Fall 2012 Issue - Colby-Sawyer College

Feature
Everything is connected, and
to see that, you’ve done your
and neither do I. So why
emphasize those?”
Her favorite classes to
teach have been the
ones in which she learned.
A course on Far Eastern
history, which pushed her
to delve into Chinese and
Japanese culture and
history, remains one of the
most memorable for her.
The school’s campus
has changed significantly
since her arrival, too.
Students used to eat in
Colgate Hall, she recalls,
and there was no Sawyer
Fine Arts Center, no
Baird Center, no Ivey or
Reichhold buildings. The
campus then was charm-
ing and small, essentially
just Colgate Hall and a
circle of dorms.
Cleveland says she
misses some of the old
routines on campus.
Back when students
attended a mandatory
chapel service at First
Baptist Church on Main
Street, most of the faculty
would gather in a “butt
room” in the basement of
Colgate to have coffee,
pick up their mail, and
chat with each other.
Nowadays, most departments
have their own
administrative assistant
and coffee area. “I don’t
know the teachers in the
art department or exercise
and sport sciences
department,” Cleveland
says. “The only people
I know in the college are
the people in my own
department. It’s a shame.
You lose a collegial
atmosphere.”
Cleveland’s niece Page
Paterson led the charge
to end that mandatory
chapel requirement in the
1960s, a time of many
other significant changes
to campus culture. It
was a time of protest and
unrest at many campuses
across the nation, and
institutions were engaged
not just with issues of
Hilary Cleveland (at right) is shown with her late husband, James Cleveland, and
some of their children in their yard in 1956. James was a legislator in New Hampshire
before serving in Congress for nearly two decades, and Hilary was appointed by
President George H. W. Bush to serve on an international commission.
48 Colby-Sawyer College Magazine
national importance like
the Vietnam War, but with
the question of whether
colleges had the right to
act in loco parentis—in the
place of a parent.
In the 1950s, students
had curfews every night.
Each dorm had a faculty resident
who kept tabs on
students, and required
they get their parents’
permission to go out of
town. Only seniors were
allowed to have cars, and
only in the spring term.
The all-female student
body had a dress code that
included skirts, sweaters
and Colby Junior College
blazers, which they wore
with knee-length socks and
moccasins or Oxford
shoes. “Students came to
class looking very proper
and usually very neat,”
Cleveland says. By contrast,
students in her
morning classes in recent
years often arrived wearing
pajamas, topped with a
parka in winter.
Cleveland isn’t sentimental
about the restricted lives
of young people, particularly
women, in the 1950s.
Many women were sent to
the two-year junior college,
as opposed to a four-year
institution, because their
parents didn’t see the
point in sending a young