Abby Lambert
During her Colby career, Lambert has enjoyed two years on the varsity ski team and been a COOT leader, chair of the International Studies Student Advisory Board, a Colby dancer and head of the Adults Reading to Children program at the Colby Volunteer Center. She's been an intern with UNESCO in Toulouse, France, and with the U.S. State Department Mission to the United Nations in New York City, and she participated in the pilot program for the Ford Foundation research program that sent her for three weeks into Cameroon to study the progress of democratic change.
Associate Professor of Government Guilain Denoeux, who coordinated Lambert's trip to Cameroon, says that her energy and enthusiasm for learning are infectious. "Abby is clearly the kind of student who makes teaching at a place like this rewarding; she is intellectually curious, extremely articulate, engaging and dynamic and thinks fast on her feet. By taking herself to Cameroon in January, and by conducting independent research there, she demonstrated that she does not hesitate to take on intellectual challenges that go far beyond the classroom."
While in Cameroon, the first developing country she'd ever visited, Lambert interviewed newspaper executives, dissident leaders and political officials. She lived with a local family and conducted all of her research independently, aided by her fluency in French. "I really thought I was crazy about a week beforehand," she said, laughing. "But then I just got there and hit the ground and was like, `Alright, I'm here, I'd better go find people to interview.' About halfway through that I realized that I hadn't hit any severe culture shock. I just got focused."
However, she did get a taste of what it was like to be a minority person. "Every once in a while, if I happened to see another white person in town, I'd realize how ridiculous I looked. . . . There were always people calling `La Blanche, La Blanche!' which means `white woman' in French. It was a fantastic experience. It's so huge for Colby to be able to allow students to do this kind of research."
Lambert also has had her share of cosmopolitan experiences. During the summer of 1997 she interned at the State Department, where she served on the security advance team for a presidential visit and met President Clinton. "The most interesting thing was writing letters [to answer queries]," she said. "We would get everything from . . . university professors suggesting policies on Iraq . . . to two girls in seventh grade asking for our support in helping end apartheid in South Africa. We didn't want to have to tell the girls that there was a black president [in South Africa] so we just included a picture of Nelson Mandela."
Lambert, who transferred from Wellesley in the spring of her first year, has never regretted the decision. "One of the strongest points about Colby is that there isn't an intense competition among the students. I think that's the thing I most enjoyed here, just being able to work hard and have everybody else working hard," she said.
Even in her job hunt, she says, she found a sense of camaraderie. "I was expecting everybody to be cutthroat. There's a group of people applying to management consulting firms, and I was afraid that no one would tell anyone anything, but we've all been helping each other," she said. Lambert will join the Carson Group, a financial analysis firm in New York, after she graduates.
David Nugent, associate professor of anthropology, says that Lambert is one of the finest students he has taught at Colby. "[Lambert's] combination of intellectual gifts and individual integrity made her virtually unique among the many exceptional students that I have had," he said.
Associate Professor of French Adrianna Paliyenko agrees. "Abigail is the kind of person who fosters a sense of community with her professors and with her peers. She engages easily with people and has a delightful sense of humor. Abby is a joyous human being whom I will remember fondly," she said.
Perhaps Franko best characterized Lambert in the following anecdote: "Surrounding the overseers visit [for the International Studies Program], Abby solicited input from IS majors and helped get the troops out for the lunch and reception to meet with the visiting committee. At the end of the reception I was left alone with the overseers team. I asked what they thought of our students. One overseer captured it well. `Abby Lambert,' he said. `Graduating seniors don't come any better than that.'"
Text by Jodi Beznoska '98