"These three scholars embody Colby's tradition of excellent teaching by people
who are committed to serious academic research," said Colby Dean of Faculty and
Vice President for Academic Affairs Robert McArthur. The three candidates
received extraordinary praise from students in addition to the recommendations
of President Bill Cotter and the college's Educational Policy Committee. The
common denominator among them is "substantial achievement as teachers and
scholars," McArthur said.
Conover came to Colby in 1990 from the University of Virginia, where he earned
his Ph.D. and served as a teaching assistant. He earned a bachelor's degree at
Middlebury College in 1985. Conover's research interests include atoms and
molecules in strong fields, spectroscopy of atoms and molecules, control and
shaping of atomic and molecular wave functions and physics of atomic and
molecular clusters. He received a National Science Foundation grant (with two
colleagues) in 1996 for conventional and laser spectroscopy of atoms and
molecules. He has written articles about his research for Physical Review,
Contemporary Physics and The American Journal of Physics, among
other publications.
Gordon arrived at Colby from the Illinois Institute of Technology in 1990. She
has a bachelor's degree from Claremont McKenna College in California, a
master's from Brown University and a Ph.D. from the University of Texas at
Austin. Her academic expertise is in ancient philosophy, especially Plato, and
in social and political philosophy. She won a Marguerite Eyer Wilbur Foundation
Fellowship in 1994-95 and has been published in Philosophy and Rhetoric,
Classical Quarterly and the Journal of Social Philosophy.
Millard began at Colby in 1991, coming from the University of Richmond, where
she was a Camille and Louis Dreyfus Teaching and Research Fellow. She received
a bachelor's degree from Amherst College and earned a Ph.D. at Brown University
in 1988. Her research involves drug interactions with DNA, especially
anti-tumor drugs and cancer-causing agents. In addition, she has studied and
lectured about the use of DNA as courtroom evidence. Millard currently is
assistant professor of biochemistry. Her articles have been published in the
journals Biochimie, Anti-Cancer Drug Design and Chemical Research in
Toxicology. In January, the Research Corporation of Tucson, Ariz., announced
that Millard received a grant to support basic research as part of the Cottrell
College Science Awards. The $30,389 award is to support Millard's research on
DNA and cellular proteins.