The first-year class, 480 strong, arrived Sept. 1, coming from 35 states and including citizens of more than 30 countries. It includes Colby’s first students from Cambodia and Rwanda. (See class profile.)

Orientation has been adjusted to better emphasize academic and intellectual life and community and civic engagement. New programs titled Engaging Difference and an orientation theme of “Colby, I Am” were designed to support Director of the Pugh Center Noel James’s assertion that “Everybody who is here is Colby.” The bottom line, she said: “Showing respect to everybody” is essential to Colby’s sense of community.

Twenty-eight professors volunteered for the First Class and Introduction to the Liberal Arts sessions Sept. 2, and students visited one of 46 agencies, organizations, and farms as part of Colby Community Involvement Trips (C2IT) Sept. 3. Students and leaders headed out on three-day COOT trips Sept. 4-6. One student was evacuated due to illness, but everyone else finished the trips without incident.

Despite a jam-packed eight-day orientation schedule, “There was great turnout at all the events,” said Associate Dean of Students Barbara Moore.

Forty-four additional members of the Class of 2013 are scheduled to arrive in January, having begun their Colby experiences in Dijon, France, and Salamanca, Spain.

Upper classes returned to campus beginning Sept. 7, President Adams formally addressed the incoming class Sept. 8, and first classes were held Sept. 9.