Colorado College Sociology students engaged in conversation & research at the CSPM. Note: Etelin Tapia Andrade is featured speaking amongst her classmates in the pink blouse, center of photograph. All images courtesy of Colorado College.
In preparation for our upcoming exhibition, Freedom to Thrive: The American Experiment in Colorado Springs, I recently had the pleasure of working with Jordan Travis Radke, PhD, and the students enrolled in her “Sociology Methods” course at Colorado College. During the block (3 ½ week-long course), students transcribed and created abstracts for oral histories, studied museum practices, learned about the CSPM: including our values, goals, and mission, they met and learned from our community curators who are working on Freedom to Thrive, and applied methods of sociological analysis to determine obstacles and opportunities to thrive in our community.
This scholarly project was a part of the Collaborative for Community Engagement office at CC. When the museum received an email last year listing professors who were open to using their classes to engage in a mutually beneficial, meaningful, and measurable community project – I jumped at the opportunity to work with Dr. Radke and her students. After talking with the students on multiple occasions throughout the process, I was deeply impressed with their questions about Colorado Springs history, exhibit development practices, and the museum’s goals for our upcoming exhibit. I found them as a group to be kind, curious, thoughtful, and dedicated to contributing to Freedom to Thrive.
It also proved beneficial to our partner, as Professor Radke reflects, “Working alongside the Colorado Springs Pioneers Museum on the Freedom to Thrive exhibit was deeply meaningful for both me and my students. I believe wholeheartedly in the power of education and storytelling to shift narratives, expand empathy, and build bridges of understanding between people. At a time when it can be easier to flatten communities into stereotypes or avoid difficult truths altogether, this exhibit creates space for nuance, complexity, and honest reflection about what it means to belong and thrive in Colorado Springs.
Through engaging oral histories, my students encountered stories that were deeply personal yet connected across generations by shared places, as well as shared struggles, resilience, and resistance. The project challenged them to think critically and with nuance about the barriers that shape people’s lives while also witnessing extraordinary agency and humanity. More than an academic exercise, this collaboration invited students into the powerful work of listening carefully, learning from lived experience, and imagining how institutions, communities, and relationships might be transformed to create a more just and thriving future for all.”
From my perspective, it was an outstanding example of how collaboration can lead to innovative ways of thinking, increased connections between faculty and students at CC and the City of Colorado Springs, insight into public history work, and a deeper understanding of the rich and complex history of the Pikes Peak region. After the class ended, Etelin Tapia Andrade, a soon-to-be graduate of Colorado College who grew up in Colorado Springs, volunteered to continue research work on the exhibit.
Despite simultaneously completing her senior thesis in sociology, and volunteering for another local non-profit, Etelin spent countless hours researching and writing about Delia Armstrong Busby, and the fight to gain equal access to education in the Pikes Peak region. Not only was it an absolute pleasure to work with such a bright, talented, kind, and dedicated student, Etelin completed outstanding research and analysis that will appear in Freedom to Thrive: The American Experiment in Colorado Springs. Needless to say, we are extremely grateful for the opportunity to work with scholars and students in our community and look forward to future collaborations.
"Freedom to Thrive" public opening is on Colorado Day!
Leah Davis Witherow, Curator of History
719.385.5649 | Leah.Witherow@coloradosprings.gov