Spring Scene 2012

scene Spring 2012

News and views for the Colgate community

Foolish perseverance Should I or Shudhify?

Beautiful things

scene

Spring 2012

28 Foolish perseverance

Erik Stolhanske ’91 tells his story of how a kid with a wooden leg took on Tinseltown

34 Should I or Shudhify?

Two students from India use academic smarts and grassroots activism to challenge corruption in their homeland

38 Beautiful things

A taste of the eye candy housed in Colgate’s special collections

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Message from President Jeffrey Herbst

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Letters

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Work & Play

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Capturing Capone: Lyle Bishop Chapman 1913

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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 77 In Memoriam

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Salmagundi: Puzzle, Slices contest, Rewind

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Scene survey results

DEPARTMENTS

On the cover: Dan Buckingham, visiting instructor in sculpture, and Jasmine Hwang ’15 discuss the pocket details on the shower caddy she wants to reproduce in steel rod using a MIG welder. Left: Full bloom on the upper Quad. Both photos by Andrew Daddio

News and views for the Colgate community

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scene team

Contributors

Volume XLl Number 3 The Scene is published by Colgate University four times a year — in autumn, winter, spring, and summer. The Scene is circulated without charge to alumni, parents, friends, and students.

The work of illustrator James Yang (President’s message, pg. 3) has appeared in many major publications, from Bloomberg Magazine, Fortune, and Forbes to Time, Newsweek, and Sports Illustrated.

Other clients using his style include Chase Manhattan Bank, IBM, HarperCollins, Herman Miller, Hewlett Packard, Major League Baseball, Microsoft, NATO, Nabisco, Showtime Inc., the Smithsonian Institution, and Sony Records.

In addition to adding his special blend of parlor and Scandinavian humor to the movies of the Broken Lizard Comedy troupe, Erik Stolhanske ’91 (“Foolish perseverance,” pg.

28) appears in The Onion Movie, The Sweetest Thing, and Watching the Detectives. On television, Erik has appeared on the critically acclaimed HBO series Curb Your Enthusiasm and Six Feet Under.

Illustrator Andrew Baker (“Should I or Shudhify?” pg. 34) has won Gold and Bronze Awards for Editorial from the Association of Illustrators. His work can be seen in publications from The Guardian to the New York Times, online, in shop windows, advertisements, and book covers.

He is curator of the May 2012 exhibition celebrating the 200th birthday of Edward Lear (the originator of nonsense verse), at Covent Garden’s Poetry Society in London.

scene online

Listen

Interview with the dean: tinyurl.com/douglashicks Learn a bit about Douglas Hicks, Colgate’s incoming provost and dean of the faculty.

Watch

Conversations on World Affairs with President Jeffrey Herbst: tinyurl.com/herbstworldaffairs Army Major Fernando Lujan, who came to campus to deliver the annual Project Afghanistan lecture, discusses approaches to counterinsurgency and counterterrorism.

Get connected

colgateconnect.org/reunion Coming to Reunion 2012? Start planning your weekend now: register, download the events program, see who’s coming, and check out the FAQs for more information.

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Vice President for Communications Debra Townsend Managing Editor Rebecca Costello Associate Editor Aleta Mayne Director of Publications Gerald Gall Coordinator of Photographic Services Andrew Daddio Production Assistant Kathy Bridge

Contributing writers and designers: Barbara Brooks, Director of Marketing and Public Relations; Matt Faulkner, Assistant Director of Athletic Communications; Matt Hames, Manager of Media Communications; Jason Kammerdiener, Web Content Specialist; Karen Luciani, Art Director; Katherine Mutz, Graphic Designer; Timothy O’Keeffe, Director of Web Content; Mark Walden, Senior Advancement Writer Contact: scene@colgate.edu 315-228-7417 www.colgateconnect.org/scene

Printed and mailed from Lane Press in South Burlington, Vt.

Look

Website redesign: blogs.colgate.edu/redesign/about Colgate’s web presence is getting a makeover. Check out our progress on our blog.

Talk

twitter.com/colgateuniv Join others interested in talking about all things Colgate on our Twitter page. To date, we have more than 5,300 followers!

Go paperless

Online Scene subscription: scene@colgate.edu To stop receiving the printed Scene, e-mail us 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 connect.org/scene).

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.

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, University Harassment Officer, 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, NY 13346; 315-228-7288.

Message from President Jeffrey Herbst

The ongoing revolution in digital

and social media

opens enormous possibilities for enhancing the teaching and learning that are at the heart of our university’s mission. I believe that Colgate is well positioned to take liberal arts education to new heights in this digital age.

Much is already in place. Our Collaboration for Enhanced Learning, a team of university librarians and staff from Information Technology Services, provides coordinated support to professors who wish to rethink their courses and their pedagogical approaches using current and emerging technologies.

Some exciting projects have taken class assignments in new directions. Students have used Google sites to collaboratively annotate dense reading assignments and have learned the value of peer review in scholarship through editing Wikipedia entries. Others present their research findings and course assignments through multimedia or video presentations, podcasts, and websites. Professors have reported that their students take extra care with, and pride in, their presentations when they know they will be shared with a wider audience on platforms such as iTunes or YouTube.

Looking to the future, as part of our overall strategic planning process, a designated group of professors and administrators is hard at work exploring ways to broaden and deepen the use of technology that will advance our mission of providing the highest-quality undergraduate experience. In addition, in January, the full board held its meeting in Palo Alto, Calif. My senior staff, as well as several members of the faculty, joined us. This two-day immersion in the Silicon Valley gave the university’s leadership a chance to discuss both the opportunities and the challenges posed by the dramatic increase in the use of digital media worldwide.

Our keynote speaker was Shantanu Narayen, president and CEO of Adobe.

A panel of prominent high-tech professionals — David Lawee from Google; Daniel Rosensweig P’15, CEO of the online textbook rental company Chegg. com; and Jeffrey Jordan of the technology investment firm Andreesen Horowitz — addressed us in a highly engaging exchange. At three concurrent site visits, we had the opportunity for in-depth discussions with leaders at Facebook and Google as well as professors specializing in entrepreneurship at Stanford. Another panel, on “Financing the Digital Revolution,” featured Frank Yeary P’15, vice chancellor of the University of California at Berkeley, and several forward-looking alumni who are successful technology investors: trustees Brion Applegate ’76 and Bill Johnston ’73, as well as Brian Dovey ’63 and Noah Wintroub ’98.

Our guests dismissed some of the more dire predictions that “bricks and mortar” universities will go the way of record stores and many print newspapers. After all, as we are well aware, the personal relationships and interactions between professors and students are at the core of residential education. As well, the communities that students build together on campus will not be readily replaced by social media practices like chatting on Facebook.

Perhaps the most profound message derived from our sessions was that we must be flexible as an institution. We must be willing to take risks and know enough to discern which experiments have the greatest potential for success. While the Silicon Valley mantra of “move fast and break things” does not apply directly to us, we must understand the speed of change in today’s economy and that moving too slowly could be the riskiest path.

Frankly, this can be a challenge for a 190-year-old institution, but it’s one that we must embrace. It will not be enough to survive. We must flourish in this, the digital age.

James Yang

The changes associated with the digital revolution are all around us.

Today’s students “plug in” from the instant they get up until the moment they go to sleep, and they associate learning with a rich media environment.

An explosion of data in many fields allows for new types of learning. Tools such as smartphones and tablets offer new ways to configure class meetings.

And, social media platforms can foster many new types of connections both within and outside of the classroom. At the end of the day, however, these technologies are only means to an end; we must continue to explore how they can enhance our faculty’s ability to teach the critical-thinking, research, writing, and argumentation skills of a liberally educated citizen, and prepare our students for the global, digital 21st century.

News and views for the Colgate community

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Letters

Winter 2012

News and views for the Colgate community

A Q&A on financial aid Project 24/7: student lens Fighting for his life

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. On occasion, we may run additional letters online.

I want to thank you for including the insightful Q&A article on financial aid with Gary Ross and David Hale in the last issue of the Scene (winter 2012).

As the mother of three collegeaged sons (one is a 2011 Colgate graduate, and one was just accepted early decision for fall 2012 admittance), I can’t tell you how much my husband and I appreciated having the financial aid process so thoroughly explained from the Colgate perspective and, most importantly, demystified for parents. I have never read an article on financial aid that was this forthcoming and informational.

Somehow it helps tremendously to know that while the price tag for a Colgate education doesn’t come cheaply, it is clear that there are decisions being made by capable administrators who are truly committed to balanced financial aid policies in a particularly difficult economic climate.

Their willingness to share the information and statistics in this article proves it. I wonder how many other schools’ administrations would be so willing to open the dialogue on their financial aid practices so candidly as they did?

Thank you for recognizing the importance of this topic for so many Colgate parents.

Julie Davies P’11, P’16 Monroe, Conn.

True sportsmanship as the presIdent of the Ferris State University Blueline Club, the official booster club of our hockey program, I feel compelled to write about what a tremendous impression your hockey team made here in Big Rapids on Sat-

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have worked for more than 20 years.

Second, the statement “our metrics do not involve numerical goals” concerns me. They should. Yes, profit is not the goal, but aspects of the mission of Colgate are measurable. Some numeric examples about graduates to consider: number who go on for higher degrees; number getting jobs earning over $50k out of college; percentage earning reputable awards in their field, be it chemistry or writing; number becoming positive community leaders. These are only a few important numeric goals linked to the mission.

The president should take the energy spent denying business comparisons to learn more about business. Leverage how businesses have survived in tough economic times when they can’t raise prices, can’t afford to lay off more people, and still want to help others. Also, use numeric metrics to demonstrate the true value of a Colgate education. That change in perspective might be exactly what is needed to address the other issues like the endowment.

urday night, January 6. This was a special military appreciation night, and as such, there was a fairly significant ceremony at the end of the first period that Colgate Coach Don Vaughan could have very easily opted out of.

Instead, the Colgate players and coaches stayed on the ice and showed their respect and appreciation for the service people and veterans honored.

They did so not just by being there, but also by applauding, tapping their sticks, and behaving in a manner that showed sincerity and reflected very well on them and on Colgate.

I spoke with the Navy Cross winner involved in the ceremony after the game, and he was impressed that the Colgate players took the time to shake his hand and the hands of the three university cadets sworn into the National Guard during the ceremony.

(I don’t know if your players realize it, but the Navy Cross is second only to the Congressional Medal of Honor, and the chance to shake the hand of someone who has won it is a rare opportunity.)

Colgate might not have been the winner on the scoreboard that night, but when people conduct themselves as your hockey players and coaches did, they can not be considered anything but winners.

Crowd cover

Kevin M. Courtney President, Ferris State Blueline Club

I dIsagree wIth Matt Behum’s recent letter (winter 2012) complaining about the football crowd photograph

The college/business comparison presIdent herbst’s letter in the last Scene concerned me on many levels. Let me address two of them.

First, the broad generalizations about companies demonstrate a disappointing unfamiliarity with business. He implies that companies can “simply pass (their) costs along to the consumer” or easily “lay off” staff or just relocate or “generally do not see it as their responsibility to reduce the price.” It is not an accurate portrayal of any of numerous businesses (large, small, profit, nonprofit) with which I

Drew Bixby ’92 Austin, Texas

scene

scene

Candid dialogue about financial aid

Autumn 2011

News and views for the Colgate community

’Gate posts Young runner for the circle Aging our way

that appeared on the cover of the Autumn 2011 Scene. The worst cover in 10 years? Hardly, I think. I found it to be one of your better ones, actually. I liked the color splash (heavy on the maroon, of course!), the variety of focal points, and especially the technical feat (I think photographers call it “depth of focus”), which made the people farthest away (at the top of the stands) appear in just as sharp focus as the closest spectators at the bottom — I thought that aspect was very intriguing.

One small story about the photo: I actually recognized someone in the crowd! My friend Nikki Skinner, along with her husband, Clay Skinner, and their two kids moved last year from Telluride, Colo., (where I currently live) to Hamilton after buying the Roger’s Market building downtown. They have been hard at work refurbishing the building and the ground floor store and, based on the photos I’ve seen on Facebook, it looks like their hard work has paid off, both for themselves and downtown Hamilton, too.

If you happen to drop by their store (the Hamilton Eatery), tell ’em Wobber from Colorado says hello.

Thanks for the cover shot. I loved it, myself.

John Wontrobski ’89 Telluride, Colo.

More on hating “the ’gate” I agree wIth Steve Abrams’s thoughts on the label ’Gate (Letters, winter 2012). It may have “style,” but it certainly has no “class.” Having spent a career in marketing, I know the importance of a brand name. No successful organization will permit its brand name to be cheapened, abused, or misused. Our school has spent its entire existence building and enhancing the name, reputation, and image of Colgate. It’s a name you can “take to the bank.” Don’t cheapen it.

If there are others of you who agree with Mr. Abrams and me on

the proper use of our school’s name, please raise your hands.

George W. Happe ’45 Effingham, Ill.

Crossing paths with Don Collins I was Interested to learn of the wartime exploits of Don Collins ’40 (pg. 48, autumn 2011).

After two years at Wharton grad school, I took a job at Interpublic, a large advertising outfit on Madison Ave., and landed with their sales promotion affiliate. Not knowing what to do with me, they assigned me to Don for a couple of weeks. Don was part of a special group that staged in-store promotions in major markets for Interpublic’s client, Westinghouse appliances. I thought he looked familiar — and so he was: the KDRs had his framed photo (with bouncing basketball) hung beside their living room fireplace in the early 1950s.

We had a good time talking things over (or at least, I did): what to expect on the job, Colgate memories, people we both knew. However, he didn’t bring up baseball or PT boats. The only unusual thing that happened was when we were traveling together on business in an ancient, lumbering, four-engine Constellation. We had a third person with us, Dave Grogan, Dartmouth ’54. We both had joined Interpublic at the same time. On the way from Philadelphia to Buffalo by way of Syracuse, the plane blew a tire in Allentown. Don arranged to rent a small plane at large expense to get us to Syracuse, where a DC-3 picked us up, took off, then swallowed a valve

and had to return to the airport. We didn’t make it to the Buffalo meeting until the next day.

J.L. Hatcher ’54 Oneida, N.Y.

Remembering Andy Rooney ’42 kudos to the wrIter of the very fine eulogy to Andy Rooney ’42 (In tribute, pg. 79, winter 2012). It was succinct and heartwarming to all of us Colgate grads. Very few of us ever met him, and even fewer really knew him, except through his wonderful essays that he gave on 60 Minutes each Sunday evening.

Your article mentioned that Colgate awarded him an honorary doctor of letters in 1986, but you left out an interesting bit of trivia. My son, David Jr., graduated in that class and, of course, my wife and I attended commencement. While the honorary degree was being given to Andy, everyone heard the distinct sound of a champagne cork popping.

Wherever or whomever opened the bottle, it stopped Andy right in his tracks (possibly a first for him). He ad-libbed, “Some things just never change,” which got a big laugh from all in attendance (or, at least from all those who were not sitting on the stage). Then the proceedings continued and, as one might expect, he got a standing ovation.

David M. Ryan Sr. ’56, P’86, P’00 Venice, Fla. as presIdent of the Overseas Press Club of America, I gave Andy Rooney the President’s Award in 2010. It is essentially a lifetime achievement award, and we especially honored him for his work as a foreign correspondent during World War II. (I also was a correspondent at ABC News with his son, Brian, and worked with his daughter Emily when she was executive producer of World News Tonight with Peter Jennings.)

As part of the President’s Award ceremony, I conducted an interview with Andy — which we taped in his office at CBS — about his experiences. I would love to share it with the Colgate community: it can be found at http://www.opcofamerica.org/news/

people-remembered-andy-rooney or on my website: allandoddsfrank.com.

Allan Dodds Frank ’69 New York, N.Y.

Well below average?

I suppose that even Colgate has fallen victim to grade inflation over the years but, by definition, C is an average grade. So, a grade of C minus is slightly below average, not “well below average” as the clue at 48-Down in the Salmagundi page puzzle in the winter Scene would have us believe.

Richard Silvestri ’69 Valley Stream, N.Y.

Opposes policy on unrecognized organizations I read wIth great Interest the recent article on page 13 about George Gavin Ritchie’s courageous and righteous defiance of the faculty’s threat of expulsion in the late 1840s (Page 13, winter 2012). It reminds me of similar courageous and righteous student defiance less than a decade later: members of Mu of Delta Kappa Epsilon rebelled against the faculty after the faculty threatened to expel them for merely being members of a fraternity.

Colgate has not learned a lesson from its own history. Since 2007, Colgate’s Board of Trustees has threatened students with expulsion for merely being members of unrecognized student organizations (i.e., unrecognized fraternities and sororities). A glowing article in the Scene and posthumously awarding degrees 150 years from now will not be satisfactory consolation for students expelled for their courageous and righteous defiance of the Board of Trustees. We, as a community, will look back on this time in Colgate’s history and be appalled that we stood by and allowed the Board of Trustees to threaten students with expulsion for merely being members of unrecognized student organizations. Colgate’s current leaders are guilty of the same illogic and fear that expelled George Gavin Ritchie.

Sean Fitzmichael Devlin ’05 Boston, Mass.

News and views for the Colgate community

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A trusting Gamma Phi Beta sorority sister allows her face to be painted by a youngster at a Gate-Town connection event.

Photo by Janna Minehart ’13 Ken Belanger, associate professor and chair of biology,

explains his research during a poster presentation that was followed by the Tri-Beta Chili Cook-Off. Photo by Janna

Minehart ’13 Pedal pushers: In the 12-hour Spin Your Heart Out Spin-a- thon to celebrate the American Heart Association’s National Wear Red Day, more than 150 students fund-raised for heart disease and women’s health awareness. Photo by Duy Trinh ’14 Connect Four: just one of the games that brought students together on game night. Photo by Duy Trinh ’14 Get out the map: a geology class is put to the test. Photo by Andrew Daddio

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The acclaimed Harlem Gospel Choir raised their voices at Gospel Fest, which also featured Colgate’s Sojourners Gospel Choir. Photo by Ashlee Eve ’14 In the spirit of Martin Luther King Jr.’s ideals of strengthening community, students volunteered at various area locations for the MLK Afternoon of Service. Here, two women tidy up a back room for the Hamilton Library. Photo by Andrew Daddio Shining through: spring came early to campus this year, with temperatures nearly reaching 50º by February. Photo by Andrew Daddio

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News and views for the Colgate community

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Terica Adams ’12 performed during Colgate’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration.

scene: Spring 2012

MLK keynote speaker delivers powerful message

Resembling more of a sermon than a traditional speech, Eddie Glaude Jr.’s keynote lecture for Colgate’s Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration was a masterful reflection of King’s own style of oration. With dynamism, Glaude prompted his audience to “talk back,” a method of interaction between the speaker and the listeners.

Glaude, the professor of religion and chair of the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University, pointed out that a common mistake is to laud King as an example of true democracy achieved. Rather, we should continue his legacy and strive for better: “Dr. King’s dream reveals that we are still sleepwalking,” he said. Glaude reminded the audience that the civil rights movement did not pertain only to the African-American population, but to the American population as a whole because it challenged the very fabric of our “democratic” freedom. Calling for change and leadership, Glaude urged students, staff, and faculty to aspire to genuine democratic transformation and to “challenge what we are committed to fundamentally.”

At the end of the lecture, the audience was given the chance to ask questions. Andrea Finley ’12 asked whether Glaude saw a place for academia in this movement for change.

Glaude used his own position in higher education as an example in his response. He affirmed that we need to ask ourselves, as he did, these difficult questions: “What am I doing, and what are my skill sets contributing?

We have to figure out how to [rise up] in light of our own unique skill sets.”

Colgate’s weeklong celebration opened with a dinner at Syracuse University and continued with a

At the end of January, President Jeffrey Herbst announced the selection of Douglas A. Hicks as Colgate’s next provost and dean of the faculty — as well as a professor of religion — effective July 1. Then, in March, Suzy M. Nelson was named dean of the college, effective in June.

Hicks will join Colgate after 13 years at the University of Richmond, where he currently serves as a professor of leadership studies and religion in the Jepson School of Leadership Studies. Also at the University of Richmond, Hicks was the founding leader for the Bonner Center for Civic Engagement. His research focuses on religion in public life and the ethical dimensions of economic issues.

Having authored four books, he has been published widely by both academic presses and in the popular media. He is also an ordained minister in the Presbyterian Church.

In 2006, Hicks was selected for the Distinguished Educator Award at the University of Richmond, and he is a 2012 recipient of the Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council of Higher Education of Virginia, the highest faculty recognition given by the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Nelson, who has served more than 20 years as a university leader, administrator, and instructor, will join Colgate after seven years at Harvard University, where she most recently held the post of dean of student life.

Nelson supervised five senior managers and 13 academic deans in an organization of 100 staff members responsible for residential and student life, including the residential house system for 6,500 undergraduates, one non-residential house for off-campus students, housing operations, stu-

Views from the hill What’s something you’ve experienced at Colgate that you’d never done before?

Two top Colgate appointments

“I had never ice- or tree-climbed, written a grant proposal, or presented at a regional conference.

Now I do all of these things on a regular basis.”

— Evan Chartier ’14, double major in sociology/anthropology and women’s studies

Mike Topham

Andrew Daddio

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variety of workshops, speakers, events, and brown bag lunches on campus.

Each event touched on not only King’s legacy, but also the civil rights issues that continue to exist today. The National Abolition Hall of Fame also was represented at Colgate in the form of traveling panels that were displayed at on campus.

— Marilyn Hernandez-Stopp ’14

“I can weld and bend steel rod and other materials into magnificent things that before I thought were impossible to build!”

— Lauren Burton ’14, a biology major who took the Sculpture I course

“I learned that I love the Russian language. Before coming to Colgate, I would have never expected to so much as learn how to say ‘hello’ in Russian.

Now, I am majoring in it.”

— Lauren Tuttle ’14

Cornel West returns to campus to inspire, provoke

A lecture in Memorial Chapel on February 23 marked the return of a man whose impact has persisted in classrooms throughout campus since his last visit. Cornel West first appeared at Colgate in 1996, and his expertise was solicited once again by members of Brothers — a student group focused on fostering multicultural awareness — who wanted to offer a provocative speaker and figure for the celebration Cornel West speaks at Memorial Chapel.

of Black History Month.

Jennifer Rivera ’14 recalled listening to a recording of West’s 1996 campus lecture last year for her Challenges of Modernity course taught by Professor Jeff Spires. “It was really interesting, [so] when he came back this year, I wanted to see him again,” Rivera said.

West’s talk this time around combined comedic retort, poetic verse, and political and history lessons. “Do you have the courage to analyze yourself?” West asked. “We live in a society where we live in a cultural, superficial spectacle. Where is the substance?”

He prompted his audience to give up individual prejudices, and to search for truth and knowledge.

A Princeton University professor and author of 19 books, West was able to engage students with pop culture references — something he’s familiar with as guest commentator on the Colbert Report and through his roles in two of the Matrix movies. Yet, his speech proved relevant to people of all ages, affiliations, and beliefs. He encouraged the audience not to rely on superficial forms of pleasure and expedience. He called each person a “brother” and “sister,” fostering a sense of camaraderie throughout his speech.

“I think there are some questions that people are going to be asking that they never had to confront before,” said Ibrahim Shah ’14, chief of Brothers.

At the end of the night, West imparted one important piece of advice: “Greatness has to do with your quality of service to others.”

— Marilyn Hernandez-Stopp ’14

Janna Minehart ’13

Table of Babel

On any given day, one would expect to hear a great deal of chatter when entering Frank Dining Hall during the lunch rush. But thanks to the Table of Babel, every Tuesday you can find a very different kind of conversation.

Run by the Colgate language departments, these weekly lunchtime alternatives let students practice speaking in different vernaculars during their meals.

German professor Dierk Hoffmann started this regular gathering in 1995 based on the belief that the key to success in learning a foreign language is “getting as much exposure as possible, not just in the classroom but also in a relaxed conversational setting,” as he explained in the March 1996 Scene.

Back on campus Real World 2012

HCV=f(k+a+s+m+e1+v+n)*C1. In his introduction to Real World 2012, Bruce J. Crowley ’79, managing director of Frieda Partners, used this formula to explain to Colgate seniors how the modern prospective applicant is viewed by an employer: a combination of assets like knowledge, skills, and motivation that make up what he called a “human capital valuation.” He went on to give more straightforward tips about the job-hunting process.

The keynote speaker, Brendan Tuohey ’96, executive director and cofounder of the nonprofit organization PeacePlayers International, reminded seniors that the skills they need to succeed in life are the ones they learn at Colgate: how to think critically, communicate effectively, reach outside one’s comfort zone, learn new things, and be adaptable.

The turnout of the graduating Class of 2012 was the highest in Real World’s 16 years of bringing alumni back to campus to speak about their paths as well as further extend the Colgate network. Students had the opportunity to practice interviewing, get business cards from alumni during a networking challenge, and learn about business etiquette throughout the conference. Participants were also invited to attend small-group panels

The German, Spanish, Chinese, Italian, Japanese, and French tables welcome students of all class levels to practice the language with their peers.

As a student sits down to eat, English is left behind, and from that point on, the table’s designated language is the tongue of choice.

Individuals who are new to the language have no need to fear — students in 100-level courses are the most frequent attendees. Beginners find help from teaching assistants and professors, as well as from students with more experience speaking the language.

Even after students have attended the required number of times for individual courses, they often return, saying that they enjoyed the people and conversation.

Andrew Daddio

dent activities, the Harvard College Women’s Center, the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations, BGLTQ Programs, Public Service, and other programs. She led a review of Harvard’s residential system, partnered with the faculty to improve advising and support services for students, addressed high-risk drinking, and clarified crisis protocols.

Before joining Harvard, Nelson was the Robert G. Engel Associate Dean of students at Cornell University (1998–2005), responsible for advising and evaluating 67 Greek-letter organizations. During that time, Cornell created a plan for new residential colleges that would function as parallel living-learning environments. She also co-taught a leadership seminar for undergraduates. From 1993 to 1998, Nelson served as assistant director for leadership and student organizations, and director of Greek life, at Syracuse University. She has published and presented widely on the complex issues and practices related to student life on college campuses.

Brendan Tuohey ’96

to partake in both career-oriented discussions as well as those providing advice for entering the workplace.

Seniors learned everything from saving for a retirement account in the Personal Finance panel, to perfecting a LinkedIn profile in Marketing Your Own Personal Brand in the Digital Age, to creating personal success in Taking the Road Less Traveled.

The 110 alumni who attended the conference represented a diverse array of fields varying from the traditional — law, business, finance — to the nontraditional, such as firefighting, offshore oil exploration, and drama education.

— Elizabeth Stein ’12

Chelsea Wei ’15, a student from China, said of the Table of Babel, “I feel comfortable sinking back into my Chinese while sitting at the Chinese table, and I feel like I’m learning more by being in the presence of others who love the language as much as I do.”

As for myself, I am considering minoring in Spanish, so I try to attend the Spanish table every Tuesday for lunch. ¡A mi me gusta mucho!

— Natalie Sportelli ’15

Faculty tenure and promotions

Five professors have been approved for tenure and promotion to associate professor. Here are some highlights on each.

Anthony Chianese, in the Department of Chemistry, studies transition-

News and views for the Colgate community

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racial diversity and immigration. Last summer, he co-wrote a paper with his colleague Professor Takao Kato on the effect of H-1B Visa restrictions on international prospective students.

William Stull, Department of the Classics, was recently given the 2011 Award for Excellence in Teaching by The American Philological Association (APA) — the principal learned society in North America for the study of ancient Greek and Roman languages, literatures, and civilizations. In announcing the award, the APA highlighted Stull’s innovative classroom assignments in a field that is often

“Stories of Upstate New York” is the theme of the current season of the Hamilton Book and Movie Club, a collaborative program between the Colgate Bookstore and the Hamilton Movie Theater, now in its seventh year. For each of the club’s four, three-month “seasons” per year, Heather Elia, Village Green marketing coordinator for the bookstore, selects three books and accompanying movies. The “New York” season (AprilJune) is featuring The Last of the Mohicans

by James Fenimore Cooper, Ironweed by William Kennedy, and Nobody’s Fool by Richard Russo. Members read the featured book in advance, then meet on the third Thursday of each month to see the film, followed by discussion and a light dinner.

Emotional dysfunction reigned at Hamilton’s Palace Theater as the Palace Players community theater group put on Neil Simon’s play The Odd Couple in

dominated by straightforward translation exercise. In one such assignment, he asked students to translate Samuel Johnson’s letter to the Earl of Chesterfield into Ciceronian Latin.

April Sweeney, Department of English/University Theater, has taught, performed, and directed both nationwide and internationally. Sweeney’s latest creative scholarship includes the off-Broadway production of The Rover as well as works that were performed at The Kitchen, Performing Space 122, The Public Theater, and the National Theater of Hungary. Recent projects with Colgate students have

March. Art major Andrada Danila ’15 designed the set, which transported the audience back to mid-1960s Manhattan — the backdrop for the three-act tale of perennial slob Oscar Madison and his neurotic, newly divorced roommate, Felix Unger. Under the direction of Dominick Pangallo, The Odd Couple was one of four plays presented by the Palace Players this year. You can see photos from the show at www.palacetheater. org/theoddcouple.

Two new businesses have filled open niches in Hamilton.

Sheridonna’s Salon got rolling in December, with the help of Thomas Cruz-Soto, assistant dean for multicultural affairs. Cruz-Soto has been advocating for the creation of an ethnic salon in downtown Hamilton, and his vision fell into place when he met Sheridonna Wilson-Bedell, a Syracuse University junior who is a fashion design major with a minor in entrepreneurship and emerging enterprise. Wilson-Bedell, who earned her cosmetology license five years ago, is both a stylist and a barber. Her services include braids, twists, dreadlocks, and cuts, starting at $15. “I love to make people look beautiful and give them that extra boost of confidence,” Wilson-Bedell said. Located at 2 Broad Street, Sheridonna’s Salon is open Friday through Sunday, 12–5 p.m.

Carrie Blackmore ’08 and Matt Whalen are the founders of Good Nature Brewing, Inc., a nano-brewing company specializing in hand-crafted, all-natural ales.

The two came up with the business idea over a pint at the Colgate Inn when they realized there was a dearth of local beers on tap. The brewery opened its doors just off of Lebanon Street on January 12. All of the hops are grown by farmers in nearby Munnsville, N.Y. Currently, 90 percent of their beer is sold in the tasting room, but Blackmore and Whalen are hoping to have their brews available in bars and restaurants across central New York. For now, they’ve found success with the Colgate Inn as their exclusive wholesale account: at the “Tap Takeover” event on January 27, the first keg was kicked in 17 minutes.

— Contributors: Chuck Fox ’70, manager of the Hamilton Theater; Elizabeth Stein ’12; and Mark Walden

Andrew Daddio

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metal homogenous catalysis. His current work focuses on developing new chemical reactions, to make more efficient use of dwindling petroleum reserves.

Noor-Aiman Khan, Department of History, has been called upon by the media recently to talk about the unrest in Egypt. Last year, after Khan posted a primer on her Facebook page, explaining why Egyptians were protesting, it went viral and was referenced by popular bloggers.

Chad Sparber, Department of Economics, focuses his research on the macroeconomic consequences of

scene: Spring 2012

JoAnn Pagano retires

Longtime professor of educational studies JoAnn Pagano retired in December 2011. Specializing in curriculum theory, philosophy of education, women and education, and English and social studies curriculum, Pagano has been a faculty member since 1981.

Over the years, she taught in the Elderhostel Program, piloted two core courses, and served on several committees. Pagano’s strong interest in women’s studies led her to revise the Women and Education course, serve on the Women’s Studies Advisory Committee, and help develop the course Gender and Film. In addition, she was chair of the Department of Educational Studies (1990–1996, 2002–2005) and led General Education 102 (1990–1993).

Among her numerous published works, Pagano’s books include Exiles and Communities: Teaching in the Patriarchal Wilderness (SUNY Press, 1990) and co-authorship of Preparing Teachers as Professionals: The Role of Education and Other Liberal Disciplines (Teachers College Press, 1989). Pagano was both vice president and president

of the American Educational Studies Association from 1996 to 1998.

“Jo Anne’s quiet intelligence and genuine kindness made her a mentor for not only her students but also her colleagues,” said Kay Johnston, chair of educational studies.

Recognized for number of Peace Corps volunteers

Colgate ranks No. 15 on the 2012 top Peace Corps volunteer-producing colleges and universities in the small schools category. Currently, 18 alumni serve overseas, as volunteers in Benin, Bulgaria, Gambia, Guatemala, Liberia, Morocco, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Peru, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Suriname, Tonga, Ukraine, and Zambia. They work in areas including agriculture, education, environment, health and HIV/AIDS, and business development.

Since the Peace Corps was founded in 1961, 335 Colgate alumni have served.

The rankings were calculated based on fiscal year 2011 data as of September 30, 2011, as self-reported by Peace Corps volunteers.

Canoeing the Everglades

Twelve Colgate students and staff members ventured into alligator territory during winter break as part of a trip organized by the Outdoor Education Program. The group spent seven days and six nights canoeing through Everglades National Park, exploring mangrove forests, the Gulf of Mexico, and everything in between.

“It was like going through a maze,” said Christine Heffernan ’12 of paddling through the mangrove tunnels — thin channels of water meandering through forest. Branches arched out over the water, blocking out much of the sunlight that burned brightly above the canopy of trees. At times, the adventurers had to put their paddles in their boats and use their hands to push off of branches; sometimes they had to lie down to duck underneath them. “It was pretty much like a scene out of a movie,” Heffernan added.

Paddling 10 to 13 miles per day, the group saw a different part of the park each day. They camped on beaches with views looking west over the gulf, as well as on land sites and chickees, which are 12-foot-square wooden platforms raised about 3 feet out of the water. They spent two nights on Pavilion Key, a small island on the western edge of the park.

While there were a number of alligator sightings, water birds were the ever-present wildlife. Michael and Courtney Savage, the two staff leaders on the trip, guided the group each day, pointing out egrets, herons, osprey, spoonbills, bald eagles, and myriad other birds flying overhead or skittering along the shore.

To see a video of the excursion, visit www.youtube.com/cuat channel13.

— Sam Ward

Brown bag Aikido for Well-being “Be calm and at one with nature; let your energy flow,” James Wallace said to get the ki moving at an introductory session on aikido on February 24. Wallace, a Colgate adjunct instructor and psychologist who teaches aikido as a PE class and club sport, then led the students and staff gathered at the brown bag lunch seminar through practical exercises and basic defense moves.

Aikido, a nonviolent Japanese martial art, is a way of life that practices finding harmony with nature. As a peace-oriented self-defense art, it teaches how to transfer the balance of power while cultivating mental and spiritual strength. Wallace explained that, in the modern world, we can use these ancient principles to deal with stressors affecting our relationships, financial security, and immune system.

He encouraged participants to challenge themselves in many areas, but not to overextend to the point of threatening their well-being.

The event was hosted by the Shaw Wellness Institute, which encourages the holistic development of students and other members of the Colgate community.

Thad Mantaro, the institute’s new fulltime director, has been working with its subgroups — residential life, the counseling center, and peer health educators — to promote a broad range of programming this semester, such as workshops on healthy eating, meditation, and acupuncture. Additionally, the institute is planning to revamp a space in Cutten Hall that will be a multipurpose center where students can meet with a dietitian, receive massage or acupunture treatments, and attend additional presentations on positive and balanced lifestyles.

Sam Ward

included an upstate New York tour of a divised theater piece titled They Say My Name is Alice.

In addition, two professors have been promoted to full professor: Raymond Douglas, Department of History, and Barry Shain, Department of Political Science. Douglas, who studies modern Britain and Ireland as well as 20th-century Europe, is on the verge of publishing his fifth book, on June 26. Orderly and Humane: The Expulsion of the Germans After the Second World War is about the forced relocation of more than 12,000,000 German civilians, of whom at least a half-million died, by the Allies after World War II. Over the past 25 years, Shain has “attempted to uncover the often-lost meaning of the most basic political concepts used in late 18th–century America — most importantly, liberty, rights, and religious freedom — in an effort to make sense of founding American political documents.” This spring, he will finish The Declaration in Historical Context: American State Papers, Petitions, Proclamations, and Letters of the Delegates to the First National Congresses (Yale University Press), and this summer, he will begin work on a companion volume.

— Elizabeth Stein ’12

Michael Savage, assistant director of outdoor education, prepares for a fourth day of paddling through the Everglades by looking at satellite images. The group was preparing to navigate through Charley Creek, which starts as shallow marsh before turning into winding mangrove tunnels, and is listed as impassable on official park maps.

News and views for the Colgate community

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work & play 12

Passion for the Climb Driving toward hope

By Kristin (McCarthy) Macchi ’90

Kristin Macchi ’90 — pictured with her husband, Tony, and their sons (from left) Johnny and James — is working to turn her group D’MAC (Determined Moms of Autism Spectrum Children) into a nonprofit. She blogs about her family’s experiences at running tobestill.blogspot.com.

scene: Spring 2012

“What’s that car, Mom? Is it fancier than a Lamborghini? Is it fancier than a Maserati? Is it fancier than a Ferrari? A Mustang? Is it fancier than a DeLorean? Corvette? What’s the other one? The one they have in California?

Oh yeah, the Hummer stretch limo?”

The questions come relentlessly.

Quickly. No matter how many times I answer them, they come back.

It’s only 8:30 a.m. I’ve been in the car for a half-hour, after a frenzy getting my sons, James and Johnny, ready.

I’m already tired. We have another half-hour before we get to school.

James will fire these same questions at me the entire time.

What answer did I give yesterday?

I rack my brain, trying to remember the list in my head of the Order of Fancy Cars, but I can’t. My brain doesn’t work like that.

His brain does.

James collects information and catalogs it. He remembers ALL of my answers. If I get them wrong, he tells me.

I try to take a sip of my coffee at the red light. “What about that car?

What is that? Have you ever seen that car before? Is it fancier than a Lamborghini? A Maserati?” It doesn’t matter that we’ve never seen many of those

cars on the road, only at the car show.

He has to go through his list.

Asking James to be quiet is not an option. Only a few years ago, we were begging for this. For him to be interacting. It seems like just yesterday this trip always included him screaming to go a specific way, only for “BLUE HOUSE-BLUE HOUSE-BLUE HOUSE-BROWN HOUSE-BROWN HOUSE-BROWN HOUSE-BLACK HOUSE-BLACK HOUSE-BLACK HOUSE!” If I had to take a different road, it meant a meltdown.

We’ve driven this route more than a thousand times in the six years since James was diagnosed on the autism spectrum of disorders (ASD) at age 2.

At the time, I had no idea what autism was, or what it was going to mean for our family. Autism affects each person differently.

For James, it means anxiety, repetitive behaviors, and sensory overload. The world around him has always been too loud, too fast, too bright, too confusing. He needs instructions broken down into one step at a time, and he needs time to process each step in a way that he can understand.

Routines are necessary. As difficult as it is for two type-B parents and a loud, energetic younger brother, he needs us to make our lives as predictable as possible. My husband, Tony, and I had to learn to anticipate each potential scenario, to be ready for James’s reaction. “If-Then” causalities became part of our every thought process.

When I first started driving these roads, whether on the way to occupational, speech, or social skills therapy, or to school, I would look at James through the rearview mirror and start to cry. I didn’t know how to give him what he needed, and I was frightened about the future. I didn’t even know if he would ever talk, except to repeat the same phrases.

Then I would realize that he didn’t even notice I was crying, and that would make me cry harder.

Now, every morning, just when our long ride to school starts to get to me, I think of how far we’ve both come since then. He’s having conversations and making friends. He spends more time playing than going to therapy.

He’s learning how to deal with surprises. The cataloging — of cars and all other information he receives — is his way of bringing order to the chaos he perceives. Of trying to understand

how everyone else thinks. He’s working so hard, and making tremendous progress.

I’ve come a long way as well. To help provide a voice to the families of 11,000 students with disabilities, I volunteer on the Boston City School District’s special education parent advisory board. James attended four schools in five years; I fought for a year to get him placed in a small inclusion school (integrating special education and mainstream students) that goes through 12th grade, so he won’t have to switch schools again.

During a city-wide forum on improving the district’s inclusion program, a flow chart of James’s school transitions was presented. It led to audible gasps — it was the first time many school administrators and city officials actually saw how children with autism were falling through the cracks. More stable pathways with fewer transitions were developed as a result.

My support group, D’MAC (Determined Moms of ASD Children), got our local YMCA to offer swim, gym, and after-school programs for children with autism and their siblings. We are planning to develop a resource center for families.

Through social media, I’ve built personal relationships with other parents I’ve never met, and I’ve been blogging about our journey. People tell me that reading our story makes them feel they are not alone. My fear has turned into strength, and I’ve developed a voice I never knew I had.

We’ll be driving this same road to school for the next 10 years. I don’t know what each ride will bring, but I’m looking forward to it. I take a big gulp of coffee and remind myself to actually print out a list for the next ride so I don’t get the answer wrong.

“James! Do you see that blue car coming up? It is SO FANCY!”

Read more essays from our Passion for the Climb series, or see how you can submit your own essay, at colgateconnect.org/scenepfc.

Capturing Capone The raid was planned for 10:15 p.m. Prohibition agent Eliot Ness smashed the brewery door lock with an ax, and agent Lyle Chapman, Class of 1913, pried the lock off with a crowbar. Behind the wooden door was another door — this time, made of steel. Ness shot the lock off the steel door. It opened to an empty room that reeked of alcohol, evidence of the recent criminal activity of the infamous mobster Al Capone.

This scene was one of many occasions when Chapman risked his life alongside Ness and his “Untouchables,” a team of federal agents who were hired to take down Capone and his multimillion-dollar booze ring.

Born in Oneida, N.Y., Chapman attended the Utica Free Academy before studying at Colgate. “Chappy,” as he had been nicknamed at Colgate, was known for his physical prowess as a football player combined with the smarts of an honors chemistry major. As a student, Chapman had also been a member of Delta Upsilon, track, glee club, and the Salmagundi board.

Before joining forces with Ness, Chapman was an Army captain in World War I and then went to work for the FBI. In 1929, the agent was on assignment in Detroit when he was recruited by Ness for the secret squad. “The scholarly Chapman,” as he was called by Ness in his book The Untouchables, was a brilliant analyst who put his tactician skills to good use as an investigator gathering evidence.

Years later — long after Capone was put behind bars, and Chapman had again served his country, as a major in World War II — he continued to employ his analytic skills. Synthesizing his love of math and football, Chapman developed the American Gridiron Index — score predictions that were featured on radio, on television, and in print for several years. At the same time, he founded All-American Stamps and Coins in Glendale, Calif., where he lived with his wife, Penny. He died in 1966. — Aleta Mayne

Lyle Bishop Chapman, Class of 1913

13 Page 13 is the showplace

Lyle Chapman recounted his adventures of flying through back alleys, seizing breweries, confiscating thousands of gallons of beer, and being trailed by mobsters as one of Eliot Ness’s “Untouchables” in a 1962 Los Angeles Times article.

for Colgate tradition, history, and school spirit.

life of the mind 14

With the help of Bill Lyons ’75 (right), students framed a house in Pittsboro, N.C., for Habitat for Humanity during the winter break.

scene: Spring 2012

Sleep over break? Think again!

While students in the 1960s through the 1980s had the “J-term” option to fill the break between fall and spring semesters on campus, today’s enterprising students and faculty find an array of ways to keep their minds and spirits sharp. Here are a few examples from this past January.

Colgate’s annual Day in the Life program matched 135 students with alumni for a glimpse of jobs in architecture, conservation, education, entertainment, finance, medicine, retail, and other fields. Placements were arranged across the United States and Canada, plus in Bolivia, Dubai, and Germany. (For a personal account by Carlie Lindower ’14, see the “Live and Learn” sidebar on pg. 15.)

In a stand-alone 0.5-credit course, 10 students studied microeconomics in Bangladesh with Jay Mandle, W. Bradford Wiley Professor of economics, and Joan D. Mandle, associate professor of sociology and anthropology emerita. Through lectures and field trips, the group observed the work of BRAC, a development organization dedicated to alleviating poverty by empowering the impoverished to bring about change in their own lives.

Competitive-speaking students did Colgate proud around the world, starting with the debate team, which competed at the World Universities Debate Championship in Manila, Philippines.

Economics professor Ed Fogarty led a group of nine students to Wroclaw, Poland, for EuroSim, where they played the roles of the political leaders of the European Union’s member states. This year’s exercise was to discuss, debate, and draft an EU policy for

policing, supporting, and protecting refugees from foreign conflict zones.

Colgate’s Model United Nations team earned the Best Large Delegation Award at the Harvard National Model United Nations Latin America conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

The Center for Outreach, Volunteerism, and Education (COVE) mounted three service trips, including a return to the village of Neyba, Dominican Republic, where work continued on building latrines and painting murals with members of the community. Closer to home, one group built homes in Pittsboro, N.C., with Habitat for Humanity while another assisted with disaster relief in Tuscaloosa, Ala. And, finally, with an eye toward eventually offsetting the carbon footprint of all this world travel, Colgate’s sustainability coordinator John Pumilio traveled with professors Ellen Kraly and Ian Helfant and student Sonya Falcone ’12 to the Patagonia Sur Nature Reserve in Chile, where the Colgate forest is planted.

Together, they explored opportunities for faculty-student research, service learning, extended study trips, and other academic partnerships between Patagonia Sur and Colgate.

Faculty travel to India to enhance core

Twenty-seven Colgate professors voyaged more than 8,000 miles to embark on an academic expedition to India in early January. For two weeks, the group, representing many different disciplines, traveled throughout the nation to further their global understanding and enrich the courses that they teach in Colgate’s Liberal Arts Core Curriculum. The trip was funded in part by a $100,000 Andrew A. Mellon Foundation new-president’s grant awarded to President Jeffrey Herbst.

Led by Eliza Kent, associate professor of religion, and Padma Kaimal, associate professor of art and art history and Asian studies, the program immersed participants in India’s culture, history, and environment.

The professors shared their daily experiences in a blog called Reflections from India. Jenna Reinbold, assistant professor of religion, wrote about the Matrimandir, a huge golden sphere located in Auroville that has spiritual significance. A visit to the Delhi Handicrafts Museum was fodder for a post by Elizabeth Marlowe,

Syllabus HIST 306, History of Numbers in America Dan Bouk, assistant professor of history TTh 9:55–11:10 a.m., 432 Alumni Hall Numbers — like the SAT, BMI, or credit ratings — have extraordinary power in modern society, but we seldom ask where they came from. Investigating the history of important numbers opens up new ways of thinking about how we allocate power, wealth, and risk in American society, as well as questions about how modern Americans use numbers to think about themselves and others. Through this course, students learn the methods of cultural historians: how to digest big and important books, understand scholarly articles, and wrestle meaning out of obscure primary sources. Along the way, they develop new conceptual tools for understanding U.S. history, the history of science, business, and the modern state, as well as a bit about Colgate’s own history.

On the reading list: Ann Fabian, Skull Collectors; Scott Sandage, Born Losers; Sarah Igo, The Averaged American; Jonathan Swift, “A Modest Proposal”; Nick Cullather, “The Foreign Policy of the Calorie,” American Historical Review 112; and Howard Williams, A History of Colgate University 1819–1969 Exams: In lieu of a midterm, students answer individual exam questions at the beginning of every few course meetings; two papers; and a final project to be presented publicly.

The professor says: “The history of numbers offers a great opportunity to cross disciplinary lines. I come by my fascination with cross-disciplinary work honestly — my father was a physicist and my mother taught college English. I majored in computational mathematics, then went on to earn a PhD in history. I am writing a book about the centrality of life insurance companies to developing the infrastructure for collecting statistics about people in America.”

assistant professor of art and art history. And Christopher Henke, associate professor of sociology, wrote about his amazement of the Jantar Mantar, a “garden” of architectural astronomical instruments. Henke also took numerous photos on the trip, documenting everything from visits to well-known sites like the Taj Mahal to intimate moments such as a scene at a dargah (shrine) where an exorcism was being performed.

“This trip, involving ten percent of our faculty, represents a significant investment in Colgate’s core curriculum, and also in our colleagues who bring it to life,” said President Herbst who, upon joining Colgate in 2010, had vowed to strengthen the university’s global perspective and invited professors to propose ways to accomplish that goal. “Colgate can be transformed by experiences such as this one, and serve as a model within higher education.”

The trip garnered media attention, including a USA Today piece titled “Studying abroad not just for students.”

At press time, the blog, which also features videos from the trip, had almost 28,000 page views. Check it out at http://colgate-india-core. blogspot.com.

Making the classics contemporary

Professor Robert Garland has been taking students back in time — to ancient Greece — using his computer.

Garland, the Roy D. and Margaret B. Wooster Professor of the classics, has been recording lectures with his MacBook’s video camera and a microphone for Udemy, a website that enables anyone to take and build courses online. Garland’s Ancient Greek Religion course will be part of Udemy’s new initiative called the Faculty Project, which features professors at top institutions including Stanford University, Dartmouth College, and Duke University.

“I think of them more as chats,” Garland told Inside Higher Ed, an online news site covering higher education. Garland has been delivering some of his lectures in the second person — as if instructing a time-traveling tourist in ancient Greece how to pray or how to please the gods, for example.

Udemy’s Faculty Project courses include a number of undergraduate humanities electives; Garland and the other participating professors are developing mini-versions of the courses they might teach on their home campuses. Although there are no homework assignments or credit, Garland said he would be open to corresponding with students who take his Greek religion course as long as it doesn’t interfere with his Colgate workload.

“I was particularly impressed by the fact that anyone can take the course for free,” Garland said. “I’ve long come to believe that the humani-

ties have an obligation to society as a whole and that we can’t necessarily expect students to study subjects like the classics. I saw the offer to work with Udemy as an opportunity to reach and serve a wider audience.”

Live and learn

Colgate represents at Model African Union

Christopher Henke

Colgate professors step up in Amber, India, during an academic expedition designed to enhance their teaching in the core curriculum.

“Today, we have the unique honor of representing four African nations. No other college is representing four nations.” With those words, Brian Gitau ’10 summarized how Colgate has become a force to be reckoned with at the National Model African Union Conference. Gitau, who commented on how much Colgate’s Model African Union has grown since he was a student, addressed alumni and students at dinner before this year’s conference in February at Howard University in Washington, D.C. The three-day academic exercise was the culmination of ALST 290, Model African Union, a half-credit course in which students familiarize themselves with the structure of the African Union as well as the economic, social, and political-security issues facing African countries. For the first time in conference history, more than 30 U.S. colleges and universities represented every state in the African Union (which comprises all African states except Morocco).

To gather insight on the countries we were representing in advance, we visited our respective embassies, accompanied by our advisers — professors Mary Moran, Max Rayneard, and Tsega Etefa — and Peju Oyeyemi, the Africana and Latin American Studies Program’s assistant. During the embassy visits, diplomats explained how foreign policy works in their countries and what framework is used, to help us prepare.

While acting like heads of state, students formulated, presented, and defended proposals that would not only further the interests of the nation they were representing, but also would result in tangible, lasting benefits for the entire African Union.

In this learning-by-doing approach, students developed a deeper understanding of African issues while functioning within a cooperative learning environment as they worked with their fellow delegates to accomplish shared goals.

Each Colgate delegate made a meaningful contribution. Lwam

During the winter break, I was lucky enough to spend a day shadowing Crissy Shropshire ’92 (left), executive producer of Food Network advertisements. This opportunity was offered to me as part of Colgate’s Day in the Life program, which matches students with alumni who work in fields that the students are interested in learning more about. As a sophomore, I know I will soon have to choose a major that best suits my dream career in television and advertising, and Crissy gave me a taste of what such a career entails.

During my eventful day at Food Network, I went on a location scouting trip to Brooklyn to find a space to do interviews and videos for an upcoming advertisement.

I also watched an editor facilitate small changes of sound bites almost instantly, as instructed by a producer. In addition, I was given a tour of the Food Network studios, including the famous test kitchen and the room where they tape most of their in-house cooking shows.

One of the producers I met during my visit told me that producers are like the conductor of an orchestra — they don’t play an instrument, but they make sure everyone else is playing and in tune. After watching Crissy field countless calls and e-mails from co-workers, tweak sound bites, and run from meeting to meeting, I understand how much effort, time, and creativity goes into every ad. I was so glad to have this opportunity to visit with such talented people and get a behind-the-scenes peek into what we see on television every day.

— Carlie Lindower ’14

News and views for the Colgate community

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TNA Production

life of the mind

Lwam Stefanos ’14 (standing, second from left) participates in an unmoderated caucus at the 2012 National Model African Union Conference in Washington, D.C., in February.

Stefanos ’14 won both the Outstanding Delegation Award and Committee Leadership Award in Executive Council for representing Ethiopia.

Tinofara Majoni ’13 received honorable mention in the category Outstanding Chair Award.

Throughout the experience, Moran had emphasized that the “MAU is great because it not only provides students with knowledge of fundamentals of international diplomacy, but also an understanding of African people and their culture.”

I realized the truth of her words toward the end of the conference, while I was talking with a student named Zuberi, from Congo. He talked at length about the trials his family endured during the Rwandan genocide and the Great War of Africa — history that I had read about, but that he had experienced personally. As he talked about the nations of Africa not as a world apart, but rather as an essential part of our interconnected world, I realized how much the 21st century will be shaped by what happens in Africa.

— Javed Narejo ’14

geologists, and material scientists from the United States and Europe to undertake an integrated study of the ceramic technology of a large collection of artifacts and a complex of kilns at Metaponto, a Greek city-site in southern Italy, that date from the 4th to the 1st c. BCE. Together, they will analyze the exploitation of natural resources, the processing of materials, the kilns’ structure and function, as well as the industrial organization and material exchange of the artifacts.

Fuller will collaborate with a team of ecologists, biogeochemists, and hydrologists from Cornell University, the U.S. Geological Survey, and SUNY-ESF to analyze whole-ecosystem restoration through liming of acidified tributary streams in the Honnedaga Lake Basin in the Adirondack Mountains.

The 770-acre lake in the southwestern region of the Adirondack Mountains supports one of seven remaining heritage, or original genetic, strains of brook trout designated by New York State.

Colgate students will be involved as research assistants on both Am-

In March, classics professor Rebecca Ammerman and biology professor Randy Fuller were awarded Picker Interdisciplinary Science Institute grants supporting interdisciplinary approaches to learning through innovative research. The grants bring together professors with complementary expertise to open new areas of study and to tackle existing problems in creative new ways.

Ammerman and Ioannis Iliopoulos (University of Patras, Greece) are teaming up with other archaeologists,

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scene: Spring 2012

Cesare Raho

Ammerman and Fuller receive Picker Science grants

This terracotta figurine, possibly representing Persephone or Demeter, is from a large assemblage of artifacts excavated at a complex of kilns at Metaponto, a Greek city-site in southern Italy, where classics professor Rebecca Ammerman conducts research. Ammerman and biology professor Randy Fuller both recently received Picker Interdisciplinary Science Institute grants.

merman’s and Fuller’s projects.

Colgate’s Picker Interdisciplinary Science Institute seeks to foster the creation of new knowledge that is obtainable only through the development of sustained interdisciplinary research. The institute supports internal and external collaborations among faculty who bring expertise from different disciplines to bear on current and emerging scientific problems that remain intractable to the methods used within a single discipline.

Kraly appointed editor of immigration journal

The Center for Migration Studies has appointed geography professor Ellen Percy Kraly as editor of the International Migration Review, a social science journal in the immigration field.

Kraly, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of geography, specializes in demography and population geography, international migration and refugees, ethnic and racial studies, medical geography, environmental issues, and social research methods.

As editor of the journal, she will be working with an editorial advisory board consisting of many of the leading scholars in the immigration field.

The Center for Migration Studies is a New York–based educational institute devoted to the study of migration, promotion of understanding between immigrants and receiving communities, and public policies that safeguard the dignity and rights of migrants, refugees, and newcomers. The peer-reviewed journal is its flagship publication and is published quarterly.

“This is an opportunity to engage migration and security policy issues and analysis with an international community of scholars and practitioners — experiences I am eager to share with my Colgate colleagues and students,” Kraly said.

Seeking greener pastures

There are two groups who emigrate in search of greener grass: people who are happy and optimistic, and those who are dissatisfied and in search of a better life. In research recently reported in Foreign Policy, Colgate economics professor Nicole Simpson and her colleague Linnea Polgreen from the University of Iowa correlated national happiness scores with emigration rates in various countries. Their findings form a U-shaped curve: the

EMIGRANTS PER 1,000 POPULATION

MOVIN’ ON UP 200

150

COLOMBIA ALBANIA

100

UNITED STATES 50

0 2

2.5

3

3.5

4

Young receives Dayton peace award

An exhaustive seven-year project by Nigel Young, who was Cooley Professor of peace studies and director of the Peace Studies Program at Colgate from 1984 to 2004, has received the Dayton Literary Peace Prize, in the Award for Scholarship category.

The four-volume Oxford International Encyclopedia of Peace: Global Conflict, Transformation, and Nonviolent Change (Oxford University Press, 2010) includes 850 entries and a foreward by His Holiness the Dalai Lama. Bringing together 50 years of scholarship on peace studies, conflict mediation, and nonviolent alternatives to war, the encyclopedia charts the evolution of the interdisciplinary field and offers a comprehensive survey of the historical, political, theoretical, and philosophical issues relating to peace and conflict.

The Dayton Literary Peace Prize is the only annual U.S. literary award recognizing the power of the written word to promote peace, social justice, and global understanding. The Award for Scholarship was created in 2011 specifically to “recognize the scholarship that went into the amazing collection of articles” in Young’s project, according to Sharon Rab, the founder of the prize.

Journalist and author Nick Clooney, father of actor George Clooney, served as emcee at the award ceremony on November 13. Young was honored along with the other 2011 prize winners, Chang-Rae Lee (The Surrendered) and Wilbert Rideau (In the Place of Justice), and runners-up Maaza Mengiste (Beneath the Lion’s Gaze) and Isabel Wilkerson (The Warmth of Other Suns).

“Just like democracy and human rights, peace has to be constructed, not only in minds and hearts, but also institutionally; reliable works of reference are therefore as essential in the digital age as in the age of Johnson or Diderot,” said Young. “From Wikipedia to the Oxford English Dictionary, we will all continue to use reference works in all formats — and they are essential tools for peacemaking! But the OIEP in print and online is unique in the way it focuses on peace in a new and comprehensive format . . . it is already becoming a key presence for all those who are concerned with reducing destructive conflict and armed violence on our planet.”

COUNTRY HAPPINESS SCORE

Get to know: Chad Sparber, economics professor

Andrew Daddio

countries with the highest national happiness scores and the countries with the lowest happiness scores have the highest emigration rates. Those who are in the middle tend to stay put.

Simpson and Polgreen compared the emigration rates of 58 countries with their national happiness scores from the World Values Survey. Colombia — with the highest rate of average happiness — and Albania — with the lowest average happiness — had the highest emigration rates. Ranking 16th out of 58 in terms of average happiness, the United States sits on the upswing of the U-curve.

“I started working on this topic because, at the time, nobody had considered such a link,” Simpson said.

“Given that current models of migration cannot fully explain observed flows of international migrants, there must be other factors that are affecting the decision to migrate. By understanding the happiness-migration relationship, we may then be able to isolate some of the driving forces behind migration, which has important policy implications.”

The findings — originally published in the Journal of Happiness Studies (Volume 12, Issue 5) — have generated attention in both academic circles and the press. “I think we must be on to something,” said Simpson, who has since been asked to write a chapter on the topic for the forthcoming International Handbook on the Economics of Migration. Additionally, one of her students is using the data on a related project that will analyze how migrant flows affect the happiness of the natives in the host (i.e., destination) country.

Conventional wisdom says that, when immigrants move into a community, they will displace native workers and decrease wages. It’s a basic supply-and-demand story taught in almost every introductory economics course. But economics professor Chad Sparber has found his niche challenging such assumptions.

Sparber began studying the impact of immigrant labor on native employment and wages even before he arrived at Colgate from the University of California, Davis, back in 2006.

Shunning the conventional wisdom and thinking that the effects of immigration might be more nuanced, he looked anew at the U.S. experience. The findings, gathered in conjunction with UC Davis’s Giovanni Peri, defied the standard supply-and-demand model: immigration in the United States often produces higher wages and stimulates growth.

When it comes to heavy labor, immigrants don’t force native workers out; statistically, they lift them up. “There’s a question about how the economy absorbs immigrants. It can do it in a number of ways,” said Sparber. “We don’t believe that it happens through decreased wages, and we don’t think it happens from natives moving to new states. People just start working in better occupations.”

Construction workers become foremen. Entry-level employees become managers. Why? It comes down to communication, Sparber and Peri found. Native workers have the edge, whether on the building site or in the boardroom — an advantage reflected in their compensation and duties. This information has practical implications in an election year, when immigration reform is on the national agenda. It was Sparber’s quest for useful answers to such crucial policy questions that led him into economics in the first place.

These days, he’s creating courses like The Economics of Race and Ethnicity, traveling abroad with Colgate’s London Economics Study Group, teaching a 2012 Summer on the Hill class (July 27–29), and maintaining an external research fellowship at the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration, University College London. (He’s also earned a place with Colgate’s Fac-Pac, a team of university professors who travel the country, challenging alumni and parents to games of Colgate-style trivia.)

Last year, Sparber and fellow economics professor Takao Kato scoured SAT data from the College Board to see if a 2003 reduction in H-1B visa quotas had caused a ripple effect in American higher education. The H-1B visa is reserved for educated, skilled workers — Sparber and Kato theorized that college and career could be a package deal for the world’s best and brightest, who might naturally wish to stay and work in the country where they receive their degrees.

The pair found a 1.5 percent decline in SAT scores among foreign applicants nationwide, demonstrating that the most highly qualified candidates were indeed deciding to study elsewhere around the globe. It’s a significant result. Had the same drop occurred within a single first-year class at Colgate, the university’s U.S. News & World Report rankings would have slipped by approximately four to six positions.

Sparber came to Colgate specifically to pursue this kind of research and to teach others to do the same. “In encouraging students to do research, I find that they’re a little intimidated at first,” he said. “But once they start asking their own questions and applying the lessons they’ve learned, it becomes more enjoyable for them.”

That work also exposes his students to the real consequences of the choices we make as a society. Limit immigration, and you could inadvertently suppress wages and promotions. Curtail labor visas, and you could change university demographics. Cause and effect is a story that can be as compelling as supply and demand. Through his teaching, research, skepticism, and natural curiosity, Sparber’s writing the book.

— Mark Walden

News and views for the Colgate community

17

arts & culture 18

Still image from the video abc by artist Ann Hamilton.

scene: Spring 2012

Simple yet strange

As the roomful of voices rose and lowered, overlapped, and occasionally fell silent, it sounded like a séance was being performed in the dark Brehmer Theater on a Friday night in February. The crowd of students, faculty, staff, and community members read separate lines as they floated across the divided screen on the stage. “All has been said so far,” began part of the group. “So far,” echoed others.

Seated at a café table on the stage, artist Ann Hamilton and poet/literary critic Susan Stewart listened. “We’re going to animate time together,” Hamilton had told the audience members, who were given different colored dots that would indicate which part of the screen they read. “I have always wanted to do an experiment where people read together,” explained Hamilton. She had prepared the three-part reading by crossing John Keats’s poem “This Living Hand” with fragments from Stewart’s book Poetry and the Fate of the Senses.

The event, which began with an informal conversation between Hamilton and Stewart, launched Hamilton’s exhibitions at both the Picker and Clifford Art Galleries, collectively titled Recto/Verso, which were on view until April 6.

Hamilton is recognized internationally for her large-scale multimedia installations. The videos in Recto/ Verso — a retrospective — combine repetitive motion with sound, often eliciting a visceral reaction from viewers. For example, Aleph is a close-up of stone marbles rolling around in a mouth, and the soundtrack is of the marbles scraping together.

The exhibition in the Clifford Gallery featured two huge photographs by students who began working with Hamilton on a project called “i am

camera” when she visited campus last September. Because she is also known as a master of low-tech image making, Hamilton suggested that students create pinhole cameras out of cardboard, aluminum foil, tape, and film.

Students and staff then photographed various campus events and locations.

The results were developed with the help of Professor Linn Underhill, who curated Hamilton’s exhibitions.

Returning to campus in February, Hamilton first spoke about her work to approximately 150 students in Golden Auditorium, followed by dinner with a smaller group.

“Ann’s work is strange — brilliant, but strange,” said Alex Coco ’12, an art and art history major. “She has an acute sensibility that is hard to understand unless you listen to her speak about her work. I learned how strange the simple is.”

Hamilton was the Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Foundation Visiting Artist in Residence; these events were also supported by an NEA Grant and the Colgate University Arts Council.

Slaking readers’ thirst

Joe Donnelly ’86 believes that readers have a thirst for long-form journalism and substantive narratives — a need he thinks is unfulfilled by the majority of today’s publications. He aspires to quench that thirst with the quarterly journal Slake: Los Angeles. The hefty — approximately 200-page — journal is replete with in-depth reporting that is complemented by poetry, fiction, photography, and art that ranges from illustrations to oil paintings to knitted sculptures.

Donnelly co-founded the publication with Laurie Ochoa, who was editor while he was deputy editor at the LA Weekly alternative newspaper for

Preview What Museums Collect: From the Cabinet of Curiosities to Modern Curatorial Challenges Picker Art Gallery May 9–June 3 Tuesday–Saturday: 10 a.m.–5 p.m.

Sunday: 1–5 p.m.

What Museums Collect is an exhibition organized by students in Professor Judith Oliver’s Arts 370 Museums course. They have spent the semester investigating the origins of modern museums and the many problems they currently face. Their findings are illustrated with objects gathered from the Picker Art Gallery’s wide collections, the departments of biology and geology, and private collectors. Students have selected objects, laid out their galleries, written the labels, and coordinated publicity for the show.

The exhibition will include nearly 100 pieces. A “cabinet of curiosity,” combining art with works of natural history, will illustrate the origins of Western museums.

A “period room” and plaster reproductions tell the history of 19th-century museum display techniques. Plans and drawings of the Picker Art Gallery itself address problems of museum architecture. Other themes include colonial pillage, Nazi looting, illicit trade in archaeological artifacts, removal of religious devotional art from its original context, the challenge of displaying art considered offensive, decisions on whether popular culture belongs in museums, and the problem of depicting forgeries.

For information on other arts events, visit www.colgate.edu/arts.

a number of years. With a small staff and several “lifesavers/volunteers,” Donnelly and Ochoa have produced four issues since 2010. He had been “cooking up” the concept for Slake since 1994 when he was interning at the LA Times, but it wasn’t set into motion until he left the LA Weekly in 2008.

“There’s a latent desire for rich narrative … to go deeper,” Donnelly said. “[Magazines] are conforming to a perceived attention-deficit-disorder country. We tend not to believe that is true, and we think our readers can handle what we give them.”

What they give readers is creative content that is each contributor’s interpretation of the chosen theme for the issue. For example, Issue 3, War and Peace, featured an article on the collective-bargaining blowup in

Wisconsin last winter, a fiction piece titled “In Bloom,” and a photo essay depicting a gang-ridden LA neighborhood. “War and peace was something that we felt was very much in the air, with the Arab Spring and the conflicts in other places. There was an outbreak of peace, but still so much war going on,” Donnelly explained.

The journal has a far-reaching scope in terms of its subject matter and contributors but, Donnelly said, Los Angeles is the hub. “Los Angeles is this incredibly dynamic, interesting, smart city. We want to be involved Slake co-founder Joe Donnelly ’86 in the national discourse in the way that a city like Los Angeles has to be, because this is where the challenges “satisfy,” is derived from the City of and opportunities of the 21st century Angels. When Donnelly started the are really coming to the fore.” publication, he was living in LA’s Silver Even the publication’s name, in Lake neighborhood, which locals addition to meaning “quench” or shorten to “S’Lake.”

This labor of love for Donnelly has been a challenge, not only because of The multimedia production Theory of Flight takes off in the visualization lab. the time devoted to the publication, but also because of the cost. In addition to his own investment, he has garnered support from friends and family, and recently held a fundraiser on Kickstarter, a platform for seeking financial backing of creative endeavors. Donnelly has met resistance from investors who are hesitant to finance a printed piece, but he and Ochoa believe that the beauty of their product needs to be held — and held onto.

On their website, http://slake.la, they explain that Slake is “the next generation of print publications — collectible, not disposable; destined for the bedside table, not the recycling bin.”

To read an excerpt from a short story co-written by Donnelly that ran in Slake’s second issue, check out Open mic (at right).

Janna Minehart ’13

Blending art and science

A scientist wearing lace wings paces about the stage, while a blue-andwhite “bird spirit,” also costumed in lace and feathers, sings her a birdcall.

All the while, animations of cellular processes unfold on the dome above their heads. Needless to say, this was not your average science lecture.

Anna Lindemann’s production of Theory of Flight, a multimedia performance blending art and science, was performed February 17 and 18 at Colgate’s Ho Tung Visualization Lab. The show depicts a scientist’s experiments on her own body that go awry as she becomes half-bird, half-woman

Open mic Fifty Minutes

Fiction by Joe Donnelly ’86 and Harry Shannon The client is a balding, sunburned man with soft, forgettable features. Running late, he enters the office at 7:02 p.m. and nearly knocks a small Buddha statue from its wooden base. He closes the waiting room door behind him and pauses, unsure of the protocol. From behind his desk, Dr. Bell watches intently. Experience has taught him that a new client will give you 90 percent of what you need just walking through the door. Dr. Bell sees that Mr. Potter is mildly agitated — perspiration rings the armpits of his Hawaiian-print shirt and his breathing is rapid. Not unusual for a firsttimer, Dr. Bell thinks. The psychotherapist smiles wryly and motions for Potter to sit on the green couch. Mr. Potter collapses into the cushions and sets his leather shoulder bag in front of him. His khaki slacks are a size behind the times.

“How long does this last?” Mr. Potter asks. “An hour?”

“Fifty minutes,” Dr. Bell says pleasantly.

The new client stares at Dr. Bell for a moment, takes a deep breath, and pulls a small-caliber pistol from under his shirt.

“Fine,” Mr. Potter says, waving the gun at Dr. Bell. “Then you have fifty minutes to live.”

This excerpt is from a story that Joe Donnelly ’86 co-wrote “on a whim” with friend Harry Shannon, writer and recipient of the Tombstone Award and the Black Quill. The piece was written a year and a half before Donnelly decided it was fitting for Slake, a quarterly journal that he co-founded with Laurie Ochoa. It will also be included in The Best American Mystery Stories 2012.

Read the full “Fifty Minutes” in Slake #2 “Crossing Over” or online at: http://slake. la/features/fifty-minutes. For more on Donnelly and Slake, read “Slaking readers’ thirst” on pg. 18.

News and views for the Colgate community

19

Finesse of Tress

In February, students continued the spring-semester tradition of directing and performing The Vagina Monologues by female activist, playwright, and performer Eve Ensler. A cast of 30 told personal anecdotes — some humorous, some heart-wrenching — celebrating women.

The group donated 90 percent of the profits to Vera House, which helps Syracuse-area victims of domestic violence.

Janna Minehart ’13

20

scene: Spring 2012

Long, short, braided, curly, straight, blond, black, or brown. No matter what type, we all have hair. Finesse of Tress, an event put on by Sisters of the Round Table (SORT) during their Africana Women’s Week, explores the politics of hair and its significance to people of all backgrounds.

The event was hosted Saturday, March 3, at the Edge Café. Student performers, flanked by hair products, gave monologues about what their hair means to them. No matter their gender or race, each performer had a bone to pick with hair. After only a few testimonials, it became obvious that hair is linked deeply to identity for the performers. Whether a sexual, gender, or ethnic identity, their hair was the physical representation of their differences.

Xavia Publius ’13 began the evening with a monologue about being a “gender outlaw” whose hair “is mask, Zorro.” This idea of hair as a gender and sexuality identifier was echoed by others throughout the night.

For Caden Polk ’12, hair (or the lack thereof) was his lament; he talked about wishing that he could “please grow a mountain-man beard.” Andrea Finley ’13 spoke of her decision to cut her hair in a powerfully delivered poem, saying “as the hair fell, my life began to fall in order.” Yet, the night was not just a string of somber moments, but rather a boisterous one full

Ashlee Eve ’14

arts & culture

nesia inspired some of the music she composed for the show, and she represented DNA and cells through the animation of yarn and buttons projected on the dome of the Viz Lab. The performance was sponsored by the Colgate Arts Council as part of its series of interdisciplinary events in the arts and sciences. The audience also represented a blending of the arts and sciences: students from biology, film and media studies, and studio art all attended the shows.

Even students who were not required to come for a specific class connected the show with their studies. Senior Carolyn Fox said she saw a crossover with her environmental science class: “The connection came from exploring how complex and dynamic systems in the environment are similar to the complicated systems of limb growth and flight like those explained in Theory of Flight.”

— Katie Rice ’13

in an attempt to grow wings.

Lindemann, a visiting assistant professor in the art and art history department, said the show is “intended to be an emotionally gripping and intellectually challenging experience” that integrates music, performance, animation, and evolutionary developmental biology. She hopes her audience will be “encompassed by a world of fantasy” while still learning something scientifically concrete about the processes that go on in the bodies of birds and humans — for example, the biological processes of limb growth and the evolutionary origins of flight.

Lindemann, whose background includes evolutionary biology and ornithology, as well as integrated electronic arts, created Theory of Flight as her MFA thesis at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Part of the inspiration for the show came from her studies of eminent biologist John Saunders’s evolutionary experiments, which were, as she put it, “fabulous fodder for artistic projects.”

The bird songs that Lindemann spent a summer recording in Indo-

Whether it’s long, straight, curly, or fuzzy, hair can be a defining feature, as students expressed at Finesse of Tress.

of laughter. Melissa Melendez ’14 had the crowd laughing as she counted out her 18 hair products, and it was nothing short of hilarious when Lara Donahue ’14 did an impression of her grandmother asking about her hair.

The performances lasted about an hour, and afterward the crowd interacted in a raffle drawing–turned– impromptu auction to raise money for a SORT sister and for the scholarship fund established in memory of Victor Krivitski ’12, who died last summer. Phi Delta Theta president Ian Woodward’s monologue encompassed the unity that Finesse of Tress hoped to promote. He spoke of shaving his head, along with the rest of his fraternity, in support of their brother Vic’s struggle with cancer and of their hair as “asserting not our individuality, but our community.”

After watching the performances, Sammi Leroy ’14 remarked, “you don’t always think about hair as a uniting force, but it is. It’s something that connects all of us.”

— Katie Rice ’13

Threads of Tradition

Rows of textiles patterned with bright chevron stripes and horses hang in Colgate’s Longyear Museum of Anthropology as part of the exhibition Threads of Tradition: Aymara and Quechua Textiles of the Andes.

The exhibition, which runs until June 3, opened in March with a reception and gallery talk given by Kate Kelly ’12. Kelly had spent the summer researching and collating the exhibition with her adviser for the project, senior curator of the Longyear, Carol Ann Lorenz.

An Awayo woman’s mantle from Bolivia

are now a part of Colgate’s permanent collection.

— Katie Rice ’13

Get to know: Kerry Koen ’74

Writers of fiction, poetry, and memoir once again will be workshopping their manuscripts and immersing themelves in craft talks, panel discussions, readings, and informal conversations about the craft of writing, at the 17th-annual Colgate Writers’ Conference (CWC), June 17 through 23.

The workshop faculty include Peter Balakian (poetry), Jennifer Brice (creative nonfiction), Greg Ames (short story), and Brian Hall (the novel) of Colgate’s faculty, as well as John Robert Lennon (the novel).

Among those giving readings will be Nichole Bernier ’89 (The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D.); Jennifer Smith ’03 (The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight; see Q&A with her on pg. 75); Bruce Smith, whose book of poems Devotions was a 2011 National Book Award finalist; Jim Shepard, whose story collection Like You’d Understand, Anyway was a National Book Award finalist; and Karen Shepard, three-time winner of Honorable Mentions in Best American Short Stories.

In recent buzz about conference alumni successes, Dennis McFadden’s story “Diamond Alley” from his collection Hart’s Grove (Colgate

University Press, 2010) was included in The Best American Mystery Stories 2011. After Salon published an excerpt from Lorraine Berry’s essay, “Our First Date was the Last Day of His Life,” it went viral and was tweeted by Roger Ebert; she sold the rights to a Hollywood producer.

And former staffer Dana Spiotta’s Stone Arabia was named a fiction finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.

To learn more, or to register, visit cwc. colgate.edu.

Andrew Daddio

2012 Colgate Writers’ Conference

Warren Wheeler

An array of more than 70 objects — from knit hats and belts to baby wraps and coca leaf bags — provides a dazzling view of Andean hand-weaving skills and aesthetics. For many centuries, the people of the Andes Mountains in Peru and Bolivia fashioned textiles from the fibers of llamas, alpacas, and vicuñas. The textiles in this exhibition — most dating from the 1920s and up through the 1990s — demonstrate the aesthetic and cultural value still ascribed to weaving in the Andes today.

Contemporary weavers, most of them women, continue to weave symbols of the Andean worldview into textiles that have both everyday and ceremonial functions.

Many of the textiles in the exhibition depict the relationships between the cosmos and the local environment: geometric forms representing the sun and stars, abstract and naturalistic images of the flora and fauna, including felines, condors, the viscacha (a rodent), and cattle.

A number of the textiles came with complete information, including names of weavers, regions, and exact dates that they were woven. When looking for pieces, Lorenz “wanted things that were indigenous weavings and for indigenous use.” For example, one coca bag in the exhibition had previously belonged to someone who added tassels to the bag upon becoming a leader in his region.

Incorporating many facets of the traditional Andean life, all of the pieces

– Teacher of piano, staff accompanist at Colgate – MA, piano performance, Syracuse University – Teaches yoga to faculty and staff every Thursday at lunchtime How did you get into yoga?

In 1982, I was living here and commuting — white-knuckle driving — to Syracuse University for graduate-school work. I saw an ad in the Mid-York Weekly for yoga classes that said: “Do you want to lessen your stress?” It turned out to be Mary Louise Skelton [longtime codirector of Colgate’s India Study Group with her husband, Professor Bill Skelton]. I had just gotten married, so my husband and I started taking yoga with her. I had a student-mentor relationship with her for the rest of her life. [She died in 1995.]

When did you start teaching at Colgate?

As a student, I accompanied a lot of fellow students, so I got into that role of being a collaborative artist, and kept doing it. When I graduated in ’74, my teacher, Vivian Slater, said, “There’s a real market for a piano teacher in the area.” So I started teaching piano, went around to people’s houses, and gradually got my own studio downtown. I’ve always given lessons at Colgate, but in the ’90s I got my official title as teacher.

Is there a connection between music and yoga for you?

I have performance anxiety, and in graduate school, being judged by two or three professors in juries, it was at its peak. I decided I needed to do something about it. Mary Lou set up a program that would help me before a performance. It incorporated an Asana practice — slow-movement postures, which worked on flexibility and focus — with pranayama exercises — monitoring your breathing and controlling your breath. I’ve also studied the philosophy of yoga, which puts stage fright and performance in its place. It’s not the fruit of the action, it’s the process — and if you’ve done all of your work, you can’t rely on the outcome because it’s never going to be concrete. With the philosophy and the idea of pulling the breath in deeply, I’ve been able to keep it in perspective and not worry so much about performance.

Tell us about your teaching.

Usually the people I teach piano to at Colgate are three kinds: pure beginners; the people who, as teenagers, quit piano and wish their mother had never let them quit; and music majors who are not piano players so they need keyboard skills and help with their theory and composition. I also have a studio above the Barge downtown, where I teach about 20 local students. It doubles as a yoga studio.

There are a lot of similarities between yoga and playing piano. Piano playing requires using many of the senses and has the effect of pulling all the senses in one direction. This is also one of the goals of yoga, as a prelude to mindful meditation. When I teach, I try to key into students’ learning styles, and then try to get them to access these other channels.

Do you have a favorite composer?

It depends where I’m at. After 9/11, when we were going into Iraq, I felt like playing a lot of Schubert. There was something about it being very deeply emotional and slow moving that connected with me at that time. There are times I’m really into Bach, when I can feel his religiosity, his spiritualism. And there are other times when it’s Mozart — simple but beautifully executed phrases that have a deep meaning to them.

— Aleta Mayne

News and views for the Colgate community

21

go ’gate

Men’s hockey overcomes odds

Bob Cornell

Colgate’s men’s hockey team was the first-ever 12th seed in the ECAC Hockey Tournament to reach the final four.

They fell to #1 Union in Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall on March 16.

The men’s hockey team proved many doubters wrong, pulling off one of their best seasons in recent memory.

Colgate had been picked to finish 10th in the conference by both coaches and the media in the league’s preseason poll, and that was enough motivation for a team that was coming off a season when they were the first-ever 12th seed in the ECAC Hockey Tournament to reach the final four.

The Raiders began by winning the Mutual of Omaha Stampede, becoming the first team other than NebraskaOmaha to win that tournament.

Then they split with fourth-ranked Miami at Starr Rink, jumping into the national polls for the first time. From then until the end of 2011, Colgate earned a 9-3-2 record, catapulting the team to their highest ranking since the 1999–2000 season: the seventh spot in the USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine National Poll.

The highlight of the season’s second half came on a late January weekend when Colgate beat No. 6 Cornell on national television, 2-1.

That win stopped an 11-game winning streak by the Big Red. The following night at Starr Rink, the Raiders exploded for four goals in the third period to overcome a 3-1 deficit and earn a 5-3 win, sweeping Cornell for the first time since 2003–2004.

The Raiders earned a bye into the ECAC Hockey Tournament and faced Quinnipiac in the quarterfinals

22

scene: Spring 2012

at home. The series went to three games, with Colgate overcoming the Bobcats in a 4-0 shutout victory.

In Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall, where the ECAC tournament was held in mid-March, Colgate ended up 0-2 in the two games. Although the outcome was not what the team had hoped, this was a season to be remembered.

ECAC recognizes Raiders

After an incredible regular season, Austin Smith ’12 was named ECAC Hockey Player of the Year. And, at press time, he was one of three finalists for the Hobey Baker Award, which is given to the nation’s top player. That nomination made Smith the fourth Hobey Baker finalist under head coach Don Vaughan, joining Mike Harder ’97, Andy McDonald ’00, and David McIntyre ’10. The announcement of the winner was set for April 6.

“People sometimes lose sight of the fact that the award is more than just on-ice talent,” said Vaughan of the honor that also recognizes character outside of the rink. “Austin Smith embodies all of the other qualities that the Hobey Baker Award stands for,” Vaughan added.

With a stellar senior campaign in conference play, Smith ranked first in points (34), goals (25), and shorthanded goals (5) in league action this season. As of press time, the Dallas, Texas, native had 57 points overall (third in the nation) and was leading the nation in goals with 36. He had registered 16 multiple-point games.

Smith recorded a +25 ranking overall, and led the nation with his six shorthanded goals overall. He had posted seven power-play goals, five game winners, and two game-tying goals on the season. The senior forward became only the 10th player in school history to reach 75 goals and 75 assists in a career and the first 30-goal scorer in ECAC Hockey since 2001. He twice earned both ECAC Hockey Player of the Month and Player of the Week.

In addition to Smith, two other Raiders were recognized at the ECAC Hockey Championship banquet at the Atlantic City Convention Hall, placing Colgate players in spots on each of the three all-league teams. Smith received a spot on the first team, while linemate Chris Wagner ’14 was selected to the second team. Thomas Larkin ’13 earned a postseason honor for the

first time in his career as a third-team defenseman. Smith, Wagner, and Larkin join 41 other all-ECAC Hockey skaters who have played under Vaughan.

Wagner also played a big part in the team’s success, with 33 assists, for which he was tied for the league lead going into championship weekend.

He scored 17 goals and finished second in the league behind Smith, with 51 overall points. Wagner had an 11-game point streak at the end of the year, with 17 points during that streak. He also had five goals and an assist in the series win over Quinnipiac, including a pair of two-goal games, and 13 postseason points in 13 games. He tallied points in all but three games in the spring semester.

Larkin was a consistent force on the blueline with a +16, which led all defensemen on the Raiders and was third on the team overall. He posted four goals and 10 assists and had a line of two goals and seven assists for nine points in league play.

Raiders in line for NHL

With the conclusion of their senior seasons, many players who have been drafted by NHL teams prior to their admission into Colgate report to their team’s minor league clubs to finish out the season. This year, Austin Smith ’12 and Corbin McPherson ’12 will do just that.

Smith was a fifth-round draft pick by his hometown team, the Dallas Stars, and was 128th overall in the 2007 NHL Amateur Draft. He will be playing for the American Hockey League’s Texas Stars, located outside of Austin, and might get an opportunity to join the big club, if the Dallas Stars make the playoffs.

McPherson was drafted by the New Jersey Devils, which have an AHL team in Albany, N.Y., that is also named the Devils. As one of the Raiders’ three captains, McPherson was a leader on the ice this season.

With the departure of those two draft picks, the Raiders will have three current NHL draft picks on its roster: Jeremy Price ’13 (Vancouver Canucks), Thomas Larkin ’13 (Columbus Blue Jackets), and Chris Wagner ’14 (Anaheim Ducks).

Women take second at PL Championships

The Colgate women’s swimming and diving team aimed to become Patriot League Champions for the second

Raider Nation

Fan spotlights with Vicky Chun ’91, senior associate athletic director

Jim Case ’77

Bleeds maroon: Father is William Case ’52 and brother is David Case ’80. Daughter Katie ’15 plays on the varsity women’s ice hockey team. A former pitcher for Colgate’s varsity baseball team, Jim was known for his split-finger “forkball” pitch.

Occupation: Attorney Resides in: Grosse Pointe Shores, Mich.

Game: Women’s ice hockey; Colgate defeated Syracuse 5-0, 1/2/12 Have you noticed any changes since you were a student?

The changes are monumental … the school is more civilized now, ha ha!

Bob Cornell

What is your favorite memory of your times as a Colgate student?

The camaraderie with the guys on the baseball team. We had tons of fun together and made lasting friendships.

The St. Joseph’s University Hawks swooped in on the Raiders in the final game of the University of Virginia Invitational at the end of February, winning 9-4.

time in five years, but fell just shy of their goal, taking second at the 2012 championships. With the effort, Colgate placed 10 of its swimmers on all-league teams.

Navy won the title with 933.5 points, while Colgate finished with 692.5. Colgate kept on the Midshipmen’s heels for most of the meet, but couldn’t overcome the first-day lead

Bob Cornell

The men’s basketball team sported pink sneakers while fans donned pink T-shirts in support of the Play 4Kay initiative to raise money for breast cancer awareness. The Raiders lost to Army 79-59.

set by Navy. The Raiders were led by Lia Kunnapas ’13 and Erica Derlath ’12. Kunnapas tied for fourth in the individual points race, accumulating 55.5 points in the three days of competition, and won two individual event titles. Derlath was sixth in overall points with 52, and won the 400 individual medley for her individual title. Each earned first team All-Patriot League accolades based on event wins.

Emma Santoro ’13, Becca Murray ’13, and Jenna Jacoby ’13 were all named to the first team as well, based on championship points. Other than Derlath and Kunnapas, Santoro was the highest Colgate swimmer in points with 45 (ninth overall). Murray was close behind, at 10th, with 44 total points. Jacoby was tied for 11th, with 43 points. Santoro and Jacoby made the top team for the secondconsecutive year, while Murray made the first team for the first time after earning second team a year ago.

Six Colgate swimmers earned second team honors for their performances during the championships.

Sami Wary ’15 headlined the second teamers, the lone swimmer to earn second-team honors after placing second in the 50 free. Melanie Lockard ’14, Hannah Fitton ’14, Ryan Marynowski ’13, and Megan Jex ’14 made the second team based on championship points. Lockard and Jex earned postseason honors for the secondstraight year. Fitton capped off a great

Did you ever think that your daughter would be on the varsity women’s ice hockey team at your alma mater?

As a student, not in my wildest dreams. Now it brings tears to my eyes. It has been terrific seeing Colgate through her eyes, and that is so special.

Stanley Fisher

Occupation: Has worked at Colgate for 28 years (buildings and grounds for 16 years and then custodial to present day; he currently works in Huntington Gymnasium) Resides in: Hubbardsville, N.Y. Game: Men’s ice hockey (ranked #19); defeated Cornell (ranked #6) 5-3 in front of a sold-out crowd, 1/28/12 How long have you been attending Colgate sporting events?

I started going to games 14 years ago and have been going ever since.

Have you had the chance to get to know any of the student-athletes?

Yes, mostly the football and softball players, but other student-athletes as well.

They are all terrific, good kids with a great sense of humor. All of the studentathletes are really busy, but they do take the time to say hello and are respectful.

What’s the next game you’re looking forward to attending?

I’m looking forward to us hosting ECAC Hockey Playoffs [in mid-March]. The team is doing really well this year, and it’s great seeing all of their hard work paying off.

Caroline ‘Poto’ Potolicchio ’14

Stats: Women’s ice hockey team; psychology major Hometown: Bethesda, Md. Game: Men’s lacrosse; defeated Vermont 10-6, 2/18/12 Why are you at today’s game?

My brother [one of four] came to visit because he’s looking at attending Colgate and possibly playing lacrosse.

What are some of the things you like about the athletics department?

Raider Nation! And being a member of the Rowdy Raiders. It’s been a lot of fun being a member and receiving cool Colgate prizes for attending games. It’s been great seeing students supporting our philanthropic causes, like our Autism Awareness game and basketball’s Play 4Kay pink games.

What do you like best about attending Colgate?

The academic reputation, and the size of the school — I love being able to walk around and see familiar faces.

News and views for the Colgate community

23

Bob Cornell

go ’gate

Men’s lacrosse off to fast start

In the Patriot League opener on March 10, midfielder Amanda O’Sullivan ’13 scored one of the team’s 13 goals, beating Lehigh by four.

Mariah Jones ’15 made huge plays in the second half of the February 11 game against Lehigh, helping her team maintain their lead and defeat the Mountain Hawks 77-71.

season with a second-team spot, while Marynowski was given her first postseason honor. Fitton was named to the Patriot League All-Academic Team.

Both the women’s and men’s squads were honored by the College Swimming Coaches Association of America with a Scholar All-America Team Award for the fall 2011 semester. The award is presented to college and university swimming and diving teams that have achieved a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or higher in the fall semester and in the semester of the NCAA Swimming and Diving Championships (winter/spring). This was the third-straight semester under head coach Fernando Canales that both teams have accomplished this honor.

Under new head coach Mike Murphy, the men’s lacrosse team had surged, as of press time, to a 7-1 overall record and a top ranking in both the U.S. Intercollegiate Lacrosse Association National Poll and Nike/Inside Lacrosse National Poll — their best start since 1993. The Raiders had won five-straight games and had held their opponents to under 10 goals a game in four of those wins.

The team jumped to the No. 12/13 spots in the USILA Coaches’ Poll and the Nike/Inside Lacrosse Media Poll on March 19 after beating Binghamton and undefeated No. 13 Fairfield on March 13 and 17, respectively — the second-highest spot Colgate has reached in the national rankings.

As of press time, Peter Baum ’13 and Ryan Walsh ’15 had already won the Patriot League Offensive Player and Rookie of the Week awards, respectively, twice each this season. Baum was also named the Nike Player of the Week on March 6, while Walsh received Cascade Rookie of the Week honors on March 15. Three Raiders were also named defensive players of the week: co-captains James Queeney ’13 and Kevin Gordon ’12 as well as Bobby Lawrence ’14.

Baum, who was named the 2012 Patriot League Preseason Offensive Player of the Year, was selected to the Inside Lacrosse Preseason All-America Second Team that was released in the 2012 Face-Off Yearbook and was named to the 2012 Tewaaraton Award Watch List. At press time, the junior was leading the nation and the league in points and goals per game.

Michael Schon ’12

Hunt named football associate head coach

24

scene: Spring 2012

Dan Hunt, the Raiders’ assistant head coach for the last two seasons, has been promoted to associate head coach. A staff member for 17 seasons, Hunt has served the last six years as the offensive coordinator, and as quarterback coach for the past 13.

Hunt has seen seven of his players earn all-Patriot League honors and one, the Walter Payton Award. Most recently, all-American running back Nate Eachus ’12 was named the Patriot League Offensive Player of the Year in 2010, along with being a finalist for the Walter Payton Award. Eachus was also named the Patriot League Rookie of the Year in 2008. In 2005,

Hunt saw Jordan Scott ’09 earn Patriot League Rookie of the Year, while in 2003, Jamaal Branch ’05 rushed for 2,326 yards en route to earning the second Walter Payton Award in school history. In 1999, quarterback Ryan Vena ’00 was named the Patriot League Most Valuable Player. Also under Hunt’s tutelage, running back Daymon Smith ’97 was named 1997 Patriot League Offensive Player of the Year and running back Ed Weiss ’01 was selected as Patriot League Rookie of the Year.

Hunt began his Colgate tenure working with the tight ends in 1995 and 1996, before one season as the running backs coach. During that time (1997), the Raiders broke the Patriot League record for rushing yardage and, for the first time, produced a pair of 1,000-yard rushers.

He came to Colgate from his alma mater, Springfield College, where he helped coach the wide receivers and tight ends. Hunt began his coaching career at Christian Brothers Academy in Albany, N.Y., where he was in charge of the running backs and receivers.

Student-athletes participate in Naval leadership conference

Caitlin Cremin ’14, Jonathan Mputu ’13, and Patrick Letourneau ’13 represented Colgate at the annual U.S. Naval Academy Leadership Conference January 29 through February 1.

The trio, among 200 participants from more than 45 military and civilian colleges, were chosen for their contributions to their teams both as athletes and students on campus.

In 2002, the conference, originally only for senior midshipmen and cadets from each of the service academies, expanded to include students from national colleges and universities to discuss leadership themes relevant to government, business, and academics, in addition to the military.

“The conference was truly a oncein-a-lifetime experience,” said Cremin, who is one of the court leaders for the women’s volleyball team, as the libero. “The amalgamation of leaders from military, corporate, nonprofit, scholarly, and athletic backgrounds created an environment that fostered diverse discussion and interpretation of what it means to be a visionary leader.”

Speaking at the conference were General James N. Mattis, USMC,

Commander, U.S. Central Command; Anson Dorrance, University of North Carolina Head Women’s Soccer Coach; Howard Putnam, Former CEO of Southwest Airlines; and Herman Boone, Former T.C. Williams High School Titans Football Head Coach.

“The knowledge I gained through the events, keynote speakers, and discussion panels is something that I will take back and apply to my life, my sport, and my academic career,” said Mputu, a football player. The wide receiver, who has played in many games for the Raiders on the gridiron, looks to be one of Colgate’s key contributors in 2013. “The Naval Academy is a great institution, and their idea of developing visionary leaders through hard work, determination, discipline, self-belief, and confidence is something that I have a lot of respect for and highly encourage,” he said.

A leader on the men’s soccer team, Letourneau played all 22 games on defense this past season, helping the Raiders to their fifth Patriot League Championship. At the conference, he enjoyed meeting people from all over the country and shared ideas on how to improve their own leadership on their teams.

“What I am taking away is that leadership exists in many different situations and takes form in many different styles,” he said, “but the basic foundation for each leader is

similar in that certain characteristics are shared to lead a group of people toward a specific goal.”

Ski team races to success

Colgate’s alpine ski team had another successful year, with both the men’s and women’s teams making it to the United States Collegiate Ski Association (USCSA) Mideast regional competition at Bristol Mountain in Bristol, N.Y. The women placed fourth, and the men placed seventh.

Kirsten Halvorson ’15 had a great starting year as she ran first for the women’s team and placed first multiple times. Another first-year, Jimmy Mallon ’15, ran first for the men’s team; Chase Begor ’13 and John McCoy ’14 ran second and third, respectively.

Each team is composed of approximately 25 members and competes against 14 other schools from New York. Colgate’s team trains every Tuesday and Thursday night at their home mountain, Toggenburg Mountain Winter Sports Center. Head coach Jim Longo, who has been coaching Colgate skiing for more than 20 years, is assisted by Todd Enders and Mike Ketcham, who both also coach at Toggenburg. This year’s captains were Chelsea Baum ’12, Margaret Powell ’12, and Johnny Lembeck ’12.

— Mark Janett ’12

Schussing success: the ski team made it to the U.S. Collegiate Ski Association Mideast regional competition this year.

Patriot League approves football scholarships

On February 13, the Patriot League Council of Presidents endorsed a policy allowing merit aid to be offered to football players at member schools, beginning with the class entering school in the fall of 2013. In its announcement, the league said the decision will strengthen the competitiveness of member schools and possibly make way for a future expansion of the league. Under the agreement, each school will be permitted to award no more than the equivalent of 15 athletic financial awards each year (a maximum of 60 over four years) to incoming football players, including transfer students. We spoke with athletics director David Roach to find out more about the potential impact of the change on Colgate.

Haven’t Colgate and other Patriot League schools already been offering scholarships to some football players? How does this change things?

Everyone in the Patriot League was offering need-based–only scholarships to football players. This change allows us to convert scholarships to merit aid as needed. It allows us to recruit more broadly from a national field and to recruit individuals with even higher academic and athletic credentials. For both the Patriot League as an organization and for its individual member schools, the decision to adopt scholarships for football makes a great deal of sense.

Will this take away from available financial aid money for other students who don’t take part in athletics?

No, it will not affect other financial aid candidates. We will have the same-sized Athletics director David Roach pool of financial aid funds that we’re currently allocating for football. So, this change in Patriot League policy really has more of an effect on where and how we find prospective scholar-athletes.

How will this affect Colgate’s academic profile among incoming students overall?

It should have a positive effect. As we are able to become more competitive in recruiting from a larger pool, we will more aggressively seek out better students and better athletes. Year after year, Colgate leads the NCAA and Patriot League in graduation rates and academic performance, and we have every confidence that this will allow us to continue, and even improve upon, this distinction.

Does this have the capacity to make Colgate more competitive in football? And how long do you expect it will take to see results?

We certainly think so, and it shouldn’t take that long to have an effect. The impact may be seen as early as the 2013 season, and it will build each year from there.

Will this make Colgate a “football school”?

No. But in addition to expanding our pool of recruitable student-athletes, it will allow us to play a more attractive schedule. As an example, we hope to play one Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS, which includes schools like the U.S. Air Force and Naval Academies, and Syracuse) per season. Overall, each Patriot League school should become more competitive in NCAA Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) football and have a better chance for an at-large berth in the NCAA FCS Championship.

Are there any other ways you expect this change to impact Colgate?

Overall, it should have a positive effect on diversity. We will now be able to recruit more nationally and reach certain parts of the country from which we did not recruit in past years.

— Debra Townsend

News and views for the Colgate community

25

new, noted , & quoted

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

The Thought of Work John W. Budd ’87 (ILR Press)

In The Thought of Work, John Budd presents 10 historical and contemporary views of work from across the social sciences and humanities.

By exploring diverse concepts of work — such as a way to serve or care for others, a source of freedom or income, a method of psychological fulfillment, or a social relation shaped by class, gender, race, and power — Budd reveals the wide-ranging nature of work and establishes its fundamental importance for the human experience.

Budd replaces the usual fragmentary approaches to understanding the nature and meaning of work with a comprehensive approach that promotes further understanding of how work is understood, experienced, and analyzed.

The Air We Breathe: Artists and Poets Reflect on Marriage Equality

Edited by Apsara DiQuinzio ’98; text

by Eileen Myles, Martha Nussbaum, and Frank Rich (San Francisco Museum of Modern Art) Over the last decade, the quest for equal rights for same-sex couples has proven to be one of this country’s most pressing political and civil rights issues. The Air We Breathe — its title drawn from a Langston Hughes poem — brings together 27 visual artists and seven poets who contribute to the cause of marriage equality. The book features essays by three prominent writers: Eileen Myles, Martha Nussbaum, and Frank Rich. An accompanying exhibi-

26

scene: Spring 2012

tion was organized by the book’s editor, Apsara DiQuinzio, curator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Together, the book and the exhibition seek to generate awareness and encourage dialogue about discrimination many citizens encounter, because, as Hughes wrote, “equality is in the air we breathe.”

Coming Home: The Reconciliation of an Estonian Family Torn Apart By War Charles (Kalev) Ehin ’60 (Lakeshore Press)

In his memoir Coming Home, Charles Ehin chronicles his early years in his birthplace of Tallinn, Estonia; his escape to the West with his father; and, finally, his reconciliation with his sister who, along with his mother, was left behind as the Red Army advanced into the city. In addition to his personal recollections, Ehin writes about the bloody results of the back-and-forth war as it battered Eastern Europe, the day-to-day life of what he calls a “soul-smothering bureaucracy,” tyrannical policies, and burning prejudice that survived the war.

The Art of Living According to Joe Beef: A Cookbook of Sorts

Meredith Erickson ’03, Frédéric Morin, and David McMillan (Ten Speed Press) The Joe Beef restaurant is located in a working-class neighborhood of Montreal, a city with a growing reputation as a culinary destination. In The Art of Living According to Joe Beef, co-owners/chefs Frédéric Morin and David McMillan, along with writer and former Joe Beef staff member Meredith Erickson, present 135 recipes showcasing the restaurant’s unconventional approach to French market cuisine. The recipe for strip loin steak comes with 10 variations, “kale for a hangover” wisely advises the cook to eat and then go to bed, and the marjolaine includes tips for welding your own cake mold. Joe Beef’s most popular dishes

are also represented. This cookbook (of sorts) is packed with personal stories, a Montreal travel guide, instructions for building a backyard smoker and making absinthe, and beaucoup plus.

The Spirit House, or Brown’s Free Hall, in Georgetown, New York

Joscelyn Godwin (Colgate University’s Upstate Institute) The first book published by Colgate’s Upstate Institute, The Spirit House tells the story of the house built by spiritualist Timothy G. Brown in the mid-1860s in the village of Georgetown (14 miles from Hamilton), following a design that Brown believed was given to him from the spirit world. Also known as the “Wedding Cake House,” the building, which was recently sold after long remaining empty, is noted for its unusual architecture, including scalloped walls and three-tiered cornices. Professor Joscelyn Godwin, of Colgate’s music department, conducted his research chiefly using early newspapers and documents in the Madison County Courthouse. He aims to “clear away the rumors and myths about the Spirit House and to tell its true history, placing it in the context of the progressive movements that flourished in the region during the 19th century.”

Get the Cookie, Paco!

Valuable Lessons in Leadership from My Dogs Andrew Krüger ’98

(Middleton Stout Books)

Presenting key concepts from leadership studies, Andrew Krüger’s Get the Cookie, Paco! can be characterized as 51 practical ways to improve leadership skills — but it’s much more than that. Using the behavior of his two rescue dogs to make sophisticated concepts more readily understood and memorable, Krüger explores five categories: working on yourself, working with others,

In the media reading others, leading others, and the bigger picture. Combined, his analysis emphasizes the importance of the overall framework of a “whole” leader.

By taking the success of the business parable format from Who Moved My Cheese and combining it with logical and endearing observations of our canine friends in such books as Marley & Me and The Other End of the Leash, Krüger creates a playful approach to self-improvement in all facets of your life, from your business, to the business of your life. Read some of Krüger’s tips in the “In the know” column on page 68.

Where Do Mountains Come From, Momma?

Catherine Weyerhaeuser Morley ’79 (Mountain Press) What child — or what adult — hasn’t wondered where mountains come from? Where Do Mountains Come From, Momma? answers this geological question, and several others, in easy-to-understand terms. Covering volcanoes, uplift, plate tectonics, erosion, and more, the book introduces young readers to many geologic concepts in a fun way. As both author and illustrator, Catherine Weyerhaeuser Morley combines the text and illustrations to create a charming look at Earth science.

Morley’s drawings will have readers hunting for particular fossils in the mountains, sea life in the oceans, or animals in the rift zone. As an artist who wants children to be drawn to geology, Morley has created a volume that she hopes both children and parents will enjoy.

so many feelings to share, Jessica begins a diary and soon realizes that its blank pages are like an intimate friend to whom she can express her sadness, fears, and hopes — and, ultimately, explore healing and a meaningful path toward the future. Based on a true story, the book celebrates the power of a child and her family to work through the greatest sadness, bolstered by their love for each other.

Also of Note:

— Jacob Mundy, assistant professor of peace and conflict studies, commenting in a BBC article about the lack of international political will to force an end to the deadlock in Moroccan-controlled Western Sahara

“Scientific literacy is so critical to modern citizenship.”

— Kristin Pangallo, assistant professor of chemistry, in the Cape Cod Times (Massachusetts) article “Scientists learn to tell their story”

In Marketing Concepts That Win! (Live Oak Book Company), Martha Guidry ’85 shares expert tips and tricks to propel ideas to marketplace success and help businesses avoid common pitfalls along the way. The guidebook offers advice on writing effective positioning concepts, breaks down the concept development process, and gives an overview of research approaches.

“The whole idea of nonviolent conflict is to get elements inside the authoritarian regime to defect.”

Beer Cart Girls Save the World (Write Words Inc./ebooksonthenet) by John Piccarreto ’79 is a satirical spy thriller that takes place at Shimmering Lake Golf Club on Canandaigua Lake. The beer-cart–girl certification program, popular for college students, is under way, but, this year, it could turn out to be dangerous when strange things start to happen.

“For serious golfers, the changes may as well have come inscribed on a pair of tablets delivered from a mountaintop. They will affect everyone, from tour professionals competing for millions to municipal golfers with a $2 bet on the line.”

A Sister’s Diary

Social TV: How Marketers Can Reach and Engage Audiences by Connecting Television to the Web, Social Media, and Mobile (Wiley & Sons) by Stacey Shepatin ’90 and Mike Proulx examines the television landscape in order to help marketers navigate its advertising opportunities. Topics include: leveraging the “second screen” to drive synched and deeper brand engagement, using advanced social listening to target lean-forward audiences, and embedding ads into content as it travels across multiple devices.

In the novel A Sister’s Diary, 9-year-old Jessica Allman has just experienced the tragic and sudden loss of her older brother, Matt. It is summertime, and her best friend is away visiting her grandmother. With

Composer and Colgate music professor Zhou Tian’s work “Duet” was released in Odyssey: 11 American Premieres for Flute and Piano (Innova Recordings). Featuring internationally acclaimed flutist Mimi Stillman and pianist Charles Abramovic, the CD also includes works by a number of other renowned composers.

The recording was supported by the National Endowment for the Arts as part of American Masterpieces: Three Centuries of Artistic Genius.

Jodi Berkman Scheinfeld ’82 (Ithaca Press)

“Compared with the desperate efforts to give South Sudan independence, the French and the U.S. are very comfortable.”

— Peter Ackerman ’68, explaining to Bloomberg Markets Magazine why he’s chairman and top donor of Americans Elect, an organization pioneering an online presidential nominating process

— Freelance writer and author Adam Schupak ’96 in his New York Times article on recent changes in golf regulations

“As we anticipate an increase in the number of applications to U.S. institutions from students in South Asia, we are eager to evaluate additional applications from this region and work to increase our enrollment of Indian and South Asian students at Colgate.”

— Katryna Swartwout Ryan, associate dean of admission, answering financial aid questions in the New York Times India edition

“She never really got her moment in the sun. By the mid-’90s, she’d survived so long that people started to look up to her.”

— Michael Coyle, English professor and jazz aficionado, reflecting on the death of legendary singer Etta James to CNN

News and views for the Colgate community

27

Comedic aCtor, writer, and producer Erik Stolhanske ’91, probably beSt known for hiS rolE as rabbit in the hit comedy film Super Troopers, has beEn on a naTional speaking tour since november. he’s appeared aT military baSes; hospitals; corporationS; wounded warrior, disability, and youthdevelopment organizations; and schools and universitiEs — including Colgate in early april. in this Colgate-tailorEd adaptation of his speech, he tellS his poignant and often-humorous sTory of how a little deTermination — maybe Even Sheer deluSion — helped him ovErcomE thE oddS staCked againSt him.

28

scene: Spring 2012

It begins in a pretty average middle-class suburb in Minnesota. But October 1, 1945, has some real significance for me. It was the day Rod Carew, the longtime Minnesota Twins’ Hall of Fame first baseman, was born — into abject poverty, literally on a train in Panama.

Growing up, all I wanted to be was Rod Carew.

At night, when I shut my eyes to fall asleep, I could see him stepping into the batter’s box, cracking a single down the third base line or spearing a line drive.

Like a lot of other 8-year-old boys, every waking moment was about baseball. Like any selfrespecting kid would, I nagged the hell out of my mom until she signed me up for Little League. And like every other kid on my team, I ran onto the field and played my heart out. The thing was, as much as I tried to be like everyone else, I knew deep down that I was different.

You see, I was born without a fibula in my right leg. It was just one of those genetic mistakes.

Now, 30 years later, I can lift up the hem of my pants and show people my prosthetic leg, and when I see their jaws drop, I’m totally fine with it. But when I was 8, I wanted to die when I heard names like “Gimp,” “Woody,” and “Cripple” — and that’s just what my sister called me!

I could have become introverted and stayed home playing with Star Wars toys all day. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that. There are hours of fun to be had with Boba Fett and Princess Leia dolls.) But

”JUST GET BACK UP!”

Ian White for Comedy Central

Star Tribune/Minneapolis-St. Paul 2012

fashioned leg was so intense that my eyes would sometimes fill with tears as I sprinted toward first base. Prosthetic technology has improved a lot, but back then, my skin would tear from pistoning as I ran, and when that happened, it would take days or even weeks to heal.

But I never saw Rod Carew miss a game because of an injury, so I’d put on some ointment, pop some Tylenol, and get back in the game.

Now, I know you’re all thinking, “That’s one badass dude.”

But, seriously, the point of telling that story isn’t so you’ll be impressed by how tough of an 8-year-old I was. The point is, I just never bought into the conventional wisdom that a kid with one leg shouldn’t be out there, taking hits and running the bases.

Delusional? Maybe. But it kept me going.

Being on that field was a struggle at times, but my mom constantly reminded me that I was just like everybody else. She said it enough times that, ultimately, I believed it.

And yet, all the self-confidence that my mom instilled in me at 8 years old disappeared in a flash one day in fifth grade. It was during recess, and we were out in the schoolyard playing ... that infamous game, kickball.

I had a huge crush on this cute freckly redhead — you know the type. She was out there watching the game, and, naturally, I wanted to impress her.

The pitcher rolls the ball.

I rev up my little fifth-grade butt and just cream the ball. I mean, I kick it as hard as I can. I look up and see all the outfielders running back. Only, it’s not because I’ve kicked the ball so far.

It’s because my leg is flying end over end across the sky. It looks like someone has just thrown a boomerang into the air. A large, straight boomerang with a sock on one end.

You may have seen that coming, but I certainly didn’t — and neither did the cute little redhead. I look over at her, and she’s staring at me ... and she starts screaming. It’s not as if it was heading for her or that she was in any danger of being impaled, but I guess when some boy’s body part unexpectedly flies through the air like a tree limb in a tornado, she’d be startled. As was I. And as if her

banshee-worthy screams weren’t humiliating enough, this great wit of our class, Scott Engeldorf, runs out onto the field, picks up my leg, and starts swinging it, threatening the girls as he chases them with it.

Just like that, all that storybook confidence that my mom had worked so hard and so many years to build up in me was destroyed. It can happen that fast. You, too, can have your life fall apart during a kickball game — they are treacherous!

That afternoon, I basically went into hiding. Not like Howard-Hughes-grow-abeard-and-urinate-into-milk-bottles hiding, but I did limit myself by never wearing shorts or going swimming. I dreaded the arrival of summer, because all my friends would go down to Lake Calhoun in their swimsuits and I thought I’d look like an idiot going there in pants.

My friends would call me and say, “You’ve got to come down—you’re missing all the fun. There’s live music, everyone’s here, and all the girls are in bikinis!”

Now, I love bikinis. But I always stayed away.

Fast forward to my freshman year at Colgate. I couldn’t have been more excited to head off to college and have a fresh start. Nobody there knew who I was, and no one needed to know I had a fake leg.

And I can remember, as if it were yesterday, the exact moment that I fell in love with the place. For many students, it was the first time they drove through Hamilton and saw the beautiful campus, the changing colors of the leaves on Cardiac Hill, the pristine chapel. Not for me.

My love for Colgate started the first day of freshman year, when I discovered that Colgate had these things called co-ed dorms.

It was hot outside, and I was sweaty from moving in. So I go to take a shower,

GRoWiNg Up, All i WAnTEd To Be WaS Rod CArEw.

Star Tribune/Minneapolis-St. Paul 2012

my parents always insisted that the best way to be like all the other kids was to go out and do all the things the other kids did.

Because I grew up in Minnesota, I also wanted to play hockey. And, no, skating with a wooden leg wasn’t exactly a cakewalk.

That’s right: back then, my leg was made of actual wood. Ol’ Peg Leg Stolhanske. When I would grow an inch taller, they would add an inch of wood to my ankle. I was just like a tree — you could measure my growth from the rings around my ankle. If I grew just a quarter of an inch, though, I’d get a waiter to shove a matchbook underneath it until I felt even.

Before I’d head down to the ice rink, my mom would always say, “So what if you get knocked down. Just get back up!” I got knocked down a lot but, thanks to my mom’s advice, I always got back up. Before long, it became a habit.

By the time I had taken to the field in Little League, I really felt like I could do anything the other kids could do, wooden leg and all.

I’d be lying if I said it was easy. I remember the pain of running on that old-

when out from the women’s bathroom walks this girl wearing only her towel.

Now, remember that I’m from Minnesota. Aside from our 5-day-long bikini season — which I had excluded myself from enjoying — the closest thing a girl ever came to being nearly naked in my presence was taking off one of her three wool sweaters. My 18-year-old brain just about exploded. I looked at the girl, looked out at the campus, and thought to myself, “I think I’m really going to like it here.”

I thought I could keep my leg a secret — that is, until I met Megan in Psych 101. (Notice how my life is defined by a series of girls.) Megan was way out of my league. But we started walking to class together, eating lunch together, studying, and before we knew it, we were dating.

Everyone knows the worst way to start a new relationship is by withholding important personal information, right? I wanted to be honest, but the memories of that disastrous kickball game still haunted me. I knew consciously that she was not the cute, freckly redhead who screamed in horror at me that day, but my subconscious couldn’t tell the difference, and I was terrified. So, I conveniently “forgot” to mention my leg to her.

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MY FRiEnDs SToPpEd BOtHERinG To AsK How MY AUdITIonS WenT. Sometimes I would imagine different ways to tell her. Like, I’d take her out for dinner at The Horned Dorset and I’d ask, “What are you having? Leg of lamb? Speaking of legs, there’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

Problem was, she was a vegetarian.

Or, we’d be in Case Library and I’d say, “Look at this beautiful, ornate desk. Would you still like it if it was missing a leg?”

Subtle, right?

It wasn’t long before she forced the issue. She said, “We’ve been dating for two months and you haven’t tried to have sex with me. We’re in college.

Are you gay?”

Now, at 18, trying to make any decision about your identity is difficult. I think if I had been gay, she probably would have taken it better. Because when I finally decided to show her my prosthesis, guess what happened? She didn’t hesitate. She broke up with me. Not because of my leg, but because I wasn’t straightforward with her. I decided then and there that if I wanted to have any kind of dating life, I would have to be open and honest right from the get-go.

A couple of months later, I met this cute upperclassman, Lyndsey, at the Jug. We were having a good conversation, laughing, and suddenly she put her hand on my knee. I knew exactly what was coming: “Are you wearing a brace or something?”

I was all set to tell her about the misfired genes.

Then, I’m not sure if I chickened out or had a moment of inspiration, but instead of telling her the truth, I looked her straight in the eyes and said, “I lost my leg in a dangerous motorcycle stunt.”

The next thing I knew, we were making out in her room. And I realized that this hunk of firewood was possibly the best wingman ever!

Then I met Poppy: “Greenpeace. I was swimming with the whales, and a Japanese fishing boat came out of nowhere and speared me.”

Then there was Maria: “I lost my leg running with the bulls.”

Jessica: “This paper cut? Special ops. Istanbul.”

The problem was, lying was like crack to me. I couldn’t stop. In fact, my lying went on until I learned one of the most important lessons of my life: women talk to each other.

30

scene: Spring 2012

See, I was at The Back Bacon one night when I heard familiar voices. Turns out, two girls I had dated were behind me. They were laughing, having a good time. Then I heard, “Erik is so brave. Did you know he lost his leg as a rodeo clown saving a bull rider?” Then, “That’s funny, Erik told me a homeless guy pushed him in front of a subway car while he was trying to save a poor little orphan girl!”

After that, I could barely get a girl to speak to me. The entire time, I had been worried about being labeled the guy with a fake leg, only to become labeled the pathological liar with a fake leg. So much better!

My dating life was over, but it was spring, so I was fine. Spring meant baseball. Remember those summers I mentioned earlier, when all the other kids were hanging out in bathing suits at Lake Calhoun?

And I was spending all my time in pants — well, those were baseball pants. I had put all of my pubescent energy into playing baseball. In time, it paid off.

When I got to high school, I was good enough to play varsity, and by my senior year, I was voted captain of the team.

So, I thought I would be the Raiders’ next freshman phenom.

I arrived at the tryouts a little overconfident.

Guess what? I wasn’t big enough or — surprise, surprise — fast enough, to make the team. Looking back, I probably should have prepared myself for the chance that my baseball career would end sometime before my plaque was unveiled in Cooperstown.

When the time finally came to hang up my spikes, I was devastated.

My dream crashed against reality. And I remember thinking that my leg, which I had tried so hard to overcome, had finally gotten the best of me.

This was another moment when I could have

memory is fading, that’s how I’ll tell it to my grandchildren.

Here’s what really happened: I auditioned for every University Theater production — for two years straight — and never got a single part. It got to the point where my friends stopped bothering to ask how my auditions went.

Then something serendipitous happened.

In one of my acting classes, I was required to build theater sets on Saturday mornings. (Come to think of it, maybe that’s where all the misfit actors who never got cast were sent.) Early one morning, I ended up working next to this tall, skinny, Indian kid.

As we’re hammering away at some set, he mentions he’s from Chicago. I tell him I’m from Minneapolis.

Quickly, our conversation deteriorates into a contest of one–upmanship: Indian kid: “Minneapolis? Isn’t that where the Viqueens play?”

Me: “Pfft! Jim McMahon rides a moped.”

Indian kid: “At least the Bears won a Super Bowl.

More than I can say about you pansies.”

That was it!

I pick up my hammer. “Hey, Chicago, if you’re so tough, can you do this?” WHAM! I smack myself in the ankle.

Without missing a beat, Chicago says, “Oh, you wanna play that game? Let’s go.”

He grabs his hammer, exhales, and WHAM! He smacks himself in the ankle.

TIMBER! He goes down like a felled Christmas tree. Through clenched teeth, grunts, “That’s not so tough. What else you got?”

“How about this?” I say, and I run up to a cement wall and kick it as hard as I can.

Chicago yells, “Screw you, Minnesota!”

i remember thinking that my lEg.. had finally gotten the bEst of me. stayed inside and played with my Star Wars toys — but that would have been really pathetic now that I was almost 20 years old. This time, my mom wasn’t there to tell me to “get back up,” but I’m glad she had told me that years ago, because I didn’t feel sorry for myself for long.

Just a few weeks later, I was schlepping around campus when I passed by Brehmer Theater. The doors were open, and there she was on stage. Her name was — well, it doesn’t really matter. What matters is the way she carried herself on the stage. I took a seat in the back row and just watched her.

So long, Rod Carew — hello, Paul Newman.

At this point, I need to step back for a second.

It would be a little too convenient if I said that, just as the door closed on baseball, the door to acting swung open. Maybe one day when I’m old and my

He runs and kicks it as hard as he can. Again, he falls to the ground, grabs his toes, and rocks back and forth like a giant baby. Pretending not to be in pain: “That did not hurt.”

Now I’m thinking that this game of “Quien es mas macho” is finito, but it’s not. I must find something so horrific that he has to bow out. I look around, and there she is … a pneumatic staple gun. I pick it up.

Give Chicago a smile. He laughs. “Haha! You don’t have the guts!”

I wink and say, “Are you this tough, Chicago?” And BAM! I fire the staple into my shin.

The color leaves his face. He’s pacing. Sweating.

He pulls at my pants, making sure the staple actually punctured my leg.

Now, I have to give the guy credit. He’s either much tougher than I am, or just plum crazy. He picks

up the staple gun, searches for a meaty part of his leg, and settles the gun on the back of his thigh. He is just about to pull the trigger…

“Wait! I have to tell you something...”

I point to my leg.

“This puppy’s made of wood.”

Silence fills the room. I’m thinking, he’s going to kill me. But, instead, he bursts out laughing. He sticks out his hand, “That was hysterical. I’m Jay .”

We became instant friends.

I’m sure Jay remembered the staple-gun incident the following year, when he asked me to audition for Charred Goosebeak, the sketch comedy group he had started on campus. (Later, our group would become Broken Lizard — see sidebar on pg. 30.)

So, I showed up at the audition, and this time,

In college, my dream of playing baseball ended, I didn’t get cast in any University Theater production, and I was labeled a lying lunatic. But I also discovered what I truly loved and what I was good at — comedy and acting.

Maybe my foolish perseverance and sheer delusion that a kid with a fake leg could be an actor was paying off. I certainly took a lot of swings and misses to get where I was, but I wasn’t done whiffing yet.

When I graduated from Colgate, I looked forward to starting the next phase of my life, but I had many fears as well. First of all, I knew the time was coming when I’d have to explain to my very traditional dad that I was about to try my luck as a comedian.

There I was, sitting among my classmates at

voice, “follow your dreams.” But, the truth is, he was not happy with my decision, and things got pretty rough between us for a while. And it didn’t help when I announced that I was moving to New York City.

The other Broken Lizard guys and I had decided that if we really wanted to pursue our comedy and acting careers, we had to do it full steam ahead. I packed up all my possessions in two duffel bags, and with $200 in my wallet, I said good-bye to family and friends and set off for the big city.

Now, there’s this romantic notion of an aspiring actor waiting tables, scraping money together until that “big break” happens. Let me tell you, there was nothing romantic about it.

We worked minimum-wage jobs, doing whatever we could just to cover the rent. All so we could do

John D. Hubbard

Broken Lizard on stage, 1992: Stolhanske as a condemned man forced to exist between game show contestants, played

by Lauren Bright ’90 and Paul Soter ’91.

things were different. Instead of hearing some stuffy theater professor shout, “Thank you. Next!” I got cast!

Good-bye, Paul Newman — hello, Bill Murray!

For a year and a half, we wrote and performed live sketch-comedy shows. We parodied movies, current events, and even real people from campus.

No one was safe. Not professors, not fraternities, and not even the Catholic priest, Father Tom — we transformed him into a campus crime fighter.

I loved being on stage. That’s when I realized that making people laugh was much more fun than being laughed at.

commencement, waiting to accept my diploma, thinking about how most of them were fulfilling their parents’ dreams by heading off to law school or med school — something noble, or at least profitable!

Through the sea of proud parents, I could only make out the top of my dad’s head. I was envisioning how he would react when I tried to convince him that his $100,000 investment in my education was going to pay off big time now that I had decided to become an actor. A comedic actor.

My dad has always been supportive, and I wish I could tell you that he took the news well — that he patted me on the shoulder and said, “Son,” in that dad

comedy on the weekends, for no pay.

You know the expression, “It takes 10 years to be an overnight success?” Well, that was us.

After several years of slugging it out in the city, we happened to book a show outside of New York. So we piled into Jay’s beat-up old Saab and hit the road.

You remember Jay — the staple-gun guy?

We were cruising along when our “big break” came to us in a most unexpected way — we were pulled over for speeding.

Jay was driving, so he got stuck with the ticket.

Naturally, we made fun of him for turning into a wimp when the officer came to the window.

News and views for the Colgate community

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Broken Lizard

The creators of the cult hit comedy Super Troopers, this group of friends got their start in comedy with the founding of improv group Charred Goosebeak at Colgate.

After graduation, they reassembled in New York City as the Broken Lizard comedy troupe and set out to make it as entertainers on the club scene. In 1996, the writers, actors, producers, and directors turned to filmmaking. Their first movie, Puddle Cruiser, which they filmed at Colgate, became an official selection at the 1997 Sundance Film Festival and won the Hamptons Film Festival Grand Prize Golden Starfish Award.

Following Super Troopers in 2001 (voted #2 by Huffington Post readers in their Funniest Movies of the Decade poll, and considered a must-watch-before-graduation rite by Colgate students), Broken Lizard went on to make Club Dread, Beerfest, and The Slammin’ Salmon. They also appeared in The Dukes of Hazzard (based on the 1970s television series), which founder Jay Chandrasekhar ’90 directed. They still perform sketch and stand-up comedy together regularly — including several shows in Brea, Calif., this past February — but each also has his own independent projects, as well.

Erik gave us the inside scoop on what he and his buddies are up to these days.

Jay ChandrasEkhar ’90

Says Erik: “Nicknamed ‘The Brown Clown,’ ‘Wheels,’ ‘Steam,’ ‘Dr. Nifty’ — the truth is ... Jay has always tried to give himself a nickname, but nothing has ever stuck” - Directed episodes for various hit television shows, including Chuck, Happy Endings, Up All Night, Psych, Arrested Development, Cracking Up, Oliver Beene, Andy Richter Controls the Universe, and Undeclared.

- Nominated for the NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Director of a Comedy Series for ABC’s Happy Endings — “The Girl with the David Tattoo”

Kevin heffErnan ’90*

Says Erik: “Kevin passed the bar in both New York and Connecticut. By far the most organized of the group. He has a clipboard for everything.”

- Appeared in the familyadventure Sky High, starring Kurt Russell and Kelly Preston - Co-starred with Steve Zahn, Jonah Hill, and Justin

directed Dark Circles (starring Pell James and Johnathon Schaech) for After Dark Films. He’s underway on the dark satire A Nasty Piece of Work, and a zombie deconstruction called unHUMAN and is developing the horror-thriller TV project Rapid Falls with New Wave Entertainment.

The Super Troopers (L to R): Jay Chandrasekhar, Paul Soter, Steve Lemme, Erik Stolhanske, and Kevin Heffernan

Long in Strange Wilderness - Co-wrote the comedy Preaching to the Choir, starring Patti Labelle, Tichina Arnold, and Eartha Kitt

scene: Spring 2012

- Recently wrapped up production as the lead — a narcissistic self-help guru — in the independent comedy RockBarnes: The Emperor in You

Steve lemme ’91*

Says Erik: “Steve has more than 250 pairs of dress shoes. He’s the Imelda Marcos of the group.”

- Wrote a half-hour comedy pilot script with Fox called Green Card, based on his ludicrous, real-life, green card marriage to a Swedish woman - Stars with Beverley D’Angelo and Steve Guttenberg in the family film I Heart Shakey, currently in post-production

Soter and Stolhanske as Brothers Jan and Todd Wolfhouse, Beerfest

32

* Lemme and Heffernan have recently embarked on a two-man comedy tour. Check out heffernanlemme.com for more information and a tour schedule.

Erik Stolhanske ’91

Stolhanske, Lemme, Heffernan, Chandrasekhar, and Soter in a scene from Beerfest

paul Soter ’91

- Featured in the Plyometrics workout on the P90X video Says Erik: “Paul has gigantic series with Tony Horton calves. Rumor is, he stores - He and Soter are currently corn in them.” writing a script with NFL - His directorial debut, superstar Jared Allen — a Watching the Detectives comedy loosely based starring Cillian Murphy and on Allen’s life called Plus One Lucy Liu, was an official - Learn more about his 2007 Tribeca Film Festival speaking tour at his website, selection. erikstolhanske.net - Since embracing his bizarre fascination with horror, he has written and

Then we wondered if these officers, who seem so tough all the time, have a sense of humor, because we thought it must be so boring waiting around in a cruiser all day just to pull people over. How did they pass the time? What if they invented games to play on speeders to entertain themselves?

Well, that’s how the seed for our movie Super Troopers was planted.

We started writing, and rewriting, until we had a script. We shopped Super Troopers around to all the major studios, and they loved it — until we told them that we wanted to star in it.

One studio executive said, “If you get Matt Damon and Ben Affleck to star in it, you’ve got a deal.”

They didn’t care that we wanted to be like Kids in the Hall or Monty Python. Super Troopers was our baby!

We wanted to be stars! And we believed we could pull it off!

We didn’t give up. For the next year, we went back to our menial jobs and reworked the script, rewriting nearly 20 drafts.

Finally our friend Rob Barocci ’90 called to let us know he had met a retired investment banker, Peter Lengyel, who was interested in getting into the film business and was looking for scripts.

But, we wondered, what were the chances that a retired banker in his 60s would appreciate a script about a bunch of cops who pull pranks on the people they pull over? What are the odds of him laughing at all?

That’s why we were blown away when he told us he loved it and was willing to invest $1.5 million to make the movie independently.

Now, $1.5 million sounds like a lot of money, and it is, but it all went into getting the movie up on the screen. Not a penny went into our already threadbare and empty pockets.

Between acting school, rent, travel, and the time I took off from work to film Super Troopers, I had accrued some serious debt. The only way I could pay my rent was to take out cash advances from my credit cards until I had maxed them all out.

I stopped answering the phone because I knew it would be a lawyer, debt collector, or the IRS. It got to the point where I couldn’t cover all my bills, and I became practically homeless. All of my possessions were packed in the back of my old beat-up Volvo.

For a while, I crashed on a friend’s couch in his small bungalow. He and his wife were incredibly generous, because there definitely was not enough room for me, but they welcomed me into their home anyway.

One evening, he asked if I could find somewhere else to sleep for the night. It was their one-year anniversary and they wanted some alone time. I felt terrible for being such an imposition, so of course I told him I’d find somewhere else to sleep.

Even though it was getting late, I went out to my old car and started calling friends. What choice did I have?

Every number I dialed went straight to voicemail.

I started panicking, when out of the blue, I got a call from one of my closest friends from high school, Robert. He was in town on business and wanted to

slamming in our faces when we tried to sell our script.

And I think about packing all my things into that broken-down old car without a place to sleep or a dollar in my pocket.

Yet, despite all those setbacks, I had forged ahead.

There is one rule that I’ve always tried to apply to my life. You’ve all heard the expression, “The grass is always greener on the other side.” The point of that saying is that you should be happy with the side you’re on.

I disagree.

How do you know unless you jump over the fence and check it out for yourself? You may get to the other side and find that you’re standing in muck and dirt and dust and don’t like it there at all. Or, maybe it is greener, but it’s that cheap Astroturf that is really shiny and plastic and uncomfortable and all you want to do is to go back to your side.

So my rule is this: always jump the fence. At least you’ll know you went to see what it looked like.

I never got to play for the Minnesota Twins, and if you were expecting my final message to be, “You can do anything you set your mind to,” I’m sorry to disappoint you. You can’t — and anyone who tells you differently is a bigger liar than I was during my freshman year at Colgate. If it were true, I’d be wrapping up a hall of fame career right about now.

But because I found something else that I loved — making movies — and stuck with it, this past August, I got as close to my childhood dream as I’ll ever get.

how do yoU know unlEss you jump over the fEnce And check iT out for yoUrself? watching larger-than-life me on the screen. The movie started. People were laughing.

I can’t believe I’m admitting this, but I’m man enough. I started to cry. I cried because I imagined the laughter in the theater that night must have had the same effect on me that the cheers from the crowd had on Rod Carew many years before as he rounded the bases, scoring a winning run.

I’ve been through a lot of ups and downs through the years. There were many times when the world kept telling me “no,” but I refused to accept “no” as an answer.

I think about bleeding through those gym socks on the Little League field, or all those times I got turned down at auditions in college.

I think about door after door of major studios

It turns out that the Minnesota Twins’ first baseman, Justin Morneau, is a fan of Super Troopers. He asked me to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at a Twins game. [You can watch it at: tinyurl.com/stolhanske twinspitch] As I left the ballpark, smiling from ear to ear, I spotted the bronze statue of none other than number 29, Mr. Rod Carew.

I wondered, what if Rod Carew had never bothered to take any chances in his life? What if he believed that just because he was a poor kid born on a train in Panama he couldn’t play professional baseball? Something tells me he looked at the grass on the other side of the fence and jumped right over.

Or, what if I, a kid with a wooden leg, had believed that it was impossible for me to become the captain

As i LefT ThE BAlLpArk, smiling FroM ear to ear, i SpottEd the bronze StatuE of none other than number 29, mr. rod carew.

Minnesota Twins

meet up for a beer. We met at Chez Jay, an old bar famous for being the haunt where Marlon Brando used to hang out.

Robert and I were sitting at this legendary bar filled with the ghosts of Hollywood past. And he was telling me about how great his career is, that he was happily married, how they had just bought a new home, and they were looking forward to starting a family. Our lives could not have been more different!

I was jobless, penniless, homeless, and alone.

I was happy for my friend — I really was, but more than anything, at that moment, I realized that as low as I had gotten, I was still not willing to give up on my dream of making movies.

Franklin Roosevelt said, “When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”

And that’s what I did, hovering just above rock bottom.

It’s a good thing that I did, because the next day I got “the call” — Super Troopers had made it into the Sundance Film Festival! I got into my Volvo, spent every last dime I had on gas money, and drove to Park City, Utah.

The night our movie was set to premiere, I paced outside the theater. This was the culmination of 10 years of hard work, the embodiment of a lifetime of hopes and dreams.

I was too scared to go in.

I was scared no one would show up. I was scared no one would laugh. I was scared they’d all walk out.

Finally, I forced myself to walk in. I stood at the back of the darkened theater — regular-sized me

of my high school baseball team or star in a major motion picture?

I think the best advice I can share is this: Be a little delusional. Pursue your dreams stubbornly.

Allow yourself to get knocked down — then dust yourself off and get back up again, and again, and again. In my experience, it’s in the moments when you’re most willing to fail that success has a way of finding you.

And, although you may not have prosthetic body parts, everyone has a “wooden leg” of some kind. I’m living proof that once you realize that your “wooden leg,” whatever it may be, is really just in your head, that’s when you can stay true to yourself, pursue your dreams with foolish perseverance, and truly achieve success in life — whatever that may mean to you.

One last thought. If you actually do have a wooden leg … don’t play kickball. ©Erik Stolhanske. All rights reserved.

*DISCLAIMER: My story is mostly based on actual events; however, certain names and details have been changed to protect the guilty.

I am a comedian, after all.

News and views for the Colgate community

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Illustrations by Andrew Baker 34

scene: Spring 2012

Should I or Shudhify?

Two Colgate students from India question pervasive corruption in their homeland. Now they’re combining social activism and academic techniques to cut it off at the grass roots.

By Aleta Mayne and Mark Walden t was an elaborate plan. Flanked by five other college students, Bharadwaj Obula Reddy ’12 and Srikar Gullapalli ’13 were plotting to disrupt the routine chaos in downtown Bangalore’s Jayanagar regional transport office (India’s equivalent of the Department of Motor Vehicles). Armed with a guitar, Gullapalli would make his way into the middle of the dilapidated room, while the others dispersed to the corners.

Together, they’d start belting out India’s national anthem, moving toward the middle of the room while encouraging the citizens waiting in line for services to join them in song.

At least, that was their plan. But security guards caught a glimpse of the crew with a guitar case and videocamera, and pushed them back out of the office. Undeterred, and knowing the sacrosanctity of India’s national anthem, the students re-entered — this time, launching into song from the moment they opened the doors. “[Indians] believe that if someone is singing the national anthem, everyone has to stand straight and sing along — it’s a sign of respect,” Reddy explained. Their brazenness worked.

The guards allowed them to enter. Onlookers froze in their tracks, a hush fell over the room, and one by one, the people in the room — approximately 80 of them — joined in, albeit quietly. When the song ended, the students pulled informational pamphlets out of their bags, threw them on the floor, and ran back out into the windy August day. As they had hoped, people followed them into the street, pamphlets in hand, wanting to know more. Reddy and Gullapalli gleamed with pride. It was the first time they had distributed their findings about the corrupt nature of government offices in India; they had piqued people’s interest, and incited an impromptu patriotic act in order to protest government corruption.

Ultimately, they would come to name their efforts “Shudhify” — a combination of shudh meaning “pure” and the English suffix “ify.”

I

The gReaT aWakening “Very few Americans — probably no one in this country — leave their houses in the morning knowing that, at some point during the course of the day, it’s probable that someone’s going to hit them up for a bribe. But in India, they do,” said Michael Johnston, political science professor and the students’ adviser.

This concept — that bribery is engrained in Indian society — gets at the heart of Gullapalli and Reddy’s efforts to effect grassroots change in their homeland.

Corruption in post-independence India dates back decades, to the late 1940s, according to the South Asia Analysis Group. But, during the summer of 2011 — as Gullapalli and Reddy were conducting their research — the situation was boiling over. Wellknown social activist Anna Hazare had launched a high-profile hunger strike, campaigning for a strong anticorruption (Lokpal) bill. At the same time the bill was proposed, the leadership of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh came under fire for alleged financial malpractices related to the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games and an alleged multibilliondollar 2G cell phone scam.

Growing up in India — Gullapalli in Bangalore and Reddy in West Godavari — both young men had always been cognizant of their government’s corrupt practices. As Reddy explained it, corruption is such a common theme that it oftentimes forms the plot lines of Indian movies. Awareness of corruption was also discussed openly in both of the students’ homes.

As school teachers, Reddy’s parents have witnessed government unfairness firsthand, from limited school resources to increased job requirements, depending on the party in power. And, although Gullapalli’s father isn’t directly employed by the government, he does work for an electronics company that provides much of the technology used by India’s national defense department. Gullapalli called that company “one of those few beacons of perfect integrity where even the

smallest infraction has a huge penalty.” He added that his father’s “biggest watchword is integrity.”

Yet, it often takes personal experience to bring the true meaning of something into focus. For Reddy, the tainted system hit him directly when he needed to obtain a driver’s license to serve as identification when he enrolled at Colgate. To do so, Reddy had to go through a “middleman” who would be paid a bribe to facilitate the process. “Basically, there’s a guy for everything,” Reddy explained. “There’s a license guy, a construction permit guy, a land registration guy…” Reddy met his “license guy” not at the transport office, but through an arrangement set up by his father. In rural India, the process to obtain services starts with the middleman.

The fee: 3,000 rupees, or approximately $60 (not much for middle-class citizens, but a deal breaker for lowincome families in India, home to the globe’s highest concentration of people living below the World Bank’s $1.25-per-day poverty line). Before Reddy even set foot in the regional transport office, he and his father had to meet this middleman several times to fill out paperwork. Although he knew that this was the way things were done, Reddy was shocked when he and the middleman went to the transport office and he was told that he wouldn’t be taking his own test. “I was prepared to take it. I wanted to take it,” he emphasized.

Despite Reddy’s protests, the government official took the computer test for him. Within two days, he was granted a license that is valid for 20 years. “That was a moment of insight,” Reddy reflected.

Gullapalli attributes his interest in corruption to a confluence of his background and experiences, which included interning for a microfinance research firm in Bangalore after high school graduation and then joining the British Parliamentary debate team his first year at Colgate. As he argued over big ideas in competition against other universities, he was selected to join 60 students from around the world for the 2009 Global Changemakers program in London, organized by the British Council. Through that program, he started refining some of his ideas — one of them being the seed of Shudhify. He wanted to identify the extent of Indian corruption at the local level and develop incentives for his countrymen to find new ways of conducting business.

In London, Gullapalli pitched an early concept for Shudhify to a World Bank representative, who loved it.

That positive reinforcement, combined with the energy of other participants who were brainstorming ideas for grassroots change, got him fired up. That spring semester, he enrolled in Johnston’s Political Corruption course.

“It was a conscious choice on my part, because Professor Johnston is one of the world’s leading experts in corruption,” he said. (In 2009, as author of the book Syndromes of Corruption, Johnston received the prestigious Grawemeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order.

Johnston has also served in various roles for Transparency International, a global nonprofit organization that monitors corporate and political corruption.)

SPeaking a Common language Reddy and Gullapalli became fast friends with their first namaskaram (hello) at Colgate. Although they News and views for the Colgate community

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Established by Ed ’62 and Robin Lampert P’10 in 2009, the fellowship provides full funding for Colgate students to research a public affairs issue of global significance during the summer.

As director of the PPE, Brubaker was one of the board members who approved Gullapalli and Reddy for the fellowship.

In addition, the pair secured funding from the World Bank and the British Council. Their project would begin in the summer of 2011.

making oPinionS add uP

hail from two different states that are more than 400 miles apart in India, India, they learned soon after meeting that that they both speak Telugu, a dialect native native to Andhra Pradesh — Reddy’s state, where Gullapalli’s state, where Gullapalli’s father grew up. It didn’t take long for them to discover that they also had shared interests and motivations.

“They have a level of energy that I can only dimly imagine,” Johnston noted of the friends. Their ambition became apparent to Johnston in early 2011 when they approached him with an overwhelming array of ideas on how to measure corruption, hold politicians accountable, and examine their country’s system of corruption at its roots.

“To be indelicate, he was our bullshit radar,” Gullapalli said of Johnston. With the professor’s guidance, they honed in on a manageable goal: that seed of an idea that Gullapalli had pitched at the Global Changemakers program. They decided to survey Indian citizens outside of government offices immediately after receiving services in order to gauge the effectiveness and efficiency of those sites.

Now, the students had to answer the nagging question of how to put their ideas into motion. They discovered an opportunity on a poster hanging on the office door of political science professor Stanley Brubaker, who had also been advising them. The sign prompted them to apply for the Lampert Summer Fellowship in Public Affairs, coordinated by Colgate’s Institute for Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE).

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The students chose Bangalore — Gullapalli’s hometown and a place with which Reddy was also well acquainted — as the starting well acquainted point for their Shudhify project. Known as point for their Shudhify India’s Silicon Valley, Bangalore is “a India’s Silicon developed, developed, metropolitan city,” Reddy explained. “We wanted Reddy to do it in a place where to people people are educated and and socially aware.” socially

Added Gullapalli,

Gullapalli, “[The people in] Bangalore have a history of holding holding the government accountable and of pushing for transparency.” One particular citizen feedback campaign, the Citizens’ Report Card (CRC), served as a as a building block for the students. Over three years, the the Public Affairs Center mailed surveys to households households to measure public satisfaction with various publicsector agencies. Gullapalli and Reddy hypothesized that brief, on-site surveys would more effectively gather data and hold the bureaucracy accountable.

Unlike the CRC, the students would conduct their survey directly outside of those government offices whenever possible. The questions would delve into the customers’ perceptions of the service they had received immediately after, rather than weeks or months later as with the CRC model. And, unlike other surveys, they would conduct theirs more frequently and on a local scale, to keep it logistically and financially manageable.

To achieve their goals, Reddy and Gullapalli created a survey that included five simple questions to be rated on a scale of 1 to 10. The questions would ask about the ease and organization of the process, the helpfulness and accessibility of the government officers, speed of service, cost of service in terms of

total money spent and work hours missed, and the cleanliness of the surroundings. Those questions were followed by four yes/no questions to find out if a middleman was used, if they felt threatened, if they were asked to pay a bribe, and if they would use that office again.

Although the two students drafted the questions, they didn’t trust the final product to their own imaginations. They flipped on the B.S. meter and Skyped with Professor Johnston from their home base in India. Then, they took their questions on the road and showed them to 30 random citizens in Bangalore, 90 percent of whom thought that the questions would do the trick.

In terms of their academic interests and specialties, Reddy and Gullapalli move within each other’s circles on campus and have taken several of the same courses. But, at the end of the day, Gullapalli is the political science major and Reddy is the math/economics major. With the survey questions developed, it was time for Reddy’s numerical skills to factor into the equation.

The goal of the Shudhify project is to produce a single score rating multiple offices throughout the city. In order to produce that kind of final figure, Reddy and Gullapalli had to create an algorithm; in other words, they had to give each rated question a point score based on its relative value. The process had begun 9,000 miles away in McGregory Hall in the spring of 2011. At that time, Gullapalli was taking Professor Dan Schult’s Applied Math for Social Sciences course (Reddy was already a class veteran).

Together, they approached Schult for a little advice.

“We went through the process just like in class and tried to identify what things could be measured and what things would be important to measure,” Schult remembered.

Schult remembered.

To determine the relative value — the To importance of each item measured for their importance rating system — Reddy and Gullapalli rating convened focus groups in Bangalore early convened in the summer and asked representative in the populations what they most looked for populations when they went to seek services at local when police stations, regional transport offices police (RTOs), and utility offices. “We realized that perception is all that matters,” said Reddy. “Because what the government needs to know is how happy the people are.”

Based on their research, they weighted the first five questions to determine the number of possible points that could be awarded for each. In an ideal world, for example, a police station could receive up to 20 points for a perfect rating on the service scale. But how would a customer know if his service was worth service was worth full points if he used a middleman? He wouldn’t. So, if he said “yes” to the

question of “Did you use a middleman?” Reddy and Gullapalli took off a standard number of points when the final tally was complete. If the survey participant didn’t use a middleman and was threatened directly as a result, again, the offending agency was docked points on its final score. But, if the service was speedy and the customer went unthreatened, an agency stood to gain. In this way, the yes/no questions served as a check on subjective responses.

Having started with their gut instincts, Reddy and Gullapalli consulted professionals and nonprofit organizations to test the soundness of their method.

They reconnected with Schult and Johnston. They also submitted their algorithm to the Public Affairs Center, authors of the Citizens’ Report Card. After receiving an international blessing, they decided to go live with their survey.

Dividing Bangalore into zones, the students identified the city’s six RTOs and chose 45 high-traffic police stations around the city as their survey sites.

“The agencies we selected represent a mix of essential and nonessential services, and denote what we saw as a cross-section of a citizen’s life in relation to the services provided by the government,” the students explained in their final report. Since then, they have rezoned the city according to its 28 legislative constituencies so that politicians can be, in the end, held accountable. Organized in that fashion, the feedback can serve as “a metric to judge a political incumbent when he stands up for re-election,” Gullapalli explained, noting that “politicians promise better services when they campaign.”

To gain permission to conduct surveys in police stations, they sought the help of a police commissioner, who also happened to be the uncle of Reddy’s high school friend. “He is pro-change, very innovative,” Reddy explained. “He asked us to write a letter that he signed, stating that we should be given any help we needed.”

The pair also wanted to gauge the public’s satisfaction with the government agencies that manage electricity, land allocation and infrastructure development, water and sewage, and property taxes and town planning. Because the majority of those agencies’ business happens in people’s homes, those surveys were conducted by canvassing neighborhoods near the selected police stations.

Gullapalli and Reddy’s team of graduate students in Bangalore administered close to 2,000 surveys, and more are still being conducted.

‘middlemen SuCk’ Although data is still being collated, the students’ initial findings are dismal. None of the RTOs fulfilled even half of the citizens’ expectations, with scores ranging from 3.93 to 4.8 out of 10. Yet, Gullapalli and Reddy remain optimistic about the potential for change. “While this depicts the sad state of RTOs currently, it also conveys another important idea: as excessive corruption and inefficiency are desensitizing the people as a nation, this statistic tells us that people are still expecting better service from the government and have not given up hope,” the students explained in their report.

The most corrupt RTO was found to be the Jayanagar office. For that dubious distinction, it was the chosen site of the students’ peaceful protest by song. The pamphlets they dropped before fleeing offered simple information and advice: “Middlemen suck. Why? For an average increase in speed only from 4.276/10 to 4.492/10, is it worth all those extra 1000s of rupees they charge you?” Instead, they suggested, the money is better spent on something else, like going to the theater.

Customer satisfaction with police stations was also low — meeting less than or barely half of the expectations.

What’s more, at the two stations that received the lowest ratings, between 60 and 100 percent of those surveyed said they had been threatened. Responses from all 2,000 surveys indicated that close to 40 percent reported being threatened.

Gullapalli and Reddy are still collecting data regarding other types of agencies. From the early data, they have found interesting patterns when comparing different government agencies in the same areas, including correlations between high or low service efficiency and high or low corruption levels. For example, in one zone, the police station ranked the lowest among all police stations, the RTO also ranked the lowest, and 100 percent of respondents to surveys in the same zone reported being threatened.

"[Gullapalli and Reddy] may be in a position to put information and tools in the hands of the people who really can change the way [Bangalore] is governed."

— Political science professor Michael Johnston

Left to right: Srikar Gullapalli ’13 and Bharadwaj Obula Reddy ’12

a PloT To PloT CoRRuPTion Once all of the data is collected, Gullapalli and Reddy will create a map depicting the corruption scores around Bangalore. Different colors will indicate how much corruption or inefficiency exists in particular zones of the city. Their goal is to inform citizens — of the city’s best police station with the least instances of corruption, the location of the most efficient RTO, or the office that enables simple, hassle-free home construction.

Between their own dissemination efforts and the press (the students have already garnered media attention in two articles in the Times of India), Gullapalli and Reddy believe that the spread of information will empower citizens as well as encourage government officials to elevate standards and decrease corruption. After all, “the government’s goal is to meet citizens’ standards,” Gullapalli emphasized.

Acknowledging that not all government officials are corrupt, the students have been interviewing employees at various offices, asking them why they believe people were dissatisfied and gave them a low score. Thus far, Gullapalli and Reddy have met a few local commissioners who have asked for suggestions and are considering engaging with the other offices to improve their ratings. “The willingness of these government officers to work with us and their desire to get a better rating is encouraging,” Gullapalli said.

“The next plan is to draw specific directives.”

Taking a top-down approach has had its pitfalls, however, because getting access to “those who are actually doing the paper pushing” has been what Gullapalli and Reddy have called a “bureaucratic nightmare.” They did receive help from a transport commissioner, who gave them an official seal of permission to conduct their interviews, and they are hoping that other connections will pave the way in other offices.

Gullapalli and Reddy are planning more performance activism — “wacky, crazy, attention-grabbing dares that are tailored to the trend that we observe in a particular office or zone,” they said in their final report. For example, they’re already choreographing a zombie dance mimicking Michael Jackson’s Thriller, to be performed at the government office that has been deemed to have the slowest service.

Gullapalli and Reddy see the potential for change as three-pronged. Citizens will be less tolerant and will be informed enough to be able to hold their government agency branches to the standard of the best branches in the city. Officers will perform better because they will know they are being compared to their counterparts in other parts of the city (they may also aspire to be transferred to a more desirable branch). And, private investment firms will be more attracted to areas of low corruption and high efficiency.

Continued on page 46 News and views for the Colgate community

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Beautiful things

A veritable treasure trove of rare and lovely materials — from volumes of photographs to books that represent the quintessence of literary and printing history — lives in Colgate’s Special Collections and Archives. Many offer visual gems that delight the eye and nurture the soul. Students who visit for research assignments often ask the same two questions: how much the collection is worth (it’s nearly impossible to answer that), and how Colgate came to possess the materials. Although the origins of some are a mystery, many were transferred from Case Library’s main collection, some were purchased to serve the archive’s educational mission, and others, given to Colgate, have an interesting provenance or intriguing story to tell. — Rebecca Costello

Green-crowned brilliant (Heliodoxa jacula), Part XVI. Sept. 1, 1858 (left) Elicia’s Golden Tail (Chrysuronia eliciæ), Part XVI. Sept. 1, 1858 (right) Nineteenth-century naturalist John Gould’s 25-volume A Monograph of the Trochilidæ, or Humming Birds (1849–1861), depicts 418 species from around

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the globe. Gould and his studio used gold leaf, transparent oil colors, watercolors, lacquers, and gum Arabic to beautifully capture the iridescent quality of the birds. Colgate has the complete set of what is considered Gould’s masterpiece, produced from hand-colored stone lithographs.

Mission San Carlos de Borromeo, 1926. Spanish Mission California, a portfolio of etchings “briefly described in the order of their founding” by L.N. Scammon, is a fine example of artisanal bookmaking by a fine arts press; in this case, Grabhorn Press of San Francisco.

Red Lily (Lilium montanum), # 166, Plate II. From the limited edition lithograph set North American Wildflowers, Vol. 1, 1925, by Mary Vaux Walcott (published by the Smithsonian Institution).

Walcott made her watercolor paintings of wildflowers while accompanying her husband, Charles, who was secretary of the Smithsonian, on his business travels. This set was acquired by James C. Colgate, Class of 1884, and his wife, Hope, discerning book collectors who donated many amazing items to the university.

Grey Fox, Canis (vulpes) virginianus, Plate XXI, 1843. From Colgate’s twovolume set of J.J. Audubon’s enormous The Viviparous Quadrupeds of North America, a supreme example of color lithography that helped foster Americans’ appreciation of nature.

Printed and colored by J.T. Bowen, Philadelphia.

Believed to be a gift of the Colgate family.

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La Beale Isoud at Joyous Gard From ‘Le Morte D’Arthur’ (right) A Catalogue Cover (bottom left) These two rather tame but lovely images come from The Later Work of Aubrey Beardsley (1901), reproductions of art by the controversial English Art Nouveau artist and printmaker known more for his tendency to depict macabre or erotic scenes in black and white.

Illustration from The Girl With the Golden Eyes. This 1928 fine-print edition of Honore de Balzac’s novella, with illustrations by Donald Denton (Peacock Press, Chicago, 1928), was a gift of Norman H. Strouse H’58 to the Thomas M. Iiams Collection of Books about Books. A librarian at Colgate from 1939 to 1959, Iiams led the $2 million drive to build Case Library and was an authority on methods of preserving rare books and manuscripts.

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Front and back covers, Wine, Women, and Song (above). Featuring medieval Latin students’ songs and an essay by English poet and literary critic John Addington Symonds, this book is an 1884 limited edition of only 50 copies, printed by Chatto & Windus. And yet, the text is basically inconsequential. Its significance lies in its cover, embossed with gold and precious stones, which was crafted by the London-based bookbinder Sangorski & Sutcliffe, famous for making books to be sold as luxury products. The records are unclear, but likely a gift of the Colgate family.

“In a Piegan Lodge,” Plate 188, 1910 (right). The university has a full set of photographer Edward S. Curtis’s The North American Indian, photogravures printed by John Andrew & Son (published between 1907 and 1930). Curtis’s project to portray the traditional ways of life of tribes throughout the continent became one of the most significant, and controversial, representations of traditional American Indian culture ever produced. Extremely expensive at the time, and offered by subscription only, merely 220 sets were sold. Colgate’s full set, numbered 132 out of only 500 made, was a gift of Hope (Mrs. James C.) Colgate.

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The three books from which the illustrations on this page were selected are prime examples of artisinal bookmaking.

“The Hare & The Tortoise” and facing title page (top). Notable British artist Arthur Rackham was known for his highly detailed and fanciful drawings for many classics of children’s literature.

Colgate’s copy of this limited edition of Aesop’s Fables (Heinemann, Doubleday, 1912) is signed by Rackham and marked #1386 of 1450.

It was given to Colgate

by Charlotte Stillman in memory of her father, Thomas E. Stillman, Class of 1859, along with a large collection of books with fine bindings.

Stanza V from the book So Here Then Is the Last Ride (left). This edition of Robert Browning’s poetry was published in 1900 by the Roycroft Shop during the renaissance of fine printing that was part of the Arts and Crafts Movement.

It features illustrations by Elbert Hubbard (founder of the Roycroft artisan community in East Aurora, N.Y.) that were handilluminated by Harriet Robarge. An inscription indicates Colgate’s copy is #6 of only 50 printed. Gift of librarian Thomas Iiams, who left his beloved collection of Roycroft books to Colgate.

Illustration from The Tale of Lohengrin, Knight of the Swan (right). Written by Irish literary figure T.W. Rolleston “after the drama of Richard Wagner,” this fine-print book (T.Y. Crowell Co., 1914) was presented by Hungarian-born illustrator, muralist, and painter Willy Pogany. Gift of Charlotte Stillman.

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Opening page,“The Knight’s Tale.” Published by William Morris’s Kelmscott Press, the 1896 edition of The Works of Geoffrey Chaucer with exquisite woodcut illustrations was immediately hailed as a masterpiece of the art of printing and typesetting — and is still widely considered one of the most beautiful books ever produced. Gift of James C. Colgate. *Many thanks to rare books and manuscripts librarian Francesca Livermore and director Sarah Keen — who undertake the care and feeding of so many beautiful things in Colgate’s special collections and archives — for sharing their knowledge and assistance. For more information about visiting the archives, go to exlibris.colgate. edu or call 315-228-6175.

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Andrew Daddio

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stay connected

“Should I or ShudhIfy?” continued from page 37

a neW SPRing

Alumni bulletin board Questions? Contact the alumni office at 315-228-7433 or alumni@colgate.edu

July 27–29 Relive the liberal arts with leading Colgate professors.

There’s still time to register! colgateconnect.org/summerhill Summer send-offs Help welcome the Class of 2016 into the Colgate community! Summer send-off parties take place all over the country. colgateconnect.org/sendoffs

Colgate In a Box Planning a get-together with Colgate friends? Whether a birthday party, golf outing, or just hanging out, let us know in advance. We’ll send you free stuff — from cups and koozies to cocktail napkins and bumper stickers. All we ask in return is that you send us a photo from the event. colgateconnect.org/gateway

Career corner In a job search? Looking to network? The Alumni Career Advisory Network (iCAN) offers a convenient searchable directory. Check it out, or update your profile today!

You can also search job postings, or post an internship or entry-level job opening at your company on the naviGATE career services page. colgateconnect.org/careerservices Opt in for LGBTQ and AOC news Colgate’s alumni of color (AOC) and LGBTQ communities are expanding their mailing lists. Want to receive news and event invitations from either or both groups?

E-mail alumni@colgate.edu.

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As seen most recently with the Arab Spring, when everyday citizens join together, they can incite a revolution within their country. In India, too, change is starting — and Gullapalli and Reddy are among those igniting the fire.

In an effort unrelated to the students’ work, but that is making an impact in the same areas, a nonprofit organization in Bangalore called Janaagraha started a website called I Paid a Bribe (ipaidabribe.com). The site provides a platform for citizens around the world to report their stories about bribery and corruption. In March, the New York Times wrote about the site and included the encouraging story of Bhaskar Rao who, as transport commissioner for the state of Karnakata (where Bangalore is located), used data from the site to push for reforms in its motor vehicle departments. Now, licenses are applied for online, and Bangalore has the world’s first automated driving test tracks, which monitor drivers’ skills with electronic sensors — to eliminate “the whims and fancies of the motor vehicle inspectors.” A number of senior officers in the department were also “cautioned” and underwent ethics counseling. “[The site] helped me get my colleagues to fall in line, and it helped me persuade my superiors that we needed to do this,” said Rao, who is now the inspector general of police for internal security.

And remember that dilapidated office where the students protested in song? Last January, with the help of Rao, it got a makeover. As reported in the Hindu newspaper, the new 26,000-square-foot facility boasts “Vitrified flooring, large windows, well-planned cubicles for the staff, chambers for officers, clear, bilingual boards and signages for different sections, giving a distinct appearance to this RTO.” Perhaps most notably, the renovations also included the installation of surveillance cameras to watch out for “touts” — middlemen and other repeat visitors who might be engaging in illegal activities.

This summer, Reddy and Gullapalli will continue their own work in Bangalore. They have applied for additional funding and, with Johnston’s help, will be meeting experts from various organizations who are interested in supporting the Shudhify project.

“In the United States, we brought corruption broadly under control, but it took a century and a half,” Johnston said. “India may not have that much time, but it also can’t be done quickly. [Gullapalli and Reddy] may be in a position to put information and tools in the hands of the people who really can change the way [Bangalore] is governed. That’s a major contribution.”

Reddy and Gullapalli have dared themselves to tackle a systemic social issue in the world’s second-most–populous country. They have dared their officers to turn away from the graft that exponentially increases public-sector salaries, and they have challenged their fellow citizens to stop participating in a system that stratifies services for rich and poor, preventing everyone from enjoying the benefits of a truly democratic society.

More dares are in the offing, and while another flash mob might provoke a smile or raise an eyebrow, the intended outcomes are intensely serious. For Gullapalli and Reddy, what began as a class project could — in the decades to come — produce a sea change in the way that Indian society sees and conducts its public life. A renovated political system would allow Gullapalli to pursue one of his dreams: running for office and serving his constituents without the ethical concerns that come with navigating a system that runs, in part, on bribery. On the cusp of graduation, Reddy — instead of following his father’s advice to work in the United States — could chase his entrepreneurial instincts in India. He could found a business without budgeting the speed money that he would currently need to ensure a quick completion of his licensing paperwork.

Like most college students, Reddy and Gullapalli have big plans for life after commencement. But, unlike many of their American peers, they believe that they have work to do before they can pursue their ambitions. They must shudhify their homeland. They began by singing with five friends, and they’re determined to have a whole nation join their anthem before the chorus ends.