An apple a day? It’s the Boulder way

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 08 May 2025 17:18:27 +0000

An apple a day? It’s the Boulder way Rachel Sauer Thu, 05/08/2025 - 11:18

Rachel Sauer

Newly planted apple orchard on ��ϳԹ� campus is a nexus of university and community partnerships and will be a living classroom for students and educators

For now, they are twiggy little things, all spindly adolescent limbs that nevertheless hint at future harvests. Saturday morning, one even wore a scattering of creamy white blossoms—flowers that, in years to come, once roots have gained hold and branches have stretched up and out, will grow into apples.

Is there anything more hopeful than planting a tree? Yes, planting a whole orchard of them.

On Saturday, years of planning, research and partnership-building bore fruit on an L-shaped plot in front of the ��ϳԹ� 30th Street greenhouse, where more than two-dozen volunteers planted 30 apple trees in what had previously been a scrubby patch of turf.

Funded by a $90,000 Sustainable CU grant, the apple orchard will not only be a classroom and a living lab, but a nexus for community, a carbon sink and a vibrant example that sustainability can be delicious.

“It’s so exciting to see this happening,” says Amy Dunbar-Wallis, who this semester completed her PhD in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and collaborated with ��ϳԹ� faculty and students and community partners to bring the idea of the first orchard on ��ϳԹ� campus to fruition.

“It represents how so many people on campus, so many people in the community, have come together to plant this orchard that will be a place to learn and a place to preserve a really neat part of Boulder’s history.”

In search of old apple trees

The new apple orchard grew from the Boulder Apple Tree Project, an initiative that began almost 15 years ago with a simple observation: There seemed to be a lot of old apple trees in Boulder.

Katharine Suding, a professor of distinction in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, had recently moved to the area, “and I was really surprised to see so many old apple trees everywhere,” she recalled during the 2022 Apple Symposium. “I realized I had no idea about the histories and particularly the history of apples, so looking into it a little more, it was clear there are trees here that are remnants of past histories starting in the turn of (20th) century.

Amy Dunbar-Wallis (left) and Tiffany Willis (right, EBio'22) consult a chart designating where each tree would be planted in the new apple orchard in front of the 30th Street greenhouse Saturday morning. Willis, who lives in Boulder, took EBIO 1250 online during Covid lockdowns and was a lab assistant for the class in 2021.

“There are apple trees in Colorado and in Boulder that are remnants from old orchards that still exist. There are also remnants of trees that were planted when people came and built ranches or had farms here, and often they were bringing along apple trees from where they came from, whether it was Germany, whether it was the Midwest, whether it was Scandinavia.”

In fall 2017, the Boulder Apple Tree Project (BATP) sprouted, combining historical sleuthing with cutting-edge genetic testing and grafting to not only locate and catalog Boulder’s historic apple trees, but also to revive its legacy of apple growing. In the ongoing project, researchers gather data on the age and health of the trees, as well as the type and flavor of the apples, and the genetic diversity that the trees offer to future populations.

Suding and BATP co-principal investigator Lisa Corwin, an associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, have worked with undergraduate and graduate students not only to gather data, but also to develop the EBIO 1250 course, during which students conduct research on Boulder’s apple trees; curricula and materials in partnership with the CU Museum of Natural History; a database and app in collaboration with computer science students; an interactive map of apple trees that have been tagged and studied; and the A Power of Place Learning Experience and Research Network (APPLE R Net), a multi-institution research network directed by Corwin that introduces students to field research by involving them in a project examining apple trees across the Rocky Mountain region.

BATP also is part of the Historic Fruit Tree Working Group, which connects Colorado researchers with other apple-exploring groups and researchers across North America.

Mia Williams (left) waters a newly planted apple tree Saturday morning. Williams, who will graduate this summer, is double majoring in ecology and evolutionary biology and environmental studies.

“This project has grown so much since our initial community engaged Apple Blitz in 2018,” says Dunbar-Wallis. “We've tagged over 1,000 trees and created a database, taught multiple course-based undergraduate research experiences at CU and at colleges across Colorado and northern New Mexico, started a data-collection app and interactive map in collaboration with CU computer science capstone students and installed a demonstration orchard in collaboration with Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks.”

The demonstration orchard, planted two years ago, functions as a teaching and research laboratory to explore how biodiversity affects the functioning of apple orchards and their services to human well-being, including efficient water use, pollinator habitat and structural complexity supporting natural pest control.

A part of the narrative

The idea for the 30th Street orchard was revived by a group of six undergraduate and two graduate students almost two years ago, who proposed resubmitting a grant application that hadn’t been accepted in 2019.

“We’re a group who really love what we do and love apple trees and working with the soil,” says Katie Mikell, an ecology and evolutionary biology student who is graduating today and who was a member of the team that crafted and submitted the grant proposal.

“Before, (the orchard plot) was a lawn full of monoculture turf grass, so part of our argument was that if we put in an apple orchard, it would create a carbon sink (a system that absorbs more carbon than it releases), it would save the school money and anyone walking by could pick an apple. Plus, once the trees are producing, we can donate apples to the food pantry. Everyone can benefit from an apple orchard.”

Deidre Jaeger (right, PhDEBio'22) and her sons Sage, 4 (left), and Cedar, 1 (center), plant apple trees at the 30th Street orchard Saturday morning. Jaeger was a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and an advisor for the Center for Sustainable Landscapes and Communities and is a researcher with the Boulder Apple Tree Project.

Students prepared the 30th Street site during fall semester, working with departments and organizations across the university, as well as many community partners. The trees planted Saturday are about three years old and were obtained from Widespread Malus and Benevolence Orchard in Boulder.

“Our students are at the core of the university, and their passion and ingenuity are critical to our values around infusing sustainability throughout ��ϳԹ�. This orchard exemplifies that pursuit in so many ways,” says Vice Chancellor for Sustainability Andrew Mayock.

“It is not only helping to protect biodiversity in our community. It will help feed those in need on our campus and create a living-learning laboratory space where sustainability leaders of the future will learn and develop strategies for urban agriculture planning.”

Fifteen varieties of apples are represented in the orchard, including locally grown historic cultivars like Wolf River and Colorado Orange. A beloved apple tree on the Bobolink Trail is even represented in a newly planted graft.

“There’s so much learning that can happen in an orchard,” says Manuela Mejia, an ecology and evolutionary biology PhD student who will conduct her doctoral research, which will include studying insect diversity, at the orchard. “So many facets of science are represented here.”

In addition to trees, the orchard will include an understory of native, drought-tolerant grasses and pollinator-friendly wildflowers, notes Mia Williams, who is majoring in environmental studies and ecology and evolutionary biology and will graduate this summer.

“It’s really exciting that this orchard will become a part of the story of agriculture in this area,” Dunbar-Wallis says. “We’ve tagged more than 1,000 trees (through BATP) and some of them are a hundred years old, so you think about everything they’ve seen and been through, the history that they hold, their stories, and now these trees—which are little now and probably won’t produce fruit for two or three years—are part of that narrative.”

Sophie Small (left) and Amy Dunbar-Wallis (right) fill a wheelbarrow with compost Saturday morning to prepare for planting an apple orchard in front of the 30th Street greenhouse. Small, a freshman who is studying biomedical engineering, learned about the project through the CU Farm and Garden Club.

Sophie Small (left), Isaac Kou (center) and Kyrie MacArthur dig a hole Saturday morning before planting an apple tree in it. Small is studying biomedical engineering, Kou just graduated with a major in computer science and a minor in ecology and evolutionary biology and MacArthur is studying history and education.

Amy Dunbar-Wallis (PhDEBio'25) digs a hole for a young apple tree Saturday morning.

Amy Dunbar Wallis (left, black vest) educates student and community volunteers Saturday morning before they plant 30 apple trees in front of the 30th Street greenhouse.

The apple trees planted in the 30th Street orchard Saturday morning, one of which even bloomed, are three years old and should begin producing fruit in two or three years.

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Newly planted apple orchard on ��ϳԹ� campus is a nexus of university and community partnerships and will be a living classroom for students and educators.

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Initiative gives students a voice with hip-hop

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 10 Apr 2025 15:39:27 +0000

Initiative gives students a voice with hip-hop Rachel Sauer Thu, 04/10/2025 - 09:39

Cody DeBos

Founded by a collaborative including ��ϳԹ� scholars, the Lyripeutics Storytelling Project aims to empower Black and Brown youth through the medium of hip-hop

A Manual High School student sits behind a microphone, headphones on. Their world outside—which sometimes holds uncertainty, systemic barriers and institutional indifference but also encompasses the rich musical and cultural heritage of Denver’s Five Points neighborhood—fades away for a moment as a beat drops. As the student leans in, the cadence of hip-hop becomes an outlet to speak their truth.

For many Black and Brown youth in the greater Denver area, the Lyripeutics Storytelling Project is more than a way to express their creativity. It’s survival.

That’s why the artists and educators behind the project are battling to keep the space alive.

Shawn O'Neal (left), an assistant teaching professor of ethnic studies, and Kalonji Nzinga (right), an assistant professor of education, are co-directors of Lyripeutics.

“We’re trying to provide these platforms of learning that we think Black and Brown students in particular really resonate with,” says Kalonji Nzinga, a ��ϳԹ� assistant professor of education and Lyripeutics co-director. “In a way, we’re just building upon the history of creating learning environments based in a cultural reference point, based in our ways of knowing.”

Through storytelling and music production, young people in the Lyripeutics program gain an opportunity to share stories of their unique cultural wealth. But while the program has been a source of empowerment for many, it also faces funding struggles and systemic resistance.

What is Lyripeutics?

Founded by a collective of ��ϳԹ� scholars, artists, educators and community organizers, Lyripeutics’ mission is to empower Black and Brown youth through a medium many connect with—hip-hop. The program is embedded in schools in the greater Denver area and aims to offer alternative learning environments for students who find themselves overlooked in traditional education systems.

“We don’t all learn the same, yet we have this system of education that’s been around for hundreds of years and is really geared for only one very particular type of student,” says Shawn O’Neal, an assistant teaching professor in the ��ϳԹ� Department of Ethnic Studies and Lyripeutics’ founding member and co-director.

“It’s just not working for us. For many students. It hasn’t worked,” he adds.

Rather than using the traditional education system’s philosophy of rigid structure and standardization, the Lyripeutics program operates through collaboration and an evolving process in which students, teachers and artists co-create learning spaces.

“A typical day can look quite different depending on whether we have a producer leading the session or a lecturer on hip-hop history, or an actual MC helping create space for youth to do storytelling,” O’Neal says.

Students can also create and produce their own music in the state-of-the-art hip-hop studio adjacent to the Manual High School library in Denver.

“We collaborate with other hip-hop artists across the Denver area to develop the programming and to do the instruction,” Nzinga says.

At its heart, the program is about creative expression.

“We’re even working with students on exercises like field recordings of their environments and recording their neighborhoods and creating tracks and experiences out of those,” O’Neal adds.

Building confidence, one verse at a time

Through storytelling and music production, young people in the Lyripeutics program gain an opportunity to share stories of their unique cultural wealth. (Photo: iStock)

Those behind the Lyripeutics program know education isn’t just about what happens in the classroom, but what happens when students see their own voices amplified in the real world.

Recently, one group of high school students visited the ��ϳԹ� campus to play original tracks on the university’s radio station.

“The folks who run the radio station were just blown away,” says O’Neal. “It was an enriching experience for everyone involved.”

“We believe that doing work related to the social context, the cultural movement that is hip-hop, allows young people to really express their story from their perspective,” adds Nzinga.

For many of the youth involved, the program is much more than an extracurricular activity; for some, it’s the first time they’ve been given tools, encouragement and a platform to tell their stories, O’Neal says.

“When we get to engage with the students, it’s normally within a place of creativity and joy. We aren’t there for a lot of the day-to-day things I know they’re going through, but we see and hear the expression of their frustrations and the various roadblocks they’re up against through their music and their performance,” O’Neal says.

Fighting to keep the mic on

For all its successes, Lyripeutics faces a current reality: Programs focused on BIPOC youth, particularly those challenging traditional educational models, are under an intense microscope.

“We are at this moment receiving so much resistance from multiple levels,” Nzinga says. “From previous and future funding situations to different regulations at the state and district level—it’s extremely frustrating.”

Despite widespread recognition of the program’s impact, Nzinga and his colleagues cite an uphill battle to secure funding. While institutions like ��ϳԹ�’s Renée Crown Wellness Institute have provided crucial support, securing consistent financial backing remains a struggle.

But the pushback isn’t just about money. Nzinga and O’Neal attribute much of the resistance to a larger national trend of rolling back diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, making it harder for programs like Lyripeutics to operate freely.

“We claim we want this type of programming for students that they need, yet we have to fight tooth and nail just to get a dollar, when we see so much money funneled into things that seem to be the antithesis of community building,” O’Neal observes.

“We believe that doing work related to the social context, the cultural movement that is hip-hop, allows young people to really express their story from their perspective.”

The most devastating consequence? Students who should be at the center of the conversation lose access to much-needed programming, and their voices are silenced—sometimes literally. Despite receiving parental consent, Lyripeutics has faced institutional roadblocks when trying to bring student voices into larger discussions about the program’s success.

“We would really prefer to have those students speaking for themselves,” O’Neal says, “But we’re not even at liberty to say many of the things we want to say.”

O’Neal and Nzinga also know Lyripeutics isn’t the only program fighting this battle. It’s part of a system of community-led education that refuses to be erased.

Nzinga says, “Our program isn’t the only one facing these types of pushback.”

“A lot of times these resistance movements try to separate us. They make us feel like we’re alone in doing this work, but we aren’t,” he adds.

When asked how outsiders can support the Lyripeutics program, Nzinga and O’Neal didn’t point to a single solution. They emphasized the importance of solidarity, awareness and amplifying voices.

“I think parents and community leaders voicing their opinions about any of the positive effects our programming has had would help,” O’Neal says.

The road ahead isn’t easy. Yet, despite the challenges, Lyripeutics will be there to keep a beat playing and a mic on for its students, ensuring the next generation of storytellers and leaders will have their voices heard.

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Founded by a collaborative including ��ϳԹ� scholars, the Lyripeutics Storytelling Project aims to empower Black and Brown youth through the medium of hip-hop.

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Tales as old as time … yet we still love them

Rachel Sauer — Fri, 04 Apr 2025 15:36:10 +0000

Tales as old as time … yet we still love them Rachel Sauer Fri, 04/04/2025 - 09:36

Rachel Sauer

With yet another Snow White adaptation currently in theaters, ��ϳԹ� scholar Suzanne Magnanini reflects on the enduring appeal of fairy tales

Once upon a time—this time, in fact, and many of the ones that came before it—there was a story that never grew dull in its telling.

It possibly leaped the porous cultural and national borders of narrative, carried by caravans or ships or ethernet cables and planted in the ready imaginations of successive generations of story lovers—those who tell them and those who hear them.

Maybe it’s the story of a young person who ventures into the unknown, where they encounter magic and beasts of all sizes and a resolution specific to the tale’s time and place. Maybe there really even are fairies involved.

Suzanne Magnanini, a ��ϳԹ� associate professor of Italian and chair of the Department of French and Italian, notes that fairy tales' malleability helps them remain fresh and relevant over centuries of retellings.

And we never seem to tire of hearing about them.

The recent theatrical release of Disney’s live-action Snow White—one of countless retellings of the tale over more than 400 years—highlights the place of honor that fairy tales occupy in cultures around the world and in the hearts of people hearing them for the first time or the thousandth.

One of the reasons they remain fresh through countless years and iterations is their malleability, says Suzanne Magnanini, a ��ϳԹ� associate professor of Italian and chair of the Department of French and Italian. “The Italian author Italo Calvino, who also edited a seminal collection of Italian folktales, writes of fairy tales as being like a stone fruit, where you have that hard core center that is always the same—you’ll usually recognize a Sleeping Beauty story, for example—but the fruit can be radically different around that.”

Stories of time and place

As a researcher, Magnanini has published broadly on fairy tales, including her 2008 book Fairy-Tale Science: Monstrous Generation in the Fairy Tales of Straparola and Basile. She began studying fairy tales while working on her PhD, finding in them a fascinating dovetailing between her interests in monstrosity and otherness.

“As a scholar, I take what’s called a social-historical approach,” she explains. “I’m really interested in all those little details that link a tale to a very precise place in time where it was told, and I’ve written about the ways in which fairy tales are used to elaborate on and think about scientific theories of reproduction that hadn’t really been nailed down at the time—questions that were still being circulated about whether humans could interbreed with animals, for example, and would that produce a monstrous child?

“You look at a some variations of Beauty and the Beast, like Giovan Francesco Straparola’s story of a pig king, where it’s a magical version of these questions, and maybe what’s actually happening is that fairy tales are a way to think through the anxieties and interests of the time.”

Fairy Tales at ��ϳԹ�

The ATU Index is one of the search elements that Suzanne Magnanini and her students are including as they develop the database for Fairy Tales at ��ϳԹ�. The project aims, in part, to improve access and searchability of the more than 2,000 fairy tale collections that are part of the Rare Books Collection at Norlin Library.

The project is a partnership between undergraduates and graduate students under the direction of Magnanini and Sean Babbs, instruction coordinator for the University Libraries' Rare and Distinctive Collections, as well as Hope Saska, CU Art Museum acting director and chief curator, who has trained students in visual-thinking strategies. The project is supported by Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program, the ASSETT Innovation Incubator, the President’s Teaching Scholars Program and the University Libraries.

Fairy Tales at ��ϳԹ� will host a showcase of CU's fairy tale collection from 3:30 to 4:45 p.m. April 16 in Norlin Library M350B. Learn more here.

Though fairy tales may be spun in response to what’s happening in a specific time and place, they also often address concerns that aren’t specific to one location or culture but are broadly pondered across humanity. “Andrew Teverson has written that fairy tales are literature’s migrants because they can move across borders, they can move across boundaries and then make themselves at home and assimilate to a certain extent in different cultures,” Magnanini says.

For example, the Brothers Grimm heard a tale called “Sneewittchen” (Snow White) from folklorist Marie Hassenpflug, as well as from other sources, and included it as tale No. 53 in their seminal 1812 Grimm’s Fairy Tales. However, says Magnanini, there was a similar tale called “The Young Slave” in Giambattista Basile’s 1634 work Pentamerone. In fact, Snow White is type 709 in the Aarne–Thompson–Uther Index (ATU Index), which catalogs and describes common motifs and themes in fairy tales and folklore around the world.

Not so happily ever after

The origins of many fairy tales can be traced as far back as ancient Greece, Rome and China, Magnanini says, which speaks to their ability not only to help people of particular times and places explore their anxieties and questions, but to address the feelings that have been central to the human condition almost since our species emerged from caves.

“When I think about fairy tales, I think about number of characteristics that make them really appealing across time and space,” Magnanini says. “If you think about it, the protagonists are almost always young people heading out into the world—much like our students are heading out—leaving home behind, having to make their way in world, facing challenges. That experience can be very transformational, so in a way these stories are all about metamorphosis and change.

“A lot of times that’s when you’re living your life in Technicolor and all the emotions are new. So, even if you’re no longer in that moment of life, fairy tales tap into experiences like the first falling in love, the first adventure from home. And they often end right after the wedding, so you don’t see someone having to do their taxes or being like, ‘Oh, my god, I’ve been in this relationship for 30 years and I’m bored.’ I think part of the reason we don’t get tired of fairy tales is because they capture this fleeting time in life.”

“If you think about it, the (fairy tale) protagonists are almost always young people heading out into the world—much like our students are heading out—leaving home behind, having to make their way in world, facing challenges," says ��ϳԹ� scholar Suzanne Magnanini. (Photo: Disney Studios)

While fairy tales, particularly as they’ve been interpreted and simplified by Disney, are stereotyped as having “and they lived happily ever after” endings, fairy tales pre-Disney more commonly ended with justice served, Magnanini says. For example, the version of “Snow White” in the 1812 Grimm’s Fairy Tales ends with the evil queen being forced to step into a pair of red-hot iron shoes and dance until she dies.

“A lot of people will say, ‘Oh, it’s the happy ending that’s the appeal of fairy tales,’ but it’s important to remember the vast majority of fairy tales end with the deliverance of justice—something really unjust has happened, someone has been discriminated against, there’s some evil in the world, and justice is delivered,” Magnanini explains. “People who study the formal aspects of fairy tales always talk about how the ‘happy ending’ is found in justice.

“Disney Studios has a tendency to remove the ambiguity from these tales and remove most of the violence—simplifying them in a lot of ways. If you read the French version of Beauty and the Beast, Charles Perrault’s version, there were other siblings in there; there was a complex family structure with complex interactions and a lot of really heavy issues—the family must deal with economic disaster.”

In fact, the field of fairy tale scholarship addresses everything from feminist interpretations of the stories to the ways in which children use fairy tales to help navigate psychosexual rites of passage. Generations of authors have told and continue to retell these familiar stories through different lenses of gender, sexuality, geography, racial identity, economic status and many, many others.

“What makes these stories different, and what I think is a big part of the appeal of fairy tales, is the magic or the marvel,” Magnanini says. “For it to be a fairy tale, scholars would say there has to be magic in there—not just the presence of magic, but magic that facilitates the happy ending by allowing the protagonist to overcome whatever obstacles are in the way of what they desire, maybe the marriage, the wealth, the happy ending. There’s something so satisfying about that, because it doesn’t happen in your quotidian day-to-day life. I mean, imagine if you met a talking deer.”

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With yet another Snow White adaptation currently in theaters, ��ϳԹ� scholar Suzanne Magnanini reflects on the enduring appeal of fairy tales.

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