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  Getting More Than the Money's Worth
Colby has been described as a
big family, and this family has big expenses. The monthly electric bill for
Mayflower Hill is $83,000 on average--$1 million a year. A year's supply of
toilet tissue and paper towels runs $27,000. And when it's time to pay Bill
Gates and Microsoft for major upgrades to Microsoft Word and Excel programs
already running on campus computers, the Information Technology Services office
forks over approximately $22,000.
This year's tuition increase was the lowest (as a percentage) in 20 years, and
Colby scores high among colleges in cost-value analyses. Under President
William Cotter the College has balanced its budget 16 years in a row. Colby
staffers, particularly in the Physical Plant Department (PPD), are almost
legendary for their ability to squeeze every drop from a dollar without
sacrificing student and faculty needs.
Fiscal responsibility is almost a religion with the College's administration.
So just where does the College's $61.6 million 1995-96 budget go?
Treasurer Doug Reinhardt '71 rides herd on the big items--the increase in the
number of faculty members and correlative increases in salaries, support costs
and office and classroom space; the addition or rapid growth of offices like
Information Technology, Career Services and Off-Campus Study; and the expansion
of Athletics from a modest men's program and a women's tennis team when
Reinhardt graduated to a full men's and a full women's athletics
program.
But, says Reinhardt, the big picture is more about Colby's expectations--which
come from the top down. Cotter insists that Colby adhere to a rigorous schedule
for maintenance, repairs and replacement of worn-out materials. He helps make
sure that the details are seen to and that the campus looks and runs well.
"(Former Administrative Vice President) Stan Nicholson and I used to joke that
we ought to build a tunnel from the president's house to Eustis, because every
time he walked across campus it cost us ten thousand dollars," Reinhardt said
with a chuckle.
"Complexity and cost come in when you do anything on the scale we're doing
it," said Ray Phillips, director of information technology services. Ignore for
a moment that there was no regular budget for computers and printers 15 years
ago and consider that Phillips spent $31,000 this year for the toner cartridges
that go in the College's 80 laser printers. That despite the fact that he has
kept the number of laser printers on campus low by investing in networking and
shared access to printers. Figure that each of the 480 toner cartridges might
print 4,000 pages and you don't need the College's new supercomputer to
conclude that, electronic information technology notwithstanding, Colby uses a
lot of paper.
"If you laid all the paper Colby puts through photocopiers end to end, it
would stretch from Waterville to Omaha, Nebraska," said Ken Gagnon, director of
administrative services. That's a rough estimate, based on about 14,000 reams
or 7 million sheets each year, and it doesn't include paper that goes through
the laser printers, he says. With price increases for paper becoming front-page
news, Phillips said he already spends about $5,000 on the 1,600 reams that
students use in laser printers each year. Staff and faculty department budgets
pay for the paper they use; students aren't charged for their paper use.
Despite an ambitious reduce-reuse-recycle program (alumni relations and
development offices turn outdated stationery into notepads and use the back
side of used paper for faxes), Gagnon predicts that, "Our volume has not peaked
yet." He sees electronic information technology contributing to rather than
reducing paper use since it has increased the volume of available information
that students and faculty members find useful. People tend to browse the
Internet, find something they like, print it out and sometimes even copy it for
their colleagues, says Gagnon.
Alan Lewis, director of physical plant, acknowledges that Colby's budget for
operating and maintaining 700-plus acres and 46 buildings is more than most
Maine towns spend. "We spend about $1.3 million cleaning--on custodial
services--and about another half a million on grounds maintenance," he said.
"We spend $27,000 a year on lightbulbs and we spend $63,000 on paint."
That million-dollar annual electric bill has about doubled in the past 10
years, and it has Lewis and his colleagues investigating co-generation of
electricity in the College's new steam plant. "It's in the rates and the
utilization," he said of the electric bill run-up. "A lot of it's in the dorms.
I've been in dorm rooms where I've counted seventeen electrical
appliances--popcorn poppers, sandwich toasters, stereos, immersion heaters,
electric toothbrushes, you name it."
The paper products--$27,000 worth of toilet tissue and paper towels--tell a
story about the administration's Yankee thrift. Several years ago a paper
manufacturer installed large-roll toilet-paper holders in all College bathrooms
for free as part of an agreement to supply the paper. When Lewis and Arthur
Sawtelle, supervisor of custodial services, saw the price of the paper the
following year, they removed all the holders and put in their own so they could
shop for a better price. Sawtelle found a year's supply at Marden's Surplus &
Salvage in Waterville and got an incredible bargain. This year he anticipated
the run-up in paper prices that's now big news and bought as much as he could
store at pre-inflation prices.
Paper prices have librarians wringing their hands too. The libraries rely
increasingly on subscriptions to keep up-to-date information on the shelves.
Suanne Muehlner, director of the Colby libraries, says the College subscribes
to about 2,100 periodicals. Fifteen years ago about 30 percent of the library's
budget went for periodicals and 70 percent for books; it's now just about
reversed. "Subscription rates for individual periodicals have gone up 10 to 15
percent per year, and some titles in the sciences have doubled in a single
year," Muehlner said. In addition, the libraries pay about $60,000 a year for
access to library materials such as electronic databases, an amount that is "a
lot more than we paid for the printed material they replaced."
The bottom line is that efficiency and Yankee ingenuity serve Colby students
and faculty members well. In a recent study of the leading 19 liberal arts
colleges in the mid-Atlantic and New England states, Colby ranked at or near
the top in spending on instruction and student services and well down the list
for what it spends on "executive-level" management activities and its physical
plant. As a percentage of its overall budget for educational and general
expenditures, Colby ranked first of the 19 colleges in student services,
including athletics, counseling and career services and the financial aid
office and fourth in instruction, including faculty salaries and academic
department expenses. The same table puts Colby 14th of 19 for both
institutional support and for operation and maintenance of the physical plant,
largely thanks to the vigilance of Alan Lewis and the PPD staff.
"It's very clear," said Cotter, "that we put our dollars into faculty and
students and save money on the administrative side."
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Stages of History
Though the Performing Arts Department wasn't founded until 1984, its
roots stretch back to the earliest days of the College. Training in public
speaking was part of the curriculum; rhetoric and elocution were required
courses for every Colby student for more than 100 years.
The earliest recorded dramatic production was She Stoops to Conquer , a
benefit for "athletic interests" directed by Instructor of Elocution and
Gymnastics William Battis in 1890. Eight years later students founded the
Dramatics Society, which for the next two decades produced plays for the town
and campus communities with the help of drama coach Exerene Flood of
Waterville.
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By 1926 the Dramatics Society, under the guidance of Prof. Cecil A. Rollins
'17, had become Powder & Wig, which merged with the women's drama club, Masque,
a few years later. In 1933 Rollins began to teach a workshop that sought to
give students "training in the arts of the theater." It was a very unusual
course for its day because in the 1930s the applied arts were not yet regarded
as a legitimate area of study.
Eugene Jellison '49, Rollins's successor and theater director during the
1950s, brought a new energy and creativity to theater at Colby and laid the
groundwork for Irving Suss, generally regarded as the founder of the College's
modern theater department (see Gifts & Grants).
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Record Attendance
Among the 83 students who are children of alumni/alumnae are sisters Jennie '99
and Leslie Record '98, daughters of Duane C. Record '65, of Plattsburgh, N.Y.,
and their cousin, Emily Record '98, daughter of Ralph S. Record '66, of
Readfield, Maine.
Mule Train
Gifts & Grants | Table of Contents | Mules on the Move
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