Colorado College
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| Colorado College | |
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| Motto: | Scientia et Disciplina |
| Established: | 1874 |
| Type: | Private |
| Endowment: | US $438,711,000 |
| President: | Richard F. Celeste |
| Undergraduates: | 2,011 |
| Location: | Colorado Springs, Colorado, USA |
| Campus: | Urban, 90 Acres |
| Colors: | Gold and Black |
| Nickname: | Tigers |
| Website: | coloradocollege.edu |
The Colorado College (familiarly known as CC) is a private liberal arts college in Colorado Springs, Colorado. It was founded in 1874 by General William Palmer. The college enrolls approximately 2,000 undergraduates at its 90 acre (36 ha) campus, 70 miles (100 km) south of Denver, with a view of the Rocky Mountains to the west.
Colorado College is known for its unusual "block plan", which divides the year into eight academic terms; a single class is taken during each term.
Colorado College is affiliated with the Associated Colleges of the Midwest. Most of CC's sports teams are in the NCAA division III, with the exception of nationally competitive division I teams in men's hockey and women's soccer. The current President of the college is Richard Celeste, former Governor of Ohio, ambassador to India, and Director of the Peace Corps.
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[edit] History
Founded in 1874 by U.S. Civil War veteran General William Jackson Palmer — the founder of the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad and of Colorado Springs — Colorado College was instituted as a liberal arts college which would foster Christian outreach by its graduates and faculty in the New England tradition. Like many U.S. colleges and universities that have endured from the 19th century it now is secular in outlook, though it retains its liberal arts focus.
The college's first building, Cutler Hall, was occupied in 1880; the first bachelor's degrees were conferred in 1882. Phi Beta Kappa was chartered in 1904. Under President William F. Slocum, who served from 1888 to 1917, the campus took the shape it held until the 1950s. During this time, the college significantly expanded and improved the library’s holdings and attracted leading scholars in a number of fields. In 1930 Shove Chapel was erected by Mr. John Gray, to meet the religious needs of the students (though Colorado College is not religiously affiliated).
Since the mid-1950s, the campus has been virtually rebuilt. New facilities include three large residence halls, Worner Campus Center, Tutt Library, Olin Hall of Science and the Barnes Science Center, Honnen Ice Rink, Boettcher Health Center, Schlessman Pool, Armstrong Hall of Humanities, Palmer Hall, El Pomar Sports Center, and Packard Hall of Music and Art. Bemis, Cossitt, Cutler, Montgomery, and Palmer Halls are some of the remaining turn-of-the-century structures on the National Register of Historic Places, along with the William I. Spencer Center.
The face of campus changed again at the beginning of the 21st century with construction of the Western Ridge Housing Complex, which offers apartment-style living for upper-division students and completion of the Russell T. Tutt Science Center. The east campus has been expanded, and is now home to the Greek Quad and several small residence halls known as “theme houses.”
[edit] Academics
Colorado College follows a "block plan"; students study only one subject for three and a half weeks, which advocates say allows for more lab time, field trips, and other more intensive learning experiences. Blocks are only three weeks long in summer school, during which there are also graduate blocks of differing lengths. In parallel with the students, professors teach only one block at a time. Classes are generally capped at 25 (32 for two professors) to encourage a more personalized academic experience.
The college offers more than 80 majors, minors, and specialized programs including: Southwest studies, women’s studies, Asian studies, biochemistry, environmental science, neuroscience, Latin American studies, Russian and Eurasian studies, and American cultural studies, as well as an across-the-curriculum writing program. In addition to its undergraduate programs, the college offers a Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) degree. Tutt Library has approximately half a million bound volumes.
Considered one of the nation's top colleges, Colorado College perennially ranks in the top tier of National Colleges in the U.S. News Rankings, most recently ranging from a high of 19th in 1999 to a low of 33rd in 2005, one of its rare appearances outside the top 30 in recent years. In a January 2004 ranking of all colleges and universities by Kiplingers magazine, it placed 31st. And in the 2006 U.S. News rankings it was 27th among National Colleges, and soared to 13th place in Best Values among all National Colleges.
Colorado College has one of the highest retention rates of any college or university in the country at 96 percent. Colorado College also has one of the nation's lowest acceptance rates, at 24 percent, with a very high yield at 48 percent. Furthermore, the median ACT of the class of 2012 is a 31, and one-fourth of the class graduated in the top 1 percent of their high school class.[1]
CC routinely attracts some of the brightest stars in the arena of government service. Its graduates include Lynne Cheney, wife of U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, and their two daughters, as well as United States Senator Ken Salazar, and Representative Diana DeGette.
Other well-known government figures, such as former CIA Director James Woolsey and White House Chief Economic Advisor Martin Neil Baily, have seen their children graduate from CC in recent years. The school is widely regarded to have a distinguished faculty, noted for outstanding teaching and a closeness to students in an environment where no class exceeds 25, and an end-of-block breakfast or dinner at a professor's home is a common gathering.
While the focus at Colorado College is primarily on teaching, and its academics involve a high level of rigor and intensity on the block plan, a significant number of faculty are widely published and renowned in their fields. Professor Dennis Showalter, the 2005 recipient of the Samuel Eliot Morison Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Military History, is a leading expert on World War II, a Distinguished Visiting Professor at West Point and the Air Force Academy, Reviewer for the History Book Club, and author of Tannenberg: Clash of Empires, the 1992 winner of the prestigious Paul Birdsall Prize of the American Historical Association. In 2005, he published the first single volume dual military biography of Patton and Rommel, Men of War.
The areas of music and the arts have equally luminous representatives, most notably artist-in-residence Susan Grace, an internationally known pianist with appearances at Carnegie Hall, and Stephen Scott, a neo-classical composer.
Both knowledge and art suffuse the work of Colorado College graduates who have such diverse accomplishments as the 2000 Nobel Prize for Economics, won by James Heckman, class of '65, and the rendering of Sacagawea on the U.S. golden dollar coin, by internationally known sculptor Glenna Goodacre, class of '61.
[edit] Athletics
The school's sports teams are nicknamed Tigers, though in 1994 a student referendum to change the name to the Cutthroats (Trout) narrowly failed. Colorado College is a member of the NCAA Division III in all sports except men's hockey, in which it participates in the NCAA Division I Western Collegiate Hockey Association, and women's soccer, where it competes as an NCAA Division I team in Conference USA. CC is in the midst of transition from a Division III independent to the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference, which will be completed in the 2007-2008 school year.
The Colorado College men's ice hockey is an unusual powerhouse for such a small school. The Tigers won the NCAA Division I championship twice (1950, 1957), were runners up three times (1952, 1955, 1996) and made the NCAA Tournament eighteen times, including every year since 1995 except 2000, 2004 and 2007.[2]. In 2005, CC played in the Frozen Four. Fifty-five CC Tigers have been named All-Americans[3]. NHL Hall of Fame coach Bob Johnson coached the Tigers from 1963 - 1966[4]. Despite the minuscule size of the school, the hockey team is often ranked quite highly nationally, although it has been over 50 years since the Tigers have last won an NCAA title. Their current coach is Scott Owens, who played for Colorado College and graduated from the school in 1979.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
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This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2008) |
[edit] External links
- Colorado College
- Cutler Publications (student-run campus publications)
- CCwiki (Cutler Publications' Campus Wiki)
- Colorado College history
- Tutt Library
- Tiger Hockey Online Community
- "Residents bristle at college's traffic plans," The Gazette, 2/14/07
- "College Teaches One Class at a Time," Associated Press, 10/28/07
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