During its centenary celebrations in 1974, CC decided to celebrate the next rather than the last one hundred years. They asked themselves: How can we do what we do better?  They came up with an answer. The Block Plan.

“What if CC did something similar on the occasion of its 150th,” President Richardson asked in the summer of 2021. Call it Project 2024 and invite the entire CC community to talk about how to capitalize on our unique strengths in order to do what we do better.

Year One – Cross-campus conversations led by Project 2024 Steering Committee members addressed the questions How can we do what we do better? and What challenges facing higher education most affect CC?

578 students, staff, faculty, and alumni joined the conversations, and another 569 answered relevant questions on the Employee Engagement & Climate Survey. One dominant theme emerged: the need for greater connection in all areas—across blocks, constituencies, and levels and to city, region, and nation as well as to post-graduate life.

Year Two – Working groups identified actions to reinforce liberal arts learning and value our people (staff, faculty, and students). Exploratory groups examined three key challenges: financial model/access, student demographics/access, and digital knowledge (both online learning and screen time’s effects).

This year, Year Three, several ideas came to fruition, including adding a commitment to providing a living wage to CC’s compensation philosophy, creating a decision-making toolkit to align processes across offices, and developing a system for categorizing and prioritizing campus events. We also completed an assessment of experiential learning (summer internships, research, study abroad) to see who participates. Guides for advisors and students are coming soon. 

This year we looked at the biggest challenges CC faces in order to identify ambitious responses we can implement starting now. Three groups focused on finances/demographics/access; online learning/digital wellness/AI; and how best to prepare our students now for 2055.

President Richardson and I are grateful to everyone for the thought and time they have given to Project 2024. We have learned the power in collectively addressing common concerns, identifying shared hopes, and enacting constructive change.

We especially appreciate the faculty, staff, students, and alumni who worked on the Project 2024 Steering Committee.

Listen to Susan Ashley and Manya Whitaker talk about Project 2024.

I look forward to sharing our Year Three report and the proposed plans for how the college can complete the work already in progress, move forward on the Big Challenges/Big Ideas proposals, and maintain Project 2024’s process of collective involvement in decisions affecting the whole. Here’s a brief preview.

Sincerely,

Professor of History and Project 2024 Coordinator