Assistant Professor of Economics Nathan Chan likes to study situations in which the participants, acting in their own interest, aren’t necessarily creating the best outcomes for the group. In economic theory, it’s called the “tragedy of the commons.” It’s applicable to climate treaties—and dorm rooms. “Why is the common room not being cleaned up when […]
Dipping into the Melting Pot Colby students live and work in Portland’s vibrant immigrant community There’s no need to leave Maine to study immigration, varied cultures, and the modern diaspora. Six students did earlier this year, living and working with refugee families in the Portland area for the Jan Plan Study Abroad: Living and Working […]
Four years at Colby is often just not long enough. As motivated as I was to move beyond Mayflower Hill upon graduation, reflection during the succeeding years reinforced the unique and finite opportunities Colby students have to embrace the immersive breadth of a liberal arts education. Fortunately for me, I was able to come back […]
As Oak Professor of Biological Sciences, Cole taught a variety of biology and ecology courses; led regular student research trips to Belize, Bermuda, and other locations; and published nearly continuously during his Colby career. From bog shrubs to rodents in Hawaii to Argentine ants, his interests were myriad, and student researchers were often coauthors. Even […]
But I do write polemical things about Trump, for the New Republic and Salon, among other media outlets. For example: “The day before Donald Trump called for a ‘total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,’ he cited political correctness as a serious contributing factor to the San Bernardino attack, a move that neatly united his disdain for […]
In other words, if this is Queer Politics Lite, it’s not for me. “Somehow she had mistakenly thought that we were going to talk about why homophobia is bad,” said Arellano, associate professor of American studies and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies. “I think the class would have been about that ten years ago. So […]
One of the real joys I find is connecting my research process to the ways I can mentor students doing their research. For example, for Drugs, Thugs, and Diplomats (P. 28) I did a huge range of research over a decade: analyzed declassified government documents, went to workshops with peasant farmers in the Amazon, interviewed […]
At Colby Coane will continue to study how we integrate knowledge and words into semantic ononemory—the knowledge that’s accessible without context and instantly connected to related information. The words castanet and Casablanca were examples in her grant application, and it’s estimated that the average adult has 50,000 of these entries stored up. She first became […]
White rats scrabble in their cages; others swim in a large metal vat of water. Students in lab coats dole out food and carefully monitor the buzzing rat activity throughout. This is the behavioral neuroscience lab of Associate Professor of Psychology Melissa Glenn, where she and her students conduct cutting-edge research on the dietary causes […]
I want students to argue with the material and me. I’m always telling them they shouldn’t just listen and take it in. They need to listen, dissect it, and respond. It would be sad and boring for me to go into my History of Iran class and just tell them about the history of Iran. Instead, […]
