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 Leo Livshits, assistant professor of mathematics, says he has found
Colby "to be nearly an ideal environment."
"I am as impressed with the mathematics faculty's level of scholarship and
dedication to quality teaching as with the motivation and learning skills of
our students," he said.
Livshits's research deals with operator theory, an area of pure mathematics
that "lies at the intersection of linear algebra analysis and topology." He
received his Ph.D. from the University of Toronto and "felt the need to seek
employment in institutions with a personable feel."
"Given all I've heard about Colby's commitment to high standards in both
research and teaching it didn't take a lot of persuasion on Colby's behalf to
have me join the faculty," Livshits said.
A squash player and canoeist, Livshits already counts himself "a dedicated
Railroad Square film fanatic."
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Anindyo Roy, assistant professor of English, specializes in colonial and
post-colonial literature and theory, particularly literature of the Indian
subcontinent and the Caribbean. He says his passion is archival
research--"mostly in dusty, obscure libraries in England and in India"--which
recently has led him to track down obscure Victorian best sellers and travel
books.
"Colby is ideal for me because there are very few distractions here, leaving me
with ample time to do my writing," Roy said.
Roy holds a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Arlington and comes to Colby
from Southern Methodist University, where he lectured in the English
department.
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Mariano Plotkin, assistant professor of Latin American history,
specializes in the culture and politics of Argentina. He currently is
researching why Argentina has the highest percentage of psychoanalysts among
its population of any country in the world. "Argentina is a country as well
known for its shrinks as it is for the quality of its meat," he said.
A lecturer in the history department at Harvard before coming to Colby, Plotkin
received his Ph.D. at the University of California-Ber-keley in 1992. He has
been impressed with the friendly environment among colleagues and students at
Colby and with the freedom faculty are given within the curriculum. "I can
teach almost whatever I want," he said. "The people in the History Department
are extremely receptive. Colby is also very generous with the faculty in terms
of the resources for teaching and research."
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Sandy Grande, instructor of education and human development, is
interested in how culture plays a role in education and in teaching about
diversity. She established and was director of the office of Latino and Native
American students and cultural affairs at Kent State, where she will receive
her Ph.D. in 1996. Last year she worked at Navajo and Hopi schools in Arizona
and New Mexico.
She returns to New England, she says, to be closer to her family--she grew up
in Connecticut.
The time, commitment and concern Colby faculty afford their students is
extraordinary, Grande says. And she welcomes the challenge that the
teaching environment presents, noting that her senior seminar class has only
six students.
Grande says members of the Education Department "seem to exemplify the kind of
scholar I wish to become. I felt that this would be a good place to be
mentored."
She says Colby's faculty mentoring program is "a lifesaver," and she credits
Associate Professor of Religion Nikky Singh for easing her adjustment period.
"She has made me look forward to the day that I might be a mentor to a new
faculty member," Grande said.
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Tarja Raag, assistant professor of psychology, strongly advocates
bringing research into the classroom. Previously a visiting professor at Kenyon
College--she received her Ph.D. from Indiana University in 1992--Raag believes
students learn more if they see the subjects they are reading about. "By
learning about psychology through actual hands-on lab experiences, students
receive a better education than if they simply sit in a classroom," she said.
The opportunity to work closely with students was one of the attractions of
Colby, Raag says. "It is much more satisfying from the teacher's perspective to
have small classes and to teach students who have a wide range of educational
interests and backgrounds," she said.
Raag's research interests include studying how infants and adults perceive and
respond to different emotional tones of voice. She also is interested in
studying what factors are involved in children's preferences for toys and how
they use those toys. "Colby is unique in that it offers a lot of support for
research," Raag said. "It was very important to me to find a school that
provided plenty of research opportunities, and many liberal arts schools do
not."
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Elizabeth DeSombre, instructor in environmental studies and government,
comes to Colby from Harvard, where she will defend her Ph.D. dissertation in
December. She has researched various aspects of international environmental
law--particularly how U.S. environmental sanctions have influenced
international relations--and she also has studied ozone depletion and attempts
to regulate open-ocean fishing.
DeSombre feels at home at a liberal arts college; she attended Oberlin as an
undergraduate. "I wanted to be at a place where both teaching and research are
valued, where students are interested and excited about learning," she said.
"So far the students seem willing to work hard and challenge the conventional
wisdom, and they didn't even complain too much about the ninety four-dollar
course pack I made them buy," DeSombre said.
DeSombre has lived most of her life in cities. "But the campus is so beautiful
it almost makes me forget that I like cities so much," she said.
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Power Ploy
New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis and Newsweek
syndicated columnist Jane Bryant Quinn each quoted President William Cotter in
articles critical of recent attempts by a Louisiana congressman to link federal
aid to private colleges with policies regarding single sex fraternities. Cotter
was one of three college presidents--along with those from Middlebury and
Bowdoin--who received letters from Rep. Bob Livingston, a nine-term Republican
who hinted that colleges that ban fraternities outright may be deprived of
federal research grants and federal student aid funds. Livingston, who chairs
the House Appropriations Committee, asked the three colleges for assurances
that they would end their "discrimination" against fraternities.
Cotter told Lewis, "if one Congress can say you must have fraternities, the
next one can say you can't have them. Those decisions should be for private
colleges." Quinn, who quoted Cotter as saying, "Do you want Congress deciding
on what kinds of groups are allowed on college campuses?", said he was correct
in upholding the colleges' autonomy on the issue.
Proof Positive
Associate Professor of Mathematics Fernando Gouvêa received the
Lester R. Ford Award for exceptional expository excellence from the
Mathematical Association of America.
Gouvêa's article, "A Marvelous Proof," which appeared in the American
Mathematical Monthly in 1994, discusses the concepts behind mathematician
Andrew Wiles's proof of Fermat's Last Theorem.
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Labor Pains
Assistant Professor of Economics Michael Donihue '79 told the Associated
Press that workers in Maine, like their counterparts nationwide, are not
benefitting from recent corporate profits.
"Workers just aren't getting the share of the pie that they should," said
Donihue, who last year worked for President Clinton's Council of Economic
Advisors.
"Not all of the news is bad, however," Donihue said in the AP article, which
was widely published in New England. "Stagnant wages are keeping inflation in
check thus reducing the effects of less than robust earnings," he said.
The Price of Democracy
A study co-written by Associate Professor of Government Tony Corrado,
paraphrased in articles by the Atlanta Journal & Constitution and
Newsweek, among many other media outlets, found that although
U.S. campaign costs topped $3 billion in 1992, they were not significantly
higher than two years before after adjustment for inflation.
The study, conducted by Corrado and Herbert Alexander, a University of Southern
California political scientist, pointed out that the $3.2 billion spent on the
presidential campaign was less than Americans spend annually on dog food and
less than annual advertising budgets of Proctor and Gamble and Phillip Morris.
The report, "Financing the 1992 Election," was the ninth in a series issued
every four years by the Citizens Research Foundation.
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From the Hill | Table of Contents | Student Life
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