Natasha Zelensky, associate professor of music, gave a multi-media presentation titled “Franco Memory Through Song” at the University of Maine’s Lewiston-Auburn Campus on April 11. Zelensky, an ethnomusicologist who studies the role of music in immigrant communities, discussed her project, undertaken with her students, “to collect and preserve some of Lewiston’s most unique—and treasured—Franco-American chanson,” the Lewiston...
Christopher Soto, associate professor of psychology, has published a paper in the journal Psychological Science addressing the replicability crisis in psychology. His paper, “How Replicable Are Links Between Personality Traits and Consequential Life Outcomes? The Life Outcomes of Personality Replication Project,” presents the findings of his project, which “provide grounds for cautious optimism about the personality–outcome...
Fernando Gouvêa, Colby’s Carter Professor of Mathematics, recently reviewed two books for the Mathematical Association of America. Linear Algebra I, a textbook for both undergraduates in need of advanced material with full proofs and graduate students “in need of a deeper and more complete introduction to linear algebra.” Gouvêa concludes that “a course based on this book...
“The historical development of complex global trafficking networks for marine wildlife” is the title of the latest published paper by Loren McClenachan, the Elizabeth and Lee Ainslie Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies. The article, which McClenachan coauthored, appeared in the journal Science Advances and chronicles how the team “curated 150 years of tortoiseshell transactions and derived biologically...
Professor of Art Véronique Plesch organized and chaired the session “Beyond the Mirror: Specularity and Its Uses” at the 107th College Art Association Annual Conference, New York City, Feb. 15. The session was sponsored by the International Association of Word and Image Studies, and Plesch also presented a response to the four papers in the panel.
Katherine Hollander, faculty fellow in the History Department, has been awarded the Anthony Hecht Prize from Waywiser Press. Hollander won the prize for her collection of poems My German Dictionary, forthcoming this fall from Waywiser Press. The book grows “directly out of my experiences as a historian of Central Europe and is, I think, a reflection of my...
Carrie LeVan, the Montgoris Family Assistant Professor of Government, wrote an op-ed titled “What Mainers really think of ranked-choice voting” in the March 12 Bangor Daily News in which she discusses the complexity of whether Mainers support the expansion of ranked-choice voting. “Because ranked-choice voting has become a partisan issue, simply asking Maine’s voters whether they want to expand it seems...
Loren McClenachan, the Elizabeth and Lee Ainslie Assistant Professor of Environmental Studies, has published an article in Ambio, a peer-reviewed scientific journal of the human environment. “Views from the dock: Warming waters, adaptation, and the future of Maine’s lobster fishery” discusses how Maine fishermen perceive and prepare for climate-related threats. “Those with adaptation plans demonstrated...
Work by Bradley Borthwick, assistant professor of art, will be included in the deCordova New England Biennial 2019 at the deCordova Sculptor Park and Museum in Lincoln, Mass. Borthwick, a sculptor, will represent Maine with three other Maine artists, along with the remainder of chosen artists from remaining New England states. A press release from the...
The journal Nature has published an article by Robert Gastaldo, the Whipple-Coddington Professor of Geology, in its News and Views section. The March 1 article, “Ancient plants escaped the end-Permian mass extinction,” details what two papers (one by Fielding et al., the other by Nowak et al.) “reveal about what happened to terrestrial plants during the end-Permian crisis,” Gastaldo writes. Written for a general...
An article by Professor of Education Lyn Mikel Brown and Jenny Flaumenhaft ’19 was published in Phi Delta Kappan Feb. 25. Titled “Student-empowered curricular change,” the article details their work using an initiative called TREE—Transforming Rural Experience in Education—at Maine’s Seabrook Elementary School. TREE uses a bottom-up approach and recognizes that empowerment is key to student success. At...
Decor Maine published the essay “Our Maine Ruinlust” by Adrian Blevins, associate professor of English, that chronicles two homes Blevins refurbished in her 15 years in Maine. The essay mainly focuses on her second home in East Winthrop, a house with beauty that eases her, a “huge house that the original owners unironically named ‘Olympus’ [that] also...
An article by Leticia Mercado, assistant professor of Spanish, was recently published by Emblematica: Essays in Word and Image (volume 2, Fall 2018). Titled “Sepulchral Space in Villamediana and Vaenius,” the study reads the textual construction of the sepulchral space in two ekphrastic sonnets written c. 1629 by Spanish Baroque poet Juan de Tassis, Count of Villamediana, in the light of three emblems...
A book by Melvin Croft, an instructor in the Department of Geology, was recently published in the University of Nebraska’s Outward Odyssey: A People’s History of Spaceflight Series. Come Fly With Us: NASA’s Payload Specialist Program details “an elite group of space travelers who flew as members of many space shuttle crews from pre-Challenger days to Columbia in 2003. Not part of the regular...
New fiction by Sarah Braunstein, assistant professor of English, was recently published in Playboy magazine (Winter 2019, the 65th Anniversary issue). “The Modern Era,” a short story set during future impeachment hearings, dramatizes a difficult break-up from the point of view of a young male comedy writer. Playboy describes it as “Fear and Loving in...
An article by Aaron Hanlon, assistant professor of English, was recently published by history blog Age of Revolutions. Titled “Finding Genres of Revolution in the Classroom,” the Jan. 21 article details a new course Hanlon created at Colby and the challenges he and his students faced discussing global revolutions “within a liberal framework.” Comparative exercises...
Dan Shea, professor of government, wrote an opinion piece in the Portland Press Herald titled “Can average citizens rise to the occasion in response to Mueller’s findings?” The Jan. 18 piece questions if average citizens are still able to see their role as fundamental in a democracy, or if they’re swayed by partisan identification. “Can we break...
Damon Mayrl, assistant professor of sociology, was awarded a Project Grant for Researchers grant from the Louisville Institute for his project titled “A Changing Wall: Local Religious Leaders and Church-State Interaction in a New Era.” Mayrl and his co-researchers plan to interview 150 religious leaders across the country “to document the changing landscape of church-state relations...
An article by Aaron Hanlon, associate professor of English, was published in the Chronicle of Higher Education Dec. 7. Titled “Lies About the Humanities—and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them,” Hanlon outlines four categories of what he says are “bad theories about the humanities,” including “the humanities are ‘noncognitive’ and humanities professors push left-wing ideas on students.”...
Walter Hatch, associate professor of government, penned an op-ed for Crosscut titled “Why conservative think tanks thrive in liberal WA.” The Dec. 20 piece looks at the history and influence of conservative think tanks in the progressive state of Washington. Hatch focuses on three think tanks: Washington Policy Center, the Discovery Institute; and Freedom Foundation, noting that “conservative organizations...
