Episodes

Think about where you lay your head at night: Whether it’s an apartment, a house or a condo, do you own the place you sleep in? While it’s more common to own a home than to rent one, there are more people renting now in the United States than at any point since 1965. More than 45 million households in this country are rentals—that’s more than a third of all households in the United States, made up of more than 100 million residents. And if you’re one of those 100 million renters, one Universi...

Show Notes Brain injuries are often described as an invisible disability. You don’t necessarily know just by looking at somebody that they have a brain injury, and they may not even know they have one. But inside, things can be very different. The World Health Organization has identified brain injury as a significant public health concern, and traumatic brain injuries are a major cause of death and disability in the United States. Without the right care or resources, it’s easy for these inju...

Show Notes Think back to how you made decisions growing up. Whether it was the clothes you wore, where you hung out, who your friends were, and even how you coped with the struggles you faced—who did you confide in? Was it a friend, a sibling, a parent, a mentor or other trusted adult? It’s likely that peer influence—or how much your personal circle can affect what you do and think— had a big impact. Peer influence has the power to shape nearly every decision a young person makes, and social ...

Show Notes Booker T. Washington once said: “An inch of progress is worth more than a yard of complaint.” A once enslaved man who became an author and speaker in the post-Reconstruction Jim Crow-era South, Washington famously advocated against protest and agitation tactics meant to advance civil rights. Washington’s position was that Black Americans should concentrate on economic progress, rather than desegregation efforts. Washington believed that economic success would advance Black people i...

Hosted by writers Emma Atkinson and Jordyn Reiland, RadioEd is a triweekly podcast created by the DU Newsroom that taps into the University of Denver’s deep pool of bright brains to explore the most compelling and interesting research coming out of DU. See below for a transcript of this episode. This week, production assistant and DU graduate student Madeleine Lebovic steps in to host. Show Notes When Hollywood paints a picture of childhood, it’s often one of nostalgia-tinged wonder. Playing ...

As we get older, things change. Our priorities shift, viewpoints and opinions evolve, and our bodies—and brains—age. Many of these changes are good—we can celebrate the process of aging as one that invites wisdom and joy. But there are natural consequences of getting older, and one of those consequences is cognitive decline. Eric Chess is a former medical doctor who has also earned degrees in law and business. Chess is the director of the Paul Freeman Financial Security Program at DU. He seeks...

Since 2021, when DU was designated as an R1 research institute, the University has been full speed on groundbreaking research locally and globally in psychology, engineering, education, natural science, mathematics and more. And no one knows that better than Corinne Lengsfeld, senior vice provost for research and graduate education, whose tenure at the University tells the story of DU’s research journey. RadioEd co-hosts Emma Atkinson and Jordyn Reiland sat down with Lengsfeld earlier this mon...

What makes you feel safe? Is it a familiar voice on the phone, a particular place, friends or family by your side, your spiritual beliefs or even a favorite blanket? What about a person outside your personal circle, like a paramedic, a lifeguard, a firefighter or a police officer? 20-year-old Joseph said that people should feel safe around police officers, but that isn’t always the case in Durham, North Carolina—where he lives—and elsewhere. He says, “I think that police officers almost have ...

Our lives are made up of the experiences we’ve had. And those experiences stick with us, particularly the good ones. When we look back on our lives, it’s easy to feel as though things were better in the past. We long for the “good ‘ol days,” as it were. There’s a word for this feeling: Nostalgia. And nostalgia, like many other human emotions, has been commodified. That’s right: Advertisers, marketers and even politicians know people yearn for bygone times, and they know just how to take advan...

In 1987, 17% of people had an unfavorable view of the Supreme Court. Now, in 2024, 51% of people say the same thing. That’s a 200% increase in just 37 years, according to analysis of Pew Research data. So why have American's opinions of the court's declined so significantly? In this episode, new co-host Jordyn Reiland chats with Assistant Professor Phil Chen about how trust and legitimacy in the Supreme Court and federal judiciary more broadly is contingent on more than just descriptive repre...

In the six years that Chancellor Jeremy Haefner has helmed the University of Denver, much has changed—and research at DU has truly blossomed. DU was awarded R1 research status in 2021, making it the fourth university in Colorado and the only private institution in the Rocky Mountain Region to have achieved the classification. Since then, the research being done by faculty and students across DU has only gotten more exciting. As we head into the 2024 school year, with more to come from DU’s ste...

Women make up just 34% of the workforce in professional STEM fields. In college, too, women are underrepresented: about 21% of engineering majors are women and around 19% of computer and information science majors are women. So, the question is: Why does this happen? Are women just less interested in these fields? Jennifer Hoffman, Shannon Murphy and Robin Tinghitella, all faculty in the University of Denver’s College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, answer that question with a resounding ...

Much of sports is a gamble. There’s a saying: “Any team can win any game on any given day.” Almost nothing, no outcome, is guaranteed in sports—and that’s part of the fun of watching and playing. But players and coaches want to eliminate as many variables as possible, trying to leave less up to chance. And that is where statistics come in. It might seem like a good idea to call a timeout in the NBA when the opposing team is on a scoring run—it could slow their momentum, change the energy of th...

​ This episode of RadioEd is about suicide and how people can help those they love who might be experiencing suicidal thoughts. We know it’s a heavy topic. In many cultures, suicide is taboo—and in some countries it’s illegal. People don’t like to talk about it. But, as University of Denver associate professor of social work Stacey Freedenthal says, asking a friend or family member if they’re experiencing suicidal thoughts is really, really important. Suicide is one of the leading causes of ...

An anonymous quote claims that “war does not determine who is right—only who is left.” And in many cases, women are the ones who are left to pick up the pieces after war. They must deal with changing power dynamics, laws and norms while simultaneously trying to recover from the trauma of armed conflict—even if they weren’t the ones on the battlefield. So where do women stand after war? University of Denver professor Marie Berry, who teaches in the Josef Korbel School of International Studies,...

If you’ve hiked above the tree line of a mountain in Colorado, you’ve likely come across a couple fuzzy little critters making their homes among the rocks. Deer mice, in particular, are native to North America and are often found at the peaks of the Rocky Mountains. As you stand there at the summit, gasping for air after a long hike, you might have realized that the little mice don't look tired or breathless at all. They scurry around between the rocks, little balls of energy. So why is it tha...

Hosted by writer Emma Atkinson, RadioEd is a triweekly podcast created by the DU Newsroom that taps into the University of Denver’s deep pool of bright brains to explore the most compelling and interesting research coming out of DU. See below for a transcript of this episode. The Manhattan District Attorney’s Office says the Art Institute of Chicago demonstrated “willful blindness” when it purchased “Russian War Prisoner,” a drawing by Austrian Artist Egon Schiele. The museum insists it came by...

The time that K-12 students spend with teachers is formative. It’s important. Some might say that a teacher can make or break a kid, especially kids from marginalized communities. There are systems in place to educate and evaluate teachers on best practices in the classroom—but are we doing enough to make sure teacher training is equitable and culturally sensitive? On this episode on RadioEd, Emma speaks with María del Carmen Salazar, associate dean of the University of Denver’s Morgridge Colleg...

Show Notes University of Denver Sturm College of Law associate professor Govind Persad’s newest paper, “Defining Health Affordability,” looks into the phenomenon of how Americans avoid seeking healthcare because of the cost. The meat of his latest research, however, comes down to investigating why we don’t have a universal definition for the idea of healthcare affordability. In this episode, Emma chats with Persad, who offers his own definition of health affordability and examines today’s Amer...

RadioEd is a biweekly podcast created by the DU Newsroom that taps into the University of Denver’s deep pool of bright brains to explore new takes on today’s top stories. See below for a transcript of this episode. I want you to think about who did most of the work in your household growing up. Was it your mom, your grandma? Chances are, it was likely someone who identified as a woman doing the dishes, cooking the food and folding the laundry. Now, this obviously isn’t a hard-and-fast rule. Th...

Lions and tigers and panda bears, oh my! By the end of the year, all of the United States’ giant pandas will be returned to China. But why? In this episode, Emma tackles the current state of U.S.-China relations with the help of Suisheng Zhao, a University of Denver professor and the executive director of the Center for China-U.S. Cooperation in the Korbel School of International Studies. Emma also examines the future of the relationship between the two world powers with Collin Meisel, the asso...

On this week’s episode, we’re talking all about the issues that the short-term rental industry is facing—how Airbnbs and VRBOs are perceived, the drawbacks to staying in one, and why people in Colorado mountain towns are trying to cut down on the short-term rentals in their neighborhoods. Emma chats with the University of Denver's Cheri Young about the evolution of short-term rentals and common complaints about the industry. We’re also joined by Colorado Sun reporter Jason Blevins, who lends a b...

Welcome back for the Season 4 premiere of RadioEd, a University of Denver podcast. On this episode, Matt chats with Graduate School of Social Work professors Julia Senecal and Kristen Greenwald on the impacts of ecological distress, particularly on young people. This conversation covers weather disasters, how they are taught in schools, and what individuals and groups can do to cope in a world where climate chaos is increasingly infringing on daily life. Show notes and transcript: https://du.e...

The season finale of RadioEd is finally here! This week, Matt chats with Rebecca Galemba, an associate professor at the Joseph Korbel School of International Studies, who specializes the intersections of globalization, illicit markets, migration, security, and labor in Mexico, Central America, and the United States about what Title 42 is and what are its implications, both to immigrants who seek to live in the United States and as a political mechanism. Matt and Rebecca also talk about how Titl...