Using Colby trustees, overseers and trustees emeriti as a sample population of all Colby alumni, President William Cotter and Alisa Masson '95 recently conducted a study to determine whether academic and extracurricular success in high school and at Colby were valid predictors of "success" later in life. Might their success in college be measured to discover whether future Colby students have similar promise?

"At Colby we are fairly satisfied that we know what characteristics in applicants will translate into a successful Colby student and who will contribute to a dynamic campus life," Cotter said. "But what about success after college? Do high school patterns predict lifetime success? Are there significant patterns of college activity and behavior that foretell postgraduate success?"

One of the most striking findings of the survey, which received 86 completed responses out of 96 mailed questionnaires, was that the average GPA of the respondents (2.55) paralleled the average GPA for all students. Considering the phenomenon of grade inflation, according to Cotter, there was little variance between the average GPAs regardless of era. The survey also revealed that there is no particular formula for success at Colby. "The most profound conclusion of this study is the lack of any significant pattern in the background of these successful Colby alumni," Cotter and Masson concluded. "Indeed, the great variety of their experiences reinforces the general confidence in the liberal arts philosophy of the College, that each student can find and fulfill her or his unique potential in a multitude of disciplines and extracurricular opportunities."

Among the findings:
* Many of the respondents were first-generation college students. Fifteen percent of the respondents' grandfathers and 9 percent of their grandmothers had attended college. Twenty-five percent of the respondents' fathers and 24 percent of the mothers had attended college. Masson noted that, by comparison, 91 percent of the fathers and 90 percent of the mothers of the Class of 1998 had college educations and nearly half had gone to graduate school.

* Two-thirds of the mothers of the respondents were housewives, although significant numbers were teachers, businesswomen and other professionals. Among the fathers, 64 percent were in business, 17 percent were doctors or lawyers.

* More than 70 percent of the respondents had attended public high school; nearly three-fourths were very active in high school extracurricular activities, including nearly a third who led student government offices. More than two-thirds had won academic awards in high school and about half took honors classes.

* The average verbal SAT among the respondents was 589 and the average math score was 577.

* The respondents in the survey majored in 15 areas while at Colby, although nearly 70 percent were concentrated in five majors--administrative science, economics, English, history and government.

* One-third received financial aid; more than half worked during college. The respondents were very involved with extracurricular activities at college, although not quite as extensively as at high school.

* Nearly one-half had won some kind of academic award, 20 percent had been presidents of fraternities and sororities and 10 percent had been varsity team captains.

* Twelve percent had studied abroad, 24 percent had participated in independent studies.

"One of the most heartening findings of the survey was that when asked to name one or more professors who had a particularly strong positive influence on them, the respondents listed 82 different individuals," Cotter said. "Thirty-eight faculty were listed more than once."

That list included Charles Bassett, Mark Benbow, Cliff Berschneider, Kingsley Birge, Archille Biron, Joe Bishop, Seelye Bixler, Pat Brancaccio, Walter Breckenridge, David Bridgman, Alfred Chapman, Webster Chester, Edward Colgan, Alice and Ermanno Comparetti, Galen Eustis, Paul Fullam, Hank Gemery, Jim Gillespie, Jan Hogendorn, Don Koons, Mike Loebs, Tom Longstaff, Al Mavrinac, Bill Miller, Paul Perez, Bob Pullen, Hal Raymond, Peter Ré, Bob Reuman, Gordon Smith, Robert Strider, Gus Todrank, Lester Weeks, Peter Wester-velt, William Wilkinson, Ralph "Roney" Williams and Walter Zukowski.

Almost two-thirds of the respondents obtained advanced degrees. High GPAs obtained as undergraduates were an important factor for those who entered Ph.D programs and, to a lesser extent, for those who went to medical school. However, those who attended law or business schools had GPAs that were essentially the average for the entire group.

High GPAs were not a predictor of financial success among the survey group. The average GPA of those who have made capital gifts of at least $100,000 to Colby was 2.52. Of that group, 56 percent either were economics or administrative science/business majors, 44 percent earned M.B.A.'s or law degrees.

"Given that many of the respondents were first-generation college students, it seems clear that strong work ethics and leadership capabilities are characteristics shared by many of the people in our survey," Cotter said.

Cotter says the opportunity to collaborate on the project with a student made it particularly meaningful. "Alisa did a wonderful job," he said. "She was responsible for hours of data collection and analysis. She made the project a success."

It has been an eclectic summer at the Colby Museum of Art. Exhibitions ranging from Oriental rugs to cowboy boots were featured at the museum be-tween June and September.

Concurrent exhibitions in June included "City, Village and Encampment: Oriental Rugs in Context" and "Winslow Homer: Wood Engravings Portray America, 1857-1874." The exhibit of weaving featured 70 Oriental carpets and other utilitarian items from the Near East. Rugs, saddlebags, salt bags, camel trappings and tent decorations, including many one-of-a-kind masterworks, were shown.

Winslow Homer prints donated by Colby alumnus Lee Fernandez '55 and Patricia Davidson Reef of Falmouth, Maine, made up an exhibition depicting American 19th-century life. Fernandez, who served as guest curator, mounted the exhibition to coincide with his 40th class reunion at Colby. It featured 114 wood engravings from the museum's permanent collection.

Beginning on August 2 the museum showcased more than 40 pair of Western-style boots from all over the United States in "Sole of the West: The Art and History of Cowboy Boots." Organized by Sheila Kollasch, curator of the Desert Caballeros West-ern Museum in Arizona, the exhibit showed the inlay and overlay, precision stitching and hand tooling produced by third- and fourth-generation boot makers.

From August 9 and continuing until October 25 the museum is featuring an exhibition of photographs by William Wegman, best known for photographing Weimaraner dogs dressed, for instance, as characters in Sleeping Beauty. The show, titled "Mainely Wegmans," also features quilts produced by Wegman's sister, Pam Wegman.

Ludy '21 and Pacy Levine '27 have shared a lot of meals at Colby College, perhaps none leavened with as much laughter and goodwill as the dinner in Roberts Union on Saturday, May 27. The Levine brothers, whose pride in and generosity toward Colby are legendary, got back from the College a healthy portion of gratitude at the traditional dinner for honorary degree recipients on the eve of Commencement.

While the Levines and Commencement speaker Henry Louis Gates Jr. addressed separate dinners downstairs in Roberts, Judith Magyar Isaacson spoke to dinner guests who gathered on the second floor in her honor. Isaacson is an author and a former mathematics lecturer and dean of students at Bates College. A native of Hungary, she is a survivor of the Auschwitz and Hessisch Lichtenau concentration camps. Seed of Sarah, her 1990 memoir, tells of her experiences under German imprisonment and as a displaced person in post-war Europe. But at her dinner she asked to honor the happiness of the occasion by speaking about anything except the Holocaust.

"When I was appointed dean at Bates, Jewish alumni said they couldn't believe it, and they predicted I would have trouble," she said. "I never had any trouble for being a Jew, but as a woman--as a woman dean of students in charge of men--try to sell that to security," she said. "I thought I would last a year and make so many changes I'd be fired, but I lasted eight years and only quit to write the book."

Downstairs, Gates visited all the tables, where he was introduced by John D. MacArthur Associate Professor of Anthropology and Sociology Cheryl Townsend Gilkes. After dinner he read passages from the introduction to his memoir, Colored People, which began as a letter to his daughter explaining why his family's origins are important to him. There is for all groups, he said, a private culture and a public culture. "African-American literature is written with an imaginary white racist on your shoulder. You are always wondering `What will white racists think of this?' It's a way of keeping people from bucking the norm." Colored People bucks that norm by describing the private culture of Gates' youth in rural West Virginia in the 1950s and '60s. "I wrote about my norm, my culture and myself with honesty. I thought we could afford this, and that's what I did," Gates said.

Introducing the Levines, President William Cotter got a laugh when he said, "When I first came to Colby, they were very young." Ludy, now 96, and Pacy, 90, work daily at the clothing store their father founded on Main Street in Waterville. They remain fixtures in the press box and along the sidelines at football games and other College athletic events.

Recalling when the Alumni Office first wanted to buy computers to keep alumni records, Cotter said he was skeptical: "I had talked to Ludy and Pacy, and they knew everything." On a more serious note, he told dinner guests, and the Commencement convocation the following day, that many students could not have attended Colby without the Levines' support. Their extraordinary generosity to the College, to scholarships and to students who may have needed a good shirt on credit has benefited generations of Colby students.

L. Sandy Maisel, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Government, said he has long thought it right that Colby should honor its distinguished alumni. "And we have no better examples than Ludy and Pacy," he added.

Pacy, speaking for himself and Ludy and the extended Levine family that includes 42 Colby alumni, called the honorary doctorates "treasured honors," and said, "We've reached the highest plateau of the improbable dream. We thank you for the biggest honor that can be bestowed upon us."

During a Spotlight lecture April 27, Doris Kearns Goodwin '64 delighted an overflow crowd in the Page Commons Room with colorful anecdotes and insightful commentary about life inside the Roosevelt White House and the Johnson Administration. Goodwin's appearance came just days after the announcement that she had won the 1995 Pulitzer Prize for History for her book No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt:The American Home Front During World War II.

Goodwin, whose earlier book Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream drew heavily from her own experience working with Johnson, described a man consumed by ambition and driven by a desire for immortality. She said visitors to Johnson's Texas ranch were rewarded with gifts bearing LBJ's likeness or name, and each succeeding visit produced a larger, and in Johnson's mind, more desirable, LBJ souvenir. It's a charming story, but, Goodwin said, it revealed something about the man who "willed himself to die" in the last years of his life because he was no longer powerful and in control of events.

Goodwin used the major portion of the lecture to describe the lives of Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, a couple she said most historians now agree formed the most effective president/first lady team in U.S. history. The Roosevelt White House was inhabited by a cast of interesting, enigmatic characters, according to Goodwin. Because polio inhibited his physical activity, she said, the president surrounded himself with people he enjoyed talking to, and conversation provided one of his few outlets for relaxation. Despite his physical limitations, Roosevelt energized and passed his strength of character to the nation, she said, even as his own body was deteriorating.

Meanwhile, Eleanor traversed the country working with various disenfranchised segments of society to improve working conditions and opportunities for the poor. Her efforts in promoting social justice were years ahead of her time and inspired President Roosevelt to even greater heights, Goodwin said.

Departing students have left behind many interesting items in the past, ranging from pet lizards to old sofas, but until this year nobody had discarded an automobile. In what Director of Security John Frechette said appeared to be a "mercy killing," an aged Nissan Pulsar was discovered partially submerged in Johnson Pond by security personnel at dawn on Commencement morning. Only the front tires were in the water, Frechette said, and the car was easily removed.

Frechette said that the car was deliberately driven into the water. "The keys were in it," he explained.

Attempts to contact the owner of the vehicle were unsuccessful, Frechette says. Police have impounded the vehicle.

Traffic Stopper Post-cold war dismantling of police states has brought about the rise of democracies but also has created opportunities for international trafficking organizations, said Robert Gelbard '64, a law enforcement advisor to Attorney General Janet Reno. Gelbard, who was a member of the Peace Corps in Bolivia in the 1960s and U.S. ambassador to Bolivia from 1988 to 1991, told an audience at the College last April that the narcotics and crime threats to our society should be treated not as internal but as foreign policy issues. "These are truly multinational organizations," Gelbard said. Traffickers launder money in unregulated banking and financial systems and buy newspapers and radio stations to promote the myth that international trafficking is beneficial at home. According to Gelbard, one Latin American car theft ring--about 50 percent of the cars in Belize were stolen in the U.S.--ends up costing the U.S. hundreds of millions of dollars each year. Trafficking organizations must be attacked at the source, he said. A good law enforcement infrastructure in any country will pay immediate dividends, said Gelbard, an architect of U.S. policy in Haiti.

Denney Joins Dean's Office Martha Denney, recently the coordinator of the Drew University London Semester, has been named assistant dean of students. Denney, who grew up near Hamilton College where her father was on the faculty, is a summa cum laude Hamilton graduate. She holds an Ed.M. from Harvard and an M.A. in anthropology from Brandeis. She has previously served as an English as a Second Language tutor at Brandeis and at the American Institute for Foreign Study in Boston.

New Hoop Coach Hired Patricia O'Brien of Nashua, N.H., will be Colby's coach of women's basketball. O'Brien, who will assist in other sports in addition to her basketball job, has been at Rivier College since 1992. Last year, her team posted a 17-8 record. She holds B.S. and M.Ed. degrees from Salem State where she earned All-American honors as a player.

SIDEWALK TALK Just days before she was scheduled to appear as a Spotlight lec-turer at Colby, Doris Kearns Goodwin '64, became the fourth Colbian in five years to win a Pulitzer Prize. Goodwin follows 1994 fiction winner E. Annie Proulx '57, Robert Capers '71, who won in 1992 for journalism, and Gregory White Smith '73, who won the prize for biography in 1991.