Happy Birthday, NYCC
by Sally Baker

An interesting year, 1896. George Burns and F. Scott Fitzgerald were born. William Jennings Bryan delivered his "Cross of Gold" speech, to which, a century later, myriad political speeches were compared unfavorably (to put it mildly). Plessy v. Ferguson made racial segregation legal under the "separate but equal" rationale. In Amherst, Emily Dickinson observed, "A light exists in spring/Not present on the year/At any other period." The Ethiopians defeated the Italian army in a war that saved the African country from colonization by Europe. Rodin sculpted a study of Balzac. The Duryea Motor Wagon, manufactured in Springfield, Mass., became America's first production automobile. Writers such as Emile Zola, Henrik Ibsen and Henry James were setting the stage for fin-de-siecle "naturalistic" literature. The first Olympic Games since the year 393 were held in Athens. The New York Times Magazine was published for the first time.
And the New York Colby Club was founded.
One hundred years later, on December 4, over 150 members of the club gathered at the Racquet and Tennis Club on Manhattan's Park Avenue to celebrate. It was, like most such Colby events across the country, primarily a chance for friends to get together and catch up on each others' news. The Colby Eight (actually, there were nine) sang; there were brief speeches from club officials and from Colby President Bill Cotter and Alumni Relations Director Susan Conant Cook '75; and College t-shirts were raffled.
The New York club, in common with other College clubs, sponsors admissions events, career development programs for current students and recent graduates and symposia for faculty and administrators, in addition to a full schedule of purely social activities such as trips to the U.S. Open tennis tournament, walking tours of the city and Colby-en-masse nights on Broadway. What sets it apart--and what gave the evening its sparkle--is the New York club's venerability. It is one of the oldest College alumni organizations in the country, and its programming has proved very appealing to New York Colbians.
From decidedly humble 1896 beginnings--a handful of members meeting occasionally--the club has grown along with the College's national reputation.
"[In the 1970s] membership was skimpy," former trustee Richard Schmaltz '62, who was president of the New York club from 1974 to 1981, wrote in the club's latest newsletter. "Colby students still tended to be from, and lived in, New England. Support from the College was limited to a sparse alumni staff on Mayflower Hill, but Sid Farr ['55] always gave us his best. Most New Yorkers thought Colby was located in New London, New Hampshire--`wasn't it a women's college?'" But as more New Yorkers attend the College and more Colby alumni choose New York as a place to work after graduation, such quaint misperceptions have disappeared. Colby's positive, national reputation has been built partly on the shoulders of alumni boosters in New York and other areas outside of New England.
In his remarks at the Manhattan celebration, Colby President Bill Cotter highlighted the unique ties that have connected the New York club to the campus since the club's founding. For instance, he said, New York club presidents included Franklin Johnson, Class of 1891, who went on to serve as president of the College from 1929-1942 and who dreamed up and oversaw Colby's move from College Avenue to Mayflower Hill. Cotter thanked and recognized current club president Diana Herrmann '80, Schmaltz and past club presidents in attendance--including Dwight Sargent '39, Helen Strauss '45 and Libby Corydon-Apicella '74--and noted that they and club presidents who weren't in attendance (such as Leonard Mayo '22, the founder of the academic field of human development) included some of the College's most prominent alumni.
Cotter said that he and his wife, Colby off-campus study associate director Linda Cotter, who lived in Manhattan and on Long Island before moving to Mayflower Hill, "still think of ourselves as New Yorkers" and have special affection for the club.
"This is one of our favorite things," Cotter said, holding up a silver loving cup. "It was found in a little-used room in the Eustis Building. It's inscribed: `To President A.J. Roberts from the New York Colby Alumni Association, 1926.'
"We've kept it, and we're taking it back," Cotter said, earning a big laugh. "But when you come to campus and we have the pleasure of having you to our house, you'll see it on a table in the living room. It means a great deal to us."