| Colorado College is celebrating 35 years of The Colorado College Plan! | |
Thirty-five years ago, college faculty, staff, and students worked together to create The Colorado College Plan. The plan encompasses the key elements of residential life, leisure programs, and academics. Its centerpiece is the Block Plan, where faculty and students immerse themselves in one class at a time for 3 1/2 weeks.
In this special anniversary issue of the Bulletin, alumni can take a trip down memory lane as they read about CC on the semester system before the CC Plan, remember how the Block Plan originated, and explore all aspects of the extraordinary asset that the Block Plan has become. Those not familiar with the CC Plan can journey through an eight-block academic year — from New Student Orientation and the First-year Experience to block classes, field study, residential life, athletics, and community service, to a glance at the next class of Block Plan students.
Learn about many aspects of life at CC as students, faculty, staff, and alumni generously share their perspectives and experiences on the Block Plan — even block breaks! Along the way, 35 facts about CC will update your perspective of the college today.
Read on to get a sense of CC’s unique brand of intellectual adventure under The Colorado College Plan!
Looking Back at the Bulletin’s Look-backs at the Block Plan
This is, of course, not the first issue of the CC alumni magazine to offer a retrospective of the Block Plan on one of its significant anniversaries. Herewith, excerpts from the Spring 1971 issue of the Bulletin (above), printed during the Block Plan’s first year:
From “Two Early Experiences with the Block Course Plan” by Barbara M. Arnest
The Professor’s Perspective:
Physics Professor Wilbur Wright: “The thing about it that struck me as different was how they took off on their own. [Some] made up new experiments that I hadn’t thought of. … That never happened in previous versions of this course. … To be honest, I didn’t think [the Block Plan] would work. … This was when I learned, for example, that so-called assimilation time — the great god we’ve always done obeisance to — may be false. … When people get rapid reinforcement … they gain immense self-confidence. … They’re successful, and they want to be more successful.”
The Student’s Perspective
Sept. 3, 1970: “My (Statistics) class … has carpet, adjacent small rooms for taking tests, big tables, a place for a coffee pot, and old sheets and bedspreads over the windows.”
Sept. 14: “I am still a bit behind schedule, but I studied all day today and am almost caught up. … A lot of my friends, especially science majors, insist that the new master plan is killing them. Of course, they all said the same thing before the plan came along.”
Sept. 15: “I was awarded the First Annual Square-Root-of-Nine-Equals-Seventeen Award for Innovative Arithmetic.”
Oct. 1: “Mr. Reinitz is getting hoarse (teaching Swift and Pope in one block) and admits he can’t keep up this pace — about four hours a day — much longer. Neither can the rest of us.”
Oct. 14: “For my term paper I am writing a mock epic. After working on it for only a couple of days, I am even dreaming in heroic couplets.”
Epilogue: “I get more out of each course because I can sustain a strong, steady effort in one course over the shorter period of the block [and] I get more out of my leisure time now.” (by an unknown student journalist.)
From “Ninth Block” by Barbara M. Arnest
Statistical evidence supports the probability that the plan will be retained a year hence.
For more Bulletin excerpts, see www.ColoradoCollege.edu/Bulletin/extras.