Bulletin

Issue: December 2012

In Memoriam: Faculty

Professor Emerita Ruth Barton, November 23, in Colorado Springs, the guiding force in the early years of the Writing Center, the journalism program, Cutler Publications, and a host of other writing-related endeavors at Colorado College. She was 78. Barton, known for her love of poetry and her dedication to students, first began teaching at CC in 1964 as a lecturer in English. Faculty and students alike recall her kindness and fearlessness as she navigated turbulent decades of change at the college. Former students remember a generous teacher who took them seriously. Early on, Barton lobbied for a college-wide writing program, which began in the mid-70s when a professor was freed for…

Issue: December 2012

Homecoming and Parents Weekend a Real Success

Homecoming and Parents Weekend 2012 was a tremendous success! Attendance soared to 2,313 participants, making this Homecoming one of the largest ever at CC. More than 100 events took place over four days. Highlights of the weekend included induction of members of the Class of 1962 into the Fifty Year Club, athletic and arts events, a town hall meeting with President Jill Tiefenthaler, lectures, “Vintage CC” wine and beer tasting, and the Homecoming Convocation and Alumni Awards Ceremony in Shove Chapel followed by a huge picnic for 1,400 on Armstrong Quad. The Classes of ’62, ‘72, ’77, ’78, ’82, ’83, ’87, ’92, ’02, and ’07 celebrated reunions and 165 recent grads…

Issue: December 2012

A New Take on College Presidential Inaugurations

When I started thinking about what I wanted my inauguration as president of Colorado College to look like, I knew a community service component was an important element. I wanted to find a way to connect the inauguration not only to the Colorado College community, but also to the larger Colorado Springs community. I also knew that whatever we did, I wanted the students to be involved and the project to be a campus-wide effort that had a visible impact on the community. When Colorado College’s Greek life leaders approached me about potentially organizing a service project, I immediately said yes. The project began to take form as we decided…

Issue: December 2012

A Year of Planning

Elliot Mamet, a sophomore at Colorado College and a member of the Extending Our Reach strategic planning committee, offers a visualization of the strategic planning process that is truly fitting, “grounded in the unique character of Colorado College, strategic planning allows us to draw a roadmap of where we are headed and how we are getting there.” To avoid being passed on the fast-paced highway of higher education, we at Colorado College need to be able to keep our eyes on the road and our hands on the wheel as we move forward. Keeping our eyes on the road means moving forward while also following the path that has been…

Issue: December 2012

To Live in Peace

I am a partly haunted war veteran. In the Second World War, I was a junior officer on a landing ship tank. My ship was in the North African campaign and in the invasions of Sicily, Italy, and Normandy, where it was torpedoed and sunk. I was fished out of the English Channel by a small boat from a British destroyer, HMS Beagle (not Darwin’s Beagle). More than 60 years later, I still have vivid memories of the war. I was officer of the deck in command of gun crews that shot down a German fighter plane at Licata in Sicily in 1943. I remember the wall of water rising…

Issue: December 2012

Dorothy Christenson Williamson ’34: Living through those times

Ken Burns’s most recent documentary, “The Dust Bowl,” which premiered in November on PBS, interviews 26 survivors of what he calls the worst man-made ecological disaster in American history. Among those interviewed is a 21-year-old social worker who recently graduated from college. That young social worker is Dorothy Christenson Williamson ’34, and the college is Colorado College. Williamson, who turns 100 this month, credits Sociology Professor Alice Van Diest with steering her toward a job with the Federal Emergency Relief Administration (FERA). Upon graduating magna cum laude with a history degree, Williamson received a scholarship for graduate studies in the newly emerging field of social work at Case Western Reserve…

Issue: December 2012

Digging Up the Past: CC Alumni Help Uncover Major Ice Age Discovery

It’s an incredible view of the Rocky Mountains 100,000 years ago,” said Gussie Maccracken ’11. “It’s unprecedented,” said Ian Miller ’99. “This is giving us a crystal clear window into Colorado’s recent past. It can tell us about climate, fire frequency, drought, and pine beetles,” said Miller, discussing what scientists are learning now from the significant fossil excavation Miller co-directed in June 2011 near Snowmass, Colo. “We’ve never seen anything like this in the high Rockies before,” he said. Miller is curator of paleobotany and director of earth and space sciences at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science (DMNS.) Maccracken and Adam Freierman ’12 were two of nine nationally…

Issue: December 2012

Linking Curriculum to the Local Landscape: CC students, professors study Waldo Canyon fire site

Several professors at CC incorporated parts of the 18,000-acre Waldo Canyon wildfire area into their coursework during the fall semester. Eric Perramond, associate professor of Southwest Studies and Environmental Science, took his Political Ecology of the Southwest class to the burn site during Block 1, barely nine weeks after the fire raged on the west side of Colorado Springs. Originally Perramond had designed the course around a different theme, but after the fire, he changed the focus of the course, opting to concentrate on the political-economic factors of fire ecologies. Students taking the course gained an appreciation of how fire and pyrogeographies can substantively change landscapes and livelihoods, as well…

Issue: December 2012

A Perfect Firestorm

When friends and parents of the Colorado College extended family saw the dramatic pictures of the Waldo Canyon Wildfire just west of campus last June, they were stunned and alarmed over what they were seeing. How could this happen? Was our beloved campus in danger? Some called in and were relieved to learn that the college was never threatened and indeed had become a haven as a temporary shelter for some of the terrified residents who had to flee their homes. When it was over, 346 of those houses had been burned to the ground with damage exceeding $352 million. Two people died. It was to be the most destructive…

Issue: December 2012

CC Grads Help Map Flooding Effects of Hurricane Isaac

Three CC grads had a whirlwind encounter during the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Isaac, which struck the northern Gulf Coast in late August. I had been asked to join a pilot project studying the flooding effects of the hurricane through my work using Terrestrial LiDAR (T-LiDAR) as a post-doc at the United States Geological Survey in California. T-LiDAR is a distance-measuring laser combined with precise angle encoders to measure a fully 3D map, or “point-cloud,” of the nearby area. T-LiDAR had been used successfully for investigating levee failures in New Orleans during Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the technology had shown potential for mapping flooding effects in 3D. With only…