The 2009 Lovejoy Award will be presented to Paul Salopek on Sunday, October 18, honoring the former Chicago Tribune reporter for his outstanding work covering more than 20 conflict situations around the globe. Salopek was imprisoned for more than 10 weeks while reporting from Dafur, enduring brutal jail conditions and beatings, but refusing offers of freedom until he knew that his Chadian driver was safe. Salopek's 8:00 pm lecture will be preceded by a 4:00 Goldfarb Center panel entitled "Covering the World with a Shrinking Newsroom." Salopek will be joined on that panel by Ann Marie Lipinski, his former editor at the Tribune, David Shribman, executive editor of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and Chris Morrill '81, associate director for GlobalPost, an online international news organization.
This past July, the Goldfarb Center launched its newest initiative: the Lovejoy Journalism Blog. Nearly every day we feature new blogs from one of our 33 contributors, including posts from Phil Taubman (former reporter/editor for the New York Times), Hannah Beech (TIME), Becky Hanger (photo editor of the NYTimes), Felicity Taubman (environmental correspondent for the NYTimes), Beth Healy (Boston Globe), Gerry Hadden (Public Radio International), Chris Morrill (GlobalPost) and many more. Our contributors post insider perspectives on what's happening in the field of journalism, how young peoples' consumption of news is changing the industry, and the many ethical dilemmas being questioned in editors' offices around the world.
We were expecting this new initiative to be great, but we have been blown away by the incredible content. And we're depending on you to help us spread the word. Take a look, feel free to comment, and post to your facebook page or Twitter: www.colby.edu/newsliteracyblog This initiative is made possible in part through a grant from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
The Goldfarb Center welcomes new staff member Joe Deegan, an AmeriCorps VISTA, who will work with the Colby Volunteer Center. Joe will work with the Volunteer Center's student staff to build the Center's capacity and to broaden and deepen the opportunities for Colby students to serve and engage with the communities in the Waterville area. This will mean increasing the CVC's visibility on campus, strengthening student leadership skills, building relationships with new and existing community partners, and enhancing the overall capacity and sustainability of the Volunteer Center. Joe works closely with the student CVC Directors to recruit, train, and retain student leaders for 17 ongoing service programs and several major one-time events each year.
Before joining the Colby community, Joe spent a year as a Fulbright English Teaching Assistant, teaching English as a foreign language in the Slovak Republic. Joe graduated with honors from King's College in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, and holds a B.A. in English Literature. Beginning his civic engagement career as an Eagle Scout in 2003, Joe has since participated in and led several national and international service initiatives, including 5 alternative break trips while in college. Originally from Pennsylvania, Joe now lives in Pierce Hall on Colby's campus.
On August 23rd, Colby enthusiastically welcomed Hadas Ziv of Israel as its 2009 Oak Fellow. Ms. Ziv is the executive director of Physicians for Human Rights-Israel (PHR-Israel). She is responsible for guiding the mission of PHR-Israel and managing a full-time staff of 17 and over 1,500 members. Even as executive director, Ms. Ziv continues to be on the front line of human rights work, leading her team in their campaigns including but not limited to, helping Palestinians under siege in Gaza to gain access to health care, the promotion of health rights of Palestinian women married to Israelis, but denied civil status, the promotion of the rights of migrants living with HIV/AIDS in Israel without health insurance, and perhaps most successful, a campaign to pressure the Israeli Health Ministry to support health care provision for the influx of refugees and migrants from African conflict zones seeking asylum in Israel.
While on campus for the fall semester, Hadas will teach a class on international human rights and will have time to conduct her own research and writing. We are pleased that Hadas, her husband Sani and their three children will join the Colby Community for the fall of 2009. For more information, please see http://www.colby.edu/oak
Colby Cares About Kids and the Goldfarb Center welcome Lori Morin as the new CCAK Coordinator. As a former science teacher at the Waterville Junior High, Lori is a firsthand witness to the benefits of the CCAK mentoring program in the community. Lori will coordinate the day-to-day operations of the program and work with our many partners in the community. Lori received her B.S. in Educaton from the University of Maine at Machias, and her M.S. in Computer Technology in Education from Thomas College. She lives in Benton with her husband Antoine and their two children.
The Goldfarb Center and CCAK wish former Coordinator Moira Bentzel a fond farewell as she departs on a sailing adventure. Moira and her husband Dick are gearing up for an Atlantic crossing in their 36' sailboat Equinox, first sailing south to the Caribbean to overwinter. We wish Moira and Dick fair winds and following seas as they embark on this big adventure.
The Goldfarb Center has awarded Ankeney Weitz (Associate Professor, Art and East Asian Studies) a civic engagement course development grant for her Jan Plan course called Asian Museum Workshop: Puns and Rebuses in Chinese Decorative Art. Students enrolled in the course will collaboratively produce a museum exhibit. The exhibit will feature items from the museum's collection and will focus on visual puns and rebuses in Chinese art. The exhibit will open at the end of January for public viewing. More information about the exhibit will be forthcoming as the opening approaches.
The Colby Volunteer Center has begun its fall semester civic engagement activities in earnest. To kick off the new academic year, the CVC hosted a Program Leader Retreat in Millett House, featuring keynote speaker Tony Scucci. Tony, a non-profit organizational consultant with over 35 years of experience, advised the CVC student directors as well as the leaders of 10 CVC community outreach programs in a workshop on capacity building and volunteer management.
In addition to ongoing civic engagement efforts, the CVC will be sponsoring several one-time events in the fall. In late October, the CVC will partner with Hardy Girls Healthy Women to host the 2nd Annual HGHW 5K Run/Walk to raise funds for the Waterville-based girl's empowerment center. At the end of October there is the ever-popular Halloween Extravaganza, when Colby students will host an afternoon of safe trick-or-treating and seasonal games for children from the South End of Waterville. Last but not least, the CVC is partnering with Dining Services once again this year for the Helping Hands canned food drive. Last year, this event successfully collected over 8,000 lbs. of food for area food banks. This fall, the goal is to collect 16,000 pounds.
The new academic year has ushered in new leaders for the Goldfarb Center student boards. Isaac Opper '10 and Jay Mangold '10 are co-chairs of the Executive Board. They plan to continue the Friday Lunch program that they began last year, during which Colby students and faculty meet informally over lunch to discuss controversial topics in the news. They also plan to focus efforts on providing more opportunities for students to interact with our lecturers, including post-lecture events in the senior apartments and in the Mary Low Coffee House.
