Environmental Design

Agency

Regan Widergren — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 18:44:01 +0000

Agency Regan Widergren Fri, 06/13/2025 - 12:44

agency (n.): action or intervention, especially such as to produce a particular effect.

Well-designed actions promote agency and protect your time and energy allowing you to achieve classroom success while also developing your own interests. A well-designed action meets the following criteria. You state it in the positive. You are responsible for starting and completing the action. You are excited about the action, but not overwhelmed. You can measure the action.

To practice this strategy or explore others, contact Ashley Chadwick, ENVD academic coach.

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FYE Program partners with Creative Labs Center to introduce First-Year �鶹��Ժ to Woodworking Tools

Regan Widergren — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 18:38:47 +0000

FYE Program partners with Creative Labs Center to introduce First-Year �鶹��Ժ to Woodworking Tools Regan Widergren Fri, 06/13/2025 - 12:38

Last Wednesday, ENVD First-Year Experience students spent the afternoon exploring the Creative Labs Center with Caleb Wright, manager of ENVD academic support centers, and the CLC monitors. �鶹��Ժ used a handful of tools from the woodworking lab and made cellphone holders from spare pieces of hickory. The simple phone holders taught the processes of layout, crosscutting, drilling, sanding and finishing in about an hour.

FYE activities are a great way to learn about ENVD, CU and Boulder while socializing with your peers. The Creative Labs Center offer hands-on training on many of the tools they offer encouraging all ENVD students to maximize their creative abilities.

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Systems

Regan Widergren — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 18:36:42 +0000

Systems Regan Widergren Fri, 06/13/2025 - 12:36

systems (n.): a set of principles or procedures according to which something is done; an organized framework or method.

Mindfully designing systems supports your success in college. A system allows you to handle a bigger workload and more easily manage stress. When you feel anxious or overwhelmed, take a few minutes to assess your system. A system has three parts: raw ingredients, workflow, and outcomes. You probably have a natural workflow that you deploy to execute your work. To develop a stronger system that responds not only to your natural flow but also to the demands of ENVD coursework, consider the following:

What is your desired outcome?
What are the inputs or raw ingredients?
What is the natural flow that you want to see happen?
What structures do you need to put in place to be organized?
What are the decision points? Pain points?
What do you need to remind yourself to follow through?
What is currently working?
What is NOT currently working?

Adapted from Academic Life Coaching Workbook – College Edition

To practice this strategy or explore others, contact Ashley Chadwick, ENVD academic coach!

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Wellness

Regan Widergren — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 18:32:03 +0000

Wellness Regan Widergren Fri, 06/13/2025 - 12:32

wellness (n.): the state of being in good health, especially as an actively pursued goal.

As we approach mid-semester, remember that there are resources available if you are experiencing imbalance, stress, anxiety, depression, trauma, or otherwise feel that you need to seek help. ENVD and CU Boulder provide safe spaces of support, regardless of your gender, racial and cultural identity, sexual orientation, and religious and economic background. Your health and well-being are important to us! The following resources are available:

Meet with an ENVD academic advisor
Meet with ENVD’s academic coach
Make an appointment with Counseling and Psychiatric Services (CAPS), which assists with a wide range of personal, psychological, and behavioral counseling.
- 24-hour support is available at 303-492-2277
Meet with the Office of Victim Assistance (OVA), which provides free and confidential information, consultation, support, advocacy, and short-term counseling services to CU Boulder students, graduate students, faculty, and staff who have experienced a traumatic, disturbing, or life-disruptive event. OVA is not a part of the police department or the Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance and is a confidential resource for students, staff, and faculty.
Visit Wardenburg Health Center, which offers personal health care services, health information, and wellness programs.
Visit the Basic Needs Center, which connects students to essential resources, including food and housing, and provides support for navigating local and federal resources.
Visit a Rec Center or participate in intramural sports!

Access other campus resources and more basic needs resources.

Adapted from Be Well, Be Prepared with ENVD, CU Boulder Support and Resources (Oct. 9, 2018)

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Third-Year Landscape Architecture �鶹��Ժ Design for Eco-Healing Near Marshall Mesa Site

Regan Widergren — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 18:24:19 +0000

Third-Year Landscape Architecture �鶹��Ժ Design for Eco-Healing Near Marshall Mesa Site Regan Widergren Fri, 06/13/2025 - 12:24

In the summer of 2022, a group of collaborators from the City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks (OSMP), Growing Up Boulder, CEDaR and ENVD began meeting about the concept of eco-healing–the ways in which connecting to nature can help communities process and heal from traumatic disaster events and create educational opportunities around climate change and natural disasters.

Growing Up Boulder conducted community engagement activities with the Boulder Valley School District (BVSD) and students from Whittier Elementary school that focused on exploring emotions around climate change and the super fires of today. Within the first few weeks of the fall 2022 semester, a third-year landscape architecture studio, instructed by Teaching Assistant Professor Emily Greenwood, has expanded on the work carried over from summer.

�鶹��Ժ began their design project with an exploration of emotion and tying that emotional connection into what is typically referred to as the initial research phase. In mid-September, representatives of the multi-agency collaboration presented at the Colorado Open Space Alliance conference on Eco-Healing with youth: Inspiring Emotional Resilience through Wildfire Interpretation and Climate Action. Third-year landscape architecture students will spend the rest of the semester designing interpretive education opportunities along the Marshall Mesa (and adjacent) trailhead that will be presented to OSMP and folded into the future designs for those trailheads.

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Mindset

Regan Widergren — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 18:20:55 +0000

Mindset Regan Widergren Fri, 06/13/2025 - 12:20

mindset (n.): the established set of attitudes held by someone.

We don’t always consider mindset when it comes to productivity, mastery, and execution, but its resonances in these spaces can determine not only how you perform but why. We tend to default to two perspectives on mindset: fixed or growth. However, we are never any one thing all the time.

It is important to leverage an agile mindset to support our immediate and long-term needs.

“An agile mindset is about creating and responding to change in uncertain and turbulent environments. It’s about thinking through how you can understand what’s going on in the environment, identify what uncertainty you’re facing and figure out how to adapt as you go along.”

How agile is your mindset? Are you growing in flexibility? How can you engage your mindset to realize certain goals?

Adapted from Smart Insights: An Introduction to the Agile Mindset (Oct. 9, 2018)

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Scaffold

Regan Widergren — Fri, 13 Jun 2025 18:17:13 +0000

Scaffold Regan Widergren Fri, 06/13/2025 - 12:17

scaffold (n.): supports that enhance learning and aid in task mastery.

As designers, the idea of scaffolding possesses relatively specific dimensions—this tool creates the opportunity to realize a two-dimensional idea in space. As you reset to finish the semester strong, consider how this analogy represents the tools you use to support your success.

These tools include your community and your time, as well as the range of resources you engage on-campus—academic coaching, mental and behavioral health support, research support and resource guides available through Norlin, the MARC, ASAP tutoring, the Josephine Jones Speaking Lab, the Writing Center and more!

Your time is precious and will be in high demand over the coming weeks. Lean on this scaffolding to maximize your opportunity to achieve your goals.

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Self-Care

Regan Widergren — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 20:49:40 +0000

Self-Care Regan Widergren Thu, 06/12/2025 - 14:49

self-care (n.): the practice of taking an active role in protecting one's own well-being and happiness, in particular, during periods of stress.

As the semester winds down, consider ways to optimize your work process and create strong boundaries that support your academic success and health and wellness. Some basics to remember:

Lean into your routine.
Plan your study sessions wisely.
Ask for help and use your resources.
Talk to your professors and TAs! - Get rest, eat regular meals, and don't ignore your health.
Take time for self-care.
Avoid stimulants.
Surround yourself with positivity.

Take a look at some of these tools created by CU to support you as you end the term strong!

6 self-care tips for the end of the semester
Join the Rec Center for free during Finals Week - Dec. 9-14
Check out CAPS Anxiety Toolbox Workshops and Workbook
5 small ways to treat yourself during finals week
Check out Wardenburg's wellness programming
Order a Buff Box to make sure you are prepared to stay healthy and safe
7 hacks for better sleep

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ENVD Professor Participates in Jefferson Science Fellowship Program during 2021-2022

Regan Widergren — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 20:46:58 +0000

ENVD Professor Participates in Jefferson Science Fellowship Program during 2021-2022 Regan Widergren Thu, 06/12/2025 - 14:46

“Science knows no country, because knowledge belongs to humanity, and is the torch which illuminates the world.” –Louis Pasteur

Louis Pasteur’s quote distills a core aim of the U.S. Department of State Jefferson Science Fellowship (JSF), a program Environmental Design Professor Kevin J. Krizek has participated in from 2021 to 2022. The JSF recruits tenured academics to serve as “force multipliers” for science and engineering-oriented thinking–to strengthen perspectives in U.S. diplomacy. Professor Krizek has supported the science of how the next generation of global infrastructure, fueled by rapid technological innovation and clean energy reform, could quickly spread to communities around the world, allowing people to obtain the goods and services needed in a sustainable manner.

While living in Washington, D.C., for the past year, Professor Krizek has served as a senior advisor in the Office of the Under Secretary for Economic Growth, Energy and the Environment. This gave him the opportunity to support U.S. diplomacy in international workshops, learn from Washington-based foundations, be exposed to lobbying efforts and engage in political discussions at some of the highest levels of U.S. government.

As an extension of his appointment with the State Department, Professor Krizek will assist in the formulation of the inaugural Office of Subnational Diplomacy, an office created in part to propel the quick change that is possible, which runs through smaller-scale, community-based operations. As cities worldwide increase their capacity to effectively respond to multiple crises occurring in urban environments, the efforts that Professor Krizek is contributing to will strengthen ties between the State Department with mayors, governors and other local officials in the U.S. and around the world.

A central goal of the JSF is to sustain a contained partnership between the State Department and universities. Professor Krizek will bring back knowledge of international diplomacy and global infrastructure initiatives to share with the University of Colorado Boulder and the Program in Environmental Design, through classroom teaching, student advising and speaking engagements.

Professor Krizek will support programming for the inaugural Cities Summit of the Americas, which will be held in Denver in the spring of 2023.

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Makerspace Fund: ENVD Crowdfunding Campaign

Regan Widergren — Thu, 12 Jun 2025 20:45:26 +0000

Makerspace Fund: ENVD Crowdfunding Campaign Regan Widergren Thu, 06/12/2025 - 14:45

The Program in Environmental Design at the University of Colorado Boulder is hosting a crowdfunding campaign through Dec. 31, 2022, to raise funds for upgrading design technology used in our in-house creative labs and makerspaces.

The Environmental Design curriculum emphasizes hands-on and experiential learning. Our creative labs and makerspaces are heavily used by students daily. With advances in technology and software, upgrading and maintaining state-of-the-art equipment and tools for our students is a high priority.

With your generous donations, Environmental Design hopes to raise $10,000 towards upgrading 3D printers and laser cutters.

Learn more and donate today.

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