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Colby 360: The Plan for Student Life and 360° Learning at Colby takes a two-tiered approach to student affairs. The first outlines a model for residential/cocurricular education focused on promoting specific learning outcomes. The second describes organizational and management strategies designed to ensure excellent, efficient, and sustainable oversight of the key administrative functions of the division.
The Colby College Career Center offers myriad opportunities for students to consider their aspirations and to develop the communication skills necessary to earn and pursue exciting opportunities through internships, fellowships, graduate work, and employment. The Career Center staff coaches skill building through resumé and cover-letter workshops, mock interviews, and many additional programs that give students opportunities to reflect on their unique strengths and equip them with the skills to effectively communicate their potential contribution to any organization.
Collaboration is a part of the fabric of the Colby community. Students work together in the classroom, on the field, in the residence hall, and in student government. In each of these environments students are learning the art of working together and utilizing each other’s unique strengths to realize the optimal result.
Every Colby student is assigned an Advising Dean. Advising Deans are a resource for students. They serve as advisors for the college experience, coaches through life’s challenges and uncertainties, and a support in the most difficult moments. Advising Deans partner with students to aid them in the development of their personal efficacy and self-empowerment.
Five years ago Colby started an admission’s initiative to enhance diversity within the student body through targeted recruitment efforts and enhanced multicultural support coming from the Division of Student Affairs. Today the student body is comprises more than 300 students of color, more than 200 international students, with more than 70 countries and 43 states represented in what is the most culturally diverse community Colby has ever seen. Pugh Center The Pugh Center is the physical symbol of Colby's commitment to a multicultural society. Dedicated by the College in 1996, the Pugh Center has a mission is to promote communication and understanding through lectures, concerts, performances, exhibitions, and other events to affirm cultural differences and educate the community regarding issues of multiculturalism. The Pugh Center is home to more than a dozen clubs dedicated to enhancing the dialogue around multiculturalism on campus and celebrating the differences that exist within the Colby community. Support Colby offers a wide of range of support regarding diversity and difference, with four administrative positions dedicated to supporting religious and spiritual life, gender and sexual diversity, multiculturalism, and international students. Collaboratively these positions endeavor to aid students both personally and professionally to create a fulfilling and meaningful Colby experience.
As members of the Colby community students are responsible for their own journey and experience and for contributing to the community culture and environment. Our residential communities allow for students to develop shared values and expectations that shape their residence hall experience.
Integrity and accountability are values of the Colby community. Our students each have a civic responsibility to pursue their best selves and to hold each other accountable to the values of our community. Our student government is currently spearheading a campus-wide conversation about what students expect from one another and how they hold each other accountable in pursuit of their best self.
Our students’ civic responsibility extends beyond the buildings and lawns of the College. Our students volunteer and serve the larger Waterville community through mentor programs, homeless shelter volunteerism, and countless additional projects and initiatives.
The Garrison-Foster Health Center exists to support students’ health and wellness. The Health Center has professional medical care providers available to all students, and the Counseling Center has professional counselors available. In addition the Coordinator for Drug and Alcohol Programs enhances student awareness around issues of substance abuse through individual meetings and campus-wide programming.
Colby is home to 32 varsity teams and offers 14 intramural sports and nine club sports. One in three students is a varsity athlete at Colby and more than twice that number participate in organized athletics. The Alfond Athletic Center hosts 24 strength and conditioning classes per week, complementing the 11 fitness and aerobic classes including yoga, cross-fit, others, all of which are open to the entire Colby community. The Outing Club, offering organized outdoor activities and equipment, is one of the biggest and most-active among Colby's more than 100 student clubs and organizations.
Incoming students are required to attend five seminars in their first two semesters at Colby. The intent of the wellness seminars is to encourage and assist the development of individual responsibility through programs centered on mental, emotional, social, physical, and spiritual fitness. These seminars lay an educational foundation for healthy behavior that should persist through and beyond the four-year experience.
Student Clubs and Organizations The Colby community is enriched by more than 120 student-led organizations on campus. These organizations range from the Colby Outing Club to the Quilting Club and from the radio station to Mock Trial. Each club develops its own governing procedures and structure, creating a learning laboratory incorporating student governance, leadership, and collaboration. Student organizations plan events, manage budgets, recruit members, and enliven our campus. Clubs offer great hands-on training for collaboration, team building, fiscal responsibility, and much more. Leadership Program Leadershape is a six-day intensive leadership-development program in which participants assess their leadership style, develop a vision, and learn how to develop a plan for realizing their vision. Participants also learn about general leadership theory, team building, and the value of reflection. Colby Outdoor Orientation Trips (COOT)/Community Advisors (CA) The COOT program and Hall Staff (Community Advisors) are two exceptional student leadership opportunities. CAs and COOT leaders are given the responsibility for shaping significant student experience in shaping residential communities and leading COOT trips. Both programs provide extensive training and coaching for student leaders. |
Colby students and alumni travel varied paths through their professional and personal lives.
Colby students have regular, meaningful, and active exposure to diversity and human difference in many forms. The world into which the current generation of Colby students will graduate is increasingly pluralistic and "flat". To achieve personal success in the global economy and provide effective leadership in the 21
Colby takes seriously its responsibility to prepare the next generation of knowledgeable and engaged world citizens. Democratic citizenship is more than the exercising of specific civic rights (e.g., voting). Rather, democracy is a set of ideas and principles centered on the conjunction of individual liberty and collective responsibility for the common good. Many aspects of 21
Understanding wellness and practicing healthy lifestyle choices are critical components in a balanced and well-rounded education. Colby provides opportunities for students to become informed and active participants in establishing and maintaining good personal health habits both at college and in their lives after Colby.
All Colby graduates should understand their responsibility to be leaders in the broadest sense of the term. The Colby community provides an ideal framework for students to learn about and practice leadership through workshops, community-building activities, developing social alternatives, and hall governance.