The second year of Manya Whitaker’s tenure as president is coming to a close. Dance Workshop has come and gone, Block Eight intramurals like spring soccer are in full swing and student discourse surrounding Llamapalooza remains as impassioned as ever.
Top of mind for Whitaker at the moment is the institutional review Colorado College has been conducting for the last few months with the firm Baker Tilly. As it stands, the review has been completed and Baker Tilly is analyzing its data and findings. In late May, the full review will be presented to the president and board.
“I took all of [current] the sections pertinent to the student experience and shared them with the president’s council to get their feedback. So they were able to add richness and more nuance to the comments that Baker Tilly got from a few students here on campus,” Whitaker said.
The full document will be revealed to the Board of Trustees and cabinet. After deciding which recommendations to implement, those findings will then be shared with the campus community. While the full report won’t be posted, sections of it will likely be shared.
Another major topic of this time of year is enrollment. At the time of interviewing, Whitaker confirmed that the school had 329 deposits but still needed to hear from most of the admitted students.
“Most students wait until the last second to tell us what they’re going to do,” Whitaker said. “We’ll know more after May 1.”
Enrollment numbers for the classes of 2028 and 2029 were lower than historical rates at Colorado College.
“We’re trying to increase the number of applications we get and we’re also trying to increase the number of students that choose us,” Whitaker said.
The administration and Office of Admission has implemented a few strategies to boost enrollment such as increasing the number of open houses and raising the stipend for fly-in visits for prospective students. Furthermore the school has started to recruit earlier and has committed to other initiatives like the Four Corners Pledge.
This year, Colorado saw a deficit of about $1.5 billion, a staggering shortfall requiring cuts in major departments like education, healthcare and public assistance. Programs like Medicaid are seeing significant funding cuts and representatives continue to hotly debate what plans should stay and which can be gutted.
For higher education institutions in Colorado, there are significant threats to financial aid, due to significant reductions in state grants.
Under the ‘higher education’ section in the Budget Package & Long Bill Narrative, $14,171,101 of private and proprietary financial aid got sliced, according to Kathina Weaver, Colorado College’s Independent Higher Education of Colorado advocate.
“The implications for CC translates into about $300,000 of Colorado aid to Colorado students,” said Whitaker. While the bill still needs to go to the Senate for full debate, she expresses worry for how CC will have to decrease their own financial aid in lieu of state budget cuts.
“We’re watching how that proceeds in Denver because we really do need that aid money,” Whitaker said. “I don’t know if it’ll end up being as high as they are proposing but I do think there will be cuts because of the budget shortfall.”
For Whitaker herself, the last few weeks of the school year are decorated by travel and various on-campus engagements. She visited major cities like Chicago, Boston, New York, Minneapolis, and Palm Springs. “We try to go to every major city as best we can. Some of those are presidential salons where an alum will host anywhere from eight to 15 other alums and I just come and talk to them about the college. […] I’ll also attend some conferences,” Whitaker said.
During travel, she prioritizes rest and self-care during her hours between cities. “I try to use that travel time as my down time,” Whitaker said. “In-flight or in the airport, I binge watch a show or I read a book. I don’t work when I’m actively travelling because it’s the only time I have to not actively work.”