A room with a view. Looking out on the quad between Burke and Pinchin halls on Arrival Day 2024. look
look
Student volunteers from Madison County EMS at the activities fair on campus. (L to R) Cece Peter ’27, Michelle Ovchinsky ’26, Arianna Stolowitz ’26, Arianne Motakef ’27, and Clara Vickery ’26 are five of the 32 Colgate student volunteers on the crew. November marked the one-year anniversary of the switch from the Southern Madison Ambulance Corps to Madison County EMS.
Pearse Rothman ’27
look
It’s not hard to find a serene outdoor space to study on campus, especially in mid-October, when Hamilton’s fall foliage is at its vivid golden peak.
Read this issue and all previous issues at colgate.edu/magazine.
FALL 2024 + WINTER 2025
Rocks of Ages
Duncan Keller ’15 makes a breakthrough about Adirondack rocks that have been a geological mystery.
30
A Building’s New Name Hits Home
Goldie Blumenstyk ’79 writes, “By putting a Jewish name on Colgate’s new interdisciplinary center, a benefactor honored his family’s heritage — and, unexpectedly, my own.”
Exploring My Ancestry Through Music and Memory
Daniel Kaper-Barcelata ’28 takes notes from both of his parents’ cultures to create harmony in his identity. 13
Out of the Ashes
Alison Koleszar ’04 takes students to study Augustine Volcano, which has a history of big eruptions.
31
the Making
Health Care Is Broken. This Alumnus Has a Plan to Fix It.
David Johnson ’78 has coauthored a book about what he believes will be the coming health care revolution. 33
40 Under 40
From astrophysicists to environmentalists to medical researchers, we’re highlighting alumni who are industrious, innovative, and inspirational. 34
Jamil Jude ’09
Lindsay DeMarchi ’16
Joe Koos ’10
Reilly Brennan ’26
endeavor
Scripting a Moon Landing
Rose Gilroy ’16 wrote the screenplay for Fly Me to the Moon, starring Scarlett Johansson and Channing Tatum.
A Contemporary Clown
France-based Bernie Collins ’78 has built a career by bringing the laughs to international audiences. 63
Setting the Table in the Mountains of Montana
Chef and restaurateur Jarrett Wrisley ’02 opened a restaurant in Bozeman that was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award.
The Tudor Time Traveler
Queen Elizabeth I hits the campaign trail in a new novel by Maria Vetrano ’86. 65
Harry Shook ’23
Neil Grabois applied his deep intellect and personable statesmanship to bring Colgate to a new level of prominence among America’s liberal arts institutions.”
President Casey remembers the recently deceased 13th president of Colgate, p. 110
Professor Anthony Aveni and students in Mexico p. 113
Vice President for University
Communications
Daniel DeVries
Director of University Publications
Aleta Mayne
Assistant Director, University
Publications
Mary Donofrio
Associate Vice President for University
Communications
Mark Walden
Senior Art Director
Karen Luciani
University Photographer
Mark DiOrio
Communications Specialist
Kathy Jipson
Contributors: Omar Ricardo Aquije, athletics communications manager; Kelli Ariel, web manager; Stephanie DeVries, communications specialist, centers and institutes; Jordan Doroshenko, dir., athletic communications; Bernie Freytag, sr. art dir.; Garrett Mutz, sr. designer; Brian Ness, multimedia dir.; Kristin Putman, sr. social media strategist; Amber Springer, web content specialist
Printed and mailed from Lane Press in South Burlington, Vt.
Colgate Magazine
Volume LIV Number 1
Colgate Magazine is a publication of Colgate University. Online: colgate.edu/magazine Email: magazine@colgate.edu Telephone: 315-228-7407
Change of Address: Alumni Records Assistant, Colgate University, 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, NY 13346-1398 Email: alumnirecords@colgate.edu Telephone: 315-228-7453
Opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by the University, the publishers, or the editors. Colgate University does not discriminate in its programs and activities because of race, color, sex, pregnancy, religion, creed, national origin, ancestry, citizenship status, physical or mental disability, age, marital status, sexual orientation, veteran or military status, predisposing genetic characteristics, domestic violence victim status, or any other protected category under applicable local, state, or federal law. For inquiries regarding the University’s non-discrimination policies, contact Renee Madison, Title IX coordinator and vice president for equity and inclusion, 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, NY 13346; 315-228-7014.
President’s Message
Iwrite this approximately 10 days after Election Day, and much like the rest of the country, the members of the Colgate campus community are considering the implications of the recent presidential election results, wondering both what it might mean for the University and what it might mean for the nation. These questions are particularly acute for members of a campus community because, for many, one of the reasons for the particular election results was the campus itself. For some observers, it was the culture of the elite American campus itself that was rejected by the majority of the nation. For others, there is the question of whether sufficient attention was paid to, or conveyed about, the implications of a return by Donald Trump to the White House.
In either case, the American college and university seemed, in some meaningful way, to be on the ballot
itself. What role did the American college or university play, or not play, in the election? What can, or should, be said about an election?
Of course, others will state a university has no business at all having any sort of opinion about political matters. Indeed, these observers will argue, the faculty and staff of any college or university must take pains not to have public opinions at all about political events or positions. You see this position in recent discussions about whether a campus should formally declare that they will abide by “institutional neutrality” — stating that the university will not issue public statements about political events or regarding major unfolding foreign policy or domestic events. To have an institutional position on political matters or on events can stifle the essential act of the university: the rigorous pursuit of truth through debate, inquiry, and discovery.
I have charged a working group of faculty, staff, and trustees to consider this matter and to offer me guidance on when and how the University should consider issuing any sort of statement about current events.
Whatever the results of that report and the subsequent deliberations about its recommendations — whether some form of prudence or limitation about the use of the “institutional voice” is called for — questions about the role of and the culture of the American campus will still be debated both on campuses and in the media.
One thing is certain, however, and that is that the American college is inextricably linked to the nation’s operations and its form of government. Our colleges and universities are foundational to our democracy. Colleges and universities have always been the place where political ideas are debated. More importantly, the college or university has, as one its most essential functions, the training of citizens. Our graduates will go on to join education boards and local election boards. They will work in places that set policy. They will be voters.
So, as Colgate thinks about the role of the University at this time, I will be developing a series of speakers and hosting a set of debates in which we — and you, our alumni — will consider the role of the University in our nation. What responsibilities does a private university have in supporting the public good?
Our colleges and universities are foundational to our democracy.
We will be focusing our attention on our own mission and its role in our polity. We will ask questions of ourselves, we will ask about our mission, we will turn our skills of inquiry and debate toward the very work of our enterprise. Through this, perhaps, we can become a model for the nation — an institution that asks the hardest of questions, even about itself.
We will send information about this series as it develops, and I hope you can join with the campus in this discussion.
— Brian W. Casey
Visit.colgate.edu/ president
Letters
A Writer’s Passion, Rediscovered It’s been nearly 20 years since my freshman year at Colgate, which is when I first met Jennifer Brice. I had yet to formally study the craft of writing, and Jennifer, in her patient and persistent way, urged our class to dig deeper, ask the difficult questions, and see where those led us. Her memoir Unlearning to Fly was published during my junior year, and I remember devouring it. Each sentence was beautifully rendered. Under Jennifer’s supportive guidance, I learned to bend painful experiences and explorations into the art of creative nonfiction.
I’ve spent the last two weekends with Jennifer through time with two of her books: Another North, including the essay that was recently published in Colgate Magazine (summer 2024, p. 8), and Unlearning to Fly. As I flipped through pages, underlining and scribbling in the margins, I realized what a profound impact her written words had on me as a young writer. She titled one essay, “My Mother’s Body.” I, too, went on to write an essay that bore the same title. It was absolutely influenced by both her essay and her teaching. In another essay, she writes about being a nonfiction writer: “The genre chose me, not the other way around.” I feel the same way. During our time as university students, our teachers shape us. They expose us to the books and films and places where ideas inspire in us yearning, learning, and the desire to create. Reading Jennifer’s words again reminded me of what it was like to be a student who had developed a deepening passion for the art of writing during my undergraduate years.
As a new alumna, I attended the Colgate Writers’ Conference, craving more time with past professors and now friends and
mentors. That week in June with late nights spent on the porch of Merrill House was a special time. In many ways, it encouraged me to keep on writing, and I later went on to get my MFA in creative nonfiction.
One last memory from 2009. The sun poured into the tall windows of a room in Lathrop Hall. I was to defend my senior thesis, a collection of essays. I was nervous to talk about the pages I had produced over the past four years, and also proud that I was able to wrestle these hard stories onto the page. Creative writing and English lit professors — Jennifer, Peter Balakian, George Hudson, and Jane Pinchin — sat across the table. Someone asked about the process of writing, and I talked about the power of discovering my aha! moment and how the essays seemed to write themselves from there. Today, I find myself looking for that aha! moment once again, and after spending quality time with poignant pages written by a past professor, I think I am a little closer to finding it once again.
Kanitha Heng ’09 Snow
Snow will be the director of the 2025 Colgate’s Writers Conference this June. For details: colgate. edu/writersconference or write to writersconference@colgate.edu.
Cherished Memories of WRCU
Thank you so much for “The Music Never Stopped” cover story featuring WRCU alumni (summer 2024, p. 28). Many of my most cherished Colgate memories include the station “a little to the right of left” — spinning vinyl late into the night, helping eventual MTV VJ Martha Quinn secure her FCC license, and even making the leap to working at WCHN AM-FM in Norwich on weekends. I was there for the transition to 1,000 watts (we were so excited!), and to
this day I’ll occasionally pull out my folder of playlists and skim a few shows from back in the day. There’s nothing like college radio.
Craig Peters ’80
’80 (background)
Inspiring People
Jon Dolan ’96 — loving what you do and being great at it (“The Music Never Stopped,” summer 2024, p. 28). Couldn’t happen to a better guy! Also, the whole summer 2024 Colgate Magazine is chock-full of inspiring profiles.
James Nolan ’94
An Educated Public
I confess that Brian’s message (“President’s Message,” summer 2024, p. 6) was the first one I have ever read in its entirety over all the years that I have been receiving Colgate Magazine. His words summed up our feelings about the importance of an educated public and what happens when education becomes politicized. Education should be a priority in a country that used to celebrate its democratic institutions. Certainly “learning and truth seeking” are worthwhile goals if we are to continue along the path that we have been following for the last 248 years.
Alan C. Brown ’67
Continuing the Debate About Alternative Medicine
I am responding to R.B. Wright’s reductive assessment (Letters, summer 2024) of “Whole-Person Healing” from the Health Issue (spring 2024, p. 36). I am not here to debate the merits of
“alternative” medicine; I am more interested in understanding this elitist and frankly Eurocentric point of view. Humans have thrived for thousands of years without modern medicines. In fact, most basic medicines are derived from ingredients that our Indigenous ancestors used due to their healing properties. Do you know how mummies were preserved thousands of years before Christ? While I have never personally used any alternative medicines, I do believe that there is some value to them. There is a reason that they exist, but maybe us modern humans are too obtuse to understand that. We presume that alternative medicines don’t derive value, but have you seen the show Naked and Afraid?
R.B., do you even know the history of some modern medicines? Have you read about the “experiments” that were done on humans during the Holocaust? Are you familiar with the HeLa cells? Have you heard about the Tuskegee Study? Do you support experimentation on animals? I could rattle off a bunch more, but I think you get the point. While you may feel validated in the “double blind studies” and the “demonstrable proof,” one should have a little bit of respect for how others deal with pain and sickness. While it may be a joke to you, people have a right to choose how they want to be healed. As someone who also values the liberal arts and reads, I am still curious about alternative forms of healing that our ancestors used and alternatives to the chemicals that modern people put in their bodies.
Pablo Gonzalez ’01
To submit a letter to the editor, email us at magazine@colgate.edu. Letters may be edited for editorial style, length, clarity, and civility and must be relevant to Colgate Magazine’s editorial coverage. Generally, only one letter to the editor is published in Colgate Magazine by the same author in a calendar year. Letters do not represent the views of Colgate Magazine
Craig Peters
runs the WRCU board as a student.
Voices
Since the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks set off a wave of campus incidents and activism, several major Jewish donors have halted or withdrawn gifts to colleges they saw as not being responsive enough to antisemitic behavior on campus. But at an unusual renaming ceremony last spring at Colgate University, alumnus and trustee Dan Benton ’80, H’10, P’10 put a twist on that narrative.
When Benton first pledged the principal $25 million gift for a flashy new Center for Arts, Creativity, and Innovation, in 2021, that building was announced as the Benton Center. When the center opened last fall, however, it instead bore the name Bernstein Hall.
Connections
A Building’s New Name Hits Home
By putting a Jewish name on Colgate’s new interdisciplinary center, a benefactor honored his family’s heritage — and, unexpectedly, my own.
By Goldie Blumenstyk ’79
Why the change? At the most basic level, Benton wanted to honor his family’s heritage. Bernstein was his family’s surname until his grandfather changed it in the 1940s, in response to the antisemitism of the time.
But Benton’s intent was also to make a statement. While other Jewish donors were using their financial clout to show displeasure with their alma maters, Benton told me he “wanted to stand in contrast to that.”
For him it was “an opportunity for Colgate to look different and act different,” he said: to add an explicit, visible symbol of Jewish philanthropy and Jewish representation to a respected 205-year-old liberal arts college.
When Benton toured other campuses with his daughter last year, he often noticed major buildings named for benefactors who were identifiably Jewish. Until now, Colgate’s only building with an overtly Jewish name was the Saperstein Jewish Center, at the edge of the campus. Bernstein Hall sits at the base of Colgate’s hilltop campus in rural Hamilton, N.Y., one of the first buildings students and visitors see when they pull in. “They can’t miss it,” he said.
In a year when the heartbreaking war between Israel and Gaza brought tensions on many American campuses to a roiling boil, the story of one donor changing the name of a building at one small liberal arts college might seem like a minor footnote. But for many people on and around those campuses, including many American Jews, seeing how colleges have responded to the war and the ensuing protests has touched off deeper contemplation about their own identities and experiences — and how they fit within the places that have molded them.
At the renaming ceremony last spring, Benton described the decision to rename the building Bernstein Hall as a “personal journey.” The more I learned about that journey, and the legacy of his Bernstein forebears, the more personal it became to me as well.
That’s not only because several steps along his journey connect directly with themes that the Chronicle of Higher Education and I cover regularly: the controversies about campus antisemitism, yes, but also the significance of buildings’ names and the importance of student belonging. It’s also because Benton’s journey intersects with my own — with my family’s Jewish heritage, and with my own experiences as a firstgeneration student and active alumna.
I thought a lot about those intersections while back on campus for my 45th Reunion. I’ve made dozens of trips to Colgate since graduating. It’s a beautiful place; my visits are always nostalgic and fun filled.
This time, however, I also came away with something deeper and longer lasting. The Waspy, fraternity-dominated, traditionrich college that first seemed so alien to me when I visited with my mother in 1975 now features a major academic building that bears an engraved name that reflects my Jewish heritage.
Seeing that, I felt a connection I didn’t expect. It’s one thing to write about firstgeneration college students and the power of student belonging. Experiencing it for myself, even decades after graduating, affected me at a decidedly different level. Sometimes, symbolic gestures do matter. Benton and I overlapped for three years during college, and we now know a couple of fellow alumni in common. But we come to this story from very different places. He’s a business guy who made billions as a tech investor and has now given $75 million to our alma mater. His prior donations helped build Benton Hall, the spiffy six-year-old career center, endowed a professorship, and supported the Benton Scholars honors program. Suffice it to say, my Chronicle salary doesn’t put me anywhere near that philanthropic level. Until I interviewed him about this gift, we’d never spoken to each other.
Our experiences as Jewish students at Colgate also differed. When Benton, who calls himself an ethnic but mostly secular Jew, arrived from Ridgefield, Conn., the college felt more Jewish to him than the community he was raised in. I was brought up in a home marked by regular Jewish rituals and initially felt like an outsider. That alien feeling began for me even before my first class. The summer before my classes started, I attended a weekend orientation program for students and parents. I guess there were other Jewish parents there, but I doubt there were any who, like mine, had come to America after surviving years in Nazi concentration camps. My dad was proud of me but also a
little worried, awed by the campus and the collegiate traditions he was hearing about, but unsure about its Baptist history and preppy airs. And so when he found a Colgate professor whom he had identified as Jewish, my dad pulled him aside and asked: Will my daughter be OK here?
Later that weekend, the professor — Jerry Balmuth, who taught philosophy and religion — told me about that encounter. He had promised my dad, he said, that he’d keep an eye out for me. (Yeah, a small-college thing.) Balmuth and I remained friendly throughout my four years. And he was right. I flourished there.
Neither Benton nor I were deeply familiar with Colgate’s history of antisemitism. But we both recently learned more about it from the same source: Repression, Re-Invention, and Rugelach: A History of Jews at Colgate, a book written by six undergraduate students in 2017 as part of a Jewish-studies course. (One of them happens to be Balmuth’s greatniece.) Drawing on archival research and interviews, the book describes six periods of Colgate’s Jewish history, including the eras during which college leaders used quotas to restrict enrollment of Jewish and Black students. In ways, it reminded me of the scholarly projects some colleges have recently undertaken to understand their connections to slavery, but Alice Nakhimovsky, the professor who taught the course, told me it “wasn’t meant as reconciliation” or a comprehensive history. “It’s episodic,” she said: The students collaborated in reviewing and analyzing documents, and then later chose their own stories to tell. (Nakhimovsky started teaching full time at Colgate the year I got there. The day I spoke to her was one of her last in Hamilton before retiring.)
Wearing my Chronicle hat, I found the book fascinating: What a rich, engaging academic experience for those students. Reading it as an alum left me a little rueful, especially the chapters that described a period of vibrant Jewish life on campus in the decades immediately after I graduated. Benton, who read the book in the spring of 2023, told me it made him “really angry,” particularly when he encountered descriptions of the bigotry espoused by George Barton Cutten, Colgate’s president for two decades beginning in 1922. In 2017 Colgate removed the Cutten name from a residential complex, more than 15 years after students and others first noted his record as a proponent of quotas and eugenics. Until reading the book, Benton told me, he hadn’t known “just how awful he was.”
The book was very much on Benton’s mind as he watched responses across the
At the renaming ceremony last spring, Benton described the decision to rename the building Bernstein Hall as a ‘personal journey.’ The more I learned about that journey, and the legacy of his Bernstein forebears, the more personal it became to me as well.
country to campus protests over Israel and Gaza. Often he was disappointed in university leaders — some of whom, he felt, were dismissing concerns of Jewish students who felt harassed. At the same time, he was dismayed that some Jewish donors were quick to threaten or pull institutional support, uneasy that their actions were feeding into antisemitic tropes about monied Jews controlling important institutions. And he was supportive of Colgate leaders’ efforts to accommodate students and faculty members who demonstrated sorrow over Hamas’ attacks and hostage taking, as well as those standing up for Palestinian rights and the safety of people in Gaza in the wake of Israel’s military response. He’d already been considering whether to name the new center after his Bernstein family. The combination of all those events tipped the scale.
On May 3, 2024, Colgate held the small “renaming” ceremony for the center that had not yet opened. I watched a video of the ceremony a couple of weeks later in which Benton explained that the building will honor family including his greatgrandfather, James Bernstein, and greatuncle, John L. Bernstein, two early leaders of the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, now known as HIAS. Before and during the Holocaust, HIAS rescued more than 250,000 Jews from Nazi persecution; after World War II, the organization helped to resettle an additional 150,000 Jewish refugees in the United States, Canada, South America, Australia, and Israel. (John was a founder of HIAS in 1901; James was a European
Jews escape the Nazis or regain their lives after surviving their horrors. People like my father and mother.
I sat frozen at my computer, overtaken by chills, as I realized Bernstein Hall won’t just be a building with a Jewish name, but a building named for people who helped other Jews escape the Nazis or regain their lives after surviving their horrors. People like my father and mother.
director.) Today, HIAS helps resettle refugees from diverse faiths and ethnicities in more than 20 countries.
I sat frozen at my computer, overtaken by chills, as I realized Bernstein Hall won’t just be a building with a Jewish name, but a building named for people who helped other
Growing up, I heard a lot of Yiddish in my house. Now my mind went immediately to the word yichus. It translates literally as “lineage.” More commonly it’s used to describe someone with family or community connections to admirable people. A scholar from a family of scholars has “good yichus.” I couldn’t help but laugh as I contemplated the notion that Colgate’s newest building is named for a family with good yichus. During the reunion, I was granted a hardhat tour of the not-yet-finished building. Bernstein Hall sits just a one-minute walk from the residential complex formerly named for Cutten, and directly adjacent to a building named for an earlier benefactor and trustee during Cutten’s tenure, James B. Colgate. It’s also within view of the library, named for another president, Everett Needham Case, who fought to keep admission quotas at Colgate until they were outlawed by state law in 1948.
The building is as cool as you might imagine for a space designed to house computer science, visual and performing arts, film and media studies, and entrepreneurship. The three-story structure includes digitally equipped spaces for experimental performances, a fabulation lab with tools like digital looms and laser cutters, several flexible studio spaces, and a “media archaeological” space that will house devices like jukeboxes, VCRs, and overhead projectors for students to explore. (I felt
old just hearing about that one.) The design was developed with considerable input from faculty members, but it also seems well suited to Benton’s hope that the center fosters collaborations across disciplines, or as he put it, “collisions and serendipity.”
I spent about 45 minutes checking it out. After the tour, I took a few moments to myself and walked over to Taylor Lake. I realized that it was the same spot where Professor Balmuth, now deceased, had told me about that conversation with my dad. I wanted so much to tell my dad about Bernstein Hall, even though he had died 25 years ago. I did anyway, not even bothering to hold back my tears.
— Reprinted with permission from the Chronicle of Higher Education. Blumenstyk recently retired from the Chronicle, where she was a senior writer, after 36 years. A nationally known expert on the business of higher education, she has won multiple awards from the Education Writers Association; reported for the Chronicle from China, Europe, Israel, and Peru; and also contributed to the New York Times and USA Today. A frequent speaker at conferences and guest on public-radio shows and C-SPAN, she is the author of the Washington Post bestselling book American Higher Education in Crisis? What Everyone Needs to Know (Oxford University Press, 2015).
Watch a time-lapse video of the building of Bernstein: colgate.edu/bernsteintimelapse
Kin
Exploring My Ancestry Through Music and Memory
Daniel Kaper-Barcelata ’28 has taken notes from both of his parents’ cultures to create harmony in his identity.
hen Daniel Kaper-Barcelata ’28 visited the Netherlands with his dad in the summer of 2022, it was the first time he’d been back to his paternal grandparents’ homeland in a couple of years because of COVID-19 restrictions. His grandfather had died during the height of the pandemic, so Kaper-Barcelata was inspired to make this trip — which he’d done annually since childhood — special by exploring his family’s history. He rented a bicycle and traveled miles, visiting his grandparents’ hometowns, going to see his grandfather’s two old wax-refining factories, and letting his wheels guide him to new favorite places like the village of Driehuizen, with which he became enamored for its historic charm. As a high school senior in Wayne, Pa., KaperBarcelata wrote this college application essay synthesizing his bike rides.
The Netherlands’ many bike paths are lined with rows of poplar trees that seem to reach the horizon. I pedaled under a leafy canopy with jazz legend Bill Evans’ rendition of “Alice in Wonderland” in my ears. Veering off the trail, my adventurous spirit took over, and I kept going until I was transported back to the 17th century. It appears as if little has changed in the town of Driehuizen since the church steeple was completed more than 400 years ago.
I parked my rental bike and settled in at De Vriendschap, Driehuizen’s singular café. I am hardly fluent in my father’s native language, but I tried my best to piece together an order of broodje kroket and iced tea. Peaceful inlets and canals line the town. I watched as young mothers purchased fresh produce on the honor system from the makeshift tables that dotted the street. The silent tranquility of life there unleashed my curiosity about those living in the rows of charming and impeccably kept houses.
Approximately an hour’s drive south, my paternal grandmother’s hometown of Schiedam is quite similar. It is painful for me
to think of her as a little girl, surviving under Nazi occupation and living on bread made from tulip bulbs.
After lunch, I biked past my grandfather’s old factory in Koog aan de Zaan. When his original factory burned to the ground, he rebuilt it, determined to achieve his entrepreneurial dreams. Through beaten fences overrun with ivy, I could barely see his old office and the towering rusty silos behind it. They were in disarray but still standing, proof of his resilience.
The rustic calm of Driehuizen is a stark contrast to the urban frenzy of Mexico City, where my mother’s family lives. In Mexico, I don’t have the luxury of quiet bike rides in the countryside. There are no paths — just motorcycles, cars, trucks, and pedestrians trying to funnel their way through the periférico (beltway). From the moment I arrive at my maternal grandmother’s home in Naucalpan, I am met by an endless gathering of primos, tíos, and tías. My life there is a constant flow of family members and emotions where everyone openly expresses the love and connection we share. If a visit to my father’s homeland is serene, time spent with my mother’s family is a stream of impromptu reunions, parties, colliding conversations, and music, always music.
The exuberant Barcelatas inspired my love of music.
My Great-Uncle Lorenzo was a renowned mariachi guitarist and singer whose style was infused with passion and spontaneity. I spent years training in the classical bass, but always felt a lack of emotion. That changed after I discovered jazz. From my first attempt at improvisation, I experienced the type of unbridled expression that defined Lorenzo’s astonishing career.
Golden Record aboard the Voyager spacecraft. However, his fame has little to do with being sequestered to interstellar space. Nor is my paternal grandparents’ permanence reflected in that dilapidated factory or the horrific events of the past century. Their immortality resides in the lives they’ve touched.
I am a proud extension of those who came before me. The combined history and contrasting cultures that influence my life are not paradoxical. They simultaneously influence the person I am and the one I strive to become. Our rich past, along with my eclectic present, inspires me to harness my oma’s courage, my opa’s tenacity, and Lorenzo’s musical passion. That is how I honor their legacy. That is how I create a life story uniquely my own. Illustration by Stuart Bradford
Lorenzo’s example, along with my cultural diversity, is reflected in how I feel about playing jazz — where both silence and spontaneous expression are equally important. Holding a long rest while performing a piece is as exhilarating to me as letting loose with a dynamic burst of unpredictable notes. It is not unlike enjoying the serenity of a Driehuizen café and the boisterous energy of a Mexican party.
Lorenzo Barcelata has been memorialized by having one of his pieces placed on the
— Kaper-Barcelata is a member of men’s rowing, the Latin-American Student Organization, and Star ’Gate. He plans to major in astronomy-physics, a subject he became fascinated with after a pre-K planetarium visit. Kaper-Barcelata learned about Colgate from Men’s Rowing Coach Khaled Sanad, and the Chenango Valley’s natural beauty solidified the choice for the Eagle Scout, who participated in Outdoor Education’s Wilderness Adventure pre-orientation. “I felt like [Colgate] was somewhere I could go to the woods and live deliberately,” he says, riffing on Thoreau’s famous quote. “It’s everything all in one.”
SCENE
Colgate Returns Piscataway Ancestor
The University has officially marked the historic return of an Ancestor to the Piscataway Indian Nation in Maryland. This is the first such repatriation for Ancestral remains removed from what is now the state of Maryland through the federal Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA). The Ancestor has been in the care of the Longyear Museum of Anthropology since 1948 and is the University’s longest-held Ancestor. The return follows years of collaboration between Chesapeake Bay–area Indigenous Nations and the University.
Piscataway Indian Nation
Chief Mark Tayac; his wife, Evelyn (Dakota); and Peter Landeros, Pascua Yaqui Tribe member and regional president of the American Indian Movement, traveled to Hamilton for the ceremony, which was also attended by Provost and Dean of the Faculty Lesleigh Cushing.
During the ceremony, held at the end of the spring 2024 semester, Chief Tayac noted that his people were given original instructions by the Creator. “The last instruction is to return to Mother Earth,” Chief Tayac said. “Today, we are helping this Ancestor fulfill that original instruction and to rest in peace.
If your grandparents died, you would be sad, and you would want them to rest in peace. That is what we want too.”
Cushing described the ceremony as “tremendously moving. It was an honor to have been invited to this momentous event, to meet and learn from Chief Tayac and his delegation, and to participate in the solemn ceremony of return,” she said.
“I am grateful to work with colleagues in our museums at Colgate who pursue their work with such care, sensitivity, and thoughtfulness, and who are committed to redressing historical wrongs in our collections practices.”
The Ancestor was brought to the University — for inclusion in Colgate’s teaching collection — by sociology and anthropology professor Frederick Hulse, through a transfer from T.D. Stewart, curator of the physical anthropology department at the U.S. National Museum (now the
Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History).
While NAGPRA requires the return of Ancestors to Bands, Nations, and Tribes recognized by the U.S. government, this particular individual was identified as a member of the Piscataway peoples. The Piscataway Indian Nation and Choptico Band of Indians of the Piscataway-Conoy Tribe were recognized by the State of Maryland in 2012.
Colgate first reported knowledge of the Ancestor to National NAGPRA in 2004, but efforts to return them to their people began in earnest in 2021, more than seven decades after their arrival. Co-director of University Museums and Curator of the Longyear Museum of Anthropology Rebecca Mendelsohn and former Curatorial Assistant and NAGPRA Coordinator Kaytlynn Lynch sent initial letters inviting consultation with state and
federally recognized Nations near St. Mary’s County, Md.
That year, Rico Newman, elder of the Choptico Band of Indians of the Piscataway-Conoy Tribe, responded with a proposal for the respectful disposition of the Ancestral remains in coordination with the Upper Mattaponi Indian Tribe and the Piscataway Indian Nation.
Anticipating forward movement, Repatriation Manager Kelsey Olney-Wall, Community Liaison Lisa Latocha (Oneida Indian Nation), with the support of Curatorial Assistant Summer Frazier (Onondaga Nation), began the necessary research required to support a return, including historical site information, land claims, and inventories. That work, carried out in 2022, was rewarded in early 2023, when the team received replies from Chief Tayac and, subsequently, Tribal Administrator Reggie Tupponce of the federally recognized Upper Mattaponi Indian Tribe in Virginia. Tupponce supported the return under NAGPRA guidelines, while the Piscataway were represented by Chief Tayac and Newman.
“As hard as this work is — when it seems impossible — it’s not,” said Olney-Wall. “Even if you have little to no information, even if it seems like it’s not going to work, you have to keep going. You have to make sure that all Ancestors are returned home. That’s where they should have been all along. We never should have had any Ancestors to begin with. To me, it’s a privilege to be able to work with these Nations, to not have their Ancestors be in boxes on shelves, to return them to their families, to return them to rest.”
Staff submitted their research and supporting documents to National NAGPRA in November 2023, and an announcement was published in the Federal Register in January 2024 to declare the Ancestor’s cultural affiliation and solicit comment. These official acts and consistent outreach to tribal representatives culminated
Ceremony
(Right) Chief Mark Tayac, Piscataway Indian Nation, and (left) Community Liaison Lisa Latocha, Oneida Indian Nation, share a moment with the “Oneida rock.”
in the April 30 ceremony — “a historic moment,” in the words of Chief Tayac.
Landeros underscored the importance of this return for everyone involved in the complex process. “When it comes to the burial of our Ancestors, that is their final resting place. That is where they remain so that they can walk with their Ancestors. To be removed brings them back to this world. They are stuck here, in this realm of human beings. Imagine being at rest for hundreds of years, then being ripped back. Our Ancestors have to go back into the ground — this allows them to rest. Our Ancestors are not your objects.”
— Mark Walden
Welcoming the Newest Members of the Academic Community
first-years
Meet the Class of 2028
→ 20,915 applicants
→ 2,843 accepted
→ 2,450 Early Decision applications
→ 17% increase in Early Decision applications compared with last year
→ 40 states + D.C. represented
→ 75% from outside of New York State
→ 26% domestic students of color
→ 8% international students
→ 23 countries represented
→ 8,035 miles from farthest hometown (Hanoi, Vietnam)
Per tradition, at the Founders’ Day convocation ceremony, the faculty processes into Memorial Chapel, followed by the new firstyear students, who are officially welcomed into the community of scholars by the keynote speaker. Another lesser-known tradition is that every year, the night before convocation, the keynote speaker receives notes of encouragement from those who have given the speech in previous years. This year’s keynote speaker was Georgia Frank, the Charles A. Dana Professor of religion, interim director of Chapel House, and director of the Fund for the Study of the Great Religions. Welcoming the “members of the mighty Class of 2028,” Frank spoke of the importance of making connections with each other and the joy of self-exploration.
“As those bonds deepen further, you learn something about yourself, your deepening interests and yearning, and how you find the world is growing ever wider and more deliciously perplexing by the day as you find your place in it,” she said.
“Experiencing
and
sharing music, especially in a choral setting, is about expressing your vulnerability through both music and emotion.”
— Assistant Professor of Music Sinhaeng Lee, who was named distinguished first runner-up at Carnegie Hall’s conducting competition and secured first prize at the Korean Federation for Choral Music Conducting Competition
Illustrations by Bernie Freytag
1
Colgate is the top liberal arts college in the Northeast and #25 on the Wall Street Journal/ College Pulse’s 2025 Best Colleges in the U.S.
2
Amira Diamond ’95 won the 2024 Heinz Award for the Environment for her commitment to empowering women-led climate initiatives and eco-enterprises.
3
A new digital loom in Bernstein Hall can read digital graphics and recreate them through stitch work.
4
Professor Carrie Keating (psychological and brain sciences) was the 2024 recipient of the Jerome Balmuth Award for Teaching.
5
Colgate was named to The Princeton Review’s 2024 Best Value Colleges
6
Wellness Wednesdays: Chapel House offers midweek “Recoup and Soup” gatherings with meditation and lunch.
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Samantha Croston ’20 was named the first female sports director at CNY Central TV in Syracuse.
Sound bites
Founders’ Day
8
Haven, Shaw Wellness Institute, and the Center for Women’s Studies created a library display in Case Library for Domestic Violence Awareness Month in October.
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In New York City, a professional network event called “Grow Green” featured alumni entrepreneurs who have built companies in cannabis cultivation and salad greens production.
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A Colgate Vis Lab team won the Most Original or Innovative Idea Award for their presentation at the Digistar Users Group Conference in October.
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The Center for Learning, Teaching, and Research’s Pedagogical Partnership program pairs students and faculty members to teach and learn together.
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Colgate placed fourth among baccalaureate institutions on the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education 2024 Sustainable Campus Index.
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“University that shares its name with an oral hygiene brand”: the clue for Colgate in the New York Times crossword June 25.
Events
The Road to the White House
The University’s academic community came together for moments of civic engagement during The Road to the White House: Colgate’s 2024 Election Series in the fall. The series was presented by the Office of the President and the Lampert Institute for Civic and Global Affairs. The three main events featured former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile and former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele; political strategist Karl Rove; and New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd and the chief Washington correspondent for the New York Times, Carl Hulse.
On Sept. 4, a Q&A session with Brazile and Steele, moderated by President Brian W. Casey, gave audience members a look at the election process, the 2024 presidential campaign, and the challenges facing America — all from the perspective of political party leadership.
Brazile and Steele lead the Bipartisan Policy Center’s Election Legitimacy Initiative. They use public education campaigns to help voters understand their rights, identify misinformation, register to vote and cast ballots, and they make sure votes are accurately counted. Brazile emphasized that, in spite of the party politics, voter suppression, and vitriol, “it’s still about us — it’s still about our hopes and dreams. We have to take ownership of our citizenship, and we have to learn how to believe in each other.”
In the second installment of the series, Professor of Economics Chad Sparber led a Q&A with Rove, former senior adviser and deputy chief of
staff to the George W. Bush Administration. The discussion covered Rove’s role in shaping election strategies for the Bush administration, his analysis of the current election, and his views on the importance of civic engagement on a national scale. Preceding his current work as a weekly op-ed writer for the Wall Street Journal and a political commentator, Rove oversaw the White House offices of Strategic Initiatives, Intergovernmental Affairs, Political Affairs, and Public Liaison under President Bush.
An especially prominent strategy that Rove leveraged in his election campaigns was the process of microtargeting: using methods such as phone calls to gather voter data and customize their advertising messages accordingly. “It’s amazing how much information is out there,” Rove said. “The object was to help us identify people who were worth spending more time, energy, and money on, and trying to get them to vote in support of our interests.”
From there, based on the data collected, Rove identified and targeted low-propensity voters — eligible voters who do not typically participate in elections — and deployed volunteers to influence their voting behavior.
“Many Americans, particularly those in middle age, have drifted away from politics, distracted by their busy lives,” he says. “But we need civic engagement from everyone, both young and old.”
The third main event in the series featured the New York Times’ Dowd and Hulse.
The Sept. 24 event provided insight into the
election campaign process and a glimpse into the internal workings of the candidates’ parties — as well as the state of American democracy. Taking neutral stances on both parties, the journalists acknowledged the lack of policy present within this election on both sides of the political spectrum, explaining that both parties were campaigning on different goals: Trump to maintain his own popularity by adopting popular policies and Harris to simply defeat Trump. Dowd and Hulse agreed that there would be some “really big consequences” for American democracy after this election. Hulse concluded with a subtle warning to Americans that, “There’s no guarantee to democracy, and I think people need to realize that — you have to keep at it.”
↓ [Top] Professor Chad Sparber (left) interviews Karl Rove.
↓ [Bottom, L to R] President Brian Casey moderates a Q&A with former Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile and former Republican National Committee Chair Michael Steele.
Andrew M. Daddio (Rove); Ryan John Lee (brazile and steele)
Theater
Family History Inspires Professor’s Play
Two Union soldiers during the Civil War are each fleeing past lives: Toliver Holmes is a fugitive slave, and Sarah Rosetta Wakeman is disguised as a man to get away from family discord. These two main characters’ theorized experiences are told in Toliver & Wakeman, an original play by Assistant Professor of Theater Kyle Bass. The play premiered in 2022 at Franklin Stage Company (Franklin, N.Y.) and was presented at Brehmer Theater during family weekend in October.
Following the success of Bass’ Possessing Harriet (2018) — a production set in Peterboro, N.Y., portraying the escape of an enslaved woman — the Franklin Stage Company commissioned Toliver & Wakeman with funding from a New York State Council on the Arts Support for Artists Grant.
“My family is very connected
to upstate New York, and the area is rich in histories, including those of abolition and, relatedly, slavery,” says Bass, whose course offerings in the fall semester featured CORE C186: Black Upstate New York.
Toliver, a character inspired by Bass’ great-great-grandfather, flees to New York and changes his name to avoid capture. When he is later mustered into the Union Army’s 26th Regiment of Colored Troops, his wit and thoughtfulness distinguish his character.
Wakeman, on the other hand, is a young white woman born in rural upstate New York. She disguises herself as a man to flee family discord, enlisting into the Union Army as Lyons Wakeman.
Though these two real people never met, Bass’ play brings them together in conversation.
“To position a once-enslaved — now Union soldier — Black man with a white woman who is disguising herself as a man to join the Army gives us a picture of America, the image that it’s a country of many stories,” says Bass.
After the performance, there was a talkback about the play with Bass and Diane Ciccone ’74, who is Bass’ second cousin.
“In the ’90s, she privately published a book about the history of our family that was the bedrock of my research,” says Bass, who lectured alongside Ciccone at Yale University’s Gilder Lehrman Center for the Study of Slavery in 2022 to discuss historic and dramatic interpretations of their family knowledge.
— Tate Fonda ’25
(Top) Olivia Larson ’25 (as Sarah Rosetta Wakeman) and Donovan Stanfield (as Toliver Holmes). Bottom: (L to R) Connor Armbruster (Beau), Larson, Stanfield. (Projected) Wakeman, Holmes. Scenic design: Calypso Michelet; costume design: Fabian Aguilar; lighting design: Jess Buttery; video & projection design: Tatiana Stolpovskaya; sound design: Danny Ruiz ’25; directed by Professor April Sweeney
Museums From China to Colgate: Picker Art Gallery Displays Rare Woodcut Prints
Outside of China, there are only four significant collections of Chinese woodcut prints: in Australia, Paris, London, and Colgate’s Picker Art Gallery. The collection was donated by Professor Emeritus Theodore Herman, who taught geography from 1954–81 and founded the Peace Studies Program.
The Picker exhibited Colgate’s collection in the fall to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China. The exhibition displayed more than 200 woodcut pieces that showcase the historical conflicts
and social movements leading to the founding of China. “There’s a lot of good historical context and there’s a lot to learn about that particular moment in Chinese history,” says Nicholas West, curator of the gallery and codirector of University Museums.
Woodcut printing began in China and has “usually been thought of as a medium for the masses, more than things like painting and sculptures,” West says. With this show, woodcuts are recognized as a Chinese art medium that responded to the traditional division between “high art” and “low art,” he explains.
Herman lived in China with his wife, Evelyn Mary Chen Shiying Herman, from 1936–48. During that time, he befriended many woodcut artists and was given pieces to show in the United States when he left China — which, due to the political climate at the time, proved to be difficult.
“[There was] a lot of anticommunist sentiment, and it was quite dangerous to be
赵延年 (Zhao Yannian) (Chinese, 1924–2014), Spreading Culture, ca. 1942, woodcut. Gift of Professor and Mrs. Theodore Herman, 1969.22
decided to donate them to the Picker.”
Leslie Ann Eliet, curator of the exhibition, was working as a director’s secretary and registrar for the Picker Gallery when she received the prints in 1980 and began inventorying the collection. A printmaker herself, Eliet was familiar with the medium and conducted her own research on the collection, which included a trip to China to interview a few of the surviving artists. Decades later, Eliet presented the idea of an exhibition to West.
“I knew that this had never been seen in its entirety in the United States, and I had done a lot of research and kept up with some of the artists,” Eliet says.
associated with China or any of the communist powers,” West says. “He ended up working here as a geography professor [and] when he was trying to figure out what to do with these prints, he
Outside of the historical significance of the collection, there’s a lot to be learned from the medium itself, West says: “These images are really accessible. They are expressive, they are emotive, and they are quite narrative.”
— Norah Hendrickson ’27
DID YOU KNOW?
Case Library is now designated as an official steward of thousands of U.S. presidential documents, opening public access to the University’s collection of presidential writings, addresses, and public remarks dating from 1929–2017, thanks to a new agreement with the U.S. Government Publishing Office. These Public Papers of the Presidents, which are published by the Office of the Federal Register, were established in 1957 to organize presidential messages and papers into a coherent archive. The variety of documents in the collection includes Richard Nixon’s statement of approval of the National Environmental Act of 1969, an official log of Jimmy Carter’s daily diary, and Barack Obama’s 2009 inaugural address.
Residency
Common Threads
From Oct. 17–31, the Department of History and Longyear Museum of Anthropology welcomed artists from Jalabil, a women’s weaving collective in Chiapas, Mexico, for a two-week residency. During this time, the visiting artists — Teresa Gómez Sántiz, Analí Gómez Sántiz, and Consuela Sántiz Gómez — shared their textiles, language, and culture with the Colgate community.
In the Tseltal language, “Jalabil” means “weaving,” an art form that the women of Jalabil practice using traditional Maya designs and techniques.
At a roundtable discussion held in the Center for Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Teresa explained the origins of the collective, which was founded in 2014. “When we were girls, weaving was sort of like playing,” she said, adding that it was also a way to clothe themselves. But when the
women first coalesced into a collective to sell their textiles, they encountered obstacles. “If we really wanted to sell our products, we needed to be willing to travel,” she realized, since the collective could not command fair prices at local tourist sites. It wasn’t until Teresa began traveling to other parts of Mexico, such as expo events and markets in Mexico City, that the women of Jalabil began to find a better market.
Professor of History Rachel Newman first met Teresa in 2007, when Newman was an undergraduate at Yale. During a summer research project in
Chiapas, she was connected with Teresa to coordinate a language exchange — but the two soon became friends, desiring to continue their interactions in Spanish instead.
“When we met, I hoped that one day I could be a professor, and perhaps if I could achieve that dream, that it would be possible to invite Teresa and other artists to whatever campus I ended up at as guests,” says Newman. In 2022, when she was hired at Colgate, Newman connected with Rebecca Mendelsohn, curator of the Longyear Museum, to begin a collaboration for
Jalabil’s residency. The team had support from many co-sponsors, including the Colgate Arts Council, the ALANA Cultural Center, the W.M. Keck Center for Language Study, and the Department of Africana and Latin American Studies.
Several of the artists’ works have since become part of the Longyear Museum’s permanent collection, including a special donation made during a weaving demonstration: one of their looms. The loom is large, “several yards long, composed of a long collection of parallel threads that form the weft,” explains Darwin Rodriguez, museum operations manager. Using the apparatus, the artists align and design their textiles by hand, using wooden tools to pull them taut.
At the conclusion of the residency, Newman is grateful for the friendship she formed in Chiapas and its impact. “On a personal level, this is the thing I’ve been involved with professionally that means the most to me,” she says. “And bringing artists like the members of Jalabil to our campus is absolutely essential to making Colgate a globalized place.” — Tate Fonda ’25
Students in Professor Rebecca Mendelsohn’s Museum Curating (MUSE 300) class review textiles for their spring 2025 exhibition at the Longyear Museum on the theme of weaving. The exhibition, which runs from Feb. 7–May 2, is curated by 10 students in MUSE 300. Showcasing works from the Longyear’s basket and world textile collections, it takes a comparative view of textiles from around the world. Ultimately, this exhibition aims to inspire viewers to consider the benefits of handcrafted works. It features several new acquisitions, including three new works acquired from the Jalabil Maya women’s weaving collective during their artist residency last fall.
History
Huntington Gym Celebrates Its Centennial
Acentury has passed since the first plough tore through the soil where Huntington Gymnasium stands today. The groundbreaking in June 1924 was met with celebration and relief. At last, Colgate would have a stateof-the-art facility that was desperately needed to meet the athletic requirements of an institution where enrollment was growing rapidly.
The history of Huntington Gymnasium goes back as early as 1911, when Colgate officials began discussing the need for a new athletics facility. At the time, the University’s entire athletics program operated from a building that was simply known as the “old gymnasium.” Meanwhile, Colgate’s enrollment was on the rise. From 1900–25, the University went from a student body of 300 to more than 800 — and the Board of Trustees had approved a plan to raise the
total to 1,000.
Years before the first shovel dug into the ground where Huntington Gymnasium now stands, Colgate struggled to accommodate the demand for new athletics programs. The old gymnasium, built in 1893, had become inadequate. In the old gym building, basketball practices were conducted on a small court. Some programs, like winter track, had no opportunities for indoor practice. The building did not contain the facilities for aquatic sports.
The 1927 yearbook staff wrote: “Our athletic teams also have been greatly handicapped due to the lack of space and equipment.”
The Colgate Alumni Corporation launched a massive fundraising effort to build the $400,000 Huntington Gymnasium. Alumni and undergraduates were required to help raise money, and gifts arrived in all amounts. Some people showed their love for Colgate by making huge sacrifices to donate. One alumnus, who suffered from paralysis and relied on a $75 monthly check from the government, donated that payment.
As architects conceived
The new building was named after Ellery C. Huntington for changing the lives of countless students as director of physical education in his 25 years at Colgate. Known as “Doc” Huntington, he not only healed wounds but also helped students overcome whatever difficulties they encountered.
In the 1926 April–May edition of the Colgate Alumni News, Huntington provided an update on the construction, which was near completion. “It stands as a magnificent monument to the sacrifice of all who have and all who will, through the Alumni Fund, give of their generosity,” he wrote. “This building will provide for future generations of Colgate men that necessary development of body, which is such an essential part of the development of mind.”
designs for the new building, Colgate officials visited gymnasiums around the country, including those at Cornell, Dartmouth, Yale, and Syracuse. Their research allowed architects to include the best features of modern gymnasiums in their plans.
Huntington Gymnasium was designed as a three-story structure, made of natural gray limestone, with a court suitable for basketball, a swimming pool, new locker rooms, and sufficient space to accommodate all of its programs. It also included offices and storage rooms.
On the day of the groundbreaking, President George B. Cutten and Alumni Corporation President George Cobb, Class of 1894, were dressed in full academic regalia as they handled the plough to make the first cut in the soil. The task required the help of 119 seniors who were clad in caps and gowns, and hundreds of alumni were on campus to celebrate.
Huntington Gymnasium was built in less than two years, and the arrival of a new facility came at an impeccable time: A few months before the grand opening, a fire destroyed the old gymnasium.
As the University has expanded over the years, so has Huntington Gymnasium. A new fitness room, weight room, and natatorium were added. Plus, the additions of other buildings, like the Reid Athletic Center, have allowed the University to refit Huntington for new purposes.
And with a new athletics facility under Colgate’s ThirdCentury Plan in development, Huntington Gymnasium’s function will again be reshaped.
“Physical education, recreation, and athletics play an important role at Colgate and are core to the mission of the institution,” says Vice President and Director of Athletics Yariv Amir ’01 (who spent considerable time in Huntington Gymnasium as a student-athlete, when he served as captain of the men’s rowing team).
“Huntington has been home to physical education, recreation, and athletics for many generations of students and will continue to be that in Colgate’s third century,” he adds. “As we work to finalize plans for a new athletics building, I think of Huntington with the hope that we’ll design and build another building that will serve the next generations of students.”
— Omar Ricardo Aquije
1. Fencing during physical training in the 1940s; 2. World War II cadets outside of Huntington (undated); 3. Students in front of the laundry cage in the mid-1940s; 4. Dancers in the 1980s/1990s
Life-Changing Lessons From Living Writers 2024
Every fall, Colgate’s Living Writers series brings to campus prominent authors, including poets, essayists, novelists, illustrative writers — masters of just about any form. The series connects students with life-changing books and, more importantly, creates a space for life-changing conversations.
Professor of English Jennifer Brice, who organizes Living Writers, shares the secret to this year’s success. “It [was] pretty extraordinary. Partly this is about the writers,” who, Brice says, were “unusually thoughtful, forthright, and generous.” But it’s also about the students. “I’ve lost track of the number of times a writer has said, ‘Wow, what a great question. No one has ever asked me that before.’”
Meet some of the authors from this fall’s series.
→ Percival Everett: Jack of All Trades, Master of One Words are the most important thing in the world for Percival Everett, author of James.
The novel is a reimagining of Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn from the perspective of Huck’s enslaved sidekick, Jim. Language plays a crucial role in the enslaved character’s autonomy. The enslaved people in the novel are secretly intelligent performers, feigning stupidity for a white audience. One Living Writers student suggested that James is an imaginative take on codeswitching (alternating between languages or dialects, usually to conform to certain standards), and Everett agreed, although he said he never thought of the term himself while writing. According to Everett, reading especially is an act of defiance. During his visit to Colgate, Everett explained that the power of reading is not limited to the world of James.
He told students that “reading really is subversive because no one can see what is going into you. They can look over your shoulder and see all the words you see, but they will never know what they mean to you.”
James won the National Book Award for fiction and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. The film adaptation is currently in the works with Steven Spielberg, Taika Waititi, and Universal Pictures.
Everett wasn’t always a writer. He studied mathematical logic and biochemistry, with stints in jazz music, painting, and cowboying. Now he is a distinguished professor of English at the University of
Southern California and has published more than 30 books.
→ Hanif Abdurraqib: Learning From Legends
Hanif Abdurraqib is a genius — literally. In 2021 he was awarded a MacArthur “genius” grant. According to the foundation: “Omnivorous in his influences and prolific in his output, Abdurraqib is forging a new form of cultural criticism.”
Abdurraqib grew up as a voracious reader. His mother was a writer and shared her favorite books with her son, indifferent to whether they might be too demanding for a young mind. He remembers
his mother saying: “‘If there’s something you don’t understand, we’ll talk about it.’”
Abdurraqib’s mother died when he was only 13 years old. He nearly failed out of high school, but he graduated in 2001 and went on to earn a degree from Capital University.
Abdurraqib told students that writing helps him cope with his grief, because “I get to keep my memories. I can build something internal in text that lives beyond me. That, in and of itself, is a miracle.”
Since then, he has published music criticisms, two poetry collections, an essay collection, and three nonfiction books, as well as prose for Pitchfork and the New York Times. The morning of his visit to Colgate, he learned that his nonfiction book There’s Always This Year was long-listed for the National Book Award.
Abdurraqib is no stranger to stardom. He watched LeBron James’ rise to fame as a basketball prodigy in their home state of Ohio — where James returned to secure a championship trophy in 2016.
There’s Always This Year is a tribute to basketball and what it means to be a legend.
→ Peggy Shumaker: ‘Daughter of Two Deserts’
Peggy Shumaker has braved America’s most extreme natural environments on both ends of the spectrum. She’s currently based in Alaska and even served as the Alaska State writer laureate, but she’s originally from Tucson, Ariz. She’s also weathered years in a dysfunctional family; her mother was just 19 when Shumaker was born. Writing has helped Shumaker understand these environments.
“My family was coming apart, and the page was the only place in the world I had control. Writing was survival,” Shumaker told the Living Writers class. “There’s a whole lot in this world that I don’t understand, and there’s a whole lot in this world I can’t make better. Those are the two major reasons I write.”
Shumaker is a virtuoso of the love poem — but not the romantic type. Her most recent collection, Cairn, is a tribute to her genuine love for her friends and the natural world.
She has eight books of poetry and a lyrical memoir. She is an editor at several publishing venues, including Red Hen Press’ Boreal Books, which she founded herself.
— Olivia Miller ’27
For Brice, Shumaker’s visit was especially meaningful. Brice earned her MFA at the University of Alaska Fairbanks and was taught by Shumaker herself.
Answering the Call
Rev. Corey MacPherson has been sworn in as an Army Reserve chaplain
There have been more than 30,000 suicides among active military personnel and veterans since 2001 — compared with approximately 7,000 deaths in duty — according to a study by Brown University. When Rev. Corey MacPherson, University chaplain and Protestant campus minister, learned of this mental health crisis, he wondered
how he might be able to help soldiers and veterans, even in small ways. “There’s such a tremendous need, and I thought, if I can help, I’m willing to help,” MacPherson says.
MacPherson took the Army Reserve oath in October 2023. After rigorous training at Fort Jackson in South Carolina this past summer, he was assigned to the 403rd Civil Affairs Battalion in Syracuse, N.Y., where he travels once a month for battle assemblies to continue training in preparation for the unlikely case that the unit should be deployed.
The work of an Army Reserve chaplain: MacPherson summed it up in a sentence. “There’s a common saying that we learned about Army chaplains: to
nurture the living, care for the wounded, and honor the fallen.”
The main duties of chaplains are to offer support and counseling (both emotional and spiritual) to soldiers and their families. Chaplains are also the only confidential resource in the Army, which allows soldiers to share their thoughts without worry of damage to their careers.
Colgate prepared him well for his new role: As a chaplain and minister at Colgate, MacPherson has learned which situations call for the pluralistic spiritual support of a chaplain versus the Christian perspective of a Protestant minister. In the training classrooms, MacPherson felt he contributed
There’s a common saying that we learned about Army chaplains: to nurture the living, care for the wounded, and honor the fallen.
by helping newer chaplains understand the importance of separating their chaplaincy work in the Army — where they serve people of various religious traditions — from their personal religious practices.
Chaplain training was more than he anticipated: When MacPherson arrived at Fort Jackson, he didn’t expect a full Army training. He soon learned the importance of such physical preparation. “Chaplains are embedded with their units wherever they go,” MacPherson says. “So I fully agree and [understand the need for] physical readiness because the last thing I’d want to do is to slow a unit down.”
What keeps him motivated: MacPherson shared that he struggled during training. “Four or five weeks in, I was truly miserable, like praying to God saying, ‘I don’t know why I’m doing this, I just wanted to help. I shouldn’t have to go through all this just to help,’” MacPherson remembers. His perspective changed when he was with a few hundred basic trainees one morning and reflected on their sacrifices. “It occurred to me that those kids are there so my kids don’t have to be, and because those kids are there, Colgate students don’t have to be,” MacPherson says. “So in that moment, something in me shifted where I felt like I had a responsibility to finish my training and do all I can to help care for and support soldiers, veterans, and their families.”
— Norah Hendrickson ’27
Q&A
Get to Know: Rugby
Director Elaine Vassie
After holding rugby leadership roles in Scotland, England, and Italy, Elaine Vassie came to the U.S. — and plans to stay — because she believes she can make a difference here. “If you’re coaching high level in nations where rugby’s developed,” she says, “maybe you’re tweaking things, as opposed to, ‘How do we help someone fall in love with the game?’”
Colgate Magazine spoke to Vassie at the start of the season to learn more about her and where she plans to take the program.
Previous U.S.-based experience: Vassie came to Colgate from the Texas Rugby Union All Stars, where she served as defense coach while running education workshops. Previously, she spent three seasons as the general manager of Major League Rugby’s Dallas Jackals, a former pro team based in Arlington. In addition, she’s a former head coach and director of the Dallas Harlequins, a DI men’s team.
Breaking the mold: Vassie was the first female assistant general manager in Major League Rugby in the U.S.; previously, she was the first female coach and director in the Men’s National League One in England when she took over Manchester Rugby Club.
Helping students grow: “Our students are people first and then they’re our students and then they’re athletes who choose to play rugby,” Vassie says. She aims to offer support to players both on and off the pitch. “How do we give students good life experiences that they
can translate to whatever their lives will be?” For one, she’s been working with Career Services to integrate its programming into the rugby schedule. Students are “here to grow as whole people, not just rugby players.”
The gold standard: “We’ve changed a lot on the medical side. Dr. Ellen Larson ’94 has been phenomenal; we’re running a pilot with [Student Health Services] on in-person concussion assessments, which is the gold standard from a world rugby perspective. We’ve also sourced a new athletic training partnership with Oneida Health so we have them present at training sessions and game days to enhance the level of care.”
She knows what it’s like to suffer from a concussion: At age 19, Vassie was in a car crash that left her with headaches for months and cognitive issues for years. “People weren’t talking about concussions like they are now,” she says in a Rugby
Journal profile. “You’d have a scan and get sent home with a leaflet.” It derailed Vassie’s schooling and sports (she was a multisport athlete: netball, soccer, swimming, tennis, trampolining) until she was “feeling normal again.” A friend invited her to play rugby in her early 20s — which is late by England’s standards but helps her understand Colgate students who are beginning to learn the sport.
Equal turf: Although the rugby program is divided into men’s and women’s teams, Vassie and her coaching staff “have a real drive” to make it a rugby community. “The laws of the game are the same for the men’s and women’s teams,” she says.
And because both teams have members who haven’t played before coming to Colgate, the coaching staff is intentional in using the same language and terms, as well as sharing clips of games and other resources. “That gets us toward the shared
mental model,” she says. “The philosophy, the shapes, the pattern, all of that is the same.”
She loves rugby because it’s a mix of brain and brawn: “There’s a tactical understanding, technical challenges, and lots of different components. You don’t have just one job to do — you’ve got a lot of jobs.”
Team dynamics: “One of the things that’s special about rugby is once you’ve taken the field with someone, your relationship changes. There’s a different level of reliance within rugby because of the physical component of the game and the speed that it’s played at in terms of fluidity.”
Because of that dynamic, she says, “You should have a group that you can, 20 years down the line, still pick up the phone and have a conversation with, and that’s because of the experience you had on the field when you were here.”
— Aleta Mayne
Swimming
Brennan Takes Bronze in U.S. Triathlon
Reilly Brennan ’26, a member of the women’s swimming and diving team, competed in the 2024 USA Triathlon Olympic Distance National Championships in Atlantic City, N.J., in September and captured the bronze in her age group.
Athletes in this grueling competition must complete a 1500-meter swim, 25-mile bike ride, and 10-kilometer run. Brennan completed the race in two hours and 18 minutes.
Recovering from a torn labrum from last year, Brennan says, “It was a long journey getting myself back. I never thought I would have achieved this kind of success.”
The molecular biology major from Devon, Pa., says the race was an enormous physical challenge that felt like a slow burn as she pressed forward. Caloric intake and hydration were crucial. She took five energy gels for nutrition, and she was careful to maintain a steady pace to avoid cramps.
“You have to be very in tune with your pace and your plan,” she says. “It’s much different from a swim race where you go as fast as possible until you finish. In the triathlon, if you go too hard in the beginning, you might not even finish.”
While swimming is her strength, running has always been her weakness. Yet at the national championships, she was especially
proud of her performance in the run. “I was able to chip away a lot of time in my run. I was most proud of that part.”
By finishing in the top three in the 20–24 female age group, Brennan has qualified for the world championships, which will take place next year in Australia. Brennan hasn’t decided if she will compete on the world stage. Nevertheless, her preparation for the nationals involved new techniques that allowed her to compete at a top level without injury.
In 2023 Brennan began training with a triathlon team in Lancaster, Pa. The team used a Norwegian training method that involved lactate testing, which is done by taking blood samples of athletes to measure their lactic acid. The tests show whether an athlete is working out at the precise intensity.
“The Norwegian method makes sure you don’t overtrain,” Brennan explains. “Using this testing, you are training at a pace that your body can sustain for long periods. That was huge for me. I didn’t do that testing last summer, but started this summer and it kept me injury free.”
Brennan also credits her
include her parents: Her mother was a runner in college and competed on the professional stage, while her father is a cyclist.
Another key figure in her success is swimming and diving Head Coach Ed Pretre, who began training her as a distance swimmer in her first year. “I wasn’t much of a distance swimmer in high school, but when I came here, Ed saw the aerobic [athlete] in me and started putting me in the distance group,” Brennan says. “I don’t think my swimming would be the way it is without doing that the first two years of college.”
“Her hard work, dedication, attention to detail, and overcoming adversity demonstrate her character,” Pretre says. “There is no surprise that she achieved her goal of
making worlds next year to compete in Australia for her country. We are so proud of her.”
When Brennan is not swimming or training, she’s working on her diploma. She selected molecular biology as a major because of her love for math and science. Once she arrived at Colgate, she began taking science courses. In the process, she developed an interest in human anatomy, partly because of her injury history and experience in rehab.
“I became interested in what was behind those injuries,” Brennan says. “I wanted to be able to help other people who had the same problems I did.” As a result, she’s interested in a career in physical therapy, orthopedics, or sports medicine.
— Omar Ricardo Aquije
Volleyball won its fourth straight league title, defeating Army 3–2 in November. It’s the third program in Patriot League volleyball history to win four straight league championships and the first since 2017. The Raiders claimed their ninth overall championship, second most of any team in the conference, including their fifth title under Head Coach Ryan Baker. Milan Bayless ’27 (#22, pictured) added 15 kills. As a team, Colgate collected a season-high 89 digs.
Volleyball
‘Going
Beyond the Boundaries of Traditional Disciplines’: the New Robert H.N. Ho Mind, Brain, and Behavior Center
The Robert H.N. Ho Mind, Brain, and Behavior Center at Olin Hall is now open on campus. The facility is the new home of the Robert H.N. Ho Mind, Brain, Behavior Initiative (MBBI), a transdisciplinary effort to investigate brain function and its role in social behavior.
Extensive renovations to Olin Hall, the addition of a new east wing, and the Ho MBBI were funded through a leadership gift from Robert Hung Ngai Ho ’56, who inspired support from additional alumni and friends.
“There are a few moments when you can actually see a university getting stronger and better,” President Brian Casey noted at the opening ceremony during Reunion Weekend 2024. It was a sentiment he initially expressed during the groundbreaking ceremony on May 6, 2022, “and today’s the culmination,” he said last June.
Olin Hall opened in 1970, and the need to replace the outdated infrastructure has long been apparent. The Ho MBBI became an initial priority in Colgate’s Third-Century Plan. Mr. Ho provided a lead gift of $15 million to advance the project.
When the plans to modernize Olin were announced, faculty members started seeing the possibilities for the new space on campus, including opportunities for advanced research and collaboration.
“By transdisciplinary, we’re really talking about something more than multidisciplinary,” Professor Carrie Keating, a member of the Ho MBBI Executive Advisory Committee and early proponent of the initiative, said at the opening ceremony. “It is
trans because trans means beyond, trans means bridge. We’re going beyond the boundaries of traditional disciplines and constructing things
in other ways, in new ways and getting new insights.”
Undergraduates will have experiences that would otherwise only be available to them as graduate students at research universities. The various research efforts underway include using AI to study harbor seals and EEG to track the synchrony of brain waves in choral singers.
The new east wing was designed by Robert A.M. Stern Architects to encourage interaction and collaboration. The perimeter of the wing houses faculty and administrative offices, while the upper floors include labs, classrooms, and offices. The basement level provides opportunities to develop labs and other spaces that respond to future needs of scientific inquiry.
Provost and Dean of the Faculty Lesleigh Cushing cited Colgate’s longstanding commitment to academic rigor and interdisciplinary pursuits, enabled by previous gifts from Mr. Ho. These include support for off-campus study, Asian studies, and spaces that facilitate presentations and dialogue. Mr. Ho also provided leadership funding for the Robert H.N. Ho Science Center, which opened in 2007.
“As an institution, we have leaned into interdisciplinarity,” Cushing said. “The Ho Science Center is an incredible manifestation of that. We have a number of disciplines, in one space, learning from each other. People are in conversation with one another. They are not siloed. There is a strong sense of Mr. Ho’s legacy — of really understanding the liberal arts and the ways that community and creating spaces for intellectual community feed the liberal arts.”
Watch a time-lapse video of the Olin renovations: colgate.edu/olintimelapse
Faculty profile
Endowed Chair Chad Sparber Examines Immigration and the Economy
Immigration and the economy are at the forefront of our national civil discourse — and Chad Sparber, who is the W. Bradford Wiley Chair in international economics and Lampert Institute director, studies both.
Through the Campaign for the Third Century, Colgate seeks to increase the number of endowed chairs, which provide not only the foundation of the chair holders’ salaries, but also offer dedicated funds to enhance their research and teaching efforts.
Sparber’s research examines the economic consequences of immigration and endeavors to understand the impact of immigration policy changes made by the U.S. government. He has been published in the Review of Economics and Statistics, the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, the Journal of Labor Economics, European Economic Review, the Journal of Urban Economics, and the Journal of Development Economics. His findings have been discussed in the Economic Report to the President and cited by the Council of Economic Advisors, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and NPR, and he has testified before the U.S. Senate.
“There are many unintended consequences of immigration on the economy,” Sparber says. “It is my job to ask the questions and think about this issue in ways that others generally don’t.”
Economic Impacts of Immigration Policy
Having earned his PhD in economics from the University of California–Davis, Sparber frequently collaborates with his former professor Giovanni Peri, and the two have co-authored 10 papers to date. To grapple with the question: “Do immigrants take American jobs?” Sparber and Peri co-wrote the paper “Task Specialization, Immigration, and Wages,” published in the American Economic Journal: Applied Economics in July 2009.
“Immigrants tend to specialize in
manual skills, so when immigrants come in, Americans in labor jobs respond to that by doing more communication-intense work,” he explains. “An American worker will go from a landscaper to a landscaping manager. That occupational adjustment protects Americans from job loss.” That paper was quoted in Paul Krugman’s New York Times opinion piece “Trump’s Cynical Attempt to Pit Recent Immigrants Against Black Americans” last July. “Even after all these years, that paper has resonance and influence,” says Sparber.
In 2015 Sparber received a National Science Foundation grant to support his research on the H-1B visa program, used by many college-educated foreign workers in our country. Recently his paper “Buying Lottery Tickets for Foreign Workers: Lost Quota Rents Induced by H-1B Policy,” coauthored by Colgate colleague Rishi Sharma, was accepted for publication in the Journal of International Economics. They discuss how the United States currently allocates H-1B status through a random lottery, which causes firms to search for far more workers than they can actually hire. In the paper, they posit that we would be better off letting firms hire the workers for whom they are willing to pay.
“We have a lot of international students at Colgate hoping to work here after graduation and contribute to the American economy,” says Sparber. “Currently, we allocate H-1B status randomly when we should be trying to attract the best and the brightest. There is a lot of waste in random allocation.”
For example, if Microsoft wants to hire 500 foreign-born workers, but it has a one in three chance of winning the visa lottery, it is going to extend 1,500 offers to hit the target. “They are extending offers to far more people than they could potentially hire, and those searches have massive costs,” he says. “They are wasting money that could be directed elsewhere.”
On Feb. 25, 2016, Sparber testified before the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest on the significance of foreign-born STEM workers on native-born job opportunities and the role of the H-1B visa program in technology development and U.S. job creation. Sparber met with Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who had invited him to testify, and Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) during the experience. “It was definitely a career highlight,” he says. “I’m happy to have been able to talk to political leaders on both sides of the aisle about this issue.”
Interdisciplinary Teaching
Former economics department chair and three-time leader of the London Economics Study Group, Sparber teaches courses on the economics of immigration, international economics, the economics of race and ethnicity, and urban economics. He is also an external research fellow at the Centre for Research and Analysis of Migration at University College London and the IZA, Institute of Labor Economics in Germany.
Sparber’s favorite course to teach is ECON 249: International Economics, which analyzes the flow of goods, capital, and labor across international borders and is required for international relations majors. “The stereotypical international relations major is very good at geopolitical affairs but may have an economics or quantitative phobia,” Sparber says. “Part of my job is to help them get over that anxiety and realize that they can understand economics better than they do. By improving those quantitative skills, they can understand the political issues they are interested in.”
Last spring he offered ECON 249 as an extended study course linked with Professor Morgan Davies’ ENGL 302: Literature of the Early Middle Ages. ENGL 302 formed the basis for the program’s historical and cultural content, and ECON 249 examined the underlying forces affecting international economic relations. The program built a more complete understanding of the United Kingdom and Ireland as unique but interconnected locales. Sparber and Davies spent two weeks traveling with 13 students in these countries with excursions to sites with both historical and modern significance: Canterbury Cathedral, Sutton Hoo, Knowth, Glendalough, the offices of the Economist, the Brazilian Embassy, the Central Bank of Ireland, and IDA Ireland.
A Focus on Civil Discourse
Since 2021 Sparber has been a panelist on WCNY’s The Ivory Tower, a roundtable discussion of current events with representatives from central New York institutions of higher education. He offers one of the more conservative perspectives during his appearances on the panel. “It is a lot of preparation,” he says. “I need to make sure I have facts and figures to defend my position, but I enjoy doing it.”
Sparber has recently been named the director of the Lampert Institute for Civic and Global Affairs. The Lampert Institute was created in 2008 thanks to the generosity of Edgar Lampert ’62, and its mission is to teach students to apply the fundamental tools of a liberal arts education to the most significant current policy issues. Sparber also directs a forum on economic freedom for Colgate’s Center for Freedom and Western Civilization, which seeks to promote intellectual diversity and discourse on campus.
— Rebecca Taurisano
Supporting Staff
A
Natural Partnership: Glendening Family Endows Director of Outdoor Education
When Bruce Glendening ’77 and his wife, Cecile, were considering how to give back to the University, they knew they wanted their gift to impact the greatest number of students possible. An avid naturalist, decorated Air Force pilot, and retired attorney, Bruce wanted to encourage students to have meaningful experiences outside of the classroom and explore new areas of study. Earlier this year, Bruce and Cecile endowed the Glendening Family Director of Outdoor Education at Colgate University.
The mission of the Outdoor Education Program is to provide students with leadership, wellness, personal growth, sense of place, and community-building opportunities through outdoor and experiential programs. The program plays an important role in the student experience through offerings like Wilderness Adventure and the Staff Leadership Training Program, as well as satisfying the University’s physical education requirement.
This Glendening Family Director of Outdoor Education endowment improves access, provides new equipment, and enriches classes and outings. It also ensures the program will be available to future generations of Colgate students, furthering
the efforts of the University’s ThirdCentury Plan to enhance the student experience, create a compelling campus culture, and foster connections between the students, faculty, and staff.
The Glendening family boasts an impressive lineage of Colgate graduates, including Bruce’s great-uncle Charles Glendening, Class of 1917; Bruce’s father, John W. Glendening Jr. ’38, a University trustee; Bruce’s uncle, Robert E. Glendening ’40; Bruce’s brother, Robert “Bob” L. Glendening ’71; and most recently, Bruce’s nephew, Christopher B. Glendening ’09.
The family also has a long history of enriching the student experience through their generous support of the University. Bruce’s father, John, was responsible for funding the creation of the Glendening Boathouse, and Bruce’s brother, Bob, and his wife, Beverly, endowed the Khaled Sanad Endowed Head Men’s Rowing Coach, on the 20th anniversary of the boathouse dedication. “It all started with my dad building the boathouse,” says Bruce. “The intention was always to ensure more people could participate in an activity and for the gift to make a greater impact.”
Colgate’s Outdoor Education Program
Nick Gilbert ’18
First-years on a sea kayaking Wilderness Adventure
dates back to 1914, when E.W. Goodhue started the Colgate Outing Club, modeled after a similar program at Dartmouth. Naturally, the club focused on winter sports, such as ski-running, snowshoeing, and tobogganing. In the mid-1980s, the recreational sports department created what would become Outdoor Education, adding an instructional aspect to the programming. In 1988, the University’s most popular preorientation program to date, Wilderness Adventure, was created.
“Outdoor Education is a signature program at Colgate, and thanks to the generosity of Bruce and the Glendening family, it will be a forever program,” says Yariv Amir ’01, vice president and director of athletics. “The continued generational support of Colgate by the Glendening family is truly incredible. Their generosity has had a direct impact on our students and with this endowment, that impact will be felt in perpetuity.”
As a boy growing up in Pelham, N.Y., Bruce developed a fondness for the outdoors during his path to Eagle Scout. Bruce was always intrigued by the impact of outdoor experiences, and he has volunteered for a decade with the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club, eventually serving as vice president of the organization.
“Spending time in nature and teaching others about the outdoors is a life skill,” he says. “By spending time outside of the classroom, students are learning leadership skills they can take with them after they leave Colgate.”
Bruce fondly remembers Colgate experiences of his own, both inside and outside of the classroom. A history major earning honors, Bruce was part of the London Study Group during his senior year. He played saxophone in the marching band, was a DJ for WRCU radio, and was a member of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity. His family dog, Scout, became a fraternity house dog (first of Kappa Delta Rho and later of Phi Gamma Delta), and the beloved pet’s eulogy was published in the Colgate Maroon after its passing. Memorable professors of Bruce’s include Charles Blackton, who led the London Study Group in history; Jonathan Kistler, whose Shakespeare courses sparked a lifelong love of theater; and Anthony Aveni, who is notable for his mesmerizing lectures on astronomy.
After graduating from Colgate and taking a gap year, Bruce attended law school at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., where he met Cecile — she was an undergraduate student at the time. He
trained to become an Air Force Reserve pilot and served as a reservist for 12 years flying out of Andrews Air Force Base. Bruce was activated in Operation Desert Storm and received the Armed Forces Air Medal for meritorious service in a war zone, flying C-141 cargo planes.
After receiving his law degree, Bruce became an energy law attorney specializing in natural gas pipeline regulation, first working for law firm ArentFox Schiff, then becoming in-house counsel for Colonial Gas Company and Columbia Gas Transmission Company. Eventually he went to work for the Federal Aviation Administration, where he helped to develop new regulations required for the industry after 9/11. He retired in 2012.
Bruce and Cecile have been married for 41 years and have two daughters, Anna and Julia, and two granddaughters. Cecile is a
Collaboration
Colgaters Become Co-editors of Adirondack Journal
The University is expanding its long history of involvement with Adirondacks research in a new collaboration with the Adirondack Research Consortium (ARC). Professor of Geography and Environmental Studies Emerita Ellen Percy Kraly and Joseph Henderson ’03, an associate professor of social sciences in the environment and society department at Paul Smith’s College, are the new co-editors of the Adirondack Journal of Environmental Studies (AJES).
Colgate’s Office of Information Technology Services will host the online platform for the journal, and the Environmental Studies Program will serve as the journal’s academic partner.
The AJES, a project of the ARC, is an interdisciplinary journal that expands
retired archaeologist and a pilot, like Bruce. Cecile fondly remembers visiting Colgate’s beautiful campus for the first time. “It was like something out of a movie,” she says. “This is what a college campus is supposed to look like.”
Bruce and Cecile hope this endowment will help the Outdoor Education Program become even more robust. With Bruce’s 50th Reunion approaching in 2027, he says he hopes that this gift will encourage others to consider how they can give back. “We wanted to do something tangible for Colgate that would benefit a lot of students,” Bruce says. “By getting them out of the classroom, it could inspire them to try a new area of study and find out there is an entire world out there to explore.”
—
Rebecca Taurisano
understanding of Adirondacks ecology and environmental issues and informs policy.
The late geology professor Bruce Selleck ’71 co-edited one edition of the AJES and was a member of the ARC. When he passed away in 2017, Kraly stepped in as a representative of Colgate on the ARC board. Then after the previous editor stepped down, Kraly assumed that role as well and approached Henderson — who counted Selleck among his mentors — with the opportunity to serve as co-editor. Because the Adirondacks are so ecologically unique, the area is of heightened interest, and the AJES addresses that interest in its pages. “[The Adirondacks] have a ton of fresh water. They have a lot of rare species,” Henderson says. “It’s going to be one of the most stable areas going forward in terms of climate change.”
According to Kraly, the AJES is also noteworthy because “we need to ground our knowledge production within communities involved in whatever issue we’re studying,” she says. “The Adirondack Research Consortium wants to make the knowledge available to — and grounded in — the region.”
Along the way, the AJES and its interdisciplinary approach to environmental analysis aligns with the values of Colgate’s liberal arts education, its commitment to student research, and its Third-Century intention to deepen the rigor of its academic programs.
— Olivia Miller ’27
Discover
An anorthosite rock sample from Finland. The natural hues of the plagioclase crystal result from internal diffraction of light on nanoscale layers formed as it slowly cooled in the magma chamber 1.6 billion years ago.
research
Rocks of Ages
Geologist Duncan Keller ’15 makes a breakthrough about Adirondack rocks.
Abillion years ago, violent processes underneath what is now the Adirondacks pushed enormous volumes of hot, crystal-rich magma into Earth’s crust, where they formed rocks full of shiny grey crystals of plagioclase feldspar. The resulting rocks, called anorthosites, are geological mysteries — set apart from other igneous rocks, they’re found all over the world and have raised questions for decades about how and why they formed.
“In many intro geology textbooks, you’ll see a little section describing the strangeness of these rocks that only formed during a puzzling part of the Earth’s middle history,”
says Duncan Keller ’15, a postdoctoral researcher at Rice University. “There are some ideas about them, but we haven’t agreed on what’s going on.”
In a recent paper published in Science Advances, Keller presents novel research that may have finally put an end to the mystery. And he’s done it with colleagues including his former Colgate professor, William Peck. Beyond just explaining the process behind the formation of these particular rocks, the evidence they offer sheds new light on what was going on with the Earth at that time, presenting a fascinating time machine to answer questions about early plate tectonics.
Keller grew up in southeastern Pennsylvania, where he was fascinated by glittery mica and green serpentine he found in nearby woods. His parents encouraged his curiosity, buying him books on rocks and minerals, and by the end of grade school, he decided he wanted to be a geologist. “There’s a sense of mystery there. A rock might look unassuming, but sometimes it took millions — or even billions — of years to come into being,” he says. “That we have the science to
interact with these things and be able to tell people about them is mind-blowing.”
At Colgate, his interest was cemented by the classes he took in Earth science, including a class on minerals — regular crystalline structures in rocks — taught by Professor Richard April. “It was very visually engaging to work with these crystals and understand what was going on at an atomic level,” Keller says. That was followed by a petrology class with Peck, professor of earth and environmental geosciences, applying all of that knowledge to understand how
rocks form. Peck first introduced him to anorthosites, the subject of Peck’s own research for decades. Keller went on to do his graduate work on different kinds of rocks, before ending up at Rice, where he once again ran into questions about anorthosites posed by his adviser, geology professor CinTy Lee, and thought he might be able to use some new scientific techniques to test them.
Geologists have proposed different theories about how anorthosites formed, each based on processes requiring different heat, timing, and magma sources. Some have suggested that the crust melted when coming into contact with the mantle, before surging upward and crystallizing; others that the melting came from deep within the mantle itself. A more recent theory proposed that fluids released from the downgoing plate at a subduction zone where two plates came together caused mantle melting. “There have been papers back and forth on this for 40 years,” says Keller, who saw a way to break the gridlock by examining ratios of isotopes, elements with an extra neutron or two that are distributed unevenly by Earth processes.
One of the first calls he made was to Peck, who has worked on anorthosites dating back to his own PhD. “He was able to explain the reasoning behind some early papers,” Keller says. “The data from him and others are absolutely foundational to the work we did here.” Together, Keller, Lee, and Peck extracted minerals from the rocks and worked with collaborators to measure isotopes of four elements — oxygen, boron, strontium, and neodymium. All were consistent with melting of subducted ocean crust, a new twist on the established ideas. The ratio of oxygen-18 to 16, for example, showed evidence of long exposure to cold seawater, indicative of crust once on the seafloor; while the ratio of boron-11 to 10 varied, consistent with ocean crust dehydrating and melting during subduction.
Because anorthosites are scattered across the planet, dating from more than 2.5 billion to 500 million years old, studying them with these methods can help geologists better understand early plate tectonics that have shaped the Earth — as well as more practical considerations such as locations of titanium ore and rare earth elements, so they can be mined more efficiently. “We worked very hard in setting up these tests to make them likely to hold for a range of examples, and the results seem to hold up quite well,” Keller says. “Our ideas tie these rocks to subduction on a hotter, younger Earth, which can explain the big mystery of why they only formed in the past and is very exciting.”
— Michael Blanding
Fieldwork Out of the Ashes
Students uncover the history of the Augustine Volcano.
Three geology students embarked on a research trip to gather samples from Augustine Volcano in southern Alaska last summer.
Class of 2004’s Alison Koleszar led the trip; she’s back at Colgate as senior lecturer in Earth and environmental geosciences. Her research interests include geologic hazards and the eruptive styles of volcanoes.
“Augustine has a history of big eruptions that generate tsunamis up through the Cook Inlet into the population centers through south central Alaska,” she explains. “When it erupts, it throws a lot of ash into the air,” disrupting airline travel between the Eastern and Western hemispheres.
In 2022, following the approval of a proposal to the National Science Foundation, Koleszar took her first group of students to Augustine, alongside scientists at the Alaska Volcano Observatory.
“One of the major questions guiding our research was, ‘What mechanisms feed into why Augustine has had such drastic differences in eruption intensity over time?’” says Jessie Farrell ’24, a student who was on the 2022
trip and presented her findings at the Geological Society of America conference in Pittsburgh.
2022 vs. 2024: On the first trip, students shuttled around the volcano by helicopter. But last summer, they had to travel by foot.
8 miles: Students weathered the elements to reach the volcano, wading in knee-deep, ice-cold waters, but also sometimes encountering fields of flora, as well as fauna including bald eagles, foxes, and seals.
By collecting deposits of ash and pumice, Koleszar and her students are gauging the explosivity of previous eruptions based on factors including grain size, componentry, and geochemistry.
Findings: “One of the deposits of tephra we studied had previously been described in the literature as Tephra C, but what the students have found working on that site for a couple of years is that we’re pretty confident it’s not Tephra C — it’s actually Tephra M,” explains Koleszar. “Since we found pieces of pumice larger than previously reported, this suggests the eruption is bigger than previously thought, and also more recent,” she concludes, adding that volcanologists determine the size of an eruption by the thickness of the deposit.
Looking ahead: This research aims to predict and mitigate risks associated with future eruptions.
— Tate Fonda ’25
Students measure the thickness of past eruption deposit layers near Augustine Volcano in summer 2024.
An Academic Resource 10,030 Years in the Making
Art and IT collaborate to aid those who study and save antiquities.
Batza Professor of Art Padma Kaimal has spent decades visiting central Tamil Nadu, India. She has collected nearly 10,000 images and assorted location data from 100 temples that were built during the first millennium CE. Thanks to a partnership with Colgate’s Office of Information Technology and a series of institutional grants, those images are going online, where they can be studied by art historians and investigators around the globe.
The Kaveri Mapping Project has taken time to develop — for good reason. Kaimal always intended to publish a scholarly compendium of some sort, though the specifics were undefined. But the market for stolen Indian antiquities soared during the last three decades, and she worried that thieves might turn her trove of content into an illustrated shopping list, complete with directions to the emporium. So she set the project aside and went about her other work, writing and publishing a new book, Opening Kailasanatha: The Temple in Kanchipuram Revealed in Time and Space
As she pursued other priorities, time and space revealed new reasons to revive her ambition.
First, as more and more Indian temples have fallen prey to looters, posting photographic evidence online has actually helped investigators track, identify, and return elements of cultural heritage.
The United Nations adopted its Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property in 1970. “Before that, it was open season,” Kaimal says. “People were scooping this stuff up and helping themselves. Now, if you can document that an object was there after 1970, and it suddenly shows up
on the international art market, then you can make a case that that piece needs to be returned.”
Kaimal’s archive includes photos of pieces that have since been stolen, and publishing those pieces could be a boon to police and the bane of those who would keep their private “collecting” habits private. “Publishing on the internet flipped from being a way to make an art catalog for thieves into a way of documenting and protecting objects in place in situ,” she says.
Second, GIS technology has developed to the point that Kaimal’s extensive portfolio can now drive visualizations that take art history research to new levels. Kaimal has spent countless hours uploading scans and metadata into database software. Research assistant Sara Varanese, from Rutgers, built a GIS prototype map for visualizing the data geospatially. They have partnered with Colgate’s Information Technology Services staff members and Visual Arts Resources and Programming Manager Lesley Chapman, who are using the database to power image retrieval interfaces and interactive maps. Jeff Nugent, co-director of the Center for Learning, Teaching, and Research, “helped put the team together and now helps them keep the big picture in focus,” says Kaimal.
The results, now approaching pilot phase, could provide answers to questions that Kaimal has been asking herself for decades: “What if I could take the data that these objects represent and project them against a map? Maybe I start to see some geographic patterns in the
appearance of certain features or the scale of the buildings and the elegance. Are they correlated to geographic features like the availability of water, or are they correlated to political centers? Are they avoiding political centers? Are they stronger in outlying regions?”
Even as Kaimal, Chapman, Varanese, and ITS staffers build and test their program, the images themselves are simultaneously appearing in academic databases such as JSTOR, giving scholars immediate access to high-resolution files — some of which show the state of temples, for better or for worse, over time. Photos can be compared side by side with other pictures taken by other researchers and galleries at institutions around the world.
Kaimal’s image library is just the beginning. “I hope that I have a number of colleagues who would like to add their photos to the archive so we could expand this beyond this region — we could expand it across South Asia,” she says. “When you’re entering a search in this tool, you would have access to, we hope, hundreds of thousands of images.”
Scholars, rejoice. Thieves, beware.
— Mark Walden
Detail views from some of the granite temples built during the 9–10th centuries in the Kaveri region of southern India. Photos by Padma Kaimal
book
Health Care Is Broken. This Alumnus Has a Plan to Fix It.
The U.S. spends $4.5 trillion each year treating chronic illnesses, yet the nation only continues to get sicker, according to the American Medical Association. How to fix the health care system, however, is up for debate.
David W. Johnson ’78 long hypothesized that the health care industry would solve its own issues. But today he believes the solutions must come from sources and factors outside the industry. Johnson recently co-authored a book, The Coming Healthcare Revolution: The 10 Forces that Will Cure America’s Health Crisis (Wiley, 2024), outlining that outside-in approach. “We have to break the current system and all the perverse incentives, along with the industrial complex that supports it,” he says. “The delivery of health care will undergo a revolution in the next 10 years.”
Johnson’s path to becoming an authoritative voice in health care is largely by accident, he says. Following his graduation from Colgate with a degree in English, Johnson joined the Peace Corps and then earned his master’s at Harvard’s Kennedy School, focusing on public policy and economics. He embarked on a career in investment banking, which led to a role that involved strategically advising health care companies. “Health care was a cottage industry when I entered it,” Johnson says. “I was part of building the big system. But the more I helped build it, the more I wanted to help fix it.”
Today Johnson operates at the intersection of health care economics, policy, strategy, and capital formation. As the leader of 4sight Health, Johnson advises clients on innovative
approaches to health care, all aimed at reinventing the system.
A Solution to What Ails Us
In pulling together their book, Johnson and co-author Paul Kusserow identified five top-down macro forces and five bottomup market forces that will transform the U.S. health care industry. The macro forces include demographic determinants — by 2030, the country will have more seniors than children under 18, representing a twopronged problem. “First, older Americans are more susceptible to chronic diseases and related medical treatments that require money and personnel to address,” says Johnson. “Second, the shrinking workerretiree ratio means the health care labor pool will be under enormous stress.”
Other macro forces include funding fatigue, chronic pandemics, technological imperatives, and pro-consumer/market reforms, which are regulatory and legislative reforms that enhance level-field competition and consumer protections. On the market forces side, the book identifies whole health, care redesign, care migration, empowered caregivers, and aggregators’ advantage — similar to the Amazon model. Johnson foresees a single platform that will enable consumers to make informed health and health care purchasing decisions with ease and convenience.
Looking at funding fatigue, Johnson says that the most telling indicator of health care’s impact on the economy is its percentage of gross domestic product. “It’s a massive number, around 18 to 20%. We are coming up against a natural limit for funding health care,” he says. Meanwhile, “there is a growing disillusionment among the public that consumers aren’t receiving value for their health care purchases. We must either cut costs or figure out how to provide better health care for less money,” he says. “I prefer the second option.”
From the market forces side, Johnson explains how critical it is to treat health care workers well, following a “golden rule” management style. “If you treat your workers well, they will treat your customers (patients) well, and the company will do better,” he says.
Combined with the other eight forces, the American health care system is reaching a breaking point, he says. “The macro pressures are forcing the system to crack.”
But out of the chaos will emerge solutions, according to Johnson. “It will be messy and will come with enormous dislocation,” he explains. “But the American people will benefit from better wholeperson health care at lower costs.”
— Amanda Loudin
The industrious, innovative, and inspirational
THE WORLD’S A STAGE
lectrifying,” “brilliant,” and “confident” were the praises sung by Washington, D.C., media when describing Jamil Jude’s 2024 directing of Topdog/ Underdog. Jude ’09 directed a revival of the Pulitzer Prize–winning 2002 Broadway play in the nation’s capital last summer — one of his freelance gigs that he does when he’s not spending most of the year as artistic director of True Colors Theatre in Atlanta. At Colgate, Jude was on the pre-med track, but when his football teammate Will Arnold ’06 asked him to perform in an Urban Theater play, everything changed. “What was nice about Urban Theater was that it was for students of color; we got to see ourselves,” says Jude, who explained that in his previous experiences, “I was seeing that the theater is fairly white.” Urban Theater inspired Jude to start writing and producing his own student plays, and after graduating as an English major, he accepted an internship at Arena Stage in D.C. There, Jude met Tony Award–winning director Kenny Leon, who would become his lifelong mentor. The two kept in touch while Jude pursued his theater career in Minneapolis; then in 2017, Leon brought him on as associate artistic director of True Colors, and in 2019, Jude’s mentor gave him the reins. The nonprofit celebrates the “rich tradition of Black storytelling” and elevates “bold artists from all cultures.” Its 2025 lineup includes Broadway’s Jaja’s African Hair Braiding and Ain’t No Mo’. Jude will also be traveling to Indiana Repertory Theatre and Syracuse Stage for his production of King James, followed by a longer contract in San Francisco for a new musical called Co-Founders that “we hope, fingers crossed, is bound for Broadway.” Says Jude, who has received numerous awards and recently secured a $500,000 grant from the Mellon Foundation for True Colors: “This is the career that I never thought I would have 20 years ago, so everything I’ve achieved has just been icing on the cake.” ●
“I wanted to be a Marine for many of the same reasons that I love Colgate. The pride, the tradition, the intense camaraderie, a sense of belonging to a community.”
SEMPER FI: ANDREW MCCORMICK ’13, MAJOR, U.S. MARINE CORPS
Why he joined the military: “When I was younger, my dad spoke about his dad, who flew a B-24 Liberator in the Pacific during World War II. His co-pilot wrote a recollection of the places, sights, smells, and sounds. I wanted to experience all of it, to help and protect people. I think that’s the power of storytelling. World events, like 9/11, have continued to confirm my calling. I’m from Pennsylvania; Flight 93 went down not far from where I grew up. I knew I wanted to do something to help keep my neighbors and my family safe. [The military] felt like the correct blend of using my brain and my body to do so.”
Why the Marines: “I wanted to be a Marine for many of the same reasons that I love Colgate. The pride, the tradition, the intense camaraderie, a sense of belonging to a community. [Also] I like trying to solve complex problems. I like being physically challenged. Lack of sleep, food, water; hot, cold, snowing, sleeting, raining — I thrive in those environments.”
His current role: “I’m an air and fires officer with Marine Forces Special Operations Command. I advise commanders on all things aviation related.”
Previously: “For several years, I flew the AH-1Z, the Marine Corps’ attack helicopter. I’ve done a few deployments — primarily
training with partners and allies — in Okinawa, Japan; mainland Japan; the Republic of Korea; Australia; Indonesia; and the Philippines.”
At press time: “I am typically in North Carolina. I’m in Yuma, Ariz., right now; I’m attending the Weapons and Tactics Instructor Course, hosted by Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics Squadron One.”
His two favorite Colgate classes were: Weapons and War, Professors Karen Harpp and Nancy Ries, and Manny Teodoro’s Street-level Bureaucracy and Organizational Theory. “Both helped hone my critical thinking skills and ability to look at problem sets holistically. I rely on those skills regularly.”
Also at Colgate: “I was a volunteer firefighter with the Hamilton Fire Department, in Theta Chi, a member of Konosioni, and an enthusiastic member of Link Staff. I was also a member of Brothers; social, political, and economic issues affecting men of color should be important to people who are not men of color.”
Where he sees himself in 10 years: “In the defense, national security, or policy realm, using the experience I’ve had as a Marine officer in ways that can solve similar problems — but using my words instead of my weapons. I’ve sworn an oath to support and defend the Constitution. I believe in the document; I believe in its promise. I fundamentally believe in the goodness of people, and I want people to be able to exercise the totality of who they are and live their lives in meaningful ways.” ●
24 HOURS IN THE LIFE OF A CLIMATE REPORTER
There’s a hurricane on its way to Houston, and Rebekah Ward ’13 isn’t there. For most people, this would be a good thing. For Ward, the climate reporter at the Houston Chronicle, it’s a problem. “I have to be ready if a hurricane is coming down the pike,” she says, “[so I can] run around the city and see what’s happening as everybody else is running inside.”
Ward had been visiting family in Montreal as Hurricane Beryl approached Texas on July 8, 2024. Just as she was about to board her flight back, it was canceled. “I was very concerned that I wouldn’t be able to do that part of my job,” recalls Ward. Immediately, Ward began checking in with sources remotely. In a twist of fate, the Chronicle’s newsroom lost power, so Ward became the point person — making calls and filing from Canada — for stories about where Houstonians could seek refuge.
The following day, Ward was able to fly out. As soon as the wheels hit the runway in Houston, she started interviewing. “The airport was teeming with people [because] it still had power. Most of the city didn’t, so there were people on every surface plugging in their devices or just breathing the cool air,” she remembers. “Then I got a call.”
A government spokesperson was calling
A CONDUIT BETWEEN LAWMAKERS AND THE NEWS
After the debate in September between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, CBS News Capitol Hill producer Alan He ’12 waited outside closed doors — of Senate hearings and lunches — to get lawmakers’ reactions to the televised event the night before. As a producer at CBS, He describes his role as the “conduit between lawmakers and our news network.” The political science major remembers Colgate’s 2010 Washington, D.C., Study Group as “a formative experience that launched me to where I am now.” He recalls Howard Fineman ’70 taking the group to MSNBC studios; then-Senate parliamentarian Alan Frumin ’68 giving them a tour of the Capitol; and meeting
congresspeople like Sherwood Boehlert, who represented central New York at the time. That summer, He interned for his home state of Vermont’s Sen. Patrick Leahy; and in 2011, Emily Bradley ’10 Greenfield, CBS’s then–bureau chief assistant, connected him with an internship at the news organization, covering Capitol Hill. “One thing led to another,” He says. A highlight of his more than 12 years with CBS, so far, was covering the campaign trail in 2016: “It was the greatest show on Earth,” says He. “I got to travel the entire country with five other journalists; [they] become your best friends.” The key to He’s success as a journalist? “Colgate does a great job of fostering emotional and intellectual resilience,” the producer says. “Emotional resilience helped me get through two impeachments, working in person during a pandemic, and January 6. Intellectual resilience and curiosity help me drive stories forward and look for other angles.” ●
to let her know that she’d be receiving another call shortly with an update on the FEMA response. As Ward exited the airport, dragging her suitcase and searching for her car, her ringtone blared. A few seconds of wobbly connection prevented her from hearing the speaker introduce himself, but she had no trouble recognizing his voice.
It was President Joe Biden.
Crunched up in the front seat, phone on speaker mode and recorder running, Ward learned about the forthcoming major disaster declaration. When the call ended, she rushed back into the crowded airport to file the story.
A few hours later, Ward heard back from her incredulous editor. “Is that a mistype? You said that President Biden said,” Ward recalls her asking. “And I was like, ‘I just spoke to President Biden.’”
Looking back, Ward’s favorite part of the story is that, 10 minutes after their conversation, a press person called back to make sure she knew with whom she had been speaking, since she hadn’t addressed him as “Mr. President.”
“You have to be ready for anything,” says Ward, who has been with the Chronicle for almost two years and is also responsible for covering pollution, energy extraction, and environmental inequity. “I did not expect him to call me, but you can’t act surprised. You just have to do your job.” ●
Ward’s journalism career has included reporting for the Albany Times Union, Reuters, and France 24.
REPRESENTING THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
The cases against New York City Mayor Eric Adams, Sen. Bob Menendez, and political strategist Steve Bannon all have one person in common: Robert Sobelman ’08, chief of the public corruption unit of the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. These have been sensational news stories, but for Sobelman, “It’s about the mission. We are blessed to represent the United States of America. We work tirelessly to make sure we are doing the right things for the right reasons and doing them the right way.”
At press time, Sobelman was supervising the case against Adams, and he previously supervised the case against Menendez. As an assistant U.S. attorney from 2016–23, Sobelman was part of the team prosecuting Michael Avenatti in 2022 for attempting to extort Nike for $25 million and then stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars from Stormy Daniels. Sobelman also handled the 2021 case against Real Housewives of Salt Lake City’s Jennifer Shah, involving 30 defendants accused of orchestrating a telemarketing scam targeting elderly victims. And he was on the team prosecuting four defendants, including Bannon, for defrauding donors to
the We Build the Wall campaign in 2020. “Rob’s successful prosecutions of powerful political figures is a testament to how he always approached challenges at Colgate — with integrity and grit,” says David Kusnetz ’09, who met Sobelman through the debate team that went on to represent Colgate at the world championships. Sobelman majored in political science and chose his career path after Professor Stanley Brubaker’s constitutional law course. “We spent the semester reading opinions and being exposed to different ways of reading statutes, of interpreting the constitution,” Sobelman remembers. (Later, as a senior and the SGA president, Sobelman would rewrite its constitution with Kusnetz, the SGA speaker of the Senate.) While on the Washington, D.C., Study Group, Sobelman says, “Professor Brubaker created opportunities for us to interact with people who worked on those kinds of issues, including then-Justice Antonin Scalia.” Kusnetz, with whom Sobelman cofounded the Colgate Lawyers Association 12 years ago, says: “Rob’s work as a federal prosecutor on some of the toughest and most high-profile cases in the country is equally inspiring and unsurprising, as everyone at Colgate knew Rob was destined for great things.” ●
Sobelman and his wife, Deborah (Charney) ’08, just celebrated their 13th anniversary.
Laura barisonzi
IN THE KNOW
Imani Ballard ’18 predicts the future. A senior content curator with the streaming service Tubi, Ballard says, “The main part of my job is having an encyclopedic knowledge of the industry and what’s trending, looking at data and seeing what has performed well, and trying to forecast what will perform well.” Other streaming services “rely on an algorithm to show viewers what to watch; at Tubi, a lot of that is driven by a person like me, and we make containers of content.” Ballard will look at the platform, see what collections are missing, scour available content, and create these containers. For example, she built a collection based on true events and one on book-based content. She can also “niche down,” like creating a Shonen (for young boys) subcategory of anime. Ballard specializes in Asian cinema, sci-fi and fantasy, and international content, so she helped launch Tubi in the UK last summer. From personal projects like her Subcultural show on Spoon Radio to her professional experiences that have included working for Redbox and Fox Soul, Ballard has explored different ways of telling audiences “what’s popping in the zeitgeist.” Her ultimate goal is to bridge the gap between Asian cinema and U.S.-based stories about people of color — which might be how Ballard’s personal Venn diagram would look. Her fascination with Korean culture began at age 12, when her brother had a Korean roommate at school. She’s since been learning the language, was a member of Colgate’s Korean Student Association, studied abroad there, has traveled there on her own several times, and has developed a circle of close friends who live in Korea (one of whom she talks to daily, alternating between Korean and English conversations). When she joined Tubi three years ago, she told them that that’s where her interests lie. “Korean has opened up so much for me,” she says.●
CHECKING IN WITH CHRISTOPHER NULTY ’09, AIRBNB’S GLOBAL HEAD OF CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS AND PUBLIC AFFAIRS
“I’ve been [with Airbnb] for more than half of its life cycle. That’s a long time for a business that no one had ever heard of and now is a noun and a verb in [hundreds of] regions around the world.”
“The team I lead thinks about how the world perceives Airbnb, how we tell the story of our company. It’s also a team that deals with some really challenging situations. Every night, there’s the [equivalent of the] population of Los Angeles staying in strangers’ homes around the world. For the most part, that goes really well. But sometimes there are bumps in the road, so part of what I oversee is trust and safety communications.”
“Moments in the world and we have to immediately think about how
“Moments in the world impact us, and we have to immediately think about how to respond, how to navigate.”
to respond, how to navigate. When Hamas attacked Israel, we had to think what to do with our business in Israel: How do we adjust cancellation policies to accommodate unforeseen circumstances? How do we ensure someone doesn’t feel obligated to travel just because they’ve already spent money to book an Airbnb in the region? In the case of Russia, it’s now in violation of U.S. sanctions to transact with Russian banks, so we had to shut down our business there.”
“It’s incumbent upon us, in these moments of crisis, to be good citizens. In the wake of Russia invading Ukraine, we housed almost 100,000 Ukrainian refugees all across parts of Europe. In the wake of the transition government in Afghanistan, we housed almost 100,000 refugees here in the United States.”
“I spent a number of years at SEIU, one of the largest labor unions in the country, [in D.C.] as a spokesperson on a series of different issues, like immigration reform and health care policy. I spent the last year there as a speechwriter for the then-president of the union and started to appreciate what it meant to work for a principal to support a principle.”
“I then led communications for Marissa Mayer, who had just become CEO of Yahoo and was hired to turn the company around. It was probably two of the most interesting years of my life.”
“As a history major, I left Colgate as a much stronger writer, a more thoughtful debater, with a set of skills to make an argument based on truth and fact.”
“I [also rely on my geography major] a lot, using data to explain outcomes. The challenges that face New York City and how it might regulate Airbnb are different from the challenges that face Aspen and the way it might regulate Airbnb. Understanding the context of the people, the community, the government, and the situation goes a long way.” ●
Nulty was his class president for four years, sang in The Resolutions, and was a member of the Colgate College Democrats. He just finished his second term on the Alumni Council.
THREE FACTS ABOUT ELIZABETH OBLINGER ’10, U.S. PUBLIC POLICY FOR TIKTOK
1
She got her start as a campaign volunteer. After graduating from Colgate with a degree in international relations, Oblinger moved to her home state of Ohio to campaign for then–Senate hopeful Rob Portman. When Portman was elected, Oblinger relocated to Washington, D.C., to serve on his staff, eventually working on the senator’s tech and telecom policy portfolio. In 2015 she moved into the private sector to do public policy work for Cox Enterprises and, later, spent nearly six years as a government relations manager for eBay — a position she describes as “developing relationships with lawmakers and their staff to advocate on behalf of the company and its customers.”
2 3
Her “For You” page is all over the place. TikTok’s personalized feed serves Oblinger everything from D.C. restaurant recommendations to skincare tips to hiking content. ● Oblinger is an avid hiker, whose goal is to climb the Seven Summits — she’s already checked off four.
She’s now looking out for TikTok’s U.S. users and creators. In early 2024, Oblinger took a public policy position at TikTok, where she focuses on U.S. Senate advocacy as TikTok challenges government efforts to ban its use in the U.S. “I’m always looking through the lens of our users and creators,” she says, noting that she regularly hears from creators who have been able to build large followings and grow their businesses on the platform.
Astrophysicist Lindsay DeMarchi ’16 was a grad student pitching an idea to a scientist she admired when he observed, “You’re like a stellar mortician.” Between her research focus — studying how stars die — and her fascination with the occult, the nickname stuck. “My dissertation was bridging together the electromagnetic spectrum with gravitational waves to look at dead stars,” she says. “It’s a weird bridging of concepts, but: We know that stars live. We know that black holes exist. We know that stars die. We cannot connect those three dots.” DeMarchi has spent her career not just trying to figure out what’s happening in space, but also trying to protect it. “There are no laws that govern space,” she emphasizes. In the fall, she finished a yearlong D.C. congressional fellowship with Sen. John Hickenlooper, working on space policy. She authored the Dark and Quiet Skies Act of 2024, which addresses satellitecreated light pollution that is negatively affecting the field of astronomy “and ruining our enjoyment of the sky.” Despite her love of darkness and the seriousness of her work, DeMarchi exudes lightheartedness (“I am most known for my loud laugh”) and an enthusiasm for learning. She majored
in astronomy and physics, but audited classes in art, English (“I’m a deep fan of the Brontë sisters”), and poetry. Connecting her two main loves — physics and poetry — DeMarchi explains on her website: “Both are humanity’s attempt to encapsulate the unknown, yet both often require an appreciation for the details to unlock the bigger picture. In poetry, each word has its associations that culminate in a composite image of dynamic expression. To the same effect, physicists call on a lexicon of physical laws and relative relationships to capture an event and its contextual implications.” She adds: “And policy, I’ve come to understand, is the same way, where if I throw in a specific word or two, you know that I’m talking about a specific agency or set of laws.” Since August she’s been a senior policy analyst with the Aerospace Corporation’s Center for Space Policy and Strategy. “I’ve always loved explaining things, and now my job is to do that, but for people who are making decisions, [whether it’s] Congress, the DOD, the FAA, or the FCC,” she says. “For people who are really in the weeds, it’s my job to do the research and get them up to speed.” At press time, she was writing a paper debating whether or not the National Environmental Protection Act should apply in outer space. “I’m in this sphere trying to make things a little bit better and a little bit clearer,” she says. ●
Tucked away in Scotland’s Royal Observatory Edinburgh, Mike Petersen ’10 is in his third year as a Stephen Hawking fellow, analyzing data from the satellite Gaia. Looking at the bright spots in his Colgate studies and current work, you can connect the dots like a constellation:
As an astronomy and physics major, he studied with Professor Jeff Bary to
explore how stars are born and what makes hospitable conditions for young stellar objects. → Today Petersen’s research studies how the Milky Way formed and evolved over time. “I design, implement, execute, and analyze precision numerical models to understand dark matter dynamical evolution in disc galaxies and their halo environs. I then use these results to identify dynamical effects in Milky Way galaxy big datasets.” One of the reasons he’s based in Edinburgh is to study data from Gaia, the European Space Agency satellite that is measuring the precise motions every year for as many stars as you can measure in the Milky Way. “This is like 2 billion stars.”
In his junior year at Colgate, Petersen started working at the Ho Tung Visualization Lab — which had just opened — with Technical Director and Designer Joe Eakin. → Today, as part of his fellowship, Petersen is working at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh’s Visitor Centre using the same system he used in the Vis Lab.
As an Alumni Memorial Scholar, he traveled to Peru’s Inca Trail, borrowed Eakin’s fish-eye lens camera, and took images and measured astronomical alignments to create a show for the Vis Lab. → “I’m personally still intrigued by the alignments — the reductive version is Stonehenge, but Scotland is huge for all of these stone circles
A SHOOTING STAR
for a position with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality in Austin. There, she leads a team of project managers who help ensure the state is in compliance with the Federal Clean Air Act.
that possibly have alignments — and I’m trying to build shows based around those.”
He also majored in music at Colgate, continued practicing piano, and played trumpet in the orchestra. → Today he is collaborating with the Center for Computational Astrophysics in New York City to build a “sonification pipeline” for observations. “The way the installation works, you look at [astronomy] images and hear sounds, then the images go away and you just hear the sounds.” It’s an interactive demonstration at the Royal Observatory Edinburgh, has been accepted for the Edinburgh Science Festival, and may be in New York City in the future. ●
SHE’S HELPING TEXANS BREATHE EASIER
Green ambitions: Fellow ’90s kids will appreciate Alison Stokes’ earliest career goals: “I wanted to marry Captain Planet and help him save the world,” she says. Always a “nature girl,” Stokes ’10 stayed true to her path at Colgate, majoring in environmental geography and going directly to law school with plans to work in environmental law. But after some soul-searching, she pivoted — and found her niche in environmental policy, returning to her home state in 2015
For the birds: A COVID-19–era hobby blossomed into a part-time passion for Stokes, who has traveled the world on birding expeditions with her husband. Since 2020 she’s logged 548 bird species from four countries and 14 states. Her photos of rare birds — the Cassin’s sparrow and Greater Roadrunner, among them — have earned Stokes top honors with the Travis Audubon Society, a Texas-based conservation nonprofit. “Anytime I’m outside, I’m looking, listening, and just really being present,” says Stokes, who never leaves home without her binoculars and, occasionally, a camera with a “huge” telephoto lens. “I carry it in a harness like a small child.”
Her bird–Moby Dick: The Zone-tailed hawk — a rare black-and-white raptor native to the southwest. “I once pulled a U-turn in the middle of the road because I thought I spotted one,” she says. ●
EVALUATING CARBON CREDITS
Since the United Kingdom set a netzero initiative in 2019 (becoming the first G7 country to do so), a number of its businesses — mostly agricultural and forestry — have had to figure out how to reduce emissions. Adam Pellegrini ’10 is there to advise. Pellegrini is associate professor and head of the ecosystem and carbon science group at the University of Cambridge, and he also is on the science advisory board of a climate tech company that quantifies emissions and brokers carbon credits. He surveys and samples companies’ sites and evaluates proposed carbon credit projects. Pellegrini’s motivation to do this work started thousands of miles away in Mozambique, when he was on one of his many trips around the globe to study decarbonization for his academic research. He was speaking with the managers of a national park there and learned that they were considering supporting the park through money coming in for carbon credits; Pellegrini further learned that the company brokering those credits was taking a large share in profit. In a country where there is a severe hunger crisis, “and you have companies that are taking tens of millions of dollars from a service that those people are entitled to, it just frankly made me sick,” Pellegrini says. “I thought, ‘I’m going to change this. I’m going to figure out how to develop a pathway where I can be the one who can help inform carbon stocks in carbon credit programs and help estimate emissions.’” He secured a grant from the European Research Council, and that work has now become one-third of his lab’s research — “trying to figure out how we quantify potential carbon storage at scales that would resonate with what a company or a country would want to do in order to hit an emission goal.” He adds, “Slowly but surely, I think it’s going to begin to have an impact.” ●
Pellegrini chose Colgate because of its strong ecology program. He began his global research as an undergrad, traveling to Mongolia with Professor Connie Soja, South Africa to study the ecosystem around Cape Town, and twice went to Costa Rica with Professor Cat Cardelús. Cardelús is also the one who introduced him to a professor at Princeton, which was Pellegrini’s launchpad for earning his PhD in ecology there.
Miami, Fla.: Lilly’s hometown, where her love for the water and marine life began
Aotearoa (New Zealand): An environmental geography major, Lilly spent her junior year at sea studying on the east coast of the kiwi island — and returned after graduation as a marine technician and teaching assistant on the SEA Semester’s crew. “My experience with study abroad, being on a ship in the ocean, and having that direct connection with the environment was really impactful to me,” she says. “That’s what drew me back to SEA as a teacher and a scientist.”
Appledore Island, Maine: The small island, which sits just at the eastern border of New Hampshire and Maine, is home to Shoals Marine Laboratory. In 2023 Lilly took a position at the remote field station, where she helped coordinate research opportunities for undergraduates, including the lab’s popular summer intensive. “It’s a really hands-on experience for students,” she says. “They’re out in the boat sampling for plankton or fishing, in the intertidal doing transect work, looking at animals in the sea table, or doing a seal necropsy.”
Ithaca, N.Y.: Lilly returned to central New York in August; she’s pursuing a master’s degree in Cornell’s Department of Natural Resources and the Environment. The university is affiliated with Shoals, and Lilly hopes to return to the lab after completing her three-year program and “examining how the arts and sciences interact,” she says. ●
During one five-week trip to Aotearoa in late 2023, Lilly sailed with SEA Semester Mariner Captain Allison Taylor ’04. “She is a huge role model for me,” says Lilly.
PLACES THAT MATTER TO JENNA LILLY ’17, MARINE TECHNICIAN/ GRADUATE STUDENT
“You have to give back. We don’t really celebrate it, per se. It’s just what you do.”
HEARING IMMIGRANTS’ STORIES
o something positive — that credo has been ingrained in Henoch Derbew ’07 by his parents since he was a child.
“You have to give back,” Derbew says. “We don’t really celebrate it, per se. It’s just what you do.” His father and most of his family came to America seeking asylum from war-torn Ethiopia in the early 1980s, and they consider it a “minor miracle” that they were able to come to the U.S. Now Derbew is an asylum officer with the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS), meeting people who have the same hope. Derbew was in D.C. teaching at a Jesuit school and uncertain of his calling when he met LeRoy Potts ’85 at an Alumni of Color gathering in 2021. Potts was working at USCIS and encouraged Derbew to apply. After five-plus months of training, most of it legal, Derbew began his work with USCIS and has been stationed in Chicago since 2023. In his interviews with asylum seekers, Derbew’s job is to determine if they legally qualify to stay in the U.S. “You meet a lot of people, and you have the privilege to hear their stories. It’s humbling,” he says. ●
Derbew is in his first year serving on the Alumni Council. As a student, he majored in history and classics, and he was a member of Brothers, CUTV, WRCU, African American/ Black Student Union, Newman Community, Urban Theater, Model African Union, and Zambia Extended Study Group.
26 majors
Most-represented major: (tied, 6 each) history and political science
24 areas of expertise
11 played sports at Colgate
2 number of times tennis player Billie Jean King mentioned in this article
5 noted the influence of their Colgate study group
3 work on Capitol Hill
4 live abroad
10 states represented
5 have been featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list
ON THE HILL
My job is to make sure that what we’re doing every day matches [Congresswoman Nikki Budzinski’s] overall vision and strategy,” says John Lee ’15, her chief of staff. Working for the congresswoman (a Democrat from Illinois and a former senior staffer to Hillary Clinton and Gov. JB Pritzker), he’s used to juggling bird’s-eye and worm’s-eye views. The same was true in his Colgate years, when he invested in his local community through SGA but also studied abroad in Geneva. During his time in Washington, he’s helped establish 988 as the dialing code; add LGBTQ-specific services to the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline; and secure formal recognition of the 1908 Springfield, Ill., Race Riot National Monument. Lee also advocated for climate legislation, which earned him a spot on the Forbes 30 Under 30 – Energy list. ●
WHEN AI MEETS THE LAW
After 15 years in the legal world, Avery Blank ’08 has found her niche as a tech policy expert. She currently works as a counsel in the U.S. Senate, focusing on artificial intelligence.
On being a “bulldog ballerina”: “Three words: strong, graceful, and persevering. That’s the core of who I am.”
On being well rounded: “One of the exciting things about working in Congress is that you have to be really dynamic. You can’t just know the law and the policy, you have to appreciate and be good at the strategy and the politics. You have to appreciate the communication side of it.”
On working in AI: “It’s hard because, as our team says, you have to legislate at the speed of relevance. How do you write policy, regulations, and laws that go slower than the technology developments? You have to try to think about the future as much as you can, and that requires meeting as many people as possible — stakeholders and experts — to understand what’s going on now and what will come. [You also have to] write legislation and policy that’s somewhat flexible; you don’t want it too broad, but you want it broad enough so that when things develop, the law still is relevant.”
On motivation: “What makes me motivated is impact — knowing that I’m working on a hard topic that is at the front and center. That’s what keeps me excited. Service, recognizing that I’m doing this in hopes of making sure that this benefits society. And, finally, working with quality people.”
On risk: Blank’s legal career has included work at the American Bar Association and at her eponymous consulting firm. Her writing has appeared in Forbes, the Washington Post, and TIME. “The overarching thing that I’m most proud of having accomplished in my life thus far is having the courage to go after what I want and taking strategic risks. That includes starting my own business, going back to school, reaching for the stars to work in Congress. It took some guts … and I went for it.” ●
“The first thing that always comes to mind [when I think of my time at Colgate] is the relationships I had with some of the female professors [who were] experts in their field. In particular, Nina Moore [Dr. William L. Boyle Jr. ’55 Endowed Chair in political science and professor of political science]. It was a class in which I wrote a paper on female representation in Congress. Mind you, I had no idea and no dream of working in Congress at that time. But I found the project fascinating. Then I was asked to present to the class of 100+ students, so this was my first big formal presentation, and I loved it.”
Whether it’s children who have been abused, community members affected by crimes of violence, or New Jersey citizens whose lives or businesses have been impacted by ineffective enforcement of state laws or government corruption, attorney Lauren Realberg ’07 has spent her career “giving a voice to those who might otherwise not be heard,” she says. Realberg currently serves as counsel for the New Jersey State Commission of Investigation, an independent agency whose mission is to investigate waste, fraud, and the abuse of government taxes. She oversees and works with a team of investigators and forensic accountants to develop investigations, then brings people in for sworn testimony, and lastly makes recommendations to the legislature, such as closing legal loopholes or imposing more stringent penalties. Previously, Realberg was senior attorney for the Philadelphia Law Department, working with the Child Welfare Unit, and before that was an assistant district attorney in Philadelphia. Becoming a lawyer, Realberg notes, is how she’s tried to “seek justice for victims, ensure that our communities are safer,” and today, focuses on “protecting the integrity of governmental processes on behalf of New Jersey residents.” ●
At Colgate, Realberg majored in French and international relations, and she was a member of the crew team and Delta Delta Delta.
THE LINKEDIN LAWYER
As LinkedIn’s senior director of legal, Clarissa (Polk) ’10 Shah manages her fair share of negotiations and contracts. But, she says, “one of the things I’m most proud of is actually not the dayto-day legal work I do.” In early 2020, when the pandemic kept everyone at home, she was juggling pregnancy, a 3-year-old, and managing LinkedIn’s legal team. “It was a lot,” she says. Then came the news about Ahmaud Arbery, who was murdered while jogging in Georgia. Arbery reminded Shah of her youngest brother “who’s also very tall and likes to jog; and it was almost overwhelming to think about.” Working for a social media platform, where people post about current events, Shah found it harder and harder to compartmentalize her work life from “what was happening in the external world,” she remembers. “I was speaking with a lot of employees who felt the same way,” Shah adds. She decided to approach her general counsel with the idea of starting a discussion
series through the Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging group that Shah had been coleading. Since starting the discussion series, Shah has noticed that “pressures are released and people think freely; we communicate better and we produce better ideas, which is ultimately a benefit for everybody.” A few months later, Shah had another lightbulb moment: She asked her general counsel if he could connect her department with other legal departments at leading tech companies. Within a day, she was in touch with her counterparts at a number of tech companies, including Google, Meta, and Microsoft. The group holds quarterly roundtables to share best practices on contributing to a more inclusive legal field. “Some of the ideas that have come from that group have enriched our department so much,” she says. “It’s made us better legal professionals.” As a Colgate Board of Trustees member, Shah chairs the DEI committee and is a member of the outreach committee. Her other Colgate connections are her two brothers, Caden Polk ’12 and Charles Polk ’16, as well as her husband, Tushin Shah ’10. “Being part of a team with him has made all of this possible,” she says of Tushin, her “guiding light.” ●
SHE’S WORKING IN SERVICE OF NEW JERSEY CITIZENS
“What drives me is the fact that I want to work in a field where I can see tangible, and ideally, meaningful results.”
AROUND THE GLOBE WITH ZAKARIA IMESSAOUDENE ’18
Living abroad isn’t always easy,” says Zakaria Imessaoudene ’18, whose career has taken him to various parts of the world, “but I’ve appreciated the opportunity to be outside of my comfort zone and take advantage of the experiences that come with it.” Imessaoudene is currently a policy analyst at the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) in Paris. His previous work has included time at the World Trade Organization (WTO), the Middle East Institute, and the United States Mission to International Organizations.
Rutherford, N.J.: Hometown “I’m a Jersey boy through and through.”
Hamilton, N.Y.: Undergrad
“Nothing you study goes to waste. I can tell you from what I’m doing now, that anything from computer science all the way to the humanities and the life sciences has come in handy. That’s really what the liberal arts is all about, right?
“What sets [Colgate] apart from even graduate school [is] that you meet professors who are invested in students’ intellectual growth. I appreciated the fact that you can just knock on anyone’s door and build a personal relationship with them.”
Washington, D.C.: Research analyst at the Middle East Institute
“My time at the Middle East Institute was a good segue into policy work. The thinktank culture in D.C. is its own world, and it gave me exposure to leading research fellows while deepening my knowledge of the Middle East and North Africa. That experience ended up being useful since I’ve now been working in the region for the last few years.”
Geneva, Switzerland: Study abroad, internships, and grad school
“I took part in Colgate’s Geneva Study Group in 2017. Not only did I get exposure to ‘International Geneva,’ which is the hub of many international organizations, but I also got introduced to the university where I ended up getting my master’s degree. I earned a degree in international relations and
political science, and I became interested in political economy and geoeconomics. That led me to places like the WTO and, eventually, the OECD.”
Paris, France: Policy analyst at the OECD “[The OECD is] a club of 38 advanced economies that all come together to discuss ways to learn from each other’s policy experiences and exchange ideas and best practices in economic and social policy.”
Jordan and Yemen: OECD work
Imessaoudene worked on the EUOECD Project on Promoting Economic Resilience in Yemen, focusing on private sector development across several sectors. The project involved assessing structural challenges and tapping into the organization’s expertise to hold capacitybuilding workshops and dialogues in places like Amman, Jordan, with public and private sector stakeholders. His work has also led him to collaborate with development partners like the World Bank. “It gave me the opportunity to apply the skills and knowledge I’ve developed all these years — diplomacy, analysis, communication, and foresight.”
Cairo, Egypt: OECD work
Imessaoudene’s current work has led him to explore investment policy and how it could be used to bridge the infrastructure gap in emerging economies. “This is an area I’ve become fascinated by, given its importance in our daily lives. We don’t realize it, but building things like quality railways not only lets you enjoy taking the scenic route when traveling but also plays a huge role in spearheading development.” One of his projects focuses on sustainable development in Egypt and how it can achieve its development goals through infrastructure investment — which will take him to Cairo later in the year.
Next Stop…?
“What drives me is the fact that I want to work in a field where I can see tangible, and ideally, meaningful results. When you work in policy, especially development, you might not see results right away, but give it five, 10 years, you’ll be able to point to something and say, ‘I had a hand in that.’ I’m not sure where I’ll be next, but I’m looking forward to keeping on learning and hope to make a positive impact along the way.” ●
As ign Elizabeth Lê ’09 chose the right career: She often forgets she’s working. For a recent documentary on Jim Henson, Lê, lead assistant video editor for Imagine Entertainment, found herself watching hours of Muppet Show footage, looking for clips that demonstrated Henson’s before-his-time focus on acceptance and inclusivity. “I’d just get pulled in,” she says. Lê, an English major, got her start in post-production work for an ad agency, creating spots for Jif, Walgreens, and Folgers, among others. Soon, she was hired to work on a home renovation show for celebrity chef Bobby Flay’s production company and, later, created digital extras for TLC’s Say Yes to the Dress. When COVID-19 shut down production — “nobody was buying wedding dresses during the pandemic,” she quips — Lê transitioned to documentary-style work, including a Peacock series on Ghislaine Maxwell, a Judy Blume doc for Amazon Prime, and the Henson film, Jim Henson Idea Man, which took home five Emmy Awards last September. While her work involves hours of perusing content and working with complex editing software, she likens her job to something much simpler: “I’m a storyteller,” she says. “I’m combing through raw footage and picking out the pieces that reveal someone’s character.” Lê’s current project — a hush-hush docuseries on, at press time, an unnamed famous actor — is keeping her busy, but she hopes her future projects highlight people who often “get ignored or othered,” she says, relating her own background as the daughter of Vietnamese refugees. “Those perspectives and voices add texture,” she says. “And they’re stories worth telling.” ●
THE NEWSMAKER: TAYLOR MOONEY ’17, DOCUMENTARY PRODUCER, CBS REPORTS
Teenage dream: “As a high schooler, I remember watching a 60 Minutes segment of Anderson Cooper speaking with marine biologists who were trying to save coral reefs, and I pointed to the screen telling my mom, ‘I want to do that.’ But I wasn’t talking about the marine biologists, I was talking about Cooper’s work — communicating science to the public through factual, visual reporting.”
Seeing stars: “Documentary producer Caitlin Grossjung ’13 helped me land my first
job as a production assistant for National Geographic’s StarTalk With Neil deGrasse Tyson and a subsequent role with NatGeo’s docuseries Explorer. Now as a producer with CBS Reports, I’m researching stories, writing scripts, pulling material from archives, roaming court records databases, polling experts, and talking to anyone and everyone who wants to share their story with me.”
Rage bait: “Caring about something enough to find ways to make others care is an absolutely critical (and occasionally infuriating) process in developing a story idea. I’ve found that when I’m in a full rage spiral of ‘Why doesn’t anyone care about this as much as I do?!’ that means there is absolutely something there.”
No fake news: “Every single decision is fact-checked. My editor and I spend weeks choosing what shots and bites to use to ensure the proper framing of a story. I’ll spend hours rewording one sentence of narration to make sure it’s accurate but nuanced.”
Making Musk: “[Webby Award–winning CBS Reports documentary] Elon Musk, Inc. was a challenge from the beginning. At the time of Musk’s Twitter acquisition, there was news coming out every moment of every day, so our story was constantly changing — not to mention Musk and his various companies are notorious for not responding to media requests. Musk has defined his career by these extremely high-stakes business gambles, but digging a little deeper I found that, from a business perspective, [buying Twitter] was fundamentally different from his other ventures. So we leaned into that to provide a more comprehensive view of how it fits into the story of Elon Musk.”
Current projects: “I love human interest stories with a focus on marginalized communities. I’ve most recently been reporting on genderqueer youth and people with disabilities.” ●
Michael LoFaso ’10 was primed for a career on Wall Street when he graduated from Harvard Business School in 2016. But after a stint at Morgan Stanley, he felt pulled toward Hollywood. LoFaso, a Buffalo, N.Y., native and Colgate mathematical economics major, had always loved movies (Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy is his all-time fave) and soon parlayed his business background into a career at the intersection of art and commerce. Now as co-CEO of the film and TV production company Rideback, LoFaso “supports storytellers in helping big, creative endeavors come to life,” he says. Some of Rideback’s recent endeavors: 2019’s liveaction Aladdin, the LEGO movie franchise, and the adaptation of Stephen King’s It. He shares his insights on choosing projects with blockbuster appeal:
1
Make it relatable. “At Rideback, we always try to tell stories with universal themes that audiences can relate to — a coming-of-age or underdog story, for example. Even a movie like It, when you strip away the scares, is about a group of outcast kids who band together to face their fears. That’s something people can identify with.”
2
Make it immersive. “We’re drawn to projects that create distinct new worlds, so that when you take in something like [Rideback-produced TV series] Avatar: The Last Airbender, you’re immersed in an engaging visual setting.”
3
Don’t forget the grown-ups. “For family movies like the LEGO series or the live-action Lilo and Stitch movie we’re working on now, we like to lean into humor and heart that adults can enjoy too. When it works on different levels, we know we have a chance at making something memorable.” ●
Avatar: The Last Airbender
MOVIE PRODUCER, PALME D’OR WINNER
It seems like a dream sequence: You’re at the Cannes Film Festival, jury president Greta Gerwig announces your movie as winner of the Palme d’Or (the top prize), and at the after-party, she tells you she genuinely loved the film. “It was a magical experience,” says Alex Coco ’12, who produced the award-winning, dark romantic comedy Anora. In fact, it was “the thing I always wanted to do — win that award. To be in that class and to be a part of history that way is pretty special.” Coco says he and writer/director Sean Baker had set their expectations low going into the festival last May. But after the premiere, “we felt better and better about our chances.” The audience was “fully engaged, and you could feel the energy,” he says, adding that the crew saw the glowing reviews online as soon as they left the theater. Coco previously worked on Baker’s The Florida Project and Red Rocket; his other producer credits include The Sweet East and Pet Shop Days. During the writers’ strike, he started building up a slate of smaller films ($5 million and below) “to cultivate more talent, which is what we need in this industry very badly — we need more young filmmakers,” he says. In addition, Coco has been producing commercials and music videos for stars like Childish Gambino, Addison Rae, and Vince Staples. He describes his producer role as “soup to nuts with filmmaking.” Coco explains: “I’ve always tried to be as well rounded as possible. I’m involved in coming up with ideas, developing the script, taking it out to cast, taking it to agencies or talent directly, finding money for the project, building the budget and the production plan, executing the film on set, taking the film into post-production, and then working with sales agents if we haven’t sold the rights to the film yet.” Growing up, he was the kid with his dad’s camcorder at family events and making movies with his friends. While in high school in New Canaan, Conn., Coco took a film class and saw David Lynch’s Eraserhead. “That movie destroyed me. It put me in a horrible mood. I wanted to take a shower. When I came out of that emotional state, I was like, ‘I didn’t know a movie could actually do that to you, and I didn’t know you could walk the line between art and storytelling in this way.’ David Lynch was able to bring those two worlds together, and I was like, ‘This is what I’ve been waiting for… I’ve found what I want to do.’” ●
Coco was recruited by Colgate for track (he ran the 110-meter hurdles) and, although he knew he wanted to focus on art and film, chose the University for its liberal arts education.
HARNESSING THE POWER OF AI IN THE TECH WORLD — AND AT HOME: MATT KROLL ’07, OPENAI ACCOUNT DIRECTOR
“Since March 2024, I’ve worked on the go-to-market team at OpenAI for strategic accounts. I’m responsible for building relationships with some of the largest companies in the U.S., helping shape strategy, and coordinating execution with our customers. A typical day involves collaborating with my solutions engineer on preparing demos and slide decks, testing
new prompts with ChatGPT to showcase different enterprise capabilities, multiple customer meetings, and knowledge sharing with my teammates. It’s the most fun I’ve ever had at work.”
“I was first introduced to AI in 2015 when I learned about how Google built ‘Smart Reply’ into the Gmail app. My initial thought was, ‘Wow, that helps me save time.’ I knew then that we were going to start seeing AI more in our everyday lives, though I never expected it to happen this fast.”
Alex Coco ’12 (second from right) won the Palme d'Or at Cannes with (L to R) Vache Tovmasyan, Samantha Quan, Sean Baker, Mikey Madison, and Karren Karagulian.
“I leverage AI for all aspects of my work on a daily basis. I use ChatGPT — including several custom-built GPTs — to help compose follow-up emails, build content for presentations, and research companies and executives ahead of meetings. I also leverage ChatGPT to role-play for practicing presentations using the new Advanced Voice Mode capabilities. It’s also incredibly valuable for me at home: my 2-year-old daughter, Daisy, is a picky eater, so I use ChatGPT to find recipes for her dinners. I prompt it with proteins and ingredients that we didn’t use the previous few nights so she always gets a variety of foods.”
“The fearmongering around AI is a new version of the technophobia that’s been around for decades. The reality is that all technology has the potential to be exploited by nefarious actors (the first computer virus was created in 1971!), and revolutionary technology has always been feared before it was accepted. Specific to AI, organizations building the frontier models, like OpenAI, are investing heavily in guardrails and safety measures to ensure that models will only work to benefit users and mitigate related risks. Once the value of OpenAI’s technology — and our work on safety — is better understood, the fear will subside.” ●
HOW TO START A CAREER IN FINANCIAL TECHNOLOGY: RUPIKA CHAKRAVERTI ’20, PRODUCT MANAGER, BLACKROCK
Choose Colgate. “I grew up in Calcutta, India. Nobody in my family had gone to school in the States before, but I was drawn to the idea of a liberal arts college, and I knew a few people from my high school who had gone to Colgate and loved it. But honestly — and I used to say this to my tour groups when I worked for admissions — I applied to Colgate because the application deadline was two weeks later than other schools. I needed the extra time!”
Discover theater. “I majored in computer
science, and by pure luck, I had a workstudy job in the theater department. In my first year, Professor Simona Giurgea asked me to be a stage manager. I agreed but had no idea what I was doing — I didn’t know stage left from stage right. I fell in love with it. I directed and acted in a few shows, and I learned so much about trust and collaboration. That has stayed with me.”
Challenge your imposter syndrome. “I was introduced to a BlackRock recruiter during my junior year when I attended the Grace Hopper [Celebration of Women in Computing] conference. I ended up getting hired to work on the client services team for [BlackRock’s] Aladdin, which is the first line of defense for the asset management platform. At first I was apprehensive
about taking on a technical role, and I had a bit of imposter syndrome. I realize now how ridiculous that was. I’m still working within the Aladdin team, now as a product manager leading a team of 10 developers.”
Prioritize in-person collaboration: “I’m really lucky that about half of my team lives in New York, so we try to meet in person whenever possible. Being in a corporate space over the past four years, I have seen in-person interaction get lost, but I strongly believe in the power of actually working in a room together. That’s the best way to learn each other’s strengths and weaknesses as a team and the best way to be successful and efficient.” ●
10 YEARS, 37 MILLION BOTTLES RECYCLED
Siblings Jake ’16 and Caroline Danehy ’19 are co-founders of Fair Harbor, a New York City–based company that makes apparel from recycled plastic bottles. Jake is CEO and Caroline is CBO.
Milestone: Fair Harbor just celebrated 10 years
MOO-VING THE NEEDLE
Methane emissions are a major contributor to the rise in global temperatures, and cattle are a primary source; a single cow belches approximately 220 pounds of methane gas each year, according to UC Davis. At ArkeaBio in Boston, senior scientist Joe Koos ’10 is part of a team trying to create a vaccine to reduce these methane emissions. Koos, who primarily sits on the computational biology team, explains his role as “taking publicly available data and some internal data to design new experiments and come up with new ideas for how the vaccine might work.” Within the cow’s rumen (part of its stomach) “there is one group of organisms that makes all the methane, so the idea is to reduce those organisms to be able to then make less methane,” he says. Koos’ participation in Colgate’s National Institutes of Health study group solidified his interest in working in the lab. After graduating as a biochemistry major, he spent two years as a research technician at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, earned his PhD in molecular biology at Princeton, joined a Boston start-up as a protein engineer, and then spent two years as a scientist with biotech company Zymergen. Over the years, Koos has been pursuing more and more work that allows him to learn the computational side of research. As machine learning has increasingly become part of the equation, he sees its potential to “more intelligently design new research and better experiments in the future.” ●
The company has repurposed more than 37 million plastic bottles.
Accolades: Forbes 2020 30 Under 30 list, EY Entrepreneur of the Year winners (2021)
Jake and Caroline both majored in geography at Colgate.
They come from a long line of alumni, including father Kevin ’83, uncle Jack ’46, cousin John ’78, grandfather Bud ’60, and great-grandfather Lester 1921.
“It’s been incredible to work with Caroline,” Jake says. “I remember it like yesterday when we would work on Fair Harbor in between classes at the Ho Science Center. Although that was a long time ago, we still work together every day and share the same vision for what we want Fair Harbor to become. It’s been an incredible journey, and I can’t wait to see what we accomplish together in the next 10 years.” ●
THE HOMETOWN HERO
These days, Nathan Eachus ’12 rarely talks about his career in sports. The former running back for the Kansas City Chiefs spends his days tackling bigger issues — environmental justice.
Since retiring from the NFL and moving back to his home state of Pennsylvania, Eachus has become passionate about watershed health and stewardship. A partner with Pure Green BioAg, a renewable biofuels production company, since 2022, Eachus got involved with Penn State University’s Master Watershed Program after learning more about the rampant pollution in his hometown in Luzerne County, Pa. — a byproduct of the region’s long history in coal mining.
“One of the dirtiest streams in the state is near my old middle school,” says Eachus, referring to the Little Nescopeck Creek in Drums, Pa., a waterway heavily polluted by acid mine drainage.
Through his work with the Penn State Extension Luzerne County Council, Eachus applied for funding from the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and Penn State University; in spring 2024, he was awarded a grant to create educational workshops for area middle and high schoolers. With Eachus at the helm, the programs teach teens about the long-term effects of industrial heavy metal runoff and chemical pollution — and what they can do to help.
“We’ll go out to streams and plant trees to create riparian buffers,” says Eachus, explaining how strips of vegetation help protect water from the impact of land contaminants. He also leads environmental cleanups, rain barrel workshops, and lessons in water-quality sampling. Eachus kicked off the program last June with a group of high schoolers at Scranton Preparatory School.
“These kids grow up observing the effects of [pollution], but they’re not necessarily learning about it in school or at home,” says Eachus, explaining how the region’s environmental issues have become especially fraught and politicized in recent years. “This grant will help kids become more educated about the impact of industrial pollution in their communities. Because, if no one is speaking up and educating kids, we’ll never find solutions.” ● PIVOTAL
Early 1980s: Vilma’s parents emigrate from Haiti to the U.S. “They viewed education as the path to economic mobility,” he says.
April 17, 1992: Vilma is born in Queens, N.Y. “I attribute a lot of my success to teachers and principals who invested in me at a young age.”
August 2010: He enrolls at Colgate, where he (among many other activities) majors in French and sociology and anthropology, participates in the Caribbean Student Association, is vice president of Konosioni, builds an event planning company through Thought Into Action, interns with Colgate’s advancement office, and volunteers for Let’s Get Ready (a national nonprofit that supports youth from historically underrepresented backgrounds in their college prep).
2014–21: Holds teaching, admission, and annual giving roles for various institutions, including Babson College and MIT Sloan School of Management
2020: Earns an MS in education entrepreneurship from University of Pennsylvania
January 2021: Gets an offer from Let’s Get Ready to join its team as director of individual giving
2021: Starts his MBA and MS in digital technology at Boston University
January 2022: Founds Bevy Studio, through which he continues to consult social impact organizations
September 2024: Let’s Get Ready promotes him to senior philanthropic adviser and campaign director
Today: While leading Let’s Get Ready’s $10 million campaign, he does his graduate work part time, mentors current Thought Into Action students, and is a member of the Alumni Council. “Education is my passion,” he says. ●
A SNAPSHOT OF TARA CAREY ’13 HARTWICK, MANAGER OF SPORTS PARTNERSHIPS FOR SNAP INC.
She caters to sports fans and Swifties alike: Hartwick kicked off her career in sports marketing with roles at HBO, FOX Sports, and the NFL. In 2016 she joined the team at Snap Inc., the tech giant behind Snapchat, where she manages and oversees partnerships with sports leagues and organizations, including the NFL, NBA, and Olympic committees, to create shortform, digestible clips that cater to a young, impatient audience. “Die-hard fans are always going to watch the entire game on the big screen, but more casual fans just want the highlights, and they’re mostly consuming that content in the digital space,” she explains. “Sometimes that’s a fiveminute Snapchat video that covers all the biggest plays, and sometimes it’s playing up the pop culture side of the game,” she says, adding that “of course, we’ve been covering the Taylor Swift–Travis Kelce romance.”
She’s got sports and Colgate in her blood: Hartwick (who married Charlie Hartwick ’12 in 2023) is the daughter of Trustee Emeritus Chase ’76 and Wendy Carey. Her family, along with brother Steve ’12, made the 2022 gift that is helping fund the University’s new Carey Center athletics facility. Tara has been “passionate about sports” since childhood — and captained the club squash team during her Colgate years. ●
MARC FOTO ’12,
BY THE NUMBERS
Although he was given a set of golf clubs for his 15th birthday, it would take another 17 years for Marc Foto ’12 to pursue a professional golf career. Now known as the “long drive lawyer,” the attorneyturned-athlete found a hidden ability in this sport that champions whoever can hit the ball the farthest.
181.8 mph: On his first attempt, Foto recorded a staggering ball speed of 181.8 mph. “The average on the PGA Tour at that time for how fast the ball leaves the club on a driver was 167 mph. Having not picked up a club in nine months, having never taken a lesson before in my life, the first time I was on the [Trackman simulator], I hit 181.8 mph. So, I’m like, ‘That’s pretty cool.’”
201 mph: Fastest ball speed, after training
4/2021: “I started training, and I entered my first-ever long drive event a couple of months later in April 2021. I just walked up there and hit the ball, and I won.”
32: Age when he quit his law firm to become a professional long drive golfer. “I have to see what’s here for me. If I don’t do this, I’m going to regret it for the rest of my life.”
15+: Number of golf club shafts that Foto has snapped
9th: Finished place in the 2023 Amateur World Championships
108th: Current world ranking
389 yards: Longest drive
Seven: Foto and his friends play the Seven Oaks golf course every year ●
Basketball has taken Randy Butler ’16 from Cotterell Court to Coleraine, Northern Ireland. Her home court these days is with Philadelphia Youth Basketball (PYB): Butler is the vice president of program operations and impact at the youth development nonprofit, which combines basketball training and mentorship to create a holistic support system for kids and teens. Some points along Butler’s path include:
At Colgate, Coach Nicci Hays made sure her basketball team was building meaningful relationships both on and off the court, connecting players to organizations like the food cupboard and Hamilton Hoops. “She ensured that we were a part of the Hamilton community, which is what really helped my experience because I dipped my toe into what community was about.”
After an injury during her senior season at Colgate, Butler had to look beyond her personal performance. The Patriot League nominated her to join Sport Change Life as a Victory scholar, and the timing was perfect. “It’s an amazing organization that aligned with my values and my passions — community being one of them, basketball being the other.”
“When I first joined PYB in 2017, the mission was always to build an organization, a program, and a center.” In June 2024, PYB opened a 100,000-square-foot facility to house its operations. “This center provides everything young people need to thrive academically and intellectually, socially and emotionally, and civically and vocationally,” says Butler.
During her 2016–17 year as a Victory scholar in Northern Ireland, Butler mentored youth (both Protestant and Catholic), played basketball for a local team, and earned her master’s degree in sports psychology at Ulster University.
“We’re looking to reach 3,000 kids this year.” One of PYB’s initiatives that Butler helped found is HoopHers, a female-led girls’ empowerment program. ●
PYB hosted Colgate and other Patriot League men’s basketball teams last September “to engage with our young people and [help them] learn what it means to be a studentathlete,” Butler says. “For us, this is bigger than basketball, and we are so happy to be in partnership with these teams.”
TAKING CHARGE
For being the record holder as the all-time leading scorer of Colgate Women’s Ice Hockey and the second overall pick in the 2024 Professional Women’s Hockey League (PWHL) draft, Danielle Serdachny ’24 is surprisingly humble. She’ll tell you, for example, that one of the highlights of her playing career was winning the gold medal with Team Canada in Utica last spring, but she won’t be the one to bring up the fact that she scored the game-winning goal. More about Serdachny:
→ Hometown: Edmonton, Alberta
→ Position: forward
→ Height: 5'9"
→ Recruited to play for Colgate Women’s Ice Hockey; captained the team her senior and fifth years (she earned an extra year because of the pandemic)
→ Played 179 regular season games for Colgate, finishing as the program’s all-time leading scorer , with 238 points
→ At the PWHL draft in Saint Paul, Minn., last June, Serdachny was presented with her Ottawa Charge stick by Billie Jean King and Ilana Kloss (who were integral in founding the PWHL).
→ Hockey News called Serdachny “the best pro from this draft … Serdachny has outproduced every NCAA player in this draft over the past three seasons, and in fact, stretching back to 2021–22, she was already outproducing many of the current pros in the PWHL.”
→ She’s the first female ambassador for the Edmonton Oilers’ Every Kid Deserves a Shot organization, serving as a role model for young players.
→ Learned from the best: Her dad was a longtime skating and skills coach for the Oilers. ●
SOLE FOCUS: JAKE PULVER ’16, GLOBAL DIGITAL MARKETING LEAD FOR JORDAN BRAND STREETWEAR, NIKE
“I zeroed in on Nike as a top company in my senior year at Colgate. I connected with Sean Cusick ’04, who was with Nike at the time. After sharing my story and passion for the brand, Sean put me on his team’s radar for a temporary contract role, and I eventually landed full time in brand marketing. There, I learned all the ins and outs while creating regional marketing plans for some of Nike’s biggest lifestyle and running launch moments. Though much of my work was behind the scenes, it was gratifying to see the consumer connection firsthand at events like ComplexCon, NBA All-Star Weekend, and the Chicago Marathon.”
“As a brand manager for Nike’s Global Energy marketing team, I worked with visionary design and entertainment leaders to bring our stories to market. I learned so much about operating on the edges of creativity from partners like iconic streetwear brand Stüssy and the late Virgil Abloh, arguably the most prolific and inspirational designer of our generation.”
“In my current role, I orchestrate digital marketing plans to support our Jordan Brand Streetwear business, namely for our Jordan Retros. It’s amazing to work for a brand that has as deep reverence and the platform that Jordan Brand does and to be directly impacting the culture that first drew my intrigue as a kid.”
“My favorite pair of Nike sneakers is the 2005 ‘Tiffany’ Nike SB Dunk Low in collaboration with Diamond Supply Co. The design has always been a standout favorite, with smooth aqua leather, crocodileembossed black leather, and the chrome swoosh, combining for an eye-catching look. It’s also a reminder of my early days in sneakers and the genuine nature of it all.” ●
Pulver’s twin brother, Dylan ’16, is also in a marketing role at Nike.
“I was a girl who grew up consumed with sports at all levels.”
AHEAD OF THE GAME: JACKIE FINN ’13, DIRECTOR OF THE NFL’S GLOBAL BRAND AND CONSUMER MARKETING
→ 2 major brand advertising campaigns she manages each year: kickoff and the Super Bowl
→ 3 main marketing global brand pillars for her team: brand advertising, tune-in consumption, and attendance
→ 10+ campaigns that she and her team can be working on at the same time. “That could be briefing our creative agency or building integrated and go-to-market plans. That’s something we’re building right now, for example, for our international games.”
→ 1 Sports Emmy: She and her team won for their “Run With It” 2023 Super Bowl campaign. “Bringing it to life is not just airing the spot in the game itself. It’s working with PR, social, our influencer marketing team, and our players in our clubs — making this a 360-degree integrated campaign to tell this story. To bring that to life — obviously not alone, but our team spearheaded it — was one of the proudest moments of my career.”
→ 33: Diana Flores Arenas’ number. The Mexican flag football player and ambassador for the NFL was the star of the “Run With It” campaign. “Flag football has become a key priority for the organization,” says Finn, who adds, “participation in the sport is the number one driver for fandom of the NFL overall.” The sport is an accessible way for kids — especially young girls — and women to get involved in football.
→ 2028: The NFL played a role in flag football being selected as a 2028 Olympic sport, and there’s a momentum in women’s sports right now, Finn asserts. “We got to integrate Billie Jean King into [‘Run With It’], which is incredible because she was, I’d say, the first female athlete to break barriers.” Finn adds, “I truly believe that the spot was a historic moment for the NFL.”
→ 59: At press time, Finn and her team were working on the Super Bowl 59 commercial for the 2025 event in New Orleans.
→ 5th season with the NFL. Finn’s previous roles include manager of marketing operations for the Big East Conference, social media and digital content producer for the United States Tennis Association, and manager of partnership marketing and activation for The Drone Racing League.
→ 8 a.m. “I was a girl who grew up consumed with sports at all levels, from playing to watching. My father used to leave the New York Times sports section on the kitchen table every morning when I was a kid. At Colgate, I’d turn on SportsCenter at 8 a.m.”
→ 1st and 2nd years at Colgate: covered sports for CUTV
→ ’77 and ’82: Her dad, Rich, and her uncle, Gregg, respectively, were on the Colgate tennis team. Jackie was injured her first year but played sophomore through senior year. “Tennis is very much a Finn family hobby.” ●
THE INGREDIENTS TO SUCCESS
11: years since Joey Petracca ’13 (above, left) and Yuni Baker-Saito ’13 created Chicory, a contextual advertising company that turns online recipes into advertising opportunities and shoppable content, as seniors at Colgate.
123 million: unique shoppers who use Chicory each month
70+: retailers currently using Chicory’s shoppable technology, including Kroger, Walmart, Target, and Whole Foods.
30,000: dollars raised during the 2013 Thought Into Action event, when Petracca and Baker-Saito first pitched their idea to a panel of investors, including Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and Hamdi Ulukaya, CEO of Chobani. That initial funding helped the duo bring Chicory to market.
2020: the year the partners earned a spot on Forbes 30 Under 30
50+: employees who currently work for Chicory, both remotely and from its New York City headquarters. In 2020 tech site Built In named Chicory one of “NYC’s Best Small Companies to Work For.” ●
When a region on chromosome 16 is deleted or duplicated, it can increase the risk of developing bipolar disorder, autism, and schizophrenia. “There are families where this copy number variation is passed down, so they experience these disorders generation after generation,” says Marlene Lawston ’20. She’s an MD/PhD student at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry and an NIH-Oxford Scholar, now in her third year of working toward a DPhil in biomedical sciences. In her labs at the NIH and Oxford, Lawston uses stem cell models and genetic testing from families with the 16p11.2 duplication/deletion disorders to better understand the disorders at a cellular level.
At Colgate:
→ Majored in molecular biology, minored in Chinese
→ Conducted research on stem cell biology and molecular neurobiology in the lab of Jason Meyers, associate professor of biology and neuroscience
→ Completed an honors thesis investigating sensory organ development and regeneration in blind cave fish. This project provided the basis for her Beckman and Goldwater scholarships. She won one of the top poster prizes at the 78th Society for Developmental Biology Conference for her work on cave fish development.
→ Volunteered as an EMT with Southern Madison County Volunteer Ambulance Corps (SOMAC) for all four years
Chose Colgate because: On an admission tour, she inquired about student research opportunities and learned that she would be able to dive in as soon as her first year. “That’s something I didn’t find anywhere else.” She adds: “And being in charge of my own projects served me well.”
Preparation: She took the New York State EMT course and was certified as a senior in high school, planning to volunteer with SOMAC when she arrived on campus.
Motivation: “I was always interested in research that would impact health care,” Lawston says, explaining that she had health issues as a child “so I developed an appreciation for the medical system.”
Future goals: “I see myself leaning toward clinical work, although I’m definitely interested in continuing to be a part of research in some capacity, such as having patients in clinical trials. I find, during my research, I really miss the patient interaction. It’s very meaningful as a clinician to be able to help people on an individual level.”
“There will be plenty of people who do not support you or your vision, and that is OK. Worthwhile endeavors are almost never easy and can be riddled with setbacks. But setbacks, in conjunction with careful contemplation, can often lead to monumental successes.”
‘DREAM BIG’: JESSICA JOHNSON ’22
Her work as an NIH Oxford-Cambridge Scholar: “I split my four-year doctor of philosophy [program] between the NIH [National Institutes of Health] and the University of Oxford. I am currently at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development’s Unit for Vascular Malformations in Bethesda, Md. This unit specializes in replicating lymphatic anomalies diagnosed in young patients in zebrafish, treating said zebrafish with drug therapies, and then bringing the successful therapeutics back to the patients. Next fall, I will head to Oxford to begin studying the physics behind these vascular malformations computationally.
Her Colgate major: “I entered Colgate as a neuroscience and German double major, with the intent of going to medical school, potentially specializing in pediatrics. I left as an astrogeophysics major, German minor, interested in aerospace medicine.”
Her journey to the ends of the Earth: “In the first year of my NIH Postbaccalaureate Intramural Research Training Award fellowship in 2022, I paused my biomedical
research and returned to my planetary science roots to complete a field season in the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica. A member of Associate Professor of Earth and Environmental Geosciences Joe Levy’s team, I went during austral summer (October to February) to study the subsurface thaw patterns and biogeochemical distributions of glacially mediated water tracks in the dirtladen Dry Valleys, which is the largest ice-free area in Antarctica.”
Her most inspiring encounter: “One of the most interesting people I met at the South Pole was a woman named Cheryl, who was one of three Black women on station, including myself, and her job consisted of driving the vehicular behemoth known as ‘The Kress.’ She came to support my station talks and was a great source of advice for navigating such a remote environment. The day I met her, she stared at me wide-eyed and said, ‘Wow! I knew we [Black people] were here [on McMurdo Station] — I just didn’t know we were out there [in the field, advancing the science].’ At the time I was 22 and, because of her comment, the privilege of being able to conduct research in this space as a Black woman began to resonate. That notion was both daunting and exhilarating, and an experience I will carry with me for the rest of my life.”
Her NASA connection: “This past fall, I found out that my first undergrad project under Professor Levy’s supervision, using drones to record hyperspectral measurements of surface water in desert soils, was funded by NASA. They are scouting it for future Mars Missions, which is unbelievably exciting.”
Her words of wisdom: “I hope that my work inspires students of color, especially Black students, to dream big despite the pervasive obstacles we face. There will be plenty of people who do not support you or your vision, and that is OK. Worthwhile endeavors are almost never easy and can be riddled with setbacks. But setbacks, in conjunction with careful contemplation, can often lead to monumental successes.” ●
Johnson’s academic achievements at Colgate earned her a bevy of recognitions: the Valentine Piotrow Prize in German Excellence, DAAD Rise Fellowship, Phi Beta Kappa Daniel H. Saracino Prize for Scholarship of Exceptional Merit, Physics and Astronomy Joseph C. Amato and Anthony F. Aveni Award for Student Research, NIH Intramural Research Training Award, NSF Graduate Research Fellowship, and the Antarctica Service Medal.
Endeavor
Scripting a Moon Landing
Rose Gilroy ’16 penned the screenplay for Fly Me to the Moon
Growing up in Los Angeles, with movie-business parents (actress Rene Russo and screenwriter and director Dan Gilroy), Rose Gilroy ’16 saw the downsides of Hollywood up close and was determined to pursue a different field.
“I tried actively not to do it,” says Gilroy, who majored in political science and psychology at Colgate. She never even took a film class on the hill.
Nevertheless, four years after Gilroy graduated, Scarlett Johansson’s production company hired her to write the screenplay for last summer’s Fly Me to the Moon — a $100 million romantic comedy starring Johansson and Channing Tatum.
The film is Gilroy’s first Hollywood job. She was brought on after producers at
Johansson’s production company admired her writing samples and asked if she was interested in penning a script about the 1969 Apollo moon landing. She wrote the first 15 pages on spec and was hired.
Initially, Johansson planned to serve solely as the film’s producer, but the actress liked the script so much that she decided to star in it as well, says Gilroy, who is still based in Los Angeles.
To write the script, Gilroy started by reading everything she could find about Apollo 11, the famous spaceflight where Neil Armstrong became the first person to step on the lunar surface. Gilroy drew on oral histories from NASA employees and interviewed several people who worked there in 1969.
The film captures the “Wild West culture
of NASA” during the 1960s, explains Gilroy, such as a scene in which Tatum’s character detects a hydrogen leak by holding a broom over a canister and watching as it’s engulfed in flames. Gilroy read about the “broom method” during her research and decided “this has to make it into the movie,” she says.
Gilroy spent several days doing research at the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, where filming took place, and visited again for a week during the making of the movie. Watching actors utter the words from her script “was surreal,” she says.
One of Gilroy’s happiest moments was watching Fly Me to the Moon on its opening day in the theater, with friends and family in tow. She loves that the film depicts a period “when all of America was committed to a cause,” she says. “It was a singular event that united everyone.”
Next up for Gilroy: She currently has another script in development, a psychological thriller called The Pack, which follows a group of documentary filmmakers who venture into a remote corner of Alaska to protect an endangered species of wolves. Alexander Skarsgård is slated to direct and star in it.
“I feel grateful I get to do what I love every day,” she says.
— Jennifer Altmann
Gilroy’s Tips for Becoming a Screenwriter
→ Polish your research and writing skills. As an undergraduate, Gilroy was a research assistant for political science professor Nina Moore. That position “taught me more than any film class could have,” Gilroy says. “Being good at research gives you a huge edge.”
→ Read every script you can get your hands on. “Every script of every movie is online,” Gilroy says. “I read hundreds of them. If I’m working on a specific genre, I go back and read 20 scripts in that genre.”
→ Be prepared for a lot of hard work. “Screenwriting is not easy. It’s not supposed to be easy. It’s hours in front of the computer alone. It’s not glamorous,” she says. “I live in a state of writer’s block. For every one great day of writing, I probably have 10 that are hard.”
Gilroy has worked with several alumni in Hollywood. Her college roommate, Nicole Brookman ’16, is one of her agents at Creative Artists Agency (CAA). Talent manager Josh Glick ’12 and CAA agent Pete Stein ’12 have provided support, as has Steven Brookman ’81, Nicole’s father, who is co-head of motion picture business affairs at CAA.
A Contemporary Clown
From his circus roots to fame in France, Bernie Collins ’78 has built a career by bringing the laughs.
For a professional clown with more than 40 years of experience, Bernie Collins ’78 is surprisingly subdued. With bright blue eyes and a relaxed demeanor (no red nose or floppy shoes in sight), the real-life Collins is a far cry from the frenetic, bespectacled character he plays as one half of BP Zoom, the clown comedy duo he created with partner Phillipe Martz in the early 1990s. Their act, hailed as “a wonderful piece of contemporary clowning [with] timeless appeal” by Total Theatre Magazine, has earned Collins — who has lived in France since 1989 — a host of international comedy awards. BP Zoom continues to entertain audiences of children and adults at cabarets and festivals throughout France, Latin America, Singapore, China, and Japan. In a recent chat with Collins, Colgate Magazine learned these five facts about his long career in clowning:
1
During his Colgate years, he (almost) ran off and joined the circus.
In between his first and second years at Colgate, Collins took a summer gig with a traveling circus. Along with setting up tents and rigging high wires, Collins negotiated his way into the clown act, where he tried his hand at performing and discovered he had a knack for a clown’s brand of emotive, physical comedy. If it weren’t for an injury he sustained during a tent blowdown, his life, most likely, would have followed a very different path. “I was ready to stay with the circus full-time,” he says. “But after my injury, the people I was working with really encouraged me to go back to Colgate in the fall.”
2
He discovered his passion in Colgate’s London Study Group.
An English major, Collins chose to study vaudeville during his time abroad. As part of his research, he took in a performance of The Moving Picture Mime Show, an avantgarde trio of mimes. “Something clicked,” he remembers. “I walked out of the theater knowing that was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.” When he learned that the group’s members had just graduated from the Jacques Lecoq Theater School in Paris, he was determined to enroll himself — and he did years later, after earning his degree from Colgate and learning basic French.
3
He’s his own muse.
Over the years, Collins has cultivated a character based on his own personality, leaning heavily on his flaws. “As a clown, you’re theatricalizing your faults,” says Collins. “That’s where the humor is.” He compares his onstage rapport with his BP Zoom partner to that of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis, with Collins
playing the “rigid, controlling straight man” to his partner’s affable fool. “It’s certainly exaggerated, but that need for order is a real part of my personality.”
4
He’s learned that some gags don’t translate. According to Collins, clowns have endured because slapstick comedy is universal. But in touring the world with BP Zoom, he has also observed how humor can vary based on a culture’s customs. In Japan, recalls Collins, a scene in which his partner suddenly falls off the stage was met with coveredmouth silence. “Our interpreter explained that culturally, the Japanese will not laugh at a foreigner who has embarrassed himself in public,” he says. “It’s considered deeply impolite.”
Similarly, a joke that involved launching a pretend hot-air balloon by tossing out a sack of potatoes didn’t seem to land with audiences in Brazil. “We realized that, to them, potatoes just weren’t funny,” he says. The duo visited a Brazilian market and asked around in search of a “heavy, comical food” that would help audiences get the joke. The unlikely solution? A large mackerel. They featured the fish in the next Brazilian show and left the audience in stitches.
5
He brings laughter to kids when they need it most. For more than 30 years, Collins has worked with Le Rire Medecin, a French nonprofit that trains clowns to work in pediatric hospitals, performing and accompanying children during medical procedures to reduce fear and anxiety. “That kind of interaction is simple,” he says, “but it has proved to be so beneficial.”
— Mary Donofrio
Illustration by Oliver Weiss
Comedy
Setting the Table in the Mountains of Montana
Jarrett Wrisley ’02 spent two decades cooking, writing, and launching restaurants on the other side of the world before finding a new culinary home in Montana.
Just eight months after opening for business, Chef Jarrett Wrisley ’02 got the call that his new Bozeman, Mont., restaurant, Shan, had been nominated for the James Beard Foundation’s 2024 best new restaurant in the U.S.
“It was a shock,” says Wrisley, and Shan (rhymes with “pan”) was a finalist at the ceremony in Chicago. Now, after nearly two years as Shan’s proprietor, Wrisley has settled comfortably in the Rocky Mountains, half a world away from his culinary roots in the Far East.
Majoring in Asian studies and Chinese at Colgate, Wrisley’s on-the-ground introduction to China was a semester at Beijing University. That was followed by an internship with the New York Stock Exchange, and he was mulling a Wall Street career, but his heart was not in it. A week following his last day interning, the events of Sept. 11, 2001, devastated international finance. “That made the decision for me,” says Wrisley, and he went back to China. “I traveled, learned Chinese with greater fluency, and worked as a freelance food writer.”
For several successful years, he penned travel and culinary pieces for magazines and newspapers in Asia and the U.S., including the Atlantic, Time, Food & Wine, Travel + Leisure, and National Geographic. “I got paid to travel and eat,” he says. “A lot of my stories were centered around culture, socioeconomic conditions, and politics. Food intersected all of these.”
When he moved to Thailand in 2008, he arrived in the middle of a coup d’état, and he was assigned to cover the crisis for the Atlantic. “My way of explaining what was happening in Thailand in political terms was to go to the rallies and write about the things people were eating there because what they were eating reflected where they were from, and where they were from was a reflection of their political identity,” he says.
However, a financial crisis forced another pivot as magazines went digital, and the Great Recession caused payments to shrink, and checks were late, he says. “At that time, I didn’t see a future in journalism for me.”
With the considerable culinary knowledge he digested while researching Thailand’s regional cuisines, Wrisley took a leap and
opened his first restaurant, Soul Food, in Bangkok, which received the Michelin Guide’s Big Gourmand award. A second location was established in Hong Kong, and he wrote two Chinese food cookbooks.
The plaudits and honors kept coming when he opened two Italian trattorias, both called Appia (named one of the world’s best 50 restaurants by Monocle magazine), in Bangkok with friend and frequent collaborator Paolo Vitaletti. Appia was born of extensive travels in Italy, which also resulted in an awardwinning cookbook, The Roads to Rome. In 2017, Wrisley opened a Thai restaurant with Black Restaurant Group in Hong Kong, and he launched a fast casual noodle and sandwich shop and a pizzeria in Bangkok.
The frenetic pace and yearslong toil shaped the work he loved, but like so many, his life changed once again with the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. “The scene in Bangkok was dire. It went from the most visited tourist city in the world to having zero arrivals,” he says. In 2020 and 2021, he closed all but the Appia restaurants and the pizzeria, which catered to the Bangkok upper class unable to leave the country.
It was time to start anew. Leaving his home and businesses in 2021 was humbling, he says. “I said goodbye to my life in Asia. I just let it all go.”
He bought an old Subaru, a tent, and some sleeping bags and drove around the U.S. for four months with his wife, Candice, and their son, August, looking for a place to live, he says. “I hadn’t lived here in 22 years.”
The trio traveled to Montana because they’d never been there before, but they knew immediately Bozeman was their new home. “I swore I’d never open a restaurant again,” he says, “but I didn’t want to work for anyone else.” The couple found a small restaurant space — its name, Shan, is the Chinese character for “mountain.”
“I cook traditional mountain food from China and Thailand with products from Montana, even from this valley,” says Wrisley, who, for example, makes dan dan noodles with Meishan pork, “which is a Chinese breed, but it’s raised by a pig farmer 10 miles up the road.”
He’s reaching back to what he knows, he adds. “My goal when I opened Shan was to build a bridge between this little mountain town and my previous life in Asia, and I think I’ve accomplished that. I think that’s one of the coolest things I could possibly do.”
— Laurie McLaughlin
Wrisley admits he’s always been food obsessed: “I started cooking when I was 6 or 7 years old, and by 9 or 10, I was cooking dinner for my family. I could always remember every dish I’d ever eaten at a restaurant from the age of 5.”
Jason Michael Lang (Wrisley); Allison Evans (Vetrano)
Wrisley and wife Candice at their Bozeman eatery
The Tudor Time Traveler
Vetrano’s novel puts Queen Elizabeth I on the campaign trail.
Maria Vetrano ’86 was heartbroken by Hillary Clinton’s loss in the 2016 presidential election. She wondered, “If Clinton — one of the most prepared candidates in history — can’t get elected, what woman could?” It would have to be someone larger than life.
Vetrano imagines a world where Elizabeth travels to the year 2028 to run against a tyrannical U.S. president.
Vetrano has always been drawn to strong women leaders. As a girl in upstate New York, she scoured the school library for books about powerful women but found very few. “The contributions of women were nearly invisible,” says Vetrano. That’s why, when she stumbled upon the Masterpiece Theatre miniseries Elizabeth R, she became captivated by the queen, a savvy politician who brought religious stability to England and fostered the arts while evading numerous assassination attempts.
Vetrano studied English literature at Colgate, where she also played rugby and ice hockey and wrote for the Maroon. After graduation, she moved to Boston and took her first job selling textbooks to professors, where she honed her ability to explain unfamiliar content — a skill that serves her well today in her consultancy work translating technical material for semiconductor companies. She’s made the Boston area her home and now lives in Woburn with her wife of 34 years. Nearby lives her 24-year-old daughter, with whom she created an entire storybook world at bedtime. “We were way into backstories,” she says. Together, they crafted a cast of characters who went on adventures that Vetrano plans to write as a series of children’s books titled Tails of Big Cat Mountain
But first, the novel. Vetrano embarked on extensive research, diving into dozens of biographies and interviewing historians to learn about daily life in Elizabethan England — what people ate, how often they bathed, and what they did for entertainment. She and her wife, whose family lives in England, visited historic sites featured in the book, including Hatfield Palace, Elizabeth’s childhood home, and Westminster Abbey, where her body is interred. “I got to sit in the same throne that Elizabeth sat in when she was 25 years old and received her first parliament,” Vetrano says. “I pretty much cried.”
Drawing on her PR and marketing expertise, Vetrano is busy promoting a new client: herself. Her greatest promotional asset, she says, is the rich iconography associated with Queen Elizabeth, like her iconic ruffled collar, elaborate gowns, and distinctive crown. She commissioned her friend Marie Ahearn ’85 to envision a modern-day Elizabeth and used this imagery along with a Tudor rose–inspired logo for her website and a range of merchandise, including sweatshirts, hats, stickers, and totes. Elizabeth even has a voice on Facebook under the name “Elizabeth Rex,” where she posts as herself. (“Sleep wast fleeting
I got to sit in the same throne that Elizabeth sat in when she was 25 years old and received her first parliament.
last night after bearing witness to the #presidentialdebate.”)
For the October 2024 book launch, Vetrano organized a season of campaigning and events while outlining two more books about Queen Bess. She hopes to see the series adapted into a miniseries, which she’s already cast in her head (Tilda Swinton as Queen Bess!). While awaiting her first reviews, she sent a copy of the book and a selection of swag to the one critic whose opinion matters most: Hillary Clinton. In return, she received a signed note of thanks from the former first lady. “Hopefully, she likes it,” Vetrano says. — Lara Ehrlich
WHat’s on elizabeth’s playlist
Accomplished on both lute and virginal (a type of harpsichord), Elizabeth enjoyed playing and listening to music. In the modern day of Queen Bess, she’s reveling in the ability to stream any song at will and has created a playlist full of powerful women like Taylor Swift, Whitney Houston, Lady Gaga, and Lizzo.
Listen to Elizabeth’s playlist on Spotify at https://spoti.fi/3zEmDoH or Apple Music at https://bit.ly/3XLg4bT.
Maria
SALMAGUNDI
That Time a Colgate Student Sat on the Republican National Committee
Imagine late May 1860, on the cusp of Abraham Lincoln’s presidency.
The Republican National Committee, running low on funds and scrambling to fill their seats, asks you — a rising senior at Colgate (then Madison University) — to stop by Chicago to partake in their pre-election convention. Someone has to fill the committee-alloted seat, and you just happen to be traveling back east from Oregon City, Ore., to Hamilton, N.Y., to resume your theological studies. So you do what 23-year-old Frank Johnson, Class of 1861, did: You agree to make a pit stop in Illinois.
Held to nominate the Republican Party’s candidates for president and vice president,
the 1860 Republican National Convention was one of the emptiest in American history, missing Southern delegates who withdrew due to the party’s anti-slavery platform. Selecting
a reliable presidential candidate, then, depended on gathering the most complete committee possible — even if it meant pulling in a student. With six seats allotted for Oregon, the state faced a special challenge: it was distanced from Chicago by several weeks of travel. Because Johnson was already planning to pass through that area on his way to Hamilton, he could stop by.
When the committee finally met at the convention, the ragtag composition of their delegates made all the difference in determining a historic presidency. At the outset of the convention, it was assumed that Sen. William H. Seward (N.Y.)
Looking Back on Jan Plan
In 1964, following another scenic fall on Colgate’s campus, students finished their finals and packed lightly — they wouldn’t be heading home for the height of the winter. It was the first year of Jan Plan: a new arrangement shortening the fall and spring semesters to make way for a fourweek study period in January. And despite the cold — for the love of academia — students pitched personalized topics to faculty members of interest.
When the committee finally met at the convention, the ragtag composition of their delegates made all the difference in determining a historic presidency.
would be the front-runner. But it was ultimately his opponent, Abraham Lincoln (Ill.), who consolidated the most votes from committee members. This phenomenon and Johnson’s unexpected appointment to the committee are explained in The Lincoln Miracle: Inside the Republican Convention That Changed History by Edward Achorn (February 2023, Atlantic Monthly Press).
— Tate Fonda ’25
In Becoming Colgate: A Bicentennial History, James Allen Smith ’70 states how, in the words of then-Dean of Faculty John Morris, this new approach to the academic calendar was implemented to “break the educational lockstep” of the standard five courses each semester. By shifting to a 4-1-4 format and engaging students with an independent study experience between the fall and spring semesters, Jan Plan made way for a variety of projects across disciplines.
One of the most influential Jan Plan programs — for both the students and faculty involved — was led by Professor of Astronomy, Anthropology, and Native American Studies Anthony Aveni (now emeritus). During the Jan Plan program and subsequently, Aveni coordinated approximately 30 van trips to Mexico, introducing students to ancient Mesoamerican architecture and astronomy on-site.
“I could sense the excitement of young people in a new place, most of them independent of their families for the first time,” Aveni wrote in his 2014
book, Class Not Dismissed, of the first group he brought to Mexico City. “They were eager to explore, to see things, and to encounter new experiences for themselves.”
In the spirit of Colgate’s conversion to a coeducational university, Aveni’s trips incorporated female students as soon as 1970.
“Along the way, we had priceless opportunities to meet and talk with scholars in Mexico and countless culinary adventures that sometimes resulted in Montezuma's revenge,” Jill Seyfarth ’79 remarked in a submission to the Bicentennial site, Colgate at 200.
In other departments, students and faculty explored a range of projects during Jan Plan, including the study of classical art, chemistry,
woodworking, multicultural literature, and genetics. “What’s more, the experience was ungraded, just pass-fail,” says Aveni. “So a science student who wondered what it would be like to write a novel or a humanities student with a desire to learn what goes on in a chemistry lab could indulge in their curiosities without fear of penalty.”
Although the Jan Plan program formally ended in 1988, stretching the academic calendar back to a 16-week schedule, tenets of the program still remain a part of Colgate’s Core. Opportunities for extended and independent study retain the spirit of Jan Plan without breaking the conventions of the academic calendar.
In his 1969 book, A History of Colgate University, former
University Archivist Howard D. Williams underscores the impact of this program: “The University’s historian of the future may well evaluate this period as one which saw the most rapid and farreaching changes of any of the institution’s entire development.”
— Tate Fonda ’25
1. & 2. Professor Anthony Aveni coordinated approximately 30 student trips to Mexico.
3. Jonathan Geller ’72 did a woodworking project in Dana Arts Center for his Jan Plan.
During this past winter recess, Colgate welcomed 20–30 sophomores and juniors interested in careers in business for a new kind of January experience: the Colgate-Dartmouth Business Bridge Program. Designed in partnership with Dartmouth’s Tuck Business School, the program aims to connect the liberal arts experience with intensive business school training, provided by members of Tuck faculty.
Collect samples at Alaska’s Augustine Volcano p.31
Oversee America’s Poison Centers p.98 Earn the bronze at the USA Triathlon p.25
