Venture Grants: The Essence of CC's Educational Philosophy

By ROBERT HILL

eporting on the successful completion of a capital campaign in the fall 1965 Colorado College Bulletin, late president Lloyd E. Worner '42 speculated on the immediate future of fundraising at Colorado College. Proposing rather wistfully that sufficient funding might eventually "take Cascade Avenue underground as it passes through the campus," he continues in a more realistic vein, "We must find venture money, too, for educational experiments in various fields."

From that campaign, initially funded by the Ford Foundation's $2.2 million challenge grant, was born the Colorado College venture grants program, at once a fixture and a novel experiment in the college's financial aid structure. With a current annual budget of $55,000, the program has come and gone through lean years and occasional hiatus but has survived, in large part, because the student projects it underwrites have been real intellectual ventures.

"It encourages our students to do what we want them to do, that is, get out of the classroom and do something creative - original if possible," says chemistry professor Richard Taber, a member of the grants awarding committee and a frequent faculty collaborator with student grantees. "This is one of the few places where we return tuition money directly to the students, put it in their hands and say, 'Now go do this.' I think it's one of the really terrific programs at the college."

Venture grants support what college officials believe is the quintessence of the education it provides - an informed and independent experimentalism. "It is what we expect students to do - to grow, to find these ventures and to pursue their intellectual interests," Taber says. "These are opportunities for students to originate their own investigations, and I'm just amazed at how clever they are."

The lion's share of the annual grants budget supports student-proposed research or studio projects. Those funds may also enable students to travel to academic or professional conferences, the tariff being the presentation of a student paper or research project at the meeting. Another component of the grants budget underwrites campus visits by distinguished lecturers.

History professor Carol Neel is one faculty member whose own intellectual repertoire has benefited from venture funds. "Venture grants allow us to bring in speakers who are not necessarily 'churched' in some way," she says, referring to visitors who may, intellectually speaking, represent many interests to many campus constituencies. Her sponsorship through a 1996 venture grant of feminist theologian Alison Cheek from the Episcopal Divinity School, for example, drew attendees from the sociology, religion, women studies, history, politics and philosophy programs. Increasing one's intellectual options in this way, she explains, "gives you the opportunity for enrichment because it allows you to bring in someone who is interesting to a wider campus audience."

And there is, to put it in its simplest terms, a purely economic side. In situations where various departments share a common topic of interest, says Neel, they can put up collaborative funds of their own to bring in a visitor, and a venture grant can "help tie it all together by filling in any gaps in funding."

Funds also may be secured by faculty proposal for collaborative laboratory or field research with a student assistant. "Venture grants let the college actively support what we say we want them to do with their liberal arts education, that is, to go beyond just taking classes," Taber points out. "That's nice to say, but how do most institutions actually support that? They don't."

The briefest sampling of student-generated projects is intriguingly diverse and imaginative: a research trip to Tanzania to study the spike-heeled lark; to India to observe the practices of the present caste system; to Mexico to study its cathedrals; a Parisian sojourn to study the collected art works of Sonia Delaunay; a group tour to Washington, D.C., to participate in the March for Justice; attendance at conferences of analytical chemists, geophysicists or geologists, ecological farmers; film projects; mounting photography exhibits; dance festivals. Guest lecturers have included Cornel West on race relations, Michael Bailey, a nonviolent environmental activist who spoke about marine conservation, and Chickasaw poet and novelist, Linda Hogan.

Conventional scholarly projects comprise only a fraction of the ideas proposed and supported by venture grants. And often as not, the prospect of even a small grant can crystallize a larger project and make it happen.

"Two young men wanted to follow the trail of Mozart one summer," recalls Professor Taber. "Now you could say, ah, a junket. But what a junket it would be! And they did it - and wrote back these wonderful post cards. The small grant they got certainly didn't cover all their expenses. But it was the catalyst."

Beyond what the students learn from their individual research or from classes with distinguished guests, the process of applying for the grant is itself educational. "They have to write a real proposal," says Taber. "And it's competitive. They have to learn to meet deadlines. There is a finite amount of money. They have to worry about how they're going to execute this and what they want to spend the money on. All that is good training, good experience, but the most important thing is just coming up with the idea, tracking down how we do this."

In the final analysis, Taber explains, Colorado College puts up its dollars to enable students to experience directly the essence of its educational philosophy. "What is this institution about, what do we really expect of students?" Taber asks. "What do we want them to grow into? Independent thinking people who can organize their thoughts, go investigate something, be able to write it up and present it in some fashion. And we put money right into that through these venture grants."

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