Colby Magazine Volume 110 Issue 1
Dare Northward
A community that thinks big, sets high standards, and works hard to achieve them. That’s what we do here at Colby, where anything is possible.
Dare Northward
A community that thinks big, sets high standards, and works hard to achieve them. That’s what we do here at Colby, where anything is possible.
Below: Members of the Class of 2023 toss their mortarboards during Colby’s 202nd Commencement.
From the Editor
Colby has invested mightily on campus and in downtown Waterville, in part through its Dare Northward capital campaign.
Our goal with the current Colby Magazine is to tell stories about the human side of those investments. We interviewed and photographed students, faculty members, staff, and Colby’s community partners for their perspectives on what the changes mean now and in the future.
In our story about downtown Waterville, we hear from students who reside in the Bill & Joan Alfond Main Street Commons, where community service and giving back are incumbent on living downtown.
Contents
Spring 2023
The Paul J. Schupf Art Center in downtown Waterville serves as a bridge between the city’s past, present, and future.
The Harold Alfond Athletics and Recreation Center has transformed athletics and recreation programs with its modern facilities, including the state-of-the-art Aquatics Center.
William R. Cotter (shown here with his wife, Linda, in front of Cotter Union), who died in March on his 87th birthday, was Colby’s longest-tenured president.
Masthead
Jennifer Robbins ’97, chair, president,
Alumni Association
Nicholas Cade ’08, vice chair,
Alumni Association
Amy Cronin Davis ’06, chair,
Colby Fund Committee
Kerri Duffell ’97, chair, C-Club Committee
Jacob Fischer ’10, chair, Awards
and Nominating Committee
Mike Reilly ’12, chair,
DavisConnects Committee
Isadora (Izzy) Alteon ’13, Nicholas Cade ’08, Kim McDevitt ’06, and Justin Owumi ’14, members at large
Editorial Director, Colby Magazine
4350 Mayflower Hill, Waterville, ME 04901
communications@colby.edu
207-859-4353
Visit us online
magazine.colby.edu
news.colby.edu
facebook.com/colbycollege
twitter.com/colbycollege
instagram.com/colbycollege
Contributors
Elyse Catalina, Pamela Chavez, Chelsea Conaboy, Gregory A. Rec, Chuck Reece, Matt Stanley
Giovanni Aceto
Web Applications Developer
Lindsay Brayton
Assistant Director of Digital Marketing
Ashley L. Conti
Multimedia Producer
Abigail Curtis
Staff Writer
Rosalind Drisko
Chief Marketing and Communications Officer
Lauren Garrard
Director of Communications Project Management
Andrew Herrmann
Director of Digital Strategy
Bob Keyes
Editorial Director
Senior Multimedia Producer
Laura Meader
Associate Director of Communications
Arne Norris
Designer
Matt Proto
Executive Editor and Vice President and Chief Institutional Advancement Officer
Jennifer Richards
Administrative Assistant
George T. Sopko
Director of Media Relations
Gabe Souza
Director of Multimedia Services
Brandon Waltz
Senior Web Operations Manager
Downtown Colby
Photographs by Ashley L. Conti, Gregory A. Rec, and Gabe Souza
“It was a really dark, lonely part of the street,” Greene said.
Today, after nearly a decade of working in partnership with city planners and economic leaders, Colby has helped transform downtown Waterville, infusing the city with hope of a brighter economic future.
Diagnosing Autism More Precisely
Photographs by Ashley L. Conti
Illustration by Pamela Chavez
But the people working inside Colby’s new Davis Institute for Artificial Intelligence are focusing more on opportunities to use AI to improve lives. When the institute opened two years ago, thanks to a $30-million gift from the Davis family and trustee of its charitable foundation, Andrew Davis ’85, LL.D.’15, it became the first cross-disciplinary institute for AI at a liberal arts college.
An Inside Pitch
Photographs by Matt Stanley
Once inside, they walked through corridors festooned with oil portraits of baseball greats throughout the decades, wooden models of prior ballparks, stadium chairs from years past, celebratory photos and framed newspaper front pages from great wins, and other Phillies memorabilia.
They clustered against the windows in the press box and broadcast booth to take in the magisterial view of the ballfield and the Philadelphia skyline beyond. In the home dugout, they leaned against the railing, gazing over the emerald-green, impossibly manicured infield, just as professional ballplayers do.
Colby’s New Labs Address Critical Issues and Initiatives
Linde Packman Lab for Biosciences Innovation
In Support of the Academic Mission
Photograph by Ashley L. Conti
When she received support from Colby’s Haynesville Project, White, associate professor of English and Creative Writing, was able to envision the multidisciplinary piece through to its finished form. “I have spent a lot of time working on the project over the years. I would set it aside, but it wouldn’t let me go. When I learned I had become a Haynesville Project Fellow, I decided that I was going to put my funding toward finishing the production,” said White, who will stage her piece in spring 2025 at the soon-to-open Gordon Center for Creative and Performing Arts.
A Building for Everybody
Photographs by Ashley L. Conti and Gabe Souza
A Building for Everybody
Photographs by Ashley L. Conti and Gabe Souza
Above all, the 354,000-square-foot athletics and recreation center offered space—lots and lots of well-ventilated space.
It became a place to decompress from uncertainty and stress, and where people could act and feel human. The training staff arranged hundreds of pieces of fitness and cardio equipment 20 feet apart throughout the building, including around the ice rink and alongside the pool.
Robust Financial Aid Program is Key to the College’s Mission
Photograph by Gabe Souza
Colby is one of the few colleges and universities in the country that meets 100 percent of demonstrated need and does not include student loans in its financial aid packages, providing students with the opportunity to graduate without student loan debt.
“That my family has the security, knowing that I am engaging and enriching my education and my opportunities in life without this big looming bill of debt over us, is a weight off of my shoulders that I cannot even begin to explain,” said Talmadge, who is pursuing a double major in science, technology, and society and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, as well as a minor in Russian language and culture.
‘Quite a Triumph’
Photographs by Gabe Souza
But he knows it will.
Instead of working in isolation in their respective departments, faculty from many departments will work together under one very large roof, bringing new opportunities for “water-cooler conversations” about each other’s creative projects that will enable deeper, richer collaborations for students, faculty, and audiences.
Class Notes and Newsmakers
60s newsmakers
70s newsmakers
Photo: Joshua Kodis
80s newsmakers
90s newsmakers
00s newsmakers
10s newsmakers
Obituaries
Noted John Lee II ’53
Lee held onto that promise, and when Mao Communists swept across China in 1948, he escaped. When Lee, at 19, arrived at Portland’s Union Station in 1949, there to greet him was that serviceman, Colby alumnus Peter Mills ’34, retired U.S. Navy lieutenant commander and the late father of Maine’s current governor, Janet Mills.
Ret. Col. John Lee II ’53 died March 30, 2022, in Virginia Beach, Va., at 92. He became a true American patriot, earning citizenship and serving in the U.S. Army for more than 30 years.
Born in 1929 in Shanghai, Lee was a student at a Peiping (now Beijing) prep school when Mills came to give students an update on the war and the Allies’ liberation of China. Lee, fluent in both English and Mandarin Chinese, interpreted for Mills, marking the beginning of their long friendship.
William R. Cotter, Colby’s Longest-Tenured President
“Bill Cotter was undoubtedly one of the all-time great leaders for Colby, having transformed the College into a national model of excellence,” said Colby President David A. Greene. “He was fearless in his work, driven by a steady moral compass and an unshakeable belief in the power of education to improve lives and the world. He was a humanitarian at heart and in work, a trait that guided him throughout his life. And he was a teacher in both words and actions, whether it was about the U.S. judicial system, the fight for civil rights and progress, or what it means to live a good and purposeful life.”
