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Issue: December 2011

Rockies Project Field Researchers Travel Down Colorado River

 Two Colorado College State of the Rockies Project field researchers have begun a four-month “Source to Sea” journey down the length of the Colorado River. Will Stauffer-Norris ’11, of Dayville, Ore., and  Zak Podmore ’11, of Glenwood Springs, Colo., are paddling the entire length of the Colorado River Basin, from the headwaters of the Green River high in Wyoming’s Wind River Range to the Sea of Cortez. The Colorado River Basin, one of the world’s major fresh-water sources, flows through portions of seven states in the American Southwest on its way down to Mexico, and roughly 27 million people rely on the river for water, energy, and healthy ecosystems. Their…

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Issue: December 2011

Nobel Prize Supernovae Glow Shines on CC Professor, Alumna

 It’s been a busy fall for CC Physics Professor Shane Burns. In early October when the Nobel Prize in physics was announced, Burns and Katy-Robin Garton ’01 knew more than the average person about the background of the project. Burns and Nobel winner Saul Perlmutter searched for supernovae, which are massive exploding stars, when they were graduate students at the University of California at Berkeley in the 1980s. Burns, Perlmutter, and a small group of others began the work that resulted in the 1998 discovery of the accelerating expansion of the universe. In early November, Burns received a call from his long-time collaborator, Perlmutter, who invited Burns and his wife,…

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Issue: December 2011

Peak Profile: Jake Norton ’96

 Jake Norton loves a challenge. So it’s not surprising to see his name attached to a project appropriately titled Challenge21. Jake, 37, is a motivational speaker, photographer, and professional climber in Golden, Colo. He grew up in Massachusetts, and climbed his first big mountain — Washington’s Mount Rainer — in 1986 at the age of 12. He arrived in Colorado Springs in 1992, and as a first-year at Colorado College, spent much of his free time climbing routes in Garden of the Gods, Turkey Rock, and on Shelf Road. By the time he was 35, he had already spent more than a year of his life on Mount Everest, which…

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Issue: December 2011

Peak Profile: Kaui Hart Hemmings ’98

 Kaui Hart Hemmings ’98 has been called “Hawaii’s Cinderella.” Who is her Prince Charming? George Clooney, of course. Their relationship isn’t the stuff of fairy tales. Instead, it’s an artistic collaboration that has resulted in a movie version of Kaui’s first novel, “The Descendants.” Kaui’s novel has been adapted for the big screen, and that film of the same title opened this fall to glowing accolades and talk of an Oscar for its leading man. Kaui worked closely with director Alexander Payne (you might know him from “Sideways,” or “The Savages” or HBO’s “Hung”) in this film adaptation. In an interview at a film festival, Payne said his relationship with…

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Issue: December 2011

Peak Profile: Ken Sims ’86

 He’s been called the man who collects molten lava, was recently featured in National Geographic magazine, and is widely respected as one of the world’s top isotope geochemists. Ken Sims ’86 is associate professor of geology and geophysics at the University of Wyoming in Laramie, recruited back to the West from a tenured position as a scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts. He has studied geologic features up close, deep on the ocean floor, and inside smoldering volcanoes from Antarctica and South America to Africa and Asia. His claim to fame, now documented in numerous national and international articles and videos, is rappelling into smoking volcanic…

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Issue: December 2011

Sports Briefs

 Men’s Cross Country Led by Jackson Brainerd ’12 and Robby Caseria ’12, who blazed to individual finishes of first and fifth, respectively, the Colorado College men’s cross country team reached a new pinnacle in mid-November.
The Tigers, ranked No. 5 in the West, claimed a share of the men’s team title for the first time ever at the NCAA West Region championship meet in Claremont, Calif., after tying with No. 1-ranked Occidental College. Both teams advanced to nationals at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, CC as the higher seed by virtue of a tiebreaker. “It was just an incredible performance by all our guys,” said head coach Ted Castaneda. “They had a…

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Issue: December 2011

Financial Aid Gets OK to Study Abroad, Some Passport Fees Included

 CC has developed two programs that will allow more   students the opportunity to study abroad. The first is a pilot program designed to increase opportunities for students with financial aid to study off-campus. The program, effective Spring 2012, will be evaluated annually for the next four years to determine if the college can afford to sustain it. In the past, students on financial aid were able to keep their college aid only if they attended one of the affiliated study-abroad programs, primarily ACM and specific CC programs. If students wished to choose from the 80 other programs approved by the college for credit, they had to give up their CC…

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Issue: December 2011

From the President

 Dear Alumni, Parents, and Friends of Colorado College, As the crisp air settles on Colorado Springs, I am drawing great energy from the “Year of Listening” events that are taking place on campus and in cities such as Seattle, Los Angeles, Denver, and Boston. These highly interactive sessions are enriching our vision to make Colorado College the very best we can be. It is very gratifying to see the collective enthusiasm for building on our strengths as a liberal arts college and acting on our desire to take bold steps. Themes that have emerged so far include pride in our strong faculty and their devotion to teaching, the importance of…

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Issue: December 2011

Garrison Keillor Waxes Poetic About CC, the Block Plan, and the Tigers

 The nationally syndicated radio show “A Prairie Home Companion” was broadcast live on Oct. 29 from the World Arena in Colorado Springs, where host Garrison Keillor sang the praises of Colorado College to a worldwide audience of nearly four million listeners on public radio, as well as America One and Armed Forces Networks abroad. The popular show was brought to town by KRCC, Colorado College’s NPR-member station. Keillor composed a poem in which he described some of Colorado Springs’s highlights. including the fact that Katherine Lee Bates wrote “America the Beautiful” here (although he neglected to mention she was teaching at CC at the time). He also wove CC, the…

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