{"id":4964,"date":"2012-04-18T12:09:32","date_gmt":"2012-04-18T18:09:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/?p=4964"},"modified":"2012-04-18T12:09:32","modified_gmt":"2012-04-18T18:09:32","slug":"baca-inviting-contemplation-and-learning-for-25-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/2012\/04\/baca-inviting-contemplation-and-learning-for-25-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Baca: Inviting Contemplation and Learning for 25 Years"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Prof. Dennis McEnnerney runs through the schedule as 16 bleary-eyed, first-year students arrange chairs in a circle and settle into a cozy pine-ceilinged library.<\/p>\n

\u201cStart reading Huxley for Friday. We\u2019ll leave for the hot\u00a0\u00a0 springs at 7:15 tonight. Tomorrow you\u2019ll be presenting with your small groups; we\u2019ll take 20 minutes to talk about each proposal and then grab lunches and head to the sand dunes. Proposal topics?\u201d<\/p>\n

The students, in hoodies, fleece and soccer jackets, feet clad\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 in sneakers and flip-flops, offer possibilities based on their readings of Voltaire, Kant, Thomas Kuhn, and Aldous Huxley, for their Blocks 1 and 2 class, Freedom and Authority.<\/p>\n

\"Baca<\/a>

Photo by Stephen Weaver.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cModern society and democracy?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cLiberal societies, something about religion?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cModern individualism, reason and emotion.\u201d<\/p>\n

An hour into class, the conversation is cooking with interjections and debate. McEnnerney, adjunct associate professor of philosophy, steers the students through the Enlightenment thinkers, the spread of ideas, public opinion, Kuhn\u2019s philosophy on science and that \u201cwe may have to give up this idea of truth.\u201d Students who were quiet at first are now bursting into the discussion about paradigms, evolution vs. creationism, Nazi Germany, objectivity.<\/p>\n

Outside, it\u2019s a crisp 49 degrees. The umber landscape is punctuated by purple asters, sage, and deep orange aspens. A shelf of clouds is lifting to reveal the season\u2019s first snow on the Sangre de Cristo Range. And it is quiet. So quiet.<\/p>\n

\"Andrea<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s been 25 years since Joe Gordon, professor of English, took the first reluctant Colorado College class to the Baca, then an Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies property. The students were seniors studying literature of the wilderness that block in February 1987, and while at Baca, next to tiny Crestone, Colo., they delved into \u201cThe Odyssey.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cMiraculously, all the pieces came together,\u201d Gordon wrote in a 1993 issue of \u201cla Tertulia,\u201d the Southwest studies newsletter. \u201cWe analyzed Homer in the mornings, took long hikes in the mountains in the afternoons, shared the cooking and cleaning, and watched and discussed films at night. I can still remember the crunch of the snow, the smell of pi\u00f1on smoke, the sharpness of the night air, and the sky full of stars as we walked back from the seminar building after a late movie.\u00a0\u00a0 Most of the students were from large urban and suburban areas. They were struck by the silence around them, the deer that browsed by the path, the coyotes that howled them to sleep at night. One student from a large city complained that it was so quiet he couldn\u2019t sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Dennis<\/a><\/p>\n

Those students returned and urged other professors to take classes to the Baca. In the first three \u201ctrial\u201d years, more than 3,000 students stayed at Baca with their classes. In 1990, the McHugh Family Foundation provided funding to buy 300 acres of land, a conference center, and one townhouse. Soon after, the Baca Lodge, a three-building complex to house students, was funded by trustee Edith Gaylord Harper, as well as trustees Thayer Tutt and William Hybl via El Pomar. The Baca Lodge was dedicated in October 1992.<\/p>\n

Now, about 55 classes a year, plus groups, seminars, retreats, and conferences draw about 1,300 CC people a year to Baca\u2019s grand vistas, dark night skies, and the quiet of the San Luis Valley.<\/p>\n

\"Walking<\/a><\/p>\n

At lunchtime at the Desert Sage Caf\u00e9, Andrea Bruder, assistant professor of mathematics and computer science, explains why she and Jane McDougall, assistant professor of mathematics, brought their Calculus and Mathematical Chaos class to Baca. This afternoon her class will build a double pendulum to illustrate chaotic behavior.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a chance to get away from the distractions on the main campus,\u201d Bruder says. \u201cWe are introducing them to the most complicated mathematical concepts they have dealt with, and it\u2019s important that they can speak about it correctly. So this gives them time to talk about it. It\u2019s also a way for the group to bond, to get to know one another.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBeing alone with your class is cool,\u201d says Alex Suber \u201915<\/strong>, a first-year from Highland Park, Ill. \u201cLike last night, when we had a debate over whether control was the same thing as power, relating it back to the text.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the calculus class, Cholpon Tuzabaeva \u201915<\/strong>, a first-year student from the Kyrgyzstan Republic, says she appreciates the chance to work closely with classmates.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere, you can really devote yourself to the class,\u201d she said. \u201cUsually it\u2019s hard to find each other when you have questions or homework, but here, you can ask questions at night and we can talk about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

That collaborative spirit is common at Baca. CC Chaplain\u00a0 Bruce Coriell remembers a class on Shamanism, for which\u00a0\u00a0 only three copies of the 600-page text had arrived at CC\u2019s bookstore by the time the class departed for Baca. Students\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 set up reading groups, and discussed concepts until everyone understood them. \u201cThey had a greater understanding of that book than ever before,\u201d Coriell said. \u201cThe scarcity of resources bonded them.\u201d<\/p>\n

There is only one road in and out, and Crestone, a haven for spiritual centers and seekers, is at the end of it. Prayer flags adorn the rooflines of a couple of the buildings. A sign reads, \u201cEncourage Innocent Amusement.\u201d Bulletin boards are covered with fliers for spiritual seminars, tarot readings, even cooking with yoga classes. A gift shop sells bumper stickers that read, \u201cI tried to leave Crestone but the vortex pulled me back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Vortex or not, the Baca has been magnetic for CC students and professors.<\/p>\n

\u201cOver the years, students would compete for the title of Most Baca Visits,\u201d says Coriell. \u201cThere was a whole thing about \u2018majoring in Baca.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

Jana Bennett \u201998<\/strong> was one of them. While a CC history major, she visited the Baca between 20 and 25 times, taking courses taught by History Professor Carol Neel, then-President Kathryn Mohrman, Philosophy Professor John Riker and Classics Professor Marcia Dobson, among others. Block breaks there included Writing Center retreats and Shove Council gatherings. She found the range of religious traditions and the townspeople inspiring.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce I had a 15-page paper for Carol Neel\u2019s class, and I was freaking out. But somehow the Baca gave me the space to\u00a0\u00a0 write that paper, a way of believing in myself. It\u2019s like the townspeople, who are kind of scrappy, got there by hook or crook, in those rugged mountains. There\u2019s a sense of determination, that \u2018yes, you can do it,\u2019 that pervades there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Now an assistant professor of religious studies at the University of Dayton, she wishes her own students had a place like the Baca. \u201cI think it\u2019s one of the great, unique things about Colorado College,\u201d she said. \u201cWhenever I tell people about CC, I tell them about Baca.\u201d<\/p>\n

Physics Professor Dick Hilt is another Baca devotee, drawn to the dark night skies \u2013 a perfect spot for his astronomy classes. He started off taking one class a year to Baca, then two. Now, it\u2019s four or five blocks a year. He books the space far ahead, timed for his students to view key planetary and star events.<\/p>\n

He remembers walking one night with his students back from a talk at the Carmelite monastery.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou could see the road barely by starlight; you knew you were on it only if you felt asphalt beneath your feet. You could walk and look at the sky, not even watch where you were going, and it was marvelous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Join the conversation: Share your memories and comments about the Baca below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s been 25 years since Joe Gordon, professor of English, took the first reluctant CC class to the Baca Campus. What’s so special about this place, a quarter of a century later?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-4964","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-april-2012","tag-features"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4964","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4964"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4964\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4964"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4964"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.coloradocollege.edu\/bulletin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4964"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}