Stressing Liberal Arts-And Crafts
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rarting in J anuary, Colby students wil l have the chance to acquire knowl edge of woodworking and metalwork ing as well as of the science and hu manit ies-thank to the efforts of a phy ician, the interest of an attorney and the memory of an outstanding young alumnu· who died four year ago. A new Jan Plan for eight student in each of these crafts has been fash ioned a a result fo collaboration among Dr. H. Alan Hume, College over eer and medical director, Irving Isaac on, prominent Lewi ton attorney, the Fi·her Foundation of Rockland, Maine, ;cind Colby admini trators. Hume, a long-time supporter of the College, became the medical direc tor at Colby la t year after retiring from private practice. He i · al·o an accom plished woodworker who has envisioned e rablish ing a program for students since Mary Ellen Matava he and his wife, Dorothy, decided to give the College their retreat on Snow Helping to get Colby 's newest Jan Plan off the ground are, from left , woodworker Mike Farmer, metalworker Pond, several miles from the Colby cam Bruce Davis , College physician H . Alan Hume , Irving Isaacson and woodworker Bruce Davis . pus in idney. Enter the Fisher Foundation, a charitable organization estab commemoration was reprinted in the final is ue of Colby Currents. ) li hed by Dean L. Fisher, whose Rockland-based company manufac Isaacson met Hume, v i ired the workshop a t what i s now called tures snowplow . Fisher's son Bill '80 went to work for the family the Colby-Hume Center in Sidney and decided to donate hi vintage bu ine after graduating from Colby and then set out on h is own, blacksmithing equipment to a metalworking program that would be a companion to the woodworking program established by the Fisher establishing Weatherend Estate Furniture, a firm specializing in Foundation grant. finely crafted casual furniture. Bill Fisher's pieces were featured in such magazines as House Beautiful and Home and attracted the The two men say they have long believed that learning a kill such a woodworking or metalworking ought to be one component of attention of trend-setting decorator , finding their way into fashion a liberal education. Further di cus ion with Dean of the Faculty Bob able e tares and even the display window at Lord & Taylor in N ew McArthur and Dean of the College Earl Smith e tablished the York. Then, in J une 1 987, Bill Fisher drowned when h is skiff capsized framework of a Jan Plan designed to provide even the beginner with on Penobscot Bay. a profic iency in either of the crafts. After conferring with Randy Helm, Colby's vice pre ident for Working with Colby's director of development, Eric Rolfson development and alumni relations, the Fi her Foundation fir t e tab '73, Isaacson and Hume have added liberally to the equipment li hed a College scholarship in Bill Fi her's name and then decided to already on hand and have recruited a faculty. Doug Wilson, director tum H ume' dream of a woodworking hop for collegians into a of metalworking at Maine' famed Hay tack summer arts center, will rea lity. After Bill Fi her's parents, Dean and Betty, and h is sister, over ee the completion of the smith' shop, create a curriculum and Alexsandra Cole , visited the H ume retreat, the foundation granted serve a Colby' fir t smithy. A pair of accomplished craftsmen from the College $ 1 5 ,000 over three years to establi h the program. the faculty of the Kennebec Valley Technical College in Fairfield, One foundation trustee especially interested in the project was Bruce Davis and M ike Farmer, will teach woodworking. And it seem I aacson, an avid metalworker who wanted to help e tabli h a similar likely that the J an Plan will also have two voluntary instructor -a program in h is pecialty somewhere in Maine. (I aacson is married to physician and an attorney bent on pa ing age-old kill on to a new J udi th Magyar I aacson, author of Seed ofSarah: Memoirs of a Survivor, generation. whose lecture during Colby's 1 990 Holocaust Awareness Week
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Colby, November 1 99 1