Ainslie Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies Loren McClenachan coauthored an article titled “Collateral damage to marine and terrestrial ecosystems from Yankee whaling in the 19th century,” which appeared in Ecology and Evolution. The results of the research show that “the ecosystem impacts of whaling reverberated on both marine and coastal environments.” The article was a collaboration among McClenachan, Joshua...
In an Oct. 12 National Review artcle titled “In Maine, Trump Exposes Cultural Fissures among Whites,” Professor of Government Dan Shea comments on why Maine may divide its electoral votes in November for the first time in history. “There’s a lot of working-class white voters in Maine who say, ‘Both parties have let us down,’” said Shea, director...
Media outlets statewide, including the Portland Press Herald, covered news of the Oct. 18 joint Colby/Alfond $20-million investment in downtown Waterville. Publications including Mainebiz ran stories, Maine Public aired a piece, and TV stations WABI and WCSH were in Waterville covering the announcement. “When this community steps forward and rolls up its sleeves, the foundation will step...
President David A. Greene and Alfond Foundation Chairman Greg Powell explain why they’re investing in Waterville in their op-ed “Investing in Maine downtowns—like Waterville’s—restored our sense of possibly.” In the Oct. 24 piece, they highlight their reasons for the $20-million investment to establish a development fund to aid the city in its revitalization efforts. A deep history...
An op-ed by Professor of Education Mark Tappan calls for resistance to Donald Trump’s “toxic masculinity,” noting its perpetrators and sources, while also pointing to examples of healthy masculinity. “White working-class men are suffering, economically, socially, and physically,” Tappan writes in the Portland Press Herald Oct. 23, and their allegiance to Trump stems from “fear and shame...
Bartlett Professor of Anthropology Catherine Besteman will present a paper titled “Refugee Matters and the Anthropological Gaze” at the 115th annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association. Besteman’s paper will be part of session called Life Matters: Accountability, Complicity, Politics sponsored by the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology and the Society for Cultural Anthropology....
Associate Professor of Philosophy Lydia Moland will give a keynote address at the fourth annual Lehigh Philosophy Conference Oct. 27-28. Moland’s talk, “Artistic Idealism: Hegelian Themes in Contemporary Art,” reflects her expertise on Hegel and her most recent project, a comprehensive interpretation of Hegel’s aesthetics. Moland received a 2015 grant from the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst to...
Federal Reserve Bank of Boston President Eric Rosengren ’79, P’12 and the New York Times engaged in a Q and A on the danger of low unemployment, currently at five percent. In the interview published Oct. 17, Rosengren discusses his concern that there may not be enough unemployment, because when rates have “gotten to the low...
Andrew Newcomb ’15 secured a Ph.D. research assistant position at the University of Maine to work on the Future of Dams project because of the preparation he received at Colby, a news story from the university reports. “Newcomb believes a good mix of science and humanities and social science courses at Colby prepared him well...
Colby has taken another step forward in making a college education more accessible by allowing high school students to self-report their standardized test scores to Colby. This means that students no longer have to pay to send official score reports to the College to be considered for admission. Official scores will only be required for...
The exhibit No Limits: Zao Wou-Ki, co-curated by Jette Professor of Art Ankeney Weitz and Research Associate Melissa Walt, was reviewed in The New Yorker magazine. The review found the exhibit’s most impressive works to be the smallest: “archaized lithographs of fish and wolves, created to accompany poems by his close friend, Henri Michaux.” The International Examiner also mentioned...
Assistant Professor of Art Bradley Borthwick installed a site-specific sculpture at Borthwick Castle, in Midlothian, Scotland. The project, “Flodden—The Mote of Locherwart,” investigates past intent upon a landscape and the impact of Borthwick’s familial ancestry within feudal structures of 16th-century Scotland. With an English longbow and several hundred arrows made to historical specification, Borthwick addresses the...
Professor of Education Lyn Mikel Brown has released her sixth book, Powered by Girl: A Field Guide to Supporting Youth Activists (Beacon Press, 2016). An advocate for and mentor to youth activists, Brown interviews girls and women on the frontlines of activism, and her book acts as a field guide for their adult supporters. She argues...
Celeste Murtha ’17 cowrote an op-ed, “Here’s a way Maine can keep more babies alive,” about Maine’s high infant mortality rate. Murtha, a biology major from Natick, Mass., has been an intern at the Edmund N. Ervin Pediatric Center at MaineGeneral Medical Center studying sudden unexpected infant death syndrome (SUIDS). She advocates offering a baby...
Dana Professor of Sociology Neil Gross responded to the FBI’s recently released crime stats with a New York Times op-ed titled “Is There a ‘Ferguson Effect’?” In it he examines theories about why the crime rate has gone up. Conservatives “claim is that crime rose because the police found themselves hamstrung in a political environment in which...
Tilar Mazzeo, Clara C. Piper Associate Professor of English, released a new book titled Irena’s Children (Simon & Schuster) that tells the true story of a woman who saved thousands of Jewish children in Nazi-occupied Poland during the Holocaust. Kirkus Reviews named Irena’s Children one of the 10 most anticipated nonfiction books of fall 2016, and wrote, “Mazzeo chronicles...
Following five years of research In Europe and Asia, the collaborative efforts of Ankeney Weitz, Ellerton and Edith Jetté Professor of Art, and Research Associate Melissa Walt are making headlines in the art world. The two art historians have co-curated the exhibit No Limits: Zao Wou-Ki, the first retrospective of the Sino-French artist’s work in...
Tanya Sheehan, associate professor and chair of art, edited Grove Art Guide to Photography, to be published October 2016 by Oxford University Press. A field guide for students, instructors, and scholars, the Grove Art Guide to Photography provides a thorough overview of photography’s history, from the early 19th century to the present. This wide-ranging volume examines photographic...
As this professor procrastinated preparing her syllabus, her tweets started an academic movement. Assistant Professor of Government Laura Seay, who has 22,500 Twitter followers as @texasinafrica, uses social media extensively and got “goofing around” just before the semester began. She started tweeting those irresistible Buzzfeed-style teasers for her fall academic courses using the hashtag #ClickbaitSyllabus....
Formal academic regalia, pomp, and deep reflections about the College’s venerable purpose provided direct connections from 198 preceding opening-of-school convocations to the Sept. 6 ceremony that launched Colby’s academic year Tuesday. But much was different this year, as students, faculty, and administrators gathered for the serious business of beginning 2016-17 and welcoming the Class of...
