Women earn 82 cents compared to every dollar made by men, according to the Pew Research Center. That difference, known as the gender pay gap, has remained essentially stagnant from where it was two decades ago. And despite recent promises from chief executives of their commitment to diversity and inclusion, incomes for people of color have actually trended downward, said CU Denver Management Professor Traci Sitzmann. “If everybody was doing as well as the CEOs are saying, we should see the overarching statistics trending in the right direction,” Sitzmann said. But we’re not, so Sitzmann and her colleagues are working to understand why—and what might work to change the status quo.
A troupe of actors from CU Boulder makes a habit of appearing in front of audiences across the state without a script in sight, without a clear idea of what they might be saying or doing. Yet the artists are well-prepared to achieve a performance that goes beyond ordinary entertainment. CU Boulder’s Impact Playback Ensemble practices what’s known as playback theater – an interactive, improvisational form of theater that begins with members of an audience telling stories from their lives. Actors then bring these stories to life on stage, aiding in the sharing of insight and community building that might not otherwise come about.
