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...
Professor of English Michael Burke published a travel article in the Boston Globe in March about his experience as an artist in residence in Noepoli, in southern Italy. Burke had a Palazzo Rinaldi Artist’s Residency during his sabbatical year. The article is online.
James Siodla, assistant professor of economics, recently published an article, “Razing San Francisco: The 1906 Disaster as a Natural Experiment in Urban Redevelopment,” in the Journal of Urban Economics, 89: 48-61, September 2015. The paper examines residential density across razed and unburned areas between 1900 and 2011 and concludes that a large density differential still exists...
Allecia Reid, the William and Margaret Montgoris Assistant Professor of Psychology, researches how social factors influence health behaviors, including young adults’ consumption of alcohol. Now, as the winner of a Fulbright research award for 2016-17, she will spend a sabbatical at the University of Liverpool, in England, testing a novel strategy for reducing alcohol...
Civil rights activist and legendary labor leader Dolores Huerta delivered the keynote address for S.H.O.U.T! March 3 and encouraged students to “show up and make it happen” when working to confront social injustices. Huerta, who cofounded the United Farm Workers (UFW) in 1962 and now advocates for civil, children’s, and women’s rights, offered suggestions for...
Assistant Professor of Economics Timothy Hubbard’s new book, Auctions (MIT Press), is part of the MIT Press Essential Knowledge Series. Cowritten with Harry J. Paarsch, the book explains both the theory and the practice of auctions. “The authors explain what constitutes an auction and how auctions can be modeled as games of asymmetric information,” MIT...
Three Colby theater and dance majors will perform Wednesday, Feb. 24, in Portland, Maine, alongside the internationally renowned Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company in the company’s performance that is part of the Portland Ovations series. Leah Bilodeau ’17, Julia Borges ’18, and Kathryn Butler ’17 will be part of the dance program, “Play and...
An article on innovative teaching pedagogy, written by Assistant Professor of Economics Sahan T. M. Dissanayake, was published in the Journal of Economic Education, the premier journal for economic pedagogy. In the article titled “Using STELLA Simulation Models to Teach Natural Resource Economics” Dissanayake discusses how he incorporates graphical simulation models created using STELLA, a dynamic simulation...
Citing uncertainties about inflation and global headwinds, Boston Federal Reserve President and CEO Eric Rosengren ’79, P’12 called Tuesday for an “unhurried” approach to raising interest rates in the near future. In a speech at Colby College, the Fed executive said that normalization of monetary policy should take a measured approach if inflation, a key...
Now in its fifth year, Education 135J: Multicultural Literacy—which gives students skills to understand, respect, and communicate across differences—reigns as the most popular Jan Plan course. This year 79 students in four sections taught by different instructors took the three-credit course. “Our original goal,” said Associate Professor of Education Adam Howard, who was in on...
Assistant Professor of Biology Dave Angelini was elected to a two-year term as secretary of the Pan-American Society for Evolutionary Developmental Biology starting in January 2016. Evolutionary developmental biology (known as “evo-devo”) is a young, integrative field that explores the intersections of evolutionary biology, development, genetics, and genomics. The PASEDB was founded two years ago to...
Colby’s Collins Observatory, with its research-grade telescope a fixture on Mayflower Hill since 1988, got a lot better this year. The College moved it to a new site atop Runnals Hill, away from local light pollution, and built a bigger classroom for teaching, running the telescope, and analyzing data from observations. And the best is...
In a Q&A published online by Duke University Press in support of her new book, Making Refuge: Somali Bantu Refugees and Lewiston, Maine, Bartlett Professor of Anthropology Catherine Besteman talks about her research in Somalia, her unexpected reunion with refugees in Lewiston, her work with refugee communities, lessons from Somalia that apply to the current...
At its winter meeting, Jan. 28-30, the Colby College Board of Trustees, on the recommendation of President David A. Greene and Provost Lori Kletzer, awarded tenure to six accomplished professors who have demonstrated excellence in the classroom, in their scholarship, and in service to the College. “This is a group of exemplary scholars and teachers,”...
An article in the January 2016 edition of EARTH: The Science Behind the Headlines summarizes research conducted in South Africa by Whipple-Coddington Professor of Geology Robert Gastaldo. Under the headline “Permian-Triassic extinctions timed differently on land and at sea,” the article explains how research by Gastaldo and colleagues, including dozens of Colby student researchers, has...
Professor of English Michael Burke published an essay in the Boston Globe‘s “My First Home” series Jan. 10. The piece, titled “It Didn’t ‘Ad’ Up,” describes the Maine farmhouse he and his wife have renovated since purchasing it in 1987.
Professor of Theater and Dance Lynne Conner was invited to speak about her book, Audience Engagement and the Role of Arts Talk in the Digital Era, with “Dialogues” host Stewart Urist at Carnegie Mellon University’s Arts Management and Technology Lab. In the 22-minute segment, Conner discusses her theory of social interpretation through productive talk and reflects...
Professor of History Paul Josephson conducted a podcast interview with New Books in Science, Technology, and Society Jan. 29. Josephson discusses his book Fish Sticks, Sports Bras, and Aluminum Cans: The Politics of Everyday Technologies (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015), which explores everyday objects through social, political, and cultural lenses.
