Susie Hoeller ’73, an international business attorney, and Ben Theryel ’20 cowrote an article titled “It’s Time to Legally Define Essential Workers” for the Global Food Safety Resource website. “Today, there is no U.S. statutory definition of occupations which are deemed to be ‘essential.’ During the pandemic, this lack of statutory definition has led to a...
Assistant Professor of English Aaron Hanlon discussed political correctness and police accountability with Jennifer Rooks on Maine Public July 2. Hanlon’s main argument is that “political correctness shields police and police departments from public accountability and public scrutiny.” Protecting police, soldiers, and first responders in discourse is a form of right-leaning political correctness, Hanlon said. “There...
An essay by Assistant Professor of English Aaron Hanlon appeared in the June 19 Chronicle of Higher Education. Titled “Higher Ed Is Not a Zero-Sum Game,” the op-ed discusses alternatives to the competition for budget dollars and faculty positions that often plaque institutions of higher ed. “Academics tend to bristle at systems that reduce our lofty...
“Colby College announces plan to bring students back to campus in August” reads the headline on a June 30 story in the Morning Sentinel. The article goes on to detail specifics of the plan for bringing students back to campus and ensure their health and safety, as well as that of the greater community. “We care about the...
Colby’s plans for reopening campus and COVID-19 testing was included in a June 30 Maine Public story titled “COVID-19 Tests Planned For Thousands Of Students Heading Back To Maine College Campuses In The Fall.” President Greene said that in addition to requiring face coverings, social distancing, and other safety measures, Colby will test students and...
A Huffington Post story titled “Democrats Are Making Mitch McConnell The Star Of Senate Race Advertising” referenced a poll conducted by Professor of Government Dan Shea. “A Colby College poll of Maine conducted in February showed that Trump was more popular in the state than McConnell,” the Huff Post reported on its story reporting that “Democratic and liberal groups...
The Portland Press Herald featured two startups founded by Colby students in its June 28 article “Waterville-based tech startups mark milestones in their development:” Easy Eats, founded by Christian Krohg ’22 and Katharine Dougherty ’22, and Sklaza, founded by Josh Kim ’22. Both tech-based businesses competed in the Greenlight Maine Collegiate Challenge pitch competition, “a statewide collaboration of...
For the most recent installation in its series “Ask Me,” the Portland Press Herald reached out to Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of Sociology and African-American Studies, for her thoughts on the question: When will life get back to normal? Gilkes believes that “Normal, as we once knew it, will never be...
A commentary in Fortune titled “Universities should support their most vulnerable students to champion education equity” mentioned Colby’s new initiative, Pay it Northward, as an example of colleges taking care of their students during the COVID-19 pandemic. ‘Smaller institutions, too, illustrate how it is possible to make transformative commitments to equity, even with finite resources,” the authors...
An interview with Raffael Scheck, the Katz Distinguished Teaching Professor of History, was broadcast by Deutsche Welle’s French-language program “Vu d’Allemagne” June 25. Scheck, an expert on crimes against French black African soldiers in World War II, spoke on the 80th anniversary of some of the large massacres of black French soldiers during the German campaign...
Assistant Professor of English Aaron Hanlon wrote an op-ed for the Washington Post titled “The biggest P.C. police are the actual police — and their defenders,” who he argues wants to “make criticism of law enforcement taboo.” “This is exactly what conservatives deride when they call political correctness: censoring or shaming criticism to protect a special class...
Natalie Davidson ’23, a government major, wrote an op-ed on the digital divide that ran in the June 20 Portland Press Herald. Her piece, “It shouldn’t take a pandemic to raise awareness of the ‘homework gap’,” stems from her research into internet access across the country, work that became even more relevant when the COVID-19 pandemic sent...
Assistant Professor of Biology Chris Moore was tapped to comment on a Portland Press Herald article titled “Widely cited health institute keeps missing the mark on Maine death projections.” Models often get a bad rap, Moore said, because they’re not perfect and numerically imprecise. “That is just the nature of dealing with complex systems,” he told the Press...
Maine colleges, including Colby, are releasing details for reopening their campuses, recounted in this June 15 Portland Press Herald article. “Colby College in Waterville will likely start in-person classes earlier than normal and look to complete the semester by Thanksgiving, though the planning process is ongoing and more detailed plans are expected next month, the...
Research on the end-Permian extinction by Robert Gastaldo, the Whipple-Coddington Professor of Geology, was the subject of a Daily Californian article on June 11. The article highlighted Gastaldo’s recently published work that identifies a new timeline for the end-Permian extinction. “We now know after 18 years of research … that whatever happened to the plants, and maybe...
“Cacophonic Choir,” a work co-created by Hannah Wolfe, assistant professor of computer science, was featured in an ACM SIGGRAPH blog post. The project “amplifies the voices of sexual survivors’ stories … and uses machine learning through carefully spaced agents to demonstrate the effect of the mass media on survivors’ stories,” the blog reports. Click here...
An op-ed in the June 13 Portland Press Herald co-written by Catherine Besteman, the Francis F. Bartlett and Ruth K. Bartlett Professor of Anthropology, points out concrete steps Maine can take to correct inequalities for people of color living in the state. Places to start, suggested by the authors, include: Maine should take more steps to protect...
Professor of Government Dan Shea was tapped to comment on the Maine Public piece titled “Political Scientists Say Maine Candidates Could Face Consequences For Skipping Debates.” As the debate season heats up, candidates need to carefully weigh their options when deciding whether or not to participate. “Generally speaking, political scientists will tell you, especially at this...
“Understanding the landscape that our students are going to be moving into, we knew that we needed to turbo-charge our efforts to ensure post-graduate success and really launch this initiative to make that happen,” Andy McGadney, vice president and dean of student advancement, said of Colby’s Pay it Northward initiative to the Concord Monitor for their story...
A June 8 Washington Post article cited research by Jim Fleming, the Charles A. Dana Professor of Science, Technology, and Society. The article, titled “New bill would prohibit the president from nuking a hurricane,” mentioned Fleming’s book “Fixing the Sky: The checkered history of weather and climate control,” and says that the idea of “nuking the...
