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October 7, 2009 – 9:27 am
We just received the news that the Edith Kinney Gaylord Cornerstone Arts Center has been awarded the LEED Gold designation. That is quite an achievement. And credit goes to our determined student leaders.
I remember vividly the day almost four years ago when then-Vice President Tom Nycum came to see me with a look of concern on his face. The final bids for the Cornerstone had come in significantly above our earlier estimates, and a project that had been budgeted at $25 million had ballooned to $35 million. We knew that we could not sign off on that figure. Consequently our facilities folks, working with the Mortenson Construction team, went back to pare the project down.
Our goal was to keep the major features of the building but to cut the final contract to $33 million or less. One recommendation was to eliminate the $450,000 that was earmarked for LEED. The Board of Trustees gave us the green light for the project.
But student leaders who were part of the Campus Sustainability Council questioned our decision. In their view LEED certification at the Silver level could be achieved for much less than the budgeted amount. I challenged them to put together a realistic budget, working with Stan Rovira, project coordinator for the college.
Within weeks the students came back with a budget of $125,000. Stan said he thought the numbers were solid and the goal achievable. Thus, I went back to the Board of Trustees and proposed that we approve this expenditure. They said yes.
As it happened, nearly everyone involved, from Stan and our CC facilities folks to the Mortenson team and Antoine Predock and the architects, devoted a special effort to successfully meet LEED requirements. Credit must be shared widely.
But first and foremost, credit goes to the CC students who would not abandon their effort to hold us to high standards when it comes to sustainability. They are the real Gold Medal winners on campus.
November 25, 2008 – 2:15 pm
Note: This blog entry is based on a guest column I wrote for The (Colorado Springs) Gazette.
Imagine downtown Colorado Springs with signs in five languages, and with plasma screens linking the city electronically to 24-hour news reports in different parts of the world, or live feeds showing a climber on K2, or a missionary in Orissa, India.
Why? Because that is who we are.
…continue reading “Yes, Colorado Springs is international” »»»
October 10, 2008 – 7:24 pm
With the Dow in a nosedive, Washington in a daze, and the Presidential election pushing the nasty index to new heights, my mind has turned toward food. Yes, food.
You see, while my grandmothers were dramatically different — one a first-generation Italian immigrant and the other an all-American Waspy descendant of a Civil War vet—they agreed on one thing: When things get tough, sit down over a good home-cooked meal and thank the Lord for your blessings. My grandmothers would love the core values of our new food service provider, Bon Appetit. Buy fresh food, locally grown whenever possible. Cook from scratch. Treat food as an invitation to sit down together and celebrate community.
…continue reading “Comfort Food” »»»
I’d like to keep you updated on “The Monthly Bag” and one group’s reaction to the college’s response. See my previous blog entry for the beginning of this story.
The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, a freedom of expression advocacy group, targeted CC in March, launching a media campaign against the college. FIRE said CC administrators violated the students’ rights to freedom of expression and punished the students needlessly (though the students were never sanctioned). FIRE called for the college to remove conduct letters from the students’ files (the letters will remain in their files only until they graduate, and won’t be shared with anyone outside the college, including potential graduate schools, employers, etc.).
A second, completely new conduct committee reaffirmed the college’s findings, saying the students were in violation of the college’s conduct code, but should not be punished or sanctioned. During its regular meeting in May, the CC Board of Trustees also examined the issue, and again, supported the college’s actions.
In June, Colorado College Board of Trustees Chair David van Diest Skilling ’55 sent this letter to FIRE to communicate the board’s finding. FIRE promptly responded by placing CC on its “Red Alert” list (which also includes Brandeis University, Johns Hopkins University, Tufts University and Valdosta State University).
An interesting note: In 2007, FIRE reviewed 346 colleges and universities, and fully 96 percent of them did not pass its test for free speech (only 2% passed; 2% were unrated). From FIRE’s web site:
“Of the 346 schools reviewed by FIRE, 259 received a red-light rating (75%), 73 received a yellow-light rating (21%), and only 8 received a green-light rating (2%). Six schools did not receive any rating from FIRE. Surprisingly, public schools, which are unambiguously legally bound by the First Amendment, actually had a somewhat higher percentage of “red light” ratings; a full 79% of public schools were “red light,” 19% “yellow light”, and 2% green.”
Freedom of speech and personal safety are basic rights we all hold dear. We work hard at Colorado College to ensure both. A recent campus issue is a case in which these principles of good compete.
…continue reading “Freedom of speech and personal safety” »»»
I have a spam guard on my computer to try to eliminate the extraneous stuff that gets sent to my email address. It helps. It catches the virus-laden items and about three quarters of what I think of as electronic junk mail. Still, a couple of times a week I am obliged to review the accumulation to see whether a message from a high school classmate got trapped in the screen.
I have been struck recently by how many messages — tucked in the midst of Viagra pitches, offers of home equity loans, and stock tips — hold out the promise of a quick and inexpensive college diploma. “Online Education Is Easy and Affordable,” “You Can Start Your Higher Education Today, Easily,” and “Get an Instant Diploma” are just some of the recent headers.
…continue reading “Dangerous Spam” »»»
April 19, 2007 – 10:14 am
Prologue
I drafted a blog entry as I was returning from Chicago to Colorado Springs on the morning of Monday, April 16, before I’d heard the news from Virginia Tech. I was tired as I wrote, so I held onto the draft to take a second look at it before I posted it.
“Yesterday began like any other day” said someone at the Virginia Tech memorial service on Tuesday. “And then it became like no other. Everything changed.”
The senseless, brutal outburst of one student on that campus cut short the lives of thirty-two others, mostly students; some, teachers. And on the CC campus, students stood in the Worner Student Center silently watching the words and images of the CNN live news reports. Some wept. All grieved.
But for the grace of God it might have been our campus.
We could only wonder that the “bubble”—the distance from the worries of the everyday world that is both a gift and a curse for a college campus—proved to be no bubble at all in Blacksburg, Virginia. This sanctuary, where we join in a focused effort at teaching and learning, so unique that we seldom come to appreciate it fully until long after we have left it behind, can be invaded by the sharp, all-too-frequent outbreaks of savage violence that seem to plague our society.
Our faculty, meeting as they do on the final Monday of each block, sat in a moment of silence in shocked solidarity with their suffering colleagues 1,000 miles away. On Tuesday, students and staff members lit candles in Shove Chapel and gathered in remembrance in the late afternoon. And, of course, key administrators met to review what we might do on this campus should we be confronted by some unimagined random act of violence.
I feel a deep sadness as I write these words, sadness that my colleagues and I cannot make this a perfectly safe place for our students. That we can’t protect them from a booze-induced accident; from an adventure that turns into a misadventure. Most of all, that we cannot insulate them from these crushing outbreaks of violence that, although random, seem to have become ever more frequent.
And so my thoughts turn to the blog I wrote before I learned about the shooting at Virginia Tech. I share it with you now.
…continue reading “Sanctuary. Enter at your own risk.” »»»
January 10, 2007 – 1:36 pm
What a first semester! And what a Christmas Eve!
At 4 pm on the very first day of classes last September, the whole Colorado College campus lost power. A blackout shut down the computer center, took the library offline, disarmed the card access to the residence halls, and generally caused confusion and dismay. Conscientious freshmen, who had been in the library eagerly working on their first assignments to impress their new professors, were distressed at being cut off from their computers.
Since we traditionally begin classes on Labor Day, it was a challenge to find the right people to help us restore power to the campus. Our facilities folks quickly established that the problem occurred at the point where the high-tension power line, operated by the city, delivered electricity to the campus. And high-tension lines are not to be toyed with.
Well, we found the experts, and the special equipment they required, in Denver. Fortunately, they understood the urgency of our situation. Within four hours almost all of the power on campus had been restored. Those of us who manage an ongoing disaster planning effort found another threat to be reckoned with. But it turned out to be a small blip on the radar screen as the academic year got under way. A bigger blip loomed as the year was coming to a close.
…continue reading “Semester that Begins with Blackout Ends with Whiteout” »»»
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