Colby is a residential college, where almost all students live on campus, where some faculty members live in the residence halls, where students regularly take professors to lunch, and where professors invite students to their homes for dinner. These interactions foster close relationships that pay off in academic student-faculty collaboration as well as in lifelong friendships between students and mentors.
Residence Halls
Colby’s residence halls have been renovated, most fairly recently, as part of a $44-million program to improve student housing and dining halls. Construction of the large new Anthony-Mitchell-Schupf dormitory in 1996 and the Alfond Apartment complex for seniors in 1999 expanded housing choices. Johnson Hall was the latest dorm to be renovated, and renovations in the Roberts Building in 2005 will complete efforts to upgrade and modernize all the dining halls.
All of the residence halls are co-ed and, except for the senior apartments, all of them mix students from all four classes. Housing choices offer variety, not only in location and style but with options for chem-free halls (chosen by more than 15 percent of students) and quiet dorms. Students with special dietary restrictions are eligible for the Co-Op, housed in Mary Low Hall with access to a kitchen for meal preparation.
Dialogue Housing
In 2005-06 Colby will test a program called Dialogue Housing, a residential program based on students’ shared interest in broad academic topics or themes. The pilot program will focus on the environment and sustainability. Dialogue Housing was introduced as one more effort to link academic and residential life at Colby through a formal program. The environmental (or “green”) house has a faculty leader and a plan for academic and civic activities. Individual students may participate in a Dialogue Housing unit for a maximum of two semesters. First-year students are ineligible since Dialogue Housing units are planned and proposed by the participants in the spring of the prior year.
