Winter Scene 2010

scene Winter 2010

News and views for the Colgate community

It’s Only Natural How to Build a Novel Path to Healing

scene

Winter 2010

26 It’s Only Natural

The growing local food movement — in the dining halls, the classroom, and beyond

32 How to Build a Novel

With the revival of Living Writers last fall, renowned authors shared their art and craft with students and community

36 Path to Healing

After battling her own demons, Kate Holcombe ’93 helps others find balance

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Message from Incoming President Jeffrey Herbst

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Letters

6

Work & Play

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Colgate history, tradition, and spirit

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Life of the Mind

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Arts & Culture

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Go ’gate

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New, Noted & Quoted

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The Big Picture

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Stay Connected 2010 Alumni Council Election

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Class News 77 Marriages & Unions 77 Births & Adoptions 77 In Memoriam

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Salmagundi

DEPARTMENTS

On the cover: Principal cellist Florent Renard-Payen shares a tip with M.J. Lee ’12 during a University Orchestra rehearsal. Photo by Basil Childers. Facing page photo by Andrew Daddio News and views for the Colgate community

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scene team

Contributors

Volume XXXIX Number 2 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.

Jim Leach (“It’s Only Natural,” pg. 26), retired in 2005 as vice president for public relations and communications after 25 years at Colgate. He “redirected” his energies to a second career as a higher education communications consultant, freelance writer, and nature photographer.

Illustrator Steve Dinnino (“How to Build a Novel,” pg. 32) has clients ranging from Coca-Cola to Jaguar to Panasonic. His work appears in advertising, newspapers, magazines, books, and more. An instructor and member of the Board of Advisors of The Woodstock School of Art, he is also a widely exhibited painter and printmaker.

San Francisco photographer Jesse Goff (“Path to Healing,” pg.

36) has done highprofile work with Carlos Santana, Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachev, and clients such as Nike, Sony, and Kodak. He has created advertising photographs for some of the most recognizable American brands and travels frequently around the world.

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scene online

Listen

Colgate Conversations: www.colgate.edu/podcasts Geology professor Connie Soja discusses her research of ancient reefs that recently led her to the Gobi Desert in Mongolia. She also shares the story of Colgate’s famous 80-million-year-old dinosaur egg.

Watch

Colgate’s 16th President: www.colgate.edu/president Jeffrey Herbst talks about his aspirations for Colgate in several brief video clips. His welcome message to the campus community, delivered in the Ho Science Center, is also available.

Get connected

Online Community: www.colgatealumni.org Your class page has the latest news and an RSS feed highlighting classmates who are mentioned in the media. Log on and learn about your class!

Vice President for Public Relations and Communications Charles Melichar Managing Editor Rebecca Costello Associate Editor Aleta Mayne Director of Publications Gerald Gall Coordinator of Photographic Services Andrew Daddio Production Assistant Kathy Bridge

Look

Photo Galleries: www.colgate.edu/photos Images of autumn and the beautiful changing colors on campus are available, along with photos from the many events held on campus in recent months.

Talk

Story Discussion: http://www.colgatealumni.org/scene In the Scene’s online edition, each feature story includes an easy way to share your thoughts and comments about the article with other alumni. Take part in the conversation!

Contributing writers and designer: Director of Web Content Timothy O’Keeffe Art Director Karen Luciani Assistant Director of Athletic Communications John Gilger Director of Marketing and Public Relations Barbara Brooks Senior Advancement Writer Mark Walden Manager of Media Communications Anthony Adornato

Contact: scene@colgate.edu 315-228-7417 www.colgatealumni.org/scene

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

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 on the basis of race, color, national origin, citizenship status, sex, pregnancy, religion, creed, physical or mental disability (including AIDS), age, marital status, sexual orientation, status as a disabled veteran of the Vietnam era, or any other category protected under applicable law. The following person has been designated to handle inquiries regarding the university’s nondiscrimination policies: Keenan Grenell, Vice President and Dean for Diversity, 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, NY 13346; 315-228-6161.

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Cert no. SW-COC-00255 6

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scene: Winter 2010

Message from Incoming President Jeffrey Herbst

I am deeply honored

to have been named Colgate University’s 16th

president. Since the announcement, my wife, Sharon, and I have been greatly moved by the warm embrace offered by Colgate faculty, students, staff, and alumni, and we are excited about joining this wonderful community in July. and much negotiation to review. Students are producing ambitious original work very early in their college careers and, as the Internet matures, many more opportunities will undoubtedly become available to students and faculty alike.

On the other hand, the Internet offers so many opportunities to study remotely that it is less clear to students emerging from secondary schools that they must actually go to a campus to learn. This is a fundamental change, because for hundreds of years, students and faculty had to reside in close proximity in order to learn and to take advantage of important resources such as labs and libraries. Indeed, some believe that universities will face the same difficulties that have confronted the newspaper industry as a new generation seeks information in fundamentally different ways. It does seem inevitable that the next 25 years will see far more changes in the way students think about college.

Colgate is extremely well positioned to answer these challenges because of the profound nature of its residential community, where faculty and students work and learn in close quarters. No matter how advanced computers become, they can never replace the value of students working side by side with their professors and learning from each other in a residential setting. We must continue to enhance opportunities for student engagement with faculty and, at the same time, ensure that our residential community is welcoming to all so that students are able to interact and learn from as many of their peers as possible. These goals are not merely worthy ideas; they are essential to the strategic advantage of the university in an age where many will ask if they could not learn the same in front of a computer.

Today’s students will have careers that span most of the 21st century, and it is therefore imperative that they develop the competencies — including languages, knowledge of history and society, and a willingness to celebrate differences — to interact with people across the globe. Again, Colgate’s dedication to a liberal arts education and its enviable record of study abroad positions the university to lead in an era when institutions will be judged in good part on how well they prepare students for careers and lives that will span the globe. The opportunities for our society, but also the threats, require that we provide students with the ability to understand the world they will inherit.

Finally, I am very excited about the prospect of Colgate further enhancing its relationship with alumni in order to provide a lifetime of education. People are living longer than ever, and they rightfully look to their alma maters for continued intellectual excitement and renewal. I can think of no greater ratification of what we do, and I am eager to help fulfill this mission.

There is much else to discuss. I look forward to meeting you in Hamilton and in my travels. In the meantime, please do not hesitate to contact me at jherbst@colgate.edu to begin a discussion that I hope will continue for many years.

Andrew Daddio

While becoming familiar with Colgate, I was most impressed by the determination of the Board of Trustees, relayed emphatically by the search committee, to move the university forward even during these difficult times. Many institutions have been tempted to ride out the current storm by hunkering down and merely protecting what they have.

But Colgate’s desire to advance is derived directly, I have learned, from its tradition of leadership — in the classroom, on the playing field, and in numerous extracurricular activities — that has been passed from one generation to the next.

As we adjust to the economy that will emerge from the current recession, Colgate’s history of fiscal conservatism will serve us well as we not only balance budgets, but also seek out new opportunities. In addition, the tremendous support provided by alumni through the Passion for the Climb campaign is an extraordinary asset that makes Colgate the envy of many schools.

Beyond the immediate fiscal tests, we face a shifting higher education landscape due, in large part, to technological innovation. Rich online news and data sources allow students to do work that was previously unimaginable. In my area of African politics, for example, students are able to access African newspapers the day they are published, read justreleased reports from UN agencies, and tap into international databases that were previously inaccessible or that would have required a plane trip

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Read more about Jeffrey Herbst at www.colgate.edu/president

News and views for the Colgate community

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scene

Letters

Autumn 2009

News and views for the Colgate community

Gifts of Life, Lessons Learned Shooting Beauty Growing Pains

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.

Thanks and praise

Shooting Beauty

I have just finished 3.5 hours of solid editorial entertainment in which I devoured the Autumn ’09 issue. Your effort is incredibly good, and I have to believe that high awards will eventually be forthcoming by journalistic agencies that rate such publications.

I found myself mentally comparing the on-campus literary efforts we had in the late 1940s to this multi-faceted product of the 21st century. There is just no comparison to the Colgate News, Banter, Salmagundi, et al.

This latest issue started off with a provocative shot of a cheerleader amplifying the spirit that is Colgate.

What makes the current Scene so outstanding?

• The color is there, and so varied • The dividers; each section is very readable and contains interesting information re: Colgate happenings • The thought process going on at the Board of Trustees • Provocative letters to the editor • Pictorial testimonies from coaches or staff members • Unique accounts from interesting and successful graduates • Informative individual class news

I have just finished reading the autumn edition and want to congratulate you on a job beautifully done. The articles are interesting and the graphic images so compelling. “Shooting Beauty” stands out as a well-written description of an incredible project.

“Nothing is forever,” but our memories of Colgate publications in our era have been overwhelmed with your outstanding efforts of today. Keep up your great work!

Dave Wilson ’50 Washington, N.J. As a former writer/photographer for the Scene, during the time editor Paul Hennessy was evolving the prior design, I congratulate your team on a magnificent publication. It is highly professional, and virtually begs the reader to get involved.

Although I’m not an alum, the two years I spent in Hamilton were memorable, and the work I did for the Scene lives on strongly in my memories.

After leaving Colgate, I enjoyed a career that included positions with both daily newspapers and magazines, but my time in the Chenango Valley bears by far the best memories.

Thank you for bringing them back so vividly.

Congratulations on a job well done, and please keep up the great work.

Alan Tepper Potomac, Md.

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scene: Winter 2010

Caroline Davenport Johnson ’74 New York, N.Y. I teach at Ashland Theological Seminary, Ashland, Ohio. The outstanding article “Shooting Beauty” would help my students next semester to learn to fully include persons with handicapping conditions in their congregations and ministries.

Dr. Jane Jacques P’10 Ashland, Ohio

Growing Pains I found “Growing Pains” (Autumn 2009) to be one of the best and most profound articles I have ever read. The story, plus presentation, are magnificent. This article stimulated some good study and thinking for me. My conclusion is that the world population growth problem continues to be declining, primarily by the decisions of the growing world middle class.

All of the developed nations have a rapidly declining birth rate, as do the newer developing nations (especially China with its one child/family edict).

[Albert] Bartlett’s article even quoted a 25 percent world birth rate decline between 1986 and 1999. This decline is anticipated to continue until equilibrium is achieved to around 9 billion people in the middle of this century.

So much has to be accomplished to continue to improve the quality of life for more and more of the world’s population. Since World War II, we have demonstrated more progress on this than any other time in history.

We have done this without a major specific effort to reduce birth rates (except for communist China). All other nations’ birth rate reductions have occurred because our intelligence has enabled us to survive with increased quality of life with less and less dependence on offspring. Let’s increase our efforts solving those problems to improve our quality of life. In the meantime, too many children

continues to become less and less of a problem.

Elmer Humes ’58 Pittsford, N.Y. I believe the article “Growing Pains” was in poor taste and out of place in the Colgate Scene. This is a very old argument, and many people believe population control is not a panacea for most of our problems.

Edward T. Schell ’43 Groton Long Point, Conn.

While refuting many of Bartlett’s claims would take as long as his article about the dangers of people, his last quote is quite telling. In summing up his article, he claims, “Can you think of any problem on any scale, from microscopic to global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by having larger populations?”

I can think of many problems that have been aided by having larger populations. In fact, all of the problems we have had in the world have been solved by people who have been part of those larger populations. And, I think, the attitude toward people and populations is one of the fundamental differences between liberalism and conservatism. Does one see people in aggregate as an asset or a burden? I, for one, see them as an asset.

Mr. Bartlett then adds a question that should come as quite an offense to anyone who graduated after he did in 1944: “Can you think of anything that will get better if we crowd more students into Colgate University?” I am quite glad Colgate expanded to accommodate more students. I, for one, probably could not have attended a university that was all-male, mostly fraternity-based, and certainly more closed to students such as I who did not have any family members who previously attended the institution.

Joseph Evans ’05, MAT’07 Silver Spring, Md.

Banter As a former editor of Banter (we eliminated “The” in ’54, so that our covers would be more striking), I was very pleased to see some selections of the magazine in the last Scene (Page 13, Autumn 2009).

I am particularly partial to the January 1956 cover by Jim Berrall ’56, our art editor, because of its stark composition of a giant snowflake and freezing student against a very blue sky. I hope you will be able to show it to your readers in one of your future editions.

Thank you for providing us all with your wonderful publication and eye-catching photography in its new format!

Ben Patt ’56 Vero Beach, Fla. Editor’s note: Happy to oblige; here’s January 1956:

I absolutely love the artwork for the Banter covers showcased in the autumn issue. Is it possible to order the images as prints? Perhaps in the future, the bookstore could sell the covers as prints, or Colgate could offer them as a contribution gift during fundraising.

I think the prints would make a fantastic, affordable option for alumni/students who can’t commit to a collegiate-themed chair or lamp.

They are the perfect balance of fun and nostalgia.

Allison Robinson ’05 West Hartford, Conn.

Editor’s note: We are working on a solution for making select images from the Scene available for purchase as prints, which we hope to announce in the spring editon. Stay tuned!

Knitters’ DNA I spent lots of time at Colgate when my husband, Gary Reitzas ’59, was a student there. I enjoy reading the Scene.

In the Autumn 2009 issue, on page 16, there is an article about biology professor Nancy Pruitt teaching her students how to knit. The article also discussed her work in isolating the DNA sequence of the dehydrin gene.

She might be interested to know that there are several knitting patterns for a DNA cable that make a beautiful scarf. For more information, e-mail me at lreitzas@comcast.net.

Lois Reitzas Skidmore ’60

Fun with Slices Am I allowed to play your Slices game (pg. 80, Autumn 2009)? I’m actually in that photo! It’s the cover of the May 1987 Scene. The play was Moliere’s The Misanthrope, directed by the amazing Atlee Sproul.

I hadn’t seen that Scene cover for 22 years ... until, no kidding, just a few short weeks ago when I unearthed it and dozens of other memories from a box of things my mom had kept.

If I remember correctly, The Misanthrope’s three-day run was during Spring Party Weekend — which, as you might imagine, was a very tough competitor for a 17th-century play in rhyming couplets. Belated thanks to everyone who actually chose us one of those nights!

Shannon Wolfe ’89 Paris, France I definitely recognize the play and the people in the photo because I was also in the cast. In fact, I still have my copy of the script, and am looking at it right now! Sadly, I don’t think too many people will recognize this picture because the play was very poorly attended. Not surprisingly, most people chose “Saturday night party” over “Saturday night watching classic French comedy.” Go figure.

Nevertheless, we had a great time putting on this play. I have for years described the costume I was wearing to my children (my costume had a purple muff), and they had a hard time believing me. So, even though I am not in it, I was able to show them this photo to better describe how outlandish we all looked.

Thanks for the memories! And New York ’za was awesome!

Bob Diefenbacher ’88 Sudbury, Mass.

Editor’s note: See the full answer to the Slices photo contest on page 80.

Remembering Bill Skelton It is difficult to articulate the impact Professor Bill Skelton (In Memoriam, pg. 79) had on so many of us. He was the type of teacher who may come about once in a lifetime. I traveled with Bill to India in 2001, where he threw us headfirst into a world of dance, music, yoga, philosophy, religion, art — our trip sometimes seems like a dream because it was just that incredible. Our group was in India on Sept. 11, 2001, and Bill never allowed us to stray from the purpose of our journey, even as we all struggled with our emotions so far from home.

Bill imparted to me the confidence to explore cultures very different from my own, as well as the need to do so with a sense of humility. While Bill could often come across as gruff, scaring the daylights out of us often foolish 20-somethings, his affection for his students was never in doubt; he generously opened up his world in India and his home in Hamilton to us.

It was truly a privilege to have had Bill in my life. He helped shape the person I have become. I am deeply saddened by his death and will miss him.

Hillary D. Phelps ’03 Chicago, Ill. Besides being a wonderful musician and teacher, William Skelton gave the world an insight of how to achieve happiness: Bill figured out what he loved and lived his life accordingly. It’s a simple, important lesson, yet still

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rare to find a person who followed his heart as passionately and consistently, and with such style! Bill was so full of mischief, humor, grace, strength, and wit that one forgot he was into his 80s when he led his last Colgate study group to India in 2005. I was fortunate enough to be a student in his last group.

To suggest an inkling of what he was made of, I fondly remember how one morning I realized I was covered in bedbug bites. I walked into breakfast and saw Bill there, barefoot and laughing with another student, covered head to toe with bites himself. To honor a man who knew when to keep it clear and brief — Bill, you will be greatly missed. Namaste.

Sophie Connolly ’07 Portland, Ore.

Raider football’s pinnacle?

It was refreshing to read all of the comments about Rebecca Chopp in the Summer 2009 issue (pgs. 26-31) and the variety of causes she championed on campus. Colgate and Hamilton will miss her; however, I am curious about the caption on the football photo on page 27. Who made the decision that 2003 was “the most successful season in Raider football history?” It was a great season, but greater than the undefeated, untied, unscored upon, and “uninvited” campaign of the 1932 team? I think Rebecca Chopp would say, “Let the debate begin.”

Brad Tufts ’59 Hilton Head Island, S.C.

Online Scene subscription option

In response to alumni feedback in our summer 2009 reader survey, and supporting our efforts to be fiscally and environmentally prudent, we have introduced an online-only subscription option.

If you wish to be removed from the printed Scene mailing list and instead receive an e-mail notification when we post new online editions, send your name, class year, address, and preferred e-mail address to sceneletters@colgate.edu and put Online Mailing List in the subject.

The interactive Scene website, which includes downloadable PDFs of the print version as well as an archive of back issues, can be found at www.colgatealumni.org/scene.

Be assured, though, that we will continue to mail the printed magazine to those who want and need to have access to it!

— The Scene team

News and views for the Colgate community

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work & play

Campus scrapbook

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Native American Student Association members like Sarah Lubega ’11 (left) teach area children how to make corn husk dolls as part of the group’s Children’s Storybook Program.

Photo by Janna Minehart

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It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas when the Colgate Ballet Company performs their annual production of The Nutcracker.

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Kappa Kappa Gamma sisters hand out cider and cookies after the tree lighting ceremony on the Hamilton village green.

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Digging the fresh powder and riding the rails

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Scales and tails of all sizes slithered into Love Auditorium during the Reptile World program presented by educator Michael Schwedick.

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Hold on to your hats! Blustery winds couldn’t keep football fans away during Family Weekend. Photo by Heather Ainsworth

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G

A student cozies up to the warmth of the fireplace while studying at the Coop.

Photos by Andrew Daddio unless otherwise noted

scene: Winter 2010

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C

D E

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News and views for the Colgate community

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work & play

Tony Blair provides global perspective

Michelle Vatalaro ’10 had signed up for the Liberal Democracy and Its Limits course because she thought it sounded interesting. What she didn’t know at the time was that the political science class would bring her face to face with Tony Blair, the former prime minister of Britain.

The senior and about 50 other students had the chance to speak with Blair in a quiet setting before his lecture in front of an audience of more than 4,500 people at Sanford Field House during Family Weekend in October. Vatalaro said she was grateful for the opportunity to sit “literally two feet from a former prime minister of the United Kingdom, ask him a question, and get a real answer.” That kind of interaction was one of the reasons Blair was invited to campus as part of the Global Leaders Lecture Series.

Blair spoke about the need for a different type of politics to cope with a rapidly changing world that is facing significant challenges involving the economy, security, and climate change. “This new world requires new leadership, a resurgence of confidence, and a willingness to stand up for what we really believe in,” he said. Power is shifting to the East, he added, and politicians in the West must rethink a political system based on left vs. right or Liberal vs. Tory and consider whether they are going to be “open or closed” to developing relationships

with nations such as China and India.

Blair was asked if countries such as America and Britain should be trying to install democracies in other nations. “Our societies stand for an important way of life,” said Blair. “I don’t want to impose ideas, but I do believe this: The values of freedom, democracy, and rule of law are universal values of the human spirit. When given the chance, people will choose them.”

Blair, who served as Britain’s prime minister from 1997 to 2007, received several standing ovations during his speech. One of Colgate’s a cappella groups, the Resolutions, sang three songs to welcome Blair, including “Where The Streets Have No Name”

by Irish band U2. Blair raved over the students’ version of what he said is his favorite song, and promised to have U2’s lead singer, Bono — a friend of his — autograph the Resolutions’ recording of it.

His appearance was the fourth event sponsored by the Global Leaders Lecture Series, which is funded by the Parents’ and Grandparents’ Fund.

Previous speakers were Colin Powell (April 2009), the Dalai Lama (2008), and award-winning authors Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner (2007).

Tony Kwiatkowski P’86, who has come to Colgate to hear Powell and other speakers, also enjoyed Blair. “I respect him for being a neutralizer,” he said. “He’s been good at balancing and airing the world’s problems.”

Views from the hill What’s your best study tip?

“After class, review your notes, so you don’t have to sit in the library for seven hours, trying to catch up.”

— Jake Guglin ’12, economics and philosophy double major from Woodridge, Conn.

“I try hard not to procrastinate because it only makes me ten times more miserable. I’d rather have a week of hard incremental work than two days of death where I’m ready to be doing anything but looking in a book.”

— Emily de la Reguera ’11, international relations major from Baltimore, Md.

Andrew Daddio

“Make sure you don’t do anything in between studying and going to bed, like watch TV. That way you actually remember stuff better.”

— Dan Gleason ’11, environmental geology major from Norwalk, Conn.

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scene: Winter 2010

Campus culture initiatives to address student life issues

Students, professors commemorate fall of Berlin Wall

Tim O’Keeffe

A student looks at a mock Berlin Wall that German Club students built between East and West halls to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the wall’s fall.

The survey was developed, administered, and analyzed by Associate Professor of Sociology and Anthropology Carolyn Hsu, Assistant Professor of Psychology Landon Reid, and Associate Professor of Mathematics Dan Schult. Roelofs noted that Colgate is fortunate to have amongst its faculty expertise in conducting studies of community climate issues.

University officials, in conjunction with the faculty and student governance systems, have launched a process aimed at better understanding students’ experiences; developing new policies and programs where

necessary; and ensuring that the campus climate is properly aligned with institutional goals and values.

To jump-start the process following the report’s release, Roelofs hosted an open forum at which students, staff, and faculty members engaged in discussion — with a panel consisting of the survey project team, administrators, faculty, and students — about the report’s findings.

Other initial steps include new coalitions created by the dean of diversity to study issues related to satisfaction and success of students of color; training and outreach regarding Colgate’s new policy on student sexual misconduct and sexual harassment; and a committee of students, professors, and staff members to oversee and advise on issues related to alcohol and other drugs.

The administration will also solicit

Luke Connolly ’09

Debate Society President Austin Schwartz ’11 (in white) and Vice President Ryan Nelson ’12 (in maroon) gesture to ask a question of the opposing team member from Stanford University during the first round of the Yale IV tournament on Oct. 23 in New Haven, Conn.

The topic of debate was “This house believes that the U.S. and its NATO Allies should significantly reduce their presence in Afghanistan.”

A mock wall helped the campus community commemorate the fall of the Berlin Wall. On Nov. 8, members of the German Club, including seniors Carolyn Brodbeck, Sarah Tilley, Kristin Nozell, Alex Sklyar, and Tara Woods, built the wall using steel poles, rope, and large sheets covered in spraypainted graffiti.

The next evening, they took it down to mark the 20th anniversary of the wall’s destruction on Nov. 9, 1989, a historic step that led to the start of Germany’s reunification after decades of division.

Following the symbolic event, the club hosted a panel discussion at the Max Kade German Center. “Our hope is that this will spark some curiosity and engagement in European politics, Europe, and its history,” said Sklyar.

The discussion was led by professors Claire Baldwin (German); Tim Byrnes (political science); Robert Nemes (history); and Nancy Ries (anthropology and peace and conflict studies).

The four professors spoke about their personal experiences — how they learned about the fall of the wall and how they felt about it at the time — and how the event affected the entire world.

Colgate’s LGBTQ community members and allies set up a door in the O’Connor Campus Center for people to write messages supporting the queer community and as a chance for queer people to come out of the closet. “For me, the door symbolized what we collectively have been through as a group,” explained Catherine Polk ’12 of the project in honor of National Coming Out Day. “While there were many positive messages on the door, there were also some negative experiences that some have been through.” At the end of the week, about 20 people joined together to burn the door, which “represented our greatest triumphs and failures,” said Polk. “Burning it was symbolic of getting through them all, together.”

Andrew Daddio

Colgate is taking steps to address areas of concern identified in the results of a campus life climate survey, authored by faculty members and completed online anonymously by students in the spring of 2009.

The survey took a deep look at Colgate’s campus culture, with a focus on the racial, gender, and sexual climate.

The resulting report identified areas of concern in each area, including variable levels of satisfaction among students of different races on campus; experiences of sexual harassment and abuse that, while not outside the norm for a college campus, must be addressed; and the negative impact that binge drinking has on the experiences of some students and their relationships with others.

“We recognized that including questions on these topics created the possibility of receiving some uncomfortable answers,” said Interim President Lyle Roelofs. “But we felt we had an obligation to our students and the Colgate community to gather data as the first step in a community-wide effort to deal with any challenges we may be facing. These are difficult issues for an institution to confront, but any issue that may negatively impact the health, welfare, or academic experience of our students is worth studying and addressing.”

ideas and suggestions from parents and explore ways to partner with them. In a letter to parents, Roelofs encouraged them to talk about the campus climate with their children, indicating that “the impetus for change ultimately lies with our students.”

News and views for the Colgate community

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the chicken-and-egg phenomenon: do people’s values need to change before their behavior changes, or is it the other way around?

“The 350 goal provides a convenient topic,” said climatologist and geology professor Adam Burnett. “It’s a good start, but ultimately we need to address the way we behave.”

Bob Turner of the economics department suggested a possible outcome of behavior change. “In principle, it may be that if you change people’s behavior, you could also change their values.”

Lunch at the event was a case in point, bringing values and behavior in line. Sodexo delivered a simple meal of quesadillas and tacos made from locally grown beans and vegetables, with cheese from local dairy farms.

There was a basket of fresh local apples, but no bottled water and no wasted food. When the event was over, students composted their leftovers and paper napkins in a new bin that will be moved from event to event around campus.

“Grassroots activism is important to creating momentum,” said Frydenlund, who will soon be entrusting to younger students many of the green initiatives she started. “In [my] four years here, behavior and values have changed at Colgate.”

Climate change: changing behavior, changing values

A school in India (picture below) was one of more than 5,200 locations worldwide that participated in the International Day of Climate Action. Colgate students and faculty participated in a panel discussion as part of a national teach-in.

Climate change can be looked at from many perspectives: as a moral call to action, a matter of public policy, or a blip in geologic time. Students and professors considered these angles and many others at a panel discussion that was part of a national teach-in to draw attention to the International Day of Climate Action on Oct. 24, sponsored by 350.org.

At Colgate and thousands of locations worldwide, participants focused their attention on the number 350, as in parts per million — the level that some scientists have identified as the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The present level is 380 ppm.

The discussion featured eight faculty members from disciplines including economics, philosophy, geology, environmental studies, biology, and geography, as well as two student leaders committed to environmental awareness and action: Shae Frydenlund ’10 and Michael Michonski ’12.

Much of the discussion centered on

Actress Rosie Perez urges students to seek greatness

350.org

work & play

“It felt like one of those moments where a spontaneous political event takes place without planning, without violence, in which the participants themselves recognize the momentousness of the event,” said Ries.

The German Club also is working on a memorial plaque that will offer additional information about an actual piece of the Berlin Wall that is located at the student theme house at 94 Broad St. — Lea Furutani ’10

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scene: Winter 2010

Latina actress, choreographer, and activist Rosie Perez shared her personal story with students with a singular goal in mind: to inspire them to “step into your greatness.”

Perez, in her trademark voice that shouts “Brooklyn,” urged the audience to push through their fears to become the person they can be, a person who makes a difference. “It’s hard; there isn’t that ‘Oprah’ moment where it magically happens,” she said. “But you need to understand the power that you have to change the world.”

Perez was candid and disarming, whether it was talking about growing up poor in Brooklyn, providing a quick history lesson on Puerto Rico, explaining how the Hollywood paparazzi work, or showing dance moves from her early days on Soul Train.

She also talked about the moment that changed her life. While attending college in California, she returned home to New York for a visit and went to a nightclub that, unbeknownst

Go figure – Sustainability at Colgate $35,000: Sustainability fund established through the 2008 senior class gift

1/2009: Colgate became a signatory of the American College and University Presidents’ Climate Commitment

21,808 tons: Locally harvested

woodchips used for biomass heating fuel last year

76: Percentage of campus heated by wood chips

1.2 million: Gallons of polluting fuel oil displaced by those chips, a savings of $1.8 million

60,000: Willow shoots planted on

Colgate land last May for future biomass fuel

12.1 million: Sheets of paper purchased

by Colgate last year (4.9 million 100% recycled). Stacked up, that would be 43 times higher than Memorial Chapel

815 tons: Waste sent to the landfill last year, a 119-ton reduction compared to the previous year

20,035 tons: Greenhouse gases emitted by Colgate last year. If those emissions were pumped into party balloons, every employee and student would need to carry 1.4 million balloons.

1,400: Incandescent bulbs replaced by

energy-efficient compact fluorescent bulbs (CFLs) in 2008–2009

63 tons: Reduction in the campus carbon

footprint through CFL usage, saving $50,000 in electricity costs over the life of the bulbs

27 tons: Greenhouse gases — the carbon footprint for the average American

12 tons: Sustainability Coordinator John Pumilio’s personal carbon footprint last year. He accomplished a 66% lower-thanaverage number by using biofuel for home heating, electricity savings through “smart strips” and energy-efficient lighting, biking to work, and driving a fuel-efficient hybrid vehicle. Can you lower your footprint?

For more, go to www.colgate.edu/green

All-nighter for St. Jude’s

About 700 students wrote letters seeking donations from family and friends on Nov. 17 as part of the Up ’Til Dawn event, a nationwide studentrun fundraising campaign for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Student bands, a cappella groups, and an improv comedy group provided entertainment throughout the night in the Ho Science Center.

“We’ve had a lot of participation from all groups on campus,” said event organizer Morgan Krieger ’10.

She reached out to Greek organizations, varsity and club sports teams, and various student groups.

In the past five years, Krieger said, Colgate has raised more than $160,000 for St. Jude’s, which is the second-highest sum for any school in New York State — no small feat considering Colgate’s size. She hopes that this year will be one of the biggest in terms of money raised by students.

This may well be possible, because the number of letters written more than doubled last year’s count and far exceeded expectations.

“St. Jude’s is the only pediatric research center in the United States that’s privately funded, so events like Up ’Til Dawn are really important to the continuing success of the organization and hospital,” said Krieger.

For some, Up ’Til Dawn served as a philanthropy event to support as a team, which was the case for the sisters of Kappa Kappa Gamma. “It’s great to see groups come together and write letters and different campus groups coming to perform,” said Catherine Toner ’11, sorority philanthropy chair.

For others, like Robert Bickhart ’12, the event had a more personal meaning: “My neighbor just had a child who was diagnosed with leukemia pretty early, so something like this really hits home.”

— Lea Furutani ’10

Get to know: George Murray

Andrew Daddio

to her, was sponsoring a “big butt” contest for women. She strode up to the stage and told the women it was degrading, becoming furious when bouncers pulled her away.

She was brought over to the contest sponsor, a man named Spike Lee. She had never heard of the now-famous director, and dismissed him, calling him a pig for sponsoring the contest. Lee asked if she was an actress, and even though she said no, he insisted she take his business card.

She landed a role in his film Do The Right Thing, and would later appear in other movies such as White Men Can’t Jump and Fearless, which earned her an Oscar nomination. “I had stepped into a different world,” she said.

Becoming well known was just the platform she needed to tackle issues such as Puerto Rican rights, AIDS awareness, better education in inner cities, and women’s rights.

Perez was the perfect speaker for Hispanic Heritage Month, said Jessica Medina ’10, president of the Latin American Student Organization (LASO). “She is this A-list Latina star, but she also does so much community work, and that’s what we want to be doing as a group and reinforcing among our membership,” said Medina. She and other LASO members were able to have dinner with Perez before her public lecture.

Director of Dining Services for Sodexo How he got here: I went to American International College in Springfield, Mass. I was a student manager for Saga Corporation, trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life.

My senior year, I was asked to join the company. They had a contract with Colgate — I came as a manager six months after I graduated. That was 33 years ago in January.

The scope of Dining Services and his management style: We handle the day-to-day feeding of the students on the meal plan; operating the Coop, Edge Café, library café, Donovan’s Pub, and Merrill House faculty/staff dining; football, hockey, and basketball concessions; and catering. I try to be visible — we should know who everybody is.

How things have changed: The students all ate in the Student Union when I arrived. We’ve made a lot of changes in our environmental impact. The plasticware, paper plates, and cups we use now are biodegradable. Local purchasing is very important. Student preferences always change, so we try to keep up with them. People try to eat healthier now.

Will never drop off the menu: Pizza, pasta, hamburgers, and fried foods have been staples for decades. Even though they want to eat healthy, they also want variety!

Let’s not go back there: Many years ago, when we were back in the Student Union, food fights were the “in” thing. Those were unsettling. It doesn’t happen anymore. When we transitioned to Frank, the building was so brand-new and nice, it took us out of that era.

Student nature: they will always diss the dining hall. How he responds: We have a pretty active comment board in Frank, and we can make changes on a daily or weekly basis. And for the last three years, we’ve had a liaison with the Student Government Association, so we’ve had focus groups on changes to meal plans, and better communication with students.

Rosie Perez speaks in Love Auditorium.

Favorite part of the job: I really enjoy the people who work with me. The students are energetic and wide-eyed and want-to-conquer-it-all types. Catching up with people from 20 or 30 years ago on reunion weekends is really neat.

Brush with fame: When we cooked for the Dalai Lama, he ate in private, but the last day he came out to the kitchen and talked with us and watched us work. That was very special.

Family: My wife, Ellen, and I have been married for 33 years. Both our kids were born and raised in Hamilton and still live here. Michelle [Jacobsen] is married and works in residential life, so she’s right next door. Jason works for the DEC in Sherburne, is married, and has a son, Dan, our first grandchild.

Andrew Daddio

Black, or cream and sugar? Just cream in my morning coffee. But I drink water all day.

Like to cook? I’d rather go out!

News and views for the Colgate community

11

work & play 12

Passion for the Climb

As good as gold

By Kathryn (Kate) Bertine ’97

Kathryn Bertine’s second book, As Good As Gold, will be released by ESPN/RandomHouse in April 2010. Her first book, All the Sundays Yet to Come (Little, Brown), came out in 2003. In September 2009, Bertine placed 37th at the World Championships (time trial). She lives in Tucson, Ariz., and races for St. Kitts and Nevis.

scene: Winter 2010

I had a bike at Colgate. The old Trek languished in the basement of Stillman Hall. I think it was blue. It may or may not have had a seat by the time I checked in on it senior year. There was not one iota of foreshadowing that I’d become a professional cyclist 10 years after graduating. I am likely Colgate’s only professional athlete alum who had to set up chairs at graduation to fulfill a neglected gym requirement.

As a student, I was a figure skater and rower. Each sport was quietly preparing me (and my quadriceps) for an unpredictable adventure.

Upon graduation, I had The Plan: I would tour the world as a figure skater, then go to graduate school, get a publishing job, get married, have 2.5 children, a medium-sized dog, and a membership to an upscale health club — all before my 29th birthday. That’s how The Plan is done. Especially if you grow up in Westchester.

First, I skated professionally in Europe and South America and then entered the University of Arizona for an MFA in creative writing. The Plan was ticking along nicely. But in Tucson, there is neither much ice nor open water. Rowing and skating were out; my muscles wanted a new activity. I bought a used bicycle.

And then The Plan, so structured and lovely, was blown to smithereens.

What happened next was a whirlwind romance with endurance sports.

My skating and rowing muscles transferred their usage into new territory. I spent five years as an amateur triathlete, then turned professional a few days shy of my 30th birthday. Oh, my poor, poor Plan! The husband and kids itinerary suddenly changed to single-hood and 2.5 bicycles (ironically, Trek became my sponsor), and my publishing aspirations gave way to part-time jobs: substitute teaching, waitressing, pet-sitting, whatever allowed me the flexibility to train, race, and survive. Besides, if I were going to be a writer, didn’t I need something to write about?

Six Ironmans and more than 100 shortcourse triathlons later, I was hooked. And poor. I ate boxed foods, old food, and free food, kicking myself for all the times I rolled my eyes in Frank Dining Hall. But my new Plan was the love of my life. Or was it?

A few years into my triathlon career, Life started whispering its early-30s suggestions. I began to question everything: relationships, home roots, career opportunities, daily choice of socks. Uncertainty and the dire circumstances of living on friends’ couches led me to give up sports. My gut was not happy, though, and implored me not to quit. I gave it Tums and told it to be quiet.

After almost a year of waitressing, 11 rejections for 10 teaching positions (one school sent me duplicate letters), and utter silence from the publisher that produced my first book, I slunk into the local gym. “About time,” my gut said. That’s when I got the phone call.

In 2006, ESPN, for whom I had occasionally freelanced, offered me a life-changing assignment: “We’d like you to write about the Beijing Olympic Games,” they said. “But that’s two years away,” I said. “We know. We’d like you to try to get there as an athlete.

You can write about the journey along the way, both online and as a book.” I dropped the phone. It broke.

So at the age of 33, through two years of training, travel, and adventures unlike anything I could ever imagine, I tried to qualify for the 2008 Beijing Olympics. After all those years as a skater/rower/triathlete, my quadriceps were well-suited to road cycling. I somehow made it from

complete novice to decent pro-level rider to the U.S. National Championships — the Olympic qualifier.

When I fell short there, ESPN joked, “Find another country to race for.” Then, strangely enough, I did.

After months of effort, I was granted dual citizenship with the nation of St. Kitts and Nevis in the Caribbean, who promised to help me if I would help them build a strong cycling federation for future athletes.

Still, citizenship with any country does not ensure an Olympic berth. I had to become one of the top-ranked 100 cyclists in the world — in six weeks. I had only 42 days to qualify by going to races and winning points among the best cyclists on the globe. From Shanghai to Caracas to remote volcanoes in Central America, my bike and I climbed amazing landscapes. I came within one race of winning an Olympic berth for St. Kitts and Nevis, but on the final day of qualification, I was not the fastest woman. There would be no Olympics for me. Or would there?

Although my ESPN assignment ended in 2008, my love of cycling doubled. What if, I wondered, the 2012 London Olympics are doable? That question remains to be answered.

My gut sure thinks it’s a good idea.

I continue to race for St. Kitts and Nevis, holding fast to my promise to help the nation develop a thriving cycling federation. More than 800 pounds of bikes and equipment were recently donated to the country, and more and more kids are joining the Nevis cycling club instead of the rising gang culture. While some criticized my decision to race for a nation other than my beloved United States, I saw the opportunity to not only grow the sport of women’s cycling, but also to build social and moral bridges. I believe true patriotism does not mean “America only,” but rather, “America and…” The rewards of giving back are far greater than the sum of my Olympic goals. Although London 2012 is three years away, I’ve already won the gold.

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Read more essays from our Passion for the Climb series, or see how you can submit your own essay, at www.colgate.edu/scene/pfcessays

“Foggy Bottom” Observatory

I

t may not have had plumbing or paved access until 1968, but for many decades, Colgate’s observatory has been a unique college facility. From academic courses and research projects, to visits by school groups, astronomy clubs, and members of the public, it has allowed thousands to follow Galileo’s footsteps in discovery and contemplation of the fascinating night sky.

Sightings

Timeline

Legends, traditions, and amusing stories

1949 Pres. Everett N. Case cuts first sod at observatory groundbreaking ceremony Nov. 6

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In 1963, Pres. Vincent Barnett’s wife requested trees planted to screen the view of the cinderblock structure from Watson House

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Before the darkroom was installed in 1968, Prof.

Tony Aveni (pictured top left) would shuttle film down to Lathrop Hall on a motorcycle

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A 1972 UFO hoax perpetuated by psychology students (reprised in 1976)

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The unofficial “Foggy Bottom” name was inspired by a senatorial scandal in the 1970s — but also reflects the common cutoff point for Chenango Valley mist

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One year, an annular solar eclipse coincided with the ASTR 102 final exam; Balonek asked the registrar to reschedule so the students could watch it

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Annual photo taken of student researchers leaping toward the heavens (2009, bottom right photo)

1951 Opened to the public in May; thence attracting 900 visitors per year

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120 nights per year the sky is clear enough for at least 1 hour of observation

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60,000 observations made since 1988

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Halley’s Comet (1985). Became visible during Prof.

Tom Balonek’s first week on the faculty ?

“Johneuller” asteroid (April 17, 1991). Discovered by Prof. Tom Balonek (reclining, bottom right photo); he named it for his high school physics teacher

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Extragalactic supernova (March 30–31, 1993). The brightest since 1937

1965 Astrogeophysics major created 1967 16-inch reflecting telescope

(in ’66 Chrysler Powder Blue)

installed 1988 Electronic CCD camera system

installed, allowing for quasar

observations for the first time

For more, visit http://astronomy.colgate.edu.

Thanks to Professors Balonek and Aveni for their stellar anecdotes.

Got an idea for Page 13? Write to us at scene@colgate.edu.

13 Page 13 is the showplace

for Colgate tradition, history, and school spirit.

Andrew Daddio

scene: Winter 2010

Geology museum moves to new digs in science center

With displays of precious gems, a wall of skulls, and an interactive exhibit of Colgate’s very own dinosaur egg, the Robert M. Linsley Geology Museum educates visitors while inspiring them with the wonder of its objects. A large green sign, which says “Geology is the study of the Earth,” welcomes visitors when they first enter the museum, which recently moved from Lathrop Hall to its new home in the Robert H.N. Ho Science Center.

Di Keller ’81, senior lecturer in geology and chair of the museum project, explained that the entrance is intended to educate people about the science of geology. “We want people to gain an understanding of what we know about the Earth — how it works now, its history, and how this can be applied to understanding what might happen in the future.”

With an underlying focus on the geology of New York State, displays include local bedrock with parallel grooves carved on the top that indicate that glacial ice covered this area 22,500 years ago. Also, a mastodon tooth found during a pond excavation behind Hamilton Central School alludes to the region’s inhabitants during that time.

The museum is named after Robert M. Linsley, who taught at Colgate from 1955 to 1992, specializing in courses related to paleontology and evolution.

The university raised funds for it through a matching gift provided by Sylvia and Malcolm Boyce ’54.

— Brittany Messenger ’10

Expert relates torture’s long history to today’s debate

The modern debate surrounding government interrogation, specifically the treatment of terror suspects by the Central Intelligence Agency, has “forgotten and often secret” roots that can be traced back centuries, renowned torture expert Darius Rejali said during his two-day visit in October.

“It’s something that has an incredibly long history … one that has always been tied to the world’s democracies,” he said, explaining how torture tactics date back to ancient Greece and Rome.

“It isn’t that democracies have no history of torture, as many think, but rather that they have a different history of torture.”

His award-winning book, Torture and Democracy (2007), an analysis

Andrew Daddio

life of the mind 14

The new Linsley Geology Museum, on the second floor of the Ho Science Center

Darius Rejali speaks to students during his two-day campus visit.

of modern torture techniques, thrust him into the media spotlight as a leading expert on the topic. As part of his research, Rejali, a political science professor at Reed College, mapped how torture spread around the globe over the past 200 years.

The work, he said, revealed some surprising conclusions. “With very few exceptions, almost none of the techniques used today originated with the Nazis, Stalinists, or Inquisitionists,” he said. “What drove the torture innovation was something that no one really considers having to do with torture at all: mainly international human rights monitoring and democracy.”

According to Rejali, as human rights spread after World War II, democracies developed “clean” techniques — such as torture by sleep deprivation, electricity, and water — that lead to less “scarring” and are more likely to escape watchful eyes. “‘Clean’ techniques are valuable to some because allegations of torture are less credible when there is nothing to show of it. In the absence of physical wounds or photographs of torture, who are you going to believe?” he asked. “Would Americans really have been outraged about Abu Ghraib had there not been pictures?” he continued, referring to photos released in 2004 that allegedly show “clean” torture techniques being used on prisoners at the Baghdad facility.

Rejali’s public talk, “The Secret Histories of Modern Torture,” in Love Auditorium inaugurated the Peace and Conflict Studies (P-CON) Program’s Peter C. Schaehrer ’65 Memorial Lecture. Beforehand, Rejali offered his insights during intellectual discussions with P-CON students as well as alumni who established the lecture in honor of the late Schaehrer, a career educator and champion of civil rights.

“The lecture is a great way to keep alive the ideals Pete stood for,” said Rick Stege ’65, a former classmate of Schaehrer’s. “Our small group discussion with Mr. Rejali was fascinating.

It was like we were back in a college seminar learning things we never dreamed of.”

From earthworms to zebra fish, students share research

Students who worked with faculty members this past summer were able to pause and share their research findings with peers and professors in October. The third annual Ho Sympo-

sium on Student Summer Research allowed nine students from each of the departments and programs housed in the Ho Science Center to share key research findings.

The projects ranged from an examination of zebra fish cells and possible implications for better understanding of how stem cells develop, to the role of community gardens in the nearby city of Utica, to determining Colgate’s carbon footprint.

Students spoke afterward about how they were able to focus exclusively on their research during the quieter summer months and the value of the time they got to spend working so closely with professors.

“You definitely get to know the professors in a different way,” said Hilary Nicholson ’12. “You get to experience going to dinner at their houses, experience a little more of their background life that you miss when there is so much going on during the school year.” Nicholson, who spent the

eruptions in Ecuador; Douglas Schaub ’12, who worked with physics and astronomy professor Beth Parks to investigate the relationship between tone duration and pitch perception; and Sarah Sciarrino ’10, who worked with physics professor Ken Segall to create and analyze an electrical circuit that imitates the behavior of a neuron.

Princeton professor Melissa HarrisLacewell spoke about the current racial climate in America in a talk titled “Race and the Age of Obama.”

Harris-Lacewell’s appearance was part of ALST Day, a celebration of Colgate’s Africana and Latin American Studies Program in October.

Harris-Lacewell, a frequent contributor to MSNBC and other media outlets, tackled the broad topic by explaining race in four ways: racial context, race as a factor in candidate choice, race and governing, and race inequality and policy making.

She explained how events such as September 11, the war in Iraq, and Hurricane Katrina are racialized, but how the effects are politicized. “After Hurricane Katrina, the American sentiment was, ‘How can we execute a war overseas if we cannot give water to an American city for three days?’”

By identifying these trends, HarrisLacewell explained how the 2008 election — with its open-seat contest in both parties and emerging “youth technology” such as Facebook and Twitter — crossed many borders, assisting Obama’s rise to power. “These new technologies created echo chambers so people could immediately see what was going on,” said HarrisLacewell. “It made it more democratic because people could rely less on external authority.”

She explained that although America is not in a post-racialization era, it is in a different racial climate.

“There are new racial possibilities, and they have everything to do with addressing something that at the turn of the 20th century was described by [W.E.] DuBois as a doublethink,” she said. “It is a double conscience descent of two-ness within the American context that the African Americans would all somehow find a way to heal the double conscience of being both black and American.”

— Brittany Messenger ’10

Andrew Daddio

Visiting professor examines U.S. racial climate

iStockphoto

summer working with biology professors Catherine Cardelus and Timothy McCay, presented some of the tools she used to study the forest “litter” and the role earthworms have on it and ultimately might have on carbon dioxide emissions.

J.T. Crepps ’10 said it was important for him to be able to work on a new confocal microscope that his biology professor, Jason Meyers, was able to secure with a $500,000 National Science Foundation grant. “He put me in the driver’s seat. He wanted to see if I could use this microscope and work out how the program was functioning. It was a great experience to use an expensive piece of equipment that not many other liberal arts schools have access to,” said Crepps, who is studying zebra fish cells.

Other students presenting at the symposium included: Katie Garman ’10, who worked with geology professor Karen Harpp to study volcanic

Get to know: Enrique “Kiko” Galvez

– Professor of Physics and Astronomy since 1988 – BS, Pontifical Catholic University of Peru; PhD, Notre Dame – American Physical Society 2010 Prize for a Faculty Member for Research in an Undergraduate Institution Light, not lenses: I was fascinated with optics in my early teens. I studied physics in college, and inquired about optics for graduate school. The University of Rochester sent me a catalog about how to make lenses. I thought, I don’t want to do that! So I went into atomic physics. Eventually, I started working with lasers; the light coming out of them resonates well with atoms. I did that all the way through to Colgate, and then I went on sabbatical. The value of a sabbatical is you can step back and consider new problems. A colleague told me about an optics problem he and others hadn’t figured out, so I worked on it. Solving that problem led to a paper, and when I came back, I was really enthusiastic about it. My research shifted to optics, so I came to study precisely the things I thought were fun when I was young.

Quantum research: There are a lot of open problems in optics; what I like is that something that bugs you or sparks your curiosity could become a research project. I’ve been studying a way in which light manifests according to quantum mechanics. Light is made up of little packets of energy called photons. You can use photons to demonstrate striking predictions of quantum mechanics. There is a big push throughout physics to implement a quantum computer, which would use properties of quantum mechanics to have unprecedented speed and capacity. Light could be one system for it. It’s still at the “holy grail” level.

Teaching adventures: I learned from Charlie Holbrow and Joe Amato [emeritus physics professors], whom I consider mentors, the idea of finding ways to teach that are not the way you learned yourself. Quantum Mechanics is normally a theoretical course — labs just don’t exist. But there is new optical technology predisposed to illustrating abstract aspects of quantum mechanics. Recently, we got NSF [National Science Foundation] funding to develop labs — experiments in which students can see that these abstractions are actually for explaining nature. A colleague at Whitman College and I collaborate; ours are the only schools that offer a lab for quantum mechanics.

Life outside work: My wife, Mary, and I have three children. My kids play hockey, so I’m a big hockey dad. I coached them in soccer, and now I’m an AYSO referee for kids from 9 to 14.

Don’t be fooled — those under-10 games can be rough!

Peruvian connections: I grew up in Peru. I came to the United States for my graduate work and eventually became a U.S. citizen. I go to Peru often; I found a physicist to collaborate with, and my mom lives there. Every time I go, I take one of my kids.

What’s that rainbow on his office wall? It’s coming through one of these prisms on my window — this is one of my toys. At a different time of the year, they project the rainbows onto the ceiling. As the sun goes by, the rainbows move along the ceiling. I was thinking I could make some kind of sun clock with little rainbows.

News and views for the Colgate community

15

arts & culture

Pig Iron demonstrates lizard brain

Pig Iron Theatre Company co-creator Quinn Bauriedel leads students in theater exercises.

Complex in their exploration of neuroscience and their varied influences, yet simplistic in their acting method that is rooted in raw emotion, the Pig Iron Theatre Company brought their unique style to Colgate in November.

After a week of interaction with theater students in workshops, classes, and a roundtable discussion, Pig Iron’s residency culminated in a performance of their latest production, Chekhov Lizardbrain, at Brehmer Theater.

Loosely based on playwright Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters, Chekhov Lizardbrain is about three brothers who must decide what to do with the family home after their parents have died.

“They have three different feelings about it, and that is part of the classic Chekhov story,” explained co-creator and cast member Quinn Bauriedel.

The fourth character is Dmitri, a close family friend who has a mental impairment and ends up buying the house. As Dmitri replays his memories of his encounters with the brothers, the voices in his head narrate the play and make it vaudevillian.

The reptilian aspect of the play was influenced by neuroscientist Paul MacLean’s theory of a triune brain, which poses that we have three brains in one and that the first layer — the lizard brain — is most closely related to physical survival.

“We started this investigation of those three modes of the brains operating and found a weird performance

style, which you’ll see in the play,” Bauriedel explained.

Students in a Thursday-night theater workshop delved into the lizard brain, as well as the dog brain and human brain, when they participated in exercises led by Bauriedel.

“It was fascinating to explore these different facets of the mind, how breathing and movement are affected, and how the habits of each can be observed in daily life’s routines,” said Carolina van der Mensbrugghe ’10.

Ming Peiffer ’10, who also participated in the workshop, appreciated the company’s approach of taking basic human feelings to new levels.

“Pig Iron focuses on the beauty of that which is ordinary, and through this dissection, the ordinary gains the ability to shift into the extraordinary.”

Leading workshops when they tour is an important component of their work because they have the ability to communicate rather than just perform, Bauriedel said. “These workshops help us feel like we’ve been somewhere and haven’t just been a tourist.” It’s also good practice for the group, which plans to create their own theater school.

“I was struck by their genuine desire to be truthful more than anything else with the students — there was never any pretense,” commented Director of University Theater Adrian Giurgea.

The story of Pig Iron’s foundation and their continued success 14 years later served as a source of inspiration

Preview

Film Still from Double Tide, 2009, ©Sharon Lockhart

James Benning and Sharon Lockhart Distinguished Filmmakers in Residence, March 23–26 Screenings 7 p.m., Golden Auditorium, Little Hall Tuesday, March 23: Ruhr, 2009.

Filmed in the center of German coal and steelmaking, Benning visits images made politically explosive by 9/11.

Wednesday, March 24: Lunch Break and Exit, 2008. Lockhart’s meditative reflections on aspects of life at the Maine shipyard Bath Iron Works.

Thursday, March 25: Double Tide, 2009. Lockhart’s portrait of a female clamdigger, a relatively unseen form of labor.

Friday, March 26: Casting a Glance, 2007. Benning’s study of Robert Smithson’s pioneering earthwork Spiral Jetty, an icon of modern art.

Presented by ArtsMix/Institute for the Creative and Performing Arts and the Film and Media Studies Program

Andrew Daddio

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scene: Winter 2010

For information on these and other arts events: www.colgate.edu/arts

for students. “We were, like you, students at a liberal arts college [Swarthmore], making projects together and seeing what happened when we collided different styles — like making a piece that merged theater with clown dance,” Bauriedel told the students. Since then, they’ve created and performed more than 25 original productions.

“Pig Iron provided a fresh perspective on how the liberal arts emphasis on multidisciplinary education of the sciences, humanities, and social sciences can combine to create a new outlook on performance,” said van der Mensbrugghe, a dual theater and international relations major.

Alumna embraces Frida Kahlo role

Gina Manziello ’02 starred in the opera Frida Kahlo, performed in the Mulroy Civic Center’s Carrier Theater in Syracuse in mid-September. Presented by the Society for New Music and the Spanish Action League, the two-act opera was considered by critics and viewers to be a tremendous success.

The opera follows the life of Frida Kahlo (1907–1954), a Mexican painter known for the array of colors that she used in her works, many of which are self-portraits.

Manziello described Kahlo as “a person who found joy and passion through a great deal of pain; a visionary with an independent, freethinking mind, and one of the biggest hearts and most active imaginations.”

She added, “Her story was one of a real-life icon and hero, one that had to be told.”

The music for the opera — written by Robert Xavier Rodriguez, who was present at both performances — blended different styles, such as tango, Mexican piñata songs, and ragtime. Manziello was asked to use both her singing and speaking abilities to do justice to this complicated role. Singing in a quintet and conveying the emotions that accompanied the miscarriage of Kahlo’s child are just two examples of the challenges that Manziello undertook with this performance.

“One of the things I enjoyed most about working on the piece is its magical realism-esque style that I think really captured something about Frida’s world,” Manziello said.

“What made things easy was that I

Gina Manziello ’02 stars in the opera Frida Kahlo.

could always depend on the brilliantly crafted music and text to tell me what I needed to do.”

Growing up in Dix Hills, N.Y., Manziello began her acting and singing career long before she received any formal education. “Although I should’ve seen the signs then, I had no idea I wanted to be a performer,” she said. “It was just something I did, not something I saw as a ‘job.’ It was fun.”

At Colgate, Manziello majored in psychology. She supplemented her studies in theater and voice through her involvement with the Resolutions, Charred Goosebeak, University Theater, and other student groups.

Neva Pilgrim, the show’s producer as well as a voice teacher and artistin-residence at Colgate, encouraged Manziello to pursue acting and singing. “I was aware from Gina’s first few voice lessons that she was a gifted singer as well as extremely intelligent,” Pilgrim said. “Gina was talented in so many areas, and had lots of interests.”

After graduating from Colgate, Manziello accepted a role as Maria in West Side Story. She also received a scholarship to attend the University of Southern California, where she recently graduated from the inaugural Master of Fine Arts in Acting program.

Manziello currently lives in Los Angeles, where she works in theater and on films. And, she’s hoping to find a way to bring Frida to the West Coast.

— Stephanie Fazio ’10

Experimental artist intersects art and science

Internationally recognized artist Eduardo Kac is known for pushing boundaries, employing biotechnology and genetics to create works that challenge definition and sometimes spark controversy.

His recent visit to Colgate marked an experiment of sorts for the campus — the discussion it spurred crossed several disciplines and involved faculty members and students who might not ordinarily find themselves seated together.

Even the physical spaces for Kac’s appearances were quite different, with his Nov. 11 lecture being held in Meyerhoff Auditorium in the Ho Science Center, and a panel discussion the day after held in Golden Auditorium in Little Hall, home of the Department of Art and Art History.

Creating scholarly dialogue outside the usual classroom setting was a

Eduardo Kac, GFP Bunny, 2000, transgenic artwork. Alba, the fluorescent rabbit.

major goal of having Kac deliver the Harvey Picker Distinguished Lecture in the Visual Arts, according to Scott Habes, Picker Art Gallery director.

“The interdisciplinary concept provided a point of entry for the science community to experience the work of a prominent contemporary artist, while creating a framework for future interdisciplinary research in the arts here at Colgate,” said Habes.

In his public lecture, Kac discussed his nearly 30-year career. He talked about creating holographic poems in the new cultural space presented by the rise of the Internet in the mid1980s.

The artist showed video clips of how the media covered his 1997 work Time Capsule, which involved him having a microchip implanted in his body. He discussed GFP Bunny (2000), the work that generated considerable controversy after he commissioned a laboratory to create a green-glowing bunny named Alba.

Kac also talked about his latest work, Natural History of the Enigma, that involves a “plantimal,” a new life form he created and that he calls Edunia, a genetically engineered flower that is a hybrid of the artist and a petunia.

Examining potential relationships between the fields of science and art was the focus of a panel discussion involving Kac; Jason Meyers, assistant professor of biology at Colgate; W.C. Richardson, professor, University of Maryland, College Park; Anthony F. Aveni, Russell Colgate Professor of astronomy and anthropology at Colgate; and Lynn Gamwell, director- emerita, Binghamton University Art Museum.

Meyers said it was interesting to consider how one field might influence the other.

“We all too often think of science being about rigorous pursuit of truth and art about creativity, but science is an intensely creative process and art can be just as rigorous and illuminating as science,” he said.

Meyers, though, did point out that while Kac uses the media of science to do his art, he was very clear that he does not consider himself to be a scientist or to be doing science.

News and views for the Colgate community

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Picker Art Gallery gets makeover

The sculpture court was one of the areas that underwent changes during recent Picker Art Gallery renovations.

In an effort to update its collection and the museum itself, the Picker Art Gallery underwent renovations over the summer. Scott Habes, the director since January 2009, helped to bring about some of the changes. “I saw the need with fresh eyes and saw new possibilities,” he said.

New floors, walls, and window treatments are some of the immediately noticeable signs of the makeover. Replacing wall-to-wall carpeting, the new flooring is an engineered concrete that gives the gallery a professional look, explained gallery registrar Michael Somple. “This is more open, clean — it shows off the architecture and the interesting crevices,” he said.

Additionally, a wall module system was built and can be moved around to give flexibility to the space, and UV-filtering screens on the windows allow light to enter the gallery without affecting the artwork. Professional museum lighting is expected to be installed next summer.

The sculpture court, which had not been renovated since 1996, has also been changed, visibly and philosophically. “Now, we’re rotating sculptures so that there will be a whole new

environment every year,” Habes said.

He added that the hope is to have the sculptures start at the Picker and then be moved to various locations on campus.

When asked what his original vision for the renovations was, Habes said, “The Picker has always been seen as the art historical gallery on campus, so I’m trying to change that notion and not alienate what we were, but show art in a space with more flexibility to accommodate a diverse range of media such as film, video, and sculpture.”

Maddy Casella ’11, who has interned at the gallery for three semesters, appreciates the contemporary look. “The new renovations really modernize the gallery and make it much more welcoming and chic looking,” she said. “The Picker is a hidden gem on campus, and we are so lucky to have such an exquisite collection of works on paper and sculpture.”

— Stephanie Fazio ’10

Professor’s artwork ‘interrupts’ Whitney Museum site

A digital-environmental artwork created by Professor Cary Peppermint “interrupts” the website of the prestigious Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. But you need to click fast and at the right time, because the project only appears for 30 seconds twice each day — at sunrise and sunset.

Peppermint’s piece, Untitled Landscape #5, takes over the Whitney

Digital-environmental artwork by Cary Peppermint, called Untitled Landscape #5

homepage at those times with fluctuating orbs of light. The size and movement of the orbs are based on traffic to the website in the past 12 hours; more “hits” on the site will result in bigger and slower-moving orbs.

“I wanted to treat the Whitney website itself as a landscape and use my artwork to explore the impact visitors have on this digital environment,” said Peppermint, an assistant professor of art and art history.

Peppermint is keenly interested in creating digital environmental art that explores relationships between landscape, technology, and culture. A lot of his work is through EcoArtTech, a collaborative platform with Leila Christine Nadir. They both received artist fellowships this year from the New York Foundation for the Arts.

The website project was launched Nov. 12 and will continue into the spring. The museum’s website has a link that explains the project and the viewing times, as well.

Next up for Peppermint and EcoArtTech is a project called Fluid

Warren Wheeler

arts & culture

“In many ways, this provides a more interesting discussion about science and art. If he is not crossing the boundaries in his work, perhaps the way we have constructed the boundaries in our minds is the issue,” said Meyers.

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Frontier, a series of performances and web-based information about water issues near the University of North Texas, where they are conducting short residences at the university’s College of Visual Arts and Design.

Painting adds new layer to relationship with Noongars

The connection that has been built between Colgate and the Noongar people of Australia was reinforced recently with a painting given to the university. Moonlight was presented in October on behalf of the Mungart Boodja Art Centre by two Colgate students who traveled to western Australia last summer to study the art of the indigenous people called Noongars.

The relationship began when, in 2004, numerous drawings by Noongar children were identified within the Picker Art Gallery’s collection. The artists were members of a generation of aboriginal children who had been removed from their families and sent to live in a government settlement to assimilate into white Australian society. The settlement was originally known as Carrolup, making the artists known as the Carrolup children.

Since the discovery of the works at the Picker, several members of the Noongar people have traveled to Colgate to see the artwork of their ancestors.

The most recent addition to the collection, Moonlight depicts a stark moonscape that is representative of the beauty of western Australia. It was painted in 2008 by Alan Kelly,

who at 96 years of age is the oldest surviving Carrolup child artist.

In both 2008 and 2009, Colgate students traveled with geography professor Ellen Percy Kraly to learn about culture, art, and landscape directly from Noongar people. “We have so much to learn from each other,” Kraly said. “It is an ongoing journey characterized by good will, mutual respect, and a shared appreciation of the important lessons of the Carrolup story for all of us and for future generations.”

Meg Hanley ’11 and Elisabeth Tone ’11 presented the painting to Interim President Lyle Roelofs, Interim Provost and Dean of the Faculty Jill Harsin, and Picker Art Gallery director Scott Habes. Roelofs asked that the painting be placed in a prominent location as part of the gallery’s visible art on campus program.

Colgate has been working closely with Mungart Boodja Art Centre in Katanning, Australia, to build a relationship with the Noongar community living closest to the location of the Carrolup settlement.

Noongar leaders of the center also sent words of appreciation to Colgate for its commitment to Noongar culture and educating its students about the legacy of Carrolup. In a letter to Roelofs, chairperson Ezzard Flowers wrote: “May the good of the spiritual legacy of the Carrolup School of Art continue to lead us and to embrace our friendship and continued good will as we go forward.”

Get to know: Karen Alley ’12

– Released Cascade, a CD of hammered dulcimer music – University Orchestra (flute, plus doubles in percussion) – Geology major; music minor – Hometown: State College, Pa. How did you come to start playing the dulcimer? I had played a bit of fiddle, and went to a folk festival, where I heard Mark Wade [a premier player] doing “Flight of the Bumblebee” on the hammered dulcimer. It took me two years to convince my parents that if they bought me one, I’d actually play it. I played entirely on my own for about a year, starting in ninth grade. I had my first lesson with Mark as a birthday present.

Tell us about your CD. I recorded it here my freshman year, in the Case-Geyer studio. Rich Grant in IT helped me a lot. All the songs on the CD are my own arrangements. A lot are hymn-based — I do a lot of playing at churches. A few, I wrote myself: “Cascade,” the title track, also “Spread Your Wings.” My favorite track is “The Lord Will Hold You In His Hands,” which my father wrote. He’s a really good lyricist.

Have you found any interesting connections in playing flute, percussion, and dulcimer?

I think everything transfers musically — the dulcimer is cool because it can be both the melody instrument and a rhythm instrument. You can use various percussion techniques on a dulcimer, so I take snare drum lessons with [Colgate percussion instructor] Jimmy Johns, and every other week, we see what we can apply from his jazz vibe technique to the dulcimer.

Moonlight by Alan Kelly, a Noongar artist

Where are you gigging these days? I have played a few times at the Barge, and am hoping to again. Recently, I’ve given concerts on Cape Cod and in my hometown.

What else do you do when you’re not studying or playing the dulcimer? I’ve been working in the visualization lab, which is a really exciting opportunity. I work in the geology department on the mineral collection and as a TA. I’ve also been involved in a research project with Professor Rich April, running samples of this black calcite from Australia. We can’t figure out why it’s black; most calcite is white.

Andrew Daddio

Why did you choose Colgate? On April Visit Day, I met James Niblock, the choir director.

I told him I play classical flute, but I asked, “Do you have any use for hammered dulcimer?”

He said, “Send me an e-mail and we’ll work on it.” So it was an automatic, this is really cool — let’s find a way to use it. Plus, I knew I wanted to be able to study both geology and music.

8 Listen to samples from Cascade at www.colgatealumni.org/scene/GTKKAlley

News and views for the Colgate community

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Women’s soccer

The men’s soccer team beat Navy 2-0 at Van Doren Field on Oct. 30.

The women’s soccer team claimed its league-best 11th Patriot League Championship on Nov. 8, defeating American University 1-0 in the final minutes of double overtime. The Raiders were crowned both the regular season and tournament champions for the first time since 2004. Monica Jensen ’12 scored her first collegiate goal to push the Raiders to victory in the 108th minute of play, preventing the game from being decided on penalty kicks.

With the win, Colgate advanced to the NCAA Tournament for their fifth time ever, holding a seven-game winning streak heading into the tournament.

It was their first time making the tournament since upsetting Arizona in the first round in 2004. Colgate fell to 12-time Big 10 champion and 16th-ranked Penn State in the opening round of the NCAA Tournament 5-0 in State College.

The all-Patriot League teams and major award winners were announced, with Colgate placing four student-athletes on an all-league team, with one other winning one of the four major awards. Goalie Ashley Walsh ’13 was named the Patriot League Rookie of the Year after starting in goal for all 18 of the Raiders’ matches. Jillian Arnault ’10 and Calista Victor ’11 were named to the all-league

first team, while Liz Polido ’10 and Jillian Kinter ’13 were both selected to the second team. Colgate also named four players to the league’s AllTournament team. Polido and Arnault were joined by Victor and Walsh for the Raiders’ honorees, while Arnault was also named the tournament MVP.

Weekes and Ross as well as Ross’s second consecutive nod for the first team.

Leach earned his second selection to an all-league team this season, giving the Raiders a forward, midfielder, and defender all on the first team. Weekes led Colgate in scoring for the season and came in second in the Patriot League, with 18 points off of seven goals and four assists. Ross and Leach were tied for third in scoring for the Raiders, each with eight points off of two goals and four assists.

Chris Salmon ’10 joined Reidy on the second team. He helped lead the Raiders defense, holding league opponents to just nine goals and 65 shots. Salmon also tallied a goal and an assist for Colgate.

Men’s soccer

Colgate shut out Patriot League foe American University 1-0 Nov. 7 at Reeves Field, closing out the season with an 8-8-1 overall mark and 4-3-0 conference record.

Five team members were selected to all-Patriot League teams. The league also announced the 2009 major award winners, with Mike Reidy ’13 claiming one of the top honors. Reidy, a second team all-league selection, was also named the Patriot League Rookie of the Year, the third Raider to be awarded the honor. The first-year midfielder was second on the team in scoring and tied for first in goals scored with 15 points off of seven goals and one assist. Reidy’s seven goals tied him for first among league first-years, while nine of his points came against Patriot League opponents.

Alex Weekes ’10 and Chris Ross ’10 were both named to the all-league first team, along with Jeff Leach ’11, the second all-league selection for both

Golf

In their final match of the 2009 fall season, the golf team finished fifth out of nine schools. Two golfers finished in the top 15 at the Lehigh Kelly Gutshall Invitational, which wrapped up Oct. 18 at Saucon Valley Country Club. Ben Jessen ’12 led the team in both rounds, shooting a 73 in his opening round on the first day, followed by a 76 on day two for a 149 on the weekend, which gave him a second-place tie in the event. Coming off an ECAC Championship victory the weekend before, David Ake ’10 ended his weekend with a top-15 finish, shooting a 75-80 for a 155 in the invitational. Will Delano ’13 shot a 159 (76-83), Nick Parry ’10 shot 161 (79-82), and Neil Thompson ’11 shot 171 (91-80), all helping the Raiders earn their fifth-place finish.

Ake was named the Patriot League Golfer of the Month for October, after winning the individual title at the ECAC Championship and finishing in the top 15 at the Lehigh Invitational.

He was the only Patriot League golfer to win an invitational during the month of October.

Brooke Ousterhout ’10

Cross country

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Elise DeRoo ’12 led the women’s cross country team to fourth place at the Patriot League Championship. DeRoo brought home the individual title, shattering the school record with a personal-best time of 22:01.7. The title was DeRoo’s third of the season.

She is only the third Raider to win the individual title and the first since Stacy Marion ’11 in 2007. DeRoo earned Patriot League Female Runner of the Year recognition following her firstplace performance and was named

Raider Nation

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

Kendall Applegate

Hometown: Davidson, N.C. Game: Women’s Volleyball vs. Lehigh, 10/16/09. The Raiders defeated Lehigh in 3 straight games: 25-22, 25-9, 25-22.

Brooke Ousterhout ’10

Why did you come to the game? To watch my sister, Devon [Applegate ’11], play. My parents drove from North Carolina. It’s a great trip for me because I get to watch DVDs, play games, and bug my parents.

Goalkeeper Sarah Pedersen ’10 stopped eight shots in net for the Raiders in her final collegiate game, but the team was unable to overcome Lafayette, who beat them 3-0.

to the all-Patriot League first team.

DeRoo was joined by Julie Tarallo ’11, who earned all-Patriot League second team honors.

Field hockey

Katelyn Nerbonne ’10 received first team all-Patriot League honors, while Mika Ella-Tang ’10 and Laura Denenga ’11 both earned second team recognition. Nerbonne ranked among the top 10 in league statistics in several categories. The senior wrapped up her career with a 7-goal, 6-assist season and finished with 65 career points, tying for fourth on the all-time Colgate charts. It was her third end-of-year

What do you think of the atmosphere at today’s game? It’s a lot of fun. I love the “serve for prizes” game, and I knew a lot of the answers to the “Volleyball trivia” questions.

Who is your favorite Colgate player? #3, Devon Applegate, of course!

Stanley Krohn

Residence: Smyrna, N.Y. He drives to games even through rain or snow Game: Silver Puck Game; Men’s Ice Hockey beat Dartmouth 3-2, 11/7/09 Past Occupation: World War II veteran who sat on the top turret of a B-17 Bomber (known as the “Flying Fortress”)

league recognition. Denenga finished the season with seven goals and three assists for 17 points. It was the second consecutive season that she garnered second team accolades. Ella-Tang posted six assists her final season and moved into sixth on the all-time assist charts at Colgate with 16.

For the second time in the program’s history, a Colgate student received the Scholar Athlete of the Year in field hockey. Sarah Pedersen ’10, who carries a 3.98 grade point average in biology, became the first player to earn this award for Colgate since Becky Evans in 1997. Pedersen, a three-year starter, ranked sixth on

Why did you come to this game? I’ve been attending games for the last 30 years. Tonight was special because I turn 93 tomorrow and the win tonight couldn’t be a better gift from the team.

What do you think of the game atmosphere? I love it. I really like meeting Colgate students — it keeps me young.

What does Colgate mean to you? I consider Colgate my second home. My alma mater is the school of hard knocks.

Frank Nemeth and Sally Ann Wiant-Nemeth (daughter of Dr. John L. Wiant ’37) Residence: Maumee, Ohio Game: Colgate Football vs. Bucknell, 11/14/09 Special Occasion: Sally and Frank were married at a football game tailgate party hosted by close friends Patty Caprio, Colgate’s director of leadership giving, and husband Joe in the Maroon Council Lot.

The Colgate water polo club drowns RPI 11-3 in the end-of-the-season championship tournament at Lineberry Natatorium.

Why did you decide to have your wedding at a Colgate football game? Colgate is the best place in the whole wide world. My father, who is the most special person in my life, passed away, but I know he is right here with me … he wouldn’t miss the game or my wedding.

What was your wedding like? A dream come true! Frank and I said our vows on a maroon carpet with the Colgate seal. The Colgate Thirteen surrounded us and sang wonderful songs. I really couldn’t imagine a more beautiful setting.

Brooke Ousterhout ’10

What do Colgate and Raider football mean to you? I am so thankful to my dad for introducing me to his alma mater. I remember when he first took me to a Colgate football game in 1980, I immediately fell in love with the place.

Is it true that you’ve traveled to every home football game since then? I have missed very few home games.

News and views for the Colgate community

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Colgate’s all-time win list with 19.

In 2009, she started all 16 games for Colgate and led the Patriot League with 121 saves, and her 7.53 saves per game ranked 14th nationally at the time of the announcement. Pedersen is a two-time Charles A. Dana Scholar, and has been named to the Dean’s List every semester, as well as the Raider and Patriot League Academic Honor Rolls.

Football

The football team met two milestones in 2009. It marked the 10th season that Colgate finished in the top 25 of an FCS poll, and the third time since 1977 that the Raiders lost two or fewer games.

Wide receiver Pat Simonds ’10 caught nine passes for 167 yards and two touchdowns as Colgate defeated Bucknell 29-14 in the regular season

Sailing club hits lucky 13 Once just a typical club, Colgate’s sailing team, founded in 1947, has recently become a competitor at college sailing regattas up and down the East Coast. Part of the Middle-Atlantic Intercollegiate Sailing Association (MAISA), the team races against top-rated teams including St. Mary’s, Hobart and William Smith, Georgetown, and Cornell. At the conclusion

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finale on Nov. 14. Simonds finished the regular season with 66 catches for 1,012 yards and 14 touchdowns. His touchdown mark breaks the previous record held by Tom Stenglein ’86, who caught 13 touchdowns in 1985.

Simonds is also the third wide receiver in school history to have consecutive 1,000-yard seasons, and finished fourth in career receptions and receiving yardage in the Colgate record books.

Volleyball

On Oct. 3, the volleyball team ended an 18-match losing streak to American with a 14-25, 25-23, 25-23, 25-23 victory over the Eagles at Bender Arena.

Kaleigh Durket ’13 and Maureen Colligan ’12 each posted 13 kills, and the Raiders received strong blocking performances from Casey Ritt ’11 and Kaylee Dougherty ’12 in the win. Ritt

of the 2009 season, we are now ranked lucky 13th!

So how has this come about?

Thanks to a constant effort by team members, our roster has increased, as has our competitive mentality and welcoming atmosphere. While we do not have a coach, we work together to contribute the individual knowledge we each bring to the table. Sailors of all experience levels are welcome, from those with years of competitive high school and junior sailing backgrounds to those who do not (yet) even know what “starboard” means. We practice four days a week at Willow Bank Yacht Club in nearby Cazenovia, and hold sessions using chalk-talks and interactive videos to garner information more easily explained off the water than on it.

Our rankings have improved immensely. While the club once was — understandably — in close to last place and at risk of losing MAISA recognition, we placed 26th by the end of the 2008 season, out of about 45 teams! Last spring, the team qualified for the regional regatta, The America Trophy, for the first time. This is especially impressive considering we do not practice in the spring thanks to the late thawing of Cazenovia Lake. We managed to place 11th out of 18,

and Dougherty combined for 12 block assists. It marked only the second ever Colgate victory over American and was the Eagles’ first-ever Patriot League loss at home since they joined the league.

Colgate players claimed Patriot League Player of the Week twice and League Rookie of the Week once heading into the final weekend of play. Durket garnered league recognition in consecutive weeks. The native of El Dorado Hills, Calif., was named the rookie of the week on Oct. 5 after helping to lead Colgate to a 2-1 record, including the upset at American. The following week, Durket was named the player of the week. She tallied 27 kills, 15 digs, and three blocks to help pace the Raiders to a 1-1 mark, including a three-set victory over Bucknell University. On Nov. 9, Dougherty notched the second player of the week

beating varsity teams with fulltime coaches and regular spring practices.

The fall ’09 season turned out to be one of the best in Colgate history, with some of the highestever turnouts to practice and great achievements on the water. During October break, we placed third at the Cornell Fall 2 Qualifier, qualifying, again for the first time, to compete in the War Memorial Regatta against some of the finest collegiate teams in the country.

Over Halloween weekend, Adrian Mason ’10, Nate Swift ’11, Sara Winkelman ’12, and Andrea Liptack ’13 drove to St. Mary’s City, Md. Conditions were tough, with shifty winds most of the time. Although we placed at the back of the fleet, finishing 17th, it was a great achievement to even attend such a prestigious regatta.

We have earned acknowledgement from other teams, and finished in the top five in most regattas (usually out of 18). This season will be hard to forget and sets the bar high for the future. Our goal now is to keep up this momentum.

While we are indeed the underdog, these last few years have proven that we have the potential to be a top-ranked sailing program.

— Adrian Mason ’10 and Nate Swift ’11

Colgate again ranks No. 1 in student-athlete graduation rates

For the second year in a row, Colgate’s student-athletes earned a top spot among Division I colleges in graduation-success rates, according to a report issued by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).

With a 99 percent rate, Colgate tied the University of Notre Dame for the highest graduation-success rate.

The rankings show the percentage of student-athletes earning a degree within six years, based on the fourclass aggregate of first-year classes from 1999 to 2002.

Colgate’s federal graduation rate for athletes is 88 percent, just behind Notre Dame, which leads the nation at 90 percent.

“We’re proud of our continued success in supporting our studentathletes,” said Interim President Lyle Roelofs. “Having an athletics program that is successful both on the field of play and in the classroom requires hard work, dedication, and support on the part of all — our athletes, coaches, faculty, and administration. That’s what we aspire to at Colgate.”

“It is a tribute to the extremely talented and capable student-athletes that our coaches are recruiting to become a part of the strong tradition of Colgate athletics,” said Ann-Marie Guglieri, assistant athletic director-

compliance coordinator. “It speaks to their commitment of competing at the highest level of athletics in Division I, and excelling in the classroom at one of the best liberal arts institutions in the nation.”

Get to know: Kiki Koroshetz ’11

Foyle’s humanitarian efforts recognized

Adonal Foyle ’98 was inducted into the 2009 World Sports Humanitarian Hall of Fame for his role in empowering youth in the United States and the Eastern Caribbean. Through his nonpartisan group Democracy Matters, Foyle has worked to help votingage youth understand campaign finance reform. His other organization, the Kerosene Lamp Foundation, uses basketball as a bridge to promote education and health awareness with children in the Eastern Caribbean.

Foyle left Colgate as the NCAA alltime leader in blocked shots, and was the eighth overall pick in the 1997 NBA draft by the Golden State Warriors. He was an NBA center with the Golden State Warriors, Memphis Grizzlies, and as a part of the Orlando Magic team that advanced to the 2009 NBA finals.

Andrew Daddio

honor for Colgate. The sophomore hit .500 on the week, with 25 kills and five blocks as the Raiders posted a weekend sweep over Lafayette and Lehigh.

For someone who’s beaten cancer and come back just a year later to help the women’s soccer team become Patriot League champions, Kiki Koroshetz ’11 is pretty nonchalant about what she’s overcome. In fact, when she was diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma in the fall of 2008, her biggest disappointment was having to leave the soccer preseason of her junior year.

The previous summer, Koroshetz had gone to the emergency room because she felt a pain in her side. She then underwent a battery of tests and visited a number of different doctors. While awaiting the results, she figured that she might as well go to preseason rather than sitting at home. She received her diagnosis while at Colgate and had to return to her hometown of Norwalk, Conn., for treatment.

The next five months were difficult, not so much because of the chemotherapy and surgery, but mostly because Koroshetz “missed the game terribly,” she said. “I didn’t feel quite like myself without soccer.” She especially missed her teammates: “It was hard not being there to travel with them, celebrate an overtime win on the field, and support them after a loss.” When her treatment allowed, Koroshetz did come to Colgate for a few days at a time to watch home games and practices, or go to away games when the team played close to Norwalk. “When I couldn’t be there, I watched the games online,” she said, adding that she still kept in close contact with her teammates and coaches.

Her doctors were skeptical about when or if she would play soccer again, but Koroshetz was determined to make it back to Colgate for the spring season — and she did. When she returned to campus, although it took time for her to get back into shape physically, mentally she was ready to take on the world — especially fierce competitors Navy. “My class has wanted to win the Patriot League Championship since we began playing together freshman year,” said Koroshetz, who plays defense and midfield. “We came close our freshman and junior years, losing to Navy in the finals and then semi-finals, respectively.”

So, defeating Navy in the first game of the championship and then winning against American in the finals to become the league champions was a particularly meaningful event for Koroshetz and the team. “This season, more than any other in the past four years, every player was united in our dream to win the Patriot League Championship,” said Koroshetz, who is also team co-captain. “I could not imagine saying goodbye to my teammates who will be graduating without championship rings on their fingers.”

Now that the season has ended, Koroshetz continues to focus on her studies as an English major concentrating in creative writing. Her 3.91 GPA earned her a spot as one of six Patriot League soccer players selected for the 2009 ESPN The Magazine/CoSIDA Academic All-District Team. Koroshetz is also vice president of the Student Athletic Advisory Committee, which promotes positive advocacy for Colgate athletics and explores issues that affect student-athletes.

Fully recovered and feeling “really good,” Koroshetz reveals only one remaining sign of cancer: her once–long blond hair is now cropped short. Again, her attitude is positive: “Short hair is easy.” And when asked if the illness had any long-term impact, she said, “It was a bump in the road for me. I want people to appreciate their lives, but I can’t say I’m a completely different person now.”

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Check out www.gocolgateraiders.com for game schedules, rosters, statistics, online ticket ordering, and news and video features. For scores, call the Raider Sportsline: 315-228-7900.

Ticket office: 315-228-7600.

Senior wide receiver Pat Simonds’s (#80) two touchdown receptions helped Colgate to a 29-14 win over Bucknell in the regular season finale.

Bob McDevitt ’60

— Aleta Mayne

News and views for the Colgate community

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

The End of Time

Anthony Aveni (University Press of Chicago) The Internet, bookshelves, and movie theaters are full of prophecies, theories, and predictions that December 21, 2012, marks the end of the world, or at least the end of the world as we know it. In The End of Time: The Maya Mystery of 2012, astronomy and anthropology professor Anthony Aveni explores these theories, explains their origins, and measures them objectively against evidence unearthed by Mayan archaeologists, iconographers, and epigraphers. He expands on these prophecies to include the broader context of how other cultures, ancient and modern, thought about the “end of things” and speculates on why cataclysmic events in human history have such a strong appeal within American pop culture.

Paleoclimates

Thomas M. Cronin ’72 (Columbia University Press) Paleoclimates: Understanding Climate Change Past and Present is a comprehensive synthesis of paleoclimate research covering all geological timescales, emphasizing topics that shed light on modern trends in the earth’s climate. Thomas Cronin, an adjunct professor in the Science, Technology, and International Affairs Program at Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service, discusses recent discoveries about past periods of global warmth, changes in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, abrupt climate and sea-level change, natural temperature variability, and other topics relevant to controversies over the causes and impacts

of climate change. This text is geared toward advanced undergraduate and graduate students and researchers in geology, geography, biology, glaciology, oceanography, atmospheric sciences, and climate modeling. It can also serve as a reference for those requiring a general background on natural climate variability.

Confessions of a City Girl

Barbara Davis Stcherbatcheff ’04 (Virgin Books) For more than a year, Barbara Davis Stcherbatcheff anonymously wrote the City Girl column for the London daily newspaper thelondonpaper based on her experiences as one of the few women on the trading floor competing against “the bad-boy brokers” of Canary Wharf. Confessions of a City Girl delves into her story even deeper. She writes about working with super-rich hedge fund managers in the sleek streets of Mayfair. She shares the story of how she met, married, and divorced her very own “City Boy.” And she discloses how she made

and lost large sums of money. Stcherbatcheff gives the inside track on life in the financial capital of the world, telling readers “what went wrong — and why the girls are the only ones who can put it right.”

Waiting for the Snow to Fall Brennan Lagasse ’02 (VDM Verlag)

In Waiting for the Snow to Fall: First Nations, Federal Policy, and Environmental Justice, Brennan Lagasse presents a model for holistic sustainable land-use policy, based on critical examination of a ski area expansion plan in Northern Arizona. Lagasse delves into the case of the Arizona Snowbowl ski area, which, along with the U.S. Forest Service, seeks to expand the resort on a mountain held sacred by numerous Native American tribes. As social justice advocates and environmentalists question the sustainability of the expansion plan, Waiting for the Snow to Fall recommends how the plan can go forward justly and sustainably. The book also illuminates how future clashes can draw from lessons learned in this case and, ultimately, employ policy that is sustainable for all affected parties in land-use conflicts.

BookCase

Bringing back the banned The right to read was celebrated in Hamilton with a Banned Book Readout on Sept. 28, sponsored by the Hamilton Public Library and the Colgate Bookstore.

Community members read their favorite passages from the following books: The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron and Matt Phelan, read by Anne

Clauss, president, Hamilton Public Library Board, and her daughter, Gretchen The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger, read by Elaine Connelly, Hamilton Public Library The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman, read by Nancy Heck, Hamilton resident Howl by Allen Ginsberg, read by David Hollis, Radio Free Hamilton The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain, read by Noor Khan, Colgate history professor To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, read by Sue McVaugh, mayor of Hamilton The Giver by Lois Lowry, read by Andrea Pura ’13 Lush by Natasha Friend, read by Kate Reynolds, Colgate Bookstore Angus, Thongs, and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison, read by Phoebe Rotter, Hamilton Central School senior Forever by Judy Blume, read by Izzy Schaller, Hamilton Central School middle-

school student A Separate Peace by John Knowles, read by Pat Weaver ’13 Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut, read by Susan Weitz, resident supervisor at Colgate’s Chapel House Beloved by Toni Morrison, read by Jane Welsh, Fortnightly Club Harry Potter & the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling, read by Stephanie Zanowic ’11

In the media Cosmic Conversations Stephan Martin ’89 (New Page Books)

Cosmic Conversations: Dialogues on the Nature of the Universe and the Search for Reality is a collection of interviews with cutting-edge thinkers on the nature of the universe and our relationship to it.

Scientists, spiritual teachers, indigenous elders, and cultural creatives all share their voices on the nature of reality, the interplay of science and religion, and the role of humanity and each person in a mysterious, evolving universe.

The Luna Light Gang George Nilsen ’47 (Vantage Press)

In The Luna Light Gang, George Nilsen presents the effects of the Depression on a small town in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in an approach that speaks more about the virtues of community than the ravages of poverty. Main character Aslak Bergland and his friends become moonshiners, providing corn liquor to the community and cash to the members of The Luna Light Gang. The spirit of community shines through as nothing in the story — from the moonshining operation, to the eventual downfall of a corrupt federal agent, to the success of local farmers and businessmen — happens without the involvement of friends and neighbors.

A Ship in the Harbor

Julian Padowicz ’54 (Academy Chicago Publishers) Julian Padowicz’s A Ship in the Harbor picks up where his 2006 memoir Mother and Me: Escape from Warsaw 1939 left off: in Hungary, where 8-year-old Padowicz and his mother have just escaped from Soviet-occupied Poland. In Hungary, Padowicz’s mother, Barbara, is embraced by a

large social circle and believes herself saved. She attempts to sell her jewelry, and becomes the mistress of a wealthy Romanian count, hiding in style on his impressive country estate. But when the count proves himself dishonest, Padowicz and his mother are forced to go to Budapest, where the Nazis still await her.

The book explores the bonds between mothers and sons, loyalty and deceit, faith, and treachery, in a continuation of Padowicz’s childhood story.

“We’re talking about an enormous amount of potatoes.”

— Nancy Ries, associate professor of anthropology and peace and conflict studies, describes to BBC Radio why she believes increased potato cultivation in Russia is a sign of oppression and poverty

“Kindle is really cool to use, but I don’t think it’s practical enough to take over the literature industry.”

— Ali Goldfarb ’13 shares her opinion with New Voices magazine about reading books on a handheld device

“Hamilton is about as close to Mayberry as you can get in modern-day America.”

— Glenn Cashman, associate professor of music, describes Colgate’s location for an article in JazzTimes

One Square Mile

Sheldon Parrish ’81 (Xlibris) In One Square Mile, Sheldon Parrish chronicles the history of his hometown, Roosevelt, N.Y. He travels as far back as 1643, when the area was occupied by a Native American tribe called the Merricks. Then called Rum Point, the town featured farms that produced tobacco, corn, pork, and beets. He traces its several name changes and the historical events that brought them about, including the turning point of its economic history and its relationship to Theodore Roosevelt.

Even Worse Than We Had Hoped Paul Spelman ’89 (Meshomac Publishing)

Part memoir, part examination of the TV business, Even Worse Than We Had Hoped pulls back the curtain on local TV news while recounting one reporter’s quest to make it to TV’s “major leagues.” Paul Spelman began as a “one-man-band” reporter in a small town in North Carolina and ended up in the nation’s capital. His new book is about chasing a dream through the trenches of TV news.

Spelman recounts tales such as meet-

“There’s a real appetite for intellectual engagement among our alumni.”

— Tim Mansfield, director of alumni affairs, explains in a Chronicle of Higher Education article how the university’s Living Writers course is utilizing new media to connect with alumni

“… They all had something that seized them, and gave them their life’s work. I honor their experience.”

— Joscelyn Godwin, a music professor and author of several books on America’s obscure spiritual dimensions, comments for a Los Angeles Times article about people’s quest for spiritual experiences

“The idea is that time gets renewed, that the world gets renewed all over again — often after a period of stress — the same way we renew time on New Year’s Day or even on Monday morning.”

— Anthony Aveni, professor of astronomy and anthropology and Native American Studies, explains to National Geographic News the significance of the year 2012 in the Mayan calendar

“Creating a trusting atmosphere, having dinner together, and discussing tough topics like alcohol and drug use, body image issues, and relationships before there is a crisis helps to build honesty into your relationship.”

— Beverly Low, dean of first-year students, offers advice in Family Times magazine to parents of college students

ing a medical examiner who stores corpses in his garage; coming face to face with a rifle-wielding ex-judge; and working with a cameraman who calls in gambling bets while on the

way to a story. While telling these stories of “run and gun” journalism, he provides insight into the difficulties of breaking into TV news, and the challenges of staying there.

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It’s Only Natural

by james le

utumn was in the cool wind on the last Friday morning of this past September, and Professor Chris Henke and a half-dozen of his students were bent over a row of potatoes in a field at Common Thread Community Farm, three miles from campus, pulling weeds.

One of Common Thread’s two owner-farmers, Chris Babis, was working alongside Henke and the students. When a tractor-trailer from the global food marketer Sysco rolled by on a road above the field, loaded with supplies for the Colgate dining halls, a student asked Babis how that made him feel.

“I take it with a grain of salt,” Babis said. “I wish all food could be grown locally, but I realize that it can’t be. At least for now.”

Across the field, in a former dairy barn where Common Thread processes its fresh vegetables, Babis’s partner, Amy Brown, and another of Henke’s students were cleaning raw carrots in a root washer, a slanted, rolling drum made of spaced wooden slats.

Dirty carrots go in the higher end, the drum rolls as water is hosed in, and washed carrots come out of the bottom. On this day, the washed carrots were destined for the Colgate dining halls.

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aware and care more than students did fifteen or twenty years ago. As a society, I think we’re that way.”

Buying locally “is the right thing to do,” said Murray. “We all live here and eat here, and our families are here. Buying locally helps make our community businesses more successful.” His search to meet that goal efficiently and with foods that are certifiably safe led him to Purdy & Sons Foods, 10 miles down the road in Sherburne.

Andrew Daddio

Organic movement to organic foods

Professor Chris Henke, Alli Taylor ’10, and Jenna Weber ’10 (l-r) pull weeds in the potato patch at Common Thread Farm.

The students pulling weeds were enrolled in a new course called Food, an honors-level offering in general education. That Food was one of the most sought-after courses on campus this fall is an indicator of the surge in interest that students (among many others) are taking in the environment generally, and local foods in particular.

On the evening of the same Friday that Henke’s class was pulling weeds, for instance, Colgate faculty members enjoyed their first fall tunk, a social gathering at Merrill House. The flyer for the event had advertised: “All of the vegetables used will be locally grown, and some of the meat will be as well.”

The following morning, students and members of Colgate’s faculty and staff mingled with their fellow Hamiltonians at the weekly farmers market on the village green, a decades-old tradition from spring through fall. As patrons of the farmers market wandered among local vendors’ stalls, selecting fresh produce, meats, flowers, honey, baked goods, and crafts, Michael Palmer ’10 studied their buying habits for a research study supported by the university’s Upstate Institute.

Shae Frydenlund ’10 helped found Green Thumbs, a student group, “because there was an interest on campus, not only in what we consume in the dining halls, but in supporting organic farming and local produce.” Green Thumbs seeks to raise campus awareness of farms in the surrounding community, and encourages the campus dining service to use locally produced foods. The students are testing the feasibility of starting a community garden on campus.

“In the last three or four years, students have become more interested in where their food is coming from,” said Sodexo’s George Murray, director of the university’s dining service. Added Murray, who has been with Colgate for more than 30 years (see sidebar on page 11), “Students today are more

Ag futures

As Sam Meyer ’10 tossed potato culls to the pigs penned at Common Thread Community Farm, he said Professor Chris Henke’s honorslevel Food course gave him an appreciation of the work that goes into raising local produce.

“And the fact that the farm’s owners, Amy Brown and Chris Babis, are so young makes this experience more accessible,” said Meyer, who was actually a shareholder at Common Thread before he learned about Henke’s class. “My student share runs from August through October.”

Meyer, a native of Saranac Lake in northern New York, said he would like to find work related to agriculture. That interest got Meyer into Henke’s class.

Said Henke: “After I made this long speech about not adding anyone to the class, Sam came to my office to say,

Andrew Daddio

Growing interest

If some of the food discussed in this story is organic, so too is the process that has led the university to this point.

“In the old days,” said Murray in a reference to the late 1970s, “a lot more of our food came from local sources. I remember buying eggs from someone in Hubbardsville. There were more local connections.”

But a more corporate approach prevailed through the ’80s and into the ’90s, Murray said.

“We consolidated to a kind of one-stop-shopping approach with Sysco Foods and others that could deliver canned goods, meats, cheeses, eggs, janitorial supplies, and paper on the same truck. It was the direction everyone went.”

Then the student inquiries about local food began, at the front edge of a rising tide of public awareness of global issues such as conservation and sustainability.

Murray and his staff welcomed the interest and began to research what was necessary to bring more

‘I want to be a farmer — learning about food is more than just another class to me.’ ” News and views for the Colgate community

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Sebastian Wood ’10, a member of Henke’s Food class, runs carrots destined for Colgate’s dining halls through the drum washer at Common Thread Community Farm, three miles from campus.

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foods produced by local farmers and vendors.

“We talked with Dan about becoming a distributor for other local folks,” said Murray. “Dan would inspect their facilities to be sure they met all the qualifications to be a vendor, then arrange to pick up their products and distribute them to us.”

Deliveries began in fall 2008, and the variety of local vendors who sell to the university through Purdy has grown steadily over the past year. Yogurt, granola, spaghetti sauce, juices, sausage, and other meats are among the locally produced foods that Purdy &

Sons now distributes to the university, in addition to seasonal fruits and vegetables. At this point, the relationship has made it possible for all sauces (except marinara) to be made from scratch, eliminating the need to purchase prepared sauces, salsa, or dips.

Feeding students takes more food than local farmers can sometimes produce, but Murray turns to the local suppliers first before supplementing from other sources. And he also buys regionally produced foods through other suppliers, such as dairy products from Binghamton-based Crowley Foods, and fruits and vegetables from Mento Produce, a fifth-generation family business in Syracuse.

Community-supported agriculture

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to pull in all the local purveyors without having a line of pickup trucks backing up to the loading docks.

And we needed to make sure that the food is not only local, but also safe,” he said.

It is also a fact that the growing season for local produce does not square ideally with Colgate’s academic year. “At the height of the produce season, we’re feeding eight-year-old soccer campers,” Murray explained. So he sought out other locally produced foods that could add variety to the menu.

While Murray was looking for reliable sources of local foods, Dan Purdy was e-mailing then-president Rebecca Chopp to ask about doing business with the university. Financial vice president David Hale fielded Purdy’s question and brought him to Murray’s attention.

A fourth-generation family business now run

by Purdy and his wife, Vicki, Purdy & Sons is not only inspected by the USDA, FDA, and New York’s Department of Agriculture and Markets, but also certified by an independent third-party audit.

“Even the national vendors don’t have all these checkpoints,” said Purdy, whose “excellent” rating for receiving, processing, storing, and shipping food provided the reassurance that Murray and Sodexo needed to establish Purdy & Sons as a supplier of

For Common Thread, the local farm where Henke and his students were preparing the carrots that would end up in Frank Dining Hall, the university dining service is a small but growing slice of the annual business. “This was a pilot year for the farm-tocafeteria initiative,” said co-owner Brown. “We deeply appreciate Colgate’s business and support,

Andrew Daddio

and we plan to increase our efforts next year.”

The university community shares in the economy and ideology of the 13-acre farm in other tangible ways. Common Thread practices “community-supported agriculture” (CSA), where community members buy in advance a share in the farm’s produce for the year. Ninety-five percent of Common Thread’s business comes from its 225 members, many of whom (including Henke and his family) are members of the university’s faculty and staff.

Using funds generated by the sale of shares at the beginning of the season, Babis and Brown plant their fields in spring. Weekly through the growing season, Common Thread bundles up shares of the harvested produce that members can pick up in the farm store — the loft of the former dairy barn that also serves as the processing facility. Goods from a dozen other local producers — from coffee to honey to bagels — are on sale in the store, which is also open to drop-in customers.

The give-and-take in the farm store is really a conversation among friends. One fall Saturday morning, near the end of the growing season, a

Feeding her passion

Colgate-connected member couple were choosing from the late-season harvest of tubers, collard greens, spinach, broccoli, onions, and spaghetti squash arrayed on farm carts, as Brown, bundled in a heavy sweater, toque, and scarf, riffed on her own alma mater, Hampshire College.

“The bottom line is important,” said Babis, “but clearly the connection to community is another important motivation. People want the food, the community, and to know their farmer.”

Henke said that membership in Common Thread has changed the way his family eats. Adapting recipes as the produce varies week to week is a reminder that availability changes with the seasons for local farms. Henke and his 8-year-old daughter are among the members who regularly pitch in to help on the farm. “It’s giving my daughter a different experience from mine growing up,” he said.

“So much brought me to the realization of what I want to do with my life,” said Nina Merrill ’10, who’s about to go pro with her interest in sustainable foods. “I don’t think this ever would have happened if every piece of the puzzle didn’t fall into place like it did at Colgate.”

Merrill has become an online publisher of information about efforts to bring organic food to college campuses nationwide. After an internship with a New York law firm convinced Merrill that the law was not her calling, she took stock of her other interests. “My passion was nutrition, but I didn’t want to be a nutritionist.”

She accepted a summer position with the Organic Trade Association (OTA) in 2008, initially researching what students were saying online about organic foods. “There’s this huge movement on college campuses toward local, sustainable, organic food, but nothing was being discussed online.” The OTA encouraged her to drop her research project and start a blog, which she did: Organic on the Green: A Blog to Feed the Organic Revolution in Campus Dining.

Merrill thought she would have trouble finding contributors (“Who wants to write an essay for free if you’re in college?”), but the response has been so great that she has trouble fitting everyone in. She has compiled some of the best advice from the blog into a downloadable handbook, Taste the Change: How to Go Organic on Campus. On a summer 2009 internship, Merrill created yet another guide, Student Gardens and Food Service, for aspiring student organic farmers.

Issues with her own health had actually raised the stakes for Merrill when it came to her concerns about where the food in campus dining halls might come from. Debilitating migraines had caused her to drop out of school for a semester shortly after she arrived on campus.

Doctors back home on Long Island traced the cause of the migraines to food allergies.

“The first thing I did when I came back was to meet with George Murray and others at Frank Dining Hall to tell them about all my allergies and health concerns. They were unbelievably devoted to making sure I had a good dining experience.”

When officials at the food service’s parent company, Sodexo, learned about Merrill’s situation, they asked her to join a national student board of directors.

After completing her coursework in December (she majored in women’s studies and minored in film and media studies), Merrill was hired at a company that specializes in sustainable foods.

Studying farmers markets

While share-supported CSA farming is relatively new to the community (Common Thread has been in operation just two years), the Hamilton Farmers Market is an institution. For decades, local farmers and other vendors have been setting up shop on the village green Saturday mornings from May through October.

Averaging more than 100 vendors, Hamilton’s is by far the largest of the four farmers markets that operate in Madison County (Town of Lenox, Cazenovia, and Oneida host the others). A typical summer Saturday will find what seems to be most of the residents of the greater Hamilton area packed onto the green, buying or selling fresh foods and flowers, lobbying for a political cause, listening to

Andrew Daddio

A family shopping at the Oneida Farmers Market gives their feedback for Upstate Institute fellow Mike Palmer’s study of farmers markets in Madison County.

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Local Fare at Frank Dining Hall A Sampler November 6–12 Breakfast

Organic Yogurt (Chobani, South Edmeston) Natural Gourmet Home-Baked Cereal (Upstate Harvest, Bainbridge) Fresh Bagels (Bagel Grove, Utica) Milk and yogurt (Crowley Foods, Binghamton) Breakfast Sausage Links and Patties (made by Purdy & Sons, Sherburne, N.Y., with pork raised at J&D Farms, Georgetown, or S&C Farm, Mohawk)

Lunch and Dinner

Butternut Squash (Common Thread Community Farm, Madison) and Lentils Black Bean Nachos (Cayuga Pure Organics, Brooktondale/Ithaca) Broiled Flank Steak, Szechuan Style (Purdy & Sons) Roasted Mustard-Crusted Pork Loin (Purdy & Sons)

up with neighbors. It is a model for small-town commerce and community.

Becca Jablonski, Madison County’s agricultural economic development specialist, has launched a study of the county’s four farmers markets as she looks for ways to help them grow and prosper in support of local agriculture. Colgate’s Upstate Institute assigned senior intern Mike Palmer to help Jablonski develop baseline data on the markets over the past summer.

Working full time on the project, Palmer visited each of the farmers markets at least four times.

Using tools developed for a similar study conducted in northern New York in 2008 by Cornell University, Palmer estimated attendance at the markets, asked customers about their buying patterns, surveyed the vendors and farmers for their opinions, and gave market managers the opportunity to rate their market’s success.

A final report is still in the works, but Palmer said his research shows nearly $1 million a year being spent at the county’s farmers markets, with vendors’ proceeds proportionate to the size of the market. “It’s too easy to forget when you go to the supermarket and the produce comes from California or New Zealand, but this really is an agricultural county,” said Palmer, who is Jablonski’s second Upstate Institute intern in as many years.

In summer 2008, Katy Morley ’09 helped Jablonski map the Madison County farms with marketable products. Morley also promoted the county’s first buy-local week, and worked on the open farm day that attracted visitors to a dozen farms. The farm map was released at a party sponsored by the Colgate Inn.

Madison Bounty

Jablonski manages a variety of programs and initiatives that promote the economic viability of the 700 farms and associated agribusinesses in Madison County. Another of her efforts with direct ties to the university is Madison Bounty, a service that delivers local foods to area residents. Working in conjunction with Chenango and Onondaga counties, the Bounty enables customers to place online orders for a wide range of foods produced by more than 80 local farms.

With Purdy & Sons serving as the collection and distribution point, Madison Bounty is now delivering orders to more than 90 customers a week in Madison, Chenango, and Onondaga counties. For small and medium-sized farms, and especially for the Amish farmers whose numbers are growing in central New York, the Bounty solves a thorny distribution problem.

A grant from Konosioni, Colgate’s senior honor society, helped launch Madison Bounty, which has reciprocated by supplying a basket of local foods to be bid upon in Konosioni’s annual charity auction.

Madison Bounty also caters events on campus, such as the celebration of Earth Day, lunches hosted by the Upstate Institute, and an “Eat Local/Think Global” banquet sponsored by the Hunger Task Force to raise awareness about hunger issues in the United States.

“To me, one of the great things about living in upstate New York is the food and the access we have to the tremendous bounty of wonderful and diverse products. With the support of faculty, staff, and students eager to support local agriculture, there are growing numbers of ways we have been able to get local foods into Colgate,” said Jablonski, who

Creamy Potato and Leek Soup (Common Thread) Beef Chili with Smoky Red Beans (Cayuga Pure Organics and Purdy & Sons) Brussels Sprouts (Common Thread) Black, Navy, and Red Kidney Beans at the Organic Salad Bar (Cayuga Pure Organics)

Andrew Daddio

Marinara Sauce (The Pasta Shop, Utica)

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regularly interacts with students and members of the faculty and staff.

Sustainability

None of these activities happens in isolation. The heightened interest in the sources of food served on campus ties to other efforts to be conscientious about how university practices affect nature and society, both local and global. The cumulative effect locally mirrors movements happening across the country to be more responsible environmentally and socially.

On campus, since 2003, an annual Green Summit has brought students, faculty, and staff together “to establish a shared vision for building the environmental future of Colgate.” And four years ago, the president approved a faculty recommendation to create an Environmental Council (since renamed the Sustainability Council).

The council also proposed that the university employ a campus sustainability coordinator, a suggestion that was realized in spring 2009 with the hiring of John Pumilio, a native upstate New Yorker who has worked in environmental jobs around the world. Pumilio said he comes to work every day asking, “Are our operations, policies, and purchasing decisions environmentally and socially responsible? Are we doing things today that ensure that human communities can coexist with ecological communities?”

Within his first seven months on the job, Pumilio is already having an impact, both ideologically and practically. He senses among people on campus and off a general readiness to be involved, and says his role is providing people with the knowledge and tools they need to move ahead. His October talk to the Chenango Valley Alumni Club was titled “It’s Not Easy Being Green.”

“If people count on me to make Colgate

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Whole foods harvest As one of their course requirements, students in Professor Chris Henke’s general education course Food spent time each week working at nearby Common Thread Community Farm this past fall. Henke’s students helped bring in:

• 1,850 pounds of potatoes • 3,200 pounds of car-

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Watch a video about sustainability in the dining halls at www.colgate.edu/foodvideo

• 600 pounds of beets Legumes from Cayuga Pure Organics in the Ithaca area, on deck for a Frank Dining Hall meal.

• 250 pounds of parsnips

Andrew Daddio

Andrew Daddio

Senior Mike Palmer’s research showed farmers markets in Madison County generate nearly $1 million per year.

sustainable, it’s not going to happen,” he said. “But if everyone considers sustainability as they do their day-to-day work, then we’ll get to where we need to go and I’m just here as a help desk.”

Murray and the food service have bought into the idea, and the effort extends beyond buying more local foods. The plastic and styrofoam cups, plates, and dinnerware long used at the snack bar have been replaced by products that are biodegradable or compostable, reducing the impact at the county landfill. And while serious composting is only a goal at this point, a campus residence for students with a special interest in the environment — The Loj — began heating with recycled cooking oil this winter.

So Frydenlund, the Green Thumbs co-founder who also happens to live at The Loj, can literally be warmed by one outcome of her activism, even as she’s fed by another. Frydenlund, who will graduate with a double major in environmental geography and art, said, “People our age realize that climate change and sustainable living are things we can’t ignore.

College introduces you to being active. It gives you the tools and power to be a member of a community with a purpose.”

As a PhD candidate looking for a topic to study in the 1990s, Henke examined the relationship between agricultural scientists and the farm industry in California’s Salinas Valley (later to become the subject of his book Cultivating Science, Harvesting Power). “People asked me then why I’d want to do that,” he recalled recently.

“Now it seems like sustainable agriculture is all anyone’s interested in. Students are knocking down my door to get into this course on food, and they are excited about going out to the farm to learn about agriculture.

“You’d expect that at a place with an ag school, like Penn State or Cornell,” said Henke. “But at Colgate? This shift in people’s interest in food and where it comes from — it could be a thesis for someone’s dissertation.”

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Illustration by Steve Dininno 32

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HOW TO

Living Writers share the craft of writing with students and community

By Rebecca Costello “It seems to me there are certain things you want to know.” Professor Jane Pinchin perches on the edge of the table at the front of the Ho Lecture Room. “I’m going to talk about Greekness, and a little bit about history and narrative voice, and then Jennifer is going to talk about, um…”

“Sex!” chimes in co-instructor Jennifer Brice, who’s seated behind the table to Pinchin’s right, drawing chuckles from the students, and Pinchin herself.

“Yes, sex,” Pinchin confirms in her unmistakable breathy voice.

It is a Tuesday October afternoon, and this English professor duo are prepping their 55 students in a class called Living Writers for their next visitor. In two days, novelist Jeffrey Eugenides will spend 75 minutes in conversation with them about the art and craft of writing his Pulitzer Prize–winning book Middlesex.

There is much for the group to discuss about this epic story — told by an unusual protagonist/ narrator, the girl-then-boy Calliope Stephanides, who suffers from a genetic mutation that causes hermaphroditism (possessing both male and female reproductive organs). The book is rich with literary and historical references, themes of transformation, culture, and identity, and a complex structure that plays with linearity and circularity. Having read Middlesex and researched the life and career of the writer, the students are now responsible for writing four questions for Eugenides. The Tuesday

BUILD A NOVEL

class becomes a safe place to test the waters in what intrigued, enlightened, or confused them in their reading.

Danielle Smith ’09, MAT’10 confesses to a bit of bemusement with the novel’s unconventional narrative style, in which “Cal” speaks both in the first person and as an omniscient narrator.

“Not that I didn’t enjoy it, but…” Smith muses.

“Somebody said he reconstructs the past, but he doesn’t. He’s telling it exactly as it happened … He knows everything! At one point he says he was watching things from his primordial sac, and then once he’s born, his vision becomes more limited.

When Calliope was a little girl, she says, ‘I don’t know his feelings about that now’ — when before she could tell us everything about other people’s feelings. I don’t know how he gets away with that as a storyteller!”

Pinchin throws Smith’s conundrum back to the group: “How does he get away with it?”

Geoff Ng ’10 gives it a shot. “I forgot where in the book, but as Cal is coming out of the womb, he’s like, ‘Oh, I’m losing my power to see the future!’ So in a way, the narrator predicts it.”

“In fact, the mythmaking is almost dolls within dolls. It goes to some kind of Genesis,” replies Pinchin. “But you’re right; sometimes he knows what he shouldn’t know. When he is invited out of the office, we get the conversation between Tessie and Milton and Dr. Luce told to us as if the author were in the room.”

Then on Thursday, with the author literally in the room, and having digested the conversation for two days, Smith poses a deeper question to Eugenides: “I was going through and saying, ‘This isn’t fair, he can’t have known this and that.’ But I liked the way it worked. Do you think that writers block themselves in with conventions like that, and could they

make better literature if they let themselves skirt the rules?” she asks.

Clad in a dark blue Italian pin-striped suit, Eugenides paces the front of the room as he explains his thought process: “I tell my creative writing students, a lot of times it takes a long time to find the right point of view to tell a story. With Middlesex, I tried it in the first person. I tried it in third person. I didn’t blithely violate the rules, but I found that the existing rules were not allowing me to tell the story. In

“I don’t know how he gets away with that as a storyteller!” general, it’s not something I would do a lot; only because of the odd nature of this book did I do that.

That has a lot to do with the character of Cal himself.

It seemed to me somebody who ended up with a genetic mutation that so affected his life — his need to explain himself might cause him to overflow the confines of his own ego. I felt it was actually an expression of the kind of person he was. Once I realized that, I gave myself permission, and I was satisfied that it was a valid voice.”

Window into the writing process

As the Living Writers course’s creator — the late English professor Frederick Busch — described them back in 1981, such conversations “reinforce the mystery of creativity,” letting students see “the process of invention happen before their eyes.”

The genesis of Living Writers occurred when a student of Busch’s pointed out something in one of his own novels that he had never thought of. Busch conceived of a class where authors, editors, and others from the publishing field would come to campus each week. Before the visits, the students would read the writers’ work and meet for a lecture about

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Junot Díaz, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

John Gregory Brown, Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery

that work from Busch. The class visit would be a question-and-answer session between the writer and the students. That night, the author would give a public reading from a current book or a work in progress.

In the first edition, in the fall of 1980, Busch’s literary connections yielded an impressive list of visitors including Raymond Carver, Reynolds Price, Rosellen Brown, Tim O’Brien, Leslie Epstein, Hilma Wolitzer, Pam Durban, and Sara Vogan, as well as editors/critics Charles Simmons (New York Times) and John Blades (Chicago Tribune).

“Fred’s idea was wonderful,” said Pinchin, “We have lots of speakers come to campus, but it works

Carrie Brown, The Rope Walk

an entrée to a letter of invitation. Elizabeth Strout (2009 Pulitzer Prize, Olive Kitteridge) taught creative writing at Colgate as a visiting professor in fall 2007 and had been a previous Living Writers participant with Busch. Kim Edwards ’81 (The Memory Keeper’s Daughter, #1 New York Times Bestseller), was one of Busch’s former students. Patrick O’Keeffe (The Hill Road, Barnes and Noble Discover Great New Writers selection) has taught English at Colgate since 2008. He is also a friend of Eugenides. And Brice, whose editor is Ladette Randolph (A Sandhills Ballad, Pushcart Prize, Virginia Faulkner Award) is a good friend of husband-wife writing duo John Gregory Brown (Decorations in a Ruined Cemetery, Lillian Smith Book Award, Steinbeck Award) and Carrie Brown (The Rope Walk, Barnes and Noble Discover Award, Janet Heidinger Kafka Prize).

That a literary scholar and a writer are co-teaching this course is itself unusual, noted Pinchin. “In many places, creative writing and literary study are not united,” she said.

Not so at Colgate, where team teaching across areas and disciplines is also encouraged, so Living Writers blends the two in a unique way. Each week, Pinchin, who generally teaches courses in early 20th-century British literature, and Brice, who teaches nonfiction and creative writing, trade taking the lead in the Tuesday lecture.

“I often stake out the territory of craft issues — point of view, character development, foreshadowing, language, plot,” said Brice, “and Jane tends to be interested in elements like literary and historical background, politics, and geography. That said, those distinctions between what we cover are blurry.”

“The conversation is easily a joint conversation,” Pinchin agreed, noting that a surprise has been “that we could have discussions with as large a group as we have.” That comes from the fact that the students became deeply involved in the course, and with the visitors, she said.

“Usually a course is a very private thing that happens only between the teacher and the students in that room . . . This one gets opened up. . .” best when their visits are attached to classes — it’s a different thing when you study the books with the people who wrote them.”

That notion is what inspired Pinchin and Brice to resurrect the course and accompanying reading series, which Busch had last taught in 2001 before he retired. The pair were deliberate about their goals for the people they wished to bring: contemporary writers who all have written both short and longform fiction. Their own, and the English department’s, connections — plus a bit of serendipity — contributed to the robust, diverse cadre of writers in this fall’s lineup, which included two other Pulitzer Prize winners in addition to Eugenides.

In a New York Times article where authors were asked to recommend books for the 2008 presidential candidates, Junot Díaz (2008 Pulitzer Prize, The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao) had advised Hillary Clinton to read Colgate English professor Peter Balakian’s Black Dog of Fate, providing

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Jeffrey Eugenides, Middlesex

Ladette Randolph, A Sandhills Ballad

In class sessions with the authors, Pinchin and Brice deliberately take minimal roles, allowing the conversation to take place directly between the authors and the students.

Ripples in the water

Following his Thursday class visit, Eugenides spent another hour giving a talk about writing Middlesex in front of an expanded audience in Love Auditorium that included the students, members of the campus and Hamilton communities, and an online audience.

Those viewing from off campus were able to watch in real time and pose questions through an interactive chat function available through the university’s channel on LiveStream, a live broadcast platform.

That technology allowed Colgate to extend Living Writers to alumni (and others) as part of The Hill at Home, a new effort by the Office of Alumni Affairs that responds to alumni who are hungry for offerings of an intellectual nature.

A question posed by an online participant who logged in from Elmira, N.Y., as Mike, Colgate Class of ’92, got Eugenides talking, albeit briefly, about his work in progress. Mike asked, “How have your explorations of sexual identity and youth in The Virgin Suicides and Middlesex informed your latest work?”

Eugenides replied, “I have moved on from that.

The book I’m working on now, of which I will say very little, has a different voice than both The Virgin Suicides and Middlesex . . . it’s quite a different book.

It’s much more tightly dramatized and seemingly more traditional. So I’ve moved on from intersex issues.”

The online audiences have been diverse and widespread. Nearly 50 people viewed Eugenides’s talk through the live webcast, and more than 200 visited the Living Writers site that day. And 75 watched Junot Díaz’s webcast a few weeks before, from not only the United States but also Spain, Italy, France, Canada, Brazil, and Venezuela.

“Usually a course is a very private thing that happens only between the teacher and the students in that room,” said Pinchin. “This one gets opened up, like a pebble makes ripples in a lake.”

Another ripple effect came in the form of alumni who’d once sat in the Ho Lecture Room audience as students in the course, and who now work in

Elizabeth Strout, Olive Kitteridge

Yiyun Li, The Vagrants

publishing themselves. Last summer, Jennifer Smith ’03 and Jennifer Pooley ’97 had attended the Colgate Writers’ Conference (also a Busch creation). While there, they got wind that Pinchin and Brice were reprising Living Writers, and offered to take part.

They took their turn at the front of the room for a Thursday class and panel discussion, where they shared a behind-the-scenes look at book publishing, from acquisition to publication.

“Living Writers, which I took in the fall of 1996, was the most important course that I took at Colgate,” said Pooley. A senior editor at William Morrow, she has published a wide range of critically acclaimed literary fiction and nonfiction ranging from Willy Vlautin’s The Motel Life and Northline and Sarah Hall’s How to Paint a Dead Man (long-listed for the 2009 Man Booker Prize) to historian Daniel James Brown’s The Indifferent Stars Above: The Harrowing Saga of a Donner Party Bride. “We are so excited that Jennifer Brice and Jane Pinchin had the energy and time, commitment and passion to bring this course back. It’s a great tribute to the founder of this course, Frederick Busch, who I think would be really proud to know there are students once again sitting in this room to honor living writers.”

Smith, an editor at Ballantine Books, where she acquires literary fiction, said, “I remember sitting right back there when an editor came to talk to us.

As an English major and book nerd for life, it was the first time it occurred to me that you could actually do a job where you read books for a living (and edit them).” Smith’s editorial experience includes having been only the fourth person to read the manuscript of The Road, for which Cormac McCarthy won the Pulitzer. “And it was this course that made me want to do what I do today.” She is also author of two young adult novels. Her first, The Comeback Season, was an Association of Children’s Booksellers “Discover New Voices” pick, finalist for the 2009 Great Lakes Book Award, and an ALA Best Books for Young Adults nominee. Her second novel, You are Here, was published last May.

Meaning is in the eye of the beholder

Back in the Ho Lecture room the Tuesday following Eugenides’s visit, as students file into their seats, Brice picks up a piece of chalk and starts drawing on

Patrick O’Keeffe, The Hill Road

Emmanuel Dongala, Little Boys Come from the Stars

the board. The shape of Nebraska soon takes form.

She makes a star noting the capital, Lincoln, then outlines an L-shaped chunk at the top right demarking a section of the state. She is teeing up the next Living Writer, Ladette Randolph, who is also publisher of the prestigious literary journal Ploughshares.

Brice is using the map to embed in the students’ minds the region where Randolph, a fifth-generation Nebraskan, is from and where A Sandhills Ballad is set. “Here’s the Burwell Sale Barn, and here’s Taylor, and the road up through Stone County,” she says, pointing to the L she’d drawn, “so this is Highway 182 where Mary was driving when she ran out of gas…”

Pinchin, taking her turn at second fiddle in this session, remarks, “When we were talking about this class, Jennifer said to me, ‘I’m gonna do a map of Nebraska. Unless you want to!’” The class erupts in laughter, as Brice retorts in a way typifying the warm and natural point/counterpoint partnership of this teaching pair: “I just hoped I could do it!”

But before that exchange, the class debriefed Eugenides’s visit the previous week. The notion that a book takes on a life of its own once it leaves the writer’s desktop becomes a topic of intense discussion. In responding to several of the students’ specific questions, Eugenides had disclaimed intending the meaning they — and other readers — have ascribed to certain elements of Middlesex. This has interested some and puzzled others.

Jarrod Williams MAT’10 remarks: “I found that refreshing, because any time you are thinking about writing, and are comparing yourself to a great writer, you imagine that they have this well-polished craft and every single word has special meaning and it seems really intimidating. But he was like, ‘No, I just wrote it and other people put meaning to it.’”

But Danielle Smith, who had questioned Eugenides on the matter of omniscience, has a different take: “In almost every other class, you don’t get to know what the authors think about their books. It’s a wonderful pleasure to hear them talk, and yet there

Kim Edwards ’81, The Memory Keeper’s Daughter

are a lot of limitations to hearing them talk. It feels like sometimes they don’t even know their books, or what they tell you about their books limits your view of the books. I feel like I’m conflicted now about the way we should think about this.”

To which Brice replies: “Don’t be! This is natural conflict. Remember, Díaz on the first day said, ‘The last person you should believe on the subject of

“A writer has to send his work out into the world and let it make its own way.” a book is the writer,’ and he’s absolutely right. Let me offer you a metaphor from the perspective of a mother. Eugenides is the father of that book. He made it all by himself. But it is a separate thing from him. So what you had in here was the experience of reading the child, and then hearing from the father when he came in. The father had certain views about it, but they are not the only views. A writer has to send his work out into the world and let it make its own way.”

“There are lots of complications about what we collectively do in here,” Pinchin adds, summing up the essence of the Living Writers course. “Tuesdays are interesting pieces, because authors come on Thursday. We are speaking to you in the context of the fact that a person who is about to appear has written this work. It is as complicated as life, and as rich. It’s a wonderful, and complicated, opportunity.”

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You’ve Gotta Read This • Students in the Living Writers class explain why you should read the books on the syllabus at www.colgatealumni.org/scene/livingwriters • Watch the public readings, plus three “book club” discussions, at www.colgatealumni.org/hillathome • Join the discussion! Post your comments.

News and views for the Colgate community

35

Path to Healing

By Aleta Mayne

Crossing a street in Madras, India, in 1991, Kate Holcombe ’93 was hit by a motorcycle and seriously injured. Two compassionate mentors guided her on the road to recovery. Today, she shares the transformative power of yoga to help others heal.

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traveled all the way from Connecticut to participate in the weekend yoga conference that Holcombe had organized through her Healing Yoga Foundation (HYF). The two had not seen each other in 16 years, but they almost immediately started talking about the accident that seriously injured Holcombe while they were on Colgate’s India Study Group in 1991.

Ironically, had it not been for that accident, the event in the cathedral may never even have occurred.

That autumn 18 years ago, Holcombe and Ripa-Edson were on their bikes, crossing a street in Madras [now Chennai] after being waved through by a crossing guard when a speeding motorcycle hurtled into Holcombe. “I went flying, and my bike was smashed into pieces,” Holcombe recalls. Both her tailbone — which she landed on — and right leg where the motorcycle crashed into her were severely injured. Emotionally traumatized, Ripa-Edson had been blaming herself for the accident ever since, until Holcombe assured her in the cathedral that it was completely the motorcyclist’s fault.

That accident is what led to Holcombe’s first introduction to the healing powers of yoga. She has since witnessed those powers countless times, both in her personal life and in working with those who seek her help through the HYF, a nonprofit dedicated to health, healing, and personal development through yoga. Holcombe and the HYF have been recognized in the yoga community for their transformative healing yoga that has helped the homeless, patients with cancer, and those with chronic physical and emotional issues. Yoga Journal voted Holcombe one of the top yoga teachers under the age of 40 who are “shaping the future of yoga.”

longtime student, turned to him to help Holcombe recuperate from the accident, and the pair designed a healing yoga practice for her.

Recovery

It would take nearly a year and a half for Holcombe’s body to heal completely. Once they returned to Colgate, Mary Louise continued to work closely with Holcombe to help her regain her strength. Although Holcombe could walk, the pain in her back and tailbone made it difficult for her to sit or stand comfortably. She was also working through tough personal and family issues at the time, and now describes herself as having been a “high-functioning alcoholic.”

Imbibing from the time she woke up and partying into the night, Holcombe still earned grades that made her eligible to graduate magna cum laude.

A member of the chorus and Swinging ’Gates, she says, “I was an overachiever, so I looked like I had my act together. I wasn’t hurting anyone, so I was quite convinced that I did not have a problem.”

“It was the most profound lesson I got from her.”

on elt

Holcombe’s perspective changed during her senior year, when she had to start the fall semester late because of a family issue. She was referred to the counseling center, where she met with Jane Jones, Colgate’s coordinator of alcohol and drug education. Through their initial conversation, Holcombe answered Jones’s questions honestly, and Jones uncovered Holcombe’s addiction. When Holcombe denied being an alcoholic, Jones challenged her: Prove it. Quit drinking for a year. “I thought she was insane — I couldn’t even imagine that I could stop drinking for that long,” says Holcombe, “but I was determined to prove to her that she was wrong.”

Meanwhile, Holcombe and Mary Louise had been Passage to India forming a mother-daughter–like bond through their Professor Bill Skelton and his wife, Mary Louise, longregular yoga practice together. Holcombe yearned to time co-directors of Colgate’s India Study Group, had have the balance she saw in Mary Louise. “I wanted strongly influenced Holcombe’s decision to travel to to know, how do I become like that?” Holcombe India. [See sidebar and In Memoriam for more on the remembers. “Here was the mother, grandmother, recently deceased Bill Skelton.] Taking introductory and aunt whom I always wanted to be there — an yoga classes with Mary Louise — which students amazing guide, mentor, and role model for life,” were encouraged to take in preparation for the Holcombe says. trip — Holcombe simply became enamored of her.

But Mary Louise never point-blank told her to “She was the person you wanted to be around and stop drinking. “A really important principle of yoga wanted to be like,” Holcombe says. And, although is that you don’t ask people to stop or take away she admits to vacillating on committing, Bill pushed anything before you’ve added something positive,” her to join the group.

Holcombe says. “The idea is that, as the positive Once there, Holcombe says, she soaked in the habit increases, the negative habit will be able to go rich experiences. “He connected Colgate students down.” Today, Holcombe acknowledges with the brightest and best of South India. We that if Mary Louise had given her an studied with the top Indian philosopher, top ultimatum, such as threatening to stop musicians in the country, and one of the teaching her yoga if she didn’t quit top yoga teachers in the world.” uise Sk drinking, she would have simply o That legendary yoga teacher was L said goodbye — and although T.K.V. Desikachar, who taught the they never discussed it, she group’s classes on the philosophy of believes Mary Louise knew that. yoga. Mary Louise, who had been his M ar y

“There’s no insistence on challenging who you are,” adds Holcombe. “The beauty of yoga is that it begins to work and then you notice that these other things fall away more easily.”

With the help of Mary Louise, Jones, and the campus Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) group, Holcombe experienced an overall positive shift during her senior year. “I received so much healing, from my accident, on a personal level, insomnia, and headaches,” she says. And she was able to stop drinking.

A few credits shy of graduating that spring (she had enrolled as a first-year student in January), Holcombe got the chance to return to India to earn those credits toward her degree in Asian studies and anthropology by accompanying Bill as a support person on the 1993 India Study Group. The opportunity was bittersweet. She would be taking her yoga mentor’s place. Mary Louise, who had been treated for breast cancer prior to the 1991 study group, had learned that her breast cancer had recurred and, given a dire prognosis, was unable to go.

When Holcombe returned from India the next summer, she saw that Mary Louise’s health was deteriorating. She spent much of the following year traveling between Connecticut — where she was temporarily waitressing — and Hamilton, to spend as much time with her as possible. Three weeks before Mary Louise ultimately passed away, Bill called Holcombe to tell her that Desikachar was coming to be with her at the end. Holcombe called a Colgate friend who was still living in Hamilton, and asked to stay with him so that she could be close to Mary Louise as well. It was an emotionally treacherous time for Holcombe, but, she explains, “He was a friend from AA, so support was there, even in Mary Lou’s death.”

Finding a new wing

T.K.V. D e

In San Francisco’s Grace Cathedral on a Friday night last October, yoga therapist Kate Holcombe ’93 had just concluded an evening of chanting featuring her Indian mentor when an old friend from Colgate appeared out of the crowd. Jennifer Ripa-Edson ’94 had

sik

achar

Spending every day with Mary Louise and seeing her possess “evenness of mind” at the end of her life further convinced Holcombe of the healing power of yoga. “Her legs were swollen and she could barely move, yet she had this amazing sense,” she says. “There was a contentedness and a real acknowledgement that it would have been nice if it had turned out differently, but here we are, so there’s no need to add more unnecessary suffering on top of it,” Holcombe recalls. “It was the most profound lesson I got from her.”

During this time, Mary Louise would repeatedly tell Holcombe that she could trust Desikachar and that he would become her spiritual support. “Given my family background, she knew that it was not easy for me to trust people,” Holcombe explains. Although Holcombe had studied with Desikachar and had a friendly relationship with him, her connection

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at that time was with Mary Louise. “This insistence that I could trust Desikachar was her way of saying that she didn’t want me to suddenly feel alone again,” Holcombe says. “She wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t revert back [to drinking].”

After Mary Louise passed away, Colgate hired Holcombe as the co-director of the India study program — something she believes the Skeltons arranged in her best interest. Upon her return to Madras with Bill to lead the 1995 group, Desikachar “rolled out the red carpet for me” by making himself available both personally and as a teacher, Holcombe says. “I was devastated when Mary Lou died, and I felt like this little orphaned bird that he and his family took under their wing.”

“He knew my heart was in helping people who were sick, helping heal people through yoga.”

It was unusual for Desikachar to accept new students, according to Holcombe. Known in the yoga world as an authority on the therapeutic uses of yoga, he is the founder of the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram (KYM), an organization based on the principle that yoga must always be adapted to a person’s specific needs in order to achieve the maximum therapeutic benefit. Desikachar learned healing yoga from his father, Tirumalai Krishnamachyra, known as one of the greatest yogis and Indian philosophers of the modern era, who lived to be more than 100 years old.

One day in Madras, Holcombe confided in Desikachar how profoundly affected she was by being with Mary Louise at the end of her life. “She had this clarity, even being in incredible pain,” Holcombe told him. “Yoga is such a powerful tool for healing, even when someone is dying. People in the United States don’t know about this. I really want to share this with people,” she continued. “I received so much personally and also through what I witnessed with Mary Lou, this is what I want to do — I want to study this. I want to know how to help people with their own healing,” she said.

“Let’s do it,” Desikachar answered, and the lessons began.

Holcombe traveled back and forth between the States and India over the next few years, both to co-direct the Colgate group and to study with Desikachar. To facilitate her learning in the United States, he introduced her to doctors and healing community

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Coming full circle

By the spring of 2000, Holcombe and Appel had moved to San Francisco, where she launched her healing yoga career by walking up and down Market Street, knocking on doors and offering to teach free yoga classes. Several nonprofit organizations took Holcombe up on her offer, including a senior citizen’s group and a breast cancer support group. She was also working part time at Commonweal, teaching yoga and leading retreats for physicians about reclaiming meaning in medicine.

Eventually, Holcombe built up a solid client base through word of mouth and doctor referrals, seeing people out of her home. “I would see people individually, on a sliding scale, so I did accept money, but my goal was to set up a nonprofit so that everyone could afford it and anybody who was interested could access this kind of support for their own healing,” she says.

For the next six years, Holcombe worked toward opening up the HYF. Because she always envisioned the organization as a team effort, she waited until she had all the right people on board. Two of the founding members were Colgate friends Chase Bossart ’92 and Brooks Kirkwood ’93. Both had experienced the India Study Group with Holcombe, witnessed her transformation, and kept in touch with her over the years.

“She had been a bit hot-headed at Colgate,” Bossart recalls. “It’s a dramatic change,” he says of how different Holcombe is today. “One of the things that happens as a result of yoga is the ability to stay calm in a situation and say exactly what is appropriate without losing your cool — I really marvel at Kate’s ability to do that.”

Bossart credits yoga for completely changing his

Jesse Goff

leaders at the Commonweal Cancer Help Program in California (where she teaches healing yoga today). “He knew my heart was in helping people who were sick, helping heal people through yoga,” Holcombe says.

In 1998, Holcombe got married and moved to India with her husband, Craig Appel, for two years to study with Desikachar daily. Then in 1999, “we started thinking about what the next year would look like, when I would go back to the States, and what I would be doing,” she says.

“I would like to start a healing clinic similar to the KYM,” she told Desikachar one day. On a small scrap of paper, he wrote simply “healing yoga” and handed it to his protégé. “This is what you should do,” he said.

“I will help you and we will do it together.” To this day, Holcombe keeps, in a special place, that piece of paper that propelled her toward her future.

life as well. He worked through his own physical and emotional challenges with the practice. “There’s been an enormous change in my self-confidence and how I value myself,” he says, adding that he previously wrestled with how he viewed his self-worth.

“I was one of those guys who had to be busy all the time because if I slowed down, I had time to think and start to feel what was going on with myself.

Slowly, over a period of time with my practice, that changed, and now I like how I feel.”

All three had their first yoga lessons with Mary Louise. “That’s the best part,” Holcombe says. “We were in school together, knew Mary Lou, went to India for our own interests, kept with it for our own inspiration, and ended up coming together to create this.” Bossart is a senior yoga teacher at the HYF, and Kirkwood is a board member.

Holistic approach

Keeping with the philosophy of Desikachar’s center in India, Holcombe and Bossart specialize in helping clients one on one by developing yoga practices that are tailored to clients’ specific needs. Health care workers in the Bay area refer patients with a variety of chronic illnesses and conditions, including injuries, digestive problems, infertility, headaches, and back pain. One doctor mainly refers patients with rare illnesses. “They’re often people whom Western medical training has given up on, and he works with them and sends them to us for added support,” Holcombe says.

When working with clients individually, Holcombe or Bossart will consider all of their physical and mental health challenges, not just concentrate

on the singular illness that brought them to the HYF. In the first visit, clients complete an intake form with their basic information, including health status, past injuries, illnesses, surgeries, treatments, and medications. “And most important, their goals — what they want to get out of this practice,” Holcombe emphasized. She or Bossart also ask questions about appetite, digestion, sleep, and diet, and they take each client’s pulse.

Holcombe says the most important assessment is asking clients how much time they have to devote to yoga. “It’s our job to fit the practice to their schedule, not their jobs to fit themselves into the yoga, because we want to make it as doable for them as possible,” she explains.

Next, the client will move and breathe as instructed. “I’m looking for tension, shaking, or stiffness,” Holcombe explains. “They know their bodies best, so I’m constantly asking them, ‘Can you raise your hands?

How do you feel? Can you try this? Is this comfortable?’”

Based on what Holcombe or Bossart observe, they will design a private practice for each client and ask the person to try it while at the HYF to make sure it’s comfortable. “It’s quite a dynamic process and highly individualized,” Holcombe says. “If you look at twenty people who came in the door and said they had back pain and headaches, they would have twenty different practices, because what we discover is that somebody might also have an old shoulder injury, or weak knees, or dizziness.”

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The process and practice are meant to empower clients in their own healing. “We teach them the practice, make sure it’s clear, write it out in little stick figures with arrows of when to breathe, and then we give it to them to take home,” Holcombe says. A follow-up is scheduled for 5 to 10 days after the initial visit to find out if the client has any doubts, was clear on the instructions, was able to do the practice, and how long it took to complete. If clients find their practice uncomfortable or impractical when trying it at home, they will make adjustments. And to supplement personal practices, Bossart teaches group classes during the week.

When they’re not helping clients out of HYF’s serene bungalow by the bay, Holcombe and Bossart are spreading healing in the community. The foundation’s four outreach programs help the homeless, physicians and caretakers who work with the homeless population, low-income parents, and people with cancer.

Merijane Block, who has been battling metastatic breast cancer for 18 years, first met Holcombe last summer during a weeklong retreat at Commonweal. Drawn to Holcombe’s teaching, Block then went to the HYF for one-on-one treatment. A tumor that had grown along Block’s spine has left her partially paralyzed in her left leg, making it difficult for her to get out of bed.

Holcombe visited Block at her home to show

Transformations

The success stories told by clients of the HYF are many. “Dear Chase, I want to thank you and HYF for healing my body,” begins a letter posted on the foundation’s website. James Kairos wrote that, when he met Bossart in 2007 at the age of 39, he had been in chronic pain for three years from two bulging discs in his lower back, degenerative disc disease, and arthritis. “I couldn’t sit for long periods, walk for long periods, my sleep was interrupted, and I couldn’t participate in many of the physical activities I loved,” he wrote. Before learning about HYF, Kairos had visited three doctors including a neurosurgeon, two physical therapists, two chiropractors, and a physiologist. The treatments prescribed to him had either aggravated his condition or only provided temporary relief. Kairos wrote that he began to feel immediate results from his yoga practice through the HYF, and that over the course of a year, he gained a range of motion, balance, and strength that he hadn’t experienced since his days as a college athlete.

Susan Snow’s healing at the HYF inspired her to join its teacher training practice. Snow sought Holcombe’s help for pain in her upper back and neck, and loss of feeling in her fingertips. “She listened to me in a way no health care professional has ever done and treated me with tremendous respect for my challenges,” Snow wrote. Although having done a vigorous yoga practice for seven years, she initially was skeptical about the simple personal practice that Holcombe gave her. “But, after six months, I was virtually pain free; and now, two years later, I still

“It’s people identifying with the humanness, and I love that about this work.” her how to practice poses in bed and to use places in her house as physical aids, such as a door frame.

“I can’t do yoga the way I used to,” says Block, who has been practicing yoga since 1995.

“Discovering that I could still do yoga and work with Kate in this loving, one-on-one fashion has been great for me.” She credits Holcombe with helping her work through weakness and a lot of pain.

“When I’m in a really difficult, painful moment, if I can, I stop and consciously exhale longer — it creates the relaxation response and softens the whole channel that pain can create,” she says. “Kate is so soft and gentle that when I remember the way she showed me how to breathe, it helps me tremendously.” Defining yoga as knowing one’s self through the vehicles of breath and body, Block says: “This has been the hardest time since I’ve had cancer, so if and when I can breathe or call up an image of Kate showing me something, then I can come back to some kind of a central self.”

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have my underlying condition and occasional bad days, but I know how to adjust my personal current practice to get relief.”

Then there are those whose lives have been completely transformed, like Michael, a homeless man who had been addicted to heroin. Wanting to improve his life for his newborn daughter, he began regularly attending the stress management classes that Bossart leads for the homeless.

“By changing their breathing or by moving in certain ways, they can influence what’s going on in their bodies and minds,” Bossart explains. Michael’s journey began with a series of realizations about how incredible angst negatively impacted his life. He then learned to control his anxiety with the breathing exercises, and he began lowering his methadone use. “He was able to drop his methadone levels to less than half of what he had started on, which is pretty remarkable — most methadone users, if they

don’t get that level, suffer from heroin withdrawal,” Bossart says. As the classes progressed, Michael reported to Bossart that he was learning to identify the times in his life when he was getting anxious. For example, he told Bossart about a situation when he was on the bus with his daughter and started feeling anxious before his stop because of the difficulty of maneuvering the baby carriage down the aisle.

As he sat there becoming more and more upset, a point came when he told himself to do his breathing exercises. The breathing helped calm Michael down, curtailing a potential incident. “He was able to get off the bus without causing a big scene or yelling, so his whole day went off in a different trajectory,” Bossart says. Within a year of working with Bossart, Michael was able to find a job and move out of the shelter where he’d been staying. “He was really amazing to watch,” Bossart says. “He really grabbed the bull by the horns to get his life together.”

Work that is never finished

Some clients have found the HYF after reading about Holcombe in magazines like Yoga Journal and Yoga + Joyful Living. Readers have learned about Holcombe’s alcoholism, insomnia, or the accident — or have just become intrigued by her story — and come to the HYF hoping she can help them.

“It’s people identifying with the humanness, and I love that about this work,” Holcombe says. “There’s this expectation that we’re yoga teachers, so we can’t ever make mistakes or be depressed or have a hard time, and what I love about Mary Lou and Mr. Desikachar is that over the years, I’ve seen how they’re human and they value that humanness in people.”

Despite Desikachar’s notoriety in the yoga world, he “looks and acts just like a regular guy,” Holcombe emphasized. “And I can relate to that. I love him because he’s so bonk-your-head-on-the-door-jam human,” she says of the man who intimidated her when she was a college student but who now calls her his “American daughter.”

Because Holcombe and Bossart are continuously working to expand their knowledge, they still study with Desikachar when they visit India or when he comes to the United States, as he did in October. The event at Grace Cathedral was one of many classes and presentations that Desikachar led on that visit, which he does in his capacity as an HYF consultant and board member.

The HYF honors the other source of its founders’ inspiration by offering the Mary Louise Skelton Fund, which provides financial aid to those who are unable to afford their services. As a nonprofit, the HYF relies on grants from foundations, individual donations, and a sliding-scale fee for service.

Mary Louise’s memory also lives on in central New York at the Upstate Yoga Institute, which she founded in 1983 and offers yoga classes in Syracuse and Hamilton.

Although Holcombe has found the balance she was searching for as a student, she notes that she’s still a work in progress. “I’m never done,” she says.

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The India Study Group: an inimitable experience For more than 35 years, wide-eyed students on Colgate’s India Study Group

received a glimpse into the country that some Indians don’t even see.

An example is the group that went on a 5,000-km train ride from Ayodhya to Sri Lanka for a trip through a forbidden city, a visit to an ashram, a purification bath in the Godavari river, and a two-and-a-half-hour pooja (worship ceremony).

The introduction to the handbook for the 1987 group stated: “This will be the chance to discover or rediscover ourselves without the ongoing pressures of our usual environments. For most of us this will mean surprising revelations of our own talents and abilities.”

Through adventures and learning from Indian professors, philosophers, musicians, and dancers, participants studied Indian philosophy, government, yoga, Carnatic music, languages, crafts, and folk traditions.

Experiences like performing traditional dance on a mountain top, spending a month with the Maharaja of Mysore, and watching a jungle ritual made the India Study Group inimitable.

“It was a pilgrimage in the real sense of the word, as opposed to a touristy experience,” Professor Bill Skelton, the group’s longtime director, once toldThe Hindu newspaper. Skelton passed away on Sept. 23, 2009 (see obituary on pg. 79).

Referred to as an “Indian among Indians,” Skelton had the contacts, knowledge, and zeal to provide the students who participated with a lifealtering experience.

“In one day, I did thirty things that I’d never done before, and your life changes before you because this gentleman has faith in you,” said Bob Musiker ’80, at an October 2008 event celebrating Skelton’s contributions.

A trip to India in 1963 on a Ford Grant was the beginning of Skelton’s work with Indian musicians. He learned to play the nagaswaram, a classical Indian wind instrument, through which he earned much respect as a Westerner performing at weddings and temple rituals. “It was my passport,” he said.

“I went into temples that are still barred to non-Hindus.” The connections he made through his music continued to serve him when traveling with Colgate students throughout India.

The first study group in 1969 included only four students, who were given permission from the dean to take some courses that Skelton would supervise in India. Over the years, it developed into a full-immersion experience.

For many years, Skelton co-directed the study group with his wife, Mary Louise. In preparation for each semester there, the Skeltons would invite students over to their house for Indian meals, and students were encouraged to take yoga classes with Mary Louise. Following Mary Louise’s death in 1995, previous study group participant Kate Holcombe ’93 served as co-director for several years.

“He went in there, cherry-picked some incredible aspects of Indian culture, and blew them up into this big production,” said Chase Bossart ’92, who traveled on the 1991 study group. “Not only did he have a flair for the dramatic, but he also had this deep understanding of India.”

“That’s exciting to me that I can still be getting so much out of this personally and learning my whole life. And that I can help others through my own mistakes and experiences feels pretty good.”

Learn more about the Healing Yoga Foundation at healingyoga.org News and views for the Colgate community

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Andrew Daddio

News and views for the Colgate community

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stay connected

Alumni bulletin board

Introducing a four-day immersion in the liberal arts This summer, Colgate invites you to relive the exhilaration and challenge of liberal arts learning.

Nine of Colgate’s engaging professors — in the humanities, natural sciences, social sciences, and the core — will adapt their most popular material for alumni, family, and friends who yearn for a serious academic experience.

Outside of the classroom, there will be a trip to Cooperstown, a special edition of the popular Trivia Night at the Colgate Inn, fitness activities, golf at Seven Oaks, and time to enjoy the shops and restaurants of the Village of Hamilton.

Summer on the Hill — Think Colgate Study Group, closer to home and all grown up.

Course options People and the Sky — Anthony Aveni, Russell Colgate Distinguished University Professor of Astronomy and Anthropology and Native American Studies The Art of Memoir — Jennifer Brice, Associate Professor of English Presidency and Executive Leadership — Tim Byrnes, Professor of Political Science Western Traditions — Lesleigh Cushing, Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion and Jewish Studies Reason and Religious Belief — David Dudrick, Associate Professor of Philosophy Drugs, Your Brain, and Mental Health — Scott Kraly, Charles A. Dana Professor of Psychology Challenges of Modernity — Robert McVaugh, Professor of Art and Art History Ending America’s Wars: WWI, WWII, and the Vietnam War — Andy Rotter, Charles A. Dana Professor of History International Relations of the Middle East — Bruce Rutherford, Associate Professor of Political Science For details on schedule, accommodations, meals, and registration, call 315-228-7433 or visit www.colgatealumni.org/summerhill Registration deadline: May 15, 2010. Space is limited.

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2010 Colgate Alumni Council Election The Nominations Committee of the Alumni Council has selected the following slate of alumni for election at Reunion 2010. The candidates, chosen from approximately 200 nominees, have strong records of varied Colgate volunteer service, a consistent history of giving financial support to Colgate, and meaningful personal or professional accomplishments or contributions to the greater community.

Complete information about the election and challenge petition process, as well as full biographies of the nominees listed here, is posted at www.colgatealumni.org.

Paper copies are available by calling 315-228-7433, or by sending an e-mail to alumni@colgate.edu.

Era I: Copeland G. Bertsche ’63 Attorney Copeland Bertsche is principal of Executive Mediator Services, Inc. and proprietor of Mediation & Arbitration Services. While filling several volunteer positions, he has also served as Reunion program committee chair four times.

Era II: Dr. Robert B. Raiber ’68 Dentist Bob Raiber has been a career services, admission, and annual fund volunteer, Presidents’ Club Membership Committee member, career adviser, class gift committee member, and Medical Professionals Campaign Committee vice chair.

Era III: Thomas McGarrity ’79 A retired network sales president for Univision, Tom McGarrity is Presidents’ Club chair. He created a family scholarship, and has volunteered for Colgate in career services, athletics, and many additional alumni and advancement capacities.

Era IV: Kevin Rusch ’85 Athletics Hall of Honor member Kevin Rusch is a portfolio manager for the Mariner Silvermine Fund. He is a Presidents’ Club and annual fund volunteer who served on the Campaign for Colgate Financial Services Committee.

Era V: Heidi Bulow Parsont ’90 Heidi Parsont is a vice president at McKinley Marketing Partners. With an extensive record of advancement and career services volunteerism, she has also served as Reunion Program Committee chair and was a class editor for 15 years.

Era VI: Dane P. Fraser ’01 Vice president of investments at Citigroup, Dane Fraser is a member of the Presidents’ Club Membership Committee and a past president of the New York City Alumni Club. He has participated in Real World and volunteered for the admission office.

Era VII: Ivan Karaivanov ’06 BlackRock associate Ivan Karaivanov began building his record of service as an undergraduate, then went on to become class gift co-chair, NY Metro-area admission volunteer, and a dynamic co-liaison to alumni at Credit Suisse.

At Large: Katharine Traester LaBanca ’05 As a student, Katharine LaBanca was Maroon-News editor-in-chief and a Konosioni member. Today, she is a seventh grade English teacher and one of Colgate’s Washington, D.C., admission volunteers — a group she formerly chaired.

At Large: Robert Johnson ’94 Software services company CEO Robert Johnson is co-president, with wife Kelly ’94, of the Dallas Alumni Club. He has been a class gift committee member, career adviser, long-time CUTV supporter, admission volunteer, and Real World participant.

••••• Regional Vice Presidents In addition to the nine elected members, regional vice presidents are officially appointed at the council’s spring meeting.

RVP, Southwest/International: Kathryn Roberts ’01 Environmental specialist Kathryn Roberts has served as a class gift committee agent and co-chair. She is an admission volunteer as well as the founder and president of Colgate’s Albuquerque/Santa Fe, N.M., club.

RVP, Southeast: Laura Kurlander ’84 Real estate attorney Laura Kurlander was an ice hockey player, Konosioni member, and Gamma Phi Beta sister. A Presidents’ Club class agent, she has been an admission volunteer, president of the Atlanta Alumni Club, and class editor for 15 years.

RVP, Far West: Valerie Shapiro ’02 Valerie Shapiro is earning her doctorate in social welfare at the University of Washington. She has served as an Alumni Admissions Program representative and as president of the Puget Sound Alumni Club, 2009’s most improved mid-size club.

salmagundi

Servin’ up Slices We nearly stumped the panel with our Autumn 2009 photo ID contest; only two submissions (both correct)! Slices T-shirts went to Shannon Wolfe ’89 and Bob Diefenbacher ’88.

They shared fun tidbits — and hint at why they may have been the only takers! Read their letters on page 5.

Puzzle by Puzzability

Building Additions

Each clue below leads to an answer word. The number in parentheses tells you how many letters are in the answer. You can add a letter to this word and rearrange all the letters to get the name of one of the campus buildings seen in these views. Can you match them all? See page 69 for the answer key.

1. Doughy part of a pizza (5) 2. Opera singer Maria (6) 3. Name of a book or movie (5) 4. Counterpart to truth in a party game (4) 5. Prison’s boss (6)

Then & now

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6. Walk a beat (6) 7. Set up, as software or a light fixture (7) 8. Motion detector, for example (6) 9. Extension of a subscription (7)

Moliere’s The Misanthrope. Clockwise from top left: Mary Jane McNamee ’87, Alex Irvine ’88, Shannon Wolfe ’89, and Adam Paul ’89. May 1987 Scene cover.

Next Slices contest: Spring 2010 issue.

Pep by pep. Hats and ties are no longer required, but a look at Colgate’s band in 1900 versus today’s Raider Pep Band reveals the same sense of school pride.

Above: You’d better run — my aim’s pretty good! Fun on the Quad between classes. Back cover: A roommate of Taylor Lake swans Adam and Eve’s, who declined to give her name. Both photos by Andrew Daddio

News and views for the Colgate community

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