Outdoor Education here, and we’re on a mission to recruit YOU to be an NSO Priddy Leader (🤩).

Being a Priddy Leader isn’t just LOTS OF FUN, our leaders are also a crucial element in the success of New Student Orientation. Each August, around 550 new students arrive on campus excited to be at CC, and Priddy Leaders play an important role in welcoming students to campus and acting as mentors during orientation. 

Now, we know you’re probably wondering what this entails, so, here’s the rundown:

If you are interested in learning more, we invite you to attend one of our upcoming info sessions throughout this block.

We also want to plug the NSO PRIDDY INTERN position which is an awesome full or part-time summer position working at Outdoor Education to envision and plan the NSO Priddy Experience. The Summer NSO Priddy Intern Application closes on Wednesday, Feb. 26! Use the link in this Linktree to apply! All positions posted in Handshake (links in the Linktree).

Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions!

Associate Director of Outdoor Education

Join us on Wednesday, February 26, 2025 from 3:30 to 5:00 pm for the 2025 Authors and Creators Reception! Remarks at 4:00 pm. 

This event celebrates all faculty and staff at Colorado College who published or created any work during 2024.

Join us in the Insamuch Foundation Summit Reading Room on the fourth floor of Tutt Library. 

All in the College community are invited to attend and hors d’oeuvres will be served. 

best,

Dustin Fife

College Librarian | dfife@coloradocollege.edu 

In our Block 5 newsletter, I introduced the HITS framework (Hub-Incubator-Temple-Sieve) for enhancing the effectiveness of Centers for Teaching and Learning (CTLs). I shared some ways the Crown Center serves as a hub for convening, connecting, and coordinating.  

In Block 6, we move to the next letter in the framework: Incubator. In her book,, Centers for Teaching and Learning: The New Landscape in Higher Education, Mary C. Wright describes such CTLs as spaces designed to nurture growth, encourage experimentation, and provide the conditions necessary for innovative teaching practices to take root and thrive. 

Fostering curricular innovation is central to the Crown Center’s mission. Through our blockly lunches and workshops, as well as programs such as New Faculty Orientation, Instructional Coaching, and ELCs, we cultivate an environment where our community explores new pedagogical approaches, refines teaching practices, and engages in conversations that expand the boundaries of what a liberal arts education looks like at CC.  

This work materializes from the ideas that you bring forward. Below, you can read about an ELC on Alternative Assessment in STEM led by Assistant Professor of Physics Dhanesh Krishnarao. You can also register for a Crown Conversations Project lunch led by Assistant Professor of Political Science Sofia Fenner. Although initiated by individuals, both endeavors have grown throughout the year because of our collective investment in the development process.  

How can Crown be an incubating space for your continued educational development? Consider participating in any of our existing offerings. If you already are, please invite a colleague to join you. And please bring forward any seeds you’d like to sow, eggs you’d like to hatch, or whatever metaphorical incubation idiom might make your garden grow.  

Spring is right around the corner. 

Sincerely,

Ryan Raul Bañagale

Associate Professor of Music and Director of the Crown Center for Teaching 

The Crown Center and partner organizations present workshops that allow the CC community to incubate new teaching methods in a supportive atmosphere. From developing strategies for critical analysis and thoughtful deployment of AI technologies to creating frameworks for challenging conversations and engaging with hands-on exercises that spark creative thinking, these workshops offer practical techniques and personal support for innovative teaching across campus.

Crown Center Lunch: The Crown Conversation Project

Hosted by Sofia Fenner, Assistant Professor of Political Science
Tuesday, Feb. 25, 12:15 – 1:30 p.m.
Tutt Library 317
Register for the B6 Crown Conversation Project Workshop

What makes a conversation work? What sets an effective conversation apart from one that leaves its participants confused, frustrated, or disillusioned? Do important conversations have to be difficult? And how can we make even difficult conversations valuable? 

Join us to reflect on some of the themes that have emerged from this project so far. We’ll exchange strategies for generative conversation, think together about the challenges we’re currently facing, and test-drive a few case studies. All are welcome. 

Creativity & Innovation Workshop: Polarity Thinking

Hosted by Kris Stanec, Director of Creativity & Innovation
Thursday, Mar. 6, 2 – 3:30 p.m.
Honnen C&I Classroom
Register for the B6 C&I Workshop: Polarity Thinking

Polarities—also called dilemmas, tensions, or paradoxes—are differences between two alternatives. Each pole brings something positive to the interdependent pair, and without its pole partner, each pole becomes a liability. This workshop will explore this phenomenon and how the dynamics of polarity thinking can creatively leverage our ability to work within this ambiguous space.  

Crown Center Lunch: AI and Academic Integrity

Hosted by Ryan Bañagale, Director of the Crown Center for Teaching
Monday, Mar. 10, noon – 2 p.m.
South Hall Commons
Register for the B6 Crown Lunch: AI and Academic Integrity

Whether we like it or not, generative artificial intelligence continues to integrate its way into our academic landscape, bringing challenges and opportunities to how we uphold CC’s Honor Code. Faculty, staff, and students are invited to join this conversation to explore the evolving questions AI raises for academic integrity at CC. Rather than seeking immediate solutions, this session will provide space to reflect on the implications of AI for student work, share diverse perspectives and experiences, and identify key concerns that need further exploration. Together, we will lay the groundwork for a thoughtful, principled approach to AI and academic integrity as we navigate this evolving landscape.

Block Break Breakfast

Thursday, Mar. 13, 8:30 – 10:30 a.m.
Cossitt Lounge

Responding to a request for more informal space to converse about all things teaching, the Crown Center for Teaching hosts Block Break breakfasts. Come grab a bagel and some coffee or tea. Join your Crown Center colleagues for conversation and support. We welcome all to enjoy a bagel on us! No RSVP is required.

Call for Applications: Faculty Fellows Program

The Faculty Fellows Program supports CC faculty members’ professional leadership by providing opportunities to administer and collaborate on cross-campus academic-related initiatives. The program allows faculty to build their project-based leadership experience while strengthening institutional engagement. For the 2025-26 academic year, we anticipate hiring five Faculty Fellows to direct the following areas:

College Transitions Program: Bridge Scholars

College Transitions Program: Teaching Excellence

College Transitions Program: Student Engagement

Crown Center: Mentoring Alliance Program

Crown Center: Instructional Coaching Program

The submission deadline is the first Friday of Block 6: Feb. 21, 2025

Visit the Faculty Fellows Program for more information about specific positions and the application procedure. Please direct questions to Ryan Bañagale, Director of the Crown Center for Teaching: rbanagale@coloradocollege.edu

Blocks of Opportunity

Have you ever wondered what happens in other people’s classes? Do you have colleagues you know well in different contexts but have never seen them teach? If so, the Crown Center encourages you to follow your curiosity during your next non-teaching block by participating in Blocks of Opportunity. This new initiative supports faculty in sharing their expertise by visiting colleagues’ classes and having lunchtime conversations about teaching.
How it works:

Faculty members interested in attending a class and/or hosting a colleague complete the Blocks of Opportunity Form. If you know which class you’d like to visit, please indicate it on the form. If you are open to ideas, we can matchmake based on your interests.

When the day and time of the visit are confirmed, the host and the visitor receive a coupon to have lunch together at Rastall.

The visiting faculty member submits the report form to the Crown Center. Crown then deposits $100 in both parties’ research accounts to continue refining their teaching skills.

Space in the program is limited, so we suggest you reserve your spot quickly if you’d like to participate. Please get in touch with Jessica Hunter, Associate Director of the Crown Center for Teaching, at jhunter@coloradocollege.edu.

The new ELC on Alternative Assessment in STEM has been meeting since Block 2 with a little over 10 faculty members to discuss and strategize new methods for assessment and ways to evaluate their impact effectively. The group has had many lively discussions, particularly on evaluating how assessment strategies contribute to an inclusive and antiracist classroom experience for students. We are working to implement some assessment strategies in upcoming courses this block and onwards, while intentionally collecting qualitative data to evaluate their impact across different departments and courses. With support from the Crown Faculty Fellow program, Dhanesh Krishnarao is preparing an initial and brief publication to share one assessment strategy widely with initial anecdotal evidence for success while working to collect more data over the rest of this year and onwards. 

From Myth to Model: Computational Approaches to Ancient Epic A lecture by Annie Lamar, Assistant Professor of Classics, UC Santa Barbara
Wednesday, Feb. 26, 2 – 3:30 p.m.
WES Room, Worner Center

High-performance computational tools and AI models are often associated with large datasets, but they also offer unique opportunities for analyzing smaller, “low-resource” datasets. With fewer than thirty thousand lines, the Homeric epics—The Iliad and The Odyssey—fall squarely into this category, making them an ideal subject for computational exploration in the realm of low-resource research. In this talk, Annie Lamar will explore the unique challenges and opportunities of using computational modeling in low-resource data contexts. Through a series of three case studies—including approaches with generative AI, statistical modeling, and word embeddings—Lamar demonstrates how such methods allow scholars to gain new insights into ancient texts.

CCE Liberal Arts in Correctional Facilities (LACF) Initiative 

The LACF Initiative seeks educators to teach courses in the 2025-2026 academic year and beyond. The program’s mission is to address inequities in higher education by expanding access for incarcerated persons. Through the LACF, CC faculty and qualified staff offer for-credit courses at no cost in the Youthful Offenders System facility in Pueblo, which serves a population of 19 to 25-year-olds. Students receive credit through Pueblo Community College and courses are guaranteed to transfer as degree requirements at any Colorado public institution of higher learning.

CC faculty or qualified staff receive a grant-funded stipend to teach evening courses (typically twice a week) over a semester. Please click here to express interest or email jradke@coloradocollege.edu with questions.  

I am using this space today to affirm that Colorado College remains committed to providing safe, welcoming, and inclusive learning environments for everyone in our community, regardless of race, creed, color, caste, religion, national origin, ancestry, sex, gender identity, marital status, disability, veteran status, age, or genetic information. We are all, at best, guests on indigenous land.  No matter where you’re from, no matter where you’re going, you matter. You belong.  

Changes in the presidential administration and subsequent executive orders have created uncertainty and fear for many. There are tangible concerns and anxieties provoked by the wave of new executive orders and legislation aimed at higher education; diversity, equity, and inclusion; and marginalized communities as well as the harmful messages of disaffirmation that accompany them.  

While much is still unknown, we are currently reviewing our relevant policies and procedures with our legal team to ensure continuity of care and to provide clear information for our campus community.  Most orders require regulatory agencies to give recommendations to the administration of how to enact the policies within several months. This means we may not have a clear picture of potential changes or impacts for many of these orders until the summer. Others will require immediate action, and I am working with campus leaders to provide guidance on those elements.  We will work to provide as much clarity, calm, and stability as we can in the interim. As a part of this effort, you will see a new section within this newsletter, National Topic of Impact, to draw attention to happenings and what to expect next at CC when and if any action is needed.   

If you or someone you know is struggling, I encourage you to consult the many resources available on this campus and in our community.  I also ask you to act with me and extend care and support to those around you.  

In solidarity,

Rosalie

Gender

Over the last month, three executive orders that pertain to how the federal government will redefine and regulate sex and gender in federal level programming and agencies moving forward were released. These include defining sex as a binary, restricting access to gender-affirming care, and restrictions on transgender athlete participation. Over the coming weeks, you will see additional communication about resources to navigate this topic, among others, shared from a variety of offices to aid impacted community members.  

We recognize the impacts of this information will be felt differently for each person. We are committed to providing unwavering care and support. As always, we take care of each other. 

New Resource Hub

IDEAL has been working to create the new Belonging@CC MS Team where you can find important guides, tools, resources, and information.

Of particular note at this time is the  Communicating Care Guide, which can help you listen to someone’s concerns and refer them to the right resource.  

Many thanks to Heather Heinnickel, IEB programs coordinator, for compiling these resources.

Antiracist Book Club

Our third ABC read for the year is Eating the Landscape: American Indian Stories of Food, Identity, and Resilience by Enrique Salmón. 

Dr. Salmón is an indigenous ethnobotanist and CC alum having received his MAT from Southwest Studies. In Eating the Landscape, Salmón introduces us to Traditional Ecological Knowledge or Native Science through intimate stories of people, food, land, and community throughout the Southwest and Northern Mexico.

Dr. Salmón will be joining our campus for multiple engagements in Block 7 through The Hulbert Center for Southwest Studies. Please stay tuned for details. 

Pick up your copy of Eating the Landscape at the campus bookstore. The reading guide can be found on our website, on The Hulbert Center website, and in our Antiracist Book Club MS Teams channel. 

Friday, Feb. 21 at noon In the WES Room in Worner Basement  

Immigration Removal Proceeding Information Session with Professor Violeta Chapin, Clinical Professor of Law, Assoc Dean for Community and Culture, CU Boulder Law School.   

Open to all CC students, faculty, staff, and community members, including parents and family members. 

Monday, Feb. 24 at 7 p.m. in Shove Chapel 

Special campus speaker Pádraig Ó Tuama: The Borders of Belonging: exploring belonging in time of conflict and uncertainty. Irish poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama’s work centers around themes of language, power, conflict, and religion. Sponsored by the CC Chaplain’s Office. 

Monday, Feb. 24 and Thursday, March 6 from noon – 4 p.m. Cornerstone 101 

Mental Health First Aid: Learn how to help someone who is experiencing a mental health challenge. After completing training, participants will be able to recognize the symptoms of a mental health challenge and provide support. Lunch will be provided. Register here. 

Tuesday, Feb. 25 and Tuesday, March 4 from 3 – 5 p.m. at Sacred Grounds 

Spirituality and Mental Health: Sam Paulin of the Counseling Center and Chaplain Kate Holbrook will explore the intersections of spirituality and mental health in a two-week series. 

Thursday, Feb. 27, noon – 1:30 p.m. in Bemis Great Hall 

Annette M. Rodríguez, Assistant Professor of History, University of Texas at Austin will present her talk titled, “Her X Mark: Women’s Testimonies of Resistance in the U.S.-Texas Borderlands.”  Her X Mark” focuses on the January 28, 1918, massacre in Presidio County, Texas, where the Texas Rangers and local ranchers killed 15 Mexican men and boys. Rodríguez traces how Mexican and Mexican American women’s testimonies must critically shape our historical understanding. Mexican and Mexican American women—as journalists, survivors, widows, descendants, and scholars—are central to our knowledge and analysis of anti-Mexican violence in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands. These histories of atrocity are also histories of courage. In several moving first-person accounts, we locate the witness and the advocacy of women who lost family, land, and safety—yet testified in the hope for justice (often signing simply with their X marks). Please RSVP here or email swshulbert@coloradocollege.edu. 

Thursday, Feb. 27, 2 – 3 p.m. in the Gates Common Room in Tutt Library 

Queer Justice at School: Book talk with author, Dr. Elizabeth Meyer. Light refreshments will be provided. 

Saturday, March 1 at 2 p.m. 

In Her Bones: Please join the Office of Institutional Equity and Belonging and the Hulbert Center for Southwest Studies for a community building event to include viewing and engagement. In Her Bones, written by Jessica Kahkoska, premiered at the Colorado Springs Fine Arts Center at Colorado College (FAC) on February 15. Created through community-based research, this play explores identity, ancestry, and the hidden histories of crypto-Judaism in the Southwest. Tickets, snacks and beverages provided. Please RSVP here.  

Friday, March 7 – Sunday, Dec. 13 

Margarita Cabrera’s Space in Between + CARE exhibition will be opening at the FAC on March 7, where it will run until Dec. 13. Two ongoing bodies of work will be on display with some of the works in Space in Between (SIB) having been created in collaboration with our immigrant neighbors thanks to the leadership of the following local organizations: Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition (CIRC), Accompaniment and Sanctuary Coalition Colorado Springs, Centro de la Familia, and The Butler Center. SIB explores immigration stories and materializes these experiences into embroidered soft sculptures taking the form of desert plants made from US Border Patrol Uniforms. SIB is co-curated by Katja Rivera, Rebecca Parker, and Dr. Nancy Ríos. 

Additional events and details can be found in our Belonging@CC MS Team, and on The Butler Center and CC Chaplains offices’ Instagram pages.

Brenda Soto, Andreea Marinescu, Owen Cramer, and Dustin Fife participating in the Building Bridges program.

Brilliant collaborative effort by Beth Malmskog of the Faculty Executive Committee, the Staff Council, the Cultivating Community subcommittee of the Antiracism Commitment Committee, and the Dean of the Faculty in envisioning, creating, and launching the Building Bridges program. Over 100 staff and faculty signed up for the program! 

Throughout the block, there are many cultural and religious observances. Please visit our website to learn about the many ways you can engage and support these observances on campus and in the community.  

Don’t miss the Office of Institutional Equity & Belonging roadshow by College Diversity Officer, Rosalie Rodriguez in Gaylord Hall tomorrow, Wednesday, Feb. 19 from 2:30-3:30 p.m. This presentation will cover updates on staffing, structure, location, and priorities of the office. You will also have a chance to learn more about trends on equity and inclusion in the national landscape and how the office is progressing on the “Strategy for a More Just CC.” Please register in advance.

For more information on the series or to check out the schedule of events for this academic year please visit Work of the College Series.

The Work of the College Series is a year-long program of events with four goals: (1) clarify organizational structures and decision-making processes; (2) offer campus constituencies the opportunity to dialogue with leadership about campus affairs; (3) increase decision-making transparency in hopes of building trust; and (4) build community.

The Work of the College Series consists of:

Students of the MU228 Music and the Museum class perform their final class project of a special piece for bowed piano at the FAC. This was part of a larger art exhibition organized by the class taught by Dr. Lidia Chang.

Mannes Sounds: The Dybbuk, or Between Two Worlds; A chamber opera by Ofer Ben-Amots based on the play by S. Ansky
Directed by Stephen Brown-Fried
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research
Monday, Mar. 31 and Tuesday Apr. 1 at 7:30 p.m.
Presented by the College of Performing Arts at The New School, New York, NY.
Through his haunting and evocative score, Ofer Ben-Amots offers an operatic retelling of S. Ansky’s masterpiece of the Yiddish theatrical canon. Wracked with grief for her beloved, Leah, the daughter of a wealthy merchant, recounts her love of a young scholar who died on learning of her betrothal to another man. On the day of the wedding, she becomes possessed by an evil spirit, known in Jewish folklore as a dybbuk. In order to exorcise the spirit and save Leah’s soul, the village must learn the spirit’s true origin. In partnership with the American Society of Jewish Music and YIVO Institute for Jewish Research, directed by Stephen Brown-Fried and performed by students from Mannes and the College of Performing Arts, The Dybbuk is certain to excite your spirits!

Upon listening to “Mystic People,” the first track on Gilligan Moss’s album Speaking Across Time, the listener is filled with a sense of carefree euphoria. With its upbeat tempo, bubbly electronic sounds, and sampled electronic female vocals, the songs on this album reflect the songwriters’ lighthearted and positive outlooks on life. Gilligan Moss is a two-person group with Evan Dorfman and CC Alum, Ben Cronin, ’11. The CC Music Department had the distinct pleasure of bringing in Cronin as a guest artist and instructor during Block 5’s Digital Music Production class with professors Dr. Iddo Aharony and CC’s Technical Director, Schylar Woods.

Cronin is a New York-based musician who grew up in Chicago. At CC, he majored in Creative Writing on the poetry track, participated in outdoor activities, and joined a band that performed at Llamapalooza twice, won Battle of the Bands twice, and played in the First Friday concerts. He also had a radio show on KRCC. Cronin states the reason he didn’t study music at CC was due to the intensity of the jazz program at the time, and the feeling that it would have limited his creativity. Instead, he found limitless creativity in writing and poetry, and spoke highly of English Professor Emeritus and Colorado Poet Laureate, David Mason – the inspiration for Speaking Across Time – as well as Heather Powell Browne who was, and still is, a music blog writer and the Associate Director of Global Education at CC.

Cronin believes in creating success through pursuing your passions and staying true to your intentions. When asked about how CC shaped his career and future, he turns to the “tired but true” response that the Block Plan helped him cultivate a lifestyle where it’s okay to focus on just one or two projects at a time and take breaks. He says, “I would be a different person if I had done a more traditional semester plan.” The Block Plan immerses students in subject matter where amazingly they can learn a completely new skill or subject in just a few weeks. Over the course of the Digital Music Production class, students go from having never used the digital music software Ableton Live to producing their own music and tracks. Cronin also speaks about the many opportunities that CC offers, and that if there’s any advice he can give to incoming or current students, it’s that experimenting in your early years is key, and networking and getting to know people is incredibly valuable. “Every industry and job is really enriched by listening more widely and participating more widely.”

Cronin is now back in New York continuing to work on his projects, but he gladly offers himself as a resource to anyone in the CC community. He looks forward to visiting campus again soon.

Ben Cronin

benjicronin@gmail.com

Continuing the Creative Life After CC: Performing Arts Alumni Panel
Monday, Feb. 24, noon-1:15 p.m.
Cornerstone 308
Come learn about the post-CC journeys and challenges of three alums – Wirth Tinka Avramova, Clay Edwards, and Max Sarkowsky – who have established careers in the performing arts! Includes time for Q&A, and a sandwich buffet for attendees. Sponsored by the Career Center and the departments of Music and Theatre & Dance. 

Music Senior Capstone Presentations
Wednesday, Mar. 5, 2 p.m. – 5 p.m.
Packard Hall
Music major seniors present their creative and research works followed by time for questions from the audience after each. A celebratory reception will conclude this event.

Family Weekend Music Ensembles Showcase
Friday, Feb. 21 at 4 p.m.
Packard Hall
Experience the talent of CC’s music ensembles in a dynamic showcase featuring a variety of performances from our student musicians.

USAFA Band Chamber Recital Series: “Music for Brass and Woodwinds”
Monday, Feb. 24 at 7 p.m.
Packard Hall
For over 60 years, the Academy Band has used the power of music to honor our nation and our veterans, inspire patriotism, and connect the United States Air Force with our local community. In addition, they provide support to the United States Air Force Academy and more than 4,000 cadets, helping to develop outstanding leaders of character to serve our country as officers in the United States Air Force and United States Space Force.

Music at Midday
Wednesday, Mar. 5 at 12:15 p.m.
Packard Hall
Featuring CC’s students as they perform solo and chamber instrumental and vocal works. This is a wonderful opportunity to see the variety and talent of our students!