Unfortunately, my time in much of 2025 continued to be invested in salvaging my professional activities after my abrupt dismissal from leadership of the Center of the American West in September 2022. Thankfully, I was able to continue my scholarly activities in the Applied History initiative. A good share of the activities that I have recorded here would not have been possible if the University had adopted a more graceful approach to institutional change in the Fall of 2022. Working with David Carpenter at CU Advancement, major donors moved their funds from the Center to the Applied History Initiative and the Veteran and Military Affairs office, and those funds made it possible for me to continue to offer support and opportunity to my Applied History protégés and to CU Student Veterans. I lead a very active and productive professional life with the Applied History Initiative and the Veteran and Military Affairs office AND I am constantly engaged in mentoring and encouraging remarkable young people, producing carefully crafted recommendation letters and guidance on maximizing both scholarly impact and public impact of their findings. I advised, coached, and supported the research of a constantly expanding cohort of 150 young scholars through workshops, skills repurposing sessions, manuscript reviews, crafting of book proposals, writing numerous recommendation letters, and career coaching. I collaborated with a group of younger scholars in creating a collection of articles, an enterprise that I began hoping would happen thirty years ago. I could not have been luckier in my recruiting of a co-editor: Professor Andrew Offenburger at Miami University. Translating the Past to the Present: Interpreters in the American West and Beyond just crossed the finish line, published by the University of Nebraska Press in September 2025.
