Colgate Magazine Summer 2022

SUMMER 2022

EXHIBITING MOXIE

Alix Kennedy ’82, executive director of The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, and other alumni working in museums are challenging expectations.

P.26

Feature

Research at Colgate: A–Z P.40 In Class

Computer Science, the Liberal Arts Way P.13 Endeavor

Alumnus’ camp nurtures through nature P.50

look

Read this issue and all previous issues at colgate.edu/magazine.

ALEX COOPER

To celebrate Holi — also called the festival of colors — the Hindu Student Association and the Office of the Chaplains invited the Colgate community to Whitnall Field on April 24.

Summer 2022

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mark diorio

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look Two years in the making, the celebration for the Class of 2020 finally happened this past May and included traditions that the students (now alumni) missed due to COVID-19. The weekend included the Torchlight Procession followed by the President’s Reception, which was highlighted by a special concert for the class. Students and their families had the opportunity to reconnect in a special all-class barbeque and had the chance to meet up with faculty at an academic reception. “This ceremony, technically a goodbye, is wrapped up in your first reunion — a hello,” President Brian W. Casey said.

“For a weekend, saying hello and saying goodbye are together.

So you will always have this complex story of leaving and coming back to this place — a place that was truly your home for years.”

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Contents

SUMMER 2022

Drop by Drop Bottled or tap? Americans have a strange relationship with drinking water, explains Samantha Zuhlke ’10 in a new book.

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President’s Message

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Voices

Cover: Alix Kennedy ’82 at The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Mass.

Photo by Michael Wilson

More or Less Susannah Quern ’95 Pratt reckons with consumerism during a year of no buying.

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This Bug Is Wreaking Havoc

Scene

Patricia Pavlinac ’05 is helping children in Africa and South Asia fight a life-threatening illness.

Colgate News 10

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Discover

Owning Up to the Past and Fixing the Present In examining his family history, LeRoy Potts Jr. ’85 found similarities in the situations of African Americans who sought refuge during the Civil War and today’s asylum seekers.

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Exhibiting Moxie Thoughts on this issue? Story ideas? Colgate memories to share? Email us at magazine@colgate.edu or write to Colgate Magazine, 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, NY 13346.

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Alumni who work in museums are challenging expectations.

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Vice President for Communications Laura H. Jack Managing Editor Aleta Mayne

Research at Colgate: A–Z

Assistant Editor Rebecca Docter

From Antarctic drilling to zones where earthquakes occur, topics explored by professors and students run the gamut.

Senior Director, Communications and Strategic Initiatives Mark Walden

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Endeavor

The Many Faces of Leiya Salis This alumna from the Class of 2019 is showing her modeling talent, including an appearance on the cover of Vogue Japan.

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The Three Tenets of Interior Design Sarah Mendel ’09 provides tips for minimalist spaces that feature showstopping pieces.

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Nurture Through Nature Change Summer, founded by Joshua Phillips ’96, gives youth from under-resourced communities an outdoor experience while equipping them with skills for success.

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Mediavine, co-founded by Matt Richenthal ’02 and Steve Marsi ’01, has been deemed an internet giant.

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Sally Moran ’84 Davidson and Jason Gichner ’99 p. 78

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Salmagundi

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University Photographer Mark DiOrio Communications Specialist Kathy Jipson Contributors: Kelli Ariel, web manager; Ben Badua, campaign communications director; Daniel DeVries, senior director, communications and media relations; Jordan Doroshenko, director, athletic communications; Sara Furlong, senior manager, advancement communications; Garrett Mutz, graphic designer; Brian Ness, University video producer; Kristin Putman, senior social media strategist Printed and mailed from Lane Press in South Burlington, Vt. Colgate Magazine Volume LI Number 4

Ruling the Web

Alumni News

Senior Art Director Karen Luciani

Colgate Magazine is a quarterly 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 Tamala Flack, Title IX coordinator and equity and diversity officer, 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, NY 13346; 315-228-7014.

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President’s Message

‘Now Is Our Time’

On June 11, during reunion, President Casey delivered a talk, on which this column is based.

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ecently, I offered some speeches in New York City and elsewhere, about Colgate and its third century. The story of where we are as a university, and where we are going, bears telling. This is our story. It behooves us to stop to see where we are, and to see where we are going.

You see, I believe ourselves to be at a pivotal point as a university, just as I think we are at a pivotal point as a nation. And, as I hope you will see as we go along, I think of these as related.

But, let’s start with Colgate. For, as you have probably seen and heard in recent months, changes are underway at Colgate.

Some of those changes are quite visible.

We have built two of the most beautiful residence halls in the country, with Burke Hall and Jane Pinchin Hall opened up on the Hill.

And we are now breaking ground on many other fronts. ⚫ We have broken ground for the Robert H.N. Ho Mind, Brain, and Behavior Center, modernizing our largest science building. ⚫ As summer ends, we will break ground on the Benton Center for Creativity and Innovation, beginning the construction of the physical Middle Campus. ⚫ Architects are now drawing up plans for the new Fox Residence Hall to finally replace Gate House up by the observatory. ⚫ And plans are being completed for our newly

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Yet some of the changes afoot at Colgate you cannot see — and these might be even more impactful.

First, admissions to Colgate — the desirability of being here at this University — has profoundly changed over the past two years. We are the first liberal arts college to receive more than 20,000 applications for admission to a single class.

We have taken away federal student loans for nearly all of our students. If you walk the campus today, you will be walking by more than 800 Colgate students who no longer have federal loans weighing them down.

Six faculty members are in new, fully funded endowed chairs. Six more will join them in new endowed chairs in a few months.

We are launching several new academic initiatives across the University. And the world has noticed.

And we have been noticed in national media and in national news shows. We were noticed for our community response to COVID-19. We brought back all of our students and kept them here, and safe, and learning together through the last two years.

Our Raiders are being noticed. We are a small college with three teams in postseason, NCAA play — joining a small group that can make that claim, including Michigan, Duke, Stanford, and Notre Dame.

And our famous founding story — of 13 men giving 13 dollars — has been topped now. This year 13 women each gave $1 million to Colgate.

So, yes, things are happening at Colgate. I don’t have to tell you that all of this is exciting. How could it not be?

But that’s not what I am here for. I am here to tell you that all of this is important.

It is important because it is part of something bigger — something every Colgate person should know, and something we should all embrace.

It is important to this University and to all of us. It is a challenge.

Among the greatest gifts America has given to the world — perhaps only matched by its Constitution, its form of government, and its culture of innovation — are its colleges and universities.

For more on the campaign, see p. 18 and visit thirdcenturycampaign. colgate.edu.

mark diorio

renovated and reimagined athletics center, thanks to the $25 million gift of the Carey family.

By the middle of the 20th century, as America was becoming ascendant in the world, its loose network of colleges and universities became engines of research, centers of scholarship, purveyors of a world view, the incubators of leaders. And not only did these institutions shape America, but they also attracted the best talent from around the world.

One of the reasons why these institutions became so strong, so attractive, was that, at key moments, certain institutions took the lead. Every now and then a college or university suddenly grows in strength by being bold academically, socially, or technologically. Every now and then some college or university hears something the nation is saying, or needs, and it responds.

These new leaders — the colleges and universities that rise through intelligence and ambition and care — they deepen the role of education and the place of colleges and universities, and they compel others to strengthen themselves.

The history of American higher education is that history.

What has been so striking, however, is that in the 21st century, colleges in this country have become less sure of what they are and what purposes they serve. They have become inward-looking. They are unsure, stagnant, divided, cautious.

But here is Colgate. For a whole host of reasons, the nation has started looking at Colgate. And now we have the chance not only to be one of the most compelling undergraduate institutions in the country, but also a leader.

Colgate’s Third-Century Plan is many things: It’s a road map, it’s a framework, it’s a set of initiatives. What it is most fundamentally, however, is a declaration.

⚫ We declare that the liberal arts — reading, engaging, debating, writing, led by an excellent and well-supported faculty — remains the finest form of education to shape generations of leaders. ⚫ We declare that living together — even when it gets fractious and loud — is essential. ⚫ We declare that beauty matters — that the architecture and grounds of a university can inspire; they can shape a person. ⚫ We declare that success on an athletics field need not come at the cost of academic rigor, but can be concomitant with it. ⚫ We declare that a college can be clear, robust, compelling, and strong about what it is and where it is going.

That is how leaders are made. That’s how American higher education changes.

So, we ask: Can strengthening one college — can the transformation of one university — strengthen a nation and change the world? The answer is yes.

The pandemic caused the world to pause, to shut down. And in our own darkest days of the crisis, we in the administration kept looking for things to keep us moving forward.

One of the things we did — a symbol of Colgate — was fix the bells of the chapel.

Throughout the years, they had fallen into disrepair — and they could only be rung for a few moments, by hand, at certain events.

Now repaired, the chapel bells ring on the hour, every hour — as students walk to class, as they head to Frank for dinner, as they gather in the academic quad. You can hear them up the hill and down by the lake; from Oak Drive to the athletics fields.

They, too, are a declaration. About taking

Colgate’s Third-Century Plan is many things: It’s a road map, it’s a framework, it’s a set of initiatives. What it is most fundamentally, however, is a declaration.

care of what is our core, our history, and about committing ourselves to a deep and public excellence. They can be heard by anyone who believes in the power of education, and who wishes to see learning pursued in robust ways.

So, we ask again: Can strengthening one college — can the transformation of a university — strengthen a nation, and change the world? The answer is yes.

Things are changing at Colgate, and now we will keep that going. We have an ambitious long-term plan. We are the first liberal arts college to embark on a $1 billion campaign. We are taking all that is true about this place and enhancing it. For our students, for our faculty members, for our staff members, and for our alumni.

This is the important work of an important place.

You know, the first time I spoke to a large group on this campus, about where Colgate was going, I was under another large tent.

It was our Bicentennial year, and we were marking the occasion with a big night — a big dinner. I still felt quite new in the job, having only been at Colgate for fewer than two years.

It’s a daunting thing to be handed a bicentennial … to bring a university out of its second century and into its third. On that night, our Bicentennial night, I closed that speech with these words: “I cannot know what challenges are before us, and what the world will bring to Colgate. It seems clear, though, that the world is changing. Some of that change will be unnerving, perhaps even frightening. But I do know one thing: When the great challenges come to us and to this nation, one or two colleges and universities will decide to lead. Most will not.”

My final sentences that night were these: “I promise to all of you and to this University, gathered on the brink of its third century, that we will rise to whatever challenges come to us. We will do so with grace and intelligence. We will do so with confidence. And the world will know that this is Colgate’s time.”

It turns out, those sentences were right.

Challenges came to us, and we met them with grace and intelligence. And bravery.

And, it turns out, now is our time. That is why the world is watching us.

It is a rare and marvelous thing to be part of changing a college. It is a challenge, a calling.

I am excited about Colgate. I am excited about where it is and where it is going. And I’m excited to partner with all of you in what comes next.

Here we go, Colgate.

— Brian W. Casey Summer 2022 Colgate Magazine

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Change

More or Less Susannah Quern ’95 Pratt reckons with consumerism during a year of no buying

hen, during my adolescence, my middle-class parents found themselves ascending to the upper-middle class, my mother resisted. Reluctant to embrace her new reality, she modeled for us an almost pathological restraint. Requests for brand name clothing were dismissed out of hand, and she took almost every opportunity to remind us that our good fortune was not to be counted upon. To underscore this point, she would engage us in worst-case scenario planning, sprinkling dinner conversations with questions like: “What do you think we would sell first if Dad lost his job?” My father, who was, for the record, consistently employed, would smile and shake his head at her.

My sister and I, however, took the bait.

We would think together about what we could “get by on,” agreeing to return to a shared bedroom if need be, or thinking through where we could hypothetically hock our TVs. Encouraged by my mother, we discussed what jobs we, as 11- and 13-yearolds, could get if we needed to contribute to the family income. Raised in a different time

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and place, my mother would have made a great prepper. Even today there is a closet in her suburban home filled with emergency supplies — water, canned goods, batteries, and a crank radio. Oh, and a hatchet. Just, you know, in case.

Thanks to this upbringing, throughout my life I have been drawn to those who harbor suspicion about excess — people who do not assume plenty to be a natural state of affairs. My neighbor, raised in a family of eight, once related a story of restraint so compelling that I took to it as though it were my own. During a childhood trip to New Hampshire, she recalls her mother buying a small package containing four maple sugar candies. So potent was the sugary goodness of every bite, her mother explained, that this one box of four candies would suffice for their entire family. My neighbor reports no one argued when her mother broke the candies in half and laid them on the children’s expectant tongues. What she remembers, instead, is closing her mouth and savoring the sensation of the maple candy melting within.

Inspired by this appropriated memory, I

Imagine what it might mean for the distribution of resources if those of us with plenty could learn to say, ‘Thanks, we have enough.’

istockphoto/evemilla

Voices

instituted a similar policy and told my three boys, toddlers at the time, that a singleserving bag of M&Ms was meant to last an entire week. Each night at dessert time I doled out four round chocolate candies per boy. A swap meet ensued until each secured his preferred colors, gobbled them up, and then, completely satisfied, hopped down from their chairs and ran off to play.

That the bag was designed to be eaten by one person in a single sitting never once occurred to them.

Though my three (now teenage) boys might argue otherwise, restraint is fundamentally different from deprivation.

With restraint, choice is implied and so, it follows, is a baseline of power and privilege: I have and I may therefore choose to stop having, or to have less. Voluntary exercises in restraint can thus seem like the province of the fortunate and clueless. It’s one thing to fantasize about giving up a car and using public transportation, it’s another thing to stand outside on the train platform in the subzero wind of a gray Chicago dawn. When going without is not optional, things look different. Viewed from the El platform, my mother’s scenarios or my candy parsimony can seem like the worst kind of playing poor.

On the other hand, when asked with sincerity, the question of restraint is entirely counter-cultural and powerful enough to be a foothold in our slow societal climb toward equity. Choosing to go with less in a culture committed to “having it all” is not just revelatory, it’s revolutionary. Imagine what it might mean for the distribution of resources if those of us with plenty could learn to say, “Thanks, we have enough.” It might mean less plastic in the ocean. It could deliver a serious blow to white privilege.

Nothing less is at stake.

Mindful of these issues, in 2018 our family signed on for a year of no buying.

Boutique Photographer

After a series of deliberative conversations in the weeks leading up to the start of the year that included — no joke — a PowerPoint presentation that I made and presented to my family, we undertook a 365-day moratorium on the purchase of new clothes, games, books, electronics, gear, housewares, and other things that fall in the general category of “stuff.” For 12 months we purchased only essentials: food, toiletries, light bulbs, and a few pairs of shoes for my growing boys. We stayed out of stores and off of online shopping sites. We fixed things.

We made things. We went without.

We were hardly the first family to do this. Author Ann Patchett documented her year without shopping in an essay for the New York Times in 2017 and many people immediately followed suit. “Look,” I showed my family in my PowerPoint, “lots of people are doing this. And are HAPPY about it.” My PowerPoint also contained a picture of 5 square miles of plastic trash floating off the coast of Honduras and a bar graph of our family’s annual spending by category. Hard to say which was more stomach turning.

My slide deck didn’t quite connect the dots. Was my plan an effort to save money or the planet? An attempt to clean out or an attempt to find joy? It wasn’t clear because I wasn’t clear. There had been so many factors driving my desire to take my family on this journey: a friend pointing me to a minimalist blog; my children’s dresser drawers, overstuffed and unable to close despite the bags of outgrown clothes I regularly dropped at Goodwill; my increasing sense that climate change is a very personal problem. Its deeper roots lay in values instilled in me by my parents and a life of intermittent churchgoing, as well as annual summer trips to a mountain lake, which remind me that there is a different way to be.

More than anything else, though, it was this: Over the past few years, I had begun to feel oppressed by our stuff. The care, cleaning, and storage of the items accumulated by our dual-income family of five was taking far too much of our time.

But the other option — to treat our goods poorly, as though they were all ultimately disposable — didn’t feel right either. We were caught in a trap; spend time taking care of too much stuff or fail to care for said stuff and buy more stuff to solve the problem. Once I began to see our choice in these terms, the weight of our things got heavier and heavier. It was with this logic that I convinced my family to shut off the spigot of incoming items. Within days of implementing our decision, I experienced a great sense of relief. Nothing new was

coming at me — nothing that had to be removed from packaging, assembled, accessorized, displayed, used, cleaned, stored, repaired, replaced, recycled, thrown out, or donated. I felt free.

As for the rest of my family? They withheld judgment a little longer. Under the terms of our agreement, the boys were allowed to spend their own money. Because of this, while I enjoyed the immediate effects of less stuff, their lives were at first unchanged. Until they weren’t. And my husband, perhaps the most joyful consumer in our band of five, initially felt constrained by our decision. Until he didn’t. Eventually they, too, realized the quiet liberation that results from less stuff and more time.

As already observed, no writing about these sorts of endeavors is complete without the acknowledgment that exercises like this are a response to privilege. Many people around the globe go without life’s basic necessities. My biggest problem is not that I have too many hand towels; to name it even as bothersome is a luxury.

Despite this truth, I remain convinced that the privileged problem of material accumulation is nonetheless a problem. As Patchett observes, there is a reason each of the major world religions instructs its followers to detach from the material as they seek the divine. In my own tradition, Christianity, Jesus raises this point again and again. I used to dismiss these verses, reading them primarily as admonitions about greed or a misplaced desire for things material over and above things spiritual — problems

I did not perceive myself to have. What I have come to believe instead, is that when it comes to material goods, desire is just the tip of the iceberg. It is actual acquisition that clutters not just our space but our souls. Before we realize it is happening, our goods command our energy and attention, become the organizing force behind our lives, and we thus confer upon them greater and greater importance. “But, of course,” explains writer Amor Towles, “a thing is just a thing.”

Acquisition is not just a personal problem.

Our consumerism lies at the heart of global challenges — vast inequities, a warming planet. If I am convinced of one thing now, more than at the start of our year, it is that we got into this gigantic mess together, and we are going to need each other to get out.

While the decisions I made are primarily my own (and my family’s), each entangles me in a larger web. Where an object was made, how it got to me, what I do with it when I am done; none of this is my problem alone.

It took a year of me standing outside the system, looking in, to see this. It will take me a lifetime to figure out how to respond.

Taking an occasional shopping break is not going to save us. Any redemption here comes not from materials reused or money saved, but from a slow awakening. From learning to parse out and discriminate between different levels of desire. From recovering an ability to create and to receive. From, finally, acknowledging that one family’s effort to change is both wholly inadequate and the only real place to start.

This essay is the introduction to Susannah Quern ’95 Pratt’s new book, More or Less: Essays from a Year of No Buying (EastOver Press). Pratt majored in religion and English literature. Her honors thesis, written under the guidance of Professor Sarah Wider, was on women’s personal narrative. Pratt and her husband, three children, two dogs, and a tortoise make their home in Evanston, Ill. Her work has appeared in Literary Mama, The Mindful Word, Chicago Parent, Under the Gum Tree, Essay Daily, and The Week, among others.

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Commencement

Ready for a Changed World

P

roud families and professors alike cheered on the nearly 700 graduating members in the Class of 2022 at the University’s 201st Commencement exercises on May 22.

Representing 16 countries, 43 U.S. states, and 2 U.S. territories, the Class of 2022 leaves campus as the newest group of Colgate alumni.

President Brian W. Casey

commended the graduates for their persistence and significant accomplishments throughout their four years on campus, during a time of national upheaval, through all the complexities brought forth by the COVID-19 pandemic, national political division, and cultural debates.

“To be where you are now, to have persevered through all that you have, is a singular mark of achievement, a mark of strength and courage. You were the class that history touched, a class now entering a changed world,” said Casey. “You are ready now, ready for that changed world.”

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To be where you are now, to have persevered through all that you have, is a singular mark of achievement, a mark of strength and courage.

President Brian W. Casey

The commencement exercises concluded a weekend of celebratory events and cherished traditions on campus, including the baccalaureate service, the annual senior barbecue, and senior Torchlight Procession.

Alongside the Class of 2022, the University conferred honorary degrees upon five individuals, including: commencement speaker Wesley Morris, New York Times critic, co-host of the podcast Still Processing, and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner; Robert Audi ’63, John A. O’Brien Professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame; Linda Gay Griffith, professor of biological and mechanical engineering and the director for the Center for Gynepathology Research at MIT; Jean Morrison ’80, University provost and chief academic officer and professor in the Department of Earth and Environment at Boston University; and James Allen Smith ’70, chairman of the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation, Colgate trustee emeritus, and author of the University’s Bicentennial history book, Becoming Colgate.

Morris, in his commencement address, spoke to the pleasures, and dangers, of nostalgia.

“Right now, you all, the Colgate Class of 2022, you’re about to leave a moment that some of you might spend the rest of your lives trying to get back to,” Morris said. “You will long to come back to this period of your life because it was somehow preferable to wherever you currently are. All your friends here in one spot and none of your responsibilities.”

Morris concluded, “beware of nostalgia,” citing the Blues Traveler song, “Hook.” “It’s one thing for the hook to bring you back. It’s another thing to stay there. Congratulations to the Class of 2022. You did it, thanks for having me, and good luck.”

— Dan DeVries

mark diorio (2)

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

13 bits 1 Rep. Antonio Delgado ’99 has been appointed lieutenant governor of New York.

2 Antrell Tyson ’05 was chosen

by President Biden as a regional director for the Department of Health and Human Services.

3 Professor Kyle Bass received the Onondaga Historical Association Medal Award, given to those who ensure history remains a vital part of our future.

Alumni try on SUNLOOPS eyewear

by Madison Bailey ’18 (left).

E-Weekend

Ambition and Ingenuity Shine

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n April 9, students, faculty members, alumni, and friends gathered in the Hall of Presidents for Colgate’s 10th annual Entrepreneur Weekend. Student and alumni entrepreneurs representing 28 different ventures showcased the work they have done this year through Thought Into Action (TIA), and six of those ventures competed in a pitch competition before a panel of judges.

“Entrepreneur Weekend is not only a showcase for students to gain customers for their new products and services; it’s also an opportunity to pitch their business visions and ambitions for potential partners and investors,” said Andres Echenique ’83, alumni director of TIA. “It’s truly an event that marks their debut as entrepreneurs.”

To kick off the day of ingenuity and competition, attendees visited venture booths staffed by founders. Each attendee carried five investment tokens called “Iggies,” which they were given upon arrival and Illustrations by Toby Triumph

encouraged to award to ventures they believed to be most promising. Recipients of the most Iggies received cash grants between $250 and $1,000.

Once all of the Iggies had been awarded, the Alumni Council presented its Entrepreneur of the Year Award, which recognizes alumni who best exemplify the ideals of entrepreneurship. This year’s recipient was documentary filmmaker Sian-Pierre Regis ’06, H’18, whose debut documentary, Duty Free, profiles his mother’s struggle with age bias and discrimination in the workplace.

In his speech, Regis spoke on what has made his career as an independent filmmaker so fulfilling. “Don’t chase the money,” Regis said. “Chase the meaning.”

Following Regis at the podium, Echenique echoed the filmmaker’s sentiments about seeking meaning over profit in his thoughts on the value of TIA. “It’s not about whether the student venture is successful and making a steep profit by the end of the program, but rather about whether the students have come to stand for something,” Echenique said.

Ventures then presented two-minute pitches to a panel of Colgate community entrepreneurs: Regis, investor

Allison Stoloff ’06, Super Coffee CEO Jimmy DeCicco ’15, and Rodial CEO and founder Maria Hatzistefanis P’25. These experts followed up with questions on growth potential and goals.

When the ovations and adrenaline settled, sports analytics company ShotQuality (Simon Gerszberg ’22) and press-on nail boutique First Impressions Nails (Kadian Dixon ’18) had tied for first place, with a prize of $5,000 each. Vintageinspired eyeware company SUNLOOPS (Madison Bailey ’18), Maua Organics (Sally Ngoje ’19), NFT-centered venture BLANK_ Humanity (James Daus ’22 and Kris Gano), and virtual flashcard company Confucius Learning followed close behind with awards ranging from $1,000 to $3,000.

During the event, the names of the teams participating in the 2022 Entrepreneurs Fund Summer Accelerator were announced. James Chaplin ’20, whose venture Downkore is an e-commerce site offering dance apparel from around the world, and Keshaun Dancy ’23, whose venture is DMD Trucking, will receive up to $7,500 in additional funding and mentorship from successful entrepreneurs in order to take their ventures to the next level.

— Bri Liddell ’25

4 The Tinder Swindler, executive produced by Eric Levy ’94, is Netflix’s most watched documentary.

5 The Good Life class, taught

by Professor Rebecca Shiner (psychology), visited Iceland in May to explore human happiness, joy, and pleasure.

6 Siblings Jake ’16 and Caroline ’19 Danehy appeared on Good Morning America to discuss their Fair Harbor company, which sells sustainable bathing suits.

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Summer 2022 Colgate Magazine

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▼ 7 An 88,000-square-foot, four-story, mixed-use development has been proposed for the village of Hamilton.

8 New York Times editor Elisabeth Goodridge ’97 will study travel writing relative to climate change as a 2023 Nieman fellow at Harvard.

9 Colgate’s Longyear Museum partnered with the Oneida Indian Nation to create a story walk, with large outdoor reading stations based on the book The Legend of How the Bear Lost His Tail.

10 Flour & Salt Bakery, owned by Brendan ’09 and Britty Buonocore ’12 O’Connor, has relocated and expanded to Lebanon St., previously occupied by Rye Berry Café and the Barge.

11 2022 Balmuth awardees for teaching: Greg Fargo, women’s ice hockey coach; Engda Hagos, associate professor of biology; and Mahadevi Ramakrishnan, senior lecturer in French

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Expedition

365 Miles in 39 Hours

A

Colgate group with an interest in cycling and grueling adventure took on the Erie Canalway Trail on April 23.

The 365-mile scenic course runs from Buffalo to Albany and is a big draw for bicyclists of all abilities — although only the most ambitious will attempt the entire trail in one shot.

That’s just what Bronson Cvijanovich ’22, an astrogeophysics major from Mount Kisco, N.Y.; Grace Leightheiser ’22, a molecular biology and environmental studies double major from Lexington, Mass.; and Colgate staffers Alexandra Fahey and Heidi Riley did.

They hit the trail at 6 a.m. in Buffalo and crossed the Albany finish line at 8:45 p.m. the next day. As the cyclists passed through the Utica area, Associate Professor of Geography Mike Loranty pedaled with the team for a few hours.

In all, the backbreaking journey lasted 39 hours — without sleep.

While others have tried to finish the trail in record times, the Colgate squad was drawn by the challenge of biking from one

Traditional dishes from Trinidad and Jamaica were prepared by students and faculty members during the Africana and Latin American Studies Caribbean Week.

13 The rapper T-Pain headlined Colgate’s 2022 Springfest (formerly called Spring Party Weekend), which took place for the first time since 2019.

The cyclists break for food at a gas station.

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end of the state to the next.

“It was kind of surreal to ride across all of New York State in one go,” says Cvijanovich.

“Sometimes the miles flew by and the riding felt rhythmic and smooth, but as we got further into the ride, it became harder to stay comfortable.”

Fahey says each member understood that nothing they might do in preparation would make the long ride comfortable.

Instead, they focused on keeping each other moving eastward.

“While there were physical and mental challenges along the way, we still made it to Albany as friends, and that’s really all you can ask for,” she says.

The four adventurers are no strangers to exhausting recreation. Riley, the assistant director of Outdoor Education, completed the trail in 2020 in a trip that lasted four days. She also runs ultramarathons.

Cvijanovich achieved his first 100-mile ride in central New York a year ago with Leightheiser and Fahey. As a member of Overland Summers, an organization that takes children on long bike rides, he led a group of high school students through a six-week journey from Savannah, Ga., to Santa Monica, Calif.

Fahey, an admission staffer, has put up big miles through running and hiking across the Northeast.

Leightheiser is also a hiker and runner. In 2020 she and Riley completed all 46 high peaks in the Adirondacks.

The Erie Canalway Trail, however, proved to be a major test with obstacles that were physical and mental. The cyclists dodged rain and snow, but cold air made the journey difficult.

Headwinds were another problem. Not only did they wear down the team, but they also reduced everyone’s speed, pushing their arrival at Albany further into the night.

On a few occasions, the group got turned around in the dark, and also had to fix a flat.

Exhaustion and body aches were major challenges that tested their resolve. The closer they got to Albany, the harder it became to keep riding.

“There was almost always an unspoken question of ‘if we would finish,’ but we were pretty good at just getting back on the bike and going,” Riley says.

“Once we hit Fort Plain at 290 miles with only 75 miles left, I was pretty certain we were going to finish.”

When the cyclists arrived in Albany, they were met by an Outdoor Education student who was there to drive them home — and who also presented them with chicken nuggets, brownies, oranges, salad, Gatorade, and lots of water.

“I definitely would not have been able to do this ride alone,” Cvijanovich says. “The mental challenge was only achievable for me with the company of this crew, who were all committed to sticking together and helping each other make it to the end.

Leightheiser says the experience “rekindled [her] love of ridiculous journeys,” and she’s already thinking about future endurance challenges.

“There are so many reasons not to do things like bike 365 miles in one push, but it is so worth it when you do. The feeling of contentment, especially when shared with friends, is unmatched.”

— Omar Ricardo Aquije

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Assistant Professor Nick Diana

Class Notes

Computer Science, the Liberal Arts Way

mark diorio

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overing the walls of McGregory 314 this spring, colorful Post-it notes bore statements like “I feel useless” and “I value playing well over winning” and “I don’t like not being in control.” This affinity diagram represents one of the group projects for the course Human-Computer Interaction (COSC 480), taught by Assistant Professor Nick Diana.

The class has two objectives, Diana explains: “The first is understanding that human

beings have certain strengths and weaknesses, and machines also have certain strengths and weaknesses. How can we build systems that complement the strengths and weaknesses of these two kinds of agents in a way that’s productive — that’s better than just a human being alone, or better than just a machine alone?” Secondly, “How do we do that in a way that is human centered? We want to create technology that actually helps people. It is not

just easy to use — that’s the baseline — but it’s meaningful, it’s joyful to use … not destructive.”

Affinity diagrams are a method to glean high-level insights from user interview data, Diana explains. In the example pictured here, the students were interested in the emotions of competitive gamers. The researchers interviewed their subjects before, during, and after playing video games, taking detailed notes about the gamers’ emotional states at each period. The students then looked for commonalities across their interviews and created a hierarchy of data based on insights from those common threads. “The idea behind this model is, if you have users doing or saying the same things, then that’s probably important.”

The findings were unexpected, Diana says. The students found that the emotion the competitive gamers felt after winning a match wasn’t happiness or enjoyment, it was relief. “So this is abatement of negative emotions rather than seeking of positive emotions, which is really interesting.”

After the interviews, the students developed a solution and went back to the field several times to ask users for feedback. The affinity diagrams stayed on the walls throughout the semester so students could refer back to the data as they were developing opportunities for positive change. By the end of the iterative process, the students “have something that they can be pretty sure people actually want,” Diana says. “It’s a more reliable way of designing useful, meaningful technology.”

The end solution was building a “match review” interface that gamers could access between matches. “The idea is that an algorithm would churn through their gameplay data and look for common errors, then the user could watch short video clips on how to improve in the future,” Diana explains. The solution is relatively straightforward,

he adds, “but this group found that, at least for competitive gamers, it was impossible to separate their emotions from their performance.” The better the gamers performed, the better they felt, so the students focused on ways to improve how users felt about their performance. “It also emphasizes some key insights [the students] found through their user research,” Diana says, “namely that these kinds of gamers care a lot about the nitty gritty details of their performance and only have the mental bandwidth to process this kind of feedback after the match is over.”

He views the class as a bookend for the students’ computer science education.

Because it is a high-level course taken by upperclass students, they’ve completed their core liberal arts education and have spent their last couple of years becoming computer science experts. “My course asks, ‘How do we circle back to that liberal arts education? How do we apply those skills in my domain of expertise?’” he says. “I think the course injects some humanity into computer science, and hopefully they’ll take that with them when they build new technologies … so they can do so in a responsible and humancentered way.”

— Aleta Mayne

We want to create technology that actually helps people. It is not just easy to use — that’s the baseline — but it’s meaningful, it’s joyful to use ... not destructive.

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Bringing Coming-ofAge Conversations to the Stage

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urple and the Girl, a staged reading written by Izzy Fiacco ’22, explores a collage of conversations

the course really resonated with me,” Fiacco says. “It made me reflect on my personal experiences with being a woman and inspired me to create an ensemble piece that encapsulates the experiences of the women I have known.”

The play was a culmination of a yearlong project that included producing and directing the piece and writing an essay that was a synthesis of the research she did on feminist plays and literature.

“I received so much support from the theater department,” Fiacco says. “My main adviser was Professor Kyle Bass — we met weekly to discuss the direction, preciseness of language, and brainstorm ideas.”

She also received support and guidance from professors Amy Swanson and Simona Giurgea.

The key to the success of Purple and the Girl is the authenticity and timeliness of it — the conversations feel like

Hilary Almanza ’22 and Alex Tran ’22 were this year’s Colgate Alumni Corporation 1819 Award winners. Recipients of the award, which is given each year to those whose character, scholarship, sportsmanship, and service to others best exemplify the spirit that is Colgate, have earned the highest award that the University grants to graduating seniors.

Almanza, a political science and social sciences double major from Elmhurst, N.Y., was president of the Latin American Student Organization, a supporter of first-generation students and members of the Office of Undergraduate Studies program, and an intergroup dialogue supporter. She also collaborated with the Black Student Union, the Sisters of the Roundtable, and Brothers.

“Hilary embodies everything that Colgate truly stands for,” one nomination read, “[including] the generosity of spirit, time, and service needed

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ones you would overhear in coffee shops, walking around a park, or may even have with your own friends. Fiacco presents an interplay among topics that range from the deeply personal to everyday mundane. One actress, who plays a bisexual woman, questions why romantic relationships feel different between men and women.

Another contemplates buying a binder after noticing an Instagram ad for one.

In the future, Fiacco hopes to expand on the piece until she feels satisfied enough to submit it to festivals and workshops. In reflecting on the performance, she says, “I am so grateful for this experience and the support I have received for this project.

It was amazing getting to see the actors work with this text and then seeing that work impact an audience.”

— Paige Baker ’24

to build bridges and relationships in the presence of diverse groups of students.”

Tran, an educational studies and psychological science double major from Hanoi, Vietnam, was a Graduate School Access Fund fellow and a community leader. He also held various roles, including president of the Colgate Vietnamese Society, co-founder of the R Statistics study group, and president of the Senior Honor Society. In addition Tran was a team leader for the Colgate Caretakers, a group that volunteers with patients with dementia, Alzheimer’s, and traumatic brain injuries at Crouse Community Center. A nomination penned by six professors reads, “With a 4.05 grade point average, an honors thesis in psychological and brain sciences, an honors thesis in educational studies, and three co-authored journal manuscripts currently under review, Alex Tran is well on his way to a promising future as a scholar and intellectual.”

mark diorio

In Brehmer

surrounding sexuality, gender identity, and familial and romantic relationships.

The reading by Katie Victor ’25, Miya Kim ’22, Quinlan Owens ’25, Sarah Billings ’22, and Xose Agbadan ’22 took place in Brehmer Theater on April 23. The cast of five women intimately embraced each other through creative and emotive dialogue in candid discourse surrounding the growing pains of finding one’s identity in a world embedded with rules and standards.

The performance was based on Fiacco’s senior honors thesis project. The English and theater double major from Boonton Township, N.J., says she was motivated to create the work after taking a Movement, Gender, and Performance course her junior year.

“It was the first time I really encountered academic conversations about the deconstruction of gender, and

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Arts

Construction to Completion

Cannupa Hanska Luger

hand-rolled

Eastgate, a sculpture by Professor DeWitt Godfrey, is featured on the 2022 “Best of Denver” list by the Colorado city’s Westword news. “[Godfrey] took a stark departure from the stacked, conical works he’s known for to create this cascading sculpture,” Westword wrote. “But what makes the work so compelling is its metaphorical acknowledgment of its surroundings: The metal materials point to the industrial history of its environment, while the structure serves as a portal to discovering the potential of your surroundings.”

Here’s what it involved:

→ Commissioned by Denver Public

→ → →

→

Thaddaeus Rowe (bottom)

→

→

Art for the new 39th Avenue Greenway, Eastgate spans 39th Ave. and an adjacent bike path, forming a celebratory entrance to the park.

66' long, 10' deep, 24' high Total weight: 66,280 pounds (~33 tons) Sculpture surface area: 2,400 square feet; unfurled it would be almost the length of a football field 1,376 pieces of 1/4" Corten steel plate, totaling 5,300 square feet 209 lengths of C3x5 Corten steel channel, totaling 2,556 feet (just short of 1/2 mile) 8,840 stainless steel bolts

1,300 beads rolled

The artist says: “Eastgate was a new frontier, a completely new ribbon typology that pushed myself and crew to our limits at every step in the process — from design to final installation. It stands as my most ambitious, labor-intensive, and complex project to date, more than I ever expected.”

Godfrey (the Peter L. and Maria T. Kellner Endowed Chair in the arts, creativity and innovation; professor of art and art history) creates unique, site-specific public works of art for cities, institutions, and private clients.

Picker Art Gallery’s Artist-inResidence Cannupa Hanska Luger led a collaborative workshop for the Colgate community, Haudenosaunee people, and local residents on April 9. Community members hand-rolled ceramic beads, which will be incorporated into Luger’s envisioned social collaborative installation project. The artist is bringing this community workshop to locations around the country in an effort to create 20,000 individual beads, each representing one of the 20,000 plains bison living on tribal lands today. The installation will shed light on the importance of wild bison conservation and how environmental destruction continues to impact Indigenous communities.

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A Top-20 Finish

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he men’s rowing team concluded its season with its varsity eight boat rowing to a 20th-place finish at the IRA National Championship Regatta at Mercer Lake. It is the third-straight IRA Regatta that the varsity eight has claimed

Colgate’s rowing team has earned three-straight top-20 finishes at the IRA Regatta.

a top-20 finish. “One good thing about our program is it’s really about the individual performance,” said co-captain Thomas Feeney ’23. “It’s the sum of all of its parts. You need everyone at 100%, going above and beyond to achieve success.”

Here’s a look back at the season: → Colgate’s varsity eight earned a first-place finish at the Knecht Cup Regatta in April. It was the first time in program history Colgate came in at No. 1 at that race. → Colgate earned first place at the Southern Intercollegiate Rowing Association Champion Regatta and the Ithaca Invitational.

books. On May 6, Cole Blair ’25 stole the show when he jumped 7.30 meters (23' 11 ½") to better the 58-year-old outdoor freshman long jump record by more than 1 foot and become Colgate’s first individual champion in 10 years.

Two other Colgate athletes also advanced to the finals in their events. Johna Joseph ’22 ran his season best of 10.94 seconds in the 100 meters to advance, and Dillon Aryeh ’22 ran his outdoor best time of

’25 finished one spot out of advancing in 9th with a time of 50.02 in the 400 meters in his second-fastest time of the season. In the 100 meters, Jayden Jenkins ’24 ran his season best of 11.56; in the 400 meters, Dylan Wehrly ’23 ran his best in 51.49; and William Crounse ’24 had his best performance in the 1500 meters in a time of 4:13.63. In the men’s 4 x 800 relay, the team bettered their indoor Patriot League performance and was anchored

Cole Blair ’25

fighting spirit of a boxer to know when to get back up and when to sit in a fight,” says Riley Rice ’24.

Track & FIELD

Shattering a 58-YearOld Record

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n the first day of Patriot League Championship action, the Raiders were led by a first-year who jumped his way into the Colgate record

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1:51.68 to advance in the men’s 800 meters.

Several other athletes concluded their season with very strong or their best performances. Ethan Eisner

by Alex Almer ’22 in his final race as a Raider. In the field events, Nick Johnson ’24 threw his lifetime best in the hammer throw with a toss of 41.04 meters (134' 8").

Rowing: Shae Labbe; Blair: Mary Grygier '24

Men’s Rowing

→ The team earned the silver at this year’s Dad Vail, finishing 2.5 seconds behind Drexel, a program with more than 50 rowers. → About the coach: Khaled Sanad has coached Colgate’s program since it became a varsity sport in 2001. He was a rower and a boxer in Egypt, and has used those experiences to teach Colgate rowers to battle in races. He’s credited for knowing how to push student-athletes to be their best. “He brings the

scene The women started the day off as the 10k and hammer throws were the first on the schedule. In the 10k, Sophia Manners ’22 finished 10th in a time of 36:31.16. In the hammer throw, four Raiders competed with Maya LaRosiliere ’22, who ended her collegiate career with a lifetime best of 42.35 meters (138' 7") in 15th place. Several other Raider seniors competed in their last Patriot League meet and finished strong. Amanda Gollaher ’22 vaulted just under her personal best at 3.04 meters (9' 11 ¾"), and Sarah Silverman ’22 ran 63.87 in the 400 meters.

Isa Cunio ’22 competed in both the 100 and 200 meters, and Rachel Schaaf ’22 bettered her indoor Patriot League long jump with 5.31 meters (17' 5 ¼").

Strong performances by the underclassmen were highlighted

by Carollin Mellin ’24 running her lifetime best of 4:42.92 in the 1500 and missing advancing to the finals by less than 1 second. Dominique Groguhe ’23 placed 14th in the hammer.

— Kim Keenan-Kirkpatrick

Women’s Basketball

WNBA NY Liberty Borrows Colgate Assistant Coach

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olgate women’s basketball assistant coach Roneeka Hodges joined the New York Liberty’s coaching staff in March for the duration of the WNBA season. Hodges will rejoin the Raiders staff in Hamilton at the conclusion of the season.

She played 11 seasons in the WNBA with six different teams, including the Houston Comets, Minnesota Lynx, San Antonio Silver Stars, Tulsa Shock,

Indiana Fever, and Atlanta Dream.

Hodges was instrumental in helping grow the league and the game of basketball through her play and her off-the-court service.

Colgate basketball player Katlyn Ghavidel ’22 remembers, as a young girl, watching Hodges play for the San Antonio Silver Stars and fondly recalls meeting her and taking a photo. Now several years later, Ghavidel had the fortune of being coached by Hodges in her senior year of college.

“There is no one better to learn from and no better example than Coach Ron of what it means to give back and make people feel inspired,” Ghavidel says. “It is thrilling to see her have a chance to give back to the WNBA and help the next generation of players succeed.”

Hodges is the positional coach for the Raiders’ guards in practices. She also is a critical part of the game scouts as the team prepares for opponents.

Additionally, Hodges aids in the recruitment process and is a leader with team community service efforts.

Head Coach Ganiyat Adeduntan says, “This is a great opportunity for Coach Hodges to continue to grow as a coach, which will bring tremendous value to the Colgate program in the future.”

Hodges says, “I’m looking forward to … giving back to this generation of players, and once again being a part of a league that’s near and dear to my heart.”

— Kim KeenanKirkpatrick

Abu Daramy-Swaray ’20 signed a contract with the Cincinnati Bengals of the NFL after participating in rookie minicamp as a tryout player. When he got the call, “I hit my knees, called my mom, and started crying,” Daramy-Swaray told Bengals.com. “Even now I just feel emotional.

Am I really in the NFL? It’s been my childhood dream.”

Philanthropy

‘For the Children Who Never Made It Home’

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hether it’s raising money or bringing awareness to an important issue, Colgate athletics teams support philanthropic causes every year.

This year the men’s lacrosse team participated in the Every Child Matters initiative, honoring Indigenous children in North America who were forced to attend boarding schools and later found in mass graves. The cause is especially important to this team because the sport was started by Native Americans.

“Every Child Matters is a movement for the children who never made it home,” Amelia (Dawėndinė) Shenandoah ’25, lacrosse manager and a member of the Onondaga Nation, said in a Patriot League special on the team’s efforts.

The team brought awareness by wearing orange T-shirts that bore the slogan Every Child Matters before its match against Lafayette on March 19.

“This cause … is dear to our program and the sport of lacrosse,” said Head Men’s Lacrosse Coach Matt Karweck.

“We are honored to bring awareness to a movement that

has affected so many lives, in hopes that others will recognize the negative impact that years of ignorance has had on Indigenous people.”

Other Colgate teams also supported philanthropic causes this academic year: Tennis hosted the sixth annual Children’s Heart Awareness match, where T-shirts were sold to benefit the Golisano Children’s Hospital in Rochester, N.Y. The event raised awareness of pediatric heart diseases and supported the hospital where Clifford Pennington, son of Head Men’s and Women’s Tennis Coach Bobby Pennington, had open heart surgery in 2016.

Women’s Rowing helped clean up the Chenango Canal and the Chenango Canal Association Museum in the fall.

Women’s Lacrosse supported the One Love Foundation, a national organization that aims to end relationship abuse by empowering young people with the resources they need to see the signs of unhealthy relationships. The team held an awareness game on April 2 against Navy. Additionally, during the holidays, the players collected toiletries for the Help Restore Hope Center in Oneida, N.Y. And, while the team trained in Florida during the preseason, the student-athletes organized a developmental lacrosse clinic for area youth lacrosse players.

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Initiatives

Colgate Launches Historic $1 Billion Campaign

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Building New Areas of Strength The Campaign for the Third Century is the University’s first comprehensive fundraising campaign in nearly a decade and promises to usher in the largest and most significant transformation in the history of Colgate.

Touching on every aspect of the university, the campaign will focus on building new strengths in several key areas: academics; creativity and innovation; faculty; admission; residential life; athletics; campus and sustainability; diversity, equity, and inclusion; and life after Colgate.

“All of our Colgate stories intersect in this campaign and through the plan,” said campaign co-chair Gretchen Hoadley ’81 Burke. “I encourage all members of our community to take part in a tradition of philanthropy at Colgate that has made our

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mark diorio

he University has publicly launched the largest philanthropic campaign in its 203-year history — and the largest such campaign undertaken by a liberal arts college.

“We seek to not only be one of the most compelling undergraduate institutions in the country, but also a leader: the college that reaffirms the liberal arts, that embraces debate and inquiry, and that cherishes having students from all different quarters and all different means living together in an intentional community,” President Brian W. Casey said at the launch event in New York City on April 22. “The Third-Century Plan and this campaign are the most ambitious undertakings in our history, and they set the path to move Colgate to new heights.”

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Alumni and friends gathered for the campaign launch event in New York City April 22.

own experiences possible and memorable.”

More than $410 million of the $1 billion goal has already been committed to support campaign priorities, which will provide the necessary resources that allow the University to implement the structures — both physical and intellectual — that help the institution solve today’s complex problems and meet the challenges of tomorrow. Highlights include: → Building on efforts to make a Colgate education accessible to outstanding students regardless of socioeconomic background by supporting financial aid initiatives such as the Colgate Commitment. → The addition of 25 endowed professorships to allow Colgate to attract and retain outstanding teacher-scholars and to support emerging academic initiatives. → A hub for arts, creativity, and innovation in a newly created Middle Campus. Later this year, Colgate will break ground on the Benton Center for Arts, Creativity, and Technology, made possible by a $25 million gift from Dan Benton ’80, H’10, P’10. → The Robert H.N. Ho Mind, Brain, and Behavior Center, drawing on funds from the $15 million leadership gift by the center’s namesake to renovate and expand Olin Hall and foster multidisciplinary scholarship by bringing together faculty and students in psychological and brain sciences, neuroscience, biology, philosophy, linguistics, and language programs. → The first residence hall of the University’s fifth Residential Commons, through a $10 million leadership gift from Bob Fox ’59. Fox Hall will be located between Burke Hall and the ALANA Cultural Center in an area now occupied by Gate House, and it is the first step in the University’s plans to complete its Residential College System. → Renovations of the Reid Athletic Center, launched with a $25 million leadership gift from Chase Carey ’76, as part of the University’s ongoing effort to expand its reach and reputation through its Division I athletics program. When complete, Reid will feature a new arena and competition court, updated team and locker rooms, and a new health and performance center. → An architecturally and socially connected residential district on the Lower Campus.

Plans include new housing for juniors and seniors, renovations to existing Broad Street houses, new dining, study, and community spaces, and new paths and green space that connect to campus. → Bolstering the Colgate Fund, an unrestricted fund that augments income from the University’s endowment each year.

Christine Chao ’86 (L) and Gretchen Hoadley ’81 Burke

Professor Peter Balakian

The Colgate Fund enables the University to respond quickly to new challenges and opportunities and have access to additional resources to fund priority projects.

Reflections on Colgate’s Third Century Addressing a crowd of more than 400 alumni, faculty members, and University leaders at the April launch event, University trustee and campaign co-chair Christine Chao ’86 recalled her first-ever gift to the University.

It was January 1987, less than a year after graduating, and it was for $25 in support of the Colgate Fund. Now, Chao is one of 13 Colgate women who recently committed $1 million as part of the Thirteen Women Initiative.

“Each of us has the opportunity to play a role in Colgate’s Third-Century Plan by making a gift that is meaningful to us in that moment,” Chao said.

Her comments served as a through line for the celebration, which included remarks from Casey, Burke, and Michael Herling ’79, P’08,’09,’12, chair of the Board of Trustees.

Earlier in the evening, Peter Balakian, who is a Pulitzer Prize–winning poet and the Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor in humanities, helped set the tone for the event and place the campaign in context by reflecting on Colgate’s third century. He said: “Colgate is defined by a student body of makers and doers, in the classroom, on the sports fields and courts, in our labs, in our classrooms, and in our studio arts, where students create with bodies and minds and imagination.”

— Ben Badua

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Faculty

Appointments to New and Established Endowed Professorships The following took effect July 1: Third-Century Endowed Chairs

Financial Aid

Committing to Access and Affordability

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ne year ago, the University launched the Colgate Commitment to improve access and affordability for students. Last fall 12 challengers stepped forward to encourage gifts to make this initiative permanently endowed, with a goal of raising $25 million in new endowment for the Colgate Commitment. Thanks to the generosity of these 12 Colgate Commitment challengers, and the more than 700 alumni and friends who responded to their call, the University has raised $22.5 million of the $25 million of new financial aid endowment needed to fund the Colgate Commitment in perpetuity.

As previously reported this past spring, the University received a record 21,261 applications for admission to the Class of 2026. Preliminary analysis of the Colgate Commitment’s impact revealed that 78% of no-loan-eligible students who chose Colgate believed the University’s financial aid offers were superior to that of their other choices.

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Colgate Commitment Challengers:

• • • • • • • • • • • •

Chris ’94 and Julie Brown ’93 Ackerman P’24 Stephen ’80, H’04 and Gretchen H. ’81 Burke P’11,’20 Carmine ’85 and Amy Everett ’86 Di Sibio P’18,’21 Julian ’93 and Jennifer Heltzel ’95 Farrior Donna O. Golkin ’74 The Heuer Family (Alan ’63, Jon ’99) Peter L. ’65 and Maria T. Kellner P’87, GP’16,’19 Kevin ’65 and Jana Maher Ramzi Musallam ’90 Michael F. Petersen ’77 John K. Runnette ’54 Gabriel T. ’00 and Jolie Schwartz

→ The Sweet Family Chair Awardee: Jeffrey Bary, associate professor of physics and astronomy, an observational astrophysicist who uses both ground- and space-based observatories to study the formation of stars and planetary systems.

He engages his students in every aspect of observational work, which includes traveling to facilities in New Mexico, Arizona, or Hawaii.

He teaches courses at all levels of astronomy, from introductory astronomy for non-majors to upper-level courses in astrophysics. He is author of a first-of-its-kind learning video game, At Play in the Cosmos, designed for collegiate-level introductory astronomy courses. He also serves as the University professor overseeing first-year seminars, Global Engagements, and Core Distinction.

In addition, he is a frequent contributor to the core curriculum, teaching a course about the Galileo affair and the nature of science as part of the Core Scientific Perspectives component and Core Appalachia as part of the Communities and Identities component. → The Hurley Family Chair in Dialogue, Deliberation, and Decision Making Awardee: Spencer Kelly, Charles A. Dana Professor of psychological and brain sciences, who has helped to shape the department curriculum with courses in cognitive neuroscience, language and thought, and research methods, including an online Great Course, Language and the Mind.

The main focus of his research examines the interacting roles of body movements and language in communication and cognition, publishing numerous articles in psychology, neuroscience, and linguistics journals; and he has recently co-edited a book, titled Why Gesture? How the Hands Function in Speaking, Thinking and Communicating. Kelly has received multiple grants from the National Science Foundation, including one that led to the creation of Colgate’s Center for Language and Brain.

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Appointments to Existing Endowed Chairs

→ Charles A. Dana Professorship Fund Awardee: Carolyn Hsu, professor of sociology, whose scholarship has examined the rise of entrepreneurship and NGOs in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). Her work has been published in numerous journals and two books. Hsu is currently part of a research team conducting a national survey in the PRC every two years to examine the ways that the relationship between citizens and the state has been affected by increased authoritarianism under Xi Jinping. Hsu’s contributions to the Colgate community are numerous and include service as chair of the sociology and anthropology department, co-authorship on two campus life survey reports, and membership on several elected and appointed campus committees, including the Committee on Promotion and Tenure and the pandemic Task Force for Re-Opening the Colgate Campus. Her teaching includes a wide range of sociology courses, a long-standing commitment to the Core Communities and Identities Program through her China course, and an extended study course that she co-teaches with Professor April Baptiste, Environmental Problems and Environmental Activism in China. → Harrington and Shirley Drake Chair in the Humanities Awardee: Yukari Hirata, professor of Japanese and linguistics, whose research interests are second-language speech acquisition, computer-assisted training for the acquisition of second language speech, and the acoustical analysis of native and nonnative speakers’ speech. Specifically, Hirata examines how non-native speakers learn to perceive and produce Japanese speech. She has published numerous articles and scientific studies, and she is currently associate editor for the journal Language and Speech. Hirata’s research has been supported by grants from the National Science Foundation and the Japan Foundation. At Colgate, she has served as chair of the Department of East Asian Languages and Literatures and chair of the Linguistics Program; she teaches Japanese language and culture, linguistics, and language acquisition and is the founding co-director of the Center for Language and Brain. → Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Chair in Liberal Arts Studies Awardee: Christian DuComb, associate professor of theater, whose research and teaching interests include the formation of racial, gendered, and national identities

through performance and the relationship between performance and place. DuComb’s students consistently praise his passion for teaching and his wonderful ability to promote inclusive and lively discussion. His 2017 book, Haunted City: Three Centuries of Racial Impersonation in Philadelphia, traces the deep roots of the annual Mummers Parade through the city’s history of blackface masking and other forms of racial impersonation.

Among his honors are the Cambridge University Press Prize from the American Society of Theatre Research (2012) and a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship to spend a year studying theater internationally (2001–02).

His research has been supported by grants and fellowships from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Central New York Humanities Corridor, and both the Arts Council and the Research Council at Colgate. → The William R. Kenan Jr. Chair Awardee: Douglas Johnson, professor of psychological and brain sciences, whose research initially focused on cognitive functioning associated with the use of various drugs and alcohol, then shifted to include their connections to educational outcomes and institutional policies. Johnson is a masterful teacher and has earned numerous campus awards, including the Phi Eta Sigma Professor of the Year, the Jerome Balmuth Award for Teaching, and the Colgate Alumni Corporation Distinguished Teaching Award. His teaching interests range from psychology core courses and summer opportunity programs for OUS students to research seminars and the Core

Scientific Perspectives, Psychology of Sport and Exercise. Johnson is known for his generous service to the University, including directing the Center for Learning, Teaching, and Research, chairing the scientific perspectives component of the core, serving as associate dean of the faculty (now in his second term), and representing Colgate on the Patriot League Policy Committee. → Arnold A. Sio Chair in Diversity and Community Awardee: Janel Benson, professor of sociology, whose research and teaching interests are focused in life course studies, particularly in the study of risk and resilience in early life. Recently she has turned her attention to the study of low-income, first-generation students and their experiences in selective colleges. In addition to articles in various journals, her most recent publication is the co-authored book Geographies of Campus Inequality: Mapping the Diverse Experiences of FirstGeneration Students (2020), for which she was awarded a Spencer Foundation grant. She is active in intergroup dialogue on campus and in a local nonprofit organization, A Better Chance, which focuses on economically disadvantaged students; she has also chaired the Athletics Committee. Her own multi-method scholarly work — both quantitative and qualitative — has informed her teaching as well; she teaches Social Research Design and Methods, Sociology of Education, Community-Based Research, and the research-based Sociology Seminar.

Professor Yukari Hirata

Summer 2022

Colgate Magazine

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Discover First-Person

Owning Up to the Past and Fixing the Present In examining his family history, LeRoy Potts Jr. ’85 found similarities in the situations of African Americans who sought refuge during the Civil War and today’s asylum seekers.

or years, I have worked in positions focused on documenting human rights abuses and detailing atrocities that cause people to leave their countries of origin. During the Gulf War in 1991, I tracked the movement of more than one million refugees who fled to Turkey and Iran, many facing imminent death after sheltering in the mountains without food or cover. On the grounds of an empty school compound in Uganda in 2012, my U.S. Department of Homeland Security colleagues and I spent several weeks interviewing hundreds of refugees from Somalia, Eritrea, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Morning to night, as we set in motion the process of bringing these individuals and families to safety in the states, we listened to their horrifying stories of violence, loss, and flight.

I know the U.S. can be a welcoming nation. I saw it during the Gulf War, my days in Uganda, and in those long years of conflict following 9/11. But this compassionate side of America is hard to reconcile with the low number of refugees and asylum

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seekers the United States now admits — in part, a consequence of some 472 changes to immigration laws and policy that the previous administration instituted.

While not all directed at refugees and asylum seekers, the policy changes ended the dreams of many immigrants of color.

The Biden administration is working to rescind many of these changes, but the

damage to U.S. refugee and asylum programs was profound, and recovery will take years.

While reflecting on the damage and how to move forward, I felt compelled as an African American to engage in a deeper examination and conversation with U.S. history, foreign policy, migration, immigration, protection, and their intersection with race and my family’s story.

mark diorio

Potts was an international relations major at Colgate.

Our Own History When I began researching my genealogy a few years ago, I saw U.S. history converge with my family story and my work. While scanning U.S. Census records looking for information on my paternal grandmother, I discovered that she and her older sister were orphans at ages 5 and 11 and were placed in an orphanage known as the National Home for Destitute Colored Women and Children in Washington, D.C. (“the Home”). During the Civil War, fighting displaced hundreds of thousands of African Americans, who desperately searched for safety. Their journeys led abolitionists to create an informal network of “asylums” or homes to care for them. My grandmother, Edna Wineberg, and my great-aunt, Bess Wineberg, were recorded as residents in the Home in 1910.

The circumstances surrounding their placement in the orphanage remain a family mystery. Eager to learn what I could of their childhood, I continued to research the origins of the orphanage. The Home was established in 1863 during the Civil War as “a response to the crisis of orphaned refugee slaves in Washington.” The National Home was one of a handful of institutions established to care for African American refugees trying to find safety and protection behind Union lines.

Sadly, the refugees who survived the journey out of enslavement through the wartorn South found little safety, protection, food, or shelter, even when they reached places like Washington, D.C. Between 1862– 66, thousands of African American refugees entered Washington, but perhaps as many as a third died from unsanitary conditions in the shanties and makeshift camps they inhabited. If I had been alive at the time to interview these refugees, I wonder what similarities I might have heard between their stories and those I heard from the refugees I interviewed in Uganda.

The Home opened at Burleith, a Georgetown mansion owned by Richard S. Cox, who abandoned his property to join the Confederacy. Established by prominent abolitionists, the Home received 64 formerly enslaved persons, most of them children.

One would think, for those refugee children, acceptance into the Home would have been the end to their tribulations. But Reconstruction laws allowed Cox to petition the U.S. government for a pardon and to have his estate returned to him. On Dec. 3, 1866, having received his pardon, Cox and several associates forcibly evicted the women and children from Burleith.

Though influential and well connected, the abolitionists had anticipated an

unfavorable outcome such as this and had begun constructing a new asylum near Howard University — but the refugees’ eviction came before the new building’s completion. The children were forced to occupy an unfinished facility that left them exposed to winter weather just days before Christmas.

African American history is intertwined with migration stories, which are alternately painful and triumphant. Few knew that better than artist Jacob Lawrence, who in the 1940s painted a 60-panel series portraying the Great Migration, the flight of more than a million African Americans from the rural South to the industrial North following the outbreak of World War I. Past Is Prologue As I continue to explore this early asylum movement, I see its potential for expanding narratives and understanding of today’s asylum seekers and refugees in both the U.S. and Canada.

America has had a complex and episodic history concerning protection. Americans can take pride in the successful programs operating across various departments and agencies. Our asylum and refugee programs represent our core values and reflect our nation’s commitment to building a more stable world after WWII. However, these programs remain vulnerable to partisan politics when fundamental human rights ought to receive universal support.

Moreover, when tied to U.S. foreign policy and national security debates, Americans see U.S. protection programs merely as a good deed performed beyond our borders. Rarely have we given thought to the opportunity our protection programs provide us to reflect on our history or reckon with the harm we have caused within our borders.

A process of atonement might start with an in-depth examination of the personal impact those 472 changes to immigration law had on asylum-seeking families and individuals. Though arguably race-neutral, these changes undoubtedly fell hardest on people of color, especially Black refugees and asylum seekers. As legislators and policy makers consider options for repairing our broken immigration system, for me, its successful revisioning rests upon a reckoning with historic racist and anti-immigrant acts.

A reckoning should begin with the State Department and Department of Homeland Security developing content on their websites and within their publications that will inform employees and the public alike about historical and contemporary errors. It is also critically important that institutions create space to teach the public about

Rarely have we given thought to the opportunity our protection programs provide us to reflect on our history or reckon with the harm we have caused within our borders.

the harm done to America’s Indigenous populations and the thousands of formerly enslaved women and children who died seeking asylum during the Civil War. Indeed, I am disappointed that my work — regardless of the continent or the era — has operated in a place that is disconnected and unaware of our nation’s role in displacing African Americans.

Reckoning with racism requires effort by government, democratic institutions, the private sector, and citizens — whether your family has been in the United States for generations or you recently arrived. If we confront the tragedies at home, we can begin to make amends to the African American men, women, and children we failed to protect and better assist today’s refugees and asylum seekers.

— LeRoy G. Potts Jr. ’85 wrote this essay during his Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellowship in Montreal, Canada, during 2020–21. Potts is chief of research in the Refugee, Asylum, and International Operations Directorate at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), a component agency of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. He specializes in providing country conditions research to the agency’s officers who decide refugee and asylum cases. Before joining USCIS in 2008, he was a foreign affairs officer at the Department of State. This essay reflects his personal views, not the viewpoint of USCIS or the federal government.

Potts is one of the co-founders of the Colgate Alumni of Color organization, which celebrates its 35th anniversary this year.

Summer 2022 Colgate Magazine

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discover

Issues

Drop by Drop A new book co-written by Samantha Zuhlke ’10 and former Colgate professor Manuel Teodoro explores Americans’ strange relationship with drinking water.

he majority of Americans have a treasure in their kitchens — clean, fresh-tasting tap water available for a pittance at the twist of the tap. Yet, a large percentage of Americans turn their nose up at this resource, spending money on bottled water instead.

“Most people have clean, safe water that’s fractions of pennies for the gallon,” asserts Samantha Zuhlke ’10, an assistant professor at the University of Iowa’s School of Planning and Public Affairs, “and yet people believe commercial water is superior — when it’s not held to the same standards as tap.” Tap water quality is stringently regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, while bottled water is less tightly regulated by the Food and Drug Administration.

Zuhlke examines this paradox in a new

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book, The Profits of Distrust, co-written with Manuel Teodoro — a former Colgate professor who is now at the University of Wisconsin-Madison — and the University of Missouri’s David Switzer. Comparing public and commercial water consumption across the country, they’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not the quality of tap water that drives consumers away, it’s a loss of trust in government, which commercial water companies benefit from and, in some cases, actively exploit. “People think their tap water is bad, so they defensively buy this more expensive commercial product. That exit to the private sector ultimately reduces the government’s incentive to improve basic services,” Zuhlke says. “It becomes a vicious circle.”

At Colgate, Zuhlke became interested in the social side of environmental issues and decided to major in geography. As a political science minor, she was a research assistant for Teodoro, who taught her how to use maps to bring the political side of environmental issues alive. “So much of conveying a successful argument is about visualizing impact,” she says. “If a picture is worth 1,000 words, a map is worth 10,000.”

After graduating, she worked for a few years in geography education at the National

Geographic Society before following Teodoro to Texas A&M University, where he asked her to look into the phenomenon of commercial water kiosks in nearby Houston.

Practically unknown in the Northeast, the kiosks are everywhere in the southern states; people pay to fill bottles with water that is supposedly filtered, but in reality, it’s even less regulated than bottled water.

As Zuhlke began mapping out kiosk locations throughout the country, she found that they were not in high-income areas where one might expect residents to be able to afford spending more money for water, but in poorer areas with high percentages of racial and ethnic minorities — for example, in Hispanic neighborhoods in Texas or rural African American communities in North Carolina. “Clearly there is a racial and ethnic dimension to this story,” she says.

Those neighborhoods were the same places typically marginalized by government, where citizens grow skeptical of its willingness to provide basic services. Zuhlke and Teodoro began to conceive of a book that would use water as a lens to look more broadly at citizens’ relationship to government.

“There is a crisis in trust in government right now in the U.S., and water was an entry point for us to look at that,” she says.

“Drinking water is one of the most basic services government provides, and it’s critical to sustaining life. But if you don’t trust the government, you aren’t going to drink the water.” Using data analysis, the authors found that not only did commercial water consumption increase as overall trust in government decreased, but also that those increases occurred more steeply in areas where voter participation was lowest.

Moreover, in tracking locations of water kiosks across the U.S. using Google Maps, Zuhlke found high numbers of kiosks in neighborhoods that were “redlined” against housing lending in the mid-20th century, where citizens would be right to be skeptical of the government’s investment in their communities.

When municipal water failures did occur — for example, with lead contamination in Flint, Mich., the researchers found that it led not only to higher private water consumption in that community, but also in other communities that were demographically similar. “It’s not just whether my own tap water is safe to drink, but also whether the government is providing safe drinking water to people who look like me,” Zuhlke says. In some cases, they found, commercial water companies were actively using that phenomenon to increase their profits, for example, running ads with Hispanic mothers and children Illustration by Richard Mia

discover and pictures of rusty pipes. “Companies understand people are nervous about their water, and they take advantage of that to reap these profits of distrust,” Zuhlke says.

Thankfully, the message of water isn’t all doom and gloom. In several case studies, Zuhlke and her co-authors show how some cities invested in municipal water systems and reversed the trend to create a virtuous cycle, leading to declines in commercial water purchases, better tap water, and more civic engagement overall. Unlike some political problems, she adds, cities know

how to improve water supplies with the right investment. When citizens demand improvements in the most basic service of water, it can lead to other improvements as well. “Reaching out and asking the local government to provide tap water that is excellent can make a big difference,” she says. “I hope our book helps people feel more optimistic about how we could reignite civic life in the U.S., by thinking about the basic services you receive and asking for those services to be improved.”

— Michael Blanding

Epidemiology

This Bug Is Wreaking Havoc Patricia Pavlinac ’05 is helping to find solutions to aid children in Africa and South Asia fight a life-threatening illness.

hen Patricia Pavlinac ’05 pops into the Zoom window, she has to fix her username, which still appears as “Shigella” from an earlier meeting. Nobody wants this bacterium as a guest. But Pavlinac — an assistant professor in the University of Washington’s Global Center for Integrated Health of Women, Adolescents, and Children — has Shigella on her mind all the time.

Globally, this infection is the secondleading cause of diarrhea. It’s estimated to kill more than 200,000 people each year, including more than 60,000 children under the age of 5.

A parent in the United States doesn’t usually have to worry that their child may die of diarrhea. But in many parts of subSaharan Africa or South Asia, “That is a very real risk,” Pavlinac says. That’s why she has her focus on Shigella and other major causes of diarrheal illness. If the world paid more attention to these threats, it could make a

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Illustration by Eleanor Davis

huge difference in the lives of children and their families.

Pavlinac first became interested in infectious diseases, and especially in disparities among the treatments that patients can access in different parts of the world, when she joined the Peace Corps after graduating from Colgate. In lowand middle-income countries, she says, a lack of clean water and sanitation can mean there are more dangerous microbes around. Underlying conditions such as malnutrition or HIV may make young kids more vulnerable when they encounter those microbes.

The infection itself isn’t the only dangerous thing about Shigella. “This is just one of those bugs that puts itself in your intestines and wreaks all sorts of havoc,” Pavlinac explains. It can cause dysentery, or bloody diarrhea. The damage it does to the gut can leave children more prone to malnutrition afterward.

“Many of us naively assume diarrheal disease is really simple,” Pavlinac says.

Doctors and scientists understand the basics of what causes diarrhea and how to treat kids who get dehydrated. However, she says, that understanding has “ginormous gaps.”

For example, hospitals in low- and middle-income countries may not have the resources to test a child who shows up with serious diarrhea and figure out what virus, bacterium, or parasite is causing it. “Doctors are going blindly in terms of how to treat the underlying cause of diarrhea,” Pavlinac says, and are cautious about providing antibiotics because they increase the risk of antibiotic resistance.

That’s why some scientists are working to develop rapid tests for diarrheal illnesses, Pavlinac says. In her own research, she’s studying whether identifying which kids have Shigella, then treating those kids judiciously with antibiotics, can improve their chances.

“We would never advocate for willynilly antibiotic use,” Pavlinac says. But early results suggest that targeting the drugs to high-risk children with Shigella infections improves their outlook.

To prevent those infections from happening in the first place, Pavlinac is also working with research teams around the world to prepare for clinical trials of Shigella vaccines that other research groups are developing now. Although Shigella diarrhea is not a new disease, Pavlinac says momentum has built in recent years to finally develop Shigella vaccines for children.

Even more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic has made the general public more familiar with the science of infectious diseases. “That’s been really nice,” Pavlinac says. “Before, when I would say I’m an epidemiologist, people would say, ‘Oh, you study the epidermis!’” She also thinks people recognize now that infectious diseases don’t just affect people who get sick — they can reverberate through entire world economies.

Pavlinac’s own work was recognized last year by the Washington Global Health Alliance. In its first ever Global Health Impact Awards, the group granted Pavlinac the Rising Star Award, for an individual age 40 or younger who’s making a major difference in global health.

Pavlinac says it “feels critical” to use her voice to highlight the importance of this research area, as well as the oftenunrecognized work of her collaborators in parts of the world where Shigella takes the greatest toll. “The uplifting part is what a gift it is that we can be, hopefully, one small part of the solution,” she says.

— Elizabeth Preston Summer 2022 Colgate Magazine

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chuck choi

Exhibiting Moxie

She’s representing the U.S. at the Venice Biennale. He’s solved a Paleozoic mystery in a South China quarry. She opens eyes by teaching a curriculum centered on the worldviews of Indigenous people in Maine. These and other alumni who work in museums are challenging expectations.

By aletA mayne Summer 2022 Colgate Magazine

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This past spring, Medvedow entered the global spotlight when the much ballyhooed Venice Biennale began: She and the ICA’s chief curator served as co-commissioners of the U.S. pavilion at the world’s biggest art exhibition. They were awarded the commission based on their proposal to the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, which holds an open call.

The proposal’s acceptance was not only an important moment for the ICA, but it was also historically significant because it features artist Simone Leigh, the first Black woman to represent the United States at the Biennale.

Now installed in Venice, Leigh’s Sovereignty is a series of figurative sculptures that represent the labor of Black women in colonial history.

Part of the co-commissioners’ “massive responsibility” was to “ensure that the artist’s ambitious, glorious vision can be realized in all of its beauty,” Medvedow says.

The museum director has championed women artists since her days as an art and art history major at Colgate in the University’s nascent coed era. “Those were incredibly important relationships of early Colgate

women in the arts, sticking together,” Medvedow remembers.

After graduation, she ran artist spaces in New York City and Seattle before heading to Boston. In 1991, she became the first full-time contemporary curator at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. “This city has always had extraordinary collections, but it did not have a culture of contemporary art,” Medvedow said in the Boston Globe. By “building interest and excitement for contemporary art in Boston, which had been a city much more connected to its past than contemporary art and culture,” she says, Medvedow has forged her path.

Deciding to leave the Gardner Museum in 1998, Medvedow founded a public art initiative called Vita Brevis. The Globe referred to the temporary installations — set up at Boston landmarks and focusing on issues such as urban violence and the legacy of slavery — as her Trojan horse. “I thought that maybe the way to get contemporary art through to Bostonians was through the things they already loved,” she told the paper.

Soon after, Medvedow was chosen as the ICA’s director. “The minute you met Jill, you

Boston Globe / Contributor

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efore the Institute of Contemporary Art/ Boston (ICA) took shape as a 65,000-square-foot architectural marvel on the city’s waterfront, it resided in an old police station on Boylston Street.

“It was built in the late 1800s to keep people out, and it successfully did that the entire time the ICA was in said police station,” museum director Jill Medvedow ’76 quipped on the podcast Art Scoping last fall.

“It didn’t have much of an audience, it didn’t have any money in the bank, it didn’t have much of a staff, and … its printer didn’t print v’s and w’s — which, with my last name, was very difficult. So it needed change.”

Medvedow launched that initiative, transforming not only the museum — which was the first built in Boston in a century — but also the city. Her leadership in the building project, which was completed in 2006, has been covered in numerous Boston Globe articles and is even the subject of an MIT Sloan School of Management case study.

Faith Ringgold, American People Series #20: Die, 1967. Oil on canvas, two panels, 72 x 144 in. (182.9 x 365.8 cm). The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Purchase; and gift of The Modern Women's Fund, Ronnie F. Heyman, Glenn and Eva Dubin, Lonti Ebers, Michael S. Ovitz, Daniel and Brett Sundheim, and Gary and Karen Winnick. © Faith Ringgold / ARS, NY and DACS, London, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York 2022. Digital Image © The Museum of Modern Art/Licensed by SCALA / Art Resource, NY

immediately noticed that she is centered … she is not the least bit pretentious,” ICA board member and head of the search committee William Rawn said in the MIT case study.

“She isn’t out to prove anything to anybody.

She has a strong intellectual base for her opinions on art. This part of her persona was reflected in her vision for the ICA, which was something that really struck us.”

With lofty aspirations as she took on this role, Medvedow started making plans to take the ICA to a higher level. She envisioned a new building, with a permanent collection (it had previously only featured changing exhibitions) and crowd-drawing appeal, as a “platform for the work that needed to happen.”

Less than a year into her tenure, Medvedow learned of a competition for a waterfront parcel of land earmarked for a cultural site. Two previous directors were unable to convince the board to change the ICA’s location, but Medvedow succeeded, won the competition against several other major cultural proposals, and announced the organization’s first major capital campaign ($62 million).

The details of this effort are a long and winding tale, but it all boils down to Medvedow’s gumption. She credits her father — longtime New Haven, Conn., politician Leon Medvedow, from whom she “learned how to move an agenda” — and her Colgate education. “It is this background of political organizing [and] my degree in art history that has formed my version of cultural leadership and an understanding of how to navigate the really conservative oppositional waters in Boston when we were building the new ICA,” she said on Art Scoping.

As Medvedow was working to advance Bostonians’ attitudes about contemporary art, she was simultaneously helping to improve the cityscape. The ICA’s new location on Fan Pier is in East Boston, which at the time was just “above-ground, rubbly parking lots,” she says. “No one came to this neighborhood. There was a huge amount of skepticism: Would anyone ever come to the ICA?” In its first year, the ICA welcomed more than 280,000 visitors and has held steady.

“Eastie” is now rows of steel and glass structures, tech companies, hotels, and pricey condos. “It’s a lively neighborhood now,” she says. “That has been part of both the city’s change and the ICA’s change. It is considered to be part of the fabric of the city through our partnerships and programs.”

The permanent collection comprises 350 artworks, which include more pieces by women than men and almost 40% by artists of color. “We have an intentional focus

on addressing the gaps in art history and history in terms of representation according to race and gender,” she says.

Featuring Leigh’s work at the Biennale is demonstrative of this commitment, as is the ICA’s plan to bring Sovereignty back to the museum when the Venice event ends. “I have this dream, and great optimism, that we can have every 9th-grader in this city come to the ICA to see this show, and then every class will go home with a classroom kit…. Because it’s that important,” Medvedow says.

Art education is another one of Medvedow’s main objectives. The ICA forged a partnership with Spelman College to have a yearlong seminar at the HBCU on the arts and ideas of Leigh. In Venice, the ICA organized a teacher training to prepare educators to bring their students to the Biennale. And back in Boston, the ICA opened Seaport Studio across from the museum as a space for teen programs and exhibits. Pre-pandemic, there were approximately 7,000 teenagers a year participating. “That reflects our longstanding commitment to the next generation of artists, thinkers, leaders, and electorate,” Medvedow says. “As we know, young people who participate more in the arts are more civically engaged as they grow older.”

Medvedow herself has been immersed in the arts since childhood, when she spent time with her mother’s best friend who was a professional artist, learned to paint, and frequented the Yale University Art Gallery with her mom. Medvedow’s parents were deeply engaged in the community and passed that virtue down to her.

“There is a core value of civic life that runs through her,” ICA board member Charla Jones told the Globe.

During the height of the pandemic, the ICA converted its third building — Watershed, an industrial space for art and community events — into a distribution site for fresh food and art kits for East Boston families. More than 50,000 people were served.

Broadening equity and access can be achieved through many different avenues, as Medvedow has proven. As she facilitates change, Medvedow considers the role of the arts: “One of the things I love best about contemporary art is that when we really, truly encounter it and put ourselves in someone else’s shoes, it elevates the dignity of each of us,” she said on Art Scoping. “We see people anew, we see ideas anew, we can imagine things that we hadn’t thought of before, and I think that the arts are part of this flourishing of truth and openness and expansion, and the circle is just so much better for being bigger.”

‘The Public Was Ready for This Kind of Show’ When MoMA unveiled the rehang of its permanent collection in 2019, it placed a mural-size painting by African American artist/activist Faith Ringgold titled American People Series #20: Die alongside Pablo Picasso’s Les Demoiselles d’Avignon. The pairing set off a flurry of discussion about representation in the art world.

This summer, MoMA loaned American People Series #20: Die to the New Museum in Manhattan for its exhibition titled Faith Ringgold: American People, co-curated by Gary Carrion-Murayari ’02. The media has since turned its attention to this six-decade retrospective, calling it timely for the 91-year-old artist whom the New Yorker, for one, asserts “is sorely overdue for canonical status.”

Carrion-Murayari weighs in: “For many people, she’s a real icon of American culture, but she, for whatever reason, hasn’t had recognition by major institutions in New York.”

These are the types of artists whom he highlights in his position as the Kraus Family curator at the New Museum, which is devoted to contemporary art.

From the Whitney to the New Museum “I’d been at the Whitney for several years, and I was working primarily with

American People Series #20: Die, detail

Summer 2022 Colgate Magazine

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New Age “The last several years I’ve been working more with senior artists. In recent years, we’ve done shows with Hans Haacke and Peter Saul — both in their 80s — who are incredibly influential to young artists. I’ve worked with many younger artists, so I know whom they look up to, the ones they think are heroes, which are not necessarily the ones that [larger institutions] are showing. It’s also the case with [these older artists that] you want them to get accolades while they’re still alive. I think that’s a really, really important thing.”

Mind the Gap “I’ve been working in museums for 20 years now, so I’m very familiar with where the gaps in collections and programs are. I think I do have a sense of responsibility for using the platform I have to address those gaps within our living art history.”

Soul Searching and Critical Thinking “In the last couple of years, museums have had to do a lot of soul searching and critical thinking about what they do and how they operate across the board. Some of those are issues about representation programmatically, which is important, but it’s also about equity within the institution, how institutions are run, and who has a voice within the institution in what the museum does and how it operates. It’s not just about what we show, but it’s also about who’s deciding what we show. For a lot of us who’ve been in museums for a long time, it’s been long overdue for those kinds of discussions to happen. It’s been refreshing, and I think we’re already seeing the benefits.”

Paving the Way for Canonical Status “Faith’s show has been incredibly well received. The [monograph, which Carrion-Murayari co-edited] is probably the bestselling book we’ve ever made. [It was #1 on ARTnews’ ‘Essential Books: 9 Recent Monographs on Women Artists’.] The crowds at the museum are at the level of pre-COVID, which is pretty amazing to see.

So we know that we made the right choice ... the public was ready for this kind of show.”

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“I had never run a nonprofit; I didn’t know a lot about children’s books.”

Fortune Favors the Brave In Eric Carle’s beloved children’s book Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me, a girl named Monica asks her dad to carry out an extraordinary feat — which he does, with a ladder and patience.

Carle (perhaps best known for The Very Hungry Caterpillar) himself accomplished a pioneering act, in 2002, with opening a type of institution he’d seen in Japan — a picture book art museum — in the U.S. The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Mass., has since welcomed almost 1 million visitors.

And in 2008, Alix Kennedy ’82 embarked on a new mission when she joined Carle’s vision and became executive director of the museum.

“It felt like too big of a jump,” Kennedy remembers thinking when a board member approached her about the position. An English major at Colgate who earned her MFA in poetry, she’d built her career as a magazine editor, starting out at New England Monthly and then spending almost 20 years at Disney Publishing Worldwide, where she was ultimately vice president and editorial director. After further consideration of the opportunity, she determined: “I was almost 50 and it felt like a big chance to try something new and very different.

“I had never run a nonprofit; I didn’t know a lot about children’s books,” she adds.

But she had what The Carle’s board was looking for: someone who had executive experience with strategic planning and a familiarity with a family audience. Kennedy

michael wilson

contemporary art by the time I left. The New Museum was a natural place to go … working in a museum that’s exclusively devoted to contemporary art was a logical step. [Also,] the Whitney is exclusively devoted to American art, and contemporary art today is an international field, so it makes sense to have a global vision.”

had managed Disney’s four U.S. publications and was a liaison among the publishing headquarters in New York City, corporate headquarters in California, and her team in Massachusetts.

On the personal side, she has two sons to whom she had, of course, read Carle’s books.

“I loved reading Brown Bear to my children,” she says. “But Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me was always my favorite book. It has that amazing moment where you fold out the page and the ladder goes all the way to the moon. It really speaks to the experience of being a parent and how much we want for our kids.”

Carle’s books are among many children’s first, and The Carle can be the first art museum experience for youngsters. The two go together like peanut butter and

jelly. “Picture books are their introduction to literature, their introduction to art,” Kennedy says. “The work we do helps to encourage generations of children to become readers, to become lovers of art, to make art … lifelong learners in that sense.”

And although many visitors to the museum are parents with children, a lot of adults come on their own. “They’re there because they love illustration and children’s literature,” Kennedy says. Instead of considering itself a children’s museum, “We think of ourselves more as an art museum that’s really welcoming to children.”

Celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, the museum highlights picture book artists and writers from around the world.

In addition to doing this at the museum in Amherst, the collections travel the world.

In 2017, Kennedy went to Japan — the country Carle loved and where he found inspiration — with Carle when his work was on exhibition in Tokyo. “It was a very special thing for me to be able to do with him,” she recalls. “He had an incredible wit, he was a lot of fun to be with, and he was a bighearted guy,” she says of the icon who died in May 2021.

As demonstrated by the style of his work and the creation of his museum, “Eric was a guy with big dreams,” Kennedy adds, “and he was bold.” It’s likely that his characters Monica and her papa would approve.

Kennedy’s late father, John ’50, attended Colgate on the GI bill, and her brother, Paul, is Class of ’77.

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Rachel Kordonowy ’95 McGarry will tell you she’s not an emotional person. But when she recently stood face to face with the frescoes in Florence’s Brancacci Chapel, she says, “I absolutely teared up.”

Masaccio’s Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Eden (c. 1424–27) is known as a heart-wrenching painting, depicting a naked Adam and Eve shamefully leaving the Garden of Eden after being banished for their sins.

But it was the proximity to the masterpiece more than the scene itself that bubbled McGarry’s feelings to the surface. She’d had the rare opportunity to see the chapel’s frescoes from just a few feet away, thanks to scaffolding that’s in place for restoration but has been opened to visitors.

“They’re made to be seen from a distance and they have a lot of expressive power,” McGarry explains. “So, when you get up close, they have an even stronger result. [And] there are so many details you can see the artists added, almost for their own enjoyment.”

She remembers studying these Italian Renaissance paintings in one of her first art history classes with Professor Mary Ann Calo. “I was more of a math and science kid in high school,” McGarry says, “but I took my first art history class and just absolutely loved it.”

She ended up majoring in art and art history, an experience that extends in many ways to her current role as the Minneapolis Institute of Art’s Elizabeth MacMillan Chair of European art and curator of European paintings and works on paper.

During her trip to Italy this spring, she attended the Venice Biennale (perhaps passing Jill Medvedow ’76 in the crowd). The last time McGarry was at the Biennale, she was a junior participating in the Venice Study Group led by Professor Rebecca Ammerman. From that semester abroad, McGarry says, “I knew I wanted to study Italian painting and drawing.”

The group went to Rome, Naples, and Pompeii, exploring classical art and archaeology. They studied

Latin literature and translation, including Ovid and Livy, whose work is on her office shelf today. “I still draw on much of that knowledge,” she says.

Ammerman brought McGarry back to Italy the next summer to work at the National Archaeological Museum of Paestum to assist the professor on a book about terracotta figurines dedicated at the sanctuaries and temples. “We were in the basement cataloging the terracotta colors…. It was a really great experience,” McGarry recalls. “And the mozzarella di bufala is delicious there, and you’re at a beach…. It was an amazing summer.”

As a senior, McGarry defended her thesis on Lucanian tomb paintings at Paestum from the 4th century BC in front of a dozen faculty members.

“It was like an oral exam; you really had to know what you were talking about, and you really had to prepare,” she says. “It was a very rigorous academic exercise.”

These experiences added up to McGarry being fully prepared when she entered NYU’s Institute of Fine Arts for her PhD. “I remember feeling very privileged to have come out of Colgate’s art and art history program…. I got a ton of attention from the faculty.”

She wrote her dissertation on Guido Reni and, this spring, went to see his work again in Rome as she prepares her contributions for an exhibition at the Prado on the Italian painter next year. In the meantime, McGarry has been putting together an exhibition she’s co-curating on Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510) with the Uffizi Gallery that will open in Minneapolis this fall.

Comparing it to her undergraduate thesis, McGarry says the Botticelli exhibition — and often anything with artists from earlier periods — involves a lot of piecing together what little information is available and trying to parse fact versus myth. “You don’t have a slew of archives and documents to build facts on,” she says. “It’s complicated and time consuming, but fascinating.”

Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510), Self Portrait painting circa 1475

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Botticelli: Alamy Stock ; Dan Dennehy

A Renaissance Woman

Uncovering the How and When The Great Dying — the end-Permian mass extinction — 251.9 million years ago wiped out 96% of marine species and 70% on land. “It’s the largest mass extinction we know of,” says Douglas Erwin ’80, a senior research biologist and curator of Paleozoic invertebrates at the National Museum of Natural History. The Atlantic calls Erwin “one of the world’s experts on the end-Permian mass extinction.”

The leading theory on why the extinction happened is that it was caused by massive volcanism in Sibera, but Erwin and colleagues recently discovered that there’s more to it than researchers previously thought. They have also been trying to determine how rapidly the extinction happened. He elaborates on his research, their findings, and the remaining mysteries: “The best record of it is in China,” says Erwin, who began working there in the early 1990s. He and colleagues have been collecting ash beds to “get precise estimates of the age of the eruption of those volcanic events that produced the ash so we could tell how fast this extinction occurred, and thus get a better idea about the causes of that.”

Scientists have believed that the cause of the extinction was a large eruption in Siberia. But Erwin and his colleagues have proven that “there were actually more volcanic events than we had initially thought…. We discovered that there was a different kind of eruption in South China that released this huge cloud of mercury and copper and other volatiles that was a contributing cause to the extinction.”

“The evidence we have is an ash bed in South China, within marine rocks. There was a big volcanic eruption, the ash goes all over the globe, it eventually settles out, settles on the water, and then settles down through the water. The sediments eventually become limestone or mud, depending on the environment.

One of the places we often go in South China is halfway between Shanghai and Nanjing, just south of the Yangtze River. It’s an old quarry.”

“We’ve found tons of fossils. The volcanic ash beds that we collect are interbedded with a lot of other deposits that are full of fossils.”

“There are still lots of questions. With most research, as soon as you think you’ve answered one question, you realize that just opens up a bunch of other questions.

Why did this group go extinct, and not that group?

There were a number of things to get through — lots of gastropods and sea urchins, trilobites. You look at what survived and what went extinct, and you can then ask, is it because of different geographic regions, or because of the physiology of different groups of organisms? What Summer 2022 Colgate Magazine

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The Atlantic calls Erwin “one of the world’s experts on the end-Permian mass extinction.”

Erwin at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C. The NMNH has approximately 130 million lots, “and a lot could be one canoe, or it could be a box with 10,000 fossil shells.”

This photo was taken in the collection of Permian fossil brachiopods that was largely assembled by former Curator G. Arthur Cooper, Class of 1924, MA’1926.

“Most of my job is research, but there’s certainly an outreach component to what we do.” For example, Erwin co-curated an exhibit on the Cambrian Explosion that traveled around Canada and the U.S. for about 10 years, to smaller museums through the Smithsonian traveling exhibit service.

Erwin is curator of Paleozoic invertebrates at the Smithsonian. So what’s his favorite invertebrate?

“Opabinia, which is one of the Burgess Shale animals from the Cambrian. It’s a soft-bodied organism that was found by Charles Walcott, the fourth secretary of the Smithsonian and a paleontologist in British Columbia,

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which is where the Burgess Shale is found. Opabinia had five eyes on stalks on its head, and it originally had two appendages that were fused into what looks like a tube, so it looks like it has this long proboscis with a claw on the end of it. They’re about 3–5 inches long. They’re what Steve Gould [a former Harvard professor] called a ‘weird wonder,’ because they’re such a bizarre animal.”

“My first paper at Colgate in my freshman seminar in Lathrop Hall was on the end-Permian mass extinction.

My senior thesis was on the origin of the animals in gene regulatory networks, so the same two questions that I was working on with Bob Linsley [Whitnall Professor of geology emeritus] at Colgate have gone through my entire career.”

andré chung

were the factors that may have played a role? How do we get the data to test those ideas?”

The Elements of a Curator Emily M. Orr ’06 likes to know how things are made — from a 1916 iridescent Tiffany vase to a 1999 iBook laptop.

Here, we look at the elements of Emily: At Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum in Manhattan, Orr is associate curator and acting head of the product design and decorative arts department.

“We are the nation’s design museum,” Orr says. Housed in Andrew Carnegie’s former mansion at 90th Street and 5th Avenue, the museum houses approximately 215,000 objects, including ancient ceramics, buttons, everyday objects like radios, and decorative items like textiles, prints, and graphic design.

“I specialize in American design from 1850 to 1950, which is the golden age of industrial design. It’s a field in which women have often worked anonymously or not been credited; and that really applies across media — we find it with textiles and graphic design as well. Now, with a lot of new resources available and research, [we’re able to] give credit where it’s due.”

Orr not only researches how items are created; she also helps develop the exhibitions. This entails collaborating with an exhibition design firm to determine the visitor flow and how to trace a narrative. “It involves everything from figuring out the layout to writing the labels to working with our teams [to decide] how things will be framed, how they will be displayed, what is required for security, and how we physically build the show.”

laura barisonzi

An exhibition Orr co-curated on American graphic designer E. McKnight Kauffer wrapped up this past spring.

Titled Underground Modernist, it was the largest-ever retrospective on Kauffer, who produced advertisements, illustrations for literature, and posters in the early 1900s.

“He was known as the poster king because he innovated poster design for the London Underground, among other clients,” Orr says.

Exhibitions can involve “crazy lead time,” says Orr, who began working on the Kauffer exhibition and accompanying publication in 2017. Through an Arts and Humanities Research Council of the

Orr’s current exhibitions are Botanical Expressions, which looks at interpretations of botanical forms in the late 18th through the early 20th centuries, and Botanical Lessons, which explores nature in the Smithsonian collections through items that served as teaching aids in the late 19th century when there was a growing interest in science and education.

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United Kingdom-Smithsonian Rutherford Fellowship in Digital Humanities, she spent three months of 2019 in London, in residence at the Victoria & Albert Museum, digging through its archives. She also met with Kauffer’s grandson and visited other collections to evaluate loans for the exhibition to supplement Cooper Hewitt’s holdings.

“I love teaching and mentoring; it’s an important part of the work that I do here,” says Orr, who guides master’s students through an MA program Cooper Hewitt offers in partnership with Parson’s School of Design. “Whenever possible, we give [students] access to the collection,” she says. “We do object sessions — turn over objects, look at things in three dimensions, examine marks, and think about the weight of something.”

As a Colgate student, she worked at the Picker Art Gallery, cataloging works on paper and learning how to use The Museum System database. Knowing how to use that database is “foundational to being a curator,” Orr says.

After graduation, she was in the NYU master’s program called Visual Culture: Costume Studies, which was connected to the Costume Institute at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. “Leaving that program, I knew that I wanted to be in museums and continue working with objects,” Orr says.

She then became the Marcia Brady Tucker fellow at the Yale University Art Gallery.

At the time, Yale was doing a permanent reinstallation of its American decorative arts galleries and period rooms. Orr says: “That experience transformed and expanded my thinking and my learning about design.”

To work on her PhD in the history of design, she moved to London to be at the

Royal College of Art and the Victoria & Albert Museum. Her thesis was on the design of department stores at the turn of the 20th century, which she finished in her first years at Cooper Hewitt as the assistant curator of modern and contemporary American design in 2015 (Orr was promoted a few months ago).

Her Colgate art history thesis influenced her PhD thesis, which became a book titled Designing the Department Store: Display and Retail at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2019). “Props to Colgate for encouraging me to research and write on what I was interested in — fashion, retail, and exhibition design — because it wasn’t a traditional art historical topic.”

In April 2023, she’ll be curating an exhibition on symbol design in honor of the 50th anniversary of the Symbol Sourcebook by Henry Dreyfuss. A designer known for his work with Bell Labs, Polaroid, and airlines, Dreyfuss “realized that, as his consumers and his products were traveling faster around the world, he could use symbols to instruct and keep people safe,” Orr explains, “and [he identified a] number of ways that symbols could improve our lives and bring us together across language barriers.”

As is her approach with each exhibition, Orr will be looking at the history of the subject and bringing the story into the present. “The show will talk about the making of the Sourcebook in the 1970s, but also ask visitors to contribute to a Symbol Sourcebook of 2023, prompting them to consider what new symbols we need today and what symbols mean to their daily communication, right up to the latest emojis.”

Kelly, who is an enrolled citizen of Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg (a First Nation community), is a traditional bead worker.

Kelly considers herself a social justice educator who hopes to contribute to what she calls “a curriculum for dignity.”

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michael wilson

Welcoming Everyone “Museums never felt accessible to me as a young person,” says Starr Kelly ’10, MAT’13.

Because of that, she now makes sure those doors are open to today’s youth, as the director of education and exhibits at the Children’s Museum and Theatre of Maine in Portland.

Kelly grew up in Portland and is an

enrolled citizen of Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg, a First Nation community. Family finances were one barrier to museum trips. At the children’s museum, she partners with housing authorities and social service agencies to broaden membership scholarships. Her institution is also part of Museums for All, a nationwide program through which people receiving food assistance can get free or reduced admission.

But it’s not just about getting people in the door, Kelly says — it’s also about making kids and families from all backgrounds feel welcome. “Speaking from my own

experience, being an Indigenous person, certain museums have definitely felt off limits as far as their connection to colonialism and hoarding items as a result of colonialism,” she explains. “I’m specifically thinking about collections with actual human remains … it can be really off-putting, but also a really harmful experience to go into a museum and see an ancestor on display or to see burial items on display.”

Kelly began unpacking those issues further while majoring in Native American studies at Colgate, especially through a museum studies class with Professor Summer 2022

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Jordan Kerber. “Even though we didn’t use words like ‘decolonization’ at the time, the course really dug into the power that museums have over the narratives of Native people, and how institutions, curators, or individuals could help to shape stories so that they’re from the perspectives of Indigenous people themselves,” she says.

“That was really meaningful.”

She also worked at the Longyear Museum of Anthropology with Professor Carol Ann Lorenz, from whom Kelly learned about exhibition and collections care. “It truly fostered an interest for me to blend my educational work with museums,” Kelly says.

After earning her MAT at Colgate, Kelly taught high school social studies before joining the Abbe Museum in Bar Harbor as curator of education. It was there that she began her involvement with the Wabanaki studies curriculum, which she continues today. Maine passed a law in 2001 that requires schools to teach the history and culture of its Native people. At the Abbe, Kelly co-curated an exhibition on porcupine quillwork art by the Mi’kmaq artists, led classroom workshops, and helped develop a children’s performance that centered Wabanaki storytellers’ creative vision.

Her equity and inclusion work at the Children’s Museum and Theatre of Maine also involves community building, even with those who live farther away in the state.

“We’ve expanded our geographical reach significantly within Maine, which was a huge goal of ours,” she says.

“There are certain parts of the museum where stories highlight community members we’re trying to reach,” Kelly adds. A current exhibition brings to life the book Beautiful Blackbird, by Ashley Bryan, a celebrated African American artist and storyteller from Maine. With the message “Black is beautiful,” the exhibition tells Bryan’s story, but also the impact he had on illustrators of color. “We want people to see themselves reflected as vital members of our community and leaders with important stories to share.”

Kelly considers herself a social justice educator who hopes to contribute to what she calls “a curriculum for dignity,” which includes respecting “the people in our content” and “looking for those voices that have been silenced.”

She sees museums as a place to elevate those voices. “[We] need these spaces to connect and have dialogue,” Kelly says.

“Museums are a place where we can tackle these big issues together, and a place to come around to ideas of what’s important to us in our communities. It’s also a space where we can create community and promote belonging work.”

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ON CAMPUS

The museum studies minor — which brings together art history, history, and anthropology — has been offered at Colgate since 2017. Take a peek at the program today.

Clockwise from top: Beyond the Beat exhibition; the Met; Ray Zhang ’24 studies a Chokwe (Central African) harp for use in his exhibition case.

Current museum studies minors: 10 “It draws students from across campus: We’ve had biology majors, history, classics, peace and conflict studies, [among others],” says Professor Liz Marlowe, director of the program. “That’s the exciting thing about it — it’s bringing in a whole constituency that wouldn’t ordinarily engage with the arts or with museum culture. As the Middle Campus project grows and develops, we’re hoping that museum studies will be a really dynamic piece of that initiative and will get students from all different majors involved with that part of campus.”

Intro to Museum Studies (120) Highlights from the spring 2022 course, taught by Professor Liz Marlowe: → Visiting the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute in Utica → A field trip to New York City, spending time at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the American Museum of Natural History.

There, students learned how to do a critical museum review. Marlowe explains: “They’re in a frame of mind where they’re not just learning what the museum is trying to tell them, but they’re also trying to understand the institution on a deeper level: how it engages with its community, how transparent it is in the kind of information it gives in its labels, who its target audience is, and how attuned it is to current directions in the field in terms of community curation (i.e., bringing in community members to be part of decision-making processes rather than being top down). We talk about a lot of the shifts that have been happening, thinking around issues of museum ethics and how actively museums are engaging in those conversations and how much they’re actually changing their practices based on those new interests in the field.” → Topics covered throughout the semester: the history of museums, museum architecture, museum policies, repatriation, colonialism, and decolonization

Museum Curating (300) The fall 2021 course was taught by Rebecca Mendelsohn, co-director of University Museums and curator of the Longyear Museum of Anthropology. Nine students curated an exhibition for the Longyear that was focused on the theme of music; they were involved in every step of the process, from concept to installation. Beyond the Beat: Explorations in Music and Culture opened in February and runs until December. “The exhibition is about teamwork,” says Ray Zhang ’24, a history major and museum studies minor. “I also had the chance to explore my own interests in different themes and design my own plans to attract an audience’s interest,” adds Zhang, who worked on a case displaying Central and West African instruments that were decorated with human forms. In addition, there was a curator contribution case, in which students lent a piece representative of themselves. Zhang, who is from Ningbo, China, contributed a gourd instrument from his country, called a hulusi. In fall 2022, the Museum Curating course will be based at the Picker Art Gallery and will be taught by Nick West, co-director of University Museums and curator of the Picker.

exhibition: mark diorio; The Metropolitan Museum of Art:Alamy stock

TWO CLASSES ANCHOR THE PROGRAM CURRICULUM.

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Illustrations by Matthew Twombly

Research at Colgate: A-Z From Antarctica to Instagram to superconducting electrical circuits, topics explored by professors and students run the gamut.

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An Antarctic drilling mission will aim to answer climate change questions about how much and how fast sea level will rise with warming temperatures. Professor Amy Leventer (geology) is a principal investigator on an international team supported by a $98,000 National Science Foundation grant to Colgate University (total NSF grant = $3.06 million). Scientists estimate the Earth’s climate will warm 2°C in the coming decades, so the researchers will be collecting sediments from beneath the West Antarctic Ice Sheet to find evidence of the effects of past interglacial warming in order to predict the future.

B Mind reading may seem like a superpower detailed in comic books, but it’s a day-to-day reality for Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience Bruce Hansen and several of his students.

Using electroencephalogram testing, which includes a participant wearing a head net that measures brain activity, he’s looking at how neurons process images to better understand how the mind makes sense of what we see. “All of the work in the lab is focused on just basic science; understanding what the brain is doing,” Hansen told Spectrum News 1. Hansen is the first Colgate professor to receive the James S. McDonnell Foundation award, which currently funds this work.

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C A group of former child soldiers who had been forcibly recruited into armed groups active along the Democratic Republic of the Congo/Rwanda border have escaped to South Africa, where Professor Susan Thomson (peace and conflict studies) is documenting their stories as they seek to rebuild their lives. Her ethnographic research builds off of previous work documenting refugees, first with Somali girls who are now in Kenya, and more recently with Congolese women who resettled in Cape Town.

Thomson’s goal is to “contribute to both the academic and policy literatures on disarmament, demobilization, rehabilitation, and reintegration programs in Africa and elsewhere in the world.”

D Fossils are not simply discovered — they’re made through a process in which multiple forces determine which pieces become valuable and meaningful objects. Professor Elana Shever (sociology and anthropology) has a forthcoming book that delves into this topic, tentatively titled Making Our Beasts: Dinosaurs, Fossils and Science in the United States. “There’s this misconception that paleontologists go out, dig, and find an entire skeleton just lying there,” Shever says.

“That’s not actually what happens.” To witness science in action, she observed paleontologists on digs and in the lab, where pieces of broken fossils are glued together. “I don’t want to undermine the idea that this is all based in rigorous science, but I do want people to appreciate the amount of labor that goes into making fossils.”

E Professor Jacob Abell’s forthcoming book, Spiritual and Material Boundaries in Old French Verse: Contemplating the Walls of the Earthly Paradise, details how medieval poets writing in Old French imagined the Earthly Paradise — a utopian future of economic solidarity built on the image of the Heavenly Jerusalem from the Biblical book of the Apocalypse. “I had the pleasure of writing this book at Colgate while teaching an advanced literature seminar focused on questions of climate change and ecology in medieval French literatures,” Abell says. “My students were brilliant conversation partners as I refined the different arguments of my book.”

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F To improve methods of monitoring harbor seals, researchers are testing the use of automated facial recognition technology.

The software, called SealNet, has been piloted on pinnipeds in Maine. Photographic data collection — taken from a distance and with measures so as not to disturb the seals — developed and trained SealNet, which will ultimately be used to aid ecological and behavioral studies of marine mammals. A team of Colgate undergraduate research students (Hieu Do ’23, Zach Birenbaum ’22, Lauren Horstmeyer ’22, and Hailey Orff ’24), with Professors Krista Ingram (biology) and Ahmet Ay (biology and mathematics), has recently published their findings.

G Instagram and Facebook banned the posting of graphic images of self-harm (e.g., cutting) in 2019 “due to the potential risk that such imagery could unintentionally promote the behavior.” To examine the effects of the ban on social media users, Professor Will Cipolli (mathematics) co-authored a study using data-mining techniques that included assessing 8,013 tweets. The co-authors found that a negative consequence of the ban is that it removed avenues that provided support and celebrated recovery for those who used the platform to help their mental health. The researchers’ goals are to provide insights for policy makers.

and faculty research supports the academic mission of the university while helping to advance climate action planning at the municipal level,” the co-authors report.

I As climate change causes higher temperatures, how do dogs regulate internal heat? Associate Professor of Biology Ana Jimenez and her students have been studying different sizes and ages of canines across the seasons to learn more.

In the ongoing study, the researchers last year examined 55 pet dogs by taking their temperatures before and after a 2-mile hike in spring, summer, and winter. “As expected, it seems they are able to go into hyperthermia [i.e., overheating] easier during the summer months,” Jimenez says.

“That can be really bad.” This summer, the group has been studying elite athlete dogs (those at competitions and sled dogs) to compare: Are they better at temperature regulation than the “couch potato dogs”?

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H Hamilton, N.Y., was the subject of a case study on communitybased climate action planning, published by Professor Andrew Pattison (environmental studies), Professor Christopher Henke (sociology and environmental studies), and John Pumilio (Colgate’s director of sustainability). In the paper, the co-authors describe their efforts to create and cultivate a community-based multi-stakeholder group centered around local climate change planning and advocacy.

In addition, they write that higher education institutions, especially those situated in small rural communities with often limited resources, have a vital role in supporting the climate strategies of local actors. “Productive partnerships are established when student

Jumping worms are an invasive species that are continuing to spread and are now in more than a dozen states, damaging plants and animals. The worm (also called crazy worms, snake worms, and Alabama jumpers) have the potential to destroy forests and gardens because their eating habits change and erode the soil. Professor Tim McCay (biology) has been researching them since moving into a house in Madison County in 2004 and finding the property infested with earthworms he didn’t recognize.

He’s since been lending his expertise to find control solutions and prevent further spread. “I want to contribute to our understanding of these obnoxious and fascinating creatures,” he told the New York Invasive Species Research Institute. He and colleagues have received a grant from the Northeastern States Research Cooperative, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, to further study in the Adirondacks and other northern forest ecosystems.

“I want to contribute to our understanding of these obnoxious and fascinating creatures.”

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K

O

There is “a human tendency to turn away from knowledge,” Professor Ed Witherspoon (philosophy) says. With knowledge comes responsibility; for people to acknowledge what they know is for them to explicitly accept the responsibilities their knowledge entails.

Sometimes the responsibilities are ones they would rather not face, as when they have wronged someone or benefited from injustice.

“And in such cases, they may fence themselves off from these responsibilities by maintaining a shield of willful ignorance or by refusing to acknowledge what they know. Such stances are forms of deception and self-deception that prevent us from achieving genuine community,” he says. In a recent Arts and Humanities Colloquium, Witherspoon set out criteria for making acknowledgments that overcome these barriers. In one example, he applied these criteria to the contentious question of whether institutions should use land acknowledgment statements to acknowledge the wrongs done to the Indigenous people of North America.

Can smiling impact your body’s hormones? For her senior thesis, neuroscience major Ani Arzoumanian ’22 studied levels of oxytocin — a neuropeptide dubbed the “love hormone” because of its role in the formation and maintenance of social bonds — during a smiling exercise. Previous research describes a strong association between oxytocin and the perception and mimicry of facial expressions, but no other study to date has isolated smiling as a candidate for triggering endogenous release of the hormone. In Arzoumanian’s experiment, participants were instructed to mimic smiles while watching a 30-minute video of actors with smiling or neutral faces.

Saliva samples and mood scores were collected before and after. In her findings, Arzoumanian observed no significant overall change in oxytocin levels, and results yielded no significant correlations between oxytocin levels and mood. This “allows us to discuss the possibility that smiling behavior must be socially meaningful in order to trigger oxytocin release,” she says.

L In the hopes of increasing support and inclusion of LGBTQ youth in schools, Professor Susan Woolley (educational studies and LGBTQ studies) published gender-affirming curriculum in her new book, Teaching About Gender Diversity. With teachers in mind, Woolley designed lesson plans and resources to implement gender-inclusive pedagogical practices, to talk about gender and sex, and to foster more inclusive classroom communities.

M What role does military experience play in decision-making? In a recent paper in International Studies Quarterly, Associate Professor Danielle Lupton argues there are two critical problems with the way past research has addressed this question: “First, it fails to adequately consider the underlying mechanisms linking military service to elite policy preferences. Second, it narrowly focuses on the use of force and largely ignores other ways in which military experience may shape elite behavior.” To test this argument, she looked at how members of Congress who were selected in the Vietnam draft lottery leaned in foreign and defense policy roll call votes, compared to those who weren’t.

N Anomalies in the configurations of network routers may lead to network reliability or security issues. Throughout the past year, Aaron Gember-Jacobson, assistant professor of computer science, has been working with students (Devon Lee ’22, Jyotirmay Chauhan ’23, Emily Yu ’23, and Sara Alam ’23) to develop a system that uses machine learning to identify patterns in network configurations and flag deviations as potential errors that could lead to security flaws. Lee, Chauhan, and Yu presented their work at the NetVerify Network Verification Workshop in November 2021. Chauhan and Alam are also continuing to work on the project this summer.

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P Co-directed by Professor Yukari Hirata (Japanese and linguistics) and Professor Spencer Kelly (psychological and brain sciences), students from the Center for Language and Brain are studying the most effective methods for people to learn the different pitches of the Japanese language (called “pitch accent”). The study uses EEG headsets to measure the brainwaves of students as they listen to different pitch accents and later attempt to identify them by ear.

Q Qualitative data, paired with quantitative data, are necessary to provide a full picture of refugee settlement and integration, Professor Ellen Kraly recently asserted in a journal article titled “The Role of Demographic Research in Promoting Refugee Resettlement and Integration in the United States.” She explains: “You have to understand the ‘whys,’ their motivation and aspirations. That requires spending time to actually talk to people, to understand their lived experience,” adds the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of geography and environmental studies. A leader in this demographic work, Kraly believes in the importance of community-based action and has long been working with refugee populations in Utica.

R Studying Las Vegas facilities that house multiple restaurants, Assistant Professor of Economics Matthew Makofske found that restaurants performed much worse when they received the first inspection of a visit — i.e., when caught unawares — than when they were inspected after another establishment in their facility.

The establishments assessed 21% more inspection-score demerits and were cited for 31% more critical violations in these surprise inspections, as Makofske published in the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization. “It’s concerning, because inspection programs are largely about promoting compliance on the days an inspector doesn’t show up. When restaurants anticipate inspections, it inhibits that.”

S Superconducting electrical circuits — which transmit electrical currents without any energy loss — are being studied by Colgate researchers with two objectives: to find ways to improve computers’ efficiency, and to help understand the human brain.

“To continue improving computers at the rate we have been is going to require more and more energy, to the point of becoming unsustainable,” says Professor of Physics Ken Segall, who has been studying this phenomenon with a number of students, including Will Friend ’22, Eric Matt ’22, Raluca Ghilea ’22, Jack Tregidga ’21, Cheeranjeev Purnessur ’20, and Ryan DeSilva ’20. They have also been studying the development of electrical circuits that operate like neurons. “If the artificial neurons show something interesting, controversial, or problematic, there’s probably a good chance that’s also happening in our brain in some way,” Segall explains.

“If the artificial neurons show something interesting, controversial, or problematic, there’s probably a good chance that’s also happening in our brain in some way.”

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How do people conceive of past exposures to toxic substances — whether in relation to themselves, their families, or their communities — and how do these exposures link them to other people and places?

That’s the topic of a book project by Associate Professor of History Heather Roller called A Shared Toxic History: Communities of Exposure in Rural America. Focusing on the history of agrichemical use in the United States from the 1970s to the present, the research will delve into how people in rural communities have experienced and understood the contamination of their bodies, fields, and water over the course of the last half century.

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Although I am a historian of ancient religion, collaborating with students on this 21stcentury project has been transformative for my own research.

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In Uganda, Colgate researchers are assessing the prevalence of antibioticresistant bacteria responsible for upper respiratory infections in children younger than 5. The team includes professors Frank Frey (biology and environmental studies), Ellen Kraly (geography and environmental studies), and Peter Scull (geography).

They’re partnering with Bwindi Community Hospital (BCH), with which Colgate has collaborated on projects since 2011. This summer they traveled with nine students to finish setting up the lab and finalize the study protocols. Soon they’ll start collecting hundreds of samples throughout the catchment area of BCH. They’ll be using a combination of biological, geographic, and qualitative analyses to reveal factors associated with the prevalence and patterns of antibiotic-resistant bacteria in communities, which will inform both public health interventions and clinical formulary decisions.

Western Sahara is one of the last remaining territories in the world that has yet to formally achieve self-governance or official decolonization. It’s been the center of a conflict between an independence movement and Morocco (which claims Western Sahara is part of its kingdom) since the ’70s. The European Council on Foreign Relations has engaged Professor Jacob Mundy (peace and conflict studies) as a fellow to research ways to facilitate the peace process. “We championed a compromise agreement based upon the concept of free association,” Mundy says, “which would try to create a middle ground between an absolutely independent nation state and one that is integrated into Morocco.” He has since stayed in dialogue with the various stakeholders: “We’re keen to continue — not just throw a report out and let it sit, but keep it as a living document.” The UN recently appointed a new lead negotiator for the peace process, “and the outcome of that might tell us something interesting.” In the meantime, Mundy has released a second edition of his co-written book Western Sahara: War, Nationalism, and Conflict Irresolution, which picks up where the previous edition left off in 2009.

V Fourteen students in Professor Georgia Frank’s Love, God & Sexuality course volunteered with Millay Arts, a nonprofit that offers multidisciplinary artists’ residencies, to compile a digital database of the organization’s alumni. “I wanted to develop an alternative to the thesisdriven or analytic essay and give students a chance to discover collaboratively how humanities students can provide research that’s immediately helpful to nonprofits,” Frank says. This project, Millay Lab/Savage Beauty Squad, utilized the public humanities aspect of the course and allowed students to conduct research on how a person builds a life as an artist. “Although I am a historian of ancient religion, collaborating with students on this 21st-century project has been transformative for my own research,” Frank adds. Most recently, she penned the forthcoming book Unfinished Christians: Ritual Objects and Silent Subjects in Late Antiquity with Penn Press.

Citizenship education in China was implemented by the Communist Party in 1957.

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X Citizenship education in China (i.e., loyalty and obedience training) was implemented by the Communist Party in 1957. Under Xi Jinping’s rule, beginning in 2012, the connection between good citizenship and loyalty/obedience to the Communist Party has only strengthened and is an explicit part of the universal education system in contemporary China. Professor Carolyn Hsu (sociology) has been researching its effectiveness, specifically studying whether increased years of exposure makes subjects more likely to agree with the national curriculum. She and her colleagues have found that, paradoxically, the more citizenship education a person receives, the less likely they are to endorse the Chinese state’s message. In addition, a subsection of the population is redefining patriotism for themselves to mean focusing on the ways university-educated citizens contribute to the country through their expertise and skills.

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In Associate Professor of History Dan Bouk’s forthcoming book, Democracy’s Data: The Hidden Stories in the U.S. Census and How to Read Them, readers are taken back to the year 1940, when census takers traveled door to door to record facts about the people of America.

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Recently, Ashley Tourtelot ’22 came across Marilyn Monroe in 1950 census records.

Building upon Bouk’s prior research, the book examines the political implications of the data-driven census and asks readers to think more deeply about connections among representation, identity, and governance today. Bouk also brings his census research to the classroom: Recently, Ashley Tourtelot ’22 came across Marilyn Monroe in 1950 census records. “Some of the fun stemmed from the time travel that historical research so often makes possible,” Bouk explains on his blog. “Looking at census records, it feels like you are somehow closer to the person represented. It feels like you’re there with them, or close by, and the intimacy across decades is powerful.”

Subduction zones — where an oceanic plate collides with a continental plate and the former sinks below the latter — are usually the locations of major earthquakes, tsunamis, and volcanoes. Alaska is home to one of the largest subduction zones on Earth, so Professor Aubreya Adams (geology) and a team collected data there in 2018­–19 using 105 seismometers on land and at the bottom of the ocean. Now she’s enlisting the help of students to examine the data set — “there’s something like 15 terabytes” — in order to build a model of how subduction zones work deep inside the earth. “The biggest earthquakes don’t happen very frequently, which is fortunate for people, but it means that we don’t understand them very well,” she says. So, if researchers can answer questions about the dynamics and hazards of this zone, “it’s important, not just for Alaska,” Adams explains, “but we could also apply what we know to other subduction zones around the world.”

Alaska is home to one of the largest subduction zones on Earth.

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Culture

The Many Faces of Leiya Salis

Salis was photographed with other up-and-coming models for Vogue Japan in summer 2021.

ast year, Leiya Salis ’19 spent three days in Kyoto, Japan, being someone else.

Standing on the steps of the Kiyomizu-dera, a Buddhist temple constructed nearly 400 years ago, she was clothed in head-to-toe Gucci with minimal makeup and a perfectly styled afro. She posed demurely in an oversized faux fur coat and miniature handbag. After the photo shoot wrapped, she traveled back home to Tokyo, where she changed into her usual uniform of jeans and a white tank.

More than 348,000 sets of eyes would view this version of Salis on the cover of Vogue Japan, according to the magazine’s number for print readership. The 26-year-old, who began her modeling career in early 2021, was featured alongside seven other up-and-coming models. For Salis, changing her identity is as easy as changing her clothes, a modeling prerequisite she gained inadvertently.

As a Black/Asian model (a rarity in Tokyo), she’s often hired by high-end companies looking to inject diversity into their campaigns. Most non-Asian models in Tokyo are white,

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Salis designed her Colgate major — media, culture, and communication — after taking a course during the Manchester Study Group. “So much of how we understand ourselves is shaped through [media], and how we understand others is shaped through that [too],” she elaborates.

KENTO NAGAYOSHI

Endeavor

Salis explains, a beauty standard left over from the post-war days. There are only a few Black and brown models in the country, she says. Coming from a multicultural background, representing a minority isn’t new for Salis, whose childhood was split between her mother’s native Japan and Ghana, where her father grew up. In both of those places, she changed her identity to assimilate, and it was only when she came to Colgate, where there were other multiracial students, that she started to develop her true sense of self. “I always felt like my identity was in flux and affected by the environment that I was in,” she says.

“Maybe that’s why I find [modeling] to come so naturally, because I’ve had to unwillingly do that in a lot of situations, but now I'm willingly able to do it.”

The streets of Tokyo are buzzing with young creatives, and many models, like Salis, start out in the industry working collaboratively with designers to create pieces of art. For example, if there’s an aspiring photographer who’s looking for a model who’s good at expressing themselves creatively through their body and face, they’ll team up with budding stylists and makeup artists to build a photoshoot. “We’ll all just find each other on the street, at bars, at clubs,” she says. But in recent months, she’s proved her modeling talent, landing shoots with Nike, the luxury fashion brand Sacai, and the casual knit label YOKE. “While I’m in this space, I hope that I make some impression or impact that pushes brands and people to be more inclusive and more conscious of the messages they’re encouraging by hiring certain types of people,” Salis says.

Still, she often finds herself disparaged by voices upholding negative stereotypes of models. Salis thrived in Colgate’s academic environment, and she worked a series of corporate jobs before taking on her new creative role. And, she still has side gigs, like her podcast, Behind the Change, and Commu, a social justice organization she works with. “People find it very surprising that I graduated from college and I’ve worked in other positions [or] that I do other types of work,” she explains. “You can be a lot of things, you can do a lot of things. There’s no reason to just be one person.”

— Rebecca Docter

In the Know

The Three Tenets of Interior Design For Sarah Mendel ’09, a stunning space needs a timeless sensibility, subtle finishes, and just a touch of pizzazz.

arah Mendel ’09 doesn’t own the typical white, 40-piece set of tableware.

A proponent of moritsuke, the traditional Japanese style of food presentation, no two dishes in her kitchen are alike. Instead, when planning a meal, she puts emphasis on whether the plate she chooses will accentuate the food she’ll place on it. She brings that general philosophy — that a design should enhance a space’s original features — to her work as cofounder of Cochineal Design.

The business, founded in 2015, has thrived through word of mouth (and its recent feature in Elle Decor), Mendel says.

Every space she and her partner, Risa Emen, touch exhibits minimal design mixed with showstopping pieces. Together they facilitate every part of the design process, from interviewing a new client to determine lifestyle needs to developing a floor plan with inspo images. At the end of a project, Mendel is most excited to see the details: “Because we are capable, as designers, of visualizing what we’re designing, we don’t

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have the big ‘A-ha!’ reveal moment,” she explains. “It’s the things that aren’t exciting to other people, like, ‘That joint looks perfect!’”

Mendel’s path to design was winding — she studied international relations at Colgate, spending two summers interning for the real estate development firm Iron State Development. Much of the internship involved job shadowing, and when she sat in on meetings, she was always drawn to the architects, engineers, and designers in the room, inspired by the creative side of real estate development. “I was trying to get into any meeting with them,” she remembers.

After graduation, she took a job with the experience design firm ICRAVE before moving back into the development space while attending Parsons School of Design full time. From there, after a stop at Virginia Tupker Interiors, she branched out to create Cochineal Design. “It feels really circular to go development-design-developmentdesign, but I think ultimately, they both reinforced each other and got me to where I wanted to be.”

The firm has taken Mendel’s team from its home base of Midtown Manhattan to Timber Cove Resort, a restored 1960s hotel on the Sonoma coastline, and back again, designing residential and commercial properties all over New York City. Intentionally lacking a particular design aesthetic, Cochineal prefers to honor the client’s likes and dislikes. “If a client’s reaching out to us, they obviously like what we’ve done in the past, [but] we need to be respectful of something they’re interested in,” Mendel explains. “We never try to just replicate. Every project is project-specific.”

Joshua McHugh

Sarah Mendel (left) and her partner, Risa Emen

Though each space is different, Mendel and co. have three design tenets that keep the firm’s work consistent:

Tenet 1: Think in Context Whether the space is specifically indoor, or if it has an outdoor element, almost all of Cochineal’s projects are context driven. “[That’s] in terms of the existing architecture, but also where you are in the world. If you’re in Brooklyn, overlooking McCarren Park, then you have a whole green space that many New Yorkers don’t have, so we like to think of that [when designing the home].” Indoors, it could mean showcasing the millwork of a 19th-century home to reinforce the house’s historic look and feel.

Tenet 2: Watch Your Tone For Cochineal, tone isn’t always focused on color. When designing a space, the firm divides the project into low, mid, and high tones, including an element from each of those. For example, the mid tone is usually a natural material, like wood, metal, or leather.

“We don’t work with a lot of materials that have been heavily manipulated like washing of woods,” Mendel says. “We like to use nature in itself. It’s very warm. The metals might have a patina on them to age them, but they’re living elements.

“We may have cream upholstery with a black coffee table and natural wood floors to warm the space. Or we may have a cream rug with wood side tables and metal lamps. It’s different each time, it’s just really the idea that layering tones creates balance in a room.”

Tenet 3: Make It Iconic Every space the firm designs includes some kind of iconic piece. “Because we design in a minimalist-leaning way, we like the idea that you always know where to look in a space,” Mendel says. “Your eye is not overwhelmed.” That piece could be a statement painting, like an 8-foot artwork by an up-and-coming artist, or a vintage piece of furniture. How does Mendel source these objects? One night recently, she went down an internet rabbit hole learning about specific pieces by Swedish ceramic designer Gunnar Nylund. “When I love something, I get really excited by learning more about it,” she told Shelter TV.

— Rebecca Docter Summer 2022 Colgate Magazine

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Nonprofit

Nurture Through Nature Change Summer, founded by Joshua Phillips ’96, gives youth from under-resourced communities an outdoor experience while equipping them with skills for a successful future.

or Joshua Phillips ’96, watching urban youth delight in the simplest of pleasures — like walking barefoot through a meadow — represents more than the culmination of a multifaceted career working with young students. It brings home the importance of positioning kids for success by cultivating and nurturing skills like curiosity. “Yes, education is about going to class and doing the learning,” he says. “But it’s also about being encouraged to figure out what excites you and makes you want to dig deeper.” Who knows, maybe feeling the delicious tickle of the grass on your toes will prompt you to explore the birds, trees, and sky?

A few years ago, Phillips founded Change Summer, a network of camps that partners with schools in under-resourced communities to provide students with summertime experiences. He believes the camps can change lives. “What happens when you’re a teenager from Brownsville, N.Y., or Camden, N.J., and you hop on a bus to come to one of our camps at Union College or Roger Williams?” Phillips asks.

“You’re going to have to pick out your own clothes, remember to brush your teeth, walk to the dining hall, and choose your own food. Then, you’re going to turn around and see that you don’t know a soul. It’s an experience that everyone has at college, and then again and again after.”

Ever since graduating from Colgate, where he majored in political science, Phillips has known that he would teach.

But it wasn’t until he had risen through the ranks at Uncommon Schools, a charter school organization in New York City, that he realized what prepping students for college really meant. Looking to push Uncommon to the next level as its chief of innovation and school operations, he remembers “hearing from our alums that while we had successfully equipped them to ace calculus and write history papers, they felt at a loss when it came to socioemotional skills.”

The feedback prompted Phillips to help

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revamp the high school program so that it incorporated the core socio-emotional skills that best correlate to college success — identified as confidence, curiosity, independence, and responsibility. He also thought beyond academics. His daughter was about to start summer camp and he remembered the formative experiences he had enjoyed while he himself attended camp, and then worked at one. “It just hit me that this could be a fun way to get the kids the skills they were missing,” he says.

It wasn’t reinventing the wheel, because many similar programs exist. But, as Phillips points out, not many are directly linked to public schools.

In its first summer, Camp Uncommon brought 160 students from member charter schools up to Maine, gave them a traditional camp experience — that potent combination of athletics, arts, and outdoor adventure — and tossed in a homegrown

Discovery program, which addressed issues like self-care, identity, learning from mistakes, and recognizing opportunities.

Camp Uncommon developed a survey that measured students’ skills in terms of the four core success components, before and at the end of the program, and saw a significant amount of growth in academics, attendance, and maturity.

“We started getting calls from other charter school groups interested in participating,” relays Phillips. “It dawned on me that there was a need for this to be bigger, so I wrote a business plan.” By summer 2019, he had launched Change Summer, a nonprofit through which donor gifts and charter school fees keep the cost to parents at just $150 per camper. Its first year brought 1,000 kids pulled from the 55 charters under Uncommon Schools’ umbrella.

Phillips’ organization, where he acts as CEO, now manages the camp program for three other large charter school groups. This summer, he estimates about 3,000 kids will participate, and within the next five years, he’s aiming to enroll 10,000 students across 10 camps.

“Camp has been a big part of different cultures for many years,” he observes. “It boils down to an opportunity for children to let go of every insecurity and feel free to be themselves. And that can’t be taught … you have to experience it.”

— JoAnn Greco

llustration by Delphine Lee

Matt Richenthal ’02 (left) and Steve Marsi ’01

Entrepreneurship

Ruling the Web Mediavine co-founders credit collaboration and transparency for company’s rise to internet giant.

hen Matt Richenthal ’02 resigned from his role as a writer for a Boston start-up to launch his own content company called iScribe — “a terrible, awful name” — in 2004, he had no idea the business would one day grow into Mediavine, one of “The 20 Internet Giants That Rule the Web” as declared by Visual Capitalist in January. He only knew he wanted Steve Marsi ’01 along for the ride.

“I couldn’t imagine a better business partner than Steve in terms of his personality, his work ethic,” says Richenthal, who cites a 368-mile overnight road trip to fetch a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich from a 24-hour deli as the experience that

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cemented their friendship at Colgate.

“We had no grand visions. We didn’t set out to create the most dominant digital ad management company in the world.”

With nearly 150 employees around the country, Mediavine provides technical support and advertising solutions that allow independent publishers to earn passive income while they focus on long-form content creation. Mediavine works with a range of publishers covering food, parenting, crafting, travel, home improvement, religion, and everything in between.

Although the company’s journey to internet giant unfolded organically, collaboration and transparency remain at the heart of Mediavine’s culture.

“Mediavine is not a place with a lot of hierarchy,” Richenthal says. “It’s one big community where the best idea wins.”

A constant evolution in search of the best idea drove Mediavine’s growth over the decades. Initially, the pair focused on generating SEO content for media companies when the now common marketing practice was nascent for most sites. Soon, they discovered they could have greater independence by creating their own

websites and earning money off ad revenue based on traffic.

“It was a bootstrap operation,” Richenthal says. “Steve and I were waking up at 5 a.m. and spending 12 or 14 hours a day pumping out content for all these pop culture fan sites we’d created, seeing what would stick.”

After their Grey’s Anatomy fan site became the top search result for the long-running ABC primetime drama, the company’s other TV show sites began to take off too. The more content they generated, the more web traffic would increase and the more advertising revenue they earned.

That was the business model until 2013, when Mediavine started a blog called Food Fanatic that offers recipes, menus, and cooking advice.

“That was when we realized our scalable product was our ability to take a small website owned by one person or a few people — independent publishers that a lot of advertising providers overlook — and monetize it through advertising technology solutions,” Marsi says.

Today, Mediavine is a $400 million business that serves more than 16 billion ads per month for more than 8,600 independent websites. The scrappy company that embraced remote work years before it was cool now serves as a model for forwardthinking employers wanting to establish a dynamic, desirable workplace.

As Mediavine has grown, Richenthal and Marsi have made a conscious effort to hire people from diverse backgrounds, not just ethnically but also geographically and socioeconomically. “Our hiring process is emblematic of the country we want to live in,” Marsi says.

In 2021, the company launched the Mediavine Shine program, which allows publishers to promote the charitable campaigns they care most about. Company employees receive designated paid time off to volunteer in their communities and the company matches employee contributions for qualifying charitable organizations and approved social justice or equal rights causes.

“Anyone can model good values, be a positive force in people’s lives, and help shape local and broader communities at any point. You can’t change everything, but you can contribute something valuable every day.”

— Kat Braz Marsi established the Marsi Family Scholarship Fund for underrepresented communities in 2020. “What I’ve learned in the past few years at Mediavine is just how many capable, hardworking, and talented people there are who didn’t have access to the same educational opportunities as I did.”

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SALMAGUNDI 13 Ways to Find Summer Fun in Madison County Some might assume that activity in Hamilton ceases when Colgate students leave for the summer, but the village and surrounding area remain a hub of activity throughout the warmer months. Some even describe summer as the best time of year to be in the area.

“It’s a really special time,” says Becca Landry ’24, who has spent her last two summers on campus. After surveying students, we compiled the top 13 ways to enjoy the Chenango Valley all summer long.

1. Seven Oaks Golf Course: Hit a few rounds at Seven Oaks, which is newly renovated but still holds the same classic charm that earned it the #8 Golfers’ Choice title for top college courses.

2. Rexford Falls: Nestled in woods 12 miles from campus lie these historic falls. A 0.8-mile hike to this site will not only allow you to view the natural Rexford waterfall but also traverse its famed bowstring truss bridge and take a dip in the swimming hole.

3. Stone Quarry Hill Art Park: Spanning more than 100 acres of rolling fields and pathways, the park features dozens of intricate sculptures both large and small.

4. Hamilton Movie Theater: Catch the summer’s biggest blockbusters as well as niche films at the historic Hamilton Movie Theater. Since its founding in 1895, Hamilton Theater has been a hub for entertainment.

Illustration by Claire Rollet

5. Hamilton Farmers’ Market: Everything from locally grown fruits and vegetables to handcrafted jewelry and pottery are available at the Farmers’ Market. Operating every Saturday afternoon from May through October on the Village Green, the market is a staple for locals, students, and visitors.

11. Good Nature Brewery: Grab a bite to eat and something special to drink at Good Nature Brewery, within walking distance of campus.

This beloved spot, owned by Carrie Blackmore ’08, features a taproom, farm-to-table dining options, and a spacious beer garden.

make sure to say hello to Page, the friendly library cat.

8. Chittenango Wild Animal Park: Take a peek at the wilder side of Madison County at The Wild Animal Park in Chittenango. The park features all manner of exotic creatures, including giraffes, tigers, red kangaroos, and zebras.

12. Lebanon Reservoir: Outdoor enthusiasts enjoy Lebanon Reservoir, just 10 minutes from campus. Visitors can rent kayaks and paddleboats as well as take a dip off the sandy shore.

In addition to the reservoir, there are picnic areas, campsites, and mini-golf.

6. Thursdays on the Village Green: Throughout the summer, Hamilton hosts a concert series known simply as Thursdays on the Village Green. In addition to musical performances, the event also includes kid-friendly attractions such as puppet and magic shows.

9. Madison-Bouckville’s Antique Week: Taking place twice yearly in June and August, visitors can explore antiques, collectibles, and memorabilia from more than 2,000 vendors spread out among 13 fields.

7. Hen, the Cazenovia Mummy: Travel back in time with a trip to the Cazenovia Public Library, where you can visit Hen, a 2,000-year-old mummy, as well as dozens of other Egyptian artifacts brought to the library’s museum in 1894. Before starting your trek back to Hamilton,

10. Critz Farms Summer Solstice Bonfire and Food Truck Rodeo: In mid-June, this event includes food trucks, live music, outdoor games, a bonfire, and of course, Critz Farms’ animals. In addition, adults can visit the farm’s Tasting Room for hard ciders and craft beers.

13. 4th of July Parade: To experience a true Hamilton tradition, look no further than the annual July 4th parade. Combining live music, parade floats, and plenty of red, white, and blue, this annual gathering is one of the most popular village events of the year.

— Bri Liddell ’25

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13 Oak Drive Hamilton, NY 13346-1398

In This Issue

Bike 365 miles from Buffalo to Albany in two days p.12

Turn your handwriting into a commonly used font p.68

Research why Americans drink more bottled water than tap p.24

Become the first paid female firefighter in Long Beach, N.Y. p.92

Employ technology to identify seals through facial recognition p.42

Taste 15 affordable wines and charcuterie in San Fran p.80

Find hidden gems in the Hamilton area p.97

Pose for the cover of Vogue Japan p.48

Marry your MAT classmate and move to Zambia p.64

Give tips on TikTok for living your best life in Paris p.95

Collect data on gamers’ emotions p.13

Jill calder

Boycott consumerism for a year p.8

Open the U.S. pavilion at the Venice Biennale p.26