When Clare Wise joined the Colorado ski team as a freshman in 2012, the message from team leaders was simple and to the point:
“It is made clear that when you join the CU ski team the expectation is that we have the highest team GPA and we win national championships,” Wise says with a grin. “That’s just how it is. That’s our legacy and that’s what we strive to do.”
Mission: Accomplished.
Wise, from Wenatchee, Wash., will graduate this week with a 3.88 grade point average and a degree in chemical and biological engineering. She is a member of the Dean’s List and will own the highest grade-point average in her discipline — generally regarded as one of the most difficult on campus — and has been named as this year’s Distinguished Senior in Chemical and Biological Engineering. Her academic achievements were a big part of the CU women’s skiers earning recognition as owning the best team grade point average in the CU Athletic Department (3.593) for 2015.
On the athletic side of the ledger, Wise will also leave CU with plenty of memories of success. An alpine specialist, Wise was part of two NCAA Championship teams (2013 and 2015), a run that included nine top-20 career finishes and three-time status as an academic All-American. She also served as chair of the Pac-12’s inaugural Student Athlete Leadership team and president of CU’s Student Athlete Advisory Council.
Oh, and she also had time to serve as an active member of the Society of Women Engineers, helping organize campus events and author the weekly newsletter, and participate in a variety of volunteer efforts, including Girls Explore Engineering Day at CU, STEM workshops and Girl Scout Days.
Those, of course, are just the highlights of what Wise managed to squeeze into four years at CU. She will obviously leave Boulder with a memory bank overflowing with deposits.
