Summary
The first year that Parker Beverage was dean of admissions he arranged a weekend program in mid-April for applicants who had been accepted but were still trying to decide whether to attend Colby. Five families showed up from central Massachusetts and Pittsburgh and points in between.
"And damned if it didn't snow," Beverage recalls. "Not just a little snow, a real blizzard. Family cars stuck in the parking lot and all that."
A blizzard three weeks after the official beginning of spring, irrefutable evidence of how long Maine winters can last, is not the sort of thing that shows up in admissions view books. It was almost enough to make the perpetually cheerful dean glum. But when families arrive, the show must go on. So the admissions staff turned up the thermostat, helped push the snow-bound cars and borrowed enough L.L. Bean boots to outfit the students' families for their campus tours. Everywhere the visitors went they got the same warm reception- small kindnesses and a spirit of cooperation that have become trademarks of Colby's campus climate.
"Adversity can really bring people together. They saw the sense of community that was fostered by all this," said Beverage. "All five of those kids enrolled here."
Rights
Recommended Citation
Collins, Stephen
(1998)
"Wish You Were Here,"
Colby Magazine: Vol. 87:
Iss.
1, Article 9.
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.colby.edu/colbymagazine/vol87/iss1/9