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HOME PAGE features a series of brief articles on recent happenings at Colorado College. This issue includes stories on opening convocation, the record mark set by campaign donors, the Collegium Musicum's European Tour , affordable housing project, basketball player Elliott Broadnax, alumna Glenna Goodacre's gold-colored dollar coin, and full color prints of The Colorado College inspired by Saul Steinberg's New Yorker magazine cover are on sale.
Opening Convocation
President Kathryn Mohrman posed with returning graduates and their faculty sponsors after September's opening convocation. Pictured, from left, are political science Professor David Hendrickson; Holly Ornstein Carter '85, the keynote speaker and recipient of an honorary doctor of laws; President Mohrman; Karen Medville '85, recipient of an honorary doctor of science; and her sponsor, biology Professor Alex Vargo.
A transcript is available of the keynote speech by Holly Ornstein Carter.
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Campaign Donors Set Record Mark in 1999
By STEPHEN D. ELDER, Director of DevelopmentHalfway through CC's largest-ever fund-raising campaign, contributors to the college have made history. Gifts received the last fiscal year attained a new high for the college -- more than $12 million.
"We were fortunate to have several large campaign pledge payments in June that pushed us over the top," says Bob Manning '69, who co-chairs the campaign with Music Professor Michael Grace '63. "We are grateful for the new heights of giving set by some of our donors." The Campaign for Colorado College ended the fiscal year at $57.6 million, 69 percent toward the final goal of $83 million by 2001.
The official tally, $12,060,510, includes all gifts and pledge payments actually received between July 1, 1998, and June 30, 1999.
What do these dollars fund at CC? The programs and areas of campus significantly enhanced by the $12 million include the following:
· funds for scholarships of many kinds, including scholarships for minority students
· the new Russell T. Tutt Science Center, which will house psychology, geology and environmental sciences
· the Cornerstone Arts Initiative, including funding for a new arts building
· international studies
· Tutt library
· campus improvements, including support for the new Western Ridge housing project
· Asian language and cultural studies
· faculty and student research in the sciences
· faculty support, including a new chair in economics
· the Center for Community Service
· new equipment for environmental science
· the Annual Fund, which supports the operating budget of the college"The donors, the staff of the college and the volunteers involved in the campaign make a big difference in the academic enterprise," says Dick Storey, who began his tenure as faculty dean this year. "Thanks to their long hours, hard work and generosity, the academic program at CC has never been in better shape. Kudos to all of them."
A record-breaking fund-raising year impacts other areas as well. Don Wilson, vice president for alumni, development, and college relations, says schools across the country annually compare gift information and alumni giving to gauge the relative health of their institutions. "Magazines and college guides also look at gift support," he says, "especially at private institutions, when they rank colleges and universities."
Alumni giving accounted for a large part of CC's successful year. Graduates of the college contributed 44 percent of the record total and the average gift rose to $208 - up from $130 just three years ago. Alumni participation in the CC Annual Fund, however, finished at 42 percent, down one percent from the previous year.
The trustees of the college continued to show campaign leadership by contributing 12 percent of the total for the year. Parents of current and former students contributed 15 percent of the total. Major foundations continued to endorse CC's quality and national prominence by contributing 29 percent. During the year, major grants were awarded by the Arie and Ida Crown Memorial, the Culpeper Foundation, the Arthur Vining Davis Foundation, El Pomar Foundation, Sherman Fairchild Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Helen K. and Arthur E. Johnson Foundation, the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the Mark and Catherine Winkler Foundation.
Find out more about the campaign.
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European Tour a Big Hit
By RYAN BANAGALE '00Almost three decades after founding the Collegium Musicum, music Professor/Chair Michael Grace decided it was time for a tour. Not just any choir tour, but one that would take his group to parts of the world where many of the students had never been before, including Austria, the Czech Republic, and Germany. Formed to help students practice what they were learning in Grace's Medieval and Renaissance music classes, the Collegium Musicum typically performs works from early music. Since the choir would be representing not only Colorado College but also our country, Professor Grace altered the repertoire to focus on early American music, incorporating chromatic madrigals, spirituals, and hymns. The choir also prepared the premiere of a composition by CC music professor Ofer Ben-Amots, recent winner of the highly prestigious 1999 Aaron Copland Award.
The first stop on the tour was Graz, Austria and the "Islands of Music" festival. Our host families were not only extremely generous and kind, but also, to our relief, spoke some English. One of the highlights of this stop was alto Becca Roodhuyzen's performance of a monologue from the musical Rent. which culminated in the entire mostly non-English speaking audience mooing with her. At another concert, several members of the Collegium were invited up on stage to sing and dance with their school's show choir.
Before we knew it, our time in Graz was over and we were on a bus to Karvina, a small Czech coal-mining town on the boarder of Poland. For many of us, this stop proved to be the most memorable experience of the tour. Since the Czech Republic has been independent of communist rule for only a decade there is still huge evidence of the earlier hardship. We stayed with families who spoke very little English in crowded apartments in huge gray cement buildings lined up side by side for blocks on end. It was evident that this city was struggling to survive as its coal mines shut down. However, at the heart of struggle exists at least one glimmer of hope. Karvina's world-renowned all girls choir, Permonik, last year traveled to Colorado in a cultural exchange and performed at Colorado College as a part of the Great Performers and Ideas series. Now it was our turn to perform for them. Alto, Tamara Roberts summed up our feelings about our performance: "How exciting it was to have an audience that can't help but exude their excitement at hearing you sing." Several members of the two choirs became emotional as we departed on the bus that rainy morning. Despite a difficult language barrier we had formed a bond communicating through music.
We traveled for two long days with a stop over in Prague, en route to our last destination, Michelstadt, Germany. Here, at the "Musiknacht Michelstadt" festival, we faced some challenges. We had four full concerts in just two evenings, as well as a performance space setup that had us singing to an audience seated to the sides of our stage. Bass, David Abrahamson said, "The way we were set up, we had to turn around to properly bow to our audience." This less than ideal performance space proved to be the site of our best concerts. Because we had been traveling and working together intensely, by the time we performed these concerts we were singing to our full creative ability. The audience noted this, and gave the choir standing ovations on numerous occaisions. The following is an excerpt from the translation of our review in Michelstadt's newspaper:
"In spite of the many musical delicacies which generally could not be surpassed, the last concerts on Saturday evening showed just where the word of mouth was carrying the time travelers [the audiences]. There was so much beauty, perfect intonation and joy of concertizing brought about by the young beautiful voices that [the audience] was reveled not only in the works of Henry VIII and Thomas Morley, but also in spirituals and modern arrangements of older works. And while in other venues real bagpipes could be heard, this choir of eighteen students was able to achieve a perfect intonation of such a sound in 'Amazing Grace.' Certainly it was not only for this [piece] that the group was asked to add encores."
This experience was simply amazing. Traveling as a group brought the ensemble together like no amount of rehearsals could have done. Even before the trip was over, many of us were looking forward to our next such experience. There is a rumor that with this trip's huge success, the Collegium may be heading to Italy next summer. But right now we are totally focused on spending the upcoming year just making music together.
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450 Tons of Good Will to Go
By DIANA SMITH '98, media relations assistantFor almost a decade, college Chaplain Bruce Coriell has worked on projects that contribute significantly to Colorado Springs' affordable housing cause. So it came as no surprise when Coriell came up with a plan to move rather than raze three campus houses off Uintah Street.
The houses had to go to make way for the Western Ridge development, a series of new student theme houses and apartment complexes. CC couldn't use the structures anymore, but Coriell knew the Hill - an affordable housing project in the 500 block of West Monument Street - could. College officials wholeheartedly embraced the worthy cause and agreed to donate the trio of single-family residences as well as funds to help make the move. As a light rain fell at midnight, the houses that had been hoisted off their foundations and steadied across massive steel beams were trucked by caravan across town to a new neighborhood.
Rocky Mountain Land Trust, Partners in Housing, City of Colorado Springs, Vintage Companies, Pikes Peak Community Foundation, El Pomar Foundation, and El Paso County Housing Authority were among more than 12 groups involved in this Herculean project. The residences will now house families that make 50 percent or less of the area's median household income.
Gay Victoria, the director of CC's Center for Community Service, says that from the beginning, she felt it important that the college's role in this project not be limited to an administrative commitment. It presents, she says, "the perfect teachable moment," to help students experience and understand civic responsibility.
CC volunteers will build a mini-park in front of the houses later this fall. The volunteer group will quickly multiply in mid-October when the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development hosts "Raise the Roof Day" at The Hill site and at hundreds of other sites across the country. Volunteers from Habitat for Humanity, Christmas in April, and HUD will participate in a number of activities, including landscaping, house painting, planting trees along the street, and creating a stone wall or mural.
CC President Kathryn Mohrman will speak at the "Raise the Roof on the Hill" event. Because it occurs Homecoming weekend, she will publicly thank and recognize the core partners at the halftime program of CC's football game.
"Colorado College has embarked upon a series of construction projects that will insure the vitality of the college well into the next millennium," says Coriell. "We can be no less concerned with the health of our larger community. Colorado College wants to be a good neighbor. Even as we fix up our own home, we want to help provide new homes to families in need."
Learn more about this project and other campus construction.
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Backboards and Baklava for Broadnax
Basketball is such a part of Elliott Broadnax's life that he shows up at Colorado College's gym for an interview with a bag containing his shoes and a ball, just in case there's someone there to play.The six foot, five inch forward recently went with an all-star team to Greece for two weeks. Broadnax flew to Thessaloniki, Greece, as part of an all-star team of Division II and III players run by a New York group called Nacel Open Door.
Broadnax, pictured right, was the only player not from the East Coast who went to the basketball tournament in Greece. He was on the hardwood for about five hours a day, leaving plenty of time to explore the ruins.
Broadnax - whose academic prowess at Harrison High School in Colorado Springs earned him the highly competitive Johnson Scholarship to CC -- is a math major specializing in computer science. He's played three seasons at Colorado College.
Basketball -- track, too -- has been such a part of his life that he hasn't had the chance to study abroad like many of his classmates.
Until now, thanks to a sympathetic administration.
Broadnax wrote a two-page proposal arguing that as a two-sport athlete, this was his only chance to study abroad. The college agreed, giving him $900 of the $2,650 he needed from its intercultural exchange fund.
"I think this is kind of a calling," Broadnax said. "Kind of here's your chance to shine. I definitely put in the work. It's kind of neat how this worked out."
This is an excerpt of an article written by Luke DeCock, copyright © 1998-1999, The Gazette.
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Golden Dollar a Winner
The nation's first gold-colored dollar coin -- designed by Glenna Goodacre '61 -- will go into circulation in 2000.
The coin, unveiled at the White House in May, shows Sacagawea, the Shoshone Indian interpreter of the 1805 Lewis and Clark Expedition, looking over her shoulder at son Jean Baptiste, who is asleep in a carrier on her back. On the coin's reverse side, an American bald eagle soars.
"I'm just thrilled to do the design, to have designed a circulating coin," Goodacre said from her Santa Fe studio. "It's very exciting."
Goodacre's design was chosen from 121 submissions by 23 sculptors. The finalists were posted on the U.S. Mint's Internet site. The page received 120,000 responses, and most favored Goodacre's depiction of mother and child.
There are no American coins with mother and child currently circulating, and a Mint official in Washington couldn't recall ever seeing such a coin in the currency.
Treasury officials hope the public will accept a dollar coin, though the track record is not promising. Four times this century a dollar coin has been introduced -- and rather overwhelmingly ignored.
Some believe the last, the Susan B. Anthony coin issued 20 years ago, was rejected because it looked too much like a quarter.
The Sacagawea golden dollar will be larger and have a distinctive edge to differentiate it from the quarter.
"We were practicing putting the dollar coin with our quarters, and the golden dollar jumped right out," Goodacre says. "It has to be used by 6 million vending machines, such as postals, and subways and others, so it had to be specific."
The coin was struck by the U.S.Treasury this fall.
Goodacre was amazed at how difficult the commission was. "I've done a lot of relief work, small portrait medallions and miniature bas-relief figures, but this was one-eighth inch thick, working on an 8-inch diameter circle," she said. "When it was reduced to 1 1/2-inch coin size, everything changed. I worked on it six months and have been going to Philadelphia to work with the engravers since January."
The artist is internationally renowned, with commissioned works on public view in more than 25 states. Her 1993 bronze sculpture of three nurses and a wounded soldier, commissioned for the Vietnam Women's Memorial Project on the mall in Washington, D.C., was the first public artwork to address the contribution of women in the Vietnam War.
Goodacre has crafted bronze Indian figures and faces for many years, but because there are no documented images of Sacagawea, she found a Shoshone model to pose for the sculpture: Randy L' Teton, a University of New Mexico fine arts student.
The prize for the winning design is $5,000, "and I want to collect it in golden dollar coins," Goodacre says.
The sculptor's major project prior to the coin was two 7-foot Ronald Reagan bronze sculptures, one for the Cowboy Hall of Fame and the other for the Reagan Library.
This article by Joanne Ditmer is reprinted from The Denver Post.
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Full color prints available
Posters of The Colorado College inspired by Saul Steinberg's New Yorker magazine cover are now on sale.
*18 x 22.5 inches
*Heavy poster stockOrder at $10/print (includes postage and handling)
Colorado College
College Relations - Poster
14 E. Cache la Poudre Street
Colorado Springs, CO 80903Name____________________________
Street_____________________________
City/State_______________________Zip______
Number of posters_______________Amount enclosed $________All proceeds benefit The Campaign for Colorado College
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