Other Areas
While academics, social life, diversity and plans for the physical campus (see sidebar) are the heart of the Strategic Plan, additional sections make the plan comprehensive. Detailed and specific strategies are included for "Strengthening the Admissions Profile," "Strategic Investment, Financial Strength, and Equilibrium," "Deepening Alumni Engagement and Support," "Communicating Colby's Strengths and Aspirations," "Waterville and the Central Maine Region," and "Timetable, Measures, and Assessment."

The plan is grounded in reality, which is to say money. "Regarding finances, I feel like I walked into a healthy place," Adams said, "but a place that remains under-endowed with respect to its aspirations and its competition."

The plan includes sophisticated projections of the financial resources of the College over time, with costs of all the strategic initiatives --new faculty positions, employee benefits, financial aid and new construction--modeled in exhaustive detail through 2013.

"We used a conservative estimate on the growth of tuition and the comprehensive fee and we wrestled with other key financial issues so that we have confidence in the financial stability and equilibrium of the College over time," Adams said. "As a part of that financial picture there is another quite ambitious fund-raising campaign imagined that will address both the new facilities envisioned in the plan and our strategic need to continue growing the endowment."

Conclusion
The Strategic Plan for Colby ends upbeat, cataloguing reasons the College community can be proud: improved measures of the capable and diverse student body that Colby attracts each year, the rich and compelling academic program, the impressive campus, striking improvements in the College's financial strength thanks in part to the generosity of alumni and friends.

"Perhaps now more than at any other time in its history," the plan concludes. "Colby has the resources, the organizational health and confidence, and the public stature to enhance substantially the quality of its educational program and to aspire to be even more prominent among the leading liberal arts colleges in the United States."

"What is this really about in the end?" Adams asked rhetorically, considering the document in his office last month. "It is about the basic excellence of the place on the one hand, and on the other hand it is about competitive aspiration and stature. I don't want the second to overwhelm the first, but it's important for Colby to be aspirational with respect to the way it's regarded within our constellation of institutions. Ultimately, by being excellent, we address the aspirational side."

Careful scrutiny reaffirmed the importance of Colby's niche in higher education, and initiatives in the Strategic Plan focus on how to enhance the overall experience of students who come to the College. "Liberal arts colleges find themselves occupying a narrower and narrower terrain in the broad spectrum of higher education," Adams said. "It's still a very important part of the terrain because we recruit a lot of very impressive students who subsequently do important things."