By Alexa Gromko
“Congratulations, Class of 2024, you did it!” exclaimed L. Song Richardson at her final Commencement address as President of Colorado College. “You excelled in the classroom, guided by your dynamic professors and teachers. You did this while living through some of the most challenging times in recent history.”
CC’s 558 graduates began their college career in the fall of 2020, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when social distancing, masks, and hand sanitizer ruled the day; when so much uncertainty from a deadly virus sent classes – and life – to a virtual world; and students faced all those stressors on top of a rigorous academic schedule. They also endured an increasingly polarized political landscape, war, a growing mental health crisis, and climate change.