The Colgate Campus: Looking Forward and Looking Back

“Campuses are places of the imagination as much as they are physical arrangements of buildings and lawns.  They are purposely designed to be apart from the world, places in which a different order prevails.  Whether they seek to promote a special form of community, a respite from the busyness of the commercial world, or a romantic place of nostalgia and remembrance, they are a subtle rebuke to the ordinary.” Brian W. Casey, Colgate University President

The Colgate Campus: Looking Forward and Looking Back  
Golden Auditorium, Little Hall, Colgate University
September 25, 2018, 4:15pm

James Bennett, Senior Associate at Michael Van Valkenburgh Associates and Project Manager for the Upper Campus Landscape Master Plan, will join with Robert McVaugh, Professor of Art and Art History, in an overview of the Colgate Campus, its rootedness in its upstate topography, its future potential, and several of the key historical personalities and moments that have shaped it.

The Hill Envisioned: What Might Have Been—What Might Yet Be​
The Clifford Art Gallery, Little Hall, Colgate University
August 27–October 7, 2018

Colgate’s setting—its extraordinary combination of our Hill and our expansive lower park—has long been one of its greatest assets.  Few institutions enjoy a setting of comparable beauty or one of comparable challenge. This exhibition will show how architects and planners have helped us imprint our aspirations on this special place. Almost one hundred and fifty years ago, we invited F. L. Olmsted, the designer of Central Park and the greatest landscape architect of his age, to advise us on the management and improvements of the “grounds.” And since his visit we have relied on a parade of prestigious landscape architects and campus planning firms to help us adapt the potentials of the campus to our evolving ambitions. These architects assisted Colgate to look past the narrow confines of convenience and expense as we have added to and reshaped our landscape throughout its history. They helped us serve as good stewards of this distinctive place by keeping our eyes open to the rich and varied potentials of the Hill while simultaneously addressing its shifting physical challenges. The plans in this exhibition merit our study as singular, and often beautiful, artifacts, and they will reward our scrutiny if we explore them for the seeds of the Hill’s as yet unrealized possibilities. We all know that Colgate has been shaped by its position in the Chenango Valley. This exhibition reveals how Colgate has also sculpted this place, giving form to our distinctive institutional spirit and to our visions of ongoing educational excellence. 

A Colgate Bicentennial event
Located on the first floor of Little Hall, the Clifford Art Gallery presents approximately eight exhibitions a year. A teaching gallery, all exhibitions are selected by Colgate’s art and art history faculty to provide examples of work executed in a variety of media that demonstrate issues originating in the academic curriculum. 

The Clifford is free and open to the public from 10:30am until 4:30pm on weekdays and from 1 until 5pm on weekends.

Founded in 1819, Colgate University is a highly selective, residential, liberal arts college enrolling nearly 2,750 undergraduates. Situated on a rolling 515-acre campus in central New York State, Colgate University attracts motivated students with diverse backgrounds, interests and talents.