Autumn Scene 2010

scene Autumn 2010

News and views for the Colgate community

Globetrotter: Jeffrey Herbst, Colgate’s 16th President The ’Gate Shopper’s Gift Guide The Accidental Filmmaker

scene

Autumn 2010

24 Globetrotter

A worldly outlook and thirst for knowledge fuels Colgate’s 16th president

30 The ’Gate Shopper’s Gift Guide

Looking for a gift for someone? Why not buy something from a classmate?

36 The Accidental Filmmaker

From gun violence to the Sichuan earthquake, Oscarnominated documentarian Jon Alpert ’70 makes films on issues that matter.

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Message from Beverly Low, Dean of First-Year Students

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Letters Call for nominations: Colgate Board of Trustees

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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

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Class News 78 Marriages & Unions 78 Births & Adoptions 78 In Memoriam

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Salmagundi: Puzzle, 13 Words (or Less) contest winners

DEPARTMENTS

On the cover: Antonio Barrera, associate professor of history and Africana and Latin American studies, researches the history of science and teaches courses such as The Atlantic World, 1492–1800, and Spain and Portugal in the Age of Empires. Left: Whether you’re out for a run or a contemplative stroll, the Harry Lang Cross Country Trails beckon on an exquisite fall day. Both photos by Andrew Daddio News and views for the Colgate community

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scene team

Contributors

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

As our communications intern, Jason Kammerdiener ’10 contributed to just about every aspect of the Scene — from writing and editing profiles and news pieces, to helping plan content, to snapping the occasional photo and catching our typos — as well as online projects.

A history major and environmental studies minor, the AMS Scholar graduated summa cum laude. In September, he began his post-Colgate career as a content editor at Element K in Brighton, N.Y.

After graduating this December, Kiki Koroshetz ’11 (“Geologic yardage,” pg. 14) hopes to pursue a career in writing, editing, or publishing. An English major (creative writing) and psychology minor, she has written several news items for the Scene and colgate. edu on a volunteer basis. The captain of the women’s soccer team, she is also co-VP of the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee, writes and edits for the Maroon-News, and volunteers at the Hamilton Food Cupboard.

Lyndon Stambler (“The Accidental Filmmaker,” pg. 36) has written about adventure, music, medicine, and film for People, Smithsonian, the New York Times, Reader’s Digest, and AARP: The Magazine.

He has profiled Quincy Jones, Timothy “Grizzly Man” Treadwell, Norman Lear, and Joni Mitchell.

Co-author of both Folk & Blues: The Encyclopedia (with his father, Irwin Stambler) and We, The Jury about the Scott Peterson murder trial, he teaches journalism at Santa Monica College.

Watch

Inauguration: http://president.colgate.edu Complete coverage of the inauguration of President Jeffrey Herbst — from the academic symposium to the ceremony — is available through videos and photo galleries.

Listen

Living Writers: www.colgate.edu/livingwriters You are invited to listen in as acclaimed writers visit the campus. Live webcasts allow guests to interact with others and with the authors.

Get connected

Community: www.colgateconnect.org Parents are invited to join our online community and utilize the wide range of tools available on our renamed website.

Contributing writers and designers: Director of Web Content Timothy O’Keeffe Art Director Karen Luciani Assistant Director of Athletic Communications Matt Faulkner Director of Marketing and Public Relations Barbara Brooks Senior Advancement Writer Mark Walden Manager of Media Communications Anthony Adornato Online Community Manager Jennifer McGee Intern Jason Kammerdiener ’10

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scene online

Managing Editor Rebecca Costello Associate Editor Aleta Mayne Director of Publications Gerald Gall Coordinator of Photographic Services Andrew Daddio Production Assistant Kathy Bridge

Look

India Trip: www.colgate.edu/indiaphotos Twenty-two Benton Scholars explored India last spring as part of an extended study course, and Janna Minehart ’13 helped chronicle the journey.

Talk

Latest news: http://blogs.colgate.edu As you read the latest stories about campus and alumni happenings, your comments and thoughts are always welcome.

Go paperless

Contact: scene@colgate.edu 315-228-7417 www.colgateconnect.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.

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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scene: Autumn 2010

Message from Beverly Low, Dean of First-Year Students

My mother likes to tell

many stories about my undergraduate college

years (1980–1984). Apparently, I was quite entertaining back then. One of her consistent themes is the irregularity with which I phoned home my freshman year. I will admit to a three-week span in which I was “too busy” to call. This prompted a threat from my father to drive three-and-a-half hours to retrieve me.

Those days of waiting in line for the pay phone to call home on a Sunday night (and reversing the charges to mom and dad) are long gone.

Welcome, handheld devices and smart phones.

It was back in the 2004 fall term that mobile phones seemed to proliferate on campus overnight. I clearly recall one of my first encounters with a student’s ability to connect with a parent in an instant. One of my advisees received a low grade on her first PSYC 150 exam. Walking out of Olin Hall in tears, she flipped open her cell phone and called her mother. Within minutes, the mother was on the phone with me, just as the student walked into my office.

That encounter marked the beginning of a shift in communication not only between students and parents, but also among students and faculty and staff members. Soon, I found myself dialing long distance to Montana to reach someone in Andrews Hall! By 2006–2007, residence hall telephone jacks were no longer operating, and we began collecting cell phone numbers from students at Orientation. This year, we have cell phone numbers for all but 40 members of the Class of 2014.

Ready or not, I have reached the phase where my high school and college friends are sending their children off to college. By now, most of us have cell phones, but the explosion of Facebook, Twitter, Skype, G-chat, etc., has taken instant communication to a whole new level. A quick query indicated that my friends rely on text messages to keep up with their children at college. According to one: “Voice mail is obsolete — if you

leave a message, they do not listen to it right away. Texting is preferred.

They can share information, but we cannot ask questions!” Cell phones and other handheld devices have also replaced the need for a clock, daily planner, and … gasp … Rolodex! Upon her daughter’s recent college graduation, my former roommate asked, “Would you like a nice watch?”

After her newly minted graduate stopped laughing, she responded, “Only old people wear watches. I check the time on my phone.”

“Old people” (parents) do use e-mail to exchange essential information, such as travel itineraries, family matters, and important dates, with their students. And I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the weekly phone conversation is alive and well — a majority of my friends speak with their college-age children at least once per week.

I also polled the 51 members of our Link staff (student peer advisers) for their thoughts on communication with their families, and generally found their comments to be similar to the parents’. One common thread is that frequency of communication lessened over time as they became more involved in academic work and campus activities. About half said they make quick calls to a parent when walking to class or waiting to meet friends, but texting is the most frequent method; many text a parent at least once daily. It is a mixed bag with other modes — most students who Skype with their families are studying abroad. Others reported some interesting episodes, such as, “We tried Skyping once, but it consisted of my entire family trying to fit their heads into one screen, which was pretty unsuccessful.”

At the end of the day, the frequency and mode of communication between parents and college students should be a family decision. From a college dean’s perspective, I always offer a few key points for parents to consider: Pause. College students typically contact a parent at times of extremes — when something fantastic has occurred, or things are lousy. Try to listen and absorb before responding. Find out how the student plans on solving a problem and offer appropriate guidance.

Wait 24 hours. Give your student a chance to figure things out independently, which will promote personal growth and transform learning.

Find something to talk about. Emily Bradley ’10 remarked, “The most rewarding conversations I had with my parents when I was at Colgate grew out of mutual experience. Reading the same New York Times article, calling during the commercial break in a sports game…” — a great way to build a relationship based on more than money requests and cold remedy advice!

Just last week, I caught myself referring to my Blackberry as my “security blanket.” A seasoned, silver-haired professional, I am just as dependent upon it as the first-years I advise. In fact, I find it hard to imagine staying in contact with Links or successfully navigating three days of Orientation without it. But one thing that has remained constant is the value of a weekly telephone conversation — there is no substitute for hearing a familiar voice on the line. Oops … I had better call home, it’s been a while …

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Andrew Daddio

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News and views for the Colgate community

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Letters

scene

Founding the Washington Study Group

Summer 2010

News and views for the Colgate community

101 Things To Do Before You Graduate Living In History Diary From Haiti

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.

Editor’s note: Colgate does not have the earliest records of discussions about the Washington Study Group in its archives. So the story in our summer issue (“Living in History,” pg.

30) failed to mention an important figure in the founding of the program: Rodney L. Mott, professor of political science and director of the social sciences division in the 1930s when the program was conceived.

Patricia Mott Ross wrote with this excerpt from her father’s handwritten autobiography: “When I came to Colgate, I had several ambitions… One of the major goals I had was to try, as an experiment, the plan which I had discussed with the graduate students at Chicago, i.e. to take the students to see at firsthand the phenomenon they

were studying about in the books. I hoped that Colgate might be a place where this could be tried… A plan I had was to make political science more relevant to the students. I felt if I could give them some direct touch with politics and administration, this would help make the subject more practical… To this end, I developed the plan for the ‘Washington Study Group.’ The idea was to take 10 of our best students, who had background courses in political science, to Washington for a semester to study government under one of our own professors. They were to observe Congress, the administration, and the courts, and so far as practical were to serve as junior apprentices in administrative offices… The project turned out even better than I could have anticipated. Other groups of students had gone to Washington, but usually for only a few days, more as tourists than as serious students... The Colgate group was the pioneer in engaging in full-time study of politics.”

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scene: Autumn 2010

Thanks Great issue (summer 2010). Really thought the photography was great.

I especially liked the brilliant illustrations by Norm Bendell for Matt Muskin’s “101 Things to do Before You Graduate.” Thanks for a superior job.

Brent Maddock ’72 Santa Monica, Calif.

Memories of jazz at WRCU

Lands and grounds I enjoyed learning about lands and grounds manager Mike Jasper ’91, MAT’96 (“Get to know,” pg. 11, summer 2010 Scene). In 2008, I spent several days on campus for my 50th Reunion and was very proud of how it looked and was being maintained. I also was pleased to visit the DU house and find it was continuing to be a very positive part of campus living.

I majored in botany at Colgate and, although I did not pursue it in my vocation, I did utilize it over the years, being very much involved with the managing of the care of the trees at Oak Hill Country Club (Rochester, N.Y.). I noticed in the same issue (“Go figure,” pg. 9) an interesting list of facts regarding campus trees, many of which I still remember.

As well, it has been a while since I’ve been over to play Seven Oaks, but I wanted to thank you for Marian Blain’s putting tips (pg. 23). After 66 years of golf, it is good to know it is never too late to learn. After reading the article, I had the best round of putting in years on our fast Oak Hill greens. Putting with my shoulders helped me get rid of the dreaded “yips” that seem to come on with age.

The third picture of Blain, with the exaggerated left elbow, is what first caught my attention.

Elmer Humes ’58 Pittsford, N.Y.

It was a treat to see “My Boogie Stop Shuffle” and “A Jazz Legacy” (summer 2010 Scene, pgs. 12 and 13). Like Michael Coyle, I am one of the “afflicted” — my passion for jazz took hold during my years at Colgate. At that time, Professor Blackmore would see who was playing jazz from the playlists, and I remember the thrill I got the first time he invited me to his home. When asked how many records he had, he would decline to answer. He did allow that his house had been reinforced on two sides.

The very first song I played on my WRCU show was “Doin’ the Meatball” by The Section, featuring guest Michael Brecker. Another time, I was engineering the news. One of the announcers, reading a farm report about pork belly futures, started to giggle and got caught in a kind of laugh feedback loop. I finally had to cut her mic and cue the next report.

In my own announcing faux pas, we had a cart to be played behind community happenings, only I didn’t know the cart was just background.

The station manager called after about 10 minutes wanting to know what was going on — egg on my face, that’s what.

Tom Rolin ’78 Warwick, R.I.

Remembering John Hubbard I was deeply saddened to read of the passing of John Hubbard (summer 2010, pg. 79). We became friends on a Wilderness Adventure trip in 1989.

Of course, I knew who he was before that, always lurking on campus with his humongous camera and vest. In those days, a faculty member joined the leadership team of all WA trips, and my co-leader Margot Hodgson

John Hubbard ’72 in his James B. Colgate Hall office, 1993

and I were blessed to have John with us for a canoeing trip in the Adirondacks. In my 15-plus-year career as a wilderness guide and educator, I have spent hundreds of weeks on expedition all over the world. This trip remains one of my all-time favorites.

It seemed we never stopped laughing, especially in the kitchen. We made delicious pizzas, and Margot dazzled us all with her pancake-flipping prowess as the ’cake landed squarely in her face, a moment immortalized as John caught it on film.

As everyone explored what it meant for them to be starting their education at Colgate, John’s wisdom added much to their experience. He brought a perspective on Colgate that no one else had. Besides that, he was simply a good man — deeply caring and available.

When I met his family, it was no surprise to me to learn he was a dedicated and inspiring father as well.

Without realizing it until now, I have held him as a role model as I have begun my own journey as a father.

Alex Borton ’91 Seattle, Wash.

I read with great sadness about the death of John Hubbard. I got to know him during the production of the documentary Broken Brotherhood. Not only did I get a chance to work with him, but I also learned more about him as a person through watching the tape of an interview for the documentary that Lou Buttino ’66 did with him in 2001. The footage was never used in the final product, but John’s words gave insight into him as a young man and as an important part of Colgate’s history.

In addition, his photographs have left a deeper appreciation of the beauty of Colgate.

One of the things John said was, “What’s drawn me to photography is portraiture. It’s the opportunity to explore people and delve a little bit beyond the surface into the lives of people. And the idea of making a photo with somebody has always appealed to me, and it still does. It’s that fascination with people, that entrée into something beyond the superficial. That’s what the camera affords me and is meaningful for me.

I’m known for my photos of Colgate, but really, what’s important to me are my photos of people. I love Colgate. It’s a joy to photograph, but it’s really the portraits that mean the most to me.”

Those people will miss him.

Robert Aberlin ’66 Brooklyn, N.Y. It was with profound sadness that I read of John Hubbard’s passing. Your beautiful tribute brought back so much about this soulful, wonderful man. He had a twinkle in his eye. John was a seeker.

We must have crossed paths a thousand times during my experience at Colgate, but I remember two in particular. It was a sunny afternoon when I went to Terrence Des Pres’s home to ask him a question. The police were there, and it turned out that he had suddenly passed away.

I returned to campus in shock and reeled about the Quad. John was right there, in front of Lawrence. He gave me a big hug. Terrence had been a hero of mine, and that was a dark day.

John was there to share it.

Call for nominations: Colgate Board of Trustees The Nominating Committee of the Board of Trustees welcomes recommendations from alumni, parents, and friends of the institution for candidates who will bring guidance and wisdom to the university’s governing board.

The board seeks energetic and committed candidates who possess expertise in various important areas including, but not limited to: higher education, finance, the arts, technology, global learning, legal affairs, marketing, or media relations. Those nominated should display the ability to exercise informed, independent judgment and to act in the best interests of Colgate to properly steward the university’s academic, program, and fiscal resources.

Candidates should be willing to fully immerse themselves in the work of the board. They should place Colgate as a priority in terms of time and philanthropy, and be committed to staying abreast of the changing landscape of higher education. The full board meets in Hamilton at least four times a year, and trustees must be committed to actively participating in board meetings and committee meetings that may be scheduled at other times of the year. Trustees are also often asked to attend and/or host other university-related events.

Each year, the board will have opportunities for three to five new trustees for a three-year term that may be followed by two additional three-year terms.

The Nominating Committee welcomes recommendations for future consideration, which may be made through the online form at www. colgate.edu/about/boardoftrustees/buildingtheboard or by mail to: Trustee Nominating Committee, Colgate University, 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, NY 13346.

Years later, I returned to Colgate with my wife and children to visit the man who literally changed my life with one January-term course and a lifetime of friendship, George Hudson.

When we paused to take a picture together on the Quad, John appeared out of nowhere to take the shot. He later sent it to me.

Andrew M. Saidel Gaithersburg, Md.

Snapshots Chris Gonnella’s report of trap shooting (“Snapshots,” spring 2010, pg. 33) brings back memories of my undergraduate days when I went rabbit shooting with Professor David “Doc” Trainer. Mrs. Trainer graciously prepared a rabbit dinner for us. On another occasion, my classmate Noel Rubinton served as a beater, and we jumped pheasants from the meadows south of the football field. In my senior year, I had a late-morning geology

class with Professor Whitnall. After hunting the wooded area in back of the golf course behind Andrews Hall, I would come on campus with my shotgun and attend Whit’s class.

Joe DeBragga ’43 Islip, N.Y.

News and views for the Colgate community

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work & play

Campus scrapbook

B

A

A

“As a newcomer myself, I know that this can seem like drinking from the proverbial fire hose,” President Jeffrey Herbst told the newly arrived Class of 2014 at Founders’ Day Convocation.

B

“I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips, straining upon the start. The game’s afoot…”

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Akeyla Todd ’14 (center) and Nicole Corazza ’14 (right) help out a resident at Madison Lane Apartments as part of COVE’s Outreach program in which first-years connect while volunteering for community service projects.

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I’ve got your back. Students bond at Konosioni Field Day during Orientation.

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Getting creative with furniture function at 110 Broad Street.

F

A young lady melts Raider’s heart at ALANApalooza, a fallsemester kickoff event at the cultural center.

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Even Rover helps on move-in day.

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Kayla Sutherland ’11 created 3-D digital environments to be used as backgrounds for Murder on the Ides, a full-dome planetarium show that was a collaboration between the classics department and the visualization lab. Photo by Heather Ainsworth

Photos by Andrew Daddio unless otherwise noted

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scene: Autumn 2010

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News and views for the Colgate community

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work & play

“Our bonding moments were in the yurt, getting to know each other and playing games,” Engelsted said.

Mings added, “We discussed hopes, fears, and expectations about their upcoming year at Colgate.”

Although Mings and Engelsted are both Outdoor Education Program leaders who have had three years to explore Madison County, the trip was a learning experience for them as well. Mings was struck by the visit to the landfill and the wind farm. “These two places opened my eyes to the cool things being done to minimize our environmental impact,” he said.

For Engelsted, a lecture on the hydrofracking process of natural gas extraction provided new information about a contentious environmental issue affecting the area.

On the last night, the group stayed up late chatting in the yurt. “We all wished we had a couple more days together,” Mings said. “We were beginning to feel like a tight-knit family.”

Fortunately, the students will be able to build on their new friendships over the next four years.

“The trip allowed me to meet people prior to orientation, which made me feel more secure and comfortable,” said Sydney Weinberg ’14.

First-years unearth Chenango Valley treasures

Class of 2014 ready to explore all that is Colgate

Katrina Engelsted ’11

First-year students participating in the Bullthistle Wilderness Adventure munch on carrots they harvested from Common Thread Community Farm.

At the start of the fall semester, a three-day Bullthistle Wilderness Adventure introduced first-year students to the Chenango Valley, with an emphasis on local awareness and sustainability. The trip not only acquainted students with other firstyears, but also helped them become familiar with their new surroundings.

“Colgate is located in a rural landscape, but it’s a landscape with much to discover,” said Eric Mings ’11, who co-led the trip with Katrina Engelsted ’11. “When you come in as a first-year, you’re thrown into so many new things that you’re bound to miss opportunities off campus,” he added.

“With Bullthistle, first-years have a head start on establishing their roots in Hamilton and central New York.”

A scavenger hunt, just one of many activities, prompted the nine participants to find out facts about Hamilton’s history and resources by consulting the public library and village offices, and enlisting the help of local business owners.

They also took a field trip to the Fenner wind turbines, Madison County landfill, and Colgate community garden with geology professor Bruce Selleck ’71 and Sustainability Coordinator John Pumilio.

Continuing the sustainability theme, the group worked at Common Thread Community Farm and supplemented their meals with the carrots and beets they harvested. Meals were cooked — and nights were spent — at the yurt at Colgate’s Beattie Reserve.

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scene: Autumn 2010

First-years Rachel Valdivieso and Priya Agarwal walked determinedly across Whitnall Field on arrival day with a couple of items for the room they share in Stillman Hall. Valdivieso, of Clinton Corners, N.Y., had just arrived on campus with most other firstyears, while Agarwal, of India, was already here to attend an orientation for international students. Both were excited that their Colgate careers had officially started.

“For me, it is the academics mixed with athletics, all on this beautiful campus,” said Valdivieso, who added that she plans to play club tennis and study chemistry.

Agarwal said her uncle is a professor in India and was aware of Colgate’s strong academic reputation, and that led her to investigate the school on her own. “It feels right here,” she said, as they headed up the hill.

The roommates are members of the second-largest class — 854 students — in school history. It is the most diverse class ever, with students

Go figure VITA Each year, students in the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) program provide free income tax assistance to low-income families in Madison County. The service saves families money that they might have otherwise spent to receive assistance, and helps them receive the full return to which they are entitled. Over the summer, Professor Nicole Simpson, who coordinates the program, crunched VITA’s numbers from 2009:

52 Student volunteers 1,329 Returns filed $15,782 Average income of clients $150–$300 What a client would

have had to pay for tax assistance elsewhere

$1,960,000 Aggregate refund to clients

$2,484 Average federal return to a client $619 Average New York State return to a client

— Jason Kammerdiener ’10

of color making up 26.2 percent.

Many members of the class and their families were greeted on arrival day by President Jeffrey Herbst, who was out early on Whitnall Field.

Marvin Vilma and his family were taking a breather in one of the small sitting rooms at 110 Broad Street (the former Delta Kappa Epsilon house), which is now home to 43 first-years taking part in a leadership program called LOFT I (Leadership Options for Tomorrow). Vilma attended a multicultural open house earlier this year, and he said the welcome he received was one of the factors that brought him to Colgate. He ran a leadership club at Trinity School in New York City, and LOFT seemed like a perfect extension of his interests. “I can’t wait to begin this experience, meet new people from all over, and be away from my parents,” he said, as his mom and dad rolled their eyes.

Lauren Warner was deciding among several schools when a trip to Colgate during April Visit Days confirmed her choice. “The kids I talked to, every single one, all had a great attitude about this place,” she said. “It felt very personal and very positive.”

Administrative appointments

Bob Tyburski ’74, vice president and senior philanthropic advisor, has been named secretary to the Board of Trustees. In this role, Tyburski, who has worked at Colgate since 1983, will draw upon his extensive institutional knowledge to aid the board. He will continue in his role advising the university on philanthropic and other matters and working with leadership donors to encourage support of Colgate’s strategic objectives.

When RuthAnn Loveless MA’72, vice president for alumni affairs, retires at the end of the 2010-2011 academic year after 26 years of service, Timothy Mansfield will become associate vice president for alumni affairs. Mansfield, who has served Colgate as director of alumni affairs since December 2008, will assume full responsibility for alumni affairs operations on June 1, 2011.

Steve Nathan is Colgate’s new associate university chaplain and director of Jewish life. Previously, Nathan was the campus rabbi at Hampshire College in Amherst, Mass. Ordained from the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College, Nathan is a practitioner and teacher of mindfulness meditation. He is also a graduate of the Institute for Contemporary Midrash, where he studied midrashic storytelling.

Upstate Institute receives support and praise

On August 13, Ellen Kraly, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of geography, was scheduled to join President Jeffrey Herbst and other guests to ring the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange to celebrate Colgate Day. As Kraly headed for Wall Street, she checked her Blackberry, and the message she found reduced her to tears: Jean-Pierre Conte ’85 and Board of Trustees Chair Chris Clifford ’67 had just provided gifts totaling $1 million that would trigger matching

funds from the Emerson Foundation and complete an endowment of $5.8 million for Colgate’s Upstate Institute, which Kraly directs.

Only weeks before, regional nonprofit directors and members of municipal agencies had gathered to speak about how the institute has made significant, long-lasting contributions to their groups and the upstate region.

The institute is a powerful resource provider at a time when many groups are squeezed by funding cutbacks, said Patricia Hoffman, executive director of the nonprofit organization that runs the Oneida Community Mansion House, a multipurpose National Historic Landmark.

Hoffman, other community leaders, and students who have taken part in the institute’s Upstate Field School were sharing their experiences during an event at the Colgate Inn, where they were able to meet Herbst.

Herbst said the university’s relationship to the region is “extraordinarily important.” The institute provides not only critical support to area organizations but also community service and research opportunities for students that are key ingredients of a liberal arts education.

Michael Palmer ’10 talked about how he used information culled from his geography, computer science, geology, and chemistry courses to develop a spatial analysis for natural gas drilling in Madison County.

Palmer spent his 10-week fellowship with the Madison County Planning and Development Department, and was asked to present his research at two conferences.

Greg Owens, senior forester with the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), said two projects led by Upstate Institute students have had a lasting impact for his regional office in Sherburne.

Tara LaLonde ’06 worked on a project examining land use and reforestation in southern areas of Madison County.

She scanned historic aerial photos and used sophisticated GIS software to create a digital library that foresters use today. And John Demler ’08 crafted management guidelines for historic sites in the county that the DEC uses on a daily basis, said Owens.

Thanks to its newly completed endowment, the institute is bound to increase its role as a community partner. “Projects like the Field School

Get to know: Dawn LaFrance

Andrew Daddio

The Weston, Mass., native plans to pursue a pre-med track, although she said that it’s all open at this point.

Her dad, Jon Warner, is a doctor and Colgate alumnus (Class of 1978).

Despite her father’s Colgate connection, Lauren said her father left the college decision up to her. “He would tell me, ‘I’m not going to say; it’s up to you.’ Although he told me a few times what a great experience he had here.”

— Associate Director of Counseling and Psychological Services; on staff since 2001 — BS, Lafayette College; MA, PsyD, University of Indianapolis — Hometown: Groton, N.Y. You have an array of responsibilities on campus. Can you describe them?

My primary function is clinical work — providing individual and group counseling. I also coordinate the outreach for our department. If requests come in for counseling center assistance, I help people figure out who in our office is best to reach out.

What is one of your primary outreach projects?

I have worked on sexual assault prevention for a really long time while I’ve been here. I brought together a committee called Keep it Sexy Colgate, and changed the tenor of that discussion. Instead of always telling people what not to do, Keep it Sexy helps them think about what they can and should be doing. Underneath the umbrella of Keep it Sexy is certainly sexual assault prevention, but the focus is also on what people want in relationships.

With what kind of attitude do you approach your work?

I look at the bright side of things, even when it is not obvious. I also think it is important to work as a team. When doing outreach, I try to get to know people so that we can think about collaboration. It is important to collaborate so that we can help educate the campus community, even those who don’t seek out our services.

How do you see that manifest itself in your work?

One way is that I work closely with the Colgate chapter of the National Coalition Building Institute. A few years ago, I was trained to do workshops in prejudice reduction training.

We decided that it made sense to train a group here to present workshops helping people to welcome diversity, to figure out what to do if they hear somebody say a racial slur or prejudicial remark, and to understand and accept people who are different.

What do you do after work?

I have two kids, Chloe, 3, and Zach, 6, so I run around chasing them a lot! I like to run, I like to walk, I mountain bike — I hit the trails on campus sometimes. I also started water aerobics this summer. Remaining physically active in a lot of different ways is important to me. [Editor’s note: That must explain why she placed first for women at the 38th Annual Dan Sutton Memorial Race 5K in Cazenovia on July 4 — winning by 38 seconds!]

Any projects?

I dabble in gardening. This summer, I worked on a perennial garden. We’ve been members of Common Thread, the farm outside of town, but next year we’re going to try to grow our own vegetables.

Did you get a chance to recharge over the summer?

My family spent a week up in the Adirondacks at a place called Beaver River; we do that every year. We stay where we have no cell phone or Internet access, and we do a lot of fishing and biking. It’s fun!

— Jason Kammerdiener ’10

News and views for the Colgate community

9

Gardening for Colgate’s future

Janna Minehart ’13

Close to 200 people gathered at Colgate’s community garden for a longawaited open house in mid-September.

Homemade foods, including bruschetta, fried zucchini, and baked squash — all made from the garden’s produce — were displayed under bright-red tents, creatively decorated for fall. The open house also featured garden tours, compost-bucket decorating, and performances by several student singing groups, including the Resolutions and the Dischords.

The half-acre garden on College Street is the result of a collaborative effort that has been in the works since 2001, when Heather Schoen ’02 planted the seeds for Green Thumbs, a student organization focused on pro-

An open house for Colgate's community garden attracted close to 200 students and community members.

moting local, sustainable agriculture at Colgate.

It was the fall of 2008 when Schoen’s idea really began to sprout.

According to Green Thumbs president Emily Sabo ’11, a group of outdoor education students were inspired to

Village Green

Andrew Daddio

work & play

provide a great opportunity for our students and are seen as a generous investment in the community,” said project director Julie Dudrick. “With an endowment like this in place, we know that we can sustain these ongoing partnerships.”

10

scene: Autumn 2010

In July, the Syracuse Symphony Orchestra made a return appearance as part of the Hamilton Village Concert series. Grant Cooper, former resident conductor of the orchestra for 10 seasons, conducted the evening’s free performance.

Area residents packed the Village Green, picnicking and enjoying the show.

The Hamilton Forum welcomed President Jeffrey Herbst as their guest speaker on September 2 at the Colgate Inn. Herbst covered such topics as his first impressions of Colgate and Hamilton, the university/community partnership, and his vision for the university’s future.

Local artists set up their easels along Taylor Lake and Lake Moraine for Plein-air Painting Workshops in September. Sponsored by MAD Art (a nonprofit community arts organization), participants practiced painting “in the open air,” working quickly to capture the scene.

The Palace Theater sizzled with the sounds of Latino music during the Fiesta de Palace on September 25. National Latino comedian Ernie

get the organization running after attending Powershift, a lobbying event in Washington, D.C., focused on using alternative energy on college campuses. Soon after, the interested students found Schoen’s Green Thumbs binder and pushed to make themselves an of-

G. opened the festivities, followed by the big brass sounds of La Krema.

Afterward, La Krema’s dancing couples gave free dance lessons.

The Hamilton Theater kicked off its fourth season of Grand Operas in Cinema, offering shows from Europe’s leading opera houses. A dazzling performance of Aida from the Bregenz Festival in Austria played September 19, and Così fan tutte, performed at the Royal Opera House in London, was October 17. Upcoming shows include Carmen, from the Gran Teatre del Liceu, and a stage production of William Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, performed at the Globe Theater in London.

The Colgate Bookstore continued its annual tradition of Free Hugs Day, when Colgate families and students come in for a friendly embrace from the staff as an affectionate start to the fall semester. “It is just awesome to be able to do something like that,” official bookstore “hugger” Shelly Robertson told the Oneida Daily Dispatch. “One mom broke right down — that’s why we do the Free Hugs Day.”

ficial student group. In fall 2008, Sabo and Green Thumbs faculty adviser Chris Henke, a sociology professor, began researching how to turn the idea for a garden into a reality. A year later, their efforts were picked up by Meg Cronin ’10, Teddi Hoffman ’10, Kate Pavelich ’10, and Maria Kryachko ’10, who developed a comprehensive garden proposal for an environmental issues class co-taught by Sustainability Coordinator John Pumilio.

With support from the campus Sustainability Council, the site was approved. And when the Class of 2010 donated their entire senior class gift to sustainability, Green Thumbs was given the financial backing to get the garden off the ground. Over the summer, two student interns, Rob Jeffrey ’12 and Stacey Marion ’11, started the garden and have been managing it ever since. Marion and Jeffrey make the farming decisions about the garden, but also rely on input from a Green Thumbs advisory committee and a hired consultant.

The first vegetables to be planted — including squash, eggplant, peppers, radishes, and carrots — were donated by local farms. “We have received great support from the local agricultural community, and are forming friendships with many local farmers,” wrote Jeffrey and Marion on the garden blog (http://colgategarden. blogspot.com/). This communitybuilding aspect of the garden is exactly what was envisioned by Schoen.

Together, Jeffrey and Marion have transformed a grassy field into a fertile garden that will improve the sustainability of Colgate’s campus, as well as the freshness and tastiness of its food. The produce is sold to Sodexo, supplier for Colgate’s dining services, and used at the Coop and the Edge, as well as for catered events. Additional produce was given to garden volunteers and sold at a vegetable stand, set up at the garden on Friday afternoons.

The Green Thumbs members said they hope that events like the open house will increase awareness and support for the garden, allowing for its further development and increased role in campus dining.

— Kiera Crowley ’13

Julia Alvarez launches 2010 Living Writers series

First, last, and always, Julia Alvarez is a storyteller.

The Middlebury College writer-inresidence, coffee farmer, and author of How the Garcia Girls Lost their Accents launched the 2010 Living Writers lecture series on September 8, recounting the story of her own life, which began in the Dominican Republic under the dictator Rafael Trujillo.

When her father fled the country after participating in a failed coup attempt, the family moved to Jamaica, Queens. Lost in the monochromatic culture of mid-20th century America, she found herself, thanks to a sixthgrade teacher who gave Alvarez a book list and sent her to the library.

“New York, 1960, I became a reader; I dwelt in possibility,” she said.

But her teacher didn’t just encourage her to read. “She told me to write my own stories,” said Alvarez.

“The taste of guava, the smell of the ocean, the feel of the tropical sun like a warm blessing on my head — write that down. I did. I wrote stories, and everything I lost came back to me.”

Alvarez retrieved her past and parlayed it into a successful future, earning a bachelor’s at Middlebury and a master’s in creative writing at Syracuse University. Her prolific writing has earned her countless awards, including the 2009 F. Scott Fitzgerald Award for Outstanding Achievement in American Literature, the 2007 Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s Latina Leader Award in Literature, and several honorary degrees.

“I love storytelling,” she said.

“We have a way of finding our way through our stories and songs and poems.” Now — in print, lecture halls, workshops, and one-on-one conversations — she’s helping others find their way, too.

When she purchased her coffee

Bent shares Shooting Beauty On September 8, Courtney Bent ’93 made her first visit to campus in more than a decade. Instead of taking classes, Bent came to screen and talk about her documentary, Shooting Beauty.

The film, which she wrote about in the autumn 2009 Scene, tracks her efforts to create camera equipment for people with special needs and train them to become photographers.

In the process, she discovered that “precisely because of their disability, they have a unique perspective.”

Bent’s day began with a breakfast and photo exhibition opening at the Case Library and Geyer Center for Information Technology. She hosted a Doing Well by Doing Good luncheon in the COVE and sat in on two classes in educational studies and photography.

Later, she participated in a panel presentation that included faculty, staff, and local artists, discussing artistic expression and educational efforts among and on behalf of community members with special needs.

“Inclusion challenges us,” panelist Lynn Waldman, director of academic support and disability services, told the audience — which included 20 undergraduates visiting from Cazenovia College, an event sponsor. “As far as I’m concerned, we all have a disability.”

Before leaving the village, Bent stopped off to chat with students at

Andrew Daddio

Editor’s note: This article was adapted from a longer piece on www.know whereyourfoodcomesfrom.com, developed by Frank Barrie ’72.

Back on campus

Author Julia Alvarez

plantation, Alta Gracia, in the Dominican Republic, she looked around and realized that the children living there were illiterate. Wanting them to find the same freedom she found in the written word, she set up a school and a library with the help of the Peace Corps and Middlebury students on alternative spring break trips.

Reading stories to Dominican children inspired her to write her own works for younger audiences, resulting in books like The Best Gift of All: The Legend of La Vieja Belén. The exile who navigated by narrative has returned to her roots and is inspiring a new generation with her storytelling.

This edition of Living Writers was co-sponsored by the ALANA Cultural Center and the university library. The

Hamilton Central School — a familiar atmosphere for the fashion photographer–turned-filmmaker who spends some of her free time teaching photography to 8-year-old children.

Also back…

Watson Fellow Sachi Schuricht ’09 took students through her journey investigating the widespread, yet obscure, subculture of competitive “speedcubing” throughout Europe and Asia. The fellowship provided her with the resources and support to explore her topic “Cubing Across Cultures: Documenting the Rubik’s Resurgence in India, China, Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Spain, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany, and Hungary.”

She attended — and entered — competitions, interviewed world-class speedcubers, and captured footage for a documentary film.

Newly appointed Alumni Council member Valerie Shapiro ’02 met with students on September 30 to share her post-Colgate experiences and answer questions about career paths in psychology and closely related fields.

Shapiro is a doctoral candidate at the University of Washington, studying community-based interventions to prevent mental, emotional, and behavioral disorders in youth. She is funded through a National Institutes of Mental Health training grant.

2010 Living Writers series features 10 authors, including Pulitzer Prize winner Jhumpa Lahiri, who spoke September 16, and Nobel Prize winner V.S. Naipaul, who visited October 15.

Authors meet with students in the classroom, then give a public reading and lecture, which streams live on Colgate’s Livestream channel.

8 Alumni and parents can take part in Living Writers through live webcasts, which include an interactive chat that gives online guests the chance to pose questions to the authors. See www.colgate.edu/livingwriters for more information. To watch archived videos, visit www.colgateconnect.org/ hillathome.

News and views for the Colgate community

11

Not My Last Apologia for Poetry

By Jasmine Bailey ’05

Jasmine Bailey ’05 began writing poetry when she was 10 years old; she recalls consulting the poetry textbooks lurking alongside literature on the bookshelves in her home (her father is a professor of English as a second language). After graduating from Colgate, she spent a year in Argentina on a Fulbright Fellowship, and completed her MFA at the University of Virginia, where she has since been an instructor of writing.

Her chapbook Sleep and What Precedes It was published by Longleaf Press in 2009, and her poetry has appeared in several magazines, including 32 Poems, Poet Lore, Rhino, and the Portland Review. This fall, she returned to Colgate as an Olive B. O’Connor Creative Writing Fellow in the English department, where she is teaching Intro to Creative Writing and working on a collection of poems called Alexandria.

Andrew Daddio

work & play

Passion for the Climb

12

scene: Autumn 2010

Richard Hugo said in his poem “Langaig” that “Fishing preceded song. We know this by instinct.” This is an idea hard for me to accept.

Certainly, hunger is the sharpest and most primordial pain, and, more than other things, dictates what we do.

It is true, too, that writing was not possible before agriculture, and even then, to practice writing required leisure and education that few could afford. But we know that people sang long before they wrote their songs down, and that the urge to make art is ancient; instinct tells me that poetry could not have been far on the heels of any other human impulse. I cannot believe that when hunger first drew men to the river, as each waited with the line resting on the pad of his finger, someone didn’t notice the sun on the trees and its resemblance to a woman’s hair.

Writing is so much like fishing: the quiet, the solitude, the waiting, the endlessness of a task that cannot be completed. The killing and consuming of what is most loved and valued for the sake of survival, the many days without a catch. Mainly, the deep silence from which the song rises.

If poetry is the written expression of the unsayable, then poets are alchemists, turning one thing into something else that it formerly was not. Like Melquiades in One Hundred Years of Solitude, we lose our sight in the laboratory of the impossible task, abandon our tribe, and are forced to keep working after death. And for all this, we create something not easily comprehended and that can’t be carried. Most people sense this futility about poetry, so writers are forced out of their rooms to stand in apology of the art, as if the desire to make gold from lead, and the importance of trying, were not selfevident.

I wonder whether God, or the poem, is older. We owe the preservation of many early writings to the monks who spent their lives copying them, even throwing books into bogs when the Vikings arrived torch-studded.

Many books had nothing to do with God, or with the right god, but even in

invasion, the monks did not abandon them.

Men and women make what they need, whether it is supper, shelter, a poem, or a savior. Most people, most days, need bread more than they need poetry. But when, as inevitably happens to each person, the world becomes uninhabitable, the poem, like the mother you believed you had outgrown, is a trellis you can climb to a balcony just high enough to delay the approach of the spreading chaos.

Poems last longer than our beloved mothers.

I admit that I love poems because they can be perfect, as nothing except art can be. “Langaig” is perfect, even though everything it contains is troubling and heartbreaking, and Hugo himself, like anyone, suffered and in life fell short of the ease and exactness he struck in his best poems.

“To relax, to slide with, ride the forces of whatever/ sweeps us along, jokes well-timed, phrasing under control— / that was my ideal. I didn’t come close in real life.”

Writers usually give ample justification, but we should still not speak too ill of them. If a human being can take the raw beauty and terror of the world and use his imagination to fashion it into something truer than anything in the world — more lovely, more scalding, more elastic, more final — and balance its elements in a way that the world is never balanced, then praise the human imagination and the spirit that tries for it, because we need what they give. Outside of poetry, we would not find the perfect lemon or lake or Ford Galaxie, some hot young stuff draped all over it.

And the Beloved, for all that he did or didn’t love us, always dies. The poem answers the inevitable dream the world causes in the heart.

The poet is a fisherman and a monk without the one’s skill or the other’s virtue. Still, praise him, riding his glorious squid through labyrinths of kelp.

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

Mr. Christmas Dubbed “Mr. Christmas of the music world,” songwriter and composer Johnny Marks ’31 (1909–1985) brought us such yuletide favorites as “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree,” “Holly Jolly Christmas,” and “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” But, most notably, was a little ditty called “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.”

At Colgate, John D. Marks was accompanist for the glee club, manager of the music club, and a member of Salmagundi, the Willow Path, Phi Beta Kappa, Mu Pi Delta, Kappa Phi Kappa, and the Commons Club.

He continued his musical studies at Columbia and then lived in Paris. During World War II, he served under General Patton in Normandy and was awarded a Bronze Star and four battle stars. Afterward, he continued composing — a passion he’d had since the age of 13.

In 1949, Marks founded St. Nicholas Music, Inc., which became the foremost publisher of Christmas songs. That was also the year he wrote “Rudolph,” based on a holiday promotional book given away by Montgomery Ward, where his brother-in-law Robert May was a copywriter who penned the story of the lovable character with a cherry proboscis. Gene Autry lent his voice, and the song swept the nation. “Rudolph” has been called one of the most profitable songs in the world.

In 1964, the stop-animation TV special by Rankin/Bass Productions aired on NBC as part of the General Electric Fantasy Hour. Marks went on to write other TV specials: Rudolph’s Shiny New Year, Rudolph and Frosty, The Tiny Tree, and The Ballad of Smokey the Bear.

Of the 175 songs Marks published, he had several hits unrelated to Christmas, including “Who Calls” with Bing Crosby, “She’ll Always Remember” with Glenn Miller, and “Don’t Cross Your Fingers, Cross Your Heart” with Sammy Kaye.

In fact, according to a 1980 People Weekly article, Marks did not want his legacy to be associated with Christmas or the most famous reindeer of all. “This is not exactly what I hope to be remembered for,” he told the magazine. The article went on to say that Marks never shopped for presents, put up a tree, or sent Christmas cards. Although this made him sound like a Grinch, “Mr. Christmas” was, in fact, Jewish.

Regardless, Johnny Marks, you’ll go down in history…

Color images ©Rankin/Bass Productions/Rick Goldschmidt Archives Johnny Marks photograph ©Raeanne Rubenstein, 2010

13 Page 13 is the showplace

for Colgate tradition, history, and school spirit.

Constance Soja

life of the mind 14

Geology 215 students created a true-to-scale geologic timeline on the football field.

scene: Autumn 2010

Geologic yardage

On a cold and rainy September afternoon, students taking Geology 215 met with Professor Constance Soja for the second lab of the semester. But this particular Thursday, they gathered under Andy Kerr Stadium, in the visiting team locker room. The mist outside didn’t seem to dampen spirits as Soja introduced the lab of the day, “Gridiron Geologic Time.” The goal: to create a graphic representation of geologic time, true to scale, on Colgate’s football field, placing flags as symbols of important geologic events along the 100 yards.

Under Soja’s lead, the locker room was transformed into a classroom, where students, sitting on benches in small groups, brainstormed major events in Earth’s history. The class discussed the relative timing of events like the Cambrian explosion and the Pleistocene glaciation.

In order to shrink 4.5 billon years of Earth time into 100 yards, the group determined that 1 yard on the field would represent 45 million years, and 1 inch, 1.25 million years. Using this scale, the students reviewed a list of nearly 30 geologic events and calculated their distances from the north goal line, which marked the origin of Earth at 0 yards.

Soja gave each student two flags to place on the football field inside of bottles. Karen Bascom ’12 received “O2 and O3” (the accumulation of oxygen and ozone in the atmosphere) and “prokaryotes” (simple cells), which occurred 4 billion and 3.5 billion years ago, respectively. After placing the first flag on the white side line, near the north end zone’s 11-yard line, and the second near the 22-yard line, Bascom walked toward the other end

zone, where she passed flags marked “algae,” “insects,” and finally, at approximately 99.94 yards (2 inches from the goal line), “first hominid.”

The visual treat of the lab was standing on the top row of the bleachers and looking down at the flags. The Earth’s earliest events, marked by green flags, were spread out mostly on the north side of the field, and then yellow, orange, and red flags clumped closer together near the south end zone. The red flags marked events that occurred within the last 40,000 years — or 2 inches — such as the birth of art and the Declaration of Independence.

“Standing at the top of the field and seeing how long until anything we are familiar with comes onto the scene is really surprising,” Brittany Hanrahan ’11 reflected.

“We’re living in the last inch of geologic time,” Bascom said. “That really puts everything into perspective.”

After the students picked up the flags, Soja took a group picture and told them to get out of the rain. She was left in the locker room, smiling. “It was a little quirky to use the football field for another purpose,” she said.

But it worked out just right.

— Kiki Koroshetz ’11

Worms, ants, and epiphytes, oh my! NSF awards major research grants

Three Colgate biology professors — Damhnait McHugh, Krista Ingram, and Catherine Cardelús — have been awarded more than $750,000 in grants from the National Science Foundation for three distinct projects that will involve student researchers.

McHugh received $400,000 as part of a five-year joint grant with Auburn University, Texas A&M, Southern Illinois University, and the University of Kansas. Her research will help in assembling the annelid (worm) tree of life, using DNA sequences of diverse species to build evolutionary “family trees.” This work is important for documenting biodiversity, she said, and allows scientists to make inferences about the species’ long history on Earth, as well as aid in conservation efforts.

“It is rewarding for the three of us in the department to receive this kind of validation of our work,” said McHugh. “And the grants present our students with terrific research opportunities.”

Syllabus FSEM 126 Outbreak! Historical Pandemics and Emerging Infectious Diseases TR 9:55–11:10 a.m., Olin Hall 104A Geoffrey Holm, Asst. Professor of Biology Course description: Infectious disease outbreaks have altered the course of human history and dramatically influenced human activity. While improvements in sanitation and public health have mitigated the effects of certain pathogens, human encroachment into new disease reservoirs has introduced novel biological agents into the population, to sometimes disastrous consequences. Sensationalistic media coverage contributes to misunderstandings and confusion.

This first-year seminar (also a Core Scientific Perspectives course) uses three historical pandemics (The “Black Death,” mid-19th century cholera, and 1918 “Spanish flu”) and recent outbreaks, including SARS and H1N1 influenza, to investigate basic epidemiological principles; the microbiologic, social, and environmental factors that contribute to disease pathogenesis; and our preparedness for future outbreaks.

On the reading list: Kenneth Rothman, Epidemiology: An Introduction; John M. Barry, The Great Influenza; Steven Johnson, The Ghost Map; John Kelly, The Great Mortality; Richard Preston, The Hot Zone Key assignments/activities: Five response papers. In-class laboratory exercises: Sanitation and Bacterial Growth and H1N1 Pandemic 2009. Final group project: research paper plus presentation The “Expand your horizons FSEM requirement”: Students must attend four oncampus events of their choosing: a science lecture or colloquium, a social science “brown bag lunch” or colloquium; an event highlighting aspects of another culture; and one other educational outside-ofcoursework event, such as a play, concert, or musical.

disciplines of anthropology, economics, political science, psychology, and sociology. Most scholars at the center are from much larger research institutions such as Harvard and the University of Chicago.

As the first faculty member from Colgate to be selected for the fellowship, Carlsmith said he is excited about the prospect of approaching his research, which is funded through the National Science Foundation, in innovative ways that cross disciplines.

He is working with a historian who studies the legal and political history of torture, and with a communications studies scholar who studies how journalists approach torture.

“The center creates an environment in which you can contemplate by yourself, but also interact with top scholars from related disciplines,” he said. “It offers us a full year of uninterrupted study in hopes that we will make ‘big idea’ breakthroughs that are difficult in the context of busy academic lives.”

Students working with McHugh will spend a summer at Auburn University, where they will learn to sequence entire genomes or collect worms from marine and terrestrial habitats in Australia and South Africa.

Ingram’s grant of $180,000 allows her to continue her studies of circadian rhythms in ants, exploring how they organize their behavior without a leader. It turns out that ants rely on the same mechanism that humans use to organize our daily activities — an internal molecular rhythm generator called the circadian clock. Ingram is excited about how the grant will open more doors for her research and its applications for better understanding human behaviors. She plans to bring students to Arizona and Southeast Asia to observe self-organized ant behaviors and then continue those studies at Colgate.

Cardelús said her $188,000 grant will assist her in conducting research on epiphytes, plants that reside in rain forest canopies. These plants will intercept much of the predicted increase in nutrients that are released due to increases in human industrial and agricultural practices.

She will explore how the epiphytes respond to these nutrients, because they could have significant effects on processes in the canopy and on the forest floor. Her grant also provides for student involvement; they will have the opportunity to travel to Costa Rica to collect samples, analyze them in labs at Colgate, and then work on final papers.

“It is thrilling to be supported for doing what I love — studying the rain forest,” Cardelús said.

— Kate Hicks ’11

A new kind of summer school

“Tell me, O muse, of that ingenious hero who travelled far and wide.”

With these words, Homer began his epic Odyssey, but he could have been describing the first cohort of Summer on the Hill participants. Sixty intrepid members of the Colgate community journeyed to Hamilton for the fourday event, June 27 through July 1. They engaged with each other, learned from leading professors, and expanded their comfort zones. They also discovered that reliving the liberal arts experience is a bit like riding a bike.

Summer on the Hill participants test out the climbing wall.

Jennifer McGee

Carlsmith receives Stanford University fellowship

Psychology professor Kevin Carlsmith has been awarded a one-year fellowship at the prestigious Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University.

Carlsmith hopes that collaboration with other top scholars at the center will provide valuable insights into his research, which focuses on attitudes about torture and aggressive interrogation techniques.

About two dozen fellowships, which are extremely competitive, are awarded each year to scholars from a diverse range of fields that includes the five core social and behavioral

In classrooms across the quad, small groups bonded over Homer, the Bible, and other founding texts of the Western world; they explored art, psychology, memoir writing, and more.

“Spending time with professors like Tony Aveni, Bob McVaugh, David Dudrick, and Scott Kraly reminded me of how talented the faculty remains and how lucky all of us were to study under this type of guidance,” said Bruce Wright ’74.

Tim Byrnes, professor of political science, began his class on the presidency and executive leadership by taking questions. Alumni, friends, spouses, and parents were happy to oblige: “Why is it so cold here?”

“Why doesn’t the media educate America on cloture and the filibuster?”

While addressing each one, Byrnes skillfully segued his audience into the assigned text, which he also uses with undergraduates in Political Science 211.

Course options were numerous and varied, thanks to the vision of RuthAnn Loveless MA’72, vice president for alumni affairs, and her staff.

“We committed ourselves to developing a rigorous academic program,” said Tim Mansfield, director of alumni affairs. “We wanted attendees to have a true Colgate experience.”

Registrants chose three courses from a menu of nine options and divided into a trio of sessions throughout the morning and early afternoon hours. Professors posted reading lists on colgateconnect.org prior to the first class meeting so that conversation could commence immediately.

Each day, after the last bell rang,

Live and learn

Last spring, 22 Benton Scholars spent 12 days in India, traveling to Delhi, Agra, Chennai, Mamallapuram, Kottayam, and Kochi. Janna Minehart ’13 reports: Because the Benton Scholars Program emphasizes global engagement and leadership, India was chosen as our destination country due to its increasing importance on the global stage. In one class, we studied India’s role as an emerging economic power. We also took a core world cultures class about India. Padma Kaimal, the professor from that class, as well as Tim Byrnes, the professor who oversees the program, accompanied us on the trip.

While there, we saw some important cultural sights, such as temples. We met with someone in the U.S. Foreign Service who works at the American Center in Delhi. We were on a show called The Youth Express on Indian national television, discussing the importance of engaging a population to participate in democracy. We visited a high school and talked with students about their daily lives and future ambitions.

Some of us also went out in small groups to explore the nearby cities and villages.

The most important experience I had was only arranged in part by the program. My dad lived in India from the time he was 12 until he left for college. His parents and his younger siblings remained. When my grandfather died, some of his ashes were scattered in India. My uncle died unexpectedly just a couple of weeks before I left for India, and I was able to take some of his ashes to the Taj Mahal. The Taj has a presence, a power, and a peace. Scattering his ashes there felt like I was completing a cycle. It felt so right to be there, fulfilling my grandparents’ and my parents’ legacy.

Going to India felt like I was coming home somehow, learning about my own history in a deeper way.

To see a gallery of Janna’s photos from the trip, visit www.colgate.edu/indiaphotos.

News and views for the Colgate community

15

Junior’s research receives Botanical Society award Weston Testo ’12 (right) and Professor Eddie Watkins examining tropical ferns in Costa Rica

Dino camp

Weston Testo ’12 was in the Costa Rican rain forest in May, studying ferns with his mentor, biology professor James “Eddie” Watkins, when he was notified that he had won the Undergraduate Student Research Award

Mel Oliver, University of Missouri

16

scene: Autumn 2010

“It’s hot and humid out there today,” geology professor Constance Soja told a classroom full of students in July. “It feels like the Mesozoic out there.” In the absence of Colgate students, who are mostly off campus for the summer, Soja was presenting to students of a different ilk as she addressed the second- and third-graders attending Hamilton’s Junior Paleontologists Camp.

Pat McGill, a reading specialist at Hamilton Central School, runs the two-week program often referred to as “dinosaur camp.” After two weeks of instruction from McGill and activities in their own classroom, the campers traveled to Colgate to hear from Soja, a professional paleontologist, and to visit Colgate’s dinosaur

Jason Kammerdiener ’10

life of the mind

from the Botanical Society of America (BSA). He received the award for his proposal titled “Desiccation tolerance and calcium requirements of gametophytes of American Hart’s-Tongue Fern, Phyllitis scolopendrium var. americana.” It is “the most prestigious award given out to students at Wes’s stage,” said Watkins. As part of the award, the BSA had invited Testo to present his research in early August at its annual meeting, Botany 2010.

The Upstate Institute, a Colgate initiative supporting research and a reciprocal transfer of knowledge between the university and regional partners in central New York, sponsored Testo’s award-winning research.

In his project, Testo explores the ecophysiology of P. scolopendrium, a rare fern with 90 percent of its populations in central New York. But those populations have recently been in decline. Testo’s data suggest that the gamete-producing stage (the gametophyte) of ferns may be negatively impacted by even modest increases in temperature and are sensitive to desiccation, which may lend support to claims that the population decline is the result of climate change.

Testo’s research is ongoing, and he is now preparing the first of two manuscripts for publication. “I hope that my work will not only support conservation efforts,” he said, “but also help people in the area realize that one of the rarest and most unique plants in North America can be found a lot closer to home than they might think.”

— Jason Kammerdiener ’10

students enjoyed electives like Tai Chi, Thai cooking, rock climbing, and zip-lining. Evenings offered more time for bonding with fellow alumni and parents. There were cocktail parties and meals, a trivia competition hosted by trivia master and senior regional advancement director Doug Chiarello ’98, a trip to Cooperstown for dinner and a tour of the National Baseball Hall of Fame, and a night of dancing to Dixieland jazz in the Hall of Presidents.

Thursday morning, as adventurers prepared to depart, President Jeffrey Herbst arrived for brunch. It was his first day in the post, and his first official meeting as chief executive. He outlined his vision and noted his determination “to make sure that Colgate is the best university in the country.”

After reencountering the liberal arts and interacting with campus leaders and fellow students, each participant seemed to carry a look of deep reflection. The first night’s handshakes were replaced by less-formal farewell hugs and a deeper understanding of what it means to be a member of the Colgate community.

“Everything I’ve done here reminds me what a great group of people are involved with Colgate,” said Board of Trustees chairman and program participant Christopher Clifford ’67, P’93.

Summer on the Hill will return next year with a new round of courses and activities. Watch colgateconnect. org for details.

Young paleontologists take notes at the Robert M. Linsley Geology Museum during their visit to campus.

egg in the Robert M. Linsley Geology Museum.

The junior paleontologists came prepared for the experience, eagerly participating in Soja’s presentation.

“When you ask a question to these younger kids,” marveled Soja, “every hand in the classroom goes up! Every kid wants to answer the question.”

The campers rose to the challenge of even Soja’s most difficult questions.

For instance, she displayed a picture of a Tyrannosaurus rex and asked what kind of food it ate, plants or animals.

When the students answered that it was carnivorous, she explained that the scientific process required they back up their hypothesis with evidence.

The campers were able to offer tooth shape, fossilized stomach contents, and even the dinosaur’s eye placement as evidence that it was a carnivore. Likewise, they recognized that a few features, like the dinosaur’s small forelegs, might contradict their hypothesis.

McGill started the camp, offered free to campers, in 2005 with the help of geology professor Richard April.

“Children are innately fascinated with dinosaurs,” commented April, “so we thought this would be a wonderful

Conference builds on Colgate’s literary legacy

Author Dennis McFadden, a veteran of the Colgate Writers’ Conference, found himself blazing a slightly different trail when he returned to the event this year. Rather than attending as a student, McFadden found himself reading his own work to the participants who were once his peers.

Hart’s Grove, the novel that he had workshopped at the conference several years ago, will soon be published by the recently revived Colgate University Press. “Having attended the conference twice, in ’06 and ’08, it was fun seeing the podium from the other side, although I enjoyed both experiences a great deal,” McFadden said. “I always enjoy my time there, and I intend to return.” McFadden’s reading was just one of many highlights from this year’s program, which was held June 20 through 26.

Each year, the conference offers a series of public craft talks, shop talks, and readings from Colgate faculty

authors, as well as visiting published authors. The conference also offers the opportunity for veteran and novice writers alike to workshop their manuscripts of fiction, poetry, or literary nonfiction with the faculty.

Like McFadden, nearly half of this year’s 50 students had participated before. Among the accomplished visiting writers on the faculty were 2000 Pulitzer Prize finalist and Guggenheim Fellow Bruce Smith and John Robert Lennon, author of Happyland.

Several alumni also made an appearance. Dan Wald ’82, author of Ad Asylum, discussed the digital aspects of the publishing world and the impact of quickly evolving technological advances on what it means to be a writer, from Kindles and iPads to the newer trend toward DIY publishing.

Jennifer Smith ’03, an associate editor at Random House and author of two acclaimed novels, The Comeback Season and You Are Here, gave a voice to the often academically ignored — but nevertheless influential — genre of young adult novels. Andrea Barzvi ’95, a literary agent, spoke of her role in the publishing process, as did Jennifer Pooley ’97, a senior editor with HarperCollins.

The conference explored both breadth and depth in its topics this year, and demonstrated strong support for Colgate’s literary legacy.

“I wouldn’t mind if this book was judged by its cover,” quipped McFadden, praising the dedication of the conference staff and the role of the Colgate University Press in its publication. “It came out beautifully.”

— Avi Israel ’10

Faculty appointments

During the summer, two members of the faculty were recognized through new appointments.

D. Kay Johnston, professor of educational studies and women’s studies, has been named Presidential Scholar through June 30, 2013. Having served on Colgate’s educational studies faculty since 1986, Johnston specializes in adolescent development, moral development, and elementary education.

Jyoti Khanna, of the Department of Economics, has been promoted to full professor. Khanna’s specialties include public economics, statistics, microeconomics, and international economics.

Get to know: Lesleigh Cushing

Andrew Daddio

way for students to experience a little bit of paleontology to understand more about earth and earth processes, time, animals, and extinction and what that means.”

McGill and April cooperated in securing external funding sources, receiving a grant from an old telephone company, NYNEX. McGill also took advantage of various Colgate outreach programs to educate herself more thoroughly on the subject of paleontology so that she could teach the subject with more depth.

The camp is anything but just a summer class. “Not that I don’t like what I do during the year,” said McGill, “but this is hands-on learning.

I don’t need to worry as much about ‘you need to sit here. You need to stay focused.’ It’s not that kind of teaching.

It’s more exploration.”

For camper Aidan Woods, such exploration is hard to narrow to a favorite subject. “I like all the dinosaurs!” he exclaimed.

The campers’ experience also has a lasting impact. Liam Stahl, now heading into seventh grade, was one of the first junior paleontologists. His word of advice for future campers?

“Pay attention. Some of the stuff you learn is really useful later. And even if isn’t, it is sometimes just good to know.”

— Jason Kammerdiener ’10

— Associate professor of religion and Jewish studies; chair of Core 151 — Her forthcoming book is The Good Book in the Promised Land: The Bible in America How did you become interested in biblical interpretation?

As an undergraduate English major, I took a class in the history of Jewish biblical interpretation. For the term paper, we had to find 100 interpretations of any passage in the Bible. I chose Genesis 9:22, which talks about what happens to Noah after the ark alights. It was eye opening to see how one verse can be read so many different ways.

What happens if one takes the text literally?

You run into all sorts of problems. Take Noah’s ark. He’s on a boat for a year with all of these animals. What did he do with all that waste? And how did he manage animal instinct? How did he keep the two bunnies from becoming 200 bunnies, or the two lions from devouring everyone else? People throughout history have imagined elaborate back-stories — the animals were in a state of divine hibernation. Once you start filling in the gaps like this, you’re up to something new: creative interpretation. That’s what I’m most interested in.

How do you teach something so amorphous?

With undergraduates, I push them to slow down and read closely. They need to see the surface irregularities in the text in order to see why people have spent 2,000 years trying to smooth them over.

How is it different when you teach older students?

The Lifelong Learners in Hamilton, or the alumni and parent participants of Summer on the Hill, like the possibility that text can mean multiple things simultaneously. This comfort comes, I think, from having had more life experience. It’s very hard to convince college students that they’re mortal — which is what a lot of the literature I teach is grappling with.

How do you teach your own young children?

Well, they’re two and four, so we’re not really focusing on mortality yet! And, while we read a lot of books about Jewish traditions and rituals, I don’t read them the Bible — despite the prevalence of Noah’s ark nursery decorations, it is simply not a children’s book.

What should everyone know about the Bible?

People should be deeply skeptical when someone says “the Bible says x about y,” because there’s a very good chance that somewhere else in the Bible, it says q about y. Readers of all backgrounds with all kinds of agendas plumb the Bible for the prooftexts that support their positions on issues. And they find what they need, but you can be pretty sure that someone looking to make the opposite case is also going to be able to mount a biblically based argument. And that’s where things really start to get interesting.

— Barbara Brooks

News and views for the Colgate community

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arts & culture

Exhibition marks Hurricane Katrina anniversary

A photograph from Francis Cape’s Waterline exhibition.

This past August — five years after Hurricane Katrina wreaked havoc on New Orleans — an exhibition opened in the Clifford Gallery that gave visitors the sense of living in the Crescent City following the devastation. Behind the Levees is a progression of Francis Cape’s art that began in November 2005, when the New York–based artist was hired to help the Louisiana State Museum salvage some of its contents.

Cape’s New Orleans–inspired work began with a series of photographs titled Waterline. Taken in the Gentilly neighborhood, the pictures are of homes that not only share the common theme of destruction, but also have visible water stains showing how high the floodwater stood.

Although he is a sculptor, not a photographer, by trade, Cape said, “People were showing me what happened to the city and I felt like I was being asked to tell a story.” Buying some basic film from a drugstore, he snapped shots as he walked around.

During this walk, he was struck by the otherwise ordinary nature of Gentilly.

“It could be here in Hamilton, it could be in the Midwest — this is a typical American middle-class area,” he said.

“This could be my neighborhood; it felt very close to home.”

Wanting to bring that feeling of home to the gallery, he mounted the photographs in regular domestic frames. Below the pictures, he set murky yellow wainscoting at the same height as the water level in one

of the photographed houses, to give visitors the feeling of being immersed in the floodwaters.

Cape expanded on Waterline after visiting New Orleans in subsequent years. The piece Four Folding Chairs consists of chairs that frame photos of the FEMA trailers that served as makeshift homes. Cape took the photos in 2006 when following the same route he walked for Waterline.

“Folding chairs, like trailers, are for camping and temporary use. They’re about as much use to people in a flood zone as a trailer,” he explained.

In 2007, Cape again walked through the Gentilly neighborhood, set up a tripod in the same spots where he took the first set of photographs in 2005, and shot comparison images. The series New Orleans 2005/2007 shows how, in some cases, the houses look almost exactly the same, in others, they are rebuilt, and some houses no longer exist. The series was printed into a book, funded by Colgate’s Institute for the Creative and Performing Arts, and sold on campus. All of the proceeds were given to the Center for Outreach, Volunteerism, and Education for its outreach work in New Orleans.

Cape’s exhibition also featured several furniture sculptures, two of which address the BP oil spill. Colgate is the first site where those pieces were on exhibition, and this was the first time all of Cape’s New Orleans works were shown together.

Art professor DeWitt Godfrey noted the importance of Cape’s continuation of the project. “It’s really interesting to see the evolution of an idea,” Godfrey said. “We’re not only presenting culture, but I also see part of our mission as helping produce culture,” he said on behalf of the institute, ArtsMix, and the art department. Godfrey added, “So that an artist like Francis has the opportunity to realize a project, using the university as a laboratory for creative practice.”

Alumni rock out for New York musicians

Musicians helping musicians. That was the purpose of the first Jubilee event hosted by the Musician’s Aid Society of New York (MASNY), an organization founded by Greg Koerner ’88 and chaired by Paul Schupf ’58.

As The Jewel cruised New York City’s East River on August 19,

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scene: Autumn 2010

Preview

ArcheDream for Humankind presents Deep Blue Saturday, November 20, 8–10 p.m.

Palace Theater, 19 Utica St. $20 adults, $10 students/youth 315-824-1420; palacetheater.org This internationally touring mask and dance theater company creates archetypal characters, performing allegories to personify vital issues pertaining to our lives. Merging ancient ritual and storytelling with modern technology, Deep Blue is a magic journey through the elements of Earth, Air, Water, and Fire.

Founder Alan Bell creates Africaninfluenced masks and hand-painted costumes, merging playful elements of tribal dance with the shocking glow of black-light reflective paint for a visually stunning experience.

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

From football to Faulkner

Like the name of his arts review website, Fogged Clarity, Ben Evans ’06 is something of a dichotomy. A football player while at Colgate, Evans himself points out that his career path as a poet wasn’t to be expected. In

Film fans find plenty to like at Hamilton festival

Jean Koerner

approximately 300 attendees on board — including about 40 Colgate alumni spanning six generations — danced to the music of Koerner’s band, Gent Treadly. The band was joined by legendary New Orleans jazz pianist Henry Butler and other luminaries such as Buddy Cage.

The Jubilee raised funding for MASNY, a nonprofit organization that helps provide resources for the artistic growth of musicians in the New York metropolitan area. In addition to Koerner and Schupf, Tim Murphy ’82 serves as MASNY’s vice president, Derrick Hussey ’88 is a board member, and Mario Marsicano ’88 has also been a contributor.

Koerner, who has been jamming on the bass since the age of 13, said he started MASNY because “I’ve seen how difficult it is for musicians [to survive] in New York.” A New York City private practice attorney, Koerner has had an impressive second career as a musician, which has included touring with the Dark Star Orchestra. Gent Treadly — described on gent-treadly. com as offering “bluesy improvisational roots rock” — has previously been joined onstage by members of the Grateful Dead, Phish, The Band, and other well-known performers.

“Greg is deeply committed to music and to the well-being of fellow musicians,” said Schupf, who has known Koerner since he was a Colgate student.

“I have quite a bit of experience in the nonprofit world, having worked as a Peace Corps volunteer in Africa, as well as a stint with the Legal Aid Society in Manhattan,” Koerner said, “but Paul’s incredible generosity has enabled me to lead a grassroots effort that provides direct support to musicians in need.”

MASNY plans to host future events and is coordinating a program with the Mary Mitchell Family and Youth Center in order to provide musical instruction to children in the Bronx.

“The Jubilee was a major step to making MASNY a long-term, viable, and productive foundation,” said Schupf.

Greg Koerner ’88 (standing, in white) plays with his band, Gent Treadly, and jazz pianist Henry Butler (keyboard) at the MASNY Jubilee.

fact, he recently wrote an article for the Good Men Project magazine about his conflicted identity in college.

Now, having reconciled his multifaceted nature, Evans has built Fogged Clarity into one of the most comprehensive online and printed arts reviews in the country. “Creation is the most important thing that a human being can do, and I wanted to create a forum for artists around the world to share their work,” he said.

What makes the site unique, Evans explained, is that it streams an album and exhibits visual galleries every month, in addition to publishing poetry, fiction, interviews, reviews, and creative nonfiction.

Because “the Clarity” is his brainchild, Evans wears many hats, from reviewer to editor to event coordinator for the shows the journal hosts. To build the site’s presence and fundraise for the nonprofit organization, Evans coordinates salon-style readings and concerts in New York City, Chicago, and western Michigan, where he is based in Muskegon.

The site has a loyal audience that ranges between 12,000 and 16,000 visitors every month. When bigname authors such as T.C. Boyle, Daniel Pinchbeck, or Peter Carey were interviewed, the site attracted upward of 23,000 hits.

One of Evans’s favorite aspects of the job is interviewing artists. “I like to get inside an artist’s process, because not only does it help me when I sit down to write, but I also think it helps our readers and listeners understand the influences and

intention behind the work,” Evans explained. His own writing has been published in more than 20 journals, and he is a blogger for the Huffington Post’s arts section.

After a year and a half online, Evans got the first print edition of Fogged Clarity published last July.

Among others, it includes pieces by John Hemingway (Ernest’s grandson); Michael Tyrell, a former poetry editor of the New Yorker; Bruce Smith, a Pulitzer Prize finalist; and Plimpton Prize winner Benjamin Percy.

“Everything evokes a similar tone in the book, and that is one of urgency, an aesthetic that possesses what I like to call a ‘stabbing eloquence,’” Evans said. “The artists featured in Fogged Clarity are in tune with the ache and elation of the human condition.

It’s the kind of work that gives me shivers.”

He and his staff also value the importance of highlighting pieces by lesser-known artists. “It’s about celebrating the work that touches us and that we find to be poignant.”

Even Evans’s former political science professor Joe Wagner has been featured.

Evans intends to pursue an MFA in poetry next fall, while continuing to expand the reach of Fogged Clarity. It seems the former fullback who reveres Kantian philosophy has stepped out of the fog and found some clarity.

An array of provocative and entertaining feature and short-fiction films resulted in sold-out screenings at the second Hamilton International Film Festival in August.

The village of Hamilton was brimming with film enthusiasts from far and wide. The festival also included panel discussions with filmmakers, a charity walk to benefit the Hamilton Food Cupboard, and a dance party at the Palace Theater.

The August festival was organized

by Slater Brothers Entertainment, which was founded by Grant Slater ’91 and his brothers, Todd and Wade.

Their father, Terry Slater, was the head hockey coach at Colgate for 15 years.

“It feels great to give back to the community in which my brothers and I grew up,” said Grant. “It was a tough task selecting the films; there were many more submissions this time around. We feel proud to see that all the films we screened touched a chord with the audience.”

The festival brought many alumni back to Hamilton, including John Chaklader ’03 and Michael Tringali ’04, founders of the Shapna coffee and tea community project, who provided refreshments at the reception.

Filmmaker Joe Berlinger ’83 moved the audience at the Palace Theater with his award-winning documentary Crude, which focuses on the infamous Amazon Chernobyl environmental lawsuit. After Crude and the short-fiction film Wednesday were screened, Mark McKay ’91 and his band performed, providing the final touch to a red-carpet evening.

“In just a year, the film festival has become bigger with more awardwinning documentaries, ESPN films, and short-fiction films,” said Todd.

“The fact that we had to turn people away and had sold-out screenings is a big deal in the film-festival world.”

Chuck Fox ’70, manager of the Hamilton Movie Theater, where a majority of the films were shown, spoke about the festival’s impact. “The Hamilton community’s response to the films, as witnessed by ticket sales, has been great,” he said. “It has been a matter of great prestige for a small well-knit community like ours to host an international film festival.”

— Ruchira Rajan ’12

News and views for the Colgate community

19

go ’gate

National recognition for athletics director

The Colgate field hockey team shut out Robert Morris 5-0 in the team’s season opener on August 24 at Tyler’s Field.

June was an exciting month for Dave Roach, director of athletics at Colgate.

Members of the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics (NACDA) elected him president for 2010-2011. The announcement was made in conjunction with the association’s 45th Annual Convention, which was held June 22–25 at the Marriott Hotel in Anaheim, Calif.

The NACDA is the professional and educational association for more than 6,500 college athletics administrators at more than 1,600 institutions throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico.

In addition, at the convention, the NACDA named Roach the 2009–2010 Division I Football Championship Subdivision Northeast Region Under Armour Athletic Director of the Year.

“This award really goes to Colgate athletics and our tremendous staff and excellent coaches,” he said. “I have been truly blessed to work with a group of educators who are dedicated and committed to the Colgate mission.”

Under Roach’s watch, Colgate has made tremendous strides to meet the rapidly changing world of Division I athletics. Among his accomplishments, Roach has initiated an agreement to enhance the overall look of Colgate’s athletics venues; coordinated the development of a new logo and mascot; created the Raider Academic Honor Roll;

upgraded the department’s ticket office, including online ticket sales and season ticket plans; enhanced the corporate sponsorship program; and signed an agreement with Time Warner Sports to televise selected athletics events, including the entire home football schedule.

A strong leader in the community, Roach has been the driving force behind the athletics department’s Adopt a Classroom program, in which teams are matched with Hamilton Elementary School classrooms to serve as role models for younger students. Roach also began the monthly Colgate Athletic Council luncheons where the community has the opportunity to hear from both student-athletes and coaches.

Academically, 14 Colgate teams have received Public Recognition Awards from the NCAA. During Roach’s six-year tenure at Colgate, the Raiders have placed 12 teams in NCAA tournaments, captured 15 Patriot League titles, and won one ECACHL regular-season championship.

Under-23 Championships July 22–25 in Brest, Belarus.

James Clinton ’11 rowed as a member of the Canadian men’s coxed four team. Clinton and his team finished fifth overall, defeating Croatia before falling to Italy, which went on to place first.

Meanwhile, men’s head coach Khaled Sanad coached the U.S. men’s four with coxswain. His team came in ninth, and upon returning to the United States, won the U.S. Club Nationals and then the Royal Canadian Henley (the North American championships) in the Senior 8 event. “It was a fun experience and serves as a great tool to further our rowers,” said Sanad, who will be coaching at the world championships again next year.

The World Rowing Under-23 Championships serve as a showcase of nearly 600 up-and-coming athletes from more than 40 countries, all with the potential to develop into elite rowers. Many athletes featured at the event are hopefuls to compete at the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

Patriot League recognizes 124 student-athletes

Welcoming new coaches

In July, the Patriot League named 124 student-athletes from 13 different Colgate teams to the Patriot League Academic Honor Roll. The honor roll recognized varsity athletes from the winter and spring seasons who earned a GPA of at least 3.20 during the spring semester.

Lacrosse alumni join pro teams

Former Colgate lacrosse player Chris Eck ’08 was selected for the Major League Lacrosse (MLL) all-star team last summer. Eck is a face-off specialist for the MLL’s Boston Cannons, and was one of 20 players on the all-star team.

Two other former Colgate men’s lacrosse players were selected in the 2010 National Lacrosse League Entry Draft on September 8 in Toronto, Canada. Ryan McClelland ’10 was selected 10th overall by Rochester Knighthawks in the first round, while Tyler Collins ’10 was selected 46th overall by the Boston Blazers in the fifth round.

Andrew Daddio

Colgate rowers represent at world championships

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scene: Autumn 2010

Two Colgaters played different roles — one as a team member, the other as a coach — at the World Rowing

Over the summer, the athletics department welcomed new faces to its coaching staff, among them several new head coaches and alumni.

Fernando Canales became the Mark S. Randall Endowed Coaching Chair for men’s and women’s swimming and diving. Canales comes to Colgate from the University of Michigan, where he served two stints as assistant coach before becoming the development officer for athletics.

Keith Tyburski was named head coach of men’s golf. The Hamilton native graduated from Western Carolina University in 2006 and then played professionally on various mini-circuits around the country.

Maxim Wynn ’03 rejoined the football team as a defensive assistant coach. He returns to his alma mater from Rutgers University, where he was in player development.

Heather Davis ’08 also came back to Colgate, as an assistant field hockey coach. Davis embarked on her collegiate coaching career as an assistant at SUNY Oneonta.

Lastly, men’s lacrosse welcomed back Andrew Watkins ’09 as an assistant coach. Watkins was a fouryear letter winner for the Raiders and

Raider Nation

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

Foyle retires from NBA play after 13 years

Orlando Magic center Adonal Foyle ’98 has retired from NBA play after 13 seasons. (A subtle tribute to Colgate?)

The 35-year-old center chose to retire after a right-knee injury often prevented him from practicing with the team during the 2009–2010 season.

“It just never really quite got back to where I could feel like I could keep pushing it and do what I wanted to,” Foyle told the Orlando Sentinel.

He spent his first 10 seasons with Golden State and is the Warriors’ alltime leader in blocked shots, with 1,140. He is also fifth on their all-time list for offensive rebounds and sixth for defensive rebounds. In 733 career NBA games, including 269 starts, Foyle had career averages of 4.1 points and 4.7 rebounds. He had been selected by the Warriors with the eighth overall pick of the 1997 NBA Draft.

At Colgate, Foyle led the Raiders to their first two NCAA postseason tournaments while establishing national records for shot blocking.

ESPN.com posted Foyle’s “Love Song to a Game,” a retirement poem that he wrote in tribute to basketball. In it, he honors his alma mater: “Colgate’s golden steeple, a sojurn where ancient teachings flooded my mind. There in the Chenango Valley where 13 sang my soul to flight, basketball laid siege to my soul.”

Shortly after Foyle announced his retirement, the Magic named him the team’s director of player development.

Additionally, Foyle plans to continue his humanitarian work with the two foundations he started, Democracy Matters and the Kerosene Lamp Foundation.

Alumnus, 102, joins Raider Nation at football game

At age 102, Charles Strobel ’33 still keeps his unwavering enthusiasm for Colgate. When the football team played Furman University on September 11 in Greenville, S.C., Strobel, one of Colgate’s oldest living alumni, was in the stands cheering on his alma mater.

Donning a maroon hat, Strobel joined other faithful fans for pregame festivities before enjoying the game from the comfort of the stadium’s

presidential box. He also met with Raider players and coaches at Friday night’s team dinner.

“Dad told me that he woke up this morning thinking about how happy attending the dinner and game had made him,” said his daughter Marian Strobel, who accompanied her father.

Strobel, who practiced law through his 90s, recently moved to Greenville from Rochester, N.Y., to be closer to his daughter, a professor at Furman. His granddaughter is a senior there.

Albert Boateng ’14

Hometown: Accra, Ghana Game: Women’s Volleyball vs. Syracuse, 8/28/10, in front of a full house! 3-1 loss Is this your first Colgate athletics event? Yes! This is my fifth day at Colgate, and I’m having a lot of fun watching volleyball with all of my new friends.

How do you feel on your fifth day here? I am really happy, excited, and tired. I’m having so much fun and this is all more than what I had expected.

What cheer have you learned? “LET’S GO, COLGATE, LET’S GO!!!”

Do you plan on coming to more athletics events? Without a doubt!

Maddie Watrobski ’09

Major: Molecular biology Colgate activity: Field hockey player Game: Field Hockey vs. Robert Morris, 8/28/10. The Raiders won 5-0.

What brought you to this game? I wanted to see the team’s season opener. I love and miss Colgate.

Bob Cornell

served as a two-time team captain during his junior and senior seasons.

Having played freshman football at Colgate (just prior to the notorious 1932 undefeated, untied, unscored upon, and uninvited season), Strobel is also one of the oldest living former Colgate football players.

Born July 7, 1908, he attributes his longevity to keeping his body and mind active.

“He finally gave up his law practice when he outlived his clients and their children,” his daughter noted. “His mind is not perfect today, but he still reads the New Yorker magazine.”

Blogger lauds Seven Oaks

A writer on the blog search engine Technorati.com recently declared Colgate’s Seven Oaks Golf Club “worth the trip.” The blogger Matt W, who traveled up to Hamilton from Philadelphia, wrote: “The Robert Trent Jones designed course is not only beautiful as the school that owns it, but it’s as challenging, too.” He goes on to describe the layout of the course, the challenges (the stream running through the course and the fast greens), and the other attractions Hamilton offers, like the farmers market. He stated: “For those of you who don’t think of Hamilton, N.Y., as a golfing destination, you might be singing a different tune shortly.”

What are you doing now? I am working in a neurodegenerative research lab at the University of Rochester Medical Center. I’m also coaching, officiating, and playing field hockey.

What does Colgate University and its athletics department mean to you? It was a second home to me, and the field hockey team was my extended family.

What is your favorite Colgate athletics moment? Beating nationally ranked Albany 1-0 my senior year.

What do you think of today’s game? Great start to the season! The players did a lot of things well, and they know what they need to improve upon.

Steve Hansen ’10

Major: Political science Occupation: Account executive at Cigna Health Care Colgate activities: Football; president of Delta Upsilon Game: Football vs. Monmouth, home opener 9/04/10, 30-29 win What do you think of today’s game atmosphere? This is my first time in the alumni lot. A lot of alums are back and everyone is excited for the game.

What is your favorite football moment? When Ryan Meyers [’10] scored the winning touchdown that marked Coach Dick Biddle as the winningest coach in Colgate football history.

Favorite Coach Biddle quote? “You’re as soft as soft-serve ice cream.”

What is your favorite non-football athletics moment? Traveling to Bucknell my sophomore year to support our women’s soccer team in the Patriot League Championships. We left right after practice and came with our face paint and noisemakers.

Do you have any advice for the current Colgate students? Be enthusiastic, approach everything with optimism, and enjoy every second at Colgate.

News and views for the Colgate community

21

new, noted , & quoted

Books, music & film

challenges he faced, and his longstanding relationship with the CIA station chief.

Information is provided by publishers, authors, and artists.

Islamic Law and Civil Code: The Law of Property in Egypt

Ziggurat

Peter Balakian (University of Chicago Press) As a young man in the late 1960s, Peter Balakian was a mail runner in downtown Manhattan, working in and around the building site as the World Trade Center slowly took shape and began to fill with people and businesses. And, like so many others, he watched in horror on Sept. 11, 2001, as it fell. “A-Train/ Ziggurat/Elegy,” the anchor poem in the poetry collection Ziggurat, weaves the story of the towers’ rise and fall into a complex account of life and loss in New York. The poetry in the book ranges widely geographically and culturally, from the ruins of the Bosnian National Library and tidings of war, to the relationship between high and pop art, music and memory, and catastrophe and commemoration. Balakian is Colgate’s Donald M. and Constance H. Rebar Professor in the humanities.

Berkshire October: The Final Mission of an Accidental Spy Craig S. Bell ’65 (iUniverse)

In Craig Bell’s recent work of fiction, the New York Times reported after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, that the New York CIA station, headed by Martha Prescott, had been located in a building of the World Trade Center complex. When the towers came down, the adjacent CIA offices were destroyed as well.

The surviving members of the CIA station then recruited businesspeople and students going overseas to gather intelligence information. This is the story of one such recruit, the

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scene: Autumn 2010

Richard A. Debs ’52 (Columbia University Press)

Richard Debs analyzes the classical Islamic law of property based on the Shari’ah, traces its historic development in Egypt, and describes its integration into the modern format of a civil code.

He focuses specifically on Egypt, a country that drew upon its traditional legal system as it formed modern laws, and he touches on issues that are common to societies with Western legal systems. Debs is chairman emeritus of the American University of Beirut and a trustee of the Institute of International Education, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, the Barenboim-Said Foundation, and Carnegie Hall. He is also co-chair of the Advisory Board of Columbia University’s Middle East Institute and has been decorated by the governments of Saudi Arabia and Lebanon.

Critical Aesthetics: Kobayashi Hideo, Modernity, and Wartime Japan James Dorsey ’83 (Harvard University Press)

In Critical Aesthetcritical ics, author James Aesthetics Dorsey examines the career of literary critic Kobayashi Hideo, whose ideas were forged amidst the turmoil of the 1920s through the 1940s. Dorsey explains that by adhering to his own worldview throughout the war, Hideo came to assume a complex stance in which he exhibited both resistance and acquiescence to the wartime regime.

Dorsey, associate professor of Japanese at Dartmouth College, was also recently a co-editor and translaKobayashi Hideo, Modernity, and Wartime Japan

James Dorsey

tor for Literary Mischief: Sakaguchi Ango, Culture, and the War (Lexington Books). This collection of essays and translations brings renewed focus to the work of Sakaguchi Ango, a writer in postwar Japan.

Cartelization, Antitrust and Globalization in the US and Europe Mark S. LeClair ’80 (Routledge)

In recent years, globalization has forced firms into more direct competition, and the result has been global price-fixing and the emergence of cartels, explains Mark LeClair in his new book. The situation has challenged antitrust authorities because competition policy is regional or national, not international, in scope. LeClair explores the motivations behind, and perceived necessity for, organizations entering into cartels, and he raises questions about the impact of various regulatory strategies. He sets the history of cartels and antitrust law in a theoretical framework, and provides suggestions for reforms of antitrust laws that he hopes could improve the situation moving forward.

Law’s Detour: Justice Displaced in the Bush Administration Peter Margulies ’78 (New York University Press)

In Law’s Detour, Peter Margulies explores the various ways in which he believes the Bush administration skirted the rule of law after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Margulies is a Roger Williams University School of Law professor. From creating a law-free zone at Guantánamo, to pressuring prosecutors to pursue political enemies, to undermining the protection of refugees, the administration distracted the government from urgent priorities, tarnished the nation’s reputation, and threatened civil rights, Margulies argues. He states

In the media

Divorce Mediation: A New Vision of the Law Lenard Marlow ’54 (Xlibris)

Stephen Perkinson ’89 (University of Chicago Press)

Portraits occupy a central place in the history of art, but did portraits exist in

Colgate bestsellers at the Colgate Bookstore • • • • •

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Up For Renewal — Cathy Alter ’87 June-tree — Peter Balakian (English) Berkshire October — Craig S. Bell ’65 Bloody Mohawk — Richard Berleth ’63 Run Like a Mother — Sarah Bowen Shea ’88 and Dimity McDowell ’94 The Competent Cook — Lauren Braun

Costello ’98 Unlearning to Fly — Jennifer Brice

(English) The Thirteen American Arguments —

Howard Fineman ’70 Political Rules of the Road — Lou Frey Jr. ’55 Grandma Wants to Eat My Baby Sister — Jackie Jafarian Broad ’90

“Politicians receive lots of on-the-job training in deception and dissembling, and learn to separate how they really feel and think from what they say and display.”

— Carrie Keating, psychology professor, offering her expert insight in a Hartford Courant (Conn.) article about body language

“I really have no limitations. I can’t think of anything I can’t do.”

— Student-athlete Hannah Fitton ’14 talks to her hometown newspaper, Post-Crescent (Appleton, Wis.), about a genetic disorder that affects her hearing and vision

“God kind of grabbed me. I couldn’t get enough of theology.

I headed right into Yale Divinity School when I graduated.”

— Rev. Marti Swords-Horrell ’77, pastor of a Methodist church, tells the Post-Standard (Syracuse) how a Colgate theology course shaped her life

Carl Benton Straub ’58 (Shaker Press)

The history of T the Shakers in America is one in which land plays a central and pivotal role, explains Carl Benton Straub. Here, Straub explores the Shakers’ way of viewing the world they inhabit, both the natural and the created. He writes, “The essential Shaker response to the land and the varied communities of life entwined with the land — wild and domestic — is the translation through interpretation and labor of nature’s variables into patterns of meaning which reflect Shaker interest in religious community.” His work provides insight into the fields of Shaker studies, land use, and conservation, as well as contributes to the history of religion in America. he great historian of religions in America, Sydney Ahlstrom of Yale, called the Shakers “one of the American marvels.”

Ahlstrom was referring to the influences of the Shakers’ model of religious community within the nation’s many social experiments, especially during the early nineteenth century. This fresh new study extends the appreciation of the Shakers to include their efforts to make religious sense out of the natural environments within which the villages were embedded.

The essay is a contribution to the story of how religious movements initiated in Europe became American through taking seriously the land. In the Shaker ways of looking at the world, there is a basic religious unity between what is going on in history—“in the course of human events”—and what is at work in nature. The essential Shaker response to the land and the varied communities of life entwined with the land—wild and domestic—is the translation through interpretation and labor of nature’s variables into patterns of meaning which reflect Shaker interest in religious community.

CARL BENTON STRAUB has been Professor of Religion and Clark A. Griffith Professor of Environmental Studies at Bates College. He also served Bates for 18 years as the dean of academic affairs. Straub did his undergraduate work in Colgate University, and earned the theological degree and the Ph.D. from Harvard. His broad intellectual interests focus on how cultural traditions influence human perceptions of the natural worlds. This essay on the Shakers is part of Straub’s on-going study of religious interpretations of American landscapes.

United Society of Shakers

CARL BENTON STRAUB

The Likeness of the King: A Prehistory of Portraiture in Late Medieval France

— In a Washington Post article, travel and lifestyle writer Josey Miller (wife of Jeffrey Wertheimer ’98) describes the burgeoning local arts scene in Hamilton and the surrounding region

An Honorable Harvest: Shakers and the Natural World

an honorable harvest

Divorce Mediation is the latest book

by Lenard Marlow, a practicing attorney and divorce mediation professional. Marlow contends that the nature of our legal system and its method of validation is such that the system necessarily favors equity over certainty. Ironically, because it is not possible for the law to give an undeniably correct answer, it winds up granting divorcing couples neither equity nor certainty, he says.

Therefore, Marlow proposes a new vision of the law that places greater weight on clarity. He writes that those involved in a divorce should be able to consult the law and come away with an answer, or at least a narrow range of answers, rather than a continuously ongoing debate.

“Continuing my stroll along Lebanon Street, I was repeatedly surprised. The Barge Canal coffeehouse was selling locally made quilts. Even J.J.’s Salon boasted locally made fashion accessories.”

the medieval era?

In The Likeness of the King, Stephen Perkinson challenges the canonical account of the invention of modern portrait practices, offering a case against the tendency of recent scholarship to identify likenesses of historical personages as “the first modern portraits.” Through an examination of well-known images of the 14th- and early 15th-century kings of France, as well as objects such as wax votive figures and royal seals, Perkinson demonstrates that the changes evident in these images do not constitute a revolutionary break with the past, but instead were a continuation of late medieval representational traditions.

Perkinson is associate professor of art history at Bowdoin College.

United Society of Shakers

Ad Asylum

Dan Wald ’82 (iUniverse) Mad Men hits the 21st century in Dan Wald’s first published novel, Ad Asylum. Halliday & Vine, once the greatest ad agency in New York, is on

“People are angry. Ordinary citizens don’t want their government and their lives dominated by corporate wealth and greedy special interests.”

PROOF #4 FOR “AN HONORABLE HARVEST” SOFTCOVER FOR UNITED SOCIETY OF SHAKERS 5.5 X 8.5” WITH .5” SPINE, 4-COLOR PROCESS © DUNN+ASSOCIATES DESIGN (SHK101) 4/16/09

that the government needs flexibility to address risks to national security, but he questions the Bush administration’s tactics.

— Joan Mandle, associate professor of sociology emeritus and executive director of Democracy Matters, in an opinion article in the Post-Standard (Syracuse) about the Fair Elections Now Act

“We hope to, with the documentary, humanize the story and have interviews with the survivors.”

— Alex Sklyar ’10 talks to Japanese outlet Kyodo News prior to traveling to Nagasaki to interview atomic-bomb survivors and their relatives for a documentary

the brink of folding. Their most creative figure has disappeared when they make the final round in the pitch for the largest fashion account in the world, granting them one last chance to survive.

When Drew, the new chief creative officer, is going to blow it with a bad pitch idea, underlings Ryan Simmons and Rachel Weiss take matters into their own hands. Mayhem ensues in

a clash of technology, egos, nasty clients, and supermodels, as a lovable but motley crew tries to save the agency and their jobs.

Also of note:

The second novel by Allan D. Moore ’52 is the humorous story of a romance prompted by one character’s bold public statement: The Last Time I Saw You, You Were Naked! (iUniverse). In the context of the story, Moore explores the struggle for women’s rights and the question of how well Christians have managed Christianity.

News and views for the Colgate community

23

Bright Curious Reliable Productive Practical Meticulous Articulate Generous Thoughtful Self-deprecating Fair Transparent Analytical Organized Unflappable. Meticulous Curious Reliable Productive Practical Meticulous Articulate. Thoughtful Self-deprecating Transparent. Analytical. Unflappable. Practical Bright Cs. Articulate. Generous. Thoughtful Self-deprecating. Fair. Transparent. Analytical Organized. Bright. Curious. Reliabl Productive Practical Meticulous. Articulateeeee. Generous

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Self-deprecating Fair Transparent Analytical Unflappable Meticulous Organized Reliable 24

scene: Autumn 2010

Globetrotter A worldly outlook and thirst for knowledge fuels Colgate’s 16th president

By Rebecca Costello Jeff Herbst built his first model rocket when he was 10 years old. It was made of balsa wood and cardboard, and powered by a solid propellant. Growing up in the dawn of human space exploration (he was 8 years old when man first landed on the moon), he would get up in the middle of the night to watch televised space launches. Model rockets were a perfect hobby for a young boy who intended to be an astronaut when he grew up.

Over the years, his rockets got bigger, faster, and more complex. Now, they have computerized navigation systems and telemetry. They can break the sound barrier. They require clearance from the FAA to launch near airports.

But while he may have become a college president instead of an astronaut, even with his feet planted firmly on the ground, Herbst has always aimed for the upper atmosphere.

Thirsty learner

When you ask other people about him, whether family members, colleagues, or mentors, they all mention the same traits — and use adverbs like “extremely” or “particularly” in front of them. Bright.

Curious. Reliable. Productive. Meticulous. Articulate.

Generous. Thoughtful. Self-deprecating. Practical.

Fair. Transparent. Analytical. Organized. Unflappable.

It is easy to get to know Jeff Herbst through his actions, the life experiences he talks about, and the anecdotes that those who know him well tell about him.

Born in Jamaica, Queens, he is the oldest of three children. His father, Adolph, an engineer, came from a family of “bourgeois German Jews from outside

Nuremburg who had the good fortune to escape Hitler in 1939,” he said. His mother, Rose, was a teacher from a family of New Yorkers. They met on a blind date set up by their mothers, who were both secretaries at Collier’s magazine.

When Jeff was 4 and his sister, Susan, was 3, Adolph took a job with IBM in Fishkill, N.Y., and the family moved upstate to Peekskill. The youngest Herbst sibling, Steven, soon came along. Susan described the family as a “very conventional American tableau,” with the classic road trip in the station wagon for a two-week vacation in New Hampshire or Maine each summer, and Mom and Dad, as Steven put it, “supportive of anything we wanted to do.”

Rose, a third-grade teacher, and Adolph, an avid reader, set an intellectual tone in the home. Their eldest son needed no cajoling in that area. By kindergarten, he had picked up reading all on his own.

Susan clearly recalls the day the school bus driver nicknamed her studious big brother ‘Professor’ when he was in first grade. And, according to Steven, “if you didn’t read the New York Times, you were in trouble, because at the dinner table you had to be ready to talk about what was going on in the world.”

Jeff got hooked reading the Times by first or second grade, said Rose. “In fact, one day, Steven had to take it to school for some reason. Jeffrey walked a very dangerous couple of miles to get a new one.

He was so anxious to read the world news, he didn’t want to wait until his brother came home from school,” she recalled. These days, his daily news fix still includes the Times, as well as the Wall Street Journal in print, and online, the Washington Post, Jerusalem Post, and South Africa’s Mail & Guardian as well as other African and world news outlets.

Taking on new interests at an unusually young age became something of a habit. Only a middle schooler when home computers first hit the market, “he insisted he had to have his own — he thought electric typewriters were passé.” said Rose. Still keeping up on the latest technology, when he arrived at Colgate in July, he picked up a Droid X smart phone so that he could plug into the mobile apps world.

Jeff exercised his political interests — and honed his communication skills — on the high school debate team. Just a year apart in school, he and Susan became formidable debate partners, winning a national championship in 1979. The two eldest Herbst siblings went on to pursue somewhat parallel academic tracks; also a political scientist, Susan studies public opinion, mass media, and policy making in the United States and serves as vice chancellor of the University System of Georgia.

The whole family would travel to debate tournaments, where younger brother Steven noted “a certain competitive side to Jeff. He wasn’t just there to have some fun, although I’m sure that was part of it. He was there to achieve great things.”

That competitive nature also played out through his interest in sports. He may not discuss last night’s football game at the office, but, as Steven put it, “He’s what I call the underrated sports fan. One of my earliest memories of Jeff was watching sports together, and he was a big influence in making me a New York sports fan, specifically a Mets, Jets, and Knicks fan.”

Today, Steven is executive vice president and general manager of the CBS College Sports Network.

Model student

Not long after starting college at Princeton University, Herbst found his lifelong interest in the politics of sub-Saharan Africa.

“I happened to take a course called Politics of Africa, which was taught by Henry Bienen, who was then professor of politics and would later become my dean at the Woodrow Wilson School when I was a faculty member, and later would be president of Northwestern University,” Herbst explained. “At about the same time, I took a developmental economics course from Sir W. Arthur Lewis, the Caribbean economist who had just won the Nobel Prize in economics.”

Then, as a junior, he landed a grant to do research in Nigeria on its political and economic relations in the West African region. It was 1982.

“It was the first time I had ever been out of the country. I had to get a passport,” said Herbst. “Lagos, the capital, where I was, was at the end of the second oil boom and it was just about at the end of their democracy, although the Nigerians didn’t know that yet.”

He found Nigeria to be a “fantastically exciting, complex, corrupt place,” he said. One day, he walked up many flights of stairs at the Central Bank to talk to an economist. The lights were out in the building.

“I asked, ‘Did the plant fail?’ The man replied, ‘No, we don’t have electricity because the power authority demanded a bribe from us and we refused to pay.’

Here was one branch of the government essentially shaking down another. I thought, this requires further study.”

He undertook that investigation with gusto, and by the end of his time in Nigeria, he said, “I had absolutely decided I wanted to make the study of Africa my career.” That trip also sparked a lifelong passion for travel, a useful trait for someone who studies foreign countries. “No one loves to travel more than

News and views for the Colgate community

25

A family model-rocketry outing

Jeff,” said brother Steven. “He loves to experience new places. He loves to learn anything and everything about wherever he is.”

“From the beginning, Jeff wasn’t a conventional student,” said Bienen, who, with his expertise in political and economic development, comparative politics, civil-military relations, and U.S. foreign policy in Africa became a strong role model and mentor for Herbst. “He had already acquired a lot of knowledge. A lot of students come to a course on Africa as something exotic; he knew more about his subject matter than most.”

Herbst wrote about smuggling in Nigeria for his senior thesis — “which always seemed to me a very dangerous subject,” said Bienen, his adviser on the project. “When I met his parents, I thought they were going to kill me for sending him off to Nigeria [“I thought we’d never see him again,” said Rose.].

But Jeff survived the experience, and he did a very systematic, thorough study, which was excellent.”

After graduating summa cum laude from Princeton in 1983, he undertook graduate school at Yale University. There, he distinguished himself among “a particularly good crop of graduate students. He was just brighter, across the board,” said William Foltz, the H.J. Heinz Professor Emeritus of African studies at Yale, who particularly remembers a seminar with Herbst as “one of the most consistently interesting and stimulating graduate seminars I’ve ever taught.

He was very good at taking a contrary position, exploring, pushing.”

At that time, Zimbabwe was emerging from colonial rule, and becoming a seemingly considerable success, Herbst noted. “Things, of course, went quite terribly wrong after that,” he noted, but at that point, he was drawn to learn why Zimbabwe was doing well, as opposed to other African nations. He spent 18 months in Harare, writing his dissertation on autonomy and decision making on policy formulation

26

scene: Autumn 2010

At the Civil War Monument in Hargeisa, Somaliland

and implementation, which garnered recognition from the American Political Science Association; he received the Gabriel Almond Award for the best doctoral dissertation in the field of comparative politics.

When Herbst finished his PhD studies in 1987, Bienen said, he “was very eager to bring him back to Princeton.” Bienen hired his former student to teach in the politics department.

Family man

Shortly after returning to Princeton to teach, another new chapter in Herbst’s life opened up. His sister, then a graduate student, was attending a conference for public opinion researchers, where she met the friend of a friend named Sharon Polansky. Sharon had just taken a job as a senior research director at the Gallup Organization in Princeton after graduating with her PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Susan Herbst suggested to Sharon that she set her up with her brother, who had just moved there himself.

“I was dubious as opposed to intrigued, mostly because it was a blind date,” said Polansky, but also because it seemed to her that they would have little in common.

“Susan said, ‘What harm can come from it? He could just be a friend,’” Sharon recalled. “Lo and behold, we had lunch, and then we had another lunch, and so it went. That was really a surprise to everybody, including his sister and my friend.” They were married in 1988.

The couple has three children: Matthew, a sophomore at Miami University; Spencer, a first-year at Syracuse University; and Alana, a junior at Hamilton Central School. The whole family shares Jeff’s passion for travel, so work as well as play have taken the family all over the world. For one year before Alana was born, they lived in South Africa when he served as a visiting Fulbright professor at the University of

Cape Town and the University of the Western Cape.

In addition to filling up their U.S. passports on international trips, the family also picked up a National Park Passport and set about visiting a different national park each year — incorporating at least a bit of learning into every vacation.

The children also picked up their father’s interest in model rocketry, and when they’re not looking up at the sky, water sports like kayaking and rafting are another family pastime.

When Jeff reads for pleasure (about a book a week, outside his academic reading), it’s likely to be “police procedurals based in foreign countries,” a la P.D. James, or an academic novel. It can be tough to buy him a book by a favorite writer, said Sharon, because “he exhausts authors; he’ll read everything a person has written and then move on.”

Expert and contributor

Over the last 20-plus years, Herbst has become a leading scholar on Africa, covering a wide variety of issues, from the politics of economic and political reform, to boundaries and the formation of state systems. He regularly serves as an expert source for the media and writes op-eds for international publications. In addition to serving as a consultant for the United Nations and World Bank, he has been tapped by the State Department, Department of Defense, and National Intelligence Council on issues such as the role of the United States in combating terrorist threats and the dynamics of African democracies and African economic management. He has also lectured at the Air Force Special Operations School, National Defense University, and Army War College, where, for example, he has covered the overall security environment facing African governments.

One interest about which he has written extensively, citizenship law, was sparked by his father’s experience escaping Nazi Germany. “His parents got

Herbst and his wife, Sharon Polansky, at the Taj Mahal

At the Maputo fish market in Mozambique

The family at the Western Wall

to go immediately to the United States, but he was trapped in Belgium for a while. During that time, Hitler stripped the Jews of their citizenship. My father became stateless,” said Herbst. “That concept has always fascinated me because, of course, now we believe that every single person has a state.”

“Jeff has made a lot of contributions to how we think about state formations,” said Bienen, noting that, although in Africa there are many weak states, there have been relatively few boundary changes where one might have expected more. “He contribut-

better in terms of how it treats its own people than countries we do consider sovereign,” he said. “I ask the question, why do we consider Zimbabwe sovereign when its leadership has essentially declared war on its population, when Somaliland, a breakaway portion of a country that’s otherwise in chaos, rules itself as best it can, but no one recognizes it? Is that really the only choice we’re stuck with?”

Of his motivation to pursue this work, he said, “Politics is so consequential to the life chances of millions of people in Africa. People often ask, ‘Does it matter who’s in charge?’ But if African leaders make the right decisions, as evidenced by the transition to majority rule in South Africa, then things get better quite quickly. If they make the wrong decisions, as we’ve seen in Zimbabwe, it can be quite terrible. The countries have such weak institutions, and they’re so poor, that politics is not just a game of the elite.”

Having lived in some of the countries he studies, his work is also personal. “I’ve seen Zimbabwe fall apart. The University of Zimbabwe, where I taught, came apart completely as an institution,” he said.

“Many of my friends have had to emigrate to survive, to get better lives for themselves, and because they didn’t believe their children could get educations.

And millions of people, who in a different set of circumstances would have advanced, are today malnourished, dying of AIDS. The country may not recover from what’s been done to it by its own leaders for decades or more.”

His scholarship has also influenced or enhanced those traits family and colleagues attribute to Herbst, from his unflappable nature to his practical outlook. When you ask people how they de-stress, you expect to hear about a yoga class, or a glass of

nice wine with dinner. But — although he does make a habit of exercising in the mornings — when you ask Herbst that question, he talks about delving into his academic work. Recounting a recent meeting with the vice chancellor of the University of Zimbabwe, he said, “He told me he brings a jerry can to work each day because there is no water to flush the toilet. After that, the things you deal with… You put them in perspective.”

“Politics is so consequential to the life chances of millions of people in Africa.” ed a lot to the literature as to why that didn’t happen — why those state systems stayed stable.”

In his writings, Herbst is happy to challenge the prevailing wisdom, said Foltz. “In his very good book on the African state, his principal argument is that some states ought to fail — in effect, take the political equivalent of Chapter 11 and perhaps be taken over by other states. Others have been forced to rethink these subjects.”

Among Herbst’s recent work in this area has been a string of articles questioning the sovereignty of Congo because, he says, it does not exert enough authority over its own people and land to be considered sovereign. “One of the mistakes we made is that, just because these countries became independent does not mean that they should be considered sovereign forever,” he explained. “Look at the map of Europe. It changes all the time.”

In a contrasting situation, he has also been writing about Somaliland, a region in northwest Somalia that has been declared its own country but is not recognized by anyone. “It’s actually doing much

Change agent

Herbst cut his administrative teeth in a series of leadership posts in his 18 years at Princeton that included acting associate dean at the Woodrow Wilson School, and chairing the politics department, which at that time offered the largest single major at the university.

“If you needed something done, you asked Jeff to do it. He was always willing to take on administrative chores, and he did them well,” said Bienen of his time as Herbst’s dean at Princeton. And speaking as a former university president himself, he noted that the skills that make Herbst a good political scientist also make him a skilled administrator. “We’re always interested in the interaction of political and economic factors. That serves you in good stead, because looking at tradeoffs is critical in administering universities.”

The methods he employs doing field research — interviewing people, learning, and trying to understand what is going on — have been very useful in organizational situations, Herbst noted, especially when moving to a new place.

As his career progressed, Herbst developed a clear vision and innovative ideas about many areas of the changing landscape of higher education, and in 2005 he left Princeton to become provost and executive vice president for academic affairs at Miami University. His colleagues at Miami, where he has spent

News and views for the Colgate community

27

the past five years, describe him as a change agent with a consultative, but get-it-done leadership style.

Karen Shaffer, who, as secretary of the university, worked with Herbst on running the faculty senate and the promotion and tenure process, described a typical meeting where a seemingly unanswerable issue came up. “He just got up and went down the hall and got the person who really could make this happen,” she said. “They talked, and ten minutes later, it was a done deal. Another issue came up, he went back down the hall, got another person. Instead of twenty different memos and a whole month [of time], you’ve got it solved right then and there. I was amazed.”

“He’s as close to a homo economicus or rational actor as I’ve worked with,” said Jeanne Hey, director of Miami’s International Studies Program, who served as an interim regional campus dean in Herbst’s last year as provost. Whatever the initiative, she said, “he clearly identified a series of goals and problems to be solved and set about approaching them in a transparent, step-by-step process. This meant applying his own advocacy and work, defining stakeholders, listening to constituencies, developing options and getting feedback, and, finally, implementing policies aimed at achieving the goal.”

Herbst employed that approach in elevating many aspects of the learning and teaching environment at Miami. He promoted internationalization by

Quick facts — Jeff Herbst Education Yale University, Department of Political Science, MA and MPhil 1985; PhD 1987 Princeton University, BA, Woodrow Wilson School, African Studies Program, 1983 Summa cum laude Yearbook entry: “To know and not to act is not to know” — Wang Yang-ming

Positions held Miami University Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, 2005–2009 Princeton University Politics and International Affairs faculty, 1987–2005 Chair, Department of Politics, 2000–2005 University of Cape Town and University of the Western Cape Visiting Fulbright Professor, 1992–1993 University of Ghana, Legon Visiting Research Fellow, 1989–1990 University of Zimbabwe Fulbright Research Associate, 1986–1987

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scene: Autumn 2010

broadening the curriculum and expanding opportunities for study abroad. He expanded outreach efforts in the community. He championed academic integrity on campus. And he increased access for students of limited means, as well as significantly increased multicultural diversity.

One of Herbst’s particular passions is the evolving intersection of technology and teaching. Glenn Platt, director of the Armstrong Institute for Interactive Media Studies (AIMS) at Miami, described a group visit to leading Silicon Valley tech companies in which Herbst participated. “I particularly remember the meeting at Apple,” Platt recounted. “In the conversation about what technology could do — what has been done, and what can be done — I will go so far as to say that Jeff was pushing the Apple people.

He was laying out some dramatic and forward-thinking ideas, and they were trying to keep up with him.”

The story of how AIMS blossomed under Herbst’s watch captures how his vision for higher education — from technology concerns to administrative structure to internationalization — is uniquely synthesized. Students and professors study how digital and interactive media are disrupting traditional disciplines, through a major and a minor as well as independent study, thesis, research, and client-based projects. The AIMS faculty and students come from all five university divisions to work in an interdisciplinary setting.

Editorial boards Journal of Modern African Studies, 1997– Princeton University Press, 2001–2005 World Politics, 1993–2005

Awards

• John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, 2004–

2005, “Geography and Political Development”

• States and Power in Africa: 2000 Gregory M. Luebbert Prize for the best book in comparative politics, Comparative Politics section, American Political Science Association, and 2001 Finalist, Melville J. Herskovits Award for the best book in African Studies, African Studies Association

• Ralph O. Glendinning Preceptor, 1991–1994 • Robert S. McNamara Research Fellowship, World Bank, 1989–1990

• Gabriel Almond Award for the best doctoral dissertation in the field of comparative politics, American Political Science Association, 1989 • Fulbright Scholarships in South Africa, 1992–1993, and Zimbabwe, 1986–1987

• National Resources Scholarship for Language Study (Afrikaans), 1985–1986

8 Read more at president.colgate.edu

Herbst helped to shape faculty hiring practices in a way that benefited such an interdisciplinary institute, by rethinking traditional institutional structures, said Platt. “He said, ‘Maybe being in one department isn’t the right way for a program like this to run.’” So the institute now hires professors who are not housed in any one department, and a promotion and tenure committee is tailored for each person by drawing faculty members from relevant disciplines. “Instead of having someone conform to the institution,” Platt explained, “the institution figures out a way to conform to that person.”

On a trip to Dharamsala, India, to broker a student exchange program between Miami University and the Sarah College for Higher Tibetan Studies (with which the Dalai Lama is affiliated), Herbst identified several needs that led to other fortuitous connections. All AIMS students take a capstone course where real-world paying clients, usually businesses, hire them to build digital solutions to their problems. Out of his trip came three capstone projects working for Sarah College: an interactive online Tibetan language course; a digital archive of endangered Tibetan documents created in partnership with Google; and a 3-D virtual reality mandala — which His Holiness himself would get to “move through” when the students presented their projects to him on his visit to Miami in October, arranged through Herbst’s inspired invitation.

Many of his accomplishments took place in tight economic times, and of the lessons he learned in his Miami post, said Herbst, one was that “tremendous things could often be done without access to large amounts of resources.” Revamping the course evaluation system, for example, from one in which each division had its own instrument, to a common set based on best practices, was a time-consuming yet not costly project. “Evaluating teaching in the best possible way is absolutely critical to an institution,” he said.“While not as dramatic as building a new building, these kinds of things have a profound effect because they get into the landscape. I also saw the power of incentives when they are aligned with the mission of the institution, as well as just how profoundly a dedicated faculty can do in teaching and service.”

When he left Miami to take up the presidency at Colgate, the impact he had made, and the esteem and affection his colleagues had for him, could be seen at his farewell party, where, rounding out the remarks and thanks, they roasted him royally, and a group of deans concocted a parody sung to the tune of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Mrs. Robinson.”

Shortly after arriving on Colgate’s campus, Herbst remarked that he and his family, who have settled in at Watson House, are grateful for the warm embrace they have received from the extended community.

In describing his new charge, he said, “Leading Colgate is a unique honor. While many institutions are hunkering down, trying to survive, Colgate wants to move forward boldly. I think that is rare in the current age, and I find that tremendously exciting.”

Jeffrey Herbst on moving forward boldly In his first day as Colgate’s 16th president, Jeffrey Herbst set forth to exemplify two of his goals in moving the university forward boldly: to foster alumni intellectual engagement, and to reinforce the personal connections made possible at a residential liberal arts university. First, he gave the closing remarks to the alumni “students” at the inaugural Summer on the Hill program, and then he interacted with members of the community at a campuswide gathering. At events like those in Hamilton, and in appearances across the country, Herbst is articulating his vision for Colgate and the unique opportunities and challenges that the university and higher education are facing today. Here is a taste of what he is saying:

because we cannot afford them. As the collegegoing population, especially in the Northeast (from which Colgate has traditionally drawn many of its students) begins to decline, significant financial aid resources will be especially important. Of course, financial aid is also vital to having a diverse student population. The fundraising campaign Passion for the Climb has already been extremely successful in garnering new resources to aid students. We plan to use the time until May 2012 (when the campaign will end) to raise even more resources for this important priority. The enormous support that alumni and parents have provided Colgate in this area is especially rewarding.”

…on his ambition for Colgate:

“Colgate is fortunate to have a long history of balanced budgets and a conservative approach to spending. The university acted proactively to the recession that began in 2008 and developed a comprehensive plan to adjust expenditures. These decisions were not easy, but now allow us to plan for the future without making ad hoc decisions to balance the books in the short term.”

“From when I first met the presidential search committee, I was excited by the stated goal of Colgate becoming the best liberal arts university in the country. That is an ambition appropriate for Colgate, especially in light of its extraordinary faculty and its commitment to a liberal arts education.”

…on liberal arts in the 21st century: “Appropriately, there is a debate over the value of a liberal arts education in the 21st century. I believe that Colgate’s basic approach to education is especially important now. Our students will have lives and careers that will span most of this century. They will have jobs in professions that we cannot currently imagine. They will interact with people from other societies on a routine basis. Therefore, an education that allows them to pursue critical inquiry, to put difficult issues in context, and to understand the motivations and orientations of others — some of the goals of a liberal arts education — is absolutely critical, and never more valuable.”

…on financial aid: “Making Colgate accessible to as many students as possible is amongst my highest priorities. Currently, we are unable to admit some outstanding students

At the Presidents’ Club Reception and Auction in New York City

…on the budget:

…on the economic challenges moving forward: “Colgate, like other colleges and universities, benefitted from a buoyant economic climate for many years. Tuition increased above inflation, and there were also robust earnings from the endowment.

As a result, in recent years, expenditures increased annually by about five percent. Moving forward, we recognize that there is far less room for tuition increases, especially given the significant wealth that our nation has lost in recent years. At the same time, while no one can predict the stock market, it does not seem appropriate to be overly optimistic about gains from the endowment. It is likely that expenditures will grow by approximately two percent annually in the next few years.

“Yet, at the same time, Colgate must continue to innovate and change. We are in the knowledge business, and knowledge is changing faster than ever

First-year arrival day on campus

before. Yet we cannot, unlike the past, depend on new monies to fund our initiatives. We will therefore have to look very closely at all of our spending to make sure that we are devoting appropriate resources to our highest priorities. This will require that we look at possibilities for reallocating resources, the same kind of decisions that families, corporations, and governments are currently making.”

…on internationalization: “Our students will graduate into a world where they will continually interact with people from other countries. Globalization promises enormous benefits for our society, but there are also threats from overseas that must be understood. One of the reasons that I was attracted to Colgate was because of its extremely progressive approach to internationalization. We have long had a very high study-abroad participation rate, and the study groups have benefitted generations of Colgate students. We have to continue to promote internationalization, while making sure that our study-abroad options are appropriate for a world where regions outside of Europe are increasingly important. My goal is to try to ensure that Colgate students have the opportunity to learn where it makes the most sense for them to go given their studies and interests. Finally, we are delighted at the increase in the number of foreign students coming to Colgate and hope to further this trend in the future.”

…on technology: “We know that advances in technology will affect higher education in many ways. We must remain current with developments, making sure that our networks and machines offer students the most opportunities possible. Yet, at the same time, it is sometimes hard to tie technological advances to actual gains in learning. We therefore have to develop a holistic approach to technology so that we can adopt throughout the institution those innovations that will help us advance our fundamental mission.”

At the Alumnae Leadership Council annual meeting in New York City

News and views for the Colgate community

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Benevolent Beverages Well Preserved Monastery Greetings, created by Will Keller ’84, markets products made at convents, abbeys, monasteries, and hermitages. The widest selection of gourmet monastic foods to be found anywhere includes fruitcakes, chocolate truffles, whiskey cakes, all-butter pralines, milk chocolate, fudge, Trappist and abbey-style ales and beers, and more.

800-472-0425; monasterygreetings.com

Shapna’s premium black tea and fine roasted coffee comes from independent farmers in Bangladesh and Uganda. Founders Johny Chaklader ’03 and Michael Tringali ’04 (Bridget Ryan ’05 is chief knowledge officer) invest 40 percent of net profits both in the communities where the coffee and tea are grown and in underserved communities at home where their products are purchased.

Organically grown, without artificial chemicals, preservatives, or flavoring. shapna-tea.com $8.99-$19.99

trappist preserves, 3o varieties From $4.50/jar to $42.00/case

Sing, Sing a Song Widely recognized musical improv teacher Nancy (Howland) Walker ’87 of Chicago Improv Associates can help you give the gift of music. Tell them whom or what you want your song to be about, and you’ll get an original ditty in MP3 format that you can put on an iPod or burn to a CD. 773-764-4942; songgifter.com

Who Said That?

From greeting cards and candles to magnets and mugs, Quotable, founded by Gillian Simon ’92 and Matt Vogel ’92, aims to inspire with colorfully presented quotations by famous writers, poets, and leaders. quotablecards.com Quotable frame for Quotable cards $9.95

$300

Maple Marvels With Maine Gold, Deborah Meehan ’74 and her husband turned a breakfast condiment into a giftable gem. Their award-winning maple syrup is sold in an assortment of fun containers, from classic lithographed tins to decanters to a charming maple leaf bottle.

Other maple-y products include cranberry maple walnut chutney, maple syrup spread, and classic maple sugar — plus breakfast-in-a-basket gift baskets. mainegold.com Blueberry Gift Basket: pancake mix, blueberry syrup, coffee, jam, 100 ml Maine Gold maple syrup $50

Sweet Rewards

Creating sugar-free products that are also delicious is a family matter at Steel’s Gourmet Foods, says Anna Steel ’91 (her dad, Dr. Howard Steel ’42, weighs in and confirms health and medical science). Thirty different all-natural, gluten-free sauces, dressings, condiments, fruit spreads, pie fillings, and more are sweetened with agave nectar. steelsgourmet.com $5.99-$9.99

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Many gift shoppers these days are looking for not only something unique, but also products

with a deeper story or connection behind them. We’ve gathered up a selection of products designed, made, or sold by Colgate alumni. As diverse as these businesses are, the people behind them all share the Colgate experience. That common thread is reflected in a variety of ways, from the philosophical and inspirational to the specific and practical.

House PLANS

Busy, work-from-home mom Jennifer (Kane) Newcomer ’98 figured out a way to prevent to-do list madness with LobotoME, a line of eco-friendly organizational products designed to keep people fit, healthy, organized, and sane.

LobotoME.com $9.95 each

Handy and Heartwarming Oak (Huh) Atkinson ’87 grew up in the tiny town of Masaka, Uganda, where there were no gift shops, so she began making collage cards as gifts as a child. Her company, Tumbalina, features individually handmade cards as well as other cards, magnets, and buttons.

With the Tumbalina Gift Card Tin, you’ll never be without the right note card: 30 gift cards and envelopes are packaged in a clear, sturdy paint bucket tin with metal handles. tumbalina.com $19.95

“Colgate taught me how to think,” said Sue Ann Christensen ’80, creator of Coventry Body Care. “For my business, I need to be knowledgeable, organized, creative, well-spoken, and ethical. I need to think. I honed those skills for four years at Colgate.”

Maine Gold co-founder Deborah Meehan ’74 noted that “much like the challenges of being a member of Colgate’s first class of women, starting and running a small business is all about problem solving, breaking new ground, and innovating.”

“Ethics class with Hunt Terrell taught me that thinking ‘outside the box’ is not only OK, but should be a goal,” said Barbara Patrick ’92 of Bitty Birdie Designs. “Every time I question my creativity with quilting, I think back to that lesson!”

Mary Beth Sieminski ’94, co-creator of Skeeda bags, recalls that her awareness of the “green” movement was born senior year, at the Earth Day celebration on Whitnall Field.

Monastery Greetings owner Will Keller ’84 said a class with religion professor John Ross Carter “sparked an interest in monastic life, which grew into a business that helps monks and nuns support themselves.”

“The Venice Study Group gave me the confidence to travel to Asia on my own and find the factories that manufacture our products,” said Taylor Llewellyn ’04.”

“It’s a privilege to be making a living as an artist,” commented Oak Atkinson ’87, founder of Tumbalina, “something that Professor Van Schaack told me to have faith in.”

“Fine-leather craftsman Ken Amann ’71 traces his business — and its ethics — to a Jan Plan independent study and to philosophy and religion courses. “The leather business is very traditional, and your word/handshake is your bond,” he said.

“I was inspired by the late physics and astronomy professor Vic Mansfield to create a platform to help nomadic Tibetan communities,” remarked Khunu co-founder Aaron Pattillo ’98.

So whether you’re shopping for the holidays or some other occasion, think “buy local” — but with a ’gate twist, instead. – Rebecca Costello

8

Read more comments by the alumni featured in this article at www.colgateconnect.org/scene.

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Soothing Solutions Sue Ann (Harnisch) Christensen ’80 makes her Coventry Body Care soap, body butter, salves, and balms from original recipes. Aromatherapy essential oils, herbs, flowers, spices, and moisturizing oils treat your skin to a natural, chemical-free experience. coventrybodycare.com $3-$25

Skeeda-ddle to Market Colorful cotton canvas Skeeda bags let grocery shoppers skip the paper/plastic question.

Mary Beth (Carvel) Sieminski ’94 and her two sisters fashioned the Skeeda name as an acronym drawn from the names of their six children. Choose from nine colorful prints. Made in the USA of machine-washable 10-oz canvas. skeeda.com Skeeda ReusABle Bags $15 each or 3 for $40

A Birdie in the Hand Bitty Birdie Designs, handmade heirloom baby quilts by Barbara (Schriever) Patrick ’92, feature vibrant colors and adorable fabrics made from 100% cotton. Crib-sized quilts are machine wash and dry, making them practical as well as beautiful, and can be customized with a baby’s name. bittybirdie.etsy.com Quilt $95 Personalized baby onesie $12

Pretty Lids After suffering hair loss due to a medical condition, Carrie (Livingston) Bell ’80 went searching for a fun, feminine baseball cap that would make her look great and feel fabulous.

When she couldn’t find what she wanted, she created her own, and Madcapz — baseball caps and visors for women — was born. More than 20 colorful prints, made in the USA from 100% cotton.

888-258-8086; madcapz.net 32

scene: Autumn 2010

Visor $16.00

Whimsy Doodle

Being a visual learner, Cat (Weyerhaeuser) Morley ’79 said that her Colgate class notebooks were full of intricate, stylized doodles. CWM Designs — featuring trays, wastebaskets, magazine caddies, children’s furniture, and more — are handpainted and decoupaged in a whimsical, illustrative style that still reflects her love of detailed patterns and designs. cwmdesigns.com $50-$200

Edible Art

Elsylee Colon ’99 has put a fresh twist on cookies. Each Elsylee Galetes Artesanals collection is named for an architectural movement, with individual cookies representing cities that exemplify it — from her Bauhaus Colleccio’s Almere (almond dough, roasted Jordan almonds, Ceylon cinnamon sugar) to the Deco d’Art Colleccio’s Papeete (roasted pecan and fresh-shaved coconut meringue clouds). Made on demand, by hand, in small batches using all-natural, organic ingredients. elsylee.com From $7 per dozen and up

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Organic Style

Stone’s Throw Designs by Kimberly Stafford ’96 features jewelry that pairs natural gemstones and pearls with silver, gold, leather, and silk. Stafford donates a portion of her proceeds to organizations that support disenfranchised women. astonesthrow.us $50-$350

Wonder Wool

Softer than merino, and super-toasty to boot, Khunu sweaters for men and women are adventurewear with a social purpose. Co-founder Aaron Pattillo ’98 and his business partner source Himalayan yak wool from nomadic communities on the Tibetan Plateau and Mongolia. A percentage of sales goes back to those herding communities. khunu.com $160–$240

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scene: Autumn 2010

’Gate Vistas Global Jewels

Metalsmith Lauren (Koskinen) Harper ’96 blends the individual characteristics of precious gemstones with the art, architecture, and culture of their exotic origins to create one-of-a-kind pieces set in 18kt and 22kt yellow gold. laurenharpercollection.com

South Otselic, N.Y., resident Donald Rith ’56, MA’56 captures the beauty of Colgate’s campus and college activities, as well as other subjects, in vibrant watercolor paintings that he sells in galleries and shops as well as online. donaldrith.etsy.com 16"x20" Prints $49 Original paintings $250 and up

$1,200–$20,000

POCKET PERFECT Ken Amann ’71 makes fine leather goods, from wallets and belts to purses and journal covers, in his Vermont studio. He buys leather from the sons of Gloversville, N.Y., tanners whom he dealt with as a Colgate student, and takes environmental ethics into account by using vegetable bark–tanned leather and purchasing some materials locally, such as collaborating with a local yak farmer to convert yak hides into marketable items. amannleather.com

CHAPEL AND QUADRANGLE

Hand-crafted leather window wallet $35

CHAPEL HOUSE AT COLGATE

Classically Casual

Tucker Blair, founded by Taylor Llewellyn ’04, features handcrafted needlepoint belts that can be dressed up for a cocktail party or dressed down for a round of golf. Each belt is 1.25" wide, with 100% wool stitching, and backed on dark-brown full-grain leather. tuckerblair.com $80 MORNING CLASS ON QUAD News and views for the Colgate community

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The

accidental

filmmaker

By Lyndon Stambler

36

scene: Autumn 2010

A

s he walked into the Peninsula Hotel in Beverly Hills on a rainy March day, Jon Alpert ’70 looked anything but Hollywood. It was just before the 2010 Academy Awards, and the lobby buzzed with publicists, agents, actors, and assorted glitterati wearing Armani and Chanel, sipping champagne, and talking shop. Alpert’s nametag identified him as a “nominee,” but the “Jonny” embroidered on his khaki shirt made him look like he was going bowling.

Searching for a quiet interview spot, Alpert noticed an attractive couple eyeing a pearl earring and necklace set in the hotel jewelry shop window. “How much do you think they go for?” he asked impishly, urging the man to buy the set. The price – $154,000.

In fact, Alpert, who commented that he had bought an entire horse ranch in New Jersey for less, would be more comfortable tending to his horses than attending the Academy Awards. But China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province, the documentary he made with Matthew O’Neill about the 2008 earthquake, had received an Oscar nomination, so there he was, cooling his heels before the red carpet event. “If you gave me a choice, I’d skip it in a second because I don’t feel particularly useful sitting in an awards ceremony,” Alpert explained.

That desire to be “useful” has driven Alpert during his four-decade career as a groundbreaking social activist–documentarian who has garnered many awards, including three Primetime Emmys, 11 News and Documentary Emmys, and a Peabody. But, as somebody more accustomed to waking up in a war zone than in a posh Beverly Hills hotel, Alpert is hardly a cookie-cutter Oscar nominee.

Awakenings Alpert had no interest in film while growing up in Port Chester, N.Y. (except to take a date to the drive-in). “I wanted to be a cowboy,” he said. (His documentary The Last Cowboy — an impetus for purchasing his own horse ranch — followed 24 years of visits with cowboy Vern Sager of Porcupine, S.D.) He spent his formative years playing the trumpet, trying to control his fastball, and working on his slap shot.

He wasn’t a budding social activist, either. “[I] knew basically what was right and wrong; it was as simple as that,” he said — although his father, a World War II pilot who worked his way through Yale as a big band musician, “gave Jon a solid standard of morals and what is important in life,” said Alpert’s wife, Keiko Tsuno.

Alpert said his first two years in college were, admittedly, rocky. After applying to eight colleges with hockey teams and choosing Colgate, the coach wouldn’t put him on the team. He got an F on what he thought was a brilliant paper in Professor Jerry Balmuth’s philosophy class. When his second paper got a D minus, he realized he was no “boy philosopher.” He went into a funk, and decided to take his junior year “abroad” at New York University, with hopes of transferring there.

On his first day at NYU, he got swept up in a demonstration in which communities of color were trying to wrest control of the local school curriculum. It was 1968. His awakening to social justice issues had begun, and other things began to turn around for him as well.

In December, a woman who had left Japan with dreams of becoming an artist moved in next door. Her name was Keiko. “I had never met an artist before,” he said. “She was very pretty, smart. I began looking for any excuse to borrow a cup of sugar. I was a pest.” They became inseparable.

That year, during a sit-in at the NYU English Department to protest the Vietnam War, a professor yanked Alpert to the floor by his hair and dragged him out of the room. “He lashed out at the most convenient target, which happened to be me,” said Alpert, who became a student celebrity. Ensuing fallout from the incident doomed his chances of transferring to NYU. “They misperceived that I was the leader of all this stuff.”

Alpert was crestfallen. Returning to Colgate meant being away from Keiko and New York. But not graduating from college would break his dad’s heart, and nix his educational deferment. He met with Colgate’s dean, Bill Griffith, who had received a call from the NYU dean urging him not to readmit Alpert. Griffith opened Colgate’s doors back to him, and he returned for his senior year, undertaking several independent studies and focusing on an urban studies major.

Alpert’s roommate, Sandy Bohrer ’70, now a Florida attorney, recalled his adventurousness. In addition, he said, “Jon was willing to try something new any time. He was always different, creative, and persistent.”

Facing Page: Jon Alpert ’70 and his daughter, Tami, in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where they were filming Afghanistan: From Ground Zero to Ground Zero (2002).

Top: Cuba, the People (1974) was called “the best look at Cuba since Castro toppled the Batista regime” by United Press International. Alpert and his wife, Keiko Tsuno, spent six weeks interviewing farmers, factory workers, and housewives about life before and after the revolution, from issues of housing, medical care, and education to human rights, freedom of the press, and religion.

Middle and bottom: As a 19-year-old, DCTV protégé Terrence Fisher, a resident of the Louis Armstrong Housing Project in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, documented the tragedy of gun violence as a seemingly inescapable part of life in Bullets in the Hood: A Bed-Stuy Story (2004). The film won a Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize.

Photos: theater interior from iStockphoto, all others courtesy of DCTV

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Top: Alpert working with a student in the early days of DCTV. Middle: Alpert captured the day-to-day lives of doctors, nurses, medics, soldiers, and chaplains at the 86th Combat Support Hospital, the U.S. Army’s premier medical facility, in Baghdad ER (2006), which won a Peabody Award.

Bottom: High on Crack Street: Lost Lives in Lowell (1995) chronicles the lives of three crackhouse friends whose addiction led them to crime and despair in the struggling blue-collar city of Lowell, Mass.

After graduation, Alpert settled in New York with Tsuno and began working as a cabbie to make ends meet. Cab drivers in those days worked under horrible conditions, and Alpert soon found himself organizing them — no easy feat, given the cutthroat atmosphere. In order to document the injustices they were experiencing, Alpert borrowed a Sony video camera Tsuno had bought for $1,600 with money she had saved from waitressing, and made a film. “When I played it at the union meeting, it was like waving a magic wand.” Despite the ultimate failure of his rank-and-file effort, having gotten the cabbies’ attention, Alpert learned the power of film to inspire change.

Next, he and Tsuno began making films about schools, housing, and hospitals in an effort to uncover injustices and improve conditions. They projected them at street corners on the side of an old mail truck they bought for $5. “The audience voted with their feet,” Alpert said. “If they liked something, they’d sit around and watch. If they didn’t, they were off to where they needed to go.”

So, they made short films.

The birth of DCTV To keep filming, Alpert and Tsuno needed cash. Some of their films were done in languages spoken in lower Manhattan, including Chinese and Spanish. They invited officials from New York’s Department of Cultural Affairs to see them; however, only organizations, not individuals, were eligible for funding. So they formed an entity that they called the Downtown Community Television Center (DCTV), and soon received the first of many grants.

Housed in a landmark 19th-century firehouse in New York’s Chinatown, DCTV became the home base for their own productions. They soon began offering free filmmaking workshops to low-income residents. Since those early days, they have enlisted others in their efforts, and DCTV has introduced tens of thousands of people to filmmaking, “giving a voice to the voiceless,” said Alpert.

“We figured if we deputized everybody, we’d have a pretty good posse. You want to film something? Take the camera. Bring it back.” Today, DCTV remains a nonprofit community-based organization using media to promote equality and democracy through feature documentaries, filmmaking classes, and annual outreach campaigns.

There have been plenty of success stories among their students, and they’ve replaced the $5 mail truck with a 40-foot bus with a Times Square–like video wall — but it’s still about taking the message to the people.

For example, in 2004, DCTV alums Terrence Fisher and Daniel Howard made Bullets in the Hood: A Bed-Stuy Story, which won a Sundance Award. That film inspired DCTV to undertake an anti-gun violence tour last May, bringing the bus to New York’s toughest neighborhoods to broadcast short films about street violence by six student filmmakers. “When you ask these kids to raise their hands if they have lost a friend or relative to gun violence, every hand goes up,” Alpert said. “That’s unacceptable in America.”

The project brought politicians and concerned citizens together, enabling people “to talk about things that they should talk about but never do,” Alpert explained. “With all the wonders the Internet is bringing us, there’s a directness and power and honesty that only comes from that person-to-person conversation.”

Alpert’s apprenticeship Working with young DCTV filmmakers reminds Alpert of his own early trialand-error days, “a technological adventure” with heavy black-and-white cameras with tubes in them, editing machines that occasionally caught on fire, and tape recorders that “sometimes would record and other times would make spaghetti.”

But Alpert worked hard to overcome those obstacles and to succeed as a filmmaker. One of his early major film successes was Cuba: The People. In 1972, a Quaker peace advocate was traveling to Cuba by boat, bringing musical instruments to Cuban children. He invited Alpert and Tsuno to bring their camera equipment. Although the Cubans detained the group for a few days, Alpert and Tsuno finagled a three-hour tour of Havana that whetted their appetites to see more. “Cuba was dealing with the same things we were dealing with in the poor parts of New York,” Alpert said. “They were building clinics everywhere, medicine was free. We wanted to get back.”

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A new opportunity to film there came two years later, after Alpert made connections playing softball in Central Park against the Cuban mission team every Sunday. The film, which aired on PBS in December 1974, was recognized by the New York Times as one of the best TV programs of the year.

They went on to make a new documentary each year for PBS, including Chinatown: Immigrants in America, which won a Columbia DuPont award; Vietnam: Picking Up the Pieces, the first American film made in Vietnam after the war; and Cuba: The People Part II, for which Alpert landed an interview with Fidel Castro.

But after Alpert’s relationship with PBS soured at the end of the ’70s, he began working for NBC. Then, in 1979, just as a border war broke out between China and Vietnam, Alpert was the only American journalist with a visa to return to Vietnam. At the time, he and Tsuno were still filming together, with Tsuno doing most of the camera work, and Alpert the interviewing. They arrived in a town near the Chinese border, bullets whizzing by. Alpert grabbed his microphone, went running into the street, and started doing a stand-up commentary. Later, as he and Tsuno looked at the footage, he realized he was merely “copycatting” what he had seen others do, and it didn’t work. So he took himself out of his reports, instead relying on the footage to tell stories.

Alpert was developing his own approach to documentary filmmaking with a social activism twist. Through their documentary work, Alpert and Tsuno helped repatriate Bobby Garwood, the last known American POW. Later, in 1979, they were among the first to document evidence of the “Killing Fields,” the atrocities of the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia.

But Alpert and Tsuno were also forced to make an important change in their working relationship. While they were in Vietnam, a Vietnamese soldier, who was shooting at a dog nearby, narrowly missed shooting them. Diving into a ditch, Tsuno came to a realization. If they both died, their daughter Tami, who had been born the previous year, would be orphaned. They agreed that Tsuno would stay in New York to run DCTV, and Alpert would continue to travel. “It was tough because I was a poor cameraman,” he said. “Keiko was far more talented than I was. It took me a couple of years to catch up.”

But catch up he did. He mastered the art, establishing himself as one of the most important documentary filmmakers of the era. Alpert’s Colgate classmate, TV writer and producer Ray Hartung ’70, said, “He tries to make films that will produce an end result: Get somebody a better wage; get somebody health care who doesn’t have it. It’s geared toward his theory that large institutions need to be prodded to do good. He sees his work as a tool to make society function better.”

Road to China

It was a call in 2008 from Sheila Nevins, the president of documentary films for HBO — for whom Alpert has made more than a dozen documentaries — that ultimately led to the Oscar nomination. Following the Sichuan earthquake, she dispatched Alpert and co-director Matthew O’Neill (who had joined DCTV in 2001) to China. Arriving eight days after the quake, initially they felt they couldn’t go beyond network accounts of the devastation. But then Alpert noticed a line of parents clutching photos of their children who had died in collapsed school buildings. They had their story.

Lugging their equipment, the filmmakers walked backwards for 20 miles. They filmed from inside the middle of the pack of parents, following them as they confronted authorities to demand justice and returned to their villages to grieve.

They also documented shoddy construction at the schools.

“The camera is six inches away from everything for that whole week,” Alpert said of their approach to filming the parents’ stories. “The audience gets the feeling that they’re there on the march, and they’re there at the graveside, and they’re there fighting with the local officials.”

When police took notice of their cameras, the filmmakers decided to ship their footage home — a fortunate decision, since a few days later, while at a shopping mall, they were surrounded by 35 plainclothes officers and detained for eight hours. The officials interrogated them and asked for their footage. “I’m afraid it’s in New York,” they said. With timing on their side (it was just two months before the Beijing Olympics), Alpert and his crew were released by the government.

Alpert, who remains in contact with those parents, said he always takes pains to be sensitive to his subjects. “It’s really part of an effort to be a more responsible

Top: Lock-Up: The Prisoners of Rikers Island (1995) profiles the world’s largest jail, asking hard questions about the efficacy of America’s criminal justice system.

Bottom: Third Avenue: Only the Strong Survive (1980) tells the stories of six ordinary people (among them, the Pascones, struggling to make a living with their barber shop) living or working along New York City’s 16 mile-long street that cuts through Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx. The film, which revealed wildly different economic and ethnic subcultures, won a national Emmy.

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reporter, not the type of person who steals somebody’s soul,” he explained. “If a reporter or filmmaker seems like they’re in a hurry, people can feel that. These parents saw that we were concerned. They looked in our eyes and trusted us.”

Hartung attributes that approach to Alpert’s ability to get people to open up.

“Somehow he makes people feel comfortable in the most difficult circumstances with the camera running,” Hartung said. “I keep thinking, ‘Why didn’t they just slam the door on this guy?’ Yet, instead of doing that, which would have been the reaction of most people, you find them saying the most intimate things.” In one of the most touching moments in the 38-minute film, for example, one mother communes with her dead daughter at her gravesite and vows to seek justice.

As a parent, Alpert finds common ground with his subjects. “If someone were to kill your kid or cause your kid to be killed, it would leave a hole inside that you’d never be able to fill. If something happened to my daughter…” he said, his voice trailing off.

Parenthood

Top: To film Latin Kings: A Street Gang Story (2003) for HBO’s “America Undercover” series, Alpert spent a year at the side of King Tone, the leader of New York’s largest and most dangerous street gang. Tone, who aspired to become the “Puerto Rican Martin Luther King,” vowed to lead the gang away from crime — but authorities suspected he had other priorities.

Middle: Filmed over 24 years in Porcupine, S.D., The Last Cowboy (2005) follows Vern Sager as he faces an army of adversaries, from cattle rustlers and international agribusiness to old age, the weather, and wanderlust, in maintaining his ranch on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in the poorest county in America.

Bottom: Produced for HBO, A Cinderella Season: The Lady Vols Fight Back (1998) follows the legendary University of Tennessee team that won the 1996 NCAA Women’s Basketball Championship as they struggle toward a seemingly impossible repeat performance.

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Indeed, Alpert said that raising Tami, 32, who attended Yale and now works as a Manhattan prosecutor, is one of his proudest achievements.

Just as he is a quirky kind of guy (he has eschewed shoes for Aqua Socks in recent years, and daughter Tami remembers the days when her father only wore Japanese pajamas, day and night), he was also an unconventional parent, occasionally bordering on recklessness. It’s something Alpert’s family members talk openly about; after all, his personality has played a large part in the progression of his life and career. While some dads coach Tee-ball, Alpert took his daughter at age 4 to his midnight hockey games and bar runs (the players cleaned up their language around her). He sent for her when he was in Havana, trying to land that interview with Fidel Castro, with whom he had established a strong relationship (Castro once wrote a note excusing Tami from school). He also took her motorcycle riding, and on site while filming street gangs.

“It’s a miracle I have all my limbs intact right now,” Tami said, adding that her mother offered some protection.

Tsuno agreed: “We’re a good combination,” she said. “He takes risks, and I am the one who has more common sense and balances his behavior. Sometimes I have to pull him back.”

“Definitely there were times when I wished he was more ‘normal,’” said Tami.

“But I wouldn’t be who I am today if it weren’t for the unique way that they raised me and the experiences they let me have.”

The theme of parenthood runs through more than just Alpert’s China film; for example, it’s apparent in his Emmy-nominated Section 60: Arlington National Cemetery, about the area reserved for Afghan and Iraq war veterans. “The [parents] sleep and eat on the graves, they sit there and talk to their kids,” Alpert said. “The kids are in the ground, but the holes are still in the parents’ hearts.”

In Papa, an unflinching portrait of coping with his father’s autoimmune diseases and financial woes, Alpert focused the lens on his own family — “The hardest film I ever made,” he said.

Relentless tenacity with a side of humor At 61 and with creaky knees and thinning gray hair, Alpert is confronting his own mortality. “I’m a fourth-degree black belt, but I can’t even tie my shoes anymore,” he said in his typical self-effacing way.

Nevertheless, he keeps pushing. “He pursues his work with a relentless tenacity,” co-director O’Neill said, “whether it’s a high-profile, HBO feature documentary to be seen by millions, or a short anti-gun violence piece that one of the students here at DCTV is producing. He’s always pursuing something. He barely sleeps.”

This past spring, Alpert visited Iraq and Afghanistan to contribute to War Torn — 1861-2010, a film for HBO about post-traumatic stress disorder, scheduled to be aired on Veteran’s Day. He worked on his films about boxer Yuri Foreman and an HBO film about a strike at the Stella D’oro bakery in the Bronx. But he also found time to work with at-risk, inner-city high school students at DCTV on their own film autobiographies.

“The parents could be drug addicts or in jail. We’re trying to get them to have enough courage to be able to tell their stories when their stories are often quite painful,” he said. “In some cases, I’d rather work on their tapes than I would on mine,” he added.

The students learn from Alpert’s example. He tinkers constantly with his own films to get them just right, and is rarely totally satisfied with the final cut. Alpert said that because he left China in a hurry, he didn’t get a suitable conclusion for the documentary. “We filmed all the good stuff up to that point, but we didn’t have an ending.”

There really is no ending yet for the parents in China. Had China’s Unnatural Disaster won the Oscar, Alpert said, he could have done something even more useful: the publicity would have introduced millions to the parents’ heroic struggle. During the Oscars ceremony, Alpert and O’Neill carried a sheath of photos of their children and calligraphed Chinese characters for “truth” and “justice.”

When they lost, he said, it was yet another frustration for the parents. “Nobody’s ever been held accountable. A mother in China has every right to expect her kid to come home at 3 o’clock in the afternoon, just as we do.”

But one of Alpert’s charms is that he is not overly serious. To understand, one need only hear his story from the Oscars. While walking the red carpet, reporters showing interest in him would pass him by as soon as they saw restaurateur Wolfgang Puck, who followed behind with a tray of chocolate Oscar statuettes.

Miffed, Alpert began scooping up chocolate Oscars and stashing them in his mother’s pocketbook (she attended the ceremony) to bring home to his DCTV employees. “We might not come back with a real Oscar,” he said, “but at least they could get one of Wolfgang’s.”

Afterward, when he emptied the pocketbook, he found “every single one of them had decapitated itself,” he said. “If that isn’t some kind of metaphor for my Oscar appearance, I don’t know what is.”

Nevertheless, Alpert was lucky to discover his talents early on. “The camera was action. It was my entry card. I was pretty wimpy and shy. But give me a camera and I’ll talk to anybody.”

Top: Papa (2002), Alpert’s documentary portrait of his father’s struggles with aging and failing health, premiered on Cinemax on Father’s Day. Middle and bottom: In Alpert’s Oscar-nominated China’s Unnatural Disaster: The Tears of Sichuan Province (2009), audiences witness the grief of parents who lost their children in collapsed school buildings, and are given an astonishingly rare glimpse of how the Chinese government reacts to civil unrest as those parents demand justice for their losses in the devastating earthquake.

Big risk, big reward What does it take to get important films made? A stomach for risk taking.

Jon Alpert’s documentary work has taken him to some of the world’s most dangerous places — and he’s had some narrow escapes. He’s been detained by the army in Iran and shot at in nearly every Central American country (and elsewhere).

“If you’re making a film that somehow is trying to make things better, there could be bad people who are trying to make things worse who don’t like your film,” he said. Here is just a sampling of the hair-raising situations Alpert has encountered in the making of his films.

No Place to Hide: Inside Iraq — In Baghdad during the first Gulf War in 1991, an Iraqi man whose family was killed by an American bomb put a gun to Alpert’s head and pulled the trigger 20 times. He walked away because the gun jammed.

Saddam Speaks (aired in Israel and Europe but never in the United States) — One day in 1992, again in Iraq, “a bunch of guys in dark suits” were banging on his hotel door and ordered Alpert into a car.

He didn’t have time to get his camera. They took him directly to the presidential palace. After a “thorough and humiliating body cavity search,” he got a long-awaited audience with Saddam Hussein, becoming one of the last American journalists to interview him.

Snakeheads — He went undercover with a hidden camera and microphone to make a film about human trafficking in China.

Hard Metals Disease — He was detained by the police in Mexicali, Mexico, while making a film about workers at the Valenite Corpora- tion who were being poisoned due to exposure to cobalt dust.

Afghanistan: From Ground Zero to Ground Zero — Alpert and daugh- ter Tami, then 23 years old, narrowly escaped being shot crossing from Pakistan to Afghanistan.

Alpert said he is willing to put himself at risk and push against local laws if there is a greater good to be served. “We make that decision and accept that risk quite often,” he said. “It’s become part of what I do.”

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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

Get to to know: Know:Jay Name Brennan Here ’81 – Alumni Council member since 2008; class gift committee, eight years; reunion gift committee – Consultant, Brennan Consulting – JD and MBA, University of Virginia We hear that you have an entrepreneurial spirit.

A lot of my entrepreneurial effort has been buying troubled companies and turning them around.

For the last couple of years, I’ve been an active angel investor. I mentor entrepreneurs, and I do consulting work, solving whatever problems companies have and helping them move forward.

What appeals to you about turning around a struggling company?

I love being on the steep part of the learning curve. In working with start-ups and turnarounds, it’s a new challenge every day. I get to learn new markets, new companies, and new problems, and then figure out solutions.

What issues are you passionate about on the Alumni Council?

I am chair of the career services committee. We’ve launched Maroon Advantage [career advising for alumni], with in-person networking events and career-related webinars.

How did you develop the idea for the Student Philanthropy Council?

The concept behind it is giving students the chance to experience philanthropy and hopefully make it part of their lives.

What student activities did you participate in at Colgate?

I was involved in theater, which was the best business preparation I got at Colgate — I’m not afraid of speaking in front of crowds. I sold advertising for the Maroon. I was vice president of student government my junior year.

Tell us about your family.

I met my wife, Anne, in law school. We have two daughters, Claire, who is a sophomore at Davidson College, and Hannah, who is a junior at Greensboro Day School (Greensboro, N.C.).

What are your hobbies?

I’m active with my church. I went on my first mission trip about two-and-a-half years ago to Costa Rica. When I was there, I started taking guitar lessons from one of the guys on the trip. I’m now the leader of our church band. Besides that, we are season ticket holders to Duke’s home basketball games. And my youngest daughter, Hannah, is a tremendous athlete, so we spend significant time watching her sporting activities.

What kind of music do you like to play on the guitar?

I love playing the Beatles.

Favorite Beatles song?

“All My Loving” What is your personal philosophy?

Bad news first. It’s human nature that we want to deal with the positive, but if you deal with the bad stuff first, you do a much better job of solving it and making sure it doesn’t get out of control.

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

Alumni Council Notes In August, I attended a party for Washington, D.C.–area students joining the Class of 2014. It was a high-energy affair: the students excitedly sized each other up, while their parents wistfully commiserated about their nests, which were soon to be either empty or down by one. But the folks I most enjoyed watching were alumni of many vintages welcoming the newest members of the Colgate family.

I began to reminisce about my own send-off party back in 1987.

We students were just as nervous, the parents just as proud, and the alums just as ebullient. And it underlined something we all know: the connection our alumni feel to the university and to each other, and the kinship we have with current students, sets Colgate apart from its peer schools.

Opportunities abound to connect with Colgate, fellow alumni, and students. On-campus programs like Reunion or Summer on the Hill are fantastic ways to become reacquainted. Away from campus, strong regional alumni clubs sponsor faculty lectures, social events, and philanthropy programs; colgateconnect.org has a calendar of happenings. If you want to do even more, such as facilitating student internships or events in your community (or hosting a Summer Send-Off yourself), check out “13 Ways to Get Involved” at colgateconnect.org/13ways.

— Gus P. Coldebella ’91, President

Exploring Our Sense of Place President Jeffrey Herbst is traveling the country to meet alumni and parents. Keep an eye out for invitations in your area, and visit colgateconnect.org/inauguraltour for more details.

ColgateConnect.org ColgateAlumni.org is now ColgateConnect.org. The site still features all of the functionality you’ve come to expect, including our alumni directory, class notes, Scene, events schedule, community news, videos, and more. Log on, update your profile, and connect with each other and Colgate today!

Event Gateway The alumni office is committed to helping alumni plan and promote events of their own. Our new DIY Event Kit gives alumni club leaders the tools they need to organize regional Colgate events. Or, if you’re gathering with a few Colgate friends, Colgate In a Box is for you.

We send you free stuff, you send us a photo and guest list. Everyone wins! Visit colgateconnect.org/ gateway for more information.

Alumni Travel Colgate people never stop learning.

Visit colgateconnect.org/travel.

Cruise the Alaskan Passage July 8–20, 2011 Insider’s Japan September 14–26, 2011

Summer on the Hill Mark your calendars for June 22–26, 2011, when Colgate professors will adapt their most popular material for alumni, family, and friends who yearn for a serious academic experience.

Registration opens in December at colgateconnect.org/summerhill.

Live and/or work in more than one location?

Contact the alumni office to receive club mailings for multiple cities.

salmagundi

Welcome Change puzzle

These two photos might seem identical at first glance, but only the top one is the original photo taken on a recent move-in day. The bottom one has been changed in seven places. When you find a difference, draw a straight line connecting the center of the affected area in the top picture to its changed counterpart in the bottom picture. (Use a ruler for best results.) Each line you draw will cross out one column of circled letters.

When you’ve found all seven differences, the remaining letters, read in order left to right and row by row, will give you the answer to this riddle:

13 Words (or Less)

What response to these move-in day well-wishers shows that you’re proud to have arrived at Colgate?

Answer key on page 71.

We got a good chuckle over the many submissions we received for our summer 2010 caption contest. Here are the winners, with kudos to Rich Stanton ’91 for his 13-word caption: “Was that a double latte to go, sir?”

— Tom Carpenter ’66 “They really need to fix the vending machine. My quarter is stuck!”

— Judy Murphy, Campus Safety dispatcher “She’s eaten hops, barley, and yeast for three weeks and still no beer.”

— Rich Stanton ’91 All three have received Scene T-shirts.

And now for the (real) “rest of the story”* This local dairy cow had escaped her paddock across Hamilton Street and wandered up behind East Hall. A small scene ensued when Bill Hahn ’43, remembered as “kind of a character,” took the controls, milk glass in hand.

Thanks go to Dick Hall ’43, who had recently dug out the photo and shared it with classmate and Scene correspondent Joe De Bragga ’43, who passed it along to us. Among the gathered were their ’43 classmates Al Mather, Don Farson, Jack Dreyer, and Pete Cushman.

“It was an amusing incident, out of the ordinary, so we gathered around,” said Hall, noting that some of the students had never been close to a cow before. *With apologies to Paul Harvey

Puzzle by Puzzability

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Above: Safety first! Peter Pierce ’12 (left) and Alice Feng ’12 (right) help Shanshan Mai ’13 (center) get rigged up during an outdoor education tree-climbing class for students who remained on campus during autumn break. Photo, plus scenic on back cover, by Andrew Daddio

News and views for the Colgate community

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