From the Editor

If you have not been back to campus lately, you might do a double-take the next time you’re here. There has been a lot of construction these last few years. There’s been a lot of building activity in town, too.

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.

We take readers inside the newly opened Paul J. Schupf Art Center, and we describe how the Greene Block + Studios and the Lockwood Hotel, the city’s first new downtown hotel in a century, have transformed a part of Main Street that had become decrepit and neglected.

In another feature, we accompany students to Philadelphia for the Phillies Trek, organized and funded by DavisConnects, to explore their interests in sports management and learn about the day-to-day operation of a major-league baseball team.

We profile a rising star of the Davis Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Postdoctoral Fellow Tahiya Chowdhury, who is working to find ethical, AI-based solutions to complicated problems. We explain precisely why the Harold Alfond Athletics and Recreation Center has changed how sports and recreation are conducted at Colby and why so many students, and others, are drawn to the building.

And we tell stories about the new and always-evolving academic landscape that exists today and the students and faculty who come to Colby to open their imaginations and turn opportunities and possibilities into reality.