Fall 2012 Issue - Colby-Sawyer College

Letter from the Editor
Fast Forward
2 Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
While most of our
students and faculty
members were away this
summer, a big part of
the Colby-Sawyer campus
was fenced off and turned
into a busy construction
zone. In late June, the
dining hall in the Ware
Campus Center was an
empty shell. Soon after, a
crane lifted massive steel
beams into place behind
the building to frame
the two-story addition that
will be part of a larger,
light-filled dining hall and
new meeting spaces
and offices for students,
faculty and staff.
The steel frame for a 14,000-square-foot addition to the Ware
Campus Center was erected in late June.
Before moving to
temporary spaces in
Colgate Hall, the Student
Development staff
who work above the
construction site in
Photo: Greg Danilowski
Ware were joking about
the joyful sounds of jackhammers
in the morning.
Meanwhile, Dining
Services relocated its
operations to Wheeler
Hall, where Sodexo
staff served three meals
a day to hungry hordes of
scientists on campus
for the Gordon Research
Conferences that took
place all summer.
Nearby, the ground floors
of Burpee and Abbey Halls,
which housed the Windy
Hill School for more than
three decades, were being
transformed into living
spaces for the college’s
growing student body. Big
trucks rumbled by constantly
to deliver materials
and cart away rubble, while
hard-hatted construction
crews scurried around the
sites on fast forward,
laboring under a deadline
they absolutely could
not miss: The return of
students in just eight
weeks.
In a time of economic
austerity at home and
abroad, the Colby-Sawyer
community has engaged in
strategic planning,
established its priorities,
and focused intensely
on the college’s strengths
and aspirations. And after
surveying the higher
education landscape, we
saw the need, once again,
to accelerate the pace of
growth and change, albeit
in ways that sustain the
college’s core values and
identity.
In recent years, President
Tom Galligan has often
spoken of the college’s
great growth spurt in the
early 1930s, when McKean
Hall, James House,
Colby Hall, Burpee Hall
and Page Hall were built.
Even during the Great
Depression, the college
chose to invest in its
future.
Today, as economic
uncertainty has stalled
so many institutions
around the country,
Colby-Sawyer is charging
ahead, building new
dining, residential and
office spaces, and in
a few years, a spectacular
new fine and performing
arts center. We are repeating
our history—both
of necessity and to take
advantage of favorable
interest rates—and once
again investing in a clear
vision of our future.
Kimberly Swick Slover
Editor