<p>This has come up quite a bit, and it’s always bothered me. Current Colgate students and staff are only “conservative” if you’re comparing them to other particularly liberal colleges. Most students are fairly middle of the road, and I’d guess there’s significantly more super liberal students than super conservative. The latter tend to be pretty outspoken though. An informal facebook survey in the past turned up way more “liberal” and “very liberal” students than “conservative” or “very conservative,” but on average people are middle-left, in my experience. Conservatives tend to be more “small government” conservatives rather than Bush fans. I think in general people are pretty open to other ideas. There are plenty of students that may appear outwardly to be WASPy conservatives, but turn out to be super-liberal peace studies majors. So while Colgate may appear “conservative” to an outside observer, I think they’re pretty on par with most of their peer schools.</p>
<p>It’s definitely not a big activist school (compared to many), though I think one big reason is the weather!</p>