Geography Alumna: Abby Hickcox wins 2025 Cogswell Award for Inspirational Instruction

Gabriela Rocha Sales — Tue, 22 Apr 2025 21:32:06 +0000

Geography Alumna: Abby Hickcox wins 2025 Cogswell Award for Inspirational Instruction Gabriela Rocha Sales Tue, 04/22/2025 - 15:32

Copied from the Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine for archival purposes:

Abby Hickcox, a teaching associate professor of geography and associate director of the Arts and Sciences Honors Program, has been named the 2025 Cogswell Award for Inspirational Instruction winner.

Supported by a generous donation from Craig Cogswell, a three-time alumnus of ��ɫ��Ƶ, the award recognizes outstanding instruction in the college, honoring individuals for their inspirational qualities and teaching abilities.

Hickcox, who also is co-principal investigator of the ��ɫ��Ƶ Affordable Housing Research Initiative, earned a BA in peace and global studies from Earlham College in 2000. In 2006, she received an MS from the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Her master’s research investigated the privatization of common property (the Mexican ejido) in a national protected area in western Mexico. She earned her PhD in geography from the University of Colorado in 2012 and joined the honors faculty that year.

Abby Hickcox (second from right, with faculty colleagues in the Arts and Sciences Honors Program) has won the 2025 Cogswell Award for Inspirational Instruction.

“I am so honored to be selected for the Cogswell Award!” Hickcox says. “Teaching is what I love most about my role in the Honors Program. To be selected for the Cogswell Award, which recognizes inspirational instruction, is heartwarming and affirming. I am honored that my colleagues and peers took the time to nominate me, and I am so grateful for the community I have at CU, especially my students.”

In nominating Hickcox for the award, her colleagues and students noted her innovative teaching practices, interdisciplinary focus and genuine care for students.

“(Hickcox) excels at creating an inclusive classroom where students feel safe to share their thoughts, ideas and opinions,” noted Amy Palmer, a professor of biochemistry and the 2024 Cogswell Award winner. “She challenges students to take ownership of their own learning and empowers them to think of themselves as creators of knowledge.”

A former student who took Hickcox’s Environment Society Geography class as a freshman detailed how Hickcox combines an “irresistible passion for geography and learning with an unparalleled care and respect for students and their experiences.”

The student added, “From the first day, Dr. Hickcox had us questioning what can even define the line between nature and the human world, and from this philosophical beginning we extrapolated from questions into frameworks into analysis of lawns and wolves. It rocked.

“Dr. Hickcox’s excitement permeates through the classroom with geographical jokes and contagious interest in people and places. She almost got me; I almost considered changing my major—I might still add a minor. One thing will stick with me forever: a deeper appreciation of our interaction as humans with the world.”

Focusing on human geography

"From the first day, Dr. Hickcox had us questioning what can even define the line between nature and the human world, and from this philosophical beginning we extrapolated from questions into frameworks into analysis of lawns and wolves. It rocked."

Hickcox also is faculty advisor for the Honors Journal, an interdisciplinary, student-run journal published annually by the Arts and Sciences Honors Program. A student who worked on the journal praised the community that Hickcox helped them cultivate as they worked on the journal—“the friendships, memories, creativity and mutual respect that was intentional and significant,” the student noted.

“There is one moment that will last with me for a long time: Towards the end of the semester, we had finished the stressful process of planning the release event for the journal. After we had finished tasks for the day, Dr. Hickcox told us that she wanted to take a moment to talk about what she had observed this semester and what she valued in each of us. I have not felt the same depth of honesty and genuine thoughtfulness from a professor before or since.”

Hickcox teaches five honors courses per year—both lower division and upper division—which include Sustainable Futures (GEOG 1972); Place, Power and Contemporary Culture (GEOG 3742); Environmental Justice (HONR 4075); and Racism in American Culture (HONR 4000). She recently overhauled the Honors Diversity Seminar (HONR 1810) and created a new Advanced Writing Seminar—Honors Journal Section (HONR 3220).

Her research expertise is in human geography and focuses on the relationship between people and the environment. Her areas of research include parks and protected areas, environmentalism, environmental justice, racism, racialization, white racial privilege and the politics of belonging and exclusion. Specifically, through examination of historical and contemporary data, her research addresses the complicated overlap between environmentalism, progressive politics and racism in Boulder.

Abby Hickcox, a teaching associate professor of geography and associate director of the Arts and Sciences Honors Program, has been named the 2025 Cogswell Award for Inspirational Instruction winner.

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Three Geography Grad Students Win Environment-Society Fellowships

Anonymous — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 17:24:31 +0000

Three Geography Grad Students Win Environment-Society Fellowships Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 04/07/2011 - 11:24

Mason Auger, Abby Hickcox, and Adam Williams have been selected as the recipients of the Geography Department's new Environment-Society Fellowship. Funded by a generous gift to the department, each fellowship provides $12,000 to support research in environment-society relations. Mason Auger's project, "Native Attachments: American Indians and the Yellowstone Environment," explores the fought relationship between the US National Park Service and Native Americans in the context of Yellowstone National Park . Abby Hickcox's dissertation is titled "Open Space? Environmentalism and the Politics of Belonging in Boulder, Colorado" and focuses on the relationship between environmental and racial discourses by examining the politics of belonging constructed through local environmental narratives. Adam Williams' project is titled "Ordering modernity: Informal recycling in Shanghai, China" and examines how urban sustainability and environmental justice factor into the shifting relations between the state, the public and informal recyclers in China.

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Gamma Theta Upsilon wins trivia bowl

Anonymous — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 16:36:30 +0000

Gamma Theta Upsilon wins trivia bowl Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 10/04/2010 - 10:36

Proving that there is no better discipline for 'Jeopardy' training, the Geography Department's GTU (Gamma Theta Upsilon) team won first place at the 2nd annual UGGS (United Government of Graduate Students) trivia competition.
See UGGS and GTU for more information.

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