| MARCH 2003 |
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Home Page features a series of brief articles on recent happenings at Colorado College. This issue includes stories on Cutler Hall's Historic Preservation award, the new Colket Student Learning Center , Hispanic alumni giving back, the men's hockey team, and what CC alumni have put on the bookshelf.Other stories from the Bulletin Home Page are available online, including Libby Rittenberg replacing Jim Henderson as dean of summer programs and how the Tutt Science Center is reconnecting us to our environment. The Woman's Club of Colorado Springs recently donated a property to Colorado College, continuing the club's 100 years of philanthropy in the community. Colorado College will establish a scholarship in recognition of the gift starting next academic year -- click here to find out more.
Oldest College Building Wins
Historic Preservation Award
By Todd WilsonPhotos by Tom Kimmell
The Historic Preservation Alliance of Colorado Springs has honored Colorado College for a seven-year project preserving and restoring our oldest structure, Cutler Hall. CC — and restoration architect Michael Collins and original architects Peabody and Stearns — was one of two winners in the civic architecture category, along with the Carnegie Library. The category included historic structures and monuments such as government buildings, universities, schools, museums, monuments, and religious structures, and sites or landscapes that are part of the public domain such as parks and medians. Submittals for the competition also were received from the Pioneer Museum, Fountain Valley School, and the Colorado Springs School.
“This is a well-deserved recognition for a fabulous piece of work by so many people at CC,” said CC President Richard Celeste. “The college community should be proud.”
In presenting the award to CC, HPA board member Sandra Chesrown said, “This truly great campus building, which exemplifies unique and extraordinary architecture important to our sense of place and community, has been lovingly and accurately restored, including high-quality masonry work, exquisite wood-shingle roof patterning, and sensitive interior design. This very accurate restoration reflects our city’s pride in our history, and will allow the building to endure into the next century.”
The awards were made during a gala celebration in early November at Colorado Springs School’s Trianon, an historical jewel in its own right. Attending to accept the award were Gary Reynolds, George Eckhardt, Carl Brandenburg, and Don Crochet from facilities services. Andrea Lucard, Mark Hatch, and Todd Wilson also attended.
The Cutler renovation and restoration project began in 1995 with a grant to help the college catalog and evaluate its historic facilities. At about the same time, facilities services was investigating how to fix significant roof leaks in Cutler Hall.“The building exterior was in need of very extensive repairs due to its 120 years exposed to the harsh Colorado environment,” said Eckhardt, assistant director of facilities. “However, my goal was to do the repairs using historically sensitive methods and materials so that the building could be enjoyed as close as possible in its original state for another 100 years.”
The project was made possible by three grants from the State Historical Fund of the Colorado Historical Society, supplemented with funds from the college. The project’s finishing touches are being made now and should be completed this spring. Landscaping will be done upon completion of the campus landscape architectural guidelines design, which is underway.
For more on the background of the Cutler project, click here to read assistant director of facilities George Eckhardt's recollections.
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The Colket Center:
A Crossroads for Learning
By Anne Hatch
If you have a question about writing at CC, you know exactly where to go — the Writing Center. But if you don’t understand a formula for chemistry or a derivation for calculus, what can you do? Until last year you had to rely on departmental tutors or a knowledgeable friend. Now students at Colorado College can utilize the Colket Student Learning Center
.Temporarily located in the south basement of Tutt Library, the Colket Center emerged last year after much planning and a generous $1.5 million endowment from the Colket family. For 20 years the Writing Center has helped students with composition. Since 1996 the Crown Teaching and Learning Center has provided a place for faculty to collaborate on pedagogy, but until now no single coordinated resource has assisted students with quantitative reasoning. The Colket Center will provide support for quantitative subjects and programs to enhance learning skills, improve public speaking, and assist students with learning differences and disabilities. By merging the Writing Center with the Colket Center and housing the Crown Center in the same location, CC is establishing a true crossroads for the support of teaching and learning.
Most people readily recognize the importance of writing, but many often overlook the need for quantitative literacy as well. Unlike with writing, no requirement to measure quantitative skills currently exists at CC. Despite the motivation and talent of CC students, not all high schools equally prepare individuals for the rigors of the Block Plan. Some students seeking help lack confidence and have internalized the idea that they hate math or science because of previous struggles with it; others merely want to excel. Andrew Hersh ’02, the quantitative reasoning tutor at Colket, observes, “With English and philosophy problems, students seem more inclined to work through the problems for awhile, while with a math problem they look at it for two minutes and say ‘I don’t get it’…” Sometimes, in helping a student with a single math problem, Hersh is able to identify a larger math concept that the student has not mastered in earlier years of study.
The academic challenges of the Block Plan necessitate intervention for new students and ongoing support for all students. Resources from the Robert and Ruby Priddy Charitable Trust grant awarded in 2002 will finance an entry assessment process to assist incoming students with identifying their level of preparedness. Hersh sees “a gap between what students need and what they get out of high school, particularly with math.” As a former student at CC, Hersh recognizes how difficult it can be “to come into class and learn or relearn math skills on top of learning chemistry or physics.” The Block Plan emphasizes creative thinking, problem solving, and an intense learning pace that can overwhelm even the best of students at times. Paul Kuerbis, the director of the Colket Center, emphasizes the “need to serve all students, including the high flyers who will compete for Watsons, Rhodes, and other fellowships.”
While CC’s graduation rate is well above the national average, 21 percent of entering students still do not graduate. Some attrition is natural, but a committee for student success recently recommended a centralized teaching-learning resource as a means to increase the student success rate. Kuerbis believes that the Colket Center will “provide an opportunity for improving learning and increasing student success while promoting a positive spirit among both students and faculty about learning and teaching at CC.”
The college is still exploring the ideal location to permanently house the Colket Center and relocate the Crown Center. Some funding from a $7.9 million grant provided by the Priddy Trust will help finance a new or remodeled space, but the challenge is that no existing centralized place on campus has sufficient room for the combined components of the centers. “The presence of both centers in a common location sends the important message that teaching and learning are closely intertwined and that faculty and students should work together to create and enhance opportunities for academic success,” Kuerbis emphasizes.
Wherever the final home for the Colket Center rests, Kuerbis recognizes that “We are setting high academic expectations and standards for all students. Some of CC’s best graduates were frequent visitors to the Writing Center.” Just imagine what future grads will accomplish with the added support from the Colket Center.
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Hispanic Alumni Give Back to CC
By Ron Rubin '73 and Jennifer KulierSeveral of Colorado College’s Hispanic alumni have decided to help make a CC education available to others by building endowments targeting Hispanic high school students.
Of CC’s 1,866 undergraduate students for 2002-03, 6.3 percent are Hispanic. Approximately 480 of our living alumni identify themselves as Hispanic, and many are motivated to help give the gift of a first-class education to those who follow them.
One endowed scholarship, the Chicano Scholarship, provides a small stipend each year to a student. The scholarship was established in 1983 by six CC alumni: Joyce Lujan Martinez ’72, Ralph Armijo ’74, Patrick Garcia ’76, Ann Romero ’75, Ken Salazar ’77, and Matthew Solano ’78. Efforts are underway to increase the size and number of scholarships and loan reductions available to Hispanic students.
Other alumni – non-Hispanic friends of CC’s Hispanic alumni – have joined to help their good friends and former classmates make a CC education a reality for Hispanic students.
Gabe Pando ’92 and Henry Ansbacher ’92, close friends since college, have founded the Pando Endowed Hispanic Scholarship Fund, to honor Pando. After receiving his B.A. in physics from CC, Pando went on to get degrees in mechanical engineering and become a partner and board member of an engineering software consulting company. He also earned his real estate broker’s license and began investing in rental properties. Stricken with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, commonly known as Lou Gehrig’s disease) at a young age, Pando wishes to lighten the loan burden for current and future students and leave a legacy to others. Pando and Ansbacher, an award-winning filmmaker, made a video for others to see why it is important for Pando to accomplish this final gesture of largess. Pando and Ansbacher hope to raise $500,000 in four years to benefit as many students as possible.“It was my friendships with students from different backgrounds that had the biggest impact on my personal development at CC,” said Ansbacher. “If the student population more closely represented the greater population, it would enrich the experience of all who attend CC.”
Robert Salazar ’73, a successful attorney and entrepreneur in Texas and Ohio, is forming another scholarship — the Serna/Espinoza Endowed Scholarship Fund. Named for two of his CC friends who passed away, the scholarship memorializes them in a manner in which Salazar thinks they would be proud. Michael Espinoza ’74 was killed in a car accident in December 1998, and Randy Serna ’74 died of stomach cancer just two weeks later. Salazar and the other CC alumni and close friends (Tom Autobee ’73; Ralph Armijo ’74; Christine Pacheco-Koveleski ’77; and Ken Salazar ’77) who attended the funerals lamented that getting together to attend funerals is senseless if it’s not turned into something consequential. Establishing this endowment helped make their friends’ community service, love of family and alma mater, and lives, serve as a beacon to others.
CC is on its way to becoming an institution where all aspiring high school students will find it beckoning to them. If you wish to learn more or contribute to these three scholarship funds, please direct your inquiries or gifts to Stephen Hart, director of advancement services, at (719) 389-6351.
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CC Tigers Handle the Puck
and Score High Academically
By Scott Smith ’76The numbers are impressive: all the regular-season victories, the lofty national rankings, the frequent NCAA playoff appearances, the abundant power-play goals, the dearth of penalty minutes, the robust attendance figures, and anything else used to mathematically gauge the success of Colorado College’s men’s hockey program.
The numbers don’t lie. The 2002-03 Tigers are good. They’re WCHA champions, one of the best teams in the land, serious contenders to bring a Division I national title back to campus for the first time since 1957.
They’re fast. They’re strong. They’re talented. And they’re smart.
We’re not talking about just stay-out-of-the-penalty-box smart, either. We’re talking about the classroom, where this team of Tigers exhibits the same work ethic, pride, and abilities that have made them winners on the ice.
Want proof? Try these facts: The recent graduation rate for hockey players (not counting the few who have transferred or turned pro) is 100 percent. And last year, 11 Tigers — that’s roughly half the roster — were named to the Western Collegiate Hockey Association’s all-academic team, led by Mark Cullen ’02, who was the league’s student-athlete of the year.And remember, the hockey team’s academic achievements have been attained at a school where the curriculum is devoid of the Zamboni Maintenance, Snowblowing 101, and Intro to Beer-Tasting types of classes found at some larger universities that have been known to mollycoddle scholarship athletes. The Tigers are bona-fide student-athletes — and they know it.
“We’re a smart team,” says captain Tom Preissing ’03, a senior defenseman from Rosemount, Minn. “Our team GPA is right around 3.0, and you don’t find that a whole lot for a men’s Division I college sport.”
Not that it’s easy. Who feels like reading an economics textbook, studying for a final, or writing an analytical thesis after a long morning in the classroom and an even longer afternoon on the ice and in the weight room?
“You go through times where you don’t want to study when you get home at night,” says Preissing. “Sometimes, after practice, you feel like just sitting around and doing nothing. But that’s when you have to kick it in gear. You have to be self-motivated to do your work. At this school, you can’t procrastinate.”
To the hockey players, developing good study habits is as important as practicing their skating, shooting, and checking. It’s also been made a priority by the coaching staff, led by CC graduate and four-year head coach Scott Owens ’79.
One of the first things Owens did was to establish a mandatory study table for incoming first-years. Three nights a week, the newcomers are required to study under the coaching staff’s watchful eyes.
The study table is designed to engender time-management skills and help the rookies make the sometimes-daunting adjustment to the school’s intense, one-class-at-a-time Block Plan system. It’s also a chance for the staff to remind the new players that there’s plenty of other academic support available on campus, too, including the Writing Center and the same cadre of tutors that is available to the rest of the student body.
For Owens, the study sessions also present an opportunity to reinforce to the youngest team members that, at CC, they are student-athletes, not athlete-students.
“You learn early on that, unlike at some big schools, you have to go to class every day and you have to do the work,” says Owens, who graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business administration. “You don’t miss days, otherwise, you get too far behind and you won’t have success.”
Owens, trainer and CC grad Richard Quincy ’86, and the team’s upperclassmen all are available to provide expertise on adapting to the Block Plan, too. And, this season, with nine freshmen on the team, there has been plenty of guidance to go around.
“You definitely do what you can to help (the freshmen) out,” says senior forward Noah Clarke ’03, a mathematical economics major from La Verne, Calif. “You try to find out what a guy is interested in, get to know him, and then give him a heads-up on what classes he might want to look at.”
“I remember when I was a freshman, I was kind of nervous going back to school full-time (after two years of playing junior hockey). But having the Block Plan really helped me out; it made the transition easier for me. Instead of being overwhelmed by having four or five classes at once, you just have one. Personally, I like being able to concentrate on one subject at a time.”
Preissing, also an economics major and WCHA all-academic choice, also likes the Block Plan: “It’s a good system, but the one drawback is that when you miss classes, it’s a big deal. Here, if you miss two days of class because of a road trip, it’s equivalent to missing a week at another school. The professors are good, though, they do what they can to help us stay on track.”
Owens says he tries to work with the league to schedule road trips during block breaks, if possible. But invariably, the players have to miss some classes on Thursday and Friday during travel weeks.
“That’s another reason why it’s so important to learn time management in a hurry,” says Owens. “You have to find a way to adapt.”
Sometimes, that means players have to read textbooks, study for exams or bang out papers on their laptops while traveling. Owens says that some players have had to fax completed assignments back to their profs while on the road. Occasionally a proctor will accompany the team to monitor an exam.
Many of the Tigers say CC’s academic reputation was as important as the hockey program’s caliber when it was time to choose a place to play.
“The academics were a big drawing point for me,” says Clarke. “I knew I’d get a good education here.”
Owens says a player’s academic ability is the first thing the staff looks at in the recruiting process.
“It isn’t a question of who we can get in or who’s going to survive here,” he says. “It’s who’s going to do well.”
Many of CC’s current players are economics majors who are planning to pursue business careers. But in the recent past, the team also has had several biology/pre-med majors, including recent grads Shaun Winkler ’02, Mike Colgan ’01, and Paul Manning ’01.
Despite the team’s impressive classroom record, Owens says he knows there will always be some people who view the players stereotypically: as single-minded jocks who are at CC for one reason, to play hockey.
“You’re always going to have some people who think, ‘Well, they’re just Division I hockey players; they’re not serious about the classroom’,” Owens says. “But I think lots of the students who wind up in class with our guys are impressed that they’re responsible and personable.”
Jason Jozsa ’03, a senior defenseman from Calgary, Alberta, says that, happily, he has experienced little of that pucks-for-brains stigma.
“It’s a small campus, a small community, and professors and students alike have done a good job of treating us the same as everyone else,” Jozsa says. “I think there are so many students at CC who do so many things, like theater and music, outside of class, that it helps everybody accept what we do. There’s a lot going on here; hockey is just one thing.”
The Tigers need only look to their coach for an example of the benefits of a liberal arts education.
Says Owens, “The education I received here gave me a lot of confidence. It helped me, directly or indirectly, to set the bar higher for myself. It has helped me to achieve.”
Scott Smith ’76 writes for the Pueblo Chieftain.
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On the Bookshelf
Anna Woman of Miracles: The Story of the Grandmother of Jesusby Carol Hurst Haenni ’63, with Vivian Vick
Though hundreds of thousands of worshippers celebrate the feast day of Saint Anne, who was the mother of Mary and the grandmother of Jesus, most know nothing of her life. The author examines Anna’s reputation as a healer, her three marriages, and her crucial role in preparing Mary to be the mother of Jesus. ISBN: 0876044445. Published by A.R.E. Press, 2002.
The Book of Clouds
by John A. Day ’35
Known as the “Cloudman,” John Day shares his “ten reasons to look up” and his vast portfolio of cloud photos that will persuade you to do so. The author has a Ph.D. in cloud physics and has been photographing clouds for much of his life. ISBN: 0760735360. Published by Silver Lining Books, 2002.
Colorado Creative Living
by Jenna Samelson ’95
This magazine-style book is a guide to creative living, and includes high-altitude gardening tips, backyard flower arranging, many craft projects, and holiday entertaining ideas. There are two books, one detailing fall and winter projects, the other focusing on spring and summer. Both are fully illustrated with glossy photographs. Fall/Winter ISBN: 0971741484. Spring/Summer ISBN: 0971741492. Both published by Creative Living in 2002.
The Cross of Lorraine and A Litany of Angels: The Memoirs of Leodegrance de Marciville as told to Bernadette, the Maiden
by Jay A. Cornils ’81
“The Cross of Lorraine” is a novel portraying two Americans who fight alongside the French Resistance during World War II. Its characters confront the adversities of war with human desires and frailties. ISBN: 0759698260.
“A Litany of Angels” is a romance set in France during the time of Joan of Arc and tells the story of France’s epic fight for its freedom in the words of Leodegrance de Marciville, an ancient warrior, who dictates his tale to a young maiden, Bernadette. ISBN: 1403358672. Both books published by 1st Books in 2002.
Don’t Sleep with Your Drummer
by Jen Sincero ’87
Part diary, part crash course in rock stardom, the book is a hilarious, no-holds-barred guide through the highs and lows of the music industry, providing a satirical insider’s view. Anyone who has spent any time in the music industry can relate to this tale. ISBN: 0743453913. Published by MTV Books, 2002.
Kiss Me Again: An Invitation to a Group of Noble Dames
by Bruce Kellner ’55
Nine homages, arranged chronologically, feature women who influenced the author, including Alice B. Toklas; Fritzi Scheff, a musical comedy star; and Nina Balaban, a Russian émigré painter. ISBN: 1885586248. Published by Turtle Point, 2002.
New Vegetarian: Bold and Beautiful Recipes for Every Occasion and The New Kitchen Garden: Growing and Cooking with Organic Herbs, Vegetables, and Fruit
by Celia Brooks Brown ’91
“New Vegetarian: Bold and Beautiful Recipes for Every Occasion” focuses on innovative gourmet vegetarian food and includes photographs by Philip Webb that are as luscious as the recipes. ISBN: 1841721522. Published by Ryland Peters & Small, 2001.
“The New Kitchen Garden” is co-authored with Adam Caplin, a gardening writer. Brown was commissioned to write 35 recipes for the book, and at the time, a friend of hers was going through cancer treatment. Brown harvested her friend’s garden and created all the recipes in the book. ISBN: 1841722243. Published by Ryland Peters & Small, 2003.
Sentenced for Life: A Story of an Entry and an Exit into the World of Fundamentalist Christianity and Jews for Jesus
by Jo Ann Schneider Farris ’78
In “Sentenced for Life,” the author provides a fascinating account of her conversion to fundamentalist Christianity and later work as a member of the Jews for Jesus ministry. ISBN: 059524940X. Published by Writers Club Press, 2002.
Tuesday Morning Quarterback: Haiku and Other Whimsical Observations to Help You Understand the Modern Game
by Gregg Easterbrook ’76
Titled after his Slate.com column, this book offers a sportswriter’s version of football haiku. An example: “Ideally, don’t play./ Fans wince when I trot on field./ I am the Punter.” ISBN: 0789306514. Published by Universe Books, 2002.
Wake Up Big Barn
by Suzanne Tanner Chitwood ’80
The daily rhythms of farm life are captured with fun, onomatopoeic text and delightful, original torn-paper collages crafted from the recycled pages of catalogs and magazines. Ages 2-6. ISBN: 0439266270. Cartwheel Books, 2002.
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