Dot Days Community Festival is an annual festival organized by the UCCS Heller Center for Arts & Humanities in partnership with a range  of community organizations and campus units. The festival’s name honors the contributions of Dorothy “Dot” Heller to the broader community, and will revolve around a humanistic question of interest to our community and our broader world. 

The inaugural festival, to be held September 3-13, 2026, focuses on the theme Our Place in Nature. We will investigate what it means to consider a more relational understanding of the role humans play within our ecological systems. How can we shift our experiences and understandings of the world we live in by considering ourselves part of that world? What possibilities might  this approach open for us as we all work toward a livable planetary future?

Our partner organizations include the Colorado Springs  Pioneers Museum, Food to Power/Hillside Hub, Concrete Couch, Youth  Documentary Academy, Rocky Mountain Women’s Film, the Pikes Peak Poet  Laureate, Hey Neighbors, Palmer High School, Bone Stories Collective,  Brave Irene’s, and a variety of community artists and musicians, as well  as campus programs, faculty, and students.