Dasan Thamattoor, assistant professor of chemistry, emphasizes a point during a class in F.W. Olin Science Center. The College has identified academic excellence as the hallmark of Colby's new strategic plan.

By Stephen Collins '74

It was 10 p.m. in mid-October in the Jetté Gallery of the art museum. Members of Colby's Overseers had long ago pushed back from dinner tables to hear President William D. Adams talk about the Strategic Plan for Colby, still a work in progress. But Adams had finished his overview of the plan an hour ago.

Then he started listening. As 10 o'clock approached he was bent over the podium, intently scribbling notes as overseers-alumni and Colby parents who have stayed closely connected with the College-tossed out ideas, questioned particulars in a working draft of the plan and even suggested it might be too detailed and ambitious. "There's a tremendous amount of substance in this plan," said Overseer Peter Lunder '56. "How do you boil that down to a message that's understandable and tangible?"

Looking up from his notes, Adams replied: "Academic excellence is the key to this whole picture."

When Adams arrived as Colby's 19th president, he said he would spend significant time listening. Now, more than a year into his administration and as the most ambitious and detailed long-range planning effort in the College's history approaches a conclusion, the Colby community has a better idea of what he meant.

Jim Crawford '64, chair of the Board of Trustees, had introduced Adams after the dinner and described the plan as an effort to answer the questions "What is Colby now? What does Colby want to be? How do we get there? How do we measure results?"

At the time of the October meeting the working draft ran to 32 pages plus appendices, and it contained plans for new academic initiatives, enhancements in student life and diversity and plans for future campus growth as well as initiatives to strengthen admissions recruiting and the College's financial strength. While the point of the exercise is to guide Colby during the next 10 years or more, a few pieces in the plan have already been launched, changes in career services and participation in the Posse program to increase diversity, for example.

The strategic planning process that Adams brought to Mayflower Hill is extraordinary in its inclusiveness, its thoroughness and its deliberation. A 17-member President's Planning Group has spent weekly or bi-weekly three-hour dinner meetings for more than a year examining virtually all Colby programs and operations. The senior administrators have seen those time demands multiplied several times over as they prepared financial models, action plans and multiple scenarios for consideration by the planning group, to which they belong.

"In terms of its impact on the future of Colby, there's been nothing to rival this strategic plan since the College moved from downtown to Mayflower Hill," said Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Janice Kassman.

Faculty members publicly voiced appreciation after Adams visited academic and administrative departments to meet professors and employees and to hear concerns last year. And, in the strategic planning process in particular, there's a sense among participants that Adams not only listens, he hears.

"Anytime I had anything to say, I felt I was heard," said Associate Professor of History Elizabeth Leonard, one of two additional faculty representatives elected to the President's Planning Group after the faculty asked for and got additional seats at that table. Further, she said, "Students [in the planning group] seem to be completely comfortable speaking right up, and we've listened to them."

"The planning document reflects an enormous amount of what people have said to him [Adams]," Leonard said.

"The first meeting was a little intimidating for me, but since then I've been very comfortable," said Alexandros Aldous '02, vice president of the Student Government Association (SGA).

"They have been very receptive to everything we've had to say," said SGA President Jennifer Coughlin '02. "He [Adams] understands what's going on on the campus, and if he doesn't understand he's willing to sit down and listen."

Members of the President's Planning Group, students and faculty alike said their access to information about how the College functions has given them a clearer appreciation of the big picture. "We're getting a little reality therapy here," said Patrick Brancaccio, the John and Caroline Zacamy Professor of English, referring to the way the planning group has looked at departmental needs and desires through the cold, hard lens of College finances. "The brief that we were given was, 'how can we raise Colby up to the next level?' That's going to be very, very hard, because we're already in the highest group and our competitors have much larger endowments."

Edwin Stone '03, a student member of the planning group both years, said that access to such a wealth of detail about how the College operates has led to a unity of purpose among committee members. It helped defuse what might have been "an unbelievably politically sensitive subject," he said.

Beyond an understanding of Colby and higher-education administration, Stone says he gained valuable experience in the planning group-"an amazing amount of transferable skills, what can only be described as boardroom experience. Most colleges don't let students sit in that kind of room with access to that kind of privileged information."

The Board of Trustees will review final drafts of the Strategic Plan for Colby this spring, and details will be released in the 2002 Annual Report of the President and in Colby magazine.

"It will be good," Brancaccio said. "I think people will get behind it."