scene Autumn 2008
News and views for the Colgate community
A New Scene Sabotage Behind the Sticker Price Serving the People
scene
Autumn 2008
24 A New Scene 26 Sabotage
High costs at the gas pump got you down? Filmmaker Sandy Cioffi ’84 has a story to tell about the true price of oil.
30 Behind the Sticker Price
Why does college cost so much, and what is Colgate doing to manage the issue?
36 Serving the People
An inside look at charity in the world’s most populous nation, in the wake of the devastating Sichuan earthquake.
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Message from President Rebecca S. Chopp
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Letters
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Work & Play
DEPARTMENTS
Arts & Culture Go ’gate New, Noted & Quoted
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The Big Picture
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Stay Connected
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Class News 54 Alumni Clubs & Groups 69 Marriages & Unions 69 Births & Adoptions 70 In Memoriam
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Salmagundi
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Life of the Mind
On the cover: Student Government Association member Zeehan Rauf ’11 and residence life staffer Pornchompoo “Pooh” Suwanrut ’11 participate in a team exercise on day one of the Robert A. Fox ’59 Leadership Institute. News and views for the Colgate community
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scene team
Contributors
Volume XXXVIII Number 1 The Scene is published by Colgate University four times a year — in autumn, winter, spring, and summer. The Scene is circulated without charge to alumni, parents, friends, and students.
Film and video artist Sandy Cioffi ’84 (“Sabotage,” pg. 26) has produced and/or directed several films including the critically acclaimed Crocodile Tears, Terminal 187, and Just Us. A professor at Seattle Central Community College, she has also used video as a documentation and verification tool for human rights organizations, including providing video evidence during the 1998 marching season in Northern Ireland.
Dick Anderson (“Behind the Sticker Price,” pg. 30) is publications editor at Occidental College in Los Angeles. He has written frequently about the politics of education and fundraising during the past 17 years, with earlier stints at Washington and Lee University and Claremont McKenna College, and authored an unproduced screenplay, Blood Endowment.
The work of illustrator James Yang (“Behind the Sticker Price,” pg. 30) has appeared in Time, Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, and Forbes, as well as some of the nation’s most prestigious trade publications, including Communication Arts Design Annual, Communications Arts Illustration Annual, Print Magazine, Graphis, and the Society of Publication Designers Annual.
Carolyn Hsu (“Serving the People,” pg. 36), associate professor of sociology, spent last spring in China on Spencer Foundation and Colgate Faculty Research Council grants, researching grassroots NGOs and charities, including those that help build and refurbish crumbling school structures in rural areas. One of the perks of her sabbatical was that she got to ride a camel in the Gobi Desert.
scene online
Listen
Colgate Conversations: www.colgate.edu/podcasts More than 30 podcasts are available, including English professor George Hudson talking about off-campus study programs he leads and his work as a Swiss Alps guide for the Smithsonian.
Watch
Video Features: www.colgate.edu/video See how move-in day went for first-year students this year, and learn about the Robert A. Fox ’59 Leadership Institute in two of our latest videos.
Get connected
Online Community: www.colgatealumni.org Your class page has the latest news and an RSS feed highlighting classmates who are mentioned in the media. Log on and learn about your class!
Look
Photo Galleries: www.colgate.edu/photos Images from around campus include the welcomeback barbecue held at the ALANA Cultural Center and the Greek Life Summit held this past summer.
Talk
Blogs Students writing about their off-campus study experiences on the Global Colgate blog would love to hear from you. Go to http://colgate.blogs.com/ globalcolgate and post a comment.
Vice President for Public Relations and Communications Charles Melichar Managing Editor Rebecca Costello Associate Editor Aleta Mayne Director of Publications Gerald Gall Coordinator of Photographic Services Andrew Daddio Production Assistant Kathy Bridge
Contributing writers and designers: Director of Web Content Timothy O’Keeffe Art Director Karen Luciani Designer Jennifer Kirsteins Director of Athletic Communications Robert Cornell Director of Marketing and Public Relations Barbara Brooks Senior Advancement Writer Mark Walden Manager of Media Communications Anthony Adornato
Contact: scene@mail.colgate.edu 315-228-7417 www.colgate.edu/scene
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scene: Autumn 2008
Message from President Rebecca S. Chopp
As fall arrived,
the members of the Class of 2012 began making their mark, joining
new clubs and teams, being challenged by and challenging our faculty, making friends, and settling into their new “home” — a home they now share with 30,000 Colgate alumni. your feedback, and for that, we thank you. As the data are being analyzed, two key themes are emerging: Colgate alumni are fiercely proud, deeply loyal people who want to help the university succeed; however, as part of their involvement, they want the university to do a better job of talking with — not just talking to — them about the challenges and issues that the university faces, and how we are addressing those issues. This is a point of agreement. It is clear that stronger, more meaningful dialogue and involvement between alumni and Colgate are essential to our future. Through conversations we will pursue based on the Gallup project, events across the nation, and other efforts — including this new format for the Scene — we are shifting the ways in which we talk with each other and with our alumni. This shift is meant to open the door to the active engagement of greater numbers of alumni. This sense of collaboration and shared purpose is, in many ways, in the Colgate DNA. This campus was founded by people with a pioneering spirit who were determined to build something much bigger than themselves. As I look out to the future, I see no better way to think about the work that lies ahead. In this first issue of the new Scene, we begin a new conversation by addressing an issue that is very much on the minds of the whole Colgate community — college costs. (See the feature article “Behind the Sticker Price” on page 30.) This is perhaps the most critical conversation right now because it directly impacts our current and future students and their families. We are determined to enhance our financial aid resources to keep Colgate affordable for our students, but this is an issue, particularly in hard financial times, that we must all understand if we are to work together to find new solutions. In the coming year, through our publications and events, this will be a main topic of discussion and opportunity for dialogue. I look forward to continuing the conversation. President Rebecca Chopp chats with members of Greekletter organizations at the Greek Life Summit, a gathering of students and alumni to discuss the past, evaluate the present, and envision the future for Colgate’s fraternities and sororities.
Andrew Daddio
The striking beauty of our campus and the power of connecting with other Colgate people both contribute to the deep and enduring sense of pride and love our alumni have for this place. Particularly at a time when society is more mobile and global than ever before, the idea of campus as home is a powerful metaphor for our 21st-century community. Consider the friendships that are formed here and develop over decades, whether they are between students, or with members of the faculty. Think of those “Colgate moments” on the street, when you are wearing your Colgate T-shirt or cap and you get stopped to share a few minutes talking about living in Stillman, traveling with Professor Tony Aveni, or climbing Cardiac Hill on a snowy February morning. There is a bond that ties Colgate people together, a sense of investment in a university founded nearly 200 years ago that is built upon, year by year, by its students, faculty, and alumni. As we consider Colgate’s great momentum and its path into the future, it is important that we consider our priorities in terms of how we can achieve them together. This is a time of great opportunity — and significant challenge — for higher education. Demographics are changing. College costs are rising. The global economy is in flux, and the call for visionary, ethical leaders is unmistakable. Colgate needs to keep creating leaders who can help address these challenges. The difference between leading and following, building on our momentum or falling back, has everything to do with how we come together as a community, actively engaging in the work of shaping Colgate’s future — and that of generations of students to come. The first step on this path is open, productive dialogue. This past summer, we partnered with the Gallup organization in a survey effort to assess the current state of alumni engagement — from the kinds of involvement they are interested in, to the ways in which they feel the university could do better. Many of you responded with
News and views for the Colgate community
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Letters July 2008
The Colgate Scene
The Scene welcomes letters. We reserve the right to decide whether a letter is acceptable for publication and to edit for accuracy, clarity, and length. Letters deemed potentially libelous or that malign a person or group will not be published. Letters should not exceed 250 words. You can reach us by mail, or e-mail sceneletters@mail.colgate.edu. Please include your full name, class year if applicable, address, phone number, and/or e-mail address.
A seamless 50th Reunion I know I can speak for my classmates who returned for our 50th Reunion (pg. 8-9, July 2008 Scene), and probably for all the other reunion returnees, when I say that the great planning work done by Colgate staff and alumni class representatives yielded an event that equalled or exceeded pretty much any that we have experienced over these many years. It was “seamless” in each and every event and — as President Chopp stated, referring to the movie Groundhog Day, at the Presidents’ Club breakfast regarding the way this year went for Colgate — “I wish we could do this over and over.” Congratulations to all! Arthur Rashap ’58 Munnsville, N.Y.
Remembering Howard Jones I was saddened to read of the passing of Howard Jones ’39 (Deaths, July 2008 Scene). In the spring of 1953, as I was finishing my bachelor’s degree at SUNY Oswego, I was informed by my English studies mentor about the Graduate Preceptorial program at Colgate. My mentor had heard about it from a friend he had made when they were finishing their doctorates at Syracuse University. That friend was Howard Jones. I applied for the program and was accepted as a graduate preceptor and to the MA program.
from Professors Berlind, Kistler, Lawson, Rockwell, and Speirs. Thus, with my MA, I was prepared to go on to a PhD in English at Syracuse and a very long academic career. I corresponded from time to time with Jones when he went north to run the Northfield and Mount Herman Schools, and then we lost touch. Fortunately, I was able to keep up with his careers and life through decades of issues of the Colgate Scene. Like many whose lives he touched and influenced, I’ll never forget Howard Jones. Sanford Sternlicht MA’55 Professor of English, Syracuse University
Mansfield: exemplary teacher, deep thinker
Howard Jones ’39
I believe Jones, on the recommendation of my mentor, helped in the acceptance. The preceptorial offices were in the old administration building, the edifice that once housed the Colgate Academy, and Jones had his office in the building, too. He was always very friendly and supportive of the preceptors, and consequently very popular. We had many conversations. The program offered me some teaching experience, and I received excellent class and thesis instruction
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scene: Autumn 2008
Not only was Vic Mansfield (Deaths, July 2008 Scene) a great teacher, but he was also very human inside and outside the classroom. In his class on Jungian psychology and physics, one could see that he was thinking deeply about the material as we talked; one time the class was respectfully silent for over a minute as he was ruminating. Not until a classmate held up a pen and let it drop on his desk was the silence broken and we returned to the discussion. He invited the physics majors out to his home in the country to meet his family and to cross-country ski and savor hot chocolate and cinnamon toast. He became passionately excited when
I made strides in physical thinking and then asked thought-provoking questions to which he had no intention of providing the answers, leaving me confused, but more importantly, intrigued.
Vic Mansfield
He was even willing to dive off tables into the arms of students waiting below in order to demonstrate a principle of general relativity. Now that I am a physics professor myself, I truly appreciate the depth of Vic’s commitment to his students. I am grateful to have been one of them. Nancy “Therm” Burnham ’80 Worcester, Mass. Vic Mansfield was my physics adviser. We shared several one-on-one discussions in his office, and I will always be grateful for the advice and encouragement he gave me. Even though I often went in with a physics question, within minutes we’d be talking about Buddhism, spirituality, and life in
general. He was a truly deep intellectual, interested in viewing life from multiple perspectives — that type of influence is going to stick with me for the rest of my life.
from the time women were admitted to Colgate. It just goes to prove that any person — man or woman — can develop the necessary skill set to care for a child if he or she is committed. Compared to caring for my 2and 1-year-olds, going to work is a vacation for me: I get to have adult conversations, work on a computer, and actually apply logic as leverage! And though I am not stubble-faced (like Dan), I, too, play sports, love beer, take out the trash, cut the lawn, etc. Antiquated gender roles have been redefined, and I find the change healthy. Nobody appreciates the feeling of being boxed in.
Jeff Seely ’08 Mansfield, Texas
Changes are gratifying I have been gratified at the changes at Colgate concerning visibility and the increased ability of LGBTQ students to be themselves (Around the College, July 2008 Scene). This is such a change from what we suffered at Colgate in the early ’60s. It was impossible for me to even disclose my inner feelings to myself and I would surely have lost my scholarship if my “tendencies” had been known. The good side was that I was able to experience life on both sides, as I married and had three children before, at age 40, I met the man of my life who also had three children, and was able to be comfortable with myself. Warren and I have been together for 26 years and have nine grandchildren between us. It is because of these changes that Warren and I went back to my first reunion this year. I urge all alumni, particularly gay and lesbian alumni, to support these efforts at Colgate. E. Jeremy Hutton ’63 Harpers Ferry, W.V.
The Dalai Lama’s Colgate visit It was a true pilgrimage for me to travel to Colgate to see His Holiness, the Dalai Lama (July 2008 Scene). My own studies, 36 years ago, in Buddhism, came streaming back to me, and my own faith as a Christian and as an Episcopal priest were strengthened. I was also able to meet two Tibetan Buddhist monks from the monastery in Ithaca as we gathered back in the parking area on Whitnall Field. They knew the monk who has been teaching my son at Hobart College to create a Buddhist sand mandala, which I saw later in the week prior to its reverent destruction. How much we Westerners could grow if we lived out even some of the Buddhist belief that all things are impermanent! Rev. James Kellaway ’72 Vernon Rockville, Conn.
P.S. I hope one of my four brothers who went to Colgate read Dan’s article, too! Lyle Tolli ’10
Maria Langan Archer ’88 Southampton, N.Y.
Another devout runner I read with interest your article about Lyle Tolli’s “opportunity to give glory to God” in his track career at Colgate (Sports, May 2008). This quote almost leapt off the page when I read it; this was exactly the same athletic religious philosophy of another fine track runner by the name of Eric Liddell. He was made “re-famous” for this generation by the 1981 film Chariots of Fire, which portrayed the events surrounding his winning the 400 meter race at the 1924 Paris Olympics, particularly his refusal to run in the 100 meter race because it was on Sunday, the Lord’s Day. After this, he returned to China as a missionary from 1925 to 1945. He became a prisoner of the invading Japanese and died of a brain tumor five months before his internment camp was liberated. I wish Lyle a great career at Colgate (he is already well on his way), and he certainly has the right attitude about his gift, as did Eric Liddell. hiroshima jkt art 23.5mm
It was America’s bomb
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Andrew J. Rotter is Charles A. Dana Professor of History at Colgate University. He specializes in US diplomatic history, recent U.S. history, and the Vietnam War, and has written extensively on US-Asian relations during the twentieth century, including the books The Path to Vietnam and Comrades at Odds: India and the United States.
Jacket photograph: © 2000 TopFoto.co.uk
Bart Newell ’66 Track 1963–1966
Women’s work Hats off to Dan Carsen ’93! My husband and I enjoyed reading his article “Reevaluating ‘Women’s Work’” in the May edition. What a refreshing piece to read in the Scene less than 40 years
Even the most casual visitor to the Hiroshima Peace Memorial may perceive the poignancy of death — the shattered eyeglasses, the sintered pocket watch, the mutilated school lunchbox, disintegrated almost beyond recognition. Indeed, the profoundly personal character of these artifacts and the haunting notion of personal responsibility were powerful enough to derail the Enola Gay Exhibit in 1994, convene a Congressional ad hiroshima hoc committee, and precipitate the resignationin-disgust of the Smithsonian director. The United 1 was the States first country to incinerate the civilian population of a large city using a nuclear bomb. It was also the second to do so. And it was the last. More succinctly, it is the only country to have ever done so (twice) and thus bears a unique moral onus. Arguing otherwise would require a leap of imagination and in Hiroshima: the World’s Bomb (May 2008 Scene) that is exactly what Professor Rotter seems to attempt. Here’s an analogous anecdote. On Dec. 29, 1890, at Wounded Knee, S.D., more than 300 sick and starving Native American civilians, mostly The American decision to drop an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 was one of the most controversial events of the twentieth century. Yet, as this new history shows, the first atom bomb was not just an American invention.The race to create and deploy the atom bomb was international, and the consequences of that race are carried by the whole world to this day.
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‘Smart,useful, and beautifully written . . . [Rotter] shows in how many ways this truly was the world’s bomb.’ Laura Hein, Northwestern University, and author of Living with the Bomb
‘Engaging and exceptionally skilful . . . By any standard, a terrific book.’ J. Samuel Walker, author of Prompt and Utter Destruction: Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs against Japan
‘A profound look at one of mankind’s most significant (and tragic) events . . .’ Thomas W. Zeiler, University of Colorado, and author of Unconditional Defeat: Japan, America, and the End of World War II
A N D R E W
www.oup.com
£16.99 RRP $29.95
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Dan Carsen ’93 with daughter Lucine Sophia
women, children, and the aged, met their deaths in a cold, dark mass grave, gunned down by a new mechanical weapon. The Gatling gun, invented by the American Dr. Richard J. Gatling in 1861, offered vast improvements in operational efficiency over the mitrailleuse, its Flemish/French prototype of a decade earlier. It went on to play a major role in the U.S. annihilation of more than a half-million Filipino civilians alone during the years of 1899–1902 preceding the Philippine conquest and occupation. Historians have variously argued that the outcome of General Custer’s battle at Little Bighorn (1876) would have been different had he had a Gatling in tow. And, conversely, that if the Native American enemy had somehow acquired a Gatling gun, they wouldn’t have hesitated to use it against their nemesis, the U.S. Cavalry. The latter conjecture is undoubtedly true. Despite its international pedigree, the Gatling gun throttled at Wounded Knee or Luzon was not a “world gun,” it was an American one. Nor did “world bombs” drop over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, only American ones. Moral accountability presumes choice of action.
The US decision to drop an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 remains one of the most controversial events of the twentieth century. However, the controversy over the rights and wrongs of dropping the bomb has tended to obscure a number of fundamental and sobering truths about the development of this fearsome weapon.
The principle of killing thousands of enemy civilians from the air was already well established by 1945 and had been practised on numerous occasions by both sides during the Second World War. Moreover, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima was conceived and built by an international community of scientists, not just by the Americans. Other nations (including Japan and Germany) were also developing atomic bombs in the first half of the 1940s, albeit haphazardly. Indeed, it is difficult to imagine any combatant nation foregoing the use of the bomb during the war had it been able to obtain one. The international team of scientists organized by the Americans just got there first. As this new history shows, the bomb dropped by a US pilot that hot August morning in 1945 was in many ways the world’s offspring, in both a technological and a moral sense. The race to create and deploy the atom bomb was international, and the consequences of that race are carried by the whole world to this day.
Gary Moler ’73 Shiga, Japan
News and views for the Colgate community
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work & play
Campus scrapbook A
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Sweet ride down College Street
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Students sign up for free T-shirts and the opportunity to become an ambassador student worker at the ALANA Cultural Center kickoff barbecue.
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“The Freshmaker” turned mess maker. A physics club experiment in front of the Ho Science Center demonstrates how dropping Mentos into Diet Coke causes a soda geyser.
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Back to school. Hitting the books at the Coop.
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Professor Ellen Kraly takes a water break while climbing Mt. Rainier to raise money for breast cancer research. Photo by Jim Kraly. Sales from a special jewelry line crafted by Lisa Oristian have contributed to Kraly’s cause. (See the full story on page 10.)
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That’s a soaker. Balloon toss offers some cool relief at Konosioni field day.
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Where’s the elevator? Volunteers help first-year students haul their belongings up several flights of stairs on move-in day.
Photos by Andrew Daddio unless otherwise noted
scene: Autumn 2008
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Colgate’s Board of Trustees welcomes new members Nancy C. Crown P’10, Dr. Ramón A. Garcia ’77, and Stephen R. Howe Jr. ’83. They join a board composed of 31 alumni, 3 parents, and the university president. Alumni are encouraged to submit nominations for board membership by sending names and accompanying rationale for the submission to Kim Waldron, Secretary of the College, Colgate University, 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, NY 13346.
Global explorers
Even the windowsills were full at Founders’ Day Convocation in Memorial Chapel on Aug. 31.
Colgate’s newest graduates, and a few current students, are covering the globe supported by major fellowships and scholarships — from researching such subjects as the mass migration of Jews from the Muslim lands of the Middle East, to teaching English to young students in Asia. Paul J. Schupf ’58 Fellowship, for two years of study at St. Anne’s College of the University of Oxford: Ruben Leavitt ’08 will read for a Master of Philosophy in Politics: Political Theory. His primary area of study will be in the political philosophies of war in both modern and historical perspectives. Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, for a year of independent exploration outside the United States: Gemina Garland-Lewis ’08 will study the differences in the cultural valuing of
whales within pro- and anti-whaling nations, traveling to The Azores, South Africa, Brazil, New Zealand, Japan, and Norway. Cecilia Sibony ’08 will visit Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Turkey, and Bahrain to examine the migration of Jews from their homes in the Middle East and compare Muslim perspectives on the sociopolitical circumstances of each country before and during the migration, in order to obtain a more complete picture of the factors affecting decisions to emigrate. U.S. Student Fulbright Program scholarships: Jillian Ferris ’08 (English teaching assistantship, Taiwan); Caryn Fields ’08 (English teaching assistantship, Thailand); Julia Gooding ’08 (study/research, China); and Colin Twomey ’08 (study/research, Belgium). Goldwater Scholarship: Caraline Higgins ’09, supporting her pursuit of graduate degrees in the field of infectious diseases. Beinecke Scholarship: Nathaniel Del Prete ’09, supporting his pursuit of a doctorate in the classics.
9,415 Students who applied 23.9% Acceptance rate 738 Enrolled 3.74 Average GPA 1 Holds a computer software patent 15 Traveled to New Orleans to help with Hurricane Katrina relief
60 Student government presidents 45 Participated in Model United Nations 2 Published authors 36 International students, from 16 countries 84 Have studied or volunteered abroad 2 Professional actors 22% Multicultural students 1 Oregon State Debate Championship winner 1 Created a program that collected 350 pairs
Chopp honored as pivotal figure in higher education
of shoes for Ghanaian youth
President Rebecca S. Chopp has been awarded the 2008 Professional Achievement Citation from her alma mater, the University of Chicago. The alumni citation honored her for being a “pivotal figure in the field of higher
Andrew Daddio
work & play
New trustees
Go figure – Class of 2012
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education and a renowned scholar of religion and culture.” In receiving the award, she said her experience at the University of Chicago had a profound impact on her career. “Open-ended questioning, crossdisciplinary exploration, and delight in the sheer love of thinking were all avenues of joy that I gained,” said Chopp, who earned her doctorate from the University of Chicago Divinity School in 1983 and began her professional career as an assistant professor of theology at the school. “The university opened a world to me that I did not know existed, but it was a world to which I quickly and happily learned to belong.” In recent years Chopp’s research and publication have focused on changing structures and cultures of higher education, the role of liberal arts in democratic society, and supporting faculty in teaching and research. She has written numerous books and articles in the areas of women’s studies, Christian theology, and the role of religion in American public life.
Back on campus
Andrew Daddio
Brain drain warrior
Tim Mansfield, assistant dean of students and director of Greek life, leads a forum with students and alumni at the Greek Life Summit.
Strengthening Greek life
Colgate’s Greek-letter organizations are partnering with the university to find ways to strengthen the system on campus. A Greek Life Summit was held in July to evaluate the health of the system and develop a stronger plan for sustainability. Five student representatives from each of the 10 fraternities and sororities on campus collaborated with staff members, local advisers, and alumni representatives. In all, more than 70 people contributed to the dialogue that was framed by a nationally recognized deliberation model called Fraternal Futures. Participants engaged in different ways of framing complex issues, examining problems, and developing action plans through large open forums and moderated group dialogues. Topics included greater outreach in the Colgate community, effective outlets to communicate with the administration, and the adoption of a more fitting code of rights and responsibilities. Tim Mansfield, assistant dean of students and director of Greek life, said his goal was for students to “take specific actions in this system — how they recruit, how they hold each other accountable — and get at ways that take ownership of their fraternal experience.” Charlie Stack ’04, Beta Theta Pi, agreed with Mansfield about ownership leading to responsibility and action. “That’s why everyone was there — they wanted an ownership stake. It may not be necessary to physically own the houses for students to retain
the same sense of ownership over the system,” said Stack. “I think there is a solution where the school gets what it wants and it’s the same thing that the students want and the alums want — it all should revolve around giving students a better education both socially and academically, and a large part of that is letting them manage their own lives and living situations, to whatever extent is possible,” Stack said. “Students need to know that their action — or inaction — will ultimately shape their fraternal future,” said Mansfield, “and we don’t want to lose the momentum of this valuable summit.” An executive summary of the reports that emerged from the summit was distributed to the student Panhellenic Council and Interfraternity Council, to facilitate the discussions that are continuing this fall. — Brittany Messenger ’10, Kappa Kappa Gamma
Amethyst Initiative to foster dialogue about drinking age
President Chopp is among more than 100 college and university presidents nationwide who have signed the Amethyst Initiative, a call for a national discussion on the issue of alcohol use and abuse on college campuses. The initiative is led by John McCardell, president emeritus of Middlebury College and founder of Choose Responsibility. The group’s statement reflects the belief that the 21-year-old drinking age is not working, that its unintended consequences are posing increasing risks to young people, and that
Upstate New York is battling “brain drain,” and Kevin McAvey ’05 has taken up a sword. In June, he met with members of Colgate’s Upstate Institute to discuss the nonprofit he is launching, whose mission is to attract and retain graduating students in the region. McAvey, a Cornell graduate student, said although he left the area after graduation, his “heart stayed in upstate New York.” Plans for the nonprofit — named the Upstate Foundation — include an online job database to strengthen the connection between local companies and universities, fellowships for top students who accept positions with upstate New York companies, and assistance in coordinating policy initiatives. As an Upstate Institute Fellow with the Chenango County United Way in 2003, McAvey learned the inner workings of a nonprofit agency, and fell in love with the sense of community. “I realized how many selling points
it is time for a serious debate among elected representatives about whether current public policies are in line with current realities. “This is not an endorsement of lowering the drinking age to 18, but rather a statement that this discussion needs to be open and inclusive if it is to be productive,” said Chopp. “The health and safety of our students is our highest priority, and we owe it to them and their families to encourage open and ongoing dialogue around this important issue.” Colgate’s policies on alcohol and drugs, as stated in the student handbook, are strictly enforced. This year, the Office of the Dean of the College is increasing its efforts to educate students about alcohol, stress, and other factors that lead to binge drinking; as well, Colgate’s Wellness Initiative helps students learn stress reduction, nutrition, and the facts about alcohol consumption.
this area has to offer: the low cost of living, great schools, beautiful surroundings, and plenty of leadership opportunities for young professionals.”
Also back Jesse Berman ’04, Tim Chrzan ’76, Bruce Clayton ’89, Ian Dennis ’04, Ainslie Ellis ’00, Michael Fish ’05, Jess Gregory ’05, Gene Krebs ’66, Alex Lane ’00, Paul Lobo ’89, Charlie Stack ’04, and Bob Tyburski ’74 were among the alumni who participated in the Greek Life Summit with students. Robert Fox ’59 gave the keynote address at Colgate’s Leadership Institute, which now bears his name. The most important characteristic of a good leader, he told students, is the ability to deal with a variety of people. Sidney Jones ’05 gave a career services talk about her experience teaching English on a Fulbright Fellowship at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey. Charles Hall ’65, professor of environmental and forest biology at SUNY Syracuse, discussed “Energy Return on Investment and Our Economic Future” in a Center for Ethics and World Societies lecture.
New position focuses on diversity
Keenan Grenell, PhD, has been appointed the university’s first vice president and dean of diversity. His role is to serve as a partner with students, faculty, and staff from all cultural backgrounds, and to lead Colgate’s shared conversation about diversity and inclusivity as important components of academic excellence and a thriving campus community. Building on the work that has been set in motion through the university’s Diversity Initiative, Grenell serves as chief diversity officer, provides counsel on faculty recruitment and retention strategies, supports student life efforts, and takes a leading News and views for the Colgate community
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role in the campuswide commitment to advancing Colgate’s ability to prepare graduates for the diverse, global environment in which they will live and work. An accomplished leader in higher education, Grenell previously served as associate provost for diversity at Marquette University and led diversity efforts at Auburn University.
New head of HR
Pamela Prescod-Caesar has been named associate vice president for human resources. Prior to her recent completion of an MBA, PrescodCaesar served as associate director in the University Administration Human Resources Office at Harvard University. Previously, she was vice president of human resources at Morgan Memorial Goodwill Industries in Boston, after working for 12 years in human resources for various organizations including Boston University Medical Center.
Campus and community support climb for breast cancer research
Geography professor Ellen Kraly’s hiking boots have logged many miles uphill. After borrowing them from the Outdoor Education Program in summer 2004 to climb Washington State’s Mount Baker, she couldn’t let them go. Her emotional attachment to the boots was rooted in her journey, not just to the summit of Baker, but also as a breast cancer survivor who climbed the mountain to raise money for breast cancer research. She pur-
chased the boots, and four years later tackled a larger Cascade mountain, Mount Rainier, for the same cause. Kraly and her son Jim, who accompanied her on the Mount Baker climb, scaled the mountain with a group led by Alpine Ascent International this past August. As Kraly prepared for the threeday climb, the Colgate and Hamilton communities rallied behind her to assist with everything from fundraising to securing her equipment. Campus groups such as the Breast Cancer Awareness Coalition and the geography department used creative ways to help Kraly exceed her $10,000 donation goal for the Fred Hutchison Cancer Research Center, which organized the climb. The Outdoor Education Program held a raffle at the Banff Film Festival in Hamilton to raise money and had Kraly talk about her climb to a packed theater before a screening. They also lent her equipment and director Abby Rowe checked her gear to make sure it was up to snuff. Women’s basketball gave their support by having Kraly as a guest coach during their breast cancer awareness promotion and announcing her Mount Rainier effort during the game. “A large portion of what we raised came from the Colgate community,” Kraly said. “They supported me in incredible ways.” Even President Chopp — who had accompanied Kraly on her 2004 climb — kept her company almost every morning as she trained on the old ski hill. Local jewelry maker Lisa Oristian and Evergreen Gallery owner Laurie Tomberlin Shoemaker teamed up to
Views from the hill What issues were students thinking about in this fall’s election? “The economy — class stratification, lack of jobs, increasing prices. The war in Iraq — should it end? The environment — I want to see someone look past the Green Façade, the idea that being ‘green’ is fashionable, and actually make an effort to reduce, reuse, and recycle. Come on, people; it’s not that hard!” –Angelica America ’10, women’s studies major “Foreign policy is extremely important because of how our international perception has shifted in the past eight years.” –Evan Kramer ’09, Spanish and psychology major “Health care. Everything is getting more expensive and the Baby Boomer generation is getting into their senior years, which means about 78 million people will soon need long-term care.” –Curry Knox ’09, English (creative writing) major, sociology & anthropology minor “My main concerns are the legalization of gay marriage, the real estate and oil markets, the decline in the standard of public education, the increase in cost of living and higher education, and the need for a better health care system, including prescription drugs.” –Annette Goldmacher ’10, German major
Andrew Daddio
Activities Day on the Quad informed students about various extracurricular activities and volunteer opportunities through such groups as the Southern Madison County Volunteer Ambulance Corps. For many students, the activities they choose will shape their experience at Colgate.
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scene: Autumn 2008
“I don’t think there are very many women who don’t know someone who has had breast cancer,” added Oristian, whose mother had the disease. “It’s a really important cause and I’m so impressed with her for doing that kind of climbing.” Oristian made a unique necklace — a silver and gold bead engraved with ribbons — that Kraly wore to the summit, to be auctioned off later for an additional donation. Another meaningful item brought to the top was a string of Himalayan prayer flags with the names of people the climbers were honoring. The Kralys dedicated their climb to Irene Kraly (the aunt of Ellen’s husband, Professor Scott Kraly), who died of breast cancer.
CU Press turns a new page
The Colgate University Press has dusted itself off and published its first book in 14 years. Released this summer, Crafting Fiction, Poetry, & Memoir: Talks from the Colgate Writers’ Conference is a collection of essays by a diverse group of authors who are passionate about teaching the art of writing. Edited by conference director Matthew Leone, the book includes an essay by Professor Peter Balakian on poetry writing, as well as an essay on writing creative nonfiction by Professor Jennifer Brice, who is associate
director of the press. It is dedicated to the late professor of English Fred Busch and his wife, Judy. The book represents a new direction for the press, which was organized in 1965 by the late Professor Robert Blackmore ’41 and his wife, Lucia. The Blackmores were devoted to publishing works by the Powys family, who were prominent in Great Britain in the early 20th century. “We’re going to re-launch the press by publishing some different kinds of work,” explained Susan Cerasano, the new director of the press and the Edgar W.B. Fairchild Professor of literature. “It seems an auspicious moment to re-envision some new and exciting directions for the press to take. We hope to capitalize on two of Colgate’s traditional strengths: regional studies and creative writing.” Having received funding from the university to run a pilot project for three years, the press will publish one to two volumes per year, Cerasano estimates. Currently in the works is a revised edition of the Hamilton Walk Book, featuring well-known trails, as well as lesser- known canoe paths and walks to waterfalls in the region. John Demler ’08 and Carly Gelfond ’06 have contributed to some of the revised walk descriptions and maps, and English professor George Hudson — who has had professional hiking experience in several countries — is the lead author on the book, which is scheduled to come off press in the spring of 2010.
“Dinner and a Good Book”
This fall, sophomores are indulging in gastronomic and literary delights, digesting books they read over the summer in discussions with professors through the “Dinner and a Good Book” program. Students who participate are reimbursed up to $10 toward the cost of each book. On this year’s reading list: - In the Time of the Butterflies, Julia Alvarez - The Children in Room E4: American Education on Trial, Susan Eaton - Literacy With an Attitude, Patrick Finn - Female Chauvinist Pigs: Women and the Rise of Raunch Culture, Ariel Levy - Blue Light, Walter Mosley - The Omnivore’s Dilemma, Michael Pollan - Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity, Stephen Toulmin
Get to know: Jean Brooks
Timothy D. Sofranko
sponsor Kraly’s climb. Oristian crafted a special jewelry line — engraved with breast cancer awareness ribbons — that is sold at the gallery. The majority of the jewelry proceeds were donated to Kraly’s cause; Oristian only kept enough to cover the cost of materials. Shoemaker also did not take any commission from the necklace sales. “It’s important to us because we’re women and we want to support each other,” said Shoemaker.
Cashier, Frank Dining Hall, Sodexo Food Service • Has worked at Colgate for 30 years • Estimated number of times she’s checked students in at Frank Dining Hall since it opened in 1984: 2,918,400 • Other dining halls where she’s worked: Bryan Dining Hall (before it was The Edge) and the Student Union (which was the main dining hall when she started in 1977) • Received a Maroon Citation from the Alumni Corporation this year • What she loves about Colgate: “The kids” • Previous job: worked at Tefft’s Variety store in Earlville, N.Y. • First job: waitress at Sautter’s Diner in Morrisville, N.Y. • Family: Has been married for 49 years, with 4 children, 10 grandchildren, and 2 greatgrandsons • Favorite pastimes: craft work, crocheting, working in the garden, and visiting her children in Charlotte, N.C., and Roanoke, Va. • On meeting the Dalai Lama during his visit on campus: “I was refilling Mr. Ho’s [Robert H.N. Ho ’56] water glass and he asked, ‘Have you been introduced yet, Jean?’ Then he took the water pitcher out of my hand, set it on the table, took me over, and said, ‘Your Holiness, I would like you to meet a good friend of mine, whom I see every time I visit Colgate.’ The Dalai Lama took my hand and he laid his cheek on it, and I thought, I’ve got to get away from here before I start crying. I was speechless, believe it or not.” • If she could have lunch with anyone, who would it be? “My hand was kissed by the Dalai Lama. Who else is left?”
News and views for the Colgate community
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work & play
Passion for the Climb A Patriot’s Travelogue Jim Carrier ’84 has a patriotic fervor that goes back to age 5, when he planted the American flag on the dining room table and made everyone recite the Pledge of Allegiance before dinner. The Greenwich, Conn., resident leads the Veterans Appreciation Council, raising money and awareness for the families of those wounded or killed in action, for which the Department of the Navy gave him the Superior Public Service Award (the second-highest civilian award) in May. What follows is an adapted version of his report of a tour with the U.S. Army in Iraq, sponsored by Greenwich Magazine.
Jim Carrier ’84 (right) with his escort, Army Specialist Dogman
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scene: Autumn 2008
Leaving the comforts of my routine as a partner in a Manhattan money management firm, I took off for Iraq in December 2007. Feeling driven to gather my own observations of the job our servicemen and women were doing, I had applied to the U.S. Army for clearance. My father-in-law, a former diplomat, said, “You will have a unique opportunity to take in all of the sights, smells, and sounds of history.” He was right. I took a commercial flight to Kuwait City, then flew to the Combined Press Information Center (CPIC) in Baghdad. Being the only American there and the new guy on the block, I listened attentively while a string of European reporters chatted. They
had just completed private interviews with General David Petraeus, commander of the Multi-National Force. Two days later, I traveled northwest in a Blackhawk helicopter over sprawling meadows and small farms and landed in what looked like a goat pasture. My host, Major Randy Baucom, said, “We’ve brought you out to one of our Coalition Outposts [COPs] so you can see where the rubber meets the road.” The mission of the COPs scattered in and around Iraq is not only military, but also diplomatic: We act as ambassadors, befriending villagers and teaching them that we’re there to help push al Qaeda out of their homes. It’s all part of the plan to develop trust and confidence one village at a time. Our destination was a COP located near Al Raood, home of the U.S. Army 2nd Battalion — 5th Regiment, 1st Brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division. I was particularly taken by the senior NCO, First Sergeant Erik Marquez, a takecharge guy who shared with me every nook and cranny of his COP. He had managed the construction six months prior, when tensions were so high that villagers would not leave their homes. Four short months later, there was trade in the streets, children playing outdoors, and farmers tending their crops and animals. We headed to Al Raood, to a negotiation with the village elder who was the sheik of the local Sunni tribe. In their society, village elders know all, including in which houses the al Qaeda are holed up. My hosts pointed out 75 small markets open for free trade and neighborhoods being policed by organizations called Concerned Local Citizens — Iraqis who work with the American military and provide intelligence from local people who want to rid their neighborhoods of al Qaeda. One little boy peered into the rear window of my Humvee, patted his heart, and with a smile flashed me a thumbs-up sign — a “Thank you,” perhaps for the soccer ball he had just received from our troops. I stood alongside company commander Captain Brian Bassett and his fellow soldiers while they communicated with the sheik. The objective was to secure the sheik’s handshake on encouraging his fellow villagers to resist the threats of al Qaeda, who were pushing the natives from their homes. In exchange, the sheik would ask the Americans to rebuild the school that al Qaeda had bombed and
burned. I was an eyewitness to the skilled acts of diplomacy conducted by these gracious troops. In a turn of fate, an American flag I had brought from home played an important role in my trip. Thinking it could be briefly run up a pole at the COP, I told my hosts I had brought it. I learned that the military does not fly our colors in Iraq because the United States is not an occupying force; however, when the soldiers decided to use my flag as a backdrop in a reenlistment commitment by Sergeant Alen Alexander, an eight-year army veteran from Brooklyn, N.Y., my heart nearly busted out of my chest. As our time together was nearing an end, Marquez reached over to his right shoulder and swiftly peeled away from its Velcro backing his unit patch featuring the iron horse of the 1st Cavalry Division. He said, “Thank you for coming out to visit me and my fellow warriors. I have worn this patch for the last 14 months on this combat deployment, and I want you to have it.” I was speechless. Looking back on my arrival in the CPIC, I thought of the Swiss journalist who pulled me aside and asked, “May I offer you a bit of a heads-up before you go out there? I don’t want to offend you, but if you’d like to hear the real story, I am happy to tell you.” I said, “Sure. Any orientation would be great.” But I was thinking, “Uh-oh, this guy is going to tell me how fouled up the Americans are.” But putting his arm around my shoulder, he went on: “The Americans have actually turned the page in Iraq in terms of security, and I am impressed by the brilliance of your General Petraeus.” It’s a story I thought the American people and our troops deserve to hear. I was honored as a common man to be able to thank so many of our uncommon heroes and shake their hands.
8 Read more essays from our Passion for the Climb series, or see how you can submit your own essay, at www.colgate.edu/scene/pfcessays
ring that bell On Friday the 13th back in June,
President Rebecca Chopp, flanked by 13 Colgate alumni and friends, rang the morning bell at the New York Stock
Exchange. That special celebration of Colgate Day* — a relatively new university tradition — got us wondering
about older traditions around a bell closer to home. Generations of alumni fondly recall Memorial Chapel’s bell
tower as a campus focal point, but (almost) always viewed from terra firma. Here’s an inside, up-in-the-rafters look at the treasured campus landmark. SPECS • Crafted by the Meneely Bell Co. of Troy, N.Y. • Presumed installer was Eddie Kehn, a bell rigger for 50-plus years • Cast in bronze • Installed October 12, 1917 • 46” diameter • 2,005 lbs. • Rung by a rope in the booth at the back of the chapel balcony BELL RINGERS • The chapel custodian typically rings the bell for official events. • Students pull the rope for religious services. • Tradition holds that those who ring the bell write their names upon the wall. • According to protocol, the bell should be rung “at a slow and respectful pace.”
OTHER COLGATE BELL MISCELLANY • Five-Minute Rule: “It used to be custom that, if a professor did not reach his classroom within five minutes after ringing the bell, the class was entitled to take a ‘run.’” — William H. Crawshaw, Class of 1887, from his book, My Colgate Years, 1937. • 33 Colgate alumni have the last name Bell.
Page 13 is the showplace for Colgate tradition,
For official Colgate events, the chapel bell is always rung 13 times. 2008–2009 CALENDAR: August 31, 2008
Founders’ Day Convocation
April 28, 2009
Awards Convocation
May 16, 2009
Baccalaureate Service (day before Commencement)
May 16, 2009
Torchlight Procession (Commencement Eve)
May 29, 2009
Reunion Awards Ceremony/Torchlight Procession
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history, and school spirit. What are you interested
in learning about? The Scene wants to know.
Write to us at scene@mail.colgate.edu. * Colgate Day is celebrated by many around the world every Friday the 13th
scene: Autumn 2008
While his students were on summer vacation, Patrick O’Neil, a social studies teacher from Charlotte, N.C., spent time in “summer school” at Colgate. O’Neil and two dozen other K-12 teachers from as far away as California received a history lesson of their own as they attended the Institute on Abolitionism and the Underground Right: Hugh Humphreys, a local scholar of the abolitionist movement in upstate New York, evoked the memory of the famous 1850 Cazenovia Fugitive Slave Law Convention at a gathering at conference organizer Graham Hodges’s antebellum home. Above: A metal slave collar, on display at the National Abolitionist Hall of Fame in Peterboro, N.Y.
Syllabus FSEM 134 Nanotechnology MWF, 10:20-11:10, Lathrop 303 Rick Geier, Associate Professor of Chemistry Course description: Imagine repairing your body without surgery, driving a car that does not need gas, wearing clothes that never get dirty, and taking an elevator to the moon. Such is the hope and the hype of nanotechnology. In this first-year seminar, scientific and sensationalist visions of nanotechnology will be critically examined through a combination of readings, lectures, discussions, and hands-on activities. We will attempt to forge an appreciation for the nanoscale, an understanding of the excitement and the challenges, and an awareness of the societal and ethical implications of emerging technologies. On the reading list: – Nanoethics (F. Allhoff, P. Lin, J. Moor, J. Weckert) – Stories of the Invisible (Philip Ball) – Engines of Creation (K.E. Drexler) – Nano (J.R. Marlow) Key assignments/activities: Two laboratory projects, an oral report, and a fictional essay on an implication of technology.
Andrew Daddio
Andrew Daddio
life of the mind 14
Teachers explore rich history of abolitionism in upstate N.Y.
Railroad in Upstate New York. The three-week seminar was funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities’ “We the People” project, and supported by Colgate’s Upstate Institute. “Our goal is for teachers to bring back what they learn here to help jump-start their students’ knowledge,” said Graham Hodges, director of the teachers’ institute and professor of history and Africana and Latin American studies at Colgate. For O’Neil, the experience gave him new ideas that will help enhance his lesson plans. “If I can develop new ways to get my students talking and revved up about this important part of American history, it makes a difference,” said O’Neil. During sessions held on campus, the teachers learned from 16 leading scholars, writers, photographers, and singers from across the country. Colgate was a perfect setting for the institute, added Hodges, who led several of the lectures about the history of slavery, because of upstate New York’s rich heritage as one of the most important centers of abolitionist activity and home to key figures including Frederick Douglass, John Brown, and Harriet Tubman. The group also visited sites of interest such as the Harriet Tubman House in Auburn and the National Abolitionist Hall of Fame in nearby Peterboro. Jessica Clarke, a history teacher at Camden (N.Y.) High School, said the outings would help determine what will make the best day trips for her own students, “allowing them to become more aware of the history in our backyard.”
The professor says: Visiting the Wright Brothers Memorial in Kitty Hawk, N.C., I was struck by the advances in aviation — in particular, the social and societal implications of such technology — that have taken place since the first flight in 1903. This led me to think about present-day technologies that are in their infancy. Creating this course was a natural for me, as nanotechnology can involve a great deal of chemistry. Undergraduate courses on the subject of nanotechnology are quite popular, but most involve advanced treatments of the subject; mine is aimed at non-science majors.
Reaccreditation
The university has been reaccredited by the Middle States Commission. Regular accreditation is part of the tradition of voluntary self-regulation designed to ensure the continuing quality of American independent colleges and universities. The Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools oversees Colgate’s accreditation. Professors Constance Harsh (English), Joe Amato (physics and astronomy), and Adam Burnett (geography/ associate dean of the faculty) organized an 18-month-long self-study that focused on the curriculum, but also addressed wide-ranging questions regarding virtually all aspects of Colgate’s operations. Elaine Hansen, president of Bates College, led the evaluation team, who visited the campus for three days in early March. The commission officially acted on June 26, 2008, “to reaffirm accreditation and to commend the institution for progress to date and for the quality of the self-study process.” Of some 50 institutions considered for reaccreditation in the most recent cycle, Colgate was among only 15 accredited without conditions and who were commended, an affirmation of the high quality of the Colgate undergraduate experience.
Recent findings from Upstate Institute-funded research
In the 1920s, when the Ku Klux Klan held key gatherings in New York State, its local members sometimes — curiously — didn’t show up. Prior to widely publicized events, such as the 1925 Fourth of July parade in Elmira or an October 1927 parade in Corning, not only did black men succeed in convincing local officials to insist the marchers leave their hoods off, but black women sometimes went to the wives of local Klan members with an ultimatum: “we know who you are and what your husbands are doing; if they march, we’ll boycott your businesses and tell of your prejudice throughout the state.” These courageous examples were uncovered by history professor Charles “Pete” Banner Haley in his research into black family, social, and community networks within upstate New York from 1890–2000. A record of global atmospheric changes and tree health has been found in a breakfast condiment. In chemical analyses of maple syrup
produced over the last 35 years, geochemist William Peck and his student researchers found increased amounts of the isotopic form of carbon that is released through burning fossil fuels. That buildup is evidence of the atmospheric buildup of carbon dioxide that causes the greenhouse effect and resulting climate warmup.
Peck also unwittingly discovered implications for the food industry: the buildup of these carbon isotopes in the syrup also masks its quality, making it easier for manufacturers to get away with “cutting” syrup with fillers such as high-fructose corn syrup without getting caught. Evidence of stress on sugar maple trees is also shown by the carbon isotope data. The larger implications for carbon dioxide buildup and global warming are potentially important: New York’s $8 million sugar maple industry, the third-largest in the United States, could begin dissolving and flowing northward as the optimum range for sugar maples shifts. Each morning at 8:00, several Hamilton widows dial the phone to check on each other’s well-being; they also have keys to each other’s homes. That support network is just one example of how assistance for senior citizens is handled differently in a small community like Hamilton compared to the state’s capital. Whereas in Albany help comes more often from the government and large nonprofit institutions, in Hamilton it is friends, families, and neighbors who usually provide assistance, found sociology and women’s studies professor Meika Loe. By 2025, while the overall populations surrounding Hamilton and Albany are expected to expand by roughly 3 percent (since 2000), the number of citizens 65 and older will have expanded by 35 percent. Loe’s longitudinal research project aims to answer the questions of how local
institutions will adapt to serve a dramatically larger elder population, and at the same time, how individuals will work to ensure that their communities are serving the elderly’s needs. Syracuse, New York’s briny springs produced salt for nearly 150 years before they were shut down in 1926. But the Salt City didn’t exhaust its natural resource. According to geography professor William Meyer, politics had more to do with the industry’s demise. Salt sales contributed as much as 20 percent of tax revenues for the state in the early 1800s; but when the federal tariff charged on imported salt was cut in half by Congress in 1830, New York had to reduce its prices to remain competitive. When the tariff later disappeared, New York’s salt springs reservation simply couldn’t compete with other, cheaper sources like rock salt. Even so, the reservation remained open into the early 20th century because its operation provided nearly 50 politically appointed jobs — the most important package of patronage appointments available in upstate New York, said Meyer. There is a significant gap in knowledge about the biological diversity of the region around Colgate, and biology professors Tim McCay and Frank Frey have set out to fill it, by creating a natural history museum of the Chenango Valley. Having discovered thousands of biological specimens scattered throughout campus — some dating to the mid-19th century and stored in unassuming shoeboxes — they began enlisting students’ help to sort and catalogue them and then scour the region to collect known missing specimens. Not only will the museum support teaching on campus; they also plan to digitize the entire collection, making it accessible to anyone through the web to educate the world about the biodiversity of the region.
Live and learn
Ayanna Williams ’08 was one of 12 students who spent three weeks in a remote Ugandan jungle as part of an interdisciplinary extended study course that involved research on rare mountain gorillas. The group worked with community leaders in the village of Buhoma and park officials at the adjacent Bwindi Impenetrable National Forest. There is growing concern that the park’s habituated mountain gorillas are becoming more susceptible to disease as contact with humans grows. The Colgate team helped determine if this is the case and, if so, how diseases are being transmitted. Here, Williams reflects upon the experience: “Each week, the groups would rotate and perform a different type of research: biology, geography/GIS, or community health surveys. We made some great improvements and huge discoveries. “The process of performing public health research is never as clean and pretty as it seems when you read about it in journals and books. The constant reevaluation of goals and procedures has made me excited about pursuing my own research in the future. “The coolest thing that we did was tracking the Mubare group: one silverback gorilla, an infant the size of a 3-year-old child, a few adolescents, and several adult females. We got the chance to see all of them at once as they were feeding under a tree. Several of the adolescents were swinging around in trees, and the silverback was guarding the group. To see the very creatures that we had been researching was a powerful moment. “I grew as a scholar, and learned my physical limits, how I work in a group, and how I react when I hit a roadblock. I couldn’t have asked for a better capstone experience for the four years I’ve had at Colgate.”
News and views for the Colgate community
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An outdoor public screening at the Flaherty Film Seminar
Ewing and Chung attended thanks to a grant from NITLE, a nonprofit initiative dedicated to promoting liberal education, and Hughes worked as an intern. Chung was particularly struck by Silvia Schedelbauer, a GermanJapanese filmmaker whose work deals with intercultural issues, feminism, internationalism, and identity politics. “Her work based on her intercultural background was extremely interesting; this feeling of belonging to different worlds and at the same time not belonging in either,” explained Chung. Ewing said she felt privileged to see a film by Kurdish filmmaker Bahman Ghobadi and became inspired with ideas for her own videos. “I’ve been learning a lot about world situations and human migration,” she said, “and this has been a great exposure to really politically charged material.” Hughes, who works as the 35 mm projectionist for Colgate’s Friday Night Film Series, noted how much he learned from the open, and sometimes-heated, discussions that followed screenings and from working with the seminar projectionist. Chung said the seminar, held in June, broadened her thinking about documentary filmmaking. “What I’ve gotten to see has completely changed what I thought the genre was,” said Chung. “There are so many styles and variations. It’s extremely refreshing.” — Adriana Brodyn ’08
Written in blue crayon, this short equation — scribbled by an attendee of the 54th Robert Flaherty Film Seminar — joined other drawings and notes on the walls of an informal lounge set up in Clifford Gallery. The seminar attracted artists and scholars from around the world, and this year three film and media studies minors, Allison Ewing ’08, Jina Chung ’08, and Adam Hughes ’10, had the opportunity to take part in the prestigious event (named for the famed American documentary filmmaker). “It was totally engrossing,” said Ewing. “With so many artists and scholars present, you were always ‘on.’ Everyone is focused on learning about and experiencing the art.” Under the theme, “The Age of Migration,” seminar-goers explored the personal and cultural by-products of migration, conflict, and information technology, and the film movements that have emerged as a result. Each screening was followed by a discussion. The screenings were presented in a unique way, Ewing commented. “We didn’t know what we were sitting down to watch until it was playing on the screen.” Withholding information about a film until after it had been screened, she explained, served to thwart any preconceptions or prejudgments the audience might have had.
And the Tony goes to . . .
Andrew Daddio
arts & culture
art = surprising + inevitable.
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scene: Autumn 2008
Todd Rosenthal ’89 won a Tony Award for his set design for the Broadway hit August: Osage County. The show also won several other Tony Awards, including best play, as well as the Pulitzer Prize for drama. The New York Times called August “the most exciting new American play Broadway has seen in years.” Rosenthal’s design competed with the likes of The 39 Steps (Peter McKintosh), Les Liaisons Dangereuses (Scott Pask), and Macbeth (Anthony Ward). Rosenthal holds an MFA from Yale School of Drama in New Haven, Conn. A design professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., he originally moved to Chicago to work with the Steppenwolf Theatre Company, where August premiered in summer 2007. Rosenthal, a native of Longmeadow, Mass., told The Republican newspaper that he viewed the set he created as a central character in the
Preview
Li Hua, Pursuit of Light, c. 1937–1948 Woodcut, 6" x 6", Gift of Professor and Mrs. Theodore Herman
Colgate celebrates “A Year of Chinese Art,” a series of exhibitions, lectures, and events, generously supported by Robert H.N. Ho ’56 in honor of Ted Herman, professor of geography, emeritus. The series is sponsored by the Picker Art Gallery, Institute for Creative and Performing Arts, and Department of Art and Art History. Events include two exhibitions: Dec. 2, 2008–April 26, 2009 Picker Art Gallery Woodcuts in Modern China, 1937–2008: Towards a Universal Pictorial Language Jan. 19–March 5, 2009 Clifford Gallery Reading Space: The Art of Xu Bing A printmaker and installation artist, Xu Bing’s work fuses traditional Chinese woodblock printing with a contemporary sensibility.
8 For a complete schedule, as well as information on other arts events, visit www.colgate.edu/arts
play, which is a dark comedy about a dysfunctional family in Oklahoma. “It’s immovable, an indelible image . . . people move out, but the house never changes,” he said. He added that the set suggests a child’s dollhouse combining a juxtaposition of the “gothic and the whimsical.”
Fête de la Musique
Open mic
Andrew Daddio
When the 2008 Chenango Summer MusicFest celebrated Fête de la Musique — the French festival tradition marking the summer solstice — in June, several Colgate student and alumni musicians were part of the inner workings of a truly international chamber music festival. The four-day event hosted a range of professional performers from strings, organ, harp, and harpsichord to a Haitian Konpa band. San Francisco-based harpsichordist Jonathan Rhodes Lee ’00 was one of the featured artists. “The experience was unbelievable and well-rounded,” said violist Laura James ’11 of her involvement as an intern for the director, music professor Laura Klugherz, and her experience performing as a Chenango Player. “So much goes into planning and executing a successful festival,” said
Featured artist Penelope Knuth coaches a chamber group during a Chenango Summer MusicFest master class at Hamilton Whole Foods.
James. “Working as interns, performing, and discussing our pieces really prepare us for the real world of professional music. It’s not enough to just be a great musician. You have to know how to plan and organize events and how to assist other artists.” Intern and Chenango Player John Biatowas ’04, who is completing a master’s in violin performance at the
Todd Rosenthal’s Tony Award–winning set design for August: Osage County
University of Connecticut, agreed that the dual role of being a performing artist coupled with organizing and executing the event made the internship unique. Violist Rachel Solomon ’09 also served as an intern and Chenango Player. In the weeks preceding the MusicFest, the Chenango Players performed around the community to
Alyssa Mayo ’08, Gutenberg Galaxy Senior Studio Project Front-page–worthy photojournalistic images I have come across generally depict extreme situations of violence and conflict. They are powerful on their own; however, our repeated interaction with them detracts from our appreciation of the content. I attempt to interrupt the sensationalism of such images by using them to create the pattern of wallpaper, the antithesis of the sensational. A wallpaper pattern is a collection of images that is expected, repetitive, and harmless to the point of invisibility. Thus the pattern in which I have arranged these images points to their ultimate shortcoming and my interest in this work: they have become sterilized by their ubiquity. Our concern for them is ephemeral at most.
News and views for the Colgate community
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Hamilton Movie Theater’s small-town charm The “Thistle Seeds” Suzuki Violin School students display their budding talents on the Hamilton Village Green at the Chenango Summer MusicFest.
At a time when many small-town movie houses have gone dark, the Hamilton Movie Theater — once on the brink of closing — is thriving more than ever. The theater remains a fixture of Hamilton in an era of mega-multiplexes and Netflix, according to The Post-Standard. The Syracuse news-
Andrew Daddio
paper highlighted the revival of the decades-old mainstay, which provides diverse programming, including midnight films, matinees for area children, live opera broadcasts, and a book-andmovie club. “We do all this stuff because we’re a community theater, and that’s the history of this place,” theater manager Chuck Fox ’70 said. “It’s been a community resource for 100 and some years.” And the theater still maintains its original charm. David McCabe, a Colgate professor and film buff, told the paper that “it’s the most welcoming establishment in our village for young children.” The theater building is owned by the Hamilton Initiative, a for-profit limited liability company formed
by Colgate that has invested more than $11 million into properties in the downtown historic district, with the goal of contributing to a healthy cultural and business climate in Hamilton.
Colgate Writers’ Conference
“Happiness is harder to write than pain. For the writer of personal narrative, happiness is a problem both at the level of art and craft. For some reason, happiness is inimical to history and memory as well, perhaps, to imagination,” said Jennifer Brice during her craft talk on happiness in memoir writing at the 2008 Colgate Writers’ Conference. The associate professor of English and author of the memoir Unlearning to Fly served as a member of the conference staff, which also included Colgate’s Peter Balakian, the Donald M. and Constance H. Professor in the humanities and professor of English, as well as PEN/Hemingway award winners Justin Cronin and Jennifer Haigh, and Pulitzer Prize finalist Bruce Smith, among others. Several Colgate alumni over the years have attended the conference, where writers of poetry, fiction, and memoir from around the country spend a week on campus talking about the writing life and honing their craft in workshops with the senior staff. One recent attendee, English major Jasmine Bailey ’05, has published her poetry in such journals as Adirondack Review, Spectrum Magazine, and Portland Review. Andrew Daddio
arts & culture
drum up publicity. During the event, the interns assisted the featured artists with everything from setting up stages to turning pages during performances, and attended master classes given by the featured musicians. The players also performed in various venues around town, showcasing classical chamber pieces by Mozart as well as newer works. “My favorite piece was an arrangement of a tango by Pietzola, ‘Introduction and Death of an Angel,’” noted Biatowas. “I found it refreshing to practice playing something more free and open.” Biatowas added that he appreciated the opportunity to hear instruments and music that he doesn’t usually get to hear. James noted the open and playful atmosphere. “It was amazing to get to know the musicians,” she said. “All of them were extremely friendly and interested in the students and the community, and we got to connect with the musicians as fellow artists. The MusicFest really fostered a connection among the entire community.” — Adriana Brodyn ’08
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Exploring ‘No Man’s Land’
Art professor Linn Underhill’s blackand-white portraits, based on the work of the well-known 1930s and
land, Tennessee Williams, and Lincoln Kirstein,” said Underhill, who tries to “recreate the look of male privilege and glamour of that period. They also afford me the unique opportunity to validate my aging female body in an exhilarating act of masquerade. “‘No-man’s land’ is defined as an area of unowned, unclaimed, or uninhabited land; or, in war, an area in a theater of operations not controlled by either side,” she said in explanation of her series title. “I propose gender as such a field, open to question and contention, owned absolutely by no one.”
Andrew Daddio
Get to know: Adrian Giurgea
Director of the University Theater
English professor Jennifer Brice listens to an audience member’s comment during her craft talk on happiness in memoir writing at the Colgate Writers’ Conference.
– Director, actor, dramaturgist since 1980; came to Colgate in 2005 – PhD in theater, UCLA; BA, MFA, Academy of Theatre and Film, Bucharest, Romania; twice named a Fulbright Scholar – Has taught at the Academy of Theatre and Film (Romania), Ben Gurion University (Israel), Universita Sapienza (Italy), University of Utah, Hamilton College, University of California-LA and Berkeley, Pomona College, and California State University-Long Beach On theater directing as his life’s work: When I was young, I dreamt about being a poet; some important literary magazines in my native Romania even published me. But when I was 15 or 16, I discovered theater. I went to the national conservatory, starting initially in dramaturgy and later on directing. I was running away from Soviet rule and from a professional destiny that forces you to work by yourself. The act of making something with other people is what inspires and excites me. It’s like building a church, or a house, or a palace and then stepping aside and saying, “This is what we did together.” As a director, your vision can be translated into something poetic. In a way, the creative act is the closest the male animal could come to giving birth. My profession is to be an interpreter of the text, to translate the text on stage, to give it life but not to take anything away from the truth created by the genius of the playwright.
Photographer Linn Underhill (below, right) plays the part of Tennessee Williams in a re-staging of a George Platt Lynes portrait of the writer and his lover, part of her “No Man’s Land” series.
On teaching theater: The Greek festivals that gave us the great tragedies and comedies were community events, opportunities to come together and explore politics, wars, famines, moments of elation or tragedy. Theater is done by communities for each other; therefore, it is given from generation to generation. Theater is also a craft, and not unlike people who teach each other to work in wood or stone or metal, it is imparted through the guild. It is your duty to share with the students everything that you have. I am not very different from a tailor. It doesn’t matter who comes to me. I need to respect the cutting and the measuring, but the fabric is my client’s fabric. If they bring cashmere, or a sack, I will still cut it to measure a suit. Sometimes the results are miraculous, and sometimes one changes a life. You see people blossoming. What he came to do at Colgate, and how it’s going: One of the reasons I came, and why I was hired, was to make theater as relevant as any other discipline. Among peer colleges, Colgate was slow to offer a concentration in theater and has yet to consider dance as an academic discipline. The people who were here before me blazed a path that needed to be continued, and the transition to a competitive and up-to-date program in terms of faculty, facilities, and curriculum is what I’m in charge of achieving. In three years, we have done quite well. To grow the program, we put it upon ourselves to teach a greater number of intro-level courses. We started doing an intro class as a first-year seminar, with wonderful results. It attracts better students, not those who think — wrongly — that theater is an easy, fun class. It is fun, but it is also enormously demanding. We now have more than 20 senior majors and minors. Family: Our daughter Una is 10. My wife Simona — a wonderful teacher and actor and director — teaches here in the theater program. It is an opportunity for both of us to bring in the work that is the passion of our lives, theater.
Linn Underhill
Andrew Daddio
’40s fashion and celebrity photographer George Platt Lynes, recently appeared in Self and Others, an exhibition at Brown University’s David Winton Bell Gallery. Some of the images in Underhill’s “No Man’s Land” series of portraits and self-portraits in “DRAB” (dressed as a boy) directly mimic Lynes, who made elegant portraits of his friends and lovers. “These included many of the heroes of my youth: artists and writers like E.M. Forster, T.S. Eliot, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Isamu Noguchi, Christopher Isherwood, Aaron Cop-
Outside interests: The other day I overheard someone asking another person about their hobbies and I realized that what I do is so intense and time consuming and profound that every second of my life, I do one thing. Everything is, goes into, or is transformed into theater. Perhaps I’m one of the lucky. News and views for the Colgate community
19
go ’gate
Biddle breaks Kerr record
ported the Histiocytosis Association of America. Histiocytosis is a blood disease that typically affects children under the age of 10.
A 23-19 win against Coastal Carolina in early September projected head football coach Dick Biddle — in his 13th season — into the Raiders record books. Biddle’s 96th victory made him the winningest coach in school history, moving him ahead of the legendary Andy Kerr, Colgate’s football coach from 1929 to 1946. Before the season began, he talked about breaking Kerr’s record. “It means a lot to me; not personally, but for the program and the school,” Biddle told the Post-Standard (Syracuse). “In 13 years I’ve had a lot of great players and assistant coaches who were a part of that. I take pride in it.”
Odds and ends
Colgate athletic director Dave Roach was elected second vice-president of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics for the 2008–2009 year. Seven Oaks Golf Course played host in July to the U.S. Senior Open qualifying round. Matt Lalli ’08 and Brandon Corp ’09 earned All-American honors from the United States Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association. Both were named to the third team, the first time any Colgate player has earned a place on the top three teams since the 1947 season. A few days later, Lalli was selected by the San Francisco Dragons in the second round of the Major League Lacrosse draft, while teammate Chris Eck ’08 was chosen by the Boston Cannons in the fourth round. Women’s hockey player Sam Hunt ’09 was invited to participate in the Canadian National Women’s Under-22 Summer Selection Camp. She was one of 15 returning players from the 2007–2008 squad. The camp took place in August at York University in Toronto. Peter Minchella ’08 was named to the National Association of Basketball Coaches Honor Roll, recognizing collegiate basketball student-athletes who excelled in academics. He graduated with a degree in molecular biology. Bryan Pape ’08 and Andrew Hatzenbuhler ’08 became the first Colgate oarsmen to row for the United States in international competition when they competed at the World Championships in Brandenburg, Germany.
Lifting for life
Jamie Herrmann ’09 breaks away from two Marist defenders during Colgate’s 1-0 overtime win over the Red Foxes at the Puma Raider Invitational.
In August, Colgate football players plied their strength and endurance to help charities fight a rare disease. At the “Lift for Life” fundraiser, nearly 35 players competed against each other in lifting and skills competitions. The charity event in Sanford Field House was featured in the ObserverDispatch (Utica) and on Syracuse’s 93Q morning show. “This is a fun way to rally around those who are battling rare diseases,” said linebacker Greg Hadley ’10. “Lift for Life” is sponsored by Uplifting Athletes, a nonprofit organization founded by former Penn State player Scott Shirley after his father died of kidney cancer. University chapters are operated by student-athletes who are dedicated to raising awareness about rare diseases. Colgate’s fundraiser sup-
Andrew Daddio
Alumni make sports hall of fame
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scene: Autumn 2008
Former Colgate athletes Ralph Antone ’58 and Carl Boykin ’83 were inducted into the Greater Utica Sports Hall of Fame this year. Nicknamed “The Train” in high school, Antone graduated from Utica’s Thomas R. Proctor Senior High School, where he was a four-sport athlete and stood out on the football field, in 1954. At Colgate, he was a three-year football letterman and a two-time captain, playing against Syracuse legend Jim Brown in football and lacrosse and against Illinois’s Ray Nitschke, who became a Pro Football Hall of Fame linebacker. Antone lettered in lacrosse his last two years, becoming an honorable mention
Ask Raider Who are you, and what do you do? As the Colgate mascot, my job is to help get the crowd going at sporting events, represent Colgate athletics at community events like the Fourth of July parade, and really embody the spirit and fun that come along with the Colgate fan experience.
What’s up with your hat and boots? I’m an outdoorsman of sorts, and my threecornered hat and boots reflect the history of the Leatherstocking Region of upstate New York.
Who “wears” you? My lips are sealed. Seriously. They’re sewn shut.
What’s been your proudest moment so far? I received the “Rookie Spirit Award” at Cheer Team and Mascot Camp.
Do you have any special talents? I can ice skate and dance.
Do you have a mascot “arch enemy”? The UMass Minuteman and I have had a few showdowns, but I don’t see it elevating to the level of the Stanford-Cal brouhaha. It’s all in good fun.
What will we read about in future ‘Ask Raider’ columns? I’ll be sharing athletics trivia of all kinds. Do you have a Colgate sports trivia topic suggestion or question for Raider? Send an e-mail to scene@mail.colgate.edu and put Ask Raider in the subject line.
Promotions and new hires
Jason Lefevre ’02 and Brad Dexter ’96 were elevated on the men’s hockey staff. Lefevre moved into the second assistant position, while Dexter slid into the first assistant position with the departure of Andrew Dickson, who accepted a scouting position with the Columbus Blue Jackets of the National Hockey League. John Gilger was named assistant director of athletic communications. He comes to Colgate from Hartwick College. Jamie Mitchell was appointed athletic administrative intern for 2008–2009 after serving as marketing and promotions intern for the Homestead-Miami Speedway. Tony Regitano, former Onondaga Community College head coach,
was named assistant softball coach. Leslie Cowen was named assistant athletic trainer and will work with women’s soccer, women’s basketball, and men’s and women’s tennis. Matt Tyler is the new men’s and women’s assistant tennis coach; he was a tennis professional at the Ken Caryl Ranch in Colorado. Jeremy Golden was appointed assistant strength and conditioning coach after working for the Los Angeles Sparks of the WNBA in 2007. Bryan Pape ’08 was named assistant coach of men’s rowing. Jennifer Brown, a new assistant women’s basketball coach, just graduated from James Madison University. Russell Peterson is the new women’s track and field and cross country coach. He is a former standout track performer at the University of Iowa. Nathan Davis was appointed assistant men’s basketball coach after five seasons at Bucknell. Carly McNaughton ’06, a new assistant coach with the women’s ice hockey program, played four years with the Raiders and served as captain in her final season. Amy Krakauer and Russell Hunt have been named assistant swimming and diving coaches. Krakauer comes from Columbia University, while Hunt had been coaching at Ohio Northern.
Get to know: Erik Ronning ’97
Andrew Daddio
All-American defenseman as a senior, and also played baseball for two years. Now semi-retired, Antone worked in the petroleum industry. A standout football and track and field competitor, first at Utica Free Academy and then at Colgate, Boykin was a diminutive 5-foot-7, 149 pounds. But with a fierce determination and drive, he became a second-team Central Oneida League All-Star in 1978 and three-year starter and honorable mention All-American safety at Colgate. He won two state hurdle championships in high school and several more at Colgate; his 55-meter high hurdle mark of 7.50 seconds, set in 1982, is still a Raider record. Today, Boykin is special deputy New York attorney general for guns and gangs.
John W. Beyer Head Men’s Soccer Coach – Hometown: Simsbury, Conn. – Colgate student years: History major, varsity soccer (defender), Sigma Chi, Career Center peer adviser – Honors: Howard N. Hartman Coach of the Year Award, 2008; named a top U.S. assistant coach by College Soccer News, 2002, 2004
Name a few key things that are important to you as a coach. One part of my philosophy is that the players must be the owners of the team, not renters. To instill a sense of ownership, you must first identify the core of the team — the leaders who will serve as role models on the field and in the classroom for our younger players. They set their own goals and ambitions. Maybe it’s winning the Patriot League championship, or an NCAA tournament, or maybe beyond that. Then we identify how we are going to get there, develop a plan, and put it into action. Being an alum, I can illustrate my passion for Colgate soccer, which partially provides the motivation my players need to succeed. They must understand that playing for the name on the front of their shirt is more important than the name on the back.
8 Check out www.gocolgateraiders.com for game schedules, rosters, statistics, online ticket ordering, and news and video features. For scores, call the Raider Sportsline: 315-228-7900. Ticket office: 315-228-7600.
How did leaving your job as assistant coach at Colgate to coach at Northwestern University before returning to become head coach in 2005 impact you? To be honest, I left kicking and screaming. I had an offer to be their assistant coach. I was leaning toward staying and was talking to Dick Biddle [Colgate’s football coach] about it at dinner at the Colgate Inn. Dick doesn’t say a whole lot, but finally he got fed up and said, “Erik, if you ever want to come back here, you’ve gotta leave.” That advice, from a person I respect tremendously, encouraged me to make that all-important move. I wouldn’t be here today if I hadn’t gone to Northwestern. I wouldn’t have been prepared enough.
Chelsea Hoffman ’11 receives a steadying hand on her rope from instructor Robby ReChord at the Outdoor Education Program’s first-ever Backyard Adventures tree climbing class.
Coming off a big year, and carrying a top 40 recruiting class, how high are your expectations for this season? I will always set the bar higher each year. But I consider the season a series of seasons, and it is irresponsible to get ahead of yourself. From a player standpoint, we are as “soccer talented,” and as athletic, as we’ve ever been. We have the best team chemistry we’ve ever had. We certainly have the potential to contend for a Patriot League Championship again, and to compete in the NCAA tournament. A benefit is that we have been there before; however, now we have a target on our backs. We’re looking forward to the challenge. Do you have any outside involvements? I’m working on a master’s in athletic administration at SUNY Cortland. I also run summer soccer camps at Colgate and Northwestern, and I am co-director of the UCSB Elite camp in Pottstown, Pa.
Andrew Daddio
Anything new and exciting in your life? I’m getting married to Amber Plesniarski, who’s from Hamilton and a 2000 Binghamton graduate. Mayfred and Judy Plesniarski, who used to own John’s Shoe Shop in Hamilton, are her grandparents. The wedding is December 20, in Cooperstown, and the Colgate faculty band Dangerboy is going to play. Do you have any hobbies? I enjoy exercising and golfing. I like to grill. One special recipe is my super burger. I don’t want to divulge the secret. All I’ll say is, the cheese is on the inside. News and views for the Colgate community
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new, noted , & quoted
Books & music Information is provided by publishers, authors, and artists.
Up for Renewal: What Magazines Taught Me About Love, Sex, and Starting Over Cathy Alter ’87 (Atria)
Up for Renewal is Cathy Alter’s truelife story of living by the advice of magazines for one full year. She consulted the sages at Elle, Marie Claire, O, Self, and others for advice on everything from getting rid of underarm jiggle to how to have a meaningful relationship with her mother. She would learn how to throw fabulous parties, command her coworkers with a firm shake of her pen, and (of course) “Find His Seven Secret Pleasure Triggers!” That was the idea, anyway. But the true story is Alter’s surprising inner transformation as she chronicles the course of her magazine year while she deals with many of the difficulties of life — a rotten job, a dear friend with a serious illness, and her own fears of rejection and loneliness. Ultimately, she comes to realize that anything can change a life that’s ready for it — even hers, and even Cosmo.
The Thirteen American Arguments: Enduring Debates That Define and Inspire Our Country Howard Fineman ’70 (Random House)
Mixing scenes and figures from the campaign trail with forays into 400 years of American history, Howard Fineman asserts that every debate, from our nation’s founding to the present day, is rooted in one of 13 arguments that defy resolution. It is the very process of never-ending argument, Fineman explains, that defines us, inspires us, and keeps us free. While making the case for nurturing the real American dialogue, Fineman captures the essential issues that have always compelled healthy and heated debate. 22
scene: Autumn 2008
The “Thirteen American Arguments” run the gamut, from issues of individual identity to our country’s role in the world. Whether it’s the environment, international trade, interpreting law, Congress vs. the president, or reformers vs. elites, these are the issues that galvanized the Founding Fathers and should still inspire our leaders, thinkers, and citizens. “Argument is strength, not weakness,” says Fineman. “As long as we argue, there is hope, and as long as there is hope, we will argue.” The Thirteen American Arguments was listed on the New York Times and Washington Post best seller lists.
Jimmy and to discover evidence that may scuttle his campaign. Richard’s efforts take him to the halls of Congress, the dinner tables of influential Washingtonians, and the Mississippi battleground, where he observes the contestants’ contrasting campaigns as well as the local social and racial caste system. Told against the background of a year of national election upheaval, this is a tale about politics, history, deception, and change.
Wormburner: A Hero’s Welcome
The protagonist in Mike Langan’s new legal thriller is Hank Fisher, a first-year criminal defense lawyer who is caught up in a sinister plot of political intrigue, courtroom antics, and a roller-coaster romance. Acting more like Sherlock Holmes than Oliver Wendell Holmes in the courtroom, Hank exonerates clients by catching the real bad guys. Before Hank and his boss can rescue their new client, a U.S. senator, from the jaws of an apparent IRS investigation, a hit-and-run attack rips their law firm apart, putting one person in a hearse and another in a coma. To find the killer, Hank must defend the senator by himself in a criminal investigation that is spiraling out of control.
Songs by Steve Henry ’93 (DIVE Records)
Based in New York City, Wormburner is an indie rock quintet fronted by songwriter/ singer/guitarist Steve “Hank” Henry. This 12-song LP blends rootsy, lyrical powerpop with punk and New Wave influences. AntiMusic.com gave the album four stars, calling it “astounding … Henry sounds like other vocalists that are neither from his genre nor his time … the stories combined with the scenery make Wormburner new and, to this point, unmatched.” New York Press noted the band’s reputation as one of the most bombastic live acts in the northeast, saying “a Wormburner show has much in common with amphetaminefueled soul revivals, if such a thing ever existed. It’s refreshing to find a band like Wormburner who so clearly believes in the power of the classic pop song to lift a room full of people clear off its foundation.”
1952
Felton McLellan Johnston ’61 (Lulu.com) Felton Johnston’s historical fiction takes place in the election year 1952. Veteran lawyerlobbyist Richard Passmore is recruited by a Mississippi senator to derail a primary election challenge by upstart Congressman Jimmy Biddle. Richard, a low-key but skillful operator, maneuvers to better understand
Ready for the Defense
Mike Langan ’91 (WhoooDoo Mysteries/Treble Heart Books)
Bad Money
Kevin Phillips ’61 (Penguin Group USA) In Bad Money, Kevin Phillips describes the consequences of misguided economic policies, mounting debt, a collapsing housing market, threatened oil resources, and the end of American domination of world markets. He asserts that America’s current challenges (and failures) run striking parallels to the decline of previous leading world economic powers — especially the Dutch and British. Global overreach, worn-out politics, excessive debt, and exhausted energy regimes are all chilling signals that the United States is crumbling as the
In the media world superpower, says Phillips. “Bad money” refers to a new phenomenon in wayward megafinance — the emergence of a U.S. economy that is globally dependent and dominated by hubris-driven financial services. Phillips explains that the U.S. dollar has been turned into bad money as it has weakened and become vulnerable to the world’s other currencies. In all these ways, he says, “bad” finance has failed the American people and pointed U.S. capitalism toward a global crisis.
Friends of Liberty: A Tale of Three Patriots, Two Revolutions, and the Betrayal that Divided a Nation Graham Russell Gao Hodges (coauthored with Gary Nash) (Basic Books)
Friends of Liberty tells the story of three men whose lives were braided together by issues of liberty and race that fueled revolutions across two continents. The friendship between Thomas Jefferson and Thaddeus Kosciuszko — a Polish patriot and hero of the American Revolution — is the heart of the book,
Colgate bestsellers at the Colgate Bookstore • • • • • • • • • •
Crafting Fiction, Poetry, & Memoir Edited by Matt Leone (director, Colgate Writers’ Conference) In An Instant Bob ’83 and Lee ’82 Woodruff Unlearning to Fly Jennifer Brice (English) People and the Sky Tony Aveni (astronomy and anthropology and Native American studies) Tibetan Buddhism and Modern Physics Vic Mansfield (physics and astronomy, emeritus – deceased) The Comeback Season Jennifer Smith ’03 The Memory Keeper’s Daughter Kim Edwards ’81 Early Art Matt Hotham ’03 Napoleon Steven Englund ’67 Taxi! Graham Russell Gao Hodges (history and Africana & Latin American studies)
particularly their shared dreams for the global expansion of human freedom. Agrippa Hull, a freeborn black New Englander who volunteered to join the Continental Army, served Kosciuszko as an army orderly and helped shape his views on slavery. The crux of the story is Jefferson’s failure to uphold his promise to Kosciuszko to free slaves. Jefferson died without fulfilling that promise to his friend — and to a fledgling nation founded on the principle of liberty and justice for all. Author Graham Russell Gao Hodges is the George Dorland Langdon Jr. Professor of history and Africana and Latin American studies.
The Case of the Hidden Dentures Owen Magruder (William E. Edmonston Jr.) (AuthorHouse)
This is the second novel in the mystery series written under the pen name Owen Magruder by William Edmonston, professor of psychology emeritus. While assisting his son with house renovations in the city of New Boston, John Braemhor, a retired Scottish policeman, finds a set of dentures in a wall behind a medicine cabinet. That discovery and the disappearance of the previous owner of the house lead him down a path of intrigue and mystery that involves secret codes, murder, smuggling, and attempted assassinations, all cloaked in deeply troubling psychological relationships. Braemhor attacks the mysteries with his deductive powers and tenacity, breaking the codes, solving the murders, thwarting the smuggling operation, and resolving the underlying psychological dynamics.
Also of Note:
Re-Centering Culture and Knowledge in Conflict Resolution Practice (Syracuse University Press) is a collection of essays by scholars and practitioners of conflict resolution who explore the role of culture, race, and oppression in resolving disputes. Phillip Richards, professor of English, contributed an essay and served as coeditor of the book with Sandra Bowland ’77, among others.
“The housing market has hit a sloppy bottom.”
— David Michonski ’73, a real estate executive, in an interview on CNBC’s Closing Bell
“You need to cook up a deal with the gods.”
— Tony Aveni, astronomy and anthropology professor, in an Associated Press article about the historical significance of May Day for farmers
“I had some wonderful professors; they weren’t proselytizing at all. My experience with them was life changing.”
— Reverend Martha Swords-Horrell ’77, to the Syracuse Eagle Newspapers as she described how her time at Colgate inspired her to become a pastor
“Wherever we go, I’m always impressed by how devoted and loyal Packer fans are. But I knew that long before I got to Green Bay.”
— Mark Murphy ’77, the new CEO of the Green Bay Packers, talking about the upcoming season
“If the rest of the world is moving on, and we’re standing still, that’s not a good thing for us.”
— Gary Trauner ’80, who at press time was a candidate for U.S. Congress from Wyoming, addressing concerns about the nation’s energy woes and the environment
“… it is unlikely that campaign giving has suddenly become a common pursuit of working-class families.”
— Jay Mandle, W. Bradford Wiley Professor of economics, in a Washington Post op-ed on small donors
“You need to be able to put on a backpack, be in huge down- pours, and keep your chin up and be incredibly flexible.”
— Catherine Cardelús, assistant professor of biology, in an American Association for the Advancement of Science podcast on what it’s like doing research in a tropical forest
“Alumni are not just heavy users — they’re heavy engagers.”
— Charlie Melichar, VP for public relations and communications, in a New York Times article about the ways in which alumni use print and electronic media to communicate with the university and each other
“I will have to do a lot of things on my own that are a little scary, like getting my hair cut or ordering food when I really don’t know what I’m ordering, but I think that makes you a more interesting person.”
— Jillian Ferris ’08 in a Union-Sun & Journal (Lockport, NY) Q&A as she prepared to move to Taiwan for 11 months with limited knowledge of the language
News and views for the Colgate community
23
A NEW
scene
CLEARLY, SOMETHING DIFFERENT HAS ARRIVED IN YOUR MAILBOX. HERE’S YOUR GUIDE TO THE NEW AND IMPROVED COLGATE SCENE.
Having worked at Colgate for more than 12 years, I’ve been continually impressed by the strong interest and feelings the community has for the Scene. While many feelings are of loyalty and fondness and connection, individual opinions vary — because, like the members of a family, Colgate people are not all the same. They have different backgrounds, tastes, sensibilities, and interests. At the end of the day, the common thread — the family home — is Colgate. In many ways, the Scene is both a window, and a mirror, into the family home. It gives all our readers — the entire community of alumni, parents, faculty, staff, and students — a look at what’s happening on campus. It also reflects the experiences and views of Colgate people out in the greater world. And, like a family and its home, Colgate is also continually changing. Sometimes in small ways, sometimes in much larger ones. Over the last several years, it became clear that the Scene was no longer serving the interests of the family as best it could, nor did it adequately reflect the people and place. It was time to rebuild the frame, replace the glass, reglaze the panes. In the process, we set out to learn what our readers valued about the Scene, and what else they would like to see in it, so that we could build on what was important and successful, and make it even more useful to them in the long run. In the end, I guess you could say we took out the window and replaced it with a door — one with many of the same architectural elements, but with bigger, clearer panes to see through, a spiffy paint job, and a whole new level of functionality. This article will share some of the ins and outs of our renovation process, as well as what you can expect to see in the new Scene, but I also encourage you to check out the rest of the pages in this issue and see for yourself. And let us know what you think! Welcome home. — Rebecca Costello, Managing Editor Contact us at scene@mail.colgate.edu or 315-228-7417.
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scene: Autumn 2008
A brief history
Redesigning the Scene was a thoughtful, serious undertaking. Our overarching concern was to evolve the Scene so that it would better reflect the qualities that make Colgate a special place. We sought out a partner who could share unbiased observations of what we could do better, and lend expertise in reimagining the Scene. We found that partner in Sametz Blackstone Associates in Boston, a communications firm that has helped prestigious organizations such as Harvard University, MIT Sloan School of Management, the Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research, and the Boston Symphony Orchestra make stronger
September 2007
The Colgate Scene
We also examined how the Scene fit in and functioned in relationship to the rest of Colgate’s increasingly diverse “ecosystem” of print publications, e-mail newsletters, and web tools that serve the interests and needs of alumni and our other audiences. And we are always keeping tabs on other alumni magazines — a great way to learn best practices and brainstorm new ideas. Our redesign philosophy was about capturing the unique qualities of Colgate and its people, through both content and presentation: Colgate’s traditions and the beautiful place The strength of the community Colgate’s power and ability in many dimensions, from academics, athletics, and arts, to leader- ship, service, and public engagement The fun, fellowship, and energy of being at Colgate That intangible but ever-present Colgate spirit We also set specific goals, including incorporating a broader range of voices and perspectives, greater variety in types and lengths of articles, more substantive and active connections for alumni, both with the university, and with each other, and becoming more environmentally responsible. And, we knew one thing for sure. The Scene should not be just another generic alumni magazine, but something uniquely Colgate.
A note on frequency and class notes
Clockwise from left: May 1958, September 2007, April 1969
connections with their constitutents through magazines and other publications. We talked to many of you, our readers. We held focus groups and conducted surveys to determine what alumni thought of the Scene’s overall format, readability, and editorial approach, and what elements were most valuable to them. We asked about the topics readers are most interested in, and what stories in past issues really made an impression.
In order to accomplish these ambitious goals, it was necessary from both a resource and a planning standpoint to shift from a bimonthly to a quarterly publishing schedule. For many, the robust class news columns are the first thing to read in a new issue, so we thought long and hard about the impact a shift in frequency would have, and how we should address it, to not only maintain that strong communication link among alumni, but also to add new opportunities for connections. First, we made sure the page count will accommodate the same amount of class notes in four issues that normally appears in six. We also have created a more direct relationship between the Scene in print and Colgate’s e-resources such as the ’GateLine e-mail newsletter and www.colgatealumni.org. To help keep the news timely, each issue’s class news columns — which now appear on your class page at www.colgatealumni.org — will be posted online two weeks before your class editor’s next deadline.
Syllabus
Brown bag
Live and learn Talking points
departments
Here are just some of the elements you’ll find in this and future issues of the Scene: Work & Play: images and news about campus and student life, interesting facts and figures, updates on Hamilton and the Chenango Valley region, and a variety of viewpoints and personal expressions. Minidepartments such as Brown bag, Talking points, and Back on campus will give readers a window into the stunning variety of visitors to campus and what they came to talk about. Life of the Mind: what’s happening in faculty and student research and scholarship, and other academic news. Mini-departments such as Syllabus and Live and learn will share a peek at what’s happening in — and out of — the classroom today. We’ll pose questions or problems about issues or topics, and faculty and alumni with expertise in those fields will respond in Perspectives.
Arts & Culture: news and images from the arts, featuring both on-campus happenings as well as alumni accomplishments. Open mic will spotlight the creative endeavors of students, and you’ll get a Preview of some of the vibrant programming to come to campus each semester. Go ’gate: spotlights, news, and more in the arena of sports and recreation, plus interesting mini-features such as the Ask Raider athletics trivia column. New, Noted & Quoted: recent publications and music releases by alumni and faculty, spotlights on Colgate people mentioned in the news media, and other notable notes. Salmagundi: in homage to the definition of this Native American word — and the name of Colgate’s yearbook — comes a mixture of fun and surprising content, from quizzes and puzzles to guess-thephoto contests and alumni reminiscences.
Road taken
Preview
Perspectives
Passion for the Climb
Page 13
How could we ignore the tradition behind the number 13? No matter what’s going on in the preceding and subsequent pages, Page 13 will be the place for Colgate tradition, history, and spirit. Let us know what you might like to see or read about!
People
Many, many readers told us that it’s the people who make Colgate so special, and that they wanted to read about more of them. In addition to feature profiles, a variety of new spotlights will share the fascinating stories and experiences of alumni and other members of our community. Throughout the Scene, you’ll find many profile conversations with students, faculty, staff, and alumni called Get to know. For instance, in this issue, you’ll find “Get to knows” on a well-known dining services staff member, the director of University Theater, an Alumni Council member, a coach, a trustee, and a student. In Road taken, alumni will share the unique paths they’ve followed, from their Colgate majors and activities, to grad school, to career changes, to what they’re doing today.
Perspectives
A hallmark of the university setting is discourse: the chance to share a variety of viewpoints and observations. In each issue, you’ll read a Message from President Rebecca S. Chopp. We encourage Letters reacting to what you’ve read in the Scene. Through personal essays, alumni, faculty, students, and staff members share things of importance to them, whether it’s their chosen profession, an academic interest, a hobby, or something from their personal lives, in Passion for the Climb. We’ll get people-onthe-street thoughts on a variety of topics in Views from the hill.
to the back cover, to The Big Picture, you will find familiar — and new — vistas of campus. The color palette will change with the seasons.
Share
Alumni will also share their knowledge, expertise, experiences, and fun in future issues, from Colgate memories and impressions in Rewind and My picture of Colgate to snapshots of sightings of other folks in Colgate gear in Colgate seen. Have suggestions on how to spend a weekend (where to stay, best restaurants, coolest sightseeing spots, etc.) in the city or town where you live? Send us a note for Maroon’d. We’re also looking for alumni experts to share their Tips on a variety of topics, from fitness to investing.
Get connected
Several sections of the new Scene are meant to connect you to Colgate, and to each other. Stay Connected will share alumni affairs news and information about special offerings like opportunities to travel with faculty, and updates from the Alumni Council. Alumni Clubs and Groups will feature alumni clubs, events, and activities.
Go online
There will be many new links between print and online content, as well as web-exclusive material, on the Scene website (www.colgate.edu/scene), Colgate’s alumni online community (www.colgate alumni.org), and Colgate’s website (www.colgate. edu), from video stories and news headlines to blogs and message boards.
Campus color
The beauty of Colgate’s campus provides us with a visual gallery, and our wide format allows us to exhibit large images. From the table of contents page,
Colgate seen
Alumni Clubs and Groups
Open mic
Ask Raider
Get to know
Maroon’d Back on campus
Rewind
My picture of Colgate Views from the hill
News and views for the Colgate community
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Sabotage What I wanted was closing footage for my documentary about oil production in the Niger Delta. What I got was a week in a Nigerian military prison. By Sandy Cioffi ’84 I really thought it was typical harassment, no big deal. But then the junior officer ordered me and my film crew to get out of the boat, a step in the Nigerian military checkpoint routine we’d never experienced before. As we climbed up a rusted chain to an imposing concrete jetty, residents were pulling up and dropping off cases of bottled water as “gifts” — aka the toll to pass by without incident on the river. The soldiers sell it to nearby village residents — a creative way of requiring bribes without exchanging cash. We were in the Niger Delta of Nigeria to continue filming for Sweet Crude, a documentary chronicling the devastating effects of oil production in the region — specifically, the systematic theft of vast oil riches from under the feet of a population now living in abject poverty and environmental decimation. On the day we were ordered out of the boat, we were traveling to a village called Egbema, to film a woman who can no longer fish in waters that had fed her family for more than 70 years. Ironically, this area is one of the few that has experienced relatively little of the environmental damage that oil production has caused in most of the delta. Until recently, the area had been spared by the luck of the draw — this part of the river had just not been dredged yet. But now, the bunkering — in which oil stolen from cracked pipes is placed on renegade tankers — has overtaken this corridor of the river. Massive oil spills are an ev-
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eryday occurrence. It’s commonly known that the JTF (Joint Task Force – Nigerian military) are complicit in the bunkering; the huge tankers must clear their official checkpoints both coming and going. I’ll never know why the JTF stopped us. We were clearly a ragtag group of Americans — hardly an upscale boat of oil company executives or anyone of means or “importance.” Were they actually looking for us? We didn’t have our cameras out of their bags at the time. But to the JTF, any Americans knowing details of the abuses in the delta are a danger, particularly if they’re savvy to the Nigerian military’s involvement in bunkering, kidnapping, and gardenvariety crime. The military blames all illicit activity on the militants — MEND (Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta) — and the United States seems to buy that line. Any official statements regarding the situation in the Niger Delta are riddled with concern about the “criminal” militancy, some even suggesting that they are terrorists. And the United States supports the Nigerian military against this increasing insurgency with hardware and military intelligence. This militancy does have criminal elements, but it is also a political resistance movement. I have found no official State Department expression of concern for the root causes of the unrest. For two-and-a-half years, I’ve been chronicling the protracted struggle for justice for the Niger Delta as it shifts toward a more urgent conflict. As the oil companies’ extraction methods continue to ravage the environment and the Nigerian government con-
tinues to “divert” funds dedicated for development, the Nigerian military has deployed troops to occupy the villages and contain the resistance. This situation has drawn paltry media attention. Since the nonviolent Nigerian activist Ken Saro-Wiwa was executed for criticizing the government’s oil policy in 1995, the only stories about the delta you’ll find in mainstream media involve MEND kidnapping oil workers. (Unfortunately, the militants’ shift from political demands to violent tactics worked in terms of getting them some coverage.) But in all of our time here, the military has only ever stopped us to give us a hard time, and it had never taken more than a bit of cheeky dialogue and a playful refusal to pay (we followed the lead of our Nigerian friends) before we were on our way. Because the Nigerian government is pretty friendly with the United States, it seemed logical enough that we’d work in the region without serious incident. This time, the situation escalated quickly. First we were told that we were being held at the checkpoint for our own safety — maybe they thought we were being kidnapped? (This is hard to believe; they never asked if any of us were concerned about the Nigerian man accompanying us, and we gave off no “I am so relieved that you just saved me from being kidnapped!” vibes.) After the safety excuse expired, we were told we could only continue to travel on the river with a paid military escort, which no responsible filmmaker would ever do — it would place the villagers in jeopardy, and we’d be in greater
As companies burn off natural gas during oil production, the flares produce significant greenhouse-gas emissions (and millions of dollars go up in smoke). Many who live in the midst of Nigeria’s oil-producing communities complain of chronic health and environmental problems associated with the gas flares. The acid rain caused by this flaring has contributed significantly to the virtual extinction of most fish populations in the area. Nigeria is Africa’s top crude oil-exporting nation, and yet the people who live in the delta are among the poorest in Africa.
danger for being seen with the JTF. Every hurdle the checkpoint officers presented for holding us in custody was overcome: passports, visas, etc. But each time we overcame a hurdle it was replaced by a new pretend reason for holding us. It was chilling. While the crew and I were placed in the commanding officer’s quarters — where, in a bizarre twist, a TV played soft-core porn — officers and security personnel outside determined our fate. I tried to negotiate our way out of the situation, loudly and upfront, while my production coordinator, Tammi Sims, quietly sent text messages to our contact in the United States, Leslye Wood, to let her know we might have a problem. A basic principle in any military situation is this: the orders soldiers have given you hold until their superior officers pass along new orders. So, if you’re allowed to talk to each other, eat, reach in your bag, or use your phone, you do it like crazy before the game changes. My crew was amazing: calm, smart, and brave. In the few hours we had to do it, we destroyed DVDs, smart cards, tapes, notes, and a camera — in short, everything that could get us convicted of “espionage” (a bogus charge used against others who have tried to record the suffering of the people in that region for decades) and anything that could be used against the people who had worked with us in Nigeria. Destroying our work was the right thing to do, but devastating nonetheless. It represented more than two years of work and was crucial to finishing the film.
for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta, the controversial group called thugs or terrorists by some, an armed wing of the political resistance by others
Ryan Hauck
Kendra E. Thornbury
Members of MEND, the Movement
News and views for the Colgate community
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It is a heady concept to be seized at gunpoint, and it’s compounded when you feel responsible for the Nigerians who have trusted you — the ones in your notes and on your footage. Unfortunately, I knew that the State Security Services (SSS) were renowned for fabricating evidence, abusing Nigerian journalists, and detaining people indefinitely without charges. As we were being driven from one military base to another, I was seated next to the SSS commander. He was on the phone with his boss when I overheard the words “arrest number” and “charge is sabotage.” Oh my god. We still had our cell phones, so I called Tammi, who was in another car, to tell her what I had heard. I had to call rather than furtively send a text because my polarized prescription sunglasses rendered the screen illegible, but without them I was virtually blind. But it was time to tell our U.S.-based team to
need, but we will be forever grateful for having had. justice. Even one hour held against your will when We spent the next week detained by the SSS in you’re innocent is a terrible burden, let alone the Abuja, Nigeria, never charged or officially arrested. years many have faced. We weren’t physically harmed, just uncomfortable We were picked up by the military on a river in and very scared. Our quarters could have been worse, Nigeria for reasons I’ll never fully know. Once they but hardly matched the “hotel-like” environment Googled the film title and my name, we were held described to our families by the State Department, because the old guard military in Nigeria does not though they never saw our rooms. I was held in a want this story told. They were open about this. Had room with a flea-ridden mattress, with no air condiI been filming only militants in masks with guns — tioner or fan in a 100-degree environment (a condian image that supports the narrative the Nigerian tion that changed after 14 lawmakers stepped up for government wants disseminated — I believe my us). I had sporadic access to food and water. The lack crew and I would have walked. The truth is that of water was the hardest part. I am struck by and a people living in this region have been ripped off and little embarrassed at how quickly I felt weak and a bit left for dead for half a century. It’s a pressing political broken in there. issue and requires long-term preventive diplomacy, At one point, after sleeping for two hours, I was not more AFRICOM troops from the Pentagon. OK, woken for interrogation. I was questioned four times not as sexy as approaches go, but it’s what has a total — once for six hours. A constant feature of intershot at averting another African travesty. Ironically, rogation is fear of what might come if I failed to give the only footage the SSS confiscated from us was the them what they wanted, “peaceful solutions” footage — the “hope” footage, although I never knew intended to round out the film with a vision for a what that actually was. just Niger Delta past peak oil. I tried to think of some It was only because 14 U.S. lawmakers led by of the questions as really Maria Cantwell and countless others in the commubad moments from filmnity advocated courageously that we were released fest audience Q&As, just as quickly as we were. As we flew out of the country, to keep my sanity — it I read that the price of oil had reached an all-time helped. Had it not been high. Yet I knew that for the first time in my life, I for the constant lowhad paid the true price of oil. For one week, my crew grade terror that they and I had been denied our freedom and every other would switch tactics to basic right so that those in power could control that violence, I would have natural resource with impunity. Here at home, we found some of it interhave abdicated all moral authority to do the same. esting. Now, I can only remember how horrible my Hopefully, those U.S. lawmakers who signed a letter own fear smells. It haunts me to think about people on our behalf will use this tiny moment of attention who do jobs where they smell other peoples’ fear evto address the real issues about oil — not just the ery day. What I can tell you is that intimidation yields price of gas — for a start, and push for third-party bad information. I could not remember basic details international mediation in the Niger Delta. If they do that I had no reason to try to hide. this, our detention was ultimately worth it. If they I used to make that point about torture in political do not, it was just awful. arguments with friends. Many things that were A Niger Delta villager named Janet prepares containers of gasoline to sell on the black maronce philosophical are ket. With other income options such as fishing wiped out by the environmentally devastatnow physical. A meming oil-production industry, many of the region’s residents resort to this dangerous activity ber of my family said, to feed their families. “What kind of a country detains someone without charges, who cannot see a lawyer, whom they know is not a real security threat — just to send a message, just to intimidate them, what kind of country?” Sadly, the answer is the United States, Nigeria, and countless others. Illegal detention is a blight on our collective soul and has to end immediately. And if anyone being detained is a real criminal, let’s hear the evidence and bring him or her to
At one point, after sleeping for two
hours, I was woken for interrogation. once for six hours. get serious help. So, I looked right at the SSS commander and dialed. His knowing smile as I spoke is one of the eerie images I can’t shake. In the other car, Tammi turned to Cliff and said, “How do you spell sabotage?” Even under stress, she is an impeccable texter. They drove the five of us (four filmmakers and our Nigerian guide and friend Joel Bisina) from Warri to Abuja — a dangerous eight-and-a-half hour drive in trucks with six armed soldiers per vehicle. It was hard to decide if I wanted the drive to end or hoped it would continue forever, because I had no idea what awaited us. I was haunted by thoughts of every prison or torture movie I had ever seen. Damn Midnight Express, Papillion, and Death and the Maiden. We asked if we could listen to music on our iPods (to help with our nerves and burn out the batteries since we had video clips on them we did not want the SSS to find). Huddled in the back, three of us shared one set of headphones while Tammi played DJ. I have never been so happy to hear the Dixie Chicks in my life. Along with Natalie Maines’s “Truth No. 2” — “you don’t like the sound of the truth coming from my mouth” — came the Pretenders’ “Revolution,” a long-standing rock favorite for iconoclasts born into the wrong era: “Bring on the revolution, I wanna die for something.” Truth be told, these were the defiant tunes, and easier to remember now, but Tammi started by spinning slow, comforting songs, including an old spiritual hymn featuring harmonies from my closest friend. It literally made that harrowing ride bearable. It’s an iMix that no one wants to 28
scene: Autumn 2008
Sandy Cioffi
I was questioned four times total —
Q&A What are the roots of your interest in social justice? I was doing a paper for Professor Hunt Terrell in my freshman year. I had to go into the stacks and read the Congressional Record about choices made in 1954 regarding Guatemala. Reading that openly, on the floor of Congress, a decision was made to overthrow a government because of our relationship with the United Fruit Company, my 18-year-old eyes popped out of my head. I had the feeling that somehow, if people could see the consequences to the life of a person in Guatemala, they wouldn’t allow this to happen. I started to go to every lecture I could — I heard a Salvadoran torture victim speak on campus. I got involved in political activism, through Bunche House and in Syracuse. Why did you choose documentary as your mode of activisim? Ultimately, art outlives politics. Sitting in the dark with popcorn and with people around you letting themselves be washed over with the emotion of why something matters — that’s what makes change. I became devoted to the idea that witnessing, and then retelling that story to other people, was my role in all of it. Your first experience in filmmaking was at Colgate. What was the most important thing that you learned from that? I took Filmmaking with John Knecht, and if I’m not mistaken, it was the first time he’d offered it. Joe Berlinger ’83 [the documentary filmmaker] was in that class as well. In the same semester, I was taking American Intellectual History with Kit Hinsley, and The History of Science. So here I am studying mass movements and resistance, storytelling and filmmaking, and reading Stephen Jay Gould and ideas of punctuated equilibrium. It all came together. There I was with my little Super 8 camera and hot glue splicer trying to make this experimental film to represent the idea of punctuated equilibrium versus evolution. It’s all so undergraduate-heady and intellectually arrogant when I look back at it, but it was so stunning. To have been given a camera at the same time that I was having such an explosion of ideas was the perfect thing to create someone who, for the rest of their life, would always stop and consider the content of the message first, and then decide which tool of communication to use. No matter how much the tools of communication move and shift under your feet, you are still in charge of the story. That message is more potent than ever, because after all, what we learned in filmmaking class, from the technical perspective, is yesterday’s news. But that doesn’t mean that the
Documentary filmmaker Sandy Cioffi ’84
class is archaic or unimportant. If I’m using a piece of editing software that John Knecht could never have anticipated, it doesn’t change the fact that he taught me what a good part in the story is to cut. It doesn’t matter what I use to make the cut. What matters is that I was taught basic editing and storytelling. Why did you choose to tell the story about oil in the Niger Delta? Originally I was just a camera for hire. I was in Northern Ireland to document the behavior of the RUC [Royal Ulster Constabulary] during the Good Friday Peace Agreement, and a local organization that was going to Nigeria got my name. So my first trip there, I was filming a nonprofit organization building a library. As luck would have it, I happened to be in this village in the delta that has been really impacted from the consequences of oil when the young student resistance organization decided to switch to militancy — when MEND was being formed. I knew that I was looking at what would be in two to three years a huge story. Not only were there no cameras, there were no news agencies; there wasn’t even anyone who seemed to know this place existed. The consequences were about to come home, and no one was watching. It just seemed like one of those moments that is ripe for an independent camera to get in there fast.
What is the one thing the everyday person in America needs to know about this issue? What they can understand immediately is that what’s happening in places like this is no longer far away. The most concrete and obvious way they’ll know the difference is the price of gas. But I would ask people to go beyond the price of gas and understand the true price of oil. Even if we became green enough tomorrow to stop needing petrol, we are responsible for having decimated places like the Niger Delta for 50 years. What are we going to do about it? Here’s the upside. As dire as it can seem, it’s really fixable. Whereas other countries don’t, Nigeria has the resources, if only the political shift occurs. So if my story gets out there, Sweet Crude can be part of a coming wave of people knowing that the Niger Delta is one of probably 100 villages around the world that are impacted by 50 years of oil production, and we have to be a part of how those places turn around. You can’t just start driving electric cars and say, “Sorry about all that.” What’s your next project? I intend to use this film as an activist tool toward preventative diplomacy for this issue. For example, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has promised me that when the movie is done they are going to do a screening. When I’m done with that, I want to make a film about the craftsmanship of wine, bread, and cheese, all made by women. One is a group of sisters who
…we are responsible for having decimated places like the Niger Delta for 50 years.
How are you working around the footage that you lost while you were detained? I can’t go back in the country. We hope to be able to raise money so that some of the people whom I had either already interviewed or was supposed to interview can be flown to New York and interview them there. Some, I am interviewing on a USB camera, capturing the Yahoo Chat, and putting it in the movie.
won their winery from their father in a bet, one is a nun in an abbey who makes cheese, one is a breadmaker in Oregon. It would be a sort of painterly, beautiful, experimental documentary. After all this danger and guns, I think it might be time to go to Italy and follow some women making wine. What kind of a car do you drive? This is funny, but it’s true; at the start of the movie I owned this beautiful 1967 Mercury Monterey convertible, off-white with a white top. And it got about six miles to the gallon. I looked in the mirror and thought ‘the enemy is you.’ So I sold it and I put it in the movie. Now I have an old beater ’96 Saab and it gets about 26 mpg. What’s the last thing you watched? I just rewatched The Thin Blue Line to get a little Errol Morris. I’m trying to sort out how to do some aspects of my story that I don’t have footage for, and that’s basically what he does the whole time. I have to keep reminding myself not to be intimidated by having pieces of footage missing.
News and views for the Colgate community
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Illustrations by James Yang 30
scene: Autumn 2008
What is the cost of intellectual sustainability? Put another way, why does a Colgate education cost so much — and what is the return on investment for our students?
Behind the
Sticker Price
A look at what’s driving the price of a college education today, and how the university is managing the issue By Dick Anderson
W
hen Zachary Fellman was looking at colleges, “he had some very definite ideas about the type of educational institution he wanted to go to,” recalled his mom, Teri. A native of Los Angeles, Zach looked to the East for a small liberal arts setting — remote location or otherwise — ideally at a school where he could play lacrosse. When decision time came, he got a handful of acceptance letters from schools on both coasts, including “scholarship offers from every school except Colgate,” Teri said. After visiting the campus with his parents, what cinched Zach’s decision was his acceptance letter. “It was absolutely phenomenal,” said Teri, a practicing attorney (husband Mark is a professional photographer). “I got the impression that they really understood him.” A senior this fall, Zach is majoring in peace and conflict studies with a minor in Middle Eastern and Islamic civilization studies and studied for a semester abroad in Israel last spring. “That was an amazing opportunity,” said Teri. “He’s been intellectually stimulated by several of his professors — and that’s the key to everything.” The cost of tuition, room, board, and the student activities fee at Colgate for 2008–2009 is $49,170. “We had an inkling that it was going to be bad, but we never expected it would be that expensive,” said Teri. “But Zach’s our only child — he’s it — so we were able to afford him a lot of opportunities.” As parents of a “full-pay” student (a term that is something of a misnomer, but we’ll get to that later), the Fellmans have plenty of company. Of the 2,750 students returning to Colgate this fall, approximately
60 percent of them are doing so without financial aid. For those parents, if current trends continue, the four-year cost of a Colgate education will total somewhere in the neighborhood of $210,000. The situation is hardly unique to Colgate. As the cost of higher education continues to outstrip cost-of-living increases (Colgate’s tuition went up 5 percent last year), the question of how colleges and universities manage their finances — from tuition to financial aid to their endowments — has drawn the scrutiny of even the Senate Finance Committee. In January, the bipartisan committee asked the nation’s 136 colleges and universities with endowments of $500 million or more — including Colgate — to share information about endowment, fees, and financial aid. “This is the most controversial issue in higher education,” said President Rebecca Chopp. “The issues of what we can do to manage costs and to increase resources, while providing value to students and connecting to our alumni, are the key priorities that I and the Board of Trustees — all of whom are alumni or parents — work on continuously.” “It is very costly to try to provide the ambitious and enlightening experience that we’re trying to provide to our students,” added David Hale ’84, vice president for finance and administration. “From managing utilities to buying insurance and certain goods and services, we should employ best practices in order to manage costs.” Many cost drivers are things that institutions don’t have a lot of control over, said Steven M. Bloom, an assistant director with the American Council on
Education in Washington, D.C. Not only are many drivers structural in nature, he said, “It’s a very laborintensive industry. If you try to enhance productivity, you have the potential to negatively impact quality. The issue’s not going away anytime soon.” In examining this complex issue, we might ask the philosophical question: What is the cost of intellectual sustainability? Put another way, why does a Colgate education cost so much — and what is the return on investment for our students? And what is Colgate doing to balance competitiveness and affordability?
A word on price and wealth The price of tuition is a tricky thing to enumerate. And regardless of his or her financial situation, every student receives a discount to the actual price of a Colgate education, which in 2008–2009 is $53,570. “Whatever the costs are, tuition doesn’t pay it all,” said Kevin Rask, a Wake Forest University professor who studies the economics of education (and formerly a Colgate faculty member). “You’re still not even covering your annual costs.” Ultimately, he said, a college has to weigh any number of factors — including the old standby of “supply and demand” — when administrators decide where they’re going to set a price. This year, Colgate is essentially underwriting the cost of each full-pay student with $4,400 and each aided student (on average) with $34,000. [For more, see sidebar, “So why can’t you just make tuition cheaper?”] The health and wealth of an institution rests on its endowment, and in Colgate’s case, the relatively
News and views for the Colgate community
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Higher education has changed
The relatively small size of Colgate’s endowment is the most significant factor affecting not just operating budget, but also tuition pricing and what the institution is able to offer in terms of programs, services, and support.
small size of its endowment is the most significant factor affecting not just operating budget, but also tuition pricing and what the institution is able to offer in terms of programs, services, and support such as financial aid for its students. Income for this year’s operating budget of $147,320,539 comes from a variety of sources. Total student charges provide approximately 63 percent. The Annual Fund is the university’s third-largest annual revenue source, providing 7 percent. A multitude of smaller sources yield another 7 percent, while the rest — approximately 23 percent — is spent from the endowment. As of June 30, Colgate’s endowment had a market value of approximately $705 million, having achieved an average annual investment return of 11.3 percent over the last five years. 32
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“There is pressure on spending endowments,” admitted Hale, who noted that Colgate budgets approximately 5 percent of its endowment toward current operations annually. “Our spending and investment policies are geared toward the long term, so that future generations can also benefit from the endowment.” The rub, he said, is when one looks at a key figure in the endowment equation: how much per student a college has to spend. Compared to its peers, at $255,974, Colgate’s endowment-per-student rate falls significantly short, which presents a major challenge in being able to afford to offer a comparable level of services and support to the very best colleges and universities in the country against whom Colgate competes, but who are wealthier.
When Hale started his senior year at Colgate 25 years ago, he was a geology major with a minor in history — and the cost of a Colgate education was $11,400, plus another $900 for books, supplies, and the like. “My professors in geology were superb — I learned a great deal from them in terms of how to study and how to think. But by the time I got to my senior year, I was a little more interested in business. So I left geology, which was probably good for both me and science,” he added with a laugh. Hale went on to New York University’s Stern School of Business, spent a few years working for Paramount and Sony pictures in Los Angeles, and returned to Colgate in 1993, working in the development office for three years before joining the finance division. From the vantage point of an alumnusturned-administrator, “I would say that we are doing so much more than what was offered twenty-five years ago — and what was offered then was terrific,” said Hale. “It’s a much more intimate experience, with smaller class sizes, more professors, far more expansive student life programs, and more ambitious study-abroad programs.” “The delivery of a quality education is more complex than it was in the 1970s or 1980s,” added Chopp. “Knowledge has become far more interdisciplinary and driven through technology. Today, we teach sciences with equipment and machines and programs that nobody could have dreamed of twenty years ago. A library, to give another example, must now accommodate technology in addition to providing space for books and studying.” Knowledge has become a more global pursuit as well, with study-abroad programs more of a necessity than a luxury today. Nearly 63 percent of all Colgate undergraduates study abroad under the supervision of full-time faculty (a number that jumps up to 70 percent with the inclusion of such domestic off-campus initiatives as Colgate’s National Institutes of Health program in Washington, D.C.). “It’s a wonderful way to expand the global knowledge of the faculty,” Chopp said. “Faculty members come back to campus and bring their knowledge to the rest of the students.” Such experiences can be life-changing, but spending three weeks in a remote Ugandan jungle carries a price tag. Colgate spends about $2.5 million per year on study-abroad and off-campus programming, or roughly 5.5 percent of the university’s $47 million instruction budget.
“We are investing in a student’s education in the same way we did twenty years ago; however, we are offering more, and it costs more.” DAVID HALE, financial vice president
As seen in the accompanying pie chart illustration, although costs have increased significantly over the past 20 years, how the university allocates its resources on an annual basis has not changed. “Essentially,” said Hale, “we are investing in a student’s education in the same way we did twenty years ago; however, we are offering more, and it costs more.”
The human equation To illustrate Colgate’s profound effect on its students, Lyle Roelofs, provost and dean of the faculty, paraphrased remarks made by Jerry Balmuth, Harry Emerson Fosdick Professor of philosophy and religion, to a recent 50-year reunion class. “A Colgate education seeks to impart and awaken a fresh sensitivity to otherwise unnoticed aspects of nature and of the human world,” Balmuth noted. “Colgate sets and frames the original agenda around which a student’s sense of self and self-esteem can subsequently develop. It critically processes and forms both personal and social persona. By its teaching, it inspires respect for learning and the beginning
exploration of the initially unsuspected range of knowledge and relationships that give worth and dignity to our lives, as learning does to human life more generally.” The transformational nature of a Colgate education begins with the connection between undergraduates and professors — and the university’s 10-to-1 student-to-faculty ratio is key to nurturing those personal relationships. Of Colgate’s $147.3 million operating budget for 2008–2009, the largest expenditure is compensation, at $82.4 million. “We are a heavily personnel-dominated institution,” said Chopp. “At top-rate liberal arts colleges and universities, faculty are the most highly educated people in your workforce,” said Rask, who taught economics at Colgate for 16 years before leaving for Wake Forest last year. “And at a place like Colgate, they demand good researchers who are also good teachers — and that is a smaller subset of PhD professionals.” Further complicating the education equation is the fact that a third of Colgate’s faculty are 55 or older, creating a bit of distortion toward the high end of the wage scale. While Colgate can’t match the compensation levels that these great minds could command in the commercial sector, the university does face some pressure to offer competitive salaries in trying to hire and maintain faculty who might otherwise be attracted to a more urban setting. “You
So, why can’t you just make tuition cheaper? David Hale ’84, financial vice president, explains Given Colgate’s significant “wealth gap” relative to peer institutions, we rely more heavily on revenue from student charges than the schools with whom we compete for students and faculty. As a result, a price cut would have a significantly greater impact on Colgate’s operations than our peer institutions. As for expenditure control, we must always be scrutinizing opportunities to achieve cost savings and create efficiencies; however, Colgate’s two largest expense lines are financial aid and compensation. Our singlemost important strategic priority is to make Colgate more accessible by increasing the number of financial aid packages we can offer to admitted students. A reduction to this $35 million expense is not under consideration. As for compensation, Colgate works hard to provide “market” salaries to faculty and staff, and, in order to compete effectively with our wealthier peers, we employ smaller levels of faculty and staff (on a per-student basis) than they do. Lowering costs in the area of compensation would have a direct and immediate impact on the quality of the educational and extracurricular experiences provided to our students. Were we to reduce the size of the faculty, class size would increase, and students would lose essential opportunities for close interaction with their professors. When new academic offerings — such as the new systems biology program under development — come online, we of course will not eliminate an existing department or major. In the wake of strong investment returns and incredibly generous contributions to the endowment, Colgate has aggressively increased the annual amount of endowment support provided to the operating budget; however, the endowment is the university’s primary financial asset, and endowment spending decisions must balance current needs with a commitment to preserve (and hopefully enhance) its value for future generations of Colgate students. Spending down the endowment beyond levels necessary to maintain intergenerational equity (Colgate has averaged a spending rate of 4.8 percent of the underlying endowment market value over the past five years) in order to reduce prices could risk the long-term viability of our great 189-year-old school.
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“A Colgate education seeks to impart and awaken a fresh sensitivity to otherwise unnoticed aspects of nature and of the human world.” JERRY BALMUTH, Harry Emerson Fosdick Professor of philosophy and religion
could hire a graduate student from Syracuse for $2,500 to teach a course, but we don’t go that way,” said Roelofs.
Inflation, information, and investments In the current economic environment, the hard costs — some obvious, some not so — of providing the kind of Colgate education that students and parents have come to expect are going up at an even faster rate than a 5 percent tuition hike begins to cover. Since arriving at Colgate in 2006 after 21 years at Vassar College, Art Punsoni has noted many similarities between the two schools — with one notable exception. “The climate here is somewhat colder,” he said. On a typical winter morning, “You wake up here and see a few inches of snow.” Considering that Punsoni’s job as director of purchasing means wrestling with the rising costs
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of everything from paper to fuel oil, that distinction is significant. “The cost of keeping an older campus such as Colgate’s warm in the winter and cool in the summer is a daunting one,” he said — particularly when the cost of fuel oil a year ago was somewhere in the neighborhood of $65 per barrel, and reached a high of $147 per barrel in midsummer. The rising cost of fuel then spills over many line items, from athletics travel to airfares for study-abroad programs to the cost of transporting food and other necessities to campus. “Making sure that our students get support will always be our priority.” The environmentally friendly wood-fired boiler, installed during the energy crisis in the early 1980s, provides more than 75 percent of Colgate’s heat and domestic hot water needs and saves the university about a million gallons of oil a year — a cost savings likely to exceed $1 million in 2008–2009. Colgate is looking to expand its use of biomass with the first large planting of willow (10 acres) which, within five to eight years, will produce a significant amount of the wood needed to produce the campus’s own energy. And, more broadly, Punsoni and his team are constantly working to negotiate multiyear agreements with suppliers and vendors. Another inevitable expenditure, the university’s employee health care bill, exceeds more than $5 million each year, and has been growing more than 15 percent annually. In recent years, Colgate has taken steps such as tightening up the benefits plan and asking employees to take on higher copay levels. Information resources and technology constitute
a particularly visible, if predictable, example of a rapidly increasing expenditure. “Every piece of equipment we buy for ITS [Information Technology Services] has a lifespan of four to six years,” said Roelofs. Add to that double-digit inflation in the costs of books and scholarly periodicals, and you have a budget challenge that may be impossible to sustain indefinitely. “In our effort to provide a research-capable library, our librarians are continuing to work to get those costs under control,” Roelofs said, by working in consortiums and with publishers of journals to discuss new models for information delivery. Construction inflation, meanwhile, had been climbing steadily at less than 3 percent annually until a spike in inflation in building materials drove up costs more recently by close to 10 percent. That adds up quickly when you’re building a $58 million facility like the Robert H.N. Ho Science Center, which opened last fall, or completing a $60 million expansion and renovation of the Case Library and Geyer Center for Information Technology (completed in January 2007). “A classroom where a philosophy seminar is going to happen doesn’t have to be that expensive,” Roelofs said. “But you can’t offer a quality educational experience without offering state-of-the-art science labs and excellent scholarly resources.” In athletics, Colgate is one of only two “top 25” national liberal arts colleges that compete at the Division I level. “It’s a long-standing tradition,” Hale noted — and a commitment that the university takes seriously. Accordingly, Colgate spends more
than $10 million annually on athletics, funding 25 intercollegiate athletic teams including football and hockey. Given the university’s location, travel costs are one inevitably expensive line item. “We also have to invest in facilities that support wellness and other forms of physical activity for the whole campus community,” added Roelofs. “This also amounts to major capital and operating expenses.” On a related note, outside regulations are another driver of costs. As a charter member of the eightschool Patriot League — which leads the NCAA in Division I graduation rates among student-athletes — Colgate is held to the same rigorous regulatory environment as larger institutions. “We love our athletics, but the NCAA and the league we’re in both produce regulations at an alarming rate,” said Chopp. A Patriot League Team Green Committee, for instance, was recently formed to focus on environmental protection and promotion through athletics. Beyond athletics, in response to the Americans with Disabilities Act, fire safety regulations, asbestos abatement, and the like, Colgate has invested significant resources to make the campus safer, more accessible, and healthier.
Keeping Colgate accessible Growing up in Hamilton, All-State soccer and ice hockey standout Simon Jarcho ’08 got to know the Colgate faculty and coaching staff pretty well over the years. And, while his older brothers were eager to get away from the small college community where they had spent most of their lives, Simon embraced Colgate’s offer of an Alumni Memorial Scholarship — which is awarded each year to Colgate’s top 200 admitted students — and even took a job with the Office of Admission as a tour guide. “His friends joked about him being the mayor of the village,” said dad Harry, a social studies teacher at Hamilton Central School, where Simon graduated as valedictorian in 2004. Simon spent a semester in London as a junior with the economics study group, went back to
Colgate will award $35.3 million in financial aid in the 2008–2009 academic year, an increase of $9.8 million (or 38.4 percent) since 2003–2004 and $17 million more (93.7 percent) than a decade ago. The average institutional grant award for all financial aid recipients in 2007–2008 was $29,452, and this year saw a slight uptick in the number of families needing financial aid. Thanks to gifts to the university, Colgate is working to provide more than 50 additional financial aid packages to deserving students. Yet remaining “need aware” — which means having to turn away highly qualified applicants for whom Colgate cannot offer financial aid — is the best the university can do in providing access, and in fact is its singlemost significant cost-containing measure. “We work with the admission office so that we’re supporting their efforts to build the best possible class we can admit,” explains Hugh Bradford, associate vice president for budget and financial aid. “We had a trial year a few years ago of admitting students need blind, but it’s something we couldn’t sustain in the long run.” To close the gap with its academic peers, both now and in the long run, growing the endowment is key. “We’re very committed to expanding our endowment for our students,” said Chopp, who noted that Colgate’s Passion for the Climb campaign is “very much a campaign for endowment.” Of the
In recent years, nearly all first-tier colleges and universities have seen a surge in applications due to what Rask calls a “demographic bulge” in high school
The rising cost of fuel then spills over many line items, from athletics travel to airfares for study-abroad programs to the cost of transporting food and other necessities to campus. “Making sure that our students get support will always be our priority.” ART PUNSONI, director of purchasing $400 million campaign, $163.5 million is earmarked for general endowment and the Annual Fund (while another $87.5 million is for financial aid and access, which would bring additional relief to parents).
What price education?
Oxford to work this summer, and had a job waiting for him with the Princeton Economics Group when he returned to the United States this fall. According to Harry, Colgate would have been out of reach were it not for financial aid.
study of college graduates’ salary potential ranked Colgate second among liberal arts colleges in midcareer median salaries, as well as fifth (and the first non-Ivy school) among universities whose highestpaid 10 percent of alumni take home the biggest salaries regardless of how long they have been out of school. Among prospective students, Colgate remains a top destination, with more than 9,400 applicants last year — the largest and most diverse pool ever.
“Certainly the sticker shock makes you think about the cost of tuition,” said another full-pay parent, Carolyn Byrd of Atlanta, whose son is a sophomore at Colgate this year. “Its value will be determined over the long run.” (The youngest of four, Anthony Reynold Baldwin Jr. broke from family tradition — his older brothers and his father all went to Morehouse College — when he opted for Colgate.) While salary certainly isn’t the only way to determine the value of an education, it is one objective measure of success after graduation. “There’s evidence that graduates of more exclusive, more selective universities do earn more,” said Rask. Studies show people from selective schools or private universities enjoy greater salary growth over the course of their careers than those who attend public schools or nonselective schools. A recent PayScale
seniors — a number that will top out in 2009. In the near future, colleges will find themselves competing for a smaller pool of academically qualified students whose families can afford to pay full tuition. For a school like Colgate — which competes in the marketplace “more on specific qualities than on price,” as Bradford put it — outstanding instructors, small class sizes, and great facilities may not come cheap, but they don’t go unnoticed. “Our Colgate parents are deeply appreciative of the connections that their children develop,” Chopp said. “And alumni connections provide years of friendships as well as important business and professional connections that last a lifetime.” Hale agreed: “Being part of a high-achieving, broad alumni community is absolutely wonderful and invaluable. I think what we are delivering for our students is incredible,” he said. “At $50,000, it better be.”
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On the afternoon of May 12, 2008, I
was sitting in my apartment in central Beijing with my husband, Christopher Henke, when the building began to sway. Chris was convinced that it was an earthquake, and hurried us outside. But I wasn’t sure until the web reports came trickling in half an hour later — an earthquake in Sichuan province, near Chengdu. Chengdu? I gasped. Chengdu is almost
profiled people who lied to their families and hopped on airplanes to Sichuan, knowing their parents or spouses would never countenance them going into such a dangerous region. A businessman told me about his friend, also an entrepreneur, who packed suitcases of supplies and money and left her business to work in the devastated region for two weeks. The people I knew in Beijing donated to the government and the state-run Chinese Red Cross, but they also gave money to acquaintances who happened to own trucks that could be filled with necessities and driven out to a village where someone had a personal connection. Nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) that had served other regions turned their focus on Sichuan and sent their people there to see what could be done. Planes and hotels empty of tourists and business travelers were refilled with volunteers. Both CNN and the New York Times described the public outpouring as unprecedented and potentially transformative, even “defiant”: Chinese individuals were so moved by the earthquake that they were shaking off state control and taking matters into their own hands.
The Chinese and Western media profiled people who lied to their families and hopped on airplanes to Sichuan, knowing their parents or spouses would never countenance them going into such a dangerous region. 1,000 miles away from Beijing, as far as Kansas is from Hamilton. How could an earthquake in Chengdu shake buildings in Beijing? Of course we all know the answer now: a huge earthquake, 7.9 on the Richter scale. One that caused a devastating amount of damage: nearly 70,000 people dead, 375,000 injured, and 5 million people homeless. Yet this enormous tragedy, broadcasted all over the world via television and Internet, also inspired an enormous response. Hundreds of millions of dollars in cash and materials, accompanied by volunteers, poured in from international sources. But there was another source of donations and volunteers: China itself. By May 20, domestic donations had topped $500 million, according to the New York Times. Thousands of Chinese volunteers flowed into the devastated region, individually and as members of organizations. The Chinese and Western media
Western journalists and scholars pondered: Could this be a turning point for Chinese society? Could this be the moment when China’s apathetic urban middle class becomes aware of, and begins to take ownership of, rural social problems? Although the impact of the earthquake cannot be underestimated, in fact all of those transformations had been emerging well before May 12. I know this because that’s why I was in China: to
A Chinese volunteer salvages photos left by Sichuan earthquake victims as mementos amongst the debris in Beichuan County.
Serving the People By Carolyn Hsu
In China’s rapidly transforming society, its citizens find a new spirit — and mode — of charity Getty Images
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A very short history of charity in China
There is actually a long and rich tradition of voluntary and compassionate giving to the poor and needy in China. But while the Western concept of charity values giving to strangers, the Chinese framework idealizes giving to kin. Institutionalized giving in imperial China (prior to 1911) was dominated by clan-based lineage organizations,
Carolyn Hsu
study the rise of charities, NGOs, and volunteerism in the People’s Republic of China, an investigation I have been conducting for four years. Indeed, the past decade has witnessed an explosion of NGOs in China. On the other hand, the rise of NGOs and volunteerism is unprecedented, so it’s reasonable that people have been caught by surprise. In fact, had you asked me or other experts in our field in the 1980s if we’d predict the appearance of grassroots or foreign NGOs in China we would have said, “No way.” But it is important to clarify exactly what is new and what is not, and to understand how Chinese society is changing.
A worker with Hua-Dan, whose motto is “Unfolding creative potential through theater,” conducts an activity with children at New Citizens School, a private K-12 school serving the migrant population outside of Beijing.
After the 1949 Communist Revolution, lineage organizations were eradicated. The Communist party-state was the only “family” people would need from now on, according to the new regime, which proceeded to set up a redistributive economy to take care of everyone’s needs. However, in times of disaster, the paternalistic regime would call on the “popular masses” to support its work through donation drives. During the aftermath of the horrific 1976 Tangshan earthquake, which killed approximately 250,000 people, ordinary Chinese people reached into their wallets to contribute to the rescue and rebuilding efforts. Citizens have been called on to donate in response to floods and droughts and, most recently, the freak blizzards that wreaked
The new generation: volunteerism and NGOs
State-sponsored charity may not be anything new in China, but independent volunteerism and NGOs certainly are. Even 20 years ago, NGOs were essentially nonexistent in China. In recent years, however, hundreds and maybe thousands have been founded, focusing primarily on the areas of environmental protection, poverty alleviation, and education. The Chinese state, caught off guard, had to write up regulations governing these new entities, which went into effect in 2004. This transformation has been fueled, in large part, by the idealism and energy of young people. In the early 1990s, when I taught at a Chinese
Even 20 years ago, NGOs were essentially nonexistent in China.
which cared for widows and orphans and supervised education (only for boys — but that’s another paper!). Clan-based charity had a broad understanding of family: lineage organizations not only kept elaborate records of kin to make sure even the remotest relative wouldn’t be left out, but also sometimes provided for people who were not on the rolls but did have the right surname. The idea was that everyone would be covered by kin-based charity. In this realm, religious or private charities were moot. Of course, some people fell through the cracks of this system. In these cases, the state would act as “family,” and the government built orphanages and poorhouses. The state would also step in during times of major disasters and in very bad times often urged (even compelled) wealthy citizens to help (for example, by donating resources or even setting up food kitchens in times of famine).
havoc in China’s usually temperate southeast over the Chinese New Year holiday this year. In other words, there’s nothing particularly shocking or unusual about the donations that poured in after the Sichuan earthquake — except in terms of scale. This disaster was more devastating than anything China has experienced since the Tangshan earthquake. The reach of television and the Internet meant that people could see and hear and feel the horror of the situation more fully than in the past. People in China also have greater financial capacity today. In 1976, citizens contributed the equivalent of pennies and dimes. In May, the members of the new middle class could give thousands of dollars, and the wealthy could contribute hundreds of thousands, even millions.
charity
university, college students had never heard of NGOs, or volunteering, or internships. But this year, a professor at Beijing University told me that all of her students talk about volunteering and discuss the possibility of finding jobs in the nonprofit sector. And they don’t just talk — even before they graduate, they begin volunteering. At the offices of Golden Key, a charity that serves blind and visually impaired children, a constant stream of student volunteers types and translates documents. The founder of Hua-Dan, an NGO that conducts theater workshops for Beijing’s migrant children, told me, “The one thing we don’t lack is volunteers.” In fact, Hua-Dan has more volunteers than it needs. And this year, Project Hope, an organization that rebuilds and serves schools in poor rural regions, started a
volunteer News and views for the Colgate community
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Carolyn Hsu
The Beilin Hope Primary School in Heilongjiang province is supported by China Youth Development Foundation’s Project Hope, which rebuilds and serves schools in poor rural regions.
volunteer teaching program similar to Teach for America. China’s best college students lined up to apply. Chinese young people not only join existing organizations; they also start their own. In fact, many of them are suspicious of existing bureaucracies and prefer to rely on their own efforts; for example, student organizations volunteer at orphanages and retirement homes. An online group of Chinese backpackers set up the “1kg Project” — backpackers heading toward impoverished areas would add 1kg of supplies, such as school supplies, food, or books, to give to local residents. According to Ning Zhang at the University of Pittsburgh, the 1kg Project is maintained by volunteers scattered all over China. This desire to do something helpful, but to work
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outside of the state and existing bureaucracies, also motivated the individuals who founded the Chinese grassroots NGOs I studied. It also inspired the thousands of individuals who poured into Sichuan to volunteer for earthquake relief, some of whom will no doubt organize themselves into future NGOs. One of the purposes of my research was to examine why this spirit of individual volunteerism is so strong in China today, especially among the young, middle class urbanites. The first factor is the shrinking of the Chinese state. In the United States, we tend to view the Chinese state as powerful and intrusive, but it plays a much smaller role in Chinese society than it did 30 or even 20 years ago. Before the market reforms of 1978, the Chinese state essentially ran the
whole economy — all the factories, all the stores, all the service agencies. Because the party-state bureaucracy ran everything, it had a monopoly on all of the higher-paying jobs. The Chinese who came of age in the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s, and most of the ’80s all sought party-state jobs, whether they desired power
“You can think about what interests you, not just what is going to bring in a paycheck.” or wealth or to make a difference in society. Since the reforms, the Chinese state has been transforming itself from a paternalistic caretaker into more of an economic manager. Beginning in the late 1980s
and 1990s, the best and the brightest no longer wanted to work for the state; instead, they sought to start their own businesses in the emerging private sector, both because that’s where the money was and because a series of corruption scandals and the Tiananmen Square massacre tainted the appeal of the government. Today’s young people were born after the economic reforms, and they were children during the Tiananmen protests. They have never experienced the all-embracing socialist state. Working for the government is “just one of 300 occupations,” as one young man told me, and not a particularly appealing one. A government job is seen as comfortable, but not particularly challenging; it’s for those who value security over ambition.
Andrew Daddio
Golden Key
Founded in 1985, Golden Key Research Center of Education for the Visually Impaired helps visually impaired children receive educational and vocational training and counseling in poor and remote areas of China.
For those who want to make a difference in society, a job in the government is no longer the obvious choice, or even a reasonable one. And many of them do want to make a difference. The college students I taught in the China of the 1990s were individualistic and apolitical. Their idea of a good job was one with a good paycheck. Today’s college students are the children of China’s economic boom. Although few would be wealthy by U.S. standards, a substantial portion are from the new urban middle class and grew up with more wealth than any previous generation in China. Because of the “One-Child Policy,” they are almost all only children, which magnifies their privileges. For them, money is not the be-all and end-all that it was for those in times past because they have never truly experienced the lack of it, and, given China’s continuously growing economy, they do not expect to experience it in the future. Li, a volunteer who was doing a one-year stint in China’s western desert, explained to me, “Nobody has to be incredibly worried about getting a job anymore. You know that you can get a decent one. So that means people can think about other things. You can think about what interests you, not just what is going to bring in a paycheck.” Li, and others like him, are seeking new experiences, personal development, and to do something meaningful in the world. Brimming with self-confidence, they believe they have something to offer. Song, a volunteer at a rural school in the far northeast, told me, “We give our students the wings to fly… We inspire them to study hard at school. They’ll give the next generation wings, too.”
Carolyn Hsu shares more of her new research
Getty Images
Volunteers collect clothes for Sichuan earthquake survivors at the Jiuzhou Stadium in Mianyang.
on the rise of NGOs and charities in China in “Rehabilitating Charity in China,” which appears this fall in the Journal of Civil Society. An associate professor of sociology, she has published articles on Chinese business practices and entrepreneurship, and on political corruption. In her book, Creating Market Socialism: How Ordinary People are Shaping Class and Status in China, Hsu explores the central role of ordinary people — rather than state or market elites — in creating new institutions for determining status in China. By analyzing shared stories about status and class, jobs and careers, and aspirations and hopes of people from all walks of life, Hsu reveals the logic underlying the country’s emerging stratification system. Hsu holds a BA from Yale University and MA and PhD degrees from the University of California at San Diego and has previously taught at Williams College. A member of the Colgate faculty since 2000, she says one of her favorite courses to teach is the senior capstone seminar in sociology and anthropology, in which students do their own original research. The logos (top to bottom) of three nonprofit organizations that Hsu researched: Golden Key, Hua-Dan, and the China Youth Development Foundation (sponsor of Project Hope)
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salmagundi
Rewind Reflections of Colgate through the generations A
D
E
Today I opened a box of books and two that sat next to each other were A new posthumous volume of poetry by Grace Paley And a quartet of fiction by Cynthia Ozick, and I realized that both of these writers came to that class I had with Fred Busch at Colgate. Contemporary Authors, or something, Where we read books by writers he knew and They came to our class to teach for a couple of weeks.
C
B
F
G
Match ’gate Match the letter of the cupola photo with the campus building it belongs to (answer key below).
1. James C. Colgate Student Union 2. Persson Hall 3. McGregory Hall 4. West Hall 5. Olin Hall 6. Lawrence Hall 7. Memorial Chapel
Slices A pictorial contest, in homage to the nickname of New York Pizzeria, the late-night Village of Hamilton hot spot serving the Colgate community for more than three decades — one plain slice at a time. Who are these men? Write a caption for this photo, identifying each person correctly. Send in your answer about this “slice” of Colgate to scene@mail. colgate.edu or attn: Colgate Scene, 13 Oak Dr., Hamilton, N.Y. 13346. Correct responses received by December 15, 2008, will be put into a drawing for a Slices T-shirt.
There was a lot at Colgate that made me uncomfortable. But of course it was the most embarrassing version of my young self That made it so. There were the jarring glimpses of excess: The roommate with 20, or 25, identical crew neck sweaters In every color imaginable. The boyfriend whose family’s refrigerator had 20, or 25 Different bottles of salad dressing. And the uncomfortable aspects of being in the first group Of freshmen women. Girls. But the literary exposure has done me good. Hearing a very young Nikki Giovanni read poetry Before she became a neighbor and the best known poet in America After the tragedy in Blacksburg. Hearing the luminous Anne Sexton read poetry Before she killed herself. Hearing Allen Ginsberg read in the chapel, Coming up from Cherry Valley, where he lived with his lover. Studying women’s lit and Wallace Stevens With Jane Pinchin. But best of all was that class with Fred Busch. John Hawkes. Albert Murray. Wonderful Red Grace Paley and Cynthia Ozick. And novels by Fred Busch himself. Ann H. Fisher ’74 Director, Radford (Va.) Public Library Do you have a reminiscence for Rewind? Send your submission of short prose, poetry, or a photograph with a description to scene@mail.colgate.edu.
scene: Autumn 2008
Answer key: 1. e, 2. c, 3. d, 4. b, 5. a, 6. g, 7. f
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All together now! Residence hall–mates bond with a cheer during Konosioni Field Day for first-year students.
News and views for the Colgate community
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