Creativity & Innovation

The Creative Courage Cohort for Students

“At its core, creative confidence is about believing in your ability to create change in the world around you. It is the conviction that you can achieve what you set out to do. We think this self-assurance, this belief in your creative capacity, lies at the heart of innovation.”  

                                                                                              – David Kelley and Tom Kelley, Creative Confidence 

What is the Creative Courage Cohort?

The Creative Courage Cohort is designed to equip students with tools and strategies for creative thinking that they can bring into personal and academic endeavors. While many people equate creativity with producing artistic masterpieces, creativity is, in fact, mindsets, ways of finding more and richer possibilities for interaction with the things, people, and places in our world. 

The Creative Courage Cohort experience begins with an immersive workshop during which students connect with their creative selves, and explore how creativity mindsets are intertwined with learning and identity. In the process, they learn to switch between divergent and convergent thinking, and to invite and harness playfulness, exploration, and experimentation in their lives. 

Following the immersive workshop, students can join additional creativity activities and discussions. This is an opportunity for students to practice using the skills and aptitudes they learnt in real-world contexts. Interested students also have opportunities to continue training to become paid student workers for the Creativity & Innovation office. 

For more information, contact Kris Stanec, Director of Creativity & Innovation, kstanec@coloradocollege.edu. 

Who can join the Creative Courage Cohort?

The Creative Courage Cohort is open to all CC students. 

How do you join?

Students interested in joining the Creative Courage Cohort should start by signing up for an immersive workshop. The next immersion will occur on the first and second Fridays of Block 6: Feb. 21 and Feb. 28, from 2:00 p.m-5:00 p.m. Students should plan on attending both sessions to complete the workshop. 

Join the Block 6 Immersion 

Student Immersion

CC students participating in an Immersion at C&I <span class="cc-gallery-credit"></span>
View Slide Show 8 Photographs
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Challenges We Are Trying to Address

  • Overconcern with performance and perfection
  • Pressure to be extraordinary 
  • Fear of failure
  • Impact of curated social media world on social development 
  • Disconnection from self and others
  • Pressure to be constantly busy to prove self-worth 
  • Competitive mindset 
  • Disconnection from embodied self 
  • Risk aversion
  • Intolerance of ambiguity 
  • Information overload 

Strengths We Want to Cultivate

  • Curiosity; engagement with process over product
  • Humility, empathy, grace, and compassion; ability to say, "I don't know"
  • Embracing failure as part of learning 
  • Sense of connection and belonging 
  • Vulnerability and self-awareness 
  • Making spaciousness for reflection 
  • Collaborative mindset
  • Embodied learning
  • Courage to take productive risks 
  • Finding comfort and possibility in uncertainty 
  • Ability to prioritize information

Student Reflections 22-23

"I was able to see the depth of my creativity in a new way and learned how it could be harnessed and translated to different contexts and take new forms."

"My relationship to creativity has changed during this course –  especially my relationship to risk and failure. I realize how I’ve been afraid of both and have been challenging myself to embrace failure."

"I’ve come to see how much I value creativity and hold it close to my identity."

"I view creativity as the state of generating many possibilities and having many to choose from. Creativity is not the one thing you decide to express but the many ideas and thoughts that are possible before you choose. Creativity is not the one good idea you settle on but all the possibilities you are able to generate."