Colgate Magazine — Winter 2021 by Colgate University

WINTER 2021

Students

Undeterred: Life on campus P.36 Alumni

Match Made in Hamilton P.28

Voices

Marveling at the Universe Together P.12

WHAT DOES THE FUTURE HOLD? P.46

look “We dance with the environment,” says Maximilian Spieler ’23 of those who practice parkour. “The goal of parkour is to use the human body and its high potential for agility to find the most effective, precise, and fast way from one place to another without any additional tools. The variation I am practicing here is free running, which borrows techniques from gymnastics and martial arts to incorporate flips into the set of movements, not necessarily adding to efficiency but rather emphasizing style and acrobatics.” Growing up in Frankfurt, Germany, he’s been training for more than eight years and is now licensed to coach. The mathematical economics and computer science major is executing a warped side flip in this photo.

mark diorio

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Photo / Art Credit

2 Colgate Magazine Winter 2021

look

mark diorio

A place of reflection. University Photographer Mark DiOrio snapped this chapel image in a puddle on the path in front of Lawrence Hall. He was on a photographic walkabout late one cold afternoon, looking for new ways to portray the campus. DiOrio positioned the camera close to the ground to get the chapel in the shot and waited for someone to walk by so that the pedestrian would add another visual layer to the photograph.

Read this issue and all previous issues at colgate.edu/magazine.

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Contents

WINTER 2021 President’s Message

Letters

Voices

Scene

Around the Table

Colgate News

‘Social’ Media To gauge how others are faring during the pandemic, Elle O’Brien ’20 polled her Instagram followers.

Discover

The Carbon Crew On separate continents, using different sky-based methodologies, Colgate researchers examine the lasting results of wildfires.

The Mysteries of Dark Matter A Colgate team studies the effects of a material that does not emit light or energy.

History in Action During the Pandemic Professor Monica Mercado is helping students connect the past to the present.

Marveling at the Universe Together Alina Sabyr ’19 traveled the world to study the power of looking up.

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Cover: Based on an illustration by Stuart Bradford. See p. 46

Undeterred Although campus life has been different this academic year, students have persisted through the hardship and cherished the high points.

What Does the Future Hold? Crystal ball not needed. Based on their areas of expertise, professors provide an assessment of our existence.

Photos: vaughan brookfield (universe), Justin Wolford (undeterred); illustrationS: Toby triumph (I voted), D'Ara Nazaryan (LOVE stories)

While quarantining together, Kanitha Heng ’09 Snow and her family bonded over Cambodian dishes, American treats, and comfort food.

Match Made in Hamilton Married alumni couples share their love stories.

Endeavor

Presenting Different Points of View

Vice President for Communications Laura H. Jack

Chris White ’91 hopes to broaden people’s perspectives through long-form documentary.

Managing Editor Aleta Mayne Assistant Editor Rebecca Docter

Welcome to the Apocalypse David Park ’02 ends the world in the SyFy animated show Hell Den.

Bridging Divides

The Storytellers

A forthcoming book by the Brookings Institution’s Nicol Turner ’90 Lee addresses digital inequalities.

Alumni create genre-spanning podcasts.

Alumni News

Communications Director Mark Walden Chief Creative Director Tim Horn Art Director Karen Luciani Designer Katriel Pritts University Photographer Mark DiOrio Production Assistant Kathy Jipson Contributors: Gordon Brillon, web content specialist; Daniel DeVries, media relations director; Sara Furlong, advancement communications manager; Jason Kammerdiener ’10, web manager; Katherine Laube, art director; Brian Ness, video journalism coordinator; John Painter, director of athletic communications; Kristin Putman, social media strategist Printed and mailed from Lane Press in South Burlington, Vt.

Illustrations: Delphine Lee (Right), Katriel Pritts (Top); Photo: Brian Ledden

Colgate Magazine Volume L Number 2 Colgate Magazine is a quarterly publication of Colgate University. Online: colgate.edu/magazine Email: magazine@colgate.edu Telephone: 315-228-7407 Change of Address: Alumni Records Clerk, Colgate University, 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, NY 13346-1398 Telephone: 315-228-7453

If you could have dinner with anyone, who would it be? Garner Simmons ’65 describes his imaginary meal with director Sam Peckinpah.

Salmagundi

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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 Marilyn Rugg, Associate Provost for Equity and Diversity, 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, NY 13346; 315-228-7288.

Winter 2021 Colgate Magazine 5

President’s Message What We’ve Learned Note: This column was written after the University announced plans to reopen for the spring 2021 semester. At the time of this writing, the pandemic had entered an acute phase, with COVID-19 infections and deaths rising. The University’s plan remains contingent on our capacity to open safely and in compliance with local, state, and federal guidelines.

t the completion of perhaps the most unusual and difficult semester in Colgate University’s history, it is important to look back and reflect on the months from August through November. After a semester with all students on campus, with extreme adjustments to nearly every facet of campus life, what did we learn?

It Was Hard Colgate, rightfully I believe, feels a sense of pride in the accomplishments of the semester. Through the work of dozens of staff and faculty members, two task forces, a health analytics team, and an Emergency Operations Center that made everything possible, we were able to do what few colleges and universities were able to achieve. Namely, we brought back all of our students and kept them — and the Village of Hamilton — safe during the period of on-campus instruction. During the last several weeks of the semester, our infection rate fell to near zero. Close to 1,000 students voluntarily took COVID-19 tests before returning home. All tested negative during that last testing round. In short, the plan worked. But, it was also extraordinarily hard. It would be challenging to describe the pressure on students and staff and faculty members to adjust to the plan and to the changing circumstances of the semester. How we taught, how we gathered, how we moved about the campus — all of this changed. As conditions changed, we often had to make difficult adjustments. And while there was a near universal agreement that being together was profoundly worth it, we should never forget the extent of the effort and the true emotional toil of making it through this hard time. For everyone. Place Matters Several years ago, the most heated argument in higher education was about the potential role of massive open online courses, or MOOCs . With new technologies, would it be possible to simply replace a campus-based experience with courses delivered by one or two national education providers? Did the campus actually matter? We learned that it does. Again, despite all the changes 6 Colgate Magazine Winter 2021

and significant inconveniences, despite the loss of fall football weekends and social gatherings, there was something important about being together on a campus. You could feel it as students walked to class, waited to pick up their packages, or (when we could return to dining halls) as we ate together in Frank. It was not simply nice that we were together — it was essential. We speak often about the beauty of this campus. We should also always speak about its power to sustain and connect us.

Communication Matters Early in planning our response to the pandemic, we decided to put a face to the crisis — to give it a voice. During the quarantine, we sent out daily emails to the entire campus, often with videos shot from my small room in West Hall. Even after the campus caught a rhythm of the new normal, we kept sending out emails and videos. In a crisis, people need information. They also need to know that there is a face behind the decisions. So, we learned, again, that you cannot communicate enough. We also learned that Colgate people — not just students, but also parents and alumni — will listen. I have often felt that Colgate can have a shyness about it, an unwillingness at times to speak. As the weeks went on, and as the emails were read and the videos watched, we could feel that hesitancy slip away. We learned to speak more directly, often with wit thrown in. In this dark period, Colgate found a new voice. We Are Capable of Doing Hard Things In January 2020, if someone had told me that we would ask all Colgate students to stay in their residences while coaches and staff members delivered them meals twice a day, I would have said that was impossible. If, in March, you told me we had to change every classroom and every dining facility to accommodate a radical new reality — and that this had to be done in four months — I would have, again, said this was impossible. If we were told we had to develop a comprehensive medical testing regime and provide new places for isolation and quarantining, yet again, I would have said we cannot do this. But Colgate did all of this. We learned we are capable of hard and great things. And as we think about our future — our third century — as we endlessly seek to enrich our academic program, support our faculty, improve residential life for all, extend the reach of our admissions and financial aid efforts, attract and retain an extraordinary staff, and strengthen our athletics, I hope we can remember this most important thing: We are a stronger Colgate, together. — Brian W. Casey

We were able to do what few colleges and universities were able to achieve.

Letters

Special Collections and University Archives

Coeducation Observations I just read your wonderfully written article about the first class of women at Colgate (“First Class,” autumn 2020, p. 24). However, I feel that you left out one important perspective — the thoughts and viewpoints of the men who were at Colgate at the time. Speaking for myself, if Colgate had not changed its policy, and if women had not begun entering Colgate in the fall of 1970, my years at Colgate would have been far less rewarding. The women who attended Colgate brought a richness — intellectually and socially — that was completely missing before their arrival. (By the way, if you asked me, I can’t even recall why I even thought that I would enjoy an all-male college.)

I was lucky to live in coed 84 Broad during my junior year and to be an RA in a coed freshman dorm my senior year. I knew several of the women whom you interviewed for your story. As they displayed, they and their fellow female graduates were bold, brash, and dauntless. Colgate and its male students were extremely lucky that the women opted to be such pioneers. P.S. In addition to praising President Bartlett and Dean Martin for their leadership during these initial years, I would also point out the contributions of Dean of Freshmen Karen Blank (RIP). Hiring a woman to be dean of freshmen and hiring Karen to fill that position certainly facilitated the implementation of coeducation at Colgate. Roy Lott ’73 I laughed when I read Gay Clark Jennings’ comment in “First Class” regarding the University “not thinking things through” in regard to welcoming the first class of women. I lived on the second floor of Center Stillman with 15 other freshman women. Our floor bathroom had one stalled toilet and two urinals, which we used as planters. During Thanksgiving break,

Dean of Freshmen Karen Blank (right) joined Colgate as it transitioned to coeducation.

the urinals were removed and replaced with a toilet without any separation. At some point, a shower curtain was installed around the new toilet to give the illusion of a stall. At least when someone was brushing her teeth at one of the two sinks she wasn’t able to sit in your lap. Laurie Nelson ’74 Pocius I remember attending the panel discussion when Colgate celebrated 20 years of coeducation, and I saved my commemorative T-shirt. I’m thankful for those first classes of women who paved the way for later generations. One of the reasons I decided to go to Colgate was that there was a woman editor of the Colgate Maroon at the time when I looked at the school. Sabrina Lanz ’91 Just like with African Americans, Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans, women (of all colors) just needed the opportunity and no one standing in the way, then they would fly to the stars. David Fort ’94 I was the third class to come through. It was really, really hard. But what groundbreaking change. Linda Buchanan ’77 Allen

Props to the Pioneers Regarding “And Away They Soared” (autumn 2020, p. 32): When I arrived at Colgate in 1990, it was the 20th anniversary of women being admitted. Throughout my four years, I heard many references to these graduates and how accomplished they were — and how fierce they must have been! They set a high bar and are still doing so. I am grateful. Tobi L. Hay ’94 Thirteen amazing Colgate women! Especially loved seeing the recognition for my spectacular Colgate roommate, Nancy Norris ’77 O’Dowd! Elizabeth Buchbinder ’77

An Important Addition I was in the second class of women admitted and would like to add another milestone to the women’s timeline (“This Is What Progress Looks Like,” autumn 2020, p. 38): the founding of the Swinging ’Gates, Colgate’s women’s a cappella group, in 1974. Joann Calderone ’75 Galley Defending Black Lives Matter Response to the letter from Jonathan Sherwyn ’78, “On BLM for MLK Commemoration” (autumn 2020, p. 7): As a member of the Presidents’ Club, the Annual Fund, and the Alumni Admission Program, you have an important responsibility in creating a safe and welcoming environment for the entire Colgate community. You’re expected to have a deep commitment to Colgate’s values. Your recent letter about Opal Tometi does not demonstrate this. Opal Tometi was named one of Time magazine’s 100 Most Influential People in 2020. She cofounded Black Lives Matter (BLM) in 2013 and mobilized the community to protest against police brutality. On the other hand, the Colgate Republicans invited Milos Yiannopoulos, a highly controversial figure, to speak in 2016. (His appearance at Berkeley cost the university hundreds of thousands of dollars after massive protests.) Now, although BLM was founded in response to the acquittal of George Zimmerman, it is also an evolution of the Winter 2021 Colgate Magazine 7

letters civil rights movement. BLM is anti-violence, not anti-cop nor anti-capitalist. In 2020, protests held across the globe were “remarkably nonviolent,” according to research by the Washington Post. “When there was violence,” the Post reports, “very often police or counterprotesters were reportedly directing it at the protesters.” Russell Berman, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, said that BLM’s “emphatic support for gender identity politics sets it apart from historical Marxism,” and that the movement’s goals “do not appear to be expressly anti-capitalist.” It’s very weird that one would condemn BLM while ignoring the conditions they protest against — conditions that have created people like John Lee Cowell, James Alex Fields Jr., Dylan Roof, Kyle Rittenhouse, Donald Trump, or

the cops who’ve killed numerous innocent Black people. Do you suggest that we accept these conditions quietly? Or, what if we knelt in silence on a sports field? This isn’t about common decency; it’s about Black people wanting to not be murdered for being Black. The phrase Black Lives Matter exists so that everyone can thrive. Frankly, this is a movement led by powerful Black women to save our democracy. Colgate students of color have experienced microaggressions, discrimination, and violence for a long time. You probably weren’t aware of this, so I recommend three items: 1. Ask students why it was important to host Opal Tometi; 2. Connect with alumni of color and get their valuable insight; 3. Share what you’ve learned with us. Black Lives Matter will continue to be gravely important

ELECTION

2021 Alumni Council Nominees The Alumni Council, upon recommendation of its nominating committee, has approved the following slate of alumni for election at the 2021 annual meeting. The candidates, chosen from approximately 500 alumni, have strong records of varied Colgate volunteer service, a consistent history of giving financial support to Colgate, and meaningful personal or professional accomplishments or contributions to the greater community. Complete information about the nomination process as well as full biographies of the nominees are posted at colgate.edu/ alumnicouncil2021. Paper copies are available by calling 315228-7433 or by sending an email to alumnicouncil@colgate.edu.

ERA I: Thomas Baker ’69 (beginning his own four-year term) ERA II: Per Sekse ’78 ERA III: Carole Robinson ’83 ERA IV: Kevin Zimmerman ’90 (beginning his own four-year term) ERA V: Thomas Campbell ’00 ERA VI: Rodney Mason ’06 ERA VII: Dena Robinson ’12 At Large: Christie Bonilla ’06 At Large: Sarah Cave ’95 At Large: Melanie Schiff ’04 (beginning her own four-year term)

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until people decide to open their hearts to loving Black people as the Americans, and fellow Colgate members, that they are. There’s still a lot of work to be done. (For the record, Angela Davis is an American national treasure.) Pablo Gonzalez ’01 I take notable exception to my classmate Jonathan Sherwyn’s criticism of the decision to have Black Lives Matter cofounder Opal Tometi as a keynote speaker at the Colgate University Commemoration of Martin Luther King Jr. His characterization of BLM as a Marxist group that espouses hateful rhetoric is grossly unfair and simplistic. Systemic racism and injustice in our country are unfortunately still very much a part of our society. Ask the families of Rayshard Brooks, Daniel Prude, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, and Atatiana Jefferson. Thank you, Colgate, for having the courage to acknowledge that reality. Craig Padover ’78 BLM is a network of loosely affiliated networks. Jonathan Sherwyn is painting the movement with the bad actions of a few. (From the BLM signs in my neck of the woods, it looks to be a thoroughly capitalist initiative.) And he has been misled into characterizing it as a Marxist effort. Kudos to Colgate for bringing Opal Tometi to campus. I hope she delivered an engaging talk. Kathryn Roy ’79 I was dismayed and frankly really disappointed to read the letter by Jonathan H. Sherwyn ’78. Mr. Sherwyn claimed that the Black Lives Matter organization is one that embraces violence, that has a “left-wing” agenda, and that supports “convicted terrorists.” He used clearly redbaiting language in calling the organization Marxist. What Mr. Sherwyn decided to obfuscate is that the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement is an open movement with a host

of organizations participating. Marches and protests are definitively not “terrorist” activities. Mr. Sherwyn also declined to mention that BLM and allies are fighting the very real and daily violence of policing heaped upon Black people and communities (for centuries at this point). He declined to mention that Black people and allies, through grassroots movements that include a diversity of strategies and tactics, are trying to remove the stranglehold of systemic and institutional racism that is part of the very fabric of this country. Mr. Sherwyn seems to think that BLM and these aims are somehow at odds or are, as he put it, “the antithesis” of everything that Martin Luther King stood for. He calls Angela Davis and Assata Shakur “terrorists.” Davis is a noted intellectual and has devoted her life to the liberation of Black people. Shakur risked her life and is now in exile in the service of the liberation of Black people. In fact, Colgate was the first place where I learned about Davis and Shakur when I worked as a student aid in the women’s studies center. I understand that letters are opinions. However, some opinions are dangerous and shouldn’t be given credence by giving them a wider audience. Jay Donahue ’00

Fighting Stigma I work at POZ Magazine, [which is] for people who are affected by/have HIV/AIDS. I appreciate [Professor Abdul-Malak’s] view (“Racialized Stigma Fueled by a Crisis,” summer 2020, p. 23), as an Asian American living in a time of anti-Asian rhetoric. I know that those who still fight against the AIDS stigma see the parallel to this recent virus, as well as the differences. Thank you, Professor Abdul-Malak, for teaching students to see 360. There are many views on a topic, which is the basis of the Colgate education. Doriot Kim ’92

letters

Photo ID 1. Thanks for the article (“First Class,” autumn 2020, p. 24). Bob Reid ’76 called to tell me my photo was in the autumn issue of Colgate Magazine, and sure enough, there I am — the one with the pigtails — standing close to Professor Bob Lindsey (geology) holding some leaves. Sally Waldo ’76 Reid

2. “We’ll Be Together Again” (summer 2020, p. 64): My dad (Hudson Phillips ’28), on right. He was a “jumping” chaplain in the 11th Airborne division in World War II and participated in the liberation of the Philippines. Hudson Phillips Jr. ’56

Remembering Judy Fischer On Oct. 29, 2020, Judy Fischer, a Colgate treasure, passed away. If you knew her, you were blessed. As her Facebook page revealingly proclaims: “Loved my job for 34 years. I never had a day that I did not want to go and work with students.” When Judy arrived at Colgate in the early 1970s with her two children, no one could have imagined the transformational impact she would have on the lives of Colgate students for nearly four decades.

As associate director of career services, she provided guidance, support, and friendship to generations of students. Committed to serving everyone, she gave early and active support to LGBT and minority students and provided an oasis of acceptance and comfort that may not have been easy to find in the mainstream Colgate community. Students could often be found around her kitchen table sharing dinner with her family. Many of them would continue to join Judy in her home for decades after graduation. While she helped launch countless careers, consider one

Lives were changed and lifelong friendships built. That was Judy Fischer. Chris Gavigan ’84

story: Spring. Friday afternoon. A hapless senior in desperate need of a job is urgently summoned to career services. Judy has convinced a Roadway Express representative to stay late to interview the student: “You’ll love the recruiter, and it is the highest paying job available through campus recruiting” (note that the hapless job seeker is also comprehensively broke). Unpersuaded by the student’s complaints that this unexpected interview will cut into happy hour, Judy insists. Miraculously, the student interviews and gets an offer before racing to the Jug, feet barely touching the ground. Two years later, Judy hears that the slightly-lesshapless and somewhat-less-broke recent graduate is considering a job change. She reaches out and connects him to a Colgate alum who has an opportunity in Washington, D.C. A job with Prudential quickly materializes. This leads to a career, and — it must be said for the health and safety of the former student — a 30-year marriage to a coworker. Thirty-five years later, our still fairly hapless but substantially-less-broke

protagonist is forever grateful that, as he imagines, when someone said to Judy, “Bet you $5 you can’t get THAT kid a job,” she replied, “You’re on.” Thus, lives were changed and lifelong friendships built. That was Judy Fischer. The Colgate community can take comfort that she is in the arms of a loving God … one can only wonder whether she is giving him career counseling. Chris Gavigan ’84

Opening Doors On the University joining Questbridge (autumn 2020, p. 15): So proud of the explicit efforts to broaden the affordability of the excellent education and opportunities a Colgate education provides, even in the midst of a pandemic and economic turmoil. Robert Whiteman ’74

To share your thoughts on this issue, email magazine@colgate.edu, or connect with us on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter. Winter 2021 Colgate Magazine 9

Voices Gratitude

Around the Table Quarantine cooking brings a family together.

ast March, we kidnapped my parents to quarantine with us. Because of their ages and preexisting conditions, they are more vulnerable to COVID-19. None of us knew what the future would be like, and they certainly didn’t think they’d be staying with us for more than a few days. Fast forward: They stayed with me, my partner, and my one-and-a-half-year-old son for nearly seven months, and they just returned home two weeks ago. Every night during the seven months, we gathered around the table at 5 p.m. for dinner together. We would always ask, “Who’s the head chef tonight?” It was either my mom or dad, and the other was the sous chef. On weekends, Ian — my partner — was the brunch chef. My son, Sam, and I mostly just ate. At first, my parents would whip up dishes with whatever we had in the fridge, adapting their recipes. Soon, my mom would state her wish list: tamarind, fermented bean, sweet basil, and mint. We added the ingredients to our ongoing grocery list and tried to get them during our next delivery. We didn’t always have all the ingredients we needed, but we improvised, and it was always delicious. Dad was more often the sous chef. Mom told him how to prep veggies — how big, how many, and how to cook them. They laughed, competed, and argued about whose methods were better and why. During this strange time of togetherness,

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we ate pompano fish with sweet fish sauce and ginger, ban soong, cauliflower and oyster mushrooms, French toast with bacon and eggs, Dairy Queen blizzards (a special treat delivered via UberEats to everyone’s delight!), Snow tacos (a favorite of Ian’s passed down from his grandmother), party chicken wings with sesame oil and agave, ragù (Sam’s favorite), and beef noodle soup. Also, I made turkey and ham sandwiches for

our lunches, and eggs for breakfast. I think that still counts. Among other things that happened, I got laid off from my job over the summer and launched my strategic storytelling studio shortly after. It’s a dream I’ve always had, but it took an extra push to get there. Now I help individuals and businesses — specifically supporting women and people of color — with sharing their stories in authentic and

meaningful ways. I’ve been booked out for months (including by Colgate alumni), and this may have been the second-best part of the pandemic. I love what I’m doing; I’m working with amazing clients who share the same values and are doing extraordinary work. My partner also lost his job due to COVID-19, and he launched a business as well. My son, Sam, got the gift of time with his grandparents every single day for seven straight months. The time we quarantined

Outreach

‘Social’ Media The irony of loneliness Is we all feel it At the same time — “Together” by Rupi Kaur

as a family will likely be the longest time we’ll ever spend together. We’ve had many silver linings during this pandemic, but togetherness easily tops the list. ●

— Kanitha Heng ’09 Snow majored in English at Colgate before completing her MFA in writing at Columbia University. A Cambodian-American writer and creator, she runs a strategic storytelling consultancy based in Denver, Colo.

After launching her strategic storytelling studio, Kanitha Heng Snow’s first client was her four-year college roommate, Mabel Haro ’09, who works for the Vellore Christian Medical College Foundation (which supports the first women’s medical college in India).

That poem never felt more true than it did after arriving home from my senior year in mid-March. I was in a state of mourning … perhaps I still am, perhaps we all still are. The irony is that the pandemic has the possibility of being one of the most unifying experiences we will live through — it has touched everyone. Yet camaraderie and togetherness have never felt more difficult. As I settled into life back home, I found myself wondering if and how community engagement was still possible. How were all of us holding up? Were we feeling similarly? Were we doing the same things as our neighbors? Was it possible for us to accompany each other through this moment, even if we could not share physical space? Feeling restless with these questions, I posed them to my Instagram followers. What started as one week of polls grew into a larger project that, in eight months, has included more than 150 questions answered by more than 200 people to inform five blog pieces. I have asked

my followers about what we are doing, what we miss, what feels hard, what it’s like to job hunt in 2020, how our fitness routines have changed, and more. The hope is that these questions and this blog series are a practice of community — that it helps us feel less alone. The hope is also that we are creating a record — a documentation of this time that we can look back on and remember how we felt the year the world turned upside down. What I found is both unsurprising and eye-opening. People responded that this has been a year of frustration, feeling stuck, exhaustion, confusion, and fear. I have also been reminded of things to smile about. My peers expressed gratitude for the good things. They have used this time to learn, explore, and grow. I have been reminded that while hope wavers (and sometimes disappears for a while), it still shows up and we have the capacity to ask it to stay. I hesitate to make blanket declarations on how we have been holding up. The answer is complicated, nuanced, and changes for most people day to day. Personally, while I have been touched and inspired by individual responses, what I’ve found most meaningful is the number of people willing to make this project possible. People are willing to be vulnerable, honest about how they’re feeling, and intentional about community. I am left more convinced that others feel the way I do: desperate to feel seen and known, to feel checked in on. I knew this project could never solve the problems of 2020. I could never pretend to hope that polls on Instagram would alone heal the loneliness brought on by the pandemic. I do think, though, that it has opened an avenue on which we can walk through it together.

— Elle O’Brien ’20 was an educational studies major who now works in public relations. Winter 2021 Colgate Magazine 11

voices

Exploration

Marveling at the Universe Together Alina Sabyr ’19 travels the world to study the power of looking up.

hy should we look at the sky? This was the question I set out to answer when I embarked on a yearlong independent expedition in the summer of 2019, supported by a Thomas J. Watson Fellowship. As an undergraduate student, I saw how looking at the sky connects people and inspires scientific curiosity: I went on a solar eclipse trip, helped lead open-house nights at the Foggy Bottom Observatory, spent evenings of astrophotography with

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Star ’Gate club, and worked at the Ho Tung Visualization Lab. These experiences showed me how much astronomy has the power to inspire humility, spark meaningful conversations, and encourage us to be present in the moment. Although we don’t have the strong connection with the sky that our ancestors did while navigating, timekeeping, and living by the stars, we still gaze at the sky in our modern society. This motivated me to explore the role of astronomy and sky-watching around the world to learn how cultural heritage and national identity affect the sky-watching practices in each place today.

Building Community I arrived in New Zealand at the end of June, just in time for the Matariki festival. These celebrations across the country signal the start of the Māori New Year marked by the rise of the Matariki (the group of stars also known as the Seven Sisters) in the sky. There are fireworks, concerts, exhibitions,

lectures, and even stargazing boat tours. In Auckland, I saw how these events — attended by people of all ethnicities and ages — created a sense of community that I could not have imagined possible in such a big and spread-out city. It was uplifting to see a festival that brought the country together. New Zealand is also known for its pristine dark skies, so I visited the Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve, where light pollution is strictly controlled. The locals help keep the skies dark, astronomy guides contribute to telescope observing, the observatory provides stargazing tours, and astro-tourism helps the small town of Tekapo’s economy. Most visitors are overseas tourists, and the company’s motivation is to share the night sky with those who have never seen a starry sky. During the tours, I could hear the happy exclamations of tourists who haven’t gazed upon the Milky Way before. While in Auckland, I volunteered at the Stardome Observatory and Planetarium, where outdoor observing is led by both workers and volunteers. The volunteers have diverse backgrounds — from those with a physics degree to people who just

vaughan brookfield

Mount John Observatory in New Zealand's Aoraki Mackenzie International Dark Sky Reserve

voices enjoyed astronomy growing up. This friendly atmosphere allows people who have a passion for astronomy to pursue their interest.

Lifelong Learning In London, a city of many lights, I was inspired to see the numerous opportunities to connect with the sky. People can go stargazing at the Hampstead Observatory with the Hampstead Scientific Society or Regents Park with the Baker Street Irregular Astronomers. They can borrow telescopes from Westminster library, join the programs at the Royal Observatory Greenwich, learn from classes and events at the Royal Astronomical Society, and more. The Royal Observatory Greenwich offers observing courses for adults, which are in demand. They are an example of how “learning is a lifelong process,” says Dhara Patel, one of the astronomers. The observatory’s special programs, which include stargazing, are sometimes sold out months in advance. “There’s an appetite” for looking up at the sky, Patel says. Why? Along my journey, some told me they wanted to connect with the environment more, and others said that stargazing offers something irreplaceable.

Inspiring a Dialogue Cusco Planetarium, in Peru, is a short drive from the city center near Sacsayhuaman archaeological site and right in the ecological reserve of Llaullipata. The planetarium focuses on educating visitors about Inca astronomy. There is also a planetarium and observatory in Urubamba, a town in the Sacred Valley not far from Cusco. Both of these centers are traveler oriented, and through my interactions with visitors, I realized how often they have never stargazed in their own countries. What is it about astronomy that makes us travel to distant places for the views of the night sky or lets us discover it for the first time? These stargazing tours allow visitors to discover an interest that they would have otherwise overlooked in their busy lives.

Creating Curiosity In Lima, Peru, I visited Planetario de Lima, located on a headland overlooking the Pacific Ocean. The director, Javier

Ramirez, fondly remembers coming to this planetarium while in school and learning how to use his telescope from astronomers working there. Now he helps children who come to visit “to find a place for their questions to have answers.” His message to those visiting the planetarium is that they should not lose their “children’s spirit of curiosity.” I witnessed this happening as I heard people exclaim in excitement and laugh during planetarium shows, take pictures with alien statues in the gallery, and wait outside patiently for the next show.

I could hear the happy exclamations of tourists who haven’t gazed upon the Milky Way before.

Star Lore I chose to visit Paraguay for two reasons: the dark skies and the Guarani astronomy. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that many people know the Guarani names and stories behind constellations and astronomical objects. For example, one of the Guarani names for the Milky Way is Mborevi Rape, which translates as the “Road of the Tapir.” The Milky Way represented a road of dry leaves that the animal Tapir would take regularly to get food and water, and these dry leaves would reflect the moonlight at night. Visitors can learn about Guarani astronomy at the Centro de Interpretación Astronómica Buenaventura Suárez in San Cosme y Damián. Astronomy tours are combined with historical tours at the nearby Jesuit ruins. Like in Peru and New Zealand, a visitor can learn about the unique star lore of the local culture. The local astronomy clubs left the most lasting impression on me. The societies were mostly led and organized by college students, but the events were attended by all age groups. These gatherings embody what it means to be community oriented and welcome to everyone. I will never forget moments like loading into a bus with camping gear and a crowd of strangers to stargaze together on a tiny island on Paraná River.

A Journey Interrupted Shortly after I arrived in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, everything started to close due to the pandemic. I reluctantly traveled home to Kazakhstan. During the months I had traveled, planetariums, observatories, and other astronomy centers revealed to me places that were more than just establishments for communicating science. These various

institutions — from places well equipped with the latest projectors to small observatories run by amateur astronomers — serve many functions in our society. They provide a space for communication of the latest science in creative forms, for accurately telling history, and for celebrating cultural identities. They are also places where people who decided not to pursue astronomy professionally can engage in their interest. And the astronomy centers serve as places where people who end up pursuing scientific careers can find resources and support. Above all, these are places where people of all backgrounds can discuss science, history, culture, and philosophy together. Although I started the year asking why we should look at the sky, my focus shifted toward understanding what astronomy brings to the world. I returned home with a full heart as well as ideas for how we can further use these spaces to make contributions to knowledge and marvel at our universe together. The universe is more vast than we can sometimes wrap our minds around, and we have yet to find another planet with any life. Spending three-quarters of a year looking up and talking to people about astronomy made me more deeply realize how the most precious gifts we have are each other and our time here.

Excerpted from an article in the Planetarian journal. — Alina Sabyr ’19 is a native of Kazakhstan who majored in astronomy and physics and minored in classics. Her interest in cultural astronomy was sparked by Professor Tony Aveni, who was Sabyr’s office neighbor one summer when she conducted student research. She is now an astronomy PhD student at Columbia University. Winter 2021 Colgate Magazine 13

SCENE Spring Semester

If at First You Do Succeed

etween October 2020 and January 2021, the Task Force on Reopening the Colgate Campus and the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) reviewed lessons learned during the fall semester and improved upon their protocols for the spring. They also took into account the fact that, in the words of associate vice president and EOC chief Dan Gough, “Hamilton in February is certainly a different place than Hamilton in August.” At press time, nearly 2,700 students intended to return for in-person instruction during the second semester. The protocol for return requires a reconfirmation of the Commitment to Community Health, negative COVID-19 test results via an at-home kit provided by the University, prescheduled arrival times, and mandatory universal quarantine with PCR testing within 24 hours and again one week later. These plans mirror the fall semester. But, beyond quarantine and arrival testing, there are some key differences in Colgate’s intended spring semester approach — all of which is subject to change based on current conditions and official guidance. According to the new plan, outlined by the Task Force and EOC at the beginning of the

calendar year, the duration of spring’s quarantine is tied to the delivery of test results rather than a blanket 14-day block. This slightly (but safely) reduces the amount of time the community spends confined to quarters. Rather than delivering meals to residences during quarantine, students retrieve their own meals at a predetermined time and location. Students also pick up their own campus mail, including packages and textbooks — again based on a schedule. This plan provides welcome, safe opportunities to stretch the legs and take in some fresh air. To foster physical and mental health, the University expanded on its fall semester recreation program, planning

14 Colgate Magazine Winter 2021

Upon their arrival to campus, students are tested for COVID-19.

longer midday outdoor periods in areas made accessible by augmented snow removal. Indoor locations, including Sanford Field House and Class of ’65 Arena, offer space for physically distanced exercise, and the University will facilitate quarantine-compliant winterthemed outdoor activities, such as sledding, outdoor ice skating, and campfires. Gates of Reopening were a marked success last fall. These gradual steps toward the new normal are determined by the data on the Health Analytics Team dashboard, and testing will continue to be a key metric throughout the spring. The Task Force on Reopening noted that expanded testing could open Gates more quickly, so the

University has made a significant investment to increase its weekly surveillance testing from a random 6–10% of the on-campus population to 50% (approximately 1,500 tests) per week. The effort ensures that the entire on-campus community is tested every two weeks. Testing populations decrease with the opening of new Gates, settling at a weekly 10–15% in Gate 4. This all runs in parallel with wastewater monitoring and with testing protocols established for student-athletes by the Patriot League, ECAC, and NCAA. To track the University’s progress this semester, visit colgate.edu/ colgatetogether. “Being together as a University community during a pandemic is a challenge we never thought we would face,” President Brian W. Casey wrote in a message to the campus community. “And while we have been able to stay together in person, we recognize that this has been hard for everyone — students, faculty, and staff. But the foundational principle guiding us has always been that Colgate is at its best when we are living and learning on this campus as a community.”

mark diorio

Reaction Action Colgate’s successful fall semester can be traced back to a number of choices. One of the most important was its testing protocol. Some colleges and universities relied on rapid antigen testing to monitor for COVID-19 on their campuses. These tests, which became more widely available throughout the summer months, are relatively inexpensive and provide results within minutes by looking for traces of COVID’s signature protein. Colgate chose to ascertain a patient’s COVID-19 status through a laboratory-based polymerase chain reaction (PCR) test. Colgate’s PCR testing protocol is more expensive and can take up to three days to receive a result, but it is highly accurate. PCR makes copies of biological material within a sample and layers them on top of each other. When amplified, COVID’s genetic material becomes more obvious. Testing options and availability have expanded significantly since August 2019 — Colgate now Illustrations by Toby Triumph

has the ability to conduct both quick antigen and PCR tests on symptomatic individuals. Top HAT Colgate took a science-based approach when creating its plan for the fall 2020 semester. That means decision making around every aspect of University life has been guided by a flood of data. Early in the planning process, members of the Emergency Operations Center (EOC) and the Task Force on Reopening the Colgate Campus knew that the volume of information coming in could obscure the truth it was meant to illuminate. So the University formed the Health Analytics Team, known affectionately as the HAT. Chaired by Financial Analyst and Health Analytics Manager Severin Flanigen, it includes representatives from human resources, Student Health Services, facilities management, Information Technology Services (ITS), environmental health and safety, athletics, the dean of the faculty division, and the dean of the college division.

Almost overnight, the HAT team built new systems for gathering, interpreting, and presenting data to ensure that dialogue was possible and planning was productive. “We didn’t have the luxury of saying ‘Let’s build this in the traditional way we build systems in IT,’” says HAT member Tim Borfitz, director of data analytics and decision support in ITS. “We were moving fast, and we accomplished a lot. There were late nights, and we built new processes along the way.” The HAT is best known for its dashboard, which received national recognition early in the pandemic for its comprehensive, transparent representation of current campus COVID-19 cases, testing, and positivity rates. Red, orange, and green blocks make it clear when there is a dip in the adherence to the commitment to community health, a negative trend in the submission of daily health screenings, or a potential lack of quarantine space. But the HAT is more than the sum of its blocks. The team can see if there are clusters of symptomatic staff members in particular buildings, allowing a change in focus for weekly testing measures. It can take note of how often specific classrooms and public spaces have been cleaned, and whether there are enough sanitation and PPE supplies in stock. Members have access to statistics from Community Memorial Hospital, providing local context for campus consideration. To round things out, the team also manages and monitors completion of the University’s mandatory COVID-19 health education program. With the launch of a new semester, the crew still connects seven days a week to review the numbers behind the colors. Team members huddle weekly with the Task Force to discuss findings and prepare recommendations for President Brian W. Casey and the EOC’s executive group. “We all have our gut feelings,” Borfitz says. “But we are trying to be informed by the data.” — Mark Walden

13 bits 1 Bruce Selleck ’71 has been posthumously awarded the title of Thomas A. Bartlett Chair and Professor of geology emeritus.

2 Student Health Services administered more than 1,000 flu vaccinations in the fall.

3 “We rise by lifting others” is just one message on the positivity stickers around campus.

4 Jann Vendetti ’01 and Professor Emeritus Robert Garland developed 10 strategies for creating zoological species names.

5 Five students won AirPods by activating multifactor authentication as part of ITS’ Cybersecurity Awareness Month Raffle.

6 During the Office of Sustainability’s new tradition, the Campus Crunch, students from NYS universities simultaneously bite an apple to recognize the importance of locally grown food.

▼ Winter 2021 Colgate Magazine 15

7 With the rise of remote learning, Colgate loaned students more than 450 pieces of technology.

8 National First-Generation Day — celebrating students, faculty, and staff members — was Nov. 8.

9 Submission of SAT and ACT scores will be optional for prospective students applying in ’21, ’22, and ’23.

10 The Colgate Vote Project secured more than 225 pledges from students to vote in the November elections.

11 The American Physical Society awarded Professor Kiko Galvez its 2020 award for excellence in advanced laboratory instruction, specifically with single-photon experiments.

living writers

Humor and Heart

The Women's Leadership Council inspires transformational philanthropy among Colgate women to impact current and future generations.

13 Visit central New York's starry skies: hotungvislab.org

Author David Sedaris (Virtually) Visits

hen David Sedaris, a humorist who frequently derives his jokes from real anecdotes, was asked how he gets away with unflattering depictions of his friends and relatives, he retorted: “The key is manipulation. There is a way of getting people to laugh at themselves or think the whole thing was their idea in the first place.” Students were charmed by answers like this when Sedaris spoke with the Living Writers

16 Colgate Magazine Winter 2021

class virtually in October. He later gave a talk to a sold-out Zoom event of more than 500 people on his essay collection Calypso. The event was Sedaris’ only public engagement since the pandemic started, which is unusual for someone who typically spends months of each year doing a book tour. “I hate not being on tour. I wonder if it’s possible to die from a lack of attention,” Sedaris joked. Jennifer Brice, associate professor of English and Living Writers director, introduced Sedaris as “one of the world’s best-loved, best-selling, most cheerful misanthropes.” He then read “Standing By,” an essay published in the New Yorker on time spent in airports and how these spaces allow humans to

reveal their “gloriously hateful” selves. Afterward, Sedaris was interviewed by Brice as well as Assistant Professor of English CJ Hauser, Carina Haden ’21, and Tommy Williams ’21. Among other topics, the four hosts asked Sedaris about the intimate (and sometimes brutal) portrayals of his family — from his mother’s alcoholism to his father’s hoarding — that color Calypso. “People don’t think you love your subjects unless you are sentimental about them. I think I’ve always been able to separate those two things. In the family I come from, loving someone means making merciless fun of them and you don’t have to say, ‘I was just kidding’ at the end,” he said. Perhaps what shone through most of all was Sedaris’ enjoyment of engaging with strangers. He spoke about his interactions with attendees at book signings where he asks them intensely personal questions, almost scornful of banal conversation. “All it takes is to concentrate on somebody and listen to them … then you can ask a question that surprises them, and it’s like a key opens them up,” he said. “If you don’t like people, I don’t know that writing is the profession for you. And if you’re not curious about people, then it definitely isn’t.” Sedaris was one of nine authors featured in the series this year, joining fellow essayists Emily Bernard (Black Is the Body) and Greg Bottoms (Lowest White Boy), as well as poet Ilya Kaminsky (Deaf Republic), and fiction writers Geraldine Brooks (Year of Wonders), Yaa Gyasi (Transcendent Kingdom), Maisy Card (These Ghosts Are Family), Charles Yu (Interior Chinatown), and Etgar Keret (Suddenly, a Knock on the Door).

— Lauren Hutton ’21

Jenny Lewis

scene

▼

scene

Career Services

Gaining Knowledge for the Path Forward

uring Career Exploration Week — a large-scale virtual program — more than 500 students connected with 575 alumni volunteers for career panels and one-on-one conversations. A reimagination of A Day in the Life (the traditional job shadowing program), Career Exploration Week inspired students to cultivate their curiosity while expanding their professional networks. Career Services hosted the event in late October. “It’s important for students to gain as much information about the professional world as they can before they begin to narrow their sights on a specific field,” explains Assistant Vice President for Career Initiatives Teresa Olsen. Ten panels represented a number of industries, including marketing and communications;

education and social services; law, government, and policy; business industries; and math and computer science. Nancy Goldstein ’80, a psychotherapist, participated in the health and wellness industry panel. “Colgate’s liberal arts education provided me with the foundation from which to do meaningful work that enriches my life and the life of others,” she says. “I hope to support Colgate students to pursue rewarding careers that contribute to healing ourselves and our society.” For Laynie Dratch ’17, who is now a genetic counselor at Penn Medicine, the program allowed for further engagement within the Colgate community. “I would not be in the position I am today without the support of Career Services,” she says. “The financial support through summer funding coupled with the advising support that Career Services provided was integral to my learning about my profession and building the résumé I needed to become a competitive candidate for graduate school admission.” — Celine Turkyilmaz ’21

ADRIANO MACHADO

Speaker

“At the beginning, I did think, ‘Why did I have to face the bomb? Why did I have to suffer?’ But over time, my identity shifted, and the focus has shifted to emphasizing … never again, no more Hiroshima, Nagasaki, but also never again to war. May there be no more wars, because in wars, everyone suffers.” — Shigeko Sasamori, an atomic bomb survivor from Hiroshima, told students her harrowing story on Zoom in late October.

ALANA

COVID-19 Imperils Indigenous People

ue to social, economic, and environmental factors, Indigenous groups are more vulnerable to COVID-19. A panel of experts, including Associate Professor of History and Director of the Native American Studies Program Heather Roller and Assistant Professor of Anthropology Santiago Juarez, discussed this in November virtually. “Experiences of the Pandemic in the Native Americas” was part of the ALANA Cultural Center’s Native American Heritage Month celebrations. Roller used Brazil as a primary example: The country has the second deadliest outbreak of COVID-19, and the virus has proved three times more fatal to Indigenous groups in Brazil when compared to the rest of the population. She cited poor access to health care; under-resourced hospitals that can be hundreds of miles away from some Indigenous communities; a lack of access to hygiene products; mortality risks from rising rates of diabetes, heart disease, and obesity; longstanding problems with unsafe drinking water and malnutrition; and communal

living conditions. Furthermore, Roller noted, Brazil’s traditional, multigenerational households make quarantine a challenge. Yet, she acknowledged, “Indigenous groups have understood the nature of this threat more quickly than a lot of outside groups because they have deep historical memories that have to do with past epidemics.” Many Indigenous communities have blocked their villages from outsiders, provisioned their supplies, and utilized the internet for accessing updated information and coordinating the safe deliveries of supplies. Juarez echoed Roller’s sentiments in his discussion of Mexico’s Lacandon population, which also responds to the virus from a position of historical experience. Communities used to build their houses kilometers apart from one another as a defense against the spread of disease and live in structures that could easily be abandoned until rainforest destruction forced them into compact villages. “We see a set history of a long experience with pandemic diseases ever since the Lacondon were first discussed in the 1700s,” Juarez said. Today, the Lacandon, who mainly rely on the tourism industry, are finding economic challenges with the lack of tourists. “People are worried about the pandemic disease,” Juarez said. “They are worried about falling ill, but they also talk about being hungry.” — Lauren Hutton ’21

Winter 2021 Colgate Magazine 17

SCENE 2.

pART AND parcel

4. 1.

Autumn Overload

Mail Merge

Mailroom staff scanned close to 2,000 packages per day, necessitating the use of two full-size containers parked in the loading dock of the Coop. The mailroom’s five full-time employees faced the avalanche of packages with panache, and countless volunteers assisted with delivery.

In the early 1990s, Mail Services and University Printing joined forces. They are now under the leadership of Kip Manwarren, who started as a temporary mailroom employee more than 25 years ago. Manwarren led the charge to digitize the package tracking system. Prior to 2014, mailroom staff manually wrote up package slips, which were placed in student mailboxes. Manwarren also brought innovations to printing production and implemented an online ordering system for University Printing in 2017.

Timeless In 1967, Mail Services moved to the newly built Coop from its previous location in James C. Colgate Hall, the old student union. They brought along the original student mailboxes, which are still in use today. Up until the late 1980s, students shared boxes. As the student body grew and more mailboxes were needed, they were sourced from local post offices, leading to the eclectic mix currently in use.

student then assembled on-site at the Coop ⚫ A full living room set complete with couch, loveseat, and chairs ⚫ Car fenders ⚫ A 6-foot teddy bear Longevity

A number of unconventional packages have made their way through the mailroom. Most memorable deliveries:

Mailroom staff members are a close-knit bunch with more than 107 years’ combined experience. They enjoy working closely with students and developing relationships with them during their years at Colgate. Mark Boise is the mailroom’s lead clerk, with 39 years under his belt. “We like to get to know the students,” he says. “Sometimes we feel kind of like their parents away from their parents.”

⚫ A motorcycle kit delivered on a skid — which the enterprising

— Jasmine Kellogg

Oddities

18 Colgate Magazine Winter 2021

Clockwise: 1. Student packages await pickup in one of two containers used to accommodate the fall 2020 overflow. 2. Jereme Amann-Burns, mail clerk, mans the window in the Coop. 3. University Printing. 4. Mailboxes from the old student union are still in use today. 5. Rob Kautz, high-tech digital press operator/mailing and bindery technician, operates a paper cutter.

mark diorio

ackage delivery reached record numbers during the fall 2020 campus quarantine. Here’s an inside look at Mail Services, which sorts and scans thousands of student mail items per day, delivers department mail across campus, and more.

SCENE

Diversity

Joining the Racial Equity Leadership Alliance

olgate is an inaugural member of a new consortium of liberal arts colleges and universities geared toward finding solutions for addressing issues of racial equity and diversity on campus. The Liberal Arts Colleges Racial Equity Leadership Alliance was launched Nov. 9 by the University of Southern California Race and Equity Center, whose mission is to illuminate, disrupt, and

dismantle racism in all its forms. Member colleges will have access to special campus surveys and data as well as monthly virtual sessions for faculty and staff seeking to learn more about anti-racism and diversity efforts. The alliance will host quarterly meetings for member presidents to discuss issues of racial equity in higher education and to seek best practices for creating new initiatives and programming. “Liberal arts colleges and universities are experts at bringing together many voices and experiences to formulate creative approaches to complex issues,” says President Brian W. Casey. “I look forward to learning what other alliance schools have been doing on their campuses, and I will be sharing

the progress Colgate has made as we continue the work of fostering a more inclusive learning environment for our students, faculty, and staff.” In January 2021, the center began hosting monthly eConvenings, each on a particular aspect of racial equity. These live, synchronous, professional learning experiences will be held virtually throughout the year. Three-hour learning sessions, each on a different topic, will be delivered by highly respected leaders of national higher education associations, tenured professors who study race relations and people of color, chief diversity officers, and other administrators. Member schools will be part

of climate surveys for faculty and staff members and students related to topics of racial equity, homophobia, transphobia, sexism, and perceptions of how colleges respond to difficult incidents. The center is also developing an online repository of resources and tools for alliance member colleges. Other schools that have signed on to this initiative include: Amherst College, Bowdoin College, Bucknell University, Colby College, DePauw University, Hamilton College, Hobart and William Smith Colleges, Lafayette College, Skidmore College, Union College, and Williams College.

— Dan DeVries

Athletics

On Brand Colgate launches updated identity

oday’s Colgate Raiders are guardians of the gate, in every field, every arena. Their determination comes from deep inside, and the University’s new athletics identity comes from longstanding tradition. The new athletics C was inspired by the University’s mark, featured on a track and field jersey found in the 1904 Salmagundi. The shield reinforces the connection between athletics and academics, reflecting the icons that sport the University’s motto and depict Colgate’s Residential Commons. The shield functions both as a primary mark and as an apostrophe on the celebratory

’gate (which has a tilt of 13 degrees). It appears as a badge on Colgate’s new uniforms, with 13 stripes that recall the University’s 13 founders with 13 dollars and 13 prayers. The grit that makes Raiders great has a place as a background texture. (Some will also see the Chenango Valley snowfall that makes rivals shiver with fear.) A new font, Colgate Sporty, rounds out the identity, producing a look and feel born from Colgate DNA: thoughtful, driven, enthusiastic, cohesive, and bold — like this inclusive community of competitive excellence. Winter 2021 Colgate Magazine 19

SCENE Scene

NHL

Young Selected in 2020 Draft

s a first-year of the Colgate men’s hockey program, Alex Young ’24 has been selected in the 2020 NHL Draft by the San Jose Sharks. A 5-11, 180-pound forward, Young was selected in the seventh round and No. 196 overall. A native of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, Young joined the Raiders after a successful junior hockey career with the Canmore Eagles of the Alberta Junior Hockey League (AJHL). Young totaled 206 points in 172 regular season games in the AJHL by 91 goals and 115 assists. After being named AJHL Rookie of the Year in 2017–18, Young went on to be an AJHL South Division All-Star Team member in both 2018–19 and 2019–20. Young becomes the 35th NHL Draft pick in Colgate program history, and joins fellow first-year Carter Gylander ’24 (Detroit Red Wings, 2019) as current draftees on the squad. — Jenna Jorgensen

Alex Young

Jacob Panetta

ECHL

Penner and Panetta Go Pro

wo men’s hockey alumni — Tyler Penner ’20 and Jacob Panetta ’20 — have signed professional hockey contracts with the East Coast Hockey League (ECHL). Penner is joining the Norfolk Admirals, and Panetta has signed with the Jacksonville Icemen. Penner, a native of Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada, laced up for 131 games in his career as a Raider, posting 25 career points. Most recently, the center tallied 10 points by five goals and five assists in his senior season. In a highlight of the 2019–20 campaign, Penner scored the overtime game winner against Brown in the First Round of the ECAC Tournament for a 3–2 victory and to seal the postseason sweep. He made another notable goal with just 2.7 seconds remaining in regulation against then No. 7 Clarkson to force overtime in a late regular season matchup. Over his career, Penner was a four-time Raider Academic Honor Roll and ECAC Hockey All-Academic Team honoree. For posting above a 3.75 GPA, he was also named an AHCA/ Krampade Academic All-Star last spring. As a junior, Penner was presented with the Whit Williams Award, given annually

20 Colgate Magazine Winter 2021

to the player on the team who has great integrity and a passion for the game of hockey. Panetta is a native of Belleville, Ontario, Canada. He laced up for 136 career games for the Raiders, where he registered nine goals and 16 assists for 25 points. As a defenseman, Panetta posted three power play goals and two game-winning goals in his career, along with 154 blocked shots. Most recently in the 2019–20 campaign, Panetta had 33 blocked shots and marked the gamewinning goal against Union. His three goals and five assists for eight points was a best in his career. After the 2019–20 campaign, Panetta was voted to receive the Dan Coley “Barrell” Award as the team’s best defenseman, to the Rob Ries Award for his leadership and inspiration, and was presented with the Terry Slater Award for his lasting impact on the Colgate hockey program. Off the ice, Panetta was a three-time ECAC Hockey AllAcademic honoree and Raider Academic Honor Roll recipient. Penner and Panetta join Bobby McMann ’20 and Paul Meyer ’20, who also signed professional hockey contracts. McMann signed with the Toronto Marlies of the AHL, while Meyer inked a contract with the Orlando Solar Bears of the ECHL. — Jenna Jorgensen

Women’s Hockey

Top-10 Matchup Meets in a Tie

olgate competed in a four-game nonconference matchup against Clarkson in November and December, with the final game resulting in a tie. The No. 5 Raiders faced the No. 7 Golden Knights at their home rink on Dec. 5. Despite Kaitlyn O’Donohoe ’23 recording her first goal of the season and Kalty Kaltounkova ’24 notching a go-ahead goal, Clarkson was able to force overtime with a final second tally before the teams skated to a 2–2 tie. “With this segment behind us, it will be exciting to see what our team can accomplish as we look ahead,” says Head Coach Greg Fargo. “We’ve got to keep making progress and working to improve every day.” The Raiders went 2-1-1 in the top-10 matchup, which began after they opened the 2020–21 campaign against Syracuse. Colgate earned a season-opening sweep in the home-and-home series behind a 3–2 overtime victory at Syracuse and a 3–1 win at the Class of 1965 Arena. At press time, the Raiders looked to announce future nonconference matchups. All games will be closed to the public, but will be available to watch online. Direct links will be on gocolgateraiders.com/ sports/womens-ice-hockey/ schedule. — Jenna Jorgensen Kalty Kaltounkova

SCENE scene

The Third-century plan

Women’s Soccer

Alumnae Sign With Israeli League

elly Chiavaro ’20 and Leah Lewis ’20 both signed professional contracts to play soccer overseas. The two players headed to Netanya, Israel, where they signed contracts with Maccabi Emek Hefer WFC of the Israel Football Association’s Ligat-Ha-Al League. “This is a great spot to get experience, gain exposure in a professional atmosphere, and see where I stand,” Chiavaro says. Lewis adds: “I was eager to get back on the field, and being in Israel is a once-in-alifetime experience.” The women made their professional debuts on Dec. 24. Maccabi Emek Hefer WFC is set to play 20 games, with the league schedule running from December– May. The 10-team league features a home-and-home format for each squad. Following the regular season, the firstplace team advances to the Champions League and will face top teams from other countries. Chiavaro’s professional turn comes on the heels of a prolific Colgate career. She made 65 starts for the Raiders, compiling 17 shutouts and a 1.31 goals-against average. Chiavaro anchored the Patriot League’s top defense in 2018 behind a 10-4-2 record with nine shutouts. She was named the Patriot League Goalkeeper of the Year after ranking seventh nationally in save percentage (.886), 15th in goals-against average (0.55), and 29th in shutouts (9). Meanwhile, Lewis was a three-time All-Patriot League selection and garnered United Soccer Coaches All-Region honors in 2018 and 2019. A key member of the Raider back line, Lewis capped her Colgate career with five goals, four assists, and 14 points in 73 games played. She earned All-League First Team honors in 2019 after tying for the team lead with a pair of tallies. The duo anchored Colgate to one of the top defensive units in the nation in 2018. “It has been a great situation playing with a former teammate for my first professional experience,” Lewis says. “We have always been good friends, so it’s nice to have someone here I can talk to and travel with.”

Lampert Institute

Bringing the Liberal Arts Into the World

ombining on-campus programming with research opportunities for faculty members and students, the Lampert Institute for Civic and Global Affairs’ goal is to “make the liberal arts real.” It has hosted an annual themed speaker series and funded more than 100 trips for students and faculty members to complete research projects around the world since its founding in 2014. Now, Colgate is unveiling a reimagined Lampert Institute that boasts new areas of inquiry to guide research and course design and an expanded summer research program. The institute paused its efforts in 2018 and began a conversation with namesake Ed Lampert ’62 on ways to revamp the program and make it even more relevant. Lampert was involved in two years of careful planning with Associate Professor of Political Science and Lampert Institute Director Illan Nam, Associate Dean of the Faculty Martin Wong, Provost and Dean of the Faculty Tracey Hucks ’87, MA’90, and President Brian W. Casey. “The relaunch is aimed at sharpening the institute’s areas of intellectual interest,” Nam says. “Broadly speaking, the institute aims to engage Colgate students and the faculty in serious and significant policy issues that have durable effects upon the world in which we live.” The institute’s areas of inquiry will tackle 21st-century challenges using a twofold approach: focusing on the policy consequences of transformative discoveries in science and technology, and exploring the implications of policies in countries that are changing the world order. With a clearer intellectual identity, the institute will now be guided by research questions, including, “How does China’s economic and political ascendance affect politics, corporations, and workers in different regions of the world? What are the consequences of global trade integration? What effects will automation have upon economies around the world?” Nam says. “We believe these types of questions deal with policy challenges that will shape students’ lives.” Further, the institute’s opportunities will be broken into four categories: The Lampert Scholars program will provide 10–12 students with academic opportunities, community, and mentorship. The Lampert Prize will recognize one senior Lampert Scholar whose academic work and research best exemplify the program’s goals. On-campus programs will expose the student body to policy experts. And faculty research funding will support publication, workshops, national conferences, and projects. While the previous generations of Lampert Scholars completed independent summer research projects, the new research component will be more structured, allowing students to complete their research alongside policy-oriented internships. With both research and hands-on experience under their belts, scholars will return to campus prepared to tackle a senior seminar built around the policy questions they investigated over the summer — and, for some of them, subsequent careers in public policy. The new programming has already begun proving its relevance. New York State Health Commissioner Dr. Howard Zucker visited campus via Zoom in early September to discuss public health policy as it relates to COVID-19. With future talks delving into the geopolitics of cybersecurity and prospering with fewer resources in the machine age, students and faculty will find that the topics speak to the most pressing issues of our time. — Lauren Hutton ’21

— Jordan Doroshenko

Winter 2021 Colgate Magazine 21

SCENE

The Third-century plan Faculty

New Endowed Chairs for Colgate’s Next Century Pursuing its Third-Century Plan, Colgate is expanding faculty support with a series of new endowed professorships. The first five were recently approved by the Board of Trustees. Appointments to ThirdCentury Endowed Chairs The Rebecca Chopp Chair in the Humanities: Established in 2019, in honor of the University’s 15th president, Rebecca S. Chopp. Awardee: Constance Harsh, professor and chair of English. Harsh has been an ardent supporter of the core curriculum, having taught the modernity course in the various forms that it has taken since her arrival in 1988 and serving as director of the Core 152: Challenges of Modernity component and of the Division of University Studies. As a member of the advisory group of the Robert H.N. Ho Mind, Brain, and Behavior Initiative, she supports collaborations and programs that highlight the interdisciplinary intersections of neuroscience and literature. She has taken on complex roles as wide ranging as chair of the Committee on Faculty Affairs, cochair of the Middle States Self-Study at the time of the institution’s decennial reaccreditation, president of the Colgate chapter of the AAUP, and interim provost and dean of the faculty from 2015–17. The Carl Benton Straub ’58 Endowed Chair in Culture and the Environment: Established

by Straub, this is a permanent endowment fund supporting teaching and scholarship focused on the interplay between activities believed to be quintessentially human (religion, philosophy, art, literature, language, history, or related interdisciplinary programs) and the processes of the nonhuman natural world. Awardee: Jason Kawall, professor of philosophy and environmental studies. Kawall’s wide-ranging scholarship is concerned with human values and commitments. He is a theorist of ethics and particularly lived ethics — the question of what it means to live a good life. Much of his work focuses on environmental ethics. Kawall has served as director of the Lampert Institute for Civic and Global Affairs and as director of the Environmental Studies Program. The W. Bradford Wiley Chair in International Economics: Supports and encourages a scholar-teacher in the field of international economics whose intellectual vigor, commitment to teaching, and personal interest in students will enhance the learning process and make an effective contribution to the academic community. Awardee: Chad Sparber, professor of economics. His areas of specialization are immigration, international economics, and urban economics. He has served as chair of the Department of Economics and as a member of the Budget and Finance Committee and the Advisory and Planning Committee. In his capacity overseeing the Forum on Economic Freedom in the Center for Freedom and Western Civilization, he has brought speakers on immigration, the economics of philanthropy and altruism, the international debt crisis, and the virtues of free enterprise to Colgate.

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The Daniel C. Benton ’80 Endowed Chair in Arts, Creativity, and Innovation: Established in 2020 by Benton, this permanent endowment fund assists Colgate’s efforts in recognizing teaching excellence and scholarly achievements in the field of arts, creativity, and innovation and to support the University’s efforts to promote the Middle Campus plan. Awardee: Mary Simonson, associate professor of film and media studies and women’s studies; director, film and media studies program. She has curated the Friday Night Film Series and served as Colgate’s liaison to the Flaherty Film Seminar. She codeveloped a performing and media arts extended-study program in Hong Kong and has been working with the Independent Filmmaker Project to develop programming and internships for students. She is the inaugural codirector of Brown Commons. Simonson has also played a critical role in the Middle Campus Initiative. She formed a working group with faculty from computer science, theater, and film and media studies to discuss ways to weave technology into Colgate’s vision for the arts. Christian A. Johnson Endeavor Chair in Liberal Arts Studies: Supports the academic, intellectual, and administrative leadership for the core program. Awardee: Elizabeth Marlowe, associate professor of art and art history. Her fields of specialization are ancient art, late antiquity, the city of Rome, and Roman imperial monuments. Marlowe developed the museum studies minor at Colgate and now serves as the founding director of the program. In addition to teaching Core 151: Legacies of the Ancient World regularly and serving as University professor for the component, Marlowe

serves as a member of the Core Revision Committee. Appointments to Existing Endowed Chairs Arnold A. Sio Chair in Diversity and Community: Established in 2004 by John K. Runnette ’54 and created in honor of Arnold A. Sio, professor of sociology and anthropology emeritus. The fund is intended to assist Colgate’s efforts to support and recognize outstanding scholars who, through research, teaching, and service activities, demonstrate a sustained commitment to principles of diversity. Awardee: Hélène Julien, professor of romance languages. She was honored with the ALANA Appreciation of Service Award in 2010 and 2013. Her engagement with the Office of Undergraduate Studies, leadership as director of women’s studies and of LGBTQ studies, and service as a member of the Faculty Affirmative Action Oversight Committee and the ALANA affairs committee are just a few manifestations of Julien’s commitment to the principles of diversity. Roy D. and Margaret B. Wooster Chair: Established in 1988 by Roy Wooster Jr. ’50 in honor of his mother and father, who was a 1921 graduate. The Wooster Chair is awarded to a distinguished teacher and scholar of the classics and/or religious studies. Awardee: Rebecca Ammerman, professor of the classics; chair, Department of the Classics. Her research interests include Greek and Phoenician foundations in the western Mediterranean, Indigenous populations of southern Italy, and terracotta figurines and their use in the practice of religion in ancient Italy and Greece. In the summer months, students frequently work as her research assistants at the archaeological sites of Paestum and Metaponto.

SCENE

The Hamilton Housing Initiative is building new residences for faculty and staff members, Community Memorial Hospital employees, and other professionals in the Village of Hamilton. The Chenango Hill residential development will include single-family homes within walking distance of downtown Hamilton, Hamilton Central School, and Colgate. It was made possible by a gift of land from a graduate. “One of the key elements of The Third-Century Plan is to attract the best faculty and staff. In order to do that, we have been working on the lack of housing for our community,” says Joseph Hope, senior vice president for finance and administration and chief investment officer. “By adding more than 30 new homes, the benefits will be felt broadly. Not only will this help Colgate attract talent, but it will also add families to our elementary and high schools, help local businesses, and improve the overall vibrancy of the village.” One of 12 model options

new programs

Supporting First-Generation Students

ollowing a successful five-year pilot study, the University will launch First@Colgate, a program to provide essential support and resources for undergraduates who will be the first in their families to attain a degree from a four-year institution of higher education. “Colgate’s Third-Century Plan clearly states the University’s fundamental obligation to recruit diverse students from a variety of economic backgrounds — many of whom will be forging a new path,” says Paul J. McLoughlin II, vice president and dean of the college. “We must do everything in our power to see them thrive.” First@Colgate programming will range from peer mentoring to community building. It will address the needs of all first-generation students by illuminating resources available through Career Services; the Center for Learning, Teaching, and Research; the counseling center; the registrar’s office; academic advising; and other support structures Colgate offers. RaJhai Spencer, assistant dean of administrative advising, will oversee the program as its new director. Spencer is a first-generation graduate of Duke University with a master’s degree in sociology from the University of Illinois at Chicago. She came to Colgate from Florida State University, where she was senior associate director at the Center for Academic Retention and Enhancement and associate director for academic support and student success. Spencer

currently advises members of Colgate’s OUS Scholars Program, Hancock Commons, and athletics teams as well as students in the first-generation pilot program. “As a first-generation college graduate, I understand that a community of people who are invested in your success is just as important as access to resources and opportunities within higher education,” she says. “I believe the First@Colgate program will bring together this community from across campus along with all of the resources and opportunities to ensure that first-generation students are successful at Colgate and beyond.” Spencer will be supported by a new assistant director and a first-gen advisory board of faculty and staff members, with liaisons in offices across the University. This group will work to connect the more than 75 faculty and staff colleagues who identify as the first in their families to attend college, in order to provide additional opportunities for connection and support. The National Association of Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education finds that one-third of all incoming college students will soon be first-generation undergraduates. They also note that first-generation students are more likely to feel out of place on a college campus and less likely to take advantage of its resources. First-generation students are also only half as likely as their peers to graduate on time. “The trends are clear,” McLoughlin says. “Thankfully, so are the ways forward. We will offer the support that first-generation students need and deserve. Colgate admits only the brightest students. If you made it here, you earned it, and First@Colgate will provide a foundation for your success.” — Mark Walden

Winter 2021 Colgate Magazine 23

Climate Change

The Carbon Crew Colgate researchers on two continents study the effects of wildfires by using sky-based methodologies.

24 Colgate Magazine Winter 2021

n research, “you have to be ready for things to break,” says Anne Perring, an assistant chemistry professor. That’s especially true when your scientific equipment is hurtling through the sky at hundreds of miles per hour. It was summer 2019, and Perring’s student Brady Mediavilla ’20 was aboard an old Alitalia jetliner turned airborne laboratory, chasing wildfires for science. As the aircraft flew straight into a plume of smoke, other researchers aboard were chattering to each other through headsets, excited about the measurements they were taking. But Mediavilla wasn’t seeing many data points at all. That seemed odd. He used his laptop to chat with Perring, who was in an Idaho airplane hangar, poring over data. After consulting with her and other colleagues, including several who were on the plane, Mediavilla figured out the problem and fixed it by the end of that day’s outing. Talk about troubleshooting on the fly. Perring and Mediavilla are a small part of a big government project seeking to understand how smoke from fires affects climate change and human health. The project, called FIREX-AQ , is a joint effort between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and more than 40 partner institutions. The work took on new meaning as the 2020 wildfire season ravaged more than 8.2 million acres and brought eerie orange haze to the western United States. As climate change takes hold, extreme wildfire seasons are happening more frequently. For Perring, it’s personal. “I grew up in the Bay Area,” she says. “My mom is in California and has been housebound,” with poor air quality taking away the outdoor freedoms she could enjoy during the COVID-19 pandemic. Perring’s particular focus is black carbon, a microscopic solid particle in smoke that is so charred it can no longer burn. Black carbon is a hazard to human lungs. It is also a driver of climate change, because it can absorb light from the sun and warm the Earth. Scientists know that fires produce black carbon. But predicting how much will be made from a given fire based on weather conditions and the types of vegetation burning is a challenge. They also can’t anticipate how thickly other chemicals from the fire might coat the black carbon, which increases black carbon’s global warming potential and affects how long it will linger in the atmosphere and how far it can travel.

brittany hosea-small

Discover

adventures in an airborne lab

Perring’s instrument on the aircraft counted and sized the particles of black carbon present in each sample of smoke the jet encountered. The equipment measured to what extent other chemicals coated the particles. It’s hard-won data. On one of Mediavilla’s flights, the research craft encountered a fire so intense that its upward air currents generated a thunderstorm. Those weather systems are “crazy,” Perring says. “He has a strong stomach.” Mediavilla has written computer programs to analyze data from tens of millions of particles, an effort that Perring plans to submit for publication in a scientific journal soon. As for what they’ve learned about black carbon, Perring says that’s still a work in progress. “We’re seeing that there’s more variability in black carbon’s microphysical properties than we appreciated before,” she says. But that’s not enough information to plug into a computer model that predicts whether a fire in California’s wine country should prompt Perring’s mom to stay indoors. Perring is still plugging away at her data, though, because as she watches the West burn on television, she knows her work matters. “We all share the same air,” she says. “Trying to understand how something happening in one place affects people in that place and also people far down wind feels useful.” — Carmen Drahl

The work took on new meaning as the 2020 wildfire season ravaged more than 8.2 million acres and brought eerie orange haze to the western United States.

Remote Sensing in Siberia

research roundup

ith the increased number of large forest fires occurring, how has vegetation growth — and, therefore, climate change — been affected? Three Colgate researchers have been using uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAV) to survey wildfire recovery rates in Russia’s Siberian forests. The groundbreaking work of geography major Elena Forbath ’21; Anna Talucci, a geography postdoctoral fellow; and Associate Professor of Geography Michael Loranty was featured in the journal Remote Sensing. The team of researchers went to Siberia last year to study how forest recovery after a wildfire can impact climate change — specifically, how vegetation growth, or lack thereof, decreases the availability of plantbased carbon sequestration. “The bottom line is there won’t be enough vegetation to sequester carbon as more carbon enters the atmosphere,” Forbath explains. “With the increased number of fires, we won’t have enough plants to sequester massive amounts of carbon, so it’s another issue related to climate change.” When looking at how vegetation has been growing after these fires, the team asked: If it is growing, how long has it taken? “It requires quite a bit of time for those forests to recover from these fires, given the analyses we’ve used,” Forbath says. The work had two major components: to analyze the impact on carbon sequestration for these forests recovering from fires and to examine the effectiveness of UAV use for this research. In the past, researchers relied on satellite imagery to study the effects of large wildfires in major forested areas. Talucci says the difference between satellites and UAV image resolution is notable, as satellite imagery offers a resolution of about 30 meters per pixel on the screen. With the drone data, scientists can see 1–2 centimeters per pixel. There’s also an improvement on temporal data, because field-based measurements and UAV-based measurements can be acquired at the same time. “This can help us better understand the linkages between field measures and UAV measures,” she explains.“Field data taken by humans can be time intensive,” Talucci adds. “You still need humans to collect UAV data, but in this case, they can study an entire 250meter transect instead of eight plots. This provides a landscape perspective, which for large-scale ecological disturbances, is ideal.” — Dan DeVries

→ Fowl Weather As temperatures rise and unseasonable heat becomes more common, how will warm-blooded animals like birds cope? Ana Jimenez, assistant professor of biology, and her research team found that native New York State birds’ oxidative stress systems change slowly with seasons. Next up for Jimenez: How do birds migrating through New York State fare?

→ Bible Stories Scholars have identified numerous tools that colonizers used during the European invasion of the Americas, from firearms to disease. But another form of conquest was the Christian Bible, which they used to condemn the Natives’ way of life. In a new paper, Christopher Vecsey, the Harry Emerson Fosdick Professor of the humanities and Native American studies, describes the holy text as “a weapon of spiritual conquest.” The twist: Native communities used it to reflect for themselves on their experiences and criticize the colonizing powers in return. → Troubled Waters Two hours south of Nairobi is an enormous watershed that supplies most of the water for the capital city and the surrounding area — until it runs out. There’s a risk that the basin will be depleted by the growing population and agricultural industry. Associate Professor Carolina Castilla, a developmental and behavioral economist, is working with a team to determine the best ways to conserve water. Moving forward: They will combine spatial data from satellite images with local survey information to get a clearer idea of land use and then utilize the data to measure agricultural productivity as well as evaluate policies that benefit households. Read these stories and more at colgateresearchmagazine.com. Winter 2021 Colgate Magazine 25

Astronomy

The Mysteries of Dark Matter Studying the effects that dark matter can have on astrophysical objects

ore than a fourth of the universe is composed of material that scientists cannot directly observe. Known as dark matter, this material does not emit light or energy. With the help of Colgate student researchers, Cosmin Ilie, senior lecturer in physics and astronomy, studies the effects that dark matter can have on astrophysical objects. Previous research has shown that, under certain conditions, dark matter may have altered the formation of the first stars in the universe, commonly known as dark stars, leading to a new phase of stellar evolution. Those objects are powered by dark matter annihilations, and can grow one million times as massive as the sun. In contrast, a third class of star called Population III stars are unaffected by dark matter during formation. Bright and enormous, Population III stars are solely powered by nuclear fusion, and grow approximately 1,000 times as massive as the sun. “The question we are addressing is how much dark matter can be trapped, or captured, by Population III stars, and if this additional power source can

26 Colgate Magazine Winter 2021

have observable effects,” Ilie says. He and Saiyang Zhang ’19 have shown, in a paper published in a 2019 Journal for Cosmology and Astroparticle Physics, that captured dark matter annihilations actually lead to a limit on how massive a star can grow. “We find that this limit is highly sensitive both to macroscopic properties of the dark matter environment where the first stars formed, and to microscopic properties of the dark matter particle itself — such as how strongly it interacts with regular matter,” Ilie says. Researchers Caleb Levy ’23, Jillian Paulin ’23, Federico Aguilera ’22, Jacob Pilawa ’20, and Zhang also focused on other aspects of dark matter. Guided by Ilie, Levy used mathematical tools to develop the formalism needed for investigating the role of helium in the capture of dark matter by the first stars. He also employed numerical methods in the programming language Python to calculate the effects of annihilation of dark matter captured by a star composed of helium and hydrogen. To explore the possibility of placing constraints on how strongly dark matter can interact with regular matter, Ilie, Levy, Zhang, and Pilawa used potential upcoming observations of Population III stars, in a

paper recently submitted for review to Physical Review D. Currently, the strongest constraints originate from direct-detection experiments. These experiments are performed deep underground, and are thus shielded by most cosmic backgrounds, Ilie explains. “The idea is that, once a dark matter particle collides with the nucleus of a chemically inert element — for example, liquid xenon — it will generate a small, but potentially detectable, signal,” he says. “All of these experiments on Earth will eventually be so sensitive that they will start detecting a large number of signals from cosmic neutrinos, which cannot be disambiguated from potential dark matter signals. This is called the neutrino floor, and it will be reached by direct-detection experiments in the next decade or so.” This means future direct-detection experiments will require a revision in strategy and technique. “Our main result is that the mere observation of a Population III star formed during the epoch of ‘first light’ — or when the first stars formed — with a mass of a few hundred times the mass of the sun is sufficient to probe interaction strengths between dark matter and regular matter below the so-called neutrino floor,” Ilie says. “Although no such star has been observed yet, there is high hope that this will change in the near future, when the upcoming James Webb Space Telescope [launching in 2021] will observe the distant universe during the epoch of the formation of the first stars.” If such a Population III object is found, Ilie explains, scientists would be able to immediately place constraints on dark matter properties that are well below the limitations of current direct-detection experiments. In August, Physical Review D published Ilie, Zhang, and Pilawa’s paper on multiscatter stellar capture of dark matter. Their findings delved into the possibility of using neutron stars as dark matter detectors. “Our main contribution to this paper was to show that there is a minimum temperature a neutron star has to have in order to be used as a dark matter probe,” Ilie notes. “We also derived an analytical formalism that allows one to calculate how much dark matter is captured by neutron stars without doing expensive numerical computations.” “Although our research centered on different goals relating to dark matter capture,” Levy adds, “I benefited immensely from my interactions with all members of the team as we tackled problems inherent in this type of research.” — Celine Turkyilmaz ’21

SAKKMESTERKE / Science Source

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Profile

History in Action During the Pandemic How one professor is helping students connect the past to the present

or most of her career, Professor Monica Mercado has centered her research on community. She’s traveled to convent motherhouses across the United States, where Catholic sisters have made their homes since the 18th century. She’s watched how modern communities have responded to the history of women’s suffrage, and the monuments built to commemorate the early suffragists. She’s visited numerous archives to understand the ways in which 19th-century women built religious and educational communities at a time when they had little power. But Mercado never expected her own form of community to include two dozen Zoom windows on her computer screen each morning, offering views into her students’ dorm rooms. “I opened up my Zoom room and the first student says, ‘I got my absentee ballot and just finished it,’” Mercado says of a class that was in mid-October. “These students come

in, and they’re telling me about their voting plans. It reminds me that you don’t have to do much to make history seem like it matters to their lives.” If ever there were a year when history feels like a palpable force connecting past to present, 2020 might be it. Mercado’s work has required grappling with the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment, the Black Lives Matter movement, and a contentious presidential election — all during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the start of the year, Mercado was in the middle of a yearlong fellowship at Harvard Divinity School. While there, she taught a course on women and gender in U.S. Catholicism and conducted research for her forthcoming book on American Catholic girlhoods. When Harvard’s campus closed in March, just as the deadliness of the pandemic was becoming apparent, Mercado was left wondering how to teach her Colgate students in the coming fall semester. Sitting down to write her modified lesson plan, Mercado began thinking about how she could create a community of students who couldn’t be physically present with one another. She realized that the very women her class would be studying had made strong networks in times of great uncertainty and crisis. “Many of the women we study were working in eras when they had to communicate across great distance,” Mercado says. “Sometimes these women marched and built community organizations, but they also

had to publish letters, organize telephone hotlines, or make other connections when they couldn’t be in person.” Normally, Mercado’s history classes visit Colgate’s Special Collections and University Archives for the visceral experience of going through old newspapers and books. This year, those in-person activities had to be put on hold. Instead, Mercado is helping her students dig into digital archives. She’s had to apply the same digital techniques to her own research as well. Instead of attending the unveiling of a women’s rights monument in Central Park this August, she watched the event being livestreamed. Yet even with the disappointment of not participating in events in person, Mercado has appreciated the fact that women’s history has been in the zeitgeist this year. More present than ever in her students’ minds is that the women’s suffrage movement didn’t solve all problems around voting. Mercado points to the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial election, in which Black politician Stacey Abrams narrowly lost to an opponent accused of voter suppression. Mercado also notes the challenges in early voting during the pandemic and the long lines of people who voted in person. “We can talk about the way that the 19th Amendment did some things, but it didn’t do everything. And I think that’s been a real turn in women’s history,” Mercado says. — Lorraine Boissoneault

MARK DIORIO

Background illustration: “The Awakening” (Henry Mayer, 1915) symbolized women's desire for the right to vote in the eastern United States.

The syllabus for Mercado’s Women’s Rights in U.S. History course includes the podcast And Nothing Less: The Untold Stories of Women’s Fight for the Vote, which is written and produced by Robin Linn ’02 (and hosted by Rosario Dawson and Retta). Winter 2021 Colgate Magazine 27

Match MADE IN

Hamilton

Alumni often speak of the deep connections they’ve made with other members of the Colgate community during classes as students, at reunions, and through chance meetings. Some even form the deepest connection: Love. Colgate Magazine spoke with seven married alumni couples via Zoom. We found that, while there are many types of Colgate couples, they share one commonality: Their stories all travel back to Hamilton, even if they didn’t begin on the Hill. By rebecca docter illustrations by D’ARA NAZARYAN 28 Colgate Magazine Winter 2021

Altogether, they’ve fostered 23 dogs (and one kitten).

Must Love Dogs Emmalee “Emmie” Dolfi ’13 and Jessica “Jesse” McCarrick ’10

en-year-old Stella and 8-year-old Stewart lounge on the floor of their Santa Fe, N.M., home, tired after a long day of walks around the neighborhood and watching their parents. Their moms, Emmie and Jesse, recently told them that they’re moving across the country to St. Petersburg, Fla., where they’ll still get to enjoy the sunshine, but this time, on the beach. Stella and Stewart aren’t your typical children — they’re dogs Emmie and Jesse rescued when the women first lived together in Washington, D.C., while Emmie pursued a master’s in geography at George Washington University. Stella, a laid-back lab mix, and Stewart, “a big old, anxious pittie,” aren’t the only dogs Emmie and Jesse have cared for. Altogether, they’ve fostered 23 dogs (and one kitten, whom they learned Emmie was allergic to). The couple’s shared love of animals is one of the many attributes that makes their 10-year relationship work. “We typically foster dogs that don’t show well at the shelter, that are super anxious,” Emmie says. “Or dogs that are hyperactive at the shelter and are bouncing off the walls, but in a home, are a lot better,” Jesse adds. (The two often finish each other’s sentences.) “It allows us to show potential adopters that they’re not crazy, lunatic dogs.” Together, they’ve had many adventures looking after their foster pups, including taking on full litters of puppies, and breaking into their own house after a pit bull figured out how to lock the door. Eventually, Jesse

Their favorite restaurant is La Choza in Santa Fe. “Every time we come in, they have margaritas ready for us,” Jesse says.

took her dedication to dogs a step further and became a vet tech. She works at the same shelter through which they foster dogs. Though their love of canines drives their relationship, Emmie and Jesse started out the way many Colgate couples do: on the Hill. They became fast friends during Emmie’s official visit to Colgate as a softball recruit in 2009, but they didn’t realize there was a spark until after Jesse graduated the following spring. Emmie and a few softball teammates drove down to visit Jesse at her family home in Virginia, and when it was time to leave, Emmie didn’t want to go. “We spent that whole summer going back and forth from Virginia to New York,” Emmie says. They married in 2017. The couple moved to Santa Fe for Emmie’s position as senior manager of urban analytics at The Trust for Public Land. An avid fan of all sports (in her wedding vows, Jesse pledged to never change the channel, “even if Emmie was watching curling or archery”), Emmie looks forward to starting her new role as a baseball analyst with the Tampa Bay Rays. Jesse hopes to further her career in veterinary medicine. As they prepare to make the cross-country move during COVID-19, the two are relying on the foundations of their relationship: good communication, laughing together, and balancing each other out. “That was what our family said about us at our wedding,” Jesse says. “You bring me back down to reality, but also I bring you up a little,” adds Emmie. “It’s nice to meet in the middle,” Jesse finishes. ● Winter 2021 Colgate Magazine 29

Jos majored in mathematical economics at Colgate and is founder and managing partner of Electron Capital Partners. Christine, who studied English and was a member of Konosioni and Gamma Phi Beta, is now general counsel for Foremost Group. She’s also a Colgate trustee emerita and cochair of the Campaign Leadership Committee.

“I made the decision to marry Christine 18 months before I proposed.” The Woman in the Red Dress Christine Chao ’86 and James “Jos” Shaver ’86

os was tired and drenched in sweat from running laps. He’d broken a cardinal rule: Never be late to tennis practice. “[But] it was worth it,” he says, because he’d finally met Christine. The two resided in different dorms their first year on campus, but many of the men in Kendrick-Eaton-Dodge, where Christine lived, pledged Phi Tau, so she always attended their parties. Jos had also joined the fraternity, and he remembers seeing Christine for the first time at a party, thinking of her as “the pretty girl wearing a red dress.” Mutual friend Andy Blackwood ’86 (who sadly passed away) introduced Jos and Christine a few days later. The two had an instant connection, and their conversation lasted so long that Jos ended up being late to that tennis practice. Tennis would show up again in their early relationship: For their first date, they played and then grabbed a bite at the Pizza Hut on Utica Street. On the last day of junior

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year, they shared a drink at the Hourglass and agreed to write letters to each other over the summer. Those long-distance notes cemented their relationship, and they became an official couple on the first day of their senior year (after another drink at the Hourglass). After graduation, Christine headed off to Columbia Law School, and Jos accepted a job in nearby New Jersey. Tired of the cold winters, he planned to travel south to Duke for his MBA. But his love for Christine changed his plans: “I made the decision to marry Christine 18 months before I proposed,” he says. Instead of going to Duke, Jos earned his MBA from Columbia. After he graduated, they married. Thirty-five years later, they’ve had adventures abroad, living in Hong Kong (where their sons, Ben and Tyler, were born) and London before settling in Greenwich, Conn. “Colgate will always hold a special place in our hearts for bringing us together,” Christine says. ●

The Seven Year Itch Lauren Galliker ’90 and Michael Spivey ’22

auren’s Zoom background can only be described as tropical, with beachy, powder blue walls and the bright sun shining through floor-to-ceiling windows. Michael’s, on the other hand, resembles a dorm room, with a beige wall that is bare except for one decorative piece: A maroon Colgate banner. They’re not virtual backgrounds — Lauren and Michael live separately; she in St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands, and he in Hamilton. Michael travels to St. John during school holidays, but when class is in session, he’s an international relations student at Colgate, attending through the Service to School VetLink Program. VetLink partners with colleges and universities to expand

access and opportunity for student veterans. When Michael, a retired special operations soldier, learned (through Lauren) that Colgate joined VetLink in 2019, he jumped at the chance to apply to the University. He’d been familiar with Colgate for more than a decade due to his relationship with Lauren, and he was excited at the opportunity to accomplish his dream of finishing college at an institution that he already knew and respected. Lauren is Colgate, through and through. For two decades, she’s served as a senior regional advancement director, and she has generations of friends in the Colgate community. After three years of dating, Lauren invited Michael to attend her 20th

Reunion and meet all of her classmates and colleagues. “In order for me to date her, I had to get along with her friends,” Michael says. One year later, their wedding was officiated by the Hon. Timothy Stanceu ’73. All of this to say, they had a tough time keeping Michael’s Colgate application a secret until he was accepted; they didn’t tell anyone until April 28, 2020, when he joined the Class of 2022. The beginning of their relationship isn’t the typical Colgate origin story: They didn’t meet as teenagers, and they’re not tied at the hip. In fact, their 13-year relationship has been mostly spent on opposite sides of the globe. They met while Michael was still on active duty. Lauren lived in New York City, and they made their relationship work Winter 2021 Colgate Magazine 31

through weekends spent commuting, spotty Skype calls overseas, and communication. “That’s the key,” Michael says. “When Lauren and I met, we were both older, so [we knew that] you have to be able to communicate better and more effectively.” He adds, “By the time we got married, we had already spent enough time dating and enough time being apart that we had a pretty good rhythm about how it works.” In 2018, when Michael retired from the Army, “life finally gave us the opportunity to live together,” Lauren says. “The restaurant across the bay from us has a weekly trivia tournament ... we named ourselves The Seven Year Itch because it was seven years into our marriage when we were finally able to live together.” Although they’re apart while Michael finishes his degree, in 2022, they’ll be together once again. On their first date, Michael and Lauren played golf, and she chipped in from 120 yards out, “a heck of a shot for any golfer,” Michael says. They went wild, high-fiving and fist-bumping on the course. Two strangers walked over and asked how long they’d been married. “I guess there was something in the chemistry that it was meant to be,” Lauren says. “And it’s been fantastic.” ● Lauren received the Ann Yao ’80 Memorial Young Alumni Award in 1995 and a Maroon Citation in 2015. The Colgate banner in Michael’s room was given to Lauren by her mom and dad, 35 years ago.

Opposites Attract Keith ’01 and Mylisa Sergeant ’00 Brooks

t was the summer of 1997. “Can’t Nobody Hold Me Down” by Puff Daddy breezed through radio speakers, and Hamiltonians enjoyed rare hot days. Mylisa was on campus researching water pollution and its impact on underground aquifers. She was single at the time and “there were no guys in my class I wanted to date,” she says. She didn’t know what her “type” was and didn’t mind continuing her search to find the right guy. Eventually, she met Keith. Mylisa remembers seeing Keith arriving on campus that summer. Wearing a bright yellow shirt and hailing from Florida, Keith was quiet and thoughtful. “I don’t call it love at first sight because I don’t know if I was convinced,” Mylisa says. “But I got a vibe that I would probably date him.” Keith, on campus early for the OUS program, remembers it a bit differently: “I met Mylisa, and she was different than what I was used to. She was more of an extrovert, and I was more of an introvert.” Though they were on different wavelengths romantically, the two became friends. Keith had a girlfriend back in Florida, but Mylisa still took him to the Sadie Hawkins dance. They also often ran errands together around Hamilton. Eventually, Keith and his girlfriend broke up, and friends urged him and Mylisa to try starting a relationship. As Keith got to know Mylisa better, he finally asked her on a date. One icy night, they borrowed a friend’s stick shift and went to McDonald’s in town, munched on salty fries, then watched Independence Day at the Hamilton Movie Theater. Afterward, they sat on Seven Oaks Golf Course and looked up at the stars. The couple married after graduation and now have two daughters and a son. Twenty-four years later, Keith and Mylisa are still opposites in many ways, but they say that’s what makes their marriage so successful. Mylisa can make or fix anything, from a Halloween costume to a household project. Keith cooks and ensures that the family prioritizes time together, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. Together, they make it work. “The bottom line is, we’ve learned that we’re a team and we play different roles on the team,” Keith says. In the summer of 2022, they plan to spend their 20th wedding anniversary on the Hill. This time, they’re on the same page. ●

Faith is a cornerstone of Keith and Mylisa’s relationship: “We are both strong Christians, and that was an essential attribute for [each of] us in a potential life partner,” Mylisa says. They were both in the Sojourners Gospel Choir at Colgate, and Keith attended University Church while Mylisa worshiped at Hamilton Bible Fellowship.

32 Colgate Magazine Winter 2021

Becky studied international relations and political science at Colgate. Today, she’s an attorney and land use adviser and serves on the University’s Board of Trustees. Chris, also an attorney, double majored in political science and economics.

A Window of Opportunity Chris ’81 and Becky Bair ’81 Hurley

ecky can recall with certainty the first time she saw Chris. It was August 1977, and classes for the semester hadn’t yet started. As she and roommate Becky Anway ’81 Valenti leaned out the window of their second-floor dorm room on the back of Kendrick Hall (now called Curtis Hall), she saw two men — “quite a pair in their own right” — in straw cowboy hats ascending the stairs. Chris and his friend Dave Rentschler ’81 were walking over from Dana Arts Center, and they’d just bought the hats from John’s Shoe Shop in Hamilton. “This was a bold fashion move in 1977,” says Becky Bair ’81 Hurley. Ironically, Chris says he remembers Becky wearing overalls the first time he saw her. “We were both city kids, so I am not sure how we independently settled on the country-western look.” Like many Colgate romances, their early dates weren’t fancy: they were dinners together in the Hall of Presidents and raising glasses at parties off campus. Chris played football, so Becky cheered him on at every game, “and I tried to understand what an offensive guard did,” she jokes. They pored over political science texts in Case Library, discussing Professor Robert Kraynak’s lectures. Their dating anniversary is Oct. 8, 1977, the day they sat together on a bench at Taylor Lake, watching the ducks glide on the water. When they visit campus, they always find their way back to that bench. “My favorite memories of Colgate all feature Becky,” Chris says. They’ve been together for 43 years and have three children: Daniel ’12, Matthew ’12, and Katie. When their sons graduated, they walked from the ceremony at Taylor Lake to the back of Curtis Hall and took a photo. Becky’s dorm window was in view. ●

“My favorite memories of Colgate all feature Becky,” Chris says.

Growing, Together David Vargas ’81 and Yvette Maitland-Vargas ’81

ampus is different during the summer. It’s almost placid, with most students away and fewer activities planned. David and Yvette credit that unusual environment for beginning their 41-year romance. The year was 1979, and at the time, every Colgate student was required to complete one summer semester on campus, to free up space in the dorms the following fall. Outside of class, Yvette passed her time by working in Dana Arts Center. “It was a perfect place for me to work because I could study,” she remembers. “It was quiet, and most times, no one came by.” That is, except for David. He’d visit her often, to chat or to sit with her and reminisce about their families back home. The couple says the less-populated, easygoing pace of Colgate in the summer allowed them time to get to know each other. “With less people in the summer and a much calmer environment, we got to see each other more and appreciate each other more,” David says. Listening to their descriptions of one another, they seem like yin and yang. When David first met Yvette, he says, she was lively, and he was immediately taken with her. “She was athletic,” he remembers. “And she was a lot of fun.” David was athletic, too, as a member of the wrestling team. But that isn’t what Yvette recalls most about David: “When I first met him, he was pretty quiet.” She was attracted to his calm demeanor, and he was different. “He seemed responsible and very affectionate.” Yvette never imagined meeting someone like that, and it was even more surprising to her that she’d love someone so much that she’d want to marry them. She had her life planned out: She wanted to be a single mother and adopt several children, all of different nationalities. She wanted to nurture them and teach them to love one another. But, once she met David, her idea of happiness shifted. “I couldn’t even have dreamed it,” she says. David taught her to express love outwardly and comfortably, Yvette says. In her native Jamaica, as a custom, people don’t express affection openly and that can seem closed off emotionally. David was the Winter 2021 Colgate Magazine 33

opposite, going out of his way to make sure she knew he loved her. “He doesn’t have to say ‘I love you’. I still don’t have to wonder about that.” They still walk hand-in-hand when out and about in public. They now have two sons, Craig and Gregory, so Yvette’s vision of bringing up babies wasn’t too far off. The couple says the process of raising children has allowed their relationship to grow. “We jumped into childbearing early,” David says. “And that ate into a big chunk of our life together. The majority of the time, [we’re focused on our] commitment to our sons [and our] family.” Although both of their children are now grown, the couple is enjoying their next adventure: their baby granddaughter, Cassie. Because she was born during the pandemic, they don’t get to see her in person too often. “We get to see her on Zoom calls, plus lots of pictures, and we just love it,” Yvette says. ● Yvette was a geology major at Colgate, and she traveled to the United Kingdom with a Jan Plan study group. She previously worked in banking and business, and now she’s an internet marketing and ecommerce entrepreneur. David studied economics and went to Granada, Spain, on a study group. He’s had a career in accounting and finance, and he currently works for Greenfield Global as an ERP implementation analyst. They were both OUS students.

Art Is Long and Life Is Short Ray ’69 and Leslie Heaslip ’74 Wengenroth

t the center of Leslie and Ray’s romance is art ... but it began with renting. Even Leslie acknowledges “it’s a little creepy” that she married her college landlord. “It was kind of a dump,” she says of the apartment on Lebanon Street. “I can’t say that my first impression of Ray was terribly positive.” Ray remembers Leslie sneaking a litter of puppies into the unit — his impression of her wasn’t exactly rosy either. But they eventually saw the humor in their situation and, when they bumped into each other at the Colgate Inn every now and then, they clinked their glasses of 15-cent Utica Club drafts and became friends. Over time, they fell in love. Ray wasn’t only a landlord after he graduated from Colgate with an art and art history degree — he was a teaching assistant in the University’s art department. Leslie also studied art and art history (in addition to English), and they bonded over a shared love of the craft. Ray was a sculptor at Colgate, and he eventually moved on to paintings that he still makes today, in addition to printmaking. Leslie is a painter, too, and although she took a hiatus for many

years to focus on her marketing career, she’s picked up a brush again, creating smaller, detailed paintings. Art has popped up in myriad ways throughout their relationship. Once, they were at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, a side trip after dropping off their teenaged son, Eric ’07, at the airport as he headed for golf camp. Many of their friends who’d been married for decades were divorcing, empty nesters who discovered that with children out of the house, they had little in common anymore. But when Leslie and Ray arrived at the museum, they were joyful and excited about a solo outing together. “He turned to me and said, ‘This must be what it’s like to have an empty nest!’” she remembers. In addition to art, they enjoy a shared love of outdoor activities, such as hiking and kayaking in Massachusetts and spending time together at their cabin in Downeast Maine. Leslie and Ray married 46 years ago in an August outdoor ceremony, after she graduated from Colgate (a member of the first official coed class). They say that doing things together, spending one-on-one time enjoying each other’s company, is their formula for staying a strong couple. “There can be a lot of intense romance and love at the beginning, then you get caught up with work, and if you have kids, that takes over your life,” Leslie says. “It’s wonderful, but it is all-absorbing. It’s really important in a long marriage to retain the connection you have to each other, and a lot of that is love, but it’s also just ‘like,’ and liking to be together and liking to do things together.” Renting was a component in their early relationship, but, now, it’s back in Leslie and Ray’s lives. “When you’re an artist, you need a plan B,” Ray says. His was carpentry, which evolved into building lofts for photographers and artists in New York City. When their kids came along, building lofts evolved into building houses in the suburbs of New Jersey. And then, when the couple moved to Boston in 1997, he started flipping homes and selling them to families. Ray leases the homes he doesn’t sell. Once again, he’s a landlord. But now, Leslie isn’t his tenant — she’s his partner. ● Leslie comes from a long Colgate lineage, but no one was more of a Colgate fanatic than her dad, Cliff Heaslip ’50. Cliff (who passed in 2018) was president of the Alumni Corporation and worked in the development office for a time. “He was a nut about Colgate,” Leslie says. She fondly remembers visiting her family with Ray during college one time, and her dad asked who to make her rent check out to.

34 Colgate Magazine Winter 2021

13 Traditions Colgate is known for its storied traditions, and marriages are no exception. We tapped wedding planner Shannon Whitney Anson and Assistant to the Chief of Staff and Secretary to the Board of Trustees Maureen McKinnon to learn how some Colgate couples have celebrated their unions.

2 3 4 5 6

A friendly Friday morning golf tournament at Seven Oaks to tee off the wedding weekend

Cheers! Welcome drinks at the Colgate Inn

Hitching a ride on the Colgate Cruiser around Hamilton

Sentimental “first looks” on Willow Path

All-alumni wedding parties

Celebrating on the Merrill House lawn (complete with “Colgate Cornhole”)

7 8 9 10 11 12 13

The couple’s head table, labeled No. 13

Gobbling up Toll House cookie pie for dessert Alumni gathering for a photo with a Colgate banner

1. Emmalee “Emmie” Dolfi ’13 and Jessica “Jesse” McCarrick ’10

Singing along to “New York, New York” at the end of the reception

2. Christine Chao ’86 and James “Jos” Shaver ’86 3. Lauren Galliker ’90 and Michael Spivey ’22

Late-night snacks from Slices Post-wedding sendoff in the Colgate Inn’s Green Room

Wedding bells: 13 times

There are 1,683 known married Colgate couples.

4. Keith ’01 and Mylisa Sergeant ’00 Brooks 7

5. Chris ’81 and Becky Bair ’81 Hurley 6. David Vargas ’81 and Yvette Maitland-Vargas ’81 7. Ray ’69 and Leslie Heaslip ’74 Wengenroth

Winter 2021 Colgate Magazine 35

UNDE

justin wolford

KEEPING ON TRACK, OVERCOMING HURDLES

riginally from Haiti, Johna Joseph ’22 moved to Italy with his family during high school and then came to the United States for college. In addition to adjusting to new places throughout the years, Joseph has had to watch his mom’s health deteriorate. As the eldest son, he’s felt the weight of his familial responsibilities. At one point, he was unsure whether he’d be able to go to college. Uncertainty has always

36 Colgate Magazine Winter 2021

been a certainty, so the pandemic is no different. “When I run into challenges, that’s not really unusual,” he says. “That’s just part of my life.” As a member of his high school track team in Naples, Italy, Joseph wasn’t a standout competitor, he says. In fact, when he arrived at Colgate, he was a walk-on member of the University’s team. “Once I got here, Colgate gave me opportunities to improve and show what I was capable of. Colgate provided the proper

Students share how they made it through the fall semester, with its universal quarantine, reopening “gates,” and travel restrictions. (Spoiler: It wasn’t easy, but they did it together.)

TERR E D resources and training I’ve never received before.” In his first year, he accelerated to the fastest in the sprints group, and in his second year, the team named him as a captain. “If I had to describe Johna in two words, it would be perseverance and dedication,” says Associate Head Coach Luke Burdick. “Last year, I worked with him more closely as his event coach and noticed right away that he was a different type of athlete. His

hard work paid off when he cemented himself as the best sprinter on the team and one of the best in the entire conference.” Joseph’s strongest event is the 200-meter dash. But he loves jumping hurdles. “I love the challenge of the hurdle,” he says. “It’s exhilarating in every sense of the word; there’s a [feeling] of danger and urgency, but it’s complemented by a rhythm and flow that just bring a smile to your face when you get it right.”

Winter 2021 Colgate Magazine 37

In the classroom, Joseph is a chemistry major and French minor. Chemistry can be arduous and demanding; however, he decided in his high school AP class that he would stick with it. “I believe you should study things you have fun learning about and that you enjoy, regardless of the level of difficulty,” he says. Last spring, he made the dean’s list with distinction. This year, Joseph has found his studies to be considerably harder. He’s been losing sleep and not finding much time for himself. “I know that these things aren’t forever, but it’s very stressful,” Joseph says. Training is also more intense this year. “It’s comprehensive; it focuses on every part of the body,” he explains. “And it’s a holistic process. We’re taking time to improve our form and our mechanics. I think we’re the strongest we’ve ever been.” Practices themselves are different, starting with the visibly obvious — wearing a mask while running. “It’s not pleasant,” he says, “but we’re here to get work done and improve, so it’s not the thing I focus on.” Rather than practicing as a whole team, they split into pods, working with the individuals in their event group. Although they’re physically divided, the team has been “proactive about building relationships with our teammates and fostering a collaborative community,” Joseph says. “As a captain, I’m part of that movement to make sure the first-years aren’t swept up and left behind by this pandemic. It’s an allout effort to be there for each other so that we can keep getting better but also make sure that we’re sane, we’re whole, and we’re healthy mentally and physically.” Joseph also finds community in Pre-Health Pathways, a group he co-founded last summer to bring together students planning to enter medical and health-related careers. They meet virtually on Sundays to share study and lifestyle tips, ideas for staying motivated, and resources as well as plan events featuring alumni experts. “I’m grateful for these things I’m a part of that are keeping me on the right track,” Joseph says. “I look at uncertainty as something that has to be dealt with, regardless of how you feel at the moment. I’m not going to be frustrated by it; I’m just going to do my best. That’s really all I can do.” — Aleta Mayne

38 Colgate Magazine Winter 2021

STICKING TOGETHER

EVERY INDIVIDUAL ON CAMPUS KNOWS AND RECOGNIZES THAT WE HAVE A COMMITMENT TO EACH OTHER.

eing in Hamilton for the fall semester has been full of surprises, compromises, and changes. The Colgate I left behind in March — one with in-person classes, people packed into the chapel for Dancefest, and late-night grilled cheeses in Frank at 2 a.m. — is not the Colgate I returned to. While our time on campus is vastly different than anyone remembered it being before, there is one part that is still the same: A foundational part of Colgate is its community, which has flourished in these unprecedented times. The universal two-week quarantine, Zoom classes with the occasional WiFi glitches, and mandatory appointments to pick up our packages are a few things, among many others, that we have all had to manage. And sometimes it is hard not to feel defeated when facing piles of schoolwork; at points, I’ve even questioned if doing the semester remotely would have been better for me. But, at the end of the day, while these obstacles in our daily lives are testing, they provide every student with something in common that goes deeper than just the Colgate community. Sacrifices have had to be made by everyone to enable us to stay here. Every individual on campus knows and recognizes that we have a commitment to each other. Whether that is shown through air high fives, rather than hugging my best friends, or eating dinner outside even when it is cold, or a friend trekking 20 minutes up the Hill just to grab a smoothie with me, it is clear that campuswide, we are taking this commitment seriously. Each decision we make impacts others — and, considering the amount of time we have been able to stay here, it is clear that people are taking that commitment seriously. So, while this semester looks and feels uncomfortable, it is more exceptional and extraordinary because it reminds us all how much we are supported and cared for. — Sarah Harris ’23 is a psychological sciences major who intends to double minor in educational studies and film and media studies. She is a member of Gamma Phi Beta, Stockbridge Juniors, Hamilton Elementary Tutors, Sidekicks, EduMate, and Link Staff. She is also an admission ambassador.

13 THINGS TO BE HAPPY ABOUT

THERE IS NO CHANCE I WOULD WANT TO SPEND THE LAST FOUR MONTHS ANYWHERE ELSE.

hen I am off the softball field, I’m a member of the Student Athletic Advisory Committee, the social media director for the American Sign Language Club, a WRCU DJ for my show called That’s the Tea, and an Orientation Link. I like to be involved in different activities on campus because I take every day as another chance to fall in love with Colgate. This semester, compared to others, is different and hard for most students. There are no football games, brown bag lunches, and even no pizza and wings at the end of Mass on Sunday nights. Although some social aspects have changed, there is no chance I would want to spend the last four months anywhere else. While I was at the bookstore the other day, I picked up a book called 14,000 Things to Be Happy About. It was on clearance so, being the savvy shopper I am, I had to buy all of the books in stock. When I got home, I packaged one up for my sister, one for my best

friend from home, and kept one for myself. Looking through the pages, I giggled at things like “the perfect peanut butter to jelly ratio” and “fried pickles,” and it got me thinking, there are so many things about Colgate that make me happy. Here are 13 reasons I wake up happy here every day.

The RIG Food Truck (parked in the library lot) and its chicken tikka masala

Catching a last-minute cruiser in the rain

3. 4.

Coop M&M’s cookies

Saying good morning to my teammates and roommates

5. 6. 7.

Slices with ranch The immaculate vibes at 6 a.m. lift

Byrne Dairy’s “Traveling Tuesdays” (free coffee)

8. 9.

The Willow Path fall views

The unwavering support of the facilities department

10.

Having a sign language conversation with Angela Marathakis (assistant athletics director and director of student-athlete academic services) in the Reid academic center

11.

Our feel-good front toss drill during practice

12.

Jam-out sessions to “Speechless” by Dan and Shay on the drive to practice

13. Justin Wolford

The beautiful sunsets you can see from the library

— Morgan Farrah ’22 is a computer science major and a member of the varsity softball team. Winter 2021 Colgate Magazine 39

LIVING IN THE MOMENT Q&A WITH COLIN TROUP ’22

Majors: economics, geography Activities: football, Student Athletic Advisory Committee, Colgate Real Estate Club, Colgate Marketing Club Hometown: Canton, Mich. Tell us about training this semester. Our coaches have done an excellent job keeping practices intense and eventful. Because we are not allowed to practice all together yet, they consist of mostly individual work with our position groups (consisting of 5–8 guys). I’m a wide receiver, so our practices usually revolve around running routes and going over blocking scheme. Not having the entire team out on the field at the same time has been the major difference this year. Without everyone on the field, feeding off of each other’s energy, the energy can sometimes begin to fade. However, whenever that happens, each position group usually recognizes it right away and attempts to bring the energy back, which is something unique about our team. Everyone plays an important role and understands the circumstances. My teammates and I understand that this process may be grueling, but each day we look forward to getting better and we keep our tunnel vision on our season. How has this situation affected you mentally and emotionally? The global pandemic has definitely been weird, and life has changed drastically. Speaking with family and friends, living in the moment, and controlling what I can control are ways I’ve been able to cope with difficulties. What are the ways you’ve stayed in shape physically? Keeping a daily routine and eating right. Also, we lift for about an hour, three times a week, in our small groups. In terms of diet, I’ve been avoiding the apple cider and cider doughnuts, which has definitely helped.

How are you staying connected with family? Playing football, I often miss out on [going home during] many of the school fall breaks. But I FaceTime and speak to my mother every day. Last summer, during the national lockdown, I was able to spend more time with her, which I truly enjoyed. It will be nice to be home in December, the part of the year that many college students miss out on. It will bring me back to the old days. I’ll be able to help put the Christmas decorations up, watch Christmas movies for 25 nights straight, bake cookies with my mother — everything I usually don’t get to do, which will be really fun.

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING DELIBERATE

I’VE ALWAYS BEEN OBSESSED WITH THE IDEA OF “BEFORE AND AFTER.” AN EVENT THAT FEELS LIKE A MILE MARKER ON THE HIGHWAY. AN EVENT THAT FEELS LIKE AN ANNOUNCEMENT. AN EVENT THAT CHANGES THE LENS, MAKES MEMORIES A DIFFERENT HUE FROM THE PRESENT AND FUTURE. COLGATE AND THE WORLD ARE COLLECTIVELY GOING THROUGH ONE RIGHT NOW WITH THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC. AND, SOMEHOW, HOWEVER INSENSITIVE IT MIGHT SOUND, THIS MIGHT BE ONE OF MY FAVORITE SEMESTERS. EVERYTHING I DO NOW IS DELIBERATE. EVERYONE I SEE IS BECAUSE I WANT TO SEE THEM. MY SOCIAL LIFE NOW IS BUILT ON INTENTIONALITY, SOMETHING THAT WOULDN’T HAVE PROBABLY BEEN ACHIEVABLE UNDER NORMAL CIRCUMSTANCES. — Ignacio Villar ’22, a peace and conflict studies major from Edmond, Okla.

40 Colgate Magazine Winter 2021

MAINTAINING FOCUS AND FRIENDSHIPS MEET MICHAEL HANRATTY ’24

(Potential) Major: political science, economics, or both Activities: varsity golf team, Colgate Dischords, Maroon-News Hometown: Avon, Conn.

CALLOUT

Training: Because golf is a low-risk sport, the main restrictions were wearing masks on the course and having limited access to the driving range at Seven Oaks. Otherwise, we practiced as we would during a normal semester. Competition: Because the Patriot League canceled fall sports, we haven’t had any official competitions. Each weekend during the fall, though, we had intrasquad competitions to keep an aspect of competition. Academics: The academic experience has been different. Two of my classes are fully online and two are hybrid, so I have been spending a lot of time on Zoom. It certainly has made it more challenging to stay engaged during class, but professors have done their best to adjust expectations and make everything as clear as possible. It also has made any time we have together in person more valuable. Coping: I usually just try to take everything as it comes, and that mentality has been important for me. Acknowledging that there are factors out of my control and focusing on the things I could do to reclaim control certainly helped as well. Of course, making friends here has also helped. I have a great group of friends, and we have navigated the semester together. Team connections: Without competition, my teammates and I have almost had more time to get to know one another. We’ve been able to spend a lot of time together on the course and off. Especially with the quarantine at the beginning of the semester, it has been helpful to enter with a built-in group of friends.

mark diorio

Looking forward: Obviously, I hope to return to a level of normalcy. I am probably most excited to compete with the golf team and perform in person with the Dischords. I’m also excited to have more freedom, especially to be able to explore the local area and have fewer restrictions on social life. Winter 2021 Colgate Magazine 41

OUTDOOR APPRECIATION OBSERVATIONS FROM JACOB WATTS ’21

Major: biology Honors: 2020 Goldwater scholarship, Arnold and Mabel Beckman Scholar, Alumni Memorial Scholar Hometown: North East, Pa. Particularly this semester, I took solace on the trails. As an Outdoor Education staff member, I am privileged to have access to mountain bikes that we use to teach classes and lead trips. The extensive network of single-track mountain biking trails has been a very important part of my Colgate experience. Being on campus this semester has been critical for me during these challenging times. I can name any number of positive encounters that I have had this semester. Every morning, I am privileged to walk by Taylor Lake on my way to class. I go to inperson classes where I learn much more than I would on Zoom. But more importantly, I can remain an active member of the Colgate community in the limited fashion allowed under COVID-19 restrictions. One of my favorite parts about being on campus this semester has been leading the campfires in the Academic Quad, where I can sit and talk with a variety of students, and we can escape from the world for a few hours while enjoying the crisp air. And, every evening when I come home after a long day, I can eat dinner with my family unit in my University Court apartment. Being on campus this semester has been much more positive than negative. There’s nowhere I’d rather be — except perhaps Costa Rica, examining ferns [Watts has gone on three research trips to Costa Rica with Professor Eddie Watkins]. I would like to express my gratitude to those faculty and staff who have made this semester possible.

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BLUE-SKY THINKING

mark diorio (2)

’ve always been an independent person, so I thought my nature would protect me as I unpacked my things and settled into quarantine in late August. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Waking up that first day in my twin XL bed, for a moment I forgot the circumstances of the semester, and the slow realization tore away any illusion I had about my so-called protection. During outside time, I laid in the grass in Cushman House’s backyard, staring at the bright blue sky, not sure if it was making me feel better or if it was mocking my own gloomy state. Maybe I was being dramatic. Maybe I needed to try to find more ways to occupy myself. Whatever it might have been in those first few weeks, it passed. It passed without pomp nor circumstance; things simply began to look up. Perhaps it was the fact that my Zoom classes began to feel more normal — with all of us trying our best to make things less awkward. Some professors took the time to amuse us by changing their virtual backgrounds or simply asking how we were

doing and really being present when listening to our answers. I’m not sure if I actually faced an increase in my usual workload this fall, though it felt that way at times. In spite of it all, not a single one of my professors was anything but receptive, kind, and willing to meet us where we’re at. I can only imagine what it must be like for some professors who have families and lives that have been turned upside down by this pandemic, and yet each one I know has gone above and beyond to help me feel like I had the support that, in my time here, has been one of the most meaningful and valuable aspects of my Colgate experience. Aside from classes, I’m sure I will never know the depth of the work that faculty and staff members have done to program events for us in this new virtual form. The Museum Studies Program’s B.A.M. (Be a Maker) series has been a real highlight, and the other day I was handed a candy apple by the Office of the Dean that quite literally sweetened my afternoon. The clubs and student groups I’m a part of, and other events I have attended, have given us social outlets and fun activities to do as well. These spaces have done so much to help me feel connected.

It certainly didn’t help that situations beyond Colgate’s campus are so fraught right now. Considering our current national and global context, the work we all have, and the sheer pressure of adapting to this new way of life, I think we have done an incredible job. I am so beyond proud of Colgate and everyone who has been part of making this semester what it has been thus far. The word “unprecedented” has become so much a part of our vocabulary that it has nearly lost the impact it had months ago. As we continue to face new challenges, it will perhaps become diluted further by the evergrowing burden of meaning it carries for us. Not one of us could have planned for the heartbreak and fear that seems to color our days. That said, I am certainly welcoming every blue sky I see these days and, for now, I suppose that is enough. — Carina Haden ’21 is an English major and art and art history minor from Whitesboro, N.Y. For the last two years, she has been a research assistant for Jennifer Brice and the Living Writers Program. Haden is also the senior adviser for the Black Student Union, the secretary of the Colgate Book Society, and has been a WRCU DJ. Winter 2021 Colgate Magazine 43

Vincent van Gogh, Paul Cézanne, and Frida Kahlo are three examples of artists who made some of their best works while in isolation. Both the past and the present have shown that people use creative expression as a way of finding solace in difficult times. Colgate’s Department of Theater built off this idea with COVID Diaries: A Festival Gallery. “We had students who wrote plays and did artwork as a response to being in quarantine in the spring,” says Anna Labykina, the theater department’s technical director who devised, developed, and coordinated the three-day gallery. Realizing last summer that there wouldn’t be a live production happening in the near future, the department put out a call for projects — those already created and new works — that would be presented online at the end of October. In their artist statements, many students talked about how they made their projects as a method of processing their feelings while in isolation. Not all of the students who participated were even art or theater majors. “But people wanted to produce art to cope with the current circumstances,” Labykina says. “And that was, in large part, why we wanted to do the exhibit to begin with — to show people’s reactions to the circumstances we’re finding ourselves in.”

44 Colgate Magazine Winter 2021

Light at the End of the Tunnel? Lost in the blackness, with no sense of direction. That’s what Erika Fox ’21 wants users to feel as they interact with her digital project. During a Digital Studio class in the fall, Fox and the group discussed the notion of the pandemic as a portal. “But I think that implies that it’s quick and easy,” she says. “It’s more of a tunnel we’re stuck in and struggling to find our way out of.” The project — which the film and media studies and computer science double major made using the programming language Max8 — represents Fox’s theory. The interface allows users to navigate through the blackness of the “tunnel” looking for lights. At the brighter points, the user is rewarded with fun audio clips, like popular TikTok songs, viral YouTube videos, and upbeat instrumentals from the video game Animal Crossing. Fox intended for these audio clips to be positive reinforcements, representing the happy little moments of culture that can be a brief respite from the darkness. (She took inspiration in finding these clips from her work as a global insights intern at ViacomCBS last summer.) In the tunnel, there’s also a large “I’m lost” button, but every time users click on it, they are navigated to a different random point, and a COVID-19 public service announcement plays. “The more lost you say you are, the more lost you’ll be [in the game],” Fox says. “It’s a commentary on how you have to stop dwelling on when you’re going to get out and when the pandemic is going to end — because that’s not going to help anything; it’s just going to make it worse.” The end of the tunnel is attainable through four points, at which the screen becomes almost completely light and the volume is at its peak. As the screen becomes lighter, Fox’s ultimate message becomes clear with the words: “as we navigate unprecedented times / we find little lights in the tunnel / that help us through the darkness.”

The Big Picture A young woman sits, surrounded by flowers, holding a protest sign that says “Defund the police.” Titled A Moment of Reckoning, this collage symbolizes the complex nature of the 2020 racial justice protests and the differing opinions people have about them. Some see the events as peaceful, while others view them as destructive. This work is the centerpiece of Out of Context by Ethan Cherry ’23, who extracted the main image out of a Baltimore magazine. Cherry, who is majoring in political science and minoring in architectural studies, hails from outside that city. He completed this project in Introduction to Studio Art with Professor Yi Cui. “There’s so much going on in the world right now that I’d be remiss not to comment on all the things happening,” Cherry says. A Moment of Reckoning differs from the other collages that comprise Out of Context, but in each piece, Cherry plays with juxtaposing ideas. Ultimately, the pieces serve as a commentary on society. “In Third Dimension, a woman’s face is split in two, and the center of her halves is filled with cascading gold coins. Commenting on our “obsession with excess,” Cherry prompts us to reevaluate our society during the pandemic and ask: “Is that what life should be anymore?” These works “speak to a time in our lives that is at one moment a blur but also packed with moments that will define our year and redefine even more,” he says. — Aleta Mayne

Winter 2021 Colgate Magazine 45

What Does the

FUTURE Hold

This past year has been described by many as a dumpster fire. Knowing our world problems won’t magically disappear, we need to ask: What’s next? Professors offer their insights. By sarah baldwin and Michael Blanding illustrations by stuart bradford

THE FRAGILE WEB If 2020 taught us anything, it’s how much we rely on the internet. Whether shopping (Amazon), working (Zoom), or just relaxing with the family (Netflix), we rely on digital connection for nearly every aspect of life. We’re so used to being online, we hardly realize how dependent we are — that is, until a technical glitch crashes part of the internet. “A network goes down, and suddenly hundreds of flights are grounded,” says Aaron Gember-Jacobson, who teaches the course The Unreliable Internet. “Or half of Japan experiences an outage because of one small error Google made in an update.” In fact, he says, the internet is much more vulnerable than we realize, with implications for future economic stability, international security, and personal privacy. An assistant professor of computer science, Gember-Jacobson has studied networks for more than a decade,

46 Colgate Magazine Winter 2021

examining what makes them break down and how to make them more resilient. Part of the trouble is the complexity of the infrastructure, which relies on multiple layers all communicating seamlessly. At the same time, decisions on protocols made more than 30 years ago remain embedded in the internet today. “The main way traffic gets routed on the internet was thought up by some people and written on a napkin over lunch,” he says. Then there is the physical nature of the internet — the vast network of cables running beneath the streets and the massive data centers vulnerable to environmental threats such as the wildfires or rising sea levels due to climate change. Through his class, Gember-Jacobson says, “students start to realize that the internet is a very tangible thing.” As part of his class, he also shows students just how easily hackers can steal personal information. Gember-Jacobson builds a fake, seemingly secure wireless network, and then shows his students how much information

is exposed when he connects to the fake network and browses the web. Even though security systems exist, he says, they aren’t as widely used as they should be because network administrators often find them onerous. “You have to create motivation to use them,” he says. Finally, he drives home the growing disparity in internet access, with communities of color particularly losing out on connection that creates prosperity. [For more on this, see p. 55.] “There’s a form of redlining that’s taking place with broadband infrastructure,” he says. As our lives continue to move online, he says, it’s crucial we take steps to secure the internet physically and virtually, and create future access for everyone. “There are a lot of moments in class [in which students say], ‘Oh wow, I never thought about that before,’” Gember-Jacobson says. “Students start to realize just how much they’ve taken for granted.”

— Michael Blanding

Winter 2021 Colgate Magazine 47

ARTIFICIAL, BUT INTELLIGENT? From 2001: A Space Odyssey to WALL-E to Ex Machina, contemporary culture is crawling with robots. So is real life, Krista Kennedy says: spellchecker software corrects our typos, Alexa plays our favorite songs, and Google Maps tells us how to get where we need to go. But as Kennedy, an NEH visiting professor of writing and rhetoric, also points out, “We humans have desired objects that can do our bidding for a very long time.” One of the earliest examples is the Antikythera mechanism, a complex mechanical “computer” that was used to track the cycles

48 Colgate Magazine Winter 2021

of the solar system at the end of the 2nd century B.C. In her Rhetoric and Robots class, Kennedy wants students to explore robots through cultural rhetorics. Whether ancient, medieval, or modern, the stories we tell ourselves about automation reveal how we process our anxieties and hopes with regard to technology and our relationship to it. They also bring up interesting, sometimes challenging questions: Why do we prefer a robot to be humanoid, rather than just a square metal box? Can a robot have rhetorical agency? Students investigate these and other questions by reading Greek myths, academic articles about artificial intelligence and human/machine collaboration, and news reports about robotic caregivers. They also

watch movies “together,” viewing them as a class via Zoom while discussing them using the chat box. This in itself is interesting, according to Kennedy. “You see a different side of your students when they’re ‘talking’ in a purely textual manner,” she says. Toward the end of the course, Kennedy, who has worn a hearing aid since age 2, invites students to consider medical wearables and prosthetics and what constitutes a “cyborg body.” Her current smart assistive device uses algorithms to, among other actions, modulate the quality of sounds in different environments. Taking into account what the students have read, watched, and discussed over the semester, she asks, “Does that make me a cyborg?”

— Sarah Baldwin

WHAT’S WAR GOOD FOR? When students come into Danielle Lupton’s Global Peace & War class, they often arrive with an extreme view of international conflict. “They come with preconceived notions about war being this exceptional event that we somehow happen into,” she says, “when actually there’s lots of stuff that happens before we end up in war.” Most importantly, Lupton explains, war is a policy choice, entered into deliberately by world leaders for specific reasons and with specific hoped-for ends. “So why do we go into war in some cases and not in others?” asks the associate professor of political science. “We need to look at the evidence.” That evidence-based approach to world conflict reaches as far back as Greek city-states and the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia in order to better explain when and why countries use military force as opposed to negotiation or crisis bargaining to achieve their political ends. While the class considers a range of international relations theories, Lupton’s own work particularly stresses the importance of decisions made by individual leaders, rather than more monolithic concerns of states. In her recent book, Reputation for Resolve, for example, she examines the crucial part individual reputations play in international relations through the differing approaches of the Soviet Union’s Nikita Khrushchev toward presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy. “We can see changes in response as a leader’s reputation changes throughout that leader’s tenure,” she says. In past semesters, Lupton’s course has lent itself to rich debates, with students ranging from first-year art majors to senior political science majors, and including participants from all over the world. “It’s been really exciting to have such a globally engaged and diverse student body with many different views and perspectives,” she says. They are now applying the lessons of the past at a crucial time for the United States, as Americans face a crisis of legitimacy following Donald Trump’s “go it alone” approach to foreign policy that often left allies out in the cold. “One of the questions we need to ask is how much [President] Biden’s foreign policy will be constrained by decisions made by the Trump administration,” she says. “What are the trade-offs between being able to pursue one’s own self-interest versus acquiring legitimacy? And how does one exercise their power when there are tensions with allies?” How the country answers those questions could determine its role in global conflict for years to come.

— Michael Blanding

“WE CAN SEE CHANGES IN RESPONSE AS A LEADER’S REPUTATION CHANGES THROUGHOUT THAT LEADER’S TENURE.”

A Glimpse Into Colgate’s Future The forthcoming expansion of Olin Hall, with a new east wing, will integrate the physical environment with the ideals and mission of the Robert H.N. Ho Mind, Brain, and Behavior Initiative (MBBI). Launched with a $15 million gift from its namesake, this is a central component of Colgate’s commitment to rigorous interdisciplinary research. This space will include a two-story atrium as well as areas for study, collaboration, and conversation. The perimeter will house faculty and administrative offices, while the upper floors will feature labs, classrooms, and offices. A basement level will provide opportunities to develop labs and other spaces that respond to future needs of scientific inquiry. A renovated Olin Hall will house Colgate’s Brain Recording and Cognitive Science Lab; an integrative molecular genetics and genomics hub, including technology for DNA and RNA sequencing and transcriptomics; and the Human Interaction Lab, hosting research into leadership as a dynamic force rooted in the traits, competencies, and motives of those who lead.

Winter 2021 Colgate Magazine 49

EXAMINING WHAT MATTERS When Jessica Davenport came to Colgate as a postdoctoral fellow this academic year, she radically transformed the course Religion in the Contemporary World. The course focused on one issue: Black Lives Matter. “The expectation is for students to think about how religions inform some of the most pressing issues of our times,” Davenport explains. “It seemed apt to talk about this movement that has galvanized young people around racial justice.” As she re-envisioned it, the course engaged two questions: how Black Lives Matter compares to other historical movements such as the civil rights movement; and how the movement expands our notions of what religion can be. “We don’t necessarily affiliate Black Lives Matter with religious traditions in the same way that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was adamantly part of the Christian tradition,” Davenport says. Black Lives Matter leaders such as Patrisse Cullors, however, have framed the movement in spiritual terms. “In light of how Black death has in many ways become normalized in larger society, Cullors sees the movement as what she calls ‘spiritual work.’ That is, as a ‘re-humanizing project’ that emphasizes the flourishing of Black lives,” says Davenport, a scholar of Black religion who earned her doctorate at Rice University. “It’s not institutional religious traditions; they see themselves as having a spiritual and moral responsibility to their communities and to their ancestors.”

While Black Lives Matter activists have used church resources in their organizing, many have also critiqued institutional religion’s discrimination, for example, against queer and gender nonconforming people. “It’s challenging the church to rethink ideas about how it is engaging in exclusionary religious practices.” The class also challenged some students’ ideas about religion as a negative influence in the world, breeding fanaticism and even terrorism. “Some students come into class wanting to throw the book at religion as this fundamentally oppressive enterprise,” Davenport says. “It’s pushes them to think more expansively about how religion has been used in the interest of justice.” More than anything, she says, Black Lives Matter asks questions of eschatology — the theology of the end times. “Black Lives Matter engages with this idea of the ‘end of the world as we know it,’ meaning the end of a world that is built on white supremacist power structures,” she says. “It’s asking, ‘What does the world look like after those structures are brought to an end?’” On one level, of course, that question is answered by the Black Lives Matter platform of criminal justice reform, health care expansion, and other policy positions. But on another level, Davenport argues, it can only be answered in spiritual terms. “Many people look at Black Lives Matter as a resistance movement, and that’s true — they are trying to tear down a lot of things,” she says, “but they are also trying to imagine and build a more just world in its place.”

— Michael Blanding

“THE EXPECTATION IS FOR STUDENTS TO THINK ABOUT HOW RELIGIONS INFORM SOME OF THE MOST PRESSING ISSUES OF OUR TIMES.” 50 Colgate Magazine Winter 2021

Diversifying the Faculty and the Curriculum Last year, Colgate became part of the Consortium for Faculty Diversity (CFD), which brought two scholars — including Jessica Davenport — to campus in the fall. In becoming a member of the consortium, Colgate joined more than 60 other liberal arts colleges. The CFD partners premier research universities in the nation with leading liberal arts colleges to appoint scholars of color who have recently completed their doctoral degrees. CFD scholars come directly to Colgate through new postdoctoral fellowships and teach the University’s curriculum. During 2019–20, Colgate identified the two fellows who would begin in fall 2020. This University initiative is a facet of Colgate’s Plan for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. One of the advantages of the CFD, says Associate Dean of the Faculty for Faculty Recruitment and Development Lesleigh Cushing, is it allows Colgate to take its curriculum in new directions — like Davenport’s Religion in the Contemporary World course. “The idea that we could bring somebody in who could talk about race and religion right now in America and the Black Lives Matter movement was really exciting for us,” Cushing says. “She took a course that we’ve had and made it into something that speaks to this past year.” Davenport is teaching three courses this academic year, and although they’re all housed under the religion department, her courses count for credits in other areas like art and art history and Africana and Latin American studies. “We see her as a person who can connect us to other programs and departments,” says Cushing, who is also the Murray W. and Mildred K. Finard Professor in Jewish studies and professor of religion. The CFD was founded more than 30 years ago and is hosted by Gettysburg College. Its mission is to increase the diversity of faculty members at liberal arts colleges. It also provides scholars from Research I universities the opportunity to experience the liberal arts setting and potentially become full-time faculty members, Cushing notes. “I really like that aspect of opening up the liberal arts for more people to think about it as a professional choice — giving people a chance to see what it’s like to be in a much more engaged, teaching-oriented but research-focused area.” For the 2021–22 academic year, Colgate will invite three more scholars to campus.

IT’S ALL CONNECTED Poverty and pandemics. Warfare, floods, and fires. It’s easy to see how the prevalence and intensity of such problems can lead to catastrophic thinking about the state — and the fate — of the world. When Teo Ballvé, assistant professor of peace and conflict studies and geography, explores these problems in his course titled Is the Planet Doomed?, he does so through the framework of “the four Cs of the Apocalypse”: climate, capital, conflict, and cities. Above all, Ballvé wants his students to understand that these problems are interconnected.

“[We try] to break down the kind of mental boxes that we use to think about the world,” he says. “We often confuse academic disciplines like economics, sociology, or environmental studies for the way in which the world actually works. But there is no little box called ‘society’ that’s hermetically sealed and independent from a little box called ‘the economy’ that’s independent from a little box called ‘global health.’” From climate change to geopolitics to the global economy, all “world systems” constantly interact with each other, creating feedback loops and knock-on effects. Students learn to connect the emergence of new diseases to capitalism, as in the case of the 1990s flu strain tied to

China’s adoption of the industrial factory farm model, which originated in the southern United States. And they unpack how climate change caused an El Niño event in the Pacific, which in turn caused widespread drought, which destroyed wheat crops, which sent global food prices soaring, which fomented protests across an already unstable Middle East, contributing to the Arab Spring of 2011. Looking at the world through the lens of geography enables students to see how, in Ballvé’s words, “what’s happening way over there is connected to what’s happening way over here, and vice versa.” It’s also a way to bring problems down to scale, showing students that while trying to get 8 billion people to make their behavior more environmentally friendly can seem daunting, regulating an entire single sector, such as the cement industry or petrochemical manufacturing, can lead to vast reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Students who enroll in Ballvé’s course in hopes of hearing an unequivocally reassuring answer to the question it poses will be disappointed. But they will gain a deeper understanding of the world’s most vexing problems — and perhaps ways to begin to fix them. “Understanding that these challenges are not as random or chaotic as they seem, that there are systems at work,” he says, “is a first step toward action.”

— Sarah Baldwin

Professor Teo Ballvé recently organized the panel discussion “21st Century Plagues: The Political, Ecological, and Environmental Dimensions of Pandemic Disease,” with experts from around the country. Winter 2021 Colgate Magazine 51

The Silence of Others, a 2020 Emmy Award– winning documentary on POV about survivors of Spain’s Francoist dictatorship

Documentary

Presenting Different Points of View Executive Producer Chris White ’91 has dedicated himself to broadening the range of voices sharing their life stories with viewers.

n cinematic terms, POV means point of view, the perspective from which a story is told. For Chris White ’91, the urgency of his work sharing real-life stories from different points of view was underscored last summer, as grief over the death of George Floyd reverberated across the country.

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“Long-form documentary is a powerful way of moving people, of highlighting our shared humanity, values, hopes, and aspirations, no matter our political beliefs, economic status, race, or gender,” says White, who is executive producer of American Documentary, the nonprofit behind the acclaimed PBS film series POV. “It’s an opportunity to broaden our view of

— Kristin Baird Rattini

Almudena Carracedo

Endeavor

the world and of other people’s experiences in a way that’s enriching, enlightening, and essential.” White was drawn to the documentary world by the work of Joe Berlinger ’83 and his 1992 film Brother’s Keeper, which examined an alleged murder in a family of four brothers in rural upstate New York. “The film opened my eyes to how exciting the nonfiction form could be to bring you into people’s lives and wrestle with much larger issues,” White says. He looks for equally powerful stories as he scouts for candidates at film festivals and reviews the nearly 1,000 documentaries each year that vie for the 16 slots available in any one season of POV, television’s longest-running showcase for independent nonfiction films. White and his team consult with PBS station programmers and independent filmmakers for feedback on their short list before finalizing in October their slate for the following year. On average, a third of the films are from other countries. This year’s slate spans the globe from India to Kenya to Chile and covers topics ranging from female political trailblazers to the challenges of elder care. “I don’t go into a season looking for a film on a particular topic,” he says. “We are simply looking for the best films — about people whose experiences might [teach us] something about our world and ourselves.” Since White became executive producer in 2015, American Documentary films have won 10 Emmys, 11 George Foster Peabody Awards, and four duPont-Columbia Awards. They’ve also garnered eight Independent Spirit Award nominations and seven Academy Award nominations. In September, POV racked up four wins at the 2020 News and Documentary Emmys, including the Best Documentary prize for The Silence of Others, a hauntingly beautiful chronicle of the quest for justice by victims of the Franco regime four decades after the Spanish dictator’s death. The win was especially sweet for White, because the film was a POV coproduction. “We talk about awards, and they’re great. They bring films to a much higher level of public profile, which is deserved,” he says. “But the greatest thrill for me is when a film is premiering at its first festival, and I’m sitting in the audience watching these beautiful films unfold and taking in the collective response of the people around me. Those moments when you can palpably feel the emotional reaction of the audience are the most thrilling for me.” ●

AUDIO

The Storytellers Alumni create genre-spanning podcasts.

claimed to be involved in the JFK assassination (and who happened to be actor Woody Harrelson’s dad), Cavanagh knew he had a good story on his hands. “He’s this larger-than-life villain,” Cavanagh says. “Hitmen capture the popular imagination in fiction all the time, whether it's Pulp Fiction or No Country for Old Men.” (Woody coincidentally plays in the latter.)

Throughout the past few years, podcasts have become more popular than ever: According to Statista, there are an estimated 88 million listeners, as of 2019. Read about five alumni in the world of podcasts, and discover new shows to stream on your drive to work (or as you work from home).

Young, Black & Brave Portia Flowers ’02

“[It’s] so basic, [but] you wouldn’t believe how many films don’t pass with flying colors,” Flowers says. One of those low-scoring films? Boomerang, starring Eddie Murphy and Halle Berry. “In a lot of these films that are considered to be excellent ‘Black movies,’ the men tend to be a little more fleshed out ... if we’re going to call it a Black movie classic, who’s it a classic for?”

In 10 words or fewer: Hosts rate how movies portray Black women Behind the podcast: During a transition from a research career to science policy work, Portia Flowers ’02 took a break and started ruminating on all of the things she wanted to do but previously didn’t have time for. Podcasting was one of those longed-for hobbies, so she started Young, Black & Brave with her graduate school friend Cynthia Dorsey. (Additionally, Flowers hosts the podcast Hillman Class Reunion about the sitcom A Different World.) With a shared interest in film, specifically how Black women are portrayed in Hollywood, the pair discusses a different movie each episode and rates its level of inclusivity using their Dorsey/Flowers test. Based on the Bechdel test, which measures the representation of women in fiction, the Dorsey/ Flowers test looks for attributes like whether a Black woman has a speaking role and whether she lives until the end of the film. Illustrations by Katriel Pritts

Son of a Hitman

Jason Cavanagh ’04 In 10 words or fewer: Journalist travels through Texas researching notorious hitman Behind the podcast: Though Son of a Hitman is his first podcast, Jason Cavanagh ’04 is no stranger to building a show. A longtime nonfiction TV producer who worked on projects like Moonshiners, The Real Housewives of Atlanta, and several shows for the History Channel, MTV, and CBS, he’s a skilled interviewer familiar with what it takes to produce a compelling piece of entertainment. So, when a colleague mentioned the storied Charles Harrelson, a hitman who

for iHeartRadio, like Murder in Oregon and Happy Face. She says she wasn’t podcast savvy when she started out, and because of that, Bright didn’t feel pressured to recreate other successful shows. Instead, she relied on her interviewing knowhow and years of production experience to create compelling stories. “I’ve been forced for so many years to condense stories into small packages and condense people into little sound bites. [So this has been] really liberating for me.”

The Murders at White House Farm

Lauren Bright Pacheco ’90 In 10 words or fewer: A family is murdered in England. Who did it?

Aron and His Dad Larry Goldman ’76

Behind the podcast: The story, with many twists and turns, focuses on a family killed in their home near Essex, England. Lauren Bright Pacheco ’90 narrates and interviews guests for each episode of the show, a companion piece to the HBO special of the same name. Bright didn’t need to cross the Atlantic to make the podcast happen. “There’s been this huge push of technology in the field of remote interviewing,” she says. With the technology they used for The Murders at White House Farm, it sounds as if two people are sitting in the same room — even though they were actually in different countries. A self-described recovering TV producer, Bright was the special features producer for the Dr. Oz Show for years before moving into the podcast space. That’s also where her true crime focus began. “There was a voracious appetite for true crime, and [Oz’s] show ended up focusing a lot on the mental health aspects of crime. So I started doing more and more of it.” In addition to The Murders at White House Farm, Bright has produced other true crime shows

A feel-good father-son podcast with hosts Larry Goldman ’76 (father) and Aron (son), in which they discuss musical tastes and chat with fun guests. Not to be missed: Each host has an episode with his high school pals.

Pod115

Adam Paul ’89 As a director, an actor, and a writer, Adam Paul ’89 knows a thing or two about creating. Now, he’s brought that knowledge to higher education as a theater instructor at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, creating Pod115 with students in his podcasting class. The show, a thrilling story of college students whose podcast is taken over by an alien in the Nevada desert, was inspired by Paul’s love of Orson Welles. — Rebecca Docter

Winter 2021 Colgate Magazine 53

endeavor

Welcome to the Apocalypse David Park ’02 ends the world in SyFy animated series.

n apocalyptic horseman, a mutant cyborg, an alcoholic alien, and a ponderous giant walk into a bar. It’s in 12-year-old Andrew’s living room (also stocked with VHS tapes and a retro TV set). And if that scenario wasn’t weird enough: an uberapocalypse has just wiped out civilization. This is the premise of Hell Den, an animated series focusing on the cartoons Andrew and his otherworldly friends choose to watch as the earth is smoldering just outside the window. The group gathers on the couch each themed episode and clicks on the TV to view old cartoons and advertisements. The catch, though, is that the sound in these old clips has been dubbed over with much more laughable fare. “The through line between all of these [cartoons] is that they’re xenophobic or homophobic or sexist or racist, and you could only make those jokes so many times before it gets really old,” says David Park ’02, a member of Dr. God, the comedy group behind Hell Den. “So we said, ‘Let’s get rid of that aspect of it’ and remove what these characters were saying.” The five guys of Dr. God spent hours combing through snippets from vintage

54 Colgate Magazine Winter 2021

videos in the public domain to include in the show, then used their improv skills to record witty sketches for the audio backdrop to the cartoons. With episodes under 15 minutes, the first season was aimed at a college-aged audience. While many shows have halted due to the pandemic, Hell Den was picked up for a second season. Premiering Nov. 7 on TZGZ (SyFy’s late-night programming block), the sophomore season is geared toward an older cohort and is “more elevated and socially relevant,” according to Park, who’s worked in TV and film production throughout his career. He serves as a creator, executive producer, writer, director, and voice actor on Hell Den. Making an animated TV show during reallife apocalyptic circumstances wasn’t easy for Los Angeles–based Park and his team. The voiceovers for the first season of Hell Den took Dr. God less than a week to record, but season two during a global pandemic: several months. “Everybody’s homerecording situation is different,” Park says. “You might have David and Goliath fighting above you if you live in an apartment building, or in my case, a family of five in the house behind me, who bought their kids a trampoline and an above ground pool. I had

to record from 9 p.m. to 2 a.m. every night. I was like a vampire.” Plus, when an improv group can’t be in the same room to vibe off of each other’s jokes, the entire writing process is extended. But a pandemic hasn’t stopped Park and company from putting their best (possibly alien) foot forward with the six episodes in season two. The team touches every aspect of the show, from writing the theme song to snagging well-known comedians — like Matthew Lillard (Scream) and Broken Lizard member Kevin Heffernan ’90 — for guest appearances. About this particular apocalypse, Park is optimistic. “I think as the season goes on, it gets better and better.” — Rebecca Docter

After graduating from Colgate with a Spanish degree, Park served as a production assistant on Club Dread, Broken Lizard’s follow-up film to Super Troopers. He’d met the filmmakers, all Colgate alumni, at a Hamilton Movie Theater screening for members of the University’s Charred Goosebeak comedy troupe.

Brian Ledden

comedy

Endeavor

book

Bridging Divides Innovator fixes her sights on the “digitally invisible.”

n her mind’s eye, Nicol Turner ’90 Lee sees kids she tutored in a small computer lab in Chicago while she was a graduate student. She sees adults from the city’s overwhelmingly African American South and West sides whom she steered through online job applications. “During the hours I spent volunteering as a tutor to those young children and as a counselor to parents seeking employment opportunities or public benefits, I realized that technology would soon become the new driver of inequality,” says Turner Lee, who was tapped in 2020 to direct the Center for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution. Her forthcoming book, Digitally Invisible: How the Internet Is Creating the New Underclass (Brookings Press, 2021), addresses the lack of digital connectivity in America versus other countries and how the internet has become a commodified privilege rather than a human right. As she was finishing the book, COVID-19 began laying bare a range of systemic inequalities. “We [often] only consider historically disadvantaged groups to be the ones on the wrong side of digital opportunity — African Americans, Latinos, and indigenous people,” she says. “In my book, I argue that this new underclass also consists of older Americans and rural residents, especially small farmers who, without access to the internet, cannot be productive.” The lack of digital access also hurts small businesses in communities with limited broadband. And it ensnares millions of schoolkids who are without online access required for distance learning, says Turner Lee, whose qualitative research for the book included a listening tour throughout the nation’s urban and rural communities. “We are seeing COVID-19 exacerbate existing inequalities. And now we are seeing the correlation between the lack of access to broadband and poverty, which makes people digitally invisible.” Turner Lee is a sociologist — whose doctoral studies at Northwestern University placed her in proximity and relationship with Chicagoans — not a tech head. In

ANDRÉ CHUNG

2009, while job interviewing with an African American think tank in Washington, D.C., former Federal Communications Commission chairmen William Kennard (a Democrat) and Michael Powell (a Republican) encouraged her to accept the offer and bring her influence to the nation’s capital. (Last year, the FCC estimated that 18 million Americans had no internet service before the pandemic. Turner Lee says that tally surely has grown amid a COVID-fueled joblessness that’s slashed household budgets and internet service. Still, she cautions, the U.S. government has not precisely tracked where internet exists or is absent.) “Both of them,” Turner Lee says of former commissioners Powell and Kennard, “recognized that this issue of digital connectivity that I was evangelizing about was important.” Indeed, after landing in D.C. as the first media and technology director at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, she conducted the first major research on barriers that have kept Blacks and Latinos, disproportionately, from access to the internet. The FCC’s National Broadband Plan cited her research. Now, at the nonpartison Brookings Institution, Turner Lee has continued to enumerate the nation’s digital shortfalls, including the fact that some other nations

Now we are seeing the correlation between the lack of access to broadband and poverty. provide free internet for all. If the United States does not catch up, she says, it will worsen the disparities she’s been working to erase. Turner Lee’s day-to-day duties at Brookings has her addressing (via Zoom) U.S. and international audiences about digital inclusion; leading Brookings’ efforts to address inherent racial biases in machinelearning algorithms; talking with educators, industry leaders, and community activists about how to get online access to all distance learners; and writing policies she’ll funnel to President Joe Biden’s administration. “We can do this as a country,” Turner Lee says. “It’s largely a matter of revisiting the social contract around what it means to be a digital citizen. It’s a matter of modernizing, as well as reimagining, tech policies within a 21st-century context — and centering them around racial and economic equities.” — Katti Gray

Winter 2021 Colgate Magazine 55

SALMAGUNDI Then & Now

Taken more than a century apart, these photos show a common scene on the Hill: professors in their classrooms.

THEN (1890–1910): Professor Newton Lloyd Andrews, Class of 1862, is the namesake of Andrews Hall. Andrews taught Greek language and literature as well as art history at Colgate. “He wrote no books, but he wrote on the hearts of men,” his obituary reads. Today, the Newton Lloyd Andrews Prize, supporting the study of the art and monuments of ancient Greece and Italy, Gothic architecture, or Renaissance painting, is given in his honor.

NOW (October 2020): Associate Professor of Economics Dean Scrimgeour teaches Applied Econometrics in Lawrence Hall. Scrimgeour specializes in macroeconomics, monetary policy, and economic growth. Although this photo shows the stark reality of in-person classes during the COVID-19 pandemic, it also portrays the commitment Colgate made to being together in the fall.

Solve these clues, then figure out what the five answers have in common. Check your answers on p. 99.

The last name of this 104-year-old woman, who is one of America’s most successful living authors of children’s and young adult fiction; she created the characters Ramona and Beezus.

2 3

Located in Cass County, N.D., where the average high temperature is 16 degrees in January, this city is the setting of a 1996 crime drama and current TV show.

It’s the nickname of a beloved Colgate philosophy professor (also a member of the Class of 1946). He was one of the founding professors of the peace studies program (today peace and conflict studies).

4 5

This is the surname of the blues rock guitarist who was Double Trouble’s frontman.

The first name of this current Cleveland Browns quarterback, who in 2017 became the first walk-on player to win the Heisman Trophy.

The connection: 104 Colgate Magazine Winter 2021

Special Collections and University Archives (Then); Mark DiOrio (Now)

Connect Five

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