Field Trips
"Meeting the people living out the histories and cultures we have only read about has changed the way I see their world and mine."
- Student comment on course evaluation
Field trips often shift students' perceptions and attitudes about course content as applied to real situations in the region. Besides hearing from community leaders and professional practitioners, field trips sometimes involve real work: helping with research on an endangered species through observation and field notes, or helping villagers clean their vega (common lands) in exchange for presentations on community history and issues.
The four-week block immerses students in readings and lectures; the field trip immerses students in the landscapes, communities, cultures and ecosystems that populate the Southwest. With no concern about conflicting classes, field trips can span from one day to two weeks.
CC100: Power, Place, and the Southwest Borderlands
Dr. Roybal and students from CC100: Power, Place, and the Southwest Borderlands traveled to the History Colorado Center in Denver. There Danielle Seewalker walked them through her exhibit But We Have Something to Say. An exhibit that highlights the often erased and censored histories. Students also walked through The Sand Creek Massacre: The Betrayal that Changed Cheyenne and Arapaho People Forever. A history of the betrayal coming from the perspectives of Cheyenne and Arapaho tribal representatives.
SW272: Cultural Lanscapes of the Southwest
Our visiting professor April Bojorquez took her students from SW272: Cultural Landscapes of the Southwest to the Fiesta Day Rodeo. This allowed students an opportunity to experience and observe the cultural customs that they read during class. During the rodeo there were many folklórico performances, bull riding, and dancing horses. Fiesta Day is a way to celebrate the culture and traditions deeply embedded in Pueblo, CO.
SW322: Borders and Borderlands
This course offered a grounded understanding of borders and borderlands, specifically the U.S.-Mexico Border. Utilizing the U.S.-Mexico borderlands and its inhabitants as a case study, they interrogated identity formation, cultural hybridity, exclusion, difference, biculturalism, social control, boundaries and “boundedness.”
Cultures of Water in the Southwest
Discuss the cultures, history, and politics of water in the Southwest. Meet with water diversion project managers, hydrologists, and acequia organizations and majordomos.
SW220: Environmental Justice in the Southwest
Explore conflicts and commonalities between practicing environmentalists (pastoral cultures of New Mexico and southern Colorado) and card-carrying environmentalists. Course topics include historic, economic, and social origins of conflicts between these rural cultures and urban environmentalists and today's response by pastoral cultures to re-create equitable economies that sustain environment and culture. Field trip to New Mexico and southern Colorado.