Colby College

Colby College Introduction

At first glance, Colby doesn’t seem all that different from its NESCAC brethren. Like New England’s other small, private, liberal arts colleges, the manicured lawns are gorgeously pastoral, the student body enthusiastic and friendly (indeed, Colby’s students have been rated the “happiest” in the nation), the academics rigorous, and the faculty first-rate. To stand on the steps of the ivy-laced Miller Library, perched regally atop Mayflower Hill, and offering a sweeping view of the entire 714-acre campus (and seemingly the entirety of Maine itself), is to experience the very quintessence of “collegiate”—in every sense of the word, because Colby prides itself not only on its handsome veneer, but its commitment to academics and to the community as well. Therein lies the difference.

Community may be a buzzword these days, but at Colby it’s truly in evidence. Chalk it up to the long winters, the Maine location, or the fact that its Greek system was abolished in 1984, but whatever the reason, Colby manages to cultivate a sustaining, enmeshed environment. This does not mean that every single student is indeed happy, and that there aren’t cliques. What it does mean is that, though Colby is still committed to a goal of true multiculturalism, its populace is already diverse in many ways. This is because Colby students are given not only free rein, but also the necessary support and encouragement, to pursue their disparate interests, whether academic, creative, or recreational.

And surprisingly enough, they do. “I had so many friends doing so many different things,” Colleen Creeden, class of 2002, remembers. “Some sang in a capellagroups; others loved art, or skiing, or specialized in partying.”Colby may be a famously athletic campus—its impressive field house is home to thirty-two varsity sports teams and nine intramural sports clubs—but look beyond the Patagonia outerwear and you’ll also see a hodgepodge of rugged individualists: musicians, poets, activists, actors, painters, potters, long-distance runners, and on and on. As Michael Cobb, class of 1995, says, “Interesting countercultures abound in a place where everyone seems to be ‘the middle.’” Colby may be tucked away in the center of Maine, closer to lakes and mountains than to any urban center, but nonetheless it teems with life and energy. When asked to sum up his Colby experience in one word, Cobb exclaimed, “Electric!”

It’s been said that there are so many colleges, and so many of them so similar to one another, that it hardly matters which one you end up attending. But if Colby proves anything, it’s that each small liberal arts college really is a world unto itself. The homogenous student body may fool people into thinking that there’s not much diversity, but in fact the campus hosts all manner of contradictions. At the same time a basketball game is being played before 500 fans in a packed gymnasium, there’s a guy at the other end of campus snuggling down for the night in his homemade snow fort, or a group of students huddled around a table in the Student Center, penning a manifesto.

Though Colby’s commitment to community may give its students ample room to flex their critical and creative muscles, it’s true that the small size can get, well, too small. What’s cozy to some is cliqueish to others. At the end of four years, what once felt supportive and nurturing can feel downright oppressive. But truth be told, a bit of chafing is probably necessary— otherwise, a person might never feel compelled to leave.

Colby College Academics

Colby’s academic environment is as rigorous as the weather—giving credence to Oscar Wilde’s idea that “wisdom comes with winters.” Whether in spite of or because of its snowy winter months, rare is the student who gradutes without somehow being academically transformed. Though the school’s three most popular majors—Economics, Biology, and English— reflect its commitment to the liberal arts, the sciences may be the school’s strongest suit, particularly the biology, chemistry, and physics programs. The International Studies and Environmental Policy majors and the Environmental Science and Neuroscience options available in several majors all earn praise. That said, the creative writing program is the one most often remembered among graduates for its “eye-opening,” “extremely challenging,” and “head-spinning” writing workshops.

Though the school encourages experimenting with different sorts of courses before settling into a major, it should be noted that Colby’s conditions for graduation are strict, so planning how to best use the four years of study is important. Along with the coursework for their major, students must fulfill a foreign language requirement and take English composition as well as two courses in the natural sciences and one course each in the arts, historical studies, literature, quantitative reasoning, and the social sciences. Two courses, one internationally focused, constitute a diversity requirement, and students must meet Colby’s wellness requirement by attending five of seven First-Year Supper Seminars.

I was enormously challenged at Colby, mainly because I was given the space to become a deliberate learner who could generate intellectual questions and desires, and translate them into provocative intellectual projects. I particularly found the Religious Studies and Women’s Studies departments to be some of the most exciting departments—small strengths that cultivated an intense political and intellectual engagement, and helped me grow and transform and engage the world more substantively than I had before I arrived at Colby. — Michael Cobb, class of 1995, B.A.

Programs

Colby offers B.A. degrees in fifty-three majors running the usual liberal arts gamut from African-American/American studies to physics to theater and dance. Some majors offer specific concentrations. An art major, for example, may choose to concentrate on art history or studio art. Likewise, a biology major may focus on environmental science or neuroscience. And if none of the available options appeal, a student may propose an independent or com- bined major of his or her own choosing. (Mike Daisey, a 1996 graduate, writes about his independently created aesthetics major—a combination of theater and creative writing— in his book 21 Dog Years: Doing Time @Amazon.com.) Those students who don’t want to limit themselves to declaring one major can declare two—twenty-three percent of a recent graduating class fulfilled double majors—or augment their studies by electing a minor. In a recent graduating class, thirty-six percent had at least one minor, and sometimes two. Of the thirty-two minors available to choose from, most can be found on the list of majors, though there are a few unique additions, such as Administrative Science, Indigenous Peoples of the Americas, and Jewish Studies.

COOT

COOT, which stands for Colby Outdoor Orientation Trip, is Colby’s way of introducing first-year students to Maine, Colby, and each other. Soon after they arrive on campus, students leave with ten or twelve of their classmates and two trained upper-class student leaders for four days of outdoor adventuring of their choosing, such as hiking, fly fishing, road biking, or sea kayaking. Those students who don’t have much interest or experience in roughing it can opt for Excursion, a low-impact option involving more leisurely day trips, Theater/Improv, which entails lots of lakeside improvisational theater and relaxing, Civic Engagement/Volunteerism or Trail Work/Service for students interested in doing volunteer work. Upon returning to campus, each COOT group becomes a team to assist students as they transition to campus life. COOT really works. Even if you don’t become best friends with your COOT-mates, and odds are you won’t, they do provide a nice base of stability from which to launch into Colby. Familiar faces in a new place cannot be overrated. And your COOT leader will be there for questions or support for as long as he or she remains on campus.

Off-Campus Study

Colby is rightly proud of its popular off-campus and exchange programs—more than two-thirds of the student body spend at least one full semester away from Waterville in one of scores of approved destinations. Colby maintains its own programs in Cork, Ireland; Salamanca, Spain; Dijon, France; and St. Petersburg, Russia. Additionally, students may enroll in programs offered by peer institutions centered in large and small towns around the world, both domestically and internationally. “The most important gift Colby gave me was my year abroad. I grew up a lot that year and was challenged at all levels,” claims Lynne Moss, class of 1995. Though the benefits of traveling abroad are obvious, some graduates complained that leaving the academic rigors of Colby to study in a foreign—and often less challenging—program disrupted their intellectual momentum, and they wished they had saved their traveling for after graduation.

Integrated Studies Program

This intensive, semester-long program was designed to explore an era or aspect of world civilization from the perspective of several disciplines. Structured around clusters of courses, the program is open to all classes. Recent offerings have been “The Green Cluster,” which deals with environmental ethics, literature, and biological science, “The Holocaust and the Religious Response,” studying the Holocaust from historical and religious viewpoint, “Death in the Renaissance,” focusing on Dante’s Inferno in Italian and Art courses.

January Semester

One of Colby’s innovative programs continues to be the long-standing January Program—or Jan Plan, as it’s known—that not only breaks up the long winter, but allows students to devote a month to nearly anything of their choosing. With virtually limitless boundaries, except for the requirement that students must complete three Jan Plan programs, students have trekked across African countries researching gender relations, learned woodworking, immersed themselves in a new language, and interned in nearly every imaginable professional role in preparation for life after Colby. Staying on campus has its appeal—skiers take full advantage of the relaxed schedule to frequent nearby Sugarloaf Mountain, and for the less active there’s something cozy about hunkering down in the middle of Maine with only one course or project to concentrate on—but some students complain that it gets claustrophobic, and recommend leaving campus as much as possible. Colleen Creeden, class of 2002, says that her second-year Jan Plan trip to Guadeloupe to live with a family was a turning point.

The experience was so colorful and different from anything I had known before. I hiked up to a waterfall barefoot in the rain, met several native authors, learned so much more about the social and economic conditions in the Caribbean, and became very excited about language. When I returned to Colby in February, I declared my French Studies major.

Public Affairs and Civil Engagement

In 2004 the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement was formed to connect teaching and research with contemporary political, economic, and social issues. The Goldfarb Center provides a venue in which students and faculty can think and work across disciplinary boundaries to develop creative approaches to complex local, national, and global challenges. The center is a clearinghouse for ties with the community, including civic engagement courses and volunteer opportunities; it serves as an intellectual forum, sponsoring lectures, seminars, and visiting scholars, and it helps students with internships and research projects that expand their learning beyond the classroom.

Colby College Admissions

Colby goes to great pains to create a student body that will best enhance the community, which means that the selection process is highly competitive—for years now the acceptance rate has hovered around thirty-five percent—and difficult to predict. One graduate, for instance, remembers her surprise upon learning that a high school classmate with better grades and test scores than hers, and with equivalent athletic accomplishments, but with fewer creative and volunteer pursuits, was turned down while she was not. The majority of students tend to be not only academic high achievers, but creative and athletic standouts as well. A recent incoming class, for example, boasted thirty-three languages spoken, 160 high school varsity captains, the Kentucky state chess champion, the youngest recipient ever of the EPA’s Environmental Excellence Award, and a Portuguese-Chinese translator in Brazil.

The application process itself is fairly standard, calling for essays, recommendations, transcript requests, and personal data, save for the requirement of SAT or ACT scores, which Colby’s peer schools in Maine no longer require. Mean test scores among successful applicants are, most recently, 680/680 (Verbal/Math) for SAT I and 29 for the ACT. (Note: International students must also submit a TOEFL score of 600 or higher.) Other important considerations include AP and honors courses, leadership, and extracurricular and volunteer accomplishments, as well as less tangible factors such as character and intellectual promise. An interview is not required but is highly recommended, both as an extra measure by which the college can judge candidates and an opportunity for candidates to better assess the college. Of course, given that a remarkable number of alumni say they “just knew” Colby was right for them as soon as they saw the place, campus visits are decidedly in the college’s advantage. And in fact, judging by the steady increase over the years in Early Decision candidates, the number of visitors that “just knew” keeps rising. Of a recent pool of 4,242 applicants, 459 had applied Early Decision. Though only 217 were accepted, they did make up almost half of the class of 475.

Colby has a pronounced commitment to attracting applicants who represent diverse geographic and racial backgrounds. While its central Maine location has long drawn a mostly Caucasian, Northeast-based population, the percentage of international students in recent incoming classes has increased to ten percent and the number of domestic minority students to eleven percent. Fifty percent of incoming students were from New England and fifty percent from other states, territories, and abroad. Among them, eighty-three percent were white. The male/female ratio, however, has long remained relatively equal. Also fairly consistent over time is the breakdown between public and private high school—in a recent class, fifty-eight percent of the students had graduated from public schools and the remaining forty-two percent from private schools, with a small percentage from parochial schools.

As a Midwesterner from a rural community, I was forced at Colby to really figure out who I was. After first discarding my Midwesternness, because it cer- tainly didn’t belong at Colby, I eventually came to embrace it, because it makes me who I am. That sounds like a cliché, but it was a surprisingly hard lesson to learn. — Lynne Moss, class of 1995, B.A.

Colby College Financial Aid

With a price tag of $44,080 a year (2006–2007), Colby isn’t cheap. But it does all it can to help students meet that cost. Approximately one third of all Colby students receive financial aid in the form of scholarships and grants, with an average first-year aid package of $28,493 (2005–2006) for one year. More than two thirds receive financial assistance through loans and/or work-study jobs on campus. By working ten to twelve hours per week in the library, bookstore, dining halls, athletic complex, administrative offices, academic departments, mailroom, and computer center, students may earn a portion of their college expenses and/or spending money. Most students use this income to defray the costs of personal expenses and books, which run at about $1,500. Most parents report that the Financial Aid Office was very helpful and pleasant to work with, which made what can sometimes be a difficult and complex process much easier.

I’m actually surprised at how often I am in touch with Colby friends and alumni. Colby people seem to be everywhere, and are always so willing to help. — Alyssa Severn, class of 2002

Colby College Students

Residences

Because Colby’s location is somewhat remote—Portland, the only Maine city of significant size, is an hour’s drive away—and ninety-four percent of the students live on campus, campus life revolves around the residence halls. There are three dining halls (students are free to eat in any dining hall they wish), the buildings are primarily classical neo-Georgian—lots of red brick, in other words—save for the two starkly modern, glass-paned complexes nestled in the woods on the edge of campus. First-year students are dispersed evenly throughout every residence hall on a random basis, except for those who request chemical-free or “quiet” housing, all of whom are accommodated, after which they are free to request any dormitory they’d like. Most rooms are doubles or triples, though students can opt to live in large group suites and singles upon request. In 1999, a new apartment building open to senior class members only was added to the mix and almost every dorm has been part of a $44 million upgrade. Because all of the halls are pleasant, well-maintained, and completely wired—every room has an individual Ethernet connection and a cable television outlet—it’s nearly impossible to have anything but a comfortable residential life. By senior year, some students choose to live off campus, whether in downtown apartments or lake houses several miles away, but this is the exception and not the rule. Where a student lives greatly influences his or her social experience, as each residence cluster tends to have its own personality. The south end of each campus, for instance, usually houses the artsy, crunchy types, while Roberts Row, on the other side of campus, is favored by the jock community. Though incoming students have little say in where they’ll be placed, by the end of their first year most people have a sense of where they’d like to live, and generally find themselves there.

Cotter Union, the student center, is the physical and organizational heart of the campus, and a $10-million expansion underway in 2006-07 would add the Pulver Pavilion to create a “living room” for students. The building houses a central meeting and social area with a coffee bar and The Spa, Colby’s snack bar. It also contains the student post office, and ATM, and the Page Commons, a large function room for all-campus events. Attached to the Student Center is The Pugh Center, “a common ground in which students of all races, cultures, and religions have a stake.” It contains offices for multicultural student organizations, a kosher kitchen, and a large lounge or meeting space.

Campus Expansion

Colby recently completed a new 15-acre campus expansion, the Colby Green, and elliptical lawn that is the site of the admissions building, the alumni center, and the new Diamond Building for social science and interdisciplinary studies programs. Another academic building for the sciences, also is planned on the Colby Green.

Extracurricular Activities

As if in recompense for its small size and out-of-the-way location, Colby is teemingwith extracurricular activities, which go a long way in making up the backbone of student life on campus. There are more than 100 clubs catering to a multitude of cultural, political, religious, and volunteer agendas, from a feminist Women’s Group to the college’s literary magazine, The Pequod. The most popular is The Colby Outing Club. Particularly popular also is the campus radio station, WHMB, where students host their own radio shows. On any given Sunday afternoon, students can be found throwing pots in the pottery studio, practicing for a dance recital, or relaxing in the student-run coffeehouse.

From the COOT trips to the Hume Center to the Outing Club Cabin on Great Pond, you shouldn’t leave Colby without sleeping outside, watching a sunrise from Runnals Hill, or taking a walk through the Arboretum. If you miss the coast, you can reach Popham Beach in an hour. If you love to ski, you will always have someone to go with any weekend during the winter…and the drive there can be just as much fun. If you want to try outdoor sports, you will find someone who shares the same enthusiasm to learn with you, or be your guide. — Colleen Creeden, class of 2002, B.A.

Maine worked its way into my heart—the spectacular fall foliage, the jagged little coastline, the Belfast co-op, and Portland’s coffee shops, bookstores, and restaurants all allowed me to dwell in zones of Down East feeling. And I could easily drive to Boston and New York City whenever the isolation pushed me over the edge. — Michael Cobb, class of 1995, B.A.

Volunteer Activities

The student-run Colby Volunteer Center has established many programs devised to get students involved in the Waterville school system, soup kitchens, and rape crisis and the Colby Cares About Kids program, which pairs more than 300 Colby students as mentors to local children. What is usually only a one-day-a-week commitment can prove to have tremendous personal payoff.

Environmental Awareness

Colby has been recognized by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Maine officials for its commitment to environment stewardship, both in academic programs and in practices adopted on campus. The college’s environmental studies program, begun in the 1970s, remains one of Colby’s strengths. An Environmental Advisory Group, composed of students, faculty, and administrators was founded in 2000. Now, with recycling programs, conservation, environmentally friendly electricity production, a new alumni center that uses geothermal heating and cooling, and other initiatives in place, Colby has become a leader in adopting sustainable practices.

Fraternity Ban

In 1984 Colby’s Board of Trustees abolished the college’s long-standing fraternity system. In protest, students burned furniture in the quad between Roberts Union and the library, and were slow to take to the commons-based, college-sponsored social system that sprung up in its wake. For a while—and perhaps even to this day—now-illegal fraternities stubbornly persisted underground. But more than twenty years later, almost all traces of any Greek adherence have disappeared, and most students agree that the campus is far better off for it.

Alcohol

Gone, too, are the beery bashes of yore. This is not to say that drinking isn’t a big part of student life, but as a result of increasingly strict alcohol enforcement, most alcohol consumption is done in off-campus student houses and bars. Twenty-one-year-olds are allowed to host parties, but because they are held accountable for underage drinking violations, most tend not to take on the responsibility.

Student-Sponsored Events and Other Activities

Colby students are uncommonly assiduous when it comes to organizing social activities. From free plays, concerts, and readings, to improv performances, to cheap second-run movies in Lovejoy Hall, there is always something to do on a weekend night. Each year the student government sponsors one or two headline acts—recent years have seen Ben Folds, Margaret Cho, Matisyahu, and Mavis Staples—as well as frequent dance parties and semi-formals. An increasingly popular place to congregate is the student-run coffeehouse, which hosts innumerable open-mic nights and poetry readings, aside from just being a nice place to chat with a friend over a cup of coffee. A much quieter cultural oasis is The Colby College Museum of Art, which houses the works of Alex Katz, an extraordinary permanent collection of American art, and frequent traveling exhibitions.

Colby College Athletics

Rare is the Colby student who doesn’t take part in some sort of athletic activity, whether this means the occasional walk through the arboretum, a weekly jog, a season spent playing on an intramural soccer team, or four years of committed varsity competition. Those who aren’t prone to being active might change their minds when confronted with the first-class Alfond Athletic Center. Boasting over 197,064 square feet of fitness, weight training, and exercise areas, four locker rooms, a full-sized gymnasium, a hockey rink, a twenty-five-yard by twenty-five-meter swimming and diving pool, and an indoor field house for tennis, track, and indoor practices, it is one of the most comprehensive athletic centers in New England. And that’s not counting the campus’s fifty acres of fields for outdoor sports, or the new synthetic turf field, installed in 2004–2005.

Roughly one third of the student body competes as White Mules in the NESCAC conference, whether on one of the college’s thirty Division III intercollegiate teams, or the Division I Nordic and Alpine ski teams. And they are consistently competitive. In recent years, the women’s crew won the 2003 Division III national championship, men’s basketball has earned trips to the NCAA tournament, the volleyball team won the New England NCAA Division III Championship and went to the national “Sweet 16” tournament, and in 2005–2006, twenty-eight All-American honors were won by sixteen students in various sports. All of this is done without the benefit of athletic scholarships, which are banned in Division III.

Meanwhile, for the more laid-back competitor, there are a plethora of I-PLAY (intramural sports) and club team programs. Students of both sexes can often be seen throwing axes for the Woodsmen’s team, battling in a scrum at the Swamp during a rugby match, or tossing the disk for the Ultimate Frisbee club.

Finally, for those students interested in the great outdoors, there is all of Maine to explore. Students are constantly taking off for the mountains, and the scenic Maine coastline, which can be reached within about an hour. On weekends, skiers flock to nearby Sugarloaf Mountain and Sunday River, hikers trek out to Mt. Katahdin and Acadia National Park, and water lovers head off to Camden, Rockport, or the nearby Belgrade Lakes for canoeing and sailing, and the Kennebec, Dead, and Penobscot rivers for whitewater adventure.

During my freshman year I volunteered at an elementary school reading to children. Sophomore year I made soup and sandwiches once a week in the basement of a church for families that were barely getting by. During my senior year I volunteered in the office of the Maine International Film Festival. It was certainly beneficial for me to mix with the larger community on a weekly basis, and Waterville’s population can benefit greatly from an active Colby student body. — Colleen Creeden, class of 2002, B.A.

Colby College Local Community

Waterville is no urban center, but it does have its share of bowling alleys, pool halls, movie theaters, restaurants, and shops. Though owning a car isn’t essential to getting around—there is a shuttle bus that runs from campus to the heart of downtown—there aren’t any limits to automobile ownership on campus, and those students who can take advantage of this flexibility, do. Having a car means being able to take a shopping trip to Freeport, a weekend getaway to Boston, or simply taking a car ride through Maine’s gorgeous landscape.

Colby College Alumni

It’s not easy to leave a place like Colby. The “real world” can seem downright barren when compared to this haven of intellectual stimulation, close friends, fun diversions, and first-rate facilities. Fortunately, Colby’s sense of community extends far beyond Mayflower Hill. The Office of Career Services maintains an alumni network that can be an invaluable resource when looking for job leads or advice, especially given the range of professions Colby graduates go on to excel in—from the glitz of Hollywood and Wall Street to the challenges of community activism. A handful of recent alumni include a carpenter, a college English professor, a published poet, and a biochemist, to name a few. Nearly twenty percent of graduates enroll directly in graduate medical, business, or law school, and two thirds of Colby’s alumni seek further education within five years of graduation.

Prominent Grads

• Dan Harris, ABC News Correspondent
• Doris Kearns Goodwin, Historian and Pulitzer Prize Winner
• Alan Taylor, Historian and Pulitzer Prize Winner
• E. Annie Proulx, Author and Pulitzer Prize Winner
• Gregory White Smith, Author and Pulitzer Prize Winner
• Robert Capers, Journalist and Pulitzer Prize Winner
• Robert B. Parker, Best-selling Author
• Linda Greenlaw, Best-selling Author
• Michael Federle, Fortune Magazine Publisher

Colby College Faculty

“Colby gave me a superb education,” Michael Cobb, class of 1995, remembers, “mainly because of the exquisite, smart faculty, who cared enough to push my thinking in new, critical, and politically engaged ways.” Colby’s faculty is far and away the school’s strongest asset. Between the student/professor ratio of ten to one and the fact that professors spend a great deal of time on the snug campus (some even living there), close relationships between faculty and students are easily engendered. Office hours are flexible, home phone numbers are widely available, and faculty are guaranteed to be present at athletic contests and cultural happenings. “I used to stop by my advisor’s office all the time, often without an appointment, just to talk about something I’d read, and I can’t remember a time when he wasn’t in and completely willing to see me,” Erika Troseth, class of 1995, recalls. Moreover, once students get past the large introductory lecture courses common to the first two years of study, class sizes are small and intimate. “Before Colby, I wasn’t aware that I could perform at such a high academic level,” says Alyssa Severn, class of 2002. “I realize now that I did it out of respect for my professors as individuals, not only professors. I became so engaged, motivated, and interested in the content of their courses that I didn’t even pay much mind to the grades I received.” And the relationships don’t stop with graduation. Many alumni keep in touch with their professors, whether with occasional visits or letters.

Carnegie Foundation Classification

Baccalaureate Colleges — Arts & Sciences

General Characteristics

Highest offering	Bachelor's degree
Calendar System	Four-one-four plan
Years of college work required	N/A
Variable Tuition

Special Learning Opportunities

Distance Learning
ROTC — Army / Navy / Airforce	— / /
Study Abroad
Weekend College
Teacher Certification