Information Session Tomorrow

We will be hosting an information session tomorrow, Thursday, September 3, about the college’s adjustments to its plan for Fall 2020 and answer many pre-submitted questions. Please join me and other panelists, including Acting Co-President Robert G. Moore; Acting Dean of Students/Acting Vice President for Student Life Rochelle T. Dickey; Vice Provost Pedro de Araujo; Vice President for ITS/Chair of the Prevention Working Team Brian Young; and Vice President/Director of Athletics Lesley Irvine.

Tomorrow’s webinar will open at 12:45 p.m. Mountain Time with the presentation beginning directly at 1 p.m. Registrations for the webinar are currently at capacity. Registration does not guarantee admittance and audience members will enter the virtual meeting in the order they arrive until capacity is reached. If you cannot enter the webinar, the event will stream simultaneously to Facebook Live via the Colorado College Facebook page and a recording will immediately post to Facebook at the completion of the event. We will answer as many pre-submitted questions as we can in the time allotted, and will note additional questions submitted during the session, so they may be answered in our FAQs.

If you have further questions, please email covid19@coloradocollege.edu. Thank you, and we hope to see you there.

Changes to Our Fall Plan

Dear Campus Community,

As you know, we ended the first week of Block 1 with a requirement from El Paso County Public Health that we quarantine South and Mathias halls. On Sunday Loomis Hall’s 14-day quarantine was completed.

We are grateful to the many students, staff, and faculty who are supporting students in quarantine by adapting classes, taking on extra work to adhere to restrictions, and volunteering to deliver food to halls.

This is not how you — or we — envisioned our students starting their campus life, or this academic year.

Despite our rigorous and successful testing, retesting, and response protocol, and our low incidence of positive cases, the El Paso County Public Health Department has required us to quarantine entire residence halls. The department tells us to expect rolling waves of large quarantines going forward.

The residential liberal arts experience is a special element of life at CC, but we can’t offer a quality residential experience to our students under these circumstances.

Therefore, we are taking the following actions:

• All classes are moving to remote delivery for the remainder of Block 1 and most classes will be in remote delivery for the remainder of the Fall Semester. We hope to provide in-person or hybrid fall classes for a limited number of students to take for their degree progression.
• We will significantly reduce the number of students living on campus.
  • On-campus students should plan to leave campus by Sept. 20 unless they are already enrolled in one of the few in-person or hybrid classes we hope to provide. We will let those students know on Thursday if they have permission to stay.
  • The Residential Experience office will email on-campus students details on move-out.
  • Those in South and Mathias halls may leave when their quarantine ends at noon Sept. 12. Quarantined students who live within a few hours’ driving distance and who can be driven home by a family member or responsible adult without stopping may leave at any time.
  • We will continue to provide housing for international students and students who are in dire need.
  • We know the housing situation has been very difficult for those living in quarantined halls. The college will credit the accounts of all students living in Loomis, Mathias, and South halls for their Block 1 room charges. This includes students who had room assignments in those halls but were moved elsewhere for quarantine or isolation.

On Thursday we will have a decision and announcement regarding those students who may be on campus for Blocks 2, 3, and 4. 

In addition we will provide a virtual information session on Thursday at 1 p.m. Mountain Time to provide more information and answer your questions. Register in advance for this webinar. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing information about joining the webinar.

The information session also will be accessible via the Colorado College Facebook page at the same time, and recorded to watch later for those who cannot join us live. Please send questions by noon Mountain Time Wednesday, to covid19@coloradocollege.edu using “Questions for Info Session” in the subject line, so the presenters may provide you the information you need.

If we can bring students to campus, we will give priority to those students who need to be on campus for academic progression – those who are already enrolled in, and must take in-person or hybrid required classes to graduate. We hope to do this if we can ensure very low density in living arrangements. In addition to the public health department, to make these determinations we are consulting with our national medical experts, our Science Advisory Group, the Provost’s Office, the Residential Experience office, and others campus-wide.

In the coming month, we will establish our own on-campus COVID-19 testing lab. This will allow us to control our testing and our testing turnaround time. Getting results quickly will allow us to identify cases and respond much more quickly, significantly mitigating the risk of spreading the virus.

Please remember that even with most classes delivered remotely, we are still open. Learning and growth continue. Our classes, activities, student organizations, and events will remain vibrant, and we encourage our students, faculty, and staff to fully engage.

We regret that we cannot accommodate all of our students on campus. This is a difficult decision for us, and we know it is disappointing for so many of you.

We recognize that there are many reasons why this shift will cause hardship for students and families. CC is making every effort to help meet the needs of students. For a list of ways to access support for such needs as internet access, technology, software, food or housing security, among other challenges, please see our COVID-19 Emergency Response Fund information.

We will communicate about our plans for the second semester in October.

We thank and acknowledge students, faculty, staff, alumni, and parents who are supporting us, sharing their concern and their care. We especially want to thank our students who have come forward when they haven’t felt well and cooperated with contact tracers to help us stop the spread of the virus, and everyone who is wearing masks, social distancing, and washing hands frequently. There are many people doing the right thing; nevertheless, this is a highly contagious virus and despite following protocols, we know that the virus can still impact anyone at any time.

We are all in this together, and we are grateful for everyone’s dedication and sense of responsibility to keep the well-being of our students, faculty, staff, and greater community central to what we do at CC.

Sincerely,

Mike Edmonds

Acting Co-President

Robert G. Moore

Acting Co-President

Carissa Sherman ’21 Wins First Place With Social Justice Essay

Carissa Sherman ’21 took first place in the undergraduate category of the Arkansas Medical Dental & Pharmaceutical Association’s recent student essay contest with her essay “Bordering on Hopeless: Social Justice in Healthcare.”

Sherman, who is Diné and serves as co-chair of CC’s Native American Student Union, explores various social determinants that affect the physical and mental health disparities among Indigenous peoples. She also addresses social justice practices that can be implemented to improve healthcare for marginalized communities.

Congratulations, Carissa! Read the full article here.

Get to Know the Class of 2024

Colorado College welcomes 576 incoming members of the Class of 2024 and 36 transfer students. Members of the Class of 2024, entering college at a unique time, bring with them unique experiences. Among them are students who have:

• Worked as a lobsterwoman
• Been a kindergarten teacher
• Built a boat
• Worked as a haunted house actor
• Been an extra in Game of Thrones
• Discovered a dinosaur bone
• Graduated high school with an associate’s degree in software engineering
• Worked as a firefighter
• A family of 10 siblings
• Been a beekeeper

Students started with CC’s Common Read; this year’s book is “What the Eyes Don’t See” by Mona Hanna-Attisha. The book describes how Hanna-Attisha, an immigrant, doctor, scientist, and mother, alongside a team of researchers, parents, friends, and community leaders, discovered that the children of Flint, Michigan, were being exposed to lead in their tap water — and then battled the government and a brutal backlash to expose that truth to the world. Read more about the Class of 2024 here.

Opening Convocation

Yesterday we kicked off the 147th academic year at Colorado College! We are so excited for the year ahead, for the challenges that we will rise to meet, and for the experiences we will all share together.

You can watch our virtual Opening Convocation below, during which we celebrated the beginning of the school year and welcomed the new class of students to Colorado College.