“Humans of New York,” the popular Facebook page with over 15 million “likes,” now has another sister page: “Humans of Colorado College,” thanks to two first-year students, Padah Vang ’19 and Joann Bandales ’19. The page already has over 1,300 “likes” and is continuing to gain popularity.
The students have posted to the page nearly every day for the past three weeks. Each post includes a photo of a CC student and a statement from the student, usually regarding his or her experience at CC, and goals for the student’s experience at the college. Students’ comments are honest, inspiring, and heartfelt. Poignant personalities carry through the screen, speaking to the individuality of the student body, while drawing attention to overlooked issues or shedding light on less common perspectives.
Esther Chan ’16 helped Vang and Bandales start the page and says she is extremely excited about where they have taken it. “It’s just gone so far beyond my belief. They’re creating this community of support, vulnerability, honesty, and authenticity that CC needs,” Chan said.
Particularly impressive, notes Bandales, is students’ willingness to share personal details of their lives and allow those intimate stories to be posted for the larger community. “The interviews that have impacted me a lot have been Mohammad [Mia] and Austin [Lukondi]’s stories. They are both amazing people and for them to talk about these things, it’s just eye-opening that there’s more to a person than you think,” she said.
Bandales says she hopes the page will draw the CC community closer together. “I believe that this project will allow us to connect more with the people we see everyday, yet never really know what goes on behind the scenes,” she said.
Vang and Bandales encourage people interested in the project to contact them and become involved. Anyone can find the page by searching “Humans of Colorado College” on Facebook.
Kate Dunn ’14 and Erin O’Neill ’14 developed the online quarterly arts publication Rootstalk Magazine with a very clear mission in mind: to create a space for a community of self-identified women to publish their art. The magazine features art (including songs, music reviews, poetry, essays, paintings, and fiction) made by women from all walks of life.
Dunn and O’Neill, residents of Oakland, CA, were both interested in women’s studies in college. Dunn, an English major, began to think about the intersection between literature and women’s studies while studying abroad in Greece with CC. It was not until they both graduated that they began to comprehend that women do not often have spaces to share their art and work. O’Neill, a studio art major, and Dunn collaborated during the past year to create Rootstalk, the name of which means literally “an underground, horizontal root system that grows together into a web to nourish one developing plant.”
In attempting to build this web, Rootstalk aims to venture outside normal boundaries. Instead of striving to be a haven for teenage girls like, for example, the celebrated 2011 magazine Rookie, Rootstalk prides itself on being directed toward any and all women and pushes for an intergenerational community. The creators search in more ways than one to be a democratic, fully representative community. “We want women,” said Dunn, “who do not necessarily identify as artists (although self-identified artists are welcome too!), to have a place to showcase thoughts, paintings, drawings, songs, journal entries, that they’d otherwise keep to themselves.“
Rootstalk emphasizes this idea of sharing in the published content. It reads like a mature show-and-tell, featuring everything from pictures of old journal entries to lo-fi bedroom rock. The front cover of the current issue is a piece entitled “What I Think About When I Think About Yoga” by Eleanor Anderson. It depicts a little androgynous person dancing across the page, contorting its body into sometimes-impossible shapes. Most of the art is similarly impressionistic and personal. The cumulative effect of the pieces is similar to the one produced while browsing someone else’s diary: it is confessional but not self-consciously so, it is smart, and it is surprising.
Rootstalk’s first issue, “Transition,” is available online now; 10 of the 18 submissions are from CC alumnae. The website, rootstalkmagazine.org, is currently accepting submissions.
In the past months, Colorado College has made significant progress toward reaching its sustainability goals. The college has achieved the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education STARS Gold Status, it moved up to 59th on the Sierra Cool Schools list, and received the WateReuse CO customer of the year award.
These achievements represent efforts by CC’s Office of Sustainability, which completed the AASHE STARS questionnaire for the first time last year. STARS (Sustainability Tracking, Assessment, and Rating System) is a widely respect self-reporting framework used by colleges across the country to track sustainability progress. Colleges can earn credit based on criteria across four categories: academics, engagement, operations, and planning and administration. Depending on the results, they earn a rating as bronze, silver, gold, or platinum.
In only its second year participating, CC has already moved from the silver to the gold ranking with a current score is 66.89 (85 will earn CC platinum status). Ian Johnson, director of sustainability, said, “energy and greenhouse gas emissions are key players in all regards. Continuing to focus on parallel goals and commitments, such as our carbon neutrality goals, will continue to move us up.”
While students and faculty may already consider CC a “cool school,” now it’s official. The Sierra Club recently recognized the college as 59th out of 135 schools on its Cool Schools of 2015 list. The Sierra Club uses a survey called the Campus Sustainability Data Collector, which draws from the data collected by Sierra Club, the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education, the Sustainable Endowments Institute, and the Princeton Review.
Schools can receive a total of 1000 points spread across 11 categories. CC earned a score of 641.93, while the highest-ranking school, University of California Irvine, earned a score of 867.29. In the categories of food, energy, and waste, CC ranked in the top 25 out of all 135 schools, and also earned all possible points in the planning category.
According to Johnson, this recognition is especially important in terms of continuing to increase CC’s rankings in other higher education standings and gaining the respect of peer institutions, prospective students, and alumni. “Sierra Magazine is widely respected and reviewed,” he said. “Our improvement this year is a direct result of the college’s strategic plan goals and focus on sustainability, largely guided by the annual STARS survey that informs our State of Sustainability report.”
Additionally, CC received the Customer of the Year Award from WateReuse Colorado. “This award recognizes projects and people within Colorado that have made significant contributions to water reuse,” said Tara Kelley, Regulatory Services Section Supervisor for Colorado Springs, who nominated CC for the award. CC has been using reclaimed water for over 45 years. The award states that the college has “demonstrated superb compliance with Colorado Springs Utilities standards and Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment regulations throughout this time.”
Dozens of high school students from around the country and the globe spent part of their summers here on campus, experiencing college courses via the Block Plan. As part of the Summer Session Pre-college Program, they enrolled in 11 of the 16 courses offered during Block B (a total of 289 undergraduate, graduate, and independent study students were enrolled that block).
Of the 49 pre-college students, 17 were here on scholarships, including two merit scholars. They represented 21 states and China, and almost all of the students lived on campus during their courses. Additionally, 11 students participated in the program during Block A this summer.
“I’ve been interested in pursuing physics in college although I was uncertain because it’s an uncommon major.” said Benjamin Weber, who enrolled in the Cosmology, Antimatter, and the Runaway Universe course during Block B as part of the Pre-college Program during Summer Session. “I enrolled in it so I could see how much I want to pursue physics in my higher education. I also was very interested in the Block Plan.”
“As program assistants, we’ve been able to develop a little bit of that CC community within this program by planning fun community programming and being role models” said Jaxon Rickel ’16, who worked as a program assistant with the Pre-college Program this summer. “It has been fulfilling to see the students overcome struggles and succeed on the Block Plan.”
During their time here, students also learned tips for applying to selective liberal arts colleges, practiced admission essay writing, hiked the Manitou Incline, and visited the Fine Arts Center as part of programming specific to academic and student life.
“The Block Plan works. It allows you a good period of time to study interesting topics with people who really know the material they’re teaching,” said Weber. “It’s such a beautiful campus, too. I love walking to class and seeing the snow-capped mountains silhouetting the skyline, or going to an observing session with my class and just looking up to see the universe in its majesty and beauty. To anyone interested, I cannot recommend this program highly enough.”
Pre-college students in class with Professor Shane Burns.
Want to understand how language influences the interworkings of the mind? Ask Jake Brodsky ’15, a CC psychology major, who is preparing to present research findings on the topic at an international conference this summer.
“His presentation will be viewed by some of the actual researchers he’s cited in his research. Our students can really make an impact on the way people think beyond the CC environment,” said Kevin Holmes, psychology professor, who is working with Brodsky as part of the 10-week Summer Collaborative Research Program.
Kevin Holmes, professor of psychology, meets with his team of summer student researchers at a weekly collaborative meeting.
This summer, 26 students received funding through the Centennial Fund Faculty Student Collaboration Grant and the Mellon-funded Faculty Student Collaboration Grant. About 65 more, like Brodsky, received funding through other college research awards. The summer program supports faculty members in their research activities and provides students with first-hand research experience as undergraduates. The intent is to expose students to the diverse goals, research methods, and skills faculty use to conduct advanced research in their fields of study, prepare research reports of their findings, and present their conclusions to their peers in classes, at professional meetings, or in Brodsky’s case, to experts in his field.
Holmes says participating in this kind of intensive, collaborative research enhances the learning environment for every student. “Doing research teaches you how to think in ways you don’t get in regular classes; just to be able to think through a problem, coming up with a question and determining how to test it,” said Holmes of working with students. Students in the program learn to solve problems, draw conclusions that can be defended, and tell the story of the research, which is what Brodsky is doing now as he prepares to present the significant findings of his research.
“You don’t have the pressures that you do during the school year; in the summer, the time is yours, you can sit down and think about the ideas, focus on the theories and the methods, and not worry about the deadlines,” Holmes said.
The collaborative nature of the program is at the core of why Holmes says it’s so valuable – both to faculty and to students. “For a student to be able to make such a big contribution, it’s great. It’s not just the faculty member deciding ‘here are my research projects and here’s what you’ll do,’ but they bring in their ideas, often related to thesis work. We meet daily in the summer, to check in, to figure out the next step; each of us makes a contribution to the work.”
Brodsky’s research and resulting findings grew from his senior thesis project exploring how monolingual and bilingual adults differ in their views of gender. After graduation, he continued his work through funding provided by the collaborative research program. Holmes helped him apply for additional funds, once Brodsky was selected as a presenter at the Cognitive Science Society Conference in Pasadena in July.
Holmes is working with six students during the summer and while he says it’s a demanding load, the group dynamic helps the scientific, and learning, process. “Each individual student is outstanding, and bringing them together they learn from and help each other, and challenge each other,” he said.
“What the students in my lab are doing this summer are projects very similar to the graduate school experience,” said Holmes. “It’s so much more about the research than taking classes; they have to think carefully about their project and have the time to execute from start to finish. I’d like students to get involved earlier, so by the time they’re seniors, they can really take on more advanced research and extend it in new directions.”
Brodsky also encourages students to get involved in research earlier in their CC careers, and specifically through the summer program. “It’s probably been my favorite part of being at CC. It’s the opportunity to do research with a professor, independently, and the summer offers all of the fun parts of learning without the pressures of turning things in; you get to really learn for learning’s sake.”
Ultimately, Brodsky will work with Holmes to write up his findings for submission to a peer-reviewed journal. While he hasn’t made plans about his next steps yet, Brodsky said his experience this summer “makes me excited to continue in academics or to go on to grad school.”
Find out what subject matter other Summer Collaborative Research Program participants explored when they present their work at the second annual Undergraduate Research Symposium held on campus in the fall.
The next time you attend a program or performance at Shove Chapel, go ahead and sit in the back. What ITS experts call “revolutionary technology” is now in place,offering a greatly enhanced sound system for the historic building. “The sound quality is awesome,” said Jera Wooden, “We had no idea how clear and crisp everything would sound.”
ITS began working on the project about a year ago, recognizing the need for an upgrade to the sound system while also identifying very specific aesthetic and acoustic needs within the space. The Tectonic speakers are “cutting edge” said Randy Babb and Sean Roberts, members of the ITS Smart Spaces team who led the installation process. While traditional speakers distribute sound directionally, similar to the way light is distributed by a spot light, the new speakers use a flat surface to distribute the sound cleanly and clearly, with less echoing. Shove Chapel is one of the first buildings in the country to install this new speaker technology.
Visually, the flat speakers are unobtrusive in the historic space. They’re only 2.5 inches thick and five new speakers replace the 20 small speakers used in the old system. They were powder coated with a custom color to match the chapel’s stone walls and the extensive wiring (they’re wired speakers, but you wouldn’t easily notice) required a month of drilling, boring, and cosmetic work.
The new system launched with the 2015 Baccalaureate ceremony and has been used at weddings and other services throughout the summer. Now, controls are mobile, accessed via a handheld iPad, or iPads in two different stationary locations within the chapel, improving the ease of use, formerly done in one tiny control room, up a steep flight of stairs. “Weddings are so much easier, not constantly running up the stairs, and we have wireless microphones; it’s great,” Wooden said.
This $76,000 project was funded through an endowment used for regular maintenance of the facility. Take a listen here, and a look at photos, from installation through the final product, below.
CC science labs are becoming more environmentally friendly thanks to the work of several faculty members and the launch of the Green Labs project.
Over the past year, Barbara Whitten, professor of physics, and Emilie Gray, assistant professor of organismal biology and ecology, have led an effort to change CC science departments’ use of materials and equipment to encourage efficiencies in energy and resource use. Improvements in battery and paper recycling, as well as reducing energy used by refrigerators and ventilation equipment, are also part of the CC Green Labs project. Green Labs is also an active movement at colleges and universities across the country.
Whitten first brought up the concept during a brainstorming session at the end of the 2013-14 school year, and later presented the idea at a Sustainability Council meeting where Gray and several other faculty expressed interest in the project.
“I got interested in this project because if you look at energy density, or energy per square foot, all of the science buildings are at the very top of the list,” said Whitten.
She was particularly curious about why Tutt Science Center, a building constructed to be Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certified, was also using large amounts of energy. After some research, she found that science buildings are universally energy inefficient. She discovered the national Green Labs movement, working to make science labs more efficient. Much of the energy use in science labs comes from equipment like the ultralow freezers and ventilation hoods.
Gray said CC had several projects already underway to increase sustainability in the science departments, but they weren’t coordinating with one another or collaborating to broaden their reach across campus. “We made a bunch of discoveries,” said Gray. “For example, in chemistry they are already using a lot of green chemicals and people don’t know about it.”
To further the program, Whitten, Gray and several other faculty members and students visited the University of Colorado-Boulder to learn about the Green Labs program in place there. “We got to see their labs and meet their program manager, who has tons of ideas on sustainability,” said Gray. “She had a lot of information that was incredibly valuable for us.”
Kathy Ramirez, Green Labs manager at CU, has since visited CC and given her input on how to improve the school’s labs. Whitten says she hopes the Green Labs initiative will reach beyond energy conservation.
“Mostly we’ve talked about energy, but really what green science means is a reduction in all forms of resource abuse,” said Whitten. “It involves water conservation and reducing the use of toxic chemicals without interfering with the teaching and research mission of the science departments.”
Whitten and Gray have collaborated with Ian Johnson, CC’s sustainability manager, and together they have set up a fund to assist in purchasing sustainable equipment. This fund has already been used to buy a high-efficiency freezer. Whitten, Gray, and other members of the Green Labs project will continue to make changes to the labs that will reduce energy and resource use. They also aim to be involved in plans for constructing new science buildings on campus in the future.
Peggy Daugherty, associate professor of chemistry, with a new high-efficiency freezer.
Thirty-nine students will serve in fellowships this summer as part of the Public Interest Fellowship Program. The program acts as a matchmaker between CC students with an interest in the social sector and nonprofit organizations doing innovative work in the public interest. Often, this work involves policy, research, and advocacy. This year, CC has 20 summer fellows and 19 yearlong fellows.
Thanks to all faculty and staff members who submitted letters of recommendation on behalf of these students, and to the CC community who will support them in these endeavors.
Congratulations to all of the PIFP fellows!
Fellow term:
Fellow name:
Host organization:
Summer fellow
Jane Finocharo ’16
ACLU of Colorado
Summer fellow
Stefani Messick ’17
ARC of the Pikes Peak Region
Summer fellow
Taylor Wright ’17
Atlas Preparatory School
Summer fellow
Vanessa Voller ’16
The Bell Policy Center
Summer fellow
Patricia Weicht ’16
Catamount Institute
Summer fellow
Victoria Johnson ’17
City of Colorado Springs
Summer fellow
Jessica Worley ’15
ClinicNet
Summer fellow
Isaac Radner ’17
CO League of Charter Schools
Summer fellow
Kimiko Tanabe ’16
Cultural Office of the Pikes Peak Reg (COPPeR)
Summer fellow
Megan Gillespie ’16
The Gill Foundation
Summer fellow
Niyanta Khatri ’17
The Gill Foundation
Summer fellow
Zita Toth ’16
National Conference of State Legislatures: Communications Division
The Pi Kappa Delta National Honor Society for competitive forensics hosts one of the largest speech and debate competitions in the country. It draws hundreds of competitors from colleges and universities across the United States, including CC’s own speech and debate team.
At this year’s competition, the society inducted ten students as All-Americans including Jacob Kirksey ’15, the captain of the speech and debate team at CC. Selection as an All-American is the highest honor awarded at the national tournament, recognizing outstanding seniors with successful careers in forensics, and strong academic and service backgrounds.
“I have never witnessed a dual discipline and motivation for the arts and communication like I’ve seen in this young man over his four years at CC. Jacob’s ruthless determination to present only the best product is evidenced by scrapping a speech the night before competition and re-writing an entire persuasive just because the former ‘wasn’t good enough,’” said Sarah Hinkle, CC speech and debate coach.
He participated at the national level in speech and debate in each of his four years at CC, competing in a variety of events from team debates, limited preparation speaking on current event topics, prepared platform speeches, and acting. Kirksey says his strongest event is impromptu speaking, in which participants have two minutes to prepare a five-minute speech that interprets a given quotation, asserts a thesis, and gives examples on how to apply the quotation to daily life. He focused also on the after-dinner speaking event, preparing a ten-minute speech that incorporates humor into a serious topic and is persuasive in nature. He chose color-blindness and the Black Lives Matter movement for his topic this year.
“Winning and traveling across the country is wonderful, but the best part of competing is discovering your own personal growth,” Kirksey said of his experience on the team. “Every tournament you are pushed to do even better than you did before, and this creates a very important routine for always bettering yourself.”
Earlier this year, Kirksey and his partner reached the quarterfinals of the Pan American Universities Debate Championship tournament. They competed against hundreds of schools competing from across the Western Hemisphere, the equivalent of reaching a medaling heat of the Pan American Games.
“What has impressed me about Jacob is not his competitive success, as CC has a long history of successful speech and debate students, but his willingness to extend his expertise to the community and enrich the lives of young people in Colorado Springs,” said Julian Plaza, one of CC’s speech and debate coaches.
Kirksey also used the skillset he developed through forensics competitions to inspire and start his own company. Kids Are Dramatic is a social justice theatre company that works with Title I public schools, which include higher numbers of at-risk students, and with nonprofits and after-school programs, to create process-oriented drama classes for students to express themselves. He also serves as advocacy director at the local nonprofit group Imagination Celebration where he networks with professionals in the Pikes Peak Region to develop and evaluate educational programs.
Kirksey, a double major in economics and education, began his debate career as a high schooler in Lubbock, Texas, where he initially found his passion for the event. “Speech and debate created a space for me to succeed in high school and see my potential. It forced me to be confident and enhances nearly ever aspect of my academic and professional life.”
After graduation in May, Kirksey will begin the education policy doctorate program at the University of California-Santa Barbara. “If I didn’t have the skillset I developed and enhanced through speech and debate, I wouldn’t be as established and confident in my work. Hopefully I’ll be a professor at age 26.”
This is a new position at CC. What does the job entail?
My job and the new Office of Field Study were created to support faculty to teach off-campus field study courses. I plan to do this through logistical and administrative means, as well as connecting faculty to pedagogical support and in-the-field resources.
How do you think your position will impact CC?
I hope that my position will lead to an enhanced conversation about field study and all the amazing possibilities of the Block Plan. I hope to get more students out of the classroom into memorable, transformative academic experiences where they see the world in new ways and connect deeply to the material they are studying.
What are some of your goals?
I hope to get more courses involved in innovative off-campus experiences, and I want to showcase the amazing courses being taught at CC to the world. I plan to support off-campus experience by holding workshops, easing the way for faculty to do field trips from an administrative standpoint, and also finding funds for faculty to do trips.
You started here in August; what have you noticed about CC?
People here, from students to faculty to staff, believe that anything is possible. It’s amazing to have tremendous resources, but it’s all for naught if people don’t have vision. There are plenty of amazing people at CC with no shortage of vision.
Tell us a bit about your background before CC.
I grew up in Irving, Texas. I went to Texas A&M University, fell in love with the outdoors and my future wife. We married as undergrads and then went on to grad school together at Clemson University, and then back to Texas A&M to do Ph.D.s. She put school off when we had our first child and I finished my degree in outdoor recreation and adventure education and went into the job market. I landed my first job at Middle Tennessee State University in Murfreesboro, Tennessee, and later moved to Young Harris College in Young Harris, Georgia. All of my degrees are in recreation and parks, and my dissertation research was on the intersection of race and outdoor recreation. I’ve led
numerous off-campus trips, focused on all aspects of outdoor recreation in society, and led immersive courses in outdoor leadership, teaching group and personal development through adventure activities.
What are some personal or professional experiences you’ve had that play into your current role?
Personally, I remember having amazing learning experiences off campus when I was a student. The camaraderie with the other students and faculty, along with mind-opening learning experiences are the things that I try to consider when thinking about field study. Professionally, I am still in touch with students I took on field trips almost 8 years ago, and the experiences those students had still resonate with them personally and professionally. It is tremendously rewarding to be a part of something like that.
Who/what was the biggest influence on you?
My wife Jenny was actually a huge catalyst for me to pursue graduate school. She inspired a C+ student to go ahead and apply and after the first week of graduate studies, I knew I wanted to pursue a career in higher ed. It should also be noted that the departments we applied to really wanted her to come, and I pretty much rode in on her coattails. I also read a lot of Edward Abbey, and his perspective on nature and preservation really influenced my desire to experience and protect and learn from our wild places.
What do you do with your personal time?
I spend time with my wonderful wife and our three rambunctious kids, Sam, 8; Lucy, 5; and Violet, 2½. We ride bikes, hike and camp, and try to get into adventures. When I get a moment for myself, I spend it riding my bike on back roads or rock climbing.
What is your passion?
My passion is for the transformational experiences that young people can have in college. These can happen in class or at campus events or on block breaks with friends. College is one of the only rites of passage in our society, and I am passionate about students going off into the world as responsible, empathetic citizens. Students who get to see and experience the world firsthand, I believe, have a more conscious, open-minded demeanor, and tend to contribute to the common good with their lives. I am passionate about helping students realize these experiences.
Wild card: Can you tell us something about yourself that might be surprising?
My wife and I attempted a cross-country trip on a tandem bike (before kids) from Maine to Seattle. Unfortunately we crashed about two weeks in and could not continue. We had gone about 1,000 miles and experienced a tremendous amount of kindness from the people we met and appreciation for nature from the sights we saw.
