Residential Life

Colby is a residential college. Almost all students live on campus, some faculty members live in the residence halls, students regularly take professors to lunch and professors invite students to their homes for dinner. These interactions foster close relationships that pay off in academic student-faculty collaboration as well as in lifelong friendships between students and mentors.

The College's plan for residential life, Colby 360, has as its guiding principle the idea that a residential college affords students opportunities to learn and develop in all aspects of their college lives. It is driven by five learning outcomes: development of life skills; appreciation of and engagement with diversity and human difference; understanding democracy and civic responsibility; promoting wellness and healthy lifestyle choices; and leadership education for the 21st century.

 
Residence Halls
All of the residence halls are co-ed and, except for the Alfond senior apartments, all of them mix students from all four classes. Housing choices offer variety, not only in location and style but with options for chem-free halls (chosen by more than 15 percent of students) and quiet dorms. Dialogue Housing, inaugurated in 2005, permits students with a shared academic interest to incorporated it in a residence hall. Examples have included the Green House (environmental), a Spanish-language house, and a music-and-art house. Students with special dietary restrictions are eligible for the co-op, housed in Mary Low with access to a kitchen for meal preparation.

Most of Colby’s residence halls and all dining halls have been renovated in recent years. Two halls on Roberts Row, Perkins-Wilson and Pierce, renovated in 2009, received LEED gold certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.

 
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Roberts Row
Hanging out
Alfond Apartments
Hanging outside Averill
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Faculty in Residence
In a program that’s unique among Colby’s closest peers, faculty members live in many of the residence halls. The presence of professors, their partners, and even families contributes to the richness of dorm life and helps bridge academic and residential life.

Jan Plan Activities
Outside the classroom, January activities include speakers, concerts, movie marathons, and a dozen "Inspiration" programs. Morris Dees, the renowned anti- Klan activist and civil rights lawyer known for bankrupting white supremacy groups, gave a riveting talk in Cotter Union on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The "Inspirations" series features special programs on T'ai Chi, swing dance, knitting, creative cooking, the Myers-Briggs personality inventory, Latin dance, therapeutic massage, and yoga. Wellness lectures will include "Humor, A Miracle Cure" and "AIDS and People Like Us." And still, around all those events, students manage to work in skating, sledding, skiing, and snowshoeing.