Colgate Magazine Spring 2025

SPRING 2025

INSIGHTS FROM THE ARCTIC Gaining new perspectives on Alaska’s evolving terrain P.40

Athletics

Women’s Hockey: ‘Iron Sharpens Iron’ P.46 campus

Building Colgate P.32

look

Ryan J. Lee

In Huntington’s dance studio, (seated) librettist Kelley Rourke and composer Christopher Tin watch a rehearsal of O’Keeffe: Kiss The Sky, an opera-ballet

by Francesca Zambello ’78. L to R: pianist Tongyao Li; singers Winona Martin and Nicholas Huff; dancers Josie Chase ’28 (background), Rachel Secrest, and Milan Misko. Read more about the production on p. 20.

Spring 2025

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Contents

SPRING 2025 President’s Message

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letters

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Voices

Adore the Moments Ciara Alfaro ’19 writes about the nostalgia she’s felt upon returning to Colgate as an O’Connor Fellow.

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Drilling for Ancient Ice to Decode Climate History In Antarctica, paleoclimatologist Fairuz Ishraque ’22 is unlocking climate records of Earth’s distant past.

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Faculty Findings Recent research by Colgate scholars

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Preserving the Film Heritage of the World

What’s in a Name?

From a beloved community park to a time-marking plankton, the stories behind six alumni and faculty namesakes

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Professor Brynn Hatton is among a small group of scholars racing to save aging film stock.

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Mapping Out the Future What Breaks, Blooms

Scene

Colgate News

Jack Breitowich ’22 plots sustainable use of natural resources in New Zealand.

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Discover

Warming Winters Spell Change for Antarctic Permafrost Professor Joe Levy and his students are challenging longheld ideas about Antarctica’s stability and its impact on temperatures worldwide.

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Building Colgate Students delve deep into Colgate’s architectural evolution with Professor Bob McVaugh.

New Microscope Enables Researchers to Image Vastly Tinier Objects Zooming in on some recent applications of a powerful new imaging tool at Colgate

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In the Sky and on the Ground In Alaska with Professor Mike Loranty, student researchers use drones to explore the Arctic’s evolving terrain.

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Iron Sharpens Iron Despite being one of the youngest women’s hockey teams in the country, this year’s Raiders coalesced to turn their challenges into triumphs.

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endeavor VP for University Communications Daniel DeVries Director of University Publications Aleta Mayne Assistant Director, University Publications Mary Donofrio Assoc. VP for University Communications Mark Walden

Power Plants Former basketball player Malcolm Regisford ’19 shares his passion for vegan cooking with a new book.

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Leveling the Cricket Field

‘The Future Is FIF’

In the U.K., Leigh Wayburn ’96 Burns is creating cricket wear for women of all shapes and sizes.

How Meghan Curtin ’06 McKenna is connecting — and empowering — women in finance

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campaign

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Salmagundi

Jimmy Carter’s Colgate Connections

Todd Ruderman ’06

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Alumni News

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University Photographer Mark DiOrio Communications Specialist Kathy Jipson Contributors: Kelli Ariel, web manager; Stephanie DeVries, communications specialist, centers and institutes; Jordan Doroshenko, dir., athletic communications; Bernie Freytag, sr. art dir.; Garrett Mutz, sr. designer; Brian Ness, sr. multimedia producer; Kristin Putman, sr. social media strategist; Rodrigo Santiago, athletics communications manager; Amber Springer, web content specialist; Rebecca Taurisano, asst. dir., advancement communications

Inside Katharine Zarrella’s Fashion Wonderland The Class of ’08 journalist and fashionista has built a career with her bold takes on haute couture.

Senior Art Director Karen Luciani

Cover: (L to R) Maddox Miller ’27, Katrina Wright ’26, and Elaine Zhou ’25 measure tussocks on the tundra near Eight Mile Lake in Alaska.

Photography by Sarah Hewitt

Printed and mailed from Lane Press in South Burlington, Vt. Colgate Magazine Volume LIV Number 2 Colgate Magazine is a publication of Colgate University.

Online: colgate.edu/magazine Email: magazine@colgate.edu Telephone: 315-228-7407 Change of Address: Alumni Records Clerk, Colgate University, 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, NY 13346-1398 Email: alumnirecords@colgate.edu Telephone: 315-228-7453 Opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by the University, the publishers, or the editors. Colgate University does not discriminate in its programs and activities because of race, color, sex, pregnancy, religion, creed, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, physical or mental disability, age, marital status, sexual orientation, veteran or military status, predisposing genetic characteristics, domestic violence victim status, or any other protected category under applicable local, state, or federal law. For inquiries regarding the University’s non-discrimination policies, contact Renee Madison, Title IX coordinator and vice president for equity and inclusion, 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, NY 13346; 315-228-7014.

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eginning in February of this academic year, I started meeting with trustees, faculty, staff, and the student government to speak about Colgate’s position regarding the new circumstances facing American higher education. With multiple executive orders and other communications from various federal offices coming at us at a great pace, it was important that the University determine how we would respond to changing realities. In many ways, these conversations echoed the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic — another extremely challenging moment for higher education in general and Colgate in particular.

Now, as then, the University has turned to its values and its mission for guidance in uncertain times. The result of the conversations the trustees, campus leaders, and I have had has been the establishment of a small number of key commitments or guidelines for the University.

These are: First, Colgate will follow the law. Colgate has established a working group on legal affairs to review the University’s practices, policies, and published statements to ensure compliance with recent Supreme Court decisions as well as federal and state legislation. Thankfully, Colgate completed a similar review following rulings regarding the admissions practices at Harvard and North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and there has been no need for drastic changes to Colgate’s policies or processes.

Second, Colgate will remain committed to access.

First — and this is more related to the current climate than might appear right away — we are committed to increasing access to Colgate through new financial aid programs and funds. We seek to welcome to our campus talented students, faculty, and staff from any and all quarters of our society. Related to this, we will not accept efforts to tell us whom we can admit, or who can be part of this community. Again, we will follow the law, but within that boundary, it is up to the University to determine who should be here.

Third, academic freedom and freedom of expression will remain our north stars. The classroom is sacrosanct. As is freedom of inquiry and debate in all its forms. This must be true in all that we do or the University will fail in its mission to educate students and create new knowledge. Ever since we

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produced our Report on Academic Freedom and Freedom of Expression in 2018, our resolve to support freedom of expression has been unwavering.

Finally, we will take care of each other. The pandemic threatened one of our most distinctive characteristics: our ability to be together. Colgate is a place where we learn in person, as a community, and those bonds last lifetimes. Our students, professors, and staff members draw energy and build creativity by collaborating in exciting new ways, semester after semester.

During COVID, we took steps that might have seemed impossible so that we could preserve this essential element of Colgate’s personality. We take care of each other. We will do so again.

As I write this, the group that we must consider are our international students — who provide an invaluable perspective in our classrooms and residence halls. These Colgate students are supported daily through our Office of International Student Services, and Colgate is facilitating legal consultations for those concerned about their immigration status. We will find ways to house and feed these students should they need to stay within our national borders this summer. In short: If you are a member of this community, you will be supported by this community.

To date, Colgate has largely been spared the broad cuts in federal funding that our peers have seen. But we cannot take comfort in this fact. No institution of higher education is immune to the decisions and discourse coming from Washington, D.C. The values that we hold — free expression, vigorous debate, and rigorous investigation — seem themselves to be under direct attack. But they are the hallmarks of our mission. We must always uphold these values.

The University launched its Third-Century Plan to ensure that Colgate will thrive for generations to come.

Those of us who steward this place can never forget our duty to the community of today and the student body, faculty, and staff of tomorrow. Therefore, Colgate will insist on following the rule of law, persist in its commitment to a rigorous liberal arts education, and resist any effort to interfere with the well-being and education of classmates and colleagues.

— Brian W. Casey

Visit colgate.edu/ president

Richard Rosario Photography

President’s Message

Letters

On 40 Exceptional Alumni What a great issue — the 40 under 40 section blew me away!

Elizabeth Buchbinder ’77 Reflections on Bernstein Hall, Jewish Life at Colgate I read the article by Goldie Blumenstyk ’79 (“A Building’s New Name Hits Home,” fall 2024/winter 2025, p. 10) with great interest. I was a student at Colgate from 1958–1962. I was a philosophy and religion major.

I found the academics in both the faculty and curriculum to be superb. There were 12 professors in the P&R department. I could not have gotten a better education anywhere. The rigor, the search for truth, and the commitment to academic excellence were values I took with me. However, as part of my major, I took a number of courses on the Hebrew Bible (which they called the Old Testament), and it became clear that they did not understand it because they looked at it through the filter of Christianity.

I attribute that to parochialism and not to prejudice.

The social environment was a different matter. Fortunately I only experienced one small episode of antisemitism, and that was from a student. I had graduated from a very good public high school in which there

were many Jewish students.

In contrast, many students at Colgate went to prep school, and there was a decidedly “Waspy” atmosphere at Colgate.

I knew that I was not part of that culture, and even though I did not have much Jewish background, it became clear that I didn’t want to be part of that world. Further, many Jewish students were ambivalent about being Jewish, and that bothered me. Astonishingly, I became a rabbi and may have been the first Colgate graduate to enter the rabbinate.

In 1993 I was invited to read my poetry at Colgate and I found a much-changed college.

There was a chaplain who was a rabbi, and the student body was diverse. I can only remember two African Americans in my class, and no Latino students or students of Asian ancestry. All of that had changed, and there were now women students and faculty. The building donated

by Dan Benton ’80 and bearing the name “Bernstein” is not only a tribute to his family, which founded HIAS and helped Jews escape the Nazis, but it is also a testimony to a Jewish presence and diversity at Colgate.

Adam D. Fisher ’62

The Benton/Bernstein story fills me with great pride. What a meaningful, impactful response to the virulent antisemitism that has infected many other campuses. Thank you to the Benton family, President Casey, and the Board of Trustees for affirming the Jewish contributions to the life and legacy of our beloved Colgate.

David J. Goldstein ’67

brought back fine memories (“Looking Back on Jan Plan,” fall 2024/winter 2025, p. 112).

In 1966 Professor [Robert] Elder created a program in Washington, D.C., where approximately 13 of us had the pleasure of getting an inside look at our nation’s capital. Due to his extensive connections, we met with many of the decisionmakers, including Secretary of State Dean Rusk and several members of Congress. Most amazing of all was our inside visit to the White House.

During my work experience in high tech (Raytheon, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard, and Caltech), I always felt my liberal arts education allowed me to make contributions within that world, which were usually outside the typical engineering mindset.

Little did I know in 1966 how much time I would spend working in D.C. collaborating with many institutions.

Wayne Johnson ’67

I loved the Jan Plan. The idea of having four weeks to explore a subject and/or place was really exciting. One January in 1984 or 1985, I had the opportunity to spend four weeks at Ghost Ranch in New Mexico — a place frequented by Georgia O’Keeffe who lived nearby (she died in 1986).

Classes were offered in photography, Spanish, and weaving. There was such a great energy about taking that

opportunity to immerse myself in the culture and atmosphere of the Southwest. I even learned how to use a loom and did a handwriting analysis with another Colgate student. (That was fun, MJ McNamee ’87!)

There was a great feeling of independence and exploration that the Jan Plan allowed. One other January I took a class on campus called Utopias. I know we read Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, among other great Utopian fiction. My fondest memories of that experience were the days of nestling inside while snow fell and blanketed the campus as I studied these very mindopening works of literature. I also remember going to the pool during those blizzardy weeks.

Jan Plan was a great way to enrich myself, try new things, and feel the love of learning without the pressure of grades.

The images and feelings evoked when choosing the classes, as well as being in the immersion itself, are vivid and wonderful to me. I was lucky they didn’t remove the opportunity until the year after I graduated.

Catherine Viscovich ’87 Colt

Back then English was my major but not my thing. The grades showed it too. That’s when George Hudson, my adviser, pulled me aside in Lawrence Hall with an idea. “Why don’t you take my January Term course in Japanese poetry? We’ll spend a little time with Basho together.”

Wayne Johnson ’67, fourth from left

More Jan Plan Memories Your recent article on the January studies program Spring 2025

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letters What’s a Basho? Japan had barely ever entered my consciousness.

From the opening verse on that first morning of class in 1986, I was totally transported.

George and January Term changed my life, the trajectory of my studies, and all that was to come.

I quickly learned that he spoke Japanese, led trips there for the Smithsonian Institution, and was, in the words of Shel Silverstein, a “magic bean buyer.” I called my parents and told them my plans to go to London to study literature were off. It was onward to Japan. But first to Japanese language class.

When I returned to Colgate from Japan, George invited me to dinners at his home where, together with his amazing wife, Chikako, and Professor Jonathan Kistler, we would discuss Japanese culture late into the evening. George loved Kyoto, the ancient city. He knew well the quiet streets deep in Pontocho and Gion, and their secrets — those narrow alleys dimly lit with lanterns, leading to establishments whose histories are marked in centuries, where entry is granted not by money or fame, but only with the right introduction.

Without Professor Ramshaw’s Jan Plan, I would not have been ready to immerse myself in — and learn so much from — such a different culture.

Ned Hengerer ’68

I remember George sharing one story especially. Nearly 40 years after the end of World War II, an old Japanese soldier tumbled out of the woods on an island in the Pacific. He had finally realized the conflict was over. When he returned to Japan, he found it impossible to assimilate into modern society.

He had been left behind. So the man took shelter in a tea house in Kyoto, cared for by an Oiran, the most revered of the Geiko.

As a gesture of gratitude, he painted the sunset that greeted him all those years on his island on the paper walls of her home.

George was her old friend.

In the ensuing four decades, I have studied, lived, and worked in Japan. My graduate degree was in Japanese political economy. My first job was in Tokyo, working for several years in Japanese politics.

Since launching my company nearly 30 years ago, while based here in the U.S., I have traveled back and forth over the Pacific roughly 360 times and counting.

My wife is from Japan, and each of our daughters has a deep love for its traditions.

None of this would have been possible without the January Term. Everything would have gone in a different direction. As I shared with George so many times, it is a debt that I can never even begin to repay.

George and Chikako spoke at our wedding, and we had special visits together over the years.

But it was that last time. He was so sick. Chikako said I had better come. Route 20 seemed to stretch out even longer that morning. My mind went back to Lawrence Hall and the moment when George first read to us from The Narrow Road to the Deep North. Sensei. That January, that book of verse became the metaphor for my life.

gratitude resting nightingale along philosopher’s way i follow you still

Andrew M. Saidel ’88

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I had no idea that ours was the first class experiencing the Jan Plan; not surprising because I had precious little awareness of anything that was going on during my freshman and sophomore years. I assume that we had to present our proposed Jan Plan project to a faculty member, but to whom I can’t remember. For no apparent reason other than I can speak and read English, my first two years I did American lit papers, like reading pretty much all of Faulkner and then writing a very forgettable paper.

But by junior year I had at least a scintilla of career interest; architecture had always been held in high esteem by my family in Buffalo, so I thought, why not? I had taken the single architecture course offered, and even considered trying to transfer to Columbia for architecture, but the Vietnam draft made me keep my head low in Hamilton. So I used the Jan Plan to scratch that architectural itch, spending the month in the Case Library pouring over every Architectural Digest in the stacks, as I wrote what I thought would be the seminal treatise on “Concrete’s Potential Utilized in Modern Architecture.” I still have my report in my home office bookshelf.

Fortunately for my entire future, by senior year I had discovered anthropology/ sociology and the best teacher I ever had, Warren Ramshaw.

He was developing an exchange with Clinch Valley Community College in Wise, Va., in the heart of Appalachian strip mining and suggested I participate for my Jan Plan. So after Christmas vacation, I drove in my VW bug the 600 pre-Interstate Highway miles to Wise and spent an eye-opening month living with and learning from an African American family, a coal mining family, VISTA workers, and even a Wise power family. My eyes, ears, and heart were opened wide by this Jan Plan.

Nine months later my bride and I were living in Lome,

Togo, working as Peace Corps volunteers; for both of us this was a seminal (and joyous) experience. I’m pretty sure that without Professor Ramshaw’s Jan Plan, I would not have been ready to immerse myself in — and learn so much from — such a different culture. And as a school builder (seven in 21 months) working in small villages largely with reinforced concrete, my junior year Jan Plan gave me the requisite foundation (no pun intended), and 57 years later I am still a homebuilder. So kudos to the Colgate Jan Plan.

Ned Hengerer ’68

A Surreal View of Taylor Lake The photo (fall 2024/winter 2025, p. 81) was taken with my iPhone one gorgeous Colgate morning this past August at 8 a.m. at the Broad Street spillway at Taylor Lake, across from the Case Library.

The morning and lake were so still and clear, the water was like a mirror. The reflection of the Colgate landscape and morning sky were as perfect as the landscape and sky itself. In fact, leaning over to get the shot, I thought, “Hey, it’s hard to tell the difference if you don’t know which way is up!”

The photo — which is otherwise untouched — is simply shown upside down, with the spillway at the “top” and the sky at the “bottom” of the photo.

To the bottom as printed here, are horizontal ripples and some surface algae in the distant water (but which appear closer here at the bottom of the shot). To the top, as shown, is the spillway edge, with the waterfall falling

LETTERS “up” in vertical lines like tinsel, you might say. Where the water ran perfectly smoothly over the spillway edge, it created the progressively curved reflection of the sun and sky — a bit surreal and mathematical like the falling water itself, but natural.

Anyhow, turn the printed image upside down and it’s like “Oh, I see, that’s obvious,” but upside down the image is pleasantly confusing and, I thought, artsy in a good way.

Bob Austrian ’85

Regarding Institutional Neutrality The letter included in the latest issue of the Colgate Magazine

by President Casey (fall 2024/ winter 2025, p. 8), which speaks to institutional neutrality, occasions this comment. I have written to President Casey expressing my view of the working group addressing what, if any, recommendations are appropriate regarding institutional neutrality. I expressed my hope that the working group does not recommend that Colgate adopt this policy. I also urged President Casey to support any recommendation that rejects institutional neutrality and not to eliminate University thinking on issues that are believed relevant to universities but possibly outside the academic drivers.

Beginning about one year ago, pressure has been brought by the Trump administration and other groups to prevent expressions of antisemitism or support for Palestinian issues.

The effort is characterized in broad-based terms but reflects a fundamental desire to reduce meaningful dialogue on issues of importance to our nation, its people, and our universities. Colgate should not feel pressured to get on that bandwagon. Rather, Colgate should stand for its values and continue to promote full, fair, and civil discourse on any topic that the institution believes appropriate; the issues selected, if any, should be left in

the judgment of the decisionmakers, possibly the president and the Board of Trustees. What should be rejected is a blanket statement that Colgate will always be institutionally neutral.

Such a position is contrary to one of the key goals of all universities: dialogue.

Colgate should be proud to take the lead in not following the goals of institutional neutrality, which — while couched in much hyperbole and academic purity — are simply at odds with our nation’s interests and the intellectual commitment of education.

Yes, colleges and universities need to be sensitive to their shortcomings and to correct past mistakes. That legitimate effort should proceed. The fact that President Trump and his people have taken a lead to stifle discussion and public engagement is an important reason why those efforts should not be successful. Such efforts have primarily one purpose: to make our universities more supportive of a particular political viewpoint and the values President Trump believes to be important.

Don Bergmann ’63

The actions of those in and near to power in the United States over the past few months have been alarming. An emphatic Nazi salute by the world’s wealthiest man against the backdrop of the seal of the Office of the President of the United States was as clear a wake-up call as one could ask for.

That is why, as an alumnus and former employee, I was dismayed at the position taken in the President’s Message published in the winter issue.

In matters of politics, should the University sustain a position of institutional neutrality?

Yes. But this statement creates a false equivalency between many of the actions and ideals of the current administration and simple matters of politics.

The valuing and protection of civil and human rights is not an issue of politics. Opposition

to blatantly unconstitutional orders is not a partisan issue.

And the opposition of those who espouse Nazi rhetoric has not been a political issue since the 1930s. It’s an era I am not eager to return to.

As we wade through this pivotal moment in the history of the United States, it is profoundly disappointing to hear that Colgate’s stance is to turn inward. It seems Colgate’s plan is to effectively silence itself under the false impression that an insular and prolonged debate by a faculty committee is a substitute for public leadership and moral fortitude.

You claim this is necessary to return Colgate to “the rigorous pursuit of truth.” How, exactly, does removing Colgate from the public discourse — from challenging the demonstrable falsehoods and fake science championed by those in power — serve anyone in the pursuit of truth?

History is rife with examples of the extremes coming to power in government while institutions like universities lack the courage to act. President Casey, with your background in history, I would have expected you to know how that tends to work out. It is a position that will have the next Colgate generation asking: “Why did they do nothing?”

Jason Kammerdiener ’10

Louis Armstrong’s After-Party In response to the photo of Louis Armstrong performing in Huntington Gym, 1957 ( fall 2024/ winter 2025, p. 68) Lloyd Huntley, marching band director, was a Phi Delt, and he invited Louis and his entourage

for a cocktail party at the Phi Delt house after their performance. I still remember their Greyhound bus arriving in our driveway.

After a drink (or two) I approached Mr. Armstrong and said, “Louis, what do you think of Grace Kelly?” His response was “Man, she is all woman.”

Alfred M. Brunner ’58

Lauding the Colgate Spirit Thank you for the great photography in the summer issue of Colgate athletics teams. Colgate sports fans and supporters are the functional definition of enthusiastic positive thinkers.

One could justifiably argue that 1–5 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 9, 2024, were the darkest hours in world history because of all the wars, mass casualty events, shootings, stabbings, homelessness, disease, mental depression, and people not getting along with each other.

But the minute I walked into the Drexel University basketball arena for the Colgate game, I was overwhelmed by the vintage high energy and friendliness of Colgate men’s basketball coaches, players, alumni, parents of Colgate students, and parents of Colgate players — the spirit that is Colgate. There were also many Colgate basketball players from years past, some of whom played for Ed Ashnault and Jack Bruen.

Edward T. O’Donnell Jr. ’70

To submit a letter to the editor, email us at magazine@colgate.edu.

Letters may be edited for editorial style, length, clarity, and civility and must be relevant to Colgate Magazine’s editorial coverage.

Generally, only one letter to the editor is published in Colgate Magazine by the same author in a calendar year. Letters do not represent the views of Colgate Magazine.

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Voices reflection

Adore the Moments Ciara Alfaro ’19 writes about the passage of time, her evolving relationship with her parents, and the nostalgia she’s felt upon returning to Colgate.

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first met Hamilton when I was 18. It was August, and the last breaths of summer were in the air, panting out of my and my parents’ mouths as we climbed the three floors to Andrews 307. The room was unairconditioned — a condition I had never heard of — already partially filled with furniture from the University and one of my roommates. Andrews 307 was the only girls’ room on our side of the hallway. This meant that we would ask the boys across the hall for help transporting spiders from our windowsills; that one of us would get ghosted by one of the boys; and that we would all fall in love with our gorgeous community leader, whose door was next to ours, spilling stand-up laugh tracks out of his laptop late into the night.

We would not be smitten with him for long. Like the spiders, our attention would quickly be swatted in new directions. We were three girls, tasked with settling in this place we would learn to call home.

Before Colgate, my parents and I were in

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Illustration by Stephanie Singleton

New York. It was my first time in the city.

It was my parents’, too, but I did not pay attention to that. Instead, I walked 10 steps ahead of them the entirety of Manhattan. I did this because I didn’t want to be a girl in New York with her parents — I just wanted to be a girl in New York. And because they were moving slow in a place where people walk with purpose, ready to slam their toes on your heels if you paused for even a moment. I did not want to be seen taking photographs with my small iPhone, being 18, being nervous about what came next. To their credit, my parents did not pay much attention to my attitude. When I asked them to stop calling me by my childhood nickname, they smirked at each other. OK, Mouse Burger. I mean, Ciara! they added with faux gravitas. I rolled my eyes.

I was trying to signify that change was happening, and I would now be a grownup who had no use for cheesy nicknames.

(Has anyone ever been so young?) I rolled my eyes as they worked to settle me in for school — the rental car, the long, winding drive, the line of cars honking a parade up the hill.

After three days, it was time for them to go. We hugged and parted ways on the academic quad. There, I noticed the green undertone of my dad’s beard. I saw the soft round of my mom’s shoulders beneath her blond hair. They were the only faces I cared about at that moment. My mom cried and I bit the inside of my cheek to stop myself from copying her. We hugged several more times before they disappeared into the crowd of other parents, parading back out into the real world.

After they left, I felt alone for the first time. To be a girl in New York felt scarier than I was expecting it to. I wondered, How will I possibly make it until Thanksgiving without seeing my parents? I bought a planner to count the days. I did not yet know the way time gains velocity with age; how it runs faster as you gain less of it.

I am back in Hamilton now, this time to teach. I’m on a one-year fellowship, meaning that, at the end of this semester, I will be somewhere new again. I feel more

I did not yet know the way time gains velocity with age; how it runs faster as you gain less of it.

certain here than I used to. I find whimsy here: inside the buoyant crystalline snow, inside those Lathrop window views, inside the Stars Hollow gazebo. Hamilton is made of small moments that will pass you by if you don’t catch them.

When I tell my students that I used to be a student here, their eyes light up, and I truly love it. On the days I wake with less balance, to be here feels disorienting. It is as if time has hiccuped. I turned 28 in March.

It’s a number that feels so big and jarring, I recalculate the years in my head. There is no way I am this age — there is no way my 10year high school reunion is here, there is no way I have been out of Colgate for nearly six years. This is that cliché people always say: Where did the time go? I have been warned about this for so long, and still, I feel as if I have been tricked. (Again, has anyone ever been so young?)

Several times a week, I climb the hill, slowly and breathlessly. In class, we talk story. We notice what sits inside of us each day, pulling at our attention. My students remind me how many pathways there are to curiosity. We stoke our questions. We learn to befriend time when we are happy and when we are lonely.

Sometimes, there are patterns to the stories my students tell. How will their lives at home continue without them? What does it mean for them to have finally gone away, only to miss what they left behind? What happens when the alchemy of a particular time and place is over?

I let my students spend as much time with these questions as they need.

Being homesick is nothing I can solve or teach anyone away from. These are the questions that make up a life — at least for me, because I am a nostalgic person. I always miss the place I just was, no matter how hard I try against it. I like the fact of missing somewhere, oftentimes more than being there. It’s one of the truest instincts about me.

Which means, of course, that I am now nostalgic about when I was a student here.

Because even when I was homesick, I found home in the ritual of kidney beans and cornbread at the women’s studies lounge, in ordering Oliveri’s while practicing Italian on the quad with my friends, and stargazing on the Field of Dreams. I found home in belly laughing with my library coworkers over Ricki’s subway stories. I found home in every dorm room I made my own, with Audrey Hepburn snapshots and tarot cards taped on the walls. I found home in couches, in movie nights, in professors I trusted, and friends whom I never could have met anywhere else.

What happens when the alchemy of a particular time and place is over?

Stories are the stop signs of life, an adviser once told me. How many stop signs there can be — in the questions that pattern, in the tiny moments that build a home, in the way I used to count time away and now I practice holding its weight in my hand, feeling it grow more precious and grooved with each day.

The story that changed New York for me happened one college summer. I was riding the subway alone, watching a mid-20-year-old laugh with her parents.

They were clearly tourists — bubbling with enthusiasm, surveying travelers for where they should go next, enamored with experiencing this city together.

Suddenly, I wished to be this girl in New York: the girl who was not concerned with appearing independent, or rushing to the next moment, or being too cool for her parents. I realized then what I could not see when I was younger, which was that everything I was feeling when I moved to Colgate, my parents were feeling, too.

And that, perhaps like that girl on the subway, the coolest thing I could do was try to be happy.

Now, when I call home from adulthood Hamilton, my parents answer, What’s up, Mouse Burger? They tell me what the contours of their lives look like without me — the retail drama, the Jack Russell befriending the backyard frog, the number of tumbleweeds piled by the dumpster. I tell them my own updates — the movies I am watching, the celebrity gossip I’m consuming, the chicken verde recipe I am simmering. There are so many ways to say I miss you.

There are so many ways to say home.

— Ciara Alfaro is a Chicana writer from Lubbock, Texas. Her work has appeared in The Best American Essays, swamp pink, Passages North, Southeast Review, Witness, and more. She received her MFA in creative writing from the University of Minnesota and her BA from Colgate University, where she is the 2024–25 Olive B. O’Connor Fellow.

Spring 2025

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widely viewed as pathways for social mobility and personal growth, are now seen by some as ideological strongholds. For these presidents, such views are misconceptions as they stressed that campuses remain places of diverse ideas and beliefs. “We are noisy places with lots of ideas,” Tepper said. “We are not cathedrals — we are bazaars.”

While some critics view university curriculums as focused on ideological conformity, the panelists argued that the goal of their curriculums is to explore a wide range of perspectives.

“I think we should ask students how well faculty were able to put ideas in competition with each other,” Tepper said. “If we believe that kind of friction is actually what leads to truth and growth, then we should ask about it. And that’s also the question America’s asking us because they think we aren’t doing it — I think we are.”

So, how can universities

challenge this narrative?

Harris emphasized the importance of confronting the restrictive legacies of higher education. “We need to fight our own history,” Harris said.

“Structurally and historically, we have had this withdrawal from the world that makes us look elitist and disconnected, when in fact, now we’re fully permeable.”

For Tepper, ensuring that every student feels truly welcome and equal on campus is one of the crucial responsibilities of university leadership. “That is what our great project is: How do you actually make pluralism for every single human who comes to our campuses?” he said.

Hurd and Tepper also agreed that critics need to be reminded of the proven benefits of higher education, including increased civic engagement, increased life expectancy, and more. “A part of the way that you handle that attack is you explain what your

outcomes are, and our outcomes are something that we should be very proud of,” Hurd said.

These critiques are not just coming from the public. On Feb. 14, the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights published a “Dear Colleague” letter suggesting that the department intended to interpret the 2023 Supreme Court ruling banning race-based affirmative action in college admissions as extending to all aspects of student life, calling into question the legality of diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives and the potential withdrawal of federal funding from institutions that don’t remove such programs.

Despite these challenges, Hurd emphasized the importance of remaining hopeful in order to move forward.

“A leader does two things: You tell the truth and you inspire optimism,” Hurd said. “It seems hard because there are days when you don’t feel like being optimistic, but it’s an act of optimism to be an educator.”

Other speakers in the spring 2025 series included New York Times opinion writer Bret Stephens and former Chronicle of Higher Education senior writer Goldie Blumenstyk ’79, UCLA professor Eddie Cole, author John Tomasi, and Johns Hopkins University President Ronald J. Daniels.

— Norah Hendrickson ’27

Lafayette College President Nicole Hurd

Grinnell College President Anne F. Harris

Colgate University President Brian W. Casey

CAMPUS LIFE | ART | ATHLETICS | INITIATIVES | CULTURE | GLOBAL REACH

SCENE Leadership

College Presidents Discuss Higher Ed Challenges

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olgate welcomed three presidents of leading liberal arts colleges on Feb. 25 to discuss the mounting challenges faced by higher education. The panel, part of the spring Presidential Speaker Series, was moderated

by President Brian W. Casey and featured Grinnell College President Anne F. Harris, Lafayette College President Nicole Hurd, and Hamilton College President Steven Tepper.

University leaders acknowledged a growing negative perception of higher education in recent years.

Colleges and universities, once

Ryan J. Lee

Hamilton College President Steven Tepper

10 Colgate Magazine Spring 2025

Ecology

For the Trees

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ith more than 3,500 individual trees and 130 species, Colgate’s lush tree canopy provides an undeniably stunning backdrop for study, work, and play.

But when plant life is regarded as just part of the scenery — not something to learn about and engage with — it could point to a condition with serious implications for the future of our ecosystem.

On campus, there are American elms in front of Lawrence Hall and behind Lathrop Hall.

American Elm Ulmus americana

“Plant blindness is an actual landscape, much like Hoham’s phenomenon,” says Professor popular reunion tree walks. of Biology Eddie Watkins of the “[The goal] was to share term coined by botanists James the traditional wisdom of the H. Wandersee and Elizabeth E. Oneida while honoring the two Schussler in 1998. When plants most important people who are seen as static or even purely have shaped our tree canopy: decorative, Watkins explains, President Casey and Professor people are less likely to care about Hoham,” says Watkins. He added preserving them, despite their that President Casey’s emphasis critical importance for air quality, on tree health and sustainability food sources, and animal habitats. as part of the Third-Century “Most of my career has been Plan has led to the addition of dedicated to helping people hundreds of trees from dozens see plants from multiple of species to campus perspectives — beyond and “helped create a their mere presence to botanical Shangri-la for who they are and what Professor anyone interested in they do,” he says. plants.”

Eddie Students in At an end-of-term Watkins Watkins’ Field Ecology celebration, students (BIOL 328) course unveiled the Tree Guide joined in that effort last to community members — fall. With help from Oneida and reflected on their months of Nation botanist Sheri Beglen hard work. and Professor of Biology “What surprised Emeritus Ron Hoham, [students] most was students were tasked their ability to pull with developing a off something this Professor field guide, signage, complex, this big, Emeritus and a website this public, in a single Ron Hoham dedicated to the semester,” says Watkins, University’s diverse tree noting that students have canopy, examining plant expressed how work on the morphology and physiology and project helped them appreciate incorporating information about plant life on a deeper level. “You Native American traditions and really can’t miss plants on this medicinal uses. The project was campus anymore.” supported by the President’s — Mary Donofrio Office and funded through a grant from the Upstate Institute.

The result of their semesterThanks to the class’s work on the long endeavor: the Campus Tree Guide, the University was Tree Guide, a 69-page handbook recognized by The Arbor Day with extensive information on Foundation as a 2024 Tree Campus every species from American “for its dedication to enhancing basswood to sweetgum, and an community well-being through accompanying map, which guides tree education, investment, and visitors through campus’s plant engagement.”

13 bits 1 Mark Murphy ’77 is retiring as president/CEO of the Green Bay Packers and will be inducted into the Packers Hall of Fame.

2 Peter Feldman ’04 was named acting chairman of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission.

3 Paul Harnik, professor of Earth and environmental geosciences, received a Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers from the White House in January.

4 A new compost program at the Coop and Frank Dining Hall will reduce campus landfill waste.

5 Colgate ITS launched an AI Cafe series to teach staff members how to use tools like ChatGPT.

6

Sound Bites

“Who sits at the table matters when it comes to technology.”

John Crespi, professor of East Asian languages and literatures and Asian studies, received an NEH Fellowship to further study a 1940s Chinese political/social commentary cartoon.

— Nicol Turner-Lee ’90, of the Brookings Institution and founder of the AI Equity Lab, was keynote speaker at Colgate’s Convergence Leadership Summit in New York City for students and alumni.

Illustrations by Bernie Freytag

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scene

▼ 7 Events

ALANA received the 2025 Commitment to Social Justice Education award from the ACPA.

Sustainability and Service: Celebrating MLK Week

8 Lucy Art ’27 participated in the FISU America Games in Cali, Colombia, as part of a U.S. delegation of Patriot League swimmers.

R

9 Bryan (Tai) Pham ’25 won a best delegate award for the second year in a row at EuroSim, a Model European Union program.

10 For the first time, The Colgate Thirteen performed in China during their Jan Tour.

11 The New Yorker published an essay by Kanak Kapur, a 2024–25 Olive B. O’Connor Creative Writing Fellow at Colgate.

hodes Scholar and environmental justice activist Wanjiku “Wawa” Gatheru helped kick off Colgate’s 17th annual celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Week on Jan. 23 with a keynote address in the Colgate Memorial Chapel.

Gatheru, the founder of Black Girl Environmentalist (BGE), talked about the ways climate crises can disproportionately impact marginalized communities and urged the audience to recognize that equity and sustainability are “deeply connected.” Gatheru also discussed BGE’s efforts to bring more diversity to climate activism.

“Climate communication needs a facelift,” she said.

“The real question is: are we

communicating in ways that show people the urgency of the matter, especially informing about issues close to their lives?”

The MLK Week Celebration continued with events designed to engage the Colgate community in meaningful dialogue and action, including an interfaith dinner and a Sense of Belonging Listening Session, a special Jummah service focused on King’s legacy, and mindfulness sessions to honor his teachings on peace and justice.

During a Day of Service on Jan. 27, volunteers worked on local service projects to honor King’s vision of community action.

To conclude the week, the ALANA Cultural Center hosted the fourth annual Social Justice Summit, facilitated by student leaders from the New York Six Liberal Arts Consortium.

“The 2025 MLK Celebration is all about action and impact,” said Esther Rosbrook, director of the ALANA Cultural Center. “With sustainability at the heart of our 10-day series, together we are shaping equitable communities and fostering sustainable environments — not just for today but for our future.”

— Bri Liddell ’25

Biography

The Life of a Complex Martin Luther King Jr.

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ulitzer Prize–winning author Jonathan Eig came to Colgate to speak about Martin Luther King Jr., based on the research he conducted for his book King: A Life. Eig’s

Environmental justice activist Wanjiku “Wawa” Gatheru was the keynote speaker for Colgate's Martin Luther King Jr. celebration.

12 Colgate was designated as a leading Research University, per the Carnegie Foundation and American Council on Education.

Career Services hosted its 13th annual Sophomore Connections.

12 Colgate Magazine Spring 2025

MIKE ROY (WANJIKU GATHERU)

13

Author photo by Doug McGoldrick. Book cover courtesy of publisher (JONATHAN EIG)

scene Feb. 11 lecture was titled Beyond The Dream: Embracing a More Complicated Martin Luther King and focused on King’s legacy of faith-based radicalism.

“I wanted to write a book to help remind us that King was human; he had fears, he had failures, he had flaws,” Eig said of his 2023 biography.

“In celebrating King, we have watered him down to the point he wouldn’t recognize himself.”

Eig noted how King’s commitment to activism and radicalism became a constant choice throughout his life, even as he faced harassment in the wake of the boycott, including having his home bombed, his windows shot out, and other attempts at intimidation.

King continued to push back against injustice and the status quo, Eig said, even as, years later, his advisers urged him to step back. Instead of being satisfied with the progress of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, King expanded his mission from civil rights to human rights, income inequality, and guaranteed jobs and income. He called for a fundamental restructuring of America’s capitalistic society. He also began speaking out more aggressively against the Vietnam War, and as this happened, his popularity sank, Eig said.

The FBI began an all-out campaign to destroy him, but King refused to back down, Eig said, noting King’s planning of the Poor People’s Campaign in 1967 to bring thousands of people to Washington, D.C., to disrupt the city and the government. When people talk about the Black Lives Matter protests or the highways being shut down after the murder of George Floyd in Chicago, Eig said people say, “‘Martin Luther King would never do that.’ But that’s exactly what he did, over and over.”

Eig said the “watering down” of King’s radical message is intentional. For proof, Eig cites King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.

The way King is taught today, Eig notes, the emphasis is

I wanted to write a book to help remind us that King was human; he had fears, he had failures, he had flaws. always on the second half of the speech, focused on judging people on the content of their character, not the color of their skin. Educators rarely emphasize the first half, which was, Eig said, “a radical speech about income inequality, police brutality, subtly suggesting that reparations were going to be needed before America could move on from the sin of slavery.”

In writing about King’s life, Eig conducted interviews with those closest to King and dug through troves of archival materials — some recently declassified.

Eig worked closely with Dan Cattau ’72, his friend and editor for the book, and Eig reviewed Professor Coleman Brown’s 1979 dissertation, which reinforced the idea of a “radical King.”

A national holiday and streets named after King are appropriate, Eig said, but “not if it forces us to forget what Coleman Brown wrote in his dissertation: that King’s greatness was rooted in radicalism and that radicalism is rooted in his Christian faith. That’s essential to understanding King. If we deprive him of that, we deprive him of everything he fought for.”

— Stephanie DeVries

Community

Report Highlights Colgate’s Contributions to Local Economy

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new third-party economic impact report reveals the role the University plays in driving economic growth and fostering innovation in the village of Hamilton and beyond. Lightcast, a market data research firm, conducted the study of Colgate’s (and adjacent) spending in fiscal year 2022–23, demonstrating its impact on employment, local business development, and support for area community organizations.

Tens of thousands of visitors from outside the region are attracted to Colgate every year to attend commencement, sports events, and other activities sponsored by the University. While in the region, visitors spent money for lodging, food, transportation, and other personal expenses. The off-campus expenditures of the University’s out-of-region visitors generated a net impact of $2.5 million for the regional economy.

In addition, faculty, staff, and students are encouraged to volunteer and give back to the community. The work of these volunteers allows organizations to grow, further improving the economy at large. Also, students who stay in New York State after graduation are estimated to contribute an additional $56.4 million in taxes to the state.

Key report findings: TOTAL ECONOMIC CONTRIBUTION COLGATE ADDED $157 MILLION TO THE LOCAL ECONOMY, ACCOUNTING FOR 36% OF THE REGION’S Research impact: Job creation: The TOTAL GROSS REGIONAL $1.6 million spent University’s presence PRODUCT (GRP). on research salaries, supported 1,529 jobs with an additional — equivalent to one $3 million in other in every three jobs in research expenditures.

Hamilton.

Entrepreneurship and start-ups: Colgate-fostered start-ups contributed $4.9 million in income to the regional economy, supporting 39 jobs.

Construction spending: Capital projects resulted in $3.2 million in economic impact.

Community engagement and volunteerism: Alumni impact: Student and Visitor and student Colgate alumni employee volunteer spending: Out-of-region generated $5.1 million contributions equated visitors spent $2.5 in added income. to $563,000 in million in Hamilton, economic value. while student spending generated an additional $3.4 million.

Jonathan Eig

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scene

Resilience and Resistance in Theresienstadt

Academics

A World of Possibility: Senior Theses Show a Breadth of Scholarship

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cross academic departments, seniors have chosen an array of topics for their theses, showcasing research interests in disciplines ranging from art to biology. Here are six students who are tackling complex issues and offering fresh perspectives to the scholarship of their respective fields.

— Norah Hendrickson ’27

Potential for Virus Treatment Cammy Foster is working in the lab of Professor of Biology and Department Chair Geoffrey Holm, whose research focuses on reovirus, which infects mammals.

Foster’s thesis examines how overexpressing and underexpressing the gene called Shiftless impacts the reovirus’s ability to infect cells. Based on her preliminary data, Foster found that the gene appears to prevent the virus from synthesizing proteins, which poses promising possibilities for virus treatment.

“If we can find out what Shiftless is doing, then we could possibly create a drug or treatment that could increase the body’s ability to fight off infections — because for a lot of viruses, there is no treatment besides managing symptoms,” Foster says.

The Cultural Threads of Designer Robert Wun When Aleksia Taci first saw the work of fashion designer Robert Wun go viral on Instagram two years ago, she was immediately intrigued. Having spent a couple of her high school years in Hong Kong, Taci was fascinated by the man who became the first designer from the region to work in haute couture.

Now, the art history major has developed the first academic study on the innovative designer and how he explores Hong Kong culture through his unique designs.

“The way he goes about designing is breaking away from a lot of the conventions that have historically come from a colonial perspective,” Taci says. “His work is also contributing to that conversation of removing those colonial restrictions on designers of color.”

Taci will be presenting her research at the Costume Society of America’s Annual National Symposium in June.

Katie Lubow, a peace and conflict studies major, decided her thesis topic during a weekend trip with her sister while studying abroad in Prague. The sisters visited Theresienstadt, a Jewish ghetto established under the Nazi regime. The experience was especially meaningful because their family members were once imprisoned in concentration camps and ghettos in the now Czech Republic.

“After seeing this place, I was really moved by it,” Lubow says. “I was obviously troubled and upset by the nightmare that it was, but I was also inspired by some of the things I learned about this ghetto … specifically about how women found ways to maintain their humanity amid all of the uncertainty, violence, and terror of being imprisoned.” For example, while looking at Theresienstadt as a case study, Lubow found that women were using their previous positions as teachers, nurses, and counselors to educate community members and bolster their spirits — their own form of resistance and survival.

Two Jewish women rescued from Theresienstadt concentration camp

Ayden Simpson first learned about rail trails last summer when, through Colgate’s Upstate Institute Field School, he was paired with the Chenango Greenway Conservancy based out of Norwich, N.Y. The group’s project was converting a 60-mile inactive railroad into a public path used for walking, biking, and other activities.

Inspired by his summer work, the geography major used the trail as a case study for his senior thesis.

Rail trails usually go through a preliminary feasibility study as an initial step toward implementation, and Simpson is hoping his thesis “will act as somewhat of a legitimizing factor for this rail-trail proposal in its early stages,” he says.

In addition to the academic benefit of learning about the history of rail trails and the intricacies of the proposal process, Simpson’s goal is to spread awareness of the project and garner community support for this trail’s completion.

14 Colgate Magazine Spring 2025

Alamy Stock Photo (2)

A Champion for a Chenango Rail Trail

scene

Tracing a Town’s Toxic Past Anna Miksis grew up in Ashland, Mass., home to the Nyanza Chemical Waste Dump — one of the approximately 1,300 contamination zones in the country known as “Superfund” sites. When a dye manufacturing plant closed in 1978, it left behind toxic material that seeped into Ashland’s waterways and the lives of the people who live there. The contamination has led to health issues, including an increase in cancer cases, some of which have been fatal.

Miksis, a history major, is investigating the plant’s tainted legacy and its lasting impact on the community.

She aims to give both the story and the community the representation they deserve.

“Now that I have the tools of my history education and have learned to approach things academically,” Miksis says, “I’m ready to take on this story.”

I am looking toward Indigenous ideas about hair as ways of deconstructing the colonial hair policies that have now rebranded themselves from back when boarding schools were being implemented.

Mark Williams

Hair Sovereignty and Colonial Legacy After reading recent news articles about Indigenous elementary students being forced to cut their hair to comply with dress code policies, Taylor Tobias recognized a troubling connection to practices of past government-established Indigenous boarding schools.

Motivated to explore the issue further, Tobias turned his focus to the concept of hair sovereignty. “Indigenous people have deep connections to their hair, both cosmologically and in how they express themselves,” explains the religion and Native American studies major.

Tobias is specifically examining the culture of the Dene people, who have a long-standing history of connection to their hair and a practice of keeping it long.

In his thesis, Tobias aims to bridge the past and present: “I am looking toward Indigenous ideas about hair as ways of deconstructing the colonial hair policies that have now rebranded themselves from back when boarding schools were being implemented.”

Clifford Gallery

Learning From Beavers About Ecological Restoration

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single object represents the Clifford Gallery exhibition titled For Alliances with the Beaver People: an 11-meter-long embroidered tapestry tracing key moments in beaver-human relationships.

Franco-American artist Suzanne Husky drew inspiration from the historic Bayeux Tapestry, which depicts the events leading up to the Norman Conquest of England in 1066. Husky’s work reframes the traditional narrative of conquest and battle into one of mutual ecological regeneration. Her tapestry illustrates how rivers evolve through the interactions of humans and beavers and what these interactions mean for coexistence and environmental stewardship.

“All of the landscapes depicted in Western art were created after beavers had already been wiped out in many places,” Husky noted during the exhibition’s opening panel. “That affects how we perceive what a healthy river should look like. In places like Europe, where people haven’t had the opportunity to see naturally meandering, beaver-influenced rivers, we need visuals to educate restoration teams.”

The panelists also included wildlife rehabilitator Patti Smith, SUNY ESF Executive Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment Neil Patterson Jr., and Colgate Professor of Geography and Director of the Environmental Studies Program Mike Loranty. Associate Professor of Art Margaretha Haughwout served as moderator. The panel explored beaver ecologies and the future of watershed management, reinforcing the exhibition’s emphasis on environmental sustainability and cross-species collaboration.

Husky spoke about the lessons beavers offer in ecological restoration and the need to shift from human-led management to a more collaborative approach.

“One of the most significant shifts in hydrology has been the recognition that we cannot out-engineer nature. Beavers have been shaping landscapes for eight million years, and they know what they’re doing,” she said. “In a time of climate uncertainty, we need to form alliances with other species that can help us adapt.”

During her time on campus, Husky is creating a new textile work using the recently acquired TC2 digital loom in the Bernstein Center for Creativity and Innovation. This piece will be developed in collaboration with students, offering them a hands-on opportunity to explore the intersections of contemporary textile art and ecological storytelling.

“We must learn to share the right to transform the world,” Husky says.

“Humans have not always been good at this. Beavers remind us that every being, large or small, is a world builder.”

— Bri Liddell ’25 Husky’s Clifford exhibition is part of a collaboration with the Picker Art Gallery, which is showcasing her textile work La Noble Pastoral in the group exhibition A Thought Is a Thread: Contemporary Artists Reworking Textile Traditions.

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Senior Projects

Stretching Boundaries: Large-Scale Artworks Explore Identity and Choice

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n Clifford Gallery this spring, viewers encountered seven senior art installations, ranging from 3D blooming sculptures, to paintings of women in STEM, to a collaboration between a student and a drawing robot.

The students chose the exhibition’s title — Reverberations — because in class discussions, they found a common theme: During the creative process, the artists had pondered the effects of their choices and identities.

Chickens by Sophia Cucinotta ’25 comprised several pieces, but the most noticeable upon entering the gallery was a 7-foot-wide painting of a poultry processing factory. The studio art and biology double major chose her subject matter as she started ruminating over eating meat, humans’ relationships with animals, and factory farming. A lifelong vegetarian, Cucinotta had begun eating meat in the past year and realized she wanted to examine that decision. “One of the big questions we talked about for our projects was, ‘What do you value and how do you want to express that?’” she says.

From afar, the expansive painting shows hundreds of chickens as a homogenous group, but upon closer inspection, each chicken is distinguishable. Cucinotta invested time in carefully detailing each chicken, “to give them individual personalities and forms,” she says.

The effect worked: Cucinotta overheard gallery visitors noting the differences among the chickens and choosing their favorites. “That’s exactly what I wanted people to get from it, because one of the things I thought about was the idea of chickens as a commodity versus chickens as individuals,” she says.

On an adjacent wall, Cucinotta displayed smaller paintings that further explored humans’ relationship with chickens. The pieces feature an Onagadori chicken, which is bred for exhibition; “Frankenchickens,” which are genetically engineered to produce meatier results for food supply; and the checkered pattern seen in the kitchen farmhouse aesthetic.

“The project definitely helped me work through a lot of my feelings,” says Cucinotta, who has since decided to return to vegetarianism.

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What Breaks, Blooms This summer, the installation’s life will be extended: It will be exhibited in Maryland Hall in Armstrong’s hometown of Annapolis.

Ryan J. Lee (Chickens); Kimberly Elek ’87 (What Breaks, Blooms)

Chickens

What Breaks, Blooms by Elizabeth Armstrong ’25 features nine vibrant sculptures that are suspended from the ceiling and anchored by a quote from Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar: “I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked….”

“The perils and beauty of choice and possibility informed this installation,” explains Armstrong. “Plath’s imagery of her protagonist sitting at the base of a fig tree, surrounded by figs that each symbolize a different opportunity for her life deeply resonated with me.”

Armstrong read The Bell Jar while studying abroad in Italy last spring and through the summer. Preparing for her senior year, she was wrestling

with the various paths she could take as she finished her studies.

Majoring in art history with an emphasis on studio art and double minoring in film and media studies and museum studies, Armstrong says she felt paralyzed: “I had no idea where I wanted to go and how to pursue that passionately.”

She thought about her grandfather Jim Elek’s version of an often-repeated quote

by Ray Kroc: “You’re either green and growing, or ripe and rotting.” Armstrong says, “That really tied into this piece, because it always reminds me that you need to put yourself out there and experience all that you can, so that you can grow and develop. That really helped me when I was struggling with this project, because it felt like I was in this process of rotting and watching these figs drop, when in actuality, I just had to believe in myself and the project, and also know that I was capable of doing this work, which ultimately reflects optimism, hope, and possibility.”

She landed on her title, What Breaks, Blooms, “because I had to have that breakdown in order to see, ‘Now I know where I’m going.’”

Armstrong has also been inspired by her grandfather’s strong belief in the value of a liberal arts education. His daughter — Armstrong’s mom — Kimberly Elek ’87, majored in philosophy at Colgate.

“I’m really grateful,” says Armstrong, reflecting on the lesson that was passed down through the generations. “I am looking back at all the classes I took, and it feels like I’ve prepared myself in such an interesting way, in such diverse fields. [Colgate has] given me a broad perspective of how to view the world, given me the opportunity to study abroad in Italy — with art everywhere — and I brought all of that to my art piece for senior year.”

— Aleta Mayne To see more spring 2025 senior art projects, visit colgatemagazine.com.

Left to right: Katie Bradley ’27, Andrew Tatela ’27, Max Alphonso ’25, Craig Arquiett ’27

Music

Being ‘Chalant’

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t all started in Gate House.

On the night of Room Return 2024 — a ResLife tradition when senior students return to their first-year dorms — the new student band Chalant hosted their breakout concert in the second-floor lounge. In classic college fashion, bandmembers Craig Arquiett ’27, Katie Bradley ’27, Andrew Tatela ’27, and Matt Walinski ’26 played their original indie rock music under the light of LED strips, foreshadowing their campus buzz in the months to come.

The band's name — a madeup word by Bradley — suggests that the group is anything but nonchalant, or calm and casual.

In contrast, they’ve described themselves as lively, highenergy, and “hype,” inspired by upbeat tracks from Cage the Elephant and Grouplove.

Further back, they draw inspiration from The Beatles.

“We appreciate how, in The Beatles’ discography, there are lots of storytelling songs that are about characters,” says Arquiett, lead songwriter, rhythm guitarist, and founder.

“So a lot of our songs are character based, where we’re trying to tell a story of some fictional scenario,” adds the computer science major from Hamilton, N.Y. One of Chalant’s original songs, “The Knife,” tells the story of a man in mental distress. The chorus escalates with a folk-like string of notes ascending the guitar scale: “We’ve all been going on for too long / Skin and wire, the blood is all gone.” The song has become a favorite at their shows, including the packed Palace Theater in October 2024 and when the band performed it at the WRCU studio to an audience of student DJs singing along.

Before Chalant was formed, Arquiett wrote and practiced what would become the band’s first songs in his dorm room.

“I was really lucky to have a roommate who loved hearing me play,” he says, adding that the earliest and most active supporters of his music were his Gate House neighbors.

One of them, Tatela, became Chalant’s lead guitarist.

A member of the Colgate Thirteen, Tatela also pitched in on the songwriting process, leveraging his music theory knowledge to help arrange their songs. He deepened this skill in a Harmony II course, which

covers chromatic harmony and chord grammar.

“The course allowed me to think about chords in a new way, especially diminished chords and how they resolve,” says Tatela, a physics major from Somers, N.Y. “When I am writing a chord progression for Chalant, I use this knowledge to create unexpected turns in the music.”

Chalant’s bassist, Bradley, was also a Gate House resident. After a run-in with Arquiett at the mail annex, she began practicing with the group. “My dad had just shipped me a bass guitar from home,” recalls the mathematical economics and philosophy major from Austin, Texas. “Craig saw it, and was like, ‘Do you play?’” Although Bradley was just starting to learn, inspired by her father (a touring bassist), she quickly picked up the instrument, connecting with her dad and her bandmates in the process.

Today, she values the connection she’s made with her Gate House neighbors, who went from strangers to best friends.

“Chalant feels like a family,” she says. “The respect we have for each other is like nothing I’ve ever experienced before — I think that speaks to the level of friendship that we have.”

— Tate Fonda ’25 Spring 2025

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Women's Basketball

RECORD SETTER Track and Field Nell Droege ’28 set a new school record in the 3000m and earned a fifth-place finish with a time of 9:47.59 at the IC4A/ECAC Championships in March at Boston University. →

18 Colgate Magazine Spring 2025

Dylan Rippe (women's basketball), Brian Miller (Droege)

The Raiders were unable to down Bucknell in the Patriot League Quarterfinals as Colgate fell 63–58 at Cotterell Court on March 10.

Taylor Golembiewski ’25 logged a team-high 20 points for her 11th consecutive double-digit performance dating back to Jan. 29. The Raiders moved to 6–4 in March in the last two seasons.

Golembiewski and Morgan McMahon ’25, along with Anne Bair ’26, were selected for the Patriot League postseason honors. Golembiewski earned First Team All-League while McMahon and Bair were named Third Team.

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Men’s basketball Football

Meet New Head Coach Fitzpatrick

A The greatest conference run in Patriot League history came to an unfortunate end one game short of a championship, as the third-seeded Raiders fell to second-seeded American 72–62 in semifinal action March 9 at Bender Arena.

Colgate did not represent the Patriot League in the championship game for the first time since 2017, ending a magical ride of seven consecutive championship appearances, four straight titles, and five crowns in six years under 14thyear head coach Matt Langel. Three seniors, Jeff Woodward, Nicolas Louis-Jacques, and Chandler Baker, concluded their Colgate careers 88–49 overall and 59–13 against Patriot League opponents. That includes four Patriot League championships, four 20-win seasons, and four regular season titles.

Olivia Hokanson (men's hockey), Jordan Doroshenko (men's basketball)

Men’s hockey

n experienced leader with proven success, Curt Fitzpatrick has been named Colgate’s new Fred ’50 and Marilyn Dunlap Head Football Coach.

Fitzpatrick becomes the 31st head coach in Colgate football history, after most recently leading Division III SUNY Cortland to a 45–5 record in four seasons at the helm. The 2023 Division III National Coach of the Year guided Cortland to a national championship in 2023 in addition to four consecutive Empire 8 titles.

Prior to Cortland, Fitzpatrick spent seven years as the head coach at SUNY Morrisville, where the program accumulated 35 victories. The 2014 East Region Coach of the Year helped the Mustangs to four winning seasons, three postseason appearances, and a conference championship. Fitzpatrick’s 2014 New Jersey Athletic Conference winners were the first Morrisville State squad to claim a league title since joining NCAA Division III, also becoming the first team in program history to win the ECAC North Central Bowl. Fitzpatrick’s collegiate coaching career began at his alma mater, St. John Fisher, as a quarterbacks coach before moving on to an offensive coordinator role with Utica College.

Get some insight into who he is and his plans for the Raiders:

and see it as an opportunity to overcome it.

That’s what our team is going to be based on. Knowing that if we’re the best we can be, then the win-loss record is going to be in our favor, hopefully. But we’ve got to work every day to make that happen.

“When you coach, you coach because you love being on a team. The players are the same way — being around each other, that’s what makes it special. When they’re tired and it’s snowing out, they’re going to do it not for themselves, but for the guys they’ve built those relationships with. That’s what the spring semester’s for, what the morning runs are for, what the hard work is for. You’re bettering yourself, but you’re also building that bond so that you’re willing to do what it takes for the brotherhood of the guys next to you when it’s hard in the fall.

“I have a wonderful wife, Molly, who is really the head coach of our family, and three great children. We have a daughter who is in first grade, and we have two boys, who are 5 and 3 and a half. We have a busy house, but they love athletics. Football is family in a lot of ways. My kids will be out to practice, they’ll pop into the office. They get to know the coaches, they get to know the players, and they look up to the players so much. I like it for our players to know that we’re real people, too, that we have families.

I hope I can provide a great example of being a husband and a father blended with a football coach. I think that helps build the culture of a football team.”

— Interview by Jordan Doroshenko, excerpted from the 13 podcast

“What I’ve learned over the years is that every year is different. You have some of the same players, same coaches, but there are a lot of new people too. Every team is different. As a coach, you have to be willing to build it from the ground up every year.

Assume nothing, earn everything. You can’t assume that just because last year happened [one way] that this year is going to happen the same way.

Men’s hockey ended its season at home on March 15 with a 3–0 loss to Cornell in game 2 of the ECAC Quarterfinals. Andrew Takacs ’26 made 19 saves in goal, and Tommy Bergsland ’25 finished tied for ninth in program history in career assists by a defenseman (57). Bergsland’s 152 career games also rank tied for seventh most in team history.

“[I’m] a very consistent coach. On the field, I’m a fairly aggressive coach. I think the players love playing that way … physically and mentally tough.

“In football you have to be resilient. Not everything’s going to go your way. How you bounce back from one play to the next, that’s being able to stare adversity in the face Spring 2025

Colgate Magazine

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scene

Middle Campus

New Series: Clifford Family Innovator in Residence Francesca Zambello ’78 workshops her opera-ballet, O'Keeffe: Kiss the Sky.

choreographer Jessica Lang, and twotime Grammy Award–winning composer Christopher Tin set to work right away, creating in an iterative fashion. As librettist, Rourke selected the key scenes and assembled them in a way that tells a satisfying story.

Before arriving on campus, Tin and Rourke had begun some of the arias, but during

the workshop, they further evolved the relationships between the three characters.

The team’s first task was to identify how to develop the characters through song and movement. It quickly became apparent that each character would be represented by a vocalist and dancer pairing. While the singers voiced the characters they played,

“I have things to say in color and shape that can’t be contained in words … the time has come for a new way of seeing things.”

Lyrics sung by Michelle Mariposa as Georgia O’Keeffe in O’Keeffe: Kiss the Sky

20 Colgate Magazine Spring 2025

Dancers Eve Jacobs (standing), Milan Misko (standing), and Rachel Secrest (floor)

ryan j. lee

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n late February, Francesca Zambello ’78 arrived on campus with a story idea, an artistic team, and a bevy of performers.

They had five days to workshop her new project, and the world-renowned opera and theater director was happy to return to Colgate, where the seeds of her artistic career were planted. Zambello is the first to hold the title of Clifford Family Innovator in Residence, and the residency is a gift for her to spend time creating, as well as to share that process with students.

Zambello had worked with all the assembled creatives before, both in her current role as the artistic director for the Washington National Opera at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and in her former role as the artistic and general director emerita of the Glimmerglass Festival in Cooperstown, N.Y. This time, the team began developing a new performance piece that blends opera with classical and modern dance elements.

By the week’s end, they had sketched out the essential parts of a narrative about artist Georgia O’Keeffe; her husband, photographer and gallery owner Alfred Stieglitz; and socialite and arts patron Mabel Dodge Luhan.

Librettist and dramaturg Kelley Rourke,

SCENE

Francesca Zambello ’78

the dancers represented the characters’ souls. The couples were formed: mezzo soprano Michelle Mariposa and dancer Eve Jacobs as O’Keeffe, tenor Nicholas Huff and dancer Milan Misko as Stieglitz, and mezzo soprano Winona Martin and dancer Rachel Secrest as Luhan.

As composer, Tin’s mission was to develop a unique sound for each character through music — highlighting the artistic dedication of O’Keeffe; the frenetic, distinctly American energy of Luhan; and a sophisticated, more European sensibility for Stieglitz. Lang conveyed O’Keeffe’s artworks and the landscape of the American West through choreography, which Rourke said furthered the narrative in ways the typical tools of opera cannot.

“This week has been a ferocious pace of working on new music, new dance,

and new words,” Zambello said. “But things don’t work without a love story, and with love of art and love of friendship, this is a different kind of love story.”

The result is a visual and auditory telling of the relationship between two women who found personal and artistic freedom in the American West. As operas typically feature male protagonists, it is unconventional for this production to center on women and their friendship.

On the final night, the group gave two performances of O’Keeffe: Kiss the Sky in the new Experimental Exhibition and Performance Space in Bernstein Hall. Two students, Summer Davies ’28 and Josie Martin ’28, were selected to dance in the showcase and others were involved as assistants, technicians, and through classwork.

The team left campus with the elements of their production — a framework that they will continue to develop. One day, they will perform this novel mixture of opera and ballet on a larger stage, giving theatergoers “a new way of seeing things.”

The Clifford Family Innovator in Residence is made possible through the generosity of J. Christopher Clifford ’67, H’11, Keena Clifford P’93, and Carrie Clifford ’93, and their support of Colgate’s Arts, Creativity, and Innovation Initiative. The residency will bring innovators from across different fields in the arts, entrepreneurship, pedagogy, and technology to share their knowledge and work with the Colgate community.

Faculty

Endowed Chair Appointments

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rovost and Dean of the Faculty Lesleigh Cushing announced the following Board of Trustees–approved appointments, effective July 1.

Georgia Frank, Department of Religion, has been appointed as Chapel House Professor of religious pluralism, which entails being director of Chapel House and administrator of the Fund for the Study of Great Religions of the World. The Chapel House Professor of religious pluralism is an endowed chair Georgia Frank established anonymously

All articles by Rebecca Taurisano

Rachel Moss

in 1957 to encourage the sympathetic study of the religions of the world; to encourage spiritual communication between men and women of differing religious traditions; and to encourage through teaching, writing, and scholarly research the sympathetic presentation of the religions of the world as they are seen by their participants.

Frank joined the faculty in 1994, and her research is focused on sacred stories, the senses, and materiality. Her books include Unfinished Christians: Ritual Objects and Silent Subjects in Late Antiquity and The Memory of the Eyes: Pilgrims to Living Saints in Christian Late Antiquity. In addition to teaching a range of courses in religion, she has led the study group in St. Andrews, Scotland, and has been deeply involved in the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program and the Core program. She currently serves as chair of the religion department, interim director of Chapel House, and interim director of the Fund for the Study of Great Religions. She served as associate dean of the faculty from 2013–16 and interim director of the Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies Program from 2018–19.

Rachel Moss, Department of Theater, has been appointed as Murray W. and Mildred K. Finard Visiting Chair in Jewish studies. This chair was established in 1993 by Mildred K. Finard and her son, William G. Finard ’68, to honor Murray W. and Mildred K. Finard.

It recognizes in perpetuity the values and commitment shared by the Finard family and assists Colgate in supporting outstanding faculty in Jewish studies. The appointment to the chair is based on the individual’s teaching excellence and scholarly achievements.

Selection of the chairholder is made by the president of the University in consultation with the dean of the faculty.

Moss is a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Theater, having arrived at Colgate in 2023. Her research focuses on the “performance of Jewish material, identities, and tropes within and outside of theater and their complex entwinement within broader sociopolitical narratives in context.” She has presented her work at the Association for Jewish Studies, the Association for Theatre in Higher Education, and the American and British Associations for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies. Moss served as co-editor of The Dybbuk Century: The Jewish Play that Possessed the World, which was published in 2023. Her writing has also appeared in Theatre Survey, Journal of American Drama and Theatre, Theatre Journal, AJS Review, Culture.pl, and Színház.

Spring 2025

Colgate Magazine

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Discover

Geoscience

Warming Winters Spell Change for Antarctic Permafrost Colgate students discover alarming findings about Antarctica’s stability.

22 Colgate Magazine Spring 2025

ntarctica is like no other place on Earth. The continent has been locked in glaciers for 34 million years, with a mere 1% of the land surface free of ice sheets.

“It’s Earth’s radiator, central to how the planet maintains livable temperatures,” says Joe Levy, associate professor of earth and environmental geosciences. “The long-held perception is that Antarctica, unlike the Arctic, is very stable and its permafrost isn’t threatened.”

Levy’s newly published study in Antarctic Science, however, reveals that Antarctica is changing in ways that will alter its influence on global climate and ocean patterns.

The study started as a senior class project in 2023. Levy asked students to read a paper about the effects of warming Arctic winters on permafrost and then look for evidence of similar trends in Antarctica.

“Existing Antarctic research all focused on summertime warming,” says Levy. “No one thought we needed to look during the winter. The average temperature is -30 Celsius, after all.”

The class analyzed publicly available wintertime data from 10 automated meteorological stations maintained through the McMurdo Dry Valleys Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Project, part of the National Science Foundation’s LTER Program. “You don’t have to go to Antarctica to be an Antarctic scientist, thanks to the amazing data they collect and publish,” Levy says. “My students loved digging into these nearly real-time data sets and being part of the discovery process.”

The students did indeed find consistent evidence of rising winter temperatures in the McMurdo Dry Valleys. At 1,900 square miles, the dry valleys comprise Antarctica’s largest ice-free region. “They’re our laboratory for understanding Antarctica’s land-based processes, including how water and dissolved nutrients run off the soil into the Southern Ocean,” Levy says. “They’re also a model for how Antarctica could function in a future with drastically less ice.”

The class’s findings inspired Levy and Gavin Fowler ’24, now a graduate student at the University of Chicago, to dig deeper. Fowler, who co-authored the new study, created the code to organize and analyze a massive amount of meteorological information: 30 years of soil temperature, air temperature, wind speed, and infrared radiation data collected by the 10 LTER stations.

“We were blown away to find that not only were winters getting warmer — the rate of warming is greater in winter than summer,” Levy says.

When the permafrost can’t freeze as

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Illustration by Ben Konkol

For geoscientists, this is a wake-up call. We need to think differently and put aside preconceptions about Antarctica’s stability.

Profile

Drilling for Ancient Ice to Decode Climate History

Professor Joe Levy

deeply in winter, more melting and erosion can occur in summer whether summertime temperatures are increasing or not. “Think of scooping ice cream that’s frozen through.

Then think about ice cream that hasn’t been in the freezer long,” Levy says. “It’s softer and a lot easier to scoop. You reach lower levels and expose them more quickly. Then they melt more quickly.”

Hurricane-like winter windstorms are known to push warmer air across the dry valleys. When Levy and Fowler removed wind from the data, however, they still saw “background warming.” “This demonstrates the air is getting warmer in winter independent of local weather in a particular valley,” Levy says.

“For geoscientists, this is a wake-up call.

We need to think differently and put aside preconceptions about Antarctica’s stability,” Levy says. “Students were instrumental in this project because they didn’t bring those preconceived notions.”

Over time, Antarctica may evolve from a cold desert reminiscent of the Martian landscape to an ecosystem akin to Arctic tundra. Levy projects that the first permafrost could completely thaw and vanish from Antarctica as early as 2130. “In geological terms, 2130 is remarkably close,” he says.

How this evolution will influence Earth’s climate, oceans, and life in temperate zones over the coming decades will be an important topic for further research. Levy’s own nearterm next steps include using satellite remote sensing and a network of ground sensors to learn how widespread wintertime warming is across the continent and confirm the rate of warming in locations outside the dry valleys.

“This project confirms in my mind that the change is inevitable. That means the coming loss of a very special place,” Levy says. “But if we hadn’t realized what’s happening to the permafrost now, we would’ve been blindsided by the time the effects are significant.”

He adds: “Antarctic scientists do what we do to prepare people everywhere for what the future holds. The more we know about how Antarctica is changing, the more we can prepare.”

— Meghan McDonald

he white canvas tent shakes behind paleoclimatologist Fairuz Ishraque ’22 as he speaks on a Zoom call from the windswept Allan Hills of Antarctica. “The crux of the problem we’re trying to tackle as a team is we know very little about the Earth’s climate history beyond a million years ago,” he explains, dressed in a heavy parka to protect against temperatures as low as -30° Celsius.

He and his fellow scientists are rectifying that problem by drilling deep to unlock records of the Earth’s past, frozen in ancient ice. “These records help us understand how climate systems evolved and how they respond to rapid changes,” he says.

The first Bangladeshi scientist to conduct research within the United States Antarctic Program on the continent, Ishraque experienced the devastating impact of climate change firsthand at age 4 when his family’s home was lost to the effects of riverbank erosion, forcing them to relocate to the urban center of Chittagong. An early interest in earth sciences and astronomy led him to Colgate’s astrogeophysics program, where he spent three years studying the geology of Mars with Professor Joe Levy, using satellite images of its boulder-strewn

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glaciers to understand the red planet’s climate history. “I am constantly using my training from Colgate to better understand the sedimentary processes and flows here,” he says.

His interest in climate science inspired Ishraque to join the lab of paleoclimatologist John Higgins at Princeton, where Ishraque is now a doctoral candidate. Last year, he was one of three recipients of a prestigious UCAR Next Generation Fellowship from the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, which is helping fund his current research on ice-core science and glaciology.

He traveled to Antarctica for the first time last November for a 10-week stint studying in the Allan Hills, a so-called blue ice area where ancient ice is pushed to the surface by the dynamic flows of the ice sheet.

“Anything that goes into the ice sheet eventually comes out at a blue-ice area,” explains Ishraque, who is “helping extract ice cores containing tiny bubbles that preserve bits of the Earth’s atmosphere as old as 6 million years. To analyze the samples, Ishraque uses cryo-laser ablation mass spectrometry, a technique he codeveloped with Higgins. “We vaporize tiny sections of the ice with ultraviolet lasers,” he explains. The technique allows them to create a detailed map of the Earth’s climate records over time based on minute samples with minimal destruction of the ice core.

By analyzing the chemical composition of those samples — including traces of salt that can help identify sea level — they hope to gain valuable insight into critical periods such as the mid-Pliocene warming event 3 million years ago. “The pacing of these past warming events are quite similar to our current global warming event,” Ishraque says. “It gives us a good idea of what happens to the atmosphere when such huge changes happen in a short timescale.”

The snowy winters at Colgate helped prepare him for Antarctica’s extreme cold, but “nothing prepares you for the wind here,” Ishraque says. Gusts can reach speeds of 40 knots, requiring drilling operations to be conducted inside tents. He and his fellow researchers spend the day busy with intense physical labor, hauling equipment and 100-pound ice cores; while nights are spent on lawn chairs in a large heated tent trading stories and crossword puzzle books before retiring to small unheated tents to sleep.

The inhospitable conditions have hardly chilled Ishraque’s passion for scientific discovery. “I want to continue developing tools and techniques that advance ice-core research,” he says, helping better predict the Earth’s future by melting its distant past.

— Michael Blanding Spring 2025

Colgate Magazine

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DISCOVER

faculty findings ART

Preserving the Film Heritage of the World

Recent Research

by Colgate Scholars → For some recent college graduates, the COVID-19 pandemic has affected how they’ve transitioned into full adulthood.

That time of life is often marked by “firsts” such as starting a career, navigating finances, and falling in love. But because these grads faced uncertainty, anxiety, and isolation during the pandemic, they’ve inevitably gained self-awareness and clarity on their values. Meika Loe, professor of sociology and women’s, gender, and sexuality studies, has spent the past five years interviewing 2020 graduates for a study exploring how this generation is approaching their young adulthood chapter of life differently. → How is a dog’s health affected by being in a shelter versus adoption into a home setting? Associate Professor of Biology Ana Gabriela Jiménez launched a study on the topic, examining mitochondrial function and oxidative stress in shelter dogs compared with adopted dogs. She found that shelter dogs, especially those with neglect, had significantly lower antioxidant levels and higher oxidative damage, which may impair immune function. Jiménez hopes her findings will inspire more research into how shelter stress affects dogs long term. → In the late 19th and early 20th century, the notion of “impairment” was used by life insurance companies for discrimination and profit, finds Professor of History Dan Bouk. On the surface, “impairment” might seem a neutral term referring to a physical difference or limitation.

But doctors and actuaries employed by life insurance companies harnessed technologies to transform impairment into an instrument for quantifying risk — and for avoiding financial loss by rejecting that risk. Identifying and surveilling impairment had little to do with social welfare, Bouk says, and everything to do with denying “care, treatment, protections, and financial security to people whose bodies didn’t fit a narrow definition of what health was supposed to look like.”

Read the full articles at news.colgate.edu/ researchmagazine.

24 Colgate Magazine Spring 2025

A search for rare Cold War propaganda films launched Professor Brynn Hatton into a community of scholars racing to save aging film stock around the world.

rofessor Brynn Hatton first heard about the obscure film archive in the Jordanian capital of Amman in an email posting by technologist Matthew Epler in 2012. He had come across a dusty collection of 16 mm and 35 mm film reels — some 900 in all — in a forgotten room in the country’s Royal Film Commission and asked for help translating the titles. The archive consisted of propaganda films promoting solidarity between the Soviet Union and its allies from the 1960s and ’70s, and Hatton was especially intrigued by the mention of several unidentified Vietnamese films, corresponding to her own area of interest in Vietnam as a cultural idea.

Then a doctoral student in art history at Northwestern, Hatton spent two years raising funds to visit the archive; just 10 days before the trip, however, she was crushed to receive notice that she would no longer be allowed access.

She took the trip anyway, the start of a winding journey that would result in a unique interdisciplinary community poised to create unprecedented access to old and deteriorating films around the world.

“I’ve never looked at any of the films properly that are in this archive,” Hatton told an audience last October at Colgate, where she is now Kindler Family Assistant Professor in global contemporary art. “The individual filmic specimens here are not the treasure.”

Instead, they served as a catalyst for the creation of a new device — a portable, open-source film projector dubbed the kinograph, which can be 3-D printed by anyone, fit into a standard-size suitcase, and be flown anywhere in the world. A researcher can “digitize a really good print of a 16 mm or 35 mm film on-site, with great sound and image capture,” Hatton told the audience, appearing alongside Epler and several other collaborators. The next day, Epler demonstrated the device at Colgate before giving it to the University for faculty and student use.

The device could be a game changer for film preservation. “Right now, film digitization happens mostly in professional labs and is prohibitively expensive,” Hatton says. At the same time, decaying 16 mm and 35 mm films languish in private archives all over the world, much of it without access to any equipment to play it. In Jordan, members of the collective were unable to find a projector in the entire country capable of screening the films in the royal archive. “These older media formats are disappearing,” she says.

Arriving in Jordan a decade ago, Hatton made the best of her lack of access to the archive by conducting interviews with locals about the films, which were screened by a cultural organization called the Jordan Soviet Friendship Society during the Cold War in an effort to curry favor for communism in the strategically important Middle East. While many of them were standard Soviet propaganda films, some, including two films from Vietnam and several from the Palestinian Liberation Organization, were much rarer. During her time in Jordan, Hatton made contact with Epler and other scholars — including Arab film historian Kay Dickinson, Soviet historian Masha Salazkina,

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DISCOVER

mark diorio

Professor Brynn Hatton (left) and technologist Matthew Epler with a kinograph, a portable, open-source film projector

and artist Ala Younis — who all worked in tandem to piece together the significance of the collection.

Just a day before she was to leave the country, Hatton was granted access to the archive for one afternoon and scrambled to catalog some of the films by taking pictures of the negatives. Even so, she realized that the real value of the archive was not the individual films, but the way they were used in Jordan and other countries to win hearts and minds through hundreds of other Soviet friendship organizations across the landscape of the Cold War. Even as she was conducting that research, Hatton and her new colleagues were creating a “friendship society” of their own, reaching across disciplines to think even more broadly about how to preserve and utilize the networks of decaying film archives across the world. By now, Epler was working on the kinograph as a student at New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications Program, meeting virtually with Hatton and other historians and artists for input as well as

with engineers across the world who helped design the equipment. One of Hatton’s first requests when she started as a professor at Colgate in 2019 was for a grant to support the continued development of the device.

In a short article he wrote about the decade-long project, Epler calls the kinograph more than a collaboration, but a community. “This multidisciplinary approach has made kinograph a richer and more robust project than it could have been if driven solely by technologists,” he wrote.

From the beginning, the collective was adamant that the kinograph be open source, so that anyone around the world could use it. Libraries, universities, and film societies could preserve their own collections, even as scholars could make the most of their tenuous access to archives to digitize films on-site. Plans to make a kinograph are available for free online, where they can be downloaded, used, and improved upon by anyone with the curiosity to do so.

As Epler, Salazkina, Dickinson, and Younis all assembled for the panel discussion unveiling the kinograph at

Colgate, Hatton took pleasure in thinking that the originators of the archive would have approved of the mission of this new “friendship society,” making it possible to further disseminate films around the world — all without regard to profit.

“As we collaborate across national and disciplinary boundaries toward diverse individual ends,” she said, “we take cues from the pan-socialist solidarity networks of transnational friendship that brought this film collection into the world.”

— Michael Blanding

Spring 2025

Colgate Magazine

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Environment

Mapping Out the Future Jack Breitowich ’22 is combining his love of the outdoors with an enthusiasm for geographic data collection to plot sustainable use of natural resources in New Zealand.

he complex geology of New Zealand not only makes the island nation a visual wonder, full of diverse landscapes, but also a country rich in natural resources, like minerals and verdant farmland. As a geospatial specialist with Williamson Water & Land Advisory (WWLA) in Auckland, Jack Breitowich ’22 is helping local industries assess both the impact they might have on the environment and how a changing environment could impact them.

“I consult with clients, like mine owners, land developers, and farmers, to help them utilize their natural resources as sustainably and effectively as possible,” Breitowich explains. “Whether that’s understanding the groundwater in the area or looking at potential land contamination in an area of development, we are an objective, unbiased third party focused on the environment.”

Most of the projects he works on involve gathering Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) imagery, a remote sensing method that uses a laser transmitter (like a drone or satellite) to scan a surface and gather measurements from the refracted light.

The data collected is then processed and can be used to make high-resolution maps to assess both large-scale issues, like where water might flow based on contours of the land, and smaller-scale problems, like where runoff from roofs containing asbestos might contaminate soil after a heavy rain.

In addition to remote sensing data, Breitowich and his colleagues also use aerial imagery, modeling and analysis software, and on-the-ground measurements, among other tools, to make plans that minimize a client’s impact on the land and water around them, but also to analyze the potential for environmental changes that could impact their businesses in the future.

For example, Breitowich recently worked

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26 Colgate Magazine Spring 2025

on a project that used gauges to determine the flow rate of the streams running through a proposed mine.

“We were standing in the water and putting those tools in to gain an accurate estimate of how fast the stream was running. And we do that at high flow postrain, during rain, and low flow during a dry period — as many conditions as possible,” says Breitowich.

He notes that field work was one of the things that drew him to his current position.

“This mine in particular is right on the coast, so you get these beautiful cliffs and rugged coastline, and it’s very isolated, so you don’t feel like you’re in a big city, you feel like you’re actually out in New Zealand.”

Working in New Zealand — or even in land management — wasn’t always on Breitowich’s radar. In fact, when he arrived at Colgate in 2018, he wasn’t sure what he wanted to study. But a chance encounter during an extracurricular activity helped him find a path forward.

“At the start of my sophomore year, I took a flying lesson at the Hamilton Municipal Airport and the flight instructor asked what classes I enjoyed,” remembers Breitowich, who is now a licensed pilot both in the U.S. and New Zealand. “When I mentioned geography, he told me Professor Peter Scull had just finished up his pilot license, so that

afternoon I went straight to his office and started chatting with him. We had a great conversation, and he became my adviser.”

A course in geographic information systems (GIS), taken remotely from Aruba during COVID-19 lockdowns, allowed Breitowich to combine his scuba diving hobby with tracking lionfish populations for a research project, further cementing his interests in geographic studies. And an independent study throughout the spring semester of his junior year took him to Tahiti to use GIS tools to map reefs.

Before moving to yet another island — New Zealand — in 2024, Breitowich earned a master’s degree from the University of Southern California in geospatial intelligence, a field that explores the use of tools like remote sensing to inform disaster management, military operations, and other activities on Earth from space. He hopes he can continue to marry his outside passions with career opportunities that help the planet.

“Working for WWLA has been a great opportunity for me to explore New Zealand and work while doing it,” he says. “I’ve done some really cool jobs gathering data, and learning about the geology and the physical geography of the country has been very interesting.”

— Katie Neith Illustration by Matthew Twombly

discover aid in earthquake detection and location of rare minerals.

Resources

New Microscope Enables Researchers to Image Vastly Tinier Objects

ee hairs on the leg of a fly, spores on a fern, and nanowires that are a hundred thousand times thinner than the diameter of a human hair — researchers at Colgate now have this ability with a new field emission scanning electron microscope (FE-SEM).

Funding for the FE-SEM came from a $439,805 National Science Foundation (NSF) grant. Complete with a suite of high-tech detectors, the FE-SEM will aid faculty and also train students for advanced research in geology, physics, biology, computer science, and other fields. “[The detectors] are incredibly versatile,” says primary investigator (PI) Martin Wong, professor of earth and environmental geosciences. “So many different things happen when electrons hit a surface, and you can use all those different signals to examine the composition and structure of your sample.” With a much smaller wavelength than visible light, electrons allow researchers to image vastly tinier objects than is possible with an optical microscope.

Here are some of the applications:

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→ Geology professor William Peck studies the formation of rocks in the Adirondack Mountains, Ontario, and New Jersey. He’ll be able to use the electron microscope to image samples with something called the secondary electron detector, which is able to display a graded map that differentiates between minerals.

For a more in-depth analysis, he’ll use an X-ray energy spectrometer, which can measure the degree that the electron stream excites the atoms within a sample, emitting X-rays that provide a fingerprint of which specific elements are contained within. → Ramesh Adhikari, assistant professor of physics, works with organic materials.

One project, for example, coaxes amino acids to self-assemble into tiny nanotubes; another threads nanoscopic computing components into the veins of leaves.

“These bio-based materials tend to absorb the electrons that fall onto them, so you don’t really see that much,” Adhikari says.

That problem can be fixed by turning up the voltage of the beam; however, that actually damages organic samples.

The new microscope, however, can produce high-resolution images at a very low voltage without damaging fragile organic components, allowing Adhikari to examine the tiny structures he is creating.

Among other uses, he is embedding the nanotubes into a polyester fabric to create

a hydrophobic material that can filter oil from water. The leaves can be used to create biodegradable electronic equipment.

→ The ability to create crisp images at a low voltage is also essential for the work of Rebecca Metzler, professor of physics, who studies biomineralization, the process by which marine organisms create shells and other hard materials.

Some of her work examines exoskeleton formation by juvenile barnacles, which can be a scant 100 microns wide. “Our current scanning microscope can’t resolve the crystals making up their exoskeletons,” says Metzler, who has previously had to make the 75-mile trip to Cornell to use its more advanced equipment. She also studies other species of clams from the Gulf of Mexico, using the X-ray spectrometer to identify elements, and the backscatter diffraction detector to examine how crystals are oriented within shells in order to see how climate change affects the durability of shells over time.

In addition to these projects, the microscope will be used by a variety of faculty, studying everything from volcanic eruptions in the Galápagos Islands to wear patterns of tools at pre-Hispanic archaeological sites. Countless students will use it for theses projects over the next couple of decades; at the same time, exposure to the advanced instrument will provide students with experiences that could help them in working with microprocessors, nanotechnology, or mining. “This is a broadly used piece of equipment with all sorts of research and industry applications,” Wong says. “Being trained on it will give students a leg up no matter what avenue they pursue.”

— Michael Blanding

→ Wong’s research focuses on plate tectonics of how mountain belts form and continents split. “When rocks are hot and deep, they don’t snap or break, but they actually flow like silly putty or saltwater taffy,” says Wong, who focuses on an area of the American West called the Basin and Range Province. He analyzes samples with a special detector called an electron backscatter diffraction detector, which is able to show how crystals are oriented within it. “That tells us a lot about which directions they were stretching in, the temperatures at which they were doing that, and how deep inside the Earth they were.” While Wong is mostly interested in the basic science behind such processes, understanding them can also Illustrations by Bernie Freytag

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28 Colgate Magazine Spring 2025

BY MARY donofrio

What’s in a Name?

A Brooklyn street, a beloved town park, a now-extinct plankton species that marks the end of a glacial era. These namesakes are living proof of how alumni and faculty are shaping the world in varied — and sometimes surprising — ways.

On Ferns and Friendship

O

n a walk through the rainforest of Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula in 2016, Wes Testo ’12 spotted something that made him stop in his tracks.

Then a PhD student at the University of Vermont, Testo had been studying ferns for nearly eight years, an interest that began under the early guidance of Colgate Professor of Biology Eddie Watkins. With his well-trained eye — honed through hours spent in Costa Rica’s dense, tropical forests with Watkins — Testo knew the “weird little fern” he noted that day was unlike anything he’d seen before.

“I could tell from the shape of the leaf and the white hairs covering it that this was a hybrid of the two species growing next to it,” recalls Testo. He collected the leaves for further study, and soon confirmed that the funky-looking fern was the first documented specimen of its kind — and it needed a name.

“I had wanted to name something after Eddie not only to honor his contributions to the study of tropical ferns, but also because of the personal impact his mentorship and friendship have had on me,” says Testo.

Illustrations by James Steinberg

“

I had wanted to name something after Eddie not only to honor his contributions to the study of tropical ferns, but also because of the personal impact his mentorship and friendship have had on me.

Wes Testo ’12

In March 2018, with the publication of Testo’s findings, Pityrogramma ×watkinsii was born.

“To date, the only place where that particular hybrid has been found is that one little trail in the woods in Costa Rica,” says Testo. “I think that’s pretty cool.”

Recalling his first few weeks at Colgate in fall 2008, Testo admits he “had no idea what I was doing.” Without a major or career path in mind, the first-generation college student knew only that he had a deep interest in nature, cultivated during his childhood on a farm in rural Westerlo, N.Y. But, through “sheer luck,” says Testo, he landed in Watkins’ Evolution, Ecology, and Diversity class, where the professor shared his “intoxicating enthusiasm” for plants. Watkins, also in his first year at Colgate at the time, quickly became a mentor to Testo, helping him navigate both college life and his academic future.

The two began collaborating in the lab and on fieldwork in Costa Rica — Testo’s first time outside the U.S. Their research on fern ecology and physiology produced several academic papers and helped Testo earn admission to University of Vermont’s PhD program in plant biology.

Watkins remembers learning of his namesake fern in an email from Testo. The subject line: “Surprise for you.”

“It’s the biggest honor of my career,” Watkins says, adding that his former student often jokes that, with Spring 2025

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its tufts of “unkempt” and graying hair, the Pityrogramma ×watkinsii resembles its honoree.

“He likes to give me a hard time,” Watkins says, laughing.

After earning his PhD in 2017, Testo went on to postdoctoral research in Florida and Sweden, and later, served as assistant curator of pteridophytes at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, where he led the curation of the museum’s fern collection. Today, he’s back at Vermont as assistant professor of plant biology and director of the university’s herbarium.

Testo and Watkins regularly catch up at professional conferences, teach, and travel together for research; their most recent trip to Costa Rica was this past January.

“Wes was my first research student in the lab at Colgate, and I am now learning from him,” says Watkins. “And really, isn’t that every professor’s dream? That’s why we do this in the first place.” ●

A Piece of the Molecular Puzzle

F

or organic chemists, making molecules in the lab is an important way to understand molecular structure and function — and how Professor Ernie Nolen developed the molecule that went on to bear his name.

It was the mid-1980s, and Nolen, now Colgate’s Gordon and Dorothy Kline Chair in chemistry, was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Pennsylvania, working to build a newly discovered molecule found in certain wild grasses. When consumed, the molecule, known as a tremorgen, causes livestock to present with a halting stagger, convulsions, and even death.

“I wanted to understand what in their structure causes that biological activity,” says Nolen. “In this case, the molecule was causing a reaction similar to symptoms of multiple sclerosis, epilepsy, or Parkinson’s disease.”

In 1985 Nolen successfully built the eastern hemisphere of the tremorgen, and his work was continued by Penn colleague Paul Sprengeler. The molecule was henceforth known as the Nolen-Sprengeler Lactone and has resulted in hundreds of publications referencing Nolen’s findings, advancing the study of fungus-produced tremorgens within the field.

Still, Nolen tends toward modesty: “[Having a molecule named after me] is a cool novelty,” he says. “Like the kind of thing my mother would have tacked on the fridge when I was a kid.” ●

Breaking Barriers Powell passed away in 1972, but his contributions endure: In Upper Manhattan, Seventh Avenue is also called Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, and Harlem’s State Office bears his name. →

A (Microscopic) Window Into the Future

S

ince beginning her research as a PhD student at Rice University, Amy Leventer has spent more than 40 years studying microfossils in the Southern Ocean near Antarctica — and a good portion of that time glued to the microscope, examining sediment samples to understand how Earth’s climate has transformed.

Leventer, the Harold Orville Whitnall Professor of Earth and environmental geosciences, specializes in paleoclimatic reconstructions of Antarctica, using highly sensitive single-celled organisms, called diatoms, to determine how climate has affected, and will affect, life on Earth.

“Diatoms are highly sensitive to changes in climate,” she explains. “So they’re helpful as time markers in the geological record.”

One diatom species is especially useful in this regard — and has held special meaning for Leventer, both personally and professionally, since its discovery in 1998. In honor of her commitment and dedication to studying polar marine microorganisms, Leventer’s colleagues named the diatom after her.

Rouxia leventerae went extinct nearly 130,000 years ago at the end of the penultimate glacial interval, an often-referenced marker in climate research; Leventer estimates her diatom has been cited in hundreds of publications since its discovery. “[Rouxia leventerae] marks the transition to the ‘Last Interglacial,’ which is the last time the Earth was warmer and sea level was higher than it is today,” she says. “It’s a time period of great interest to people who study climate — a window into what the world may soon be like.”

The name isn’t just a point of pride for Leventer, but also for her family, who “supported me when I went on these two-month treks to Antarctica,” she says. Her son, a surgeon, has a line drawing of Rouxia leventerae tattooed on his arm, and her husband, an emergency room physician, gifted her a pendant version for her recent milestone birthday. ●

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I

n Harlem, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard is a major thoroughfare named after a key figure in civil rights.

Before he was a leader in Congress, Adam Clayton Powell Jr. ’30 broke barriers at Colgate as one of the first African American students at the University when he enrolled in 1926. A “quiet, unobtrusive” student, according to his classmates, Powell graduated in 1930 with a degree in Biblical literature. He then returned to New York City, where his father had just retired as a well-known pastor of Harlem’s Abyssinian Baptist Church. Powell Jr. took up the reins, using the pulpit to address socioeconomic inequalities and organize boycotts throughout Harlem.

A charismatic and powerful speaker, Powell parlayed his popularity into a political career. He ran for his first seat in public office in 1941, becoming the first African American elected to the New York City Council. When Harlem became its own political entity through redistricting, Powell won a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives — the first person to represent the neighborhood in Washington — and used his platform to advance the civil rights movement, targeting Jim Crow laws and improving opportunities for African Americans.

In 1968, as then-chairman of the House’s education and labor committee, Powell returned to Colgate, and his lecture on “Black power and the white establishment” earned a standing ovation in Memorial Chapel.

Powell passed away in 1972, but his contributions endure: In Upper Manhattan, Seventh Avenue is also called Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Boulevard, and Harlem’s State Office bears his name. At Colgate, the Adam Clayton Powell Jr. ’30 Award was established in 1993 to recognize seniors who have made “outstanding contributions to Colgate and … enriched the cultural and social lives of students of color.” ●

I

n the western New York village of Lakewood, Richard O. Hartley Memorial Park is a favorite gathering spot for locals and visitors alike — but few know the story behind its name.

“Most people of his generation have passed away, so not a lot of folks in this area remember Richard,” says Linda Voltmann ’78 Swanson. “Which is a real shame.”

For Swanson, Richard O. Hartley, Class of 1925, was the “kindest, most lovely person,” and his eponymous park is a fitting tribute to the man who loved children, his community, and his alma mater.

Swanson met Hartley in the mid-1980s, when she and her late husband, Randall Swanson ’75 — then new parents to daughter Christine ’06 — moved to Lakewood, a

small village on the shore of Chautauqua Lake, where Hartley was a village trustee.

The Swansons came to know Hartley as an ever-present fixture and volunteer at community events, the local library, and Christine’s elementary school, where Hartley would, according to his May 1996 obituary, “assist pupils in assignments and follow their progress through high school, college, and careers, often sending them congratulatory letters for their accomplishments.”

Christine remembers his jovial presence in her fourth-grade classroom — and his signature driving cap and scarf.

“He was like everyone’s grandpa,” she says.

“This little old man with a big personality.”

Hartley was steadfast in his dedication to Colgate, as well, volunteering as an admission representative for the Jamestown-Lakewood area. He returned to campus each year for reunions, and soon began carpooling from Lakewood to Hamilton with the Swansons.

Some of Linda’s fondest memories of Hartley were from those car trips. While munching on roasted peanuts, Hartley would regale the family with tales of his Colgate days, his time in the Chemical Warfare Service during World War II, and the challenges of finding work as a chemist during the Great Depression.

In 1992 the village of Lakewood recognized Hartley’s contributions by renaming the local park in his honor.

When his wife, Frances, passed away in 1993, Hartley donated the proceeds from

her insurance to the project, funding the construction of a gazebo and a beach house.

Since then, and after his death in 1996, Richard O. Hartley Memorial Park has seen numerous additions and improvements, including the 2022 construction of a handicap-accessible play area that “would have really pleased Richard,” says Linda.

To honor their late friend, Linda and Christine tend the rose garden in Hartley Park — an effort that feels especially meaningful this spring, says Linda, on the 100th anniversary of Hartley’s graduation from Colgate.

“Richard was the archetype of what a Colgate graduate should be,” she adds. “He was a genuinely kind and unassuming person who pulled the weight of 10 people.” ● For his dedication and loyalty to Colgate, Hartley was awarded the Maroon Citation at his 65th Reunion in May 1990.

He’s Official

F

amed NFL linesman Wayne Mackie’s legacy lives on in his beloved Brooklyn neighborhood — and beyond.

Born and raised in Brooklyn’s Linden Houses, Mackie ’82 was a skilled athlete, but when a knee injury as a teenager curtailed his future in football, he shifted his attention to officiating. His career evolved from high school sports to the Mid-Eastern Atlantic Conference, Big East, and, eventually, the NFL, where he became known to players and coaches as one of the league’s most accurate — and most respected — linesmen. By 2016 he reached the pinnacle, serving as head official at Super Bowl 50 in Santa Clara, Calif.

Mackie, who passed away in 2022, was honored in fall 2024 when a street outside the Linden Houses was co-named “Wayne Mackie Way” in recognition of his career achievements and his dedication to the community.

Said City Councilman Chris Banks, who sponsored the co-naming: “Commemorating Wayne Mackie’s legacy by co-naming the street where he grew up is the least we can do to recognize the profound impact and positive influence that Wayne Mackie had on those from the 42nd Council District.” ● At Colgate, Mackie played baseball and basketball and hosted a funk and rap show on WRCU. One of “DJ Funky Mack’s” favorite tracks: “Celebration” by Kool and the Gang.

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MERRILL HOUSE

BUILDING COLGATE library of congress

By Tate Fonda ’25

Students in Professor Bob McVaugh’s architecture class study the campus’s evolution through the years. Here’s a look at four of the spaces students explored.

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M

any students pass through Colgate with an understanding

PHYSICS LAB SPACES

of the now — knowing where

THE HILL

their next class is, where to unwind in between, and where to call home during their four years in Hamilton. But in Professor of Art Bob McVaugh’s American Campus

THE REID TRAINING ROOM →

Architecture: Colgate course in the fall, his students took a step back, exploring how the University has acquired its institutional character through what McVaugh calls its “architectural ancestry.”

After reviewing the broader history of American campus architecture, McVaugh’s students delved into the University’s archives. Their research spanned from the early 19th to late-20th centuries (with access to materials after 1994 restricted to protect privacy concerns). Within the collections, each student built a story about an area that has been influential in their educational experience and how it has evolved over the University’s twocentury history.

“I try to get them to think of it as a genealogical project where they’re encountering a member of this architectural family, with which they become familiar and endeared while they’re here,” explains McVaugh. “We trace the ancestry, not just of the buildings on campus, but also the places where they’re located.”

Additionally, when new buildings are erected, they shape the atmosphere of preexisting areas. “As the neighborhood changes, the building itself may be the same,” says McVaugh. “But then there are new neighbors, plus function changes. Things mature.”

When West Hall was built in 1827, for example, its fourth floor housed the University chapel. Now, it serves as a residential building. “Virtually nothing there now, including the exterior, is exactly what the building was then,” McVaugh says. “Too often we talk about architecture as though these structures exist in a single moment in time, and they’re not dynamic. But they are. They’re part of a continuous, complicated life.”

Across their projects, McVaugh’s students chronicled this ongoing process — from former presidents’ houses to campus landscapes to athletics facilities.

“Too often we talk about architecture as though these structures exist in a single moment in time, and they’re not dynamic. But they are. They’re part of a continuous, complicated life.”

L.R. Burleigh. Map of Hamilton, N.Y., 1885

mark diorio (senior sunset)

— Professor Bob McVaugh

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THE HILL

O

n March 15, 1826, the University acquired 123 acres of land that would define its campus. Former archivist Howard Williams, in A History of Colgate University, described how the plot, “with its glorious vistas of rolling fields and woods, became Colgate’s nucleus.” Today, we refer to it as “the Hill”: encompassing the academic and residential quads, the student-dubbed “Field of Dreams” above Burke and Pinchin halls, and the cross-country trails. For their projects, Cub Scott ’26 and Biddie Clive ’27 examined how this communal landscape invites views both in and out.

Looking out, views of the Chenango Valley recall Colgate’s origin as a Baptist seminary. Panoramas of the valley are still ever-present — a prime example is the entrance of Persson Hall, where a vast scene

34 Colgate Magazine Spring 2025

of hills, buildings, and residences sprawls before the viewer. Then, there’s the “Field of Dreams”: the hill behind Burke and Pinchin halls where students gather to socialize and enjoy panoramic views of the sunset.

“When we are hanging out on the Field of Dreams, hours seem to slip away,” wrote Sarah Harris ’23 in a student feature for Colgate News. “My friends and I love to set up blankets on the soft grass and cover them in picnic foods from Frank or pizza from Slices.”

Farther up, the Harry H. Lang Cross Country Course comprises a network of trails surrounded by a few specialty areas.

In 2017 Professor Peter Klepeis and Jenna Lilly ’17 mapped them, marking key locations such as the ski hill, snowmobile path, rock quarry, and Darwin Thinking Path.

The path was named in 2007 by a student in Professor Connie Soja’s Core Distinction class, Liddy Kang ’08, who wished to share the ways of Darwin’s contemplative thought process with her peers. “I remembered, for example, that some of the best ideas I had for my freshman year papers were discovered when I was walking from East to Frank by myself, lost

in thought,” she said in a 2009 Maroon-News article.

A sign quoting Darwin marks the beginning of the path: “Get up your steam, if this weather lasts, and have a ramble — the glorious scenery must do everyone’s heart and body good.”

The students who have walked the University’s grounds throughout history could not have anticipated the developments that have shaped Colgate’s place as a characteristically beautiful, leading liberal arts institution.

“What I’ve learned, as well, is that you can create something for what you think the purpose is, but the way that people use it is what really defines it,” says Clive.

The ongoing construction of Peter’s Glen, a tiered pathway connecting middle and upper campus, presents new opportunities for student-centered evolution.

“A prime view of the valley is being reopened, reconnecting the campus to the awe-inspiring vistas that once defined its identity,” says Scott. “But in practice, the new generation will define what it means.”

mark diorio (senior sunset); andrew daddio (Persson Hall, 2)

Students call the Hill the “Field of Dreams.”

The students who have walked the University’s grounds throughout history could not have anticipated the developments that have shaped Colgate’s place as a characteristically beautiful, leading liberal arts institution.

View from Persson Hall

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Lab in West Hall, 1889

PHYSICS LAB SPACES

W

hen Lathrop Hall was built in 1905, it was intended for a much different purpose than its current role as a center for the humanities. Its first floor featured three lab spaces and a large lecture hall designed for physics. Eli Mayes ’26 traced the history of Colgate’s physics scene — from Lathrop to Hascall halls to the Robert H.N. Ho Science Center — considering how its pioneers led the way.

Physics curriculum was introduced

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to Colgate in 1832, when the University created a Natural Philosophy class. At the time, “Natural Philosophy” referred to early science as we knew it: combining principles of chemistry, physics, biology, and astronomy before they were separated into distinct fields. President Ebenezer Dodge brought the course into the Natural Science Department in 1868, and a year later, the department received a space in West Hall, complete with a laboratory and storage for zoological and geological specimens.

By the late 19th century, physics emerged

Mark diorio (Hascall/LATHROP halls)

Hascall Hall (foreground) and Lathrop Hall illuminated

as its own discipline. “And as science departments were able to become more specialized,” according to Mayes, “they expanded their curricula,” leading Colgate’s physics students and instructors to outgrow their shared space in West Hall. In 1886, the University built Hascall Hall — the first academic building on campus designated for physics and chemistry — featuring two classrooms and a shared lab on the second floor.

Five years later, Colgate established the Physics and Astronomy Department, and in 1892, it appointed Professor Ernest Fox Nichols as its head. His initiative to teach using classroom experiments rather than traditional methods inspired a time when, “as a result, the amount of laboratory equipment owned and utilized by the department expanded dramatically,” according to Mayes.

In the coming years, Nichols began to initiate research projects, becoming the first of many physics professors to conduct research at Colgate. His later work in building the Nichols radiometer, an innovation in measuring the pressure of light, earned him the 1905 Rumford Prize (American Academy of Arts and Sciences).

Successors to the department head position, such as Clement D. Child, brought with them new achievements. The first physics professor at Colgate to have a PhD, Child also added the first supplemental laboratory course to the physics curriculum in 1902. And with Child’s oversight, “the needs of the physics department were once again expanding,” according to Mayes.

“Colgate built Lathrop Hall.”

Lathrop Hall served as a space for the science community on campus until the early 2000s, when the physics department as we now know it moved into the Robert H.N. Ho Science Center. Within Ho, 53 lab spaces, a 96-seat lecture hall, and a 3D visualization lab accommodate five departments: environmental studies, geography, geology, physics and astronomy, and biology.

Mayes has spent the last two summers working in the Ho Science Center optics lab, where students use fiber optic cables and laser technology to conduct specialized research observing the behavior and properties of light. They apply their work toward developments in medical imaging, high-speed communication, and quantum technologies, among other possibilities.

“Within, we have tested theories and observed optical phenomena,” says Mayes.

“But we have also laughed, visited, thought, and contemplated the universe. It’s what physicists do.”

MERRILL HOUSE

H

ome to four Colgate presidents (George Edmands Merrill, Elmer Burritt Bryan, George Barton Cutten, and Everett Needham Case) and a host of activities throughout the University’s history, Merrill House has become a cornerstone of Colgate’s architectural heritage. With its preserved hardwood floors and grand staircase, the house retains the charm of a residence. In his project, Seth Walden ’25 explored not only these physical features, but also the people who have defined them.

Before Merrill House was built in 1900, the land was occupied by Treadway House, home

to local printer and publisher of the town newspaper, W.R.H. Treadway. After Treadway died (1836), he left the property to Anne Masters, a relative who later passed it on to her daughter, Ann Margaret King. When she sold the property and home to Colgate, King and a coalition of 18 other women funded its $6,000 cost as a tribute to the important female figures in the institution’s history, including Betsy Payne (town founder alongside her husband, Samuel Payne), Sophia Strong Hascall (wife of Daniel Hascall, a founder and one of the first teachers), and Hope Hubbell Conkling (married to James C. Colgate).

The home’s first University resident was President George Edmands Merrill

Merrill House, built 1900

The home’s first University resident was President Ebenezer Dodge, who adorned the space to reflect his scholastic, disciplined character.

President Ebenezer Dodge

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Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson visited in 2013.

President Ebenezer Dodge, who adorned the space to reflect his scholastic, disciplined character. In an 1896 issue of Madisonensis, a student describes how his reading room drew attention from guests, complete with “high bookcases, heavily laden to the very top shelves with the wisdom of the ages,” along with “the long rows of chairs completely encircling the room, the desk between the windows with the great chair behind it, but dominating all, the presence of the man.”

Following Dodge’s death (1890), the building briefly housed the Beta Theta Pi fraternity. But when George Edmands Merrill arrived, distinguished by his years at Harvard and service as a pastor, the administration chose to repurpose the plot with a residence named in his honor, Merrill House. “The slightly eccentric Treadway house did not suit the University’s evolving aesthetic of modernity and was in need of various expensive repairs,” explains Walden.

Beginning in 1899, it was razed and replaced with the more modern, lavish update.

The design was provided by Edwin A. Quick, an architect of Yonkers, N.Y., who had also created the plans for James B. Colgate Hall. He integrated several quirky features,

38 Colgate Magazine Spring 2025

including two sets of “talking tubes”: metal fixtures allowing announcements to be communicated throughout the house. “They still work,” says Walden.

Perhaps the tubes got the most use from the Case family (President Everett Needham Case; his wife, Josephine; and their children), who moved into the house in 1942. In an essay Josephine wrote about her time at Merrill House (“The House on the Hill”), she estimated that nearly 2,000 people came and went to Merrill House each year, including distinguished guests, such as former Secretary of State John Dulles and former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt.

“She mentioned that, when Eleanor Roosevelt was visiting once, [Josephine’s] kids woke [Roosevelt] up in the morning and asked her if she wanted to go see a cadaver in the biology lab,” says Walden.

Josephine, along with the children and her husband, put on 13 Christmas plays over the years, including Alice in Wonderland and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. “They would perform them in the front hall of Merrill House while an audience of faculty members watched from the grand staircase,” says Walden.

The use of Merrill House as the president’s home ended when the Cases bid farewell in 1962. It then transformed into the faculty club, featuring a restaurant and rooms on the second and third floors for

overnight guests. In 1992 it was renovated to serve its current purpose, with offices for University Communications on the second and third floors and Buildings and Grounds in the basement.

Walden, a Hamilton, N.Y., native, grew up visiting Merrill House — his father has worked on the second floor for as long as he can remember.

“From the time I was a little kid, I was always running around in there,” he recalls.

“Although it has changed from a home to an office space, it hasn’t lost its residential feel.” To this day, it remains a space for entertaining and socializing, with weekday lunch served to faculty, staff, and students, as well as a place for special events.

Some say that Merrill House is even occupied from dusk to dawn, as Jason Kammerdiener ’10 described in a submission to Colgate at 200, writing, “at night, its dark wood interior, grand staircase, and shadowy details blend to take on a sense of foreboding and menace.” In 2016 that haunting quality brought renowned ghost hunter John Zaffis to campus. At Merrill House, Zaffis reported evidence of paranormal activity.

“In a sense, I think Zaffis is right,” says Walden, with a smile. “If you ever get the chance to walk up the creaky grand staircase, listen closely — maybe you will catch a faint echo of laughter or the whisper of a round of applause after a good show.”

Courtesy of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library archives (Roosevelt); Janna Minehart ’13 (degrasse Tyson); Basil Childers (MerrilL House interior)

Eleanor Roosevelt was one of several distinguished guests who stayed in Merrill House.

THE REID TRAINING ROOM

A

s a cross country and track and field athlete, Nicholas Larson ’27 has become well acquainted with Reid Athletic Center — especially its trainers’ room.

“With time, I’ve really come to recognize the value of working with trainers,” he says. “The reality is, you can push yourself as hard as you want, but without proper recovery, those efforts won’t yield the results you want.”

Larson’s use of the 4,500-square-foot trainers’ facility — a space to condition, recover, and socialize — motivated him to research it for his project.

Since its construction in 1959, the Reid trainers’ room has evolved alongside developments in recovery technology, including hydrotherapy whirlpools, cooling and heating pads, and massage devices. Alongside these advancements, trainers remain an integral part of the facility, providing physical evaluation and rehabilitation services for student-athletes.

In its early days, Larson found, Reid functioned primarily as a meeting space for intramurals and physical education courses.

“It originally had a bowling alley, as well,” he

says — a space that now serves as The Victoria M. Chun ’91 and Susan Chun Academic Services Center for student-athletes. Today, Reid also houses the Colgate football locker room and coaches’ offices. “The training room bridges these spaces, bringing teams and their coaches closer together,” says Larson, who once fit into an ice bath with 20 of his teammates.

Beyond Reid’s interior features, Larson also considered the building as a neighbor to Huntington Gymnasium and Sanford Field House. “With its long arches and minimalist design, Reid does not match the architectural style of its neighbors,” he says. “In fact, it appears quite opposite to the straight, sturdy stone structures of Huntington and Sanford.”

It’s a unique look for a hub with a specific modern purpose — a “vibrant, buzzing space,” where, “over the course of Colgate’s history, we’ve seen the evolution of an athletics and social center becoming one,” concludes Larson.

Nearly six decades after the building of Reid, Colgate is reimagining its athletics campus. For more information, visit thirdcentury.colgate.edu.

ALL TOGETHER NOW At the end of this semester, McVaugh will retire, leaving behind sentiments of wisdom for his students. “Even outside of an architectural context, I believe that everything affects everything else,” he says. “I hope that as my students tackle challenges throughout the rest of their lives, they never think that solutions are singular or easy.”

Basil childers (reid); Duy Trinh ’14 (Bowling Alley); andrew daddio (mcvaugh)

A bowling alley was once part of Reid Athletic Center.

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IN THE SKY AND ON THE GROUND

Studying the Arctic

Means venturing into the field,

40 Colgate Magazine Spring 2025

photogra ph y an d art icle by sarah he wi tt

Colgate researchers use drones to gain new perspectives on Alaska’s evolving terrain.

Exploring the ribboning waterways of the East Fork of the Toklat River in Denali National Park

To grasp the true significance of your research Traversing its landscapes, observing, and learning

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The team watches the drone take off to map wetlands and beaver dams near Tangle Lakes, Alaska.

M

ore than 200 miles from Fairbanks, Alaska, Tangle Lakes form the headwaters of the Delta River. A freezing wind blew across the water, shuddering the tent flaps as the research team scrambled to set up camp and secure anything that could blow away.

They were lucky to get a spot for their three tents in the small campground in July, already filled with campers fishing for lake trout and Arctic grayling.

Their tents pitched, they climbed to a nearby hilltop for some lateafternoon data collection.

Half an hour later, anyone stumbling across them would have found an odd scene — four people huddled in a patch of bushes, staring intently into the distance, seemingly looking at nothing.

“Can anyone see it?” Professor Mike Loranty asked. “I do,” confirmed Katrina Wright ’26, gesturing toward a distant mountain peak.

Collectively, they scrunched their noses and squinted in the direction she pointed, eventually picking out the tiny black drone moving left to right against the greens and browns of mountain vegetation. Federal law requires the operator to be able to see the drone with the naked eye, and they could always rely on Wright to spot it.

Aside from Wright, Elaine Zhou ’25 and Maddox Miller ’27 rounded out the team of students alongside Loranty, professor of geography and director of the Environmental Studies Program. Loranty is no stranger to working with drones and looked at home on the tundra.

The students, meanwhile, brought varying degrees of experience with the outdoors and no experience with fieldwork like this.

Loranty studies how climate, vegetation, permafrost, carbon cycling, and wildfires interact in arctic regions worldwide. Climbing temperatures trigger changes in these systems, and understanding the scope of these changes means looking at all the ecosystem’s components. The vegetation growing on top of permafrost changes as the permafrost thaws. The hydrogeology of the area shifts. And the animals that live on the landscape and their interactions with food and water sources all change. Loranty captures these variations

42 Colgate Magazine Spring 2025

“ SOME OF THE CHANGES THAT PEOPLE HAVE BEEN HYPOTHESIZING ARE ACTUALLY HAPPENING ON THE LANDSCAPE.” Professor Mike Loranty

Left to right: Maddox Miller ’27, Elaine Zhou ’25, Katrina Wright ’26, and Prof. Mike Loranty

through his work, with numerous projects funded by NASA and the National Science Foundation.

“Some of the changes that people have been hypothesizing are actually happening on the landscape,” he said. “Things like more intense wildfire seasons and permafrost thaw — those are the two big ones, and you’re really starting to see those things.

“Especially permafrost thaw,” he added, “it’s kind of a bellwether of change.”

Loranty uses remote sensing and several other fieldwork techniques to sample vegetation and soil, as well as measure various aspects of permafrost.

“In a lot of environmental fields, and especially working in physical geography, you rely on GIS and remote sensing,” he said. “The pace of change in analytical and computational capabilities, like the types of data we can acquire, almost requires you to continually learn new skills, and if you don’t, it’s harder to work on the cutting edge.”

New directions and projects are commonplace for Loranty these days. Aside from occasional trips to Alaska, for about 10

north, the sky never fully darkens, and long after saying goodnight, the students could be heard chatting and laughing in their room.

Mornings were chaotic. Everyone rushed to make coffee and tea, turned leftovers into breakfast foods, and smeared peanut butter and jelly onto slices of bread for lunch before climbing into the truck with water bottles, hiking boots, backpacks, and gear for the day.

They focused primarily on field sites near Eight Mile Lake, two hours south of Fairbanks, down the Parks Highway. The paved road turns into gravel and gets progressively narrower, rockier, bumpier, and then impassable as you approach Eight Mile Lake.

This part of Alaska is infamous as the setting for Christopher McCandless’ ill-fated ventures in the 1990s, popularized by Into the Wild.

It’s also a favored area for researchers, and evidence of ongoing experiments is scattered across the upland tundra.

Loranty wants to use high-resolution drone imagery to train AI algorithms to detect landscape and vegetation characteristics. Drones have gained traction as a remote sensing tool since the early 2000s because they offer a costeffective, flexible alternative to satellite or aerial surveys.

They are particularly valuable in hard-to-reach or hazardous environments and can cover much more ground than a team of researchers on foot. The drone Loranty uses has five separate cameras. The “normal” camera sees what we do, while the other four capture narrower segments of the electromagnetic spectrum,

providing information about greenery, photosynthesis, plant health, and water content. Loranty programs the drone’s flight paths anywhere from 100 to 400 feet high, and each camera takes a photo every few feet — on some flights, they collect upward of 20,000 images. It can take a computer 24 hours to stitch them all together, resulting in an incredibly detailed map that the research group will use to identify different types of vegetation and, if the AI training works, one of the hallmark features of the North American and Eurasian Arctic, the tussock.

“Tussocks,” said Loranty, pointing to the one he was sitting on, “are funky pineapplelike growths associated with sedges (a grasslike plant) called cotton grass.” The stems and leaves of tussock grasses cluster at the base, creating a dense mound of vegetation with a tuft of grass sprouting from the top.

Each tussock is around a foot in diameter and the same height. The dense base traps moisture to form a microclimate that protects the plant from the frost and wind of Arctic winters. Loranty’s interest in tussocks started when he collaborated with Sal Curasi ’15 during Curasi’s PhD work. Curasi, now a research scientist at the Canadian Centre for Climate Modeling and Analysis, also worked with Loranty in Siberia. Now Loranty has returned to Alaska to see if he can map tussocks on a bigger scale.

“It’ll be interesting to see if we can train a computer to recognize these things because they store carbon and have not typically been included in carbon accounting in these ecosystems.” Loranty points out it’s a nontrivial amount of carbon missing when tussocks are overlooked, so accounting for Miller lies among the tussocks to record key data points for the latest drone flight.

Loranty catches the drone as it comes in to land after a 60-minute flight, having mapped an area of upland tundra on one of the field sites near Eight Mile Lake.

years, his primary field site was in Siberia.

Then COVID-19 hit and, soon after, the war in Ukraine, forcing Loranty’s focus back to Alaska. But the shift opened doors to new projects that brought him and the students to the field last July. This time, his team laid the groundwork for two new studies involving high-resolution imaging, one of vegetation on the tundra and the other looking for beaver dams.

When they weren’t camping, they crammed into a dorm at the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF). They cooked, ate, and spent evenings together, discussing the next day’s plans. In midsummer that far Spring 2025

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EVERY DRONE FLIGHT, EVERY TUSSOCK MEASURED, AND EVERY BEAVER DAM THEY MAP IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO LEARN SOMETHING NEW.

Loranty carefully walks across a beaver dam to check out the area before sending the drone up. Not a beaver in sight, but plenty of dams.

it will give more accurate models of how much carbon is stored in these systems and, therefore, how much could be released if the environment changes.

He gestured at the students, lugging the instruments needed to measure tussocks by hand — a floppy 2-meter square grid, measuring tape, and a large set of calipers — across the tundra. Rather than focusing on tiny, spatially distributed plots, drones measure the entire landscape, and it would be game-changing if they could use these imaging techniques to answer questions that ordinarily require hundreds of hours of fieldwork. “We’re still out in the field,”

44 Colgate Magazine Spring 2025

Loranty pointed out, “but rather than taking lots and lots of field measurements, we’re flying a drone, which we can do in 20 minutes or an hour, and then couple that with some minimal field measurements to answer questions that way.”

In addition to the tussocks, they drove hundreds of miles around Fairbanks to fly the drone over wetlands with beaver dams.

The north’s expanding beaver population has garnered much attention in the past several years, but their presence’s long-term effects are unknown. When beavers build dams, they alter waterways, potentially impacting the permafrost, vegetation, or the

landscape’s resilience to wildfires.

“We’ve already seen examples of beavers building dams and forming big ponds, and then it thaws a bunch of permafrost,” Loranty said. When dams fail, water flows over the landscape, causing subsidence (when the ground sinks or caves in) and potentially further thawing the permafrost.

“When it happens in one spot, it might be relatively small in the context of the Arctic,” he said, “but if you start having that happen all over the place because of beaver dams, it affects hydrology, fisheries, and people who live in these areas or depend on fish for subsistence livelihoods. So that’s part of the

A few days later, they were almost giddy at motivation for the work. meeting another collaborator, Ken Tape, an “Beavers are a new thing for me ecology professor and beaver specialist at topically,” Loranty said. “I’m used to UAF, whose name they knew only from the thinking about vegetation, and now you’re journal articles they’d read for their projects. throwing animals into the mix. It’s a “It’s been so great meeting other different sort of ecology,” he said. “But it’s professors,” Wright said. “You hear them kind of refreshing to think about new things talking through their work and see what and places I’m familiar with from a different being a researcher is like. This has been one perspective.” of the biggest learning opportunities I’ve had Before leaving for Alaska, the students in my life. worked with Loranty to develop individual “In college,” she added, “it feels like there’s questions they could tackle — critical first a right answer for tests or essays, but then steps for a new project and the students. you get out into the field, and it’s this whole As the drone buzzed overhead one different world, and it’s so much cooler!” afternoon, everyone sat among the cotton Zhou had the least outdoor experience grass, chatting about their projects and on the team but brought her theoretical picking tiny blueberries and sunset-colored knowledge from her geography and cloudberries at their feet. biology double major. “This is such a good “We’re doing the tussock part here, and experience,” she said, “because now I am then the other part is our personal projects actually doing fieldwork, and I kind of know about beavers,” said Zhou, “and so we’re out what the research process looks like, so it’s doing fieldwork, which is challenging, but then we’re also thinking through the data and not just the words coming out of my mouth, but it’s actually what I’m doing, and doing is analysis when we’re not in the field.” For her the key part.” project, she looked at segments of waterways impacted by wildfires and compared streams with beaver dams to those without to see if there was any difference in fire damage. Miller looked at the number of beaver dams before and after fires. Finally, Wright was trying to determine how confident we can be that different people analyzing maps to locate beaver dams are getting matching data.

In July, new to fieldwork and their projects, the students knew technically what they were studying but were unsure how to proceed. They asked questions and grappled with the idea that there wasn’t always a tidy answer. A turning point was meeting other students and researchers in the field and realizing that collaboration is everything in science.

They spent a day measuring tussocks with one of Loranty’s colleagues from With Eight Mile Lake in the background, the team works together Hamilton College, to measure tussocks — ground truthing the data captured by the Heather Kropp, and drone flying overhead. three of her students.

Loranty echoed this. “Seeing the place you’re studying is pretty important,” he said.

“You can read and learn about things, but there’s no substitute for seeing a system, being in a place, being removed from distractions so you can take the time to observe, think, and ask questions.”

While science is the primary goal, the value for the students is so much more.

“Everything we did was either beaver research or tussock research,” said Miller, “but we also did get to see amazing parts of Alaska, like Denali.” In fact, they encountered most of Alaska’s iconic megafauna. They saw a red fox snatch a ptarmigan out of midair, bald eagles, Dall sheep, and a grizzly bear. A moose wandered through one of the sites as they flew the drone, and the grand finale was finding a giant herd of caribou scattered across a rocky, windswept mountainside. But after driving hundreds of miles, seeing countless ponds with beaver lodges, walking across dams, taking photos, discussing projects, and meeting beaver researchers, that’s one animal they never managed to find.

Zhou and Wright continued their projects into the fall. They sat in a lab meeting with Loranty and showed off drafts of posters they’d prepared for the annual American Geophysical Union conference in Washington, D.C., in December. They’d had time to piece together the maps they’d collected and familiarize themselves with their data. And they had interesting findings to report.

Zhou found that beaver wetlands are no more fire-resistant than valley bottoms, directly contrasting findings on beaver activity in the western U.S. This suggests that the impact beavers have on different landscapes isn’t uniform and reinforces the need for more work in the Arctic to understand the dynamics between beavers and wildfires better. Wright found significant uncertainty and disagreement when different researchers tried to identify beaver dams on maps — important information as these datasets are used to drive AI models to automate dam detection.

Every drone flight, every tussock measured, and every beaver dam they map is an opportunity to learn something new.

Zhou and Wright debated the next steps for their projects with Loranty, deliberating on how best to analyze their data. They were thousands of miles from the vast mountain landscapes and the tundra that inspired their work, but that wasn’t the biggest difference. Something had changed, and it took a while to pinpoint what it was.

Suddenly, it was clear. Back in the summer, they’d sounded like students. Now, they sounded like scientists.

Spring 2025

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Despite being one of the youngest women’s hockey teams in the country, this year’s Raiders coalesced to turn their challenges into triumphs. by A L ETA MAY N E

“There’s a target on our back,” Head Women’s Hockey Coach Stefan Decosse warned midseason.

The Raiders entered 2024–25 as the program was coming off four straight ECAC championships and a 2024 trip to the Frozen Four.

On the heels of those successes, the team was strong but also managing change.

Decosse stepped into the head coach role this season after nine years as an assistant coach. He brought on new staff members, including two assistant coaches, an athletic trainer, and a strength and conditioning coach.

As for the players: “Frankly, we’re down a few bodies,” Decosse noted. “We don’t have a full roster.” One player transferred late last summer, and two others suffered seasonending injuries in the early fall. That meant that competing teams had three-plus players on the Raiders, and every Colgate skater (except for an alternate goalie) was on the ice for every game.

“It’s been an interesting year,” Decosse emphasized.

Even so, with all of those factors stacked against them, this year’s team — the fourth

46 Colgate Magazine Spring 2025

youngest in the country — clawed their way to finish #2 in the ECAC and #5 in the NCAA. But it didn’t happen without them fighting for those wins, sometimes in the last precious minutes of a game.

An Underdog Story

Six of the team’s strongest players graduated last May and joined the Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL), which also recruited longtime Head Coach Greg Fargo to become its head coach last June.

“That uncertainty was challenging for the group,” said Assistant Captain Emma Pais ’27.

When Colgate wasn’t picked by the ECAC preseason poll to win the conference, it stung. “[That] was a little bit of a hit,” said Captain Hannah Murphy ’25. “We’re still really talented, and we’ve shown people that we have a lot of potential as a team.”

Assistant Coach Breanne Wilson-Bennett ’18 remarked, “[This team has] a bit of an underdog story,” adding that they remind her of her own team. “We weren’t the most skilled in the country; we were just hard workers.” Wilson-Bennett’s team, in her senior year, became the first in program history to go to the Frozen Four and the only

one so far to make it to the Frozen Four final. “We had this collective goal, and we wanted to continue to play with each other.

It wasn’t necessarily about winning.”

Similarly, she said, “This group really likes each other … they just want to continue to play to play, which was our motto in 2018, and it’s really cool that it’s kind of coming full circle.”

Colgate women’s hockey “competes at a world-class level,” Decosse said. In the ECAC, “8 of the 12 teams were nationally ranked in the top 15 at some point this season. There isn’t an easy night — you can’t take your foot off the gas.”

“In this league, it’s easy to not get complacent because everyone’s so good,” Pais said. “There’s really no game you know you’re going to win, which is a blessing because [otherwise] it’s easy to lose motivation.”

The beginning of the Raiders’ 2024–25 season was patterned with alternating wins and losses, followed by a 10-game winning streak toward the end of the fall. “We truly started to develop an identity within our dressing room and with the way we wanted to play,” Decosse said.

Olivia Hokanson (Kaltounková); Dylan Rippe (team celebration); Brian Miller (Murphy)

Kristýna Kaltounková ’24, MA’25, a first team All-ECAC selection, capped off her career holding several Colgate records, including most goals (111), most game-winning goals (19), and most power-play goals (37). Her 111 active career goals led the NCAA in 2024–25, and she is the only current student-athlete to pass the 100 tally mark. Kaltounková was also named a top-10 finalist for the prestigious Patty Kazmaier Memorial Award.

Several games were close calls, with the Raiders coming from behind to tie or win.

On Jan. 4 against Clarkson, two centers — including Assistant Captain Kristýna Kaltounková ’24, MA’25, a major offensive contributor — were ejected from the game, leaving the Raiders down to 13 skaters. “But never at any point was this team saying, ‘Poor us,’” Decosse asserted.

“We stuck together and got it done against one of the top teams in the country.” They won 4–2. “And that’s an example of how this group approached the year.”

Other standout performances included a 4–2 win against Cornell on Jan. 11 despite a rink packed with rabid Big Red fans and a 4–0 blowout against Princeton in the Class of ’65 arena. “That was a strong team, and we didn’t even give them a chance because of the way we were playing,” Kaltounková said.

“This team really coalesced around one another,” Decosse added.

Healthy Competition

The team is a cohesive group, players and coaches agree, but a key part of their dynamic is in practice, “they go to war against each other, they push each

Hannah Murphy ’25 made 937 saves this season, the second most in a season in Raider history, and sits two wins away from equaling Julia Vandyk ’18 at 75 for most career wins.

Murphy holds the program records for most career shutouts (17) and most shutouts in a season (6).

Spring 2025

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“Having [Pathfinder Village] there was very motivating for us [because of] how much they mean to us.” — Kaia Malachino ’27 scored the game-winning goal in overtime (2–1) during the Neurodiversity Awareness Game against Clarkson.

“Stef is always a big energy bubble, [as] we say in French,” Alexia Aubin ’28 says of Coach Decosse.

“He brings the best out of all of us.”

Assistant Coach Breanne Wilson-Bennett ’18 was a forward on the 2017–18 team that made it to the Frozen Four final.

Community Connections

Another way women’s hockey comes together is by engaging with the local community, building initiatives started by their predecessors.

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Goaltender Averill McCorkle ’25 organized this year’s Learn to Skate program for Pathfinder Village, which serves people with Down syndrome and others with disabilities.

Per tradition, members of Pathfinder Village came to the Class of ’65 Arena to support the Raiders during the Neurodiversity Awareness Game.

“They sit in a group right behind our bench, and it’s awesome to have them there,” Murphy said. “It’s really an electric environment, and this year it was against Clarkson — one of our bigger rivals — so it was good for us to feed off of the energy and excitement they bring to the game.”

“Having them there was very motivating for us [because of] how much they mean to us,” added Malachino, who scored the gamewinning goal in overtime (2–1).

Through Rising Raiders, which began in 2022, Colgate players serve as female role models for girls from the surrounding area.

Every year the 50 available slots fill quickly and each player is paired with two to three girls, for whom they lead hockey clinics and maintain connections off the ice. “It’s a really good opportunity for our players to learn how to be a mentor, especially with the way women’s hockey is growing,” said Pais, who led this year’s Rising Raiders.

Kaltounková, a master’s student studying secondary education, has been offering private coaching sessions and shooting clinics to area youth. “I love the community here, so any chance I can be a part of it, whether it’s teaching [she was a studentteacher at the Hamilton middle and high

schools in the fall], coaching, or playing hockey and going to school here, I’m super excited about it.”

Shared Goals

Two of Decosse’s daughters — 5 and 7 years old — participated in this year’s Rising Raiders program. He and his wife, Erin, also have an 18-month-old son: “He’s got the hockey stick in hand already,” the coach commented. Being a parent, he said, has “broadened my curiosity to learn more about the athletes in our program, about their parents, about their upbringing, and gain a deeper sense of why they’ve become who they are, which then enables me to better engage that person and that athlete.”

Although it’s his first year as head coach, Decosse’s nine years as an assistant coach gave him access to the recruitment process for current players. “I’ve had supper with their moms and dads. I’ve met their siblings.

I know their life stories. There’s a trust that’s already been established,” he said. “I also had the good fortune of having an incredible mentor in Greg Fargo. He and I were really close, and I got to see what sitting in his chair looked like from the front row. It’s quite the privileged starting point in many ways.”

Becoming a coach wasn’t part of Decosse’s original game plan. With a master’s in geography from Toronto’s York University, he intended to pursue a career in academia. But in the last year of his master’s, he coached a boys’ team “and it was an incredible experience,” he said. His wife noticed how much he loved the role

Quinn Schmidt (Decosse); Brian Miller (Wilson-Bennett); Olivia Hokanson (Clarkson)

other, and there’s no hard feelings,” WilsonBennett said. “Our motto is ‘Iron sharpens iron.’ We have some of the best players in the world, and to practice against each other every day, that’s where growth happens.”

Recruiting players who thrive in a competitive environment is important, Decosse said. “That’s not for everybody, and that’s not always the norm. Every coach has a different philosophy … and ours is we’re very competitive. We keep score on everything.” In practice, he’ll tell the players that the losers will be skating more than the winners. Decosse said: “I know that’s a little old school, but I think it leads to athletic growth … as long as we’re building an environment that will catch you when you fall … we’ll pick you up, dust you off, and go right back at it.”

After battling each other on the ice, the student-athletes prove there’s no resentment.

They gather to watch PWHL games and cheer on former teammates, eat together at Frank, take mall trips, and many of them even live together. Almost all of the sophomores, juniors, and seniors live together — with the seniors in a house next to the rink. “Doing different things to stay connected away from the rink is huge for team dynamics,” said Pais, who is a suitemate of Madeline Palumbo ’27 and Kaia Malachino ’27.

Ottawa Charge

and encouraged him to consider it more seriously. When he learned that Colgate was looking for a volunteer coach, Decosse called Fargo to sign up full time. “I knew after my first day, this was what I was going to do with the rest of my life,” Decosse said. “It was a moment of overwhelming clarity.”

One of the significant lessons Fargo passed on to Decosse is that “staff cohesion is critically important because it filters on down to the team,” the new coach said. “We have some incredible people in our program working with our tremendous athletes.”

Wilson-Bennett, now in her second year as an assistant coach, works with the team’s 11 forwards because that was her position as a player. “As does Alex [Gettens, assistant coach], who is also a goalie specialist; Stefan and Trevor [Coykendall, assistant coach] work more with the defense,” she explained.

“We really listen to one another and take bits and pieces of knowledge from each other.

“We have a young staff; we’ve done a great job of coming together and putting our own twist on things this year,” Wilson-Bennett added.

Murphy said it’s been “super relatable” to have an alumna on the bench because Wilson-Bennett has been in their shoes (skates), both playing for the Raiders and professionally.

“She is so committed to the game, but also to the girls. I love that,” Kaltounková said. “Alex is super positive on the bench, but also tells you how it is when it’s needed.

Trevor runs the D-course, an awesome guy.

They all come from different experiences and backgrounds, but collectively create an awesome team.

“And Stef is so passionate,” Kaltounková added. “I’ve learned how much he cares, not only for the sport, but also for the program and everyone in the locker room. He would do anything for this team.”

Kaltounková, who is from the Czech Republic, said: “Being here the last five years and having my parents across the ocean, these are the people I’ve leaned on.”

ALUMNAE PLAYING PRO PROFESSIONAL WOMEN’S HOCKEY LEAGUE → Sydney Bard ’24, Boston Fleet → Dara Greig ’24, Montreal Victoire

Maintaining Motivation

The hockey season runs long, with practices throughout the academic year and games twice a week, back to back, from the end of September until mid-March. “It’s such a whirlwind,” Decosse said.

The coach, who joked that he’s known for his mottos (“I have a lot of lines that get the girls laughing”), tells his players to focus on what’s in front of them and not become consumed with what’s already happened or what may happen. “Be where your feet are,” he says — something he grew up hearing from his mom.

The team hoped to make the Frozen Four this year, “but we came up a little short,” Decosse said. “Collectively, we’re proud of the course the season took. There was so much uncertainty heading into this year, but we stayed with it; we focused on who we were and leveraged our strengths.”

Murphy added: “We’ve had to overcome a lot of adversity, but it’s brought us all closer.”

When the season’s games ended, the team launched right into spring training.

“We’re going fairly hard,” Decosse said. “It’s a very motivated group.”

He and the coaching staff build momentum in the gym and on the ice before the players head home for the summer to train on their own. “They’re so devoted,” Decosse said.

At press time, Decosse was also working one-on-one with Kaltounková, who was preparing to play for the Czech Republic in the IIHF Women’s World Championships in České Budějovice, a stone’s throw from where she grew up.

(Former Raiders Danielle Serdachny ’24 and Nemo Neubauerová ’22 were also playing in the worlds, for Canada and the Czech Republic, respectively.) “That’s going to be an incredible experience; the crowds will be crazy for Kalty,” Decosse said. “It’s a cool thing to compete at the highest stage in your sport.”

After graduation several of the seniors will enter the PWHL draft or explore

opportunities to play overseas. “We’re a step along the way in their journeys,” Decosse said. “We want to further enrich their love for the game. We also want to help them grow as people and players so they’re ready to take on the next challenges that await.”

The PWHL is attracting sold-out crowds, noted Murphy, who will declare for the draft. “It’s awesome to see the progression of women’s sports.”

Building an Ecosystem

Successful coaching begins with recruiting great people, said Decosse, who spent April in Toronto and Vancouver: “It starts with identifying the right people for our environment and for our program specifically. We’re looking for driven athletes who are competitive and have a hunger for continued growth.”

The recruitment class is 10th graders who would join Colgate in three years; next year’s and the following year’s teams have already been determined. “It’s very competitive,” Decosse said “We’re up against the Ivy Leagues and the Big 10 competing for athletes. Everyone’s trying to get ahead of it.”

Forming the team is one of the most fun parts of the job, he noted. “You get to build your own ecosystem within your program.”

Next year’s roster welcomes seven new players: a goalie, two on defense, and four forwards. Four of them have played in the Under-18 World Championships and have won a gold medal for their respective Under-18 teams on the international stage.

“It’s a talented recruiting class, and they have some great role models for what it is to be a Colgate women’s hockey player,” Decosse said. “That’s probably the most exciting piece — when your culture reproduces itself. That’s what you’re looking to build over the long term: When you have exceptional people in the program, they make it easy to follow.”

The next year’s class looks strong, too, he said. “We’ll keep building, one day at a time.”

→ Jessie Eldridge ’19, New York Sirens → Olivia Zafuto ’19, Boston Fleet → Allyson Simpson ’24, New York Sirens → Kayle Osborne ’24, New York Sirens → Danielle Serdachny ’24, Ottawa Charge → Noemi Neubauerová ’22, Toronto Sceptres → Kaitlyn O’Donohoe ’24, Minnesota Frost SWEDISH WOMEN’S HOCKEY LEAGUE → Malia Schneider ’22, SDE HF CHINESE WOMEN’S ICE HOCKEY LEAGUE → Maggie MacEachern ’23, KRS Shenzhen

Danielle Serdachny ’24 Spring 2025

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Journalism

Inside Katharine Zarrella’s Fashion Wonderland The eccentric fashionista has built a career with her bold takes on haute couture.

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F

Emma Milligan

Endeavor

ashion journalist Katharine K. Zarrella ’08 makes no apologies for who she is: “fearless, unbothered, and unhinged.”

Such boldness has marked — and sparked — her fashion reporting career, which has included stints with Women’s Wear Daily, V Magazine, the Wall Street Journal, and, most recently, with Document Journal.

Indeed, before her name was “on the list” at VIP-only fashion events, she’d get in — somehow.

“I was not afraid of being screamed at,” says Zarrella, who once wore Alaïa hot pants, fishnets, thigh-high boots, a one-arm leather jacket, and Chanel cap when caught climbing a brick wall to see a Jason Wu show. She apologized, but insisted, “‘I HAVE to see this show’ — and I did.”

These days, “everyday experiences” have included a warehouse photoshoot where a naked Lady Gaga awaited a selection of archival Alexander McQueen clothes, the photographer’s two Great Danes roamed, and a tuxedoed bartender served cocktails.

But it’s Zarrella who often draws notice, in her omnipresent turbans, top hats, and funereal yet sculptural garb. With such customary attire, she’s no fan of Halloween, “because people on the street assume I’m in costume.”

Her attitude and determination have helped her slice through the snark-infested waters of fashion to become the Wall Street Journal’s fashion director in 2019 and, most recently, fashion critic-at-large for the independent fashion magazine Document Journal.

“I write like I talk,” says Zarrella, who loves punny double entendres and cheeky headlines (for a 2023 WSJ story on worn-in fashion: “Should you beat up your Birken?”).

She’ll also take unpopular stances, as in a recent New York Times guest essay in which she decried big-name brands for becoming “obscenely, disgracefully, inconceivably costly.”

Zarrella’s fashion obsession began early.

Her über chic mother, an anthropologist and philanthropist, indulged both of their style whims. Classmates teased her for preferring tulle puff skirts to jeans. “I refused to wear pants,” says Zarrella — who was “more outrageous” than her mom, “but she understood.”

She also enjoyed writing, yet never imagined making a living from her passions.

At Colgate, she majored in English and lucked into a summer internship with Women’s Wear Daily. “That’s when I decided I was going to do this the rest of my life.”

She later interned with designer Zac Posen, “when he was hot, hot, hot,” holding

fabric as he draped it, packing his travel bags — and ferrying his poodle to and from grooming appointments.

A hiring freeze in publishing greeted the aspiring fashion writer upon graduating from Colgate in 2008. So she moved to Paris, as she’d vowed to her mother on a trip at age 12. “I recall saying, ‘I have no idea what I want to do, but I’m going to do it in Paris.’”

She returned to New York a few months later, where she covered fashion week — though not always invited. After sneaking in and making her way backstage, she wasn’t afraid to approach designers and launch into her questions.

Her favorite designers are surrealistic, irreverent, witty, and not for the faint of heart. In those days, she financed her fetish for Alaïa, Schiaparelli, and Comme des Garçons writing for indie magazines such as i-D, Dazed, and the Dossier Journal.

But she loathed interviewing celebs, recalling a party where she ranted that fashion coverage should focus on the art of making clothes “and not some idiot in the front row.” A man nearby overheard — and offered Zarrella a writing job on the spot.

She accepted before learning that he was Christopher Bollen, then–editor-in-chief of Interview magazine.

“That’s how my whole career started. He knew everybody, people saw my work, and I started getting commissions.”

To hone her skills, she earned a master’s in fashion journalism at London’s lauded Central Saint Martins (CSM) in 2012. She later landed at Style.com, then V Magazine and its men’s fashion offshoot VMAN, all based in Manhattan. In 2016 she launched digital platform Fashion Unfiltered (“no fluff, just fashion”), now part of CSM’s master’s program.

As Wall Street Journal’s fashion director from 2019–24, she’d try to sneak her racy headlines past editors. (“Clothes Before Hoes” almost got through for a gardening feature.)

Today, Zarrella lives in New York — amid 300 hats and mannequins — with her three rabbits: Schiaparelli, Coco, and Dalí. The pets accompany their owner to Nantucket when she works on her novel, a satire of the publishing industry, and feed her lifelong obsession with Alice in Wonderland — a fitting literary metaphor for Zarrella’s perspective on fashion at large: “I love clothes that transport me — lift me out of this world to another one,” she says. “I still want to be down that rabbit hole, but in a happy place.”

— Michele Meyer

Empowerment

‘The Future Is FIF’ n the spring of 2023, Meghan Curtin ’06 McKenna found herself with 60 days of free time. Rather than learn to rock climb or bake sourdough, she decided to start a company.

“If I’m not super busy, I’m constantly thinking about what else I could be doing,” McKenna admits. The blank calendar space between banking jobs should have been a moment to put up her feet, but even the white sands of a Cancún beach couldn’t distract her from the idea rattling around her brain.

Weeks later, on June 6, 2023, the Females in Finance Collective (FIF) was born.

The organization, which is invite-only, is composed of high-power women in the finance and technology spheres — think founders, CEOs, and CFOs. McKenna leads the organization and is currently FIF’s only employee, but she is supported by a range of volunteers, including her sister, who serves as her chief-of-staff, and her niece, who serves as her controller. “[I was motivated by] the idea that younger women who come up through the ranks in banking or corporate America [have] the potential for things to be different,” says McKenna. “It could be an easier road for them than it was for a lot of us who grew up in different times.”

One of the central components of FIF is its series of networking events. For example, they hosted an AI panel last fall featuring all female speakers. “The best part about FIF is how well curated the group is,” McKenna says. “So every time women are standing in a room talking with one another, business happens organically, and it doesn’t have to be forced.”

Another organic platform for connection is FIF’s members-only WhatsApp group.

“It’s where our women can tell all and share

I

ideas,” McKenna says, “and make sure that they’re connected with the best people.”

In addition to networking, FIF helps find job placements, provides volunteer opportunities, and advocates to get more women on boards. FIF plans to begin placing speakers at conferences like Montgomery Summit, AWS re:Invent, and HumanX, and aims to provide more mentorship programming.

On its one-year anniversary last June, the New York Stock Exchange honored FIF and its 1,000-member milestone. Now, FIF boasts more than 1,300 members. It has launched in New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Boston, Washington, D.C., and Austin, with forthcoming launches in Miami, Tel Aviv, and London.

“To date, we have monetized fully through partnerships and sponsorships,” McKenna explains. FIF has collaborated with sponsors like Deloitte, Amazon, and Davis Polk. Although FIF rolled out membership fees in January 2025, “We still want to try to monetize more through corporate America versus charging our members anything meaningful,” says McKenna.

With so many irons in the fire, a typical day for McKenna promises 5 to 11 Zoom calls, a lunch, and an evening event with sponsors, partners, and potential members.

Although she makes it look easy, a career in FinTech wasn’t a given for McKenna, who studied sociology at Colgate.

It was her personality — “a competitive drive to want to be seen as an equal” — more than her major that drew her to banking.

At Colgate, that drive pushed McKenna and her teammates to become the first women’s basketball team in the University’s history to make the NCAA tournament.

Plus, “I never had a problem talking to anybody,” she adds. “I figured out quickly that sales within a banking organization was a good match for me.” When teammate Emily Braseth ’05 had a positive experience in the management development program at M&T Bank, McKenna decided to follow in her postgrad footsteps. “[Emily] and I were very similar, in both being outgoing and functionally nuts.” From there, McKenna went on to work at JP Morgan, HSBC, and Stifel before committing herself to FIF full time.

“To be able to give women the value that they deserve… I think there’s really no choice but to do this full time.”

— Acadia Klepeis

McKenna was recognized on the 2024 Inspiring FinTech Females list in the Inspiring Leaders category. The Metrics Club named her a Finance Innovator to Follow in 2025.

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endeavor

books

Power Plants After trading burgers for beetroot, former basketball player Malcolm Regisford ’19 is sharing his passion for health and wellness.

hen basketball player Malcolm Regisford ’19 sustained an ankle injury during his third year at Colgate, he followed his doctors’ orders for recovery: physical therapy and plenty of rest. But after nearly 10 months, when the pain and soreness lingered, the California native made one big change to his healing regimen.

“I cut out all animal products and switched to a plant-based diet,” he says, heeding the advice of a family friend — an NBA trainer and longtime vegan, who explained how animal products can contribute to inflammation and hinder healing.

So Regisford challenged himself to overhaul his diet for just a few weeks, trading staples like chicken breast, beef, and (his favorite) mac and cheese for a wholly plant-based approach. He “got creative” in Frank Dining Hall, pairing vegetables and salad greens with plenty of nuts, beans, and seeds for added protein, and experimenting with oils, herbs, and spices.

The result was dramatic. “It was a pretty radical shift in how I felt physically, mentally, and spiritually,” he says. With a new and “profound mental clarity,” Regisford was back on the court for his final season, where the 6'8", 225-pound forward felt stronger and sharper than ever, wrapping up his college basketball tenure as one of Colgate’s all-time top rebounders.

The experience made such an impression on Regisford that he began to rethink his career goals. Instead of pursuing a future in professional basketball as he’d always planned, Regisford followed his newfound passion for vegan cooking and nutrition — a path that would soon inspire thousands of others through social media and, later, culminate in a book featuring Regisford’s recipes and wellness philosophies. “[Changing my diet] was so powerful for me that, for the first time, I started to think about what my life could look like outside of basketball.”

52 Colgate Magazine Spring 2025

After graduating in 2019, he headed back to Los Angeles and scored a series of jobs as a production assistant — including gigs with NBC and Buzzfeed — exposing him to the world of digital content creation. In his free time, Regisford continued to experiment with vegan ingredients, creating new recipes that piqued the curiosity of colleagues and friends.

“People would see what I was eating for lunch and say, ‘That looks and smells good, what is it?’” he recalls. “And they were

always surprised that it was vegan.”

A videographer friend encouraged him to start posting his content to social media — a hobby that took off in spring 2020, when the pandemic afforded Regisford more time at home to perfect his recipes and short-form video style.

Slowly, his snappy TikToks featuring recipes like chickpea fried rice, beet carpaccio, and plantain lasagna had earned him a following among vegans and meat eaters alike.

Talia Dinwiddie

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endeavor “My message has always been [that] you don’t need to change your whole life and become vegan, but I do want to inspire curiosity, and a great meal can be an entry point to this lifestyle,” he says.

By 2023, with his top videos racking up more than 800,000 views, Regisford was approached by Mango Media, a publisher interested in putting his recipes and wellness tips into a book.

Released in August 2024, Tapped In Wellness: Lasting Performance and Health Through Mindful Living and Eating is a straightforward primer for anyone curious about a plant-based diet and its benefits.

Regisford’s most viral recipes — like his famed lentil smashburger tacos — are paired with vivid photos and easy-to-follow instructions.

“The book has been a great way to reach a different group of people, and I’m really proud of it,” he says. “And it’s still kind of surreal to see a book with my name and face on it.”

— Mary Donofrio

malcoLm regisford’s plant-based kitchen staples → All the mushrooms.“They have a texture that can mimic a lot of different meats and are good for brain health too.” → Coconut milk “imparts a rich creaminess to both sweet and savory dishes.”

stacey burr (lacuna sports)

→ Nutritional yeast “can be a substitute for cheese in recipes.” → Smoked paprika. “It brings a lot of flavor, especially if you’re going for the meat vibe.” → His signature “Flavor Bomb” spice blend includes nutritional yeast, thyme, pepper, and onion and garlic powders. Incorporate into recipes or sprinkle on top for a “deep umami, slightly cheesy flavor.”

gear

Leveling the Cricket Field With her sportswear company Lacuna Sports, Leigh Wayburn ’96 Burns is helping women take to the cricket field in comfort and confidence. n the United Kingdom, the phrase “That’s not cricket” means that something is not fair.

In 2018, when Leigh Wayburn ’96 Burns saw that her daughter and other promising young female cricket players in the London area were hampered in their performance by having to wear gear made for men — including cup protectors — she thought it was not only “not cricket” but also ridiculous. “I thought, ‘I’ve got to do something about this. I have no idea what I’m doing, but I’m going to fix it,’” Burns says.

The following year, Burns launched Lacuna Sports, which designs and sells cricket wear with women of all sizes, shapes, ages, nationalities, and playing abilities in mind. “Lacuna” means “gap.” The company aims to fill a gap in sportswear by offering women “a solution to feeling confident, comfortable, and able to focus on their game, not their kit,” as stated on its website.

A Nashville native, Burns majored in history and minored in economics at Colgate. She says she valued how the flexible curriculum enabled her to broaden her worldview and find herself. “I’m a massive believer in the freedom that my Colgate liberal arts education gave me,” she says.

That broader mindset enabled Burns, a cricket “outsider,” to tackle the kit problem from a fresh perspective. For starters, she herself had been a competitive athlete — a golfer — so she understood too well the situation these young women faced. “This is why girls quit sports,” Burns says. “If you show up and you’re already outnumbered, and then you’re dressed like a boy, it takes a brave girl to say, ‘I’m going to ignore that and keep going back.’”

Cricket is not only the fastest-growing women’s sport in the U.K., but it’s also increasingly popular worldwide. Burns is

I

well positioned to take advantage of that commercial potential. She earned an MBA from the Wharton School and spent a decade traveling the world as a sales and marketing executive for International SOS, which provides health care and evacuation services to more than 9,000 organizations in 90 countries. “It was rewarding to try to translate the needs of local and expatriate employees and come up with solutions,” she says.

Burns and Lacuna’s all-female leadership team landed on several key solutions, particularly customization. “In cricket, every body type is represented,” she explains.

Lacuna’s customers can pick the best style and fit for their specific needs. “We’re launching our cricket hijab, which is a really important labor of love,” Burns says.

The company’s sustainable sourcing in Europe enables it to respond quickly to orders while maintaining a smaller carbon footprint. Through Lacuna’s circular supply chain, kit that’s returned or outgrown is

resold or donated through the nonprofit Bat for a Chance, which provides gear to underprivileged players across the world.

Burns now serves as a trustee for the organization. “I wanted to apply my own experience to influence change in a way that’s not just about a T-shirt,” she says.

Lacuna Sports also has teamed up with Lydia Greenway, a beloved and respected former cricketer and commentator who launched the Cricket for Girls organization to improve the quality of girls’ cricket programs. That partnership, plus word of mouth, has helped elevate Lacuna Sports’ profile both in the U.K. and abroad.

Customers from Australia to Brazil, Saudi Arabia to the U.S. are now taking to the field, aka the oval, wearing Lacuna’s kit. And the company recently entered a multiyear partnership to provide kit for players from more than 30 countries competing in FairBreak Global tournaments. “The biggest joy,” Burns says, “is being able to work with teams and hearing their players say, ‘I look so good. I love it.’ That’s what keeps me going every day.”

— Kristin Baird Rattini Spring 2025

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campaign

A: Donors invest in us for a variety of personal reasons. When they connect to the power of their experience as students or as parents of current students and recognize that we will continue to create that experience for future students, they see a home for their philanthropic investment at Colgate. It’s not a transaction — they choose to invest in our vision, and they deserve tremendous gratitude for that.

Q: Campaigns are marathons, not sprints. Have you found boosts of excitement along the way so far?

LEADERSHIP

Rooted in Possibility A Conversation with Kim Harris, Vice President for Advancement

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ice President for Advancement Kim Harris has been at Colgate since October 2021 and participated in the University’s public launch of the Campaign for the Third Century in April 2022. She began as associate vice president for advancement, major gifts and then was promoted to senior associate vice president, campaign director. She took up her current leadership role in March 2025.

Colgate Magazine asked Harris to reflect on her tenure and what she hopes to see in Colgate’s Third Century.

Q: How do you see the role of advancement in connecting donors with Colgate’s ambitions?

A: In advancement, we are positioned between an institution’s aspirations and the resources our supporters have worked their whole lives to generate. They are choosing to consider us. To sit in the middle and be an honest broker for that choice is a privilege. There’s a magic that happens when philanthropy and vision collide When a donor — or group of donors — understands where Colgate wants to go and is ready to invest in that future, that’s a very special thing.

54 Colgate Magazine Spring 2025

A: I have experienced several exciting moments throughout this campaign — whether considering the power of donations to the Colgate Fund or the Colgate Athletics Fund to support our Division I athletics teams; or working with individuals who support financial aid, our capital vision, or the strength of our academic enterprise. I’ve had them when I look at the efforts around our constituency groups and the care we take with the Women’s Leadership Council or the Parents’ Steering Committee. Ultimately, I want to make sure that this campaign has a home for everyone who wants to be a part of it.

Q: How do you keep the momentum going in the campaign and keep everyone motivated to move toward the ambitious $1 billion goal?

A: Motivation is not just a call that I issue — it is a behavior I must model. This campaign is in support of the Third-Century Plan, which requires resources beyond the dollar goal.

We are in a campaign with a goal that we will achieve and celebrate, but we have profound initiatives with great clarity and definition that will take our efforts past that goal. Even when we reach that goal, it’s not really the end of the campaign — it’s a moment of celebration and transition to the next call of the plan. The plan is a living thing, and the campaign is here to provide nourishment for the life of the plan.

Q: What challenges have you faced when

it comes to the campaign and what hurdles have you overcome?

A: I think sometimes the challenge can be our responsibility to help people understand that philanthropic outcomes are not linear. If you look at our trend line, there are spikes and plateaus, and that is the way it should be. If you don’t have the context, that could look like success, failure, success, failure. When I look at our trend line, I see the rhythm or the heartbeat of a campaign. When I present that data, it’s important that I tell the story of that data. I think that's the responsibility that comes along with that challenge.

Q: When you imagine the future of the campaign and what it means for Colgate, what do you see?

A: I imagine a campus that feels as serious and important as we’ve always been and new at the same time. It is like a plant that has deep roots, but new growth here and there. That looks like new buildings. It looks like new and enhanced environments, whether it’s Peter’s Glen or other landscaping that creates a sense of home around campus.

It looks like the faces of students and faculty who maybe didn’t walk our campus 20 years ago and are here now.

It looks like opportunities through curriculum and programming that step up to meet the call of higher education in a global environment.

The campaign is what can make the future of Colgate possible. It can lift the words of the Third-Century Plan off the page and make them a reality. The campaign is what can bring those things to life — it is rooted in possibility.

Adam Brockway

Q: How do Colgate University donors impact the institution, and what motivates their philanthropy?

campaign

FINANCIAL AID

Unlocking Educational Opportunities: Student Success Stories

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ne of the key areas of focus for the Third-Century Plan is the Colgate Commitment, the University’s financial aid initiative in access and affordability. The Colgate Commitment makes it possible for students from all backgrounds to receive a world-class liberal arts education and pursue their dreams in the process. Read on to hear from some remarkable students who are able to learn at Colgate, thanks to the collective generosity of our alumni, parents, and friends.

Matthew Lonseth

Yaroslav Spytskyi

Averill McCorkle

“I am so appreciative of the financial support I have received, and it has motivated me to work to the best of my ability. Colgate has allowed me to pursue my dreams of attending a four-year university.”

Elsa O’Brien

Yaroslav Spytskyi ’28 Major: chemistry Yaroslav Spytskyi first learned about Colgate as a high school student when he saw a poster of the University’s scenic campus hanging in his chemistry teacher’s classroom. Spytskyi, who spent most of his life in Ukraine, asked his teacher about the beautiful school and learned about the exceptional chemistry department, as well as the many research opportunities available to students. Spytskyi knew after visiting the campus that it was the perfect fit for him to study chemistry.

Colgate’s financial aid initiative opened up educational opportunities for Spytskyi at the institution of his dreams.

“Financial aid allows me to pursue my academic interests at a world-class level. I know that I made the right decision coming to Colgate, and I am beyond grateful for the opportunity to study here.”

Elsa O’Brien ’25 Majors: classical studies, English When Elsa O’Brien was applying to colleges, she was looking for a top-

All articles by Rebecca Taurisano

By attending Colgate, Lonseth has been introduced to students from a variety of backgrounds, which has widened his horizons, inspired him to be attentive to others’ needs, and encouraged him to understand different perspectives.

Averill McCorkle ’25 Majors: psychological science, educational studies, and writing & rhetoric tier academic institution in a beautiful setting. Colgate ticked all the boxes, and the generous financial aid package she received made it possible for her to attend.

Hailing from Alameda, Calif., she began as a shy, introverted first-year and now is a campus leader, currently serving as Student Government Association president. From taking on volunteer roles such as admission tour guide, to studying abroad in Italy with the classics department, O’Brien credits her transformation to the supportive Colgate community.

“Colgate was so generous with their aid, and it is because of financial aid that I am here.

Financial aid is the only reason I was able to have such a transformative experience.”

As a teen in Salem, Mass., Averill McCorkle was looking for a rigorous academic experience, where she could also play Division I ice hockey. At Colgate she was able to do both and also found a sense of belonging. Her volunteer work with the Women’s Hockey Inclusive Learn to Skate Program and Autism and Neurodiversity Awareness Game expanded this feeling of community to Hamilton and beyond, and it reaffirmed her decision to work in the field of child psychology.

“Financial aid at Colgate means access to opportunities that would have otherwise been out of reach. It has allowed me to compete at the highest level in my sport, while receiving a world-class education.”

Matthew Lonseth ’28 Major: computer science Matthew Lonseth was raised in a singleparent household in Freehold, N.J., and is a first-generation college student. After falling in love with Colgate during a campus visit, Lonseth began researching financial aid offerings. His search led him to discover the Colgate Commitment, which would allow him to attend college tuition-free.

Spring 2025

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SALMAGUNDI HISTORY

Jimmy Carter’s Colgate Connections In recognition of the former U.S. president’s death, we’ve found a few of the ways his path crossed with the University.

of religion?” Tutu and Carter answered in sync. “They both said, almost at the same time, ‘to heal and to bind,’” she says.

In her later time serving on the Carter Center’s Board of Councilors, Chopp worked with Carter and his team to uphold these principles, attending to affairs of freedom, democracy, and public health.

Because Chopp’s term as councilor (1998– 2001) overlapped with her appointment as Emory’s provost, “Carter would call me, because I was his contact with the faculty,” she recalls, and ask her to connect him with undergraduate students. “He’d say something like, ‘Rebecca, I just got asked to oversee an election in Peru, and I need 12 undergraduates who are majoring in political science to be on the plane with me on Friday,’” she says. Additionally, Carter would hold town halls for students and “stay there until the last question.”

To connect with faculty, Carter would also host and attend receptions. In

A TALE OF TWO PRESIDENTS In the late 1980s, Rebecca Chopp (who, decades later, would become president of Colgate) held something in common with former U.S. president Jimmy Carter: They were both members of Emory University’s faculty. She was then a theology professor, whereas he was head of the Carter Center.

The two met through the Candler School of Theology and later spent more significant time together through the Carter Center’s Board of Councilors.

The first time Chopp spoke with Carter, she was a junior faculty member attending a lecture at Emory’s School of Theology.

Carter and Visiting Professor Desmond Tutu were holding a panel to discuss religious reconciliation. “I came in a little late, so I had to sit up front,” she recalls. When the panel concluded, she raised her hand and asked a big question: “What do you see as the point

attendance, “there’d be hundreds of faculty members, and then you’d see Jimmy walking in,” recalls Chopp. “And he was unmistakable, because he had these magnetic eyes. Looking at him was kind of a cross between a military commander and a very committed, good man out in the fields, working,” she says, recalling Carter’s background as a peanut farmer. “He wasn’t a big man, but he commanded presence.”

Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter, too, was a member of Emory’s faculty — a “lovely, charming woman” who held symposiums to advocate for better mental health care and understanding. “I remember one time being able to sit between her and Madeleine Albright … I was head over heels in admiration,” says Chopp.

As Colgate’s first female president, from 2002–09, Chopp brought her experiences with the center to the position. “I think I share with Carter that sense that the role of the human being is to do good in the world, to make the

He was unmistakable, because he had these magnetic eyes.

Rebecca Chopp

2.

104 Colgate Magazine Spring 2025

The Carter CenTer (Jimmy Carter and the carter center)

1.

Welfare on March 11, 1977 (1977, book 1)

world a better place,” she says. “I saw him do that on a very big scale, and it was inspiring to see an institution be able to do that.”

→ Thomas M. Tracy ’58 and Daniel E. Leach ’58, whom Carter nominated as an assistant secretary of state and a member of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, respectively, in 1979 (1979, book 2)

A PLACE IN THE HISTORY BOOKS As reported last issue, the Government Publishing Office recently appointed Case-Geyer Library as an official steward of the Public Papers of the Presidents, a set of volumes containing the public messages, speeches, and executive actions of U.S. presidents from 1929–2017. For each year of Jimmy Carter’s presidency (1977–1981), there are 2–3 volumes.

Each hefty book begins with an address to the reader at that moment in time. In Carter’s first volume, he begins his address with a disclaimer: that “one who has been so close to these events should not volunteer too quickly to interpret them.” Instead, he writes, “future historians will judge which of these documents are significant, and for what reasons.”

In Case-Geyer’s collections, curious researchers may now take on that very task.

Notably, several members of the Colgate community appear within the pages of Carter’s volumes:

→ Terrence Des Pres, a former professor of English and author of The Survivor, a study of life and resilience during the Holocaust.

Des Pres was appointed as a member of the United States Holocaust Memorial Council on May 2, 1980 (1980, book 1).

The preservation of the Public Papers of the Presidents relates to the ThirdCentury Plan Public Affairs and Policy Research Initiative, designed to encourage engagement with public affairs and policy among Colgate faculty and students.

A MEETING OF MINDS When Professor of Religion and Jewish Studies Steven Kepnes was to interview Jimmy Carter at the 2014 meeting of the American Academy of Religion, the former president asked that they proceed on one condition: that he meet him first. So, 30 minutes before the panel opened to an audience of nearly 4,000 attendees, Kepnes entered the auditorium of the San Diego Convention Center backstage and addressed Carter one-on-one.

“I remember walking into the room, and there he was,” says Kepnes. “And he looked just as nervous as I was. He kind of said to me, ‘I get nervous before these interviews.’

So I had to say, ‘Oh, don’t worry, I’m not

→ Frank Peter S. Labassi ’51, whom Carter nominated as general counsel of the Department of Health, Education, and

going to push you too hard.’”

Alongside Mary Evelyn Tucker, founder of the Yale Forum on Religion and Ecology, Kepnes led the panel discussion on climate change, environmental justice, and religion.

“Carter was very much a religious person, so we were able to press him on some of those religious issues,” says Kepnes, who sought to uncover how Carter’s political and theological perspectives informed his attitude toward climate change.

Although Kepnes promised not to grill the former president, he did not shy away from asking him about a tricky passage from Genesis (1:28), stating that humans have the right to conquer the environment as they wish, for their own gain. In a Yale Divinity School article recounting the event, Dean Greg Sterling recalled Carter’s response: He shared an anecdote from his youth.

“Every year in our church in Plains, Ga., they had a special week of stewardship,” explained Carter. “The pastors, no matter what their basic theology or philosophy was, would preach a special sermon that every human being is a steward of God’s beautiful world.”

Altogether, Kepnes contends, he found that Carter was “genuinely concerned with issues of the environment,” balancing his values in a position “to use his power for the benefit of humanity.” And among the large crowd, he found an unexpected sense of comfort in Carter’s presence.

“It was all a little intimidating,” says Kepnes, with a laugh. “In the auditorium, there were these two big screens projecting us. But I just looked at him, and he, of course, had been interviewed a million times, so he was very calm. We had a very nice interchange.”

— Tate Fonda ’25

3.

1. Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter 2. Colgate University’s 15th President Rebecca Chopp (2002–09) 3. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States, Jimmy Carter, 1977, book 1 4. Carter (left) and Professor Steven Kepnes

Carter was “genuinely concerned with issues of the environment ... [and used] his power for the benefit of humanity.

Professor Steven Kepnes

4.

Spring 2025

Colgate Magazine

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13 Oak Drive Hamilton, NY 13346-1398

In This Issue

Plan events for the city of London p.74

Create an opera-ballet about artist Georgia O’Keeffe p.20

Name a fern species after your mentor p.28

Fly a drone to find beaver dams in Alaska p.40

Compete on Jeopardy! p.81

Sneak into New York Fashion Week p.50

Start a student indie rock band p.17

Reminisce about meeting Jimmy Carter p.104

Win an Emmy and a Peabody writing for Stephen Colbert p.95

Meet Colgate’s 31st head football coach p.19

Drill Antarctic ice cores in -30°C weather p.23

Set three records in Colgate women’s ice hockey p.46

jill calder

Hunt ghosts in Merrill House p.32