Autumn Scene 2017

scene Autumn 2017

Cover Story: Digging Xaltocan Great ’gate gifts Applying themselves News and views for the Colgate community

scene

Autumn 2017

24 Great ’gate gifts

As the holidays approach, check out these eclectic alumni-created products — and read about the entrepreneurs behind them.

30 Applying themselves

First-year students share their Colgate application essays.

36 Digging Xaltocan

Colgate archaeologists burrow into the history of a small Mexican village.

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Message from President Brian W. Casey

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13346 — Inbox

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Work & Play

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Tableau: “Journey to me”

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Inspirational educator: Samuel Howard Archer 1902

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Life of the Mind

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Arts & Culture

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Go ’gate

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New, Noted & Quoted

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The Big Picture

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Stay Connected

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Class News 76 Marriages & Unions 76 Births & Adoptions 76 In Memoriam

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Marooned! crossword puzzle by Kyle Dolan ’06

DEPARTMENTS

On the cover: Emily Kahn ’19 gets her hands dirty while conducting archaeological excavations with Professor Kristin De Lucia in San Miguel Xaltocan, Mexico.

Read more on pg. 36. Left: Two significant parts of the Colgate experience in one photo: autumn in Hamilton and Memorial Chapel. Photos by Mark DiOrio

News and views for the Colgate community

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scene team

Contributors

Volume XLVII Number 1 The Scene is published by Colgate University four times a year — in autumn, winter, spring, and summer. The Scene is circulated without charge to alumni, parents, friends, and students.

Natalya Balnova (“Applying themselves” illustration, pg. 30) is a New York–based illustrator, designer, and printmaker. Her clients include the Boston Globe, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Village Voice. She has been recognized by American Illustration, the Society of Illustrators, and Art Directors Club, among others.

Clare Owen (“Journey to me” illustration, pg.

12) is an illustrator from Bristol, U.K., with clients including Penguin Random House, Oprah, and EOS lip balm. When she’s not making art, she loves exploring Bristol by bike, binge-watching TV shows, and eating good food.

Renée Olson (“Great ’Gate Gifts,” pg. 24) is a word person for print and digital work and owner of Squint, an award-winning consulting firm.

Determined to stay in school as long as possible, she has one too many bachelor’s degrees and a master’s from Indiana University and University of Illinois. She also loves to shop.

What’s online Convocation

Colgate.edu/flickr See photos of new Raiders from the Class of 2021 Founder’s Day Convocation in Memorial Chapel.

Colgate news

colgate.edu/news Keep up with everything happening on campus over at our news blog.

Pure nostalgia

Colgate.edu/about Reminisce about your days at school with our Colgate in 13 Seconds video: Quad edition.

Here comes the sun

youtube.com/user/cuatchannel13 You don’t have to wear special glasses for this one.

Watch students view the solar eclipse on campus.

Go paperless

Mark DiOrio

To stop receiving the printed Scene, e-mail Scene@ colgate.edu with your name, class year, address, and e-mail address, and put Online Mailing List in the subject. We'll send you an e-mail when we post new online editions (colgate.edu/scene).

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scene: Autumn 2017

Vice President of Communications Laura Jack Managing Editor Aleta Mayne Communications Director Mark Walden Assistant Editor Rebecca Docter Creative Director Tim Horn Senior Designer and Visual Brand Manager Karen Luciani Senior Designer Katherine Laube Junior Designer Katriel Pritts University Photographer Mark DiOrio Production Assistant Kathy Owen

Contributors: Gordon Brillon, Web Content Specialist; Daniel DeVries, Media Relations Director; Matt Hames, Communications Strategist; David Herringshaw, Digital Production Specialist; Jason Kammerdiener ’10, Web Manager; Brian Ness, Video Journalism Coordinator; John Painter, Director of Athletic Communications Contact: scene@colgate.edu 315-228-7415 colgate.edu/scene Colgate University 315-228-1000

Printed and mailed from Lane Press in South Burlington, Vt. If you’re moving... Please clip the address label and send with your new address to: Alumni Records Clerk, Colgate University, 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, NY 13346-1398 or call 315-228-7453.

Opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by the university, the publishers, or the editors.

Notice of Non-Discrimination: Colgate University does not discriminate in its programs and activities because of race, color, sex, pregnancy, religion, creed, national origin (including ancestry), citizenship status, physical or mental disability, age, marital status, sexual orientation, veteran or military status (including special disabled veteran, Vietnam-era veteran, or recently separated veteran), predisposing genetic characteristics, domestic violence victim status, or any other protected category under applicable local, state, or federal law. The following person has been designated to handle inquiries regarding the university’s non-discrimination policies: Marilyn Rugg, Associate Provost for Equity and Diversity, 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, NY 13346; 315-228-7288.

Message from President Brian W. Casey Members of the Colgate community learn of these sorts of statistics every year, long before cars start rolling onto Whitnall Field, packed with pillows, electronics, books, and posters. But we have our first chance to meet the personalities behind the statistics on move-in day. Greeting a new class in person — interacting one-on-one — reminds me of the pleasure behind the work that my colleagues and I have been called to do.

Addressing the Class of 2021 at convocation, Professor Robert Garland rightly said, “We are the privileged ones, all of us here in this chapel tonight. You, because you are about

Andrew Daddio

Last summer, my evening walks with my dog, Emrys, around the Academic Quad were as scenic as ever. But we agreed that there was something missing. Rather, there were more than 2,900 someones missing. While reunion, admission tours, and countless camps ensure a steady flow of visitors to Colgate between May and September, we miss the undergraduates when they are away.

Thankfully, Colgate students began to return on August 25, and campus has resumed its autumn patterns of activity. Among those climbing the hill are the 773 members of the Class of 2021. They come from 41 states —

President Brian W. Casey and Provost and Dean of the Faculty Tracey Hucks ’87, MA'90 prepare to lead the Class of 2021 into convocation.

half are from states other than New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, New Jersey, and Connecticut. Domestic students of color account for 21 percent of the class, while 30 percent identify as multicultural. Eleven of every 100 are first-generation college students; 31 of every 100 receive need-based financial aid. Academically, these are some of the world’s brightest undergraduates, selected from 8,542 applicants. They have a composite average of 31.6 on the ACT and an average SAT score of 1394 on the new scale. (To read more about the class, including a series of application essays, see pg. 30.)

to go on a roller coaster ride through human learning lasting four years — and will meet us. We, because we have the best job in the world — and will meet you.”

There was a time (many alumni reading this magazine will remember it) when meeting the entire student body was half as difficult, because it was roughly half its current size. It operated in fewer square feet, located on fewer acres. It spawned the “hello” tradition.

Roughly a half century later, the university now houses a population of nearly 3,000 coming to Hamilton from around the nation

and around the world. Colgate is larger, more complex, engaged in the world in ways that would have seemed impossible just a few decades ago. Our faculty is larger, the size of the staff is also bigger.

But Emrys and I have discovered an important fact: the hello tradition works as well with 3,000 students as it does with 1,300. It works with faculty and staff as well.

One person at a time, we greet our way from Raab House to the Coop; from Andrews to the chapel; from Lawrence to Olin. Up and down the hill. Through tailgates on weekends and in classes on weekdays. I have encouraged faculty and staff to continue and to extend the hello tradition, because this one word can transform statistics into individuals. As our classes grow evermore diverse in a variety of ways, the hello tradition becomes an imperative. By greeting each other and striking up relationships with those who look, think, and act in ways that are different from ourselves, we make the Colgate experience more than academic.

We learn the value of collegiality and understanding that are rare in today’s world, yet so important to its survival.

I am proud of the numbers that show our classes continuing to improve, continuing to set the pace for other universities, continuing to ensure that Colgate is the envy of its peers.

I offer my thanks to the alumni and parents who serve as our ambassadors in states across America.

It is the people who have made Colgate what it is today and what it will be in the future. That is why, when the summer comes and many of those people scatter to all points of the compass, Emrys and I look at the campus in the sunset and count the days between commencement and convocation.

News and views for the Colgate community

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Inbox

scene

Colgate Camp memories

Summer 2017

College man: President Brian W. Casey Many countries, one Colgate Battle of the brains returns News and views for the Colgate community

The Scene welcomes letters. We reserve the right to decide whether a letter is acceptable for publication and to edit for accuracy, clarity, and length. Letters deemed potentially libelous or that malign a person or group will not be published.

Letters should not exceed 250 words. You can reach us by mail, or e-mail sceneletters @colgate.edu. Please include your full name, class year if applicable, address, phone number, and/or e-mail address. If we receive many letters on a given topic, we will print a representative sample of the opinions expressed.

I enjoyed your article on Colgate Camp (“Adirondack retreat,” summer 2017, Page 13) almost as much as I enjoyed being there a few times in the early ’60s.

One visit was in January, as I recall. The Outing Club was able to stay there (knotty pine and outdoor plumbing) and go skiing at the Lake Placid Club, mostly because the Colgate Thirteen were performing at the resort.

Freakish temperature drop, 45-50 below zero one night! Guys chopped through the ice in the lake for water, and chips formed on the sloshing pail as they lugged the pot to the kitchen. The old wood stove was kept glowing hot when we weren’t using the Lake Placid Club facilities, which we did as much as nature and willpower would allow. The ice cream we brought with us from the Student Union never did get soft! Learning the rudiments of skiing in such cold weather was an instructive experience and a lifelong memory. Glad to see that many others are still able to enjoy the camp.

Bill Badenoch ’68 Huntington Beach, Calif.

Removing the Cutten name I think the name change is wonderful (“Board of Trustees votes to remove Cutten name,” summer 2017, pg. 11).

I do hope there will also be a way to keep some recognition in the building (maybe a plaque) of why the name was changed so that we don’t forget that difficult history altogether. American history has plenty of examples of terrible consequences of eugenics in practice (such as compulsory sterilization laws in the early 20th century), and we are still experiencing the legacies of this sort of racist thinking today.

Interestingly, we were just reading a book with our students here at Loyola University Chicago about the era of civil rights leader Adam Clayton Powell Jr. ’30. Powell was one of the very few black students on campus during Cutten’s presidency, and because of the racism he expected on campus, Powell chose to “pass” as white at first, because he was very light-skinned.

I’m glad that the board pushed this long-overdue process forward. Georgetown University was just in a similar situation, having finally renamed buildings that had been named after two Jesuits who were responsible for 4

scene: Autumn 2017

the sale of 272 enslaved people to pay the school’s debts.

Cutten finally being renamed is great news. Though there’s a lot more work to be done ahead, I think this is a wise step for Colgate’s future.

Henoch Derbew SJ ’07 Chicago, Ill. I read with dismay the article about former President Cutten. As the fates would have it, an article was published today in Health Impact News concerning the history and present state of affairs relating to eugenics. It is a long article that I will not attempt to summarize. It points out that the concept of and belief in eugenics was common on college campuses among students and faculty during the years of Cutten’s presidency. People more prominent than him were cited as believing in the concept, including George Bernard Shaw, H.G. Wells, and Alexander Graham Bell.

Since the end of the Cutten presidency in 1966, extraordinary discoveries relating to human, animal, and plant genomes have revived eugenics, but no one wants to have that progress or belief confused with the theoretical eugenic concept that existed in T the past, and everyone seeks distance from any racial implication.

That brings us to the inspired decision of the university to purge Cutten from the collective memory at a time when most people have no idea who he was and why buildings were named after him. So, rather than appreciate what he did for the university, you have labeled him a racist demon.

Under the circumstances, I think it incumbent upon the administration to seek out all who generously contributed to the university endowment at Cutten’s urging and return the money to those donors or their heirs. The money has been forever tainted and corrupted by its having been solicited and received by this terrible racist former university president who had the nerve to believe in eugenics along with so many of his contemporaries. Diversity of thought and belief are no longer acknowledged on the campus or in the board room. Death to the nonbeliever and to the politically incorrect, even if he may have been correct after all.

Paul Jaffe ’59 Chappaqua, N.Y. he article “Board of Trustees votes to remove Cutten name” caught my eye this evening. I had just finished reading an op-ed in our local newspaper in Pennsylvania about

Margaret Sanger, founder of Planned Parenthood, who, like President George Barton Cutten, also strongly believed in the value of eugenics and supported the process by which the poor, immigrant, and “feeble-minded” populations were sterilized so that they could not reproduce and create a less-than-perfect society. This is only one of many similar articles about Sanger that I have read recently.

Though it matters not to me what this residential complex is named, the similarity between the beliefs of Cutten and Sanger should open the door to what could be some interesting dialogue on an “open-minded” campus. I am curious whether Colgate University and its current students, after having given consideration to Cutten’s efforts to “limit diversity” and “advocate for eugenics,” have done the same to the not-so-well-known comparable efforts of the internationally known Sanger. At the very least, the comparison should cause one to pause and to consider the impact of this eugenics advocacy on the founding principles of Planned Parenthood.

Janie (Mary Jane C.) Miller ’73 New Ringgold, Pa. It is becoming apparent that naming buildings for individuals is fraught with danger. We are discovering that these individuals have done or said something during their lifetimes that is offensive to today’s society. I would like to suggest that all buildings named for individuals and/or corporations be removed and be replaced with generic names. Good examples are East and West halls. The Case Library (named for Everett Case) can simply be renamed the “Library,” which it is probably already called by most people on campus.

I will be happy to serve on a naming committee to tackle the task of finding appropriate generic names for the buildings that currently are named for individuals. This should resolve any future issues with concerns about past sins.

Tom Gamble ’64 Birmingham, Ala.

Raiders, coworkers, change makers For seven years I have volunteered at the George Jackson Academy (GJA), an independent school for boys in grades 4–8 on the Lower East Side of New

York City. I teach a decision-making course in which we focus on assessing consequences, risk taking, discovering what one values in making a choice, and dealing with team and consensus dynamics. This year I had a pleasant surprise when I found there were four Colgate alumni on the staff: Bernadette Sarlo ’07, Iman Aswad ’01, Franchesca Petrillo ’12, and Alyssa Berger ’16. They M have come from public schools, the corporate world, and graduate programs.

It was a real pleasure to share insights and learning with this group about the school. GJA is a special place. Admission is need-blind, and a majority of students come from difficult neighborhoods, commuting more than an hour each way on public transportation. The mission of GJA is to prepare and place students in top local high schools and private day and boarding schools across the country. The academics are rigorous, but the success rate for GJA graduates is incredibly high as they move through high school and college.

I have seen these success stories firsthand because a number attend Camp Moosilauke, our family’s camp, first as campers and, ultimately, as counselors. Some attend boarding schools such as the Thatcher School in Ojai, Calif., where my daughter Sabina ’84 and her husband, Bill McMahon ’84, work. The boys do well even that far from home.

So I asked the group: Why this career choice? All felt it was clear that they were able to make a difference, and this was a high motivator. In addition, they cited the ability to create and participate in a close-knit community where they could be effective mentors for the boys. As one person put it, “We prepare the kids well, and as they begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel, we make sure they go for it.” The mutual respect between faculty and students also helps compensate for modest salaries that are T common in the education field.

Then I asked about experiences at Colgate that helped them be effective.

They mentioned the COVE program, working in the local community, and pursuing real-world opportunities beyond the comfort zone. These actions also helped them define what success means to them individually.

What a nice small-world happening.

What they’re saying online Facebook.com/ colgateuniversity

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“Adirondack retreat” summer 2017, Page 13 y first trip to Colgate Camp was in 1980 with my family when I was 8 years old, and we went back almost every summer until I was 21. Since then, I’ve returned with my husband, and then kids, several times. It is one of my favorite places in the whole world. My dad, Richard Tobin ’69, was in the Thirteen, and some of his Thirteener compatriots were among the families with whom we first went to camp. They started a tradition of writing a Colgate Camp song to the tune of the Kingston Trio’s “MTA,” relating the story of that year’s adventures. Here’s the chorus: “But will we ever return, yes, we’ll always return, to the shores of Upper Saranac Lake.

Who cares about the weather, as long as we’re together, and there’s plenty of lobster and steak.”

— Rebecca Tobin Schrader ’94

ummer family vacations in the ’60s with impossible golf up the road, governed by the “Bob Sheldon Handicap System”… He always won. Accompanied by the Hoaglands (Sam and Geri) and the Hamiltons (Dick and Heather), et al. Flew the Cherokee into the Saranac Airport, but had to do a “go-around” to allow the Eagles to land their bird for a concert in Lake Placid. Day-tripping up to Montreal for a “Colgate Camp Day” up on the big screen. Unforgettable family memories forever…

— Jack Blanchard ’60

“College man” President Brian W. Casey profile summer 2017, pg. 28 Great first year, on his way to being one of Colgate’s best.

— Alan Bagliore P’20 Fabulous. This man really understands the strengths and weaknesses of Colgate! Very exciting!

— Peter Tannenbaum ’75 #TheRealDeal — Sean Lang ’92

Climbing the Hill hinking back to the early 1970s when breakfast was in the Hall of Presidents (then the Student Union) and we trudged up the Hill to class, I was wondering just how big a hill it was. Imagine my surprise when I went to a GPS site and found that the trek up the hill to the Coop just so happens to be 1,245-1,115 feet elevation, which equals 130 feet (13 stories!).

Mark Haas ’76 Gaithersburg, Md.

Gordon Miller ’56 Orford, N.H.

News and views for the Colgate community

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Campus scrapbook

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The men’s soccer team piles on the gratitude for teammate Uyi Omorogbe ’19 following his winning kick against Oregon State. Photo by Mark DiOrio

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A student makes a splash on Konosioni Field Day. Photo by Mark DiOrio

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Campus lit up when a coronal mass ejection hit Earth, sparking a geomagnetic storm that caused auroras as far south as Arizona. Photo by Joe Eakin and Jacob Feldman '19

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A first-year student takes in the sights on arrival day.

Photo by Mark DiOrio

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Celebrating with song on the launch night of the Dart Colegrove Commons, a new living-learning community on campus. Photo by Andrew Daddio

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Go, ’gate! Students cheer on the Raiders during homecoming weekend. Photo by Andrew Daddio

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Fast friends carry décor to their new homes on move-in day.

Photo by Mark DiOrio

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News and views for the Colgate community

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Mark DiOrio (2)

work & play

A full cabinet

Tracey Hucks ’87, MA’90

Paul J. McLoughlin II

With the appointment of Tracey Hucks ’87, MA’90 as provost and dean of the faculty last summer, President Brian W. Casey’s cabinet is officially full.

Hucks, a nationally regarded scholar of American religious history and Africana studies, returned to her alma mater after a professorship at Davidson College. There she was the James D. Vail III Chair of the Africana studies department, affiliated faculty in the religion department, and a member of the advisory committee of Davidson’s Center for Interdisciplinary Studies.

“I am excited to welcome Tracey back to Colgate,” Casey said. “She is an intellectual of the first order and a formidable scholar across a variety of fields. I look forward to working with her to support Colgate’s faculty and to strengthen and enrich Colgate’s academic enterprise.”

Prior to joining the Davidson faculty in 2014, Hucks was a professor at Haverford College for more than 15 years and served, on multiple occasions, as chair of the Department of Religion. She earned her PhD from Harvard University in 1998 in religious studies, with a scholarly focus on the religions of Africa and the Americas.

“My academic path has taken many turns during my life, but I am so excited that it has brought me back to this hill — where wonderful, dedicated professors were once my mentors, my teachers — and now are my colleagues.”

The other most recent appointment is Paul J. McLoughlin II as the vice president and dean of the college. Formerly dean of students at Lafayette College, McLoughlin’s experience includes overseeing residential life, recreation services, student conduct, wellness, student leadership and involvement, fraternity and sorority advising, and numerous other campus life initiatives.

Before joining Lafayette, McLoughlin held a series of positions at Harvard University, finishing as associate dean of Harvard College and senior adviser to the dean of Harvard College.

“As an administrator and as a scholar, he has a true understanding of student life in the liberal arts context,” Casey said. “He has a remarkable ability to connect with students in a genuine way while working strategically to shape a robust residential learning environment on campus.”

McLoughlin said: “It will be a great privilege to lead the talented team in the dean of the college division to develop opportunities for all students — and to work directly with students to enhance their individual and collective experiences.”

Rounding out the rest of the president’s cabinet are: Victoria M. Chun ’91, MA’94, vice president and director of athletics; Steve Fabiani, vice president and chief information officer; Murray Decock ’80, senior vice president for external relations, advancement and initiatives; Joseph S. Hope ’97, senior vice president for finance and administration and chief investment officer; Laura H. Jack, vice president for communications; Gary L. Ross ’77, vice president and dean of admission and financial aid; Robert L. Tyburski ’74, vice president and senior adviser, secretary to the Board of Trustees; and Christopher Wells, senior adviser to the president.

Andrew Daddio

SANE program launches

At Hancock Commons, Savannah Milton ’21 showed her shofar, which is used in Jewish religious practices. All of the students shared a meaningful item that they brought from home.

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Residents of Madison County and students of Colgate University and other nearby colleges now have access to a newly launched Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) Program at Community Memorial Hospital.

This initiative — a collaboration among Colgate, the hospital, and Madison County’s Liberty Resources/Help Restore Hope Center — provides five specially trained nurses to offer comprehensive medical and psychological services specifically related to sexual assault for all residents of Southern Madison County. It continues an ongoing effort by the university to improve

education, prevention, and response to sexual assault.

Colgate Director of Student Health Services Dr. Merrill Miller said the program has been in development since 2016 and is a direct result of student feedback and a commitment on behalf of Colgate’s Board of Trustees. Colgate has contributed about $125,000 toward the initiative, which includes the purchase of new equipment and specialized training for responding nurses.

“Our rural community will benefit from this first-of-a-kind team providing quality care close to home,” Miller said, adding that students needed to travel to Syracuse or Utica if they

Go figure – Robert H.N. Ho Science Center turns 10 121,000 total square feet $56.3 million to build 1956 class year of Robert H.N. Ho 1 time capsule, to be opened in 2057 53 labs 16,777,216 pixels on the screen in the Ho Tung Visualization Lab

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departments (environmental studies, geography, geology, physics and astronomy, and part of the biology department)

~1,000 species in the greenhouse 80 million-year-old dinosaur egg

Mark DiOrio

“ Our rural community will benefit from this first-of-akind team providing quality care close to home.”

— Dr. Merrill Miller wanted similar services in the past.

“Our five inaugural SANE nurses have completed extensive training courses and have been approved by New York State. They are ready to help victims become survivors and move forward after traumatic experience.”

In addition to the newly launched SANE Program, Colgate has made Haven Plus — a supplemental sexual violence prevention training course required for student athletes and student organization leaders — available to all students.

“Reporting and encouraging others to report helps ensure survivors have access to resources, understand their options, and helps us eliminate sexual violence at Colgate,” said Vice President and Dean of the College Paul J. McLoughlin II.

Off-campus-study Story Slam

“She had bobble heads of every Supreme Court justice on her fireplace,” Molly Diamondstein ’18 remembered about Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, whom she had the opportunity to meet at the end of her off-campus study experience in Washington, D.C., last spring.

Diamondstein described the lifechanging meeting at the annual Story Slam on September 18 in Donovan’s Pub. Hosted by the Office of Off-Campus Study, the event invites students to share their study abroad memories, mishaps, and adventures.

A political science major, Diamondstein was finishing her semester with the D.C. study group when her boss asked her how she wanted to conclude her internship in the Supreme Court clerk’s office. Diamondstein’s answer? She wanted to play basketball

on the Supreme Court basketball court — “the highest court in the land”— and meet Ginsburg. Diamondstein did not expect anything to come of her request, so she was thrilled when her boss set up a one-on-one meeting for her in the justice’s chambers.

“We spent thirty minutes talking about women in law, the struggles she faced, and being Jewish and how that has affected her life,” Diamondstein said. “She was so moving and so positive, and she had all this wisdom.

She told me that us young people need to keep fighting the good fight; that’s what she’s dedicated her life to.”

David Zavallos ’19 and Freesia Ferrantino ’19, who also spent a semester in Washington, D.C., with Professor Michael Hayes, described meeting Joe Biden on the steps of Congress and seeing the president and vice president in the halls of the West Wing.

While some students’ stories were about being in the right place at the right time, others’ were about the intensive learning experience.

Andrew DeFrank ’18 traveled to Argentina with the School for International Training’s Human Rights and Social Movements program. After a semester of immersion in Buenos Aires, DeFrank wrote a 40-page research paper in Spanish.

“I only had three semesters of Spanish at that point,” DeFrank said. “I chose the program because I knew I would be thrust into an uncomfortable academic environment where I would have to learn a lot of Spanish quickly, or at least fake it until I finished the paper. It was a great experience.”

In addition to the Story Slam, the Office of Off-Campus Study hosted a brown bag lunch series in September with panel discussions about unpacking a semester abroad. Topics included leveraging off-campus study in career planning, negotiating cultural differences and identity abroad, and how to go abroad again.

— Emily Daniels ’18

Scalia under scrutiny

Constitution Day is among America’s lesser-known national holidays. Colgate’s Center for Freedom and Western Civilization wants to change that.

Each year the center hosts a Constitution Day debate in which experts discuss constitutional issues of the 21st century. Past years have featured debates on free speech, immigration policy, and NSA surveillance.

“It’s part of our mission to educate

Get to know: Caroline Danehy ’19

Fourth-generation Colgaters, Caroline ’19 and Jake ’16 Danehy’s company makes board Every year, our oceans take in around 8 million tons of plastic from pollution.

So how out does college student even begin to make an impact? Caroline Danehy shorts ofone recycled bottles.

found her answer through fashion.

Along with her brother, Jake ’16, she created Fair Harbor Clothing, a company that makes board shorts out of recycled plastic bottles. During Colgate’s 2015 Entrepreneur Weekend, the Danehys won a pitch competition — judged by big names like Jessica Alba and MC Hammer — and secured $25,000 to expand their company. This past summer, Caroline was featured on the Study Breaks website about what the company is up to now:

How did starting Fair Harbor connect with your geography major?

[Part of being] a geography major includes how to be more environmentally friendly. Jake was a geography major as well. Jake’s thesis was about plastic waste in the oceans, so he was doing research about that and getting frustrated with the issue. He started looking into products that were changing the way millennials and our generation thought about plastic waste. He called me up because I’ve always been interested in fashion and the environment. We researched together, and Jake found this material that makes polyester and fabric from plastic, so the process we use uses plastic bottles that have already been discarded.

We applied to Colgate’s entrepreneurship program, Thought Into Action.

Mentors come every month, and it’s intense. They challenge you, and they push you to create a product or company that is the best it can be.

Could you explain the concept of Fair Harbor?

Fair Harbor is a small town on Fire Island, off the coast of Bay Shore, Long Island, that we grew up going to every summer. There are no cars, clean beaches — it’s the perfect summer life. My brother and I were inspired by the laid-back simplicity there. We wanted to combine our love for the environment with our childhood past.

How do you two delegate the jobs?

Since graduating, Jake has taken it on as his full-time job. We have office space in Brooklyn through Pratt Institute called the Brooklyn Fashion Design Accelerator. He goes there every day, and he takes care of the big picture. I’ve done the design and a lot of the marketing and media, and I help out with the Insta-

gram. This summer, I’ve curated our wellness blog. We want it to be another way people can connect with the brand and the lifestyle.

What have been the most rewarding parts of the journey?

Regardless of where Fair Harbor goes in the future, I’m so proud of what we’ve been able to create in the past three years. Yesterday I was selling in Long Island, and someone rode by on his bike in a pair of Fair Harbor board shorts. It’s awesome to see our idea come to fruition.

— Abbey Slattery

News and views for the Colgate community

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people on the great themes of freedom and Western civilization,” said political science professor Robert Kraynak, who directs the center. “The Constitution is a natural fit.”

This year, the September 19 event focused on the legacy of late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. Known for his conservative politics and big personality, Scalia cuts a controversial figure. The debaters were Ralph A. Rossum, a professor at Claremont McKenna College, and Bruce Allen Murphy, a professor at Lafayette College. Both are constitutional law professors and authors of books on Scalia’s jurisprudence.

Colgate political science professor Stanley Brubaker moderated the debate. In addition to the debaters sharing their opinions on Scalia’s legacy, the pair also disclosed details of their personal interactions with the late “Nino” Scalia.

“ It’s part of our mission to educate people on the great themes of freedom and Western civilization.”

— Robert Kraynak, political science professor They agreed that the former justice was hugely influential in returning the constitutional theory of originalism to popularity within the Supreme Court.

Rossum noted that in Scalia’s view, “Judges … are to be governed only by the text and tradition of the Constitution, not by their own intellectual, moral, or personal perceptions.”

According to Rossum, Scalia ultimately followed his own advice, acting

Village Green

Salisbury Center Covered Bridge

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as an impartial voice on behalf of the Constitution, issuing rulings with sometimes liberal outcomes.

Murphy, however, turned to an analysis of Scalia’s traditional Catholic upbringing, and criticized how this background led to his deeply partisan conservative judicial view.

Kraynak found the topic timely, given Scalia’s 2016 death and the appointment of Scalia’s replacement, Neil Gorsuch. “We discussed not only Scalia’s theory of the constitutional interpretation of originalism,” Kraynak said, “but also his influence and legacy, which is clearly evident from the nomination and appointment of Gorsuch.”

Students leaving the debate took with them a new knowledge of constitutional law — and also a free pocket copy of the Constitution.

scene: Autumn 2017

“Seeing two prominent legal scholars spar over the merits of competing approaches to jurisprudence was really fascinating to me,” Doug Whelan ’19 said, “and it definitely heightened my interest in the subject matter. The fact that the debate was centered around such a polarizing figure made it all the more engaging.”

— Brianna Delaney ’19

Shirt Tales

The idea of meeting your maker can be intimidating. Less so when ice cream is involved. That’s why the chaplaincy’s “Meet Your Maker” welcome event took the form of an ice cream social. First-year students gathered in the Quad to meet members of Colgate’s religious groups, who sported a rainbow of chaplaincy T-shirts.

Student ice cream scoopers donned T-shirts with their religious community’s name on the front and the chaplaincy logo on the back. Each group’s shirt was a different hue: Hindus sported deep purple, Protestants in red, Catholics wore neon green, Jews in blue, Muslims donned dark green, and secular skeptics appeared in fluorescent pink.

The three chaplains designed the event with a metaphor in mind. “We want to model that we work together while still having our own distinctions,” said University Chaplain Rev. Corey MacPherson. “That’s why the shirts were the same design but different colors.”

Pictured above (L to R): Leslie Subaldo ’18, MacPherson, and Emily Kahn ’19.

— Brianna Delaney ’19

It’s hard to beat the beauty of autumn in central New York. Leaf peepers from the Hamilton community took a two-day fall foliage bus tour across eastern New York and Bennington, Vt. Along the way, they toured the Saratoga Auto Museum and the New York State Military Museum and Veterans Research Center in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. They also visited several famous covered bridges, including Salisbury Center (N.Y.) Covered Bridge; Eagle Mills Covered Bridge (Broadalbin, N.Y.); and Hyde Hall Covered Bridge (Cooperstown, N.Y). Other highlights included the Hyde Hall Mansion in Cooperstown and a 100-year-old water wheel in Broadalbin.

Hungry brunchgoers packed the Good Nature Farm Brewery to watch Nancy Fuller, upstate New York native and host of Food Network’s Farmhouse Rules, prepare a mouthwatering meal with locally sourced ingredients on July 30. “You have a phenomenal town,” Fuller said to the crowd, cracking farm-fresh eggs into a sizzling pan. “You have the best farmer’s market in the little town square that I’ve ever been to.” Adding butter (churned at nearby Kriemhild Dairy Farms), chives, goat cheese, and mushrooms to the pan, Fuller quickly whipped up a batch of eggs fluffy and flavorful enough to satisfy any morning appetite. As she cooked, Fuller answered questions from the audience — sharing that she learned to cook from her grandmother and admitting that she usually doesn’t follow recipes exactly. The demonstration was followed by a meet-and-greet and book signing for Fuller’s cookbook Farmhouse Rules: Simple, Seasonal Meals for the Whole Family.

Hamilton’s newest eatery, 8 Fresh, opened the doors to its 22 Utica Street storefront in late August to reveal vibrant green and orange walls and an even more colorful menu. The restaurant offers a fusion of Tex-Mex favorites, salads and wraps, and Middle Eastern sides, including tzatziki and tabouli. In addition to its quirky cuisineblending fare, 8 Fresh also sells local coffee and fresh-baked goods.

— Erin Burnett ’19 and Brianna Delaney ’19

Andrew Daddio

The brief: faculty edition “I had no idea what I was letting myself into when I applied for a job here. I’m not a prayerful person, but after the interview, being driven back to the airport in the worst blizzard I could ever have imagined — I grew up in Britain where we have civilized weather, civilized rain — I prayed, yes, I prayed, that I would never see this place again. And it’s proved a perfect fit. For 31 years. So be prepared to be surprised here.”

— Professor Robert Garland speaks about the adventurous start to his career at Colgate during his convocation speech to the Class of 2021.

istock

Green fieldwork. Under the guidance of Professor Andy Pattison, students are performing a community-wide greenhouse gas inventory of the Town of Hamilton, according to the Observer-Dispatch (Utica, N.Y.). Through the fall class Community-based Study of Environmental Issues, students get real-world experience while helping the community address climate change locally. The inventory is part of the state-supported Climate Smart Communities program.

“If I have to perform any duties for my unit, the professors have been very supportive, even if the notices are last minute. Not only do they appreciate and support my service, they also support my education.”

Samto Wongso ’19

Joanna Bourke researches a paradox.

She explains: “Pain is incommunicable. Yet, all we have is the language we grasp in attempts to express what we’re experiencing.”

A history professor at Birkbeck College at the University of London, Bourke recently delivered the lecture “Dum-Dum Bullets: The ‘Savage’ and the ‘Civilised.’” The next evening, she met with a group of students and professors to discuss her recent books, Fear: A Cultural History and The Story of Pain: From Prayer to Painkillers.

During the peace and conflict studies workshop, Bourke discussed her interests, her research methods, and how her findings may affect how we look at current events.

Some years ago, as she was recovering from surgery, Bourke read Virginia Woolf’s On Being Ill and came across this line: “The merest schoolgirl, when she falls in love, has Shakespeare or Keats to speak her mind for her; but let a sufferer try to describe a pain in his head to a doctor and language at once runs dry.”

Bourke knew that fear and pain were central to her existence at that time. But, as Woolf describes, Bourke found that she didn’t have the words to explain her intense emotions. She decided to explore this disconnect.

In her books, she tracks the history of fear and pain and the language we use to describe them.

Asserting that pain is political and ideological, Bourke said, “There is no such thing as decontextualized pain.

Pain is always enmeshed in social relations, individual characteristics and traits, and language.”

Bourke also explains that pain is culturally specific. In North America, hospitals use The McGill Pain Questionnaire, a list of descriptors for pain that patients check off for their caregiver. “It’s proven almost impossible to translate to other cultures because there is no linguistic or cultural translation for the things some people say about their pain,” she said.

“Turkish, for example, has different descriptors for describing if pain is ‘in water’ or not. In India, people describe pain with different kinds of heat.”

Because pain and fear are societal and political, Bourke argues that they can be unifying. Pain can act as an “emotional contagion,” where the empathy of entire communities can manifest physically. Similarly, fear

—Technical Sergeant Leialoha Mara on professors Alex Nakhimovsky, Ulrich Meyer, and Ed Witherspoon, all of whom received Patriot Awards from

the Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve. The awards are in recognition of their support of Mara, who is an administrative assistant at Colgate and is taking university classes while serving in the Air National Guard at the Eastern Air Defense Sector in Rome, N.Y.

Shaking things up. Assistant Professor of Geology Aubreya Adams, along with nine other investigators, received a grant from the National Science Foundation to help deploy the largest collection of seismometers ever installed along the Alaskan Peninsula. The experiment will give us a better understanding of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions.

Andrew Daddio

The language of pain

has united communities in the 1960s hippy movement, feminist movements, the Climate March, and Black Lives Matter.

Bourke and professors discussed how using pain and fear, combined with hope, can create positive solidarities that can stand the test of time.

Reflecting on this question, religion professor Georgia Frank said, “There are moments in history of excruciating fear and, yet, always some sense of hopefulness.”

— Melanie Oliva ’18

“ There is no such thing as decontextualized pain.

Pain is always enmeshed in social relations, individual characteristics and traits, and language.”

— Joanna Bourke, history professor at Birkbeck College at the University of London

News and views for the Colgate community

11

Tableau

Journey to me I am a female. I am Hispanic. And I’m different among those groups with which I identify. I’m an only child, and I don’t have any children. I come from a tiny family, and among Hispanic people, big families are the thing. My family really focused ​ on English being my first language, and in terms of religion, I am a Christian, but I am not a Catholic. Over time, I’ve come to feel much more comfortable with being different. In fact, I revel in it.

My first lesson in being different came when I was in middle school. I lived in Denver, Colo., and I went to a big public school where there was gang activity.

There was a girl with a name very similar to mine — Carmen Martinez — and she and I would sit in a lot of classes together. She was a member of a gang and dressed in the gang outfit of the time: a plaid flannel shirt, long hair, big hoop earrings, heavy makeup. I was more of a nerd, with thick glasses and dorky shirts, and I wanted to go to college.

One day, on the P.A., I heard, “Would Julia Martinez please come to the principal’s office?” I freaked out. “What did I do?” I went to the office, and in this big school, the principal had never seen me before.

But he took one look at me and said, “Not you.

Go back to class.” I realized it was Carmen Martinez who had gotten into trouble. She got into trouble a lot for various things.

That got me thinking. We had similar names and similar cultural backgrounds, yet we were so different. Is it good or bad that somebody could take a look at me and think about who I am and see me being different or similar? How do I fit in versus how am I different?

I kept rolling on. My folks wanted an adventure, so at the end of middle school, we moved to West Plains, Mo. — right on the Arkansas border in the Ozarks. I was 14 years old, in my first year of high school, and again I had an experience with the P.A. system. This time, the principal said, “Attention y’all. Hunting season’s coming along, and I want to remind you not to bring your guns to school.” I had culture shock.

I was in a place where everybody had a gun and everybody was going to be hunting.

I’m still in touch with one of the friends I made in West Plains. His name is Eric, and he grew up on a pig farm. Eric taught me how to shoot and helped me get to know the agricultural community. Now, I’ve shot about every gun there is: semi-automatic handguns, rifles, black powder — you name it. I really got to enjoy shooting, because I was getting to know the people.

Time went on, and I applied to colleges. I was accepted at Dartmouth College.

I went all the way to the East Coast, and again, I felt very different. I remember sitting in a psychology class, in a lecture hall, and the professor said, “So we need to know animals and how to train them. Does anybody know how a chicken eats?”

Silence. And in front of 200 people, I said, “They scratch.” And he said, “Yes, you are right.” They actually take their little feet and they scratch the ground to look for bugs, and I knew this because I was part of this rural Ozark community.

I thought, “I feel strong in my difference. I feel like I’m a valid member of this community.” There’s so much imposter syndrome in college, and it was weird to feel that I was bringing something to the table by being different. That was the first time I felt that way, and not because I’m Hispanic, but because I’m a rural Ozarks person.

I got my PhD at the University of Missouri, and that was the first place where I started thinking that I could bring my culture into my career and be a strategic voice.

This is because I met two people. They both are Hispanic, but different from me.

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scene: Autumn 2017

The first one is Kiero, from the Dominican Republic. He made me recognize that we all have expectations and stereotypes, and it’s OK to feel that way as long as you’re prepared to have those expectations blown away. It’s OK to take a stance against them, too.

One day, we were sitting in a park, playing our guitars, and he said, “Promise me something.”

“What?”

“Promise me that you and I, for our entire career, will show up early or on time to everything, because we never want it to be said that ‘you’re running on Latin time.’” It’s a stereotype. People think that, if you’re Latinx, you’re always late.

I thought that his idea was so cool. We’re recognizing this stereotype, and we’re taking our own kind of action, right or wrong, to stand up to it. I felt a little power in that.

Later, we went to a music store and looked at acoustic guitars. I play flamenco guitar — yes, very Hispanic. Kiero sat down with an acoustic guitar, and I was thinking, “He’s gonna bust out with some traditional Latin music.” He actually played “Nothing Else Matters” by Metallica! My expectations were blown away. And I felt like, OK, I’m recognizing that. I’m putting those expectations to bed, taking a stance against them by acknowledging them.

The other person I met in graduate school was Miguel, and he’s still a collaborator of mine. If I’m actively bringing culture into my career, it’s because of Miguel. He’s from Spain, and when he studied here he didn’t speak English that well. My Spanish stinks. I’ve always felt uncomfortable about that. I felt like an imposter — like I’m identifying with this culture yet not fully in it.

Miguel and I talked about adicciones a las drogas, and I always spoke in Spanish and he always spoke in English. We recognized that it’s OK to feel a little uncomfortable — like maybe you’re not 100 percent part of this culture, and that’s OK. We’ve done some projects together, and we recently talked about doing a study on drinking and drug use in different cultures around the world. That ongoing relationship makes me feel so thankful.

I love the fact that one thing we all have in common is that we’re different. It’s such a Illustration ©Clare Owen, i2iart.com great paradox. Everybody’s bringing different skills, traits, and characteristics to the table. It gets even more complicated when the thing that you consider to be different about yourself is cultural — where you come from, what you’re eating, if you come from a big family, and how you perceive other people around you who are different.

My passion for this topic is like a love affair: you accept its mysteries, you have a lot of questions about it, you take your time with it. Through this strange love affair, I’ve learned things from different people. From Carmen, I learned that there are many ways to be different. From Eric, I learned that, over time, you bring more cultures into yourself. You become more complex and multifaceted. From Kiero, I learned that everyone has stereotypes and expectations, and as long as we’re willing to let that be jarred, it’s good. And Miguel let me know that it’s OK to feel uncomfortable about your own culture. It’s a never-ending learning process. It’s very much a love, a passion.

— Julia Martinez, associate professor of psychology, originally gave this talk during a gathering for students in Ciccone Commons.

INSPIRATIONAL EDUCATOR

By Jim Leach

A scholar, orator, and athlete, Samuel Howard Archer 1902 both traced and shaped the evolution of education in the United States — in particular, the education of African Americans.

Born in Petersburg, Va., five years after the end of the Civil War, Samuel Howard Archer’s early schooling was in a state that once legislated against the education of African Americans. From his success first as a student and later as a teacher in Virginia schools, Archer moved on to study and teach at Wayland Academy. There, two African American Colgate alumni on the faculty — Rev. Joseph Edom Jones 1846, MA 1897, and David Nathaniel Vassar 1877 — urged Archer to enroll at Colgate.

He was 27 years old when he entered the university in 1898, graduating with the Class of 1902 when he was 32.

Handwritten notes among Archer’s papers indicate that his studies included logic, ethics, the classics, mathematics, the teachings of Jesus, the life of Paul, the New Testament, and church history. Salmagundis report that Archer was president of the junior class, lettered in football (a guard, he may have been the first African American football player at Colgate), and won four major oratorical prizes. In addition to his bachelor’s degree, New York State awarded him a professional teaching certificate.

The title of one of Archer’s prize-winning undergraduate oratories — “The Disenfranchisement of the Negro” — foretold his career. The essay concluded: “Grant to him an equal opportunity with others to weave about his soul a character noble, exalted, divine.”

In a 1904 letter to his Colgate classmates, from his first higher education position at Roger Williams University in

Nashville, Archer advocated for “an education which will take an undeveloped soul and make, not a carpenter or a blacksmith, but a MAN.” Those early philosophical stands put Archer squarely at odds with the “industrial education” approach advanced by Booker T. Washington, instead launching him into the orbit of intellectual-equal-rights champion W.E.B. Du Bois.

In 1905, Archer joined Morehouse College in Atlanta, where he would spend the next 36 years as a faculty member, football coach, dean, vice president, and, ultimately, president of the historically black men’s college. (He is credited with giving Morehouse College its school colors — maroon and white — like his alma mater.)

“The Archer philosophy and influence represent, perhaps, the single most creative force in the lives of Morehouse men,” Morehouse alumnus Marc Moreland wrote in a biography of Archer for Phylon, the journal founded by Du Bois. In addition, former Howard University president and Morehouse alumnus Mordecai Johnson said Archer “was drawn on by all who felt the need to live the examined life.”

Colgate awarded Archer the honorary Doctor of Divinity in 1932. Ill health forced him to retire from the Morehouse presidency in 1937, and he died in January 1941. Among his personal papers is a handwritten letter from Dr. and Mrs. Du Bois to Archer’s widow, Anna, expressing “their own sense of personal loss at the death of an old friend.”

Archer advocated for “an education which will take an undeveloped soul and make, not a carpenter or a blacksmith, but a MAN.”

13 Page 13 is the showplace

for Colgate tradition, history, and school spirit.

life of the mind 14

Syllabus A first-year seminar (FSEM) is more than just a class — it’s a community where students meet some of their initial friends and make lifelong connections with professors. This sampling of fall FSEMs might just make you want to revisit your first year.

The Science Fiction Effect Christina “CJ” Hauser, assistant professor of English Is fictional writing about real science helping to achieve public scientific literacy? By reading selections from Best American Science Writing, recent articles, and contemporary science fiction novels, students in Hauser’s class are investigating the ways in which science is expressed in texts intended for laypeople. Along the way, students are gaining a deeper understanding of how works of science fiction draw readers in and popularize the fields they discuss.

Is the Planet Doomed?

Daniel Bertrand Monk, George R. and Myra T. Cooley Professor of peace and conflict studies and professor of geography; director, Middle Eastern and Islamic studies program Professor Beth Parks (bottom, left) took students on an eclipse trip.

scene: Autumn 2017

Spaced out

One van, 11 students, 2,000 miles. This past August, Professor Beth Parks took a group of incoming first-year students on a pre-orientation trip to Spring City, Tenn., to view the solar eclipse.

“It seemed like something not to be missed,” said Parks, who is teaching the introductory class for potential physics and astronomy majors this semester.

“Especially because it would give some of the students a chance to get to know each other before classes started and hopefully draw them into the physics and astronomy department.”

Most Colgate students weren’t born when the last total eclipse in the continental United States occurred in 1979, and Parks missed it, so the group was eager to see the phenomenon.

One of the most memorable aspects happened before the totality of the eclipse. All of the shadows from tree leaves appeared as crescent shapes on the ground due to the gaps between them acting as pinhole lenses. Once totality occurred, the group was so mesmerized that they didn’t even notice each other’s reactions. “We were all so busy looking at it, we weren’t looking at each other,” Parks said.

After the event, Parks and her crew began the journey north, but they made some pit stops in Washington, D.C. The group visited the Smithsonian Natural History Museum, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, and other science-based locations. At some stops, scientists gave the group tours and spoke to the students.

In addition to learning about science through the trip, students also got to know their peers and create lasting relationships.

“Besides the eclipse itself, which will be seared in my mind forever, my favorite memory is the time I spent with the guys on the trip who have become my closest friends here at Colgate,” Paul Nugent ’21 said.

In this course, the newest crop of Benton scholars comes together to wrangle a question that faces all who inhabit our planet. While assessing whether or not we have reached “peak humanity,” students are considering the potential for apocalyptic events on Earth. Together, the class examines the ways that existing assessments of world extinction peg the mass displacement of peoples and political border crossing as catalysts for the end of the world.

Religion, Film & the Holocaust Benjamin Stahlberg, senior lecturer in religion This class considers how Holocaust films address religious ideas, motifs, and communities as well as prompt us to think about God, evil, and meaning. Surveying a broad range of films, students ask and answer critical questions about how the Holocaust is portrayed in specific religious and political communities.

— Erin Burnett ’19

In the field

Colgate students aren’t just busy when school is in session. In the summertime, many participate in internships and research projects exploring topics ranging from tomatoes to coral. Here are just some student adventures from the summer.

The results of a research project conducted by Christine Horn ’19 could be pretty juicy. Horn’s two-year independent project will explore whether the agriculture industry’s penchant for red, juicy tomatoes causes reduced defensive abilities in the plants. Horn will conduct the project with the help of biology and environmental studies professor Frank Frey. The results of the study may help us understand how to reduce agricultural dependency on pesticides. “I am excited to be conducting this research for the rest of my time as a student at Colgate, and I can’t wait to see where it will take me,” Horn said.

Meanwhile, this summer, Molly Nelson ’19 went back in time. Through archaeological excavation in a small town outside of Brescia, Italy, Nelson analyzed layers of soil in a medieval home. In addition, she cleaned and cataloged finds such as shards of pottery, animal bones, and mosaic pieces from her team’s excavations. “Such slow and sometimes painstaking work showed me how meticulous study of the different layers of soil could paint a picture of events that had transpired within the space,” Nelson said.

Tim Englehart ’18 spent the summer at Colgate exploring student patterns in volunteerism through data from selective colleges around the country. From his research, Englehart found that, although volunteer work is common in high schoolers, only one-third of students participate in altruism in their first year of college. This may be because many high schools require volunteer work, while many colleges and universities don’t. Englehart is continuing his research this year with his sociology honors thesis.

Yingqi Zhang ’18 didn’t just learn about coral during her internship at the Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences — she also learned that science isn’t always glamorous. “I could be diving at a beautiful reef site one day and scrubbing tanks the next day,” Zhang said. “But everything paid off when I saw the final results. It felt so satisfying.” For 11 weeks, she studied the response mustard hill coral had to thermal stress and how that response varies among different reef zones. Zhang found that corals from inner reef zones perform better under heat stress. Zhang’s hard work was worth it; because of the research, she hopes to become a coral reef scientist.

“ I could be diving at a beautiful reef site one day and scrubbing tanks the next day.”

— Yingqi Zhang ’18

Teaming up against the opioid epidemic

As a psychiatrist in central New York, Richard Brown ’79 has seen firsthand the devastation wrought by the opioid crisis.

“One week, I had three people who had lost relatives,” said Brown, who practices through the Bassett Healthcare Network in Cooperstown.

Despite seeing the brutal evidence of the epidemic, however, Brown felt frustrated by the lack of information about what’s causing the crisis — and whether it’s getting better or worse. He reached out to Colgate’s Upstate Institute, which matches university researchers with community partners to study issues of regional importance. The institute connected Brown with geography professors Ellen Kraly and Peter Scull, who agreed to help drill down into the data to better understand what is emerging as a health crisis. They enlisted geography student fellows from the institute — Lydia Ulrich ’17 and Jonathan Santiago ’18 — to help gather and interpret temporal data and conduct geographic systems analysis. The team also consulted with Michael Komosinski ’11 who, as an Upstate Institute fellow, conducted population data analysis at Bassett.

The group decided to take a closer look at the Internet System for Tracking Over-Prescribing (I-STOP), a 2013 New York State initiative mandating that practitioners use electronic prescriptions and check an online database before issuing one to a patient. Although the program aims to cut down on opioid abuse, some have worried that cutting down access might have the unintended consequence of increasing illegal heroin use. The researchers address the issue in a paper just published in the journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

“It was a clear and straightforward research question: What is the effect of I-STOP on opioid morbidity?” Kraly said. “Like a lot of research, however, the results raised more questions.” Looking at I-STOP data, they found that while the number of prescriptions for opioids decreased after the implementation, the total amount of opioids prescribed stayed the same, implying doctors were prescribing higher dosages. Even so, the number of opioid-related deaths in New York has leveled off since 2013.

Live and learn Serving our veterans This summer, I worked for the Home Base Program through Massachusetts General Hospital and the Red Sox Foundation, which provides clinical care and support services to veterans of post-9/11 conflicts. It also conducts research to identify and implement new treatments for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), traumatic brain injury, and other invisible wounds of war.

In my role as a research intern, I aided in tailoring the Resilient Family stress management course to cater to the needs of veterans’ caregivers. I transcribed focus group interviews, entered intensive care program (ICP) patient data and other Home Base patient data, attended research meetings and treatment rounds, and conducted literature reviews to aid in the writing of several studies.

Hearing the Home Base patients’ stories was both humbling and inspiring.

On the last day of the two-week ICP, an Afghanistan combat veteran spoke of how his PTSD symptoms were so severe that he hadn’t been able to leave his house during the Fourth of July holiday — fireworks and other loud noises were intense triggers for him. He devoted so much of his life to defending something represented by a holiday that he couldn’t take part in because of his disorder. The treatment he received at Home Base, he said, helped him to be able to finally celebrate Independence Day. Seeing how the treatment helped him moved me.

Since taking Introduction to Psychology my first year at Colgate, I knew I wanted to pursue a career in mental health, but I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to go into psychiatry, psychology, or social work. The Home Base program employs individuals in each of these fields. That was a huge draw, because I was able to learn the nuances of each mental health profession and the ways in which they work together to improve patient treatment outcomes.

— Peter Tappenden ’18

News and views for the Colgate community

15

“ That is a promising sign in light of the increasing national trend in prescription opioid morbidity.”

— Ellen Kraly, geography professor Despite that conclusion, the program doesn’t seem to have succeeded in decreasing opioid deaths either.

“It is necessary but not sufficient,” Brown said. “It can help identify rogue prescribers or people with aberrant behavior who go to multiple emergency rooms, but you can’t rest on that.”

Brown has pushed Bassett to adopt a multitiered effort to deal with the epidemic, including better communication between doctors and mental health workers, programs for safe disposal of prescription drugs, and non-opioid alternatives for managing pain. “This is the biggest epidemic of our time, and we need to be doing everything we can to address it,” he said. “I hope we can implement more effective treatment and radically lower mortality.”

The researchers’ next step is to look geographically at patterns of opioid prescriptions and deaths — examining, for example, how proximity to prescribing doctors, heroin treatment clinics, and state borders affect prescriptions and overdoses. They’ll also examine whether opioid overdoses are fewer in the area covered by Bassett’s network, as an early indication of whether their strategy is working.

While there are still more questions than answers in the opioid epidemic, the university researchers and doctors hope they can find better solutions by working together. “This is what the relationship between higher education and community organizations can be,” Kraly said. “Our students gain superb experience working shoulder to shoulder with health professionals at Bassett to build evidence-based health programs. It’s an exciting example of how Colgate can contribute in partnership with the people who are working to serve people in our communities.”

— Michael Blanding

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scene: Autumn 2017

iStock/Alexander Doubovitsky

life of the mind

“That is a promising sign in light of the increasing national trend in prescription opioid morbidity,” Kraly said.

At the same time, the researchers saw a steady increase in heroin deaths starting in 2010, before the start of the I-STOP program. That suggests that other factors, such as decreasing heroin prices, might be driving it. “ISTOP didn’t cause the heroin epidemic, because clearly it had started before then,” Brown said.

Choosing scholarships over STEM

Merit-based financial aid in the form of scholarships and grants is intended to ease the burden of a student’s debt load, but is it possible to have too much of a good thing? Some studies suggest that students who receive merit-based aid may be deterred from pursuing a major in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields for fear that subpar grades could cost them their scholarships.

Meg Blume-Kohout, visiting assistant professor of economics, has been awarded a three-year, $230,647 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to investigate this perceived problem. Her research project, titled “Evaluating Impact of Student Debt on Early Career Choices,” aims to determine whether merit-based aid has an impact on the college majors of women and minority students and, in turn, their career paths after graduation.

“If students are on the margin about whether they can stay in school from a financial perspective, they can’t always afford to take STEM classes — in which the average grade distribution is lower — if they need to maintain their scholarships,” Blume-Kohout said.

The project assesses the effects of two types of merit-based aid: lottery scholarships, which are awarded to students of all majors; and National Science and Mathematics Access to Retain Talent (SMART) grants, which are awarded to students who pursue majors in a science-related field.

Using two existing data sources — one from a large, public minorityserving institution and the other from the NSF’s National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics — Blume-Kohout will first evaluate whether SMART grants and merit-based aid affect undergraduates’ retention in and completion of STEM degree programs. She’ll then compare the effects of such scholarships and other types of financial support on students’ cumulative debt loads and early career paths.

The grant will also fund the work of four undergraduate research assistants who will conduct literature reviews, perform statistical analyses, and have the chance to test their own hypotheses.

Blume-Kohout hopes the results will help to inform policies that aim to retain women and minority students in STEM fields. “STEM graduates in higherpaying occupations could help address socioeconomic inequality and social mobility, which are some of the reasons we’re concerned about the effects of student debt,” she said.

— Erin Burnett ’19

humanity of groups when the focus is placed on the people within the group rather than the group as a unified whole,” Cooley explained.

She coauthored the project with two Colgate researchers: Alyssa Berger ’16 and William Cipolli, assistant professor of mathematics. Other coauthors include Cooley’s former graduate advisers and peers.

For Berger’s senior thesis project, she and Cooley discovered that, by affecting “mind” perception, linguistic shifts also affect whether people feel compassion for a suffering group.

“For instance, ‘people in a company’ who suffered bankruptcy were not only perceived as having more mind than ‘a company of people,’ but they also elicited much more sympathy,” Cooley said.

Beyond the lab, the findings have several real-world applications, including the perception of governing bodies in the media and an individual’s willingness to donate to charities that aid suffering groups. In future research, Cooley hopes to investigate

“One of the ways we can study a protein is by pulling it out and seeing what it’s bound to through immunoprecipitation.”

— Priscilla Van Wynsberghe, biology professor

CRISPR at Colgate

iStock/Alot of People

Spot the difference: A group of people or people in a group? While these phrases might seem interchangeable at first glance, recent research by Erin Cooley, assistant professor of psychology, shows that humans interpret these similar statements in unexpected ways.

Cooley’s research investigates the topic of mind perception — the idea that we can ascribe mental capacities to others. She sought to discover whether people perceive a “mind” differently in groups of people — a country, for example — than in individuals. Her paper, titled “The Paradox of Group Mind: ‘People in a Group’ Have More Mind Than ‘a Group of People,’” was published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: General this past spring.

Intuitively, groups should be perceived as having lots of minds — after all, they comprise many individuals.

The results of Cooley’s first study, however, support the opposite; overall, people perceive groups — such as

How do you perceive people in a group? What about a group of people? Psychology professor Erin Cooley’s research examines the nuances of these statements.

companies or sports teams — as having less “mind” than an individual.

In a second study, Cooley found that slight shifts in the way a group is described can significantly affect how that group is perceived. The results show that shifting the statement from “a group of people” to “people in a group” led people to perceive groups as having as much “mind” as an individual.

“Our interpretation of these findings is that people start seeing the

how individuals make moral decisions involving groups.

“I’m interested in how people make decisions that harm groups,” Cooley said. “For instance, would people think it is more ethical to attack ‘North Korea’ or ‘the people of North Korea’? Our findings suggest that word choice is not arbitrary; instead, it can affect whether we sympathize with those who are suffering or ignore their plight altogether.”

— Erin Burnett ’19

The technologies in science fiction films like Gattaca and Blade Runner may seem light-years away, but the development of a gene-editing technique called CRISPR (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) is bringing our society closer to these futuristic worlds than ever before.

During her talk titled “CRISPR: The Genome Editing Revolution” in June, Assistant Professor of Biology Priscilla Van Wynsberghe spoke to students and faculty about this scientific breakthrough as part of Colgate’s Summertime Lecture Series.

“The science community has had methods to alter a genome directly in a cell, but [these methods] haven’t been as easy to use, as simple, or as fast acting as CRISPR,” Van Wynsberghe said. “It allows [scientists] to make a specific alteration to a nucleic acid in a human cell.”

This past summer, Van Wynsberghe and her team of student researchers used the technology to study the effects of specific proteins on development of the nematode C. elegans.

“One of the ways we can study a protein is by pulling it out and seeing what it’s bound to through immunoprecipitation,” Van Wynsberghe said.

“To do that, you need a way to tag your protein to see where your protein is, how much is there, and what it’s binding to. What I’d like to do with CRISPR is engineer a short little ‘tag’ into my protein so that I can specifically, confidently identify it.”

Although scientists first noticed CRISPR in the late 1980s, it wasn’t until 2012 that they announced its

potential as a gene-editing tool. Using Cas9, a protein that can create doublestranded breaks in DNA, CRISPR allows for the deletion or insertion of a gene at virtually any location in the genome. As research progresses, the technique could potentially be used to advance our understanding of biological systems; treat genetic diseases caused by a single, known mutation; grow organs for transplantations; and even edit human embryos. However, most traits, including intelligence and height, are impacted by multiple genes and environmental influences, and thus are too complex to be altered

by CRISPR technology.

Along with the power of CRISPR comes the need for ethical responsibility. Although the technology has the potential to save lives, it also can be used to genetically modify organisms for reasons other than solving lifethreatening problems.

Throughout her talk, Van Wynsberghe posed situational questions to audience members to gauge their thoughts on the ethics of gene editing. When asked if they would be interested in having their genomes sequenced, most people said yes; but, when asked if that sequencing information should be used to “fix” errors in their genomes, many weren’t convinced.

“There are going to be so many applications for CRISPR’s use, and we as a society need to have some discussions about if and how much editing is appropriate,” Van Wynsberghe said.

“Talking, understanding, and breaking it down is really important.”

— Erin Burnett ’19

News and views for the Colgate community

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iStock/vchal

Frame of mind

arts & culture

Mark R. Williams

Coming to America

Ever wonder how artists interact with the landscapes they portray?

Picker Art Gallery’s latest exhibition, Landmarked: Selected Landscapes from the Permanent Collection, features artwork that examines artists’ relationships with the environment. Through paintings, drawings, and photographs, Landmarked takes a look at how artists recreate landscapes and how those same landscapes influence the philosophical, social, political, and economic aspects of the artists themselves. Featuring artists from the 17th to the 21st century, such as Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot and Catherine Opie, the exhibition runs through December. This photo is the work of Kenneth Josephson, titled Wyoming, 1971.

A tower of golden inner tubes strapped with JFK luggage tags, Cathedral/Catedral was the centerpiece of Scherezade Garcia’s exhibition It’s So Sunny That It’s Dark, which ran September 6–October 8 in Clifford Gallery.

In her work, Garcia — who emigrated from the Dominican Republic to New York City in 1986 when she received a full scholarship to the Parsons School of Design — addresses themes of displacement and adaptation. Coming from one island to another, she said, she’s always been surrounded by water. Throughout history, people have traveled this “liquid highway,” Garcia said, and “our DNA is in those waters in between the continents.”

Identity and cultural heritage are prominent motifs in the artist’s mixed-media pieces. In Talking the Talk, Walking the Walk II, the Statue of Liberty is portrayed as a woman of color. “I call her cinnamon,” Garcia said. “Because it’s inclusive. The moment you mix paints, you are being completely inclusive because you are rejecting the idea of pure.”

Deconstructing icons such as the Statue of Liberty and Mickey Mouse, Garcia aims to provoke and inspire discussion, but not state her intention. “You can build your own narrative,” she said. “It’s the meaning you give it.”

Garcia’s use of rich colors — especially gold — and playful strokes give drama to her work. “The situation we are living right now, the state of las Américas, there is so much gold and glitter — [it’s like,] ‘let me entertain you so you don’t see how tragic this is,’” she said.

As evidenced by the exhibition’s title, It’s So Sunny That It’s Dark embraces extremes and “beautiful contradictions,” Garcia explained. With what she calls a “pride of place,” Garcia acknowledges the beauty of our continent while also alluding to our painful history.

In addition to her exhibition, Garcia hosted a workshop in the Coop called “How Do You Color Freedom?” in which participants discussed and then created art around the concepts of freedom. Get a glimpse: colgate.edu/garciavideo

Acting and reacting

“Think of someone who gave you a great pep talk. Who was that person?” Actress Liz Hayden, dressed as an athletic coach, posed this question to the audience in Brehmer Theater during the interactive play Pep Talk on September 26. She probed the audience for answers, which included “my mom,” “my soccer coach,” and “my grandfather.”

One audience member, when asked to say more about her grandfather, was overcome with emotion. Her reaction is something for which Portland, Ore.based theater company Hand2Mouth tries to prepare.

“When we make a show that’s interactive, we spend a lot of time testing it,” explained Jonathan Wal-

Justin Kunz ’19

“This is a show that involves risk, for both the audience and the performers.”

— Christian DuComb

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scene: Autumn 2017

ters, Hand2Mouth founder and artistic director. “We bring people in from the community, from all different walks of life, to learn how the audience will react and how we should react to them.”

As part of Hand2Mouth’s weeklong residency at Colgate, Walters visited Professor Christian DuComb’s American Theater class to discuss Pep Talk the day after the performance.

“This is a show that involves risk, for both the audience and the performers,” DuComb said, “but the audience might not know that they’re taking a risk when they enter the theater. You can never predict how every audience member is going to react.”

Later in the week, Hand2Mouth showed a different side. Berlin Diary followed a playwright as she grappled with the meaning of family after discovering a diary her great-grandfather wrote during the Holocaust. After the play, German professor Matthew Miller facilitated a discussion about home, heritage, and the Jewish diaspora.

“The second play wasn’t interactive, but it was still deeply personal,” Erin Moroney ’18 said. “It’s interesting to see how different styles of theater can cause different reactions in the audience.”

— Emily Daniel ’19

Mark R. Williams

These Inuit tools from the early 20th century represent just one community featured in the exhibition Unsettled Conditions: How We Talk about the Environment and Our Place in It. The exhibition aims to look at communities and their environmental issues, which are connected to the objects on display.

In the late 20th century, the people of Papua New Guinea faced a challenge.

Communities were trying to resist development in their ancestral forest areas, so they had to come up with an alternative economic model. They settled on making tapa, a pounded barkcloth, for market — the same material displayed in a current exhibition in the Longyear Museum of Anthropology.

Unsettled Conditions: How We Talk about the Environment and Our Place in It runs until December 17. The exhibition focuses not just on the environmental problems we faced in the past and the ones we face today, but also how we break down and talk about those issues.

“We’re looking at how communities in different parts of the world that are connected to the objects we have in the collection are grappling with environmental issues, especially those that are changing their livelihoods and are impacting the way their communities can survive into the future,” said Christy DeLair, associate curator in the Longyear.

With the idea of having the Colgate and Hamilton communities participate in the exhibition, DeLair and several students spent a few weekends at the Hamilton Farmers’ Market asking people to submit videos talking about their interactions with the environment. If people had objects representing those interactions, those were accepted, too.

Also, a video booth in the museum allows visitors to add their voices to the exhibition, and polling stations are situated around the room asking the public for their opinions about different aspects of the show. Students visiting the exhibition for class can answer questions about the experience on iPads throughout the museum, and their responses will be put on display.

“We’re trying to get as many people’s voices into the museum as possible,” DeLair said.

In addition to helping conceptualize the exhibition, students also did the research for each section of Unsettled Conditions and selected the pieces that would go into them. They chose to focus on four key groups of people around the globe: the Tuareg people of the Sahara Desert, the Inuit in the Arctic, communities in Southeast Asia and Oceania, and central New York. The exhibition includes pieces such as an Inuit doll, a war charm, a baby carrier, tent posts, and vintage photographs of central New York. These photos show changes to the Colgate campus community, but also show Hamilton and how human interactions have affected the local landscape.

Sierra Sunshine ’18, an anthropology and Native American studies major and curatorial assistant, gained experience that she hopes will help her as she considers a career in environmental science. “I love working in the museum setting in general,” she said, “but this exhibition is very topical.”

Colgate Choir in Colombia

After studying and performing Music of the Americas in Hamilton last spring, 42 members of the University Chorus and Chamber Singers took their performance to Colombia.

Named for the music of North and

Pilar Mejia Barrera

Environmental conditions then and now

United States; the chorus sang in Latin, Spanish, and English. “We were delighted to also learn some uniquely Colombian music for joint performances at a few venues,” said Ryan Endris, assistant professor of music and director of choral and vocal activities.

In many cities, Colgate students engaged in musical and cultural exchange with local university students.

“Some of my favorite moments from the trip were the exchanges with other choirs,” Ben Fetzner ’17 said. “It was really special because we were able to share the language of music with people whom we could not necessarily communicate with otherwise.”

The choir performed in churches and auditoriums, but they also had a few impromptu concerts — singing on the top of the Rock of Guatapé and performing for their tour guides on some of their many bus tours around the country.

Although the group had a busy performance schedule, they visited a number of cultural sites, including the Gold Museum in Bogotá, the Salt Cathedral in Zipaquirá, and the walled city and the Castle of San Felipe in Cartagena. The group also experienced the natural life of Colombia, canoeing

The University Chorus with the Children’s Choir of Villa de Leyva, Colombia

South America, the Music of the Americas performance celebrated the cultures and shared musical history of the continents. In addition to performing music, students explored a number of Colombian cities and engaged with local communities.

The tour focused on the art and folk music of Latin America and the

through mangroves and spending time on local beaches.

On November 12 at 3:30 p.m., the University Chorus and Chamber singers will perform Music of the Americas II in the chapel, bringing their concert tour of Colombia full circle.

— Melanie Oliva ’18

News and views for the Colgate community

19

go ’gate

mother. Before Chun’s administrative career, she was a Patriot League Player and Coach of the Year for the volleyball team.

Housed at the location of the former bowling alley in the heart of Reid, the new academic center is three times larger than the old center and provides student-athletes with a state-of-the-art study space. Images and artifacts from each of Colgate’s 25 Division I sports are incorporated into the design.

“We are going to be the premier academic institution that is going to compete at the highest level athletically,” President Brian W. Casey said. “That is what Colgate represents for this nation.”

Major League victory

There’s no place like…

Colgate athletics kicked off Homecoming 2017 events September 9 with the official dedication of three new spaces within Reid Athletic Center: Fred’s Place (the football locker room), the RCA Meeting Room, and the Victoria M. Chun ’91, MA’94 and Susan Chun Academic Services Center.

Fred’s Place was dedicated in honor of Fred Dunlap ’50, the football coach and athletics director who served the university from 1976–98. The custom renovation of the football locker room was completed this summer and added 91 state-of-the-art lockers, a new audiovisual system, and team-logo displays.

Adjacent to the locker room is the RCA Meeting Room, named for Ruth Cline Applegate (mother of former football player Brion Applegate ’76) and all Colgate football mothers. This new space provides flexibility to meet as a full team or divide into smaller rooms for position meetings.

“It makes us much more efficient as coaches and a team,” head coach Dan Hunt said. “[Also,] it’s better than our [competition’s] and puts us in the forefront on many levels.”

Lastly, Colgate unveiled the Victoria M. Chun ’91, MA’94 and Susan Chun Academic Services Center, named in honor of Victoria Chun, the vice president and director of athletics, and her

Peter Baum ’13 and the Ohio Machine are the 2017 Major League Lacrosse (MLL) champions.

Baum scored twice and dished out three assists in Ohio’s 17– 12 title victory over the Denver Outlaws held August 19 in Frisco, Texas. He scored his two goals late in the third quarter to keep the Machine close. Ohio trailed 12–10 just inside the 10-minute mark of the fourth quarter before scoring the game’s final seven goals to win.

“The feeling is even better than I hoped it would be,” Baum said. “When that clock ticks down and you see tears in guys’ eyes, it shows you how special it is and how much it means to us.”

Baum finished the 2017 regular season tied for the league lead in scoring with 52 points. He posted 31 goals (including a pair of 2-point goals) and 19 assists. It was a career-high point total for the fourth-year pro and his third season with at least 30 goals.

“ When that clock ticks down and you see tears in guys’ eyes, it shows you how special it is and how much it means to us.”

— Peter Baum ’13 He completed his Colgate career as the most decorated student-athlete in the university’s lacrosse history. He won the prestigious 2012 Tewaaraton Award and the Lt. Raymond Enners Award as the nation’s top player, in addition to USILA All-American First Team and LaxPower All-American Team honors.

The Portland, Ore., native finished as the Patriot League’s career leader in goals scored with 164. He was the nation’s active goal-scoring leader at the time of his graduation and left Colgate as the all-time leader in both goals and career points (225).

When Baum was selected in the 2013 MLL Collegiate Draft by the Machine, he was the number-one overall pick.

Peter Klein/KLC Fotos

Leo Stouros ’16 swarms in to win

Great start! With the ESPNU cameras rolling and a national TV audience tuned in, Colgate put on a near-picture-perfect display in the game against the Cal Poly Mustangs at the end of August. The Raiders won 20–14 in this first football game of the season.

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scene: Autumn 2017

In Game 2 of the National Lacrosse League’s (NLL) Champion’s Cup indoor series, Leo Stouros ’16 and his Georgia Swarm teammates faced 15,000 fans all rooting against them.

But Stouros called on his experience in crunch-time situations to calm his nerves and help his team prevail 15–14 against the Saskatchewan Rush on their home turf in overtime.

“It’s tough to go into a championship game and not be nervous,” he said. “But having played for championships before kept me calm and in the moment. I knew how to handle the situation.”

In 2014, Stouros helped the Six Nations Arrows take home the Minto Cup indoor lacrosse championship in his native Canada.

Winning seems to be a habit for this defenseman from Kitchener, Ontario.

Stouros credits his Colgate and Six Nations experiences for his professional success. “Colgate and Six Nations got me to where I am today,” he said. “The character I built at Colgate as a team captain and the success we had under Coach [Mike] Murphy — I wouldn’t be here if not for that experience.”

2017 Athletics Hall of Honor Having just signed a two-year contract with Georgia, he’ll be back in the Atlanta area for training camp starting in December.

“Being a rookie this year and playing with big names from all over NCAA and Major League Lacrosse has been both a privilege and an honor,” Stouros said.

Poland ’17 goes to Ireland

Women’s basketball player Steph Poland ’17 was nominated by the Patriot League and chosen by the Sport Changes Life foundation for the Victory Scholar program. The program’s scholarships allow U.S. student-athletes to continue their athletic and academic careers by both playing on a collegiate team and studying in a graduate program at an Irish or Northern Irish university.

Poland is attending Maynooth University near Dublin, where she is pursuing a master’s degree in international peace building, security, and development practice. In addition, she is working with community programs that help disadvantaged youth.

coach of the Roseville Flames Special Olympics team in Minnesota, asked him to help coach a new flag football team. Flag football is a “unified” sport, which is an inclusive program that unites Special Olympics athletes and individuals without intellectual disabilities on the same team.

“I had such a great time with the flag football team that I invited several of my friends to join in to help,” Gaertner said. “The emotion the athletes show when they complete a pass in football or connect the bat to the ball in softball is unmistakable joy.”

Gaertner competed in high school sports and is now a football player at Colgate. He organized a Special Olympics basketball tournament at St. Thomas Academy High School (Mendota Heights, Minn.) that has since become an annual Special Olympics Day at the school.

“I now realize how fortunate I am to have always had a team as part of my life,” he said. “Many of the Special Olympics athletes did not have these

These inductees — representing eight teams that combined to win 11 conference championships — took center stage September 9 in the Hall of Presidents. They were also recognized at the homecoming football game’s halftime.

Brion Applegate ’76 (football) has been heavily involved in supporting all of Colgate’s athletic programs since his graduation. As a receiver, he led the team in receiving yards as a senior and his 20.4 yards per catch that season ranks second in program history. Applegate is an emeritus Board of Trustees member and recipient of the Maroon Citation and Wm. Brian Little ’64 Award for Distinguished Service to Colgate. “For me, it’s simple,” Applegate said.

“There’s something very special about this place. I love it dearly, and I’m so proud to be a part of this community.”

Kate (Barrett) Lukabu ’04 (soccer) was the 2003 Patriot League Offensive Player of the Year after reaching the NCAA season top 10 in points per game. She finished her senior campaign with 18 goals and 45 points — both Colgate season records to this date — and added nine assists to lead the team in that category as well.

Dorothy Donaldson ’05 (softball) is considered one of the most dominant softball players in Patriot League history. Donaldson earned 2004 Patriot League Player of the Year honors to go with four All-Patriot League First Team selections. She remains Colgate’s career leader in home runs with 39 and stands in the top five in nearly every offensive category.

Nate Eachus ’12 (football) was Colgate’s 2010–11 Male Student-Athlete of the Year after compiling 4,485 career rushing yards and 53 touchdowns. He was a Consensus All-America First Team selection in 2010 after leading the nation in both rushing with 170.1 yards per game and points with 12 per game. After graduation, Eachus played the 2012 season with the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs. “The thing I’m now most proud of,” Eachus said, “even greater than the NFL, is having that Colgate degree.”

Rebecca Galves ’94 (volleyball) earned a spot on the Patriot League’s All-Decade Team for 1990–99. The league’s Rookie of the Year in 1990, she followed that up with three-straight All-Patriot League First Team selections, highlighted by her 1992 pick as conference Player of the Year. Galves was the first in program history to reach both 1,000 career digs (1,316) and kills (1,061) and still ranks among the program's top 10 in those two categories.

Joel Gardner ’90 (hockey) helped propel Colgate to the 1990 ECAC Hockey championship, setting off a postseason trek that carried all the way to the NCAA championship game. He was an All-America selection that season and remains solidly inside Colgate’s career top 10 in points (seventh with 184) and assists (fifth with 113) to go with 71 goals. “He was electric,” assistant hockey coach Mike Harder said.

Victory Scholar Steph Poland '17 (far right) learns the art of hurling from a few Dubliners.

“I’m excited to use basketball as a tool to connect with kids of all ages,” Poland said. “I want to show how being involved in a sport can put your life on a positive path.”

At Colgate, Poland majored in political science and earned the Thomas M. Wilson ’67 Memorial Endowed Leadership Award in addition to being admitted to the Konosioni Senior Honor Society.

Recognized for Special Olympics service

Aidan Gaertner ’20 and his family were honored with the 2017 Outstanding Family Award at the Special Olympics of Minnesota’s annual Distinguished Service Awards ceremony on September 8.

Gaertner got involved with the Special Olympics when his aunt, the head

opportunities in their youth or in high school. They have shared in my high school sports experience, and I am honored to know that many now follow Colgate football.”

The Gaertner family was selected from nearly 8,000 families within Special Olympics Minnesota to be recognized for their work with the organization. Aidan has been participating as a unified partner — both playing and coaching — in track and field, golf, flag football, and basketball for the past seven years.

“He has been a role model for our athletes, and as a result, has enabled them to build a strong self-image,” said Patsy Eull, head of delegation of the Flames Special Olympics Team.

— Emily Daniel ’18

Matt Lalli ’08 (lacrosse) remains Colgate’s career assist leader with 95. He added 89 goals and is tied for fifth in career points (184). Lalli earned All-America Third Team as a senior and twice garnered All-Patriot League First Team honors. He helped the Raiders tie for the 2006 Patriot League regular season title and then matched a conference tournament record for assists with seven as Colgate captured the 2008 title and advanced to the NCAAs. Courtney Miller ’12 (lacrosse) became the third player in Patriot League women’s lacrosse history to be named All-Patriot League First Team four consecutive seasons. In 2012, she was the Patriot League Midfielder of the Year and Colgate’s Female Student-Athlete of the Year. Miller was named to the Patriot League’s Silver Anniversary Team in 2016. She still stands as the Colgate leader in draw controls with 201 and is third in career points (241), third in goals (168), and fourth in assists (73). Miller has played for the New York Athletic Club women’s lacrosse team since 2012 and for the Israeli National Team since 2015.

Lauren Schmetterling ’12 (rowing) was part of the U.S. Women’s Eight crew that won the Olympic gold medal in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. Schmetterling became the first Colgate athlete and first Patriot League athlete to win an Olympic gold medal. The Rio games marked her Olympic debut after she had helped the U.S. team to world championships in 2013, 2014, and 2015. Schmetterling holds Colgate's 2K and 6K erg records and was an All-America Second Team selection as a senior. “She was proud to bring the gold to Colgate,” Schmetterling’s parents, Eric and Lorie, said.

News and views for the Colgate community

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new, noted , & quoted

Books, music & film Information is provided by publishers, authors, and artists.

Funeral Platter

Greg Ames, associate professor of English (Arcade Publishing) In this collection of darkly humorous short stories, a young girl uses a burnt log for her ventriloquist act; Franz Kafka and an unnamed narrator cruise a dive bar for women; a grieving couple stage and execute their own funeral; and a son brings hot chowder to his caged parents. Packed with moments of violence and tenderness, Funeral Platter explores the humor and unease of modern life. Professor Greg Ames is also the author of the award-winning novel Buffalo Lockjaw.

In the Shadow of the Moon: The Science, Magic, and Mystery of Solar Eclipses

Anthony Aveni, professor of astronomy and anthropology and Native American studies emeritus (Yale University Press)

This year’s solar eclipse elicited gasps across North America — and we are already eagerly anticipating the next event in 2024. In his new book, Anthony Aveni discusses the scientific and cultural significance of this cosmic display. He delves into the history and culture surrounding solar eclipses, from prehistoric Stonehenge to Babylonian creation myths to the ways that people continue to look up at the sky with wonder today. Aveni’s account of the astronomical phenomenon is driven, too, by his own experiences: he has witnessed eight solar eclipses in his life.

The Most Bold and Daring Act of the Age: A Henry Doyle Novel E. Thomas Behr ’62 (CreateSpace)

At age 55, Henry Doyle has it all: wealth, happiness, a loving wife, a young son, and most important, his life — after a violent yet successful 35-year career as a spy.

When Napoleon escapes from Elba in 1815 to return as emperor, Henry comes out of retirement, risking it all to stop him, but fails, winding up in an Algerian dungeon. His half-brother, Peter Kirkpatrick, a privateer captain, sets sail on a daring, but utterly foolhardy rescue attempt. Henry’s wife, Dihya, knowing nothing of Peter’s plan, determines to free her husband by becoming an odalisque in his captor’s harem. In The Most Bold and Daring Act of the Age, Behr weaves together Peter’s and Dihya’s rescue attempts with Henry’s spiritual torment.

Haunted City: Three Centuries of Racial Impersonation in Philadelphia

Christian DuComb, assistant theater professor (University of Michigan Press) From 18thcentury minstrel shows to the ban of blackface at the annual Mummers Parade in the ’60s, Philadelphia has long been a stage for racial and cultural impersonation. Professor Christian DuComb draws on theater history, critical race theory, art history, and his own experiences performing in the Mummers Parade to create an interdisciplinary account of Philadelphia’s haunted past and fraught present.

Make It Happen Bob Duffy ’62 (Robert J. Duffy)

Throughout his life, some doubted Bob Duffy’s ability to make his dreams happen. Many thought he wouldn’t 22

scene: Autumn 2017

be able to succeed in professional basketball or get a college education. Duffy, however, proved everyone wrong.

In this book, Duffy reveals his manifesto for achievement and how he was able to overcome the obstacles that life put in his way. With determination and resilience, Duffy was able to realize his childhood dreams.

Jefferson’s America: The President, the Purchase, and the Explorers Who Transformed a Nation Julie M. Fenster ’79 (Crown)

At the dawn of the 19th century, Britain, France, Spain, and the United States all jockeyed for control of the vast expanses west of the Mississippi River. President Thomas Jefferson was responsible for orchestrating the American push into the continent.

He most famously recruited Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to explore the largely unknown region, but there were other teams that did similar work: William Dunbar, George Hunter, Thomas Freeman, Peter Custis, and Zebulon Pike all were dispatched to map the frontier and send back their findings.

Tensions within these teams, though, threatened to undermine Jefferson’s goals for the country and its footholds in the West. Through in-depth research and inspiring storytelling, Fenster rediscovers the robust, harrowing expeditions that promised the president’s vision for a continental America.

The Athlete CEO Adonal Foyle ’99 (Realization Press)

In The Athlete CEO, Adonal Foyle presents seven matrices of an athlete’s life: personal, professional sports, family, financial, public, charity, and post-career. By managing the many aspects of their lives, athletes act as their own small businesses and already do the work

of an “athlete CEO.” Foyle explains that, like owners of small businesses, athlete CEOs must be willing to develop themselves and adapt to changing circumstances.

Although they’re in a constant state of evolution, Foyle says, athletes should appreciate what they already do on a day-to-day basis.

Social Entrepreneurship and Citizenship in China Carolyn Hsu, associate sociology professor (Routledge)

Throughout the past 30 years, entrepreneurship has grown significantly in the People’s Republic of China. There are hundreds of thousands of legally registered nongovernmental organizations, and millions more unregistered, working in the areas of the environment, education, women’s issues, disability services, community development, LGBTQ rights, and health care. Professor Carolyn Hsu draws on the personal stories of social entrepreneurs in China, as well as their supporters and beneficiaries, to examine what the rapid growth of social entrepreneurship reveals about China’s complex and dynamic society.

Smell Detectives: An Olfactory History of Nineteenth-Century Urban America Melanie A. Kiechle ’03 (University of Washington Press)

In a time when bad smells were thought to cause disease, malodorous cities were a hotbed for publichealth concerns.

Historian Melanie A. Kiechle explores how citizens, scientists, and government officials followed their noses to make sense of urban environmental change in

19th-century America. The conflict between advancing medical science and olfactory “common sense,” which Kiechle maps in Smell Detectives, shaped how American city dwellers understand their health and environment today. (For more on Kiechle, see pg. 71.)

Remember to Forget Me Kerry Neville ’94 (Alleyway Books)

In her new collection of short stories, Kerry Neville explores the universal struggle with trying to lead a life of purpose and dignity. Readers enter the lives and minds of a diverse cast of characters who are facing love, loss, adversity, and human endurance. In “Zorya,” a former Ukrainian sex worker embarks on a new path with the dream of supporting her son and aging mother.

“Lionman” is about a circus freak whose chance to satisfy his hunger for human connection leads to a nearly inconceivable revelation. And in the title story, a devoted husband is heartbroken as he consents to have his beloved wife institutionalized for dementia. Remember to Forget Me follows up on Neville’s award-winning debut, Necessary Lies.

Next Gen PhD: A Guide to Career Paths in Science Melanie V. Sinche ’92 (Harvard University Press)

For students earning PhDs in the sciences, a tenure-track professorship was once Plan A, but as the academic job market stagnates, a nonfaculty career isn’t just Plan B anymore. Melanie V. Sinche is a certified career counselor with extensive experience working with graduate students and postdocs, and her comprehensive book offers PhDholding scientists guidance as they navigate their careers.

In the media “In this case, it’s about a person’s impact on the community.”

—DeWitt Godfrey, art and art history professor, tells the Traverse City Record Eagle about his recent sculpture Enspire, which is in memory of a Traverse City (Michigan) Downtown Development Authority leader .

“The influx of refugees to Utica allowed us to retain some smaller industries that were looking for highly motivated labor.”

— Ellen Kraly, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of geography and environmental studies, speaks to PBS Newshour about the recent surge in the refugee population of Utica, N.Y.

“We think it’s about high positive affect, an approach orientation, and almost a sense of lost control. You know, you can’t stand it, you can’t handle it, that kind of thing.”

— Rebecca Dyer, visiting assistant professor of psychology, explains to Live

Science why we want to squeeze cute things, like puppies or babies’ cheeks.

“This is one of the northernmost findings of this species and one of only about 10 places it has been found in the state.”

— Tim McCay, biology and environmental studies professor, discusses his team’s finding of the American Grey Soil Worm, one of the few New York– native earthworms, in The Oneida Daily Dispatch.

News and views for the Colgate community

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BY RENÉE OLSON

“THE EPITOME OF FASHION MEETS FUNCTION IN A JACKET.” — OnTheSnow.com review of Orsden, cofounded by Steve Segall ’06

Sho p th is bus ines eclecti c co ses grad uate this ho llectio n of l smi les — s have t iday se alum aso he g n and mak n ood . The i the e th s bac se ei thin ksto to spar g to r entre k r p ies t beh old. reneuri h al m at ettl ea

ORSDEN. When Vermont skiers Sara and Steve Segall ’06 couldn’t find decent ski jackets for men and women under $600, they invented one. Choosing a direct-to-customer model let them slash costs for “weekend escapists who want technical ski wear,” said Segall, a former member of Colgate’s ski team. “At the same time, the jacket is something they can wear into the city,” he added.

In “Great Gifts for Skiers,” Forbes hailed it as “waterproof, breathable, insulated, [with] underarm vents, sealed seams and four-way stretch for fit and comfort.” Sports Illustrated had much the same reaction: You’ll find it on its 2017 Best Ski Gear list. orsden.com; jackets; $330 Bearish: Orsden comes from ours de neige, French for snow bear.

CREATURE COMFORTS. If your style is classic, chances are it’s your pet’s aesthetic, too. Nancy (Mengel) Baird ’77 and her California-based company Creature Comforts offer ceramic, tipproof pet bowls and treat jars in Royal Stewart tartan, houndstooth (how apt), chevron, and more.

Sold by retailers like Orvis, Neiman Marcus, and Vineyard Vines, her line also includes treats to put in that jar. For cats, try Kitty Catbernet; for dogs, the Oprah List–approved Poochi Sushi. creaturecomfortstm.com; $10–$40; ceramics can be personalized

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GARLAND COLLECTION. What do Taylor Swift, Christina Aguilera, and Jennifer Lawrence have in common? All have worn made-to-order jewelry designed by Nicole (Mann) Novick ’00, proprietor of Garland Collection. An L.A. Magazine style writer whom Elle called a “cult West Coast jeweler,” Novick got her start when people noticed the throwback name-plate pendant she created for her first wedding anniversary.

Now a Long Island resident, Novick named her company after the Garland side of her family, including her Business Week White House correspondent aunt, Susan Garland ’73, one of the first 11 women to graduate from Colgate. “I went to Colgate because I admired her,” Novick said.

Novick’s baubles, in solid 14k or 18k gold and some with personalized engraving, range from her sentimental signature pendant to “jingle-jangle” charms to signet rings. garlandcollection.com; $300 and up

Masha Maltsava

Made for TV: Novick’s first job out of Colgate was at a Manhattan law firm representing Hermès. She found herself prowling Chinatown undercover to find counterfeit merch, all while wearing a wire.

PERSIFOR. When Persifor Frazer Smith IV boarded a ship dressed head to toe in white with his chic wife decked out in a wide-brimmed hat, clutch, and scalloped-edged gloves, grand travel was at its height. You’ll find a current take on that at Persifor, the brainchild of Alexandra (Rice) Thompson ’02, the couple’s granddaughter. “I saw a niche for wrinkleresistant, packable clothing,” said Thompson, a former designer and merchandiser at J. Crew and Lilly Pulitzer. “These clothes are classic and clean with a sense of joie de vivre. You can put on one of our items and run out the door.” persifor.com; dresses, separates, accessories; $38 and up

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k Clar in Lark

SALT OF THE EARTH CO. On departing Peru after an Eat, Pray, Love–style trip in 2011, Jason Kaplan ’06 wedged something unexpected into his luggage: Ziploc bags packed full of pink salt, the gift of a couple working at the Salinas de Maras salt pans outside Cusco. Their generosity moved him to source salt he could import, and thus was born Salt of the Earth Co., which sends back a portion of the profits to the community. “There’s a textural element to this salt,” said Kaplan, a geology major who is now a lawyer for renewable energy. “It’s more crystalline, with more of a crunchy texture, than flaky.” saltoftheearthco.com; $6.50–$12

BEMBIEN. Since Yi-Mei Truxes ’08 launched her company in February, her intricate straw bags, handwoven by artisans in Vietnam and Bali, have attracted nonstop press. “There are amazing artisans around the world who are not on the global stage,” said Truxes, who spent nearly six years in marketing at Vogue before recently opening the NYC office for mega fashion photographer Mario Testino. “I can use my experience in both business and fashion to bring their craft to a larger market and bring awareness to the incredible work they do,” said Truxes. She also packs 10 percent of Bembien proceeds off to Nest, a nonprofit that supports the business goals of artisans and homeworkers globally.

Bembien.com; $65–$220 Worldly: The company name is Truxes’s mash-up of the Portuguese bem and the French bien for the word “good.”

Sweet & salty: Kaplan’s company also flavors small-batch chocolate from makers like Woodstock’s Fruition and Brooklyn’s Raaka.

“WHETHER IT BE NEWLY DISCOVERED BRANDS LIKE BEMBIEN OR CULT CLASSICS LIKE CHANEL, IT'S SAFE TO SAY THESE HANDBAGS HAVE OFFICIALLY BLOWN UP.”

—Who What Wear, April 2017

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scene: Autumn 2017

TACONIC CIGAR BOX GUITARS. Instruments fashioned out of used cigar boxes date at least as far back as the Civil War when soldiers would take them out between battles, according to Steve Olejarczyk ’86. A guitar player since childhood who also plays banjo, mandolin, and ukulele, Olejarczyk upcycles the boxes into cool ukuleles and guitars suitable for stage use.

Listen to him and his instruments on YouTube at Taconic Cigar Box Guitars. taconicguitars.com; $229 and up

FUN & GAMES APPROACH THE BENCH. The hours a young James Mellis ’94 spent playing chess with his lawyer dad spurred him to create an elegant courtroom-themed set.

Made of cold-cast bronze and Travertine tile, the set has been featured on CBS’s The Good Wife and crowned the official set of the U.S. Supreme Court gift shop.

Mellis also offers legal figures (Blind Justice, attorneys, etc.) in chocolate and as bottle stoppers and holiday ornaments. approachthebench.com; $10–$900

SHOT COACH. A self-described “pseudo inventor,” Ohioan Tucker Neale ’95 recently rolled out Shot Coach, a wearable tool to develop the muscle memory needed to sink shots on the basketball court. Inferring that Neale might just be the go-to guy for shooting technique, Crain’s Cleveland Business noted in July that the shooting guard is “still Colgate’s all-time leading scorer, with a whopping 2,075 points in three seasons.” myshotcoach.com; $29.99

CAPTURE THE FLAG REDUX. Everything was normal about Capture the Flag games run by Judd King ’01 until he swapped the flag out for a glowing plastic egg he found in an oddball store. Launched with Kickstarter funding, his tricked-out game — now with LED glow orbs, player bracelets, boundary lights, and more — keeps players of all ages active outdoors for hours after sunset. capturetheflagredux.com; $59.90

News and views for the Colgate community

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SUNNIVA SUPER COFFEE. When Jordan DeCicco, college point guard and youngest brother of Jimmy DeCicco ’15, needed something to get him through a day that started with 5 a.m. practice, he turned his dorm room into a test kitchen. His challenge: to concoct an energizing coffee free of unhealthy ingredients.

Before long, Jimmy, a Colgate football captain, had left his real estate finance career on Wall Street to join Jordan as CEO of their coffee startup, Sunniva. (Middle brother and Georgetown wide receiver, Jake, is also on board.) “I take care of raising money, hiring, and, for now, marketing,” said Jimmy. “We’re still small, but we hope to soon be the healthy alternative to the Starbucks Frappuccino on every shelf in the country.”

Sunniva Super Coffee is a blend of Colombian coffee, purified coconut oil for slow-burning energy, a lactose-free dose of milk protein, and organic dark maple syrup. Stocked by Wegmans, Wawa, and mid-Atlantic Whole Foods, the four flavors (Jimmy’s favorite is dark mocha) are also sold in 40 New York locations of WeWork, the booming coworking business that made an in-kind investment in Sunniva secured by Jimmy and Jake. sunniva.co; variety packs, $14–$36

SHINY OBJECTS. NASA can take credit for developing dichroic glass — embedded with thin, shimmering layers of metal — but Maine art teacher Becky (Clement) Christie ’82 turns hers into vividly colored pendants, bracelets, and earrings. (Contact her with requests; not all jewelry is pictured online.) shinyobjectsbybec.com; $8–$35

CALIFORNIA FRUIT WINE. Finding work at the height of the recession led Brian Haghighi ’09 to take inspiration from his hometown, San Diego, the epicenter of craft beer. Yet he snubbed grain and grapes and chose instead to make a craft beverage out of less-expected fruit: mangoes, pomegranates, and more. “It’s perfect for brunch, lunch, and late afternoon,” said Haghighi. californiafruitwine.com; $15/bottle

QLT STUDIO. A Colgate geography major who traded Utah for Hamilton, Jennifer Meakins ’05 always has to be making something. After studying architecture in graduate school at the University of Illinois at Chicago, she made her way to Los Angeles, where she creates and curates museum exhibitions. After hours, it’s quilting. “That’s how I relax,” Meakins said.

“That’s how I get my creative energy out.”

Her baby quilts are modern and “swoonworthy,” according to the blog Flax & Twine. qltstudio.com; $250

Seeing double: Together with cofounder and identical twin brother Alan, Haghighi recently opened FruitCraft, a tasting room in San Diego offering cocktails and small bites.

See more alumni products at colgate.edu/scene.

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scene: Autumn 2017

“IF A DAILY PLANNER, A MOTIVATIONAL TAPE, AND YOUR TO-DO LISTS HAD A WILD NIGHT TOGETHER, NINE MONTHS LATER, THE COMMIT30 PLANNER WOULD POP OUT.”

— Americangenius.com review of Commit30 by Jenny (Kane) Newcomer ’98

COMMIT30. The Commit30 planner grew organically from clients asking how Jenny (Kane) Newcomer ’98 and her husband successfully juggled multiple businesses in Durango, Colo. Her planner — on paper on purpose — helps you set and meet manageable, 30-day challenges to achieve your goals. commit30.com; two sizes, $29.99–$34.99 Insta inspiration: Newcomer posts motivational messages on the Commit30 Instagram feed, like “A year from now you’ll wish you’d started today.”

Applying themselves Essay (verb): to try.

Last year, approximately 8,500 high schoolers wrote to Colgate trying to encapsulate what makes them a good fit for the university. They revealed ethical dilemmas they’ve wrestled with, intimate family stories, and momentous successes — as well as failures.

This sampling of essays from a few of those hopefuls — who are now some of our newest students — reveals the character of the Class of 2021 and reflects the spirit of Colgate.

Illustrations by Natalya Balnova

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H E R B E R T S E T S SA I L

By Georgia Carey ’21 from San Rafael, Calif. hat a rude branch. That was my first thought as I walked away from our family’s 13th annual boat race, once again empty-handed. The evil root somehow stole Herbert and my muchanticipated moment of victory.

Herbert was what I named my skillfully engineered boat because, let’s face it, who doesn’t want a boat named Herbert? After 13 years of attempting to make the perfect contraption, I thought he was it. I crafted a motor out of a milk carton and rubber band, and a sail out of a fork and plastic bag to catch all wind energy possible. I gave Herbert a fin to help guide him through the troubled waters.

He had two water bottles as a base and one rock in each to keep him from flipping on the starting 10-foot drop. I coated him in duct tape to ensure he did not fall apart, and decorated him with Sharpies so that the other boats would pay attention to his perfection rather than the race at hand.

My 19 cousins, 14 aunts and uncles, and I have competed in this race during our weeklong family reunions every year since 2003. The uncles conceived the idea one day when the massive number of children wandering around needed some source of entertainment. The rules established that everyone must create a boat out of recycled material from the campsite and then drop their creation from a bridge into a creek; whoever’s boat made its way down the creek and into the lake first would win.

In 2003, as a 4-year-old, I decided to use a paper cup with a leaf and a stick stabbed into it.

As soon as I catapulted this boat off the bridge, I learned that a leaf and stick do not make for a proper sail, that paper and water do not play well

together, and that tape is most definitely a necessity. My other most valiant and slightly depressing efforts over the course of the next 12 years included a miniature water bottle taped into a paper cup, a bottle with a balloon attached to the end, and a Ziploc bag with a sail that was daintily taped to the top.

Despite all these misses, I kept trying. As my cousins began to simply throw water bottles off the bridge to see whose would miraculously make it across the finish line, I never stopped attempting to create the perfect, winning boat. Throughout my life, I have loved experimenting and inventing, never stopping to think that one of my off-the-wall ideas was impossible. My mind works differently from others; when given the space, it generates multiple concepts and analyzes all of them to come up with the best solution. This race gave me my favorite type of freedom, complete liberty to use my wacky imagination to create anything in the world, and I loved every minute of it.

This freedom is what led me to Herbert. I had been thinking about him nonstop during the school year. I took into account all of my hits and misses of the past 13 years and began constructing him that fateful Tuesday morning. This was it. As every one of my cousins threw their plastic pieces as far as they possibly could, I carefully dropped Herbert from the bridge so that he would not land upside down in the water. I watched him drift down the creek, then ran to the lake entrance to await his arrival. After 20 minutes and multiple water bottles crossing the finish line, I discovered a branch had gotten in the way of our victory. Although a bit salty, I was not disappointed.

I had accomplished everything I wanted because I had done something I loved; I invented Herbert the masterpiece.

News and views for the Colgate community

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FA M I LY H E I R L O OM S

By Henry Jelsma ’21 from Louisville, Ky. urning off a well-worn path, I step into the tall grass. Fighting my way through brambles and weeds, I ascend the hill. As the field comes into focus, my stomach sinks. What used to be neatly separated rows of edamame plants is now a jungle of weeds. Almost all evidence of my hard work under the scorching sun of rural Kentucky has disappeared. Johnson grass and pigweed have exploded and overpowered the edamame along with my dignity. The weeds have finally won the war. Why didn’t I take that job at the hardware store?

The fight lasted three months. My brother and I battled deer with fishing-line fences strung with aluminum cans but couldn’t keep them from devouring tender edamame seedlings. We squashed hundreds of metallic green Japanese beetles between our fingers as they feasted, turning the leaves lacy and transparent.

Long hours of work and gallons of sweat had been poured into this crop. Our plan was to sell organic edamame to restaurants and make a ton of money. The few plants spared by the deer and beetles had now been defeated by the weeds.

Knowing we were beaten, we mowed the field.

As we cleaned up, we noticed a few tomato plants left over from our church fundraiser. They were thriving with little care in the torrid climate of “Little Sahara,” the nickname my great-grandfather gave to this farm.

That winter, we researched the tomato market. We learned organic heirloom tomatoes command a much higher price than hybrid tomatoes grown with herbicides and pesticides. Even though growing heirlooms meant our tomatoes would not resemble the perfect spheres at Kroger and going organic meant more weeding, we decided to take the risk.

We built an electric fence to deter deer. Paper mulch and hoes were our weapons to combat weeds. We developed a system for supporting tomato vines and planted rows wider than our rototiller so it could pass safely. This time we were determined not to be beaten. By the end of July, our months of hard work

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were yielding results. We now faced a new challenge: selling. We sent out blast e-mails, put flyers in mailboxes, created a website, made business cards, and started cold-calling restaurants.

As I slowly punched in the phone number, pessimistic outcomes swirled in my mind. What if the chef has already contacted a tomato vendor? Will a restaurant trust a teenager? Despite my lack of confidence, I clicked the green call button and made my pitch. They weren’t interested. I got used to the rejections, but I kept calling.

Finally, we caught a break. “Stop by the restaurant, and we’ll look at what you have.” In 20 minutes we were standing in a sweltering kitchen.

The cooks wore bandanas to keep sweat off their faces. We hoisted three overflowing crates of heirlooms onto the stainless-steel counter so the head chef could examine them. After he tasted a few cherry tomatoes, he nodded. He would buy them all.

My brother and I played it cool until we got in our car. Then we celebrated. A top chef wanted our tomatoes for his restaurant. It was exhilarating, even better than cashing the check. I’ll never forget him saying, “We’ll hit you guys up again next week.” From there, our business took off. Chefs were texting for more orders, and soon Jelsma Brothers tomatoes were featured on menus in gourmet restaurants across the city.

Many times I doubted my decision to turn off the well-worn path and start a new business. Working at the neighborhood hardware store certainly would have been easier. In retrospect, forging my own way was more satisfying than scoring a game-winning goal or nailing a saxophone audition. My reward has been confidence. Knowing I can take a risk, compete in the business world, and prevail.

FU E L E D BY MY PA R E N T S ’ SAC R I FICES

By Vanessa Fernandez ’21 from Orange, N.J. t is almost midnight when Papi comes through the door, gray hairs surrounding the creases that enveloped his face. He sets his Bible on the dining table and rummages the kitchen for food. His bones are so sore that he cannot even sit to eat. I hear him walking up the stairs, each step creaking under the pressure of his weight. I make my way to the kitchen to get a glass of water; the oven clock reads 1:32 a.m. In the darkness, his body is a shadow on the couch. “Bendicion, Papi,” I mutter and give him a kiss on the head. I pull a blanket over him; he squirms, but his eyes remain shut.

This routine has been both a source of comfort and concern to me. Knowing that my parents work these strenuous hours, just to give me the opportunities they were denied themselves, fills me with pride and duty.

A duty to make their lives easier. I cannot count how many times my parents have told me stories about their youth. Stories of owning no more than one pair of battered pants and stories of traveling by foot for hours just to get to school. In truth, their past is the fuel for my commitment to my schooling. Currently, my father’s clothing, a ragged patchwork, pales in comparison to the wardrobe in my room. My mother, too, had been denied the opportunities given to me through my education because of her reluctant decision to abandon school and work to pay her sister’s college tuition — such a great sacrifice. Their daily toil forces me to strive

for the future they never had. This has allowed me to become deeply empathic and committed to reforming our family’s current circumstances as I continue to witness the embodiment of what hard work looks like.

I have confined myself between four walls at school and at home because, for me, there is no room for failure. Sometimes, those walls threaten to crush me because of the insurmountable workload, but then I think of my father. I cannot imagine a greater gift than the gift of freedom. Freedom from chasing financial security to the detriment of his health. Freedom from sacrifices that break men’s souls. This gaping difference in my present and my parents’ past has molded these walls I labor within. It has become part of who I am. The drive for academic excellence and pursuing my passion of becoming a medical doctor. The only way I can make my escape is by pulling myself upward with my parents right by my side. These walls force me to take advantage of the education I am offered and do nothing but excel.

Since childhood, I have been engrossed in ensuring a prosperous future for myself and my family. My goal is to pay back my parents for all the hard work and sacrifice they encountered to ensure that I graduate high school and enroll in college. I can call myself accomplished the day I do not have to watch my father rush down a handful of pain pills before he leaves for work. The day I can guarantee that what they did was not in vain.

That is how I will say thank you. My father’s ambition and my mother’s drive have instilled in me the values of hard work, dedication, and a sense of honor and a charge to give back to my family and community. My success so far did not happen because of my singular effort, rather, it took a village of teachers, advisers, and most importantly, mi familia. I will not let them down.

News and views for the Colgate community

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774

f i r s t-yea r s

Col lect ively, they have l ived m or e tha n 5.1 m i l lio n days Fa r t hes t ho metow n: M el b o u r n e , Austra lia (

10,3 07

miles away)

T H E G R E AT ES CAPE

By Nikhil Rajavasireddy ’21 from Saratoga, Calif.

86

i nt er natio na l s t u d ents

TOP ’21 TIDBITS 55

have p a r ents o r g ra n dp a r ents wh o attended C olgat e

ive thousand million miles away from Earth on board the starship Enterprise, I look at the thousands of white dots that make up the galaxy; a sense of peace and calm flows through me. What wonders lie ahead of me in this vast unknown? Suddenly, the ship rocks violently, a scream of “E DECK HAS BEEN BREACHED” blares over the intercom. We are under attack by an unknown enemy! “Prepare all decks for battle,” I yell, buckling myself into the nearest seat. I look out the window expecting to see the enemy ship, but all I see is a pair of eyes gazing back at me.

Reality comes crashing through; I am in my backyard in Saratoga, Calif. My cousin Monica is looking at me through the living-room window, pointing and laughing. “Wow, Nikhil, I thought you would have outgrown that,” she said. “That” being crazy me, talking to myself, jumping from one place to the other, flailing my arms, lost in my thoughts. Ever since I can remember, I’ve escaped to this world of mine, filled with superheroes, dragons, and starships. Unfortunately, most of my family thinks I am crazy. In fact, when I was 7, my mom made me talk to a therapist to figure out if “my walks in the backyard” were normal.

But no one else knows about my crazy “walks,” as they are so unlike me. Most of the time I deal in concrete facts and figures in the fast-paced world of policy debate. You will find me hunched over my laptop squinting

3 0%

s el f - i d entify a s mu lt i cultura l s t u dents

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21

co untr ies

(inc luding t he U n it e d S t at e s )

Fr o m 4 0 states a n d t he Distr ict o f C olu mbia

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c a m e f r o m Colo ra do

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at the screen. Articles about the South China Sea conflict, Arctic environmental cooperation, and the benefits of granting China market economy status flash across my monitor. My brain is working in hyperdrive as I rush to find all the necessary articles, frantically type out robust explanations, and try to find ways to frame all of these facts perfectly. Debate is the pinnacle of objectivity; it values concrete facts over abstract dreams, every statement made has to be backed up by qualified sources, and every creative suggestion falls to the devastating question, “where’s your evidence?”

My role as a fact-driven policy debater may be at odds with the quirky imaginative daydreamer, but that’s me. I refuse to fit into any mold or stereotype. I love politics and history, but I am also intrigued by science fiction and fantasy. I am not one-dimensional. Tapping into my imagination while staying grounded in facts and figures helps me create something really special. While these qualities may seem like polar opposites, they work for me. Whether it’s saving the human race from evil aliens or debating a policy that elevates millions out of poverty, I can create a world where I truly shine. With creativity and objectivity in hand, I can “boldly go where no man has gone before.”

COFFEE BREAK

By Phuong Nguyen ’21 from Hanoi, Vietnam t was late afternoon in Hanoi. Cool wind blew softly, carrying the soothing fragrance of fresh-ground coffee from the cafés along the roadside into the cold winter air, and heartwarming music from the restaurants blended into the fragrance and filled the gap in anyone’s cold winter hearts. Yet, I was sweating, struggling to pedal my broken e-bike home as quickly as I could.

“Isn’t the sunset beautiful?” said Dung, my friend of many years, who eagerly accompanied me even though, unlike me, her battery hadn’t mysteriously run down. “Maybe we should do this once in a while.”

I watched the sun sink lazily below the horizon, spreading its colors over Hoan Kiem Lake, but rather than the beauty Dung had seen, I saw it as a pernicious clock, mocking me as my precious study time leaked away. Tons of homework, then a math test, then a psychology club meeting. Although I loved discussing profound psychological problems, or solving those enigmas called equations, the thought was tiring. “Another cup of coffee,” I thought sadly to myself, “another sleepless night.”

“Sure,” I told Dung, noncommittally, and tried to pedal faster while she made comments about every shop and restaurant that we passed. Nothing seemed to slip her eyes.

Suddenly, she stopped her bike. “Have a break? This shop makes great coffee.”

I smelled the Vietnamese coffee, a scent so tempting and intimate that it almost made me cry. I wanted nothing more than to have a cup of coffee with her — it had been so long since we’d really done anything together — but something stopped me. “Uh,” I found myself saying, mechanically. “I’ve got so much homework. I shouldn’t waste my time.”

She shrugged, and we continued in silence. As the smell of coffee receded farther and farther into the distance, I started feeling guilty and gained a new respect for Dung. She had the same amount of work that I had — as anybody had — but she had still happily made time for me.

Back home, looking at the piles of homework on my desk, I sighed. Attending the most competitive “gifted” school in Vietnam — where parents dream of sending kids to and where kids feel forced to constantly justify their placement — we view high school as nothing more than preparation for college, and I suddenly became afraid that college would seem like nothing more than preparation for my career. “Perhaps Dung was the only one of us to get it right,” I told myself: There is beauty not to be missed, moments not to be ignored, and friends not to be abandoned.

“Hey, Dung,” I asked the following morning. “Do you want to ride from school together again today?”

“Your battery still not working?”

“No. I fixed it. I just wanted to have a cup of coffee with you.”

After school, two steaming cups of coffee in front of us, she told me how lonely she had been after her recent class transfer. I’d been lonely, too, I realized, too wrapped up in my studies and in my inner world. However, watching the sunset with my friend, I finally realized that taking an hour-long “vacation” from my schoolwork doesn’t mean I am escaping from it, and it doesn’t mean I’m lazy. All it means is that I want to live my life to the fullest and cherish what I now have while reaching for the future.

Returning home that afternoon, for the first time in months I didn’t feel tired. I finished my homework more productively than ever, got six full hours of sleep, and woke up the next morning refreshed, ready to conquer any tricky math questions or mysteries of the human brain. I sensed an overwhelming energy running through my body as I thought about how future is shaped by present, looking forward to seeing Dung again and to another day of school.

News and views for the Colgate community

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DIGGING Colgate archaeologists burrow into the history of a small Mexican village Words by Mark Walden

Photos by Mark DiOrio

Emily Kahn ’19 and local archaeologist Luis Gonzålez put down their trowels and pick up history buried in the shadow of the Iglesia de San Miguel Xaltocan.

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UCCESSFUL ARCHAEOLOGISTS HAVE UNENDING PATIENCE, AN OPEN MIND, AN EYE FOR DETAIL, AND A DEFT TOUCH. THEY LEARN ALL OF THIS BY DOING THE WORK. TO THE UNTRAINED EYE, SOIL IS SOIL. BUT AN ARCHAEOLOGIST WITH A SPRAY BOTTLE AND A TRACK HISTORY IN THE TRENCHES WILL SPY THE BARELY DISCERNABLE OUTLINE OF A BURIAL PIT OR THE TRACINGS OF A WALL IN THAT DRY DUST. “You need to be in the dirt to see it,” says anthropology professor Kristin De Lucia.

So, last summer, De Lucia took Class of 2019 members Emily Kahn, Cameron Pauly, Hannah Post, and Audrey Swift to the village of San Miguel Xaltocan, just north of Mexico City. She put them in the dirt of a once-thriving agricultural community.

De Lucia is no stranger to San Miguel Xaltocan.

She began digging there as a grad student and has continued since joining the Colgate faculty in 2016, using funds from the National Science Foundation and Colgate. Pauly, Post, and Swift are anthropology majors — archaeologists in training. They started the project as a scholarly job shadow. Kahn, a history major and museum studies minor, joined up to learn the origins of the art works she hopes someday to curate.

The students worked alongside De Lucia, codirector Enrique Rodríguez-Alegría and other faculty members from the University of Texas (UT) at Austin, and locals outside the Iglesia De San Miguel Xaltocan.

Twine defined the 6- x 4-meter trench in the yard.

They swept aside layers of soil, 10 centimeters per stratum. After each layer, work paused and the students measured the diagonal of the rectangle to ensure that the walls remained parallel.

They sifted and screened to reveal shards of pottery, jawbones of faithful dogs, walls of adobe brick, and the bodies of long-dead villagers.

Meanwhile, the grackles sang along from the limbs of the old acacia tree, its broad canopy blocking out the hot Mexican sunshine.

Traditionally, where you see a Colonial-era church aboveground in Mexico, you would expect to find a precolonial temple underground. The massive stones of an indigenous pyramid provided ready-made foundations for Catholic structures imposed on the population by their conquerors.

Layer by layer, De Lucia and the students have turned back time, and although the churchyard in San Miguel Xaltocan has yielded up any number of pottery shards and pet teeth, it does not provide evidence of such a temple. De Lucia has uncovered a mystery. Why did Spanish invaders place the iglesia on this spot if not to take advantage of sturdy masonry? The question will keep her busy as she continues her research in Xaltocan next summer — and as she analyzes the team’s other finds, detailed here.

Top right: Cameron Pauly ’19 sifts for an artifact.

Bottom right: Hannah Post ’19 takes notes in preparation for exploring level 13.

There are multiple Xaltocans in Mexico. San Miguel Xaltocan — the original — is approximately 50 kilometers northeast of Mexico City.

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WO THOUSAND YEARS AGO, XALTOCON WAS A GREEN ISLAND IN THE MIDDLE OF A BROAD BLUE LAKE. THE VILLAGERS DREDGED THE BOTTOM, PILING UP SILT TO CREATE ROOM FOR HOUSING AND SOME OF THE MOST FERTILE FARMLAND ON EARTH. THEY KEPT IT IN PRODUCTION THROUGHOUT THE YEAR THANKS TO SUSTAINABLE AGRICULTURE PRACTICES. WHEN THE SPANIARDS ARRIVED IN FORCE, THEY DRAINED THE LAKE AND KILLED 95 PERCENT OF THE NATIVE POPULATION.

Xaltocan resident Polo Arellano lives just up the street from the church, past the bodega and across the street from the school.

Last year, after a rainstorm, the old fig tree in Arellano’s garden fell over, revealing the walls of an ancient home. He had worked for archaeologists before, so he invited De Lucia and her colleagues to conduct an impromptu dig in his backyard.

Under the wall, among the vases, bowls, and statuettes, Post and UT grad students find the body of a child. The evidence suggests that this young person died circa 1200. Like so many who never made it to adulthood in Xaltocan, the child was carefully buried beneath the walls of its house. Its parents scooped out the dirt and clay at the bottom, carefully placed the body inside, and resealed the void.

Regardless of how long this burial process originally took, removing the child will take all day. Before starting their work, the archaeologists build a small stone shrine at the edge of the trench and light a candle.

Burial excavations go straight down, following the contours of the grave. Forget the width of the trench. If they stick to that protocol, researchers might mix artifacts from various time periods and defeat the purpose of the layering process.

Discomforts of the job: long hours on your knees and wearing latex gloves for extended periods of time in 85-degree heat.

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As Colgate students look on, archaeologists photograph a pre-colonial burial, unearthed behind a home in Xaltocan.

EXPECT THE

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THE THINGS PAULY, POST, SWIFT, AND KAHN HAVE VARYING EXPERIENCE WITH THE SPANISH LANGUAGE. THIS TRIP FORCED THEM TO ENGAGE WITH THE LANGUAGE AND CULTURE IN A WAY THAT MOST UNDERGRADUATES NEVER ENJOY. Bringing artifacts back to the museum-holding facility after a day of digging, the four are treated to an impromptu lecture on dentistry as an aid to identifying the age of jaw bones. Omar Marquez Portillo, physical anthropology and dentistry specialist, speaks to them in English, but occasionally turns to his native language as he talks about root structures that disappear as baby teeth mature. An X-ray of this jawbone could show the adult teeth hidden below, providing evidence for an even more precise age.

Across town, the team rents an empty house for use as a lab. Fire ants swarm outside in the yard. Inside, tables are stacked with cloth bags, labeled by location and layer, containing the shards, buttons, and other relics that tell the material story of Xaltocan.

Down in the trench, a few archetypal vessels are found. Large jars called “ollas” with iconic handles were used for storing or boiling liquid. Comals, a type of flat griddle, were used for making tortillas and possibly frying fish. Copas were used for drinking alcohol or chocolate, which would have been a kind of narcotic.

There are also bowls, some decorated and some plain. The plain dishes were for storage and the decorated pots were used for company.

You can learn plenty about a culture from its pottery. De Lucia and her team have sent shards like these off for analysis. They want to know what kind of clay was used to make the pottery — was it local or were the people of Xaltocan using pots, plates, and cups purchased through trade from other cities in the Mexico basin? By breaking down the chemical compounds on the surface of some shards, they can determine varieties of food that were stored or cooked in the vessel.

The proportion of cookware to serving vessels in an excavation layer can tell you how much partying the population pursued. As different layers give up different pottery shards, the archaeologists can begin to ask more complex questions: How does the pottery change over time? How does it vary between houses? The answers allow experts to infer details about shifts in economics and more.

From left: Portillo, Pauly, and Swift discuss the finer points of forensic dentistry.

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THIS IS THE LIFE OF AN ARCHAEOLOGIST. Some days, you find a burial. Others, you find broken bits of unpainted bowls. No matter what you uncover, it shows itself slowly, one broom whisk at a time. While the work of a Colgate classroom is challenging and rewarding, learning by doing in Xaltocan is something altogether different.

“You can know everything there is to know about archaeological theory, but you still have to understand how to apply that in the field,” Pauly says.

“I will admit that it was difficult at the beginning of the excavation, as we got a grasp on how to excavate properly and look for details. But gradually you come to understand more of the nuance of fieldwork. There’s a real thrill involved in fieldwork — of excavation and discovery, and of piecing together theories from the data you’ve unearthed — that is hard to beat.”

For more pictures of De Lucia, Swift, Pauly, Kahn, and Post — digging Xaltocan and exploring other sites around Mexico City — visit colgate.edu/scene.

Above: A bag of artifacts found by Colgate students working at level 13. Bags are labeled by trench, level, geological area, and date. Left: Professor Kristin De Lucia

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Mark DiOrio

News and views for the Colgate community

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Andrew Daddio

Homecoming 2017 It was a perfect weekend to come home.

Colgate Homecoming 2017 attracted students, faculty, alumni, parents, and friends en masse, September 8–9.

Men’s soccer started the festivities off right, taking down Oregon State 1–0. It was the team’s first victory over a Pac-12 challenger.

Field hockey battled Lock Haven before the homecoming crowds descended on Whitnall Field for a roaring bonfire and concert. The evening featured tunes from Reel Big Fish (a feast for the ears) and a food truck rodeo to feed the throng.

Saturday morning featured a Colgate-style tailgate. Campus groups and programs — including the university’s four residential commons, the Presidents’ Club, sports teams, LGBTQ Initiatives, OUS/First-Generation, Greek houses, and Konosioni — pitched their tents outside Andy Kerr Stadium. Before the football team kicked off against the University of Richmond, the Department of Athletics cut the ribbon on a series of spaces and places dedicated to the performance of its student-athletes. After the game, it was time to induct nine alumni into the Athletics Hall of Honor. (For more on the new spaces and the Hall of Honor inductees, see this issue’s Go ’Gate.)

Relive the weekend via photos and visit gocolgateraiders.com for recaps of all the athletics action.

The Office of Alumni Relations is pleased to offer many ways for alumni to stay in touch with each other, and with Colgate! E-mail me with questions or concerns at tmansfield@colgate. edu. — Tim Mansfield, associate vice president, institutional advancement and alumni relations Questions? Contact alumni relations: 315-228-7433 or alumni@colgate.edu

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Computer science students, alumni talk tech careers In the Coop TV room one mid-September Saturday evening, fingers flew over keyboards as computer science students coded their way through a game of Cops and Robbers.

This Coding Challenge, designed by Franklin Van Nes ’18, concluded the two-day Prep for Tech event on September 15 and 16. It was hosted by Professional Networks, career services, and the Department of Computer Science.

Andrew Daddio

stay connected

Alumni programs, volunteer opportunities, career networking, and more

Professor Vijay Ramachandran advises students.

Colgate’s computer science department is growing quickly, with nearly 50 declared majors and minors in 2017, Professor Vijay Ramachandran said during opening remarks on Friday afternoon.

Students interested in tech careers attended workshops and panel discussions with alumni working in software development, technical engineering, and other areas of the industry. Students learned the ins and outs of technical interviewing and practiced their new skills in mock interviews the next day.

“I’m looking to go into tech consulting or tech education,” said Katie Chungbin ’18, an English and computer science double major who attended the weekend’s events. “It’s good to hear different perspectives on the industry from alumni, and I’ve never experienced a technical interview before, so this event is really helpful.”

Computer science alumni like Max Segan ’12, Farah Fouladi ’15, Ben Fallon ’16, and Jeff O’Connell ’94 helped plan Prep for Tech to aid students’ transition from college curriculum to postgraduate careers.

“Computer science technical skills plus a liberal arts education creates the most well-rounded problem solvers and engineers that you can possibly have,” O’Connell said.

“Colgate creates the cream of the crop in terms of professional engineers and software developers.”

After two days of learning, networking, and interviewing, the Coding Challenge on Saturday evening was a welcome break. Van Nes designed the challenge to be a fun way for students to flex their coding muscles in friendly competition.

“I made a game called Cops and Robbers, and there’s a labyrinth lined with banks,” he said. “There are robbers who want to break into the banks, and cops who need to protect them.”

Twenty students split into teams and had an hour and a half to create the movements of the cops or robbers with code. “There wasn’t enough time for students to develop an entire solution for such a complex challenge, but each team presented their methodology with confidence,” Van Nes said.

Overall, the weekend was a success, he added. “It’s really encouraging to speak with alumni and see how they enjoy the field, and how useful Colgate has been in their careers.”

— Emily Daniel ’18

Like a book club, but better

Get to know: Veronica McFall ’89

More than 750 people have logged on for the fall 2017 Living Writers Online, the self-paced literary learning experience with 10 authors, including three Pulitzer Prize winners of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, and the editor of Freeman’s Journal. An outgrowth of the popular course that brings contemporary authors to campus (created by English professor Frederick Busch in 1981), the program is free and open to all.

With 11 Colgate faculty colleagues partnering in dialogues with English professor Jennifer Brice — one for each text — the fall lineup has fostered shared intellectual pursuits in some fresh and fascinating ways.

President Brian W. Casey recommended and then discussed Ben Lerner’s 10:04. Physicist Alan Lightman, who received an honorary doctor of letters from Colgate last May, returned to discuss his essay collection The Accidental Universe.

Elizabeth Kolbert’s Pulitzer Prize– winning The Sixth Extinction was also the assigned summer reading for

Assistant Director of Alumni Relations for Affinity and Identity Programs Experience highlights

Mark DiOrio

– MA in Bilingual and Bicultural Education, MEd in Curriculum and Instruction, Columbia University – Fluent in Spanish – Multicultural college admissions (Colgate, Siena, Bucknell) – Alumni and parent relations (A Better Chance, Kents Hill School)

My job in a nutshell I’m trying to build a bridge with alumni of different identities — multicultural, LGBTQ, international — who may have felt challenged by their experiences at Colgate. I’m always excited to learn about people’s lives after Colgate.

I’m also sharing with multicultural alumni how things are changing. How we need their support and their voices so that Colgate can continue to develop and evolve. There are really important things that alumni can do for current students.

One new initiative is Mosaic. It’s our way of connecting multicultural students and alumni. Current students really want to hear alumni stories. It gives light to the fact that you don’t have to struggle alone: You have alumni resources who can provide you with guidance and wisdom about how to navigate Colgate and how to seek out a career after Colgate.

Andrew Daddio

Connecting people to resources

Alice Sebold was one of 10 authors in this year’s Living Writers program.

incoming first-years. In a video discussion with Brice, biology professor Catherine Cardelús reveals how her research ended up in the book. One participant wrote, “What an incredible experience...

It really brings the text alive.”

“There are no exams or essays, just Colgate-made videos and podcasts about the books, reviews, interviews, articles, and a discussion forum,” Brice explained. Author events are Livestreamed, so participants can pose questions to the writers when they’re here on campus or watch the archived talks later.

Living Writers Online runs through December 7; you can register and take part at any time up to the end.

In my career, I’ve always been one to try to help people realize that education is accessible; you just have to decide that you want to obtain an education.

Access to education has always been paramount in my family. My father was the head custodian in an elementary school for 35 years. By him having the keys to everything, when the kids were on vacation, we had access — to the library, to computers. Being the first person in my family to go to college was a big deal.

Family: roots of learning My father always said, learn as much as you can because nobody can take that from you. My mother instilled in us to not be afraid of the world, to be a part of the world, and to contribute to the world. My parents took us to the Bahamas every summer, to stay in touch with our culture and our family.

Along the road back to Colgate Later, I worked for A Better Chance’s alumni relations department in New York City. [ABC helps students of color gain access to top independent schools.] It turns out, I knew

ABC’s founder, Howard Jones ’39, who worked in Colgate’s corporate and foundation relations department when I was a student worker. We would talk about things like access and equity.

Extracurriculars – I love to cook Bahamian food.

– I have been a producer and a reporter for local community TV. – I’ve written two children’s books. B is for The Bahamas

takes my children on a visit to learn about the country.

N is for Nassau is about the Island of New Providence.

I found that there was nothing for my kids to learn about

their heritage. So, I did the research. It took me 12 years.

Mosaic: Colgate’s new multicultural alumni initiative Colgate’s Mosaic initiative (colgate.edu/mosaic) organizes and sponsors events and programs that connect multicultural alumni with each other and that support students of color, especially in career development and networking. Read Mosaic news at news.colgate.edu/ mosaic and subscribe to the Mosaic e-newsletter by e-mailing alumni@colgate.edu.

Working at Colgate, first time around My first job after graduate school was multicultural recruitment for the admission office.

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Several entries in this puzzle are too long for their slots. In each instance, place the extra letter outside the grid.

When finished, read the extra letters clockwise to find out what they spell. Answers on pg. 67.

Crossword Kyle

’06

© 2017 Kyle Dolan

salmagundi

Marooned!

Across 1. Gas giant in green and white 5. First name in advice 9. “So did I!” 10. Ancient Greek instruments 12. Took part in a parting, perhaps 13. Chips, to a Brit 15. “This Is ___ Life” (old TV show) 16. D.C. ballplayer, for short 17. How many protons a hydrogen atom has 18. Snake warning 20. Will figure 22. New York, e.g.

24. New York’s ___ Station 25. Amor vincit ___ 27. Subject taught in Little Hall 28. French 101 word 29. Wrestling move 31. Meryl with 20 Oscar nominations 32. Part of a mil. address 33. Non’s opposite 34. Suitors of old 38. Canine helper 43. Top Chef host ___ Lakshmi 44. Mr. ___ (baseball mascot) 45. Colgate’s Class of 1965, e.g.

46. Nickname for Yale students 47. Entice 80

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49. “I’m kind of ___ deal” (Anchorman line) 50. Amazed 51. She might have a dark habit 52. “How exciting!”

54. Crew vessel 55. Brainiac 57. Strand due to a winter storm, say 59. First half of a vinyl record 60. Church payment 61. Shakespeare’s Gloucester, e.g.

62. New York or London district Down 1. ___ toy (dog’s plaything) 2. School founded by England’s Henry VI 3. Dorm-room furnishings 4. Folded Mexican fare 5. Little Women author 6. ___ Dairy (where to get a great milkshake in Hamilton, N.Y.) 7. Cheese often served baked 8. Assents on a ship 9. Feature outside some Miami Beach apartment buildings 11. Its surface area is 4πr2 12. “So ___!” (defiant challenge) 14. Subsequently 15. “Call on me! Call on me!”

19.

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For the past 10 years, Kyle Dolan ’06 has been constructing crossword puzzles that have appeared in publications including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Chicago Tribune. This is his fourth puzzle for the Colgate Scene.

By day, Dolan works in international science policy. Based in Chicago, Ill., he is head of Science and Innovation at the British Consulate-General, where he promotes U.K.-U.S. research collaborations on a range of science and technology topics.

Sound in a salon Disencumber Genesis craft According to Colgate’s ___ Cultural Center Peak mentioned in Homer’s Iliad Photo ___ ___ generis (unique) Frontier settlements Erupt Colgate study abroad locale Nike rival Drops a line online, briefly Specimen in Colgate’s Linsley Geology Museum 39. One may be named for a president 40. Little ___ (snack brand) 41. Shallot relative 42. Lady of pop 44. Kind of block 47. Dashboard dial 48. I Pagliacci clown 51. Zilch 53. Ice planet in The Empire Strikes Back 56. A Room With A ___ (E.M. Forster novel) 58. “That’s so cool!”

Above: International students from around the globe come full circle with their new peers on arrival day. Photo by Mark DiOrio Back cover: Fall foliage rings in the most beautiful time of the year on campus.

Photo by Mark DiOrio

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