Best in the U.S.
A guide showing the seven most exciting museum exhibitions in the United States in the September issue of Condé Nast Traveler magazine had datelines from New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Waterville, Maine. The guide says that Colby's new Paul J. Schupf Wing for the works of Alex Katz is "one of the few wings in an American museum devoted to a living artist."

Licked again
We will hope that no Loyalists noticed that the postcards to alumni and parents in the United Kingdom, alerting them to the Campaign for Colby November kickoff event in London, carried commemorative postage stamps showing John Trumbull's etching of the 1777 surrender of General Burgoyne at Saratoga.

What they say
The newest edition of Barron's Profiles of American Colleges lifts Colby to its highest of all ratings. The guide rates colleges from "noncompetitive" to "most competitive." Colby is among the handful in the top category. Colby also fares well in the Princeton Review's Best 310 Colleges. In the now-famous section on ratings by category, Colby appears prominently on the lists for happiest students (9), most beautiful campus (8), great food (8) and best overall quality of campus life (18).

Mis-history repeats
Who would have thought that when the picture of Richard Abramson '71 got mixed up with a classmate's in the 1968 Faces & Places booklet, the mistake would be repeated 29 years later? Well, it was. When the 25th reunion committee prepared its memory book, of course they snipped the same wrong photo from the old book and reprinted it with Richard's current essay. Sorry about that. Someone, please, promise we'll get it right for the 50th reunion book.

Singing for supper
Jackie Tiner of the development office staff tells of chaperoning the Colbyettes to a recent campaign kickoff event in Portland. They stopped at a local restaurant to eat, and while they were waiting for tables to be set up the hostess found out that they were singers and asked for a tune. So, to the enjoyment of customers and staff alike, the Colbyettes broke into song. When a waitress came by to say that she was sorry she had missed the first one, they reprised the impromptu concert.

Colbee
M. F. Chip Gavin '90 organized this year's State of Maine Citizen Bee, a high school democracy education program run by the Secretary of State. Chris Coakley '98 ran the regional competition in Bangor and WCSH-TV reporter Dan Harris '93 moderated the state event, where Amie Mallett '00 (Lee, Maine) was a competitor. Amie got the day's biggest applause after correcting a judge's ruling on her own answer. She convinced judges that one of her answers was wrong after they had ruled she was right.

Small world
Suellen Diaconoff (French) wrote Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Parker Beverage from Beaverton, Ore., to say that recently, while jogging in her Colby sweatshirt, she was stopped by a gentleman in his 70s who introduced himself as Colby Thompson. His parents graduated from Colby in 1916 and 1918--and named their son after their alma mater. Colby, however, didn't go to Colby.

NSF helps physics
The Physics Department has been awarded a $175,000 National Science Foundation Academic Research Infrastructure grant. Duncan Tate is the principal investigator and Charlie Conover and Robert Bluhm are co-PIs. The funds will be used to equip a research laboratory in atomic, molecular and optical physics.

Nuts
Officials of the Maine Wardens Service speculate that Colby's squirrels have become spoiled by handouts from students. In the summer, with some 1,700 benefactors gone, the creatures were emboldened to press their demand for food with some overly aggressive panhandling. The phenomenon is also common in the state's park lands. The solution, so the wardens say, is to prohibit feeding of the tiny beasts. Sure. And if this doesn't work any better than the prohibition on feeding ducks, we will prepare for skirmishes with squirrels as well as a pond full of poop.

To name a few
James Boylan (English) has been hailed by the New York Observer as one of America's "20 best novelists under 40." Russ Cole (biology) is an editor of a new text, Measuring and Monitoring Biological Diversity: Standard Methods for Mammals, published by the Smithsonian Institution Press. Tony Hoagland (English) has had his second collection of poetry accepted for publication by Greywolf Press. Tony Corrado (government) has received the Emerging Scholar Award from the American Political Science Association. Bruce Rueger (geology) has been named a research associate at the Bermuda National Museum, Aquarium and Zoo. Liz Hutchinson (Latin American history) has won the New England Council on Latin American Studies (NECLAS) Dissertation Prize for 1996.