FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- 5/6/01 | Contact: Diana Smith, 719-389-6138  

Each of these students has combined academic success with extensive extracurricular involvement - they are some of the "best and brightest" of the Class of 2002.

Spanish major Anné Griebel from Colorado Springs has always been at home on the campus and courts of Colorado College – whether it was playing her father’s game, volleyball, or tennis, the game of grandfather Elmer John Griebel, a 1932 CC graduate. In her four volleyball seasons, the Tigers compiled a 75-34 record and made four consecutive appearances in the NCAA tournament. The streak marked the first time since 1990 that CC earned four straight tournament berths. The last two seasons, she has been one of the tennis team’s most consistent singles players. Griebel participated in the AMA (Aprender Mediante Amistad) bilingual community service program and was a tutor and interpreter for Spanish-speaking families in the community. She was accepted into the master’s program for elementary education at CC.

Adam Fink, an economics major from Aspen, Colo., received a fellowship with the Center for the Study of the Presidency in Washington, D.C. He was the financial vice-president of the Colorado College Campus Association (CCCA) student government, chair of the Student Finance Committee, Cronin Leadership Essay Contest winner, member of the Economic Student Advisory Board, co-chair of the Traffic Committee, member of the Presidential Search Committee, and Sigma Chi fraternity member. A member of Phi Beta Kappa, Order of Omega Greek honor society, and Phi Gamma Mu social sciences honor society, Fink took an active role in the Gorman Minority Scholar Program. He plans to go to law school after graduation.

Jackson Latka, an economics major from Pueblo, Colo., has earned several athletic accolades for his four years on the football and track teams, including football captain, District VII All-Academic Defensive Second Team, Student Athletic Advisory Committee Student-Athlete Award, and the Iron Man award for physical conditioning. He is in the investment club and has interned with AXA Financial, The Equitable, and Compaq Computer Corp. Latka is the winner of the Wall Street Journal Student Achievement Award for business students. He has accepted a two-year fellowship with the El Pomar Foundation following graduation.

Giselle Restrepo from Boulder, Colo., an art studio major with a mathematics minor, is the vice-president of Cutler Publications, an independent entity partially funded through student government, and served as the editor of the literary student publication, the Leviathan. A Phi Beta Kappa, she has also been a first-year student mentor and the co-chair of the arts and crafts committee. Restrepo feels she can take a strong work ethic, a love of learning, and a critical eye away with her when she graduates. After CC, she plans to enter the graphic design field.

Andy Cornell, an economics major with a journalism minor from Englewood, Colo., is a two-sport athlete, a school record holder in the 4x100 relay, received All-America honors in football, and is involved in the Student Athlete Advisory Committee (SAAC). A four-year letter winner in both CC football and track, Cornell led the football team in all-purpose yardage and was the president of the SAAC. After graduation, he will work as a financial planner for Primerica, a subsidiary of Citigroup, prior to obtaining his MBA.

Emily Long, an English and music major from Topeka, Kan., is the first recipient of the Christine S. Johnson 1948 Scholarship for music majors or student performers. She toured with both the Collegium Musicum in China during summer 2001 and the Bowed Piano Ensemble’s 25th anniversary European tour this spring. Long received a CC Venture Grant to study “History and Hegemony: Irony and Self-Satire in Maxim Magazine for Men,” under the tutelage of Constance Penley at UC Santa Barbara. She is also a Myrtle M. Bridges Music Scholar, an Albert H. Daehler Scholar, an Ida Whitsitt Lewis Scholar, and a Horace H. Work Scholar. Long is joining the Peace Corps in spring 2003, after a production internship at the Telluride Film Festival.

Erin Bad Hand, a creative writing major from Taos, N.M., heads the Native American Student Union. A member of the South Asian Student Alliance, she has participated in the Gorman Minority Scholars Program. A dancer and a first-year student mentor, she has just published a book of poetry, And Then Everyone Can Rest… Bad Hand says one of the things she will miss most is the community of the multicultural dorm, the Glass House. After graduation, she will travel to London in the summer and then move to Denver. She hopes to get involved with Native American education and attend graduate school to pursue writing.

Micah Lang from Tacoma, Wash., has been awarded the distinguished Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. His project, “World Water Scarcity: The Feedback between Water, Culture, and Environment,” will take him to Peru, Cyprus, and Kenya after graduation. An environmental science major with a minor in African Studies, Lang has been an active member of the Environmental Action organization and the Honor Council. Currently playing trumpet in the jazz ensemble, he also played tennis and ran cross-country. Lang participated in the ACM Tanzania semester program in 2000.

Creative writing major Raegan Truax from Olympia, Wash., is probably most well-known for her work in the community service center. She recently won the center for community service’s Class of 1981 Award for Outstanding Service for her work and dedication to social change. Last year, she was the recipient of the Anne Rice Memorial Award honoring the most outstanding junior woman at Colorado College. Her freshman year, she founded a group known as Help Ignorance Vanish focused on HIV education and prevention at CC and in Colorado Springs. She established CC’s first Hunger and Homelessness Awareness Week, which is still going strong after two successful years, and recently raised over $6,000 for an anti-violence campaign. Last year, Traux spent a semester in Chicago working with imprisoned youth. She is a member of the Victim’s Assistance team, a varsity athlete, and a three-year member of the residential life staff as head resident of the multicultural house on campus. After graduation, Traux will perform a one-woman show she is writing this summer on the west coast until she moves to Boston in August to begin a position as a campus organizer for state public interest research groups.

Meghan McMackin, a comparative literature major from Seattle, Wash., is on the CC varsity swim team, a member of Shove Council Interfaith Community, and a member of the Dean's Advisory Committee. She studied abroad in Costa Rica and received a Scheffer Fund Grant for Roman Catholic Studies and a Colorado College Venture Grant -- both for pursuing independent photography projects, "The Community and Spirit of CYO Camping" and "Photographing a Sense of Place: Contemporary Pueblo Landscapes." McMackin is currently competing at the district-level for the Rotary International Ambassadorial Scholarship to return to Costa Rica in 2003 to work with community based conservation and sustainable development project, AMISCONDE. She will spend the summer sailing, kayaking, and camping on the South Puget Sound at a summer-camp for high school students. Next fall, she will work in the International Community School, a high school in the Lake Washington School District.

English major Chloe Busch from Portland, Ore., has also been a staunch community service volunteer over the course of her four years at CC. She worked with Headstart, Volunteer Action mentoring fourth graders, and Victim’s Assistance Team responding to sexual assault on campus. She received second place in the Reville Award for Short Fiction and studied in both Chile and Ireland her junior year. After graduation, Busch is hoping to pursue a master’s degree in applied theology in order to serve as a chaplain or counselor at a school or social service agency in Oregon.

Psychology major Dakota Corey from Dalton Gardens, Idaho, is a Barbara Anson Freyschlag Scholar and a Kenneth S. Ferguson Scholar. She studied in the Netherlands last year, and while there, began conducting research for her recently completed thesis on Dutch and American attitudes toward harm reduction and drug policy. A Psi Chi (National Honor Society for psychology) officer, Corey is a reading tutor at Pike Elementary. She plans to eventually attend graduate school to pursue a degree in psychology or education.

Kai Stinchcombe, a history major and Barnes Scholar from Evanston, Ill., co-founded the CC Fair Labor campaign for living wage and other fair labor practices on campus. Stinchcombe also managed the Fair Trade Coffee co-op to provide environmentally and socially sound coffee, the Sweat-Free campaign for a campus-wide policy that would prevent CC from supporting sweatshop conditions, and founded the campus chapter of Amnesty International. Stinchcombe will do a year of independent research in San Francisco and will then head to graduate school.

English major Alex Wilschke from Saint Joseph, Mich., joined Phi Gamma Delta and served as philanthropy chair, rush chair, and president twice. He was an Interfraternity Council delegate and a Greek Judicial Review Board inquiry officer. He is in the Order of Omega Greek honor society and was chosen to be the Greek “New Member of the Year” in 2000 and Greek “Man of the Year” in 2002. A volunteer with the Sheltered Lives/Our Tomorrow programs at the Red Cross shelter, Wilschke also ran track and served on the Student Athletic Advisory Committee. After CC, he plans to attend law school.

Juan Garcia, an English major with an education minor from Fredericksburg, Va., was on the NCAA-sanctioned Student Athlete Advisory Committee. He was a special project mentor for Cheyenne Mountain Middle School, a teaching assistant at local middle and high schools, a doping officer for both the IOC and the USOC for American and international athletes, and the assistant director of teenage program operations for the San Gabriel Valley YMCA in Covina, Calif. At CC, Garcia worked for the athletics department and sports information, and was assistant to the director of intramurals, club sports and recreation. He was on the board of directors for Cutler Publications and sports editor for the Catalyst. After CC, he plans to return to California to attend Claremont Graduate University to earn an MAT.

Asian studies major and music minor Eleanor Collinson from Chappaqua, N.Y., traveled to Japan in October to conduct field research and presented papers at conferences at CC, Berkeley, and Lewis and Clark. She received the McGee Prize in women’s studies and the Gaylord Prize in Asian Studies for her research. Collinson was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa and has been a member of the Alpha Lambda Delta freshmen honor society. She was a contributing member of the Asian American Student Council and a student representative to the Committee on Admissions and Financial Aid. In the admission office, she served as coordinator of the tour guide and hosting program. She was a Streetwise leader for two years and was also a resident advisor. She feels she will leave CC with an independent drive for success and a sense of community and social responsibility.

Vikren Sarkar, a physics major from Port Louis, Mauritius, came to CC on a full international scholarship and speaks French and English in addition to his native Mauritian Creole. He is involved with the grader/tutor program in the physics department and is a mentor for first-year students. In addition to his works in the information technology services department, Sarkar is a certified EMT-B-IV (Emergency Medical Technician-Basic with IV skills) and spent the summer volunteering in the Penrose Hospital emergency room. After CC, he is planning on earning a second bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering and a master’s in biomedical engineering.

An international political economy major and a native of Buenos Aires, Argentina, Jose Iriarte was recently initiated into Pi Gamma Mu, Pi Sigma Alpha, and Phi Beta Kappa. This year, he has been an economics tutor and a research assistant at the Colorado Springs Office of International Affairs in the Chamber of Commerce. A resident advisor, Iriarte has been involved in the office international programs and the writing center.

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