add a new perspective.”

Joining Davis on a panel about early-career professionals was Carey Kronhart, a junior majoring in media production with a minor in sports media. The aspiring operations manager’s biggest piece of advice to fellow students was to “network, network, network.”

Event co-chair Neal Scarbrough (Jour’84), left, talks with a student during a break in the action at the Sports Media Summit. Prior to his work with Marketplace, Scarbrough had a distinguished sports career, including work at The Denver Post and ESPN. Photo by Kimberly Coffin.

Last year at the summit, he bonded with Michael Davies over a shared love of motorsports—a connection that led to freelance work as a production assistant for Fox Sports.

“He offered to let me go to a few races with a NASCAR crew,” Kronhart said. “I started on as a production assistant and runner, learning the ins and outs—it was really like drinking from the fire hose. But my boss took a shine to me, asked me what I was doing for the next three races. One thing just led to another, and it’s all from having that first conversation with Mike.”

Justin Adams (Jour’09), a reporter and sports anchor for CBS Denver, also shared how network connections gave him a head start in his journalism career. Early in his career, he sent a cold message to Rick George, now emeritus director for CU Athletics, asking for help in making connections that could help him call Pac-12 games.

George introduced him to the conference president, which led him to the broadcast booth almost immediately.

“Take that initiative, shake that hand, have that conversation, get that contact and make sure that your face is shown. That’s doing the hard work,” Adams said. “And when you are sitting down and that camera's in front of your face, then you know it's all worth it.”

Iris Serrano is studying strategic communication and journalism at CMDI. She covers student news and events for the college.

More than 200 students attended this year’s CMDI Sports Media Summit, learning from industry professionals how to break into journalism, media production, technology and more.

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Prompt response

Joe Arney — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 15:24:09 +0000

Prompt response Joe Arney Tue, 03/10/2026 - 09:24

Joe Arney

Pooja Iyer laughed when she saw the Anthropic Super Bowl ad about a skinny guy looking for tips to get stronger. When he asks his trainer—a chatbot—for help getting swole, he also gets sold an ad for shoe inserts.

Courtesy Anthropic

“Ads are coming to A.I.” the onscreen overlay reads. “But not to Claude.”

“I was one of the early adopters to ChatGPT, because I like to experiment with new technology,” said Iyer, an assistant professor of advertising at the College of Communication, Media, Design and Information. “And I remember immediately thinking this was search on steroids—so, personalized ads on steroids.”

Iyer said advertising on generative artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT was “inevitable,” especially if you consider how services like Google and Facebook monetized personal data to enable targeted advertising as core components of their products. And a chatbot that claims it will never rely on advertising should probably encourage its marketing and accounting departments to talk.

“There’s the cost of building and training a large language model, building data centers, hiring advertising and software teams—all that money has to come from somewhere,” she said. “Subscriptions, which are already higher than most streaming services, only get you so far. Newspapers ran because they were supported by advertising. If it was just subscriber money, newspapers would be long dead.”

Practical and academic expertise

Iyer studies advertising from the standpoint of data and technology, especially the consequences to consumers, who must surrender their data and privacy to use popular platforms. Her perspective is rooted in the pragmatic, as Iyer worked as an associate media director before earning her PhD in advertising from the University of Texas at Austin.

Pooja Iyer

A major problem she’s trying to solve is a lack of clarity on what data consumers are comfortable sharing with advertisers. It’s important to get that right, because while consumers generally are supportive of targeted digital advertising—studies consistently find about three in four consumers prefer ads tailored to their interests—there are plenty of cases where companies went too far. For instance, the pro-life Veritas Society used cellphone location data to serve anti-abortion ads to women who visited Planned Parenthood clinics.

“We are really lacking in research in that area of what people want, or will tolerate,” Iyer said. “We have asked questions to help understand how much and to what extent people are willing to share, but a lot depends on who you are. If I am in a vulnerable part of the country, or an immigrant, or of a certain gender or race, my level of comfort sharing data is very different than how you may share your data.”

Those consequences, right now, are not part of the digital advertising playbook. The entry of A.I. into this space—OpenAI has already started serving ads to ChatGPT users—adds urgency to bring a more ethical approach to how companies serve up ads in the future.

Privacy in class

And it’s even more interesting in the context of Iyer’s classes, which often visit topics around digital advertising, ethical data use and A.I.

“I’ll say something like, ‘I can target the people in this room, if I want to,’ and while plenty of them are taken aback, a lot just shrug,” Iyer said. “Privacy is only a concern if you know that you had privacy once. But if you were born in a world where that didn’t exist, you may not care.”

Part of what concerns her about ChatGPT and advertising is how quickly the platform has been adopted. From its public launch in November 2022, it has grown to 900 million active weekly users. No other technology has been adopted so quickly, or broadly, so there’s some uncertainty as to what advertising on the platform will look like.

“How do we build this balance of being ethical and mindful about using consumer data? That’s the question the industry needs to answer.”

Pooja Iyer, assistant professor, APRD

“I think Chat will take all your data, synthesize it and show you ads that may not be related to your query,” Iyer said. “You might ask it to help you become fit, and instead of a sneaker ad, you get something based on other life issues or queries you’ve put in.

“Chat says you’ll get mindful, context-aware ads, but I don’t know what that means. If I’m using Chat as my therapist, will I see ads aimed at uplifting me in some way? Or will it tell me to go shopping, and try retail therapy?”

It’s too early to share findings on her research, but Iyer hopes her work helps companies advertise in ways that are informative without being intrusive.

“Like A.I., advertising is here to stay. And I don’t think that’s a bad thing,” she said. “But how do we build this balance of being ethical and mindful about using consumer data? That’s the question the industry needs to answer.”

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.

How will advertisers operate on ChatGPT and other A.I. platforms? A CMDI expert is exploring the limits of data use in targeting customers.

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If you generate it…

Joe Arney — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 15:15:01 +0000

If you generate it… Joe Arney Mon, 03/09/2026 - 09:15

Joe Arney

Photos by Patrick Campbell, Kimberly Coffin (CritMedia, StComm’18), Nathan Thompson (Jour’24)

When Averie Dow tells the parents of prospective ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� students that she’s studying information science, one of the first questions she typically gets is around generative artificial intelligence.

“How A.I. is used in the classroom is their biggest concern, because they don’t want to send their kids here to just have them use A.I. for everything,” said Dow, a senior and university tour guide. “They tend to be grateful when I tell them our faculty acknowledge A.I., and that they have policies around when and how to use it. Because you can’t let it do your work for you, but you also can’t pretend it doesn’t exist, or you’ll graduate into a workplace where you’re the only one who can’t use it.”

“The way we learn about (A.I.) helps makes it a smaller problem. I’m seeing the advantages that comes from using it responsibly and ethically.”

Averie Dow

Finding that balance has been especially important to a discipline like information science, which incorporates ideas from computer science, social science and the humanities to reimagine how technology can unlock possibilities and better work for people.

A.I. is nothing new to faculty in the information science department of the College of Communication, Media, Design and Information, but the proliferation of tools like ChatGPT, Gemini and Claude—and the scramble by businesses to search for cost-saving innovations—have meant constant curricular course corrections to keep pace with shifts in the market: In February, the University of Colorado system announced a $2 million licensing deal with OpenAI to bring ChatGPT to all students, staff and faculty.

But rather than focusing on particular tools, CMDI faculty teach students to think critically about the problem they’re trying to solve, as well as the benefits and limitations of the tools at their disposal.

Robin Burke

“Not every problem needs the biggest hammer,” said Robin Burke, a professor who studies recommender systems and teaches an undergraduate course on applied machine learning.

In that course, “we do talk about deep learning technologies, but we spend a lot of time on other machine learning techniques, because it’s important to know that range of possibilities,” he said. “You only get that if you understand what’s going on under the hood.”

Students who are technically oriented said they appreciate the real-world use cases where they can see what using A.I. looks like at work. Kaeden Stander is pursuing a master’s in information science to go with the bachelor’s degree he’s on track to earn in December. Thinking about how to use A.I. tools in the college’s Digital Legacy Clinic has helped him with his entrepreneurial aspirations; he’s the founder of PublishPoint, a content generation platform for WordPress sites.

‘A.I. is in every aspect of the workplace now’

“You input your information and the A.I. learns from your brand,” Stander said. “Then it’s able to make recommendations, generate blogs, social media captions, podcasts and even help create detailed data visualizations.”

His real-world experience using A.I. has helped him appreciate how to use it in class. In courses he takes for his philosophy minor, Stander said, no A.I. use is permitted, “so I don’t use it, but it’s not realistic—A.I. is in every aspect of the workplace now.”

“Why gatekeep something and put people behind when they should be ahead coming out of college? It’s something the information science program does well.”

Professor Jed Brubaker, center, of the Digital Legacy Clinic, which challenges students to help members of the community make plans for their digital estates. Photo by Patrick Campbell.

Burke’s research on recommender systems aims to enhance the fairness of algorithms by removing the biases that systems may inherit, whether from engineers’ design decisions or from the data used to train them. Right now, he’s interested in how to give users more control over what content or products the algorithm serves up.

You might expect him to be an A.I. evangelist, but Burke is more measured about the likely impact these tools will have.

“The hype is absurd,” he said. “I want students to focus on the proven capabilities of these technologies, as opposed to the claims people make about them.”

In fact, the critical perspective information science faculty bring to A.I. is one of the reasons students appreciate the degree. Dow, a self-described theater kid and art lover, said she came to college “as an A.I. hater, almost”; when she was given an assignment to use ChatGPT as part of an assignment, she was the only person in her class who hadn’t used it before.

“A.I. honestly scares me a little bit, when you think about it as this huge behemoth,” Dow said. “But the way we learn about it—here’s this tool, here’s what it can do, what do we think is wrong with it, what does it do poorly—helps make it a smaller problem. I’m seeing the advantages that come from using it responsibly and ethically.”

The ethical challenges A.I. poses are an important dimension for faculty, as well. That’s especially true at a college like CMDI, which prepares professionals for success in journalism, advertising, design and other creative fields. Because large language models have been trained on reams of copyrighted creative work, there is understandable hesitancy to adopt these tools.

Casey Fiesler

It’s why Casey Fiesler, the William R. Payden endowed professor in information science, leaves room for the “conscientious objectors” in her teaching; her public scholarship—which includes TikTok videos and standup comedy, as well as traditional thought leadership—is deeply concerned with the ethical dimensions of these tools.

She’s piloting a course this spring, A.I. and Society, that challenges students to examine broader societal implications around jobs, creativity, education and environmental impact as they relate to A.I.

“I don’t want students to not take this class because they have an ethical objection to using A.I.,” Fiesler said. “I wanted to create space for students who are really excited about A.I., and should think critically about it, and for those who need to learn how it works even if they’re critical of it.”

A counter to moving fast, breaking things

Chris Carruth approaches such challenges and perspectives from his artwork, which he calls “a slow, contemplative resistance” where he uses technology to “interrupt, interrogate and agitate conventional, normalized systems.”

That work, he said, is intended to run counter to the tech industry’s mantra of moving fast and breaking things.

“I get where Mark Zuckerberg was coming from when he said that, but that attitude incurs an ethical debt, which is what we’re trying to avoid,” said Carruth, an assistant teaching professor.

Rather than lecture at his students, Carruth challenges them to learn about topics like automation, policing and surveillance, and digital labor, and bring researched ideas to class for open discussion and debate. In doing so, he hopes to cultivate a sense of empathy among his charges.

“Ethics in computer science and computer science education should not be a feature. It should be the foundation.”

Chris Carruth, assistant teaching professor, information science

“I’m not saying we need to hit some big red stop button—and you’d probably get fired if you’re at work and pushing not to use A.I. at all,” he said. “To understand how this might actually work in your career, you need to bring a voice not of dissent, but of empathy, of nuance. So, be able to say, let’s not stop, but let’s pause, let’s think about impact before we roll these things out.

“Ethics in computer science and computer science education should not be a feature,” he said. “It should be the foundation.”

For Bryan Semaan, associate professor and chair of the information science department, the need for ethics in this space is expressed through the critical perspectives he studies in his research, which focuses on the interplay of race, media and technology. The Center for Race, Media and Technology that he manages has welcomed speakers like Ruha Benjamin, of Princeton University, and Timnit Gebru, formerly of Google, to encourage more critical thinking around the development of large language models and A.I.

Bringing their own identity, thinking

Bryan Semaan

In his class on race and technology, Semaan asks his students to write an essay reflecting on the benefits and harms of particular technologies. But before they start writing, they feed that prompt into ChatGPT.

“It’s a chance to think critically about what the A.I. returns to them,” he said. “What it’s written tends to not reflect the experiences my students have had. So, it becomes a way for them to see that it’s just giving them something, but they need to make sure their identity and thinking are infused in it.”

Something that makes information science at CMDI unique, he said, is that instead of rolling out countless new courses—which could quickly become dated by the speed of change in A.I.—the department has sought to integrate these tools into each course it offers.

“You won’t see A.I. in every course name, but we bring A.I. to every conversation we’re having, whether that’s data visualization, user-centered design or machine learning,” Semaan said.

As the technology becomes more integrated into students’ lives, those conversations are going deeper and deeper into their coursework.

“When I taught information ethics and policy at the graduate level, we started with a week on A.I. Then it was two weeks on A.I.,” she said. “Now, there’s no weeks on A.I., because it’s everywhere in that class and every other one. In almost everything we teach, A.I. is relevant to the topic.”

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.

By integrating generative A.I. into each course, the information science department is attracting students who want to be challenged to use A.I. effectively—and ethically.

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Get politics out of sports? It’s in the game

Joe Arney — Tue, 03 Mar 2026 16:12:32 +0000

Get politics out of sports? It’s in the game Joe Arney Tue, 03/03/2026 - 09:12

Joe Arney

Professional sports have always attracted a certain kind of fan for whom the game is an escape from politics and the news of the day.

That fan probably did not have a great Olympics.

If you go

What: CMDI Sports Media Summit

When: Thursday, March 5, through Friday, March 6, Touchdown Club, Folsom Field.

Who: Alumni and industry professionals in sports media share perspectives on the changing industry landscape. Scheduled speakers include the X Games CEO, an executive vice president of Bleacher Report and an executive vice president at Fox Sports. Full lineup →

Why: An under-the-hood look at topics such as NIL, A.I., streaming and career success. Plus, unbeatable networking opportunities.

Whether it was Kash Patel and Donald Trump inserting themselves into the aftermath of Jack Hughes’ golden goal for the U.S. men’s hockey team, or Ukrainian skeleton pilot Vladyslav Heraskevych being disqualified for a helmet paying tribute to fellow athletes killed during his country’s invasion by Russia, politics was like an icy layer just beneath the snow at the Milan Cortina Games.

“I think people are paying attention to it more because of the contemporary American political moment, but politics has always been an element of sport,” said Ever Figueroa, an assistant professor of journalism at the College of Communication, Media, Design and Information. “And the Olympics, in particular, have always been a platform for that.”

Figueroa studies how race and gender matter within social and cultural systems, especially the political undertone running through sports. He mentioned 1968, which featured the Black Power salute from Tommie Smith and John Carlos, and the 1980 Miracle on Ice as Olympic moments with strong political subtext that made the events memorable and interesting.

“All forms of art are more interesting when they have something to say,” Figueroa said. “Sports are able to communicate cultural values and reflect back on people. And a lot of people care more about the storylines within sports than maybe the actual competition.

‘Kind of boring’

“It’s kind of boring to want to separate sports and politics. It’s far more interesting when they’re together, and we can unpack all the nuances we see.”

That’s a perspective that comes up with some frequency in the courses he teaches, especially Sports, Media and Society, where students will ask about the cultural issues that play out in sport, especially when it comes to how they’re covered by the media. Figueroa asks students to study, for example, the rivalry between the Lakers and Celtics that dominated the NBA in the 1980s, as well as how the Kansas City Chiefs have gone from hero to villain amid the team’s success.

“In Lakers-Celtics, you had a team from LA and a team from Boston, playing two styles that were different from each other. So, it was not just two teams competing against each other, it was two ideas of America competing against each other,” he said. “I think that greater cultural reflection was what brought so many people to the television set to watch them.”

The Chiefs, meanwhile, are a villain story like any other—they’re so good that the league and officials must be rigging the game to help them win. And despite this one being debunked, “I told my class that sports cultivate myths,” Figueroa said. “Myths are more powerful if they feel real—they don’t need to have been drawn from reality or truth.”

Heroic values, but a villain

Ever Figueroa

What about when the game is scripted? One of Figueroa’s research interests is pro wrestling, which offers a nuanced, complex assessment of societal and political issues in its character development. A recent paper published in Communication & Sport examined World Wrestling Entertainment performer Daniel Bryan, who was the league’s champion from November 2018 through the following April.

Bryan’s character, Figueroa said, was that of an eco-friendly environmentalist who railed against greed, consumerism, capitalism, climate change and animal cruelty—which would seem to make him a champion of a lot of values gaining traction in the United States. But, in fact, he plays a heel—wrestling parlance for an antagonist.

“The reason he worked as a villain is because he violates neoliberal meritocracy. He cheats to win the title and to retain the belt,” Figueroa said. “His character espouses these progressive values, but he’s violating the rules of competition. So it becomes bad to be anti-capitalist, or an environmentalist, because it’s attached to his actions as a wrestler who cheats.”

The paper also looked at the case of Kofi Kingston, a Black wrestler who succeeded Bryan as champion. Both Bryan and then-chairman and CEO Vince McMahon said Kingston was a B-level wrestler “who failed to take the opportunities given to him by WWE’s free market—a common tactic used to discriminate against people of color,” Figueroa said.

“One of the big concepts in our paper was this idea of using neoliberalism and colorblind ideology in tandem to gaslight a Black man who had legitimate grievances that he was being discriminated against because of his race, in order to not make that political subtext visible to the audience.”

Pro wrestling, Figueroa said, is understudied by researchers, which may help explain why certain tropes around the sport—like having a rabidly right-leaning fanbase or repeating the same formulaic story arcs—have persisted. In fact, fans of a competing wrestling promotion, All Elite Wrestling, started the anti-ICE chants that have become viral moments at its recent matches. AEW storylines also touch on progressive themes that eschew toxic masculinity.

“For decades, WWE has been really effectively appropriating contemporary political moments,” Figueroa said. “I use wrestling as an example to show how political sports really are—the narratives, the construction of heroes and villains, and so on. Those are all things we respond to as a culture and society.”

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.

A CMDI expert says without cultural and societal context—which includes politics—sports would be “kind of boring.”

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Nextdoor labor

Joe Arney — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 16:55:45 +0000

Nextdoor labor Joe Arney Mon, 02/23/2026 - 09:55

Joe Arney

If your window to the outdoor world is Nextdoor, you might believe your neighborhood is awash in porch pirates, pooch poop, poor drivers and problematic people.

But as more municipalities find themselves without local journalism outlets, your neighbors might be the best source of community news that you have—which is dangerous, said researchers at the College of Communication, Media, Design and Information at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ��.

“You could say Nextdoor is increasingly serving a need that has been historically served by local news outlets that don’t exist anymore,” said Toby Hopp, an associate professor in the advertising, public relations and design department. “But Nextdoor’s business model is built around retaining audience attention and serving advertisements—it isn’t linked to journalistic norms like balance, fairness and verified reporting.”

In a new paper in New Media & Society, Hopp and Patrick Ferrucci, professor of journalism, found Nextdoor users are more concerned about crime—and more likely to support aggressive policing tactics, even as Americans demonstrate against the methods employed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers.

The authors—which include Hunter (Reeves) Krajewski, a PhD student in APRD—expected Nextdoor users who were less trustful of their neighbors would be more concerned about crime, but in fact, it was the users with high levels of social trust who had that worry.

“Because those folks trust their neighbors, they’re more likely to take reports of crime seriously, which is associated with enhanced concern and an openness to more aggressive policing,” Hopp said.

Notably, the researchers’ survey did not establish a causal link between people concerned about crime and Nextdoor use, meaning they couldn’t determine whether users signed up for the service because they were fearful of crime. But their work is still illuminating as the national conversation remains fixated on immigration, incarceration and technology.

Losing the context

Major crime in metropolitan areas has been in decline since rising in the early part of the decade. But with neighbors venting every grievance on Nextdoor, “it maybe gives people the idea that stolen packages, or loitering, are far more prevalent, and they’re not put in the context of policing,” Ferrucci said.

A missing Amazon package is not the same as seeing ICE agents execute demonstrators or separate children from their parents. But when we lose the context of understanding crime beyond our block, it becomes easier to imagine that more aggressive law enforcement is an answer. Hopp said he was surprised by respondents’ willingness to consider ideas like stop and frisk, vehicle searches during routine traffic stops, and equipping police with military-grade weapons.

“Each of these questions presents real constitutional concerns,” he said. “And if you think about what you’re willing to accept in your community, are you more willing to support these kinds of things in other communities?”

It’s not just ICE tactics or Fourth Amendment questions that are in the news—it’s the data gathered by companies that sell digitized surveillance. That’s not Nextdoor’s model, but it’s not a leap to see how increased concerns about crime could lead to adoption of camera technologies like Ring or Flock.

A collaboration between the companies—announced in a Super Bowl ad—was called off amid backlash that the new feature would create a dragnet to allow police to search for suspects, immigrants and others, instead of just missing pets.

“I think we’re finding these kinds of services, generally speaking, can’t be trusted,” Ferrucci said. “And there’s no appetite from a regulatory body to intervene and protect consumers, who have been slowly giving away their privacy for decades.”

Hopp and Ferrucci bring different research specialties to the problem, which offers them broader insights on topics like these. That’s a core value of CMDI, which was created to equip students and faculty to seek opportunities in areas where different fields intersect—especially as traditional disciplinary boundaries fall in the workplace.

“I don’t know that it makes sense to silo people as journalism researchers, or advertising researchers, and so on, because all institutions are producing and distributing information in a variety of ways,” Hopp said. “To parcel that off as just journalism, or just advertising, or just public relations, becomes increasingly difficult.

“We need to understand that we are researchers of the media—whatever the media might be at any given moment.”

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.

Does using Nextdoor make you more likely to support aggressive policing tactics? A new paper from two CMDI experts sheds interesting light on the platform.

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Schoolyards rock!

Hannah Stewart — Mon, 16 Feb 2026 20:02:19 +0000

Schoolyards rock! Hannah Stewart Mon, 02/16/2026 - 13:02

Hannah Stewart

When it comes to recess, kids from kindergarten to high school want a space to be creative, use their imagination and connect with friends. But what are the best ways to facilitate that?

For 15 landscape architecture students at the College of Communication, Media, Design and Information, this challenge was a chance to use their own imaginations to design outdoor recreation spaces at two Boulder schools.

“We really let it be guided by the students and their interests, and then determined what would be realistic to actually create from that,” said Anastasia Neznamova, a junior studying landscape architecture.

The studio course, Green Schoolyards, first launched in 2020 under Emily Greenwood, an associate teaching professor in the environmental design department. In that time, students have partnered with 18 schools on redesign plans.

Really successful landscapes are storytelling.”

Emily Greenwood

“Schoolyards are accidentally set aside as open space, and are full of opportunity. When we're creating learning spaces and ecological services, future generations benefit from that work,” Greenwood said.

She has worked with as many as six schools in one semester, but this year, the studio partnered with two Boulder schools. A teacher at New Vista High School, which recently underwent a massive renovation, is leading a regenerative agriculture program; he and Greenwood were part of a group that decided a collaboration would be a natural next step in the school’s redesign.

Horizons K-8 School, meanwhile, had worked with environmental design students on a nature play area more than a decade ago. This time, they hope to redevelop three separate areas around the campus with nature play opportunities in mind.

“There’s an ongoing effort to create spaces at schools that are sustainable, that really take into consideration a child’s relationship with nature and the ways children play,” said Kristin Hauger, assistant head of school at Horizons. “I love the fact that our students got a chance to work with the CU students, and that they got a chance to come and do some real life, hands-on work in a place where we’re committed to doing these kinds of things.”

It was important for the landscape architecture students to get face time with the students they were designing for. In addition to site visits, they went back to the schools mid-term to present their initial proposals for their schoolyard designs. Photos by Jack Moody (StratComm'25)

Getting their hands dirty

As part of the studio, environmental design students learned from landscape architecture professionals and even went on field trips to local parks and schoolyards that already had elements of nature play, as opposed to those set up around prefabricated equipment.

Most importantly, however, they worked directly with their clients.

Over the course of the semester, the environmental design students met their younger counterparts multiple times to get a sense of what they wanted from the designs. One 9-year-old from Horizons, Gretchen, said she wanted to see more nature, “and maybe a water feature.”

Initially hesitant, the high schoolers at New Vista eventually became more engaged once they were encouraged to think outside the box.

“One wild idea was to have a zip line,” Neznamova said, laughing. “Once they were envisioning the space, they got excited. We had to consider what the community told us, then think about how to make something that excites people. That’s the story we’re able to tell through the designs.”

“Working with the Horizon kids was a really cool opportunity to get more imaginative ideas and more creativity for our designs,” said Maddie Veasey, another junior studying landscape architecture.

Presenting new possibilities

After presenting to the schools in late October, the environmental design students had about a month to refine their designs ahead of their final presentations to professionals, including city employees and others in the engineering and architecture industries and get back to the schools to present the design.

Some groups dug in deeper to their designs, like one Horizons group tasked with reenvisioning the field behind the school. They focused their design on "traditional ecological knowledge" and cultivating not only plants, but also community and stewardship of the land.

“We wanted to tell the story of the land: what has been done to it, and what we can do now,” said team member Dylan Dodds, a senior studying landscape architecture. “This project is a story about remembering, reconciling and moving forward with all of this 'traditional ecological knowledge,' the stewardship, these land practices in a way that benefits the environment.”

Community was a key topic for many of the groups, as was honoring the various sites’ history. Dodds’ group at Horizons leaned into both the school’s historical relationship with anthropologist Jane Goodall, who visited Horizons in 2015, as well as the ecological knowledge that can be learned from Indigenous communities.

“We talked about cultivating plants and cultivating stewardship, but we also want to cultivate community and activity,” said junior Ella Seevers, Dodds’ team member. “Part of our concept is tying in that modern use and activity with our other values.”

The students’ thoroughness and thoughtfulness stood out to the professionals at the presentation.

Civil engineer and landscape architect Soozy Zerbe said she was especially impressed by the way the students’ research became part of the story. “That’s one of the most important things as a designer: digging that history up and telling the true story, not just telling the story you want to tell,” said Zerbe, an engineer designer with Alta Planning and Design, of Denver.

The college’s work with New Vista is continuing, with Greenwood and a group of her students collaborating with New Vista on a food cart design-build for its regenerative agriculture program. Hauger said that the Horizon School’s council is enthusiastic about expanding nature play around their campus, and will have to discuss the logistical next steps.

“Our students have the ability to empathize and really understand what kids just one generation below them are really looking for,” Greenwood said. “Really successful landscapes are storytelling. It’s so easy to design literally, but if there’s a thread that binds those elements together, then it’s a stronger design.”

Hannah Stewart covers student news for the college. She graduated from CMDI in 2019 with a degree in communication.

Photos by Jack Moody (StratComm'25)

To reimagine play spaces for young students, two Boulder schools enlisted CMDI’s expertise in redesigning their schoolyards.

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Snow news day: The challenge of climate reporting as newsrooms cut back

Joe Arney — Wed, 11 Feb 2026 19:06:34 +0000

Snow news day: The challenge of climate reporting as newsrooms cut back Joe Arney Wed, 02/11/2026 - 12:06

Joe Arney

The Flatirons, in Boulder, during a more typical winter. CMDI’s Water Desk has been fielding calls throughout the winter drought from resource-starved reporters looking for help covering a warm, extremely dry season. Photo by Joe Arney.

Call it the winter of our discontent: With just 23 inches of snow accumulation since November, Boulder—and Colorado as a whole—is enduring one of the driest winters on record.

And as parts of Colorado and the American West start to look more like deserts, they’re becoming news deserts, as well. Cuts, closures and consolidations are shuttering newsrooms and robbing reporters of resources, making it harder to ensure the public is getting trustworthy, verified information about the scope of this crisis.

It’s a challenge Luke Runyon sees daily as co-director of The Water Desk.

Luke Runyon

“It’s been an extremely dry and extremely warm winter for the southern Rocky Mountains—really, for much of the West,” said Runyon, whose work with a local NPR station won a prestigious Murrow Award in 2024.

“What I’d love to see more of is reporters going into the field and talking to the people on the ground who have to make tough decisions because of a lack of water. But I understand why that doesn’t happen—it’s more expensive to do that kind of reporting, to find the characters who tell that story.”

It’s not that you can’t watch the local news to see reports of just how dry the weather has been. But resource-starved newsrooms have to make hard editorial decisions about which in-depth stories to pursue, and Runyon said environmental reporting struggles to compete with other beats—so it’s often scaled back.

We ignore water coverage at our own peril, Runyon said, especially as climate change stresses ecosystems, upends established norms and ushers in more brutal fire seasons.

“The reason snow gets so much coverage in the winter is because it has all these domino effects that are felt through the rest of the year.”

Luke Runyon, co-director, The Water Desk

“Access to water is the issue affecting the modern West, one that underlies almost every major question we’re talking about,” he said. “It pops up in housing, agriculture and our ability to feed ourselves, recreation and the broader environment. If we’re not talking about water, we’re missing a huge piece of what it means to live in the west.”

Beyond just financial support

At The Water Desk, Runyon works directly with the journalists trying to tell those stories. Its work has evolved as the needs of journalists have changed. The team used to exclusively provide financial support through small grants; today, it also offers assistance with data visualization and mapping on big stories, even direct editing support from Runyon, who’s covered Colorado River issues for nearly a decade. The Water Desk, which is housed out of the Center for Environmental Journalism at ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� College of Communication, Media, Design and Information, also contributes original reporting on timely issues.

That’s important because while there are good reporters covering water issues, it’s been a hard time to be a journalist—especially one covering a highly complex issue like water, “because it isn’t easy to understand the crazy infrastructure, the complicated legal mechanisms in place to manage water,” he said.

A major story right now that is getting national attention is the need for an updated management proposal for the Colorado River, which supplies water to seven Western U.S. states and Mexico. The states, which disagree on how to manage a shrinking supply of water, missed a fall deadline to submit a plan to the federal government; the new deadline is Saturday.

“The timing of this very dry year comes at a critical moment for the river itself,” Runyon said. “I think you’ll see more being written on this leading up to the 14th.”

Most of the stories Runyon is fielding calls about right now concern poor skiing conditions and the economic impact on resorts and mountain towns. He expects the cycle to turn to agriculture in the spring—especially how farmers will adjust plantings in the face of shortages—and to recreation and ecology in the summer.

“The reason snow gets so much coverage in the winter is because it has all these domino effects that are felt through the rest of the year,” Runyon said.

Finding ways to help a dwindling cast of media to tell deeper and more impactful stories remains his greatest challenge, but Runyon does see opportunities for people looking to break into journalism, especially as new platforms allow reporters to offer their audience deep dives on important topics like climate and water.

“There are a lot of cool, innovative startups out there,” he said. “And there is a much broader definition of who gets to call themselves a journalist. You can be an expert with a Substack newsletter, and you’re basically running your own small business. Hopefully, there’s more of that to come.”

Joe Arney covers research and general news for the college.

CMDI’s Water Desk has expanded the services it offers to resource-starved reporters who need help covering complex stories around the Colorado River and climate change.

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Heated Rivalry is melting the ice—and tropes around sexuality and sports

Joe Arney — Thu, 05 Feb 2026 19:33:14 +0000

Heated Rivalry is melting the ice—and tropes around sexuality and sports Joe Arney Thu, 02/05/2026 - 12:33

Iris Serrano

A CMDI professor praised Heated Rivalry for its willingness to defy the tropes associated with gay male characters, especially in a professional sports setting. Photo courtesy HBO.

Weeks after the release of its season finale, audiences are still going wild for Heated Rivalry. And while fans have been closely tracking the on-screen romance between the two leads—professional hockey players on opposing teams—Jamie Skerski is watching that relationship from a more critical perspective.

Skerski, who studies how narratives are shaped and mediated by institutions, audiences and cultural norms, said the show’s popularity points to “the complete lack of nuanced gay representation” in mass media.

“The show defies the stereotypical ‘gay man as feminine sidekick’ trope, and depicts masculinity as simultaneously strong/athletic and vulnerable,” said Skerski, teaching professor of communication at the College of Communication, Media, Design and Information.

While queer representation is more visible in the media than ever, Skerski said the show’s popularity points to what’s missing in that changing conversation. Of particular note, she said, is its setting against the hypermasculine culture of professional sports.

“The series destroys the logic of the hegemonic masculinity that says a real man is masculine, strong and heterosexual,” she said. “Here, we have strong, successful men who are clearly masculine despite their sexuality.”

A hot storyline ahead of Olympics

Jamie Skerski, right, says her students understand that representation in mass media is important—but so is the quality of what’s portrayed. Photo by Kimberly Coffin.

The story focuses on two professional hockey players on opposing teams whose relationship appears like a rivalry to fans, but is much more intimate behind closed doors. The show has generated fan edits on social media, its stars were chosen to be torch bearers for the 2026 Winter Olympics and NHL teams are selling merchandise featuring the characters.

While Heated Rivalry is upending traditional portrayals of masculinity, the show is doing so against one of the last places where homophobia is seen as acceptable—in the locker rooms and on the fields. Despite there being many women in major sports who have come out, the audience finds it intriguing to see a different narrative.

“Representation that falls into tired tropes and stereotypes doesn’t do anything to challenge the underlying value systems that benefit from the perpetuation of those stereotypes.”

Jamie Skerski, teaching professor, communication

Something Skerski especially appreciated about the series is how it portrayed coming out as a complex process, instead of a linear one. Over the course of the show, both male leads struggle to come out over fears of ruining their careers and public images. Still, they are visibly tired of keeping up the facade.

“The nuance and thoughtfulness of that story arc are quite impressive,” she said. “The characters are in a constant state of managing identity, relationships and disclosure. The series portrays that tension with care and tenderness.”

The conversations about the show have even been had in the classroom, where students are thinking about thoughtful storytelling in the media.

The story, and popularity, of Heated Rivalry have come up in the conversations Skerski leads in her Communication, Culture and Sport class, which challenges students to think critically about the communicative, historical and cultural aspects of sports society, including the intersections of power, gender and sexuality, race, and class.

“Students generally understand that representation matters—but this is a good lesson on the quality of that representation,” Skerski said. “Representation that falls into tired tropes and stereotypes doesn’t do anything to challenge the underlying value systems that benefit from the perpetuation of those stereotypes.”

Iris Serrano is studying strategic communication and journalism at CMDI. She covers student news and events for the college.

The hit HBO show has captivated audiences by challenging traditional tropes often seen in mass media.

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