In his Distinguished Research Lecture Nov. 28, Professor Kirk Ambrose will discuss how institutions used art to authenticate religious relics, as well as condemn counterfeiting

During the Middle Ages in Europe, religious relics were highly prized—not just by individuals, but also by institutions. Possessing them could bolster prestige and wealth, as well as enhance spiritual credibility.

So, the temptation to forge relics and make fake claims about them was strong. In fact, the years between 1000 and 1150 CE are called the “golden age of medieval forgery.”

How did institutions strengthen their claims to possess authentic relics? Kirk Ambrose, a University of Colorado Boulder professor of classics and founding director of the Center for Teaching and Learning, will explore this question in a Distinguished Research Lecture from 4 to 5 p.m. Nov. 28, with a question-and-answer session and reception following.

Kirk Ambrose will give a Distinguished Research Lecture at 4 p.m. Nov. 28.

Ambrose will discuss relics and authenticity claims through the example of the French monastery of Sainte-Foy, Conques, examining how this community used the visual arts to advance their claims and condemn those who engaged in counterfeiting.

About Kirk Ambrose

Ambrose earned master’s and doctorate degrees in the history of art from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, after earning a bachelor’s degree in art history from Oberlin College.

He specializes in the art and architecture of medieval Europe and has published four books and dozens of scholarly articles on the topic. In partnership with Steven Martonis, exhibitions manager in the CU Art Museum, he curated two exhibitions on the art of the American West at the CU Art Museum, including “Pioneers: Women Artists in Boulder, 1898-1950,” which was the basis for a feature-length documentary film. He served seven years as the chair of the Department of Art and Art History and a term as editor-in-chief of The Art Bulletin, the journal of record for art historians in the United States.

Among other research projects, Ambrose is working on a book provisionally titled The Frailty of Eyes, which connects medieval studies and art history with the rich theoretical concerns of disability studies. His published books include The Marvellous and the Monstrous in the Sculpture of Twelfth-Century Europe and The Nave Sculpture of Vézelay: The Art of Monastic Viewing.

In 2019, Ambrose helped launch the CU Boulder Center for Teaching and Learning, which develops and supports CU’s teaching community of practice. Its foundations are grounded in research-based practices, inclusive pedagogy, and equitable assessment techniques.

“Much of my work as a medievalist has focused on the production and reception of knowledge within communities, especially monastic communities,” Ambrose of the University of California-San Diego. “I think that has positioned me to regard teaching less as an isolated activity of a teacher transmitting knowledge to a group of students, than as a deeply collaborative enterprise.

   What: 122nd Distinguished Research Lecture: The Authentic and the Counterfeit in Medieval Art

  Who: Professor Kirk Ambrose of the Department of Classics

  When: 4-5 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 28

  Where: Chancellor’s Hall and Auditorium, CASE

“To my mind, this works on a number of levels. Teachers collaborate with their students to advance learning. Teachers collaborate with one another to share effective practices. And our center serves as a space that collaborates with units and specialists from across campus to support educators in achieving their goals.”

About the Distinguished Research Lectureship

The Distinguished Research Lectureship is among the highest honors given by faculty to a faculty colleague at CU Boulder. Each year, the Research and Innovation Office requests nominations from faculty for this award, and a faculty review panel recommends one or more faculty members as recipients. 

The lectureship honors tenured faculty members, research professors (associate or full) or adjoint professors who have been with CU Boulder for at least five years and are widely recognized for a distinguished body of academic or creative achievement and prominence, as well as contributions to the educational and service missions of CU Boulder. Each recipient typically gives a lecture in the fall or spring following selection and receives a $2,000 honorarium.

Ambrose and Rebecca Safran, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, have been recognized with 2023-24 Distinguished Research Lectureships. Safran will deliver her Distinguished Research Lecture on Tuesday, March 12.

Top image: the reliquary statue of St. Foy (photo by )

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But June Gruber’s teaching, which recently won a Cogswell Award for Inspirational Instruction, doesn’t mean she shows students the path to unmitigated joy; on the contrary, the science of emotional wellness is more nuanced

June Gruber flashes the words “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” onto large screens in her classroom. Her students immediately identify the source as the Declaration of Independence. 

Gruber nods, noting that the nation’s founding document heralds “my inalienable right to be happy.” Such a message, she adds, engenders “a kind of expectation that we must pursue happiness.”

But must we?

June Gruber

That’s one question Gruber answers in her Science of Happiness course at the University of Colorado Boulder. Gruber, associate professor of psychology and neuroscience and a faculty fellow at the Center for Teaching and Learning, teaches the upper-division course that is popular with students, who give Gruber glowing reviews, sometimes in deeply personal terms.

Her course is popular not because it unlocks the secrets to unlimited happiness. Rather, Gruber’s course pores over the developing research—some of which is Gruber’s own—that reveals a “dark side to happiness.” 

As Gruber has shown in her peer-reviewed research, a Tedx talk and now a CU Boulder course, it is not that happiness is bad. Rather, evidence strongly suggests that happiness is but one of the human emotions to which people should be open, and that excesses of apparent happiness can signal problems such as mania (or bipolar disorder), excessive spending, problem gambling or even high-risk sexual encounters.

Perhaps most surprisingly, Gruber cites . They report being less able to be emotionally present in moments that could be happy, and .

Whether the American founders sent us on a Sisyphean task is beyond the scope of the class, which focuses on how happiness is defined and measured, what makes us truly happy and how we should pursue it.

In addition to regular class assignments, students in the Science of Happiness course (PSYC 4541) complete weekly “science-to-life” exercises, which apply the theories and practices learned in class to everyday existence. For instance, students kept gratitude journals, performed random acts of kindness and completed the . Students also took “,” in which they visited novel, physically vast spaces and observed their surroundings mindfully.

Some shared their experiences in class, rapidly budding flowers and greening leaves and the enchantment of focusing on the movement of a squirrel.

In addition to science-to-life exercises and regular coursework, the students also have done outreach projects, in which the goal is to share the science of happiness outside the brick-and-mortar classroom to the local Boulder community and beyond. 

Ashlee Lewis, one of Gruber’s students, has worked in a Boulder retirement home for two years. For her outreach project, she presented a slideshow of the science of happiness across the lifespan to the retirees. 

“They were very excited that I was coming in to do a presentation, and the feedback I got was positive and informative,” Lewis said. “It feels like I actually made a difference in the retirement home community.”

Lewis said Gruber’s course was the “most relatable” psychology course she’s had in four years at CU Boulder, adding “I am so grateful I was able to take this class with Dr. Gruber.”   

 

For the first time, I felt that a class wanted to encourage the outward personal growth we were learning about. Our science-to-life projects brought the lecture material into my own life. I find every opportunity possible to share with my friends and family the things we are learning in class because it feels so valuable to live a healthier life.

Such praise helps explain why Gruber has been recognized for her teaching. She has won the Boulder Faculty Assembly Teaching Excellence Award, the UROP Outstanding Mentor Award and, this spring, the Cogswell Award for Inspirational Instruction. 

The last award is named for and funded by Craig Cogswell, a three-time alumnus of CU Boulder, who says Gruber is an “amazing educator and teacher.” 

“The depth and variety of her research and instruction is inspiring,” Cogswell says. “She comes at her study of mental health from a variety of directions and offers multiple perspectives, insights, and strategies. It’s especially gratifying that her work comes at a time when so many young people need emotional support. I can’t imagine a more deserving recipient.”

Gruber also has developed a free online Coursera  course to tackle stigma and mental health and has written articles for  about the importance of . She also shares career and professional advice for students in .

Leaf Van Boven, professor and chair of psychology and neuroscience, says the Cogswell award is a “well-deserved honor for someone who has made such a positive impact on students and colleagues.” 

Van Boven adds that Gruber is an exceptional teacher and mentor who brings passion, creativity, and dedication to her work. “Professor Gruber’s ability to engage students and inspire them to learn is remarkable. … We are grateful for June Gruber’s commitment to teaching excellence and the positive influence she has had on students.”

Underscoring that point is feedback from the students themselves. Lauren Weber, who wrote an op-ed newspaper essay for her outreach project, says that learning about the science of happiness will stick with her long after graduation.

“I was hoping to take this class as a way to improve my happiness in my last semester of college, but through the research we read and personal discovery this class allowed, I will be able to understand and control the happiness in my life far beyond this class,” she says,

Above and at the top of the page: Gruber and her students pause for a class photos on the last day of the semester. Images courtesy of June Gruber.

Fellow student Emma Ringman says Gruber’s course was both meaningful and helpful. Ringman says she’s struggled with anxiety and depression and even failed out of college “due to extreme mental-health circumstances” stemming from the pandemic.

“And here I am, two years after the fact in my last semester as an undergraduate, preparing to graduate with a degree in psychology and French. As a result of my historical struggles with school, I have often slipped into old habits as a result of a fixed mindset, my brain often telling me that if I have to try hard that I’m not smart, or if something I am working on isn’t perfect, it’s better to not turn it in at all.”

While other psychology classes often focused on “negative” psychology, diagnosable diseases, and “abnormal” aspects of the human experience, Gruber’s course was different, Ringman says. 

“I almost cried sitting in our lecture on the first day of the class, seeing our lineup of guest speakers at the top of their field and the truly fascinating and groundbreaking work we would be reading about and directly interacting with,” she adds. 

“For the first time, I felt that a class wanted to encourage the outward personal growth we were learning about. Our science-to-life projects brought the lecture material into my own life. I find every opportunity possible to share with my friends and family the things we are learning in class because it feels so valuable to live a healthier life.”

Ringman notes that a key lesson is that a variety of emotions yields a richness in life, that obsessively pursuing happiness is futile.

To that end, Gruber shares a quotation from another bulwark of Western civilization, John Stuart Mill, who wrote: 

“Those only are happy who have their minds fixed on some object other than their own happiness; on the happiness of others, on the improvement of mankind, even on some art or pursuit, followed not as a means, but as itself an ideal end. Aiming thus at something else, they find happiness by the way.” 

To learn more or support Gruber's research to support student mental health during and beyond COVID-19, .

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Jennifer Ho, director of CU Boulder’s Center for Humanities & the Arts, discusses the state of arts and humanities in higher education as the center prepares to celebrate its 25th anniversary, and she champions the inherent value of the arts and humanities

The Center for Humanities & the Arts (CHA) at the University of Colorado Boulder turns 25 this year. 

To commemorate the quarter-century milestone, CHA is hosting a celebration from 3:30 p.m. to 5 p.m. on Wednesday, Feb. 15, at the Center for Academic Success and Engagement (CASE) building’s Center for Teaching and Learning (CTL), CASE E390. is recommended and can be completed . For more information on the event, visit the CHA website’s 25-year anniversary webpage. 

At the top of the page: A scene from the Colorado Shakespeare Festival's 2019 production of Twelfth Night. Above: Jennifer Ho, CHA director and ethnic studies professor, teaches courses on Asian American culture and Critical Race Theory at CU Boulder.

Jennifer Ho, CHA director and ethnic studies professor, said the celebration will offer an opportunity to look back on CHA’s successes and to discuss and plan how to promote, support and celebrate the arts and humanities. 

Ho recently participated in a five-question interview about the current state of arts and humanities in higher education, looming challenges for arts and humanities scholarship, strategies CHA employs as it strives to be an effective advocate for the arts and humanities, and more. Her responses follow below. 

Question: How has the situation for the arts and humanities in higher education changed over the last quarter century? 

Ho: I think there’s a tendency to lament the decline of arts and humanities, especially humanities, in higher education, because we see a declining number of arts and humanities majors and decreased funding. And that’s definitely a part of the narrative at CU Boulder and nationwide. 

However, there have also been more humanities and arts centers that have opened nationwide in the last 25 years—one at Brandeis just started up a year ago—and the scholarship and artistic productions by faculty, students, and staff have continued to flourish, on and off campus. 

One positive change that I’ve noticed is an opening up of what we consider to be valuable works of arts and humanities—showcasing both the artistry and scholarship of faculty of color on subjects that 25 years ago we wouldn’t have been seeing depicted in art and music or validated through scholarship such as transgender issues, addressing Islamophobia, centering Black joy, and using an equity, inclusivity and justice lens within arts and humanities—that’s definitely a positive change I’ve seen in the last 25 years. 

Question: What do you see as the immediate and looming challenge to arts and humanities scholarship generally and also at CU Boulder? 

Ho: Politics and money. These are the two most pressing challenges to arts and humanities nationally and perhaps at CU Boulder. Financially the CHA is fine, for now, though we rely on the generosity of the university for our budget—and if that changed, we wouldn’t be able to offer the grants, fellowships, awards and programs that make the CHA a vital hub on campus for arts and humanities. 

I’d love to be able to endow some of our programs; for example, to raise a million dollars so that we’ll always be able to fund graduate students with dissertation fellowships, summer awards and material grants for student artists. 

Politically, I believe things are fine for now at CU Boulder, but like most people I’m keeping my eye on what is happening in Florida. The book bans, the bills preventing people from teaching certain subjects, what’s happening at the New College of Florida—all of this is very concerning about the political climate in education that impacts those of us working in arts and humanities. 

In fact, next year at the CHA, we are hoping to take this up as a theme: Liberty, Freedom, Democracy and the Fight for Ideas. We often see words like “liberty,” “freedom,” “democracy” invoked by people who tend to be on the more conservative side of the spectrum, and I’d like to delve into what we mean when we use these terms and what freedom of thought and expression actually looks like relative to the work we do at the CHA in supporting arts and humanities. 

 

We don’t just need science; we need critical thinking skills of interpretation to think about these as human issues."

Question: If a student or parent asked you to explain the “value” of the arts and humanities, how might you respond? 

Ho: I love getting this question because it allows me to show my passion for arts and humanities, because the first thing I’d say is that arts and humanities give meaning to our lives. And then I’d say that they teach us how to think critically about our world. Art is literally and figuratively the color, sound, movement and texture of our world. 

When the pandemic had us sheltering at home, we turned to stories and art and music to alleviate our anxiety and provide solace in our uncertainty. And humanities courses don’t just teach us how to write better (which is what many people will say is the value of humanities)—humanities courses and books help us think better—they push us to critically examine the world and ask not just “what” is happening but “why” and “how.” 

If we didn’t have humanities scholarship, we wouldn’t be able to solve some of the world’s most pressing problems—because we don’t just need science; we need critical thinking skills of interpretation to think about these as human issues. 

Question: What strategies does the CHA employ as it strives to be the most effective advocate for the arts and humanities? 

Ho: I think and talk in terms of stories—and the stories that the CHA has to share about why arts and humanities are vital is the most effective way I know for us to advocate for arts and humanities. 

An audience gathered at a CHA event titled “Difficult Dialogues: Being Black in Boulder” in the Fall of 2022. The event included a film screening and then a panel discussion that featured Jennifer Ho as one of the panelists.

A story I tell about bridging the CHA to the greater Boulder County community involves a competition we held for CU Boulder staff, students and faculty to produce works of arts and humanities that engaged the theme of “resilience” in light of the Boulder King Soopers mass shooting. 

The entries we received were powerful and poignant—and the winning submission was by a CU Boulder undergraduate student who was a survivor and witness to that tragic day—who wrote a series of letters to March 22 (the day of the shooting). You can find them and the other winning entries on our website. 

We then had a community event at Chautauqua where the awardees spoke about their works. It was a powerful event—and a reminder that arts and humanities have the ability to do so much: to heal, to communicate, to inspire and to witness. 

The student who wrote her letters to March 22 did so because of our competition and it became part of her healing from this horrific event. This is one story among many about why arts and humanities are so crucial to our lives. 

Question: You hold three degrees in English. What drew you to this discipline, and how does your experience dovetail with the mission of CHA? 

Ho: Stories. Stories. Stories. That’s why all my degrees are in English. I taught myself to read when I was 5, because I didn’t want to rely on my parents reading to me—it’s among my first memories: being on my sofa and sounding out words and figuring out the stories in my picture book. 

Fiction is my first true love because it allowed me to travel to multiple worlds in different bodies—and it still does. Who tells stories to whom and for what purpose—this is a powerful tool to have. 

When I started college, I realized it wasn’t just the pleasure of reading novels that I wanted to explore, but the power of representation. The first time I read a book written by a Chinese-American author about Chinese-American experiences was when I was a first year student at UC Santa Barbara. 

That moment changed my life—because up until then, I didn’t think Chinese or Asian American people wrote books—because I had never been assigned a book by an Asian American person and never had a librarian direct me to any Asian American books, fiction or non-fiction. Seeing yourself reflected in stories is a powerful thing—and not seeing that is also powerful, because it means you don’t have a model of what you can be if you can’t see yourself reflected in narrative. 

At the CHA, we want everyone to be able to tell their own story—whether that’s in the form of scholarship, music, media, visual art, dance, drama, or so many of the other disciplines that inform humanities and arts. So, I think my love of stories and my desire to have people tell their stories and be inspired by the stories of others works well at the CHA.

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