Regarding Colby,
“In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree . . .”
4 Likes
That’s my memory from the news articles/press release(s) when the field house was originally closed. Whether that continues to be in the works 2+ years later, I cannot say.
Bates men’s basketball made the ESPN SportsCenter Top 10 last night for a circus mid air pass under the hoop.
4 Likes
For kids interested in an open curriculum, Brown and Amherst are major overlaps with Wesleyan with their mostly open curriculum also of interest to students who love Brown’s philosophy on curriculum.
3 Likes
Regarding open curricula, this list of just five schools includes two NESCACs, Amherst and Hamilton:
1 Like
Doh! I knew Hamilton was an open curriculum school too, I just forgot.
1 Like
Ok, how’s this for NESCAC trivial pursuit and reverse bragging rights. Stumbled onto a IG post by some dude who is listing the most evil graduate of “the Little Ivies”, including a map of the NESCACs for a visual. He does not include all the NESCACs and includes some non-NESCACs. Here’s his list:
Tufts: Doc Saganski, guilty of being a Jewish mob boss in Boston and probably guilty of directly and indirectly murdering a bunch of people.
Amherst: SF lawyer John Henry Boalt, guilty of several racist activities, like trying to ban the Chinese from California. His paper hanging efforts led to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882.
Williams: Sanford Dole, guilty of overthrowing the kingdom of Hawaii, sparking American expansionism in the late 1800s. But hey! At least it’s a state now.
Swarthmore: A. Mitchell Palmer, guilty of overseeing the xenophobic “Palmer Raids” during the Red Scare. Responsible for numerous illegal searches and seizures and I’m sure caused a lot of trauma to, and unjustly deported, a lot of families (I guess he’d actually fit in today).
Wesleyan: Mathew Herken, our first murderer in the group, guilty of killing his brother and burning his cat. PS: this wasn’t that long ago.
Haverford: Psychologist, Henry H. Goddard, guilty of being an eugenicist who coined the phrase “moron” (so not all bad, right? useful word). Forced sterilization on anyone he didn’t see fit to reproduce. So, you know, immigrants, poor people and non-English speakers. Nice guy.
Bowdoin: Jess Staley, CEO of Barclays (plus 1 for being a LAC captain of industry), guilty of being Epstein’s banker when he was working at JP Morgan. Apparently, when the powers that be at JPM were starting to smell something rotten about Jeffrey E, Staley convinced them to look the other way. History will not judge you kindly, sir.
Middlebury: William Bradford Bishop, guilty of brutally murdering his family in their sleep. Another nice guy to go with Mr. Herken. Fun fact: Bishop has evaded capture since 1976. That’s one smart Panther.
Like I said, he missed some NESCACs (or maybe the others only graduate good people) and included some non-NESCACs. And this is all for negative stuff. But like they say, any publicity is good publicity. The brand continues to grow!!!
You can find this on Instagram. The comments are hilarious, especially those by the NESCAC alumni who whine that their NESCAC school wasn’t mentioned. I mean, I guess we’re competitive with one another about literally anything.
10 Likes
We should help those colleges which may have felt left out. I’ll start.
Bates: Frank Sandford, who established a cult.
Colby: Billy Bush.
6 Likes
Though Bush is a Colby lacrosse legend (or at least in the record books, according to his Wiki page). So, he has that going for him.
Let’s try adding Hamilton’s Ezra Pound for a trial period and see what local Continentals have to say about it.
Good call on the Bates guy:
Cults are never a good thing. Something always happens.
2 Likes
https://archive.ph/2026.01.29-140147/https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/01/liberal-arts-college-war-higher-ed/685800/ another reason to choose an lac
2 Likes
For an analogy to Pound, I’d suggest Bobby Fischer, both in terms of prominence within his field and life trajectory. As a single-word characterization, I’d regard neither of these figures as evil.
1 Like
You’re focusing too much on word choice - the content originator’s, not mine - in a discussion offered ostensibly for tongue-in-cheek levity.
That said, I’m interested to hear your take on Mr. Pound. Is the comparison to Fischer meant to suggest that being really good at something somehow mitigates a darker side to their personality, belief system and/or behavior? I’m sure one or more of the people on the list were good at something besides being terrible people.
Setting Pound’s poetry aside, his antisemitism and vocal support of some pretty brutal fascist regimes seems to put him in the bad guy camp. There are other people on the list who seemed to have done no worse (though others certainly did).
3 Likes
Great piece. Post it outside of the safety of the NESCAC Spoken Here confines and you risk a war. There is perhaps no more controversial a topic on CC than the small college vs. R1 mega research U dichotomy.
Even here, somebody will come and stress about it. In fact, I’ll get it started by alerting @NiceUnparticularMan that his son’s choice of Wash U over Vassar College appears to have been a mistake. I think @Catcherinthetoast would agree. 
2 Likes
Stirring the pot.
1 Like
No. The comparison merely relfects a personal observation regarding notable parallels in their lives. I’ve not heard Fischer characterized as generally evil, however.
I’d like the word to at least be close. Pound’s most unfortunate public statements were attributed to mental illness and may have been renounced in later life, and the charges of treason against him were ultimately dismissed. I can be forgiving in such circumstances. Nonetheless, people inclined to label Pound as evil might consider a similarly troubled Bobby Fischer under the same label for similar reasons. I’m not inclined toward such a label for either. However, while I’m quite familiar with Fischer’s life, I’ve yet to finish Pound’s biography.
Well, you haven’t convinced me. The circumstances of his capture and escape of the hangman’s noose by way of conflicting psychological diagnoses leave me skeptical. Moreover, he wasn’t just a passing supporter of German and Italian fascism; he was a full on, full time, virulent Jew hater who was enthusiastically aligned with those who sought their extermination, supporting them in deed and in spirit.
I acknowledge that the young man’s list includes characters of varying degrees of wickedness. But I think there’s more than enough room for Mr. Pound. On the list he goes.
2 Likes
Delete
1 Like
I’d no expectation of doing so or — especially in that I don’t have a settled opinion on Pound — desire to do so. As for some of Pound’s words and beliefs, they appear to be an affront to moral awareness in any conceivable context. However, I know a bit more about him today than I did yesterday.
1 Like
Pound - NESCAC’s “crazy uncle in the attic.”
1 Like
No doubting his contributions to literature, though.
There are some interesting points of view out there about whether you can truly separate the man from the work. I usually tend to think so but others come to different conclusions.