Publicizing on-campus events in town
How do locals find out about on-campus lectures and concerts?
Rachel Goff
Local News Editor
Rachel is an English and creative writing major from Glastonbury, Conn. who loves the outdoors.
- Class year: 2012
Factory visit: inside 100 years of L.L. Bean
To celebrate L.L. Bean's 100-year anniversary, the Echo visits the factory where their first product, the Bean Boot, is made.
Cyclists’ special appreciation for the surrounding area
Members of the cycling team have discovered beautiful spots just off campus while exploring by bike.
Students are hesitant to host off-campus parties
“If you’re under 21, come naked, or don’t come at all.”
WHO'S WHO
Senior DeAngelis enjoys dancing and educating local students
Senior Hannah DeAngelis is a dancer and an educator, hoping to bring the education she has gained on the Hill to local high school classrooms.
Bates Folk Festival and the contra community
February’s Bates Folk Festival included two nights of contra dancing, a type of patterned folk dance in which couples dance in two lines to live music.
An eclectic coastal town only an hour away
Day trip: Belfast, Maine.
One month at the 'coolest' museum in Maine
The L.C. Bates Museum in Fairfield, Maine, is a natural history museum that contains thousands of taxidermied animals, including squirrels from Maine and a double-watted cassowary native to New Zealand.
Climate change: it's already happening
Alder Stone Fuller, an independent educator who has taught in colleges and schools across the country, gave a lecture that explained the inevitability of abrupt climate change last Thursday at Barrels Market.
Painters, Players and Poets: Maine artists unite
A traveling exhibit features a collaboration between 48 acclaimed Maine artists will be on display in the Hathaway Creative Center for the month of December.
Spoken word event
“We are a family,” Adams announced at the beginning of the evening, establishing an atmosphere of support and respect for the student performers. “I’m your opener,” he said humbly.
Those Career Center woes
“Got a job yet?” is a question that Erica L. Humphrey has asked in the subject heading of more than one of her Career Center e-mails.
STUDENT DEBT
Student loans affect College, nation
With the national outstanding student debt exceeding $1 trillion, Obama continues to promote his new student loan repayment plan, which he hopes will go into affect next year. But here on the Hill, how are students coping with the rising cost of a private liberal arts education?
BACHELOR & BACHELORETTE
Mr. & Ms. November
With snow already hitting the campus hard, find the time to snuggle up with one of these eligible students, who are willing and waiting to warm you up during these cold winter months.
A Mexico in Maine?
Why does Maine have so many towns named after foreign countries or cities?
Occupy Wall Street movement in Maine
Occupy Maine protesters have been camping out in Portland and Augusta to show their support for the movement which originated on Wall Street.
FORK & KNIFE
The magical man behind Bobs' dining hall doughnut Thursdays
Every other Thursday on campus, students fill themselves with the doughnuts baked fresh in Bobs dining hall. But does anyone know the truth behind these doughnuts and the man that makes them?
WATERVILLE
Pet Food Pantry helps families keep pets in times of need
The Pet Food Pantry in Fairfield is like a soup kitchen, for dogs and cats
SPOTLIGHT ON THE ARTS
A senior printmaker inspired by science
As an environmental science major, printmaker Anna Leavitt ’12 of Holliston, Mass. is not your typical art student.
LGBT
Equality Maine gathers signatures
Equality Maine is currently collecting signatures to get same-sex marriage on the ballot in Maine.
AROUND CAMPUS
Fight dorm blues: top decor tips for all room varieties
The beginning of the school year comes with many challenges, most importantly how to best maximize your space and create the best dorm room on campus.
STUDY ABROAD
Forging Spanish bonds in Andalucia
Almost every afternoon after I finish classes, I walk back to my apartment, where I greet my host señora with a big smile.
Students volunteer at local market
Many students take time out of their busy schedules to volunteer at Barrels Community Market in Waterville because they believe in the market's commitment to supporting local businesses.
Senior spends summers as local lobsterman
Matt Carey '11 is from York, Maine, and he has worked as a lobsterman every summer since he was 13.
Waterville comes to the Hill, in costume
The annual Halloween Extravaganza, put on by the Colby Volunteer Center (CVC), invites families to come to the College to go trick-or-treating.
WOMEN'S SOCCER
Students discuss local politics and the gubernatorial election
Many students on the Hill registered to vote in the state of Maine for the 2008 presidential election. But how many of these students actually follow local politics and plan on voting in the upcoming Maine gubernatorial election?
Student and alum compete for seat in legislature
Henry Beck '09 and Mark McNulty '11 are running against each other for a spot in the Maine House of Representatives.
Dorm damage down at this point
Fortunately for students looking to avoid bi-yearly fines, "dorm damage is down this year," Associate Director of Campus Life Kim Kenniston said. Any student who clicked on the Civil Discourse e-mail postings last spring is likely familiar with residents' pleas to their peers to stop throwing furniture and tearing down exit signs.
STUDENT PROFILE
Senior dedicates time to gardening
Andy Smith '11J came to the College to escape the suburbs, and leaves having created a large on-campus garden now maintained by the Colby Organic Gardeners and Farmers Association.
Students weigh benefits of unpaid internships with lack of paychecks
Indeed, as more and more employers are requiring experience for entry-level jobs, an increasing number of students are turning to internships to develop their skills. A 2008 survey by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) found that 50 percent of graduating students had participated in internships, compared to the 17 percent of graduating students who completed internships in 1992. Experts estimate that one-fourth to one-half of these internships were unpaid.
LGBT
Lady Gaga supports gay rights
While there were definitely people there who were only interested in seeing Lady Gaga, the majority of people there were dedicated to supporting the repeal of "don't ask, don't tell."
Teen smoking, obesity and other Maine health issues
We need to connect our farms and our school lunch programs and finally, we need to have some kind of statewide guidance or standards for physical exercise.
Working, Exploring, Bonding: Summer on the Hill
Come mid-May, students will finish their finals, pack up their rooms and head home. Seniors will take time to say goodbye to professors and friends before graduation. By the end of the month, campus will be deserted, or so one might think.
Outkast's Big Boi Set to Rock the Hill
Big Boi, one half of the alternative hip-hop group, Outkast, will perform at the College on Saturday, April 17, in the Alfond Athletic Center gym.
Hiking, Eskimo Rolls, Maple Syrup: the Colby Outing Club
"Everyone at Colby loves going on COOT2 [Colby Outdoor Orientation Trips]," Colby Outing Club (COC) co-president Anders Nordblom '10 says, because it gives students the opportunity to bond with their classmates in a fun outdoor setting.
STUDENT PROFILE
Economics major starts own company
Due to the recent economic recession, many students are graduating from college without promising job offers. Brandon Pollack ‘10 doesn’t have to worry about this.
Teaching culture to the National Guard
With American military troops constantly being deployed to the Middle East, Sulaiman Nasseri ‘12 and Khaled Wardak ‘13, both natives of Afghanistan, spent two days this February in Bangor, Maine, teaching senior leaders of the Maine National Guard about Afghan culture. The leaders will deploy to Kabul in mid-March with a better understanding of the beliefs, customs and foundations of Afghan society.
Professors on sabbatical: new experience, new lesson
"From a student's perspective, when you're here for four years and you discover that a professor you really like is going to be away [on sabbatical], I understand why you would be disappointed," Kerrill O'Neill, Julian D. Taylor Associate Professor of Classics, says. However, "if the best professors weren't going away to do work, maybe they wouldn't be the best professors."
STUDENT PROFILE
A Creative Approach to Sewing and Life
Many students on the Hill carry their books around in North Face and L.L.Bean backpacks. But not Julie Kafka '12. Her magenta corduroy backpack stands out in the crowd because she made it herself.
JanPlan tips for first-years
While it's tempting to wake up, trek to class and crawl back into your cozy bed by noon every day during JanPlan, students on the Hill never let the lack of daylight hours get them down during this month of leisurely fun. If you find yourself going slightly stir-crazy during the upcoming month, here are a few things to keep you occupied.
Life after college: the struggle to find health insurance in
Many students in college speak of a "bubble" that shelters them from the harsh realities of the outside world. One of these realities is the state of the American health care system.
Halloween: from spiritual to sexual
"Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress up like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it," Cady Heron says in the movie Mean Girls. But the holiday hasn't always been this way.
TRADITIONS
Orientation: revisted, revised
"They didn't give us peanut butter," Molly Susla '13 says of the provisions her group received for their Colby Outdoor Orientation Trip (COOT2). In the past, many students have cited peanut butter (and the food in general) as an integral part of their COOT2 experience, and its exclusion represents one of the many changes that the administration made to this year's orientation. But not all change is bad. Instead of peanut butter, groups received sunbutter, a comparable product made from sunflower seeds, to accommodate those with peanut allergies. "And I have to admit, it was pretty good," Susla says.
Fair draws hippies, organic food
"We need to wean the American food system off its heavy 20th-century diet of fossil fuel and put it back on a diet of contemporary sunshine." The words of Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma, were on display at the Common Ground Country Fair in Unity, Maine this past weekend, reflecting the fair's goal of environmental sustainability.