scene Spring 2009
News and views for the Colgate community
Democracy Without Politics Retired? Critical Conversations
scene
Spring 2009
24 Democracy Without Politics
Professor Michael Johnston on the hidden costs of corruption and reform in America
28 Retired?
A visit with nine former professors shows how they are spending their “emeritus” years
34 Critical Conversations
A campus community in dialogue on diversity and race
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Message from President Rebecca S. Chopp
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Letters
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Work & Play
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Colgate history, tradition, and spirit
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Life of the Mind
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Arts & Culture
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Go ’gate
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New, Noted & Quoted
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The Big Picture A collage of the university orchestra, composed of 129 individual images shot during four separate sessions.
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Stay Connected
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Class News 56 Alumni Clubs & Groups 73 Marriages & Unions 73 Births & Adoptions 74 In Memoriam
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Salmagundi
DEPARTMENTS
On the cover: Malcolm Piper ’11 of the Colgate Resolutions belts out a solo at a concert in the chapel. Photo and swan photo by Basil Childers News and views for the Colgate community
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scene team
Contributors
Volume XXXVIII Number 3 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.
As a young boy growing up in a small town in southeast Iowa, Professor Michael Johnston (“Democracy Without Politics,” page 24) dreamed that one day he would play right field for the St. Louis Cardinals. He failed. But he’s hit a home run as a political scientist. As he writes on his website, “corruption has been very, very good to me.”
Acclaimed caricaturist Kevin “Kal” Kallaugher (“Democracy Without Politics,” page 24) is editorial cartoonist for The Economist. Kal’s work for the Baltimore Sun and The Economist has appeared in more than 100 publications. Kal teamed up with Chicago’s Second City comedy troupe in their recent touring show The Art of Satire. Download his Credit Crunch board game at www.economist. com/boardgame.
Like the subjects of his article (“Retired?,” page 28), Jim Leach, who retired as vice president for public relations and communications after 25 years at Colgate, has “redirected” his energies — to a second career as a higher education communications consultant, freelance writer, and nature photographer.
Illustrator Jim Dryden (“Critical Conversations,” page 34), who has been recognized by the American Society of Illustrators, draws inspiration from diverse cultural and ethnic traditions. His clients include Disney, John Deere, and Target, and organizations such as the American Red Cross, Chicago Jazz & Blues Festival, Minnesota Arts Council, and the National Breast Cancer Foundation.
scene online
Listen
Colgate Conversations: www.colgate.edu/podcasts MTV executive vice president Carole Robinson ’83, who has been with the cable TV network for more than 25 years, talks about the early veejay days, Madonna, Bill Clinton, and reality shows.
Watch
Video Features: www.colgate.edu/video Get a taste of the fierce competition during a Tollhouse pie–eating contest at the Colgate Inn. Seniors took part to raise funds for their class gift.
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!
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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
Photo Galleries: www.colgate.edu/photos Images from a Chinese New Year campus celebration, a visit by former poet laureate Robert Pinsky, and a recent swim meet.
Printed and mailed from Lane Press in South Burlington, Vt.
Opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by the university, the publishers, or the editors.
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Feedback form: www.colgate.edu/pressearch The Presidential Search Committee invites feedback from the community on what kind of leader can best continue to advance Colgate.
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scene: Spring 2009
Message from President Rebecca S. Chopp
Since announcing that
I will be leaving Colgate at the end of May to
become president of Swarthmore College, I have been amazed by the ways in which members of the community have reached out to me. What has been most remarkable, though, is how each memory shared from the past seven years is really a reflection on Colgate today and all that we have done together to continue Colgate’s great momentum. have built extraordinary new facilities that make a strong statement about Colgate’s commitment to academic excellence. We have created a new model for residential education that closely ties together the inand out-of-class experiences. We have cheered on our teams at Patriot League championship and NCAA tournament games, while having the top graduation rates of student-athletes in the country. We have welcomed visiting artists and attended performances and shows put on by our own undergraduate artists. We have welcomed leading thinkers to campus to address issues of global impact. We have formed crossdisciplinary institutes to explore the frontiers of knowledge. We have celebrated our location in central New York and extended our reach beyond campus to positively impact our community. We have done all of this together, leading while staying true to Colgate’s mission and traditions. As I prepare to leave, I spend some time thinking about how I have impacted Colgate but find myself spending more time thinking about how Colgate has impacted me. How can one not be inspired by the Colgate spirit: that smart and fun, driven but grounded way of pursuing one’s chosen passion defines the university’s students, faculty, staff, and alumni. That way of being, that Colgate “DNA,” is what drives the university and draws people with those qualities to campus. That is what drew me here and is what I saw in Provost and Dean of the Faculty Lyle Roelofs when interviewing him five years ago. As Lyle assumes the role of interim president on June 1, he will bring his love of teaching and learning, his passion for research and exploration, and his great sense of humor and community to bear on his work. Lyle has been an outstanding partner, adviser, and friend to me since he arrived at Colgate in 2004. He has demonstrated outstanding leadership on issues relative to faculty development, the curriculum, information technology, and university finances. I will miss working with him, but it gives me great comfort and confidence to know that he will be leading the way, partnering with a senior staff and Board of Trustees who work tirelessly to ensure that a Colgate education is positioned to meet the challenges and opportunities presented by the 21st century. While this is my last Scene column as Colgate’s president, there will be more time to reflect on the past seven years in the next issue of the magazine. For now, I will close by expressing my deep thanks to all in the Colgate community who welcomed me to this amazing community and now, after seven years of partnership and hard work, have reached out to reflect with me not so much on what we have achieved, but on how we have set the bar even higher. Up that hill with profound determination. That’s Colgate.
Andrew Daddio
I take great pride in my time as president of Colgate and the ways in which faculty, alumni, students, staff, parents, and the Hamilton community have joined to amplify Colgate’s excellence in all areas and proudly tell the Colgate story. Colgate is a leader in higher education because Colgate people make it so. Each person plays a role and will continue to do so, because that’s the Colgate way. Always looking forward. Always climbing. Always doing more for today’s students. In all that we have worked on and enjoyed together, we have focused on the heart of Colgate: the excellence of our academic programs. We
News and views for the Colgate community
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Letters Amongst promising scholars
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. If we receive many letters on a given topic, we will print a representative sample of the opinions expressed. On occasion, we may run additional letters online.
As an active 1955 Colgate alumnus and retired longtime college president, it was my honor during the 2008 fall term to audit, as I could, the new Benton Scholars Program’s introductory course, Political Theology. The course was ably team-taught by President Rebecca Chopp, in her role as professor of philosophy and religion, and Tim Byrnes, professor of political science (my long-ago Colgate concentration). The new program’s goals are encouraging the highly selected and cohesive 19 first-year Benton Scholars to explore on a global scale complex changes taking place in politics, economics, and culture. The Political Theology course is designed to introduce the Benton Scholars to the concept that many people in our world define political views in religious terms. Amidst creative academic pressure, the Benton group worked hard but had fun, too. For me, an additional joy at age 75 was getting to know the promising new scholars themselves, still in their teens. Like both their professors, these students are articulate, courteous, prepared, smart, and welcoming. One even offered to walk me to my car after each course session I attended, perhaps concerned that I may have forgotten where on campus I parked. Through all this recent positive activity, I have come to realize anew what today’s distinguished Colgate is truly about: individualized best and brightest educational excellence. William L. Boyle Jr. ’55 New Hartford, N.Y. Editor’s note: Read more about the Benton Scholars Program on page 16
Colgate ambassadors I was pleased to be able to attend the dedication of the Blackmore Media Center in January. The event was thoughtfully planned and reflected
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scene: Spring 2009
The Blackmore Media Center, new digs for WRCU in the O’Connor Campus Center
the sophistication, yet informality, befitting Bob Blackmore. He would have loved the event. As I was hosting a radio show after the dedication, a number of the students associated with the station came into the studio. Interestingly, they really seemed to want to hang with an alumnus who graduated some 30 years ago, even if we share this common bond of radio. At first, my ego was touched, but then I realized there was something greater. These young adults were fantastic ambassadors of the university. It moved me enough that I made note of it on the air, thanking them for their hospitality. The night before, a number of my colleagues and I had gone downtown for a bite to eat at a local establishment. We met some juniors and seniors who asked if we were alumni and what brought us back to town. We told them, and they were thrilled; not only because of our celebration of the media center, but also that we came back to the school! Some mem-
bers of our group were greeted with “Welcome home.” I was truly impressed by their graciousness, and the warmth I felt from their genuine character. Chuck Dickemann ’78 Senior Director, Major League Baseball Programming Sirius XM Radio
Overlooking moral hazard Your article “Reversal of (mis)fortune” (Winter 2009) is striking for its omission of any discussion on moral hazard, which current government policies have institutionalized on an unprecedented scale. In the financial sector, the issue of moral hazard is complicated by the broader economy’s need for functioning capital markets, but current government policy is extending the moral hazard to nonfinancial industries where no such issue exists. I have run businesses ranging from start-ups to subsidiaries of multibillion-dollar public companies, and I can tell you from direct
experience that managers will absorb the moral hazard and incorporate it into future decision making. Managers in these sectors will consider implicit expectations of government backstops when assessing risk. Inevitably, they will take risks they would not take absent implied governmental support. Furthermore, what these industries have in common is political alignment with, and heavy donations to, the Democratic Party, mostly via unions. So the moral hazard will not be limited to managers; union bosses will also build it into decision making. Why not risk bankrupting a company with a strike, if you are in a politically favored industry and you are confident your allies in government will be there to bail it out? Beyond the obviously corrupting political implications — union cash for pro-union bailouts — this institutionalized moral hazard comes with large, real, and inescapable future economic costs. Ronald P. Bertasi ’86 Johns Creek, Ga.
On 13 questions Howard Fineman’s The Thirteen American Arguments addresses a baker’s dozen questions across American history and culture that he believes have not been satisfactorily answered. Fineman does not worry because Americans are good and decent people who need only to keep slugging it out as they have for the last 200 to 400 years. If Fineman finds 13 unanswerable questions, what better questions should we ask? Outstanding journalists find and ask them. For example, Fineman’s first question asks, “Who is a person?” The better question, “What shall we do with unwanted children?” would allow both sides of the abortion issue to bypass an unsuccessful question and make progress toward common ground.
But Fineman distracts readers, offering a tour-de-force of facts that Thomas Gradgrind, the overbearing schoolmaster in Charles Dickens’s Hard Times would admire. Gradgrind’s facts led to confusion, not clarity. Fineman’s facts tend to clutter. They obscure a dependence on philosopher John Rawl’s dated view of social justice, an infatuation with post– Woodward-and-Bernstein celebrity journalism, and a selective use of history as a convenient source of bystanders to support sweeping generalizations. Fineman tries to grab the reader’s attention in the beginning of each of the 13 essays with “once upon a time” anecdotes designed to entertain and convince. He follows with pejorative adjectives and platitudes that reveal a lack of objectivity. What poses as an expression of enduring arguments turns into another overwrought tribute to moral relativism, liberally interspersed with enough preachy snipes to make the reader’s fillings ache. Washington’s rarified atmosphere causes such hypoxia that the mainstream media to which Fineman belongs forgets that solid journalism asks useful questions. Stephen Waters ’69 Rome, N.Y.
in Blagoveshchensk” (Scene, Winter 2009). Colgate produces thoughtful, sensitive people who know how to put thoughts and feelings into words that can move us. Thanks so much for all your efforts to publicize the best of Colgate. John Zarecki ’69 New Bedford, Mass.
Stop being so PC I enjoyed the winter 2009 issue of the Scene, but what possessed the caption writer for the photo on the inside back cover: men’s football team? Please, enough with political correctness. I have written thousands of articles, stories, and game reports regarding college athletics, and if a school doesn’t have men’s and women’s teams in a particular sport, there’s no need to reference the gender of the team being reported. Also, the nine guys in the photo leave little doubt as to their gender.
Editor’s note: Waters’s 13 recasted questions appear in Letters online at www.colgatealumni.org/scene.
Brad Tufts ’59 Hilton Head, S.C.
Words that move us
I recently received a publication about “A Better Colgate”* that contained nothing but a bunch of irrelevant and misleading facts and statements. Then I noticed that many alumni have aligned themselves with the sponsoring group. As such, and for whatever reason, I am led to believe that many of these individuals have fallen victim to one of the greatest PR and advertising deceptions that have ever been perpetrated on Colgate’s alumni. The publication cites many other
Congratulations on a wonderful magazine. I enjoyed virtually every single article. And the presentation was amazingly inviting. You have singlehandedly put Colgate ahead of all the other colleges by producing the best college magazine (and I receive several, including one from the Ivy League). I was especially touched by the Passion for the Climb essay by Lara Hueth Cilwik ’00, “Finding Meaning
A Better Colgate. . .?
universities as examples of those that directly elect alumni to their governing boards, which is fine; however, not one of these institutions elects a majority of their boards in this manner . . . and that is what this group proposes. God help Colgate if that movement ever succeeds! Lawrence Scharbach ’56 Darien, Conn. *Editor’s Note: The February 2009 newsletter produced and distributed by A Better Colgate contains a number of misstatements presented as fact, including several regarding the Colgate Scene. The redesigned Scene, introduced in autumn 2008, is being produced by the same number of staff and is funded by the same budget as the previous format. The collaboration with the communications firm Sametz Blackstone Associates was limited to the initial redesign concept for the publication. Fonts and spacing employed throughout the magazine were specifically designed for readability. Class News continues to be a critical element of the publication. Space for class columns was not cut back in reducing frequency; the page count is largely determined through accommodating the amount of class news submitted. The staff is working with class editors to ensure that the print version remains robust, while addressing timeliness of class news by adapting to the 21st-century communication habits of many alumni via the web and e-mail for those who are interested. For more information, go to www.colgate.edu/abc.
News and views for the Colgate community
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work & play 6
Campus scrapbook
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Members of Poetically Minded, a student group that encourages creative thought through spoken and written word, warmed up the stage at Colgate’s 2009 Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration.
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The Year of the Ox: Celebrants plowed through the Chinese New Year Food Festival at Frank Dining Hall, complete with authentic dishes and cultural activities.
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As part of Healthy Body Awareness Month, students were invited to play with their food and make their own bento boxes (Japanese takeout meal) in ALANA Cultural Center.
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Whee! “Sledapalooza” brings cheer to a winter day. Photo by Luke Connolly ’09
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Got milk? John Cavanagh ’09 chows down at the third-annual Tollhouse pie–eating contest, sponsored by the Senior Class Gift Committee and the Colgate Annual Fund. Photo by Luke Connolly ’09
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Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, you look like a monkey… Colgate celebrates Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday with a 30-part “Tree of Life” cake. Photo by Luke Connolly ’09
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Participants untangle environmental issues during the Green Summit at the Robert H.N. Ho Science Center.
Photos by Andrew Daddio unless otherwise noted
scene: Spring 2009
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News and views for the Colgate community
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work & play
Davis urges students to reframe idea of black history
Angela Davis — a key and sometimes controversial figure of the civil rights movement — urged students to reconsider how they view black history at her talk in honor of Black History Month. A university professor and activist for civil rights, prison reform, and political accountability, Davis was brought to campus by Sisters of the Round Table (SORT). “Our organization thought it was important to bring a speaker who highlights the contributions of black women,” said Gabriella Jones-Casey ’09, chairwoman of SORT. Davis approached the celebration of Black History Month in a dynamic way that seemed to strike a chord with students. “I really liked how she discussed the evolution of Black History Month in the context of the current political situation — the election of Obama, the war in Afghanistan, and the role of modern feminism,” said Sam Shea ’09. Davis said that today’s society often thinks of history as being made by individuals, and Black History Month is celebrated as a collection of individual narratives. But she noted that change is forged by communities and that the individuals we celebrate are those who identified or aligned themselves with a larger community that was already struggling for justice. Davis pointed to the anonymous women celebrated in Jo Ann Robinson’s memoir The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the Women Who Started
Third time’s the charm for Donovan’s Pub
Luke Connolly ’09
Angela Davis answers a question during her appearance at Memorial Chapel.
It. It was the women of Montgomery who organized the boycott against the bus company; the boycott succeeded because it was the women who refused to ride the bus. She emphasized that it is ordinary working people who can make a difference. Davis, who was acquitted of murder and kidnapping charges after a 1972 trial that gained widespread notoriety, said race is central to the socio-historical circumstances of the country. She noted that there has not been the opportunity to have honest discussions about race in America. “We do not know how to talk about race. And we assume the only way to deal with race and racism is to ignore it.” Davis encouraged students to engage in open conversations about race on campus and to think of history in a different way. She asked the audience to think of the people whose names cannot be recalled; to think of history as made by ordinary individuals who imagined a better time, a time of hope. — Megan Foley ’09
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scene: Spring 2009
It’s a space so nice, they built it thrice. And on Feb. 17, students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends all gathered at the James C. Colgate Student Union to cut the ribbon on the newly remodeled Donovan’s Pub. With a jazz trio playing on stage, guests mingled beneath the bar’s hand-carved inscription, “Céad Míle Fáilte,” Gaelic for “a hundred thousand welcomes.” Others sat in the café, where a flat-screen television showed pictures of the construction process — a vivid reminder of just how far the pub has come during the last year. Donovan’s Pub, first constructed in the mid-’80s, was the brainchild of John ’52 and Patty Donovan P’87. Its third design comes after the university used the space as a temporary circulation library during construction of the new Case Library and Geyer Center for Information Technology. Case-Geyer was dedicated in 2007, and the pub was left a dark shadow of its former self. At the university’s request, Patty Donovan stepped forward to help recreate it — again. Administrators and student government members rolled up their sleeves as well.
Talking points
“The medium for a poem is the reader’s breath. By the nature of the medium, poetry is on a human scale.” — Robert Pinsky, former poet laureate of the United States and founder of the Favorite Poem Project, at a lunchtime talk with Colgate students “When you sequence the DNA in your cells and sequence the chimps and gorillas and other apes and other monkeys, no matter how you do it, no matter which part of the DNA you look at, we’re only 1 to 2 percent different — roughly 98 to 99 percent similar to chimpanzees. We’re closer to chimps than any other species are to each other on the planet.” — Donald Prothero, paleontologist, author, and professor at Occidental College, in his Darwin Week capstone lecture “Evolution: What the Fossils Say and Why it Matters” “I just wondered, in ancient society like the Greek society, the Homeric society, if you saw the sea as having within it the spirit of the god, you had to placate it. If you saw the sea not only as a source of life but also as a source of great power — power that you didn’t want to anger — would you trash it so easily as we do? This crisis made me reflect on it in a different way… We always think of those who have multiple gods as less civilized than us, but maybe this is a more civilized way of looking at our natural environment.” — Professor Steven Kepnes, talking about how lessons learned in the core are applicable to solving the global warming crisis, in What’s Core 151 Got to Do With It? The Mess We Are In
Upstate Institute to offer bankruptcy assistance
Thanks to a $45,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Herkimer & Oneida Counties, Colgate’s Upstate Institute will develop and implement a program that provides free legal services to local low-income residents who are filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy. In conjunction with the Legal Aid Society of Mid-New York, Inc., a notfor-profit law office that provides legal assistance at no cost, the Upstate Institute will start working with new clients this spring for the Consumer Bankruptcy Law Project. The partnership expands regional resources, allowing residents who have incurred substantial debt to reorder their finances and make a fresh start. “This is also a win-win situation because students selected for the program will be able to learn so very much about the law and about life. At the same time, their work will contribute to the mission of the Legal Aid Society,” said institute director Ellen Kraly. The grant money will fund a training conference for 12 to 14 pro bono attorneys and Colgate student interns, the preparation of case files, and bankruptcy filings for 35 to 40 clients during an 18-month period. Five Colgate students will be selected for the project each semester. By spring of 2010, as many as 15 students will be participating. Under the supervision of a project attorney, students will obtain documentation, draft legal forms, and write memo-
randums for the files. Cases will then be referred to the pro bono attorneys, who will meet with the clients and decide whether to file their cases in court. Susan Conn ’79, lead attorney on the project, will serve as a mentor for student interns. The Consumer Bankruptcy Law Project grows out of a pilot project that began in January 2008. Conn trained Colgate students to assist her with the preparation of actual bankruptcy cases. “The seven students who worked with me on the pilot project have truly appreciated the opportunity to have hands-on experiences within the legal profession and leave a meaningful impact on our community,” said Conn, who has 22 years’ experience at Legal Aid. “The pilot project has proven to be very successful, and we are fortunate to be able to continue the work.” Priority will be given to lowincome residents of Madison, Herkimer, and Oneida counties who are domestic violence survivors and other individuals with insurmountable debt due to job loss or medical illness. Individuals selected for the project will be prescreened for financial eligibility and will need to meet additional criteria.
O’Keeffe shares a writer’s inspiration
The Department of English kicked off the spring semester’s lecture series with a reading to a standing-room– only crowd by a new member of the
Author Patrick O’Keeffe reads from his work at Lawrence Hall.
Presidential Search Update
Andrew Daddio
After three at-bats, no one was willing to trust that, if you build it, they will come. So, the Class of 2009 spent six months trying to set a new senior class gift record and create an endowment to support activities in the pub — events like this year’s Super Bowl Party, Monday Night Trivia games, and faculty-staff happy hours. After all, “leaving something behind keeps you connected when you’re an alum,” said senior class gift committee member Katrina Zawojski ’09. Her sentiments were echoed by Patty Donovan, who has, once again, built her family’s legacy on campus. “It has been a labor of love for me, my husband, and my family,” she said. “We’re glad that it turned out so well.”
Presidential Search Chair Peg Flanagan ’80 and Board Chair Chris Clifford ’67 spent two days on campus meeting with students, faculty, and staff regarding the search for Colgate’s next president.
While we are in the beginning stages of the search for Colgate’s next president, I am pleased to share an update on where we stand and invite your input and ideas as part of the process. As you know from the letter sent on Feb. 21 by Board Chair Chris Clifford ’67, Colgate Provost and Dean of the Faculty Lyle Roelofs has agreed to serve as interim president effective June 1, 2009. Lyle has done an outstanding job overseeing faculty initiatives, the curriculum, information technology, and instructional budgets since arriving at Colgate in 2004. We are confident that Colgate will continue to advance under Lyle’s leadership during this period of transition. There is a great sense of momentum at Colgate right now, which puts us in a strong position as we work to build the best possible pool of candidates. The candidates will closely review our leadership statement, the document that will articulate Colgate’s aspirations for its next president. This is a critical document for Colgate, and I will be looking to members of the Colgate community to express their expectations and aspirations for a new president and Colgate’s future. To facilitate this type of feedback, we have established an e-mail account, pressearch@colgate.edu, and a website, www.colgate. edu/pressearch, which includes a feedback form and links to communications that have been sent about the search. While the search committee’s deliberations around candidates will be necessarily confidential, I will provide information along the way through updates posted on the website. I invite all members of the Colgate community to share your thoughts on the short- and long-term issues the next Colgate president will have to address, the qualities of leadership you seek in the next president, and any other recommendations you may have, including names of potential candidates. I will respect the confidentiality of your communications with me, but will ask that you provide your name and contact information should I have a reason to follow up on your response. Since beginning this effort just a few weeks ago, I have been impressed and inspired by the ways in which Colgate faculty, students, alumni, staff, and parents have reached out to express their hopes and concerns, their ideas and suggestions. This is an important search at an important time for Colgate, and I look forward to many more conversations about how we can be sure to get the best possible candidates in line to interview for this outstanding opportunity. Peg Flanagan ’80 Chair, Colgate Presidential Search Committee Vice Chair, Colgate Board of Trustees
News and views for the Colgate community
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who they were. He urged the students in attendance to break away from their own comfort zones because coming face to face with the unknown often facilitates discovery. He described the attitude writers must adopt to take risks in their work: “Okay, I can’t get away with this, but I’m going to try to get away with this and hope it works.” It also is important for writers to seek inspiration in everyday life, O’Keeffe said, because the smallest detail can lead to a creative breakthrough. Take that detail and write around it and through it to get at what fascinates you, he told the audience. “Those images you have in your life, bring them to your work.” — Megan Foley ’09
Activist uses smart humor to discuss race
Andrew Daddio
work & play
Dick Gregory (right), noted comedian and political activist, gets help from an audience member during his talk in Love Auditorium.
Colgate community, author Patrick O’Keeffe. O’Keeffe, assistant professor of creative writing, won the prestigious Story Prize in 2005 for his collection of novellas, The Hill Road. “The Hill Road is a glorious work one would wish everyone to read,” said Jane Pinchin, Thomas A. Bartlett Chair and professor of English. O’Keeffe was born and raised on a dairy farm in rural Ireland. He emigrated to the United States in the mid-1980s when he was in his 20s and worked as a bartender, construction worker, and house painter. He later began writing poetry and fiction, and in 1996, he earned a bachelor’s degree in English from the University of Kentucky. Although critics often discuss his work in an Irish context, the author said that American literature had a strong influence on him. He noted that people tend to absorb what they read, and he cited William Faulkner, Alice Munro, and Sherwood Anderson as just a few of his favorite authors. He read from a work in progress called The Moon in Cancer, which revolves around a homeless character. The work is a product of his experiences working with the homeless in Ann Arbor, Mich. (he earned his MFA at the University of Michigan). O’Keeffe said getting to know the homeless men and women challenged his own limited notions of
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scene: Spring 2009
Combining wit, humor, and a willingness to say exactly what he’s thinking, Dick Gregory spoke in Love Auditorium in late February as the Brothers organization’s keynote speaker for Black History Month. A well-known political activist, comedian, author, and personal nutrition advocate, Gregory talked about “the world according to Dick,” challenging students to think while continually making them laugh. “Comedians make you look inside yourself,” said Daniel Cantor ’09, a member of the Brothers group, which is dedicated to addressing issues facing male students of color. “They get at issues you wouldn’t be able to in other situations.” Occasionally pushing the boundary of political correctness, Gregory used his smart humor to discuss race in the political campaign of Barack Obama, the bafflement he feels about the public’s disregard for nutrition, and a conspiracy theory relating to the Feb. 12 plane crash in Buffalo. He suggested that the crash occurred because Beverly Eckert, one of the passengers on board, had requested that the investigation about her husband’s death in the 9/11 attacks be reopened two days earlier. “It was absolutely disrespectful to hear him joking about the plane crash that happened in my hometown less than one week after it happened,” said Catherine Mendola ’09. “However, I realize that his point was to highlight what we ‘don’t know’ about a situation.”
Views from the hill What is the most intellectually stimulating paper you’ve written so far at Colgate? A psychology paper I wrote for Professor Carlsmith. We had to talk about how we saw some aspect of what we’d been learning in our own lives. I ended up completely messing up the paper and I rewrote it explaining my previous screw up in terms of cognitive dissonance — which is basically when you think you can do really well and you can’t, so you rationalize it away. It was interesting to see how exactly what he’s teaching is what I’m doing and not even realizing it. — Bob Komer ’10, psychology major, Greek minor Writing about standardized English in my writing class — why it’s necessary in society and how it obstructs culture. — Sumeeta Sankar ’12, considering a double major in biology and anthropology My freshman year, spring semester, I took two classes for an extended study to Ireland — one was a contemporary poetry class and the second was medieval Irish literature. At the end, we had to merge the two classes and do something that related to the ancient texts but also the contemporary poetry. That was really invigorating. — Meghan Sheehan ’10, economics and Spanish major
Needed: A few good men
When Ingrid Hale, director of Colgate’s Center for Outreach, Volunteerism, and Education (COVE), looks up from her desk to see who has walked through the center’s doors, odds are it is a female student. “There is a gender disparity in volunteering not only on our campus, but also at colleges across the country,” said Hale. “Unfortunately, some male students think that volunteering will not be a meaningful experience for them, or that service opportunities may not match their interests.” According to COVE estimates, onequarter of students who participate in the center’s 35 service programs is male. In an attempt to narrow the gender gap, COVE has ramped up its
Go figure – So long, winter! 10/28/08 first major snowstorm in Hamilton, N.Y.
-11° F low temperature on the coldest day, Jan. 16, 2009
148.4" total amount of snowfall 13.5" highest daily amount of snowfall 9,898.17 tons of woodchips burned to heat campus buildings
27.46 miles from campus to the closest ski hill, Toggenburg Mountain
7,560 cups of hot chocolate poured at Frank Dining Hall
50 pairs of cross country skis (both classic and skate), 25 pairs of telemark skis, and 40 pairs of snowshoes available from the Outdoor Education Program for alleviating cabin fever
*Data compiled from a variety of sources, including Peter Hall, WSTM-TV meteorologist.
volunteer recruitment campaign, called the Male Involvement Initiative. This semester, Hale enlisted the help of COVE interns Jonathan Riedel ’09 and Jeremy Fisher ’10, who have been compiling and analyzing data on volunteerism in the community and then creating an action plan. Across campus, the duo’s efforts are visible. Inside academic buildings and residence halls, Riedel and Fisher have hung catchy posters with well-known male figures who are dedicated to philanthropic work — Chuck Norris, Michael Phelps, and Brad Pitt. At Frank Dining Hall, stories about male volunteers are spotlighted on the Grapevine (tabletop placards). “We hope the constant visual reminders around campus will motivate our male classmates to step up to the plate,” said Riedel. The outreach initiative also highlights COVE programs — such as Habitat for Humanity, Hamilton Outdoor Group, and Hamilton Fire Fighters — that are more likely to attract male students. “There really is something for everyone,” said Fisher. “Once you become involved, it is easy to become enthusiastic about the work.” Just ask Nick Lybrand ’09, who got hooked on community service while he was in high school. As a Hamilton volunteer fire fighter, Lybrand responds to emergency calls at night and on weekends. On Friday afternoons, you will find him playing bingo with senior citizens in the nearby town of Madison. His message to men who shy away from volunteering: “There is an indescribable feeling that you will take away from helping people. “Without community service,” he added, “there would be a huge hole in my life.” Hale noted that when male students refrain from volunteer projects, community members also miss out. “Boys in particular need male role models whom they can look up to, and male students here at Colgate might be able to relate to them in ways females cannot,” she said. “That can make a world of difference to a young man.”
Get to know: Nikki Doroshenko
Andrew Daddio
Cantor said he thinks Gregory’s outspokenness is helpful in creating dialogue. “We need people to start conversations,” he said. “I believe that Gregory’s lecture will be discussed and thought about … even if it is merely to refute his claims.” — Brittany Messenger ’10
Laboratory technician, biology department • Responsibilities: “I directly support laboratory courses that the faculty teach, by ordering and setting up supplies. I consistently support BIOL 211: Evolution, Ecology, and Diversity, and I work on additional courses that lie in my area of expertise — usually, anything to do with ecology or animals.” • Taming of the shrew: “One of the coolest things that has come from me taking care of the animals for the department is that I have helped fine-tune the husbandry for Professor Tim McCay’s colony of shrews. We take care of the Least Shrew, and our colony is around 80. They have little water bottles, and they get fresh food every morning. Their cages get cleaned twice a week, so we scrape all the shrew poo out of the bottom. When I’m cleaning them, I think I should invite Mike Rowe from [Discovery Channel’s] Dirty Jobs.” • Other critter care: “This past fall, Professor Nancy Pruitt wanted to do a study on snakes in one of her courses. With the help of others, I field collected garter snakes and had to house them. [We fed them] goldfish that had magnets in their bellies, and by moving a compass along the snake’s body, the students could track the food bolus. By keeping the snakes in different temperatures, they tested whether warm snakes digest more quickly than cold snakes. They do, and it was interesting for the students to see.” • Circle of life: “I went to school in the Morrisville-Eaton School District, attended Cornell, and came back here. I was planning my wedding to my high school sweetheart and finishing up at Cornell. [When I saw the ad for the job at Colgate] I thought, what are the chances that a job where I can use my biology education would open up in Madison County? My family and my husband’s family are around here, so this is where I wanted to live.” • Itching for biology: “I grew up on a dairy farm in Eaton. I wanted to be a large-animal veterinarian, but I developed allergies to hay and horses, so I switched to biology. Now I’ve become allergic to the rats and mice here, so when I’m working, I look like I’m fighting off Ebola. I have to be completely garbed up, or I’ll get hives.” • The science of chaos: “My favorite part of the job can also drive me crazy — everything’s always new and in flux. The technicians are always busy, making sure things are ready in time for the lab period. When classes aren’t in session, we ensure that the equipment is operational, organize, clean, and restock — all of the things that help when you’re in the middle of handling the mini-emergencies that come up.” • Helping with the Ho Science Center: “The technicians’ opinions were solicited because we think in logistical terms about the layout and design of a lab. It was neat to meet with the architects and go over the plans, making red x’s where we didn’t think things should be and drawing arrows where things should be moved.” • Most unique thing in her office: “My plaster snake. This office used to belong to Professor John Novak, who retired recently, and he left that snake behind.” • Family: “My husband and I have two daughters, a son, a dog, and a cat. I’m a proud mom!”
News and views for the Colgate community
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work & play 12
scene: Spring 2009
Passion for the Climb Improbable Politician: A Wyoming Story By Gary Trauner ’80 The crowd in Cheyenne, Wyo., was in a frenzy, shouting slogans, waving signs, and generally exhibiting the type of exuberance Alan Greenspan might call “irrational.” As I bounded up on stage, reflexively thrusting my clenched fists into the air, a brief thought flickered through my head — “How did I get here?” It was March 8, 2008 — the day of the Wyoming Democratic Caucus (i.e., Presidential Primary Day). Clearly, the Obama/Clinton rivalry had stoked interest, even in the reddest of the red states. Bill, Hillary, and Barack actually all managed to find Wyoming on the map, stumping in person because for once, our measly 18 convention delegates might matter. Me? I was running for Wyoming’s lone seat in the U.S. House of Representa-
tives, and my plan was to barnstorm to caucuses around the state in one daylong, 1,000-mile jaunt. Yet even I am taken aback by the size and fervor of the crowds — our organizers were scrambling to find space for thousands at gatherings that might attract 100 people in years past. So how did I get to this point? Was it the nightly discussions (arguments?) around the dinner table about the news of the day with my parents and two brothers? Or maybe it was the late-night discussions (arguments?) with friends my freshman year in front of a roaring fire in 102 East Andrews? (Yes, back then the fireplaces actually worked — seems the administration hadn’t yet decided we were too irresponsible for our own safety.) Whatever the roots, my passion to provide a better future for my two young boys and future generations had led me to this improbable spot. In 2006, as a businessman and neophyte politician who had never held elected office higher than school board chair, I decided to run for Congress. At roughly 100,000 square miles and 500,000 people, Wyoming is vast and relatively empty; it’s the least populated state in the country, with more domestic livestock than humans. Even more daunting, as a Democrat, I was facing a party registration disadvantage of more than 35 percent (did I mention “reddest of the red?”) and the historical fact that Wyoming had not sent a Democrat to Washington in 30 years. No wonder the typical reaction to my announcement, from friends to locals to Wyoming party leaders in D.C., was, “You’ve got to be kidding me!” Nonetheless, against a six-term incumbent who had never truly been challenged, I came within 1,000 votes (roughly 0.4 percent) of perhaps the biggest upset in the country in the 2006 election. Let’s just say that I’ve learned all about recounts, electronic voting machines, and the politics of vote counting — and it’s not pretty. And again in 2008, while consistently running ahead in the polls, I fell short in a state that gave President Obama the lowest vote percentage of any state in the country. Moral victories don’t cut it in politics. I ran to win — to help put in place policies that I believed might make a difference for current and future generations. By that definition, I failed. Yet, clearly, my efforts were not a total loss. My reasons for running
are encapsulated in one particularly poignant campaign story. The night before I was due to speak to a group of Wyoming businesspeople, I received a call at my hotel from my oldest son, 12 at the time. He was audibly shaken to the point of crying, telling me he had just seen a TV commercial in which my opponent was making stuff up about me. We had a long talk about my reasons for running, and I explained that I was trying to change exactly what had so disturbed him. The next day, my team told me to ignore my son and talk to the audience about the issues they wanted to hear about, such as immigration, minimum wage, etc. I stuck to the script until the end, when I just couldn’t contain myself any longer. I related the story of my son’s call to the audience, and told them, “It doesn’t have to be this way. The way you campaign is the way you are going to govern. Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, or whatever, I don’t care. And if we are to make this world a better place for my children and yours, we can no longer afford the politics of deception and destruction. The lesson I want to teach my children is not ‘win at all costs’; it’s that integrity matters.” I am still approached by people — many of whom did not vote for me — who tell me they were proud of the way I ran my race (apparently, however, party label is just too much to overcome). Just before I sat down to write this column, I opened a letter from a young 9- or 10-year-old boy named Addison, whom I had met in Cody, Wyo., near the end of the last campaign. Three months after the election, Addison took the time to hand-write a note thanking me for running and reminding me of my words to him during the campaign — “Never give up and never stop trying.” As my eyes moistened, I silently thanked Addison and promised him I would live up to those words and his dreams.
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
1940s: Signs of the times When the student population began dwindling after the United States entered World War II, Colgate President Everett N. Case quickly devised a plan to guide the school through the “perilous shoals” of wartime. The campus became a site for military training programs, starting in October 1942 with the Civilian Pilot Training Program/ War Training Service (V-5 program), and later including the Naval Flight Preparatory School, and V-7 and V-12 units. Anticipating the call to duty, the Class of ’43 celebrated their “White Commencement,” graduating six months early on Dec. 13, 1942, and, at the student body’s request, a military training and physical conditioning program was made compulsory for civilians. After the war, a barrack-like “Vet Village” was built to accommodate the greatly expanded student body — more than 1,300 strong. Other housing was adapted for the many student veterans who were married with families. Favorite local haunts of the era included The Sugar Bowl, DePuy’s Diner, the Old Stone Jug, and Schine’s State Theater, and wellknown campus visitors included Thomas Dewey, Eleanor Roosevelt, and performers Marian Anderson, Burl Ives, and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. Prom weekends were a happy pastime, including when ex-serviceman Kurt Loesch ’48 used his Jeep to transport friends Robert Clemence ’42, Art Seekamp ’45, Dave Starkey ’49, and Ray Mayer ’47 with coeds from Denison, Bucknell, and Syracuse. Loesch recalls that he bought the Jeep at Fort Dix in 1946. “My roommate and I earned gas money towing cars out of snow banks on the Hill,” he said.
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scene: Spring 2009
Seth Greene ’11
life of the mind 14
Fareed Zakaria speaks to members of the Colgate and local communities in Brehmer Theater.
Newsweek editor discusses economy in PPE lecture
The Institute for Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) launched its Lampert Lecture Series in February with an address by Newsweek International editor Fareed Zakaria, who offered a compelling examination of the economic crisis. Besides his Newsweek role, Zakaria regularly contributes to the Washington Post and hosts a foreign affairs program on CNN Worldwide called Fareed Zakaria GPS. Stanley Brubaker, PPE director and professor of political science, said Zakaria was the perfect speaker for the institute’s exploration of “Liberal Democracy and its Limits.” The mission of the PPE is to provide a forum for students and faculty to engage in public affairs and facilitate the connection of diverse disciplines. “I thought his lecture offered many insights to which we will return in various projects the PPE will be sponsoring over the next couple of years,” said Brubaker. In his lecture, Zakaria offered insight on how the economic crisis happened. Zakaria took the audience back to 1979, a year he said signifies the end of the old world and beginning of the new. In that year, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, a move that ultimately led to its breakup. After the Soviet Union’s collapse, there was only one economic model, that of the United States, the remaining superpower. Zakaria cited another event in 1979 that changed the global economic landscape. Margaret Thatcher became prime minister of Britain, and she introduced deregulation, tax cuts, and a laissez faire approach to economics. The reforms allowed money to move freely in the market. The third factor that Zakaria pointed to was the technology revolution.
With the prevalence of television, anyone could immediately find out what was happening and what it was like in the rest of the world, which led to a decrease in price disparities. All of these factors led to the creation of a single global market accelerated by technology. He said that in the past two decades, we have created a world where everyone is connected but no one is in control. Now we are entering an unusual geopolitical moment — the first truly global economic crisis. Zakaria concluded that the only way to save the global economy is for the world’s nations, including the United States, to come together and coordinate financial policies. Otherwise, a historian in the future could look back on this crisis and remark that just as the world opened up, the United States shut down. “The U.S. succeeded in its great mission — it globalized the world. It just forgot, along the way, to globalize itself,” said Zakaria. — Megan Foley ’09
National Teach-In events fuel campus discussion
A National Teach-In on Feb. 5 provided a forum for professors and students to have a dialogue about global warming. The conversation was geared not only toward promoting awareness, but also to propose actions that individuals and the campus as a whole can take to combat climate change. Robert Turner, professor of economics and environmental studies, and Ian Helfant, associate professor of Russian, gave a lecture titled “Colgate: Where do we stand? What should we do?” It was one of more than a dozen sessions held on campus. Turner and Helfant are members of the Environmental Council, a group of faculty, staff, and students charged with analyzing and advocating projects to improve environmental sustainability at Colgate. The professors explained in their lecture that the three big areas of greenhouse gas emissions on campus are heating, electricity use, and transportation. Turner said there is no real motivation to curtail electricity usage on campus because the cost per kilowatt hour is very low. But, he added, most of that electricity comes from hydropower, which helps keep carbon dioxide emissions low. Colgate employs a wood-chip–
Syllabus PHIL 216: Existentialism MWF, 10:20-11:10, Lathrop 215 David Dudrick, Associate Professor of Philosophy Course description: This course introduces students to existentialist thought via an examination of its 19th-century origins and 20th-century manifestations. Among the topics to be considered are existence, freedom, subjectivity, and absurdity. On the reading list: Camus, The Stranger; Cumming, The Philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre; Descartes, Meditations; Dostoevsky, The Grand Inquisitor; Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling; Nietzsche, The Gay Science; Pascal, Pensées Key assignments/activities: Bring questions and, most importantly, objections and new ideas to class. Weekly postings to Blackboard engage with some idea in the readings either individually or after smallgroup discussion. Two papers, a midterm, and a final exam. The professor says: I want students to take away the idea that it is worthwhile to pose the deep and abiding questions facing human beings — e.g., What is the meaning of life? Does anything have meaning? How should I live in light of these questions? — even if we can have no absolute certainty with respect to the answers. Too often students are under the impression that if there is no way of proving one answer to be the correct one, then the question isn’t worth asking. I want them to see that each can come to reasonable answers, even if other reasonable people would disagree with those answers. Students say: – “I’m getting a better understanding of myself for myself. That in itself is great.” – “The most important thing I got out of this course was the ability to make thoughtful, logical objections to a claim. I feel more educated after every class lets out!”
burning heating plant using regional waste wood chips to provide steam heat to the majority of the campus. By burning 20,000 tons of wood chips (a renewable, carbon-neutral resource) annually, Colgate avoids consuming the equivalent of 1,000,000 gallons of fuel oil each year. A task force organized by the Student Government Association (SGA) is looking into various transportation options, including improving the campus shuttle system and exploring biofuel options, as well as creating a ride-sharing system. The SGA has several task forces that are part of its campus carbon-neutral campaign. “It’s finally come to the point that people realize that our current consumption is not sustainable. We need to do something to change this,” said Christov Churchward ’10, who gave a presentation titled “Opportunities for student involvement and political action.” The National Teach-In was part of the 13 Days of Green, a series of campus environmental events leading up to the eighth annual Green Summit on Feb. 13. After attending several lectures, Megan Cronin ’10 said she felt motivated to join in the environmental efforts on campus. “The National Teach-In made me think that there can be a vehicle for change and that I need to get behind it,” she said. Cronin also was one of a number of Colgate students who attended Power
Shift 2009, a student rally on Capitol Hill Feb. 27 demanding government action on climate change. — Brittany Messenger ’10
many of the essays. The impact of the project has been profound. Peeking into kitchens and living rooms has opened a window on historically relevant, intrinsically moving first-person narratives by Russians who lived through landmark moments of the 20th century. “We strived to capture something of a disappearing way of life, thus creating a durable record of a social era and institution that is vanishing,” the team wrote in its final NEH report. This year, students and scholars in America, Europe, and Russia are using the site to satisfy coursework and curiosity. You can, too, at http://kommunalka.colgate.edu.
Documenting a Russian social experiment online
It was one of the most enduring social experiments of the Communist era: since the revolution of 1917, Russian families from various backgrounds have lived together in urban communal apartments. Colgate professors Alice Nakhimovsky and Nancy Ries, with colleagues from around the world, have created an online museum to systematically document this unique lifestyle through pictures, video clips, articles, and artifacts. The site Communal Living in Russia sprang from images and ethnography posted to the Internet by Ilya Utekhin, an anthropologist at the European University in St. Petersburg. With a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), Utekhin, Ries, Nakhimovsky, and Cornell’s Slava Paperno spent two years building an enhanced site that features video, photographs, original essays, recordings of interviews, and more. Nakhimovsky, with her background in Russian language and culture, prepared translations while Paperno, who hails from Russia, used his computer expertise to build the website. “We collaborated — not just on every word, but on every period and comma,” said Ries, who wrote
Promotions
Provost and Dean of the Faculty Lyle Roelofs announced that the Board of Trustees has approved the following promotions, effective July 1. Continuous tenure and promotion to associate professor were awarded to: Luca Caminati, Romance languages and literatures; Kevin Carlsmith, psychology; John Crespi, East Asian languages and literatures; Lesleigh Cushing, religion and Jewish studies; John Palmer, educational studies; Naomi Rood, classics; Bruce Rutherford, political science; Peter Scull, geography; Kenneth Segall, physics and astronomy; and Natalya Stolova, Romance languages and literatures. Promotion to full professor was given to Morgan Davies, English, and Adrian Giurgea, English/University Theater.
The story of Nina Vasilievna (left) and Anna Matveevna (right), who have lived in the same communal apartment in Russia for almost their entire lives, is one of the many that are featured on the website Communal Living in Russia: A Virtual Museum of Soviet Everyday Life.
Ilya Utekhin
Analyzing gender imbalance in economics
Larry Summers, director of the National Economic Council for Barack Obama, has taken heat for speculating about women’s capacity to excel in technical careers. His own field, though, is also pretty technical and presents some of the same issues for women’s achievement. A study of students at Colgate reveals one possible source of the shortage of women in economics: grade sensitivity. “The Role of Grade Sensitivity in Explaining the Gender Imbalance in Undergraduate Economics,” by former Colgate economics professors Kevin Rask and Jill Tiefenthaler, was published in Economics of Education Review (December 2008). The analysis looked at data from the transcripts of students from the
Live and learn
Rebecca Gildiner ’09 arrived in Israel two days after the conflict in Gaza began last December, when she participated in the Jewish National Fund’s alternative break trip. Although she was only 18 miles outside of missile range, Gildiner said she did not let the circumstances hinder her plans. The behavioral neuroscience and women’s studies dual major from Cherry Hill, N.J., reflects: “We painted neighborhoods, worked in a soup kitchen, did forest cleanup, and worked on a farm. The language barrier didn’t stop residents from coming out to greet us and offer us what little they had — coffee, oranges, or cookies. Being thanked by these strangers made our work that much more meaningful. We completed all of our projects, and didn’t change our itinerary, for the most part. “We had hoped to go see the progress of the indoor playground project [for which the students fundraised before the trip], but we couldn’t because rockets were falling in Sderot. Also, toward the end of our trip, our tour guide had to leave because Israel Defense Forces called upon thousands of reserves — that’s when it really hit us that we were in a place where war is a reality. “A highlight was spending time with a family from Sderot who came to the hostel where we stayed in Arad for a peaceful Shabbat. They ate dinner beside us and played soccer with us. Seeing them get such pleasure out of things that we take for granted — enjoying a dinner and being able to run around a field without fear of a missile dropping — put things in perspective for us. “The rest of the country outside the Gaza territory was peaceful. I traveled with a friend after the program, and I began to understand Israeli life — people go on as usual. I was aware of my surroundings at all times, but I spent more time enjoying the beautiful country than worrying about my safety.”
News and views for the Colgate community
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scene: Spring 2009
Andrew Daddio
life of the mind 16
President Rebecca Chopp listens to a Benton Scholar student’s perspective during a Political Theology class discussion.
graduating classes of 1989 through 2004. Especially in introductory courses, poorer grades were more likely to discourage women from taking further classes in economics. Ironically, this meant that most of the weaker students in the higher-level courses were men, and that women who ended up majoring in economics had a higher overall GPA than the men.
Preparing global leaders through the Benton Scholars Program
The first class of Colgate’s Benton Scholars has jumped into building skills of global leadership through specially tailored coursework and educational experiences. The four-year program, founded by Dan Benton ’80, was developed as a model for how a liberal arts education can fully prepare students to think, act, and create in an increasingly diverse and global world. “Dan Benton’s vision was driven by educating people to become experts in globalization, knowing that the world has changed so dramatically and people have to understand what it is to be living in [different countries],” explained President Rebecca Chopp. The scholars were invited to participate based on their demonstrated ability to think and lead and their passion for making a positive impact on the world. Like all Colgate students, Benton Scholars determine their course of study, as well as choice of major and activities. The program is meant to be an enhancement, with specific activities designed to bring new perspectives to their experiences on campus and throughout their lives. In the first year of the program,
the scholars live together in one of the university’s first-year residence halls and take one class together each semester. This year, their fall firstyear seminar, Political Theology, was team-taught by program adviser and political science professor Tim Byrnes and President Chopp; this spring, they are taking Core 152: The Challenge of Modernity, with philosophy professor David Dudrick. Joshua Smeltzer ’12 described the Political Theology course as an “academic wake-up call,” saying “Professor Byrnes and President Chopp taught us how to critically analyze material and produce our own opinions.” He added, “The drive to produce knowledge is the first step toward being a global leader, and for the rest of my academic career, I’ll be indebted to them.” So far, the Class of 2012 scholars have visited a Tibetan Buddhist monastery in Ithaca, went to a Russian Orthodox Monastery in Jordanville, and learned about the history of Chapel House with its director John Carter. During the sophomore year, the scholars will be challenged to explore the connections between global issues and the local community, so many of their outreach activities will be through the Upstate Institute. They will also host a Global Challenges Symposium, where a guest will speak on a theme and scholars will deliver presentations that identify the connections between the theme and their chosen majors. As juniors, they will continue to study their chosen theme during a trip to an off-campus study site of their choosing. In this year, they will also become engaged in mentoring relationships, both with Colgate alumni
and incoming Benton Scholars. In the capstone senior year, the scholars will take a senior seminar together and review how the themes of the program emerged over their years at Colgate. They will also articulate the impact of their experience in public presentations. Throughout the program, the scholars will help choose visiting speakers, such as working closely with Colgate’s president on the implementation of the Global Leaders Lecture Series. They have the opportunity to meet with those speakers. Additionally, they will travel to meet with major leaders in business, politics, and philanthropy, including Benton. The next experience for which the Class of 2012 scholars are preparing is a 10-day trip to Russia at the end of May. Led by professors Nancy Ries and Tim Byrnes as well as Associate Dean of Academic Programs Raj Bellani, the group will attend educational seminars and explore Russia’s cultural background. “It is hard to foresee exactly what the Benton Scholars Program will entail in the coming years,” said Erin Nash ’12, “but one thing is for sure, it will help to positively define our time here at Colgate and will prepare us to be successful global citizens.”
Colgate’s Model African Union team excels at conference
Members of the Colgate Model African Union team took full advantage of an opportunity to broaden their worldview at a recent conference in Washington, D.C. The team attended Howard University’s annual Model African Union conference and performed extremely well, distinguishing itself from more than 20 participating colleges. During the conference, students had to formulate, present, and defend proposals that support the interests of their respective countries and benefit the rest of Africa. To be successful, students had to be aware of the political, economic, and ideological status of each country. “Before you go to a conference, you not only have to read up on the country you are assigned, but also what’s going on in the whole continent,” said Mayra Gamez ’09. Professor Mary Moran, faculty adviser to the group, noted that the students gain as much as they give. “Students who participate in it really
faculty advisers to be vice chair of the Assembly of Heads of State. — Megan Foley ’09
Get to know: Andrew Rotter
Studying native cosmologies in Mexico
Students in the extended study course Field Methods in Archaeoastronomy traveled to Mexico over winter break, soaking up information during guided tours while producing data of their own. The 11 students visited Mexico City’s National Museum of Anthropology and History and the ruins of Teotihuacán and Tenochtitlan, as well as other sites. They also conducted survey work for Professor Anthony Aveni near the ruins that focused on embedded stones that were placed in 16th-century colonial churches. Aveni and a colleague, Eleanor Wake of the University of London, believe the stones’ placement may have something to do with encoding information about native cosmologies. The students’ work will help test that hypothesis. When they returned to campus, the students continued the research relating to their field experience. They will present their final results at the end of the semester, according to Aveni, who is the Russell Colgate Distinguished University Professor of astronomy and anthropology and Native American Studies Aveni, who helped develop and is now considered one of the founders of the field of archaeoastronomy, has done extensive research in Mexico, as well as Peru, Israel, Italy, and Greece.
Andrew Daddio
get the experience of seeing how international diplomacy works,” said Moran, who is a professor of anthropology and Africana and Latin American studies. “The map of Africa really comes alive for them.” Louis Mensah ’11 credited Model AU as having a significant impact on how he approaches academic work. During a conference, students will debate and critique proposed resolutions, down to the word. This experience conditions students to carefully articulate their work as well as have the confidence to publicly defend it, Mensah explained. Students must put personal opinions and beliefs aside and take on the interests of the country they represent. This often becomes one of the most intellectually rewarding aspects of the experience. “I can lecture about the fact that there are fifty-three countries in Africa all day, but when students begin identifying each other as Zambia or Somalia, and really critique and evaluate each other’s performance in staying in character as a representative of that country, it takes on a new reality for them,” said Moran. In addition to performing well over all, individual team members received top honors. Leah Montre ’10 won the Committee Leadership Award from the Committee for Social Matters. Mensah received Honorable Mention for the Outstanding Delegation Award in the Peace and Security Committee. Finally, Malik Wright ’09 was chosen to be chair of the Committee on Union Government, and, based on his leadership, was chosen by the
Charles A. Dana Professor of history Spring semester courses History Workshop; U.S. in Vietnam, 1945–1975; and U.S. Foreign Policy, 1776–1917 What brought you to Colgate? We were hired in 1988 as a couple — I in history and Padma [Kaimal] in art history. We’d just had our first child and thought it would be a nice place to raise our family. And, professionally, Colgate strikes a good balance between teaching and research. What are your current research projects? One project is a response to the book Protestant, Catholic, and Jew: An Essay in American Religious Sociology by Will Herberg. It’s about the assimilation of religious and ethnic groups in American life during the twentieth century. I had this idea that several of us at Colgate who grew up in the mid-1950s should respond autobiographically to the book. I’m working with Tim Byrnes [political science professor], who grew up Catholic. I grew up as an assimilationist Jew in Wisconsin. And Lynn Staley [English professor] has written a piece about growing up a southern Baptist. Rebecca Chopp will be writing the introduction to the three essays. The long-term project I’m working on has to do with the five senses and empire. I’m interested in comparing the American imperial experience in the Philippines with the British imperial experience in India, and I want to do it across the spectrum of the senses. We privilege what we see, but empire was transacted in many ways, only some of them having to do with the sight. It was also about hearing, about smelling; it was about how other people and other substances felt, and it was also about taste.
Professor Tony Aveni and Brooke Schechner ’09 collect data on a church with embedded Aztec sculpture during a Mexico extended study course in January.
Discuss why you love history. I like studying the past to understand why things are as they are now, which is why I teach recent U.S. history and the history of U.S.-foreign relations. And, frankly, I like history as a story. It is a narrative of human experience. So, when I teach history here, I tell a lot of stories. Collectively, they teach lessons about why humans did what they did and why we are what we are today.
Joseph Eakin
Did going to school during the Vietnam War influence your career path? Enormously. I grew up in Madison, Wisconsin, which was a hotbed of antiwar activities. I was in demonstrations in high school and college at Cornell University. But I was in a demonstration one day and it got angry [and violent]. That soured the activism part of the anti-war movement for me. But I was still very interested in exploring it from an intellectual or academic sense. So, I wrote a long paper on the origins of the Vietnam War in my senior year of college, and I carried that interest to graduate school. It was very influential in getting me interested in U.S.-foreign relations. If you could have dinner with anyone in history, who would it be? Jawaharlal Nehru, the great Indian nationalist, the first prime minister, and foreign minister of India until his death in 1964. I’d like to talk to him about his philosophy of life. And I’d talk to him about issues of the post-war world, like the end of colonialism, nationalism, and the establishment of a new state. I’d also talk to him about teaching, because I think at bottom he was a teacher. He taught his people by leading them.
News and views for the Colgate community
17
Emily Ha ’09 performs during The Vagina Monologues at the Palace Theater.
global movement founded by Ensler to end violence against women and girls. “The concept [behind V-Day] is that we’re going to keep fighting until the violence stops,” explained Chapman. “We need to keep the initiative going.” — Brittany Messenger ’10
The 30 female cast members of The Vagina Monologues won over audiences at the Palace Theater with moving performances that showed the beauty, hilarity, and hardships associated with being a woman. Eve Ensler originally wrote the racy and witty Vagina Monologues after interviewing 200 women across the world about their sexuality. More than 10 years later, it is an Obie Award–winning production that has been translated into 45 languages and performed in 120 countries. Angie Chapman ’10 directed the all-student cast after successfully directing last year’s shows. “I realized how much The Vagina Monologues coincided with a lot of things for me — my progression as a woman and becoming empowered,” she said. The shows created a connection between performers and audience members that went beyond the Palace stage. “Because it happens both on campus and around the world, it creates a more global perspective,” Chapman said. And the production supports women in ways beyond awareness. Proceeds from the Colgate performances went to various women’s charities, including the Syracuse Area Domestic Violence Coalition and Liberty Resources’ Victims of Violence Freedom Fund in Madison County. A percentage also went to help women of the Democratic Republic of Congo, who are the main beneficiaries of this year’s celebration of V-Day, a
Three alumni Just ASK what if?
Luke Connolly ’09
arts & culture
Play links performers with women around the world
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scene: Spring 2009
P. Case Aiken III ’06, Adam Samtur ’06, and Matthew Kagen ’07 didn’t set out to start a theater company; they just wanted to produce a play from soup to nuts and see what happened. Now, under the production company Just ASK (Aiken, Samtur, Kagen), the trio is enjoying the success of their first show and seeing how long the applause lasts, one production at a time. The idea to produce Anyone for a Threesome was born over a dinner conversation. Although they all have theater experience, this was the first time they would write, direct, and organize a play. “We thought, worstcase scenario, we put on a show and no one comes, but at least we could say that we did the show; and best-case scenario, we get a couple of reviews and get our name out there,” Aiken said. Each wrote one of the three one-act plays and directed. Aiken pulled some strings with his theater contacts to arrange for Threesome to be at the Red Room in New York City’s East Village. Leading a cast they had never worked with before, they also had the opportunity to “get to know some great New York theater professionals,” Kagen said. And they got a helping hand from some Colgate friends: Sydney Rais-Sherman ’07 (prop and stage manager), Matthew Brogan ’05 (set designer, lighting designer, and light-board operator), and Stephanie Wortel ’06 (house manager). Running every Monday night in December, the first four shows sold out, so they added two more shows. Those also sold out, to the point where they were turning people away at the door. “We didn’t think we would do nearly that well going into it,” Samtur said. Threesome did get a couple of reviews — on NYTheatre.com and Offoffonline.com — that indicated that the play could benefit from some tightening, but that the young directors showed promise. “The reviewers thought we had potential and that
Preview
Claude Cahun, Untitled Self Portrait, c. 1930, Silver gelatin print Purchase of the Gary M. Hoffer ’74 Memorial Photography Collection Fund
Remember? Photographs Before Digitization Picker Art Gallery May 12 – Nov. 15, 2009 Digital photographs are ubiquitous on the Internet and counted in the billions, and this show reminds contemporary viewers of the allure of original photographic prints produced by laborious processes in the darkroom. This exhibition of approximately 90 daguerreotypes, albumen prints, and silver gelatin prints from the mid– 19th century to the present day offers an overview of art photography in Colgate’s holdings. Canonical masters such as Edward S. Curtis, Berenice Abbott, Claude Cahun, Brett Weston, and Lee Friedlander are among the artists represented. The exhibition demonstrates how each photograph, by tracing light, embraces its roles both as a record of the visible world and of artistic expression.
8 For information on other arts events, visit www.colgate.edu/arts
Matthew Brogan ’05
our artistic direction was interesting,” said Kagen. “We also got some constructive criticism, which was nice to hear because it will help us get better.” “This was our chance to do it ourselves and really lay ourselves out there for all the harsh criticism in the world,” Aiken added. “We really wanted to see what stage we were at and where we could go. The fact that we were received as well as we were is amazing to us, and it’s a great jumping-off point.” To get even more honest feedback, after each show they invited the audience to join them and the cast at the bar downstairs, to share their thoughts on the play. Just ASK is now working on their newest play, What(’s) Happen(s)(ed) (ing) in the Elevator, which opens May 23 at the Red Room. “If this proves to be as much of a success as the previous show, this would be the sign that we should keep going,” Aiken said. Setting the stage for Elevator, in March they put on One Night Stands, a similar event to the one Samtur co-created at Colgate that involves a series of short plays. The event was a fundraiser for Elevator and gave them the opportunity to workshop a few of the scenes. The trio is taking each successful production in stride. “We’re keeping our goals small,” Aiken explained. “If we have the success, great; but we don’t plan on having a sold-out show for everything we do. We’d much rather be reasonable and have our expectations exceeded.” “The main thing I’ve learned from this is to make your own opportunities,” Kagen said. “I think it’s really important to find what you love to do and just do it.”
A scene from Sans Deus — a one-act play written by P. Case Aiken III ’06 and directed by Matthew Kagen ’07 — which was part of the production Anyone for a Threesome.
Seminary of America, where Berkowitz is a senior rabbinic fellow. It was also acquired by the Judaica Collection of Yale University, and has been on exhibition at New York City’s Yeshiva University Museum and the James Francis Trezza Gallery. Maror: The Subtle Descent to Enslavement illustrates the narrative of the Israelite descent to enslavement in the shape of the leaf of the bitter
herb, which Jews eat at Passover to remind themselves of the bitterness of Egyptian slavery. Berkowitz explained the illumination’s detailed symbolism: “When the Israelites first came to Egypt (the story of Joseph), they prospered and were a successful minority. Then, according to the first chapter of Exodus, ‘a new king arose who did not know Joseph,’ and he slowly began to enslave the Israelites. So, the large figure represents this ‘new king’ and the large Hebrew words are Pithom and Ramses, the cities that the Israelites were compelled to build for the Pharoah. Also pictured are the Egyptians casting the first-born males into the Nile. Further down, Moses’s mother places him in the basket, and then he is saved by the daughter of Pharoah. Finally, the descent to slavery is shown at the bottom. “The background is the original Hebrew of the first chapter of Exodus, which gradually transitions from light blue to dark blue, conveying the notion that slavery did not happen suddenly to the Israelites — rather, it happened so gradually that they didn’t realize it until it was too late.” Berkowitz is currently residing in Jerusalem, where he is teaching, writing, painting, and working on a project that explores the nexus between Jewish learning and the visual arts. Matthew Berkowitz’s Maror: The Subtle Descent to Enslavement, Passover Landscapes: Illuminations on the Exodus (c) 2006
Artist and sofer (scribe) Rabbi Matthew Berkowitz ’93 worked on his collection Passover Landscapes: Illuminations on the Exodus for a four-year period after being commissioned by a couple to create a family Haggadah (the book that is read the evening of the Passover seder that recounts the story of the Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt). The collection includes 24 paintings, 3 intricate papercuts, a Haggadah, and a book of commentary. The limited edition portfolio is on permanent display at the Jewish Theological
Courtesy of James Francis Trezza Gallery
Alumnus exhibits Passover illuminations
Open mic
On Beauty As students — with paintbrushes in hand — looked at blank canvases, members of the Colgate Christian Fellowship (CCF) asked them, “Where do you see beauty in the world?” and “How do humans contribute to or detract from that beauty?” The 24 participants in the Open Canvas event, sponsored by CCF, were invited to reflect on those questions and, through painting, respond. The resulting artwork, including this piece by Lindsay Shepard ’12, was exhibited on the brick walls of the Barge Canal Coffee Co. in Hamilton in February. Of her painting, Shepard said: “This country was built on great deeds and ideals. There are opportunities here not found anywhere else in the world. Unfortunately, I also think our nation has become disconnected from important values and many of the responsibilities that come with power; however, change is always possible. “I juxtaposed symbols of destruction and self-servance with the playful image of a child. This painting is a reminder of our responsibility for the future and of our faith in the youth. It lies in the promise of hope, and where there is hope, the spreading of peace will always be possible. As it says in Isaiah, ‘The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.’” — Brittany Messenger ’10
News and views for the Colgate community
19
go ’gate
Big splash
Luke Connolly ’09
The women’s swimming and diving team won its second-straight Patriot League title, breaking numerous school, pool, and league records along the way. Thirteen members of the team were recognized with all-league honors, and head coach Steve Jungbluth was honored as the league’s Women’s Coach of the Year. Emily Murphy ’09, Caren Guyett ’11, Erin McGraw ’11, Beverly Walker ’09, Ashley Bottger ’09, Lisa Marchi ’09, Emily Kelly ’11, Erica Derlath ’12, and Caitlin Curran ’10 garnered first team recognition. Second team members were Emily Peck ’12, Courtney Callahan ’12, Jenna Daly ’12, and Sarah Button ’12.
David McIntyre ’10 (#26) scored twice, including the game winner in overtime as Colgate rallied from behind to defeat visiting Rensselaer 2-1.
Off to NCAAs
The women’s swimming and diving team captured its second consecutive Patriot League Championship title.
NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship
A last-minute decision to travel to Athens, Ga., turned out to be a smart idea for Emily Murphy ’09. She swam a new school and league record of 1:00.86 in the 100-yard breaststroke at the University of Georgia Bulldog Last Chance Meet to become the first-ever Colgate women’s swimmer to qualify for the NCAA Division I Championships. In the Patriot League Swimming & Diving Championships, Murphy won six titles. She set three school records, plus pool, league, and meet records by winning the 200-yard breaststroke and 200 IM, while tying for the league title in the 100-yard breaststroke.
Daniel Kerley ’09 of the men’s soccer team has been selected as an alternate for an NCAA Postgraduate Scholarship. The scholarships are awarded to student-athletes who excel academically and athletically and who are in their final year of intercollegiate athletics competition. Kerley, who is a two-time Academic All-America, is working toward a degree in economics. The second team all-Patriot League performer was selected as Colgate’s Male-Scholar Athlete of the Year in 2007–2008.
Fit to be tied
The men’s hockey team set an NCAA Division I record with 19 overtime games during 2008-2009, finishing with seven-straight extra session games. They also tied the NCAA record for overtime victories, with six wins. After finishing 10th in division standings, the Raiders took seventhseeded Quinnipiac to the third game of a best-of-three series in the first round of the ECAC hockey playoffs. Dave McIntyre ’10 was Colgate’s leading scorer this year, with 21 goals and 22 assists for 43 points. That is the highest total since Andy McDonald ’00 tallied 58 points during his final season. McIntyre made first team allECAC Hockey.
defenseman Kiira Dosdall ’09 earned all-ECAC Hockey honors. Sass was the Goaltender of the Year, first team all-league, and named to the all-rookie team. Dosdall was named to the allleague second team, while finishing her career second among Colgate defenders in scoring, with 63 points. Sam Hunt ’09 participated in the NCAA Frozen Four Skills Challenge on April 10 at the Verizon Center in Washington, D.C. She is the first player to represent Colgate in the skills challenge since Allison Paiano ’06 in 2006. Hunt finished her career as Colgate’s all-time Division I scoring leader, with 141 points.
Once around and in
Yaw Gyawu ’12 and Tricia Oakes ’12 were named to the Patriot League allrookie teams in men’s and women’s basketball, respectively. Tucker Gniewek ’11 was first team all-league in swimming, while Devon
Do you have a Colgate sports trivia topic suggestion or question for Raider?
Andrew Daddio
Women’s ice hockey
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scene: Spring 2009
The women’s ice hockey team wrapped up a record-breaking season that saw the Raiders win a schoolrecord 19 games. They finished fifth in the ECACH standings, before losing a best-of-three series in the playoffs at Dartmouth. Goaltender Kimberly Sass ’12 and
Ask Raider Send an e-mail to scene@mail.colgate.edu and put Ask Raider in the subject line.
Raider Nation
Fan spotlights with Vicky Chun ’91, senior associate athletic director Healy ’11 received second team recognition. Gniewek established a school record in the 50-yard and 100-yard free, and the 100-yard backstroke. Curry Knox ’09 and Michele Miller ’11 captured titles at the Patriot League Indoor Track & Field Championships. Knox won the 60-meter hurdles with a school-record time of 8.80, and took home second in the 60- and 200-meter dashes. Miller won the 400-meter dash with a time of 58.08. Colgate’s distance medley relay team of Ed Boulat ’11, Jon Knowlton ’11, Dan Gleason ’11, and Graham Tooker ’12 set a school-record time of 10:00.20 while competing at the IC4A Championships in Boston.
Club sports highlights
Following a fall semester operating at full capacity — with more than 600 students involved in 40 club sports — several spring-semester teams have had much to celebrate. The men’s alpine ski racing team qualified for the top collegiate race in the country for the first time ever (as far as on-campus memory serves). At the 2009 USCSA Alpine Skiing National Championships, they combined their results in the slalom and giant slalom runs to achieve 17th place overall. Pat Hughes ’10 came in 41st out of more than 100 racers in giant slalom, and Tim Silver ’10 came in 36th in slalom. The women’s team just missed qualifying for the nationals by one place at regionals in February. The men’s squash team moved up one slot, from 33 to 32, which placed Colgate in a higher competitive bracket this year, at the national
tournament. Colgate’s top-ranked player, Rob McCary ’10, won all 3 of his matches at the number 1 spot. Overall, the men lost to Georgetown 2-7 and Hobart 1-8, and beat UVA 6-3. MCary also represented Colgate in the extremely competitive College Squash Association Individuals Tournament at Williams College. The Figure Skating Club provided what is believed to be the club’s first on-campus show — primarily as inspiration for the children enrolled in Colgate’s Learn to Skate program and their parents. Both equestrian teams had a stellar fall: the English team came in second at Cornell’s home horse show, beating Cornell on their home turf, and maintained third place in five shows; and the Western team maintained a second-place standing, with several individual firsts. As of press time, in winter/spring competition, five members of the Western team had competed in regionals, two of whom then qualified for the stock seat semifinals in Findlay, Ohio, and several riders on the English team had qualified for regionals at Skidmore earlier in the regular season. The club also celebrated the creation of an endowment that allows the team to accept horse donations.
Jesse Winchester ’08
Hometown: Long Sault, Ontario Game: Men’s Ice Hockey vs. Yale 1/24/2009 (This team has played in at least 14 overtime games — a school record) What are you doing now? Playing professional hockey for the Ottawa Senators in the NHL What would you consider Colgate’s biggest sports rival? Cornell (he didn’t hesitate on this one) Was there a special reason you came back for this game? We had a break in our NHL schedule, so I wanted to visit the team and connect with old friends.
Paul “Skull Crusher” Kasabian ’10
Hometown: Wyckoff, N.J. Game: Women’s Ice Hockey vs. #4 St. Lawrence 1/31/2009 (The female Raiders upset the 4th-ranked team in the nation, 3-1) Do you come to a lot of sporting events? Is the Pope Catholic? Yes, I go to a ton. Which team is your favorite? Men’s basketball will always be one of my favorites. It’s my Colgate sports dream to see them beat a school like UConn or Duke in the NCAA Tournament on CBS. What is your favorite Colgate sports moment? The Men’s Basketball Patriot League semifinal game against Bucknell at Cotterell Court last year when we won 54-40. We rushed the court at the end of the game. It doesn’t get a whole lot better than that!
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.
Debbie Rhyde
Hometown: Hamilton, N.Y. Occupation: Administrative assistant for the football program for 28 years (spanning 4 head coaches, 52 assistant coaches, 6 conference championships, 1 NCAA championship finalist, and a record of 177-139-1) Game: Men’s Basketball vs. Holy Cross 2/25/2009
Alex Woodhouse ’10 (#2, shooting) had nine points, eight rebounds, and six blocked shots as Colgate held off Army for a 55-53 Patriot League win.
What is your favorite Colgate sports moment? When we hosted the second round of NCAA in 2003 and beat Western Illinois. It was snowing, the stands were completely filled, and they took down the goal posts and paraded them down Broad Street. It was one of the greatest displays of school spirit I’ve ever seen. Favorite Varsity Player: Steve Hansen ’10, for his perseverance (playing football despite his injuries)
Luke Connolly ’09
What is it like working for Colgate’s winningest football coach, Dick Biddle? I admire his respect and love for his players — they always come first.
News and views for the Colgate community
21
new, noted , & quoted
Books & music Information is provided by publishers, authors, and artists.
Time and Tide in Acadia: Seasons on Mount Desert Island Christopher Camuto ’73 (W.W. Norton & Company)
Mount Desert Island and Acadia National Park have been described as the climax of Maine’s coast. In Time and Tide in Acadia, nature writer Christopher Camuto draws on years of walking the island’s summits and shorelines, canoeing its marshes, kayaking its tidal waters, and visiting its outer islands. To this task, he brings an appetite for observing wildlife and landscape, a regard for history and indigenous perceptions of nature, a keen interest in exploring the psychological and philosophical appeal of nature, and a writer’s love of language.
New England Primer
Bruce Guernsey ’66 (Cherry Grove Collections) The original “primer” was a basic school text to help the student learn and remember elementary lessons like the alphabet by the use of meter and rhyme. Bruce Guernsey’s new book of poems asks the reader to look at things as simple as oatmeal or as common as moss and to see them “New Englandly,” as Emily Dickinson once put it — that is, with a vision that at once observes and penetrates. Guernsey’s lyrics are alive with images common to rural New England, but with a turn of the lens, reveal something fresh and often startling about our ordinary lives.
Ever the Twins Shall Meet C. Norman Noble ’57 (OPA Publishing)
Ever the Twins Shall Meet picks the story up 22 years after its predecessor Changing of the Gods. This story
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scene: Spring 2009
begins in Smyrna, and from a modern perspective, the year is 88 AD during the reign of Emperor Titus Flavius Domitianus. Lucius and his wife Sentia went to Ephesus to work as missionaries for the fledgling church of Jesus Christ. The hero and heroine have identical twin boys, Crispus and Marsallas. But when the boys were 3 years old, one was kidnapped, not to be heard from until he was 21 years old. A sequence of events with the two sons finds one imprisoned while the other roams free, followed by an escape, a chase, a chance meeting, another arrest, another escape, and more.
Play
Suzanne Sherman Propp ’85 (For Good Music) Play, the new CD by vocalist Suzanne Sherman Propp, is “music for young kids and the big kids who raise them.” The compilation includes original songs, traditional songs, and Propp’s versions of songs by artists such as James Taylor. A music and choral teacher, Propp is accompanied by various instruments. The CD has been released under her own record label, For Good Music, which donates a percentage of its profits to charity.
Fieldstones of Faith: Volume II David Johnson Rowe ’68 (Lulu)
In a follow-up to his first book, David Johnson Rowe includes more poetry inspired by his favorite scriptures from the Bible. A senior pastor, Rowe hopes that his poems will “open up the Bible in refreshing and challenging ways” to the reader. The 68 poems range from “Abraham and Isaac” to “The Widow’s Might.”
The Essential Breastfeeding Log Sarah Bowen Shea ’88 (co-authored with Suzanne Schlosberg) (Random House)
The Essential Breastfeeding Log is a journal and organizer for new moms. By using the book to track a baby’s habits, mothers will see patterns emerging and will be able to get — and keep — their baby on a schedule. The log also allows a mother to: monitor how her own diet, exercise, and sleeping habits affect milk supply; chart her postpartum weight loss and baby’s weight gain; and note her thoughts and feelings during those first months. The Essential Breastfeeding Log is also filled with encouraging and practical advice.
Wham-O Super-Book: Celebrating 60 Years Inside the Fun Factory Tim Walsh ’87 (Chronicle Books)
Wham-O SuperBook celebrates more than 200 fun and sometimes off-thewall playthings dreamed up by two childhood friends. Wham-O’s toys — including the Frisbee, Hula Hoop, SuperBall, Slip ’N Slide, Silly String, and Hacky Sack — are all cherished companions that brought kids together decades ago and still enjoy popularity today. Released in time for the 60th anniversary of Wham-O, the book showcases these toys, featuring a history of each plaything, colorful vintage packaging and ads, and photographs.
Warrior of the Highlands Veronica Wolff ’89 (Berkley/Penguin Group)
In Veronica Wolff’s newest romance novel, graduate student Haley Fitzpatrick stumbles upon a strange artifact while doing research for her dissertation. This sends her back in time to old Scotland, directly into the path of the notorious Alasdair MacColla, a warrior known for his enormous
In the media physical presence and bloodthirsty reputation. Assuming that this woman with the mysterious accent is an enemy spy, MacColla promptly kidnaps her. But Haley’s beauty and courage strike a chord in the Highlander. At first Haley’s frightened, but she soon discovers that MacColla is much more than the brute that modern history describes. But unless she can find a way to change the past, the warrior she’s fallen for is destined to meet a tragic end.
Lear’s Daughters
Marjorie B. Kellogg (with William B. Rossow) (Penguin Group) Lear’s Daughters tackles the issues of global warming, pollution, exploitation of resources, and disastrous climate change. The novel takes place in 2073, when the earth’s climate is faltering and its ecosystems are breaking down, so burgeoning populations must rely on food and energy supplies imported from colony worlds. An exploratory mission to the planet Fiix finds a world at war with itself. The pressure is on to figure out
Colgate bestsellers at the Colgate Bookstore • • • • • • • • • •
June-tree: New and Selected Poems, 1974-2000 — Peter Balakian (English) All the Sundays Yet to Come: A Skater’s Journey — Kathryn Bertine ’97 Unlearning to Fly — Jennifer Brice (English) The Day Dad Ran Out Of Kisses — Bruce Healey ’84 Cultivating Science, Harvesting Power — Chris Henke (sociology and anthropology) Woodcuts in Modern China — Joachim Homann (exhibition catalog, Picker Art Gallery) Syndromes of Corruption — Michael Johnston (political science) Crafting Fiction, Poetry, & Memoir — Matt Leone (director, Colgate Writers’ Conference) Tibetan Buddhism and Modern Physics — Vic Mansfield (physics and astronomy, emeritus – deceased) The Hill Road — Patrick O’Keeffe (English)
what’s going on. One explanation comes from the local inhabitants, whose seemingly primitive society is shaped entirely by the needs of survival under the planet’s harsh conditions. Sorting out local language and myth, the expedition’s young linguist finds himself drawn into Sawl culture. But local culture is of no interest to the expedition’s prospector, who is in search of new sources of lithium, which has become a crucial component of energy production back home. Marjorie Kellogg is an associate professor of English.
Egypt after Mubarak: Liberalism, Islam, and Democracy in the Arab World Bruce K. Rutherford (Princeton University Press)
In his new book, assistant professor of political science Bruce Rutherford explains how Egypt’s autocratic regime is being weakened and examines what could happen when the country’s aging president, Husni Mubarak, passes. Egypt after Mubarak demonstrates that both secular and Islamist opponents of the regime are navigating a middle path that may result in a uniquely Islamic form of liberalism and, perhaps, democracy. Rutherford draws upon in-depth interviews with Egyptian judges, lawyers, Islamic activists, politicians, and businesspeople. He also utilizes major court rulings, political documents of the Muslim Brotherhood, and the writings of Egypt’s leading contemporary Islamic thinkers.
Also of Note: When I Was a Little Guy (Publish America) by J.E. Deegan ’63 is a book of children’s stories about the Little Guy, who grew up moving all around the country with his parents. Every place he lived offered new adventures, new friends to meet, and new places to see — and new opportunities to become involved in mischief. The Little Guy stories focus on the humorous and the
“We’re so sensitive to embarrassment, to stepping out of line, to one another’s privacy, that sometimes we don’t step up when real action is called for.” — Carrie Keating, psychology professor, offering her expert analysis during an episode of ABC News’s “What Would You Do?” series
“I can’t believe how fast it’s happened and how far I’ve come.” — Kathryn Bertine ’97, a professional triathlete, describing to the Arizona Daily Star the ascent of her cycling career
“When you’re feeling sad, call up a loved one and schedule a time to get some coffee and talk.” — Dawn LaFrance, assistant director of counseling and psychological services, offering advice about the “winter blues” to readers of U.S. News & World Report
“It’s more than just flapping your hands around. It has to be meaningful and natural.” — Spencer Kelly, associate professor of psychology, talking to NorthWest Cable News (Seattle) about his research that reveals the importance of hand gestures when learning a foreign language
“There was definitely a huge family attraction to the decision to come here [Colgate]. It’s become sort of a tradition in our family.” — Kiira Dosdall ’09 talking to USA Hockey Magazine about following in her father’s footsteps as a Colgate hockey player
“Oh my God, [students consume] those energy drinks, and then they come in [to the health center] because they’re anxious or they can’t sleep and wonder why.” — Jane Jones, coordinator of alcohol and drug education, describing the impact of caffeine on sleeping habits during an interview with Times Higher Education magazine (UK)
poignant while presenting a moral lesson for children. Since the Chicago Cubs first adopted uniform numbers in 1932, the team has handed out only 71 numbers to more than 1,200 players. That makes for a lot of good stories. For example, Dizzy Dean, Catfish Metkovich, John Boccabella, Bill Buckner, Mark Prior, and Kevin Hart all wore #22, even though seven decades passed between the last time Dean buttoned up his uniform with that number and the first time Hart performed the same routine. Cubs by the Numbers (Skyhorse Publishing) by Al Yellon ’78, and co-written with Kasey Ignarski and Matthew Silverman, tells those stories.
Chef Grant Achatz authored the photographically driven cookbook Alinea, titled for the Chicago restaurant of which he and Nick Kokonas ’80 are partners. Kokonas, who worked with Achatz to create the award-winning restaurant, contributed to the “How to use this book” section. Peter Balakian, the Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor in the humanities, has rereleased his acclaimed memoir, Black Dog of Fate: An American Son Uncovers his Armenian Past (Basic Books). The 10th anniversary paperback edition includes two new chapters that further explore the Armenian genocide.
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Democracy Without Politics The Hidden Costs of Corruption and Reform in America By Michael Johnston Scandal on the Planet Blagojevich The outcry that greeted revelations of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s failed attempt to cash in on the appointment of a senator to succeed Barack Obama might easily be seen as an overreaction. In the end, the Senate seat was not actually sold, although more recent revelations raise other troubling questions about the eventual appointee. The governor was quickly removed from office, and may well be headed for federal court. Indeed, given the mirth and derision that were a part of the response, we might even see positive signs regarding the health of the American political system — mirth, reflecting the clumsiness of the protagonist, and the derision a welcome sign that citizens and the press have little reluctance to step up and condemn corrupt people in high places. Blagojevich’s departure, arguably, was bad news only for a few late-night comedians. But another reading of the scandal — as opposed to just the governor’s actions — points to deeper concerns. Blagojevich is easy to ridicule, but we might ask: what really is funny about soliciting bids for a public office, or about his other impeachable actions, particularly in a state that has seen far more than its share of high-level misconduct? Derision might reflect a healthy willingness to stand up to the powerful, but might also show a lack of understanding of the deeper influences that produce such officials and make way for their conduct. His removal from office — which, after all, occurred only after a long period of estrangement from the administration he was supposed to lead — scarcely gives Illinois’ political system a clean bill of health. In many ways, the Blagojevich case suggests that we have worse corruption problems than we may think. They do not take the form of the rapacious abuses seen in some societies, but they do undermine the quality of democratic life — notably, by reducing the healthy competition on which democracy depends. Equally worrisome is the fact that while we are optimistic, even enthusiastic, institutional reformers, many of our anti-corruption actions devalue politics and reduce competition even more. In my view, we Americans place too little value on
politics and leadership, and should not be surprised when a Blagojevich takes the stage. The notion that the United States has serious systemic corruption problems might come as a surprise. Our scores on the most widely used corruption measure, Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index (CPI), have been favorable: for 2008 (the latest year available), the U.S. score of 7.3 on a 10-point scale (with honest governments receiving high scores) ranks us 18th out of 180 countries. (The CPI is in no way a valid measure of corruption itself, but does support the point that the United States is not generally seen as a seriously corrupted system.) While we have had our string of scandals, we have not seen anything like the state capture or wholesale theft of public assets that have plagued some other countries, nor have we found ourselves in the downward spiral of corruption, poverty, and misrule that traps some societies in seemingly permanent states of underdevelopment. Our press is free to investigate most official conduct — and occasionally does so — while voters can actually vote the scoundrels out, when they stir themselves to do so. But in other respects, the picture is not so bright. Although CPI scores cannot be used to track trends in corruption, it is still worth noting that our 2008 score places us in a tie with Japan and Belgium — two countries that for years ranked significantly lower on the index. The current economic crisis has both been fed by, and has led to, further revelations of weak and compromised regulatory processes, extensive corporate influence over policies and agencies, immense compensation packages unrelated to overall performance, and outright malfeasance by figures in both the public and private sectors. All have contributed to a widespread credibility problem for decision makers both public and private. A pervasive culture of elite entitlement in both political parties — goodbye, Halliburton and Dick Cheney, hello, Tom Daschle — and political finance activities that break no laws yet reinforce popular perceptions of politics as an auction have made matters worse. That the public generally misunderstands political finance processes and the relationships on which they rest does not change the fact that large majorities believe we have got a serious
corruption problem. Polls consistently find more than 7 in 10 agreeing with statements such as “Nowadays politicians don’t care about people like me,” and with the notion that lobbyists and contributors hold far too much influence. American-style corruption and reform often reduce competition in both politics and the economy. Groups bidding for influence seek to freeze competitors out of the process; politicos act as middlemen, raising cash for their own re-election. There are many good reasons why incumbents get re-elected — they are, after all, effective state and district advocates, as they should be — but the broader results should still be of concern. Incumbents in the U.S. House of Representatives, most years, are re-elected at rates upwards of 95 percent — a figure that might make various politburos proud — while the Senate’s figures (around 80 percent, over the long term) are not far behind. The two major parties may bash each other with unseemly glee at a rhetorical level, but in most congressional elections, only 12 or 15 House races out of 435 are genuinely competitive — that is, settled by less than a 2 percent margin — and in many years, a quarter of incumbents or more face only token opposition — or, none at all. While the 2006 off-year results changed party control in both houses, and the 2008 general election produced more turnover than usual, both long-term patterns of campaign contributions and our reforms brutally favor incumbents over challengers. The economy is more complex, but it still is difficult to resist the impression that lavishly funded lobbying, lax regulatory and Congressional oversight, and the ability of well-funded interests to prevent or inhibit policy change do little to aid the overall openness and competitiveness of the economy. That most of these examples do not involve egregious bribery, but rather follow quite legal pathways, may say less about our collective state of ethics than about the possibility that, in our system, wealth faces relatively few political restraints. Moralists on the make: of angels and politics Just what “corruption” means is a complex issue. Countless trees have given their all to support the academic literature on the subject, and it is one I
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cannot resolve here. Scandal — public responses to perceived misconduct — and corruption are not synonyms; we may find either in the absence of the other. But scandals point out the importance of underlying values in the political culture shaping the landscape within which corruption occurs and reforms are produced. Generalizations about political cultures and their implications are always risky. But, in our case, some basic orientations stand out. First, Americans are moralists: more than many others, we feel entitled to judge others — even the prominent — in both public life and private affairs. Most of us believe that governments should not only be effective, but should also be just and good, even though we disagree over what a “good society” looks like and what government’s role in it should be. We remain relatively free from political cynicism: while we have lost our collective innocence countless times, we still believe we can govern ourselves according to abstract, morally grounded principles. At the same time, we are individualists, jealous of our personal liberties and property, skeptical of leaders, preferring an open process to grand overarching goals, defining rights in individual rather than group terms and, for the most part, preferring private initiative over public. Many of us see market processes as both efficient and just. Self-interest is celebrated not only as the engine that moves society forward, but also as the best safeguard against official abuses. James Madison put it thus in “Federalist 51”: [T]he great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others... Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place (“Publius,” 1961 ed.: 322). Not surprisingly, we like our power dispersed and divided. Polls and election results year after year show that most of us would prefer to have government “run like a business” — an idea that, even if impossible, has for better and worse been part of our long tradition of reform. As we watch the ways governments use our resources, we insist on getting value for money — and our reform movements, while often raising the banners of justice and the good society, have been much more focused upon efficient accounting and administrative controls. Sooner or later, moralism and individualism end up in conflict. We hold others to strict standards — particularly those who are powerful and distant from our lives — yet wish to be free to act without major restrictions in the name of the greater good. We are quick to demand remedies for corruption, but are reluctant to rein in self-interest; not surprisingly, as individualists, we are more likely to focus on “bad apples” — recently, bad guys with bad hair — rather than upon deeper origins of corruption, or upon the value of politics and leadership.
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Somewhat less frequently noted is the fact that we are optimists. We believe problems have solutions, that deprivations can and must be remedied, and that good intentions are enough to win the battle. For more than a century, we have sought to perfect our institutions and political processes rather than lower our expectations. Our responses surprise and amuse citizens of many other democracies; often, we react to trivial cases almost as vehemently as we do to major systemic corruption. When it comes to reform, our optimism often centers around institutions: we believe we can find the right institutional framework, the appropriate checks and balances, and neutral, “nonpolitical” processes sufficient to check the excesses of the political world. Equality as a political ideal came belatedly to the mix. The main body of the Constitution and early amendments to it are overwhelmingly focused upon liberty — or, as reformers tend to do, upon fixing imperfections in the institutional fabric. Egalitarianism has always been one current in our political culture, but it was not until the Civil War and Reconstruction that we began to confront what equality might require of us in terms of formal institutions. Here, too, we are ambivalent: equality is a widely endorsed moral principle, and each of us takes it as a given that he or she is, and of right ought to be, “just as good as anyone else.” Indeed, one of the most frequent complaints lodged against those who aspire to high office is that they are “elitist” and “out of touch,” as if the top leaders of a nation of 310 million people can and should be plucked at random out of a supermarket checkout queue. At the same time, we are deeply divided over policies aiming at equality of condition; just try suggesting to a class of university freshmen the notion that salaries and incomes ought to be more nearly equal! Thus, we support procedural conceptions of equality, much like our procedural conceptions of reform, but do not often conceive of them in terms of particular kinds of political or social outcomes. Reforms, we often conclude, should make government more neutral, “non-political,” and even marketlike — taking direction from a balance of overall preferences and interests rather than from vigorous, organized political contention, or from leaders able to make authoritative choices in our name. But while we tinker with processes, we are uneasy about their results. Alexis de Tocqueville observed that we fear:
position in a few years to riches and power; the spectacle excites their surprise and envy, and they are led to inquire how a person who was yesterday their equal is today their ruler. To attribute his rise to his talents or his virtues is unpleasant, for it is tacitly to acknowledge that they are themselves less virtuous or less talented than he was. They are therefore led, and often rightly, to impute his success mainly to some of his vices; and an odious connection is thus formed between the ideas of turpitude and power, unworthiness and success, utility and dishonor. Tocqueville’s Americans almost reflexively doubt the morality of leaders — and that of the political processes that anoint them and might enable them to govern. The best way out of the dilemma, they gen-
For more than a century, we have sought to perfect our institutions and political processes rather than lower our expectations.
…not so much the immorality of the great as the fact that immorality may lead to greatness. In a democracy, private citizens see a man of their own rank in life who rises from that obscure
erally conclude, is to make it hard for anyone to win power, or to use it, and to insulate such government as is minimally necessary from the self-interested influence of others. But, in that, we may misunderstand Madison: we like the balance he envisioned, which these days we seek through political markets embodying the choices of the many, but when it comes to politics and leadership, we are suspicious of the ambition required to make that balance work. Too often, reform becomes an attempt to have democracy without politics. Reforms without redemption The discussion above cannot, of course, account for every outcome in the realms of corruption and reform. It may, however, help us understand why this nation of reformers so often ends up unsatisfied with the reforms it enacts, and persuaded that democratic values and public life are corrupted in fundamental ways. The connections lie in both our conceptions of reform and the sorts of corruption we experience. Our nation experiences an “influence market” style of corruption. By that I mean that well-financed wealth interests, seeking influence within relatively strong and autonomous public institutions, find it useful to buy or rent access from political figures. Such scenarios are not corrupt in every instance — far from it — but they mostly, as noted, have the
of the broader legislative system. Still, a system in which citizens see little chance for fundamental change will have difficulties generating much commitment from most citizens. In that sort of setting, it is not surprising that many citizens perceive a profound, almost classical, type of corruption — a problem embodied in their widespread sense of being left out and ignored. By trusting political markets to check misconduct, and by acting as though corruption were an abstract moral concept rather than a set of politically defined limits on the uses of wealth and power, we turn reform into a public good and draw a false boundary between corruption control and self-interest. Our suspicion of leaders, in that context, gives us polldriven politics aimed at minimizing risks — another name for minimizing real choices and competition — and presents us with perennial candidates who can forge a successful political career without getting out in front of the population, advocating real choices, and leading. Such misgivings may seem out of place in the Age of Obama — for whom I voted with pride and enthusiasm — given the groundswell of emotion that swept him into office. But the belief by so many of his backers that electing one man can (or even should) end “politics as usual” — and, for that matter, their vocal dismay at his moves during the campaign to occupy the vital center and, since last November, to bring experienced hands on board his administration — does not signal much of a revival of commitment to politics. If anything, it shows us how deep the estrangement has become. It does not have to be thus. Reform could emphasize robust, competitive politics, providing resources for it rather than trying to build walls between self-interested action and the process of governing. Changing the political culture is a tall order; but even within it there are opportunities to ease entry into the political system for those of modest means, and to give potential leaders more of the resources they need to build solid mass followings. The result would not necessarily be cleaner politics. Indeed, politically disenchanted citizens might in the short run conclude that things were getting worse. But if they were to see more opportunities for real participation, and if stronger and more political leadership were to persuade them that those entrusted with power can be bold as well as accountable, we might see a revival in the credibility of the political system — perhaps even a growing ability to address national problems on a national scale rather than by taking the political path of least resistance. That such a scenario has its utopian elements is undeniable. But for a nation of moralizing individualists short of reasons for optimism about its democratic system, it might be that re-injecting some politics into democracy would be a promising start toward more satisfying reforms. This essay is excerpted from a paper presented at the 2009 Leadership Conference, Institute for Leadership Studies, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, Calif.
Andrew Daddio
effect of decreasing competition. The trouble is, so do many of our reforms. For example, the Federal Election Campaign Act (FECA), as amended at many points since it took effect in 1971, was presented to the public as a way to check corruption and produce more responsive government. But the basic strategy was not to provide resources for more vigorous political competition, but rather to place comprehensive controls on political money — trusting, in effect, that imposing a ceiling on large contributions would enable smaller donors to participate more effectively — and to publicize funding, trusting that wrongdoers would be punished at the polls. How much corruption FECA prevented is impossible to know, as is the question of whether policy more closely reflects the public will than it would otherwise have done — although general indications are not particularly encouraging. What FECA did best, however, was to heap added advantages upon already-strong congressional incumbents: contribution ceilings make it hard for challengers to compensate for their generally weaker name recognition, while rewarding the efforts of incumbents to build up extensive funding networks over time; disclosure of contributions discourages donors from giving to challengers. The absence of public funding for congressional races means that many challengers are starved for funds from the start — or, equally discouraging, that most effective challengers are likely to be wealthy individuals who can spend their own money. Challengers who are unlikely to win find it hard to attract funds, making them less competitive — and so it goes. The Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA) — enacted after years of complaints about the world FECA helped create — if anything, made matters worse. Its ban on so-called “soft money” and the new all-disclosure hard-money regime are wonderful for incumbents, who have always found hard money easier to raise than do their challengers. Possible contributors to challengers — understandably loath to antagonize entrenched incumbents — have even more reasons to keep their checkbooks in their pockets; and, as a result, post-BCRA funding for incumbents has stayed high while challengers’ funding, in most years, has dropped by approximately one-third. Limitations upon “issue ads” ostensibly imposed to raise the negative tone of campaigns discouraged a form of communication more often used to attack incumbents than challengers. The BCRA’s “millionaire opponent” provision, which raises and then lifts various contribution and spending limits for those facing wealthy individuals who spend their own money, sounds like a fair-play provision, but self-financed candidates are more likely to be challengers. Even personally wealthy incumbents can easily raise hard money for re-election. There is no reason to think that continually voting incumbents out — much less imposing the term limits so many citizens would like to see — would produce more honest politics or responsive policy. Arguably, such tactics would produce a Congress dominated by rookies with little experience in dealing with the interest groups that are critical parts
Michael Johnston, Charles A. Dana Professor of political science, received the prestigious 2009 Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order for concepts he set forth in his 2005 book, Syndromes of Corruption: Wealth, Power, and Democracy. “Johnston’s approach is particularly useful because it puts forward a practical agenda for reform,” said Rodger Payne, a University of Louisville political science professor who directs the award program. Of receiving the award, Johnston thanked “two generations of Colgate students who helped sharpen up the main themes of the book.” Johnston, who has taught at Colgate since 1986, holds a BA from Macalester College and MPhil and PhD degrees from Yale University. He is the author of three other books and numerous articles, including a recent piece on the links between poverty and corruption in Forbes. A Fulbright Senior Specialist since 2006 and member of the Board of Directors of the anti-corruption organization Transparency International-USA since 1995, he has done extensive public policy consulting for organizations including the United Nations, U.S. State Department, World Bank, and USAID. Johnston says his favorite courses to teach are Political Corruption, “because it links my research interests to student concerns,” and Scope and Methods for the “chance to teach critical thinking.”
8 How Corrupt is That? Take our survey online at www.colgatealumni.org/corruption. Johnston will discuss the results in the summer issue of the Scene. Listen to an interview with Johnston at www.colgate.edu/podcasts.
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PHYSICS RETIRED IN 2003 AFTER 36 YEARS Charlie Holbrow had just completed a term as president of the American Association of Physics Teachers (AAPT) when he retired from Colgate in 2003. “I’d been shooting off my mouth that there were more things that the association could do that would be useful to physics teachers,” he said, “so they hired me as staff senior physicist for ten months and I developed and ran five pilot programs.” For example, in 2006, AAPT held its annual summer meeting in Syracuse, and Holbrow organized and ran a workshop on teaching general relativity to undergraduates (“a fairly recondite subject”). Last year, in urgent need of an interim leader, the association recruited Holbrow to serve a six-month term as its executive director. Drafting his wife as executive liaison officer (“Mary was terrific — whenever I had a tough personnel problem, I’d give it to her”), Holbrow relocated to Washington, D.C., to manage a staff of 25 and a budget of $6 million. “I always wondered if I could do something like this,” Holbrow said, “and — Yes, I can.” When the Holbrows completed the assignment in September and returned to their home in Cambridge, Mass., it was with the satisfaction of knowing “we did a good job and things were back on track.” With Colgate colleagues Kiko Galvez and Beth Parks, Holbrow is revising a textbook he coauthored in 1999 with Joe Amato and Jim Lloyd. He is also active in the American Institute of Physics, serving on its advisory review panel for Physics Today and on its committee on public policy. For another possible book, he is cataloguing the letters of the late Caltech nuclear physicist Charles Lauritsen, a Danish immigrant. Settling in Cambridge has created ready access to five grandchildren, and also enables Holbrow to stay in contact with fellow physicists. He is a visiting professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he works in the lab of a close friend. And he is a visiting scholar at Harvard. “I’m a physics colloquium junkie,” he admitted. “It’s not a widely shared taste. I go to two or three a week. One of my greatest pleasures is hearing what’s new and exciting in physics.”
Andrew Daddio
CHARLES HOLBROW
CAROL KINNE
ART AND ART HISTORY RETIRED IN 2005 AFTER 24 YEARS “I loved my job and I loved my colleagues and I loved my students,” said Carol Kinne, “but I had cancer two times. The first time I was sure I’d die. Then, after the second time, I decided to have some fun in my old age.” So, in 2005, she retired to the home just down the road in Columbus, N.Y., that she shares with her husband, the painter Robert Huot. There, she continues the painting and computer art that were her creative focus at Colgate. That, and she rescues Samoyed dogs. Kinne describes her art as “very political.” Click on 4 + 20 Blackbirds on her website, carolkinne.net, and scrolling over the graphic images in the work will reveal a series of animations on political themes. Her Atomic Baby series hung in Clifford Gallery in Little Hall the year after Kinne retired from teaching. And her painting, With All Necessary Force: Still Life with Weapon, was shown at the Galerie Arnaud Lefebvre in Paris this winter. Kinne’s interest in computer art began when she worked at nearby Gallery Associates, and continued when she joined the faculty. After she and colleagues John Knecht and Lynn Schwarzer experimented with the medium, said Kinne, “We decided to let our students in on the fun. We were one of the first departments on campus to use computers.” Their work led to a grant from the Sloan Foundation to support an early computer art facility in Ryan Studio. Later, Kinne was instrumental in designing the modern computer art studio in Little Hall. Like Kinne’s retired life, her home in Columbus is surrounded by enough space to allow for her art, her four Samoyeds, and Huot’s Newfoundland. She became so attached to the Samoyed breed — “They’re good-natured, they’re silly, they’re smart” — that she joined Minuteman Samoyed Club Rescue, a network of concerned persons in the northeastern United States who rescue and place homeless Samoyeds. Kinne, who maintains the group’s website, revealed that over the years she and Huot have taken in a half dozen of News and views for the Colgate community
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GEORGE DEBOER
EDUCATIONAL STUDIES RETIRED IN 2004 AFTER 30 YEARS “I don’t think I’ll ever say I’m retired,” said George DeBoer. “The tendency to keep working is very strong — at least among the people I know. We make assumptions about retirement that aren’t particularly relevant any more.” During the final stretch of his 30-year teaching career at Colgate, DeBoer had taken leave to work in Washington, D.C., first at the National Science Foundation and then at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). About retiring in 2004, he said, “Being able to retire from Colgate when I did was a wonderful opportunity for me with time still left to do other interesting things.” Today, he serves as deputy director of the AAAS’s Project 2061, a long-term initiative to improve science teaching and advance the public’s understanding of science (2061 is the next year that Halley’s Comet will be visible from Earth). Widely acknowledged as the most visible attempt at science education reform in U.S. history, Project 2061 has published benchmarks for science literacy that are the basis for both state and national standards in grades K-12. Project 2061 supports those standards through a program of research and development targeted at curriculum, instruction, and assessment. For DeBoer, the position also offers the opportunity to recruit and mentor research associates and postdoctoral staff who share his enthusiasm for improving science education in schools. “At Colgate, I was the only person who did what I did. Here, there are 20 of us who work together toward a common goal.” In demand as a speaker and author nationally and internationally, he has frequently traveled to China for Project 2061. In May, he will host a delegation of science teachers and science education specialists from China when they visit the United States. “It’s exciting to be in D.C., and very exciting to be working with people around the country and abroad,” he said. “When I left my classroom at Colgate, I wanted to try something different for the next 10 years or so. If I ever leave the AAAS, I’m sure I will be thinking about what I can do in the next 10 after that.”
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Andrew Daddio
MYRA SMITH
BRUCE BERLIND
Andrew Daddio
ENGLISH RETIRED IN 1988 AFTER 34 YEARS In translating the works of foreign-language poets into English, said Bruce Berlind, “the greatest challenge is to make as good an English-American poem of it as I can, at the same time staying as close to the original as possible.” Berlind, who retired from teaching more than 20 years ago, continues to make the work of important poets available to English readers through his translations. He has translated from French and German, but most of his translations have been from the work of Hungarian writers. His latest project, nearing completion, is a translation of some verse poems of Hungarian Imre Oravecz, which will be included in a large retrospective of his work. Berlind’s earlier translation of Oravecz’s prose poems, When You Became She, was published in 1994. “The English poet Ted Hughes got me interested in translating from Hungarian in 1975,” said Berlind. “Ted had translated another Hungarian poet, János Pilinszky. I asked him how he did it, because he didn’t know Hungarian. He said an émigré Hungarian poet living in London fed him roughs. Ted thought I might be interested in the poetry of Ágnes Nemes Nagy.” Berlind found a book of Nemes Nagy’s in New York and secured a grant to have a rough draft prepared in English. The Hungarian Pen Club learned of the project and invited him to Budapest in 1977, where he met Nemes Nagy and several other poets. “It was the beginning of a new career for me,” said Berlind. The University of Iowa Press published Berlind’s translation of Nemes Nagy’s Selected Poems in 1980. His other translations from Hungarian include the work of Dezsó Tandori, Ottó Orbán, and the major Hungarian literary figure Gyula Illyés. Berlind has returned to the Hungarian Pen Club frequently over the years, and in 1986 was awarded the Hungarian PEN Memorial Medal. Berlind and his wife, Jo Anne Pagano (professor of educational studies), have become friends with several of the poets, including Nemes Nagy and Orbán. Oravecz and his wife visited Berlind and Pagano in Hamilton several years ago. They will see him in July on a return trip to Budapest.
PSYCHOLOGY RETIRED IN 2000 AFTER 26 YEARS Late in her Colgate career, Myra Smith took a leave of absence to spend three years at the National Science Foundation (NSF). As a program director in the Division of Undergraduate Education, she reviewed and funded proposals that provided new approaches to teaching science and math to undergraduates. That experience familiarized her with what was happening in science education nationally, she said, and when she retired from the university in 2000, she returned to the NSF for another assignment. Within a year, however, then–dean-and-provost Jack Dovidio, a former colleague in the psychology department, asked her to return to Hamilton to play a principal role in the 2003 periodic review required for continuing accreditation by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. Working with Colgate’s Robert Garland (classics) and Jeff Baldani (economics), Smith spent full time on a concentrated campuswide review of the changes and new initiatives that had been instituted since the 1998 Middle States self-study. “More important, in my opinion, we sought to communicate the diverse views of faculty on institutional and curricular goals and the effectiveness with which they were being met,” Smith said. In retirement, Smith has supervised the research projects of senior honors students and has occasionally taught courses in psycholinguistics and cognitive neuropsychology. She also served on the Fellowship Committee and on the Mellon Career Enhancement Committee that obtained funding for a faculty exchange program with Hamilton, Skidmore, and Union Colleges. “I believe the university would benefit from making a more concerted effort to involve retired faculty in areas such as admissions and mentoring candidates for postgraduate fellowships,” she said. The birth of her first granddaughter was an important consideration in Smith’s retirement: “I wanted to spend more time with her.” Now, with her older son, daughter-in-law, and two granddaughters settled in Grand Rapids, Mich., Smith has purchased a home there and is preparing to sell her house in Hamilton. While she still plans to complete a book on human cognition from the perspective of brain evolution and development that she began when she was teaching, her immediate writing priority is a family history, “something that I would like to write for my grandchildren.”
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MARTHA OLCOTT
POLITICAL SCIENCE RETIRED IN 2001 AFTER 27 YEARS When Martha Olcott was teaching at Colgate, her research centered on interethnic relations in Russia and the states of the former Soviet Union. Students who traveled on her study groups to Moscow studied with one of the recognized Soviet experts in the United States. Still, Olcott’s expertise went largely unnoticed, save among her students and specialists in her field. Then, the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, and Olcott’s years of research made her an authoritative resource for news media and government officials alike. She was frequently cited in headline coverage of the dramatic changes in Russia, her op-eds appeared in national dailies, and she became a special consultant to diplomats such as former Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger. Just after 9/11, Washingtonian magazine listed her as one of “71 people the president should listen to” about the war on terrorism. So in 2002, when she retired early after more than 25 years at Colgate, it was to work as a senior associate with the Russian and Eurasian Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “It’s not what one thinks of as retirement,” she said. “It’s a lot of travel and a lot of work.” From her base at Carnegie’s Washington, D.C., headquarters, she travels frequently to Central Asia, researching and leading seminars on issues related to oil and gas, political economy, and political development, including work on Islam and terrorism. She is codirector of Carnegie’s Moscow Center Project on Religion, Society and Security. One focus the past two years has been a project to place small renewable energy units in rural schools in remote border areas in Central Asia. “It’s a laboratory for looking at how we might better deliver foreign assistance to alleviate social problems,” Olcott said. She has published two books since leaving Colgate — Central Asia’s Second Chance and Kazakhstan: Unfulfilled Promise — and a series of her major papers on Islam and Uzbekistan will likely become a book in the next year or two. “It’s a good fit,” said Olcott. “We have junior fellows and assistants, so I still work intensively with young people. And I still have the energy to go to remote parts of Russia and Asia.”
RUSSIAN RETIRED IN 1996 AFTER 18 YEARS On his travels to Russia to lead six Colgate study groups, Richard Sylvester would always return with a suitcase full of Russian records. More than a dozen years after retiring from Colgate, he still visits Russia regularly, “and, believe it or not, I’m still buying records.” His collection of Russian songs and operas currently numbers 1,047 — “LPs mostly, plus CDs and some 78s.” Retirement, Sylvester said, allowed him the time to listen to the recordings “properly.” When he did, a theme began to emerge. Russian songs written by 19th-century composers crossed over with his interest in Russian poetry. “The songs are like German lieder,” he explained. “They are poems set to music, just like the songs Schubert and Mozart and most other composers wrote.” Sylvester spoke with Russian friends about the idea of translating the songs into English. “They said that there are a lot of them, that they are awfully good, and that I should begin with Tchaikovsky,” he recalled. And so he did, and the product of his effort, Tchaikovsky’s Complete Songs, was published by Indiana University Press in 2002. It has since been issued in paperback, and just this year was translated into Russian. “It’s a study of each of the 103 songs that Tchaikovsky wrote,” Sylvester said, “the text that he chose and why, written in ways that people had not previously paid much attention to. So the Russian audience has liked them as well as the Western audience.” For the translation into Russian, he has worked via e-mail with a translator in Moscow. Now Sylvester is translating the works of Rachmaninoff, comprising more than 80 songs. As with his Tchaikovsky translation, the Rachmaninoff book will include a CD with a selection of songs by Russian singers. Carnegie Hall has asked Sylvester to write program notes for several concerts, and to translate all of Dmitri Shostakovich’s songs for a centennial celebration. And a young Dutch singer, inspired by Sylvester’s book to record a CD of Tchaikovsky’s songs, asked Sylvester to write the liner notes. “I’ve been very lucky in that I’ve had wonderful projects to pursue since I retired,” he said.
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Phil Humnicky
RICHARD SYLVESTER
Andrew Daddio
DONALD L. BERRY
PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION RETIRED IN 1994 AFTER 37 YEARS “I’m still writing because I think there’s still something to be said,” said Donald Berry, who retired as Harry Emerson Fosdick Professor of philosophy and religion emeritus. Author of three books prior to his retirement, Berry published Through a Glass Darkly: The Ambiguity of the Christian Tradition in 2006. His Holy Words and Holy Orders will appear later this year. And the books are in addition to the original sermons — upward of 50 a year — that he has written and delivered as an interim priest for nearly a dozen churches throughout central New York. “After I retired, I was able to be of more use in the diocese,” said Berry, an ordained Episcopal priest. His commission work included interviewing, evaluating, and encouraging candidates for ordination, and he continues to represent the diocese in ecumenical affairs. Retirement also freed Berry to serve long-term interim arrangements in Episcopal parishes that are between rectors — or where the rector is on sabbatical. For periods ranging from two months to two years, he has ministered to Episcopalians from Baldwinsville to Camden and from Clinton to Chenango Bridge. Scoliosis has forced Berry to scale back a bit these days: “The walking involved in the Anglican liturgy is more than I can manage in a large space such as Grace Church in Utica,” he said. But most of the churches in the small villages are still negotiable using a cane, and Berry can be found celebrating and preaching in one of those parishes almost any Sunday. St. Paul’s in Chittenango, where Berry served for 15 months, stands out as a favorite for personal reasons. The Berrys' daughter Martha and her family attend there, and grandson Sam was in training as an acolyte. A conversation in 1993 with retiring colleague Warren Ramshaw got Berry thinking about his own retirement after 37 years in the classroom. “I thought there were other things I would be glad to have the time to do,” he recalled.
WANDA WARREN BERRY
PHILOSOPHY AND RELIGION RETIRED IN 2003 AFTER 35 YEARS Wanda Warren Berry developed her own version of the contemporary issues and values course, Commitment versus Cynicism. “It started with my scholarship on Kierkegaard and Buber — people who write about living life in terms of the causes that you believe in.” Many of Berry’s courses focused on issues in society, but, she said, “While I was always concerned about the good society, I never had the time to be active.” That all changed in 2004 when Berry retired and the local Democrats recruited her help in the general election, launching what Berry refers to as “my activism. For the first time I made phone calls and campaigned for regional candidates. I was concerned about the national situation, and I felt that I needed to get active on the grassroots level if we were going to build toward change.” During that same fall, Berry became uneasy about the introduction of direct recording electronic voting machines in other parts of the country. The two causes came together when the Madison County Democratic Committee asked her to serve on a task force focused on the Help America Vote Act. Berry was soon entrenched in the work of the nonpartisan organization New Yorkers for Verified Voting (NYVV), which she has just been named to head for the next two years. The choice of machines in New York was to be made by the counties. Berry and local NYVV friends Sandra Carter, Bill Todd, and Carolyn Todd made many treks to the Madison County Board of Supervisors, who became more responsive after these activists lobbied the board to adopt a rule allowing an open period for public comment at the conclusion of each board meeting. Berry and friends used that period to petition the board successfully to adopt verifiable voting methods. Back to electoral politics, the town’s Democrats chose Berry as their chair in 2006. Through the town elections, the primary, and the general election of 2008, she marshaled Democratic efforts with e-mails, meetings, and grassroots contact. “For anyone who loves teaching as I did, one of the things you need is an opportunity to communicate what you care about. Activism gives me immediate communication.”
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LAST FALL, WHEN THREATENING RACIST GRAFFITI WAS FOU
HALL BATHROOM STALL AND STUDENTS OF COLOR REPORTED
Critical Conversations
SHOUTED AT THEM OUT OF DORM WINDOWS JUST AFTER PR A campus community in dialogue on diversity and race
By Rebecca Costello OBAMA WAS ELECTED, THERE WAS A STRONG CAMPUS REA
LAST FALL, WHEN THREATENING RACIST GRAFFITI WAS FOUND IN AN ALUMNI HALL BATHROOM STALL AND STUDENTS OF ORGANIZED A SPEAK-OUT AND A SOLIDARITY MARCH. THE NE COLOR REPORTED EPITHETS BEING SHOUTED AT THEM OUT OF DORM WINDOWS JUST AFTER PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA WAS
ELECTED, THERE WAS A STRONG CAMPUS REACTION. STUDENTS ORGANIZED A SPEAK-OUT AND A SOLIDARITY MARCH. THE FLOWING CROWD AT THE CHAPEL LISTENED TO PRESIDENT RE NEXT DAY, AN OVERFLOWING CROWD AT THE CHAPEL LISTENED TO PRESIDENT REBECCA CHOPP, SENIOR ADMINISTRATORS, AND
LEADERS CONDEMN THE RACIST ACTS AND CALL FOR COMMITMENT TO INCLUSIVITY. PROFESSORS DEVOTED TIME FOR NIORSTUDENT ADMINISTRATORS, AND STUDENT LEADERS CONDEMN DISCUSSION IN THEIR CLASSES.
AND CALL FOR COMMITMENT TO INCLUSIVITY. PROFESSOR FOR DISCUSSION IN THEIR CLASSES.
Illustrations by Jim Dryden
While that collective denouncement of the acts of hatred and intolerance was one of unity, individuals reacted in different ways, from outrage to disappointment, dismissal as a prank to concern about safety. No matter the reaction, the incidents put the university’s ongoing diversity efforts in the spotlight, providing a platform for critical conversations about race and inclusivity at Colgate.
A framework for campus diversity Diversity at Colgate is an issue with deep roots, but the university’s most recent work reflects four years of research by an executive committee and diversity 34
scene: Spring 2009
council, appointed by Chopp and spearheaded by Lyle Roelofs, provost and dean of the faculty, and Adam Weinberg, then dean of the college. “When I was hired as president, one of the five charges the board gave me was to improve diversity,” said Chopp. Since then, “Colgate has been working to realize and interrelate three models: affirmative action and equity; multiculturalism; and learning and diversity in a global environment.” Chopp has led the way with an approach that begins with equal access to opportunities; supports building a campus community that represents the diversity of society; and prepares students to thrive
discussing such a charged topic is difficult for many I would like to make this a more
congenial them that proposal generated excellent debate, which wasplace goodfor evidence that it was taken seriously, even if not everyone agreed with it in a complex and changing global environment. Such an approach is not unique to Colgate, or higher education, for that matter. Stephen Howe ’83 is Americas area managing partner at Ernst & Young, which was ranked third on DiversityInc’s listing of the top 50 companies for diversity. In an interview with the magazine, Howe said, “Our clients expect us to bring diverse teams and thinking to help solve their problems. Given the challenges companies are facing in the current economy, they need those diverse perspectives now more than ever. Our diversity and inclusiveness efforts have remained front and center, and that is not going to change. Our competitiveness now, and in the years to come, depends on it.” While Colgate’s vision for campus diversity is inclusive of race as well as class, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and disabilities, pursuit of this work reveals that one of the university’s biggest challenges has to do with campus climate and meaningful conversations about race. As the current national dialogue on race reveals, discussing such a charged topic is difficult for many. In just one recent example, newly appointed U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder struck a chord when, in an address to the Justice Department, he accused
often, Colgate loses talented faculty and staff to other institutions, and some of the power behind bucking that trend is a grassroots effort, he explained. “The quality of the people who leave is so high,” said English professor Phillip Richards, who is black and has taught at Colgate for 21 years. He credits senior faculty of color who helped him early on, and he has increasingly become concerned about mentoring for junior faculty. “I would like to make this a more congenial place for them,” he said. Richards’s point is echoed by others. In December, faculty of color formed a council, headed up by longtime diversity advocate Lourdes Rojas, professor of Spanish. “We want to address issues for faculty of color in a systematic way,” said Rojas, who cited the challenges of teaching in a predominantly white institution and the climate for people of color on campus and in the local community as two areas essential to focus on in retention efforts. When it comes to recruitment, hiring outstanding candidates depends on building strong applicant pools, which isn’t always easy for a school whose rural location can be considered a deterrent. As Roelofs put it, “The common assumption is that anybody who sees our advertised positions will say, ‘Colgate is a great place. I’m going to apply.’ But
our clients expect us to bring diverse teams and thinking to help solve their problems the nation of avoiding a real dialogue on the racial divide. “We, as average Americans,” he said, “simply do not talk enough with each other about race… If we are to make progress in this area, we must feel comfortable enough with one another and tolerant enough of each other to have frank conversations about the racial matters that continue to divide us.”
Access and critical mass Keenan Grenell, Colgate’s first senior-level administrator hired to address diversity at the university, is facilitating the dialogue about many matters of race, and, more broadly, ongoing diversity efforts. Part of his charge is helping the university reach a critical mass of students, faculty, and staff from underrepresented groups. In terms of faculty and staff diversity, he said, the issue is twofold: retention and recruitment. Too
many people of color from urban or non-Northeast backgrounds who come through a set of experiences that don’t connect them to elite liberal arts institutions don’t even know a place like Colgate is a viable career option.” While one recent faculty hiring strategy — to broaden applicant pools by developing new networks and pipelines — may be a no-brainer, another has gotten departments talking and attracted outside attention. Roelofs posed it to the faculty in late 2007. Generally, academic departments consider three things when they are hiring, he said. “One is getting the most exceptional person. Two is the subfield expertise that would best fit into our department puzzle. Third is, we need diversity.” When the priorities are arranged in that order, he said, “it is quite possible you are not going to hire a person who brings diversity to the community,
because in most fields, people of color are less prevalent, and the odds are slim that this very good person of color in your pool will match that perfect subspecialty within your department.” Roelofs contends that, in many cases, it would better benefit the institution in the long run if departments flipped the second and third priorities around. That strategy, he said, will help meet not only goals that pertain to demographics, but also educational goals for students encountering difference. It was presented as a suggestion, not a requirement, he said, recognizing that departments have important prerogatives in faculty hiring and that, depending on the circumstances, in some cases subspecialty still needs to take precedence. “That proposal generated excellent debate, which is good evidence that it was taken seriously, even if not everyone agreed with it,” Roelofs said. He credits Jack Dovidio, a former Colgate professor of psychology and dean of the faculty who studies prejudice, with influencing his thinking on the issue. As Dovidio told Inside Higher Ed, the approach is significant because it moves away from what he considers a false discussion of excellence — the assumption of many white Americans that an institution would sacrifice taking the most qualified candidate for a job in order to achieve diversity. Leaving excellence as the top priority reframes the debate, Dovidio said: “Affirmative action doesn’t mean taking lesser quality people.” “It’s clearly been a factor in how departments have been thinking about their hiring, and it’s had a real impact on hiring in the last two years,” said Roelofs. In recruiting students, one factor that has helped Colgate make recent gains in diversity came out of a close look at admission yield statistics, which indicate that accepted students of color are more likely to choose Colgate when the family is involved early in the process. “We learned we need to engage them early,” said Jaime Nolan, director of the Office of Undergraduate Studies and associate dean for diversity, “and we need to stay engaged with them.” Providing a deeper level of assistance, such as a new parent-to-parent calling program, has proved invaluable in yielding students from not only underrepresented communities but also first-generation college attendees, who don’t always get the same opportunity to visit colleges with their parents. Although numbers are important, the university News and views for the Colgate community
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must ensure that all are able to take advantage of the university’s resources and opportunities, in and out of the classroom.
In the classroom Incorporating diversity in the curriculum is another goal that has gained momentum in recent years. The faculty have developed a broad range of courses, from Race in Education to Social Justice Politics and Policy (political science), from Globalization, Culture, and Everyday Life (sociology/anthropology) to CrossCultural Human Development (psychology). “It’s become abundantly clear over the last 30 or 40 years of intellectual history how much difference matters to generating new knowledge,” said Roelofs. “If we had stayed within Western traditions and never interacted with other cultures, there would be vast areas of knowledge that would be inaccessible to us and, similarly, others that come out of European traditions that would not be available to other cultures. It’s at least as important to be multicultural as it is to be interdisciplinary.” Diversity is also a key component of the discussions around Colgate’s newly revised liberal arts core
Runnette’s beliefs and how he met the world from then on, including as he built a successful business in North Carolina.
- Colgate formed a chapter of the National Coalition Building Institute, an international peer training organization that works to eliminate prejudice
it’s at least as important to be multicultural as it is to be interdisciplinary The inclusive campus One of the key insights that emerged from the campus workgroup whose analysis and report built the foundation for current diversity efforts was that structural and programmatic initiatives alone are not enough. “We may have made statistical progress and put programs into place,” said Roelofs, “but it’s important to understand that this will not translate into success if people do not feel they are an integral part of the community.” That means addressing the cam-
we don’t want to just preach to the choir
and discrimination. The first workshops were held as part of Staff Development Week in January, and more are being offered to students, staff, and faculty. - A new student climate survey was launched in February, with results expected in the fall. There are plans to survey staff and faculty as well. - An initiative to increase the number of students of color pursuing science and math opportunities. - A partnership with leaders in Hamilton to create a more inclusive climate off campus. - Thomas Cruz-Soto, director of the ALANA Cultural Center, has tried to use the center to break
how much difference matters to generating knowledge
oneStudent of Enrollment the university’s biggest challenges By Ethnicity Fall 2008 has to do with campus climate and meaningful conversations about race Latino 6.2% White 73.8%
International 4.8%
Black 5.6% Native American 0.6%
Asian 5.9%
Unknown 3.1%
curriculum, now in the latter stages of approval and expected to launch in fall 2010. A number of the adjustments are meant to break down what had been a “sharp divide between the West and the rest,” said Professor Marilyn Thie, who directs the program. Relevant changes include reframing the Western Traditions component as Legacies of the Ancient World, allowing for the incorporation of discussions and materials that helped shape Western cultures, tradition, and thinking; a shift from Core Cultures to Communities and Identities to incorporate a broader international scope and emphasize multiethnic diversity; and a new component called Global Engagements. Faculty development seminars will support professors in developing new knowledge and skills they will need. And the first endowed chair named in Colgate’s Passion for the Climb Campaign was the Arnie Sio Chair for Diversity and Community, which recognizes scholars who “demonstrate a sustained commitment to the principles of diversity embraced by the institution” through research, teaching, and service activities. The chair was funded by Trustee Emeritus John Runnette ’54, who said in naming the chair, “[Sio] didn’t see the color of someone’s skin at all, which was so odd to me back then,” noting that Sio’s open-mindedness was apparent in everything he said and did. That point of view deeply influenced 36
scene: Spring 2009
pus climate, with a focus on both the issues facing students, faculty, and staff of color at a small and predominantly white university and the experience of an intimate and nurturing educational environment. Since arriving at Colgate last summer, Grenell has taken a holistic approach in doing this work. In addition, he said, “We need a roadmap for diversity.” In developing that map, he is reaching out across campus to tap members of the faculty, staff, and student leadership to begin developing a framework whose vision will have a “higher strategic calling,” tying together and supporting established and new efforts across all facets of the university, while simultaneously addressing the climate. A few examples from across the spectrum include: - The student life division weaves diversity and inclusivity into all of its work. Each area has an action plan predicated on signaling an appreciation of all kinds of difference, and reaching all students. As Charlotte Johnson, dean of the college, put it, “We should measure our success by how well we are serving the students who are least likely to perceive Colgate as a place where they fit in.” - In the last two years, the diversity of the dean of the college staff has increased more than 10 percent. - A new program called “Late Gate” expands social networking opportunities across campus, particularly for students of color.
down silos on campus. For example, in building his student staff, he made sure to hire people from a variety of economic and racial backgrounds, and he deliberately changed the job title from “intern” to “ambassador.” Those moves strategically send a message that “the cultural center is for the entire campus,” he said. “We don’t want to just preach to the choir.”
Students take steps Students often take their own initiative in advancing the conversation. Malik Wright, a political science major from Bronx, N.Y., is proud of having been the first African American ever to be elected speaker of the Student Senate. A member of the ALANA affairs and conduct boards, several multicultural groups, the Rainbow Alliance, and Advocates, he also started a support group for students of color called GLOW (Gay, Lesbian, Or Whatever). The president of Spring Party Weekend for two years, Wright said he got involved in its planning because the previous year, “it was clear that no one took into account what students of color might enjoy. People were in their rooms by eight o’clock sleeping and I thought, ‘This is not fair.’ ” Issues like this start, he said, because “we’ve never had to know each other and don’t know how to talk to each other. You put together groups who’ve never met before, and it’s like a massive episode of Real World.” Gabby Jones-Casey ’09, a women’s studies major and history minor of Afro-Caribbean descent, agrees. Although students from similar backgrounds may feel freedom to express how they feel with each other, she said, talking with majority students can be difficult. “Even as a senior, I struggle
sometimes with friends I still don’t feel comfortable enough with to say, ‘This is happening to me,’ because I think they’ll think I’m just complaining.” When asked how to get people more sensitized and involved in discussions, Jones-Casey, who is a cultural center ambassador, said, “Sometimes people just need to be given information. If you make people aware, they will be more apt to do something.” “When I hear things that are ignorant or insensitive, I’ve always been quick to point out what’s not appropriate,” said Wright. “People are usually receptive.” How to get more students talking to each other across difference in this way is the $64 million question, said Johnson. “It boils down to: how do we get students to reflect and want to change themselves, as well as instigate change in their communities? Change starts with real and meaningful dialogue about issues like race and class.”
Opening the dialogue Recalling Holder’s assessment of America’s challenge in discussions about race, Grenell said that “confronting the reality of prejudice and racism is the most pressing and complicated diversity issue at Colgate and in higher education.” Psychology professor Landon Reid researches a key reason why racism continues to be a major social problem: that members of different racial groups see racism in different ways. Reid said he sees the varied reactions to the graffiti incident much “in the same way that men rarely consider their personal safety in situations when women would be very aware of their surroundings.” Likewise, he said, whites are likely to “maintain a world view that this is not who we ‘mostly’ are, while people of color more often are wondering when it’s going to happen next.” Grenell has been actively encouraging folks to open good communication channels between all groups. As he said to employees in his keynote address for Staff Development Week, “Everyone on campus must enter these conversations, without fear of being politically incorrect, so the dialogue can be robust and progressive.” It may be ironic — or perhaps fortuitous — but the November incidents propelled the discussion. Many recognize that there has been progress, yet there is agreement that much work remains to be done. But, they say, at least conversations are taking place. Mike Walden ’09, who is black, is a creative writing major and four-year member of the track team from Oak Park, Ill. After the incidents last fall, Walden, then chief of the men of color support group Brothers, quickly found himself in a role he never expected — that of a campus activist — when he and his classmates Wright and Jamil Jude became co-leaders of a group that formed in response. The students in the Unity Coalition researched and developed a proposal outlining specific changes they felt would help Colgate increase its levels of diversity and foster a better climate. The document, which they presented to the faculty and administration,
Get to know: Keenan Grenell Vice President and Dean for Diversity What are the biggest misconceptions about what you do? That it’s civil rights work. No, this is business work. I’m not championing a cause; I’m championing the mission of an institution. We need to make sure everyone’s rights are protected through our structure, and foster a culture where everyone feels they are part of the community. And it’s not only dealing with inclusiveness, but also interpersonal relations; we are in a new global environment, so we need to do things a little differently. Also, as a provost at another school once said to me about diversity, an institution is like a large luxury liner cruising the Caribbean. You can’t just abruptly change its direction. At the time, I was offended by that; it sounded like a cop-out, like that person wasn’t as enthusiastic about seeing change happen as I was. But seeing how it unfolds realistically on a campus, it does take time. Tell us about your family. My wife, Donna, and I have been married for 27 years. Our younger son, Saveon, is in college in Florida. Keenan Jr. is living with us and getting ready to go back to school, and our daughter, Nicolette, is a budget analyst for the Maryland state government. Name something people might be surprised to learn about you. I think a lot of people see me as a very straightforward person, always concerned about business, but I like to let my hair down. At a recent all-staff meeting, I quoted Dr. Seuss to make a point! How do you approach your work? My credo comes from Aristotle: “Excellence is an art form won by training and habituation. We are what we repeatedly do.” Think of excellent organizations. What have they been doing to maintain their excellence? They have a set of habits. It’s about repeating those habits. Mentoring is a huge piece of it. I think what makes me unique in my position is that I spent time as a faculty member, so I know how to develop relationships with students as well as colleagues. Former students still ask me, “How should I handle this?” And I got a call yesterday from a former colleague I mentored when he was an assistant professor, who now has three different major offers on the table. That’s very gratifying. What have you observed in your first months here? I came in asking to meet people, have a lot of conversations, and build relationships. It takes a good year to do that, and I thought I was going to have somewhat of a honeymoon period, but, as you know, the racial incidents back in November spun things off. But I think they also caused a groundswell of interest in diversity; not just people talking, but also organizing. The faculty and administration have begun to tackle communication blockages, and that’s been great. Students are being held accountable for their behavior. It’s not just the job of the president or the chief diversity officer to change climate. It’s everyone’s job, including the people who the climate ultimately and directly impacts. I’m very proud of the students who pushed for changes. I’ve seen them get a sense that they also have to be stewards of what takes place here. Now I challenge them to not leave here angry, but to stay connected as alumni. The outreach the staff is making toward alumni of color is purposeful, sophisticated, and sincere. That part will tell a new tale: people who have disassociated will begin to reconnect. You’ll see it in terms of support, who shows up for reunions, what they are doing in their communities on behalf of Colgate, and who comes to Colgate out of those communities. What keeps you up at night? The scope and magnitude of the work. In addition to chief diversity officer, I’m also the affirmative action officer. If we don’t make diversity a habit like eating, drinking, and breathing, we won’t be able to compete. It’s going to impact this institution in ways we’ve never even dreamed of. But also, I want things to work so perfectly. I really believe in helping people. I often ask the question, have I done all that I can do? How do we acknowledge intolerance that happens and move forward? We still have individuals in society who have not been able to embrace the idea of diversity, equity, and inclusivity. But we can’t be held hostage by people who are going to do evil deeds. Everybody has involvement — a concerted diversity program is not controlled by me. We are creating a layer of accountability for ourselves, establishing new expectations, and putting things into place to be able to answer the problem.
8 Visit www.colgate.edu/diversity for more on ongoing efforts, upcoming events, and diversity resources.
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everyone on campus must enter these conv politically incorrect, so the dialogue can be included a range of suggestions, such as implementing cultural sensitivity training for professional and student staff, changes in student life offerings, and a new academic course. “In much the same way Colgate trains people to be better leaders, or to be doctors, to make you a better person, we can implement things to make people more culturally sensitive,” said Walden of why the group took action. “Everyone can get into the same classes, student government, Model United Nations, whatever they want to do,” said David Kusnetz, president of the Student Government Association (SGA), which lent a hand and its voice in supporting the Unity Coali-
Virgin Islands and raised in Florida, he said his high school experience prepared him for Colgate. “I went to a high school on the south side of Tallahassee that was primarily African American, but I was in the International Baccalaureate Program, where the make-up of the students reflected the setting here.” An English major and chemistry minor, he was an intern in the Office of Greek Life last summer. Three years on the football team allowed him to make connections with people different from him. “I’ve worked in the weight room, so I know all the athletes. I can hang out with a group of people and I will never feel by myself.” Acknowledging the
students here are very deeply affected by what happens on campus, so the culture and climate are extremely important as strange as it sounds, I was happy the graffiti incident happened, because it finally brought activism back to campus tion proposal. “But the question is not about opportunity; it’s, if they decide to take up that opportunity, do they feel welcome? Where the Unity Coalition proposal is going, is to start building that feeling of welcomeness.” The faculty expressed strong support for the proposal, and Grenell noted that the university was able to quickly address several of its specific requests, indicating that other recommendations will require more time to implement or may have to be addressed in different ways.
Campus climate “Students here are very deeply affected by what happens on campus, so the culture and climate are extremely important,” said Charles “Pete” BannerHaley, professor of history and Africana and Latin American studies, a longtime mentor for students of color, and a member of Colgate’s executive committee on diversity. When asked to characterize the climate today, several students spoke of a sense of racial separation, even while they talked about their broad experiences. Jude points out that he sees splits that are more complex. “A lot of times our race as well as our class levels and our social identities define our experiences, so I find that people with similar experiences tend to hang out together,” he said. Jude said he feels that his experience has been different from many students of color. Born in the 38
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students before him who fought for changes such as the creation of the ALANA Cultural Center, he said, “As strange as it sounds, I was happy the graffiti incident happened, because it finally brought activism back to the campus.” Many on campus say that after the fall incidents they saw people begin talking more, in productive ways. For example, Walden described having “a lot of great conversations with students I’ve never seen at cultural events, mostly majority students, who came to me and wanted to talk about what is the black power fist, what is that about? Some people said, ‘I felt uncomfortable,’ and we talked about why. And we got into debates about whether or not that motion is still applicable today, whether or not it is divisive, what it really means. Conversations like that are representative of people here who are really trying to grow and contribute to a more close-knit community.” Members of the Anti-Racism Coalition, facilitated by Liz Harkins ’09, are breaking new ground in discussions of race on campus. The group, whose goal is to help whites on campus to become stronger allies for underrepresented groups and actively fight racism, attracts 10 to 15 students and a few faculty and staff members to its weekly dialogues. “Having come from Westchester County, N.Y., I wasn’t exposed to a lot of diversity before,” Harkins said. “I really wanted to meet different people and know things that I wasn’t familiar with.”
Javier Diaz ’10, who is of Puerto Rican descent, said the graffiti incident prompted him to take action. An SGA senator and peace and conflict studies major from Yonkers, N.Y., Diaz has proposed the adoption of a “Colgate Creed,” a commitment to respecting racial, religious, and sexual orientation diversity that every student would be asked to follow. At press time, the formal process for adopting the creed had not been completed but, he said, “numerous members of the administration have voiced overwhelming support for the document,” so he has full faith it will pass.
The road ahead All of Colgate’s efforts to advance dialogue on diversity and ensure that the campus environment is inclusive are about preparing students for life beyond Colgate. Particularly in today’s highly competitive, interconnected society, students need the skills
versations, without fear of being robust and progressive some people said, ‘I felt uncomfortable,’ and we talked about why
I wasn’t exposed to a lot of diversity before
and experience to work in diverse teams and relate to people from different backgrounds. Corporate recruiters want to see it, as do graduate schools. One of Colgate’s biggest diversity challenges can be characterized as a chicken-and-egg conundrum: that critical mass is needed to create an inclusive community; but, the institution needs to provide a better environment in order to attract and then retain that critical mass. So, which comes first? “To the extent that we fail in diversity, it’s corrosive to our efforts to build community,” said Roelofs. A shift in mindset, away from thinking of diversity as an add-on, is a key starting point. “Even before you decide what the goals are, you have to think about diversity institutionally,” said Roelofs. “Diversity doesn’t fall to just one office or one department or one group of people. It has to be on everyone’s mind.”
it boils down to, how do we get students to reflect and want to change themselves, as well as instigate change in their communities diversity doesn’t fall to just one office or one department or one group of people... it has to be on everyone’s mind
News and views for the Colgate community
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Andrew Daddio
News and views for the Colgate community
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stay connected
to know: Know:Johanna Name Here Get to Hunter ’82 – Alumni Council member since 2007; class president since 1982; career adviser, admission volunteer; reunion chair; class agent – Chief, Watersheds and Nonpoint Source Branch, New England Region, Environmental Protection Agency – Community work: Concord, Mass., Natural Resource Committee; coach and president, Concord Carlisle Youth Soccer League Tell us about your job. I manage a staff that addresses what’s called watershed or nonpoint source pollution — pollutants from the road or ground, such as fertilizers, that flush into streams and lakes. We partner with states and local communities to come up with balanced, smart approaches, so that if a mall or a residential development is built, they put in things like rain gardens and porous pavement to lessen the impact of runoff. I’m also active in working to restore Long Island Sound. What do you like most about your work? About five years ago, we put in fish passageways in two urban river settings. If you had asked anybody in downtown Providence, would they ever see fish return to the river system, they would have said, ‘Not in your lifetime.’ Being there with communities to celebrate that we are bringing the environment back, to watch them start to believe that there’s value again in their river — that’s success. Is there an item in your office that you treasure? I went to St. John’s a few years ago (I just love being in the water) and found a wonderful little stone sea turtle that I keep near my computer. It reminds me of a great vacation. Tell us about your family. I’m very lucky. I have two daughters: Marissa, who is eighteen, and Jamie, who is fifteen. They are smart, funny, independent, really good athletes, real fun to have around. My husband, Dave Potter, works in systems engineering for Mitre Corp. Would you go on a bungee jump? Absolutely. I would love to do it with my family because they’d figure it would be very cool. It would be neat to do it in an exotic setting, like with a mystical rainforest nearby. What is important to you in serving on the Alumni Council? I wanted to provide real feedback on the things we can do to move Colgate forward. I think about how we make sure Colgate can remain affordable in a tough economic climate, and I’d like Colgate to become more proactive on the green front. I also wanted to serve as a sounding board for other alumni. If anyone wants to reach out, I hope they will e-mail me (hunterandpotters@aol.com).
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Alumni bulletin board Questions? Contact the alumni office at 315-228-7433 or alumni@mail. colgate.edu
Alumni Council Notes In our last update, we discussed the council’s strategic goals of connectedness, communications, outreach, action, and alumni recognition. Here’s how the council is putting those goals into action: Connectedness: Colgate volunteers — who work on admissions, fundraising, district clubs, and career services — joined the council for our January meeting, and those alumni plus 50 others shared their career advice with the senior class at Colgate’s signature Real World program (its 13th year). Communication: We’re expanding the Alumni Council website to provide real-time updates on the council’s work, as well as to make it a conduit for alumni questions, comments, and discussion. It also contains info on how to become more involved. Check it out at www.colgatealumni.org. Outreach: In this challenging economy, the council is fulfilling a need by creating opportunities for alumni-to-alumni professional interactions as well as hosting career transition events with Colgate’s career services office in a number of cities. Action: In response to last summer’s alumni survey, an overwhelming number of alumni asked to speak to someone about what’s happening at Colgate, and how they could get more involved. Members of the Alumni Council will make those calls. Recognition: Part of the council’s responsibility is saying “thank you” to those alumni and others who do so much for Colgate. Our annual awards ceremony, held during Reunion weekend, is the highlight of this recognition effort. At the end of each year, we bid farewell to the members whose terms are ending. This year, those members are: Scott Baldwin ’58, Julie Bergamini Bergeron ’75, John Bonhomme ’00,
Robin Gottesman ’78, Ken Hillyer ’49, Kelly Lehman Johnson ’94, Sarah Treffinger Latson ’99, Ron Schaupp ’56, and Lee Woltman ’65. Two of our officers’ terms are ending as well, and we thank President Ron Joyce ’73 and Treasurer Biff Jones ’64, and all of the departing members, for their service. Our officer corps for 2009–2010 will be Vice President Christine Cronin Gallagher ’83, Legal Counsel Michael Morrone ’68, Treasurer Kathleen Dill ’89, and Executive Secretary RuthAnn S. Loveless MA’72. Best, Gus Coldebella ’91, President-Elect
“Oooh! … Aaah! … Ohhh!” Reunion 2009 — It Will Leave You Relatively Speechless ’4s, ’9s, and perennials: There’s still time to register online at www.colgatealumni.org/reunion. Speak up, and let us know if you’ll be under the tents on Whitnall Field, May 28–31. Questions? Need paper registration forms? Call the alumni affairs office at 315-228-7433.
Navi’Gate with Colgatealumni.org Don’t miss campus updates, e-mail– only event notices, or the ’GateLine e-newsletter: update your e-mail and other contact information. Set your preferences and customize your personal page with RSS feeds, widgets, images, and more. Share your thoughts in message boards. The online community has many ways for you to connect with fellow alumni. Log in today!
salmagundi
Rewind Reflections of Colgate through the generations Gary Ripple ’64 writes: Although I was not a Phi Delt, I held their dog Style in great reverance and respect. I remember him walking up the hill with the brothers every morning to class, sitting quietly in the chapel while Dean Griffith made announcements. He once barked his approval when the entire assemblage cheered over something. He was mild mannered and highly obedient. Also, he was a handsome member of his species, something the Phi Delts could not claim to be. I wish that one of the Delts would write about Style. Wouldn’t that be fun, and so interesting for the rest of us to read and remember.
Puzzle by Puzzability
Breaking the Seal Only one of these is the official Colgate University seal. Can you find it, as well as spot the changes that were made in the others? See page 71 for the answers.
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. It was like a daydream when this rock band played at Colgate in 1968. Write a caption for this photo, correctly identifying these two members of the four-person band. Send in your answer about this “slice” of Colgate to scene@mail.colgate.edu or attn: Colgate Scene, 13 Oak Dr., Hamilton, NY 13346. Correct responses received by June 8, 2009, will be put into a drawing for a Slices T-shirt.
Tom O’Hare ’66, Phi Delta Theta, replies: He was a great dog, and I was lucky to take him home with me one summer. I was working the horses at a boys’ camp, and Style was a great hit with the campers and staff. He was stupid about porcupines, however, and I had to take him to the vet three times to have quills removed from his mouth. My family was a little hesitant about his visit, but he quickly endeared himself, after I assured them that he was well behaved. Of course, the very first night when we came home after school, he ate most of a chocolate cake my mother had baked. He disappeared later that evening, after my grandmother (91) had gone to bed, and we heard her hoarse whisper, “Style, get down!” We hurried up to find him comfortably nestled in Gram’s arms in her bed. My mom was appalled, but Gram said, “He’s okay. I invited him up.” I think they were glad to see me off to camp, where he could only get in trouble in the woods. Share your memory of a campus dog from your era at www.colgatealumni.org/ messageboards 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.
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Above: Elsie Denton ’09, co-president of the Tae Kwon Do club, soars over an obstacle in a flying side kick while Douglas Schaub ’12, the other co-president, handles the target for her. Denton is a third-degree black belt. Back cover: Sunset over Reid Athletic Center. Both photos by Andrew Daddio
News and views for the Colgate community
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