Dear Alumni, Parents, and Friends:
Every morning when I look out the west-facing windows
of Stewart House, Pikes Peak greets me with its magnificence. What a stunning
backdrop for our campus and for our daily lives here!
This mountain is the salient feature of Colorado College's
one-of-a-kind surroundings, but it is only one. Our scenery, vegetation,
climate, altitude, unique cultures, scarce water, economy - even our relative
isolation as a liberal arts institution - all combine to define CC's character
and create unusual opportunities for learning.
During our all-campus strategic "mapping"
process this spring, colleagues working to develop initiatives related
to a theme of "location" or "sense of place" used
a remarkable quotation in their report.
Between the valley of the Mississippi - the Old
West - and the Pacific slope lies the New West, a mountain plateau ...
upon which rise the Rocky Mountains. What sort of an element will the
New West make in the Republic of the future? Without the sharp intellectual
training of our colleges, the leaders of society would be shorn of their
power. Colorado College is not only upon the very verge of the frontier...but
there is no college in the country so near ...
These were the words of Colorado College President
E. P. Tenney in 1878. Indeed, CC's position on "the very verge of
the frontier" was a distinguishing characteristic at the time of
its founding. And although that frontier
has long since been peopled, explored, and exploited, its defining power
persists for us.
Colorado College is truly a gateway to the Southwest,
as this issue of the Bulletin illustrates through many lenses. The cover
painting by Melinda Smith '91, Professor Vicki Levine's description of
the CC Southwest studies program, excerpts from 2003 graduate Kitren Fischer's
senior thesis on the food culture of northern New Mexico, and a story
about alumni homes built of straw bales - these are just a few facets
of CC's rich southwestern vein.
Not all who come to Colorado College as students or
as teachers come for the offerings of the Southwest. But none can leave
it unchanged by some aspect of our southwestern location or the ways in
which we capitalize on it to enrich the curriculum, field study, community
service, outdoor recreation - or simply class time on the quad in the
shadow of Pikes Peak.
Best wishes,
Richard F. Celeste
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