Colby College

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Colby College


Motto:	Lux Mentis Scientia (The Latin translates to English as "Knowledge is the Light of the Mind.")
Established	1813
Type:	Private
Endowment:	$599 million
President:	William D. "Bro" Adams
Faculty:	158 full time and 39 part time
Undergraduates:	1,821
Location	Waterville, Maine, USA
Campus:	Rural
Athletics:	32 varsity teams, 10 club teams
Mascot:	White Mule
Website:	www.colby.edu

Colby College, founded in 1813, is an American private liberal arts college located on Mayflower Hill in Waterville, Maine.

Colby is the 12th oldest independent liberal arts college in the United States. Approximately 1,800 students from 66 countries are enrolled annually; the college offers 53 major fields of study and uses project-based learning. Volunteer programs and service-learning take many students into the surrounding community. More than two thirds of Colby students participate in study-abroad programs. Together with Bates College and Bowdoin College, Colby is one of three small liberal arts colleges in Maine. Colby College competes in the NESCAC league and is considered to be among what are known as the "Little Ivies."

Although one of the oldest liberal arts colleges in the nation, Colby is in the midst of a major campus building program, including a new social sciences and interdisciplinary studies building. It will house academic departments and the Goldfarb Center for Public Affairs and Civic Engagement. The College has also created a new program in neuroscience.

[edit] History

The original name of the college was the Maine Literary and Theological Institution. After Maine separated from Massachusetts, the new legislature conferred upon the school the right to grant degrees. Soon afterwards, in 1821, the college was renamed Waterville College. During the Civil War, the school was on the verge of closing due to many students leaving to fight the war. Gardner Colby, a Boston merchant and Maine native gave a large donation which prevented the college's closure. The college was renamed Colby College in gratitude.

In 1871, Colby College was the first all-male college in New England to accept women students. One of the buildings is named after the first woman student, Mary Low, who was the valedictorian of her class.

The original campus was located closer to the town but outgrew it. The city of Waterville eventually deeded some land near the outskirts of the city to the college where the current college campus stands.

[edit] Academics

Colby is a highly selective, private academic institution and is consistently ranked among the top 20 liberal arts colleges in the country by U.S. News & World Report. In 2006, Colby was ranked 20th. Colby was named one of the "25 New Elite Ivies" by the Kaplan College Guide.

Major options include: African-American Studies, American Studies, Anthropology, Art, Biology, Chemistry, Classics, Computer Science, East Asian Studies, Economics, English, Environmental Studies, Environmental Science, French Studies, Geology, Geoscience, German Studies, Government, History, International Studies, Latin American Studies, Mathematics, Music, Philosophy, Physics, Psychology, Religious Studies, Russian Language and Culture, Science, Technology, and Society, Sociology, Spanish, Theater and Dance, and Women's Gender and Sexuality Studies. Administrative Science and Italian Studies are offered as minors.

Students choose from over 500 courses in 53 major fields and have wide flexibility in designing independent study programs, electing special majors, and participating in internships and exchange programs. Historically, Colby has valued understanding of and concern for others, diversity of thought and culture, open access to campus groups and organizations, and personal and academic honesty.

[edit] Libraries

Colby’s libraries—Miller Library, the Bixler (Art and Music) Library, and the Olin (Science) Library—have a rich collection of more than 900,000 books, journals, microfilms, music scores, sound recordings, videos/DVDs, and manuscripts. They provide access to more than 100 Internet databases and more than 6,500 electronic journals. Computer labs, wireless networks, laptops, study areas, and a listening center are available for student use. Miller Library stands at the center of campus and houses the humanities and social science collections, the College archives, and Special Collections. Miller also contains a computer cluster and study areas that are open around the clock, and it is equipped with wireless Internet access. The Art and Music Library, in the Bixler Art and Music Center, features an extensive collection of art and music books, journals, sound recordings, music scores, a computer lab/listening center, and study spaces. Internet ports and wireless access are provided. The Science Library, in the F.W. Olin Science Center, houses books, journals, videos, and topographic maps that support programs in the natural sciences, computer science, and mathematics. Study areas with Internet access are available.

An open-stack system allows easy access to more than 900,000 items, and the online catalog and the library’s electronic indexes and Internet files are available on library workstations and computers campus-wide. The collection strongly supports all curriculum areas and contains more than 1,300 currently received print journals and another 8,500 electronic journals, many long runs of retrospective periodicals, and domestic and international daily newspapers. The Colby libraries are a repository for U.S. and Maine state documents.

As a member of both the Colby-Bates-Bowdoin consortium of libraries and Maine Info Net, Colby provides access to a merged catalog of more than six million items and daily courier service from libraries in Maine. A new consortium, NExpress, comprising Colby, Bates, Bowdoin, Northeastern, Wellesley, and Williams, provides additional access to research materials. Reference librarians and interlibrary loan staff help researchers identify and obtain additional resources. Ten professional librarians provide research assistance to students, faculty, and outside researchers. Instruction in the use of the library and its research materials is offered throughout the curriculum, from an introduction in beginning English classes to in-depth subject searching using sophisticated tools in upper-level classes.

Miller Library’s special collections of first editions and manuscripts have achieved international recognition. The Edwin Arlington Robinson Memorial Room, named for the Pulitzer Prize-winning Maine poet, contains his books, manuscripts, letters, and memorabilia. Colby’s Thomas Hardy Collection is one of the most extensive in the country. Other authors represented in the Robinson Room include A.E. Housman, Sarah Orne Jewett, Kenneth Roberts, Henry James, Willa Cather, John Masefield, William Dean Howells, and Thomas Mann.

The John and Catherine Healy Memorial Room contains the James Augustine Healy Collection of Modern Irish Literature, with inscribed copies, manuscripts, and holograph letters of William Butler Yeats, Sean O’Casey, James Joyce, George Bernard Shaw, and others. The Healy Collection has 7,000 primary and critical sources representing the Irish Literary Renaissance, 1880-1940. The Alfred King Chapman Room houses the College archives, which hold more than 4,000 manuscript files pertaining to Colby alumni, faculty, and staff dating from 1813 to the present. The archives include an extensive collection of books by Colby graduates and faculty members.

[edit] Fraternities

Sigma Kappa sorority was founded at Colby in 1874 by the college's first five female students. With the abolition of fraternities at Colby, it is unlikely that the Colby chapters, Alpha, Beta and Gamma, will ever be resurrected.

In 1984, following an investigation of campus life commissioned by the Board of Trustees, a decision was made to withdraw recognition from Colby’s fraternities as they were seen to be "exclusionary by nature". The day that fraternity and sorority decision was announced happened to fall on a Sunday and was known as "Bloody Sunday" by many on the campus at the time. The fraternity decision opened up housing throughout the campus to all students on an equal basis, and it created opportunities for students to play a significant role in governance at Colby. The transition to having no fraternities took more than four years as many of the fraternities focused around sports continued to add new members and go "underground." The fraternities were finally dissolved when one of the them was caught hazing pledges in an off-campus house by the Maine State Police. Student-faculty collaboration has long been an important part of the culture, and programs to enhance those relationships were instituted.

[edit] Student body

Today Colby’s 1,870 students, evenly divided between men and women, come from virtually every state and about 70 foreign countries. In 2005, Colby was presented the Senator Paul Simon Award for Campus Internationalization. The College is a leader in environmental awareness and has won environmental awards for its commitment to sustainable practices on campus, including an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Environmental Merit Award for 2003 and two Maine Governor’s Awards for Environmental Excellence, in 2002 and 2004.

Students have also participated in humanitarian projects to reduce the malaria problem in the Republic of Sierra Leone. ^[1]

However, Colby students remain primarily a homogeneous group with an 83% White, non-Hispanic student body and 49.5% of all students hailing from New England.^[2]

Alumni, now numbering more than 23,000, are represented in all 50 states and 75 foreign countries. Alumni remain engaged with the College through alumni programs, affinity groups, and a directory and related services online, all offered by the Office of Alumni Relations.

[edit] Student life on campus

While studies do take up a significant portion of the student's time, the college has made a great effort to encourage free events on campus, specifically through the creation in 2003 of a Student Programming Board (SPB). This student-run organization sponsors multiple programs every week ranging from dances to special lectures to bingo nights to large scale live performances. In the past, SPB has brought such acts as Jurassic 5, Citizen Cope, Blackalicious, Ben Folds, Ben Kweller, OK Go, Dane Cook, Talib Kweli, Matisyahu, State Radio and Lupe Fiasco. In addition to SPBs programming, numerous clubs on campus will often put on all-school events.

Colby College has also received recent press resulting from their beer and wine offerings in the dining hall. For a relatively inexpensive cost, students may consume up to two beverages during their meal.

Colby's student newspaper, The Colby Echo, has been published since 1877. The paper distributes 1600 papers weekly in academic buildings, dining halls and throughout Waterville. Colby's radio station, WMHB Waterville 89.7 FM, has been on air since March 1949. WMHB broadcasts new and diverse programming to central Maine and around the world. Colby also has a large a cappella scene. There are six groups on campus: The Blue Lights (Men), The Colby Eight (Men), The Megalomaniacs (Co-ed), The Sirens (Female), The Colbyettes (Female), and EVE (Female).

The Colby College Museum of Art has a number of collections covering a variety of different styles of paintings, sculpture, and folk art. The Museum is also notable for housing the largest collection of works by American painter Alex Katz in any single collection. There is no admission charge.

[edit] Colby Outdoor Orientation Trips (COOT)

In 1975, Colby instituted their first outdoor orientation trip. From 15 first-year students, 2 upperclassmen and a professor on the first trip, the program has grown to include approximately 98% of incoming classes participating in a COOT. The program now offers 52 trips in the fall semester and an ICED COOT program for those students who spend the first semester of their freshman year abroad. Destinations for Fall semester trips include hiking trips Acadia National Park, Mount Katahdin and other locations around Maine, canoe trips on the Kennebec and Moose Rivers, along with other trips around the state. The various trips are designed to appeal to incoming students with a variety of interests and fitness levels.

The focus of COOT is not meant to be the outdoors, but the growth of a group that assists each other with the transition to campus. COOT leaders are chosen from upperclass students and are expected to help the students both during and after the trip with the adjustment to campus life.

[edit] Alma Mater

Colby's Alma Mater is "Hail, Colby, Hail". The lyrics to the song were written by Karl R. Kennison from the class of 1906 and it is sung to the tune of "O Canada".

Hail, Colby, Hail!

Thy people far and near

Stand at thy call,

our alma mater dear.

Thy shaded paths recall our steps

to gather at thy shrine.

Thy memoried halls reclaim our hearts

'til all our thoughts are thine.

Hail, Colby, Hail!

To thee we lift our hearts and homage pay!

Our Alma Mater, Hail the Blue and Gray!

[edit] Historical timeline

1813—the Massachusetts Legislature grants a charter to the Maine Literary and Theological Institution as a Baptist college
1818—Rev. Jeremiah Chaplin is selected by the Board of Trustees as the College's first president, classes are first taught in Chaplin's home starting in the fall
1821—the Maine Legislature empowers the Institution to grant degrees and its name is changed to Waterville College
1822—George Dana Boardman becomes Colby's first graduate
1825—theological department discontinued^[3]
1832—planting of the Boardman Willows
1833—Rev. Rufus Babcock becomes Colby's second president
1867—name of the college changed to Colby College to honor its benefactor Gardner Colby
1869—dedication of Memorial Hall, the first Civil War memorial erected on a college campus, to honor Colby men who died in the war
1871—becomes coeducational^[3]
1874—Sigma Kappa Sorority is founded by Colby's first five female students
1875—Mary Caffrey Low becomes Colby's first female graduate; she was the valedictorian of her class
1923—the White Mule becomes Colby's mascot as the result of an editorial written by Joseph Coburn Smith in the student newspaper, The Echo
1937—groundbreaking for the new campus located on Mayflower Hill
1951—the last class takes place on the old campus in Coburn Hall
2007—Lunder art collection valued at $100 million donated by Paula and Peter Lunder

[edit] Notable alumni & staff

See also: List of Colby College people

Many notable individuals have been affiliated with Colby College, including: General Benjamin F. Butler (1838), TV personality Billy Bush (1994), Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin (1964), abolitionist Elijah P. Lovejoy (1826), and Senator Margaret Chase Smith (1943).

[edit] Endowment

Colby College has an endowment of US$ 598,729,000 as of June 30, 2007. ^[4]

[edit] Points of interest

Gravity Research Foundation monument
Perkins Arboretum, Waterville
Colby College Museum of Art
Miller Library, located on a scenic vista at the top of Mayflower Hill with a viewpoint in excess of 10 miles.

[edit] Colby in popular culture

Featured in an episode of the HBO series The Sopranos, although the actual episode was filmed at Drew University.
Appeared in the opening scenes of the 1997 movie The Myth of Fingerprints
Birthplace of the popular drinking game, Beer Die.

[edit] Further reading

Fotiades, Anestes. Colby College 1813-1963: A Venture of Faith (1994)
Marriner, Ernest Cummings. The History of Colby College (1962)
Marriner, Ernest Cummings. The Man of Mayflower Hill: A Biography of Franklin W. Johnson (1967)
Marriner, Ernest Cummings. The Strider Years (1980)
Smith, Earl. Mayflower Hill: A History of Colby College (2006)
Soule, Bertha Louise. Colby's Roman, Julian Daniel Taylor (1938)
Soule, Bertha Louise. Colby's President Roberts (1943)
Whittemore, Edwin Carey. The History of Colby College (1927)

[edit] External links

[edit] References

^ http://kennebecjournal.mainetoday.com/news/local/3411334.html
^ http://www.colby.edu/admissions_cs/about/stats.cfm
^ ^a ^b Maine League of Historical Societies and Museums (1970). in Doris A. Isaacson: Maine: A Guide 'Down East'. Rockland, Me: Courier-Gazette, Inc., 226-227.
^ http://www.colby.edu/campaign/endowment/index.cfm

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v • d • e Universities & Colleges in Maine
Private	Bangor Theological Seminary • Bates College • Beal College • Bowdoin College • Colby College • College of the Atlantic • Husson College • Maine College of Art • Saint Joseph's College • Thomas College • Unity College • University of New England
Public	Maine Maritime Academy • University of Maine • University of Maine at Augusta • University of Maine at Farmington • University of Maine at Fort Kent • University of Maine at Machias • University of Maine at Presque Isle • University of Southern Maine
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