{"id":315,"date":"2010-08-31T19:18:18","date_gmt":"2010-08-31T19:18:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hub-dev.bates.edu\/president\/george-colby-chase\/"},"modified":"2019-10-05T20:51:25","modified_gmt":"2019-10-06T00:51:25","slug":"george-colby-chase","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/past-presidents\/george-colby-chase\/","title":{"rendered":"George Colby Chase"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignright\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/images\/presidents\/president-chase-125w.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>George Colby Chase graduated from Bates in 1869 and taught for&nbsp;22 years as professor of English at the College before he became President.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Chase, known as &#8220;the great builder,&#8221; oversaw the construction of 11 new buildings, including Coram Library, Rand Hall, the Central Heating Plant, the Chapel, Libbey Forum, the Carnegie Science Hall, and Chase Hall; he tripled the number of students and faculty; and he managed to increase the College&#8217;s endowment from $259,000 to $1,135,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Chase was known for being &#8220;fanatically frugal&#8221; and money-conscious: when he went on fund-raising trips, he often had his son take his trunk on a wheelbarrow to the railroad station. And when the faculty said they thought students should bear more of the cost of their education, he reluctantly approved a&nbsp;$5 tuition increase (the Trustees later voted to raise the cost fifteen dollars, making tuition $90).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A teacher-president in the old tradition, Chase taught at least one course throughout his entire incumbency. His home, at 16 Frye Street, functioned as a campus facility where&nbsp;students would go&nbsp;for their admission interviews, various progress checks, and upon graduation, for letters of reference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In April of 1919, at the age of 74,&nbsp;Chase wrote to the Trustees regarding his retirement, and the selection of a new president: his successor was to be &#8220;a man strong in scholarship, in his Christian character and influence, in business ability, and in warm sympathy with young people . . . and hopefully not older than 35.&#8221; On May 27, 1919, after a full day at work, George Colby Chase died of a heart attack.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>George Colby Chase graduated from Bates in 1869 and taught for&nbsp;22 years&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_dimp_site_id":"","_dimp_override_contact":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"class_list":["post-315","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/past-presidents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/past-presidents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/past-presidents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/past-presidents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/past-presidents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=315"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/past-presidents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/315\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1271,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/past-presidents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/315\/revisions\/1271"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/past-presidents\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}