MARCH 6, 2025 | NEWS | By Tessa Frantz (Co Editor-In-Chief)
It’s week three of Block 6. Spring is coming and students are making the push to the end of the Block with Spring Break around the corner. Interim President Manya Whitaker is well into her second semester at Colorado College.
“There’s a lot that I’m proud of the campus for,” she said.
She specified how in fields like geology, numerous faculty members have received money from the National Science Foundation to conduct research.
In the same realm, CC recently earned a new designation from the Carnegie Foundation and the American Council on Education. While we have historically been designated as a baccalaureate institution, we are now identified as a research college.
“That’s a big deal for a small liberal arts college to get that designation, and it’s a testament to what the staff and faculty are doing as scholars,” Whitaker said.
While Whitaker is proud of the forward strides the college made in her first semester, there are still aspects of the administration that need attention.
“It’s no secret that we’ve had a lot of leadership turnover at CC, I’ll say in the last five years. And not just at the presidential level, but at the cabinet level and across staffing.”
Whitaker contends that some progress, including momentum and institutional memory, at the administrative level has been lost because of the repeated quick changes in leadership. Each new president has different goals and priorities, making consistent long-term progress difficult.
Whitaker maintains that one of her top priorities is reinforcing institutional strength, despite the frequent turnover of leadership. Per her divisional strategic plans, Whitaker hopes to both improve transparency with students and solidify a clear direction for the college.
While her overarching goal of institutional strength remains the same, Whitaker reveals that many resources at CC are not used efficiently.
“We’re really starting to do some prep work for an institutional review that’s really about assessing how we’re using our resources so we can align resources to priorities,” she said.
According to Whitaker, the college is essentially analyzing its use of “financial, staffing, space and technological resources” in the name of higher efficiency. Another goal Whitaker aims to continue is prioritizing student culture. On Friday, Feb. 7, Whitaker hosted a Tiger Look-Alike Contest to facilitate collaboration and fun for students.
For her, it was a reminder of the joy of being around students. “I got to go into Rastalls during dinner in a sparkly tiger suit. I took pictures with students and encouraged them to come across the street to Cornerstone,” she said.
After his inauguration on Jan. 20, President Trump rolled out a host of federal cuts and executive orders. In the slew of changes at the executive level in our government, many of these impact higher education and of course, CC.
“[Federal funding] makes up a small percentage of our budget. Most of our financial aid is funded through the endowment payout.” While federal cuts may have impacts on other higher education institutions, slashing higher education budgets won’t have a significant impact on the school.
But while we don’t rely on federal funds to keep CC alive and thriving, we do rely on tuition dollars.
“It’s not the concern about yanking federal funding that is going to decimate the college. The concerns coming out of the Trump administration that will impact us are on the financial side: the Endowment Tax Fairness Act.”
The Endowment Tax Proposal moves to raise taxes on colleges and universities from 1.4% to 21%, an action that Whitaker says would “decimate our endowment payout and would have a catastrophic effect on our ability to give financial aid.”
Colorado Colleges dishes out $60 million a year to financial aid. With a tax at the tremendous rate of 21%, financial aid would essentially be cut in half. To combat this, Colorado College has teamed up with other similar-sized institutions like Kenyon College and Pomona College to combat this proposal.
“We are getting together with about 15 other colleges like us. We have jointly hired lobbyists in Washington D.C. to lobby against this endowment tax increase,” she said.
Beyond the obvious worry of taking away opportunities from underprivileged students, Whitaker ruminates on the implications of this proposal to our national economic health. “What are the long term cascading effects on the economy and the workforce when we do things like that?”
Another movement under fire from the Trump administration is diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) in schools and workplaces. Whitaker fiercely maintains that CC will see no change at any level in its prioritization of DEI.
“CC is one of the few institutions in the country that, from its founding, has always been open to everyone, all races and genders. That doesn’t change.”
The college will continue to commit to anti-racism, and will take further steps to ensure DEI has a continued place at the college. Specifically, a third staff member was recently hired in the Office of Institutional Equity and Belonging.
Whitaker believes that much of the attack on DEI is intended to instill fear and anxiety in Americans.
“The work continues forward,” she said.
The Trump administration may have implications for international students in higher education. In a recent executive order, “alien students” involved in protests for Palestine may have their visas revoked. In the official order, the White House intends to investigate higher education institutions and “remove such aliens” if evidence is found.
“That is a concern for us. A deep, deep concern,” Whitaker said.
How exactly the federal government will conduct these investigations and enforce this order is up in the air. With the Department of Education under pressure, it is not yet clear which government office will handle the brunt of these investigations.
Whitaker vehemently maintains that the school will do everything in its power to protect international students. “There are other laws that prevent us from sharing information about students. Records, behaviors, visa status, documents, undocumented status, all of that,” she said.
Due to an Office for Civil Rights complaint letter, CC may be listed as an institution to investigate, along with 50 other schools with similar complaints.
“We don’t have to make it easy for them, and we won’t,” Whitaker said.
She urged students not to feel alarmed by social media posts that have official-sounding vernacular. She pledges to make sure students have access to the right information and mental health resources.
Housing issues have been another source of chaos for CC students in recent weeks. Whitaker acknowledged mistakes made within the housing office and experienced the dissatisfaction emanating from the student body first hand.
“My approach is to empower the experts to do their job. I don’t know what happened in the housing process because I only heard from students who were unhappy with their slots. And then once other students heard that I was hearing from them, the students who were happy also emailed me,” she said.
She mentions that one of the reasons for the continued chaos within the housing department is because student tastes change each year. Historically, seniors have not desired to live on campus, according to Whitaker. Post-COVID however, more seniors wanted to live on campus. In response to this demand, the Senior Cottages were established to provide housing for seniors who wanted it.
However, students’ preferences change each year. “They’re trying to adjust the housing process to meet the current housing demand and interest, which is always different from what it was the last year,” Whitaker said.
“Do we bend over backwards each year to try to adjust the process based on last year’s feedback? Or do we pick a process and just stick with it and communicate it from day one: this is how it’s how it’s going to be?” she asked.
Looking ahead to the rest of the year, Whitaker encourages students to take care of their mental health and rest when needed.
“This is always the time of year where I want the campus to pause and breathe, because this is the longest stretch without a break,” she said.