Dear Readers,
This issue of RESEARCH magazine centers on the theme of resilience. It is dedicated to people at Colorado State University who study resilience, build resilient systems, and embody resilience.
When I reflect on resilience, my thoughts turn back 25 years. I was in law school and working as an intern in CSU’s General Counsel Office when the Spring Creek flood hit. Flash flooding caused $140 million in damage to the Fort Collins campus and immeasurable losses across our community.
As my work for CSU quickly turned to researching FEMA law, I witnessed thousands of resolute faculty, staff, and students rallying. For many months, they worked tirelessly to recover from one of the biggest disasters in Fort Collins history. Together, they transformed the campus – not to its former state, but to a more adaptable, more functional, and more disaster-resistant state. CSU’s approach to recovery was the definition of resilience: navigating disruption and emerging better than before.
Today, we are again in the throes of emerging from disruption. The COVID-19 pandemic continues to change the way we teach, learn, research, work, and serve our communities. We face difficult political, social, and economic landscapes around the globe. In response to these challenges, CSU experts are creating solutions that make people, institutions, and systems more resilient.
When the editorial board developed this issue, it’s not surprising that they found examples of resiliency everywhere. CSU is a community of purpose-minded people who don’t allow adversity to deter them from carrying forward our teaching, research, and service mission.
As you dig into the following pages, you’ll learn how CSU teams are responding to pandemics, threats to democracy, economic uncertainty, food security, aging and health, climate change and environmental hazards, mental wellness, and more. I hope you are as inspired as I am by their stories.
AMY PARSONS, ’95
President, Colorado State University