Colby College
EN-10: Community Partnerships

Colby College partners with the Maine Lakes Resource Center (MLRC) to evaluate lake health in central Maine. The MLRC also offers valuable opportunities to Colby students for field work, and serves as a hub of community education. Lake health is of the utmost importance in Maine since tourism is a major industry, and without healthy lakes, there would not be many tourists, who currently support the economy of lake communities. Lake health is important for wellbeing by providing an accessible opportunity for outdoor recreation, encouraging people to get outside and be active. https://mainelakesresourcecenter.org/

Colby is working with the City of Waterville to revitalize the downtown area through investments in the economic and physical infrastructure of Waterville. Sustainability is incorporated into the planning process of the new development, including green space in the center of the city, a LEED certified dorm and hotel, plans for an Arts Center that meets passive house standards, and making the downtown area more pedestrian friendly, decreasing the need for car transportation. Colby will also provide a continual shuttle from campus to downtown, which is intended to replace the need for students and employees to own cars over time. Additionally, adjacent to downtown, Colby is working on a Riverwalk Park brownfield redevelopment project to create a recreation area with green space. In terms of social equity, leveraging the College’s resources to attract private investments will fuel the development of new affordable housing options downtown, which are currently lacking in Waterville. The College hopes to bring art to downtown in a more accessible way by collaborating with organizations such as Waterville Creates to establish a Cultural Center, which will sponsor public art and education program. Colby wants to provide amenities and conditions conducive to job growth, as well as diversify and contribute to the tax base in order to bring property taxes down, and raise property values up. The new developments downtown will make Waterville more attractive to businesses, as well as graduating students, with a working goal to create 1,000 jobs, including on campus, in new businesses, and at the new properties aquired by the College. These jobs will have diverse hiring requirements. One example is CGI, an IT firm, who opened an office downtown in January 2016. CGI hires people from diverse educational backgrounds, as they offer an intensive training program to hires. Colby is working to attract more businesses to establish in Downtown Waterville, and the creation of these new jobs will promote economic sustainability, in a region that has been undergoing little to no economic development since the mills closed. Overall, Colby's goal is to attract residents to live, work, and stay in Waterville long term.

The Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Science studies the health of the ocean along Maine's coast. Student interns are hired over the summer, and future marine biologists attend the Semester in Residence at Bigelow. The research done at Bigelow helps inform the current state of fisheries in Maine. Fishing is a major industry, both as an export and as a fixture of the tourism industry, thus research done at Bigelow is helping to support economic prosperity. Colby's relationship with Bigelow supports equity and wellbeing by ensuring that small-time fishermen and local communities are able to continue to thrive by working to provide seafood security. https://www.bigelow.org/

Colby also partners with the Up East Foundation to conduct research at the Herring Gut Learning Center and Allen Island, which promotes education by acting as a living laboratory for students to get field research experience. Through both the College and the Environmental Studies department, Colby has partnerships with organizations who take on Colby interns during JanPlan, over summers, and post-grad, including the YMCA/Boys and Girls Club where students have worked to design a green house, and to find solutions to food security and equity in Waterville; the Schoodic Institute where students conduct research in ecology, yielding community benefits through education; and the Natural Resources Council of Maine, where students have done data analysis, and attended court hearings. Many Colby professors have personal partnerships to advance sustainability. Among those include the Environmental Health Strategy Center, Maine Center for Coastal Fisheries, and Bioversity, an international organization that seeks to provide farmers in Africa with the tools to adapt to climate change.