What Is A Block?

(by William Shakespeare, as channeled by Assistant Professor of English Steven Hayward)

Block  

            n.  the piece of wood on which criminals are beheaded. Some guard these traitors to the block of death, treason's true bed and yielder-up of breath

            n. a heavy piece of timber, rather thick than long. She misused me past the endurance of a block! An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her  

            n.  one of eight academic units that make up a year at Colorado College, each of which lasts three and a half weeks and in which professors and students cover a semester’s worth of material. What art thou taking this block?

            n. Informal synonym for “course” or “class” He hath Organic Chemistry this block, and that is why he weepeth.

            n. an academic unit synonymous with intense, focused, and demanding study Did thou miss three classes this block? Thou art dead!

                        Seeth also:      

            double block; an extended, comprehensive course demanding twice the time and twice the focus. Thou needest both blocks three and four if thou wouldst take Beginning Fiction Workshop.

            half block; shorter, wintertime version of the block carried out with hot chocolate and toques during the interval between New Year's and the beginning of the spring semester. Thou should take the half block on Italian cinema, even if it doth look bleak i' the cold wind.

            summer block; same as a regular block, only taken during the summer instead of getting a job or hanging out next to the pool. Whilst summer lasts and I live here, Fidele, I might as well take a class.

            block break; much cherished interval between classes commencing at noon on the final Wednesday of a block and lasting until the following Monday morning at nine a.m. when the next class begins. Students and professors fling themselves in all manner of directions, to all manner of destinations, to undertake all manner of incredible adventures. Hang not out with lawyers during block break; for they sleep between term  and term, and then they perceive not how Time moves.

            block abroad; a block, or a series of blocks spent off campus somewhere awesome, made possible, in part, by the flexibility of the Block Plan. Of blocks you shall know meantime
that stir abroad, I shall beseech you, sir, to be partaker.

Historical Note: Conceived more than 40 years ago by faculty who understood the advantage of smaller classes, the value of getting students to write often and well, and who knew the importance of in-depth study and discussions, the Block Plan was adopted on the brink of the college’s 100th anniversary and was known previously as The Colorado College Plan. O, sir, if you’d not gone to Colorado College, if you’d not taken a block there, then you had then left unseen a wonderful piece of invention; which not to have been blest withal would have discredited your travel.