"You will bring to Colby an exacting intelligence, great enthusiasm mixed with great stamina, generous confidence in people at their best and limited interest in them at their least, an eagerness to stretch Colby mixed with a firm respect for its traditions, and, above all, your sense that a good laugh can carry us further than any expression of worry."

"With both your father and your grandfather hailing from the Pine Tree State, there's no denying you come to us with impeccable credentials."

"President Bro Adams, Cathy Bruce–your predecessors, Bill and Linda Cotter, brought Colby into the first rank of American colleges. We can only imagine where this college will go under your leadership."

"I bring you greetings and a warm welcome from the 22,373 Colby College alumni . . . a diverse organization with representatives from all fifty states, three U.S. territories and an impressive seventy foreign countries."

"It is a moment both solemn and joyous, both excellent and fair, as the poet Emily Dickinson puts it, and like the conferral of an honorary degree, this inaugural that welcomes William D. Adams into our diverse community of scholars is for all time–irrevocable. No one else can or ever will be the nineteenth president of Colby College."

"We are grateful for the opportunity to work in a community that renews itself each year with bright, energetic young people; to be invigorated by such splendid faculty colleagues; to meld our life work with a passionate belief in the liberal arts; and to be part of a team that fervently believes in this great institution."

"I promise that your cherished pet Pedro the presidential pig will have 1,800 students guarding him with their lives from the barbecue pits of Lewiston and Brunswick."

"We are proud to be part of the many good things Colby does every year."