1960 — The Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT) is instituted.

1961 — The first of the annual series of college symposia convenes. Its topic is "Science and Humanism," directed by sociology professor Alvin Boderman. The next year, alarmed by the U-2 incident, the construction of the Berlin Wall and the Cuban missile crisis, the topic is "War and Peace in the 60s."

1962 — The college receives one of only 23 Ford Foundation Challenge Grants. The subsequent drive for $5.5 million in matching funds is the largest fund raising effort to date.

Basements in Palmer and Slocum are stocked with water and supplies and designated fallout shelters in the wake of the Cuban missile crisis.

1964 — An interdisciplinary natural sciences major is instituted.

1965 — The college endowment grows to $11 million.

1965–68 — The Advisor Plan, permitting selected students to elect courses without major or general college requirements, is adopted, as is a limited pass/fail plan and the abandonment of core requirements for graduation.

1968 — The basic idea of the Block Plan is first heard. Professor Glenn Brooks begins to speak of "unified learning."

The computer age arrives with a teletype terminal in Olin Hall lounge connected to a time-share computer at a distant location.

1969 — Colorado College joins the Associated Colleges of the Midwest (ACM), a liberal arts consortium offering joint academic programs, many conducted overseas.

"Violence" is the topic of the annual symposium, directed by Alvin Boderman. Dick Gregory speaks, and local controversy erupts when members of the visiting cast of Dionysus ‘69 appear nude and in mixed genders. President Worner defends the college’s autonomy of speech and expression before the local press. The trustees briefly consider and reject a motion for Boderman’s dismissal. Students gather at Earle flagpole to support the administration’s stand.

Over the summer of 1969, Glenn Brooks prepares memoranda outlining the details of the proposed Block Plan. The plan was adopted, after long faculty sessions, by a 58 percent majority.

1960 — Colorado College loses to Vanderbilt University in its second round of television’s College Quiz Bowl. Time magazine rates the college one of 50 top liberal arts schools.

Glamour magazine names Lynn Ballard one of ten best-dressed college women in America; Vivian Arviso reigns as Miss Indian America at the All-American Indian Days in Sheridan, Wyoming.

1964 — The last Homecoming parade.

1965 — Signs of the times: 500-plus students and faculty march down Tejon Street in support of Martin Luther King Jr.’s drive for voting rights; students and faculty form a Vietnam Study Group; the Associated Students of Colorado College disbands to protest its lack of power in campus decision procedure, effectively dissolving official student government (the Colorado College Campus Association fills the official vacuum the next year).

1966 — Lacrosse becomes a men’s varsity sport.

The Free Student Action Committee convenes to protest the growing Vietnam war, holding weekly vigils at Earle flagpole. Meanwhile, local police arrest a student owning considerable stockpiles of marijuana. His associates are uncovered and many elect to withdraw from college voluntarily, as campus policy prohibiting illegal drugs is clear.

1967 — Cracks in in loco parentis: student demonstrations win permission for veterans, seniors and students over 21 years to live off campus. The next year, President Worner personally procures a liquor license and becomes an official publican so Rastall Center may serve 3.2 beer

1968 — Peggy Fleming, a first-year student, figure skates to gold in the Grenoble (France) Winter Olympics.

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) forms a campus chapter and immediately marches — into downtown and on to Fort Carson.

1968 — Neal, a Saint Bernard with personality, joins the free-range pack of student-owned dogs and wins hearts as campus mascot.

1969 — After 70 years, the Catalyst replaces the Tiger as campus paper.

1962 — Olin Hall is constructed to house biology, physics and chemistry. Tutt Library is also erected that year, with students, faculty and staff forming a "book brigade" to ferry books across the lawn from the old Coburn Library.

1964 — Boettcher Health Center is dedicated, while Coburn Library and Perkins Hall are razed.

1966 — Armstrong Hall appears on the site of the old Coburn and Perkins halls. Mathias Hall, a men's dormitory, is opened.

1970 — The Block Plan is inaugurated in the college curriculum

1973 — Professors Fred Sondermann and Mike Bird are elected to city council on a "Sensible Growth" ticket.

1974 — A black tie affair at the Broadmoor inaugurates the centennial year. Michael Oakeshott is the keynote speaker in a centennial symposium addressing the liberal arts. Johann Sebastian Bach's "The Passion According to St. Matthew" performed in conjunction with celebration.

The college inaugurates the Venture Grant program.

1977 — Mellon Blocks created to give College faculty time-off (usually one or two blocks per academic year) for research, writing, and course-development.

1978 — Cornell College in Mount Vernon, Iowa, becomes the second college to adopt the Block Plan.

1979 — Art professor James Trissel establishes the Press at Colorado College.

History professors Tom Barton and William Hochman re-enact the Lincoln-Douglas debates, Barton playing a feisty Stephen Douglas to Hochman’s towering Lincoln.

1971 — Ayuda, a women’s rights group, organizes to demand equal representation of women on campus, a policy that was soon implemented.

1973 — Women students conduct a "shower-in" in the El Pomar Sports Center men’s showers to protest inferior athletic facilities.

1975 — Women’s intercollegiate soccer comes to campus as the College rapidly expands its women's sports offerings.

1977 — Alternate-floor coed housing experiment introduced in Mathias Hall.

ROTC departs campus.

1978 — The Catalyst charges the college has money invested in the racially segregated nation of South Africa. The issue of divesting the college of its stock in companies that do business in South Africa will divide the CC community for the next decade.

1972 — Smedley, the college’s first computer, takes up residence in Armstrong Hall.

1976 — Packard Hall is dedicated, the gift of David and Lucille Packard.

"Theme house" concept inaugurated at CC as Jackson House is assigned to a group of students committed to furthering campus appreciation of the visual and performing arts.

1977 — Palmer Museum is dismantled and the space is remodeled into Gates Common Room, a meeting and relaxing place for College faculty. Marmaduke the Blue Whale goes to the Denver Museum of Natural History.