Venture Grants at Colorado College
What would you do if someone awarded you $1,000 for a research or creative project? Where would you go? What have you always dreamed of exploring and finding out about firsthand?
At Colorado College, if you can imagine a great project, you can do it. Money is available for enterprising students to embark on adventures of their own imagining, whether their research takes place on campus or on some far corner of the earth. The college can award grants for individual student research, creative projects, participation in professional conferences, and faculty/student collaborative research. Open up to learn more about what some of our students have been doing with their venture grants.
Peru: Out of the Kitchen,
Into the Classroom
By Kat Wheeler ’06
For several generations of indigenous Peruvian women,
being a housemaid for a wealthy family in the city seemed like
a step up from their agrarian lifestyles. As servants, they had
electricity, running water, and a consistent, reliable food supply.
But there were problems: working long hours at menial domestic
tasks was a virtual prison for many women, while some
experienced abuse at the hands of their employers.
The current generation of women and girls in Jach’a
Titilka — a small community of farmers and potters on the high
plains of southern Peru — is making different choices. Now that
there is a school near the community, girls are getting educated
and going on to take semi-professional jobs. These changes
caught the attention of Kat Wheeler ’06.
Read more of "Peru: Out of the Kitchen, Into the Classroom"
Iceland: The saga of its history, art, and modern culture
By Laura Cottingham ’08
Iceland in March is not Paris in spring.
It’s cold, rainy, and overcast, making one grateful for
the modern inventions of polar fleece and breathable rainwear.
This fact hit home to Laura Cottingham, who traveled there with
three CC friends to pursue her venture grant, and got her thinking,
“How in the world did the earliest Icelandic settlers make it
in such an environment?”
“It’s such an inhospitable place; it’s cold, there’s very
little vegetation and a lot of volcanic rock,” said Cottingham.
“It’s hard to imagine how tough it would have been coming
here in furs and wooden boats.”
Read more of "Iceland: The saga of its history, art, and modern culture"
Funding (Ad)venture, Granting Dreams
By Peter Rice '05
Associate Dean Victor Nelson-CisnerosServing on a committee isn’t usually as dramatic as this. Associate Dean Victor Nelson-Cisneros chairs a seven-member panel of college staffers and students commissioned with two jobs: first, to review warnings and suspensions, academic progress, and rule-change petitions; second, to fund some of the most interesting adventures ever dreamed up. All told, the committee doles out nearly $200,000 per year in venture grants, promoting student research projects and faculty/student collaboration.
Q: Reviewing venture grant applications must provide a unique view of the student body. What have you learned?
A: They’re very adventurous! We’ve sent students to Belize to study coral reefs. Another learned about midwifery in the U.S. and a socialized system, in Sweden. Another, who researched pre- and post-natal care in Costa Rica, presented his work to that country’s health minister and president. The students are willing to take risks too. One went to Darfur in the Sudan last year. It’s a wide range.
Q: Darfur, where the bloody civil war is going on?!
A: We insist that students check for any relevant State Department safety bulletins, but ultimately, the decision to go is up to them.
Read more of "Funding (Ad)venture, Granting Dreams"
More information, resources, and related links
Whether you want to follow the steps of the saints on the British Isles or analyze DNA blood samples in Costa Rica, Colorado College offers a unique program to fund research projects. Established in 1970, the Venture Grant program awards grants each year to students for projects during the school year or summer. Venture Grants support what college officials believe is the quintessence of the education it provides — an informed and independent experimentalism. “It is what we expect students to do — to grow, to find these ventures and to pursue their intellectual interests,” one professor says. “They have to write a real proposal, they have to learn to meet deadlines. All that is good training.”
Recent Venture Grants have allowed students to:
- Travel to New York City to research immigrant women in garment sweatshops
- Conduct physics research on Orca whales using remote operated sailboats
- Produce a documentary on the Cherokee Nation showing music and oral tradition
- Study nest predation in a tropical forest ecosystem
- Research the barter system in Mendoza, Argentina, which is a resource of survival for more than one-third of the population