Dr. Jeni Cross is part of the CSU team that worked with the Community Foundation of Northern Colorado to produce the 2024 Northern Colorado Intersections: Pursuing Regional Well-Being report that advances the field of creating regenerative, sustainable systems.

“This report is the culmination of more than a year of work, including numerous community stakeholder meetings throughout Northern Colorado. Our hope is this report provides something different – a new way to look at data, a new way to think about how we function as a region, and a new way of understanding our region’s interdependence. And perhaps most importantly, our hope is that this report is a catalyst to start important community conversations about how we can work collaboratively to address our common challenges,” wrote Kristin Todd, President & CEO of the Community Foundation of Northern Colorado, in the report’s introduction.

This unique, inaugural report identifies pressures and opportunities around growth, future aspirations, components of well-being, and community intersections of nourishing, sheltering & caring, transacting, beautifying, connecting, and renewing. Dr. Cross and team’s work was supported by National Science Foundation funding for building a Sustainable Regional Systems Research Network.

“With the help of the Institute for the Built Environment at Colorado State University and the Institute for the Research on Social Sciences, we’ve utilized a new framework to help us see this work through a new lens that allows us to see patterns, identify pressure points, and recognize opportunities across scales. We believe that increasing our regional well-being requires a regenerative approach. An approach where we build bridges across people, organizations, and communities. It requires a shift in our perspective. This work is about increasing the capability and capacity for individuals and communities to achieve well-being at every scale in a way that is most meaningful for them,” the report states.

Check it out here: Https://nocofoundation.org/intersections/

Dr. Cross is a Professor of Sociology, the Director of the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences (IRISS), and a Faculty Partner and Advisory Board Member of the Institute for the Built Environment (IBE).