David Greene, Colby College’s new president, was inaugurated recently under clear skies that enhanced the beauty of Colby’s lovely campus.

It was refreshing to hear Greene and Robert Diamond, chairman of the board of trustees and former CEO of Barclay’s Bank, sing the praises of Colby’s faculty and staff as crucial to the institution’s long-term success. Both embraced the liberal arts as invaluable in themselves, not as the would-be collegiate equivalent of trade schools.

The prevailing notion throughout the University of Maine System that most faculty and staff are there primarily to serve students and to help them get good jobs was not articulated here.

Colby’s students and alumni were hardly neglected in the festivities, but there was a wonderful balance of understanding what really constitutes a successful institution of higher education. The UMaine System plan to cut as many full-time faculty as possible — through retirement incentives, program and major eliminations, hiring of poorly paid and overworked adjuncts — is not on the agenda at Colby.

Certainly, there is a cosmic difference between a well-endowed private college like Colby and the allegedly impoverished public higher education operation in Maine. At all seven of the University of Maine campuses, however, dedicated students still can get as fine an undergraduate education in many fields as their counterparts at Colby — provided that they have sufficient full-time faculty for the majors of their choice. This, alas, is an unlikely prospect as ever more UMaine departments — and course offerings — shrink in size.

I represented Phi Beta Kappa and was delighted to participate along with the presidents of several other Maine colleges (Bates, Bowdoin, Thomas and the University of Southern Maine) plus alumni other colleges and universities, including the University of Maine.

At two meals before and after the inauguration I sat next to some current and former Colby trustees. All graduated from the school, as one would expect at such institutions. What impressed me far more, however, was their obvious familiarity with crucial issues confronting Colby and the need for careful discussion of any reforms.

The UMaine System trustees’ decision three years ago to freeze tuition for three years without any discussion beforehand about the consequences, including financial, struck them all as bizarre. So too, by contrast, did the system’s insistence that all recommended honorary degree recipients have their names submitted to the trustees at least 14 months before the commencement ceremonies at which they might be honored by one of the seven campuses.

What impressed me the most about the weekend, however, was a Friday afternoon panel of six tenured Colby faculty members. All connected their areas of expertise and their undergraduate courses to issues going beyond the classroom, but not necessarily the marketplace. Most tried to have some undergraduates work with them on research projects — as of course also happens routinely at the seven UMaine System campuses.

A notable exception was an associate professor of philosophy, who said that her own research often did not lend itself to such collaborative projects with even her best students. Only advanced philosophy graduate students, of which there are none at Colby, might be of assistance. She made no apology for her comments.

I wondered if the new president or the trustees might gently rebuke her for pursuing knowledge for its own sake. But no one did; nor did anyone else in the large audience seem perturbed by the professor’s non-utilitarian academic pursuits.

I returned home reassured that the liberal arts in a traditional sense remain alive and well in Waterville.

Howard Segal is Adelaide and Alan Bird professor of history at the University of Maine and is New England district senator for Phi Beta Kappa and former president of the University of Maine Phi Beta Kappa chapter.