A recent $2.5 million gift to Colorado College will endow a new program that will serve as a bridge between the classroom and the professional world, according to a Tuesday news release.

The endowment comes from the MacLean family, whose connection to CC goes back to the 1920s, officials said.

“Colorado College has been part of our family for over a century now — from my grandmother who graduated in 1925, to me in the ’80s, and now through my sons, who graduated in 2021 and 2023,” said Liz MacLean Larned, a 1983 graduate.

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“With this gift, we’re excited to help today’s students prepare for the future — not just by building skills, but by discovering how their passions can shape meaningful careers. The Career Catalyst program does just that, and we’re honored to help it grow.”   

Launched in 2024, the Career Catalyst program immerses students within an organization so they can interact with employees, observe processes, and develop a clearer picture of what their professional careers might look like, according to College Dean Pedro de Araujo.

“Students are able to embed themselves into an organization and stay there for a while,” de Araujo said. “They earn college credit, but at the same time they’re learning about how these organizations function.”

The program’s initial class included a two-week course at Mattel’s global headquarters in Los Angeles, officials said.

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“It was incredibly valuable,” de Araujo said. “The students were able to see the entire arc of the creative process, from ideation to putting a toy onto shelves. One of our students is now employed at Mattel.”

In October, Career Catalyst students will spend two weeks inside National Geographic “to explore the intersection of storytelling, science, and global impact,” the release stated.

The MacLean gift will support the development of Career Catalyst blocks across a broad spectrum of disciplines, according to CC President Manya Whitaker.

“This extraordinary gift allows us to reimagine our learning environments in ways that reflect the complexity of the world our students will enter,” Whitaker said.

De Araujo, an economics professor, called the endowment “essential” to the program’s success going forward.

“The endowment allows us to utilize dollars that are not coming from a student’s tuition,” he said. “Without it, I don’t think we would be able to scale the program to the levels that we envision.”

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The plan, according to de Araujo, is to offer a minimum of six Career Catalyst blocks, spread out over the course of the academic year.

“We hope to secure long-term partnerships with several organizations,” he said. “In order to do that, we will need additional resources to support these courses in the future. This gift gets us off to a tremendous start.”