Colorado College: 125 Years Strong

This coming year is a momentous one for Colorado College. Our 125th anniversary represents an exciting moment in our history, a time to celebrate our heritage and a time to build on our strengths.

In the coming months you will hear a great deal about the achievements of the college's past. My mind, however, is also on the future. I want to make investments that will have long-term implications for the quality of Colorado College -- in the students who come here, in the academic experiences they have, and in factors that make CC distinctive.

The first priority, I believe, is to increase the quality of the student body. Increasing the quality means seeking more academically talented students, more intellectually curious students, and students who will take advantage of the unique features of Colorado College. Because of the intense engagement of the Block Plan, students often teach one another so the quality of the student body has a significant impact on our academic enterprise.

My second priority, which flows logically from the first, is to invest in the quality of the experience those students have once they come here. I am especially interested in the opportunities we provide to integrate them into academic and extracurricular life in their very first year on campus. The first year is crucial to their success.

Third, I think we need to ask some piercing questions about what makes Colorado College distinctive. What do we have that other colleges do not have? What is our own definition of success and are we doing all we can to rise to the task? We need to decide what we think is most important and then set out to be as good as we possibly can.

On the occasion of CC's "quarter centennial anniversary," an article appeared in the Feb. 7, 1900, edition of The New York Times. The article noted that "there will be celebrated at Colorado Springs the quarter centennial anniversary of Colorado college -- an institution of higher learning, which its faculty and trustees intend shall be the Yale or Harvard of the West." The article proceeds to describe the festivities surrounding the commemoration, noting that they "mark an epoch in the educational annals of this state."

So too, will our 125th anniversary mark "an epoch in the educational annals," for the impact of Colorado College continues to be felt both within the state and across the nation. Our alumni are professional and civic leaders regionally and nationally, our faculty are exceptional educators and renowned scholars in their individual disciplines, our students are talented and energetic learners, and our staff have created and support a strong foundation that undergirds the college's academic mission. In short, our collective accomplishments can be felt far and wide.

Here's to another 125 years!

For more on the 125th anniversary

Back to Index