There's no better time to celebrate two of CSU's most accomplished poets than during National Poetry Month.

In this episode of The Next 150, President Amy Parsons sits down with University Distinguished Professor of English Camille Dungy, and University Distinguished Teaching Scholar Dan Beachy-Quick — both Guggenheim Fellows and treasured members of CSU's creative writing faculty.

Camille and Dan share the stories behind their newest poetry collections — Camille's America, A Love Story and Dan's Elements & Offerings — and each reads a poem from their new works. The conversation explores their path to poetry, what makes the art form uniquely powerful, and what CSU's Creative Writing program, now celebrating its 40th anniversary, means to the literary world. They also reflect on mentoring the next generation of poets and offer advice for students looking to find their creative voice.

More About Our Guests ⤵️

Camille Dungy is a University Distinguished Professor and Director of the Creative Writing Program at Colorado State University. She is the author of five collections of poetry, the essay collection Guidebook to Relative Strangers, and the memoir Soil: The Story of a Black Mother's Garden. She has won an American Book Award and received fellowship support from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, which named her a Fellow in 2019. Her new collection, America, A Love Story, is an honest and compassionate examination of the mounting griefs of contemporary American life. Former U.S. Poet Laureate Ada Limón says, "These new poems by Camille Dungy had me floored."

Dan Beachy-Quick is a poet, essayist, translator, and University Distinguished Teaching Scholar at Colorado State University. He is the author of numerous poetry collections, including North True South Bright and Mulberry — a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award — and Variations on Dawn and Dusk. His newest collection, Elements & Offerings, was published by LSU Press in January 2026. His essay collection A Whaler's Dictionary is widely regarded for its literary and philosophical depth. In 2015, Beachy-Quick became the first humanities faculty member at CSU to receive a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is also a recipient of the Monfort Professorship, the first awarded within the College of Liberal Arts, and his work has been supported by the Lannan Foundation.

The Next 150 podcast is about what's ahead — but this episode starts by looking back.

As Colorado marks 150 years of statehood, the nation approaches its 250th birthday, and CSU's Archives and Special Collections celebrates 50 years of preserving the university's history, we sat down with two people who know how CSU's history fits into that shared story better than anyone — Mark Shelstad, Head of Digital and Archive Services, and Clarissa Trapp, Instruction and Outreach Archivist, at CSU Libraries.

They provide an inside look at a collection spanning 550 archival collections, 24,000 rare books and over 150 terabytes of digital files — from a piece of cuneiform dating back to 2350 BCE, to born-digital content captured today. They share how the archives narrowly escaped the 1997 Spring Creek flood, what makes documenting a land-grant university unique, why today's students are active creators of CSU's history, and what the future of preservation looks like in an increasingly digital world.

More about our guests:

Mark Shelstad is the Head of Digital and Archive Services at CSU Libraries and an associate professor. He holds a B.A. in History from the University of Minnesota-Morris and an M.A. in Public History with a specialization in archival administration from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Mark got his start through a graduate internship at the Minnesota Historical Society and went on to work at the University of Wyoming's American Heritage Center, the University of Texas at San Antonio Libraries as Head of Special Collections, and the Wyoming State Archives as Deputy State Archivist before joining CSU 11 years ago. He and his team manage CSU's institutional memory, collections relating to Colorado agriculture and water, special collections and born-digital content from across campus.

Clarissa Trapp is CSU Libraries' Instruction and Outreach Archivist and an assistant professor. She holds a B.A. from Northwestern College in Orange City, Iowa, and a M.L.I.S. from San Jose State University. Clarissa started her career at Living History Farms in Urbandale, Iowa, where she spent six years working at a living history museum before arriving at CSU as a graduate student in 2009 to study history. A summer job in the archives shifted her path — she joined the staff as a Digital Collections Technician in 2016, earned her library science degree during the pandemic and stepped into her current faculty role in 2024. She specializes in connecting campus and community members with archival materials and is a go-to expert on Colorado and CSU history.

Anderson Cooper with 60 Minutes visited CSU’s campus to learn more about the groundbreaking work led by Dr. Stephanie McGrath and Dr. Julie Moreno, researchers in CSU's College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences working alongside aging dogs and their owners to better understand how dementia develops. At CSU, those lived experiences are fueling a first-of-its-kind effort to understand brain aging in real-world conditions in both canines and humans.

Stephanie, a veterinary neurologist directing CSU’s Brain Research Center, and Julie, a neurotoxicologist and associate director, partner with the national Dog Aging Project to follow thousands of dogs—including President Amy Parsons’ pug, El Jefe—across their lifetimes. Their Brain Health Study is revealing striking similarities between canine cognitive decline and human Alzheimer’s disease.

In this episode, they share how owner generosity, national collaboration, and cross-campus mentorship are accelerating progress toward earlier detection, better support for families with aging pets, and ultimately more effective treatments for both canine and human dementia. They also share their behind-the-camera experience with 60 Minutes, and highlight the essential role of CSU students who help drive this research through sample processing, data analysis, and hands-on lab work.

Don't miss El Jefe's special appearance in this episode, reminding us that behind every data point is a beloved family member.