Dear Alumni, Parents, and Friends,

In Just Over Six Months At Colorado College, I have learned that community is everything.

We felt joy in the air as students, faculty, and staff gathered on Tava Quad for Opening Convocation on the first day of classes. That day — the beginning of a new academic year — is no doubt meaningful every year. However, after months of lockdown and virtual interactions due to the pandemic, we came together on dewy grass, shaded our eyes under the magnificent Colorado sun, heard inspiring speeches, and started our year together. It was magical.

Since then, I’ve seen that the rhythm and hum of CC centers on engaging with one another. It’s in a heated but collegial class debate and in laughter from students in hammocks on the quad. It’s in a captivated audience taking in the dynamic moves and energy of Dance Workshop performers and in cheering on our myriad sports teams. The connections made while studying in Tutt Library, over lunch in Rastall Café, supporting one another in faculty and staff meetings, or while making music in Packard Hall are our lifeblood.

Of course, it helps that CC students are magnetic. They pull together, find their passions, and share them in a way that draws you in as well. I’ve had fabulous discussions with our CC Student Government Association, the student leaders in President’s Council, student-athletes, student Title IX leaders, our esports teams, and CC EMS, among many others.

While this connecting seems to happen organically, this year we are also intentionally engaging to explore a big question: How can we do what we do better?

Under the coordination of Professor and former Dean Susan Ashley, groups are meeting across campus to consider ways this already great institution can be even better. This effort, called Project 2024, will determine the “what” this year, the “how” next year, and, in 2024, we will do it.

Fifty-one years ago, our faculty, staff, and students innovated in a similar manner, and the Block Plan was born. Then, the question was about how we could teach better. The Block Plan used time — and faculty dedication — to create an immersive, supportive, and expansive education, centered on our core, the liberal arts. Our classes have been riffing on that, stretching the possibilities and flexibility within that framework, ever since.

I’m excited to ponder the possible “what” of Project 2024. Will it be about time, attention, and how we spend it? Access? Inclusion? Social justice? Mental health? The environment? Some innovation we haven’t even dreamed of yet? With CC’s great, creative minds and a connected community, anything is possible. As themes and ideas bubble up, we will plan ways in which alumni, families, and friends can engage in and further this important work.

While coming together now involves masks and distancing, this is a community that feels it is worth it. Requiring vaccinations, COVID tests, and masks allowed us to bring alumni and families to campus in October for a beautiful Homecoming and Family Weekend. Under those same protocols, Tigers fans cheer in the new Ed Robson Arena, choirs sing, and most important, classes gather for life-changing teaching, learning, and sharing. I am grateful to all who have worked so hard to make that possible.

The CC community is strong, caring, and far-reaching. Alumni tell me they bump into other CC grads wearing their “Colorado College” apparel in airports, on hiking trails, in cities, and even on remote islands. Even if one graduate is from the Class of 2021 and another is from the Class of 1972, there’s an immediate rapport, and probably a good conversation to be had.

That’s CC’s community. It is here, it is spread across this globe, and it is a force for good. I am thrilled to be part of it.

Sincerely,

L. Song Richardson, President