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Introduction
This block, the CCE focuses our newsletter on storytelling, rendering visible some of the community work happening all around us, each day, in and alongside the classroom, by staff, faculty, and students. We’d like to shift the narrative to a focus on what we are doing rather than what we are not. And, there is room for growth in building deeper and more widespread engagement. To that end, our hope is that storytelling serves both to celebrate, and to inspire.
Our campus is deeply engaged in community work. For example, did you know:
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68% of students, on average, engage in community work per year, according to the annual Student Experience Survey data gathered since 2015.
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Over 180 students are deeply engaged in the CCE through leadership programs that blend sustained engagement and learning, such as the Bonner Fellowship and Community Engaged Scholars. [i]
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CC has at least 50 active, ongoing community partnerships including local nonprofits that work with student volunteers, interns, and organizations; community-engaged learning classes; and institutional partnerships.[ii]
We are proud of this scope. The numbers above demonstrate breadth, and the stories below highlight depth. Read on to find out more….
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The Bonner Fellowship in Action
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Figure 1: A group of Bonners at the CCE Fall 2021 Retreat
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In its sixth year at CC, the Bonner Fellowship welcomed 15 additional students, now totaling 40 Fellows! The Bonner Fellowship is a four-year, cohort-based, paid fellowship that seeks to provide developmental learning, community engagement, and community building to students who are committed to deep and sustained social change work. Our Bonners, after one year of exploration, commit to a community-based internship with one local community partner and work to build capacity within the organization through a culminating senior capstone project by the end of their time in the fellowship.
This year, our Bonners will be working with 25 different community partners across various issue areas, from arts and media for social change to immigrant and refugee justice to environmental justice and many more! Check out the podcast that senior Bonner Chloë Brooks-Kistler ’23 has been working on in partnership with Daily Dose 719 for her capstone project: The 719 Perspective. Next month’s episode will be an interview with CC President L. Song Richardson!
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Figure 2: CC Mobile Arts team at Pikes Peak Pride 2022
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As part of the Colorado Springs community, our students, staff, and faculty continue to grieve the lives lost in the Club Q shooting. We feel the impacts of injustice and we stand in solidarity with our LGBTQIA2+ friends, family, neighbors, and colleagues. Following acts of injustice we grieve, we comfort one another, we share messages of love and support, and we act. Colorado College has engaged in supporting the local LGBTQIA2+ community in a multitude of ways, and here we highlight just a few stories of impact, as well as opportunities to join in creating a more just community, one where all are safe to build the lives they dream.
- The CCE actively builds community partnerships with local organizations such as Inside Out Youth Services and Community Health Partnership, both High Impact Partners, who are focused on building a safe and inclusive community.
- Inside Out Youth Services has worked with a number of CC students as interns, fellows, volunteers, peer-mentors, and thought partners. For example, Misbah Lakhani ’24 is in their third year of interning with Inside Out Youth Services through the Bonner Fellowship, working to develop a Feminism and Activism 101 curriculum for Colorado Springs youth who participate in IOYS programming. Jaxon Hoskinson ’24, CCE Gender and Sexuality Coalition Issue Organizer, participates in the IOYS’ Safe at School Coalition seeking to create a more inclusive community through anti-bullying efforts.
- Community Health Partnership builds community collaborations around four focus areas, one of which is LGBTQIA2+ health. CHP is working to develop a plan for local healthcare systems to provide competent medical and behavioral health services the LGBTQIA+ community and, in collaboration with IOYS, provide a space for these services. Second-year Bonner Fellow, Luke Ortiz-Grabe ’25 is providing support for this process ensuring the voices of those who will be impacted by the plan are heard throughout its development.
- CC Mobile Arts, a program of Colorado College that seeks to provide recurring and diverse high-quality, multi-disciplinary arts experiences at no cost to the public, has hosted and supported a number of events celebrating the LGBTQIA2+ community including Keep COS Queer, Youth Pride, and LGBTQ+ Oral History Launch in 2021 and Pikes Peak Pride in 2022. Many CC students, including Bonner Fellows Juniper Wolf ’23, Jasmine Linder ’23, and Manu MacEdo ’24, engage in this work through partnership building, outreach, and event execution.
- CC faculty member Rushaan Kumar launched the LGBTQ+ Oral History Project in the fall of 2021 in collaboration with CC and UCCS students and local community members. The LGBTQ+ Oral History Project is an archive of LGBTQ+ life, resistance, resilience, and history in Colorado Springs. Kumar has continued gathering stories through his LGBTQ Social Movements in the U.S. course. Through this work, students gain insight on the impact oral histories have in preserving LGBTQ+ subcultures, memories, and lived experiences. These stories are available to the public on Spotify to continue to inspire future research and help folks to develop a sense of place in Colorado Springs.
Want to get involved? Give! Give your time, talents, and energy. Here are a few local organizations working to create a safe, equitable, inclusive community:
Give financially: There are a number of Go Fund Me links to directly support the families who lost a loved one in the Club Q shooting.
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Publicly Engaged, Actionable Knowledge Project
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The CCE re-launched the PEAK Project this fall, which connects CC educators and community partners to co-create community-engaged learning courses. Through promoting community-engaged teaching, the CCE aims to connect knowledge to action for community impact.
How does it work? CC faculty propose courses they’d like to connect to community work and community partners propose possible connections to CC courses. The CCE then plays “matchmaker” to connect educators and partners whose interests align. Once matched, the CCE gathers stakeholders together to learn about best practices, acts as thought partners as needed, and works to share the story of the class once finished.
As examples, this fall the PEAK Project connected:
- A business policy and strategy course with a local environmental nonprofit, Catamount Institute, to support the fundraising strategy of the organization.
- An astronomy class to a North Middle School classroom, so CC students could help teach sixth graders about astronomy.
- A probability and statistics class to Community Health Partnership to analyze data from their LGBTQIA2+ health equity needs assessment, and to the City of Colorado Springs Parks, Recreation, and Cultural Services for their data analysis needs for accreditation.
- … and more!
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Have You Heard of BreakOut?
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Figure 3: BreakOut participants get ready to depart for Alamosa, Colorado over fall break 2022
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BreakOut is a CC student organization, supported by the CCE, that aims to get students off campus through community engagement opportunities with local and regional organizations. Opportunities typically take place on Saturdays during the academic year and over block breaks. This fall, BreakOut engaged with 10 community partners and over 60 CC students. BreakOut students travelled to Alamosa, Colorado over Fall Break to support La Puente Home, Inc. Students assembled and distributed Thanksgiving boxes for people in need, created decorations for their Thanksgiving celebration, sorted through clothing donations for both the shelter and street outreach team who assist people without housing, and much more. Brendan McCune ’25 shared, “I have found a lot of value in BreakOut trips. I’ve met amazing people from CC and the community and have seen incredible and inspiring organizations at work.”
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[i] This figure includes: 95+ Community Engaged Scholars, 40 Bonner Fellows, Public Achievement coaches, 13 student interns, and 23 student organization leaders. These numbers do not include the students who participate in CCE community opportunities, workshops, and student organizations, and those who use our resources.
[ii] This figure includes but is not limited to: 12 High Impact Partners; 16 student organization partners; 25 Bonner Fellow partners; BreakOut service opportunities; community-engaged learning classes; individual student volunteers; institutional initiatives like Stroud Scholars, Public Interest Fellowship Program, and the annual Martin Luther King Jr. commemoration; faculty-led initiatives and research; and more!
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