President’s Blog Flow of Ideas

What a first semester! And what a Christmas Eve!

At 4 pm on the very first day of classes last September, the whole Colorado College campus lost power. A blackout shut down the computer center, took the library offline, disarmed the card access to the residence halls, and generally caused confusion and dismay. Conscientious freshmen, who had been in the library eagerly working on their first assignments to impress their new professors, were distressed at being cut off from their computers.

Since we traditionally begin classes on Labor Day, it was a challenge to find the right people to help us restore power to the campus. Our facilities folks quickly established that the problem occurred at the point where the high-tension power line, operated by the city, delivered electricity to the campus. And high-tension lines are not to be toyed with.

Well, we found the experts, and the special equipment they required, in Denver. Fortunately, they understood the urgency of our situation. Within four hours almost all of the power on campus had been restored. Those of us who manage an ongoing disaster planning effort found another threat to be reckoned with. But it turned out to be a small blip on the radar screen as the academic year got under way. A bigger blip loomed as the year was coming to a close.

The Block Plan begins on Labor Day, and Block 4 ends on the Wednesday before Christmas. Students welcome winter break as a time for family and friends, and Block 5 does not begin until late January. Needless to say, everyone — and that includes faculty and staff — is grateful when the final day of Block 4 arrives.

This year, however, it arrived with an unwelcome weather forecast: a blizzard threatened Colorado. By noon on that day, as students wound up final classes or exams, turned in papers and packed to go home, the snow had begun to fall. By early afternoon the wind picked up and we had a genuine whiteout on our hands. “The semester that had begun with a blackout,” in the words of Mike Edmonds, our vice president of student life, “was ending with a whiteout.”

For the next few days, countless individuals on campus rallied to assist the students who were grounded by the weather. Flights were cancelled. Roads were closed. Thus, we unexpectedly had hundreds of students who needed a place to stay and food to eat. Dorms were kept open. The dining hall was in operation. The main desk at the student center became “information central” with updated news on airport shuttles and highway access.

When it became evident that some students would not be able to leave for their holiday until Christmas Day, Jacqueline and I decided to invite those who were still stranded to join us for our traditional Christmas Eve meal. My best friend, who lives in Indonesia, plus his wife and two boys, were celebrating the holidays with us. We figured we might have as few as four students, and as many as a dozen, joining us on Sunday evening.

Turns out, six students joined us for dinner on Christmas Eve. They came from four states and Bulgaria. None of them knew one another before they arrived at Stewart House. We became acquainted over our meal.

Four of them were offspring of college professors. Their majors ranged from mathematics to English. They were interested in sports journalism and forensic medicine, international political economy and philosophy, and chemistry and religion. We talked about favorite trips, and family holiday traditions. We were entertained by a discussion of the fine points of vegetarianism versus veganism. And, of course, we shared stories of the difficulties of getting from Colorado Springs to Oregon, or St. Louis, or San Antonio, or wherever our dinner guests were headed.

Toward nine o’clock in the evening, as we prepared to move to the living room to open gifts, our young guests went on their way — to pack and rise early on Christmas Day to continue their determined efforts to join family or friends. I had a small gift for each of them as they left — not wanting them to be empty-handed on Christmas morning. As they departed, my family and houseguests all turned to each other with a single thought: what a wonderful gift the presence of these enthusiastic and engaging young people had been for us.