Midway through fall semester, President Manya Whitaker has finally taken a breath. After months of cross-country travel, cabinet check-ins, and navigating shifting federal policies, she says she feels hopeful about the trajectory of her first year leading Colorado College.
Whitaker has had an extensive career at CC, beginning as a professor of Education, later segueing into larger leadership roles like Executive Vice President and Chief of Staff and eventually, into presidency.
Since her time as interim president, her tenure has been defined by her Divisional Strategic Plans, emphasis on alumni engagement and a love of campus culture.
Now, mid-November, she feels satisfied and optimistic about her presidency. “Everybody’s working incredibly hard,” she said of her colleagues. She specifically mentioned finishing up mid-semester check-ins with the President’s cabinet and reported that, overall, various members of the cabinet are making progress on current projects.
The Board of Trustees also concluded its fall board meeting, covering all things related to presidential goals and campus happenings. 32 trustees attended, the majority of whom came to campus.
The board meetings are a time for the full board to come and hear reports from six sub-committees. According to Whitaker, “if you’re not on a committee, you don’t really know what’s going on. [Full board meetings] are an opportunity for us to have kind of institution-wide strategy sessions around things like risk management, budgeting, the new science building… generally things that transcend the entire campus.”
In October, Whitaker travelled to a myriad of cities, her agenda ranging from student outreach to education conventions.
“I started off in Denver with the VP for Advancement, where we went to a fundraising workshop. I went straight from Denver to D.C. for NAICU’s fall leadership conference, which is the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. Then I went to New York to do some donor and alumni meetings,” she said.
Whitaker also visited Pittsburgh, Penn., Los Angeles, Calif. and Carbondale, Colo., conducting some keynotes and two presentations at Colorado Rocky Mountain School for recruitment.
The presidential travel schedule ebbs and flows, sometimes consuming months at a time and sometimes allowing for long stretches on campus. Whitaker contends that while she enjoys the excitement of travel, she prefers to be away for four to five days at a time and then return to campus.
“I like when there’s a good balance. October was a bit much in part because when I’m gone for big chunks of time, it makes people a little bit uneasy if I’m not here to have a dialogue in person about a decision that needs to be made,” she said.
Federal shifts impacting higher education have been a topic of contention this year. Last spring, Whitaker addressed CC students and faculty via email on two separate occasions in response to federal legislation, like the Endowment Excise Tax. Whitaker said that her participation in NAICU prompted an Oct. 10 email titled ‘Updates on the Impacts of Federal Legislation on CC,”“I got to hear from folks who are working on Capitol Hill so that I could put together that email with in the moment, up to date information for the campus, as opposed to, you know, trying to synthesize it yourself through the news or social media. I just wanted to put everything that I know people care about,” she said.
The email included information about graduate student borrowing, financial aid and international students. Whitaker said she remains mostly concerned about international students and protecting their places at Colorado College.
Furthermore, Whitaker emphasized the importance of coming together and supporting one another in lieu of uncertainty. While SNAP benefits funding has been restored, she mentions CCSGA’s action in response to their potential cancellations.
In terms of school policy, topics like AI are continuously in discussion. CC currently has no AI policy and is relying on the honor code for AI-related infractions.
“Where we are right now, with the AI working group that has students, staff and faculty on it, they have put forward a draft AI philosophy, not a policy for the college. So, the philosophy is the framework through which people will decide for themselves the extent to which and how they engage with AI,” Whitaker said.
The proposed AI philosophy would serve as a loose framework for AI usage and allow students to interpret it with principles in mind. In the short term, different departments are handling AI usage differently. While this may shift in the future, departments are entrusted with developing their own unofficial AI policies for classwork and test-taking.
Another relevant policy is CC’s intellectual property policy, which is currently under revision. The new proposed policy is under review for the first time since Oct., 2025. The policy states that Colorado College will retain ownership of IP created as directed or commissioned work, produced within the scope of employment, developed with “Significant Use of College Resources,” generated under sponsored research, or arising as administrative work, including associated trademarks. The college also holds a perpetual, royalty-free license to use instructional materials created for teaching, even when the creator owns the copyright.
“You can imagine that higher ed everything has moved forward exponentially in 10 years, and the policy is being updated, just like all of the other 70-plus policies that we need to start updating on a cycle. So this is just another one that’s going through the new updating process,” Whitaker said.
Another aspect of CC infrastructure that requires updating are the systems used by different departments around campus. Every department uses various systems and software to manage student data. Offices like housing and the registrar don’t share any information, causing inefficiencies.
Whitaker emphasized that everything needs to be integrated. An example she brings up is that over her 15 years at Colorado College, she’s had four different email addresses, none of which have been retired.
“We just have never, as a college, invested in infrastructure work. We kept piling stuff on, as opposed to fixing and updating what we have. I’m excited, because I think once we can get through it, everything will be so much easier […],” she said.
After these infrastructure discrepancies are addressed, the school will begin work on another CC app for students.
As winter approaches, Whitaker hopes that students will continue to attend events and maintain campus spirit. “I just want to encourage people to continue to go out and be engaged with the campus community. It really does change the energy and the vibe around campus when people are connecting in unofficial ways, and the more that happens, the happier we all will be.”