Keeping time
We're sorry to report the end of a fine Colby tradition with the scheduled repair of the Miller Library tower clock this summer. Even though generations of Colby students and others have become used to separate times on the four faces--and none of them correct--increasingly more outrageous discrepancies have prompted the decision to outfit the thing with precision workings. We can hope that the new stuff won't work either, but more likely we'll mourn the loss of the myriad opportunities for excuses for being late to classes and meetings. Life on Mayflower Hill will never again be the same. Next thing you know, they'll cap the spring that floods the McCann Road and spoil the ice fishing.

A bit of blackmail
Bowdoin, like Colby, was chartered by the General Court of Massachusetts but, unlike Colby, Bowdoin has never entirely separated itself from the Commonwealth. So, in order to make charter changes, the Brunswick college was at the mercy of the Massachusetts as well as the Maine legislature. Paul Matthews, a 1994 Colby grad, is an aide to Massachusetts Representative Harriett Chandler (D-Worcester), who shepherded a bill through the Boston state house to consolidate Bowdoin's Board of Trustees and Overseers. Matthews jokes that he thought of getting Chandler to hold up the bill in exchange for some kind of graft--"Namely," he said, "the kind of graft that gets boiled in a pot and dipped in melted butter."

Colby's a brick
In 1935, when architect Jens Frederick Larsen was commissioned to design the new Mayflower Hill campus, he was determined that the buildings would feature a very special brick. He wanted durability, of course, but he also wanted a color that would be softer than ordinary brick, with a more pleasing texture. The brick that most closely matched his needs was the Harvard Brick, a composition designed specifically for Harvard College and which had become a standard in the construction trade. The Morin Brick Company in Danville Junction, Maine, would have filled the order, but principals there convinced Larsen and Colby trustees to examine samples of an entirely new brick. After a winter of rigorous experimentation, Larsen pronounced the new brick superior to the Harvard one and specified it for the new campus. The Morin company, which made the new brick in its kilns in Auburn, asked permission to name the new product after Colby. More than a half-century later, the Colby Brick remains a popular standard. Larsen thought it would take 27 million of them to complete the campus. Given that the place is now twice the size of the one Larsen envisioned, it would seem a fair estimate that there now are some 50 million Maine made Colby Bricks on the Hill.

Another CASE
The Council for the Advancement & Support of Education (CASE) awarded Colby magazine a bronze medal for the on-line version of the publication. The competition had 70 college and university entries. The CASE official who announced the prize said that, "Colby is obviously doing this [on-line magazine] the right way and it shows."

Colby pride
Bruce Rueger in geology has received a grant from the Bermuda Zoological Society to support his ongoing research into the vegetation history of the island. Funding from the grant also will allow Bruce to take two Colby students with him into the field. . . . Jon Weiss, director of Colby's program in Dijon, France, was invited to give a lecture on the research he has been doing into the life and work of Irene Nemirovsky, a French writer born in Russia (1903-1942), at the University of Tours in April. . . . The Student Association honored assistant director of student activities Josh Eckel '94 with its annual staff award for his hard work on behalf of all students, especially the leaders of Stu-A. Overseer and part-time College physician Al Hume has been elected chair of the board at the Tilton School in New Hampshire. . . . Ben Jorgensen '92, director of student activities, has been given the additional title of assistant dean of students. . . . Demetra Giatas '88 has been promoted from assistant director of alumni relations to associate director.

Bedrock research
Andrew C. Flint '96 (Catonsville, Md.) has been awarded an undergraduate research grant from the Geological Society of America to support his study of the fractured bedrock aquifer in Waterville. The project involves his work as a research assistant to Assistant Professor of Geology Paul Doss with the newly installed ground water wells in the F.W. Olin Science Center.