An opportunity to view Mars during its closest approach to Earth in the last 60,000 years will be offered by Colby College and Northern Stars Planetarium on Tuesday, August 26, at Colby's Collins Observatory. The viewing will be held from 9 p.m. to midnight at the Collins Observatory, adjacent to Coombs Baseball Field on the Colby campus in Waterville. The event is open to the public and free of charge. The public is asked to park in the Harold Alfond Athletic Center parking lot, across the street from the observatory.
The Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville will hold a reception on Wednesday, August 13, for the publication of The John Marin Collection at the Colby College Museum of Art.
The book, which celebrates the 61 paintings, drawings, etchings and
photographs by Marin in the museum's collection, is being published on
the 50th anniversary year of Marin's death. The reception will include
a book signing by author Ruth E. Fine and a concert by internationally
renowned pianist Brenda Lucas-Ogdon. It is open to the public and free
of charge. Copies of The John Marin Collection ($30) will be available for purchase at the reception.
Sharon Corwin will become the first Lunder Curator of American Art at the Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, Maine, on August 1. As curator Corwin will organize exhibitions and educational programs aimed at students, faculty and community members from all disciplines. Corwin is a scholar of American art with an expertise in early American modernism and a deep interest in contemporary movements.
On Thursday, July 17, and Friday, July 18, at 7:30 p.m. participants in the 25th annual Piano Institute at Colby summer workshop will perform a concert in Colby's Lorimer Chapel on the Waterville campus. The Piano Institute at Colby is a two-week program of intensive study that includes master classes and private lessons, with emphasis on technique, interpretation and repertoire. The participant concerts, part of a series of events celebrating the institute's 25th anniversary, are open to the public and free of charge.
A series of string quartet concerts will be held July 29 through
August 9 at Colby College in Waterville. Two formal concerts by the
Portland String Quartet are scheduled for July 29 and August 5; two
performances by participants in the 28th annual Portland String Quartet
Workshop at Colby will be presented August 9.
The Colby College Museum of Art will be closed until Wednesday, July 9. Installation of "Cherished Possessions: A New England Legacy," an exhibit of treasures from the Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, is underway. It is one of the most ambitious exhibitions in the museum's history, and professionals from SPNEA and the museum are busy preparing for the July 16 grand opening of that show.
In celebration of the Piano Institute at Colby's 25th anniversary in July, the institute will present a concert by acclaimed pianist and institute founder Anthony di Bonaventura, a concert by recognized alumni of the institute and a lecture by Boston Globe music critic Richard Dyer.
The Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities (SPNEA)'s
renowned collection of fine and decorative arts is on view for the
general public with the national tour of Cherished Possessions: A New England Legacy,
now at the Colby College Museum of Art in Maine. Since 1910 SPNEA has
compiled the largest collection of New England antiquities from the
17th century onward. The Colby College Museum of Art is the only New
England venue on the exhibition's national tour.
More than 1,500 Colby graduates from the 1920s to the 1990s will participate in the college's 2003 Reunion Weekend from Friday, June 6, through Sunday, June 8. Saturday, June 7, at 11 a.m. alumni will march in the parade of classes. The following reunion events on Saturday are open to the public free of charge:
Less than a month after announcing plans for an ambitious expansion of its campus, Colby College in Waterville, Maine, has received a $6-million gift for one key academic building in the new campus district.
"I want to thank Evan for that special time with his ferret," said William D. Adams, president of Colby College, during Colby's 182nd commencement exercises in Waterville Sunday morning. Adams not only babysat "Moose" the ferret while Class Speaker Evan McGee gave his speech, the president had to catch the wayward critter when it escaped on stage while the physics and computer science major from Edmonds, Wash., was talking.
Thank you President Adams. No one could follow a speech by Evan McGee. I've never had ferrets as a prop before, but happy birthday Mrs. McGee. I am honored to be here today with the other honorary members of the Class of 2003 and it is nice to become a Colby alumna because I've had connections with the College over the years through the English Department.
Helen Vendler, the A. Kingsley Porter University Professor at Harvard and a world-renowned scholar of poetry written in English, will be the commencement speaker at Colby College in Maine on Sunday, May 25. The ceremony begins at 10 a.m. on the lawn in front of Miller Library and the public is invited. Vendler will address more than 500 members of Colby's Class of 2003, their families, the faculty and guests.
Colby College has become a partner in a region-wide program to reduce the emissions that cause global warming. The College joins more than 60 colleges, universities, communities and corporations in the Northeast working with Clean Air-Cool Planet, the region's leading nonprofit in seeking solutions to global warming. The announcement came at Clean Air-Cool Planet's Climate Solutions for the Northeast conference in Hartford, Conn., on Monday.
Nikky-Guninder Kaur Singh will deliver this year's baccalaureate address at the University of Southern California on May 15 in Bovard Auditorium in Los Angeles. Singh was named the Crawford Family Professor of Religion at Colby College in Waterville, Maine, beginning in the 2002-03 academic year and is chair of the religious studies department at Colby. She is an internationally recognized author and authority on Sikhism, feminist issues and poetics of the Sikh Gurus.
With plans to build four new buildings over the next 10 years, all of them across Mayflower Hill Drive from the existing academic quadrangle, Colby College will launch an expansive earthmoving and landscaping project later this year on the east side of its 714-acre campus in Waterville. Colby's Board of Trustees approved spending $6.2 million on the first phase of an ambitious plan to extend the campus, with the centerpiece of the new district to be called the Colby Green.
More than 200 Colby College students, staff, faculty and family volunteers are expected to participate in the seventh annual Colby Cares Day, which will take place in the greater Waterville area on Saturday, May 3, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The event is sponsored by the Colby Volunteer Center, which coordinates student volunteer activities throughout the year.
This year students in Colby College's computer science department have been working on projects in robotics, virtual worlds, interactive art, machine learning and bioinformatics. To show off some of this work, the department will hold a computer science festival from 3 to 5 p.m. on Tuesday, May 6, on the fourth floor of Mudd Building on the Waterville campus. The festival is open to the public and refreshments will be served.
Colby College's 2002-03 Visiting Writers Series will hold three readings this spring on the Waterville campus. Each program will begin at 7 p.m. and is open to the public free of charge. A book signing by the author will follow each of the readings. The Visiting Writers Series is sponsored by Colby's creative writing program.
