A typical Wednesday morning class at Colby turned extraordinary April 20 when Maya Lin—renowned artist, architect, and environmental activist—joined the class Environmental Studies 118, Environment and Society, for a conversation with students. Lin spent two days on campus meeting with students and delivering the Miles and Katharine Culbertson Prentice Distinguished Lecture in a packed Lorimer...
A tradition connecting students and the community for 20 years, Colby Cares Day promises some new features in 2016. On Saturday, April 30, in addition to the teams of students working at nonprofit and municipal sites around central Maine, Colby athletic teams will conduct sports clinics for area youngsters at Waterville’s Head of Falls park....
Dana Professor of Sociology Neil Gross published an essay and review of the book Summoned: Identification and Religious Life in a Jewish Neighborhood by Iddo Tavory in the May issue of the influential journal of religion and public life First Things. Gross’s essay, titled “An Orthodox Island,” superimposes anecdotes from his own family on his...
Professor Adam Howard (education) was promoted from associate professor to full professor April 15 by the Colby College Board of Trustees. Howard’s scholarship focuses on issues of social class in education, more specifically the role of privilege in shaping educational access, opportunity, and students’ sense of self. He first taught at Colby in 2003 and...
Assistant Professor of Economics Sahan T. M. Dissanayake participated as a resource person for a workshop organized by the Council on Food, Agricultural, and Resource Economics (CFARE) on creating guiding principles for developing a national framework to quantify ecosystem service benefits. The workshop, held in Washington, D.C., focused on USDA programs and included policymakers, practitioners,...
In his April 17 ornithology column in the MaineToday newspapers, Arey Professor of Biosciences Herb Wilson wrote about the Bien edition of Audubon’s Birds of North America that is currently on view in the Colby Special Collections library. Apropos of the coming Earth Day, Wilson provides a eulogy for the extinct Carolina parakeet, which is...
An essay by Dana Professor of Science, Technology, and Society James Rodger Fleming about Carl Rossby and his early efforts to study weather using hydrogen balloons and radiosondes was published April 17 in the Boston Globe’s “Ideas” section. Under the headline “Oysters, beer, and a meteorological breakthrough” Fleming describes Rossby’s early efforts to study the...
From 9,833 applications—the largest and most competitive pool in its history—Colby has offered admission to 17.5 percent of applicants for the Class of 2020. The academic profile of Colby’s admitted students continues to improve. Average standardized test scores for this admitted group exceed 1420 combined on the critical reading and math sections of the SAT...
Maravilla Clemens ’16 and Alex Heisler ’16 won the Richard J. Borden Award for best conference paper after presenting their research, “Cultivating Conservation in the Lake Tana Basin: Implications of a New UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Model for Ecosystems and Livelihoods,” at the 2016 Society for Human Ecology Conference in Santa Ana, Calif., April 14. Their...
Professor of English Debra Spark offers an alternative way to view Calvin Trillin following the recent dust-up surrounding his poem about Chinese food in The New Yorker April 4. “Does Trillin’s poem mean he is a racist? No, of course not,” Spark writes in an April 8 Huffington Post essay. “Is he oblivious? Yes, indeedy,...
Humanity’s relationship with the natural world is the theme at a landmark conference that brought noted writers, scholars, performers, artists, public officials, and activists to Colby April 7-9. The conference, titled Community, Culture and Conservation, was part of a yearlong series of events exploring the intersection of communities and nature. It led off with a...
A review of Dana Professor of Science, Technology, and Society James R. Fleming’s latest book, Inventing Atmospheric Science: Bjerknes, Rossby, Wexler, and the Foundations of Modern Meteorology (MIT Press, 2016), appears in the April 7 issue of Nature. Reviewer Alan Thorpe writes, “Fleming’s fascinating account clarifies why these [first] two were giants of leadership,” and...
When Dan Csaplar ’16 was a freshman infielder, he lined up to play a hard ground ball only to have it hit a divot in the recently thawed Coombs Field infield. “It popped up in my face and I had to take eight stiches in my lip,” he recalled. The following year Csaplar and teammates...
Professor of English Michael Burke has been awarded an artist’s residency in creative writing for 2016 at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig, Ireland. Founded by and named for renowned theater director Sir William Tyrone Guthrie, the Tyrone Guthrie Centre is funded by the Arts Council of Ireland, the Arts Council of Northern Ireland, and...
Professor of Education Mark Tappan and Adrienne Carmack ’18 will present a research paper titled “From Boys to Men: Exploring Resistant Masculinities During Emerging Adulthood” at the 2016 annual conference the American Men’s Studies Association April 1. The conference is at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, March 31-April 3. Carmack, a Presidential Scholar, worked...
Crawford Family Professor of Religion Nikky-Guninder Singh, an expert on Sikhism, has lectured at numerous conferences and events this academic year. She is scheduled to speak on “Navigating Religious Identity in Our New Worlds” as an interfaith scholar in Fresno, Calif., April 8. Previous engagements include “Sacred and Secular Lyrics from the Punjab” at Wolfson College,...
Assistant Professor of Anthropology Winifred Tate’s 2015 book, Drugs, Thugs and Diplomats: U.S. Policymaking in Colombia (Stanford University Press), was recently published in Spanish under the title Drogas, Bandidos y Diplomáticos by the Universidad del Rosario in Colombia. Tate will attend Colombia’s largest publication event, the Feria del Libro (Book Fair), in Bogota in late...
Sahan T. Dissanayake, assistant professor of economics, recently published or has forthcoming four articles in a variety of journals and a book project. Several of the articles have Colby students as coauthors. His recent publications: “Policies with varying costs and benefits: A land conservation classroom game,” with S. Jacobson, in the Journal of Economic Education....
Colby sent nine athletes to national championships in skiing and in track and field last weekend, and four returned as All-Americans. Olivia Amber ’17 became Colby’s first-ever All-American in Nordic skiing with a ninth-place finish in the 15-kilometer women’s race, Jenna Athanasopoulos ’17 took eighth place in the women’s pentathlon, Mardi Haskell ’17 repeated as...
