Colby College Receives Historic, Anonymous $150 Million Commitment

Colby College, the prestigious liberal arts college in Waterville, Maine, has received an anonymous commitment of $150 million. The gift is the largest in the college’s history and one of the most generous ever received by a liberal arts college, according to the college’s news release.

The donation will be used to fund several science-related initiatives at Colby. Included in those investments are a $300 million, state-of-the-art, science complex; new academic programs in science and engineering; support for the state’s K-12 STEM education; and partnerships that will strengthen Maine’s science and technology economy.

“Colby has long had outstanding science programs, and that work has been deeply connected to other scientific organizations across the state and around the world," said Colby College President David A. Greene, in the news release. "These investments will allow us to take that work to a new level, ensuring that science education and the application of scientific knowledge and discovery are addressing the needs of Maine. Importantly, it allows Colby to be at the forefront of educating the next generation of science and technology leaders who will carry with them a deep understanding of the human dimensions of science and the need to ensure that the power of science is used for a broader societal good,” Greene added.

Greene said that “the lines between fundamental and applied research have been blurred in recent years, with science-driven technologies changing the very nature of health care, environmental stewardship, and business growth.” Noting that such work is most productive when it involves a collaborative approach, Greene added, "for our students, that intersection of fundamental discoveries with the development of new tools based on those discoveries is the key to how science will play a central role in solving longstanding challenges.”

Colby has recently made several strategic investments as part of its focus on the sciences. It announced the establishment of the Center for Resilience and Economic Impact, which employs scientific approaches to strengthening communities across Maine. and it has partnered with the Central Maine Growth Council to plan a computing hub in Waterville.

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Colby is also home to the Davis Institute for Artificial Intelligence, the first of its kind at a liberal arts college; and it acquired Maine’s Allen and Benner islands, creating a 500-acre coastal research campus.

In addition, the college has created a series of other research and innovation programs, including the Buck Lab for Climate and Environment, the Linde Packman Lab for Biosciences Innovation, the Halloran Lab for Entrepreneurship, and the McVey Center for Computational and Data Sciences.

Investments in Partnerships

The new funding will also be used to help Colby expand its partnerships with leading science and technology organizations in Maine, including the Harold Alfond Center for Cancer Care, Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, the Jackson Laboratory, and MDI Biological Laboratory.

“We’ve worked closely with Colby College for 15 years to introduce students to cutting-edge research in the marine and environmental sciences,” said Deborah Bronk, president and CEO of Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences. “This major new investment will build on that foundation, catalyzing innovation and opening new opportunities in marine resources, climate resilience, and sustainability."

K-12 STEM Education

Colby officials plan to help build the state’s capacity for k-12 STEM education through its Partnerships in Science and Math Outreach. Specific programming has yet to be determined, but the options could include:

• Providing teacher assistantships that would allow K-12 educators to work with Colby faculty on research projects;
• Hosting K-12 groups for laboratory experiments, fieldwork, and collaborative STEM projects;
• Creating new STEM summer programs for teachers and students.

The New Science Complex

The new science facility is expected to open in 2030. It will house new academic programs in science and technology, which are likely to include biomedical engineering, environmental engineering, materials engineering, and public health as well as recently formed majors and minors in fields like data science, computational biology, marine science, and environmental computation.

The facility is expected to be 200,000 square feet in size, containing teaching and research laboratories, classrooms, offices, fabrication labs, specialized equipment and computing infrastructure, and gathering spaces. Colby wants the design of the new building to blur disciplinary boundaries and encourage collaboration. To accomplish that goal, the facility will feature shared areas for imaging technology, computation resources, and other research instrumentation.

“Expanded science and engineering programming at Colby in this moment represents an incredible opportunity for our students to take a human-centered approach to science and technology,” said Colby’s Provost Denise Bruesewitz. Colby students with an interest in STEM will “get the best of both worlds,” she added, because they’ll be able to “engage in leading-edge scientific research as collaborators with Colby faculty and our incredible network of partner research institutions, with all the advantages of a holistic liberal arts education.”