Alumni

Business Founder and CU Alum Missy Kelly Gives Commencement Speech to Class of ’22

Anonymous — Wed, 15 Feb 2023 19:02:25 +0000

Business Founder and CU Alum Missy Kelly Gives Commencement Speech to Class of ’22 Anonymous (not verified) Wed, 02/15/2023 - 12:02

Kaysie Larson , Andy Baker

When Missy Kelly enrolled at CU in 1990, she thought that law school and a career as an attorney were on her eventual path, but life had very different plans. After Kelly graduated from CU Boulder with a doub

le major in Political Science and International Affairs, she pursued a highly successful career in business. Today, she is the owner and co-founder of CatTongue Grips, a major company dedicated to improving safety and enhancing quality of life for millions of people through their non-slip products. In May of 2022, she spoke to a packed house of more than 1,000 attendees as our department’s graduation ceremony speaker.

Soon after graduating in 1994, Kelly took a job at a Fortune 500 company. The job paid well and provided room for growth, but the monotony of the big business world left Kelly wanting something more fulfilling and impactful. Eventually, an opportunity emerged, almost by accident. One day in 2015, Kelly’s husband Matt was upgrading his phone and noticed how easily the phone could slip from his hand. Instead of paying extra for phone insurance, he stopped by a local skate shop and bought some grip tape—the abrasive, sandpaper-like material that gives skateboarders the traction they need to stay firmly planted on their boards. It was an imperfect solution, and Missy Kelly was initially skeptical: “What do you have going on here? This feels like a cat tongue, and it’s going to scratch every surface in our house.” But she quickly realized that they were on to something big.

Eighteen months and eight prototypes later, the CatTongue phone grip launched as an Amazon exclusive. Textured enough to provide suitable hold but smooth enough to avoid scratching and discomfort, CatTongue grips were a hit. Since then, the couple has transformed their patented material into eight different product types and over 200 design iterations, including the popular Gription Roll which can be easily customized to add grip to any surface. These products are now being sold through major retailers across the country and the world. And if that weren’t enough, CatTongue products have even gone to outer space, as Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk have used them in their space-based ventures.

For many people with disabilities, CatTongue grips have made a lasting impact. Wheelchair users can use CatTongue products to keep their feet stable on the footplates of their chairs and to prevent laptops and other technologies from falling out of their grasp. People with motor disorders such as Parkinson’s Disease can get a better handle on forks and spoons, some even regaining the independence to be able to feed themselves.

Going into entrepreneurship rather than law was an unexpected turn for Kelly, but she still believes that her studies as a political science major gave her the tools to think outside the box and to find such a fulfilling career. The papers, exams, research, and debates that Kelly wrote and engaged in during her years at CU set her up to change the world.

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CU Graduate Alan Zarychta Finds Career Success as a Professor at the University of Chicago

Anonymous — Tue, 14 Feb 2023 18:07:34 +0000

CU Graduate Alan Zarychta Finds Career Success as a Professor at the University of Chicago Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 02/14/2023 - 11:07

Kaysie Larson , Andy Baker

Becoming a professor takes a lot of work and requires a long haul. Aside from all the schooling and degrees one must collect, the job market for professors is all too tight. Colleges and universities—and especially elite universities—have many talented applicants from which to choose when they hire new professors. So it is extremely impressive that Alan Zarychta, a 2016 graduate of the CU Political Science Ph.D. program, secured a job at the University of Chicago. University of Chicago is one of the top universities in the world, and it

holds the added bonus of being near his hometown! Today, Zarychta is an Assistant Professor in Chicago’s Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice, and he conducts important research on public health in Central America. His biography illustrates how hard he has worked to receive such a prestigious position.

Zarychta grew up just outside of Chicago, a child of Polish immigrants who worked blue-collar jobs and encouraged him from a young age to go to college. He obliged, eventually attending and graduating from Northwestern University nearby, itself one of the world’s top institutions of higher learning. After graduating with bachelor’s degrees in social policy and in economics, Zarychta worked in Honduras for an organization that promoted public health. He enjoyed this work and found it to be meaningful, but he knew his ultimate goal was to become a college professor. In fact, while in Honduras Zarychta started thinking and acting like an enterprising graduate student by collecting data to analyze the impact of new laws on the quality of public health around the country.

While working in Honduras, Zarychta applied to CU, and CU was wise enough to accept him and offer him a highly selective fellowship. He enrolled and worked closely with CU Professor Krister Andersson, a leading expert on decentralization and environmental policy in the Global South. Along with Andersson, Zarychta won a large grant while at CU from the National Science Foundation to collect even more data about public health outcomes in Honduras. The result was an award-winning dissertation, entitled It Takes More than a Village: Governance and Public Services in Developing Countries. In his dissertation, Zarychta argued that localized political authority, which gives municipalities, health clinics, and NGOs greater influence over service delivery, tends to produce better health care than more centralized political authority. His work clearly has important implications for how governments in developing countries should adjust their health care systems to improve critical outcomes such as life expectancy and infant survival. This dissertation was so important and well-written that Zarychta won the 2017 Leonard D. White Award for Best Dissertation in the Field of Public Administration from the American Political Science Association.

Zarychta subsequently landed his prestigious position close to home. The Crown Family School was expanding its profile into global social welfare, adding to its historical strength in social issues in US cities. Zarychta’s profile was a perfect fit: “Had I written a job listing for myself, it would have been pretty close to the one written by the Crown Family School.” With good timing, a solid foundation of training, experience, and hard work, plus a bit of luck, Zarychta found himself returning to his home state of Illinois for a position with this historic school.

Zarychta has been plugging away at publishing the important findings from his dissertation as well as important findings he’s collected since graduation. Since arriving at Chicago, he has published twelve papers in scientific journals, which is extremely impressive given the amount of legwork and background effort that each paper requires. “The timeframe of these papers can be quite long,” says Zarychta. “Applying for grants, developing partnerships with governments outside of the US, designing data collection procedures, then collecting the data and analyzing it, then writing and re-writing. But this type of careful and reflective work suits my personality well.”

While Zarychta sees it as a blessing to be close to home in Chicago, there are things he misses about Boulder. When asked what he misses, he exclaimed, “Well, nearly everything! I was really fond of Colorado as a place. The American West, the Rockies, Denver, Boulder, all of it!” Fortunately, all of these attractions did not distract Zarychta from taking full advantage of CU’s political science Ph.D. program and from moving on to the start of a highly successful academic career.

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Vietnam War Veteran Returns 50 Years Later for Commencement He Missed

Anonymous — Mon, 25 Apr 2022 18:50:24 +0000

Vietnam War Veteran Returns 50 Years Later for Commencement He Missed Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 04/25/2022 - 12:50

"In 1968, Frank Webb (PolSci’68) earned a degree from CU Boulder but didn’t lay eyes on the diploma until 1971, when he returned home after serving in the Vietnam War. More than 50 years later, Webb is headed to Folsom Field Stadium to participate in something the war prevented him from doing in the 1960s — attending a commencement ceremony. At 76 years old, he’ll make the trip from his home near Snohomish, Washington, back to Boulder to celebrate alongside the Class of 2022."

Read the full article by Erica Grossman here!

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Americans are losing income and preferring online education

Anonymous — Thu, 09 Apr 2020 23:30:05 +0000

Americans are losing income and preferring online education Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 04/09/2020 - 17:30

Americans are losing income and preferring online education

Six in 10 Americans have lost jobs, hours or income from the coronavirus pandemic, according to results of a new survey from Strada Education Network, a nonprofit that researches and funds education and employment pathways. These results are the second weekly batch in a multiweek longitudinal study. The share of respondents who have lost income is up

15 percentage points from the previous week's results.

Strada's data suggest that degrees and credentials are not insulating Americans from the economic effects of the pandemic. Two-thirds of associate or vocational degree holders and 63 percent of bachelor's degree holders reported lost income, compared to only 54 percent of participants with some college experience but no degree.

"Although this is hitting everyone really hard, in some ways that population was a little bit less impacted by losing jobs or income," Nichole Torpey- Saboe, Strada's director of research, said in reference to the participants with some college credit but no degree, noting that in the future the organization may want to look at the industries where those respondents are employed.

91��Ƭ�� a third of respondents said that if they were to lose their job, they believe they would need additional education or training to maintain their same income, consistent with the previous week's results. Of those,
64 percent said they would look for a job in a different field.

The Strada respondents also demonstrated a large preference for online instruction. Over half said that if they were given $5,000 to invest in their education, they would spend it on online education, as opposed to in- person education or employer-provided training.

Torpey-Saboe said that while a person's level of education affected what degree level they would choose to pursue in that situation (bachelor's degree holders aren't looking at community colleges, for example), the preference for online was felt at all education levels.

"We haven't seen any sort of pattern that stands out for level of education," she said.

The survey did not address how consumers believe they will pay or would like to pay for any future education. Dave Clayton, Strada's senior vice president for consumer insights, said that when the dust settles and government stimulus bills have been completed, that may be a better time to ask the question.

Andrew Hanson, director of research at Strada, said that while the survey did not look at exactly how this downturn is affecting employment pathways, there is definite concern in that area.

"Access to things like internships and other options that employers provide are of concern I would think going forward, but it's probably too early to tell," he said.

In the 2008 recession, he noted, more recent employees were usually the first to be let go.

"No reason to anticipate that will be different this time," he said.

The latest survey was conducted with 1,000 respondents over the age of 18 and was representative of the general population in terms of age, gender, region and race.

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The Ethics of Precaution by Levente Szentkirályi

Anonymous — Tue, 10 Dec 2019 23:29:17 +0000

The Ethics of Precaution by Levente Szentkirályi Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 12/10/2019 - 16:29

One of our former Ph.D. students was recently published a new book: The Ethics of Precaution: Uncertain Environmental Health Threats and Duties of Due Care (New York: Routledge 2019). The blurb or abstract of the book follows:

Thousands of substances are manufactured in the United States to which the public is routinely exposed and for which toxicity data are limited or absent. Some insist that uncertainty about the severity of potential harm justifies implementing precautionary regulations, while others claim that uncertainty justifies the absence of regulations until sufficient evidence confirms a strong probability of severe harm.

In this book, Levente Szentkirályi overcomes this impasse in his defense of precautionary environmental risk regulation by shifting the focus from how to manage uncertainty to what it is we owe each other morally. He argues that actions that create uncertain threats wrongfully gamble with the welfare of those who are exposed and neglect the reciprocity that our equal moral standing demands. If we take the moral equality and rights of others seriously, we have a duty to exercise due care to strive to prevent putting them in possible harm’s way.

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The Congressman: Joe Neguse

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Mar 2019 14:45:26 +0000

The Congressman: Joe Neguse Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 03/28/2019 - 08:45

Eric Gershon

Former CU Boulder student body president Joe Neguse made a name for himself in Colorado. Now he’s doing it in Washington, D.C.

There he is with Nancy Pelosi in the House Chamber. There he is making phone calls with Joe Biden. There he is addressing the press, Bernie Sanders behind one shoulder, Cory Booker behind the other. That’s him on C-Span, CNN and CBS’ “Face the Nation.”

Former CU Boulder student body president Joe Neguse (Econ, PolSci’05; Law’09) made a name for himself in Colorado. Now he’s doing it in Washington, D.C. In November the one-time Baker Hall resident was handily elected to Congress from Colorado’s 2nd District, which includes Boulder, becoming the first CU graduate to represent the university’s hometown in the House of Representatives since 1975 and the first African-American elected to Congress from any part of Colorado. Neguse, 34, hadn’t been sworn in yet when he emerged as a prominent member of Congress’ incoming class, the most demographically diverse in the nation’s history. Within weeks of the Nov. 6 election, he was elected to the House Democratic leadership as co-freshman representative. Soon afterward, he was asked to deliver the party’s final weekly address of 2018. Since taking office Jan. 3, Neguse has won seats on the House Judiciary and Natural Resources committees, the latter of particular interest to Colorado, given its influence over policy affecting public lands, outdoor recreation and wildlife. As of late January, he had introduced more bills than any freshman member of the 116th Congress. No one who knows him is surprised. “You never saw him wasting time,” said Steve Fenberg (EnvSt’06), majority leader of the Colorado State Senate, recalling his days with Neguse at CU, where they became close. “He was always doing something in service of his goals.”

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Students work to prepare Boulder County for next environmental disaster

Anonymous — Tue, 11 Dec 2018 15:58:25 +0000

Students work to prepare Boulder County for next environmental disaster Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 12/11/2018 - 08:58

An alumni of the Political Science Graduate Program, Lev Szentkiralyi, was recently higlighted in CU Boulder Today regarding a service-learning class he taught in the Fall of 2018. The class is designed to engage students in the preparation of the next disaster to strike the Boulder area and how to connect University resources to recovery and preparedness. Read more about the course in CU Boulder Today

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