The Wright-Ingraham Institute

08/10/2026

Over the past month, our 2026 Field Workshop fellows have been working across the San Luis Valley, following water from the forested high country to irrigated fields and down to the head gate.

Along the way, they’ve been learning from farmers, ranchers, conservationists, acequia leaders, ditch riders, land trusts, and others who have been navigating the Valley’s changing conditions for generations.

Our report back from the field is live on Integrative Futures, including a preview of what the fellows will present at our upcoming webinar on September 16.

Read it at the link in bio, and RSVP to join us live!

07/25/2026

As our 2026 Field Workshop fellows prepare for Saturday’s symposium, we’re sharing a preview of each synthesis team’s work with community partners across a distinct geography.

The Conejos Team’s framing question: What does water governance look like when you follow it down to the head gate?

Kethry Soares, Moneer Ba-Ahmad, Xiaodong Yan, and Ximena Diaz Velasco spent three days with Angie Mestas (CSU Extension and Conejos County Conservation District), meeting with local mayordomos along ditches off the Conejos River and Daniel Boyes of the Rio Grande Headwaters Restoration Project. They explored ditch maintenance, organizational dynamics, and the politics that come with both while visiting numerous acequias throughout the watershed, gaining hands-on experience with some of the day-to-day work of a mayordomo. Conversations also touched on beaver dams, varas, soil health, and ranching practices.

Drawing on three weeks of learning across the San Luis Valley, the group explores the complex relationships between water, land, agriculture, and community. Through conversations with ranchers, farmers, acequia leaders, conservationists, and local residents, they examine how water governance and ditch-related practices are experienced not only as a technical or legal system, but also as a social and cultural tradition rooted in generations of place-based knowledge.

Rather than prescribing definitive solutions, their project seeks to surface diverse perspectives, illuminate shared challenges, and contribute to the ongoing dialogue about the future of water, working lands, and community life in the San Luis Valley.

Come hear their presentation.

Designing for Adaptation: A Symposium
Saturday, July 25, 2026 | 1:30–6:00 p.m.
Reception to follow.
Adams State University, Alamosa, Colorado

07/25/2026

As our 2026 Field Workshop fellows prepare for Saturday’s symposium, we’re sharing a preview of each synthesis team’s work with community partners across a distinct geography.

The Center Team’s framing question: How can aquifer-dependent agricultural communities adapt to and thrive in an arid future?

Angie Kaufman, Cameron Blakely, Leah Coe, and Noah Silber-Coats spent three days with Madeline Wilson (Mosca-Hooper Conservation District and Secana CO), visiting a revegetation monitoring plot, a historic mineral well in Del Norte, and La Garita Creek. They met with representatives from Land and Carbon to learn about a local carbon credit project and spent an afternoon with the Bartee family near Center discussing the agricultural innovations they are investing in for the future of their farm. The team also visited Penitente Canyon, Joyful Journey Hot Springs, and the Garner Trailhead, observing how tourism moves through the Valley.

Their work focused on one of the Valley’s defining challenges. Colorado’s San Luis Valley is one of the most heavily irrigated and drought-impacted regions of the state. Production within the Rio Grande Water Conservation District’s Subdistrict 1 supports much of the Valley’s $495.2 million agricultural economy. Yet despite improving irrigation efficiency, the aquifer continues to decline. Stabilizing it will require retiring an estimated 40,000–65,000 acres of farmland.

Using the center pivot as a space to experiment with alternative land uses, their project explores what it means to adapt to and thrive in an arid future.

Come hear their presentation.

Designing for Adaptation: A Symposium
Saturday, July 25, 2026 | 1:30–6:00 p.m.
Adams State University, Alamosa, Colorado

07/24/2026

As our 2026 Field Workshop fellows prepare for the program’s culminating symposium, we asked each of our synthesis teams, working within a specific geography with community partners, to reflect on what they were learning and to share a teaser of what they will be presenting in Alamosa. 

The framing question for the Headwaters team was: how can land and forest stewardship practices be implemented at the scale needed to reduce wildfire risk and protect water systems while remaining viable for working farms and ranches?

Audrey Snyder, Euwan Kim, Kelsey Romero and Stephanie McMorran spent three days with Jocelyn Catterson at RiGHT and Adam Moore at Colorado Forest Service, looking at how, crucially, healthy forests and healthy water are dependent on each other. Forest health is paramount to water conservation efforts in the region, but people don’t always see the connection.

”We kept hearing how hard it is for six rural counties to get their forest and wildfire priorities recognized at the state level, even with 1.8 million acres of the Rio Grande National Forest ringing the Valley and years of beetle kill and other damaging bugs threatening forest health. We visited 4UR Ranch and Humphreys, watching land trusts, the Forest Service, and private landowners try to treat forests across property lines. We also visited treatment sites up and down the river near Monte Vista, where funding itself often gets in the way: grant requirements carve the work into pieces that stop at the boundary of a parcel.”

Their project asks how to make that truth legible to the people whose groundwater depends on their involvement in its conservation, and how to get the region’s voices and stakeholders into the rooms where decisions about the future of water and forests are made.

Come hear what they found!

Designing for Adaptation: A Symposium
When: Saturday, July 25, 2026, 1:30 pm - 6:00 pm with reception to follow.
Where: Adams State University, Alamosa, CO

07/21/2026

More updates from our Field Workshop!

After the days in Crestone, the fellows spent the next phase meeting with partners, researchers, and community members throughout the valley, to better understand the interconnected systems shaping the region.

This began with water and land governance at the Rio Grande Water Conservation District with Amber Pacheco and Bill Brinton, followed by David Robbins introducing Colorado and regional water rights. Catherine Ingraham and Frank Miller also shared the Wright-Ingraham Institute’s legacy and agency of inquiry.

We then kayaked the Rio Grande before exploring watershed thinking and forest health with Jocelyn Catterson and Adam Moore at the Rio Grande Headwaters Land Trust. Fellows learned how land conservation, watershed management, and upstream land use impact downstream communities.

Madeline Wilson introduced agriculture and agricultural markets in the San Luis Valley, while agronomist Patrick O’Neill and a visit to the Nissen Farm grounded our understanding of soil as the system connecting ecology, agriculture, and generational knowledge.

At the Colorado State University Potato Program, the fellows explored potato production, from seed development to market economics. Richard Hubler from Alamosa County then guided us through several solar installations, opening conversations about energy, land use, and competing priorities.

Traveling south to Conejos County with our partner Angie Mestas, the fellows encountered a different landscape while learning about ranching, ditch systems, and flood irrigation from Regan Velasquez and Elena Miller-terKuile.

At Fort Garland Museum, conversations with artist Chip Thomas and museum director Eric Carpio expanded our understanding of the valley’s histories and how to communicate complex stories.

Before splitting into synthesis groups, we toured the Rio Grande Farm Park with Jesús Flores and learned about indigenous planning from Ted Jojola. We concluded by collectively mapping observations and questions before entering the next phase of the workshop.

07/16/2026

Join us for Designing for Adaptation: A Symposium.

On Saturday, July 25, we’ll gather at Adams State in Alamosa, Colorado - and online - for an afternoon of conversations about drought, water, and the future of the American West.

This free public symposium is the culminating public event of the Wright-Ingraham Institute’s 2026 Field Workshop. Over the past three weeks, twelve extraordinary fellows from across the arts and sciences have worked alongside farmers, water managers, land stewards, conservation practitioners, and community leaders across the San Luis Valley and northern New Mexico to explore what meaningful drought adaptation can look like in practice.

The symposium will begin with a short keynote from Amber Pacheco of the Rio Grande Water Conservation District, followed by presentations from three interdisciplinary teams focused on:
* Forest and watershed stewardship
* Groundwater transition and agricultural resilience
* Acequia and ditch systems

Whether you join us in person or on Zoom, we hope you’ll be part of the conversation.

Saturday, July 25, 2026
1:30–6:00 pm MDT
Adams State University, Alamosa, Colorado
or live on Zoom

Free to attend. Registration is required.

Please share this with anyone who may be interested in the future of land, water, and communities in the Southwest.

Registration link in bio.

07/10/2026

Learning from the Ground Up and the Sky Down: Integrative Education at the Running Creek Field Station

In this month’s Integrative Futures (IF) Substack, Dylan Gauthier reports on the history of the Running Creek Field Station, the Institute’s original educational initiative. This summer, packing for our Field Workshop in the San Luis Valley, we found ourselves looking back at how that work began.

In 1970, architect and systems thinker Elizabeth “Liz” Wright Ingraham founded the Running Creek Field Station on 640 acres of mixed grassland outside Colorado Springs, CO. For thirteen successive summers, students lived and studied at RCFS, joined by visiting faculty from a wide range of disciplines, all asking some version of the same question: what does it mean to learn from a place directly.

The observational methods and interdisciplinary practices born at RCFS feel newly relevant — and urgent — today.

Drawing on conversations with RCFS alumni and Liz’s writings, we traced the roots of this work and how it still grounds what we’re doing this month in the San Luis Valley.

Link in bio to read the full piece on our Substack!

07/10/2026

07/09/2026

Welcome to the San Luis Valley!!

This week we welcomed our twelve incredibly inspiring interdisciplinary fellows to Crestone, Colorado and kicked off the 2026 Field Workshop program, with much to report on already.

We’ve had the pleasure of welcoming back Diné storyteller and filmmaker (and 2022 Field Station alumni) Sunny Dooley, who screened her short film “Ways of Knowing” about the legacy of uranium mining and resilience in the Navajo Nation, and led us on a series of reflective exercises in the landscape. Andrew Valdez took us through the deep-time formation of the San Luis Valley and Rio Grande Rift. Matthew Thomas led an observational “walkshop” that introduced landscape as both subject and participant. Kelsea Macilroy led a workshop on skills for communicating across disciplines and conflicts. Nick Saenz traced the history of Indigenous and Hispano communities and introduced the how waves of migration and settlement shaped the Valley’s relationship to land and water. Audrey Snyder introduced observational drawing as note-taking. Paul Formisano met with us to share the Salazar Center’s approach to water through science and story. Kevin Boyle introduced us to historic SLV water law and how the water market works today.

Grateful for this landscape and this crew!

This morning we headed to Alamosa — more soon 🌾

06/26/2026

The Southwest’s megadrought is already shaping national food systems, public health, federal spending, rural economies, and the adaptation models other regions will need as climate pressures intensify.

In our latest Substack, Tal Beery makes the case that Southwest drought resilience deserves national attention and support right now.

This is especially urgent for the Wright-Ingraham Institute. In two weeks, twelve emerging practitioners working across environmental science, law, planning, architecture, communication, design, and the arts will arrive in Colorado’s San Luis Valley for our 2026 Field Workshop. Together, they will take up one of the defining questions of our time: how can communities adapt to prolonged drought?

Read the post, share it, and support this work if you can.

Substack link in bio