The Nov. 29 “Match Book” column in the New York Times, titled “Women and Maine,” includes many writers associated with Colby, such as Professor of English Debra Spark and her novel Unknown Caller, described as having “a sharply hooked premise and well-conceived structure.” Other Colby-affiliated writers in the column include Monica Wood, who taught multiple times as a sabbatical replacement; speakers...
Cheryl Townsend Gilkes, the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Professor of Sociology and African-American Studies, was quoted in a Religion News Service story about megapastor Jamal Bryant and his move from Baltimore to a church in Lithonia, Ga., which has lost two pastors since 2017. Bryant’s transition demonstrates the problem of continuity in churches with nationally significant pastors,...
Tanya Sheehan, the William R. Kenan Jr. Associate Professor of Art, has published an article in the journal Panorama on Thomas Le Clear’s High, Jack, Game. This genre painting depicts two Irish newspaper boys engrossed in a card game called Seven Up as an African-American whitewasher dressed in a mismatched military uniform observes their play. Sheehan’s article follows the...
Colby was mentioned in a feature story titled “Getting college students to ask what makes life worth living” in Christian Century magazine Nov. 1. The story looks at a course titled “Life Worth Living,” developed by Yale Divinity School theologian Miroslav Volf and taught at Colby as a Jan Plan course. Kurt Nelson, Colby’s dean of religious...
The new Bill & Joan Alfond Main Street Commons was awarded a Smart Growth Award from GrowSmart Maine. The downtown mixed-use development project was named “outstanding project,” the Morning Sentinel reported. “Smart growth is a common-sense concept that helps communities welcome growth while maintaining existing historic and natural assets,” the Sentinel wrote. In addition to the 102,000-square-foot Alfond Commons, the...
An Oct. 27 New York Times op-ed titled “Science Confirms It: People Are Not Pets” cites a 2007 study by Thane Pittman, Professor of Psychology, Emeritus. The piece takes a fresh look at social psychology research concerning intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation and notes that “the conclusions that rewards frequently kill both interest and excellence have, if anything, grown...
The Guardian quoted Laura Seay, assistant professor of government, in their Oct. 30 story “Backlash over Lena Dunham script for Syrian refugee film.” Dunham has “suffered a social media backlash after it emerged she has been commissioned by Steven Spielberg and JJ Abrams to write the script for a film about a Syrian refugee who was stranded at sea,” the Guardian reports....
Associate Professor of English Adrian Blevins has had more poems published. Her most recent placement is in Waxwing, which published “Exile Status” and “Renegade Status” in its fall 2018 edition. Translations of these poems, and other new work by Blevins, were performed by Kathryn Butler ’17, Sara Gibbons ’15, and Delaney McDonough ’13 as a dance choreographed Annie Kloppenberg, associate...
Laura Seay, assistant professor of government, was quoted in an NPR story, posted by Philadelphia affiliate WHYY, about the pith helmet that Melania Trump wore on her recent trip to Africa. Seay, who studies African politics, conflict, and development, told NPR “the pith helmet, a thick form of head protection, also came about because of unscientific...
Véronique Plesch, professor of art, has one of her photos of early modern graffiti in an interactive database map of world graffiti at the exhibition “Sur les murs, Histoire(s) de graffitis,” organized by the Centre des monuments nationaux, château de Vincennes through Nov. 11, 2018. The database will be available after the exhibition ends. Plesch also...
Professor of Education Adam Howard has a first-person essay in Vox about his research on the culture at elite schools and how it relates to the allegations against Brett Kavanaugh. “The culture of elite schools encourages sexual assaults and humiliation as well as covering them up,” Howard wrote Sept. 27. “As Kavanaugh himself put it during a speech...
Tilar Mazzeo, the Clara C. Piper Associate Professor of English, appeared Sept. 26 on The Exchange, an NHPR podcast, discussing her new biography, Eliza Hamilton: The Extraordinary Life and Times of the Wife of Alexander Hamilton. Listen to Mazzeo talk about her book, which “follows Eliza Hamilton through her early years, to the ups and downs of her...
Portland TV station WMTW traveled to Waterville to report on the transformation of downtown Waterville, focusing on the recently opened Bill & Joan Alfond Main Street Commons. Reporter Tyler Cadorette talked to Douglas Terp, vice president for administration and chief financial officer, and Mike Roy ’74, Waterville city manager, about “the unique partnership between the...
Professor of Education Adam Howard was interviewed Sept. 21 on NPR’s Here and Now show in an episode titled “‘Incredible’ Privilege At Elite Prep Schools Like Those Kavanaugh And His Accuser Attended.” Howard, who studies privilege and elite secondary education, commented on the role schools play for elite people. “Part of what elite schools do is teach students...
Associate Professor of English Adrian Blevins’ poem “Nope” was featured Sept. 21 on Maine Public’s weekly series “Poems From Here with Maine Poet Laureate Stuart Kestenbaum.” The poem comes from Blevins’ book Appalachians Run Amok, which, as Kestenbaum read during his intro, are poems that “are an attempt to celebrate rural Appalachians, and to complain also a...
Julie Millard, Colby’s Dr. Gerald and Myra Dorros Professor of Chemistry, led a team of students and staff that led to the paper “Genotype and Phenotype of Caffeine Metabolism: A Biochemistry Laboratory Experiment” that appeared in the Journal of Chemical Education Aug. 9. Coauthors include students Tenzin Passang ’19, Jiayu Ye ’18, and Gabriel M. Kline ’19, and staff members Tina M....
Associate Professor of Art Daniel Harkett has published an essay on the innovative German curator and museum director Alexander Dorner. Harkett explores Dorner’s transformative plans for the museum at the Rhode Island School of Design in the 1930s and the resistance Dorner encountered from the local elite. The essay, “Tea vs. Beer: Class, Ethnicity, and...
Daniel Harkett, associate professor of art, wrote an academic review Sept. 7 of the volume Artistes, savants et amateurs: Art et sociabilité au XVIIIe siècle (1715–1815) for the College Art Association. Harkett offers comments on each of the book’s five sections, in the end concluding that “for an art historian of any period, this book offers a...
The Sept. 14 New York Times includes a book review by Neil Gross, the Charles A. Dana Professor of Sociology. Gross reviewed Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World by psychologist Michele Gelfand. “Her aim isn’t to guide readers through all the complex elements that make up a culture, but to draw attention to...
Herb Wilson, the Leslie Brainerd Arey Professor of Biosciences, was quoted in a Sept. 13 Popular Science article titled “Our seasons are out of whack, which is really bad for migratory birds.” Wilson was asked to respond to a recent study in PLOS One on an unevenness in spring’s early arrival across North America and the consequences for migratory...
